The Other War

The finaincial crisis has caused several states to consider steps towards the legalization of marijuana, if only as a source of new tax income. The parallels with alcohol prohibition are obvious. What would this country be like if marijuana was legalized?

The Great Game

For the last few days, the release of the Libyan convicted of the bombing of Pan Am 103 over Lockerbie has made the headlines again. This time, BP (the company we love to hate) is implicated in the early release. Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi was released, we were told, due to his terminal illness. Reports have since been made that he will live for much longer that previously expected. We hear questions surrounding his release and his health, but not his guilt.
A UN observer at the trial is not convinced, and in the years since the bombing, several alternative theories have emerged, a number of which involved the CIA, DEA and drug smuggling. One of the best documentaries on the bombing is The Maltese Double Cross, from 1994:

Death In The Gulf

As it temporarily fades from the news, the Deepwater Horizon well continues to allow crude oil to gush into the ocean. People living on the coast are already starting to experience health problems due to exposure to the toxic chemicals released from the oil, or byproducts of burning the oil, or of course the dispersant, Corexit. However, the real devastation is occuring out at sea, where BP is attempting to restrict access. This footage was recorded a few days ago:



We hear people talk about the cost of this disaster, but have you noticed that we always use dollar amounts. No mention is made of the lives lost in the fire, or the lives destroyed along the coast, or the devastation to marine life. What will it take to force us to consider the true cost of environmental disaster - and avoid the next one?

After Oil

We are living through tough times. We have heard about Peak Oil, and we are witnesses to the environmental devastation which results from fossil fuel use and extraction. As you can see here, oil is currently used in a wide range of products on which we depend.
There are people who are already thinking of the future - a future with less oil. The following short documentary follows one woman's investigation into alternative farming methods. She approaches a subject that I am particularly passionate about - permaculture.



The Wikipedia entry describes the term quite well: "Permaculture is an approach to designing human settlements and agricultural systems that mimic the relationships found in natural ecologies."

We like to believe that we accomodate Nature in some way, and that we enjoy it from time to time, but the truth is that we are part of Nature (whether we like it or not) and when we pollute or destroy, we are doing much more than making unpleasant views. Sustainable, efficient living can only come from working with Nature. Working against it doesn't seem to have taken us very far. As William Wordsworth once wrote, "Come forth into the light of things, let Nature be your teacher."

The Long War

The war in Afghanistan has now raged for longer than the war in Vietnam (after the Gulf of Tonkin resolution). Vietnam is widely acknowledged as the first "television war", in that TV cameras allowed combat footage to be shown on the evening news. Indeed, TV news played a large part in the changing of public opinion against the war. 58000 US personnel died in that war, and by some estimates, over 3 million civilians died. The NVA rolled into Saigon and communist expansion did not occur as projected by the US government.
Around four decades later, the war in Afghanistan continues, and shows no sign of stopping anytime soon. Later this year, politicians will vote to increase funding for the war. Over 1700 coalition deaths have occurred since the war began. Civilian casualties are unknown at this point, but it is clear that the rate is accelerating with the increase in bombings and drone strikes. Is the lower death toll one reason why the resistance to the war in the US is less widespread? Or are modern wars more professionally manged, in terms of censorship and propaganda?
Here is a documentary in which John Pilger explores those themes in 1983:



Great efforts have been made to avoid direct comparisons to the Vietnam war, and yet the similarities are becoming more and more apparent. Will we continue this long war? Can we afford to? Will public opinion turn against the war, or are we bored or immune to the stories of deaths now?

Yes

Our possessions define who we are. That is what the advertisers want you to think and to a certain extent it is true. I've seen two car commercials which ridicule people who use excuses to buy luxury items and then they proceed to sell their new luxury item! Are we so asleep that we fall for that?! How did we get to this point? Back in the 1950's, the US had emerged from World War Two as the only major power to be virtually unscathed. It had spent the war years using it's huge manufacturing capacity to outproduce the axis powers, and now it was time to embrace consumption. In the 1950's, marketing was relatively simple. There was a prevailing attitude of conformity, and people were hungry for consumer goods in this time of prosperity. As the 1960's arrived, young people in particular wanted to express their individuality, and for a while, marketing became a much tougher challenge. Eventually, though, it became clear that the consumer could simply buy their individuality! Pretty soon, everything was for sale.
The cigarettes you smoked and the car you drove supposedly told everyone what kind of a person you were, based on the image portrayed in advertising. Since then, advertisers have become masters of "creating the need", and we have become consumers, first and formost. In our search for individuality, we have skipped introspection and bought our images off the shelf. Our pile of products usually fails to fill the void, and some people even end up in a cycle of depression and spending.
When we think of consumerism, we probably think of gadgets and cars, but we also spend millions of dollars each year trying to keep up with the neighbours. Hopefully these tough times will give us an opportunity to reflect on what really matters to us, and maybe we won't be so easily persuaded by the advertisers. For example, every year we fertilize our lawns, irrigate with sprinklers, spray the weeds and bugs, and of course cut the grass every week - all so that we can have the perfect lawn. The commercials help to give us something to aspire to. Let's break that down. Our fertilizer makes the grass grow faster, so we have to trim more often (with a shiny new ride-on mower, no doubt). The pesticides often kill more than the aphids, and runoff from pesticides and fertilizers poison rivers and probably our own drinking water. All that can be expensive, too. Is there an alternative? There sure is!
If we can break the advertising spell while money is scarce, maybe we can begin to really think for ourselves again.

The Big One

I thought I would run out of things to write about the latest oil disaster, but one recent report suggested that the volume of oil released is now equal to an Exxon Valdez spill every 3.5 days. Many think that the original leak has expanded as the damaged infrastructure has worn away. This problem is far from under control. A calamity is unfolding in the Gulf of Mexico. Some recent images of the oil reaching the Louisiana costline can be found here.
A disaster of this size is unparalleled. The environmental damage will last for decades, and will be catastrophic for marine life (and the fishing and tourism industries).
The Gulf of Mexico was already polluted. A similar oil well blowout occured in 1979, and pollution from sewage and fertilizer run-off created a dead zone in the region of 8000 square miles. This source states that annual pollution loadings can be:
* over 800,000 tons of nitrogen
* over 200,000 tons of phosphorus
* 100 million tons of dredged sediments
* over 2,000 tons of toxic substances from coastal industrial and municipal sites (four of the top five states in the U.S. in total surface discharge of toxic chemicals are Gulf States - Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana and Texas)
* approximately 1,000 tons of pesticides from coastal agriculture
* over 6,000 tons of produced waters from near-shore oil and gas platforms
source
We are killing the oceans, or at least big business is doing it on our behalf. They will continue to do so until we react strongly enough to this kind of news. Sure, you can stay away from BP gas stations, but where will you go? The Chevron next door?
Profit is everything to a corporation. While there is profit in pollution, it will continue.