People living in vigorous cultures typically treasure those cultures and resist any threat to them. How and why can a people so totally discard a formerly vital culture that it becomes literally lost?
- Jane Jacobs, Dark Age Ahead, 2004
Toronto has been divided and conquered, its downtown core sold for $60, the cost of the vehicle registration tax, for the right of those in the subdivisions to drive downtown with impunity. Good bye road tolls and bicycle lanes.
Edmonton - A study in the peer-reviewed journal The Wilson Journal of Ornithology to be published in early September (online in late August) shows annual bird mortality in the bitumen tailings ponds of northeastern Alberta - an internationally significant migratory bird corridor - greatly exceeds industry estimates.
The authors investigated three types of data: government-industry reported mortalities; rates of bird deaths at tailings ponds; and rates of landing, oiling, and mortality to quantify annual bird mortality due to exposure to tailings ponds.
The following is the first in a two-part storyon corporate claims over British Columbia's natural resources. Part two can be found here.
The province of Alberta is well known as a climate-destroying behemoth. The tar sands developments in the north of that province are the single largest source of greenhouse gas emissions on the planet.
MEDIA NEWS RELEASE
Alberta First Nations Take Legal Stand on Oil Sands
April 9, 2010
Peace River Alberta
Two more Alberta First Nations are seeking the assistance of the Supreme
Court of Canada in defending their Aboriginal and Treaty rights in the
face of mounting oil sands development in Alberta. The Supreme Court of
Canada has granted intervenor status to Duncan's First Nation (DFN) and
Horse Lake First Nation (HLFN), in a case that may have major legal
implications for the development of oil sands, pipelines, oil sands
infrastructure projects and other major projects.
DURBAN, South Africa -- High above the pavement, overlooking Durban's famous South Beach and the pounding surf of the Indian Ocean, and just blocks from the United Nations Climate Change Conference, where up to 20,000 people gathered, seven activists fought against the wind to unfurl a banner that read "Listen to the People, Not the Polluters." It was no simple task. Despite the morning sun and blue sky, the wind was ferocious, and the group hanging the banner wasn't exactly welcome. They were with Greenpeace, hanging off the roof of the Protea Hotel Edward.
More than 10,000 people gathered in Washington, D.C., last Sunday with a simple goal: Encircle the White House. They succeeded, just weeks after 1,253 people were arrested in a series of protests at the same spot. These thousands, as well as those arrested, were unified in their opposition to the planned Keystone XL pipeline, intended to run from the tar sands of Alberta, Canada, to the Gulf Coast of Texas. A broad, international coalition against the pipeline has formed since President Barack Obama took office, and now the deadline for its approval or rejection is at hand.
It is a pretty well accepted truth that "He who ignores history is doomed to repeat it."
Commenting on the economic trends in Italy, where he was American ambassador, George Perkins Marsh wrote something in 1864 that would be current and accurate if it was printed in a major newspaper today:
"Even now we are breaking up the floor and wainscoting and doors and window frames of our dwelling for fuel to seethe our pottage."
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