Gulf Oil Spill - The Way I See It.

I'm not about to go and say Obama is an idiot for not seeing this oil spill catastrophe coming, but the indicators were pretty obvious, if you ask me.

This is how I see it:

- BP has a history of felonies. It is the fourth biggest company in the world (the first is Royal Dutch Shell. I wikipedia'd this and at first thought it meant Old Dutch, the chip company which would have made way more sense because those chips are fucking bomb). Anyway, BP is an oil giant who could probably take over the world if it wanted to, so no one is going to say anything when it pretty much makes the same mistakes every year. The usual - killing their workers, cutting and pasting words from emergency plan to emergency plan (more about this later), and being frugal. Usually I endorse thriftiness, and I'm sure you do too, but when it comes to things like, oh you know, drilling thirty five thousand feet beneath water and into the earths fucking core, I would like to think we could set aside our petty fiscal qualms.

- BP's behavior alone in the Exxon Valdez shit was as good an indicator as any that they are about as competent as I am after drinking a box of wine. The worst damage was done during the hours they tried to fix shit. All their equipment was buried under snow, and no clean up ship was standing by. Exxon was like fuck this and brushed them aside. At which point BP continued masterbating and playing nintendo.

- Their emergency response plan was about as well thought out as, oh, a grocery list. Let me elaborate. Listed among precautions they wanted to take while drilling are walrus's, sea lions and other celestial creatures of the great white north. Not the fucking Gulf of Mexico, you idiot. C'est possible that they used text from an entirely different plan? The Minerals Management service let this shit slide by granting BP a categorical exclusion - which is meant strictly for minimally intrustive projects, like outhouses and hiking trails. Not the deepest hole ever drilled into mother earths sacred core. Now look at it. Great emergency plan, BP. You should have written it on a post it.

- Maybe if MMS and BP weren't too busy 69ing and chasing the dragon, we wouldn't be up to our gills in l'heule. Both companies have histories of being totally corrupt. And MMS has been operating "under the radar" with no definite mission statement for eons. Eons I say! Before Ken Salazar got his tie - clad ass in that office and started slapping wrists and confiscating rubix cubes, it was all fun and games. BP and MMS are like two chatty pre teens during silent reading hour. If the president trusts them to self regulate, the entire classroom will be full of oil in a few days.

On top of all that, my suspicions were confirmed when Tony Hayward was like "I want my life back!" Well guess what, Tony? So do the families and friends of the people who died in the disaster on April 20th. What kind of PR stunt was that? He must be still suffering from the residual hallucinagens, or maybe he's just straight up wasted. (I know I sure would be if I was the CEO of an oil comany).

The worst part is, despite the 6 month moratorium on offshore drilling, at least 5 new projects have been granted permits. Having said that, 30 000 people are working on this shit in 4 states. So Obama's not a total slacker. But he's an idiot for continuing to let people drill, baby, drill, away when we won't have even recovered from the events of April 20th for probably decades. And my kids are going to be pissed. I really don't care if he took a mini vaca with Michelle like 4 days after the spill to play golf and eat ribs. life goes on, right? We all need to eat ribs sometimes.

Essentially, what we need now is for Salazar to work his alleged magic, (he split up the MMS into 3 parts, you see, sort of what I consider to be like separating rambunctious kids into different rooms. Or quarentining people with infectious diseases. The infectious diseases being fun and slacking. If one person's up to no good, I know I sure will be too).

But in terms of my perscription for the future of the Gulf of Mexico, and offshore drilling, (because I know your dying to know my prescriptions. And I'm also authorized to prescribe such remedies), I have thought about it alot and the idea of performing what appears to be open heart surgery in the dark at the bottom of the Gulf is probably going to be next to impossible. They should employ a ninja (ie - the one in Oceans Eleven who they shoved in the box to sneak into the vault), or several ninjas, but pump them full of speed first. Send them down to work their magic. In the meantime, Obama and I will be eating ribs and getting pedicures.

Either that or a lot of hair to soak that shit up. (I heard Rachel McAdams was actually trying to do this.)

But the bottom line is I think everyone just needs to take a moment and remind themselves what really matters most in life: watching Lady Gaga's Alejandro video. Do this, sun children, and all will be well with the environment.

everyones favourite cocksucker ....

As everyones favourite cocksucker Stephen Harper reviews his mastermind plans for Arctic environmental protection rules in the wake of the disasterous oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, attention has been drawn to the fact that the Northern Canadian provinces have been sullied with dangerous liquids! Sewage! Jet fuel! For the past oh, half decade!

The spills that have gone down are obviously smaller than the BP disaster off the US coast, but still remind us that we cant fuck around with out vulnerable eco systems !

260 spills were found in Canada's north over 5 years. A government environmental enforcement database called NEMISIS tracked them all, but left a bunch of holes (like who dunnit, how much was spilled, and even what was spilled). There were 137 spills in the northwest territories, 82 in Nunavut, and 41 in the Yukon. Some could be cleaned up in a day, others took months.

In one case, an unspecified amount of diesel was spilled in the Yukon for 2,013 days – more than 5 years – before someone finally did something. I would have done it but like, you know, whatever.

Why are there holes in NEMISIS? The department claims that it is often being improved and updated to manage its effectiveness. Also, sometimes info that doesn’t fall within environment canada’s mandate might not be entered into the database.

mmm hmmmm ....

But they insist that action can still be taken even if some data is missing. The department, they say, is just one of the several that can do something about spillers. (Read - they are avoiding sole responsiblity). Others, including Indian and Northern affairs and the provinces and territories, have different enforcement tools at their disposal.

The database lists 75 spills across the North. That’s followed by 28 sewage spills, 26 spills of unspecified of unknown contaminants and 25 jet fuel spills.

Why doesnt anyone ever spill anything good? (I'm thinking something along the lines of that skittles commercial with the skittles leak).

Palm-Ella loves seals.

And so do I.

Peta does too. So much that they throw pies at things to save them. (How they reckon this will save said seals is a mystery, but apparently such behavior has merit.) Peta has a lot of money, fame and support, but continuously relies on publicity stunts to achieve their goals, which are centered mostly on animal rights. Human rights, however, are apparently completely disregarded in their attempts to banish animal cruelty, as made clear in the ongoing controversy around PETA’s campaigns.

A 37 year old member of PETA was charged with assault after she shoved a pie into the fact of fisheries and oceans minister Gail Shea in Burlington in January. As Shea began her speech at the Canada Centre for Inland Waters in Burlington, the PETA member came up to the podium and clobbered her with a tofu cream pie.

In the past, PETA has effectively covered Lindsay Lohan for wearing a fur coat in Paris, written a formal letter to Ben and Jerry’s asking them to switch to breast milk to make their ice cream, asked the Pet Shop Boys to change their name, and a myriad of other ludicrous measures. These things are stupid, not radical, and won’t do shit.

In art theory, to be radical involves a harkening back to that which we cannot return – the past – as well as importing techniques from across genres, like taking something from dance and incorporating it into film. If we simply keep doing brand new things and consider it shocking, we simply get louder and louder. And that won’t prove anything.

What needs to replace eco terrorism is eco creativity. Besides, maybe someone should first feed Lindsay Lohan some flour before anything else, so she’ll have some meat on her bones and won’t need a fur coat to stay warm. Get to the root of the problem, I say ! Think about people first ! We’re smarter than animals, right?

PETA executive vice-president Tracy Reiman said the pie in the face wasn’t as bad as the blood on Gails hands. PETA reckons it is time Canada banned the seal hunt, that the commercial fishing industry is environmentally destructive – and lots of Canadians agree with them, including myself. Yet, this doesn’t mean I’m going to waste a good pie on some woman named Gail.

First Nations people hunted seals 4000 years ago and valued every part of the creature – the pelt, the meat, the ceremonial aspect of the kill, it’s symbolic meaning in a young dudes life. Now, you can get a seal pelt for 14 dollars and kill one by raking its eyes out without even leaving your boat - not exactly the ritual the First Nations had in mind. We’re killing increasingly more and more seals year after year, too, and loving every bloody minute of it?

This is where Gail comes in. A former provincial cabinet minister, she has stated that her department, the fisheries department is not a department that will have many ribbon-cutting ceremonies. I sense a lament for the not quite glamorous role she has in the seal hunt, unlike Palm (above).

And it sho' is bloody. Long poles with metal hooks are the weapon of choice from what I gather, they are hauled on board the boats and then beaten to a pulp. There is pretty much no way to convince someone this isn’t a ridiculously inhumane practice. (Vladimir Putin said so himself. And I don’t think he would fuck around. Russia banned the slaughter of Harp seals under a year old) However it’s still legal under Canada's Marine Mammal Regulations. The Canadian government has ignored the crazy amounts of criticism and under the amended Marine Mammal Regulations, the practice will continue.

In 1987, Canada was compassionate enough to halt the slaughter of “white coats” (young specimens who aren’t coloured yet) but seals lose their white fur around 2 weeks of age, so this means most are shot before their third month of life (they can’t even swim yet and they have to try and get away from the hunters. )
During Canada’s annual commercial hunt, as many as 300 000 seals are shot or bludgeoned.

And to be sure, the costs of the seal hunt outweigh the economic benefit. After all, this shit is subsidized by our tax dollars. My precious rivets ! I’m a vegetarian I didn’t agree to this shit ! If we ended the hunt, Canada would have a minimum of $6.9 million doll-hairs every year ! That means we could all be walking around with canes and grills and fake fur ! But Gail seems pretty adamant that the economic benefits are as lucrative as a money tree. Guess what, Gail. Seals don’t grow on trees anymore.

Regardless, she is pretty proud that Canada is a world leader in the seal hunt. The government website says this. Are we meant to feel proud of this factoid? Minister Shea (always referred to as “honourable minister” on the site) assures us that Fishery’s officers will be closely monitoring the hunt this year to make sure of compliance with regulations. (So if they’re not around, the hunters will go crazy and start killing everything in sight?) The fisheries department website states:

“Our government will continue to defend the rights of Canadian sealers to provide a livelihood for their families through our lawful, sustainable and humane hunt, said Shea. We are extremely disappointed that the European Parliament has called for a disruption of the trade of seal products and our position remains that any ban on a humanely conducted hunt, such as Canada’s, is completely without merit. We will continue to explore all legal and diplomatic options and Canadians can be assured that we will exercise our rights to their fullest extent under international trade laws if and when it becomes necessary and appropriate."

For one, I’m pretty sure a humanely conducted hunt is an oxymoron.

For two, I disagree that not clubbin seals has no merit.

And is it really so diplomatic, sensitive and tactful to rip baby seals to shreds for money (using vegetarians tax dollars?)

The whole thing is pretty disgraceful, but you have to be pretty wack to pie a middle aged woman making a speech in front of hundreds of people.

But I guess Lindsay has to get those coats somewhere, right? And who am I to tell her she can’t have whatever she wants? Her dad was like, a real clown. She can have all the fur she wants.

Chances are, this adorable little creature wants to kill you. For a lot of reasons.

Most notably, for the frivolous earthy habits that are destroying his comfy home in the Arctic.

Sure, I mean life is all well and good when you're hanging in a basket in the German Zoo and all, but this little guy's brederens in Alaska are probably pissed.

In 2005, scientists found evidence for the first time that polar bears were drowning due to the recession of the Arctic ice shelf. This, of course, is a symptom of global warming. Four carcasses, just like our friend (above) were found floating in one area off the north coast of Alaska.

Polar bears rely on ice year round as a platform on which to raise their young and hunt food. They typically eat one seal every 4 or 5 days.These mother fuckers can consume up to 100 pounds of blubber in one sitting. Wowza ! (and you thought your all you can eat sushi skills were impressive ...) As the ice retreats naturally in the summer, the bears travel between ice floes to continue hunting in areas such as the shallow water of the continential shelf off the Alaskan coast, where there are lots of seals.

In 2005, the ice cap receded about 200 miles further than usual, forcing the bears to undertake way longer voyages. Short swims are a peice of cake for these large furry masters of travel. But one or two of them might have to swim up to 100 miles, (thanks to the fact that my father can't seem to live without an SUV.)

So people say Al Gore lied about this shit ... which I disagree with. Ale Gore is the man and I refuse to believe he would fuck around like that. (Did you see the part in "An Inconvinient Truth" where he is pensively staring out at Goerge Bushes screaming fans with a look on his face like - "you silly mother fuckers, you just made the mistake of your lives and now I'm going to play hard to get FOREVER" ) Arctic ice shelves are melting due to global warming and they won't be back, because they contain unique ecosystems that took a really long time to form.

....(Someone has to tell this little guy to deal with it.)

Greenpeace vs Tar sands = Jennifer Aniston vs. Angelina Jolie

The oil sands are widely thought to have colossal environmental consequences. The Boreal forests of Northern Alberta are being destroyed in order to reach the oil beneath, the Athabasca river is being increasingly exhausted, and wildlife is suffering. The damage caused by the oil sands project will have a lasting legacy on the earth.

The complicated and demanding process of extracting oil sands – a mixture of clay, minerals, water and bitumen, requires more energy than conventional oil. It produces 3 – 5 times more greenhouse gas emissions per barrel of oil produced - not including the emissions released through the destruction of the Boreal forest under the development. Protecting these forests is crucial in protecting the earth from climate change.

The oil sands project currently uses 370 million cubic meters of fresh water each year from the Athabasca river, free of charge. Most of the water used for the project is never returned to the river, but diverted into lakes called tailing ponds. The tailing ponds cover over 130 kilometers along the Athabasca River. (They are so large they can be seen from space!) The waste in these ponds are severely toxic to aquatic life, birds and humans that come in contact with it. Similar to DDT, the contaminated water permeates its surrounding soil, effecting life cycles of wildlife and plants. Worse, it is estimated that the tailing ponds are leaking more than 11 million liters back into the Athabasca River.

If oil sands production increases as planned, annual emissions are expected to swell from 27 to 126 million tonnes by 2015. The persistent development of the tar sands is pushing us closer and closer to ruin. Unfortunately, fossil fuels remain the most convenient, popular and affordable source of energy we have, and as our current energy situation makes evident, fossil fuels will likely continue to satisfy the majority of the world’s growing need for energy in decades to come. The oil sands are evidence that our days of cheap and easy oil are over. To be sure, the oil sands present an environmental controversy, but who do we have to blame?

25 Greenpeace activists though they had the answer. On September 15th, the eve of the meeting between Harper and Obama, 25 Greenpeace activists injected themselves into Shell’s Albian Sands mine with the goal of expressing protest of the heavy footed oil sands. After 31 hours of barricading some of the projects giant machinery to the point of temporarily shutting down the grounds, and revealing giant banners depicting the words “Climate Crime”, the activists finally released their chains and left peacefully.

Updates direct from the oil sands were recorded onto the Greenpeace activist blog throughout the event. Climate campaigner Mike Hudema wrote a few hours before entering the tar sands: “Today we are going in to say stop. We are going to stand in the way of the world's largest dumptrucks – over three stories tall and say no further. I am going because the tar sands represent the toxic future in store for all of us if our politicians continue to choose the health of big oil profits, over the health of our planet and the people on it. I am tired of sitting on the sidelines while our world is pushed to the brink of climate chaos. Tired of political stalling while millions are displaced or will die due to global warming. Today I will make a stand, like thousands before me and hopefully millions after to push for a better, greener world. Wish me luck!”

The blockade attempted to protest the symbol of the oil sands, but did this uprising really do anything?

Perhaps the daily work of the oil sands employees wasn’t the right place to interject. After all, it isn’t their fault that the world uses oil at a frightening rate. There are about 3,000 petroleum products in use today including gasoline, ink, crayons, dishwashing liquids, deodorant, eyeglasses, records, tires, amonia, and many others. The human race depends heavily on crude oil, and the question remains, as put forth by many sceptics of the Greenpeace activist - where did the activists get the fuel for the trucks they drove in on? The activists may have shut down the mine briefly, but in the grand scheme of things, this was a small inconvenience to the $67 billion energy project.

By breaking into the oil sands, activists out their lives and others at risk. Their actions could have had serious, needless consequences to many innocent people. Many people hope for a fossil fuel – free future, but such acts of disruption of many people’s everyday lives are no way to work toward such a goal.

Down with SUV's.

I recently went home to Brantford for a couple nights to hang out with the fam. We always have a good time together, and this visit was no exception. There was only one problem. My mother told me that my father was contemplating replacing their Toyota Matrix with an SUV.

I was utterly horrified. I tried everything in my power to convince her to convince him otherwise. I can’t think of anything more frivolous. What on earth does a 55 year old male with a grown up family and no pressing career, really need an enormous gas guzzling SUV for? Hauling mulch? Flagstones? I’m not trying to undermine my beloved father, or any retired lifestyle. He’s 55. He should be able to do whatever the hell he wants. But there is one thing I can’t deny. To exist is to be an activist. We make choices on a daily basis that support or deject environmentally friendly initiatives, directly or indirectly, and we do it with every item we buy. Our decisions affect other people and the greater world whether we know it or not.

What comes to mind when we hear activist? A raving protestor, drunk on passion for a cause? A persistent douche bag who scrutinizes your every piece of garbage? People who cause detours on roads because of protest rallies?

The negative stereotype around activists exists because no one makes it easy for the public to be environmentally friendly. Our governments and our food manufacturers take path of least resistance – it’s cheaper and easier to buy food from No Frills as opposed to grow your own, organic food and renewable energy are both more expensive and hard to come across than conventional food / energy. We often have to hunt to find information on animal testing and nutrients. As a result, we allow ourselves to be poisoned. We are unhealthy and uninformed. (Revlon Moondrops lipstick, Lysol All Purpose cleaner contain mystery phthalates – substances added to plastics to retain their flexibility and durability - that act as neurotoxins and reproductive toxins ... two in a long list of products.)

We have to go against the grain to achieve a healthy, green lifestyle. Since when should it be so unconventional to eat real food, trust a doctor, or have the desire to bring my children into a risk free world? Since when does living green have to mean anarchy?

My parents were obviously irritated by my hassling to make them turn off the lights and the TV when they left the room. My badgering in the electricity department made my disproval in the SUV department all the more expected.

“But we’re so not SUV people” I pleaded to my mother. Being a woman of aesthetic, (a hairdresser) I tried to persuade her against the idea in terms of the surface qualities.

"It's not me, it's your father who wants it!" she said. Perhaps her intentions were good, (and I don’t doubt my fathers are good, too) but his decision will still effect her, and me, and every other earth dwelling creature. It is everyone`s problem, everyone`s responsibility. We`ve all heard how harmful SUV`s are, and what a state the earth is in. People turn their ears off when someone starts ranting. My parents love that I am passionate about the environment, but sometimes I think that's really all they see – a raving kid who wants the world to be a better place.

Throwing fridges off cliffs is sOoOoOo fun !

The food industry produces over 5 times the volume of the most energy intensive manufacturing industry – iron and steel. The problem isn’t just limited to ‘food miles’ or pesticides. It starts with the manufacturing of the fertilizer for soil to the drive home from the grocery store. The energy used to get food on the table is often exponentially greater than the caloric value of the food itself. Now, we don’t necessarily need to drive SUV’s, throw refrigerators off cliffs for entertainment, or wear gold chains. But we need to eat. It is possible to reduce the appalling carbon footprint caused by the food industry. We just have to not be douche bags about it, is all.

We can’t rely on the supermarkets and industrial farms to do the work for us. In order to remain competitive and prosperous, large companies will always take the path of least resistance, which means the path of destructive carbon footprints. Burning fossil fuels and using pesticides is infinitely cheaper and convenient than using human labour. Modern economy makes climate change difficult to fight – convenience is often no match for sustainability.

Here are some ways to reduce your environmental douche baggery !

- Buy local food and save the emissions from transport. Food produced for commerical grocery stores is shipped long, and increasing distances. Our incredible dependancy when it comes to food means huge amounts of emissions from transport. Think of the transport of frozen goods. Trucks have to keep frozen food frozen for huge amounts of time on the road. Locally grown food has more nutrients and tastes a lot better than a garbanzo bean that has been rolling around the bottom of a truck or airplane for days on end.

- Buy organic food. (I understand the nauseating fact that organic food is just so fucking trendy. But I can’t deny that the agricultural use of pesticides has a toxic effect on all life systems around it - the soil, the animals it comes in contact with, and the people who eat it.) In terms of the environment, the manufacturing of synthetic fertilizer uses natural gas as a raw material, resulting in carbon dioxide emissions in the process. Of course, its application in the field releases green house gases as well.

- Eat less animal products. Since the decline in coal mining, agricultural animals are the main source of methane production, a greenhouse gas emission that contributes to global warming. Not to mention that the lives of these creatures will be spared, and you will be healthier without consuming rotting carcases. You are what you eat.

- Avoid processed food. It is usually super packaged to the max in attempts to make it look appealing and advertise how low in fat and full of omega 3 fatty acids it is. Well guess what - chances are if you are buying food that is using pink and yellow bold sparkly font to advertise how full of awesome nutrients it is, it really isn’t so. Why? Because Bill Nye has pumped it full of radioactive goo to satisfy the eternally ‘health conscious’ consumer, fucking with the natural balance of nutrients. Sufficient nutrients are in real food. The lowly banana usually doesn’t grow on a tree with stickers to publicize its potassium- filled righteousness. Western demise! Don’t be a fool ! You can’t drink vitamin coca cola all day and not expect to get scurvy if you don’t drink your pine needle tea. Duh.

- Avoid supermarkets. They use ridiculous amounts of energy to chill / freeze food in open display coolers to make it look pretty so you’ll buy it. Buy into that? Maybe they are just trying to get high on hydrofluorocarbons as you walk by the produce. Use your noggin, fool. Not to mention the energy used to heat and light the supermarkets themselves, some of which are open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

- Compost. Give back food waste to the earth from which it came. It’s good to be alive.

These are just some suggestions that I read places. They are in no way vindictive of my personal opinions. I regularly catch racoons with my bare hands for my own personal consumption. But if you are at all interested in adopting an eco friendly lifestyle then for all means, follow these guidelines. You can just call me Maury Povich and give me a call if you need a mentor, tutor, or yogi of any persuasion. One love !