The Biggest Canadian Climate Protest (Ottawa)

The largest Canadian demonstration on climate change is taking place this Saturday in Ottawa on Saturday, Oct. 24th. Thousands of climate activists will be joining forces on The Hill to give a strong message for real action on climate change at the Copenhagen climate negotiations in December.

There are three major campaigns converging:

1 - The 350 campaign is doing global demonstrations on Saturday Oct. 24th, demanding Copenhagen change. There is over 4,000 events organized across the planet in 170 countries, Ottawa being one of them.

2 - Power Shift Canada is the largest youth lobbying on climate change in the nation. Over a thousands youth climate activists will be meeting for a conference from Oct. 23rd - 26th and be presenting a flash mob dance on the Saturday. Please see Australia's similar flash mob dance for an example of what is to come, see link (video a bit slow at the beginning, it picks up by the middle).

3 - Climate Day: Fill The Hill is placing a thousands activists on the steps of Parliament. Eco-celebrity, Rob Stewart, of the award-winning film Sharkwater and his new film in production called Rise Again, will be the key-note speaker.

Bus from Toronto to Ottawa:


The bus leaves at 9am in front of Hart House (7 Hart House circle) on
Friday the 23rd. The cost is $50 round trip per person. You can pay in
cash or cheques (made out to "Taking It Global Youth Association") on
friday morning before you board the bus.

http://maps.google.ca/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=hart+house+toronto+on&sll=48.341646,-97.207031&sspn=53.542002,158.027344&ie=UTF8&hq=Hart+House&hnear=Hart+House&ll=43.672776,-79.394417&spn=0.026819,0.077162&z=14&iwloc=D


The bus will be parking in the parking lot of City View United Church.
We will go to the conference from there via public transit.

http://maps.google.ca/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=city+view+united+church+ottawa+ontario&sll=43.672776,-79.394417&sspn=0.026819,0.077162&ie=UTF8&hq=city+view+united+church&hnear=Ottawa,+ON&ll=45.383984,-75.719147&spn=0.110198,0.308647&z=12&iwloc=A

The bus will leave the conference at 6pm on Sunday, and will return
back at Hart House at around 11pm.

Meet the woman at Ground Zero of the tar-sands fight

[Editor's note: Every month, I profile an environmental activist from Canada or abroad in a series called "Eco-Warriors." These profiles are part of a collection of stories I am working on for a book called The Next Eco-Warriors.]

Imagine being afraid of the air your daughter breathes, watching your family burying their friends from rare cancers connected to toxic leakage, being unable to eat the plants or animals around you because they are sick, and swimming in your local lake has become dangerous to your health. This is not the picture of a future world gone ecologically mad. This is reality right now for Eriel Tchekwie Deranger, a 30-year-old Dene native living downstream from the tar sands of Alberta.

For Eriel and many other First Nations communities living in Fort Chipewyan, ground zero of the tar-sands fallout, this eco-nightmare is everyday life. But Eriel, coming from a long line of activists, is, as she says, “standing up to the madness.” Deranger is the Tar Sands Campaigner for the Rainforest Action Network.

Uncomfortable calling herself an eco-activist, much less an “eco-warrior,” Deranger considers her work with RAN more to be defending indigenous rights. She argues that what is happening with the tar sands is just a continuation in North America of the same old genocidal tactics: trampling on the basic needs of First Nations people in the name of economic prosperity. But whose prosperity is it? In the past, it was colonialists appropriating land and resources. Today, it is the air, water, food and livelihoods of Canada’s aboriginal communities that are being poisoned because of governments’ and corporations’ get-rich-quick scheme in dirty oil.

“Whether it be environmental activism, Indigenous rights activism or any kind of activism — it all comes down to fighting for our survival,” says Deranger.

And survival is what is at stake, she says. Because what has been touted as the world’s largest energy project is also the world’s most destructive engineering project. Andrew Nikiforuk, the crusading journalist who has been exhaustively chronicling the destructive effects of this project writes in his book Tar Sands: Dirty Oil and the Future of a Continent:

A business-as-usual case for the tar sands will change Canada forever. It will enrich a few powerful companies, hollow out the economy, destroy the world’s third-largest watershed, industrialize nearly one-quarter of Alberta’s landscape, consume the last of the nation’s natural gas supplies, and erode Canadian sovereignty.

Not to mention carve into the boreal forest (a larger carbon sink than the Amazon rainforest); inject toxins into the Athabasca River through tailing-pond leakage (the same chemicals, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, or PAH, that are associated with the rare cancers found in First Nations communities); make Canada one of the only countries to use nuclear power to increase fossil fuel development; and blacken the sky with increasing greenhouse gas emissions.

“We need a moratorium on new tar sands development. We can’t continue to expand. It’s absurd and idiotic to push forward,” says Deranger.

Deranger is willing to achieve that moratorium with any and all kinds of non-violent means that she can. From demonstrations, rallies, days of action, and her most recent protest: scaling to the top of a Canadian flagpole at the Royal Bank of Canada’s (RBC) Toronto headquarters , dropping a banner reading “Please Help Us Mrs. Nixon.com.” This appeal, by RAN and the Ruckus Society, was directed at Janet Nixon, wife of RBC CEO Gordon Nixon, asking her to lend her strong and influential voice with her husband to pull the bank’s massive investments in Alberta tar sands projects.

For Deranger, information is power and it is her hope that more Canadians, including influential Canadians like Nixon, will get the message through acts such as these.

“All of the little things slowly add up and it is my hope that more eyes will open and more people will stand up for what is right,” says Deranger.

All of us, as Canadians, have our hands in dirty oil development, whether we realize it or not. When we pump up for gas at Shell, we are funneling money to the largest stakeholder in the oil sands.By doing our banking at RBC, our money is being invested into the largest banker of the oil sands. Not to mention how much of our taxes are being diverted into our governments’ support for the tar sands.

Eco Chamber #14: Science Fiction and Fact collide in Alberta’s tar sands

It’s scary sometimes how science fiction can parallel with reality. The Tar Sands dilemma has come to do just that. As we seek to find a solution to our intensive emissions, here in Canada we are putting all our eggs in one basket, with carbon capture and storage, in a scheme that resembles the story of Isaac Asimov’s Foundation series more than a realistic plan for the future.

The book trilogy by Asimov closely resembles that of our climate peril. In both, humans are aware that a catastrophic event is near, and attempt to plan for it (In our case, the catastrophe is the global meltdown that the tar sands heavily contribute to). In the Foundation books, they store knowledge for a new civilization to build upon. Down here on earth, we are instead attempting to store problematic CO₂ deep inside the earth where it will (supposedly) remain. In both scenarios, we don’t know if disaster is ultimately averted or not. The problem is, one is a work of fiction, and the other is a real question of urgent public policy.

Carbon capture and storage (CCS) has been proposed as a catchall solution to runaway climate change by the Canadian government. The problem is, we simply don’t know if it actually is a solution, and there are too many risks involved to treat it as the silver bullet that will save us.

The idea behind CCS is that through integrated technology, carbon dioxide can be captured directly from industrial sources — including coal plants and the oil sands — treated, liquefied, and pumped deep into the earth where it will do no harm. Something that would have seemed like science fiction 20 or 30 years ago is now seriously being considered by Canada’s political leadership.

The federal government and the government of Alberta are together pouring $3 billion collectively into this project. By 2015, the province hopes to have five or six CCS project on the run, pulling 10 million tonnes of CO₂ a year from our air.

But CCS technology is in its infancy and it could be 10 or even 20 years away from being commercialized and affordable on a large enough scale to deal with the carbon emissions of the tar sands, according to The Hill Times. Meanwhile, we are continuing and expanding emissions. And there are environmental regulations and long-term liabilities that have not even begun to be established.

The science fiction scenarios contiue, in which we’re threatened by a human-made carbon tsunami. Leakage or bursts of compressed stored carbon would be deadly, suffocating every living thing in its radius. This kind of carbon disaster has already occurred in Lake Nyos, Cameroon. In August of 1986, carbon at the bottom of the lake surfaced roaring in invisible form in a 19 kilometre death zone, killing 1,700 people, 3,000 cattle, countless birds, and insects — essentially, everything in sight.

True, carbon nightmares like these are rare. Carbon can store for millions of years underground safely in the right geological chemistry, as found in a study in Nature. Even the Pembina Institute, a tar-sands watch dog, says the chances of leakage is slim. As well, Alberta is prime land for carbon storage as the province has stored oil and gas underground for millions of years already.

“(But) you can never factor out human error, pipelines and earthquakes. So why would we take that risk when we don’t have to?,” said Emily Rochon from Greenpeace in an interview with the Canadian Press.

Disingenuous politicians are claiming CCS technology could be a panacea, with all its many uncertainties, but call renewable energies like wind and solar the “risky” ones. Sure, solar, wind and biomass are not the stuff of utopian dreams either, as Jeremy Nelson pointed out recently in This. But shouldn’t reducing GHG and promoting energy efficiently be our ultimate goal — not aiding further climate crimes?

Sure, it’s not all bad. CCS can assist positively in our tar sands and climate perils. As according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, CCS could contribute 15 to 55 percent of the world’s total GHG reductions between now and 2100 if successful. In Canada, we could potentially reduce 40 percent of our emissions by 2050. This is good news. But it will still not be enough to bring Alberta’s emissions down, which at present are 58 million tonnes a year and are only expected to increase with oil sands expansion. Let’s face it: CCS is being wielded as a distraction in order to support the status quo today.

Therefore, putting all our eggs in one basket to stave off “thermageddon” is a science-fiction writer’s fantasy – not a realistic plan. At best, CSS is one of many transitional solutions to creating our green economy. It is not our one and only shining star.

[Next week: meet one activist who is fighting tar sands development, plus why a moratorium is crucial.]

Canada failing the Climate Battle

There is a sense of progress in the air. For the first time in over a decade, G8 countries and developing nations, including China and India, have agreed to reduce their emissions in absolute numbers. But as this global parade marches on, Canada is being left behind as our emissions continue to climb.

The G8 Summit, lead by President Obama, last week finished talks in Italy with industrialized nations and emerging economies agreeing to an 80 per cent emissions cut by 2050, as well as a 2° C threshold. There is still much work to be done, including establishing the essential base year for reductions, the debate ranging from 1990 to 2006 levels. However, for the first time there is American leadership on our climate peril that is driving change not only domestically, but internationally.

“I know in the past, the United States has sometimes fallen short of meeting our responsibilities. So, let me clear: those days are over,” said Obama last week in L’Aquila, Italy.

In the United States, since Obama took office, C02 has been declared officially a danger; $60 billion is being pumped into renewables; and the House recently approved the Waxman-Markey climate bill that will change American fossil fuel reliance, as well as spell out action internationally at the Copenhagen Climate Conference in December. Which is not to say there hasn’t been criticism of the Obama administration and the climate bill itself, but these are the first signs of action by a political leader on our global meltdown.

But where does all this political change in climate change leave Canada? According to the WWF’s 2009 Climate Scorecards, dead last.

Canada ranked last out of all the G8 countries for its climate performance. In 2008, the U.S. held this spot. But since Obama took the lead in climate initiatives, Canada is now the one stalling progress.
“Canada’s per capita emissions are among the highest in the world (next to Russia)” states WWF.

We currently emit 24 tonnes of C02 per capita and, despite being one of the first countries to sign the Kyoto Protocol, we are one of the furthest from our Kyoto target. The Kyoto Protocol required a 6 percent emissions decrease by 2012. Since the Accord was established, we have increased emissions by 26 percent. One of our biggest emitters is the Alberta Tar Sands project.

“The Alberta Tar Sands are becoming Canada’s number one global warming machine,” says Tony Clarke, Polaris Institute Director, in his book Tar Sands Showdown.

With Middle East and African oil presenting problems of price fluctuations and political uncertainty, Alberta’s unconventional but secure sources of oil are looking increasingly attractive to global markets. However, production of one barrel of oil from these bitumen deposits produce three times more greenhouse gases (GHGs) than conventional oil. The project pumps out 27 million tonnes of CO2 emissions per year, or 16% of the total emissions of Canada.

And the government only has plans for expansion. The project is expected to multiply as much as four to five times by the year 2015 to meet growing demand. That’s 108 to 126 megatonnes of GHG poured into the atmosphere annually. That would make the tar sands the single largest industrial contributor of greenhouse gases in North America.

Reducing GHGs by 80 percent, as Canada pledged last week to do, while planning to expand the tar sands project, is simple math that does not add up. We can’t have our cake and eat it too – or in this case, have our bitumen cash crop and claim sustainability. Even if our only emitting producer were the tar sands project and we lived in some eco-utopia otherwise, we are still overextending our GHG emissions with further development of this project.

Singlehandedly, the tar sands sabotage any possibility of Canada fulfilling a Copenhagen climate agreement.

Yet in last Saturday’s Globe & Mail, in an interview with Prime Minister Stephen Harper, he said: “A realistic commitment (in the battle against climate change) is consistent with growth in the oil sands.” Frankly, no, it’s not.

[Next week in Part 2 of 3: why carbon-capture and storage is no silver bullet solution for the tar sands]

Eco Chamber #12: Solving our Garbage Footprint

The buzzword around Toronto for the past two weeks has been “garbage.” The garbage that is pilling up around public canisters into miniature CN Towers. The garbage that is filling parks and arenas a quarter full arousing smells and attracting pests to local neighbors. And the garbage Torontonians left behind after the celebratory mess of the Pride Parade and Canada Day.

Its day 12 of a public workers strike in Toronto and already there are signs of our livable-city utopia coming crashing down as garbage stinks up our homes, city and, apparently, attitudes. Some argue the city is keeping its cool. But like all things under smoldering summer heat, it can only keep so long until it ferments. This summer Torontonians will need to face the problem festering in the bins outside our houses: the enormous amount of waste we make.

According to the Toronto Star, Ontario produces 12.4 million tonnes of garbage annually. That is the equivalent weight of more than 80,000 fully loaded Boeing 707 jetliners. Out of that, only 3 million tonnes—just 20 percent—of garbage is diverted into recycled goods despite our aggressive recycling system. Many Ontario landfills will reach full capacity in less than 20 years.

Much of our waste is plastic water bottles, packaging and coffee cups. In Toronto alone, there are 1 million plastic water bottles discarded daily and another 1 million coffee cups, says the Star.

But we can’t blame Starbucks and the Coca-Cola water brand Dasani for this. We are the consumers creating this waste. And while climate change is the umbrella issue of our time, there are other issues that get veiled over. Like the big smelly elephant in the room that nobody likes talking about – our consumption and the waste that follows it.

As individuals, there are many ways to reduce our trash footprint. Adria Vasil promotes several ways to do this in her EcoHolic column, including: composting, going meat-free, package-free, as well as things we commonly don’t think about—such as separating our condoms and “hygiene products.”

GarbageRevolution.com is a film and website that experiments with keeping one’s garbage for an extended period of time to assess our individual garbage output.

There are plenty of additional ways we can redirect our waste into more useful means outside of dumpsites. Treehugger reports that Broward County, Fla., for example is using garbage as a resource in waste-based energy production, creating alternatives for our energy crisis. And Houston’s Waste Management will be converting garbage into fuel and electricity with waste gasification in a joint venture with InEnTec, says Kevin Bulls in Technology Review.

There are plenty of ways of slimming down and transforming our waste streams. But the one thing we can’t do is continue to think of garbage as a simple summer inconvenience with the public workers strike. Otherwise we will literally sink communities and the oceans with our Timmy’s coffee cups. Let’s be bold and face our own stink.

Eco Chamber #11: The Green Consumerism Lie

It seems like everything has “gone green” these days. From retailers to celebrities, airlines to hotels, banks to even runway fashion, the environment is sexy in the marketplace for the first time. But is all the publicity really helping Mother Nature? When consumers are being “greeenwashed” in their attempt to fit into a petite size footprint, there is a serious problem-the status quo.

Greenwashing, like whitewashing, is masks inconvenient truths about the sustainability of products and services. By appearing to be environmentally sensitive, companies are earning billions in “green” revenue. Meanwhile, consumers are misled in their attempts to live green, unknowingly contributing further to planetary destruction.

“It’s greenwashing when a company or organization spends more time and money claiming to be ‘green,’ through advertising and marketing, than actually implementing business practices that minimize environmental impact,” says the Greenwashing Index, a web site that rates the authenticity of companies’ and products’ eco-friendliness.

And the sad reality is most green products out there are bogus. Exactly 98% of products that claim green labels in the market place are greenwashed, says a report by the TerraChoice Environmental Marketing in April. The company says there are seven eco-sins that companies commit, including: misleading consumers about the environmental benefits of a product or the practices of a company; hidden trade offs, for example, energy efficiency versus the production of hazardous chemicals; and vagueness, such as using terms like “green,” “eco-friendly,” and “natural.” Does a naturally-occurring substance like formaldehyde conjure up ideas of eco-consciousness for you?

One example of a greenwashing company is Shell. Shell Canada is currently providing grant money for up to $100,000 towards four major initiatives that improve and preserve the Canadian environment, and $10,000 grants to grassroots, action-oriented projects. And in its ad campaigns, Shell promotes itself as sustainable and eco-friendly. Is this true? Is Shell becoming a business leader in our ecologically pivotal time?

I think not. Shell is spending billions to be the lead company in the business of dirty and unconventional oil with the Alberta Tar Sands. That helps to extend our dependency on fossil fuels and contributes to the most destructive and greenhouse gas-intensive method of oil extraction on earth. The Tar Sands produces 40 million tonnes of CO₂ emissions annually for Canada through this project. Such projects make it impossible for us to meet any significant global climate agreement, like Kyoto, and probably Copenhagen.

However, there is an immune response to all this consumer corruption. Today, there are a number of groups that work as third parties in environmental labelling, such as EcoLogo, Energy Star or Green Seal. There are science-based marketing firms that assist in transforming companies to the ‘green path,’ like TerraChoice. And there are numerous references and indexes for the every-day consumer in verifying the genuine nature of a product, like Greenpeace’s Electronics Report and GreenwashingIndex.com.

But with this surge of green-labelling - including some companies that mimic third-party environmental certifications, such as HP’s Eco Highlights products - it’s no wonder why so many of us are still in the dark about greenwashing. Perhaps, as Treehugger.com argues, we need a universal eco-labelling system to make it easier for consumers to really go green.

Or perhaps we need to get our heads out of our greenwashing asses. Making change involves getting smarter. We cannot keep expecting someone else to do it for us. Being informed as a consumer and human being in our choices is our responsibility. Relying on the other guys is what got us into the mess we are in. Like brainwashing, let’s take back our brains back - and leave the washing for cleaning our hybrid cars with biodegradable products.

Eco-Chamber 10: Peru’s civil war for the Amazon

A war broke out this month. A war not to the east but to the south, that has been little covered by the media. It comes complete with human rights violations, murder, and corruption caused by the exploitation of the Amazon. The blood of this war is on Canada’s hands.

On Friday, June 5, an estimated 600 Peruvian police officers opened fire on thousands of peaceful indigenous protesters blocking the destruction of their Amazon homeland on a road near Bagua in Peru. This joint police-military operation went awry when 30 protesters and 24 police offers were killed in one of the worst clashes in a decade, causing a war between the Peruvian government and Indigenous peoples.

For the past two months, over 30,000 Indigenous Peruvians have mounted fuel and transport blockades to disrupt the exploitation of the Amazon rainforest. They are working to block the advancement of free trade agreements that opens the Amazon and indigenous land for business with foreign investors. The trade agreement, specifically with Canada and America, seeks oil, minerals, timber, and agriculture, which will in effect devastate the greatest carbon sink on the planet, accelerating climate change.

Police attempting to forcefully remove indigenous protesters blocking a road outside Bagua, Peru, June 5, 2009. Photo by Thomas Quirynen.
“If anyone still had doubts about the true nature of these free trade agreements, the actions of the Peruvian government make it clear that they are really about putting foreign investment ahead of everything else, including the livelihoods — and even the lives — of indigenous people,” says Jamie Kneen, Communications and Outreach Coordinator for MiningWatch Canada.

Earlier this month, Peru’s president, Alan Garcia, said the indigenous protesters were standing in the way of progress, modernity, and were part of an international conspiracy to keep Peru impoverished with their blockades.

“Garcia seemed to imply the Natives were a band of terrorists as he stood in front of hundreds of military officers in a nationally televised speech,” says Ben Powless, a reporter from the frontlines with Rabble.ca. “He continued to decry the Indian barbarity and savagery, and called for all police and military to stand against savagery.”

There are conflicting stories on the accounts of what took place on the June 5 bloodbath. Police dispatches claim that when they arrived to physically remove protesters, many officers were disarmed, killed, or taken prisoner by the protesters.

But indigenous people and families of missing protesters say that the police came looking for a fight. Police and military acted in a violent sweep, searching local towns and houses for protesters, shooting to kill.

A human rights lawyer in the region told the BBC that while 30 protesters have been officially proclaimed dead, hundreds still remain unaccounted for. Locals are accusing police of burning bodies, throwing them in the river from helicopters, and removing the wounded from hospitals to hide the real number of casualties.

Powless reports that a curfew has been imposed on the local towns near the area of Bagua and these Amazonian towns have become militarized. The government has begun persecuting and threatening jail for local indigenous leaders. And fear is growing that the government is trying to build support in further repressing the protesters.

“This is not a path to peace and reconciliation,” says Powless.

One Canadian company that will benefit directly from this rollback of indigenous rights is the Alberta-based petrochemical firm Petrolifera. The Peruvian government recently signed an agreement with Petrolifera to explore land inhabited by one of the world’s last uncontacted tribes, a blatant human rights violation for the purposes of enriching the tar sands development.

“Canada is the largest investor in Peru’s mining sector. If people are being killed on behalf of Canadian investors, to promote and protect investment projects on Indigenous land, then their blood is on our hands,” says MiningWatch Canada’s Kneen.

Eco Chamber 9: The Problem with 2 Degrees

[Editor's note: Every month, Eco-Chamber profiles an environmental activist from Canada or abroad, called "Eco-Warriors." These profiles are a collection of stories Emily is working on for a book called The Next Eco-Warriors.]

In a matter of 10 months, she went from eco-nobody to climate justice crusader. Attempting to put island nations back on the map of our climate future. She shows that it’s not just the scientists, politicians and eco-celebs like Al Gore who are making waves.

As a new activist in the ‘eco-warrior’ world, Lauryn Drainie, a 21-year-old Japanese-Canadian, fell into climate justice work unexpectedly. Though she had no in-depth knowledge or background in the climate cause, she was chosen to be a Canadian youth delegate at the Poznan, Poland climate conference last December . What happened there changed her life.

“At the negotiations, I was shocked at the extent to which Small Island Developing States (SIDS) were marginalized,” says Drainie.

It was in Poznan that she realized the problem with the 2°C-degree global temperature rise target that is deemed “acceptable” by many climate experts. That target, while it would help save many inland ecologies, would leave many of the SIDS uninhabitable as the sea level rises. These already marginalized groups are on the brink of literally losing their homelands, their livelihoods, their cultures and languages as climate refugees.

This is what economists call an “opportunity cost.” The opportunity: for us in the well-to-do West to leave some margin of error and gradually reduce our emissions over the next few decades. The cost: up to 130 million people becoming climate refuges in the next 50 years. The scientific consensus, numerous environmental groups and wealthy governments around the world have all decided this is a cost worth paying – but most of those people won’t be affected nearly as quickly as SIDS.

Drainie says this 2°C degree target is mostly deemed acceptable because the SIDS and other developing countries have little clout at these climate talks. In her accounts of Poznan, she discovered that SIDS leaders were provided cheap accommodations with no telephones, TVs or even e-mail access, while the higher-ups were given penthouses with all the amenities. The SIDS were almost literally in the dark, unable to communicate the threat they face.

Lauryn Drainie and other Youth Delegates offers a placard to the Environment Minister of Nepal, while blocking the entrance to the negotiations room. Photo Credit: Robert van Waarden
To make the voiceless heard at the conference, the Youth Coalition, which included Drainie, blocked the doors of the conference house on day five, forcing country representatives to talk with them. In that moment, they negotiated with these representatives to sign on to a Survival Principle in the Post-2012 climate treaty, a principle that safeguards the survival of all countries and all peoples.

Ninety countries signed on and the Youth Coalition received supporters from such prominent individuals as Nobel Peace Prize winner Wangari Maathai. The next morning, they found that the newly released Ministerial Summary Document on Shared Vision had the Survival Principle included. They had single-handedly put the marginalized back at the discussion table.

Today, Drainie is coordinating a climate justice speaking tour across Canada with SIDS community leaders, giving countless speeches herself on the plight of SIDS and is helping put together a book celebrating these vibrant cultures that may be forever lost due to climate change. The fight is still far from being won for SIDS and other marginalized groups, but this newbie eco-warrior is helping climate leaders hear those who need it most urgently.

Eco Chamber # 8: Michaelle Jean's Misleading Seal Feast

By now, you’ve probably heard about the Queen’s representative eating the raw heart of a dead seal this week. But there is more going on here than just heating up the old debate over the Canadian seal hunt — the news event continued a tradition of misleading the Canadian public about this issue.

General Michaëlle Jean’s legitimized the Canadian seal hunt this week by participating in gutting and eating the artery of a seal with Inuit groups while on a visit to Rankin Inlet, Nunavut. Jean claims this culinary experience showcased in front of national media was to assert Inuits’ rights to their cultural heritage. But is this really about fostering our multiculturalism?

“It’s like Sushi,” Jean said at the time.

But unlike eating a piece of raw fish at your local Japanese restaurant, there is more at stake here than a cultural experience. In a month when the European Union has banned Canadian commercial seal hunt products, it seems like more than coincidental timing for Jean’s “good-will” gesture. If anything, this act was a political maneuver, legitimizing the Canadian seal hunt on the grounds of cultural autonomy for suffering Inuit groups.

However, there is significant blurring of the lines between two starkly different industries: the commercial seal hunt in the east coast of Canada and traditional Inuit hunts in the far north.
The east-coast hunt consists of targeting 300,000 baby Harp seals in Newfoundland and the St. Lawrence Gulf annually for seal products like furs, pelts and extracts for Omega-3 pills. It is a commercial industry that hires 6,000 off-season fishermen and earns $5.5 million. In contrast, the Inuit hunt that has been practiced for over 4,000 years kills 10,000 Ring seals (a mere 3 percent of the industrial seal hunt) in the Northern territories. It is mainly practiced for food and the local economy.

“There is a difference in an indigenous culture’s right to hunt for food and economic survival, and the non-indigenous Newfoundlander’s massive slaughter of defenceless animals for profit and vanity,” says Patrick Doyle, CEO of NativeRadio.com.

Furthermore, the Inuit have been exempt from the EU ban while the east-coast hunt hasn’t. However, Inuit were exempt in the ban by European countries in the 1980s, yet they were still negatively affected. Which is something surely to be taken into consideration, more so by Canada than Europe. Nevertheless, there are important distinctions to be made in the Canadian seal hunt.

Almost no animals-rights groups are condemning the Inuit hunt — they focus their campaigns on the east-coast commercial hunt. And to suggest otherwise, as Jean has in defending the Inuit seal hunt as if these things are equivalent, masks these important distinctions.

But few feel anyways GG’s political feast will have any affect in swaying European opinion in changing its pace to Canada’s banning.

“The fact that the Governor General in public is slashing and eating a seal, I don’t think really helps the cause and I’m convinced this will not change the minds of European citizens and politicians,” Barbara Slee, an activist with the International Fund for Animal Welfare, told the Toronto Star.

But what this gesture does do is continue a kind of blackout for Canadians. It dupes the public about one of Canada’s great shames in the international sphere (next to the Alberta tar sands). It mixes up one of the largest mass slaughters of mammals with a culturally unique and comparatively small traditional hunt. They’re not the same.

Yet this story is the same old story; Japan too claims to be defending its “culture” with its annual Southern Ocean whale hunt of nearly a thousand whales, including endangered ones.

Governments cannot hide behind culture in the face of their own eco-injustice.

Eco Chamber # 7: The Question of Energy

It is my birthday this week. As I turn 25, there is one question I face: do I have a future? My life from here on out, and the lives of my generation, will be shaped by the choices we make now. The choices we make depend on one word: energy.

We are at a precipice. We either make a paradigm shift in the 21st century with our energy consumption. Or we stand to repeat the 20th century with “fossil fool” reliance and be doomed. Essentially, I either have a future or I don’t.

Energy sourcing will be the most important issue in the next 10 to 20 years and will shape the remainder of this century, as well as beyond. Presently, 86 percent of the world’s energy comes from fossil fuels — oil, coal and gas. These energy sources ave shaped our way of life in the 20th century, providing us with our technological advances and many creature comforts along the way. But running cars, heating up our bathtubs and blaring TV sets come with a price tag of more than just money.

The price could be the my generation’s future. Fossil fuels are destroying landscapes with strip mining (such as what’s happening in the Appalachian Mountains for coal), polluting air and water, and is the number one contributor to anthropogenic climate change.

Yet there are reasons for hope as U.S. President Barack Obama has shown great strides in changing energy practices. The president plans to make sustainability “the centerpiece of a new American economy.” He aims to implement a “Green New Deal” that would double solar, wind and biomass energy sources and cut U.S. dependency on oil with fuel-efficient auto standards. These transformations can create jobs and make for a more energy-secure superpower.

However, developing countries like China, India, and parts of the Middle East will still account for 80 percent of future oil demands. Therefore, “fossil fuels will continue to meet 80 per cent of global energy needs for the foreseeable future,” Thomas Axworthy recently wrote in the Toronto Star.

And if there is no global plan to reduce emissions, scientists are now stating there is a 90 percent probability that temperatures will rise between 3.5° to 7.4°C on the earth’s surface. This will have a horrendous impact on all life on the planet.

Hence, there needs to be a global energy shift. Some argue that this shift comes in the form of nuclear. Jeremy Nelson makes this argument in the current cover story of This: that to battle climate change, he says, it’s not renewables we need to turn to, but an older generation of power, nuclear. He argues that solar and wind energy is unreliable because they fluctuate, and still lag in development, while nuclear energy is zero-emissions now.

Despite grudgingly agreeing with Nelson that to be a pro-environmentalist today might mean being pro-nuclear, there is still a mighty can of worms being opened with nuclear power generation.

Nuclear might in fact be used to accelerate Canada’s desire to become the next fossil-fuel superpower: It will be used for the energy needs of the Alberta tar sands, says Andrew Nikiforuk in his book Tar Sands: Dirty Oil and the Future of a Continent. Nuclear would assist in the production of the unconventional oil that already emits three times

more greenhouse gases than a conventional barrel of oil does.

So ironically, increasing nuclear power in Canada may actually increase fossil fuel emissions, rather than lowering them. There are some benefits to shifting now to a low-emission nuclear — but nuclear is not the be-all-and-end-all for energy. At best, it might be a temporary solution for action today, this year, even perhaps for the next 10-20 years on climate change. But for the remainder of the century, other means of energy need to be considered.

We, as humans, think we know it all. But perhaps we don’t know what the energy of the 21st century will be yet. Perhaps it is in research and development that we could find it. The Obama administration has recently given stimulus to R&D with 3 percent of the nation’s GDP — that is US$46 billion annually — put into prospects for the future.

Is my sense of urgency premature? I am, after all, only 25. But this is the year, a make-it or break-it year, with the Copenhagen Climate Conference. A year that is our next, and probably final, chance for a climate agreement to make fossil fuels history. We either have a future or we don’t: the answer depends on shifting energy — and shifting now.

Eco Chamber #6: The Activism of Bikes

Not many see bikes as a symbol for activism. However, that is just what the Toronto Cyclists’ Union is changing. They advocate for a more bike-friendly city to encourage environmental, social and urban sustainability.

“Think of us as the Canadian Automobile Association of bikes. Like CAA, 80% of our work is advocacy. However, instead of advocacy for the automobile, we advocate for bikes,” says Yvonne Bambrick, Executive Director of the Toronto Cyclists Union (TCU).

Two wheels are on the rise throughout North America. Portland, Oregon , for instsance, recently outpaced Copenhagen in the #2 spot for “best bike cities.” Toronto is seeing a rapid influx of cyclists in its urban spaces. According to Treehugger, the latest census report shows that from 2001 to 2006, cyclists have increased by 32 percent, while the automobile commuters have decreased by 5.2 percent.

The TCU was formed out of a desire to replicate bike advocacy groups found elsewhere in North America. With such a rise of cyclists in Toronto, it is time to build more bike lanes and for cyclists’ voices to be heard in a city where cars have mostly dominated, says Bambrick. In 2008, the group’s launch year, there were 70 members of the Union. Within a year, that number has grown to nearly 600.

“The bike is a powerful tool. It’s a no-emissions means of transportation; a way of battling climate change, smog and city pollution; low-cost for individuals; relieves the overburden city congestion; and promotes better health,” says Bambrick.

But bike advocacy faces challenges: there are city councilors who consistently prioritize parking and traffic issues, instead of issues relevant to cyclists. Some of the city’s infrastructure plans consider pedestrians and greenery over bikes. And then there’s the generalized North American mentality that the automobile rules — and anything else is road-kill.

But the TCU is maneuvering around these barriers this year. Boosted by its members’ dues, the TCU is an aggressive lobbyist at the municipal, provincial and federal level. Last week, speaking at a Toronto city infrastructure meeting, the TCU advocated building new bike lanes as part of a redevelopment plan for Jarvis Street, a five-lane road that currently acts as an artery for auto traffic. An amendment was approved and new bike lanes should be included when the plan passes council.

Beyond transforming roads, TCU is attempting to transform minds. From road rage against cyclists — road rage so toxic that a 36-year-old man lost a leg in a confrontation with a taxi last year — The TCU wants to restore some respect for cyclists’ rights, and their media efforts are helping to do that.

One shouldn’t have to be ‘Brave-Heart’ to cycle to work every day, threatened by cars and minimal lane space, says Bambrick. Instead, the TCU wants to make cycling an activity that every urbanite can do in safety.

As one of our oldest forms of transportation, bikes are also our future. It is a symbol of sustainability and shifting attitudes. In these times, bike advocacy groups are more necessary than ever. They put this back-to-the future two-wheeler in its rightful place in our cities — everywhere.

Eco Chamber #5: The Green Scare

An activist in Goteborg, Sweden was attacked this week for his efforts at crippling the fur industry in Sweden. Some of the furs he targeted in his actions were seal furs from Canada. Branded an “eco-terrorist,” his opponents say he is threatening jobs and the economy. But when the “eco-terrorists” are the ones actually being terrorized, who are the real terrorists here?

Alfred Törre, an animal rights activist in his mid-20’s, had a fire bomb smash through his apartment window. Törre was inside his apartment at the time as his window curtains went up in flames; luckily he was able to extinguish the fire before it spread further. But the police believe that the perpetrator is connected with the Swedish fur industry and the crime has been reported as attempted arson. Törre, who could have been sleeping during the arson attack, fears for his life.

Attacks on “eco-terrorists” are not rare. Some attacks have taken the form of imprisonment by governments; others have been physical intimidation or harm by self-styled vigilantes. In the post 9-11 era, radical environmental activists, such as animal rights activists, have been transformed into ‘eco-terrorists’ in the public eye.

In 2005, the FBI “rated eco-terrorists” as the “top domestic terrorism threat. The media inflamed this threat, with reports appearing in ABC News, BBC News and the Globe & Mail. They all talked about the threat of “eco-terrorism” and gave little voice to the side of the alleged perpetrators—the activists, instead demonizing them.

According to the blog Green is the New Red, a “green scare” has been promoted through ad campaigns in newspapers such as a New York Times and public relations campaigns that have turned innocuous literature like Charlotte’s Web into manifestos of eco-extremism.

But the ones facing the real threats are not society at large or civilians, but the activists themselves. Activists face surveillance and infiltration for their environmental efforts which is damaging our civil liberties. Törre himself had his apartment watched for months, then raided by federal police in 2007, for a perceived link to radical animal rights groups. Following the raid, he spent several months in jail without being informed of the charges against him.

Other activists have been physically beaten and their lives endangered by the goons of industry. In 2003, Allison Watson, a Sea Shepherd activist who was protesting the Taiji dolphin hunt, was brutally attacked by some local fishermen. She was run over by a fisherman’s boat while in the water, and another fisherman attempted to strangle the activist with rope.

This kind of green-fear-mongering is not to make us safer, but to promote a corporate agenda, a corporate agenda that the “eco-terrorists” threaten when they protest against dolphin, whale, seal, and fur commodization, among other things. But this message gets slanted to protecting jobs and the economy and much of the public buys into this argument.

Take for example the Canadian seal hunt, before this recent EU ban on seal products, the seal industry brought in $5.5 million to our GDP and 6,000 jobs. Eco-actions against the 300,000 baby seals clubbed every year were deemed as “eco-terrorism” that threatened jobs and the local economy.

But what are the costs to demonizing eco-activists? Beyond the obvious environmental degradation that gets subverted, our rights and democracy are at risk.

Standing up against injustice, being an engaged citizen, and voicing opposition promotes a healthy functioning democracy. Freedom of speech is our basic civil liberty. Threatening these cripples our society.

The attack on Törre is not a simple arson investigation, but part of a larger societal problem. The problem being that the real eco-terrorists, corporations and conservative governments that aid them, are scaring us into inaction, or bullying those who do act, for the sake of private profit.

Eco chamber #4: Eco-Warrior Profile - Alex Morton

Every month, Eco-Chamber profiles an eco-activist from Canada and abroad, called "Eco-Warriors." Eco-Warriors takes a look at both the activist and the environmental issue they fight for, using such approaches as direct action, legal crusading, documentary filmmaking, or green commerce.

As a lover of whales, Alex Morton left eastern plains of Connecticut for the mountainous rainforest of British Columbia. Setting out to study Orca whales, her research soon became more like of a "study of absence," with the whales becoming increasingly rare. She knew the food source of the Orcas was what really needed needed protection: B.C.'s wild salmon. Since there were few people advocating for wild salmon, she became an activist and a scientist.

Short film by Twyla Roscovich

Since 1984, she has written more than 10,000 pages of letters to politicians, written several books, has been profiled in the New York Times, founded a conservation group (adopt-a-fry.org), spoke to the Queen of England in person and led a recent Supreme Court case — yet the fight to protect B.C.'s wild salmon continues.

The problem is fish farms, specifically salmon fisheries. Many people see fish farming as a solution to our 2050 crisis, in which it's predicted the world's wild fish stocks will be depleted because of rising demand and poor management. According to Morton, however, fish farms are more harm than help. Many wild fish are used as pellet food for farmed fish, killing off wild fish populations in the process. Fish farms operated offshore also have the side-effect of infecting wild fish with diseases and parasites.

In British Columbia for example, many Norwegian companies, such as Marine Harvest, operate salmon aquaculture offshore in the south coastal channels, including the Fraser River. Sea lice flourish in these feedlots and attach themselves to baby wild salmon (called "fry") that migrate through the channels. The fry are highly vulnerable and susceptible to infection as they have undeveloped scales. And while parasites, such as sea lice, are a natural occurrence for salmon, the high level of parasite infection coming from fish farms is unnatural. The infection rates are disrupting growth and propagation of the wild salmon and killing off the last of their population.

According to Science magazine, wild pink salmon are likely to become extinct due to offshore fish farming. But the problem does not end with the fry; the fish farms affect the larger B.C. ecosystem, too. Wild salmon are food for such animals as grizzly bears, eagles and Orca whales. Many local communities in B.C. depend upon the wild salmon fishery too. Starting in 2001, Alex Morton watched her community fall apart with the depletion of wild salmon in Echo Bay.

"In Echo Bay, there was once a large community, a school for children and mail delivered three times a week," she says. "Today, there are less then ten people in the community, the school is shut down and there is no mail delivered."

Because there has been no political will to protect wild salmon, and in turn the ecosystem and economy, Morton, in her 50's, decided to take her own direct action. In 2008, Morton founded the Adopt-A-Fry organization, originally with the aim to single-handedly evacuate the wild fry away from the farm-infected areas with her small boat. Since then, last February, her group has gone to the B.C. Supreme Court in a case against one of the largest Norwegian fish farm companies, Marine Harvest, in an attempt to get them off water and on land. Currently, Adopt-A-Fry is collecting signatures on a petition to end offshore fish farming in Canada.

"Farming salmon in Canadian waters is unconstitutional because no one is allowed to privatize ocean spaces, nor schools of fish," says Morton. "Canadian law needs to apply to these Norwegian fisheries."

So far, Morton's petition has gone largely ignored in political circles: B.C. premier, Gordon Campbell and federal Fisheries Minister Gail Shea have both remained silent on the issue. Despite this, the petition has rapidly grown, from 100 signatories in winter 2008 to over 13,000 today. Morton believes that when the petition closes in nearer to a million signatures, the politicians will be forced to listen.

"Somewhere between 13,000 and one million, we will get Canada to follow its own laws," says Morton.

Please visit the group's website to sign the Adopt-A-Fry petition.

Eco Chamber #3 - Earth Day Special: A movement, not a day

April 22nd, 2009 (Earth Day)

One day. That's all. That's all the time dedicated to the environment by 174 nations. That's all the time some one billion people globally will participate in environmental action. That's all, out 365 days a year, and two generations elapsed, since the modern environmental movement began. Earth Day — that is all.

Today's Earth Day is the 39th Earth Day since its inception on April 22, 1970, by U.S. Senator Gaylord Nelson. Earth Day began with the aim of raising awareness of the environment. Today, the Earth Day Network encourages year round participation in the environment. But, typically, people join together on this one day, April 22nd, to do their part by attending an Earth Day festival, planting a tree, or going to a teach-in. But at a time when the entire Arctic ice sheet could be history as early as 2013, is this really enough?

Beyond Earth Day, there is the exploding WWF campaign of Earth Hour, that saw participation of nearly one-sixth the earth's population in 2009 (compared to just a hundred million the previous year). There are many cities that extend Earth Day into Earth Week activities. Planet Green is calling for an Earth Month, where "taking the next step" includes environmental volunteerism and "greening your life." Some, like Greenpeace Canada, call for a green year by making every day Earth Day, and counsels such things as going vegetarian and cutting back on plastic bottles.

But we need more than an Earth Hour, an Earth Day, an Earth Week, an Earth Month or even an Earth Year. Simply flicking off lights for an hour, planting a tree one day of the year, attending "green" events, volunteering occasionally, or recycling and using fewer plastic bags is not enough. We need more than that. We need an Earth Movement.

An Earth Movement is a social uprising — a mobilization of people with a singular goal: the sustainability of our planet and our lives within it.

Now is the time more than ever for an Earth Movement, as we face things like:

• Ocean fish stocks gone by 2050 amid rising demand.
• Destruction of the Amazon rainforest from logging and industrial agriculture. (The Amazon rainforest is not only a huge carbon sink, but also a home to 22 million people and one third of all species in the world.)
• The waste that's stampeding us off a cliff. Ontario alone, despite the pride in its recycling program, produces 12.4 million tonnes of garbage annually while only 3 million tonnes is diverted into recycled goods.
• And let's not forget global climate change. Scientific international consensus states that it is 'virtually certain' there will be a 2°C temperature rise this century — some even argue that a 4-5°C rise is inevitable. Which melts the Greenland and west Antarctic ice sheets, displacing 130 million people as the sea level rises.

However, there is reason to be optimistic about the Earth Movement. The Environmental Protection Agency in the U.S. declared on Friday that CO₂ and five other greenhouses gases are indeed a threat to human health and welfare. Backed by President Obama under the Clean Air Act, this is paving the path to stricter regulations on automobiles, coal fired power plants, and other major emitters.

This sign for optimism has been brought about by a critical mass of activism, public advocacy, and engaged citizenry that has been on the rise for some time. Today there are over 12,000 environmental groups in the U.S., and roughly an equivalent number in Canada. This is the movement that is igniting climate action in Washington and paving a way forward on environmental issues.

The Earth Movement is very much alive — but everyone needs to be engaged in it. Small actions, by people who consider themselves 'green' because they volunteer for environmental causes, bike to work, and hand out the occasional leaflet, are not enough. It's mostly self-serving it doesn't lead to the massive changes that are needed. Though these micro individual changes are good, the macro scale is where the most change needs to happen.

"We're not going to solve this one light bulb at a time, but we just might if we can build one light-filled, light-hearted, lightning-fast movement.," says Bill McKibben, co-founder and director of 350.org, a group that is organizing a global demonstration on October 24, 2009 in Copenhagen.

Therefore, a movement is what we need — not baby-steps by a few. I needs to remain united and inclusive, unlike the movement of the '70s that has since fractured and dissipated. It may seem like I'm asking for a lot here. I am.

But this can happen. Change has happened in the past and it will happen again. It happened because of people, not institutions and politicians. It was people after all who fought the Women's Suffrage movement; people who fought for the Civil Rights Movement. It has, and always has been, citizens who have changed the world.

But we need action and active citizens now if the Earth Movement — and we ourselves — are to survive. It can't be just rhetoric, conversation over the water-coolers or idle thoughts. It can't be just individualistic changes. And it can't be just one day.

Being an activist does not necessary mean standing on the frontlines all tht time. Activism can mean many things, not holding up signs and yelling. Some things we need to do now are promote a green economy by training ourselves and others with the right skills. Over the next few decades, there will be an explosion of green jobs in fields like retrofitting buildings, constructing wind, solar and wave farms, manufacturing parts for those energy farms, urban agriculture and healthy farming, modern efficient urban planning, and public transit.

Activism can also be bringing an environmental angle to other aspects of your life: advocating for green politics in all parties; environmental journalism and writing; speaking out for green causes; documentary filmmaking on eco-issues; art-activism; green education; guerilla gardening; eco-feminism; promotion of green health; connecting ecological causes with social causes such as aboriginal rights; promoting green science and technological development, and so on.

You can be a part of this movement in many ways. But we have to do more than one day's work, and build a worldwide — dare I say — revolution.

Eco Chamber #2: Countdown to Copenhagen

April 17th, 2009

The countdown to Copenhagen is 233 today. That is the number of days left until the Obama administration must sway its own domestic politics by getting Congress on side of climate action, and prove real leadership in global emission reductions. It's a very short timeframe, especially when, in a state of economic turmoil, one big "E" seems to take precedent over another, economics over ecology.

Come December, 170 countries will come together at the Copenhagen Climate Convention in Denmark to attempt at an agreement on reducing greenhouse gases. The Copenhagen agreement will replace the Kyoto Protocol. But like Kyoto, if there is not real leadership from the U.S., the Copenhagen agreement will fail too.

More than leadership, Copenhagen comes down to American politics. Republican and Democratic senators alike are more interested in economics than ecology today, and that attitude will further stall any significant action on climate change. Many scientists say we no longer have any time to wait.

"I frankly think that this Copenhagen is the last chance for us to deal with this problem," Andrew Weaver told the Montreal Gazette recently. Weaver is an Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) contributor and author of Keeping Our Cool: Canada in a Warming World.

With the Arctic now melting faster than scientists had previously believed — possibly reaching 100 percent summer melting as early as 2013 — global climate change is pushing us toward a precipice. International consensus says that by 2050 it is "virtually certain" that temperatures will rise to 1.5° to 2°C, unless there are sharp carbon reductions. Every decade there is delay, experts say, temperatures will continue to rise by half a degree.

On the earth's surface, this temperature rise means that young people today will be living in a vastly re-shaped world when they are older. Thirty percent of species will be at risk of extinction; there will be widespread aridity and crop failure in the global south, where most of the Earth's population lives; and we will see up to 12 meters of sea level rise. That doesn't even get into the new geopolitical world we will be living in, with mass human migrations and conflict.

As we come to a close of the first decade of the 21st century, with emissions only rising, now, more than ever, is the time for action. People around the world en masse are calling for it. This year's Earth Hour had over eighty countries and one billion individuals participating, according to WWF Canada's Communications Director, Josh Laughren, who spoke about the Earth Hour event on the Green Majority radio show on April 10th. That's a huge leap forward from last year's Earth Hour, with 35 countries and between 50 and 100 million participants.

WWF is calling this year's Earth Hour a "global phenomenon." Earth Hour is meant as a symbolic action on the fight against global climate change. By dimming lights, people are voting for the earth and creating a mass demand for action.

However, US deputy special envoy for climate change, Jonathan Pershing, told the Reuters news agency that global climate agreements are complicated. "Finding common ground will take some time."

In domestic American politics, the situation is further complicated. With a recent Congress bill passed that now requires any cap-and-trade climate plan needing sixty votes to see the light of day. And with the two U.S. parties preoccupied with the economy, the prospects for a cap-and-trade bill looks dismal.

President Obama's election promise was to have swift action to combat climate change. the promises included cutting greenhouse gas emissions by 14 percent by 2020 and a cap-and-trade emissions plan. However, on the recent climate talk in Bonn, Germany, as part of a series of talks leading up to Copenhagen, delegates were disappointed with the U.S.'s vague and far-reaching plan to cap emissions. Obama's rapid action on climate now appears cautious and slow.

But slow and steady is a luxury we can no longer indulge in. And people around the world are making a stand for climate action now. At the recent G20 Summit in London, UK, 4,000 protesters were part of a "Climate Camp" protesting against the proposed cap-and-trade systems with slogans including "Nature Doesn't Do Bail-Outs." The activists argued that cap-and-trade is just another system for emitters to hide behind, while true emissions reduction remains on the back burner.

At the same G20 conference, over 20,000 protestors took over the streets of the central banking district, rioting about the economy. For many in Washington, this "separate" issue of the economy is often a fig leaf to hide more inaction on the climate. But economics and ecology are not two mutually exclusive entities. Rather, with a failing economy comes opportunity: opportunity for sustainability, with green industries and jobs, less dependency on oil, and more renewable energy.

Our world is out of check, but we have an opportunity for a sustainable one. Copenhagen is the first and last opportunity for Obama to make it so. But a slack pace will not get us there. Instead, we have 233 days — and the world is counting.

Eco Chamber #1: Past and future in Albany, Western Australia

March 26th, 2009

My heart was beating through my chest as I came within a feet of a harpoon ship and the lethal spike on its bow. But this was unlike the times I had come close to harpoon ships before. Coming back from covering an anti-whaling campaign in the Antarctic, ambushed and attacked by Japanese harpoon ships for weeks, you would think I would be used to seeing these gunner ships. However, this particular ship, the Cheynes IV, was apart of an old Australian whaling fleet and was now an on-land museum of Australian history. The harpoon ship was no longer operational, but my adrenaline kicked in nonetheless as I walked up to it.

Having finished my time onboard ship with Sea Shepherd, the radical anti-whaling campaigners who pursued the Japanese whaling fleet all winter, I took a road-trip down to Albany, Western Australia. A little over 30 years ago, a group of radical activists including my parents, Robert and Bobbi Hunter, protested Australia's whaling here. Leaving almost daily with two Zodiacs off of Albany's coast in September 1977, they were able to harass the Australian whaling fleet. Their protest lead to international attention on Australia's whaling, a national inquiry and the end of the whaling industry in Australia.

Today, Australia is one of the strongest anti-whaling nations in the world. It both supports anti-whaling groups like Sea Shepherd and lobbies against countries that continue to kill whales, such as Japan. And over 30 years later, what I found in Albany in my own visit was a beacon of change. The main industry today in the city eco-tourism and whale-watching. An industry that has brought more income to the city and its citizens than the whaling industry ever did. As tourists from around the world come to Albany to learn about whales and see the great animals alive.

The old whaling station and its harpoon ships in Albany, owned and operated by the Cheynes Beach Whaling Company, are relics of the past. It's now been turned into a museum called Whale World. There, visitors can venture through an old harpoon ship, the Cheynes IV, and the old whaling station, including its processing decks, boiler rooms, storage, and so on.

In Albany, organic local foods are the standard for residents. And the majority of Albany's energy is produced with green wind power, powering 75 percent of the city's energy needs with 12 1,800 KW wind turbines. Albany residents have lowered their greenhouse gas emissions by about 77,000 tonnes annually, which roughly equivalent to the annual emissions of 13,000 homes in the UK.

But out of all of this, the most surprising thing I experienced in Albany was to have an ex-whaler as my tour guide of the city. Kees Van der Gaag is a dutch whaler who came to Australia in 1969. As a master and gunner of the Cheynes II for the Cheynes Beach Whale Company between 1970 and 1977, he always enjoyed the chase but dreaded the kill. After a meeting of minds with anti-whaling protestors in 1977, he quit whaling and found work on a tugboat instead. Now retired and in his 70's, he is a stanch protestor against countries that continue to whale.

"It is horrifically cruel and completely unnecessary," Van der Gaag tells me. "I know better than most, because I used to be a gunner myself."

Whale meat, used in Australia for dog food and in the manufacture of missile lubricants 30 years ago, is not used for anything more crucial today in Japan. There, it is served in cafeterias in high schools, jails and military bases — and still used as dog food. Some things have changed, but others have stayed the same.

It always seems in environmentalist circles that as one battle is won, another one begins, or the larger war rages on undaunted. Counties like Australia, Canada and England no longer kill whales. This is primarily because of protests, such as the one in Albany 30 years ago, that led to international pressure and an international ban on commercial whaling (commercial whaling being the main culprit for landing the great whale species of the world on endangered-species lists in the first place). However, countries such as Japan and Iceland have pried open loopholes and commercial whaling still continues in some parts of the world. These days, nearly a thousand whales, including endangered species, are targeted every year in the Southern Ocean.

But even though the ecological battles of the past may seem lost at times and the eco-fight today is even more global and apocalyptic than ever before — there are symbols that we must hang on to. Albany is one of those symbols.

The city is proof that things can change. The jobs and industries of Albany have been partly transformed into a sustainable green economy. The city is doing better financially because of it. And the chief offenders themselves, the whalers, are now environmentalists. This all happened because of some pretty simple ideas. But those ideas drove people to action. Things have changed for the better in the past and can change again. But it is people, and it has always been people, that make the differance.

Polarized #16: Homeward bound

Feburary 20th, 2009

We received word that a commando ship was after us in the Antarctic Ocean. It was the night of February the 7th, and the Sea Shepherd ship, the Steve Irwin, had chased the Japanese whaling fleet for seven days and nights, stopping them from killing more whales. The chase had come to a climax the day before when there was a collision with the Sea Shepherd ship and a harpoon vessel. But our battle had to end now. News came through that a Japanese security ship would be in the area within a day. The goal of the commando: to board the Sea Shepherd vessel (potentially violently), arrest the crew and destroy video footage, as well as any photographic evidence we had of the hunt.

Many of us onboard wanted to keep fighting. We were willing to risk injury, arrest, perhaps our lives for the cause we had been pursuing since December. And the Sea Shepherd ships have always been expendable: they have been used in ramming and sinking vessels they oppose since 1977 (in non lethal ways, i.e. sinking ships in port with no crew aboard). But the real risk was to our cameras.

The camera has been a tool for change in the environmental movement for over 35 years. The footage we have now showcases the killing of whales, an illegal act in itself — but one that groups like Greenpeace have already shown the world. But we also had captured the whalers on film violating other laws, including their aggressive, violent, and potentially lethal tactics to harm people. The last few days' worth of events had provided a wealth of footage that the world needs to see.

To save our cameras, and to save the footage we've captured with them, might force more governments into action on the issue. So Captain Paul Watson decided to head away from the fleet. We headed southwest for McMurdo base, a U.S. research station near the Ross Ice Shelf (the largest free-standing ice mass on the planet — it's the size of Texas). Slowly, we lengthened the distance between us and the Nisshin Maru, the flagship of the Japanese whaling fleet. At first, we charted a course away from McMurdo, in order not to give away our destination and our course. By falling behind the fleet, it would look like we had mechanical problems and were still tailing the fleet, instead of leaving.

It was February 9th at 9 a.m. when we arrived at the Ross Ice Shelf. It appeared we had escaped the fleet unharmed and the ruse seemed to be working: the fleet had not whaled for another day after we left. It seemed we could relax and enjoy the Ross Ice Shelf, which is an amazing sight. It looks like an ice wall, glowing neon blue, that goes as far as the eye can see on either side of it. It towers a hundred feet above the water, so that you can't see the top of it without a helicopter. The ice goes 900 feet below the water line. We were ending the campaign on a high note, or so we thought.

Out of the fog ahead, we could see a ship. At first the spotters thought it was nothing, an Antarctic mirage. But it wasn't. We thought it might be a legitimate research vessel, a tourist boat, a supply ship — anything but the commando vessel after us. Luckily, it wasn't what we feared, but in a way it was just as bad: the mystery ship was a spotter vessel from the whaling fleet, the Kyoshin Maru 2. Instead of spotting for whales, it was now spotting for us.

Knowing our coordinates were being relayed to the fleet and commando ship, we left the Ice Shelf and ran full-tilt to McMurdo. But it soon became clear that wasn't going to be possible either: hard ice surrounded the base, and all other bases near the Ross Sea. At that point on February 9, Captain Watson decided to head due north to Australia. We would head straight for land and hope that the commando ship did not intercept us. We had no other choice.

I'm writing this 72 hours into our journey north, and we believe we're in the clear. At this point, if the fast commando ship were going to board us, they would have already done so. We are out of the area of the fleet and heading home.

The battle this year is over, but the war continues. Its a war for the whales, but its also for a larger ecology. This is a war because the political conflict over whaling has spurred dangerous confrontations this year, the most dangerous in the history of this conflict. The two sides battled it out for their opposing visions, and national leaders have also chimed in, condemning and condoning the actions of both sides. Some lives — the lives of whales, which Sea Shepherd believes have as much worth as human lives — have been lost, but others have also been saved. The activists could claim this much as victory, for now. But the war still rages on.

Polarized #15: Worlds, and ships, collide

Feburary 19th, 2009

The battle gets ugly. The whalers are desperate. Sea Shepherd keeps blocking the transfer of dead whales, making further whaling impossible in the Southern Ocean. The Sea Shepherd ship, the Steve Irwin, stays close to the stern of the whaling fleet's "mother ship," the Nisshin Maru, preventing any harpoon vessels from transferring their whale cargo to the processing ship.

Desperate for their product not to be spoiled as whales hang dead off the side of two harpoon ships, a third harpoon ship is sent to attack us. Yushin Maru No. 2 closes in on the Steve Irwin, coming within 20 feet. The crew throws metal bolts and uses high-pressured water-cannons on the Sea Shepherd crew. They send blasts from the Long Range Acoustic Device (LRAD), the non-lethal — but extremely painful — sound cannon mounted on board. Then the Yushin cuts dangerously close across our bow several times, and finally, the two ships collide.

"It was a slight nudge, but gangster tactics if I have ever seen them," says Laurens De Groot, a policeman from Holland.

After hours of this chase, the Nisshin Maru ahead turns to circle around. The Irwin, as well as all the harpoon vessels follow, and it becomes a bit like a lethal marry-go-round. We went around in circles like this for hours, nearly causing me to get sick. But my adrenaline was pumping, which kept my seasickness at bay.

Eventually all the ships straighten out, at which point the harpoon boats carrying dead whales attempted to transfer their cargo, with us 100 metres away. The harpoon ships wedged their way between us and the Nisshin maru, and within seconds ropes and lines were being tossed back and forth between the Nisshin Maru and the harpoon ship to begin the transfer.

Unwilling to allow this to happen, Captain Paul Watson took the helm and attempted to get the Steve Irwin between the two vessels ahead, cutting the transport line in the process. Within twenty feet of the vessels, the Irwin shook wildly in their wake. Defiant and unafraid it appeared, the whalers stood their ground and successfully sent the whale up the Nisshin's slipway.

But all was not lost, sailors on board the Yushin Maru No. 3 were getting ready to hastilyy transport a second dead whale onboard. This would be the fifth whale delivered to the Nisshin if successful. We believed this would be the final straw — the whalers would know they could continue their illegal operation with or without the activists around.

Again the harpoon ship came alongside the Nisshin quickly and within seconds lines were being exchanged. Captain Watson steered the Irwin closer than ever, 15, perhaps 10 feet behind the ships ahead. He was attempting to wedge between the ships and cut the line: we were so close it looked like it would be successful. But then I saw it — the whale was in the water on its way to the slipway. Before I could turn to tell anyone, the Irwin was out of control from the choppy waves the harpoon ship produced.

Suddenly, the ship was ten degrees on its side.

Both ships had collided. It looked like each ship was halfway headed into the ocean and halfway up in the air. I was on portside, the side headed for the ocean. But all I could see was the starboard side up in the air. Water cannons were sprayed onto the crew of the Irwin from the harpoon vessel, while the Sea Shepherd activists threw rancid butter cans onto the decks of the harpoon ship. There was a lot of screaming and yelling from both ships, and the screeching of metal as the two vessels slid off each other. This truly felt like war.

Once our ship was off the harpoon vessel, the whaling ships steamed ahead. We fell back to check the damage. The crew found holes in the ship's hull, but they were all above the water line, and there were no serious injuries to the crew. We're safe — just barely. But the Sea Shepherd crew made their stand for the whales.

At that point, whaling stopped. The whalers did not attempt to kill or transfer any more that day. It was 6:30 pm and the battle had ended. But the war goes on.

Five whales lost their lives in this battle on February 6th. But many more would live, because forty individuals from around the world and one black ship made a stand against whaling at the bottom of the world. They stopped a six-ship whaling fleet and its 240 person crew in their illegal hunt for over five days, and put the government-run Japanese organization, the Institute of Cetacean Research, at a stand-still. And they cost the private company, Kyodo Senpaku, that profits off the hunt, tens of millions of dollars. They hurt the whaling industry by making its business less feasible.

Polarized #14: The killing starts again

Feburary 18th, 2009

It's 6:30 in the morning, I fall out of my bunk to the zigzagging motion of our ship and loud sirens coming from outside. I run to the bridge and see high-pressured water-cannons spray the entire port side of the ship. With our crew and my friends outside getting swamped by the water. We pass the Nisshin Maru, the 'mother ship' of the Japanese whaling fleet, on our port. Crew on our eco-ship toss over stink cans to contaminate the whalers decks. I find out from an officer that a whale has been killed under our watch. It's now being chopped up and packaged onboard the mother ship. The Sea Shepherds are fighting to stop it from continuing.

It's February 6th and after five days chasing the Nisshin Maru through the Antarctic Ocean, the fleet finally retaliated. For five days, Sea Shepherd had disabled the fleet's whaling operation by chasing the fleet's ships so they couldn't effectively hunt whales. But today, they tested their ground and killed a whale. The Sea Shepherd ship, the Steve Irwin, was two nautical miles away from the Nisshin Maru when it happened, making it impossible to stop.

One of the fleet's harpoon ships, the Yushin Maru No. 1, had a dead Minke whale lashed to its portside. Within minutes, the whalers transported the dead, bleeding carcass up the slipway to the Nisshin Maru for processing. In thirty minutes, there was nothing left of the whale but a spinal cord and the harpoon.

Keeping the processing ship, the Nisshin Maru, on the run had shut down whaling for eleven days during 2008's anti-whaling campaign by Sea Shepherd, and five days this year. But now the Sea Shepherd activists had to improvise a new strategy — and fast. The fleet was now whaling again, the very thing Sea Shepherd had come here to stop them from doing, and they were doing right it in front of us. We were no longer intimidating and the group had lost its ground in this whale battle.

Within two hours, the fleet had transferred two more dead whales to the Nisshin for processing. During this time, the Irwin was still narrowing its distance to the mother ship, but was unable to do anything but watch the blood and guts come pouring out of the "death ship" ahead. Reports of two more whales killed and on their way to the Nisshin come in from our helicopter in the air. But before they can be transfered, a plan is hatched.

"Blockade the stern. Allow no more whales to go up that slipway — that is our objective," says Paul Watson, captain of the Irwin and founder of Sea Shepherd. Blocking transfer would make killing any further whales impossible for the fleet. First Mate Peter Hammarstedt, a Swede, brings us within 200 meters of the mother ship's stern, blocking the fleet's transport. And stopping whaling once again. But will it work? For how long? Can we gain our ground back again in this whale war?

...Read Part Two in tomorrow's blog post.