Environmentalist Sentenced to 4 Months for Accepting Facebook Friend Request

And an environmentalist with a long rap sheet for various radical actions has been sentenced to another four months in prison for having an online interaction with another activist. A US district judge in Michigan ruled that Rod Coronado had violated the terms of his parole after he accepted a Facebook friend request from fellow radical activist Mike Roselle. In accepting Roselle’s friend request, Coronado’s action amounted to one click of his computer’s mouse. Coronado was also using what his parole officer called an "unauthorized" computer.

The Roots of James Lee's Rage against Civilization

Bron Taylor is an Environmental Studies scholar at the University of Florida with whom I once worked to develop an Environmental Studies program when we were both at the University of Wisconsin, Oshkosh. Among other things, his scholarly work has paid close attention to environmental movements around the world, from radical to mainstream manifestations, with special attention to their ethical, spiritual, and political dimensions.

After hearing about the incident in Maryland yesterday where a protester was shot and killed by police after threatening employees at the Discovery Channel's headquarters claiming the channel was not doing enough to save the planet, I thought of Taylor as someone who might help us make sense of the situation. My hunch was quickly confirmed when I learned that Lee had been influenced by the novels written by Daniel Quinn, for I knew Taylor had written about Quinn's influence on environmentalists in his new book, Dark Green Religion: Nature Spirituality and the Planetary Future. (More about his book and writings can be found on his website.)

Actions Speak Louder than Words

Every morning when I wake up I ask myself whether I should write or blow up a dam. I tell myself I should keep writing, though I’m not sure that’s right. I’ve written books and done activism, but it is neither a lack of words nor a lack of activism that is killing salmon here in the Northwest. It’s the dams.

Anyone who knows anything about salmon knows the dams must go. Anyone who knows anything about politics knows the dams will stay. Scientists study, politicians and business people lie and delay, bureaucrats hold sham public meetings, activists write letters and press releases, and still the salmon die.

Fuck Monsanto

The bio-tech company Monsanto can sell genetically modified seeds before safety tests on them are completed, the US Supreme Court has ruled.

A lower court had barred the sale of the modified alfalfa seeds until an environmental impact study could be carried out.
But seven of the nine Supreme Court Justices decided that ruling was unconstitutional.
The seed is modified to be resistant to Monsanto's brand of weedkiller.
The US is the world's largest producer of alfalfa, a grass-like plant used as animal feed.
It is the fourth most valuable crop grown in the country.
Environmentalists had argued that there might be a risk of cross-pollination between genetically modified plants and neighbouring crops.
They also argued over-use of the company's weedkiller Roundup, the chemical treatment the alfalfa is modified to be resistant to, could cause pollution of ground water and lead to resistant "super-weeds".
But Monsanto says claims its products were dangerous amounted to "bad science fiction with no support on the record".

When Profit is your Motive you get Cheaper wells

WSJ Analysis Shows Oil Giant Used 'Risky' Design More Often Than Most Peers

In recent years, oil giant BP PLC used a well design that has been called "risky" by Congressional investigators in more than one out of three of its deepwater wells in the Gulf of Mexico, significantly more often than most peers, a Wall Street Journal analysis of federal data shows.

Forest Stewardship Council is the "Enron of Forestry" ( aka STOP buying Forest Products, especially from Kimberly Clark)

An interview with Simon Counsell, Director of Rainforest Foundation UK:
The FSC is the 'Enron of forestry' says rainforest activist
Jeremy Hance, mongabay.com
April 17, 2008

On April 7th, Mongabay printed an interview with FSC International Communications Manager, Nina Haase, in which she defended the FSC against criticism leveled at it by various environmental organizations, such as The World Rainforest Movement and Ecological Internet. The interview drew strong reactions on both sides, and Simon Counsell, director of the Rainforest Foundation UK, requested a chance to respond to the FSC's interview in-depth. In his response, he states that the FSC has created a "'race to the bottom' of certification standards", alleging that the "FSC really has become the 'Enron of forestry'".

How Non-Violence Protects the State

The Real Cost of Bottled Water

Max Weber articulated a concept know as the iron cage of rationality...something to effect of...we would be so rational that it would end to be irrational. (such as automated operators--its efficient, for the company so thus ration, but complete rational for the consumers). I think bottled water highlights one such rational irrationality. by Jared Blumenfeld & Susan Leal San Franciscans and other Bay Area residents enjoy some of the nation's highest quality drinking water, with pristine Sierra snowmelt from the Hetch Hetchy reservoir as our primary source. Every year, our water is tested more than 100,000 times to ensure that it meets or exceeds every standard for safe drinking water. And yet we still buy bottled water. Why? Maybe it's because we think bottled water is cleaner and somehow better, but that's not true. The federal standards for tap water are higher than those for bottled water. The Environmental Law Foundation has sued eight bottlers for using words such as "pure" to market water that contains bacteria, arsenic and chlorine. Bottled water is no bargain either: It costs 240 to 10,000 times more than tap water. For the price of one bottle of Evian, a San Franciscan can receive 1,000 gallons of tap water. Forty percent of bottled water should be labeled bottled tap water because that is exactly what it is. But even that doesn't dampen the demand. Clearly, the popularity of bottled water is the result of huge marketing efforts. The global consumption of bottled water reached 41 billion gallons in 2004, up 57 percent in just five years. Even in areas where tap water is clean and safe to drink, such as in San Francisco, demand for bottled water is increasing -- producing unnecessary garbage and consuming vast quantities of energy. So what is the real cost of bottled water? Most of the price of a bottle of water goes for its bottling, packaging, shipping, marketing, retailing and profit. Transporting bottled water by boat, truck and train involves burning massive quantities of fossil fuels. More than 5 trillion gallons of bottled water is shipped internationally each year. Here in San Francisco, we can buy water from Fiji (5,455 miles away) or Norway (5,194 miles away) and many other faraway places to satisfy our demand for the chic and exotic. These are truly the Hummers of our bottled-water generation. As further proof that the bottle is worth more than the water in it, starting in 2007, the state of California will give 5 cents for recycling a small water bottle and 10 cents for a large one. Just supplying Americans with plastic water bottles for one year consumes more than 47 million gallons of oil, enough to take 100,000 cars off the road and 1 billion pounds of carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere, according to the Container Recycling Institute. In contrast, San Francisco tap water is distributed through an existing zero-carbon infrastructure: plumbing and gravity. Our water generates clean energy on its way to our tap -- powering our streetcars, fire stations, the airport and schools. More than 1 billion plastic water bottles end up in the California's trash each year, taking up valuable landfill space, leaking toxic additives, such as phthalates, into the groundwater and taking 1,000 years to biodegrade. That means bottled water may be harming our future water supply. The rapid growth in the bottled water industry means that water extraction is concentrated in communities where bottling plants are located. This can have a huge strain on the surrounding eco-system. Near Mount Shasta, the world's largest food company, Nestle, is proposing to extract billions of gallons of spring water, which could have devastating impacts on the McCloud River. So it is clear that bottled water directly adds to environmental degradation, global warming and a large amount of unnecessary waste and litter. All this for a product that is often inferior to San Francisco's tap water. Luckily, there are better, less expensive alternatives: -- In the office, use a water dispenser that taps into tap water. The only difference your company will notice is that you're saving a lot of money. -- At home and in your car, switch to a stainless steel water bottle and use it for the rest of your life knowing that you are drinking some of the nation's best water and making the planet a better place. Take the pledge -- Jared Blumenfeld is the director of the San Francisco Department of the Environment. Susan Leal is the general manager of the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission. article here

YES: MEN

The Chamber of Commerce hoax was perpetrated by the Yes Men, in tandem with a group of activists known as the Avaaz Action Factory.
Yes Man Andy Bichlbaum showed up at the 11am press conference that had earlier been announced by a "Chamber of Commerce" press release, and, impersonating a Chamber executive, declared:
We at the Chamber have tried to keep climate science from interfering with business. But without a stable climate, there will be no business.

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The Chamber of Commerce is trying to profit from this action... they claim they need help to def fend themselves from being attacked by evil, evil environmental activists.
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