Greenspiration News: Gore, cars, bikes, nukes, forests, salmon, Paxil, food, eco-history

Wed Jul 23 14:02:41 EDT 2008

---

Greenspiration News

---

I share these resources in service to the revolution of our time: the
"Great Turning" from the industrial growth society to a life-sustaining
civilization.

Joanna Macy http://www.joannamacy.net/html/great.html
<http://turntowardlife.tv/streamingmedia/10_joanna_macy_brief_interview/index.htm>
3 min. video:
http://turntowardlife.tv/streamingmedia/10_joanna_macy_brief_interview/index.htm

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Al Gore threw down his gauntlet: "Today I challenge our nation to commit
to producing 100 percent of our electricity from renewable energy and
truly clean carbon-free sources within 10 years."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/07/17/bob-barr-william-attend-g_n_113323.html

While this is an excellent and forward-thinking speech, he misses the
point on cars, claiming that we can all still drive our cars powered by
renewables.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Jeff Rubin Predicts "Mass Exodus" From Cars in US

Jeff Rubin of CIBC World Market's prediction of gas costing $7 to $10 per
gallon in four years; Now Rubin makes his prediction of its impact.
Gasoline spending will soon overtake groceries.

Over the next four years, we are likely to witness the greatest mass
exodus of vehicles off America’s highways in history. By 2012, there
should be some 10 million fewer vehicles on American roadways than there
are today—a decline that dwarfs all previous adjustments including those
during the two OPEC oil shocks.

http://www.treehugger.com/files/2008/06/mass-exodus-from-cars.php

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Brilliant bike videos
--------------------------

BIKING TO SCHOOL IN THE NETHERLANDS (1 min 48 sec)
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2n_znwWroGM>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2n_znwWroGM

---
JOHN PUCHER -- CYCLING FOR EVERYONE (80 min.)
For the best 2-wheeled inspiration around, catch Professor John Pucher
from Rutgers University making a presentation in Vancouver. Incredible
presentation showing clearly how to make commuter cycling attractive and
safe in North American cities. Wow!
http://www.sfu.ca/city/city_pgm_video020.htm

To learn more about Professor Pucher and read his most recent articles:
<http://policy.rutgers.edu/faculty/pucher/>http://policy.rutgers.edu/faculty/pucher/

---
PARKING INTO PARKS IN SWEDEN (2 min 05 sec)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ugxf6qlFx5g

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Amory Lovins: Expanding Nuclear Power Makes Climate Change Worse

AMORY LOVINS: What nuclear would do is displace coal, our most abundant
domestic fuel. And this sounds good for climate, but actually, expanding
nuclear makes climate change worse, for a very simple reason. Nuclear is
incredibly expensive. The costs have just stood up on end lately. Wall
Street Journal recently reported that they’re about two to four times the
cost that the industry was talking about just a year ago. And the result
of that is that if you buy more nuclear plants, you’re going to get about
two to ten times less climate solution per dollar, and you’ll get it about
twenty to forty times slower, than if you buy instead the cheaper, faster
stuff that is walloping nuclear and coal and gas, all kinds of central
plans, in the marketplace. And those competitors are efficient use of
electricity and what’s called micropower, which is both renewables, except
big hydro, and making electricity and heat together, in fact, recent
buildings, which takes about half of the money, fuel and carbon of making
them separately, as we normally do.

So, nuclear cannot actually deliver the climate or the security benefits
claimed for it. It’s unrelated to oil. And it’s grossly uneconomic, which
means the nuclear revival that we often hear about is not actually
happening. It’s a very carefully fabricated illusion. And the reason it
isn’t happening is there are no buyers. That is, Wall Street is not
putting a penny of private capital into the industry, despite 100-plus
percent subsidies.

AMY GOODMAN: Why?

AMORY LOVINS: It’s uneconomic. It costs, for example, about three times as
much as wind power, which is booming. <snip>

http://www.democracynow.org/2008/7/16/amory_lovins_expanding_nuclear_power_makes

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Provinces throw out flawed federal climate strategy

The federal government’s weak, intensity-based plan for tackling climate
change is dead on arrival today after Ontario announced that it will join
the Western Climate Initiative (WCI) at this year’s Council of the
Federation Meeting in Quebec City. The WCI is a coalition of provinces and
U.S. states developing a regulatory system to cap and reduce industrial
greenhouse gas emissions. Provincial governments representing 25 million
Canadians – almost 80 percent of the country’s population – have now
committed to placing a hard cap on industrial emissions that will be
ratcheted down over time. Under the WCI system, which now includes
Ontario, B.C., Manitoba and Quebec, participating states and provinces
will agree to a hard limit on emissions on industries within those
jurisdictions.  The proposed federal regulatory framework for large
industry uses a weak, emissions intensity approach (based on emissions
produced per unit of production.)  As a result, total annual emissions
under the existing federal proposal are likely to continue to rise over
the next decade.

Read the Climate Action Network July 18 media release:
<http://www.climateactionnetwork.ca/e/news/2008/intensity-rejected-2008-07-18.html>http://www.climateactionnetwork.ca/e/news/2008/intensity-rejected-2008-07-18.html

Read the David Suzuki Foundation media release and report on provincial
initiatives:
<http://www.davidsuzuki.org/latestnews/dsfnews07160801.asp>http://www.davidsuzuki.org/latestnews/dsfnews07160801.asp

Read the Greenpeace media release:
<http://www.greenpeace.org/canada/en/press/press-releases/greenpeace-to-press-premiers-t>http://www.greenpeace.org/canada/en/press/press-releases/greenpeace-to-press-premiers-t

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Ontario announces landmark boreal forest conservation plan

The Ontario government announced Monday that it will start a land use
planning process to protect more than 225,000 square kilometres of
northern boreal forest – an area twice the size of England. Janet Sumner,
Executive Director of CPAWS Wildlands League, calls it “the most ambitious
conservation agenda for the boreal forest in Canada.”

Read the story:
<http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/jul2008/2008-07-14-03.asp>http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/jul2008/2008-07-14-03.asp

Read the government news release:
<http://www.premier.gov.on.ca/news/Product.asp?ProductID=2353&Lang=EN>http://www.premier.gov.on.ca/news/Product.asp?ProductID=2353&Lang=EN

Read the CPAWS Wildlands League news release:
<http://cpaws.org/news/archive/2008/07/group-welcomes-premiers-announ.php>http://cpaws.org/news/archive/2008/07/group-welcomes-premiers-announ.php

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

(Note to Subscribers: In the last newsletter I sent out the wrong link to
the following article, so here it is again, corrected.)

A too rare example of the major media covering the benefits of higher gas
prices - an 11-part article on *10 Things You Can Like About $4 Gas*. It
covers such issues as jobs, sprawl, less traffic and pollution, health and
more.

http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1819594_1819592,00.html

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Check out this new video about a sea lice epidemic infecting Canada’s most
important run of juvenile sockeye salmon. If you think fish farms are a
good idea, think again.

http://www.callingfromthecoast.org/

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Paxil blamed for Oakville teen's suicide
Oakville Beaver, July 19, 2008

<http://www.oakvillebeaver.com/news/article/192960>http://www.oakvillebeaver.com/news/article/192960

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Monocultures, Monopolies, Myths and the Masculinisation of Agriculture

By Dr Vandana Shiva

A new seed has been genetically engineered so that it will not germinate
at harvest. This will ensure that farmers must buy new seed each year. The
patriarchal minds behind these innovations would stunt nature so that they
themselves profit economically while biodiversity, long-term
sustainability and, indeed, small farmers' lives are destroyed.

There can be no partnership between the terminator logic which destroys
nature's renewability and regeneration and the commitment to continuity of
life held by woman farmers of the Third World.

This phenomenon of biopiracy through which western corporations are
stealing centuries of collective knowledge and innovation carried out by
Third World women is now reaching epidemic proportions.

http://www.aislingmagazine.com/aislingmagazine/articles/TAM24/Masculinisation.html

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

So, let’s look at the energy equations for biking.

Biking uses somewhere between 135 Calories per hour (for 6 miles per hour
riding) and 700 Calories per hour (for 14 miles per hour). This works out
to 12.5 Calories per miles and 46 Calories per mile, respectively (after
subtracting normal body upkeep).

1 Calorie (kilocalorie) = 3.968 BTUs.
1 Gallon of gas = 125,000 BTUs.

Now we need to know how much fossil fuel goes into each Calorie of food.
This depends greatly on where you buy your food and how much it is
processed. I have seen numbers as high as 10:1 for the American diet of
high processed long distance food. I will assume that 1:1 is the low end
of the scale. So, 1 Calorie of food is somewhere between 4 and 40 BTUs of
fossil fuel.

So, riding 6 MPH on a local organic diet gets around 2500 Miles per Gallon
(of fossil fuel).
While riding 14 MPH on that diet gives around 679 Miles per Gallon.
And riding 6 MPH on an American diet gives around 250 Miles per Gallon.
Finally, riding 14 MPH on that diet gives around 67 Miles per Gallon (not
much better than a prius).

http://midcoastgreen.wordpress.com/2008/05/16/sustainability-post-4-biking/

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Historic eco-decline sends sobering message
Canadians need to take a hard look at events that continue to unfold

Frants Attorp, Special to Times Colonist
June 30, 2008

It's time to rewrite Canada's history books. Not because our children
shouldn't learn about Louis Riel, the construction of the Canadian Pacific
Railway or the two world wars, but because the most significant events --
the ones that eclipse all others -- happened just recently and continue to
unfold.

THESE INCLUDE:
- The collapse of the East Coast cod fishery.
- The decline of the wild Pacific salmon.
- Dying forests. A mountain pine beetle infestation that has ravaged an
area of B.C. the size of England is creeping into Alberta.
- The toxic oil sands project. This has been called the most destructive
project on Earth.
- Arctic meltdown.
- Dirty money.

Full article here:
http://www.canada.com/victoriatimescolonist/news/comment/story.html?id=05995282-7059-4b13-984c-76e5c5b0c4b0&k=60968&p=1

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Below find some shocking Brasscheck videos on industrial corruption
related to health issues.

----
Vaccines and Autism
http://www.brasschecktv.com/page/376.html

----
Pharmaceutical company ethics
http://www.brasschecktv.com/page/377.html

----
Flouride -- Adding Death to Drinking Water
http://www.brasschecktv.com/page/363.html

A scientist in this video documentary claims flouride is a neurotoxin.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

-- 
<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<
Eulogies for Tooker and Stories for a
healthy mind, body and planet
http://www.greenspiration.org
<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<
Join our email list by emailing us at:
greenspiration at web.ca
Write "subscribe" in the subject line
and tell us what city/country you live in
<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<