Category Archives: big coal

Senate asks Canadian residents for testimony

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The U.S. Senate has asked residents that were forced out of their homes by tarsands in Alberta, Canada, to testify about their experience.

They say in the report that they don’t want to be used for political gain.  I can’t blame them for that–enough evidence of people being used by politicians for them to be wary.

But it is no secret that petroleum is toxic and tarsands are much, much more toxic. 

From the second link:

Tailings ponds which now cover an area the sized of Washington DC contain multiple toxic chemicals including arsenic, benzene, lead, mercury, naphthenic acid, and ammonia.  As much as 2.9 million gallons of toxic tailings leak into the environment every day.  A 2014 study showed that extreme concentrations of PAHs present in tailings may be evaporating into the air and then deposited into water.  New federal research by Environment Canada released in February 2014 confirms that leaking tailings ponds are leaching into groundwater and then into the Athabasca River.

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As someone whom has suffered from mercury toxicity, this is particularly alarming to me.  I can be a witness to how devastating this heavy metal is and how difficult it is to get it out of your system and get well again.

Meanwhile, the Enbridge pipeline project is due to get underway in Indiana.  Yet, there are *crickets* from the environmental groups, media, etc.  This is our “XL”…and no one gives a sh*t.

As a side note~ I know there are folks in the oil industry who read my blog–this is not meant to offend, but I can’t be silent on the destruction of the environment for humans, animals, plants, water, and soil.

 

 

 

Vancouver peaceful pipeline protests

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A problem that plagues peaceful protestors are those that wish to cause trouble.

The problem is in knowing if they are bad actors looking to stir things up for their own amusement or agent provocateurs–sent in by agencies or the oil companies themselves to give the non-violent activists a bad name.  The next problem is banishing them from the movement.

The person calling himself “james Moore” in the piece is typical.  Not knowing the writer of the piece, it’s hard to know if this person said those things or whether it is fabricated to make them look bad.  Or worse–to put this out there to justify police crackdown.

Like I’ve said before, I won’t support violence and many folks who would otherwise support environmentalists will back away from violent protests.

Setting police vehicles on fire is not violence in that it hurts a human being, but it is destructive…and is counterproductive if you think about all the toxins you’re sending into that very environment you’re trying to protect.  You might feel a release of frustration for a moment or two, but in the end, it doesn’t further your cause.

 

 

Canada’s Spy Agency and the First Nations

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The Canadian gov’t  was vewy vewy skeered of those pesky indigenous whom honor their traditions and refuse to be completely assimilated.  Good Grief.  They act like these people have tanks, helicopters, drones, etc….like it’s a freaking war.  Who…or What are they fighting against…?

And the quote that CSIS would not be involved if there wasn’t sufficient threat…who are they kidding?

My other posts:

Here we have a First Nations woman removed from a public meeting for…well, we don’t know because she wasn’t doing anything.  Her mere presence, apparently, made her “guilty” of a crime.

First Nations protests

Setback for First Nations protestors.

First Nations continue to stand up

Finally, this celebration on sacred Native American grounds that Mall of America was built on.

 

 

Wall of Women stand opposed to Kinder Morgan

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First Nations and Greenpeace women stand together against pipeline expansion…

“We’re standing here together to link arms to build the wall of women to say no, we do not want that in our communities, we will not accept this in our communities, we want better,” said Nahanee. “Canada has a responsibility to protect their communities, we have the right to live in healthy environments— healthy environments to raise our children, to take care of our grandparents, to drink healthy water, to eat healthy food. It’s basic human rights.”

– Mandy Nahanee

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Who would have thought that we would actually have to protest keeping our water clean and healthy??

Good on the women standing together, protecting the Earth. She needs us.

Greenpeace protests logging in Canada

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Report here. 

What bothers me is when I see trees torn down for yet more construction when there are thousands of empty buildings waiting to be occupied.  There should be a law that prohibits this–we don’t have the luxury of time anymore.  We need those trees to take the carbon dioxide out of the air and provide us with fresh oxygen.  Indiana is especially bad about destroying forests–when you look at aerial photos, you can pick Indiana out just by the lack of trees.   You can tell such a difference when leaving Indiana and going to Ohio–the air is better.  Combine this with the 15 million pounds of toxins released into our waterways…toxic soup.  (sigh)

Heavy Metals and Chemical Toxins in Foods **edited

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Where’s my spoon?  /snark

Magnetic Wheaties.  The press refused to publish this because they didn’t think it was real.  Anyone want to test their own Wheaties and dispute it?

Heavy Metals in Vegan foods. 

Sea vegetables.

Here’s another paper on heavy metals content in foods.

Arsenic in food.  The discussion is in defense of reports of arsenic in organic foods.  What the news reports got wrong was that heavy metals are present in conventionally grown foods, too.  It’s not a fault of growing them organically…but it is a fault of our toxic environment—which we are all responsible for promoting.

Another link here.

While there is a set legal limit for the amount of arsenic in water, that’s not the case for food. In previous weeks, researchers also detected high levels of arsenic in apple and grape juices. “All of these arsenic studies come back to the fact that there are multiple exposures, with the levels varying from product to product and batch to batch,” says Patty Lovera, assistant director of Food & Water Watch, a consumer safety organization. “We need to figure out some regulatory limit.”

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Arsenic in rice has been discussed on the mercury support group–obviously, we’re concerned about putting more poison in our bodies.  It’s frustrating as hell because even if you eat organic, you’re still at risk of heavy metals by the soil contamination.

Someone said in a reply on one of the sites I visited:  you’re pretty much going to get exposed by anything you eat…nothing is safe.

But I would not give up organic food.  Conventionally grown food is less nutritious, besides polluting the environment even more–it doesn’t make sense on that point alone.

Finally, here’s a disturbing video produced by Environmental Working Group on toxic chemicals in babies’ blood.

I looked up the Kids Safe Chemicals Act of 2008…and I’ll give you three guesses how it turned out.  Yep.

But, wait!  There’s yet another bill introduced with link to co-sponsors…here’s where it stands. 

Sen. Frank Lautenberg [D-NJ] Bill Author

Kirsten Gillibrand [D-NY] Bill Author

Max Baucus [D-MT]

Michael F. Bennet [D-CO]

Richard Blumenthal [D-CT]

Barbara Boxer [D-CA]

Maria Cantwell [D-WA]

Benjamin Cardin [D-MD]

William “Mo” Cowan [D-MA]

Richard Durbin [D-IL]

Dianne Feinstein [D-CA]

Al Franken [D-MN]

Tom Harkin [D-IA]

Angus King [I-ME]

Amy Klobuchar [D-MN]

Patrick Leahy [D-VT]

Robert Menéndez [D-NJ]

Jeff Merkley [D-OR]

Barbara Mikulski [D – MD]

Patty Murray [D-WA]

Bill Nelson [D- FL]

Bernard Sanders [I-VT]

Brian Schatz [D-HI]

Charles Schumer [D-NY]

Jon Tester [D-MT]

Tom Udall [D-NM]

Elizabeth Warren [D-MA]

Sheldon Whitehouse [D-RI]

Ron Wyden [D-OR]

Again, no mention on the toxins’ effects on the animals and birds.  Mercury has been found in birds on land and sea birds.  It’s also been found in marine mammals.

**edited to correct wording.

Bad Whiskey, mental institutions; Andrea Yates

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City Jackdaw has the reasons you could have been admitted to a mental institution in the 19th century.

Masturbation and, well, being a woman from all the “ailments” associated with being female.  Freud was an influence, I’m sure.

Note the reading of a novel was reason enough to be admitted! No doubt this was directed at a woman, because women were discouraged from educating themselves.  Truly, the medical profession said women would “shrink” their uterus if they went to college.  They based this genius on the observation that women who went to college were not as likely to have children, not have as many children.  Yep.

I wish I could say that the psychiatric profession has progressed passed the misogyny, but if you read the DSM, their diagnostic manual, it has “diseases” that describe the symptoms of being…a woman.  It’s a very vague description that has no reasoning behind it.

Related to this~

I was watching a documentary on Andrea Yates yesterday.  Her case always troubled me.  I felt at the time that she is mercury toxic for her to suddenly start acting mentally ill.

My intuition has been heightened by more clues — she became non-verbal (autistic symptoms) with her children, even though she performed regular duties such as fixing them lunch.  Her father had Alzheimer’s, so he and she were probably exposed to mercury (my belief that mercury and aluminum are direct causes of Alzheimer’s). Her father was of Irish ancestry–another strong clue of inability to detox mercury.

She began to act irrationally after the birth of her fourth child.  This is crucial because if she were already mercury burdened at her own birth (possibility),  and received Rho-Gam shots, she received more mercury via the shots.  After the fifth birth, she absolutely would have more toxicity and the mercury amount probably pushed her over the edge.

Those around her described her as loving before she became ill.  Her symptoms match mercury/heavy metal toxicity: anxiety, depression, autistic symptoms, bags under her eyes (adrenal fatigue/thyroid), self-mutilation,  and on top of that, the very drugs she was prescribed most likely caused more harm than good.

I hope that someone around her with some intellect will look into heavy metal poisoning as the root cause of her illness.  I just feel it in my gut.

Radiation from Fukushima found in soil in Canada

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Soil sample collected near Agassiz contains radioactive metal.

…but officials say…wait for it…don’t worry, it’s not that much…yeah, we should worry.

We should be worried, too, looking at this map.  It’s not just on the tip of the coast, but quite a ways inland.  Just look at the relation to the U.S.

Can you imagine this, combined with Keystone and the pipelines that have already leaked, combined with pesticides, herbicides, chemical fertilizers, genetically modified organisms…

My environmental journey

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The critics of environmentalists claim that we’re phonies…okay, well, here is my journey…

…my advocating for the environment has been a slow evolving process that includes my experience with mercury poisoning, growing awareness of what we’re doing to the atmosphere, and a spiritual component of realizing everything is connected.

Here are some of the things I do:

–use cloth bags when going to the grocery.  I might use plastic for meat, but I re-use those bags, too, bringing them to the grocery along with the cloth bags.  If you use the cloth bags for meat, be sure to launder them before using again, to avoid contamination.

–avoid plastic packaging. …well, plastic *everything*.   This has been much easier following the GAPS diet because you don’t eat the processed food in packaging, but real food.  If I am given an option, I will buy something in glass packaging before plastic.

—re-use the glass containers for drinking glasses, food storage, plants, etc. I try to avoid ziploc bags when possible.

—don’t purchase synthetic materials like nylon and other materials requiring petroleum.  The list I think is a catch-all, because I think some of the things listed are made with petroleum if plastic or manufactured cloth such as nylon, so some of the products listed could be okay if not using those materials.  Here’s a website on organic cotton, fyi.

–When I had my home, I made a conscious decision not to pave the driveway–it was gravel.  I didn’t spray for weeds, either.  I let my grass grow to 3 inches so that the roots could grow deeply enough to avoid having to water the lawn, especially during the dry time in July–this also helped keep the weeds down. Meanwhile, my neighbors practically shaved the grass off and…wait for it…had to waste precious water to keep the grass from dying in July.    I let a patch of ground that was the former owner’s garden, grow its natural way, without my interference.  Yeah, I was the neighborhood hippie…

—use baking soda, borax, and vinegar for cleaning.  A formula I found in a natural health mag goes like this:  Bathroom cleaner:  6 T vinegar, 2 T borax mixed with a cup– of warm water.  Put this in a 1 qt. spray bottle and fill the rest with water.  Works great, especially if used every day.

—I would like to use non-toxic natural cleaners for laundry, dish washing, etc., but with my finances, this isn’t doable right now. Oh, and fyi, avoid dishwashers–the detergent used in them is highly toxic.

—ride a bike or walk when going somewhere.  This was easier for me when I lived in Fort Wayne, where everything was within walking distance.  I could get to the downtown in 45 minutes to an hour.  There is something to be said for walking or riding–you are much more connected to what is going on around you.  You hear the birds sing.  Feel the breeze.  Hear the ripple of water along the river…driving a vehicle cuts you off from so much, besides polluting.

—use flannel cloths instead of toilet paper and re-wash them.  I know, I know, some of you are going “ick” right now.  No. 1 is fine…No. 2 still requires paper. So there.

—cloth pads instead of chemically manufactured pads.

—use less.  I just use less.  This was part of the learning process of being poor–you just learn how to manage on less.  Not easy, for sure.  I became much more adept at planning meals and using food up before it went to waste.  I didn’t buy as much at the grocery until I needed it.  This is easier if the grocery is within walking distance….which is becoming harder as the independents are being forced out while big box stores are situated out in no-man’s-land, forcing people to drive there.

—garden organically, using compost from kitchen waste, and if you’re really adventurous, pee and poo.   This is not for sissies…so come with your brain in active mode and your determination to get away from petroleum and chemicals.  You will succeed, but you can’t give up when challenged.  Nature does challenge you, but also gives such splendid rewards. 😉

This is an ongoing process, for sure.  I didn’t just wake up one day and start doing all of this.  It was a gradual endeavor with every new discovery of my own contribution to pollution.

So…there you have it…my efforts towards helping instead of hurting the environment.

I think if we all took those first steps, and built on that, we would greatly reduce our dependency on petroleum.  Everything helps and every bit matters.