Propaganda Alert: James Lee is NOT an Environmentalist

According to ABC news "A radical environmentalist who took three hostages at the Discovery Channel headquarters while wearing what police may be explosives was shot and killed by officers, police said."

I am asking ABC News to retract this blatant lie about environmentalists. Even if it was actually true, that James Lee was an environmentalist, it would still be propaganda to link the environmental movement to someone who went nuts and tried to take hostages.

But so far I have seen no proof that this guy was any more of an environmentalist than Charlton Heston. I think we actually have some pretty strong proof that this guy was actually more of a teabag carrying gun nut than an environmentalist .

What is the basis for calling this deranged person an environmentalist? Did he ride a bike to the crime scene? No. Did he recycle all his left over pop cans? No. Is he a vegetarian? Maybe. Does he keep his air conditioner up at 78 degrees? No. Does he belong to the Audubon Society? No. Does he contribute money to the "Save the Whales" campaign? No. Was this action part of a Greenpeace protest? No.

Actually, the evidence of James Lee being an environmentalist was taken from his website manifesto. This manifesto actually has a lot more in common with Glen Beck's Teabaggers than it does with the Environmentalists

He suggests putting a game show on the Discovery channel to give ideas on how to live without giving birth to more "filthy human children", since those new additions "are pollution". Environmentalists have never used to word pollution to refer to anyone's children or babies.

"All programs promoting War and the technology behind those must cease" That would be a pacifist position, not environmentalist. By the way, pacifists who use guns and strap explosives to their body are also rejected by the pacifist movement.

"Immigration: Programs must be developed to find solutions to stopping ALL immigration pollution and
the anchor baby filth that follows that.... FIND SOLUTIONS FOR THEM TO STOP THEIR HUMAN GROWTH
AND THE EXPORTATION OF THAT DISGUSTING FILTH!"  (that is pure right wing racist stuff, not on any environmentalist agenda I know of. But a very popular point of view with the right wing.)

"Develop shows that will correct and dismantle the dangerous US world economy." Too general to distinguish between right and left economics.

"THIS IS AT THE EXPENSE OF THE FOREST CREATURES!!!! all human procreation and farming must cease!" The end of procreation and farming have never been discussed, to my knowledge, by environmentalists. Although, to be fair most environmentalists do believe that farming does take away habitat from wildlife. But most environmentalists also know that there is a big difference between the amount of land and water used to produce meat and what is needed to produce fruits, grains and vegetables. If James Lee actually knew anything about environmentalism he would at least be aware of this difference.

How to Stop an Oil Spill (Seriously)

As much as the oil spill bothers me, just for the environmental damage, something else is more annoying right now, and that is the conservatives asking Obama to save them from the big oil spill, and that the government, not BP should not be deciding how to cap the well.

Conservatives are now blaming Obama for not plugging the oil spill. In trying to make the blame stick, they certainly have one thing going for them. The spill is near New Orleans, and so the charge that this is Obama's Hurricane Katrina has some credibility, for people who don't realize that this is not hurricane related.

How soon we forget "Drill, Baby, Drill" which was the Republican mantra in the election campaign.

There is another conservative dogma, that big business can do everything better than the government. It is also forgotten, while they complain that the government should be in there telling the oil companies how to cap the well. I have never believed that private enterprise was always better than government, but even I would leave this one to the people who know how the oil rigs work, and they are the oil companies.

I think that neither the Democrats or Republicans would do a good job of plugging that well, and maybe the only solution is to let the oil companies try. I don't like the idea that the oil companies are failing, and have not tested some of these emergency methods, but there is nothing worse than somebody interfering in an emergency repair effort. Doesn't everybody know that already? Let me make it more clear. If your wife was undergoing life threatening surgery, would you run into the operating room to yell at the doctors and tell them what to do and how to do it? If you answered no, you are just like me. I would not go in there myself, and I also would not send the government in there to "help out".

Even though people are getting frantic, it is best to let the experts solve the problem. Do not panic and make things even worse.

If Oil Spills Are Natural, What Else is Natural?

Just in case somebody starts reading this and starts thinking I am a BP shill, I am not. I do want to live in a clean, natural environment. But at the same time I want to know the truth about the oil industry's arguments to continue drilling in sensitive areas. And I use oil myself. It takes time to sort through the hype on both sides.

Fox News came out with a revelation that puts the BP oil spill in perspective. Oil spills are perfectly natural. There is actually more oil coming in to the oceans from natural seepage than from the BP spill.

I have a reference right here in case you need to look it up.

So Rush Limbaugh and Fox News do have a point, although you rarely hear the oil companies making this point publicly. The truth is that they spill less oil overall than all the natural seepage from oil reservoirs under the ocean world wide.

Does this automatically mean that we can forget about oil spills? Of course not, because local concentration is important, and damaging. The fact that oil has been seeping for hundreds of thousands of years means very little to the people of Louisiana who are trying to fight off a tide of oil that may come ashore any day now.

Nature is kind of harsh. Just because something is natural does not mean it is good. Just because it is natural does not mean we will not suffer horribly if we get a heavy dose of it.

Environmentalists often give the idea that nature is all good, that nothing bad can exist in nature. This is not true, and most environmentalists don't believe this childish idea themselves, but it takes time to explain the complexity of reality. Obviously diseases are natural. Mosquitoes and black flies are natural. Freezing cold is natural. Floods, tornadoes, lightning. Sometimes we forget that space and the moon and Mars are natural too, but nothing lives there. And more than anything else, we forget that mankind is natural. And mankind includes the Nazis, the Commies, illegal immigrants and Republicans. Even Rush Limbaugh is part of nature, although Fox News is not, being a technological/electronic artifact. Something else that is not natural, and never has been? Windmills of course.

A more accurate image of nature would be this. In the entire universe, there is a very small place where life can survive. It is called the surface of the earth (give or take a few miles up or down). On much of the surface there is an environment, an ecosystem, that is self sustaining and balanced. This is where all known life exists. A few seemingly unimportant changes to this ecosystem, could alter it to the point where it will longer sustain life.

Many environmentalists believe that human activity is creating an imbalance in nature, so large and so fast, that nature cannot respond. Our technology, together with our rapid, unchecked population growth are changing some of the characteristics of our environment that may lead to catastrophe, or maybe not.

Some people would like to slow down our technology and examine the issues scientifically, others want to keep going and assume the environment can handle it. In a logical society, probably both points of view would be considered, and the more cautious approach would likely be taken. But we do not live in a logical society, we live in a society driven by politics and money, and informed by propaganda and name-calling. The cautious approach, and planning for the future are often pushed into the background by greed, obstinacy, ignorance, and the ever present desire for more comfort and convenience.

So what does it matter what the truth is about oil spills? In the broad perspective, the Earth has absorbed bigger assaults, and in an even broader perspective, our society does not have an intelligent decision making process.

That is why in the end, I personally think less drilling, and also higher taxes on oil make sense. We need to tax oil in order to give alternate energy sources a chance to compete and develop. But obviously not everybody takes the same lesson that I do from the facts presented.

It would also be perfectly natural, in the strict sense of the word, for all life on Earth to be extinguished. And that is another perspective for you.

Picture: Artists' conception of New York after all humans are wiped out by something or other.

Who is to Blame for the Oil Spill?

Deepwater Horizon was a "dynamically positioned" oil platform, which is actually a floating platform controlled by computers and positioned by propellers to maintain a steady position. This is what caught fire on April 20, 2010, and sank two days later, and resulted in the oil spill currently messing up the Gulf of Mexico off the coast of Louisiana.

The Deepwater Horizon drilled the deepest well ever last year, at about 10 kilometers. I'm not sure if this spilling well is the same one, because the Deepwater Horizon sank in water only 1 mile deep. At any rate, I did not even know that there was a competition going on for the deepest well ever. Now we find out.

So much for facts. Now let's get on with the mud slinging. In the absence of any conclusive evidence, many people are wondering who is to blame. Here are some of the players/suspects.

1. BP (British Petroleum) An oil company that thankfully is not Exxon or American, to take the blame.

2. Hyundai. The Korean company that made the oil rig in 2001, and also makes the Accent, a car which sells for $10,000.

3. Barack Obama, as Anti-Christ-in-Chief he must share some blame, especially after making plans to increase offshore drilling, and making statements about how safe the technology now is. Also, this is now being touted as "Obama's Katrina" by many conservatives, and also by Greenpeace.

4. Sarah Palin, was the inspiration for motto of "Drill, baby, drill" (although she was thinking of the Arctic near Alaska, but the principle is the same.)

5. Halliburton. Was doing the drilling, ex-company of Dick Cheney.

6. Environmentalists. Rush Limbaugh came up with the idea that maybe environmentalists sabotaged the rig. It was spread to Fox News by Dana Perino (Former Bush administration Press Secretary). The idea being, that since the Deepwater Horizon caught fire near to Earth Day, that the timing indicates it may be a plot by wacko environmentalists, with the goal of creating a such a disaster as to put an end to offshore drilling for all time. Although oil platform experts doubt that even Greenpeace, with their vaunted scaling capabilities would be capable of getting on to an oil rig unnoticed. But who knows? Some people think environmentalists are wackos. Some people (yes, including me) think Rush Limbaugh and his followers are wackos.

In the end, this may be a big enough disaster to do for offshore drilling what "Three Mile Island" did for nuclear reactors in the USA. At the very least it may persuade people that offshore wind turbines are not as ugly or as dangerous as they have been made out to be.

Picture: Deepwater Horizon on fire from Wikipedia

The Invisible Hand that Cleaned Up the Environment

I had not been made aware of the body of work by Pierre Desrochers, until I was sent this "Earth Day" article by a friend. According to the article, Pierre Desrochers is professor of geography at the University of Toronto and associate researcher at the Montreal Economic Institute.

I looked it up, just to be sure, and his own web page says he is "associate" professor of geography at the University of Toronto (in Mississauga), but on sabbatical leave this year. I will not get into a discussion of the difference between associate professor and professor, but I had a friend who went through this process, and it is quite a big difference. You can find Pierre's article here in the National Post.

This article has many "hot button" statements, so I am not surprised, from the tone of it, that Pierre is regularly attacked by scientists and "greenies". Not physically, or course, I mean like what I am doing here, which is to try to point out what is wrong with his statement. I'm just trying to do my bit in the cause of truth and fairness.

The statement I picked out for my own response is this one by Pierre Desrochers:

"It was not heavy regulation or green activism that was primarily responsible for improved environmental quality over the last few decades but rather a process inherent in the market economy, leading to ever more efficient innovations and an ever more economical use of resources. When will we see an Earth Day where it is finally recognized that the market’s “invisible hand” also has a green thumb?"

With that type of statement, it is not surprising to find that Pierre is getting a lot of his work published in the conservative Canadian newspaper "The National Post", or that he is working for the Montreal Economics Institute, which has been getting a reputation as a pro-free market think tank.

This statement directly contradicts self evident truth. So apparently it was not the environmentalists who pushed for a clean environment, it was "the invisible hand of the free market"?  This is, in my opinion, a bald faced lie. An attempt to not only revise, but actually "erase" the public perception of what went on in the last 40 or so years.

There were countless initiatives by grass roots activists, some of which led to big changes, for example Greenpeace fighting against nuclear testing, including the death of a Greenpeace activist and the bombing, and sinking of their ship "Rainbow Warrior" by the French Special Forces. But let me focus on something different, in one area only, one that I had personal involvement with, although not as an activist, but as a regular Joe car driver. Probably similar to everybody else who might read this blog. I am referring to the 40 year struggle to clean up automobile tailpipe emissions.

In the struggle to clean up tailpipe emissions, I don't need to look up anything in Wikipedia, because I practically lived it, as did anyone who ever lifted the hood of a car in anger since 1969. The result of the struggle is that today, car tailpipes are ten times cleaner than 40 years ago. I don't need an emissions test on my Matrix to tell me that. (although I do have to get an emissions test to renew my stickers). I can just wipe my finger inside the tailpipe and it comes out practically clean after over 100,000 km. of driving. On the other hand, I only need to ride my 1970 Honda CD175 around the city once to come home "smelling of motorcycle" as Mary Ann puts it.

The clean tailpipe movement started in California, as an answer to the smog which was choking the city and suburbs. It was not started by "The invisible hand of the Free market", but by grass roots activists and government legislation in California. It was fought every step of the way by the automobile manufacturers, and many regular car drivers like me, who objected to all these controls being placed on our cars and tried to defeat them. Did we ever blame the car companies for inventing these "clean tailpipe" technologies, as we regularly ripped them out of the cars? No, we blamed the extremists in the environmental movement. Everybody knew the car companies were against the controls. To be fair, some car companies were hard at work researching the problem to produce cleaner cars, but those were the Japanese companies, especially Honda and Toyota. GM, Ford and Chrysler, on the other hand tried every trick in the book to get around the controls, and one of the best was to get their cars classified as "trucks" to take advantage of a loophole in the laws. We all know where that went, as today more than half the "cars" stuck in traffic jams are SUVs and pickup trucks. Partly resulting from their over-emphasis on trucks and SUV's rather than research and development, both GM and Chrysler declared bankruptcy last year, while Toyota became the world's biggest automaker. Now that result might have had something to do with the "invisible hand of the free market", if it ever existed.

For at least 40 years, friends, relatives, car magazine articles, were all telling me that those crazy environazis were "ramming pollution controls down our throats". Frankly, I believed it myself. So now, with clean exhaust pipes pretty much a reality, the corporate spin machine is rewriting history. The new "reality" is that it wasn't the environazis after all who forced us to clean up the tailpipes. Now we are to forget everything we knew, and blindly believe that it was the invisible hand of the free market that brought us clean cars. This kind of blatant propaganda could only work if the public at large had an exceedingly bad memory, or were actually sheep. I don't think it will work, because so many of us actually were poking around under the hoods of cars. But just to make sure, I will ask the car mechanic a question, the next time I go for my "Clean Air" emissions test. I'll ask "Who is responsible for us having to get our tailpipes checked every 2 years?". Unless he or she is a regular reader of the National Post, and just bought their first car this year, I'm pretty sure I know what the answer will be.

Is This an Audubon Society Payoff Scandal?

Recently I received a chain email that the Audubon Society accepted millions of dollars to change their anti-wind farm stance and allow the erection of wind turbines to destroy bird populations. It was explained in the header:

"The Massachusetts Audubon Society ("MA Audubon") has been opposing the project from the beginning. They estimated that the turbines may kill up to 6,600 birds per year.

The controversy arose when MA Audubon changed their minds. They announced they would support the project on the condition that millions of dollars be spent to mitigate the ecological impact. As mitigation includes the monitoring of bird mortality and bird behaviour by ornithologists, this immediately led to suspicions of a conflict of interest."

If this were true it would be a little like CUSO taking a payoff to endorse the Liberian dictator Charles Taylor's policy of chopping off of hands of civilians in Sierra Leone. Or endorsing the bombing of native villages in the Sudan to clear the way for oil drilling. The Audubon payoff was not debunked on Snopes (as far as I could tell) so I had to investigate on my own.

First, to clear up a position. The Audubon Society has determined that while wind farms may kill some wildlife, they are a net benefit, based on our need to produce electricity in a way that does not promote global warming. And the Audubon Society also believes that global warming is a real threat, not a gigantic hoax cooked up by tree huggers. Which happens to match my own views, and those of my local Field Naturalists Club.

The timing of this "change of mind" and Payoff is not clear. But as of July 2005 (after the Feb. 2005 estimate of 6,600), the Massachusetts Audubon Society supported wind power. (I have the link below) As far as I know, all field naturalists clubs support the use of wind power.

http://www.massaudubon.org/news/index.php?id=200&type=editorial

In my opinion it is actually Exxon and the other oil companies that are fighting wind power with a well funded PR campaign, supported by conservative interests (for example, Harper, the PM from Canada's oil province, and Bush, the president from Texas). Here is a link to an article about the payoffs to climate change deniers.

This allegation about the Mass Audubon Society is illogical. It is based on the false assumption that Mass Audubon is a for-profit organization, with the power to grant or deny permits for wind turbines. It is actually a non-profit organization of enthusiasts that was asked to do studies on wind projects. The reason they get asked is because of their credibility as a non-profit organization, with a huge membership of people who know a lot about nature.

Mary Ann is an active member in the Kitchener-Waterloo field Naturalists club, which is similar to the Audubon society, in other words, a non-profit organization dedicated to birdwatching, and observing nature. Similar to the Audubon Society, they have no regulatory authority to stop wind turbines, but they are often asked to do environmental studies for a wide variety of reasons, including building and road construction. As a non-profit organization, they are not even allowed to make money (as in a profit), or they would lose their non-profit status. Greed and desire for money is totally absent in field naturalists clubs, from what I have seen. (While greed is the driving force of corporations, as they endlessly remind us)

The Audubon society is obviously concerned about bird deaths, but they are also concerned about global warming.

If we go back to about 2003 or so, there was a debate among all field naturalist groups, Audubon included, who were concerned about the impact of the new wind farms on bird population. That debate has long been resolved, and as far as I know, all field naturalists are pretty much in agreement, that although the turbines may kill some birds, it has to be balanced against global warming, which is already making entire species (of animals/birds/insects etc.) extinct. They are looking at the long term species survival. They are more aware than most people that lots of birds die all the time from cars, hunting, predators, cats, disease, tall buildings, starvation, even natural death.

The location of the first wind turbines caused a severe problem killing hawks because the towers were located on bluffs. The way hawks travel is by seeking out thermals (upward wind currents), then circling repeatedly gaining height each time, until they reach enough height that they can glide to the next thermal. So hawks will actually migrate along ridges, (which create thermal up currents) stopping to circle each time they need to gain height. If the turbines are placed right where the hawks stop to circle, the blades will kill a lot of them as they migrate. Hawks migrate in a very narrow flight path, and they circle where the winds are strongest. As long as the blades are not placed right in a migratory thermal updraft, the number of kills is acceptable.

There is a place called Hawk Cliff near Port Stanley on Lake Erie, where thousands of hawks can be seen circling at migration times. It is a spectacular sight, well known to local birdwatchers. If you place a turbine right there, it will cause a major slaughter in the spring and the fall. Yet new turbines have gone up on the lake Erie shore, placed in such a way that the hawks will not be circling around the blades, and very few are killed. Less than by local car traffic, for example.

Bird watchers are well aware of the behaviours of various birds, and are an excellent resource to advise on the location of wind turbines.

The killing of bats is another issue, which I do not have the current answer for. Apparently turbines kill a lot of bats, and it may be either where they roost, or how they hunt insects by sonar. I know a lot of people are looking in to the problem. And our local field naturalists club does watch bats, and in fact they own a bat detector which is used for outings to observe bats.

I don't have any proof that the Massachusetts Audubon Society did not take a payoff of millions of dollars to support the wind farms. But from what I know already about non-profit organizations, and the fact that the Audubon society early on decided to support wind turbines, and specifically, the Massachusetts Audubon was supporting wind turbines in 2005, I would say this story sounds false.

Picture: I took it this this morning along the Grand River. It's a hawk sitting really near, but I have a cheap point and shoot camera, not one of those monster zoom lenses. I was on an outing with the KW Field Naturalists, and they said it was a one year old Red-Tailed hawk, and they spotted it way on the other side of the river and waited for it to come over.

CBC TV: Kevin O'Leary, Eco-preneur or Guru of Greed?

Last night I saw Kevin O'Leary, the CBC's new guru of greed. He may one day be to finance, what Don Cherry is to hockey. He is on a show called the "Lang and O'Leary Exchange". As it says in his bio on CBC, "O'Leary is opinionated, ruthless, he hungers for big deals and loves to take control. Yet he made his millions helping children learn how to read." Isn't that sweet? He also calls himself an "Eco-preneur", because his company "Englobe" saves the environment. Well if he's an ecopreneur, I'm a skeptopreneur.*

Kevin was speaking about the proposed US regulations that will prevent banks from creating another financial crisis, and he proclaimed that Obama's regulations are going to destroy the only thing that is actually making money any more. According to Kevin our only way to wealth is by using ever more complicated investment "strategies" (I call them PWDs, or Pacts with the Devil). Kevin also says about Obama "Somebody has to stop him!!!". Kevin wants to see the American banking CEO's left alone, because "They are greedy people, and greed is good!!!" and "They are my kind of people."

Apparently, Kevin is no longer the kind of people who make their millions helping little children learn to read.

Does this seem right? You take a pile of money, and double it just by swapping things around and playing with the figures. Forget about lending money to businesses and homeowners when you have this kind of return on investment available.

Personally I think the banking CEO's have now completely lost their minds. I heard one of them, in front of a senate inquiry tell this story to explain the financial crisis. He said "My daughter called me from school, she was worried because she heard there was a financial crisis. She said 'Daddy, everybody says there's a financial crisis. What's a financial crisis?' and I told her 'A financial crisis is something that happens every five to seven years'".

I have no idea why a banking CEO found it necessary to tell this childish story to a senate inquiry, or actually why the CEO himself would be worth tens of millions a year, when he is incapable of running a bank that does not collapse every few years, and thinks financial crashes as normal. He doesn't even seem to be interested in why they happen or how to stop them. Apparently he makes money no matter what. Then the inquiry had to listen to a CEO who explained how they were cutting secretary's salaries to make the bank run better. I don't want them to cut secretaries' salaries, I want them to cut the CEO's salaries. And cut the million dollar bonuses.

So apparently we don't make money with hard work, with thrift or saving any more. The way to riches is with accounting tricks, Ponzi schemes, golden parachutes, bailouts and a call upon the power of "Greed". Is that really the way to prosperity? Even if we don't think so now, put Kevin O'Leary on TV for a while, and some Canadians are going to believe him.

Footnote
* About "Environmental" companies like O'Leary's Englobe, and why this raises red flags for me. About ten years ago I invested in a company called "Phillips Environmental", which was in the same business as Englobe, getting rid of waste, toxic stuff etc., with an emphasis on re-use of chemicals. It did sound promising, and they did a lot of business, because there is so much demand for the service. A nice clean way to get rid of every kind of hazardous toxic waste, with no liability for the customer. Unfortunately, in this business, the customers rarely ask questions once the waste is gone. If the customers don't care, then who does? The owners of the waste removal company are the only ones who care whether they live up to their promises. This is an unusual ethical challenge. Phillips succumbed to the temptation, and started dumping their toxic waste illegally, and got caught. I luckily had gotten out early, because I know somebody in the environmental movement. When I told her of my "green" investment, she said "I don't think so". She had been asking questions about Phillips Environmental, and they were blocking her from finding out what they were up to. Now I don't think I would ever trust an environmental company led by someone who says "greed is good", and "greedy people are my kind of people". I would be more likely to start an investigation.