Rachel Carson, writer of "Silent Spring", this Patrick Moore moron wants to smear her work? The guy's got maggots for brains. Its hard to believe dummies like Mr. Moore have takers in their PR schemes, but they do. I ran into a Republican from Arizona (red state until recently) who believed DDT was safe from propaganda coming from this guy, as well as the Republican party itself. Nice guy. Brainwashed. It was incredulous. "Cult conditioned" is the best term I can use to describe it. Nice guy, but I wouldn't want him setting environmental standards in my country.

Excellent story and topic, by the way, Rafe. (yawn") Oh, man. Suddenly I feel so tired... must have chronic fatigue syndrome... man, I'm lazy, can't seem to lift a finger. I keep forgetting something... something important, I think, but I can't seem to remember.
:-)

It reminds me of Jack Nicholson in the movie with Tom Cruise: "You want truth, you want truth... You can't handle the truth...!” It seems, as you say, people\public prefer to be pacified with half truths as they are perhaps too lazy, or unable to take on the truth. Eco-Judas Moore and his "stategies", as well as Hill and Knowlton, are a hired mouthpieces for exactly that, half truths to promote doubt in the publics mind.

In 1989 Exxon Valdez oil tanker spill was responsible for massive destruction in Prince William Sound. As a result of the spill, a jury ordered Exxon to pay $5 billion punitive damages, which the company has adamantly refused to pay to this day. Much of this fund would go to compensate commercial fishermen whose livelihoods were devastated by the spill. An example of this is the once bountiful herring season has been closed for ten out of the last 15 years.

Exxon (now Exxon/Mobil) has made more than $149 billion in profits over the last 15 years and STILL has not paid. I am wondering if it has anything to do with the fact that Exxon contributed financially to the election in the States?? Anyways, point is, it is not much different than Union Carbide or what is happening to the wild fish stock via the fish farms. These industrial failures affect to this day many living organisms including us. Union Carbide remains, as Exxon Valdez spill, and fish farming, an industrial failure that no one is taking responsibility for and in fact in the case of Exxon Valdez, the public when asked believe Exxon has already paid for the clean-up in Prince William Sound. Talk about "good" PR eh??

All said, great article again Rafe. People will either listen now or listen later, but eventually the "truth" will be in their faces, and denial will not be an option. Keep it up Rafe, you are very appreciated...

Peace,

-Bear

The PR industry's official stance on leaving you leaving your car running in your garage is likely one of positives of where consumption of fossil fuels should be encouraged for the good of the economy, Frank. Their offical stance is that auto emissions are "safe" for our atmospheric environments. :-)

I was beginning to think that those old "Jaws" and "Pirhanna" movies were rather dated.

But I thought DDT was safe for humans! Someone's lying to me again! :-)

We have aquariums! Quite right, we have to look on the bright side of things. Its better to have dolphins penned up in aquariums than to roam around catching lice from liced up fish farms full of fat, penned up, out of shape, fed like shit fish for us to eat.

People gotta give these PR hypers a break $. They aren't trying to wash our brains... job$ come first before the environment! Jobs first+$$$, environment last -$$$!! Good for bu$ine$$!!! $$$ Deal with the environment later, we must make money now!!$$$$ :-)

Its about the money$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ Show me the money$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$
Repeat after me... MONEY IS YOUR GOD $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ Bow down and worship the golden calf, money is your God! :-)

Well said Brain, it is first all about$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

-Bear

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2006/11/12/shark-attack.html

Spoke to soon. Looks like they didn't get them all just yet, Frank.

Until the environmental movmenet hires those same PR companies, and find some way to get into the headspace of the average person, the environment will continue to be squandered.

Greenpeace has been hit and miss with their campaigns, but most of the time, the message is lost in the appearance of the message.

It seems like individual freedom and individual image is more important to many environmentalists than the issue itself. Are 50 people banging on drums and sitting on a protest line screaming "brutality" going to win over the public? No way.

I was pleased when Joe Foy finally shaved his beard. I wanted the earring to go as well. Not because I have anything against beards or men wearing earrings (ok, I do think earrings look like silly pirate wear, you got me here), but because I can see many people judging the appearance of the person, rather than the message being delivered.

Just look at how Adrienne Carr came accross on television. She was excellent in candid conversations, but as a figurehead, she could not cut it. Same with Carole James.

The environmental movement needs some buzz, and when it fizzes out, it needs to find some more.

And the beauty of it is, PR firms don't need to use half-truths when it comes to the environment. They have plenty to work with.

Yeah official sources journalism is a big disaster. Sometimes there isn't two sides to a story only one, but the mad-dash for ad dollars and broadcast priviledges prevent journalism from even getting a toe-hold in the mainstream organizations.

The biggest and worst PR companies are the university economics departments and the Fraser Institute.

Those who teach neoclassical market economics should be in jail, those who absorb it are damaged for life.

The Green Revolution, still going on, was and is a fraud that causes irreparable damage and killed millions. I was involved in the spraying of the worst poisons from 1948 to 55. My friends I've been working with have been killed long ago. In my case the poisons came out 50 years later and paralyzed me..

I'm enclosing an article I wrote on my experience for the Gold River Record some 3 1/2 years ago.

Fiat lux #95 May 2, 2003

Yesterday, the day after my 76th birthday I managed to dress myself without help for the first time in almost 6 months. It was still very painful on my arms, but I made it and chalked it up as a great achievement.

What I want to talk about this time are the politics of food production and how, with the cooperation of most politicians, they are creating widespread illness, misery, great burden on the health care system and untimely death to many people. Millions of people in so called "developing countries" are suffering and dying, giving birth to deformed children even as we speak. All for no valid economic, or human reasons, only to fool people to believe they are getting so called "cheap food", while taxing them and killing farmers to fill the profit demands of corporations that should have been closed down and banned many years ago.

I went to England in 1948 and lived there on a farm just outside Cambridge until 1955. There was a very bad housing shortage at the time and, as a penniless foreigner, if I'd wanted to take some courses in town that was the only way I could do it. The farm was owned by Chivers Jams and had very large fruit orchards both for the sale of fruits and for their jam making operations. It was also the time when the so called "Green Revolution" took hold and farmers were sold the idea that if they saturated their fields with artificial fertilizers, herbicides and pesticides, they'll make larger profits. The pages of so called "conventional farming" magazines are still selling this lie. Of course, Chivers and all others, jumped on the idea and from one year to another their chemicalization multiplied and we, the workers, paid for it with our health and lives. The more we sprayed, the more bugs we had. It hasn't changed since then both on our farms and in our health care system with the irresponsible use of antibiotics. My old friend, the late George Kester, put it very succintly some 50nyears ago, as we were having lunch one day: "I'm telling you Eddie mate, all we are doing here is breeding bloody superbugs!" and he was right.

George and I spent most our time spraying the fruit trees with the vilest concoctions of deadly poisons, like arsenic, lead, DDT, tar oils etc. up to malathion and parathion, something my scientist friends can now hardly believe, as one whiff of them could cripple, or kill somebody. We had no protective gear. The professors coming out from Cambridge assured us that it was all safe, with the exception of the malathion and parathion, which was my job and I had to wear a white rubber coat and souwester hat. All I was told was to have my back to the wind when putting a small glassful into the 250 gallon tank. It was so powerful. Our faces and hands were yellow from the constant blowback of the chemicals, our hair below our caps, our eyebrows were bright yellow, or clothes were constantly saturated and when my wife was washing them the colour of the chemicals was pouring out into the water even from my underwear.

Continued

Continued..

I was lucky that I left when I did, but George and many others started dying off with multiple cancers within a few years. Hearing of my old friends dying off, one after the other, gave me the willies and every time I went to see a new doctor here in Canada, I mentioned that I must have a large amount of deadly chemicals in my tissues. They examined me and ignored the whole thing. Then, one day in 1976 my right knee swelled and locked up overnight. The doctor in Vancouver said it was some kind of an allergy and gave me some pills. Then the right side of my mouth and tongue started swelling up time after time. More pills, until my wife figured it out that if I took a half dozen chewable brewers yeast tablets when the swelling started, it immediately stopped and receded. When I told about it to my doctor he looked at me if I'd just escaped from an institution of the criminally insane, but by then I realized that they had no idea about a lot of things and just keep on filling people with medications and topping them up with more to stop the reactions and so I called it quits.

Then, a couple of years ago it was my right knee again out of the blue, last year it was my right shoulder that no chiropractor, or physiotherapist, and we have some excellent ones, could cure. Last Fall my right arm and thumb started freezing up with a lot of pain also in my upper thigh muscles.I could hardly sit down, or get up. It was obvious that something was building up and some friends and family suggested that I should go on a cleansing program, which I did. The problem was that the program was designed for people who only collected poisons from their daily supermarket food intake, like preservatives, artificial colours, sweeteners and so on endlessly pumped into the population by unscrupulous companies, scientists and governments. Unfortunately, in my case it was a huge accumulation that broke loose and instead of leaving my body, locked up my joints and muscles, virtually paralyzing me, with great pain every time I had to move.

The last thing I'd wanted to do was to see another doctor and get more chemicals. I have great respect for many doctors, especially the surgeons, but when it comes to things out of the ordinary the only thing they can do is to load up the patient with pain killers and in my case, probably some arthritis medications, which I didn't need, or want. I have seen what they have done to some of my friends, who really did have arthritis and topped it up with shot livers from the junk they took. Luckily, quite by accident, we met a homeopathic practitioner, who took me on because I was free of medications for many years. The following weeks and months were terrible. I couldn't sleep a single hour for four weeks, couldn't drive for three months. Luckily we are well organized and my wife could handle the feeding of our cattle and, as she can't drive, managed to get some rides to town for shopping.

Our friends and neighbours were the greatest. Although some of them must have thought that I was crazy for not loading up on pain killers, the offers of help were constant and when we needed it, there was somebody driving down our road in a few minutes.

Ed Deak, Big Lake.

Our laws regarding truth in advertising are not worth the paper they are printed on. Just shows that the flim-flam menand women can lie through their teeth and suffer no penalty.

About 5 years ago, in the UK, a PR firm was happily smearing the attempts by a local group promoting LRT project. LRT was to slow, too dangerous, etc. A bright spark in the LRT group brought action under the Brits 'Trade descriptions Act, and won. Heavy fines were in order and I believe a suspended sentance also was handed out.

Fight liars with the truth!

Great article Rafe and the Tyee!! Democracy has indeed been muzzled, particularly in the past 25 years. I highly recommend reading One Market Under God by Thomas Frank (http://www.thebaffler.com/onemarket.html). This is an excellent summary of the progress that society achieved in Canada and the US when demoncracy was able to dismantle a number of monopolies.

What Rafe is referring to can be cured. It was cured due to the very progressive, democratic forces of our society. It was the era where the "greater good' was understood. When the 'greater good' prevailed over private greed and private interests. It left a legacy that we can still see today, albeit a much watered down legacy after 25 years of Reagonomics, Bush, corporate monopolism and generally the very philosophies that were repudiated in the the 1930's.

In many ways, everything old is new again. We don't need to reinvent the wheel. The identical arguments in the early 1930's made by corporate monopolists are being made today. And the identical cure is needed. Break up monopolies. Place democratically developed limits on market ownership. Break up big oil, big banking, big media.

It was done before. We can do it again. And the greater good will be served.

Self-defence alert, Raif.

Umpteen years ago, my husband and I were determined to walk softly upon the earth: we recycled, refused, re-used, innovated before the slogans were invented.

Until one day, we realized we were simply freeing up commodities for others to squander ... which meant that we weren't really saving the earth at all.

Sadly, grimly, we realized that we'd do better to eat, drink, consume, waste, burn, and be merry -- thereby advancing the day when the planetary threat became evident to all and that environmental protection was universally accepted, demanded and adopted by all.

Stick to your guns Rafe!

When it comes time to vote:

Remember the environment, it is yours to loose!

I identify with the sad, grim truth of BC Mary's comment. We have recycled for years as well...the recycling depot for our small town used to be run by the municipality...and employed a number of locals. They all lost their jobs when suddenly re-cycling became privatized and the contract was given to the son of our local BCLib MLA.

Now recycling is more costly, more complicated and more maddeningly irritating because everytime I wash out a can or jar and painstakingly remove the labels I know who I am making richer... at the world's expense.

All recyling, I think, should be a public service, the labour local... and all profits returned to the city or municipality....and then passed on to the people.

“As long as we combine laziness with a bad memory, the environment will continue to suffer to the point that it all doesn't matter very much.”, claims Rafe.

Crap! The environment will continue to suffer and it may not matter very much, but it has nothing to do with work ethics or memory. The truth is folks know exactly what has to be done but no one, despite a smattering of lynns or BC Marys, wants to be the first.

It means painful changes in lifestyles. No one wants to give up double-digit investment returns for a paltry quarter or half percent gain. No one wants to give up trips to their favorite fishing river or holidays abroad. No one wants to return to living in extended-family communities where one vehicle services many and household commodities are shared.

Controlling consumerism will control corporatism will control the rate of environmental destruction.

But don’t hold your breath: When we get bad news, we're confronted by our natural survival response – to avoid pain and seek pleasure – which turns our attention away from the matter at hand, and we tell ourselves falsehoods or, at best, half truths.

And, when stressed, the north american male and female are awfully fond of SHOPPING.

Speaking of Patrick Moore and his capitulation to the dark side from the green side, this report from the Rand corporation is interesting:

http://www.rand.org/pubs/technical_reports/2006/RAND_TR384.pdf

It's a pdf, you'll need adobe

"Shopping" and "traveling" are the biggest, artificially induced mass hysterias.

90% of all commercial and military aircraft could and should be grounded and junked tomorrow.

We lived in Vancouver from 1955 to 79, but my wife hasn't been back for 26 and I for 17 years. When people hear this they're horrified. "How can you survive?" Very well, thank you.

The answer is locally based, self sufficient economic systems, real trade, not commerce, between people and communities, the halting of forced urbanization, as ciites are the worst and biggest energy wasters, the curbing of the powers of the stockmarkets, the abolition of the money markets, of the WTO, and the cancellation of all fraudulent "free trade agreements", otherwise known as neo-colonization, etc. etc.

Ed Deak.

Amen Ed Deak

Much appreciate your posts as usual, Ed Deak. Jeffery J has an interesting post as well. Still can't believe that the maggot for brains dead head Patrick Moore is calling Rachel Carsons work as erroneous. She was quite the opposite, decades ahead of her time, focusing public awareness to the dangers of pesticides and sprays, including everything that Ed Deak has gone through as well as others who weren't so lucky. I've been affected by chemicals as well, having been born with a birth deformity attributable to crop sprays...

Anyone who has read Rachel Carson knows that Patrick Moore's distortion of the truth and outright lies, is as dangerous in my opinion, as a teacher of hate propaganda that includes teachings that Jewish persecution did not take place by the Nazi's in WW II, or that we are not responsible for damage to the ozone, or global warming. Decades from now, people of Moore's ilk are likely to be locked up for the safety of the public in mind.

Its highly unfortunate, naturally, that we aren't at the likely future level of consciousness to the dangers of "cult" led propaganda and its PR spinners bought off by the worlds biggest polluters to "deny deny deny" and "attack, attack, attack" any and all things that get in the way of corporate polluters profits.

So true Brain, you are not overstating the problem with Moores presence. He is a bought mouth peice by industry, and imo, is a true enemy of the Earth...

I myself do not know of an act darker then for someone to knowingly do harm to an already stuggling Earth... It brings tears to my eyes.

Peace,

-Bear

If isn't for PR people we not have perfect models representing clothing.

"perfect models..."

...yeah, skinny, weak and thin. Wish we could all look like that.(tongue firmly placed in cheek)

-Bear

Quite right, Bear. People that go the way of knowingly wrong, following the dark, blind, weak, deaf, frail, fat slow and always stunned dumb path of destruction... man, thats slow and old. :-)

Peace
brain

I get a kick out of posters like Fiat. He or she is obvioulsly old. And has probably been preaching gloom and doom for forty years. It's funny that things seem to be getting better all the time..
It's all good.

Does PR really help people in the right direction or just get us all deeper in debt, fat,slow, and other incorrect things?

Who's PR puree? PR is just a word which stands for Public Relations. So it depends on who you are and who is doing their PR. PR is salemanship. I am salesman. It's a necessary evil.

Watch "Thank you for Smoking"
That is definitely me, Rafe. So how do I get out of my complicancey? I like my comphy life but I also worry about my kids and grandchildren. Which (I hope other commentors understand) means I do think and care about fish and dropdown disaster like Bhopal.
Guess I'll just go over to COAT's website and start sending letters to Canada's Ambasadore to Mexico regarding Oxacca (or was that another thread?) or two?

Like reading Jared Diamond's book "Collapse" about the deforestation of Easter Island - things get gradually worse and people come to accept this as the "normal" state of affairs. How can people who have never known an abundant and undamaged natural world believe that such a thing existed? How can they be moved to act to make it real again?

I'mnaturally optimistic, I have children (so I guess I am forced to hope) and I'm a Green Party memberr so I'm trying to get the word out and move in the right direction.

the fish farm sea lice are killing sockeye salmon too the mature returning sockeye the sea lice are able to make holes in the skins of the sockeye and if the sockeye have very many holes(like six) they die about 100 miles inland like around hells gate and north

about p.r. people:

Douglas' Adams parody The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galazy and its various sequels/prequels (multiple timelines and universes are involved, even multiple versions of people, so "sequel" isn't quite the right word) parodies the division of society into three major groups by his description of a lost migration/hibernation vessel, one of three. The first one carried the leaders, the warriors, the visionaries, poets et al. The second carried the working types and their families. The third carried interior designers, insurance agents, and among many other oh-so-useful professions, p.r. consultants....it crashed on a planet nobody ever heard of (until Arthur Dent opened a sandwich shop for the local natives) and the other two ships went on to glory and usefulness, never noticing they were missing the third ship, whose computer had been damaged by space debris and forgot who and where it was, and where it was going...until it crashed.

The planet in question, ultimately, becomes a certain sparkling blue-green globe, or one version of it anyway. I can't say more without being a spoiler...

PS - needless to say, the survivors of the crash proved completely inept at managing themselves or otherwise founding a civilization....

I don't think so. The happiest people I know aren't yoked to the consumer treadmill. The unhappiest never seem to have enough stuff.

Only a nitwit salesman would be unable to equate age with wisdom. I guess Fiat Lux isn't "new and improved" or something.

Only a fool would think things are all good.

Honestly, IAMC go sell that to an audience that can't think for themselves.

The kid who started shouting: "The king is naked!", wasn't "preaching doom and gloom", just told the facts as they are.

Anybody who says, or thinks, that things are getting better, or have never been better has some very serious mental problems.

Ask the little bald headed kids with cancers in the hospitals, or the women without breasts, hoping to survive another year.

Ed Deak.

There was a newsclip in BCTV last night, saying, that some scientists are now beginning to question whether the breast cancer epidemic in women isn't caused by the hormone implants into beef, sold in the supermarkets?

Many of us "doom and gloomers" have been saying this for decades, but the agribiz controlled governenments insists there's nothing wrong with the process and are trying to force that garbage meat onto Europe through the WTO.

My cattle receive no shots and no implants, are healthy as can be, and the whole of Canada could be supplied with healthy, grass fed beef, but then the feedlot companies couldn't make profits, while poisoning the land with their concentrated pollution for hundreds of square miles around. Basically the same problem as caused by the fishfarms.

This is what's called "The economics of size". Good for the chemotherapy manufacturers, and the phoney GDP, if for nothing else.

Ed Deak.

Love ya, Ed Deak!!!

Twenty-one species of groundfish have as good as vanished from the west coast. Of course, Patty Moore can probably make this seem like a great thing. More room for the fish feed lots, less competition for the remaining few...he'll find some way to twist it around...

There have always been the Patty Moore's; anybody remember the story of Judas Iscariot?

On the other hand there are people like my four and a half year old grandgrrrl, Emily. Emily is status first nations, and has grown up seeing and helping clean, can, or cook salmon. What Emily hasn't seen are fresh water fish...so a friend went trout fishing and gave me four lovely ones...Emily was having "sleepover with Grandma"...and Grandma cooked the trout...Emily looked at them, arranged on a platter, and went into the most absolutely beautiful hissy fit. Ed, you'd have wept with joy. Told me them's just babies, just little kid fish, and you don't kill the little kid fish.

I tried to explain they were a different kind, they never get as big as salmon, that these were actually very large trout.

No way! She flat-out refused to put even one bite in her mouth.

Pity the highly educated Patty Moore wasn't as smart as Emily. You don't kill the little kid fish!

Emily told me "it's not a good thing". She also told me some people are "real piggy" and catch more fish than they can eat, and that's not a good thing, either.

But, of course, people like Patty Moore probably wouldn't listen to a little kid person.

Nice story Anne. Maybe that old advice about being led by children (well some children) wasn't such a bad idea. You're gonna have to take Emily fishing though - a fresh pan-fried trout is not to be missed.

Ed
There's a reading list available, from Yale, I think, on Corporate corruption. I was amazed at how many of the texts on it were related to Canada.

We have such a great (but largely unjustified) impression of our own righteousness in this country.

Let me know if you're interested and I'll hunt up the list. (I'm sure there's nothing on it that would surprise you, though.)

I'm halfway through Jared Diamond's Collapse, which documents the impact of ignoring environmental damage on past cultures (e.g. Mayan, Easter Island, etc.) and what we can do about our current messes. Good read, but not encouraging. "He who ignores the mistakes of the past is condemned to repeat them."

90% of all commercial and military aircraft could and should be grounded and junked tomorrow.

We lived in Vancouver from 1955 to 79, but my wife hasn't been back for 26 and I for 17 years. When people hear this they're horrified. "How can you survive?" Very well, thank you.

The answer is locally based, self sufficient economic systems, real trade, not commerce, between people and communities, the halting of forced urbanization, as ciites are the worst and biggest energy wasters, the curbing of the powers of the stockmarkets, the abolition of the money markets, of the WTO, and the cancellation of all fraudulent "free trade agreements", otherwise known as neo-colonization, etc. etc.

Ed Deak.
commentor: Alcibiades
posted: 19 Hours Ago
Amen Ed Deak

I love this kind of stuff. Good old Tyee. It makes me giggle and that's good for you, I hear. It also scares me a bit because were any of these wackos and their fellow travellers able to even get near power, they would bring down a mighty dictatorship. Like, 90% of all aircraft grounded. Yeah right. Flying's gonna be illegal! "I wanna go to see my mum in Toronto." "No, you'll have to go by bike. There's a six month wait for plane tickets since we cancelled 90% of the flights". The madness is that, as reitterated on PBS Architecture last week, cities are in fact - due to their densities - the MOST efficent users of energy. Urban and suburban dispersals of humanoids causes far more energy consumption. And, no more free trading, or banks! We're gonna put up walls around the hamlets, again. Screw the foreign workers. And, people agree with this stuff! It always goes so off the topic that it's tough trying to remember what the topic was. Ho! Ho! Ho!

realisticman,
I see you've moved from the OED to 'PBS Architecture' as a study resource. I’d say that’s a step or ten down the credibility ladder.
You might want to do a little more research. High altitude commercial and military jet flights do more, far more on a passenger/km basis, to pollute the environment and contribute to atmospheric CO2 than travel on the ground does: You can look it up!

Thank God people like you have no more important public role than sniping from the sidelines.

Hey Rafe, I suggest we either surrender or call a truce in the War on Drugs and divert those resources to the newly declared War on Public Relations. Of course we have to make it illegal first and we'll need to get a PR firm right on creating the climate so the public will demand it.

Public relations firms were even involved in that nasty Liberal scandal, you remember the one in Montreal. Isn't Public Relations Firm one of the polite names for Lobbying Group?

On the other hand, maybe Public Relations Firms will save the world. Why else would our ledur Stephen Harper have chosen someone who studied Communications, the academic word for Public Relations, as Minister of the Environment, I'm not sexist enough to think its the hair. If the PR was good enough we could actually live in Hell and enjoy it and never want to leave.

Naw, I'm better with the PR bad meme, let's declare War. Good column today, as most days, Rafe.

to The brain - minor comment. Patrick Moore has a PhD and so should be refered to as Dr Moore and not Mr Moore.

And what is his PhD in? Ecology...... Make what you like about that.

No Bernard, he has his PhD in "Anti-ethics", and "Eco-Judasism"... In cases such as his, paper is just a licence to lie and abuse the Earth...
But don't just take my word for it...

Peace, :-)

-Bear

Reading some of Mary and Lynn's comments re: recycling reminded me of a personal beef I have with the whole regimen.

While the Bush Administration with their Tort Reform and Climate Change denial do their part to thwart the Coporate Crowd from carrying their part of the cost of clean-up and developing new ways to not make a mess to begin with, the poor as usual bear an unfair share of the burden of trying to clean up our world.

Occasionally there is a small victory for the poor, such as when a homeless person (disregarding the fact that he shouldn't be homeless and penniless) can eke out a living or part of one through collecting bottles or other recyclables with a cash value. Generally though it is the poor who wind up holding the old broken down fridge that must be hauled away and professionally discharged. It is the poor that accumulate broken down cars that eventually need to be hauled somewhere to be crushed for their return trip to Asia to return as yet another car. All these vehicles and appliances start their shiney new life in the home of whoever buys it new and then it winds up moving downscale from owner to owner until it is of no use to anyone and has become an expense to the last guy in line to just dispose of it.

Alci... by all means, please do send me the stuff.

realistc.... People have been travelling very nicely and with far less pollution and energy waste for centuries and for 150 years by tramnways, buses, trains, ships, etc. In the past 50 years, thanks to corporate propaganda, public transport, ship lines, railways have been destroyed and sold for junk and now we have incredible energy waste and pollution that's killing people, but, by gum, they're flying .

You may not have been here when I've been complaining repeatedly about the endless number of B52 overflights over our house, here in the Williams Lake area, practicing to kill thousands.

I calculated once that during the time I can see one of those pieces of war criminal, flying junk, it is using enough fuel to power my truck, tractors and small engines for 5 years.

We see 10-15 a day...... Figure out the waste and pollution, not to mention the criminal intent. Bombers not "defensive" weapons.

Much of the flying today is for the purpose of pacifying imbalanced people by making them believe that by being somewhere else will make them happy.

Ed Deak.

Bear

Whatever you may wish to call his degree, it does not change the fact that UBC did grant him a PhD in ecology.

The eco-judasism comment is a dangerous direction to go. The allusions that come with this are of a religious nature and that I see as very unhelpful. The environmental movement is at its worst when it begins to act as a religion or faith and leaves behind rational debate.

There goes Alci in Wonderland, getting small again. I never said anything about how much one mode of transport pollutes as compared to any other. So, what should I look up? Don't like Public Broadcasting huh? Why not? Are they a bunch of right wing nutters? Don't be a sore looser over the OED Alci.

I think it's nutty to suggest (in jest or otherwise) that the only ways to get from here to Toronto are by bike or jet.

Talk about misplaced doom and gloom. Extreme dualities presented as the only options -- typical falsehoods in the finest P.R. tradition.

And... back on topic.

Hey Ed, wave to the B52 next time you see one, they're going hybrid and green:

When do you guys figure that discretionary flying will become outlawed? I'd kinds like to know. Maybe I should short a few airline stocks.

Bernard,

Moore is a traitor to the living things of the Earth, the things that he use to save... There is no value in having a human being receive a Ecology PhD, if it is not being used for good things but instead to do harm. This is clearly what he is doing...

My use of the word "EJ" I retract, as it clearly may offend some My intension was to suggest that Patrick Moore’s heart intentions, from what I see, are not much different than that of Judas Iscariot's imho, thus the comparison.

Peace,

-Bear

Bernard: just another minor comment.

Remember as well, it's not Mr. Mengele
or Mr. Kissinger!

"discretionary flying", may come to an end when people realize the damage it is doing to humanity. Basically the same way as "discretionary" drug addiction and smoking, or alcoholism. I'm not in favour of banning, but the last time I flew was in 1968 and none to early.

I don't give a sweet damn what fuel those B52s are using, we don't need, ore want them in Central BC, especially if they carry nukes.

Ed Eeak.

They give PhD's in 'ecology'? I must look into that.

I heard Moore interviewed by a Legislative committee here in Victoria a few weeks ago speaking on this very issue.

He was asked for a list of peer-reviewed publications he'd written as a back up for his assertions to the committee.

He said that he had NONE.

Realisticman

I greatly appreciate Public Broadcasting.

However, as a reliable tool for evaluating energy efficiency of anything, that statement was absurd - as I'm sure you'll realize if you think about it.

I don't hold public broadcasting responsible for every foolish thing it broadcasts; any more than I hold the Tyee completely responsible for some of the things its commentators write.

Before planes, remember, there were trains. I think you'll find that they are much more efficient users of energy too. And they go to Toronto - if that's where Grammy lives.

If air travel does the kind of harm to the environment I believe it does then I cannot understand any sane commentator who would wish to continue using planes to the extent they are now used. Most plane travel can easily be replaced by other methods, as, if you've been to Europe, you'd know.

Given the advances in electronic and microwave communications, not to mention video conferencing and computer networking, there is virtually no good reason for the kind of extensive business air travel that takes place currently.

Why should the ignorant, the unwise and the wasteful be permitted to screw up the environment for the 90% of the world that cannot even afford to think about air travel?

I'd say that's a pretty democratic principle, wouldn't you?

Wow Ed 1968. I was flying then too, down in 'frisco. Discretion was the name of the game my man. You know, the Avalon and the Fillmore and, of course, the Haight.

Later that year I took an article from a Toronto newspaper to London to show people the shocking story about fish being killed by a new thing 'pollution' in the Great Lakes. Agent Orange was raining down in the far east. We went organic. No detergents in the home and brown rice every day. Companion planting. Political campaigns and etc. Much progress has been made since then, salmon now go up the Thames again. New challenges arise, particularly when one heards that China brings another new coal-fired power station on line each week. It was encouraging to read this week that China has become aware of problems and is rapidly planting millions of trees.

realisticman - sounds to me as it you're still high!

Ed Deak...I enjoy reading you brother...!
Peace,
-Bear

Here you go Alci.

You can see a clip too:

http://www.pbs.org/designe2/

Take a quick look and get back to me with your expert critique. Tell me how wrong they are to be pre-occupied with sustainability and the economies of environmental conciousness.

Alci:

That needed to be re-broadcast! I'll hold off on the bold or CAPS though.

It also could be edited as in:
Why should the ignorant, the unwise and the wasteful be permitted to live?

In 2005 over 2 billion passengers, for a total of nearly 500 BILLION passenger kilometers, and nearly 40 million tons of freight were carried by scheduled airlines. Plus, non-scheduled carriers and hundreds of thousands of small light and business aircraft. Plus the military. Does anyone seriously think that this is going to stop?

realisticman in regard to the billions of passenger and freight air miles etc.

Well, when it becomes just too expensive and inconvenient it just might begin to slow down. Why stop or cut back just to save the planet? I don't know about you, but I got it covered, you see I've got a backup spare planet hidden in my basement.

You don't really expect oil prices to go very far down for very long do you? So it becomes a question of how much will you pay to fly off to Toronto to see Granny. I used to fly from Sandspit to Vancouver regulary for about $100 return - I doubt that will get you there today. When (not if) oil hits $200 per barrel, how much do you think it will cost to fly to Toronto, and the cab into town.

Trains can move the most people and goods the farthest on the least energy costs compared to automobiles, trucks and airplanes. Although a lot of our rail passenger infrastucture has been allowed to decay during the cheap energy addiction, trains will undoubtably be back in the future, if there is a future, with a vengeance.

IAMC(luless) I'm embarrassed for you, I know you've been around here since at least as long as me and then you come up with this prize:

Just because you've learned to make it through the night without wetting the bed doesn't mean the world is getting better in the view of someone with the perspective in time and experience of that Fiat poster. That you're not even sure if Fiat is a he or she and under estimate his or her age by half, just proves what I've always suspected. You never really read (and understand) anything on here and that's why nothing you ever say makes any sense or relates to anything anyone else wrote, articles and commenters alike.

IAMC isn't paid to make sense. I've noticed the same spelling errors (look for 'Leftie' as a clue) in a few of the neo-con posters that pollute this site, the same talking points over and over, the same faulty logic, and the same attempts to denigrate character when faced with the facts. It's become obvious that there's a few flunkies of the Fraser Institute, or the Liberal party, or some other similar organization who are given the task of muddying the waters on the Tyee.

Why? For the simple reason that this site is being read, referred to, and gaining in popularity with people looking to change our society from one bent on self-destruction to one with a slim chance of sustainability.

Maybe that's my tinfoil hat talking, but it seems the simplest explanation. After all, who would keep showing up at a party where one's silly ideas were continually shown up for the nonsense they are, where one's piss-poor attempts at baiting the other guests was met with derision, and where one was making exactly zero headway in convincing the other side of anything except one's ability to stoop as low as necessary to hamper the exchange of ideas between like-minded individuals? Only masochists and minor functionaries following orders, that's who.

So, don't be mad at the puppet. They just follow the orders of the person pulling the strings.

Failing some significant advances in wind-up rubber band propulsion systems I can't understand how it can continue. The only thing keeping airlines afloat (if you'll permit an intentional mixed metaphor) is government handouts and artificially low fuel prices that don't reflect the full-cost accounting of sending tubes full of germ-laden people back and forth across the sky. High-tech sailing vessels, trains, airships...these are solutions with promise. Winged steel buses with the glide capabilities of, well, a bus quite frankly... not so much.

Your question reminds me of the poem Ozymandias. Are you familiar with its central point?

I saw the show realisticman. It was a good show. It included this idea:

along with a lot of other 'ideas'.

Note the words I have placed in italics.

Reread what I wrote.

Then think about it.

Ed:
I sent you a note through the email facility at Vive. When you get back to me, I'll send along the materials from Yale.

Alci

Oh, and realisticman, I thought you might 'enjoy' this little quotation from Tom Firedman's column in tomorrow's ( I'm posting this before midnight) New York Times. I'd post the URL but it's behind subscription, so here' just a taste, about China and the environment:

Yes, you can now have amazingly frank talks with officials and journalists here. But when I walked out of my room the morning after I arrived in Shanghai, the air was so smoky — from the burning of farm fields after the harvest — that for a moment I honestly thought my hotel was on fire.

And that’s why, for the first time, it’s starting to feel to me like China is reaching its environmental limits. If it doesn’t radically change to greener, more sustainable modes of design, transport, production and power generation, the Chinese miracle is going to turn into an eco-nightmare.

For some three decades now, China’s economy has grown at around 10 percent per year, based on low-cost labor and little regard for the waste it pumps into its rivers and the air. When a country grows that fast, year after year, it can start to think that the laws of nature don’t apply to it.

Guess again. China has been doing the environmental equivalent of jumping from an airplane and thinking that it’s flying, argued Rob Watson, an expert on China’s environment who heads the green building services firm EcoTech International. “After you jump out of a plane, for about five miles you can actually feel like you’re flying,” he added. But then reality hits. “It’s not the fall that kills you — it’s the sudden stop at the end, and China may be approaching that sudden stop. ... When you stress a system to a certain point, it just stops working.”

Still feeling positive?

That's a typo, should be Friedman, sorry Tom.
Now, realisticman, which end of the telescope were you holding up to your eye?

I propose that Rafe set himself on fire in protest.

Honestly - wouldn't it be a great example of self sacrifice and dedication to a cause if elderly "BOOMERS" just started offing themselves for the "environment", for the "state of our world", or for whatever cause they *NOW* lament, but which meant nothing to them 20 years ago when they were scoping out cheap homes and a new car?
I'm talking about you "getting on in years" baby boomers who sucked the world dry, bled the 3rd world and generally subscribed wholeheartedly to an unbridled consumerist frenzy. You LAISSEZ FAIRE eco-assholes.

Please kill yourselves.

Then maybe - just maybe the world will take aging, decrepit, "BIG MOUTHED" baby boomers seriously. Otherwise, it's more and more of the same, 40 years and runnning, "We know what's best" bullsh**.
You did your drugs (still aint legalized that), you blew through university (screwed those behind you by declaring bankruptcy, then changed *those* rules) and got cush jobs (screwing the next generations by changing EI rules) and on and on and on... taking taking taking then turning around and f***ing that generation behind you and the ones to follow... and now... now...
You "think" maybe "we've got to live differently"?

HAHHAHAHAHHAHAHH.

Do you have *ANY* f***ing idea how hypocritical, selfish and self serving all this might sound? To everyone? All around the world?
If Rafe and his Boomer compadres had been living the life of simplicity instead of sailing their f***ing sailboats and living in huge, expensive homes, maybe, hust *maybe* they'd a have a voice that couldn't be met with mockery and scorn.

As it stands, right now in the West, we have an entire generation that abused and used everything and now somehow has "got the blues" over "the way things are" - just in time for retirement. Typical. Leaving a pile of s*** for someone else to clean up.

It's only now with retirement and (hopefully) death at their doorstep that their getting all eco-religious with us. Ohhhhh - NOW it matters huh?

Rot in hell Baby Boomers. I'll be there to take a good long piss on your toxic graves.

Do us all a favor and take yourselves out. It's eco-friendly and we won't have to listen to your horsesh** hypcrisy anymore.

Yeh... the Baby Boomer eco-credo:
"Maybe ease up on the Rape a bit."

... and they wonder why the world is why it is. Assholes.

There's some truth to the boomer-sellout theory. On the other hand I see plenty of Gen Xers (my age cohort) and younger people driving SUVs, heading to Thailand aboard 747s, and consuming just as fast as they can.

There's plenty of blame to go around.

rkewen said of Iamc:

Right on rkewen,
Ed Deak is a sagacious, wise gentleman who invests his heart and real life experiences into all his posts here at the Tyee. I love and appreciate him, his sage wisdom and his true passion for the earth. Iamc is a foolish individual, who is not willing to learn from the wise, and instead pronounces his ignorance at every turn... Thanks for drawing attention to the indiocy this individual displayed once again rkewen, especially as it relates inaccurately to a fine gentleman... I am glad you called him out dude…
Peace bro.

Stump said of Iamc:

Excellent Stump,
No point paraphrasing, as you said it perfectly...

Peace bro's,

-Bear

godsChild,

I understand your upset very well, but I have to say, YES, many exploiters within the Baby-boomer era, and as Stump correctly mentioned, in many young people too, but I know of several boomer aged people who have made their money exploiting the Earth (oil\gas and other Earth killing industries) and have come to know they have nothing, and have created nothing. These same people today, have contributed to saving lands, animals, and the human race. Their personal blame is felt deeply, and in some cases is getting deeper every day...as it perhaps should. I wouldn't throw the baby out with the bathwater, as people who have come to an understanding, awareness and a personal sense of responsibility to help our Mother, no matter what their past, I believe fully, we need to encourage them and embrace them. Help them on their journey. They found "IT" later in life, so what...Mother Earth needs all the help she can get today...

Peace godChild,

-Bear

See, I *get* how people are.
Not how I'd wish them to be.
Here's the truth.
If you don't *TAKE IT* today, someone else will. If you don't *USE IT* today, someone else will.
As you near death, revelations come to you; the effort to make right what is so egregiously wrong becomes an all consuming (because unlike 20 years ago, you aren't a f***ing "player" anymore) passion. It's the same passion you were devoting to living high off the hog a few years before. Except now, when you're not amongst the racing rats you gain perspective. Too late a**hole, the ship has already begun sinking - and you helped tear a hole in it.

There's 7 billion hands reaching for the cookie jar of "Higher Standards of Living" when only 20 years ago there was perhaps a billion that could actually get at it.
Well those other few billion have watched the West *TAKE IT* from them and *USE IT* for themselves and you know what?

They want a piece of all that shit we gloat over.
iPods and cellphones and big cars and bitches and personal rights and money and a house and a car and a TV and...

And you people, you who have led your lives (Rafe Mair *TALKS* s*** while pulling down a big fat pension and living in a big house and he's got his little boat and so on and so on...) "bettering" your lives with "LOW LOW INTEREST!" and "DON'T PAY TILL 2007" and you - you have the F***ING unmitigated GALL to tell people that *THEY* have to pay attention?

YOUR BREATH STINKS OF HYPOCRISY MR. MAIR.

You are a two faced, self serving, dying boomer and the world won't skip a beat when you're gone. Your legacy, like that of the generation to which you belong is one of theft, greed, deceipt and lies. Here you are in your twilight and *still* you peddle this horses***.

You fiddled, Rome burned. Good riddance.

Do us all a favour and toss yourself into the fire - then you might actually show just how much it meant to you. Otherwise you had as much - if not more to do - with the planetary Holocaust now unfolding as anybody.

If we fail to recognize and commend those who realize late in life that they have made mistakes, then we offer no reason for them to change their behaviour.

Damned if you do, and damned if you don't by someone with a holier than thou attitude hardly seems like the recipe for fixing the problems we face.

The past is gone and cannot be changed. People change all the time. Let's encourage that change to be for the better by welcoming the cognizant to the fold, no matter who late they come to the party.

Funny (well, not really) to read someone calling for compassion to the 7 billion, when they can't offer forgiveness and support to even one.

"no matter how late"

Hatred does not cease by hatred, but only by love; this is the eternal rule.
-Buddha

...beautiful Stump.
-Bear

Now I just have to live it day in, day out. In the long run I suppose we are all just works in progress. My personal philosophy, cobbled together from bits and pieces of far better minds, is to concentrate on process rather than product.

...ditto friend.
P&L,
B.

Alci.... I'm having some problems with the computer. When I put it on yesterday morning and started wiping out the usual accumulation of junkmail, without opening them, I came to some stock offer and when I tried to delete it, the machine froze and the only way I could get out was to stop it. When I got back on, my "in" mailbox was wiped out back to Dec.03. So I don't know who wrote and what?

I'm in the process of changing my server as we now have wireless highspeed, but will keep the old address till the end of the month:

The new address will be:

It is not operational yet. It will take a few days to sort things out.

Thanks, Ed Deak.

Thanks Ed,
It's on its way.

Alci

Idiot.
I could care less about 7 billion other moneygrubbing "me-first" a**holes like Rafe "Fat Pension", "Got His Share While the Getting was Good" Mair. I do what I do to lessen my impact on the earth. I've been doing it since I understood the implications and responsibilities of being here.
Rafe and his Boomer ilk have done - and continue to do nothing while posing as concerned a**holes.

"You are as dust".
Rafe Mair is not important - but a billion Rafe Mairs (him and his Baby Boomer friends) have destroyed the place his grandkids call home by their inaction, by their lies, by their very *exitence* and their unconscious attitude towards the relationship they have with the world.
His grandkids will pay - because like every greedhead ******* he's spat out brats who want (and expect) all the things Rafe got.
Rafe Mair and his ilk can rot in hell.
Two faced bastards writing crap for aging selfish jerkoffs too gutless to end their pathetic lives.

Stick the Buddha up your ass where he belongs.

Well, since God made everything and is everywhere, I guess the Buddha is already up my ass.

Which god are you a child of anyway? I'm guessing the Old Testament one, with the smiting, and the vengeance and what-not. His other professed child didn't suggest too much of that however. A little sibling rivalry?

If you view suicide as the solution to less consumption feel free to lead by example -- walk the walk so to speak. Otherwise you're just like the people you're criticizing... all talk, no action.

BTW, I know there's a lot of them, but I very much doubt there's a billion Baby-boomers. Hyperbole much?

Time, I'd say, for a little creative redaction. I'm sure Rafe'll be pleased to know he has such a coterie of followers among the Baby Boom generation. For a geezer like him it must be quite enervating.

Up the Buddha I'd say. Godschild, you are still a poisoned dwarf, whichever side of the fence you're pretending to inhabit these days.

This evening, Nov. 15, CBC TV will be airing a show on the Fifth Estate called the "Denial Machine." It will discuss the people involved in denying global warming and how they influence "political leaders." It is on at 9 PM.

godsChild has aspirations of leading some kind of eco-Taliban methinks. That would end well... not.

Everything is tied to physical laws and no religion, or ideology has ever been able to overrule them.

Therefore, the words of priests and economists mean absolutely nothing.

If you want to find the real creator, look at trees, fish, clouds and people. They're all part of a self balancing ecological system and trying to interfere always brings on the actions of the self balancing mechanism that no prayer, or ideology will ever change.

All past civilizations and empires have self destructed, because they ignored physical realities.

Now look at the present empire builders and guess how long before their castle collapses around their stupid necks?

Ed Deak.

...I always say, who-ever made that flower, that is who I pray to.
Peace,

Bear

Ed.Any moment now is my guess .

So Moore's got a stupid degree.Him and millions of others .
Moore is a traitor to the planet . Period .
He does not deserve the honorific of doctor.
What are you his phuquing body guard Bernard ?
Moore is a sell out of the worst kind and is all about the money .
Can't get much lower than that .

Skookum1- As much as I love Douglas Adams work- you got the story line wrong- Dent and Ford were stuck on pre-historic earth- with a ship load of hair stylist's and telephone sanitizers, whos educated people of their home planet had decided that there was no need for these trades. The stylists and telephone sanitatizers were tricked into boarding a space ship which none of them could operate and set on a crash course for what was earth. Dent and Ford, in their own fashion ending up on this ship escaping something or other. The double irony of this story was A) humans were not descended from apes and B) the hair stylists and telephone sanitizers home planet was wiped out by some disease casued by the absence of the telephone sanitizers.

Any of you Buddhistic clowns ever hear of Buddhist monks setting themselves on fire?
Ask yourself why.

How "Taliban" is that, by the way?

It could be pointed out that your life is the ultimate thing to give, since it is the fundamental commonality amongst those of us here and now. To surrender it willingly and willfully - without malice, but with purpose, well, apparently the weight of that choice is lost on you.

Though conjecture on my part might suggest these two are one and the same in these times, Mr Deak, it appears, has more common sense and seems far more attuned to how things are than the shameful shadows that populate this place.

godsChild
Generally, the people who can't find a civil way to express opinions have views which aren't worth much troubling over anyway.
And ad hominem attacks on particular groups of people, whatever unites them, usually smack of prejudice and racism. Substitute any other group for 'baby boomers' in your latest diatribe and you should get the point.

There is a noose here, awaiting me.

Define the "civility" of taking ones life for a cause.
Reason it out for us.
In the end, it is all and it is nothing.

godsChild
You were the creature who called upon all baby boomers to commit voluntary suicide.

On which severed leg are you standing?

North of Hope

.

I hope some of you caught this show, it was awesome. It wasn't so much new information, to me anyway, but the way they knit it all together was excellent.
Bob McKeown rocks and the whole staff deserves kudos for a really well made presentation. It really is right on topic for this thread, same old, same old - just a different product they are denying.

btw, these guys don't so much "influence" the political leaders as create dis-information, sow doubt where none exists and massage the data to fit the policies the politicians have already decided they want.

I found particularly striking the way they made it so clear that in many cases the same "experts" who were "tobacco is addicting and harmful to health" deniers are now magically "experts" in climate change (not global warming - rule one, change the terms). For smart guys these experts were all really stupid when it came to knowing anything about where their money came from - I guess they just find it in their mailbox in a plain brown envelope. But all them real scientists don't really "know" like they do.......

Anyone who missed it can find lots about it at: cbc.ca/fifth

beyond hope

godsChild:
And to think that sometimes I wonder if I'm being too harsh on some people. You sound like the perfect partner for a recreational/civic improvement oriented "killing spree."

Rafe, I heard you on the CBC this morning and then I read godsChild's startling attack on you and all boomers above and suggested solutions to current problems. I don't know if he/she was suggesting suicide for you, as I realize you are too old to be a baby boomer.

However I couldn't help thinking of your fantasy about the baseball game between the Blue Jays and the Dodgers. By the way I was in the old ROTFLMAO position as you described the denouement of the seventh game. I also really like the West of the West idea!

godsChild,

Suicide gC, is a form of giving up or saying that your life has NO value and NO meaning. Self sacrifice or suicide, is not a gift to the world; in fact it is actually no different than a school shooter killing a bunch of young people, than killing himself. Does the fact that he is given a life not tell him hs life has purpose and meaning?? Sadly, he didn’t think so...but in the end, what really was his life for...??

We are all exploiters gC, and we all make mistakes, and that includes you, BUT this is a new day dude, and we can choose to make better of this day than other days. We can help the poor in the city to find shelter, we can demonstrate against the destruction of Mother Earth, and all her creatures, we can hug a neighbor who just lost a loved one, we can love and help our kids with everthing we've got, we can converse and find\show support by a community with kindred beliefs such as we are doing right now, OR we can, what, KILL OURSELVES. This would be the most selfish act towards Mother Earth ever displayed. You know why godsChild, all our lives have meaning.

Be hard on the unrepentant, NOT those of us who are trying to do better on behalf of our “Mother”, but if you are hard on the unrepentant…do it with LOVE brother…

Peace gC,

Bear

godsChild:
There was a time when punks like you would listen to their elders and LEARN!
Sure the older generation made mistakes, but perhaps they learned by them, and perhaps even you could learn if you had a brain

B]godsChild:[/B]
Last point... We are all responsible for getting to the point of signing our own Peace Treaty with the universe.
Peace,Bear.

Fiat Lux (Ed Deak)- looks like their going to pay some attention to airline pollution.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,13509-2455479,00.html

Good News! Plenty of Oil!

Globe & Mail
By NEIL REYNOLDS

Wednesday, November 15, 2006, Page B2

OTTAWA -- We should now be confidently able to push back "peak oil" by a few hundred years. In three western states alone, the United States has more than eight trillion barrels of hard-to-pump shale oil, which is roughly eight times the entire consumption of crude oil in human history....

Shell Oil is already processing some and Chevron's in there too.

http://www.fossil.energy.gov/programs/reserves/npr/npr-90years.html

Loads of Oil. Forget the panic.
Good article by the ex-NDP supporter Reynolds. Always interesting.

Well done woody.

Great idea realisticman:

Welcome to the Monkey House. With a little luck about 1/3 of the western half of the continent could be turned into a vast open pit mine - just like the area around Fort McMurray now. Now what were you saying about Neil Reynolds and Globe and Mail?

Next suggestion please.

Mr Pombo, by the way, didn't fare that well in the recent election:

At a party at a local bar on Monday night that one new staff member described as “sweaty,” current Democratic House members instructed new ones about the pecking order for the incoming class. At the top are the “dragon slayers,” the Democrats who took down especially big Republican targets like John E. Sweeney in New York, Richard W. Pombo in California and Curt Weldon in Pennsylvania.

source: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/15/us/politics/15frosh.html

Someone mentioned The Fifth Estate show called "The Denial Machine". Go to CBC.CA. If you punch it in, you can see the show on their site. Worth watching...
Talking about PR...whoa!!!

Bear

I hope 'some' people take the time to watch this Bear.

Thank you, and Peace.

Peace Alcibiades,
Bear:-)

Dear godsChild;

I feel like somebody should point out a couple of truths to you before you jump.

First, you have some good passion, some strong energy. It will, given half a chance, turn to serve life rather than the simply becoming the cause of it's own rage.

Second, your perceptions are mostly crap. It's not that you're wrong. You're not all that wrong. It's that your vision is incomplete. There's more to see than you have seen yet, more understanding your passion will lead you to, if you survive your anger.

If you ask a little kid what the world is like, he'll tell you, and from his eyes he'll be right. Ask him again when he's twenty, thirty, forty, he will give you other truths. And he'll be right.

Try to survive. There's cool stuff for you to be and do. But you have to be here for them. We all do.

...Truth is beauty Bailey. Good words.

Peace,

Bear

Rafe.....I think it's really time to
hang up the keyboard and sail off into the sunset..... you were one of the best!

More good news:

http://www.cera.com/aspx/cda/public1/news/pressReleases/pressReleaseDetails.aspx?CID=8444

How does one contemplate 4.82 trillion barrels?

Were drowning in oil!

Talk about Denial! The slick CBC piece was steered by a master of PR.

http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/financialpost/story.html?id=2c07121b-85c2-4799-9aaf-0c2688bf5ca1

Extremely "Credible" people realisticman.

By the way, who do YOU work for?

Cambridge Energy Research Associates

COMPANY

Energy consulting firm with 230 employees, headed by Daniel Yergin. The company was acquired by IHS Energy in August 2004.

Official Website:
http://www.cera.com/

Corporate headquarters:
Cambridge, MA

Employees:
230 (2003)

Name
Zalmay Khalilzad
Diplomat 1951 US Ambassador to Iraq
Daniel Yergin
Author 6-Feb-1947 The Prize

A little more about your latest oily heroes:
Some of the company's largest clients include international energy companies, governments, utilities, and financial institutions. Many of them attend CERAWeek, the company's annual conference held in Houston, Texas. Daily programs usually revolve around the topics of oil, natural gas and power.

Past keynote speeches have been given by the energy secretaries and ministers of Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Mexico, Norway, and the United States. Other notable speakers have included former US Secretary of the Treasury Robert Rubin, Senator Gary Hart; US Secretary of Commerce Donald L. Evans; and Rilwanu Lukman, Secretary General of OPEC.

IHS, by the way, the new owners of CERA, stands for INFORMATION HANDLING SERVICES.

Seems like they've manages to 'handle' you pretty well.

As for the little diatribe from the National Post. It's main target appears to be the CBC, which isn't that surprising since the Apers have been out to kill CBCTV for years. Are they still hosting that little feature on their website where folks can get together to slag the public broadcaster?

Wonderful example of impartial journalism, I always thought.

Next question?

Should be 'its' above; not it's - sorry!

allow me to recommend a 4-part bbc documentary on the origins and economic/political impact of "PR."

hint: it's propaganda repurposed for "peacetime."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbcfour/documentaries/features/century_of_the_self.shtml

it should be easy to find as a bit torrent.

or stream it here: http://throwawayyourtv.com/2006/08/century-of-self.html

My POINT G West is that the information is all coming from sources involved in PR.

PR bought us babies in incubators in Kuwait and it's now bringing us 'the end is nigh' from the CBC.

CERA derives its financing from its corporate clients and if they are way off the mark they'll lose clients.

Doom and gloom is big business and the CBC have used a PR guy as their anchor gloomspieler. Take it with a grain of salt. The planet may be warming up again, as it has many times, but I'm not convinced it's biblical. If you are then plant mahogany.

Nope realisticman, I don't buy it. The science of global warming is not in question anywhere except in North America.

It's no coincidence that that the power of PR is so all-encompassing in that same juuisdiction. CERA could care less whether it tells the truth - you just have to look at who its founders are.

You brought up the bible, I don't see it as a source of anything except another kind of phony PR.

I'd still like to know who YOU work for.

Oh, you know Garth, I run watered down penicillin into the Russian sector. Meet me on the ferris wheel.

Pretty much confirms what I'd figured.
Cheers

"Would you really feel any pity if one of those dots stopped moving forever? If I said you can have twenty thousand pounds for every dot that stops, would you really, old man, tell me to keep my money...?"

"Have you ever seen any of your victims?"

I've seen lots of yours, Harry!

Who's on first?

Thanks Rafe! Just for a brief moment, my intense desire to slap Patrick Moore subsided. I thoroughly enjoyed the lashing you gave him.