pollution

In this 1973 video, the Club of Rome envision a world with far less need to work long hours and with a benign system of international cooperation. I think that they would be horrified if they could see what has actually happened, and the role that the IMF has taken. I think the Club of Rome got the material settings right, though.

This short Australian interview with men from the Club of Rome in 1973 is interesting in that the data seem right. It's 1973 and they are looking to 2040-ish. Population growth is coming right up against the time they expect it to be overwhelmed by deaths. The use of natural resources has happened as predicted as too the production of waste and the dwindling quality of life. Those interviewed advocate international cooperation to address global problems and cite the European Common Market as being a good start.

It's a good effort at looking into the future but I think things are worse than they thought. They are envisioning a world where a more sensible course is taken rather than the current mad rush to get as much out of the system as possible. They are seeing internationalism and international cooperation (re trade for example ) as an opportunity to avert catastrophe, rather than the hideous heartless, overblown monster that has actually emerged.

This interview happened in the year of the 1973 Oil Shock, just when various colonial oil-producers were declaring independence and nationalising their oil industries.

It is interesting to see how the man from the International Monetary Fund appears so much milder than his current manifestations, although we do hear him defend private enterprise over nationalisation of industries. And to think of how the United States and the EU are currently threatening Venezuela, one of the last countries to maintain a national oil-industry despite the constant efforts at take-over by US-NATO since 1973.

It seems that the Club of Rome did not predict the number at which global population might fall, but they show death-rates rising to the point that population numbers fall rapidly around 2020.

Almost half of Australia's terrestrial ecosystems are threatened, 85 per cent of its rivers have been modified and twice as many Australians die from air pollution annually than road accidents, according to a report on the state of the country's environment.

42 environmental growth have cooperated to bring us this damning report, and hopefully will be a wake-up call that we are living beyond our means, and must change.

SMH: Australia's environment is going backwards

Places you Love . One cannot ignore the irony of the title of the report, that we "love" these unique Australian places, that many of us hold dear to us from childhood, holidays and where we live, but also destroy with wanton cruelty and reckless haste.

The introduction to this report states that:
More than 85% of rivers in Australia have been modified due to irrigation, dams other development pressures.
Of the sixty-eight zones of the Murray-Darling Basin, Australia’s most significant agricultural region, only one zone is rated in good health. Thirty-eight zones are rated in poor health and twenty-one in very poor health.

Ongoing impacts of development and disturbance and the projected impacts of climate change will result in further decline of freshwater resources. Almost one-third of the 851 nationally important wetlands in Australia do not have adequate water supply or flow to maintain their health.

It's an abysmal state of affairs, similar to the wreckage and mess left by the punters and party-goers after Melbourne Cup day at Flemington!
The party is over, and there's few people cleaning up the "mess" of environmental devastation!

Places You Love is landmark survey of Australia’s environment – our rivers, energy, climate, food, forests, waste and pollution, land management, oceans and reefs.

Climate change

We will likely see four degrees of warming by the end of this century.
Two degrees of climate warming will likely mean the loss of most coral cover on the Great Barrier Reef, 80% of freshwater wetlands from Kakadu National Park, and Queensland’s tropical forests.

Air Pollution

More than 3,000 Australians die each year from air-pollution-related illness, nearly twice the national road toll.
Each Australian family contributes enough rubbish each year to fill a three-bedroom house from floor to ceiling, and the total amount of waste generated in the future is projected to increase.

Oceans

Since 1985 more than half of the coral cover of the Great Barrier Reef has been lost. Remaining coral cover is predicted to be lost with two degrees warming through climate change. Ocean acidification, a consequence of rising anthropogenic CO2 emissions, is poised to change marine ecosystems profoundly by increasing dissolved CO2 and decreasing ocean pH, carbonate ion concentration, and calcium carbonate mineral saturation state worldwide.

Feral animals and plants

Invasive species have significantly contributed to extinctions in most regions of Australia,including more than 40 native mammals, birds and frogs.

Habitat Change

We cleared an average of 1 million hectares of native vegetation per year between 2000 and 2010. At least 50% of all wetlands in Australia have been drained, filled or destroyed.
1259 plants, 396 animals and 67 ecological communities are listed as threatened by the Australian Government.

Destruction and fragmentation of habitats are major factors in the global decline of species, the modification of native plant and animal communities and the alteration of ecosystem functions. We are a leading nation when it comes to extinction, and our unique species that have had millions of years to adapt to our fragile existence on a variable and harsh landscape are being wiped out in record levels.

(image: CSIRO - soil erosion)

Forests

Of an original 235 million hectares of Australia’s forests and woodlands, 44% or about 104 million hectares have been cleared since European settlement. 36% was cleared before 1972 and 5% after 1972 – representing 85.7 million and 11.5 million hectares respectively
The clearing has been offset by the regrowth of 2.9% of the original cleared area.

In the absence of clearing, forest and woodland losses are presumed to be due to causes such as fire, drought or disease like die-back. Non-clearing losses have accounted for 5% of the area changed in the last 20 years.

Of the 50.5% of forests and woodlands that have not been cleared or lost due to non-clearing events, 20.5% were converted to non-forest at some point after 1972 and are therefore in disturbed condition.

Humans in Australia

By 2100, Australian population is projected to be between 42 and 70 million people. Total consumption per person in Australia is one of the highest in the world, and is projected to increase by up to 27% by 2030, with far-reaching impacts on nature including biodiversity, land use, climate and water.

By 2050, energy consumption in Australia is projected to increase by around 21%, with only 14% coming from renewable sources.

As you read through the data you will see our natural world is struggling to sustain itself. Nature is in decline and the natural beauty of Australia is under threat.

Firstly, in Australia we have neither a comprehensive picture of the health of nature, nor a complete understanding of the impacts of any decline in nature on our own wellbeing. We may be intellectually and technologically the most "advanced" and highly evolved species on the planet, but we must be the most retarded species when it comes to being aware of our own impacts on our life-supporting habitats for ourselves, and other species in our ecosystems.

Second, our institutions, globally and in Australia, are not optimized to address the increasingly complex and and the importance of adopting broader definitions of integrated challenges arising at the interface of social, sustainable wellbeing as a frame for effectively valuing
economic, technological and environmental concerns5. and protecting nature.

Human intellect remains myopic and shallow when it comes to the health of the environment, and our own spaceship Earth! Our governments' and institutions' tunnel-vision, based on short-term greed and economic benefits rather than long term strategies for living sustainably, and within Nature's limits.

Third, our understanding and definition of human wellbeing may be far too narrow. Some people and groups may be doing extraordinary things for nature, inspiring us all to better value and protect what we have, but they remain voices in the wilderness, on the peripheral, not in the mainstream. Animal species may impact on their environment, but not so that it can't spring back and recover! Humans, on the other hand, seem to incapable of limiting their desire to take more than they can, and it's justified by "economic growth", greed, traditions and culture!

Finally, the term ‘sustainability’ is used far too loosely in regard to humanity’s impact on nature. Depending on the context, it is often not measured, is poor. The word is too subjective, vague, and has been over-used and has become an oxymoron. The word has been stuck on almost any implementation or institution, including human growth, and thus a contradiction!

Population growth

"The most influential driving forces on nature are population growth and developments in the needs and activities of individuals, as expressed through material extraction and consumption. Population is projected to grow up to 42-70 million by 2100.”
So, our dying ecosystems, and diminishing natural resources, will be deliberately further stretched by governments tweaking our population growth through high and unsustainable rates of immigration! It expecting a moribund body, in the throes of death, forced to keep breaking stones and climb mountains!

Our population is projected to increase to between 36.8 million and 48.3 million in 2061, and reach between 42.4 million and 70.1 million in 2101 (Figure 3)33. The projected development of infrastructure (e.g. housing, transport, water supply, energy, communications) strongly correlates with anticipated population growth, reflecting the longstanding pattern of association among these variables. Of course, the report does not mention that our population growth is not due to natural growth, of births over deaths, but due to a bipartisan policy of "big Australia", high rates of net overseas immigration, and housing - a major industry in Australia!

To add to the slow death of our environment, the pain will be exacerbated by Australia consuming more resources per person than most
other nations on Earth. We consume about 35 tonnes per person per year. By contrast, an emerging nation like India consumes about 5 tonnes per person, while the US and 2.5 Japan consume about 28 tonnes.

The report concludes that while there is currently no long-term plan for the future sustainable development of Australian society, there is a growing movement of passionate and active communities across Australia, taking action to ensure their own futures.
These actions are collaborative, innovative and proactive, and gathering momentum by the day.

However, these groups passionate for change and for our nation's environment are usually sidelined, or marginalized, due to our limited democratic system, and an economic model based on capitalistic growth, and short-term gain at the cost of the welfare of future generations of all species. The "party" is over, and Australia's growth-based economy based on increasing consumerism must end - or we wreck the land that gives us food, water, sustenance, functioning ecosystems, and all that we "love" about our country!

(image: CSIRO Salinity affected land )

Glen Klatovsky – Director was National Campaigner for The Wilderness Society, leading the campaign to stop a gas hub at James Price Point. Glen was the Carbon Business Manager for Greening Australia. He was also Director, Advocacy for WWF-Australia.

Expansion at Abbot Point coal terminal can proceed following the Environment Minister's approval of the dredging project. There are some "strict" conditions on when and how much can be dredged. There is "protection" for flora and fauna.

Three million tonnes of dredge spoil will be dumped offshore. He has also approved of the LNG facility on Curtis Island. This is supposed to reignite our resource industries. Conservation groups are angry that Mr Greg Hunt has approved these developments

.

Community campaigns against the expansion of Abbot Point

Mainstream media reports about Abbot Point

On the ABC News radio this morning (9 Sept 2012) we heard that private coal companies are demanding compensation for carbon trading costs from the Victorian Government and apparently this is being taken seriously!

All the brown coal stations in Victoria belonged to the State electricity Commission of Victoria until 1994 when they were privatised by Jeff Kennett.
Now the current government is saying that it may have to compensate brown coal producers for their not being able to use it because it is too polluting and will be too costly under the carbon trading system.

Do we require further proof of how corrupt and unproductive privatisation is?
What gives when a government not only sells off our assets but then somehow agrees to retain liability for business risks?

You would have thought that the private corporations would have assumed responsibility for the debt.
They have profited from the privatisation over the years and are now crying poor and demanding compensation!
How about making the parliamentarians who agreed to selling off these assets personally financially responsible for any such compensation?

We've known of the dangers of coal since the 18th century. Our leaders should be held responsible for getting us into this mess.

Whereas most recycling (apart from composting and metals) is pretty energy-costly and pollution-generating and not worth doing, recycling of drink containers that can actually be reused - notably glass containers - would substantially reduce litter and plastic pollution. Complementary to such a scheme should be discouragement of throw-away plastic containers. There is so much we can still do to reduce our energy-footprints, as well as reducing population growth.

Bins for North East Victoria – a feeble step for a giant problem

The launch today in Rutherglen of Coca Cola’s ‘National Bin Network’ pilot litter initiative is feeble and will hardly scratch the surface of the region’s and state’s annual 2.5 billion landfilled or littered beverage containers, the Boomerang Alliance of 17 environment groups said today.

“The launch is intended to distract from the real game changer which is a national 10cent container deposit scheme (CDS) currently being considered by environment ministers. It’s just another part of the beverage industry’s tactic to avoid taking real responsibility and leave all future management costs to councils,” said Jeff Angel, National Convenor of the Alliance.

“The proposal for more bins in the street and sporting grounds simply won’t have a meaningful impact - we would have to have millions of bins lining roads or creeks and parks to have a broad and significant impact on litter. Unlike a CDS where a 10cent deposit is built into the scheme encouraging people to return the container or pick up the litter, this bin proposal offers little incentive for consumers or collectors to act. Industry will put bins in and then walk away leaving local councils and the community to meet the ongoing costs of collecting and processing for landfilling this contaminated material.”

“It’s a non-solution and we’ll keep campaigning in Victoria and other states for the real answer – container deposits.”

“A national container deposits system (CDS) will deliver $1.78billion for recycling in the first five years of operation – 17 times more than the national bin offer from the beverage industry. Not only is this amount and the recycling of another 6 billion containers per year assured, the CDS funds could support a wide range of measures to improve recycling across Australia,” he said.

“A container deposit system does far more for the packaging problem than any other option at a maximum cost of one tenth of a cent per container”.

Key benefits from a variety of studies shows CDS will produce:

• A fund worth $1.78billion – derived from unredeemed deposits in the early years to support
increased recycling and reprocessing in Australia; improve commercial and industrial collections; public education on litter; local council efforts; and CDS costs.

• Miniscule impact on beverage prices – RIS (Regulatory Impact Statement) data shows an impact of one tenth of a cent per container by 2020; or under adjustments to errors in the RIS – a surplus of half a cent or more – when part of the fund supports CDS costs.

• Clean, not contaminated recyclate – a CDS produces clean materials that attract a price premium rather than contaminated bins material for lower value uses, or dumped into landfill.

• Financial boost for local councils/ratepayers – Victorian councils will save over $20m a year

• A new tier of hundreds of convenient drop-off centres – as in South Australia these will also

take e-waste, used white goods, batteries etc – generating several thousand jobs

• A boon for charities – Scouts SA generate $22m from their recycling centres and other charities in other states have expressed an interest in being involved in a national CDS.

Source of article: Boomerang Alliance

Unless there's economic growth, we're not making progress
Unless the trucks rumble along the roads, we're not making progress
Unless the engines of industry are turning, we're not making progress
Unless the factories and mills belch out smoke, we're not making progress
Unless our armies are on the move, we're not making progress

Until we respect the planet, we won't progress.

Huge floating patches of unrecycled pelagic plastic in the North Atlantic and Pacific Oceans are yet more damning evidence of the damage that is being done to our planet by the rapid expansion of industrialisation across the globe. This is being done to suit the greed of humankind's elites. The harm that is being done to our ecological life-support systems, including the inexplicable disappearance of bee colonies that once thrived across the northern parts of the American and European continents could hardly be explained away as a coincidence.

Article originated as a comment. Thanks, Bandicoot, although, I can hardly say I feel overjoyed to have learnt this news. See also comment Sea Turtles are in the dumps - editor

It seems that we are witnessing the death of our planet right before our very eyes. The extreme weather, Gulf oil disaster and use of deadly dispersants, to decades of agrichemical and synthetic medicines leeching into water ways, and general human pollution resulting in having to now map the North Atlantic Garbage Patch (not to be confused with the Great Pacific Garbage Patch ) -- has resulted in major breaches to our interdependent life system.

Scientists have gathered data from 22 years of surface net tows to map the North Atlantic garbage patch , which lies to the east of Bermuda, and its change over time, creating the most accurate picture yet of any pelagic plastic patch on earth.

The data were gathered by thousands of undergraduates aboard the Sea Education Association (SEA) sailing semester, who hand-picked, counted and measured more than 64,000 pieces of plastic from 6,000 net tows between 1986 to 2008.

The Great Pacific Garbage Patch, also described as the Pacific Trash Vortex, is a gyre of marine litter in the central North Pacific Ocean the size of France. Recent data collected from Pacific albatross populations suggest there may be two distinct zones of concentrated debris in the Pacific. he Patch is characterized by exceptionally high concentrations of pelagic plastics, chemical sludge, and other debris that have been trapped by the currents of the North Pacific Gyre.

the Great Pacific Garbage Patch is not a solid mass, as is sometimes imagined, but a kind of marine soup whose main ingredient is floating plastic debris.

It was discovered in 1997 by a Californian sailor, surfer, volunteer environmentalist and early-retired furniture restorer named Charles Moore, who was heading home with his crew from a sailing race in Hawaii.

Several major sea currents also converge in the gyre and bring with them most of the flotsam from the Pacific coasts of Southeast Asia, North America, Canada and Mexico. Fifty years ago nearly all that flotsam was biodegradable. These days it is 90 per cent plastic.

Over the past few years, honeybees have suddenly and inexplicably disappeared from colonies that once thrived across the northern parts of the American and European continents. The pest, a type of mite called Varroa destructor, is a natural parasite of the Eastern honeybee (Apis cerana). Today it is almost impossible to find a honeybee colony free from the mite.

"The landscape has changed considerably over the last 30-40 years; we've seen well-documented changes in our birds, our flora and also in some of our insects," said Andrew Watkinson of the Insect Pollinators Initiative (IPI), "but now there's a growing concern that our insect pollinators are also in decline, whether that's in terms of the number of honeybees, number of bumblebee species, butterflies and hoverflies."

Editorial comment: Can the criminality of the 'free market' 'growthists' be under dispute any more? Australia has undoubtedly contributed to the piles of garbage now floating in our oceans by its massive past exports of coal, gas, metals and other raw materials to China, India, Japan and other economies which are so wastefully churning out those plastics. Yet our political, economic and industrial 'leaders' want this country to further compound the problem by massively expanding our exports and in doing so turning much our country, including agricultural land and nature reserves, into a desolate, poisoned quarry. To make this possible, we are told that we must massively import more workers to dig up our raw materal. Of course, by their privatisation of the Port of Brisbane and Queensland's railways, the Queensland Government will ensure that little of the proceeds of this global environmental vandalism will go into the pockets of ordinary Australians. Instead it will help to further line the pockets of the already obscenely rich.

Few are prepared to admit when they are wrong, so then why has this expression become a cliché?

Humans as animals have a survival instinct and so by extension are naturally defensive of criticism. They will defend their actions to the hilt, despite the surrounding damage they knowingly cause. Modern 'progressive' Man (humans) even more arrogantly proclaims that the world without human endeavour would be a wasteland.

So blaming human overpopulation for the earth's ills does not come easy to humans, especially to those self-righteously but religiously conditioned to traditional procreation; far more palatable to blame some external force for human damage.

Climate change is just pollution re-badged. Many were protesting back in the 1960s and 70s about the impact of pollution on the planet. Pollution seems to have matured into climate change - whatever. Some even let humans off the hook.

But climate change is 1% of the environmental problem.
How so? Well, when one considers the exponential sexed up epidemic in developing countries (India, China, Pakistan, Nigeria, Bangladesh), compounded by the human food demand for more farmland, the human deforestation to make way for food growing, human consumption habits driven by corporate marketing increasing in sexed up developing countries, increased housing demand pushing into nature, increased energy demands to feed the consumption demands of more sexed up humans, biofuels clearing more of nature to fuel exponential human energy demand...

Well ain't the core driver of environmental damage caused by the sexed up habit of humans and the selfish overpopulation they procreate?

Independent scientists have proven that 'climate change' is a contributor to the environmental damage collectively across the planet. But when compared with the cumulative impact of human overpopulation, the impact of climate change pales to 1% like the impact of passive smoking on a chain cigar smoker.

Societal Two Year Olds
This is a dilemma of the immature society that like a typical human two year old selfishly believes that it is the centre of the world and has an unlimited right to have what it wants.

The problem of the two year old is one for the parents, to reshape immature thinking and behaviour so it learns to be part of society rather than falsely thinking it is the centre of society.

Immature societies have a similar problem. Twentieth century societies emerged out of 19th century societies that were spoilt by their governments. Exploitative, selfish habits are cross generational. Emerging third world societies are now aspiring to the execesses of their 'first world' older siblings.

What to do with Societal Two Year Olds in the 21st Century?

The offshore rig Deepwater Horizon exploded April 20 in an oil leak that has surpassed the Exxon Valdez as the worst in U.S. history. Scientists estimate up to 20-40 million gallons have been flowing over the last five weeks but estimates vary wildly. Exxon Valdez spilled nearly 11 million gallons in 1989. A U.S. Geological Survey says scientists calculated the well has been spewing from 504,000 to over a million gallons a day but nobody knows for sure at this stage exactly how much has spilled (1). This is actually not a spill, it is a draining of a massive oil field into our oceans. It will go on for a long time, maybe several years. There are already many leaks next to the big one.

Danger of Chemical Dispersants Used
It’s not just the amount of oil spilled but the millions of gallons of toxic chemical dispersal agent Corexit 9500 which is being pumped into the leak a mile under the Gulf of Mexico waters in order to keep the full extent of this leak from the American public.

Corexit 9500 is a solvent originally developed by Exxon that is four times more toxic than oil (oil is toxic at 11 ppm, Corexit 9500 at 2.61ppm). Exxon found Corexit 9500 to be one of the most toxic dispersal agents ever developed especially as water temperatures increase. The data sheets for Corexit contain this shocker: 'No toxicity studies have been conducted on this product' -- meaning testing their safety for humans. And also 'Component substances have a potential to bioconcentrate. This is not what you want to hear about toxins being dumped in the sea by the hundreds of thousands of gallons. It means the toxins get passed on up the food chain to human eaters, not to mention the damage to aquatic life.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) ordered BP to stop using Corexit 9500 but BP refused saying their only alternative to Corexit 9500 was an even more dangerous dispersal agent known as Sea Brat 4. Where Corexit 9500 degrades into an organic compound in 28 days, Sea Brat 4 which may degrade into an organic chemical Nonylphenol that is toxic to marine life and can persist for years in the environment.

I can’t help but wonder why it took the EPA so long to demand that BP adopt non-toxic methods of cleanup known to work instead? BP has refused saying it has hundreds of thousands of gallons of Corexit in supply and may not be able to find a substitute in time. However, much is unknown about the underwater use of dispersants and the risks are huge. BP said Corexit is effective, 'safe for the environment' and that other potential dispersants aren't available in sufficient quantities. Corexit is on the list of the EPA's approved dispersants, which are commonly used to break up oil during spills usually on the water's surface. But BP's use is unprecedented both in terms of the amount used and the depth at which it is being used.

Another great danger from Corexit 9500 is that as the Gulf water warms up and the dispersant goes from liquid to gas, it will be absorbed into clouds and become ‘toxic rain’ on all of eastern North America. Should a strong tropical hurricane hit the gulf with over tens of millions of gallons of Corexit 9500 sitting on top of, or near the gulf surface, the resulting ‘toxic rain’ falling upon the North American continent could cause dire health effects.

Meanwhile, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) warned that winds forecast later this week could move the spill towards the Mississippi and Alabama coasts. An oil sheen has been seen about nine miles off the coast of Florida, with officials warning it could reach Pensacola Beach by Wednesday.

NOAA also predicted up to 14 hurricanes, of which between three to seven will be 'major' tempests, packing winds in excess of 110 mph. Powerful winds can cause 20 metre high winds above the surface. Hurricane Season started yesterday, June 1, and a hurricane could snap any of the 31,000 miles of offshore oil pipelines lying across the seafloor down to 300’ by whipping up underwater currents. Seafloor damage leading to mudslides and damaged pipes can result from hurricanes. Small leaks can be difficult to detect and repair can cost more than fixing drilling platforms. Anything less than level 3 hurricane can tear up the seafloor down to 90 meters for up to a week. (2)

Some of the suggested solutions such as setting fire to the ravaged coastline of Louisiana or flooding the area to float out the oil could ruin the marshes and do more harm than good. American scientists are warning that the damage may be impossible to repair. As for using a nuclear bomb in the area, if a nuke is detonated one mile beneath the ocean, the resulting shock wave would create the world's largest Tsunami flowing in all directions.

The most tragic thing is this disaster has occurred in the most biologically rich waters of America. Corexit 9500 coming ashore will destroy it for decades.

Some reports also hint of a secret plan to evacuate tens-of-millions of people from the Gulf of Mexico States in case the most dire of these scientific warnings start to come true.

Hidden facts
Let’s look at what mainstream media is not saying (3):

1. The leak that BP is very publicly trying to close is NOT the main leak. Marine scientists from Uni of Sth Florida’s College of Marine Science said they have discovered a massive new plume of what they believe to be oil deep beneath the Gulf, stretching 22 miles from the leaking wellhead northeast toward Mobile Bay, Ala. just beneath the surface down to about 3,300 feet, and more than 6 miles wide. They are worried these undersea plumes may be the result of the unprecedented use of chemical dispersants to break up the oil a mile undersea at the site of the leak. They said the oil has dissolved into the water and is no longer visible, meaning that the toxicity from the oil and dispersants could pose a big danger to fish larvae and filter feeders such as sperm whales, which spells disaster to the marine food chain.

2. The amount of crude spilling into the Gulf daily is not 5,000 barrels a day as reported by BP - it appears to be over 70,000 barrels, equivalent to an Exxon oil spill every single day.

3. The technology to deal with this exists and BP - along with the US government - are willfully not using it.

4. If the well is not capped it could blow wide open causing a global catastrophe. BP knows they have a ticking time bomb here as the amount of oil gushing out increases daily.

Non-Toxic Solutions
You have to ask why these are not being at least trialled until they figure out how to stop the leak.

1. Microbes (4)

2. Corncobs. (5). Recovery 1, Inc.,a Michigan company, has a patented and proven process that uses corncobs to absorb oil from oil spills like the one in the gulf. It uses no harmful/toxic chemicals and the company's efforts to offer its services have all but been ignored. They're just waiting to help.

3. Salvaging perfectly good crude oil for later sale, thereby protect marine ecosystems and wildlife.

4. 'Oil Sponge' (trademarked by Phase III, Inc.) is rated as the 'best performing' absorbent by the US Army Corp of Engineers. Oil Sponge is 100% organic, and is made from renewable resources. It is built using a microbial and nutrient package, capable of transforming oil hydrocarbons into a safe bi-product of carbon dioxide and water.

5. Mycelx - after the Exxon Valdez incident of March 1989, Mycelx of Georgia developed what looks like a paper towel to soak up to 50 times its weight in oil. And while this product is used from the Middle East to Europe to Canada it was of no interest to BP.

6. Hair is a renewable resource which naturally separates oil from water leaving large tar globs in which mushrooms can then be seeded. And as the mushrooms grow they digest the oil leaving non-toxic organics which can then be composed into soil, great for growing healthy vegetables. Lisa Gautier, president of 'Matter of Fact,' has collected 400,000 pounds of hair and stuffed it all into nylons to be used as booms near Gulf shores. This idea could have been a great boost to the U.S. economy, by creating organic compost for the millions of nutrient depleted farm acres in the world. Also there could have been a viable cottage industry of collecting hair from salons.

7. Hay, sawdust, crushed volcanic rock, kitty litter - any of which could have mulched with the oil on the surface of the Gulf waters, making for easy pick-up.

Baffling Strategies

Instead of using safe, non-toxic methods of gathering up gushing oil, the oil industry (backed by the bankers) is using this extremely toxic dispersant. Why?

An interview with Phillippe Cousteau shows underwater footage of the oil mixed with dispersants sinking to the bottom out of sight (6).

BP’s so-called 'clean-up' efforts are nothing short of criminal. Where is the media outrage at this unprecedented catastrophe? Why did oil industry executives and their confederates in the Obama administration make sure that all spewing oil would sink well below the surface, or never rise to it, so it could never be vacuumed up or neutralized?

Said Alan Levine, Dept. Health and Hospitals, Louisiana “We don’t have any data or evidence on the use of these chemicals in the water. We are now basically using one of the richest ecosystems in the world as a laboratory.”

Secretary of Dept. Wildlife & Fisheries, Louisiana, Robert Barham said “We are very disappointed in the EPA and oil company executives’ approach. The federal procedures call for a consensus between federal authorities, the responsible party and the states involved. We expressed our concerns over the dispersants but they apparently decided to go ahead without us.” So instead of removing the crude oil, the EPA allowed BP to turn the Gulf into a toxic testing ground.

BP has even refused to use their own oil tankers lying in the Gulf to suck up most of the oil and salvage it for sale (as they did after a Saudi spill in the ‘90s which vacuumed up 85% of the oil).

The worst part is that these international criminals of humanity and life in the Gulf, committed their dastardly deed of deeply submerging the floating oil with an extremely dangerous chemical dispersant that would deny all marine creatures oxygen, thus killing them, and marine plant life, as major underwater currents carry the poisonous oil through-out the Gulf and into the Atlantic. Chemical dispersants are known to be 10,000 times more toxic to life than the oil itself, and their purpose is just to hide the magnitude of the blowout.

Trying to give this ecocide a positive spin, BP spokesman John Crabtree said his corporation had dropped more than 560,000 gallons of [toxic] chemical dispersants on the surface slicks and 28,700 gallons of the chemical at the subsea wellhead, 5,000 feet below sea-level. Crabtree’s justification for such an insane, criminal act was that the dispersants would drive the oil well below the water’s surface, thus keeping it away from coastal shorelines. So instead of removing the oil, BP decided to make the oil even more toxic, and drive it deep into the ocean where it can never be retrieved, but will kill all marine life in its path.

Devastation to marine wildlife
Mandy Joyce, a marine sciences professor at the University of Georgia carefully chose her words about BP’s deplorable dispersants: “Anything that requires oxygen will not be able to survive that water. The food web is going to change. You could stymie the entire production level of the Gulf of Mexico. That’s a very real possibility.”

BP’s chemical dispersants contain 2-butoxyethanol, a compound that kills marine and wildlife, exactly the life our clean-up measures should try to save. BP’s chemical dispersants, currently being dropped by airplanes, break the crude oil into tiny droplets that sink well below the water’s surface, where they form a giant cloud or plume, making it impossible to gather, as is the obvious intention.

And with this poisonous plume creating a dead zone, currently estimated to be about the size of Delaware and Rhode Island combined, hidden at about 3,000 feet of water, no one can place an accurate figure on how much oil has actually gushed into the Gulf. Once this plume reaches the large, rapidly moving Loop Current, this oily cloud of death could swing toward Florida and Cuba, killing its coral reefs and marine life.

Thick oil is now coating birds and delicate wetlands along the Louisiana coast. There are nine most animals threatened by the oil spill.

1. Louisianna’s brown pelicans (just taken off the endangered list).
2. Four species of endangered sea turtles. Ten days after the spill 156 sea turtle deaths were recorded, mainly Kemp's ridley turtles, whose only breeding ground is in the Gulf region. Sea turtles are vulnerable to eating contaminated fish and ingesting/inhaling the oil when surfacing for air.
3. Herons which nest in large colonies and feed in the marshes along the coast. Also endangered plovers and terns are at grave risk.
4. Dolphins have to rise to the surface frequently to breathe. Their extra sensitive skin can suffer burns and irritation from the oil, their eyes can develop ulcers, conjunctivitis, and even blindness, and they risk inhaling the oil and its vapors, which could severely damage their lungs and airways. Ingesting the oil can lead to ulcers or internal bleeding. Oil contaminating their food supply will only exacerbate the problem down the road, and new generations may become poisoned from their mothers' milk.
5. Atlantic bluefin tuna (critically endangered due to overfishing) have peak spawning months in May and April, and the Gulf is the only documented spawning ground for the western bluefin. Unfortunately, the chemical dispersants being used on the spill only make things worse for the bluefin, as they sink the oil below the surface and into the area where delicate bluefin eggs and larvae are floating.
6. The blue crab is currently in spawning season and as the chemical dispersants break into smaller bits, the oil may accumulate in snails and mole crabs that blue crab's eat. The toxicity could have a disastrous effect on the crabs' reproduction.
7. Egrets (snowy, reddish and great egrets) feed and nest in the coastal areas now contaminated by the toxic oil.
8. Sperm Whale (endangered) 1,400 to 1,660 of which live in the Gulf of Mexico. They are at risk of oil inhalation and may pass out and drown as a result of the toxic fumes. Because sperm whales take such a long time to reach sexual maturity, if as few as three are killed from the oil spill it could be devastating to their population. Females give birth to just 3-4 calves in their entire life. Between 2000 and 2005 about 300 sperm whales were seen on a regular basis right where Deepwater Horizon sank.
9. Up to 400 endangered Manatees migrate from Florida to Louisiana waters every summer. The spreading oil spill is threatening to move into sensitive wildlife refugees and national/state parks where many endangered species live, including manatees.

The Borowitz Report exposes an email from a Goldman Sachs employee Fabrice Tourre to a girlfriend, admitting the bank ‘made a substantial financial bet against the Gulf of Mexico’ one day before the sinking of an oil rig there. How did they know? “One oil rig goes down and we’re going to be rolling in dough. Suck it fishies and birdies!” Tourre said.

An Avoidable Event
The Gulf oil spill could have been avoided in the first place if the Bush Administration had not deregulated the oil companies and required them to put in a acoustic switch system, a relay system that stops the oil leak at the source by triggering the blowout preventer. If BP wants to do business in Norway they have to use this switch but not in the U.S. It would have cost BP, who is making a record $40 billion in profits, a total of $500,000 to put this switch in but they didn't. (7)

History Repeats Itself
SHR writes on his blog on www.gazbom.blogspot.com "An oil spill happened in Alaska in 1979 on the same day that there was an oil rig burning out of control in the Gulf of Mexico and the same solutions didn't work then! You'd think there was someone around still alive who remembered this and said "Oh, we had better do something else fast!"

"Though the spill is now the biggest in U.S. history, it's not the biggest ever in the Gulf. An offshore drilling rig in Mexican waters — the Ixtoc I — blew up in June 1979, releasing 140 million gallons of oil (8). However IXTOC I happened in 50 meters of water (165 ft deep) and this one is in over 5,000 feet of water. Divers can easily reach 165 deep but at 5,000 ft everything must be done with remotely operated subs making the task of working around the well head far more difficult."

"The insane volumes of gas and oil that could be released if this thing blows apart are truly of nightmare proportions. This one isn't in the south western gulf like the IXTOC blowout was. The Gulf is sort of separated into two portions and the western side is sort of trapped, the Eastern side is not and the 'Loop current' which connects to the 'Gulf Stream' flows right through this side. It will carry the oil spillage out into the Gulf stream and all the way up the eastern seaboard all the way to the UK and Europe where it ends. There will be who knows how many cubic feet of gas released into the atmosphere and the surrounding area with an untold amount of toxins. The economic implications are dire, the fishing industry annihilated, beaches and tourism to them destroyed and who knows what other effects there will be."

"It's a very very bad disaster to say the least but THIS IS NOTHING COMPARED TO WHAT MAY HAPPEN and WILL HAPPEN if they cannot stop this thing. Nothing will stop this from blowing apart and going wide open if the rush of fluids cannot be halted, it is a CERTAINTY (11)."

Official Response
The only permanent solution is drilling a second well, but that will take a couple of months. BP plans to go ahead with that even if the top kill works and so far it hasn't. (9)

BP spokesman Steve Rinehart said “This is an all-out response and we're doing everything we can to stop this."

BP CEO Tony Hayward said ‘I think the environmental impacts of the oil spill is likely to be very, very modest”. But not to worry, they will do a very detailed environmental assessment report after the fact! And also "This is a tiny leak in a big ocean" - BP CEO.

BP has not sent down instrumentation to measure the amount of oil coming out saying "Our focus is on stopping the leak, not measuring it."

EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson told a House subcommittee on Thursday that BP used less than 12,000 gallons of dispersants on Wednesday, down from 70,000 gallons four days ago. She argued that the EPA has been aggressive in forcing BP to cut back its use of dispersants. But shouldn’t the EPA be insisting BP uses non-toxic methods?

In Washington, Minerals Management Service Director Elizabeth Birnbaum stepped down from the job. Her agency has been criticised from lawmakers of lax oversight of drilling and cozy ties with industry. It was found that between 2000 and 2008, agency staff members accepted tickets to sports events, lunches and other gifts from oil and gas companies and used government computers to view pornography.

Health Hazards
Hundreds of Gulf fishermen whose livelihoods have been destroyed by the BP-created oil catastrophe have taken jobs trying to contain the damage. As during the Valdez disaster, these workers are showing symptoms of lung damage and other internal injuries as a result of exposure to toxins.

Dispersants being dumped in large quantities into the Gulf of Mexico may cause central nervous system effects, nausea, vomiting, anesthetic or narcotic effects," and "repeated or excessive exposure to 2-butoxyethanol [an active ingredient] may cause injury to red blood cells (hemolysis), kidney or the liver." (12) Repeated or prolonged exposure to the substance can produce target organ damage and/or general deterioration of health by an accumulation in one or many human organs.

Seven cleanup crew members who reported dizziness, severe headaches and nausea while working in boats off the Louisiana coast remained hospitalized Thursday. The Coast Guard pulled commercial fishing boats from cleanup efforts in Breton Sound on Wednesday after workers first reported feeling sick.

Questions for Obama
Obama said critics failed to realize "this has been our highest priority." He announced that a new moratorium on drilling permits will be extended for six months. He also said he was suspending planned exploration drilling off the coasts of Alaska and Virginia and on 33 wells currently being drilled in the Gulf of Mexico.

Obama says he is in charge now, he knows what he is doing. But did he mention that Exxon Valdez spilled 250 THOUSAND barrels of oil? And that this hole is blowing 200,000 barrels of oil PER DAY for seven weeks, plus whatever is still gushing after the "fixit" hole does whatever it can? Did he mention the fixit hole is NOT going to stop the leak, only reduce it by some unknown amount? Did he mention that Goldman Sachs made a fortune selling short the day before the blowout of the wellhead? Did he mention all the toxic lipid destroying chemicals being dumped on the oil to keep it out of sight beneath the waves so they can lie about the amount? Did he mention that humans are made out of lipids and lipid destroying chemicals are being dumped at the bottom of the food chain of the entire planet to hide BP's evil deeds? Did he mention that 80% of the oil could be recovered if it was sucked up instead of trying to hide it under the water so it delays public outcry? Did he mention its at 170,000 psi pressure? Did he mention that this is the largest oil and gas field in the world and also blowing out natural gas in huge quantities? Did he mention it will destroy the entire Atlantic ocean?

What can we do?
A good friend of mine says that she is going to the ocean to pray for our planet. I think this is an excellent time to do this, to pray or mediate daily, visit the oceans if you can to do this. Pray for the dolphins and whales and millions of other sea creatures that are dying, and for the Atlantic Ocean which may be depleted of oxygen by this incredibly evil and unnecessary blowout of Deepwater Horizons, and the use of chemical dispersants. If you cant go to a lake or a river, I suggest we all meditate or pray over a bowl of water at least, and reaffirm our caring for our friends the dolphins, where they go, we go next.

Secondly, don't buy BP or any of their products (Castrol, AM-PM, Arco)!

Time to Change our World View
It’s time for humans to respect all living creatures and not think of them as a resource. Some say that the earth will survive, only humans will die. But don’t forget that we are in the midst of the 6th Mass Extinction. Every day we are losing over 100 species of plants and animal, species that have taken millions of years to evolve. We are destroying ALL life, not just our own. And even if we succeeded in destroying everything I doubt the earth could ever recover. Why? Because at the bottom of the food chain is plankton which makes 70-80% of the oxygen we breathe. Even plankton now has plastic in its DNA so how can we be so sure that everything will regenerate again? Plastic does not biodegrade. Can we afford to be so complacent? I don't think so. Each one of us must do everything in our power to stop the corporations destroying all life on this beautiful planet. We are all part of Earth’s enormous family (10).

Americans must all wake up and see that the oil and banking industries, both of which their lifestyles depend upon, have done more to destroy their country in the last few years than any foreign enemy could dare imagine. Other western countries should also wake up and switch allegiance from the petroleum industry to alternative power sources.

On June 2, the U.S. Attorney General announced the beginning of criminal and civil investigations into the spill.

Rev 16:3 - And the second angel poured out his vial upon the sea; and it became as the blood of a dead man: and every living soul died in the sea.

References
1. http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5i-yfHJzPLDeBIhG5JDEF6VbaPR8QD9G34HD82
2. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/05/100526141852.htm
3. http://www.brasschecktv.com/page/855.html
4. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/05/100526141852.htm
5. http://www.recoveryiinc.net/index.html
6. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7lBQkNgY3bY
7. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=77pBcf0o444&feature=related
8. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x9A36A3GTcY&feature=player_embedded
9. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/37353392/ns/gulf_oil_spill/
10. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/37353392/ns/gulf_oil_spill/
11. http://gazbom.blogspot.com/2010/05/oil-spill-is-epic-disaster-of-biblical.html#ixzz0pgALROvN
12. http://www.sciencelab.com/xMSDS-2_Butoxyethanol-9923187

Article originally published as "Resistance Growing to Ecologically Devastating Chinese Mining Invasion of Madang, Papua New Guinea" on rainforestportal.org o 1 Apr 10. What you can do: e-mail China Metallurgical Construction Corporation to let them know of your objection to their invasion of Madang.

Article originally published as "Resistance Growing to Ecologically Devastating Chinese Mining Invasion of Madang, Papua New Guinea" on rainforestportal.org o 1 Apr 10.

The Ramu mine's 134 km long pipeline which ultimately dumps
waste directly on the seabed is easily prone to damage from
landslides or sabotage. Local peoples are protesting the
potential damage to their land, seas and way of life. (link)

Chinese government owned China Metallurgical Construction (MCC) Corp. efforts to establish the massively destructive Ramu Nickel mine in Madang Province, Papua New Guinea -- the largest investment in metal exploration and mining by the Chinese outside of China -- is in serious jeopardy. Local landowners are initiating court cases and protests to demand the mine be stopped. The nearly completed Ramu project will mine nickel and cobalt ore at Kurumbukari -- which is located in the foothills of the Bismarck Ranges approximately 75km south west of the provincial capital of Madang. Topsoil will be scraped off a mountainous area and then the nickel-bearing soil will be mixed with water and the slurry sent down a 135 km pipeline through heavy rainforests to an ore refinery and treatment plant at pristine Basamuk Bay on the Bismarck Sea.  The ore will then be shipped to China, and the waste -- some 100 million tons over 20 years-- dumped directly into the sea.

The Ramu Mine's waste tailings will poison fish stocks and cause extreme ecological destruction of the seabed. Although the mining company describes the tailings disposal as "deep sea", tailings will be dumped at a depth of only 150 metres. Tailings will not be covered or otherwise secured -- rather they will simply be pumped out of the end of a pipeline and allowed to spread freely through spectacular Astrolabe Bay. Almost certainly the tailings will not remain where they are placed, and will spread widely in one of the last intact tuna fisheries globally. With work on the overland pipeline completed, the Chinese are now planning a series of underwater explosions to blast a way through coral reefs for the undersea section of the pipe.

Despite competing and still unresolved communal land right claims, the Kurumbukari people at the mine site have been devastated by their forced removal from their ancestral lands by police operating on behalf of MCC. People all along the project are extremely anxious about the ecological and social impact of the mine in their area, and the blatant corruption. They worry the mine will devastate the Ramu river, that the shoddy pipeline will leak - devastating rainforests and communities, and that the seabed tailings disposal will destroy their abundant marine resources. Local peoples feel impotent in the face of the ruthless indifference of the Chinese to PNG law, and the corruption of the national and local politicians who are lining their own pockets at the expense of Madang landowners.

MCC - managed by the local subsidiary Ramu Nico - was about to start blasting coral reefs to allow the laying of the tailings pipeline, when a court decision last week - on a case brought by local landowners - granted a temporary injunction stopping pipeline construction and work on the mine's seabed tailings disposal system. During court proceedings hundreds of landowners and local people protested peacefully outside the court house by holding placards showing their dismay, and were not intimidated by a heavy police presence. Representative signs read "Madang not China". "No Blasting, No dumping", and "Where is Justice?". Many countries have banned the dumping of mine waste in the sea, but Wari Iamo -- the deeply corrupted Secretary of the Department of Environment and Conservation -- has deemed it okay in Papua New Guinea.  MCC is to return to court in Madang on April 12.

The entire project has been mismanaged, marked by shoddy construction; and disregard for local rights, life, and marine and rainforest ecology. Recently a devastating fire at the mine site caused the destruction of the kitchen as plastic pipes that were used to feed diesel fuel to the kitchen melted. Sexually transmitted diseases are rampant as Chinese workers have forced prostitution and even rape upon local women. Construction work has already destroyed local drinking water supplies. Lack of drainage and retaining walls along the shoddy pipeline have already caused large landslips and blockage of the only highway into the province. The pipeline is extremely vulnerable to sabotage by disgruntled local peoples.

Papua New Guinea is not a brutal communist dictatorship, but a liberal democracy where free speech and human rights are respected and enshrined constitutionally. China's rising influence in PNG threatens the country's freedom of religion, speech and land rights. The mine was conceived in the capital Port Moresby and is being forced upon local peoples without prior and informed consent. It has been alleged in local media that MCC recently provided USD 10 million to the government of Michael Somare to defend itself against a vote of no confidence, and additional huge bribes have routinely been made previously throughout the approval and construction processes. A leading Papua New Guinea geologist says the Ramu Nickel mine has been massively undervalued -- that it was sold to the Chinese for just 5% of its true value, and is worth $US34 billion and not $US1.7 billion This is another example of the "broad daylight rape" and exploitation of Papua New Guinea's resources -- already evident in Madang with grossly inappropriate foreign owned, industrial tuna and timber projects. Chinese mining investment in Madang against local wishes can only be described as an invasion of sovereign peoples, and will be resisted at all costs.

What you can do: e-mail China Metallurgical Construction Corporation to let them know of your objection to their invasion of Madang.

Levels of fluoride dust from a brick factory at Craigieburn and the Alcoa aluminium smelting plant near Portland are proving fatal to kangaroos. DSE was informed of the problem in 2008 and the EPA was told in 2005, but signs of fluoride-related symptoms in kangaroos were noted as early as 2001. We know we cannot rely on the DSE's wildlife statistics and most of us have heard that the EPA is a toothless tiger, but how many of us would have thought there was enough fluoride dust out there to kill herds of kangaroos? Where does that put humans, especially children?

Our kangaroos are dying of fluoride poisoning in Victoria

Deborah Gough's article, "Roos victims of factory fluoride," February 21, 2010 The Age:http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/roos-victims-of-factory-fluoride-20100220-oms2.html reveals a nightmare. The article merits ongoing discussion so that the information does not perish with the fish and chips wrapping.

If, like me, you were confident that Australian governments were able to judge safe levels of fluoride in water, you may wish to review your opinion now. Although the Age article is about levels of fluoride dust from brick factories and the Alcoa aluminium smelting plant near Portland, causing deaths in wildlife - and you may not be wildlife - the level of incompetence in environmental 'regulation' and waste 'management' here seems quite alarming. The degree of poisoning is awful. Why would anyone believe that with such incompetence and callousness prevailing in Victorian government and business that humans in Victoria were safe?

Biggest fluoride polluters in Victoria

According to The Age in Victoria:

The Alcoa smelter in Portland emits 120 tonnes of fluoride dust a year
Austral Bricks in Craigieburn emits 60 tonnes a year
Melbourne Water emits more fluoride than any other agent overall.

The Age gives its source as the National Pollutant Inventory.

Responding to inquiries about the fluoride poison-related deaths of many kangaroos in the Portland and Craigieburn areas,

"EPA director of environmental services Bruce Dawson denied the authority had been slow to reduce maximum emission levels. He said that while the levels were safe for humans, it was now clear they were too high for some animals and a new level was likely."

According to this Age article, Wildlife Victoria had told the Department of Sustainability about the problem of fluoride emissions and kangaroos in 2008! The EPA had been told about it in 2005. Signs of fluoride-related poisoning in kangaroos were noted as early as 2001.

Sounds like the Department of Sustainability ignored this alert too, or, even worse, culled and disposed of the signs or allowed someone else to do so.

And, if it is only clear now to the EPA that the levels were too high for wildlife, why would we have confidence that the levels were okay for humans, particularly babies, and particularly over time?

The situation for the kangaroos seems so severe that I cannot find words to say how it makes me think of my government and the industries emitting these toxins. If people have knowingly allowed this to happen then they are inhuman.

"Scores of starving and pain-ridden kangaroos have been culled after developing tooth and bone deformities from breathing and ingesting fluoride emissions. Many more are believed to be suffering from growths that will kill them. The affected kangaroos are living near the Alcoa aluminium smelter in Portland, in the state's south-west, and the Austral Bricks factory at Craigieburn."

Mr Dawson (EPA Director of Environmental Services) said the EPA had demanded that Austral ''significantly reduce'' its fluoride emissions by building new facilities and upgrading technologies, but neither it nor Alcoa were 'in breach' of regulations. Obviously the regulations are hopeless.

Dawson said the levels were safe for humans.

There is actually a lot of doubt about what constitutes safe levels of fluoride over time and it is hard to have faith in such pronouncements, especially for babies and children, when authorities in Melbourne were able to ignore or not able to understand that the fluoride levels were so dangerous as to be causing tooth deformities in kangaroos so that they were starving and moved painfully.

"Autopsies performed at Melbourne University on 49 kangaroos culled at Alcoa on a single day last year found all but one were suffering from fluorosis, which leads to excessive bone growths, or lesions, on joints in the paws, ankles and calves. It can also cause tooth and jaw deformities that hinder eating and foraging."

Alcoa has been in the business of managing fluoride for a long time. How come it isn't aware of its toxicity in all conditions by now?

And, apparently culling of the kangaroos has been going on quietly, presumably with government permission.

The Sunday Age has been told more than 200 ill kangaroos living near both affected sites have been culled in recent years, but this figure could not be confirmed

This time the culling may have prevented the alarm being raised sooner. The recent Auditor General's report is evidence that the Department of Sustainability has been issuing licenses to cull kangaroos and other wildlife without any reliable wildlife statistics. Have ill-advised kangaroo culls in the area also disguised what must be a high mortality rate in these animals from poisoning? In other words, is this another flow-on from the Victorian Government's failure to monitor the welfare and population dynamics of our wildlife?

Perhaps those 'nuts' who resisted fluoridation of Queensland's water recently were right after all. One certainly cannot ignore the fact that there is little evidence for fluoridation of water supplies and quite a bit contradicting its supposed benefits for teeth.

From this poisoning epidemic we should derive the lesson that our living environment, those species that share this world with us are like us. If they suffer, we are likely to suffer. If we ignore their suffering we may well be turning our backs on clear warnings about our own predicament.

Our predicament is not the poisoned environment alone, it is also our helplessness to treat our fellow creatures decently because of the wall of obscure regulations and power thrown up by our commercial-in-confidence-government. A society which allows other creatures to be dispossessed and herded into toxic land then culled and disposed of with no public outcry is depraved.

One of the most important principles internationally when referring to greenhouse gas reduction schemes it that the polluter pays. This means that national targets for the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions should be based on the historical contribution of each nation to global emissions.

A most important factor is the levels of emissions per capita. Australia has the highest greenhouse gas emissions per person at 26.7 tonnes per annum and this it twice the average level for all other industrialised countries and 25% higher that per person in the USA (21.2tonnes).

It is obvious that Australia's population growth policies have a enormous impact on our greenhouse gas emissions. Our immigration rate is the major contributing factor of our population growth and thus the biggest contributor to increasing our greenhouse gas emissions, and not "natural" growth. Immigrants coming here therefore adopt our consumption habits and lifestyles, thereby increasing their emissions, and our overall output.

If Australia decides to increase our population rapidly, to 50 million by 2060 or more, then energy-related emission would grow to around 600 parts per million CO2, or about double 1990 levels! (Population Policy and Environmental Degradation Sources and Trends in Greenhouse Gas Emissions: Clive Hamilton and Hal Turton, Monash University)

People are not pollution -- Why climate activists should not support limits on immigration.
People are not "pollution" and neither is CO2, but both can cause problems from excess quantities!
Recently, as concern about greenhouse gas emissions and global warming increasing, the anti-immigrant argument has taken on a new form. Now the argument is: immigrants should be kept out because our way of life is a threat to the world’s environment.

According to the article: To calculate “per capita emissions”, we simply divide a country’s total greenhouse gas emissions by its total population. This provides a useful baseline for comparing countries of different sizes – but it tells us nothing at all about the emissions that can actually be attributed to individuals. In fact, most emissions are caused by industrial and other processes over which individuals have no control. In Canada, for example, no change in the number of immigrants will have any effect on the oil extraction industry at the Alberta Tar Sands, described by George Monbiot as “the world’s biggest single industrial source of carbon emissions”.

Monbiot site on Canada

However, Australians have made effort to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions, but unless our numbers are limited the gross output will continue to rise. Industry and technology cause anthropogenic emissions, and a higher population increase the demand for larger markets and increased production. More population naturally equates to a demand for more jobs, and thus more industries and more plundering of finite natural resources! Excessive exports are due to human greed and worship of growth.

The Government accepted the findings of Professor Garnaut that a fair and effective global agreement centred on stabilising long-term atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases was at or below 450 parts per million of carbon dioxide equivalent is in Australia’s national interests. However, the Australian National Greenhouse Accounts released in June 2009 showed emissions rose by an estimated 553 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent, or 1.1 per cent, in 2008. According to Climate Group, (Jan 2008) compared with 2000 levels, emissions from energy-use were significantly higher across all states, collectively up 19 per cent.

The Greenhouse Indicator Annual Report, released by the Climate Group, measures emissions created by electricity and petrol use across the eastern states. The report shows overall emissions were 5.3 million tonnes lower in 2009 than in the previous year. The base line should be 2000 (Copenhagen) or 1990 levels (Kyoto) , not 2008! So we are reducing our increase?

Australia has declared it will not go beyond a 5 per cent cut in greenhouse gas emissions by 2020 without guaranteed action by major emitters including the US, China and India. Little hope anyway of going beyond 5 %! By 2020 the Federal Government wants to cut emissions by 5 to 25 per cent. At our present rate of population growth, our numbers are likely to be well over 25 million by then!

THE United States (Jan 29th) officially stated a goal to cut carbon emissions by 17 per cent by 2020 off 2005 levels, in a submission to the United Nations as part of last month's Copenhagen meeting.

Our 5% is looking a little short now that the US have challenged it!
Kevin Rudd's drive for a "big Australia" and his efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emission are totally at odds, and are completely contradictory and hypocritical to addressing climate change, what he previously called the "greatest moral challenge of our time"!

Thousands of litres of oil, gas and condensate has been leaking into the sea from the West Atlas rig since August 21 from a wellhead near PTTEP Australasia's West Atlas oil rig, 250km from shore.

(photo Wikipedia Commons)
The spill measured 70 by 20 nautical miles, with sheen visible in 25 per cent of that area, Resources Minister Martin Ferguson said.

It has been reported that the slick — measuring about 30 meters wide and 15 kilometers long — is about 250 kilometers northwest of the Kimberley coast.

An estimated 400 barrels of oil a day is leaking from the well head platform, according to the company.

Despite comments from Federal Resources and Energy Minister Martin Ferguson and WA Premier Barnett playing down the impact of this spill it is clear that a disaster of this scale will have serious and ongoing impacts on a range of marine life.

A relief well being drilled 2.6km under the sea to plug thousands of tonnes of oil leaking from a rig off the West Australian coast has passed the halfway mark, the company responsible for the disaster saying yesterday that it had now drilled 1.6km without incident. But PTTEP Australasia, which owns the stricken West Atlas rig, extended the deadline for completing the complex repairs, admitting it would take at least another three weeks.

The region where this spill is occurring is a ‘marine superhighway’ for a range of species including over 19 species of Whales and Dolphins, including the Humpback Whale. Sea Snakes, many bird species, fish and other wildlife will also be impacted. Dr Gilly Llewellyn, WWF Australia's conservation director, says the affected area is home to many rare species.

The federal Environment, Water, Heritage and the Arts Department, Peter Garrett, confirmed some wildlife had been affected, although the full extent of the damage remains unclear. The Northern Territory Environment Centre says proof the oil slick is killing birds gives more weight to calls for new protected marine areas in the region.

The Opposition's environment spokesman, Greg Hunt, says it should pay for an independent organisation, such as Charles Darwin University or James Cook University, to carry out a survey of marine life.

The Australian Government says so far no whales or other marine mammals have been harmed by a large oil spill off the country's west coast despite the fact that fishermen are bringing in animals that have died as the result of the spill!

However, nine seabirds, four now dead, have been caught up in the slick, according to staff of the Environment Department working on Ashmore Reef.

There have been no checks so far around the rig on any effects of the oil on turtles, whales or sea snakes known to frequent the area. A private environmental consultant's report commissioned by the WWF has found 15 species of whales and dolphins, 30 seabird species and five turtle species could be affected by the oil slick. The report finds the spill could end up harming 30,000 sea snakes, which fisherman have already reported finding dead in the ocean nearby, and 16,000 turtles.

The diverse and ecologically crucial coral reef habitat of Ashmore Reef is also threatened should the spill reach this area 150km from the leaking rig.

The Kimberley region is home to one of the most significant coral reef provinces in the world. There is no good reason to put the Kimberley environment at further risk – certainly not economic. Mr Garrett is preparing to release areas in the resource-rich ocean north-west of Australia to become potential marine conservation zones.

In the 1970’s Australia said ‘No’ to oil and gas mining in the Great Barrier Reef (GBR) and went on to implement what was then the world’s largest marine park. The GBR now contributes well over $5 billion in sustainable income annually to the Australian economy and supports thousands of jobs.

The Marine Conservation Society's Prue Barnard says it is part of the Government's commitment to create a network of marine parks by 2012. She says the recent oil rig leak off the Kimberley coast underlines the need for sanctuaries.

“The region where this spill is occurring is a ‘marine superhighway’ for a range of species including over 19 species of Whales and Dolphins, including the Humpback Whale”, TWS said in an open letter to federal environment minister Peter Garrett on August 28.

From June to November each year, humpback whales make their way home to calving grounds just north of Broome, where they stay for four months with their calves. The Kimberley coast is crucial habitat for the humpback whale, a protected species in Australia. We wouldn’t plan a freeway through a maternity hospital and expect it to continue?

The Kimberley region of northern WA is one of the world’s great natural and Indigenous cultural regions. Its vast savannah landscapes, wild rivers, extensive wetlands, spectacular coast and rich marine environments provide a multitude of habitats that are home to an extraordinary diversity of species.

The Wilderness Society is calling on the Federal Government to declare a moratorium on further approvals and expansion of the oil and gas industry in the region.
Environment groups including the Wilderness Society are calling on the State and Commonwealth Governments to:
-Immediately place a moratorium on oil and gas development on the Kimberley coast until government planning processes are complete.
- Establish large marine sanctuary zones - with the consent of the Traditional Owners
- to protect the globally significant marine biodiversity in this region, including Humpback whales in the vicinity of James Price Point.

Pledge your support

Language is powerful. ‘In the beginning was the word’. Everything in the universe vibrates. The words we speak vibrate from our vocal chords and pass through every cell of our bodies. Infants in the womb feel the vibration of their mother’s words all around them, pervading their environment and their bodies. Somewhat like being in a surround sound Imax theatre only more so.

The words we think become the words we speak. These words reflect our consciousness which attracts people and experiences that mirror our thoughts. Like attracts like. The bible says “To him who has, more will be given.”

Words have power, not only because of the sound they vibrate but because of the associations they carry. Every time you say or think a word, instantaneously, for a split second, the image of that word imprints on your brain. You may not even be aware of it. For example if I say the word ‘apple’, you just visualised it, didn’t you? That’s because we learn language by associating images and feelings with sounds. In the same way by hearing the same word, whether from someone else or from yourself, bombards the mind with that image. Are we going to choose to fill our minds with positive images or negative images?

Japanese researcher Masaru Emoto found by freezing drops of water and photographing them under a darkfield microscope that when one said ‘Thank you’, ‘I love you’ or “I appreciate you’ or placed the written word on paper attached to the water, the water organised itself into beautiful, symmetrical crystals which looked like vibrant gems. Conversely, when negative thoughts and words like “I hate you,” “ugly,” “demon” were used, it made the water disorganized and unstructured, which looked like a muddy sewer. His research clearly shows that water responds to our thoughts, words and feelings. Since humans are 70% water, it’s obvious that negative thoughts, words and feelings can adversely affect people (see footnote).

So if people around you are constantly using language that is foul, disrespectful, violent, negative, how does that make you feel? If you use foul language yourself, how does it make you feel? For myself when I hear the word my aura contracts and my heart chakra closes. This is not desirable to me.

Spiritual people talk about the beneficial effect of repeating certain words such as mantras on our consciousness. So what about the negative effect of speaking and hearing certain other words on our consciousness? Do people realise what they are creating in their aura?
Perhaps this is why the Buddha taught that Right Speech is part of the Noble Eightfold Path.

The Power of Swearing:
Cultures with no written language believe that spoken words have the power to curse or bless people as well as affect the world around us. This means some words are very good and some words are very bad. Researchers agree that swearing came from early forms of word magic. So let’s consider that for a moment - sounds have the power to affect our psyche deeply. Given that the right hemisphere of our brain controls our instinctual and emotional sides and the left hemisphere the rational, logical part of the brain, it’s interesting to note that studies show that swear words do not need the left brain to process them. Functional magnetic resonance imaging studies show that the more complex parts of our brain (that process language) can struggle with the simpler part of our brain (that process emotions, motor responses) when a person swears.

The F Word:
Let’s take the F word for example. This word means different things to different people. What does it mean to you? To many people, it conjures up images of rough, lustful sex, totally lacking in refinement or sensitivity, somewhat like copulating animals. As such, it violates the sanctity of love-making and is arguably one of the most profane, vulgar words in the English language. Those who use the word often say it means nothing to them at all, just a collection of syllables – or does it? What about subconscious associations?

Why do People use the F Word?:
Studies show that men swear more than women. Men swear to create a masculine identity and to express emotion, since they are taught not to cry. Some people use the F word to add humour, emphasis or shock to the conversation. Or it could be used to camouflage one’s fear or insecurity.

People use the F word for a number of reasons, one of which is to establish rapport and build camaraderie – but that only works if both parties use vulgar language, otherwise, a wedge can be driven between people.

As the world becomes increasingly chaotic, confused and destructive, more people seem to be using this word in daily conversations without even realising it, especially in Australia where it is like a pandemic, followed by its ugly sister, the P Word.

1. Expressing Anger:
It is a word most commonly used to express anger. What has sex got to do with anger? Have you noticed that in general most negative people of this generation use the F word frequently and positive, uplifted people never use it?

The F word is like an umbilical chord connecting people to the womb of anger, violence, rage, fear and despair. On the other hand, positive, uplifting words connect people to the womb of peace, harmony, generosity, gratitude and humility.

Swearing can not only arise from a hostile mind but can create a hostile environment and induce other people to violence. In the U.S. the courts take this into account and regard obscenity as ‘unprotected speech’ that does not come under the constitutional First Amendment of freedom of speech.

2. Being Cool:
It was thought at one point that women swear to imitate men but now studies show that women swear in order to imitate women they admire and to establish trust and intimacy with other women.

In certain social groups, the F word is regarded as ‘trendy’ or ‘cool’ and not necessarily used when the person is angry but for the sake of appearing ‘sexy’. Such people appear to be fascinated with the F word and actually speak the word louder than other words in the same sentence. If your friends are all using the word, it’s very easy in order to be accepted by them to use it too.

People who use vulgar language in a conversation think that non-users are overly conservative, however I know many people who are very radical in their thinking and lifestyle but never use the word and even detest it. It may be an interesting exercise for such people to make this subject a topic of conversation to find out what others think.

3. Obsession with Sex:
I wonder if people who use the F word constantly are actually saying ‘I want sex.’ Why all the obsession with sex? Could it be to escape from the pervasive and undeniable suffering around them, or simply to escape their own suffering? Humans are constantly seeking pleasure and running from pain. The pleasure dulls the pain sensation. Food is a big one and so is sex.

Or could it be that humans suffer so much from Nature Deprivation Disorder (feeling disconnected from the natural world) and themselves, that by using the F word - which is distantly related to a unifying act of deep intimacy - they are trying to reconnect? Sex for many people is the only way they know to feel unified with a world that fosters increasing disconnectedness.

If that is the case, why not sit and meditate in silence, connecting with our higher mind and angelic kingdoms? Or, if that is too difficult, then perhaps go out into nature and focus on another species, imagining ourselves as that creature and feeling union-oneness with it. If we feel another being as if we were that being, separation disappears like an illusion in a timeless, magical moment. Maybe that is the reason why universally people love to watch animals in the wild.

4. Habit:
For other people, using the F word is only a habit - albeit a bad one – fuelled by habituators around them. With a little self-awareness this habit could be broken simply by noticing when this word is used in thought processes and immediately replacing it with a different word. In no time the habit will be broken much to the surprise of non-swearing colleagues, many of whom will be quietly relieved.

5. Rebellion Against Society:
Some people use the F word to rebel against society. Interestingly, swearing was a punishable offence in New England and in today’s world is the #1 reason to be fired from your job. A new survey from TheLadders.com reveals that 36% of US bosses have issued a formal warning and 6% have fired an employee for swearing, deeming a foul mouth the most punishable of all workplace faux pas. This poll of over 2,000 executives reveals that 81.2% of senior office executives find a foul mouthed colleague unacceptable to work with.

I met a woman recently who told me that the F word is the only way to accurately and strongly express your anger and that she trained other women to 'come into their power' by using this word. Perhaps what she was really saying was that foul (anti-social) language is a way of saying that you don't care what society thinks of you. The sad thing is that such a person ostracises not only society but also intelligent non-swearing individuals from their circle.

6. Brain Damage:
Who has not seen the sad spectacle of a demented alcoholic staggering down the street shouting angrily at the world using the F word excessively? According to studies, too much swearing could be a symptom of disease or as a result of damage to parts of their brain. Various neurological and emotional conditions can also affect a person’s ability to speak and lead to extreme swearing.

7. Unresolved Negative Emotions:
It’s a mystery to me why highly intelligent people who are earnestly trying to make a positive difference in the world are habituated to using the F word. Such people have an extensive vocabulary to draw upon and could easily find other words to adequately express their anger. Could they be needing to rise above their own negativity, which is after all an emotional condition born of frustration, anger, fear, disappointment, despair and so on before trying to save the planet? Can they not see that using the F word perpetuates negativity in a never-ending vicious circle and lowers the vibrations on our planet, like adding fuel to a fire that is already raging?

The P Word:
Another similar swearword used to express anger is the P word. Every time it is used, an image of a person urinating imprints the brain. How unsavoury is that to contemplate? Why do we even need to think these disgusting, irrelevant things when we can use less unsavoury words like ‘annoy’ bother, irritate and so on?

Affect on Non-Swearers:
Incessantly using the F word in the presence of those who never use it and find it offensive is disrespectful and can make them feel polluted by you. Some individuals go so far as to avoid those who use the F word or even hang up the phone when speaking with them.

Even threatening to use the F word around non-swearers but then not using it, causes the hearer to think the word momentarily in their mind and cringe in expectation. This can produce physiological symptoms of stress such as a tightening in the abdomen, neck, hands, or face in the non-swearer. To use the F word around people who don’t use it, or to threaten to, can be a subtle psychic assault on that person, whether they speak up about it or not.

Every word we use can be a weapon to hurt others or a healing balm to heal and bless them. Let’s choose carefully.

Breaking the Swearing Habit:
Words are pictures that we paint on the canvas of our own and others’ minds. Using a rich array of image-provoking words is mentally satisfying and socially stimulating. For example, in casual situations we could substitute the F word with other words such as darn, pesky, blooming, gosh, heck or gee. To express anger we could use words like furious, livid, irate, wild, outraged, boiling mad, incensed, disgusted, appalled, devastated, disturbed, aggravated, upset, ballistic, explosive, raving, or fuming. Or come up with your own versions!

For example substitute the four letter F word with the three letter F word i.e. FUN. Try saying 'Fun off!' or What a FUN hot day it is today! What the FUN are you doing??? Our FUN government has decided to run another rally.....Get FUNNED! He is a FUN-wit. If you say it with as much anger as possible it actually sounds hilarious.

Do you see what a smorgasbord of linguistically colourful words we have to choose from instead of the same predictable boring old F word? It’s like going into a restaurant and choosing the same old MacDonalds burger with fries for breakfast, lunch and dinner!

Additionally, we can use adjectives to qualify the word, for example steaming, supremely, increasingly, outrageous and so on. And we can invent new slang like ‘Let’s see how the mop flops’ or ‘trot the rot’. For hundreds of years Australians have been famous for humorous and unique colloquial expressions which define our culture and give us originality. What happened? Have we all dried up and resigned ourselves to predictably spitting out the F word every other sentence? It’s fun to think up and use new slang so why not try it?

How do Swearers Respond to being Challenged?
On raising this subject with people who use the F word frequently, responses have ranged from 'You need to get over this and just accept me as I am' to ‘It’s a colourful word and part of the Australian vernacular’ to 'You are right - I feel like a fisherman's wife and hate using the word! Thank you I will replace it with a different word.'

Some people have gone out of their way to use the F word more frequently to deliberately annoy me. Does such a person truly care about how I feel?

I would dearly love for a revolution in consciousness about this word with some open dialogue or debate or at the very least some serious consideration of how this word affects us and others in our vicinity.

Raising Your Own Vibration to Raise the Planet’s Vibration:
Raising our vibration starts with words we use in internal dialogue - the thoughts in our heads. If we choose positive words that encourage self-confidence, kindness, appreciation and gratitude we tend to respond more positively to the outer world. This contributes to peace and helps turn the tide on planetary destruction which originates from hatred and anger. It sounds like a long shot, but remember, sound is vibration and everything originates from vibration.

We Australians seem to have the habit of putting ourselves down, as if it’s some kind of virtue - and it’s not. As a result we are less likely to express appreciation of others. Have you noticed that when you are kind to yourself it’s a lot easier to be kind to others? And we wonder why there is so much discord in the world. If we tell ourselves ‘I am loveable, generous, kind, caring, intelligent, beautiful’ etc. and appreciate ourselves, it will help us be that much closer to extending the same kindness to others. If everyone practised appreciating each other, the world would be a better place.

Imagine if, instead of someone saying ‘F you!’ they said ‘Thank you, I will think about this.’

Doesn’t it make sense to consciously eliminate toxic words that foster harshness and vulgarity and instead use words that foster love and kindness to all creatures? Wouldn’t that help heal a troubled world on the brink of ecocidal madness and create the peace, love and harmony we all deeply crave?

Not everybody speaks about how much they dislike the F word, but such people do exist and they suffer quietly for a long time. Maybe it’s time to speak up and help the world change the tide of negativity and usher in a new age of genuinely positive imprinting of consciousness of ourselves and those around us?

******

Footnote: While not all scientists agree that Dr Emoto’s work is credible research, bear in mind that the understanding of resonance is in its infancy and scientific trials can be problematic when the results can be so easily influenced by an experimenter’s mind. See Dr Emoto explaining what his critics fail to grasp at youtube.com/watch?v=rZDOPQRdxJM.

Greens say the Port of Melbourne is polluting Port Phillip Bay

Greens MP Sue Pennicuik says that the latest PoMC quarterly report has indicated that water quality control limits were exceeded on a number of occasions over the last three months. In addition water-quality testing by ACFs Bay Monitor has confirmed that the plume from the dredger has spread further than predicted and the report that the dredger has spilled 1,000 litres of hydraulic fluid at the Entrance to the Bay just show that the Port is not serious about protecting the ecosystem of Port Phillip Bay.

"The plume from the dredger has spread further than the Port had predicted, but many others in the community had predicted that this would happen," said Ms Pennicuik.

"Arsenic, zinc, copper, nickel and nitrogenous compounds have all been found in concentrations higher than the 'control limits,' which is no surprise either due to the weak Environmental Management Plan that the Port is operating to. All of this was foreseen by scientists and others independent of the Port and the state government and sadly are coming to pass.

Laws weakened to accommodate dredging project

"The pollution and the spreading dredge plume demonstrates the inability of the PoMC to adhere to even its own watered down environmental standards."

"I find it deplorable that the response of the PoMC to these breaches is to further weaken [environmental standards] to accommodate the needs of the dredging project rather than the needs of the ecosystem of Port Phillip Bay."

"This is like removing the canaries from the coal mines when the poison gas levels rise, she said."

"My question is 'where is the regulator?' Which agency is pursuing the dredging company and the Port of Melbourne for polluting Port Phillip Bay?"

Source: Media release, 10 September 2008.
For more information call Sue Pennicuik 0407 000 270

Why is Australia helping to plunder Peru? The indigenous people in Peru are being dispossessed of their land by a corrupt government, and the mining companies with their "free trade" agreements are being supported by President Garcia! Mining is polluting the river water at Reque and there are no hospitals or doctors. The Napo river is being poisoned because of gold mining. Cocaine smugglers are also infiltrating this area. Human corruption and greed have no ends!

Indigenous people are up in arms against these multinational companies who want to remove them from their territories, destroy their rainforests and destroy their communities. What about human rights? This is shameful to Australia and APEC. BHP, Rio Tinto and other mining companies should get OUT of Peru_#main-fn1">1. The people will get NOTHING and the money will go to the president and his corrupt ministers.

The land belongs to the indigenous people, They do not want "civilisation" or to get "integrated" into the economy - and participate in all the anarchy and corruption of Peruvian cities. Nothing is spent on the people of Peru. They have few hospitals, schools, housing, roads, transport and human rights are non-existent. How is Australia dealing with such a country? The indigenous people are willing to die for their land. They are being bribed and extorted to give up and leave, and the government is intimidating their leaders with fabricated "crimes". They have been accused of being "terrorists" but have the right to live in and defend their traditional land.

We should not be taking part in APEC (Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation)! What about human rights, and the environmental costs of destroying rainforest areas? This is NOT the way to prosperity. This is poison and evil. The indigenous people want their land and to live in peace.

It is shameful that APEC and Australia are making agreements with this corrupt Peruvian government. Money is the root of all evil.

Note: after I read this I did a Google News search to confirm what was written by Vivienne. I found only a small amount about mining in Peru. These stories, inclucing the one listed below, confirm what Vivienne. However, this story seemed to be in contradiction to a 'good news' story, Peruvian forest laws overturned of 29 Aug 08 by Rick Kearns. So I e-mailed Vivienne to ask if, perhaps, her bad news story was dated. She advised me that she got the information from a friend who is from Peru and reads the online newspapers every day. She advised me that "the President in Peru has the ultimate power and can go against congress - like a king. There is no accountability or no-one he has to answer to. He is totally unpopular except for a few richer people and there is no way to get rid of him. ... I don't usually take interest in human concerns as such as I am more interested in animal rights, wildlife and environment, but these indigenous people live in harmony with the environment and are totally innocent of all the corruption and anarchy of Peru. I can't help but feel sympathy for them and the rainforest that is their home! Very concerning. Now the government is trying to frame the leaders for tax evasion(!) ... . They are poisoning the rivers and the dolphins and fish are dying." - JS

Footnotes

#main-fn1" id="main-fn1">1. #main-fn1-txt">↑ See Mining giant defends against BHP 5Sep08 in the Herald Sun Asked if possible joint ventures included Simandou iron ore in Guinea, Oyu Tolgoi copper in Mongolia and La Granja copper in Peru, (Rio Tinto CEO) Mr (Tom) Albanese responded that he would consider "anything that provides a positive, value-adding proposition for Rio shareholders."

Other stories about Peru

Peruvian forest laws overturned of 29 Aug 08 by Rick Kearns in Indian Country Today, Indigenous protesters triumph as laws revoked in Peru AFP of 22 Aug 08, Seizing Native land in Peru, one parcel at a time Peru of 4 Jul 08 by Rick Kearns in Indian Country Today, Indigenous rebellion in the Amazon of 30 Aug 08 in Green Left Weekly

For a somewhat subtle and seemingly pro-indigenous-people article in favour of rainforest destruction read Peru's Battle Over Subsoil Threatens Tribes of 3 Sep 08

Other stories about Latin America

Morales funds three indigenous universities in Bolivia by Rick Kearns in Indian Country Today of 3 Sep 08.

More violence in Bolivia after referendum by Rick Kearns in Indian Country Today of 5 Sep 08.

Morales claims victory in Bolivian recall referendum AFP of 10 Aug 08.

Bolivia Nationalizes Pipeline AFP of 3 Jun 08.

Morales makes good on land reform promises by Rick Kearns in Indian Country Today of 18 Feb 08.