…ignorance is strength…

and    …ENBRIDGE is GREEN!

Big and small, enterprise-wide and business line-specific, team and individual – all of the earth-friendly activities undertaken at Enbridge each day have earned the organization a position on Mediacorp Canada Inc.’s list of Canada’s Greenest Employers for 2011. The announcement was made in a special section of the Globe & Mail on April 22 – Earth Day.

How Orwellian is that? This from Wikipedia:

Using data from Enbridge’s own reports, the Polaris Institute calculated that 804 spills occurred on Enbridge pipelines between 1999 and 2010. These spills released approximately 168,645 barrels (26,812.4 m³) of hydrocarbons into the environment.

I know this item is a few months old, but that doesn’t make it any less appalling.

We lived on a quarter section that was bordered on one side by the Bulkley River. We fished in the river, played on the river, slept, laughed and dreamed by the river. It fed us, entertained us and nourished us.

We had a permanent fire pit on the sandbar where we’d fry freshly caught fish, roast weiners and marshmallows, and the smoke would help to keep the mosquitos away. The water between the sandbar and bank was safe from the fast current so when we were little we could swim and play there. I remember stomping in place in the sand and making deep sinkholes, sometimes past my knees. I remember chasing my aunt with a frog and her running out into the river. When uncle made me quit  and I tossed the frog into the water, it swam back towards her making her scream again.  I had my own secret fishing hole where once in awhile I’d go down to the river by myself and pull in enough fish for the whole family for dinner.

One winter when the river froze we climbed around on the ice floes to find a huge patch of clear glare ice that we slipped and slid on for the afternoon… sometimes the Great Spirit does look after stupid teenagers. We traveled down the river in assorted boats, kayaks and rafts. My first attempts at sculpture were created from the soft, clean clay picked from the river bank and then dried in the sun.

When the salmon were running, we would put a net between the edge of the sand bar and the shore, and in the morning we’d pull in 4 or 5 big fish, which Mom would can or smoke for the winter.  We had to go down at dusk and get up just before dawn to pull it in because the fisheries were patrolling the river looking for nets.  Mom ordered it out of either the Sears or Eaton’s catalog, strangely enough nets could be sold but it was not considered legal to use them. But the folks had 3 active kids and sometimes they had to bend the rules to make sure we always had enough good healthy food.

To get to our best spot on the river, we had to cross the spring where we got our drinking water, which fed into a swamp full of frogs. Then walk a trail through the brush and down a steep rocky bank. I remember the overpowering odor of wild cranberries along the way which we could pick for Mom to make jelly, as well the Saskatoon berries which were all over the place and could be turned into the best pies in the world, canned or sometimes even made into wine.

And I remember one near tragedy when my father took my young daughter down to the river for a walk. She slipped in to be grabbed by the current and Dad who had a fear of deep water because of a near drowning incident had to jump in to save her. They both came home soaking wet, my brave Dad far more upset than she was.

I was reminded of all this while listening to the Wet’suwet’en people talk about their lives and traditions to the Enbridge Northern Gateway Project Joint Review Panel hearings. Even though I don’t live there anymore, when I think of the word “home”, the farm and the river is where my mind goes.

Harper said we will not recognize this country when he’s through with it. I guess he means giving away the life of the land and people for things like a lousy pipeline.  But he won’t get away with it.

I’ve read all the available transcripts of the Enbridge Northern Gateway Project Joint Review Panel hearings and listen to the live broadcast when I can. ONE guy so far out of the dozens of people who have presented information has spoken in favour of the pipeline coming anywhere near where they live. Every man, woman and child has said absolutely no. They know that the risks far outweigh any possible benefit to the people who live there.

Yet CBC chooses to make that one guy the headline. CBC please understand that you mean as much to Stephen Harper as our medical system.  He wants to get rid of you both no matter how much you kowtow. So please… just do your job and report the truth without the spin.

These days we are constantly faced with more and more stories of bees disappearing, bat populations becoming decimated, and countless species of birds and other creatures in decline.  Coincidentally or not, these reports are escalating with the proliferation of wireless EMF technology – until recently mainly cell phones and wireless internet. But now, everyone is rushing to add more electromagnetic radiation into the environment by installing these untested “Smart Meters” on every single house and business in the province.

There are reports from people who have beehives that as soon as a Smart Meter was installed on their house, the bees disappeared.  There are reports from concerned people that birds are being harmed and that bat’s are disappearing. There are also reports of plants directly in front of Smart Meters dying, and pets and livestock in the vicinity sickening and dying.

The purpose of the precautionary principle is to safeguard against possible health and environmental risks that have not yet been scientifically established. A risk that is not established cannot, therefore, be used as an excuse for not applying the principle. The proponents of these devices have never properly tested them to see what effect they have on animals, plants or insects and according to the precautionary principal we must err on the side of caution and not use them until any risk is proven to not be there.

We are told that this Smart Meter program is good for the environment because it may encourage people to conserve power. However the rationale of protecting the environment is very short-sighted if by setting up a web of these Smart Meters, it causes more harm than good to the environment.

This letter is to inform you that I am strongly against the BC Hydro’s proposed “Smart Meter” program for many reasons, one of which is because I care about the environment and the other living creatures that share our space. Therefore I am asking that you support a moratorium on this technology until it can be proven without doubt to be safe for humans, plants and animals.

I would appreciate a response to this letter.

Yours sincerely,

xxxx xxxxx

I will add the addresses of the politicians when I have them.  Please feel free to use or modify this letter yourself.

People are reporting disappearing bees, bats and birds in areas where these meters have been installed. People are reporting dying plants around the meters.

Dr. David Carpenter, a Harvard Medical School-trained physician who headed up the New York State Dept. of Public Health for 18 years before becoming Dean of the School of Public Health at the University of Albany, where he currently directs the Institute for Health and the Environment says that there is no evidence that Smart Meters are safe and that they have no adverse health effects.

No one has actually done human health studies in relation to people living in homes with smart meters but there is evidence from a whole variety of other sources that demonstrates convincingly and consistently that exposure to radio frequency radiation at elevated levels for long periods of time increases the risk of cancer, damages the nervous system, causes electro sensitivity, has adverse reproductive effects and a variety of other effects on different organ systems.  So there is no justification to the statement that smart meters have no adverse health effects.

On May 31st 2011 the World Health Organization made the declaration- that non-ionizing radiation- from cell phones, cell towers, wifi, and “smart” meters- is now a class 2b carcinogen in the same category as lead, DDT, and engine exhaust.

Other issues with these devices include privacy concerns. There is the risk of fire, and of them frying appliances and computers. I have heard that if they cause fire or fry your computer, insurance doesn’t cover it.

Now for the skullduggery… BC Hydro has awarded the first smart meter contract to Corix Utilities. One of the two owners of Corix is CAI Capital Management, whose senior advisor is David Emerson – Executive Chair of the BC Transmission Corp, Chair of the BC Premier’s Economic Advisory Council, Chair of the Alberta Premier’s Council for Economic Strategy, director of Timberwest Forest Corp., former CEO of Canfor, and current chair of something called EPIC.

What a bunch of crooks.

Cell phones and wifi are bad enough but you can still escape those if it is your choice. The BC gov’t is allowing us no choice in the matter of smart meter emissions.

Links:

Citizens for Safe Technology

Smart Meter Safety

EMF Safety Network

Stop Smart Meters

Smart Meter Resources

How To Stop Smart Meters

Reasons to Say No to Smart Meters

Precautionary Principal

From a recent article in Counterpunch, “Wolf Sterilization Scheme Backfires“, about the BC government’s ill-conceived management prescription for wolves in the Muskwa-Kechika.

I can’t believe that they are still at it with the wolves and the moose in that area. It has been going on for more than 25 years. I don’t remember the year exactly but I think it was in the early part of the 80′s that I worked in a fire camp at Scoop Lake for a short time. Bill Bennett Jr. and the Socreds were in power then.

The Forest Service had started a controlled fire to burn off the underbrush meant to increase food for moose, and it got out of control. It subsequently cost them millions to fight their fire. Everything had to be flown in, from people to food, generators, refrigerators and tents.

By the time I went to work there, the fire was nearly out and there weren’t many people left in the camp. As a first aid attendant, I didn’t have much to do so I spent quite a bit of time riding around with the pilots in the choppers, exploring around the lake, and just talking to people. Many of the people remaining in the camp were natives who lived around the area, probably from Deas Lake.

When I first arrived, the shoreline fairly close to the camp was littered with 10 or 12 nearly decomposed wolf carcasses. One of the natives told me that he’d worked on a wolf kill the winter before. He wasn’t happy about what he did, but there was no jobs up there and they had to take what they could get. They flew around in small planes or choppers shooting the wolves then for some strange reason they picked up the bodies and dumped them onto the middle of the lake. As it was winter, of course when the ice and snow melted the bodies gradually washed ashore. Because it was far north and cold much of the year, it took a long time for them to decompose.

Our drinking water came from the lake, but it really didn’t seem to bother too many of the other people in the camp that dead wolves were laying all over the shore and rotting in the water. Big shots from the forest service and probably some political hacks used to fly into the camp. They’d congregate around the maps which were tacked onto the side of the first aid tent because it had the only wooden walls in the camp. They would stand there swilling coffee, maybe laced with a good shot of whiskey, curse like sailors for awhile then fly out again.

I was really bothered by the whole scene, the dead wolves and the extreme waste of resources. I knew some of the pilots who ferried in the big shots. I’d take them around on walks to see the bones while they were waiting, and tell them of what I’d heard… the goings on with the wolf kill and the politics of the valley. Then all of a sudden one day the bones disappeared. I never found out who moved them. There was no doubt plenty more on the far side of the lake but I wasn’t able to get over there.

I remember all the fuss over the wolf kill the year before. I remember how Greenpeace was trying to get in to the valley and stop it, and nobody would rent them a plane or fly them in. Some of them even attempted to walk in but if you’ve ever flown over that area you would see how futile that idea was. At any rate, they weren’t able to stop it. I don’t know how many wolves were slaughtered, but plenty were dumped into that lake.

The thing that really got me when I was flying around in the choppers was just how many moose there were up there. It was crawling with moose, the whole area was like a big bustling moose city. They were everywhere. The gov’t had also recently airlifted in some elk and they were just getting established, but they were on the far side of the valley at the time and I don’t remember seeing any.

At that time, there were 2 guiding outfits in the valley. One was right next to the fire camp. I was told that he was a great buddy of the Minister of Environment, and that made sense. There was no other reason for the wolf kill, or for the controlled burn. The wolf kill was because the guiding outfits just didn’t want the competition for their $1,000 /day hunts. The burn was so that the underbrush could be cleared out in order to feed the masses of moose that were there. And they had to have some political pull to make that happen.

When I left, there wasn’t much left of the fire camp. As I was flying out, I could see a guy from the guiding outfit closest to the camp hauling tents and other booty away. I have no doubt that everything including the fridges and generators were left for him because it would have cost more to fly it out again than to leave it.

I have lots of pictures that I took of the camp, stuck away in a box somewhere. I also still have a wolf tooth, which was all that was left when they took the rest of the bodies away.

LOVE and PEACE,

Ree

Originally published Friday, July 21, 2006

“For the past year and a half the Minister for Economic Development Colin Hansen has repeatedly promised that TILMA would be debated and voted on,” says Carleen Pickard, regional organizer with the Council of Canadians. “It is incredible that there has been no discussion on an agreement that will lower standards across the two provinces and undermine local government autonomy. The government has gone to extreme measures to make sure the public knows nothing about it.”

The controversial agreement, signed secretly between the BC and Alberta premiers in 2006, came into effect on April 1, 2007. Some components of the agreement came into effect immediately while others will take effect in 2009, when the agreement will fully apply to municipalities, and other government entities. While the signatories believe TILMA will increase business and competition between the provinces, critics are outraged that the governments see fit to override local decision making and democracy for the benefit of corporations.

A recent legal opinion by lawyer and trade expert Steven Shrybman indicated that the ban on junk food in BC public schools through the Healthy Schools initiative could be challenged by an Alberta food and beverage distributor seeking a contract in BC. Under the Bill 32, the Alberta corporation could successfully argue that the ban was impeding their ability to do business in BC and sue for up to $5 million.

“TILMA and TILMA-like agreements are being discussed across the country. In British Columbia, the government has failed to convince the public that TILMA is a good agreement and taken unpopular steps to enforce it. People are outraged, other provinces should take note of this” says Pickard.

In most respects regarding rights and land claims I agree totally with the natives. But sorry Makah, not this time. In this day and age, there is absolutely no reason to be harpooning, machine gunning or otherwise killing or harming whales. Yes, I know this “hunt” wasn’t sanctioned by the tribe, however the impression is that the tribal elders are more concerned that it will complicate their efforts to legally kill whales again.

In days long past, people used to shout fair warning to passers by as they emptied their chamber pots out a second story window.

“Gardyloo!”

Traditions change, sometimes even for the better. Whale killing as a tradition is more offensive and destructive than emptying a piss pot on someone’s head and it needs to disappear forever.

In a bizarre turn of events, Merck is now starting the push to vaccinate little boys. This development was hinted at as early as May, when an article was published suggesting that cancer of the throat and tonsils can arise from infection with a sexually transmitted virus.

The escalation of this phase has continued on schedule. It has now reached the point where unnamed “researchers” are advising that Gardasil should also be given to boys to help avert cancers linked to oral sex. Next step, watch for the slick, hypnotic “Tell Someone” type television ads to start targeting boys.

Be sure to read Newstarget‘s Mike Adams article: Absurd vaccine marketing calls for cervical cancer vaccinations for young boys! Among other things, he’s been researching vaccination issues and the Gardasil story, and has several other articles that are worth looking at, including “The Great Thimerosal Coverup“.

Corporations and government are now indistinguishable from each other. Government does not look at issues based on the view of what’s good for the people, instead the important issues of the day are based on profit of the corporation. It really wasn’t difficult for Merck to persuade the Canadian government that all little girls needed to be vaccinated with Gardasil.

There are lots of sites dedicated to warning parents about the dangers of vaccination in general. Here are a few links to get you started.

Vaccination Debate
16 Reasons Not To Vaccinate

Here are some Gardasil specific links:

Source Watch
Vaccination Information, South Australia
More concern from Australia