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Ecotopia: 30 Years Later
I live in the region that has been called "Ecotopia." In Ecotopia, people dumped the internal combustion engine and corporate capitalism for a sustainable energy paradise. Ecotopia did not come to pass, but the ideas were influential as we now see transit projects, urban villages, recycling.
Three decades ago, author Ernest Callenbach of Berkeley CA penned "Ecotopia," the novel which imagined the Pacific Northwest seceding from the Union and forming an ecologically sustainable new world.
This novel is being republished in a 30th anniversary issue (Bantam Press) and at an especially relevant interval, as we head into the second term of a notoriously environment-averse administration. In the western part of the country, there is serious talk of secession by the left and of dividing states by the right.
Callenbach is now 75 years old and continues to relate his ideas to these times of globalization and global warming. He advocates for more public transit as planners begin to realize that building more freeways is not the answer. He uses Portland and Toronto as positive examples on this continent for mass transit. He reminds us that we can organize locally if our government isn't reponsive and tailor defense of natural areas to our needs as farmers, fruit growers, bicyclists, kayakers, students, small business people and so on.
He discusses obstacles, particularly government corruption, often at all levels. He advocates for candidates to run and to find ways to finance their campaigns without being in the pocket of corporations. Maine and Arizona are held up as examples of places where this has been done successfully in the last two election cycles.
"Electoral reform and corporate reform are the two twin pillars of a decent future for America," he says. He also has the very interesting idea that large nation states (such as the US, China, Russia) are not workable as democracies in the long run unless they break down into smaller and more efficiently governable entities. It is also possible for like-minded smaller entities to be in contact with similar entities in distant areas and to collaborate.
He wonders if the American empire is declining as the working middle class are disenfranchised by the erosion of unions, pension plans and other programs which have worked toward our collective well being. What the Republicans and other rightwing people have called the "welfare state" is actually benefitting most of the people in the country. If these programs are decimated, we will head more in the direction of Latin American countries where there are many many poor and a tiny upper class who live obscenely well.
Does he propose potential solutions? First he advoates learning what's going on. We need to know why we are having wars and how our general interests are being sacrificed for the good of corporations. We need to think about what we are getting back for the money that we send to Washington. We can then work at all levels, following our interests and talents but the same positive general direction of sustainability. He uses as examples teens who are trying to repair creeks.
He takes hope from learning he has seen, as when Californians began to turn out the lights more (cut usage by 20 percent) during Enron's price gouging. He says, "people will pay attention if there's something really sensible being said to them." We need to talk in terms of how we are living and what we are doing to the natural world, rather than in empty political slogans and develop a much more concrete and functional politics. He cautions that we are not happier though our consumption in this country has tripled since 1960.
Geov Parrish interviewed Mr. Callenbach for the Seattle Weekly and you can read the entire article at:
http://www.seattleweekly.com/features/0512/050323_news_callenbach.php
Yucca Probe Focuses on Possibly Faked Data
The Associated Press
E-mails suggest efforts aimed at clinching nuclear waste project. (Note: 77,000 tons of nuclear waste would be buried 90 miles from Las Vegas, for at least 10,000 years, with questionnable safety to humans & wildlife and the hauling to the site poses grave danger as well).
Washington - E-mails by several government scientists on the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste dump project suggest workers were planning to fabricate records and manipulate results to ensure outcomes that would help the project move forward.
"I don't have a clue when these programs were installed. So I've made up the dates and names," wrote a US Geological Survey employee in one e-mail released Friday by a congressional committee investigating suspected document falsification on the project.
"This is as good as it's going to get. If they need more proof, I will be happy to make up more stuff."
In another message the same employee wrote to a colleague: "In the end I keep track of 2 sets of files, the ones that will keep QA happy and the ones that were actually used." QA apparently refers to "quality assurance."
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/040205Y.shtml
Question of Survival By Jean-Marcel Bouguereau Le Nouvel Observateur
These aren't some granolas in Indian tunics and clogs. They are 1360 experts from 95 different countries, among the most highly qualified anthropologists, ecologists, biologists, and economists. They worked for five years to arrive at this frightening observation: forty years from now the planet will no longer be able to assure human well-being. Already, "60% of the ecosystems that support life on earth have been damaged," such as the tropical forests and the oceans. Damage that has become particularly acute during the last fifty years. More land, for example, has been converted to agricultural use since 1945 than in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Even if man succeeds in nourishing himself better thanks to this agriculture - the production of which has, for the first time, outstripped population - even if malnutrition has been reduced and health considerably improved, the negative impact of this growth in human activity is alarming: woods and tropical forests in danger, fishing stocks dried up, species varieties declining, infectious disease on the rise.
The destruction of 35% of mangroves, those trees that plunge their raised roots along the banks of tropical seas, has already had an impact in the recent tsunami, in the sense that they had previously been there to soften this kind of catastrophe. What is most serious, however, is the largely irreversible character of these transformations, nature's inability to regenerate itself - as, for example, fish stocks - and the consequent impossibility of reestablishing the broken equilibria, a situation which amplifies the effects of global warming on the environment. We understand that under these conditions the United Nations' objectives - to reduce by half the proportion of the global population that lives in extreme poverty - not only cannot be achieved, but also aggravate this situation. These experts invite us to radically change our perspectives. Not only must we downshift, but also undoubtedly, as a matter of survival, go into reverse.
My Letter to the Editor, Let's see if it gets published:
To the Editor:
What does it mean, “The Nuclear Option”?
• Does it mean the Constitution is threatened?
• Does it mean that irreparable harm will come to us?
• Does it mean millions of Americans voices will not be heard in the Senate?
• Does it mean that a majority party can push through any and all legislation no matter how many people oppose it?
• Does it mean that we will become just like the countries we criticize for not having a free and open society?
The answer is: Yes to all of the above. Here’s how it is done: Eliminate the filibuster. People wonder why that is important? I ask you, do you feel that you have fair representation if your Senator wants to argue for or against a particular proposal and they are not allowed to? Certainly not. Yet, that is what is being considered now on Capitol Hill. We have seen the Congress make serious missteps in the past, but if allowed to occur, eliminating the filibuster will be a death knell for a democratic society. What would stop a different majority party from enacting laws that a substantial portion of the population had no option to oppose?
I voted for my Senators to be my voice in the Congress. If that right is taken away from them, then it is being taken away from me. Tell me again, what was President Bush’s Inaugural speech about?
Write or call Senators Bill Frist (R) and Rick Santorum (R) and tell them that you care about the Constitution and are against the “nuclear option”.
Signed,
Thanks!
I was able to refer this person to DCP & mentioned looking at last week's topics for additional letter ideas.
"Help! Tonite at 7 is the our Moveon meeting where we are supposed to formulate letters to the editor about the nuclear option. I am not much of a word smith. I hope these folks have a lot of ideas to help me on my way with
this."
Environment, Earth on the Brink
http://www.truthout.org/issues_05/040105EA.shtml
Judge Rebuffs Rock Creek Mine Approval
http://www.truthout.org/issues_05/040105EB.shtml
Shell to Reroute Pipelines over Gray Whale Fears
http://www.truthout.org/issues_05/040105EC.shtml
From the NY Times:
3.4% Surge Pushes Oil Above $57
The May contract for crude oil on the New York Mercantile Exchange rose $1.87 and settled at $57.27 a barrel after reaching $57.70 in earlier
trading. The closing price was the highest since March 18 when futures touched $56.72 a barrel.
Gasoline futures in New York trading also rose, closing up 7 cents, to $1.73 a gallon. They have jumped 10 percent in the last three days.
The increase in oil prices and concerns over a pickup in inflation have rippled through stock markets. The Dow Jones industrial average fell 99.46 points, or nearly 1 percent yesterday, to 10,404.30 points. The Nasdaq composite index dropped 14.42 points, to 1,984.81.
Oil markets continue to be rocked by the tightness in global production and concerns over rising demand. These issues, along with unexpected interruptions from producers like Iraq or Venezuela, have contributed to a 67 percent jump in oil prices in the last year.
More recently, problems at oil refineries in the United States and abroad have increased worries that gasoline demand this summer will not be met.
A refinery in Venezuela, the world's fifth-biggest oil exporter, was shut on Thursday by a power failure. The incident came after an explosion last week at a Texas City, Tex., refinery that is the third largest in the United States.
Despite the record prices, gasoline demand in the United States has shown no sign of a slowdown and, over the last month, has been running 2 percent higher than it did a year ago. At the same time, gasoline reserves are falling.
The Energy Information Administration said this week that gasoline stocks fell 2.9 million barrels, to 214.4 million barrels, the fourth consecutive weekly decline.
"Until something derails the current trends in supply and demand, prices have no way to go down significantly, let alone stay down significantly," said Jan Stuart, an oil analyst at Fimat USA in New York.
The rise in energy costs is starting to be felt in the economy. Fewer jobs were created in March, according to the Labor Department, although
America's unemployment rate fell to 5.2 percent, from 5.4 percent in February. In addition, airlines, including Delta, United and Continental, have increased fares in response to rising costs.