tar sands, nukes, skate boarders, meds, cycling, ducks

[angela bischoff]

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"Many persons have a wrong idea of what constitutes true happiness.It is
not attained through self-gratification but through fidelity to a worthy
purpose."
Helen Keller

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An excellent 12 min. video by Aljazeera on the Alberta tar sands.

"People & Power speak to native and environmental groups, as well as
government and oil industry spokespeople about the impact Alberta's oil
sands development is having on the environment. People & Power speak to
native and environmental groups, as well as government and oil industry
spokespeople about the impact Alberta's oil sands development is having on
the environment."

Mar. 12, 2008

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eucr370Oz60

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The Ontario McGuinty government wants to spend billions rebuilding
Canada's oldest and most dangerous nuclear station.

The Pickering nuclear station is just 30km from downtown Toronto---closer
than any other nuclear station in the world to a major population centre.

Today, nuclear regulatory authorities would not allow a new nuclear plant
to be built at Pickering because of its proximity to millions of people.
After the Chernobyl disaster a 30km zone around Chernobyl nuclear station
had to be permanently evacuated. Roughly 2.5 million people live within 30
km of the Pickering nuclear station.

Greenpeace is calling on the McGuinty government to commit to ramping up
the deployment of renewables, to conserving energy and to increasing local
generation to replace the Pickering nuclear station when it shuts down in
2014.

It is important to raise concern about Pickering now. On Wednesday in
Ajax, the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission (CSNC) will hold a hearing on
a request to re-license Pickering B for another five years.

Ontario should not waste billions of dollars to rebuild Canada's most
dangerous nuclear station.

Find out more:
http://30km.ca/

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Scenes From the Tar Wars

As Canada scrambles to dig up some of the world's dirtiest oil, a bush
doctor tracks mysterious diseases, poisoned rivers, and shattered lives.

By Josh Harkinson, May/June issue, Mother Jones

<http://www.motherjones.com/news/feature/2008/05/scenes-from-the-tar-wars.html>http://www.motherjones.com/news/feature/2008/05/scenes-from-the-tar-wars.html

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An excellent interview with Lester Brown of the Worldwatch Institute on
CBC's the Current
Part 2: Feature Interview

In late 2006, British economist Nicholas Stern famously put the cost of
not addressing climate change at $7 trillion to the global economy. But
what about the cost of not addressing climate change and food security,
water scarcity, overpopulation and poverty? Lester Brown says the cost
would be human civilization itself.

http://www.cbc.ca/thecurrent/2008/200805/20080515.html

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Skate boarders Unite!
Free Lee Breen!

He is in jail for riding a skateboard in a public street in Fredericton,
NB. "If I pay the fine, I would be admitting I was doing something
wrong... This isn't the first green activity I've been involved in. I even
started my own gas-free lawn care company... This is a way of life for me"

Read more at:
http://www.treehugger.com/files/2008/05/man-jailed-for-skateboarding.php

You can e-mail the Fredericton Mayor and Council here.
http://www.fredericton.ca/en/citygovernment/CityCouncil.asp

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Sexual dysfunction and antidepressants

Sexual dysfunctions such as low libido, anorgasmia, genital anesthesia,
and erectile dysfunction are very common in patients taking selective
serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs)... SSRIs can cause long-term effects
on all aspects of the sexual response cycle that may persist after they
are discontinued.

http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1743-6109.2007.00630.x

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Change the world from the seat of your bicycle!

ANNOUNCING! Otesha’s 2008 Cycling and Performing Tours

Are you looking for an opportunity to live sustainably in a mobile
community, volunteer, explore Canada, gain leadership and public speaking
skills, and make a real difference in the world—all from the seat of your
bicycle? Click here: http://www.otesha.ca/

Peace and bicycle grease,
The Otesha Project

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End the Nuclear Industry in Saskatchewan, Canada

SIGN the petition!
http://www.petitiononline.com/mod_perl/signed.cgi?nonuc1sk&401

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Of dead ducks and dead babies

from Friends of the Lubicon
<http://www.lubicon.ca>www.lubicon.ca

(The Lubicon Nation is a small aboriginal society living in north-central
Alberta, Canada. They have seen their traditional lands overrun by massive
oil and gas exploitation which has destroyed their traditional lands and
way of life.)

May 6, 2008

Waste products from tar sands production are stored in large man-make
lakes called "tailings ponds". These "tailings ponds" contain a "toxic
slurry" of water, clay, sands, residual bitumen, heavy metals and
chemicals. Among the toxic chemicals in tailings ponds are mercury and
naphthenic acids.

There are currently 13 tailings ponds at tar sands facilities in northeastern
Alberta. They cover an area of some 50 square kilometers.

More toxic sludge is being created daily at the rate of a conservatively
estimated two to four barrels for each barrel of oil.  It is estimated that
toxic sludge from two of the bigger tar sands facilities alone will exceed
one
billion cubic meters by 2020.

There is no known way  to "mitigate" the sludge created by production of tar
sands oil. The companies just try to contain the contamination in these
"tailings ponds" so the toxic materials don't leak into the ground water or
river system where they are known to cause deformities in fish while the oil
companies wait for the contamination to settle to the bottom -- a process
that literally could take centuries. Letting the toxic materials simply
settle to the bottom of the pond of course doesn't neutralize them.

On April 28th an indeterminate number of ducks looking for open water
landed in a toxic tailings pond owned by a major tar sands company called
Syncrude. Most of the ducks died. The number of dead ducks cited publicly
is 500 but most sank to the bottom under the weight of the residue that
got all over them so nobody really knows how many dead ducks there are at
the bottom of Syncrude's toxic tailings pond.

Syncrude immediately locked down the area so outsiders couldn't see and
take pictures of the scene. Provincial government officials have since
taken pictures but aren't releasing them claiming strangely that Crown
land leased from the province by Syncrude is "private property".

Alberta Premier Stelmach came out fighting arguing that 30,000 birds are
killed annually in the  US by wind turbines.  The provincial government
has allocated $25 million for a public relations campaign to counter
adverse publicity.

The prognosis for the ducks that did survive isn't good. Only four are still
alive and three of them landed since the 28th. The ducks that are still alive
have been cleaned of surface contamination but the toxic chemicals still
may erode their gastrointestinal tract of shut down their kidneys. Just
describing the problem suggests the probability of it.

Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper has described the deaths of the
ducks as "a terrible tragedy" that's he says firmly is unacceptable to
Canadians and will only hurt Canada's environmental image as an energy
superpower. He said "We expect better". He said "This kind of thing
shouldn't be happening".

Prime Minister Harper's big concern, of course, is the dead ducks having an
adverse effect on markets for Alberta's dirty tar sands oil in a world
that is
becoming increasingly concerned about the environment.

On March 14th Lubicon Councillor Dwight Gladue spoke at a symposium on
progress made by museums in dealing with aboriginal issues in the 20 years
since a high profile Lubicon boycott of the cultural centerpiece of the
1988 Calgary Winter Olympics -- a museum exhibit of North American Indian
artifacts originally called "Forget Not my World".. The symposium occurred
shortly after another great public outpouring of distress in Canada over
some kids killing a cat by cooking it in a microwave oven.

Most of the museum participants in the symposium were congratulating
themselves over how much progress they've made in dealing  with aboriginal
issues since the Lubicon boycott. Councillor Gladue pointed out that there
had been no progress toward settling Lubicon land rights; that there is no
effort to deal with the issue of outstanding Lubicon land rights; that
there are no Lubicon negotiations and that the plight of the Lubicons is
growing steadily worse.

Acknowledging that killing a cat with a microwave was a terrible thing
Councillor Gladue said he finds it  hard to understand how white Canadians
can become so distressed over the death of a cat when "Lubicon babies
don't even get the chance to be born". Councillor Gladue was referring to
terrible medical problems being faced by the Lubicon people as a result of
massive resource exploitation activity in Lubicon Territory including,
among other things, 19 still births out of 21 pregnancies in an 18 month
period.

Prime Minister Harper is not known to have made any public statements
about how the continuing Lubicon tragedy is unacceptable to Canadians and
must be dealt with. His government has made absolutely no effort to deal
with it.

Ducks, of course, don't have inconvenient unceded land rights to valuable
resource rich land; still born Lubicon babies aren't threatening the
market for tar sands oil in California and the tragic plight of the
Lubicons somehow
doesn't engender as much distress among white Canadians as 500 dead ducks
or a tortured cat.  That's an image of Canada that should worry Canadians
for all kinds of reasons.

Some media coverage over the past 5 days about the duck deaths at
tarsands' tailing ponds in Alberta is available at
<http://www.lubicon.ca/pa/oilp/tcplp/po080506.htm#ducks>http://www.lubicon.ca/pa/oilp/tcplp/po080506.htm#ducks

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