Peace Vigil Report (re-posted from OlyBlog)

Peace Vigil Report

Sat, 07/17/2010 - 11:42am — Berd

Richard and Me at the Peace Vigil
July 16, 2010
Percival Landing Olympia Peace Vigil—For some reason, although there were mostly acknowledgments of approval, there were more than the usual number of passerby who registered disapproval. One individual, who "did two tours in iraq," (and I believe them) verbally accosted me from an open car window with three or four young children in the vehicle. Another asked, "where is your green card."
There is more info about the vigil available here: olyblog.net/thought-bandit
I was asked to show my green card—and I am white! I can't believe it. I can only imagine what black, brown, and other people of color are experiencing these days. Racism is hate speech, and there are laws against hate speech. Hate speech does not belong in public, nor in society in general.
Please ask the Obama Administration to enforce laws against racist hate speech. If you're on facebook, you can find more info here:
White House Enforce Laws Against Hate Speech. If you're not on facebook, then please consider contacting the White House, information at whitehouse.gov.
—Berd
p.s. here is another photo from the vigil that shows the recent hazy polluted air quality:

More Photos from the Detroit Incinerator Protest

June 26, 2010
Detroit, Michigan

Detroit Incinerator Protest

Saturday, June 26, 2010, Detroit—Protest against Detroit incinerator. We were told that this is the "largest incinerator in the world." It's a privately owned for-profit company that does the job. It's called Covato, or something like that. I'll look it up and make any corrections.

Also, it's hard to see smoke, but there is a nasty odor in the exhaust plume. I wonder if the particularly nasty stuff gets burned at night, or if the smoke has been cleaned up for the presence of out-of-towners with the forum this week. There was a very nasty odor when we walked downwind of the facility.

Detroit doesn't have a recycling program, so waste plastic, styrofoam and other toxics may very well be included in the waste that is burnt at the incinerator. Disgusting thought.

One organizer mentioned the concept of Zero Tolerance: There is no safe, nor allowable level for toxic emissions. Any toxins are unacceptable. For example, if the incinerator releases even one particle of dioxin, then it must be shut down. I agree. Especially if it is run for-profit.

No one deserves to profit from activities that do harm.

It was a great protest, I have a ton of photos. More later!

[more photos from the protest here: //peacepotential.blogspot.com/2010/07/more-photos-from-detroit-incinerator.html]

Update from Detroit Michigan

It's Monday, June 21, 2010. Happy Solstice!

I am in Detroit Michigan for the US Social Forum and the Allied Media Conference. The AMC ended yesterday, and the USSF begins tomorrow.

I participated in a workshop yesterday about health and healing. It was partly titled "Health is Dignity and Dignity is Resistance." I like that concept.

Today the plan is to participate in a Poor People's March.

Last night an incinerator fired up. The incinerator is less than a half mile away from the house I am staying in.

The last couple of mornings I have been experiencing an unusual nasal drip. I wonder if it is due to air pollution. And I wouldn't be surprised if it is. I worry that there might be plastic burning in the incinerator, which would create airborne dioxin.

Here's a photo from Detroit. My Internet access is limited, so I plan to upload more photos in the future, but here is one of the incinerator that is stationed so close to this residential neighborhood.

Congressional Caving to Nuclear Industry?

From the text of the flyer:

A $54.5 billion "Permanent Financing Platform" for nukes: A crushing burden on us all.

The nuclear power lobby is demanding more than $50 billion in taxpayer bailouts, loans, and loan guarantees.

"You put up the money," they say. "You take the risks. And We Will keep the profits."

Why does nuclear power need this huge handout? Because it can't compete with renewable energy in a free and open market.

If you thought that rescuing giant bankrupt banks was a bad idea, wait until we face a financial meltdown in the industry that invented meltdowns.

Don't let Congress cave. Tell your Senators and Congressperson: No Taxpayer Bailouts for Nukes!

www.BeyondNuclear.org

Morning Scene

Wednesday February 17, 2010
This is in Olympia Washington. The source of the smoke is likely the Sewage treatment plant.
view larger: smoker

Moonglow, City Glow, Clouds and the Sound

October 2009
Eld Inlet, Olympia, Washington

The clouds are lit from beneath by city light - presumably from the Tacoma/Gig Harbor region of the Puget Sound. Interesting how pollution can actually cause incredibly beautiful scenes, sometimes.

http://peacepotential.blogspot.com/2010/02/moonglow-city-glow-clouds-and-sound.html

The Story of Cap and Trade Video

This is a great video. A must see.

Here's a comment I left on youtube:

The wealth of developed nations is based not only on ingenuity and hard work. The wealth of developed nations is also critically based on oppression and violence, including slavery and environmental degradation (greenhouse gas pollution very much included.)

The myth of meritocracy runs rampant in American culture.

It's important to realize that much of our material "success" is based not on merit - but instead on oppression and violence, on expropriation and exploitation.

The video:

The Story of Cap and Trade

Petroleum Water Pollution

Corporate Power: the Ethics of Social and Environmental Degradation

This is a work in progress. Here are few statements that I want to explore, and a few questions that I want to answer and work with in more depth.

1) Statement: Corporate Power - that power which is vested in the biggest and most massive (primarily) international corporations - is doing harm to humanity and to the planet (to animals, plants, rocks, landscapes, mountains, oceans, air, water, etc.).

2) Question: Is it unethical to reap financial profit, from those activities which do harm and cause degradation: whether to individuals, whole societies, or whole systems (eco-systems or planets)? An alternative question is to ask "what are the ethics involved in" the process of reaping financial reward from activities which do harm / cause degradation.

(Yes, moralizing can be difficult, but we have social values and morals and ethics for a reason - to provide for the well-being, and to protect, individual, society, and increasingly more so, the very planet itself.)

Taken to its extreme and ultimate final end product, social and environmental degradation could possibly result in a destroyed planet - i.e. planetary destruction. It's scary to think that humanity may be so advanced "techno'logically'" that it will even be able to escape such a destroyed planet - only to spread a culture of degradation and destruction into other worlds...

Severn Suzuki Address to UN Conference on Environment and Development 1992

Teenager speaks for future generations before the UN Conference on Environment and Development in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, 1992.

There are some choice quotes from this youngster's 6 minute speech, check it out:



http://www.un.org/geninfo/bp/enviro.html

Here are a couple of quotes:

"I am only a child yet I know if all the money spent on war was spent on finding environmental answers, ending poverty, and finding treaties what a wonderful place this Earth would be." – Severn Suzuki

"At school, even in kindergarten, you teach us how to behave in the world. You teach us to not fight with others, to work things out, to respect others, to clean up our mess, not to hurt other creatures, to share - not be greedy: then why do you go out and do the things you tell us not to do?" – Severn Suzuki

[June 30, 2008: ...a "team of scientists has shown in recent months that the peril is global, concluding that all but two of 21 species of open-ocean sharks and their cousins, the rays, are facing the risk of extinction. Another found that the decline of sharks at the top of the food chain is disrupting marine ecosystems around the globe."
source: www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/06/29/AR2008062901783_pf.html
———
and
———
"The Defense Department, the nation's biggest polluter, is resisting orders from the Environmental Protection Agency to clean up Fort Meade and two other military bases where the EPA says dumped chemicals pose "imminent and substantial" dangers to public health and the environment.

The Pentagon has also declined to sign agreements required by law that cover 12 other military sites on the Superfund list of the most polluted places in the country. The contracts would spell out a remediation plan, set schedules, and allow the EPA to oversee the work and assess penalties if milestones are missed.

... source: www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/06/29/AR2008062901977_pf.html \June 30, 2008]

Orca Tears

Orca Tears, Mural in Rain

Orca whales in the Puget Sound are threatened due to environmental degradation: toxic contamination, and depletion of food sources.

"Don't be Evil"

Read about how much electricity it takes to keep the Internet running. Google builds a new plant in an area with promises of access to inexpensive electricity and public investments in necessary infrastructure.

"In 2006 American [Internet] data centers consumed more power than American televisions."

A Harper's Magazine centerfold annotation by Ginger Strand: