Help Protect Canadian Shores from Big Oil

Fisherman Steve Johansen is petitioning the Canadian government and the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans, Gail Shea to protect our oceans through better policies and strict legislation so that Canada does not suffer the kind of disaster currently unfolding in the Gulf of Mexico.

Right now, British Petroleum, the owner of the well that was responsible for the Gulf disaster, currently has three licenses to drill in the Beaufort Sea in Canada’s Arctic, and in conjunction with a number of other oil companies, is petitioning the Canadian federal government to loosen the environmental regulations controlling Arctic drilling.  Chevron, another oil company is  drilling a well off the coast of Newfoundland that will run even deeper than the offending rig in the Gulf of Mexico, and there have been a number of questions raised regarding its safety.  Also, the provincial government of British Columbia is pushing the federal government to lift a moratorium on drilling of their coast, and they are already part of plan to build a pipeline from the notorious tar sands in Alberta to the coast in order to load oil on tankers for transoceanic shipping.  If successful, either move on their own could threaten one of Canada's most pristine and delicate coastlines known worldwide for its rich biodiversity.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper has repeatedly displayed his arrogance and his ignorance by stating that the kind of spill that is destroying the ecosystem and the industries of the Gulf of Mexico could never happen in Canada.  His government must be sent a message that Canadians and the citizens of the world are not as stupid as he would like to assume we are or like us to be.  They need to know that it is no longer acceptable for our governments to pander to the will of big business, and that is time protect our environment and the future of our children.  

Accidents such as the one in the Gulf of Mexico can happen anywhere, and they do happen for a variety of reasons, one of the largest being the drive for profit on behalf of companies like British Petroleum which forces the cutting of corners and the continuance of dangerous operating practices with the sole intent of increasing the profitability of their operations.  

If you doubt this, ask yourself why they want Canadians to loosen our protections in the Arctic?  It has nothing to do with us, the average citizen, no matter what the rhetoric and propaganda about passing the savings onto customers.  We will never see a penny in savings.  Every penny they make lines the pockets of their shareholders and executives.  Again, if you doubt it, just look at the dividends and bonuses they have been passing around in the midst of the crisis in the Gulf while doing nothing to assist the people whose lives have been devastated with their oil spill.

Help Steve Johansen protect our shores and our seas from disaster.  Sign his petition, and help save our oceans: Help protect Canada's oceans

Learn more about "Cause An Effect - World Ocean's Day " at the David Suzuki Foundation's  Cause An Effect - World Ocean's Day YouTube site

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Gulf Spill - Time to Look at the Little Pictures

Think Progress has posted a series of pictures that provide some insight into the suffering of the Gulf wildlife since the BP spill, but as poignant as they are, they only offer a glimpse of this unprecedented environmental disaster and the chain of death and devastation that has been ignited in the Gulf that will effect the entire world in the end.  This disaster encompasses the entire chain of being from bacteria to humanity, and from algae to the atmosphere.  All of it the result of the greed of a few capitalists seeking to advance their gains at any cost.

While news agencies discuss clean-up efforts and the string of unsuccessful attempts to plug the leak, the plight oil coated wildlife and the local population who are suffering unemployment and the loss of their businesses is ignored.  While the BP, Transocean and Halliburton executives worry about bad public relations and their bonuses, the coastal inhabitants worry about defaulting on their mortgages, loosing their homes and their futures.  While BP has promised to help these people, the $5,000 payouts already made are likely exhausted by the average person and certainly by businesses.   Without immediate assistance, they face bankruptcies and foreclosures and from the experience of those who suffered from spills caused by Katrina, any further assistance will probably not come without years of litigation.

The prognosis for the local ecosystem is even more grim.  Oil from the Exxon-Valdez disaster is still making appearances in Alaska, and that spill was not as massive as this one.  This spill is likely to reach up the Eastern seaboard of the United States and large underwater plumes of oil have been seen working their way across the Atlantic, effecting anything their path.  And what of effects of those dispersants that were likely even more toxic than the oil they were meant to eliminate and was known to be killing algae, one of the fundamental and most important elements in the ecosystem?

More attention needs to be paid to the real costs of this disaster instead of the political and corporate spins provided by the elites that each own a part of the blame in this.  Maybe if we look to the devastation wrought by the greed of a few, there will be enough real outrage to make the companies involved live up to their ethical and moral obligations to compensate the victims and make some real effort to clean up the spill and repair the environmental damage.  Beyond this, it might help push some real reform in the system, like cutting the ties between big money and big government so that the corporate greed machine has less effect on public policies and outcomes, and creating a real system of the people.


In the meantime, have a look at the pictures on Think Progress, they are a good start in making people see a small part of the environmental cost.

Think Progress » The pictures BP doesn’t want you to see.

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Getting Angry about World Hunger

Jeremy Irons makes a great appeal in this video for the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (F.A.O.) campaign called 1billionhungry.

With the G8 and G20 meetings coming up in Huntsville, Ontario, the attending nations need to understand that there is outrage in their own nations that 1 billion people are hungry in this world.  And here is why:

• According to the U.N. F.A.O., there were approximately 923 million undernourished and starving people in the world in 2007
• this was an increase of over 80 million since 1992. 
• As of last fall, this number had jumped to over 1 billion or 15 percent of the worlds population. 
• One sixth of the world's population is malnourished and surviving on less than $1.25 (U.S.D.) a day. 
• It is estimated that the number of undernourished people in the world will reach 3 billion by 2050, assuming that contributing factors do not worsen

According to Oxfam International, this unprecedented crisis can be contributed to many factors which include:

• climbing food and oil prices
• the recent global economic crisis
• increased demand in India and China,
• climate change and the resulting crop failures
• the co-opting of crops for biofuel production
• the increasing dominance of large agriculture companies
• and gross mismanagement of agricultural and food policies.

Sadly, for many people in the west, there is very little empathy or concern for what they see as a far away problem.  Even the fact that there are far to many hungry children and families within their own borders is of no matter.  However, this is an issue that affects us all very deeply and could have some very serious effects as we move into the future.  For example, there has been a serious decline in global food reserves, down to only a 90 day supply of staples such as wheat, as well as unprecedented hoarding on a global scale.  When these factors are combined with the massive crop failures of late and the world wide financial crisis, there has been a flurry of price speculation which has resulted in a tripling in the cost of the world's basic foods such as rice, maize and wheat.

We need to get angry because one of the greatest obstacles to finding effective solutions and carrying them out is the general apathy of Western nations to the plight of those in countries so far away.  There is a sense among many that it is a problem affecting a far away land, unrelated and unconnected to our own.  We need to let our leaders, the multinationals, and the speculators know that enough is enough, we're not going to accept any more of their self-serving crap.  They need to known that we see right through their empty rhetoric and that we are not going to accept it any more.  Its time to take action against those who would benefit from the mass suffering of others. 


Click here to sign the U.N. F.A.O. petition to let your anger and your outrage be heard.

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