Greenspirational News: pirates, renewables, tv

Angela Bischoff greenspi at web.ca
Sat Apr 18 20:17:25 EDT 2009


Greenspirational News

"The root of the problem is that our ecological overshoot is changing  
much faster than our thinking about it. By various measures, we are  
in overshoot, meaning we are already consuming more resources than  
the Earth can sustain by any reasonable measure. The further we  
progress into overshoot, the more divorced our "solutions" to the  
ecological crisis become. Ever since the 1970s, we have been  
advocating for "alternative energy" and more efficiency. Let us  
extrapolate this trend into the future. Suppose current strends  
continue (which is likely), and the consumer society goes through  
various economic convulsions, but remains essentially intact.  
Meanwhile, starvation across the world continues to grow. Are we  
going to continue to advocate plug-in hybrid cars and other expensive  
technologies as the "solution" to the environmental crisis when two  
billion people are severely malnourished? When there are three  
billion? Four? At what point do we recognize that expensive  
technologies meant to maintain a "sustainable" consumer society among  
the world's wealthiest people are utterly divorced from any  
reasonable moral coherence?"

- Silent Armageddon? by Alexis Zeigler, March/April 2009 Issue of the  
Watershed Sentinel

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An Inconvenient Truth
Former Vice President Al Gore's crusade to halt global warming's  
deadly progress in its tracks by exposing the myths and  
misconceptions that surround it. more

Sunday April 19 at 10 pm ET/PT on CBC Newsworld

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Write a letter to the editor
of any or all newspapers in Canada. Find them all here. It’s as easy  
as 1-2-3. Get writing – I know you have lots to write about!
You're most likely to get published if your letter is under 100 words.

http://www.canadians.org/wordwarriors/letter.html

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KYOTOplus
A Canadian public engagement campaign to support an urgent solution  
to the global warming crisis.

Welcome to the KYOTOplus gateway for strong government action against  
global warming.

Your help has never been more important. Governments have been warned  
about the potentially catastrophic consequences if climate change is  
ignored. But Canada's government is still not listening. Instead, it  
is trying to block international action and delay implementing  
effective policy solutions at home.

JOIN the thousands of concerned Canadians already united under the  
KYOTOplus banner to end the federal political games which threaten  
the future of Canadians and the planet.

With your help, KYOTOplus will ensure Canada:
Votes in favour of extending and strengthening the Kyoto Protocol  
this December, 2009, at a special United Nations meeting in  
Copenhagen, Denmark;
Replaces its current inadequate policy approach with a credible,  
urgent plan that brings down Canada's greenhouse gas pollution fast.
http://www.kyotoplus.ca/

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The madness of Big Pharma
David Healy - The new enfant terrible of psychiatry and the  
pharmaceutical companies' abuse of clinical trials
A book review

MANIA ends with a series of pessimistic pronouncements. In studies of  
psychotropic drugs, “the publicly available data are close to  
worthless”. We do know, however, that “the quality of life of  
patients in whom treatment is deferred or not instituted is better  
than those treated immediately”; and that, “uniquely among major  
illnesses in the Western world, the life expectancy for patients with  
serious mental illness has declined”. Big Pharma “increasingly  
appears to jeopardize the health and well-being of our friends,  
relatives, and children” in its manic pursuit of profit (a phenomenon  
that afflicts – as Healy rightly notes – all of medicine, not just  
the benighted psychiatric borderlands). And it observes no ethical  
limits, ruthlessly extending its grasp to include the youngest and  
most vulnerable, even though “giving major tranquilizers to children  
is little different from giving children cancer chemotherapy when  
they have a cold”. David Healy is indeed an enfant terrible – and a  
very brave man. Either way, he can expect a lot of hate mail. I doubt  
he is on Eli Lilly’s or Pfizer’s Christmas card list.

David Healy
MANIA
A short history of bipolar disorder
320pp. Johns Hopkins University Press. $24.95; distributed in the UK  
by Wiley. £16.50.
978 0 8018 8822 9

http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/ 
the_tls/article6013955.ece

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Bipolar disorder and its biomythology: An interview with David Healy

Biomythology links to biobabble, a term I coined in 1999 to  
correspond to the widely-used expression psychobabble. Biobabble  
refers to things like the supposed lowering of serotonin levels and  
the chemical imbalance that are said to lie at the heart of mood  
disorders, ADHD, and anxiety disorders.

In the case of bipolar disorder the biomyths center on ideas of mood  
stabilization. But there is no evidence that the drugs stabilize  
moods. In fact, it is not even clear that it makes sense to talk  
about a mood center in the brain.

And are the antipsychotics in fact safer than antidepressants?

No, they are not. The antipsychotics are as dangerous as the  
antidepressants. Before the introduction of the antipsychotics, the  
rates of suicide in schizophrenia were extremely low—they were hard  
to differentiate from the rest of the population. Since the  
introduction of the antipsychotics the rates of suicide have risen  
10- or 20-fold.

http://blogs.psychologytoday.com/blog/side-effects/200904/bipolar- 
disorder-and-its-biomythology-interview-david-healy



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The Battle of Chernobyl
A superb 90 min. 2007 documentary on the Chernobyl disaster.
Watch it free on you-tube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch? 
v=t4vMTdSAm1w&feature=PlayList&p=6BB4C9CA0705E0D5&index=0&playnext=1

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Attention shoppers: beware of false eco-claims

More consumer products are claiming to be environmentally  
responsible, but nearly all of them make at least one claim that is  
unverifiable, according to a study released Wednesday.

http://www.cbc.ca/consumer/story/2009/04/15/greenwashing.html
Report:
http://sinsofgreenwashing.org/findings/greenwashing-report-2009/

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You are being lied to about pirates

Some are clearly just gangsters. But others are trying to stop  
illegal dumping and trawling  <snip>

In 1991, the government of Somalia collapsed. Its nine million people  
have been teetering on starvation ever since – and the ugliest forces  
in the Western world have seen this as a great opportunity to steal  
the country's food supply and dump our nuclear waste in their seas.

Yes: nuclear waste. As soon as the government was gone, mysterious  
European ships started appearing off the coast of Somalia, dumping  
vast barrels into the ocean. The coastal population began to sicken.  
At first they suffered strange rashes, nausea and malformed babies.  
Then, after the 2005 tsunami, hundreds of the dumped and leaking  
barrels washed up on shore. People began to suffer from radiation  
sickness, and more than 300 died.

Ahmedou Ould-Abdallah, the UN envoy to Somalia, tells me: "Somebody  
is dumping nuclear material here. There is also lead, and heavy  
metals such as cadmium and mercury – you name it." Much of it can be  
traced back to European hospitals and factories, who seem to be  
passing it on to the Italian mafia to "dispose" of cheaply.

Full article:
http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/johann-hari/johann- 
hari-you-are-being-lied-to-about-pirates-1225817.html

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Check out the Toronto Urban Repair Squad's latest escapade

The Easter Present - captured on video

http://urbanrepairs.blogspot.com/2009/04/easter-present.html

The installation lasted the weekend. Greenspiration applauds the  
Urban Repair Squad.

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New nuclear:  higher cost and higher risk than hydro imports
Potential Benefits of Increased Ontario-Quebec Electricity Trade  
Exceed $1 Billion per Year

Increased electricity trade between Ontario and Quebec could provide  
the two provinces with economic benefits in excess of $1 billion per  
year according to a new report, The Power of Mutual Benefit, released  
by the Ontario Clean Air Alliance (OCAA) today.

The benefits for Ontario include:

·        Hydro-electricity imports can meet spikes in electricity  
demand that occur on hot summer days at a much lower cost than  
building three new inefficient gas-fired peaker plants in northern  
York Region, Kitchener-Waterloo and the southern GTA, as proposed by  
the Ontario Power Authority.
·        Integration of Ontario’s wind generation with Quebec’s hydro- 
electric facilities can result in an uninterrupted 24/7 renewable  
electricity supply for Ontario consumers.
·        Hydro-electric imports can supply base-load electricity to  
Ontario at a substantially lower cost than new nuclear reactors.

For Quebec, long-term electricity contracts can provide it with a  
guaranteed revenue stream to help fund its schools, universities and  
hospitals at a time when electricity demand from industries like  
forestry and aluminum manufacturing is dropping.

Despite the fact that Premiers McGuinty and Charest signed a  
Memorandum of Understanding on Energy in June 2008 that called for  
increased inter-provincial electricity trade, the provinces do not  
appear to be any closer to signing a long-term electricity supply  
contract.

Meanwhile, the Government of Ontario is planning to sign a contract  
within the next 67 days for the construction of two new nuclear  
reactors at the Darlington Nuclear Station, east of Oshawa.  Based on  
the cost estimates of Moody’s Investors Service, these new reactors  
could cost $26 billion.

“It is puzzling why the McGuinty government with its commitment to  
green energy would put building new nuclear plants ahead of a ready- 
made green solution –lower cost hydro imports from Quebec,”  said  
Jack Gibbons, Chair of the OCAA.

The Power of Mutual Benefit can be downloaded from  
www.cleanairalliance.org.

  ---
  Sign our petition: http://www.ontariosgreenfuture.ca/petition.php.

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NATO 60th  ANNIVERSARY: TIME TO DISBAND NATO - PETITION

NATO, must be Disbanded for Contributing to the Scourge of War, and  
For Defying Peremptory Norms

While, on April 4, 2009, the NATO state leaders are poised to  
celebrate the 60th Anniversary Conference of NATO in Strasbourg and  
Baden Baden, the majority of states of the United Nations would  
probably be more inclined to celebrate the demise of NATO.

NATO is a provocative, dangerous institution which has perpetuated  
the scourge of war, and conflict through both its existence and its  
expansion. The NATO states collectively spend approximately 70% of  
the current 1.473 trillion global military budget.

World Military Spending: http://www.globalissues.org/article/75/world- 
military-spending

Read more and sign the petition here:
http://www.petitiononline.com/z9m2x3nb/petition.html

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Mother's Act Promotes Pregnancy as New Cottage Industry
by Evelyn Pringle

Women of childbearing years represent the most lucrative market for  
the makers of psychiatric drugs. The knowledge that infants were  
being born with birth defects and suffering a withdrawal syndrome  
when these drugs were used during pregnancy was hidden for decades.  
Knowledge of these terrible risks would have caused a major drop in  
sales to this customer base.

Ever since the warnings about birth defects started trickling out a  
few years ago, the drug companies apparently have been plotting to  
find ways to reverse their negative impact. But the most sinister  
plot ever developed is a bill moving for approval in the US Senate  
right now called the "Melanie Blocker-Stokes Mother's Act," to set up  
the screening of all pregnant women for mental illness.

http://www.lawyersandsettlements.com/features/melanie-blocker-stokes- 
mother-act-birth-defects.html

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Cathy’s Crawly Composters is an environmentally driven worm  
composting business. Worms are going to play an ever-increasing role  
in waste management and soil production. We supply red wiggler worms,  
worm composting bins, castings, books and accessories. We also  
conduct inspirational workshops and worm birthday parties. We offer  
on-site solutions to manage organic matter. Worms convert food scraps  
and paper into nature’s finest fertilizer. Our goal is to raise  
awareness about the environment and encourage sustainable practices.  
Without awareness, action is impossible.

Cathy Nesbitt
www.cathyscomposters.com
1-888-775-9495
http://www.cathyscomposters.com/events.html
Learn to love a worm. They are angels of the earth.

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Nuclear energy is not the answer
Renewables are do-able – we want ‘em now!
Nuclear energy is no solution
Renewables are do-able – we want ‘em now!
Nuclear pollution is no solution
Renewables are do-able – we want ‘em now!

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