Stand By ... for Standing Rock

Television used to remind us that we shared Turtle Island

Stand by, folks ... I'm attending something really cool later today and want to report on it then.


Thank you for your patience. A very, very dear friend from the Anishinabe First Nation came to our small community today to help us with a vigil for Standing Rock (one of a great many worldwide). The ceremony itself — especially the water blessing and the song Water is Life (written by someone here in our community) — was loving and healing. 

The talking circle afterwards, however, was POWERFUL. So powerful that when we got home, we learned that the American government (President Obama, the Army Corps of Engineers, the Department of Justice and the Department of the Interior) had earlier today denied the easement that would have allowed the pipeline to cross under Lake Oahe and the Missouri River through Standing Rock Sioux territory in North Dakota.

Frankly, I think the arrival of 4,000 US veterans woke a few people up — like smelling salts or a slap across the face. All of a sudden, all those militarized "law" enforcement officers were facing not "the other" but themselves. I can imagine that the arrival of the veterans felt like a rebuke ... but one from a loving elder who sees his younger (foolish) self in the faces of his grandchildren, and wants to guide them away from their foolishness. (But I could be imagining things.)

During our talking circle this afternoon, we heard the story about a grandmother's way of dealing with a bully. "The next time he bullies you or is mean to you, just look into his eyes until you see the Creator there," she told her granddaughter. The storyteller, who was quite young when this happened, did so. The next time the bully was mean to her, she gazed up into his face until suddenly, she saw the Creator in his eyes. "He melted," she said. "The bully in him just melted away." (I burst into tears realizing it was perhaps the first time that boy had ever felt truly seen.)

I think the enforcement officers at Standing Rock were looked at deeply today. I think they could not remain immune to the gaze when the gazers were themselves. "How could," they'd have been wondering, "thousands of my brothers and sisters be standing on the other side instead of on my side? What is wrong with my side?" Turns out it was so that the veterans could look deep into their eyes ... and see the Creator.

I pray that the enforcement folks finally felt seen and understood — and that they can now stand down, as fellow human beings, realizing how wrong they were about the people they'd turned into the enemy. "The friend of my friend must be my friend."

And we are all one on this Earth.

BTW, we here on the west coast of Canada are steeling ourselves for a fight to protect our ocean. And we will follow the lead of our coastal First Nations. Thank you, Standing Rock, for inspiring us with your example, your bravery and your fortitude. You've really started something!

*******

Whenever we talk about Standing Rock and other protests, we need to remember that if not stopped, fracking and the burning of oil, natural gas and coal will decimate the viability and the habitability of our biosphere. 

Permaculture to the Rescue!

I'm already into the fourth week and the fourth lesson of the online permaculture design certificate course I'm taking with Geoff Lawton and his team in Australia (see this intro to Geoff). I've gotta tell you, it sure is exciting learning!

Given that I'm as far away as you can get from having a three-dimensional-seeing brain, I'm already on my way from being a person who only saw flat land versus hills to someone who can detect contour and see the nuances in a flattish landscape. I'm starting to be able to see possibilities and opportunities whenever I look at someone's land. (Now my own chunk of rock in the shade, it still stumps me.)

But more important than the landscaping "eye" I'm developing is the ecological learning I'm doing. For example, there's a whole section just on patterns in the natural world. It's the patterns that capture energy for living systems, and it's vital that we harmonize with patterns rather than working against them. 

Things got really out of whack in this culture when we started working against the rest of Nature: growing monocrops in straight lines with no diversity, with no features for trapping and recycling nutrients, with no water features. Topsoil was either lost or depleted of nutrients. So farmers had to start using chemical inputs, which has led to even less diversity of life in soils and on farms generally. This course teaches that soil degradation is at the core of the environmental problems we're facing. Permaculture is about partnering with ecosystems and designing for ecosystem interactions that will build soil. 

Looking at what's happening in California right now is chilling, knowing how much of western Canada's food comes from there. One hundred percent of the state is in drought of some kind (and it's only April, close to two months away from summer), with nearly 25% of California in exceptional drought. The most important element in permaculture is water, and permacultured landscapes are focused first and foremost on water retention. 

Imagine the resilience in the face of climate disruption that would come from food growing that is based in and on natural systems (which we help along) that have many connections, that are rich in diversity, and that waste nothing because everything is cycled through the system. Imagine!

If you are ever feeling totally blue about the state of this planet, I won't blame you for going the way of Paul Kingsnorth and Will Falk (I often go there myself). But if you want to try out something different, look up permaculture. Watch Geoff Lawton's videos on it or check out the old videos by permaculture founder Bill Mollison. Read a book on it (try Gaia's Garden by Toby Hemenway, or a book by co-originator of the movement, David Holmgren). Take a course in it. It will definitely cheer you up for a while, by the sheer sense of possibility and opportunity it will give you.

p.s. I am grateful to permacultureprinciples.com for the wonderful image above.

Before You Sink It, You Have to Drink It

George Kerr swimming in Burlington Bay, 1975

Today's post might seem a bit more convoluted than usual, but stick with me and let's see if I can make it make sense to you.

I've experienced several "convergences" lately: readings and meetings and thoughts and memories all intersecting, and I'm trying to focus in on that point of intersection ... is there a message waiting there for me?

First, I started reading Joseph Romm's Language Intelligence: Lessons on Persuasion from Jesus, Shakespeare, Lincoln, and Lady Gaga. It's a fascinating look at rhetoric, "the art of influencing both the hearts and the minds of listeners" and "the art of being pithy and profound." And besides being quite a readable book, it's also explaining the mysteries of American politics to me, a Canadian.

I've discovered that without knowing it, I often use rhetorical "figures of speech" in my writing. (Irony is one of them, and isn't it ironic that I use figures of speech in my writing?) 

But rhetoric, which was first honed by the ancient Greeks, and then studied intensively by the likes of Shakespeare and the King James translators of the Bible, was meant for listening audiences; widespread literacy is a fairly recent phenomenon. Indeed, there's this line on the title page of the 1611 edition of the King James Bible: "Appointed to be read in churches.") 

I sense that it's going to be rather fun and intriguing to use rhetoric more consciously and deliberately, and hence more effectively. (And that is another figure: foreshadowing.)

Second, we had a lovely visit with our youngest son yesterday. He's a thinker, that one! He reminded us that the only way enviros are going to win the day is to join in the economic fray. In other words, we haven't beat 'em, so we need to join 'em. 

Money makes the world go around, he reiterated. Young people with mortgages to pay and kids to feed will only pay attention if we can say, "Here's a secure job with good pay in the renewable energy field — and it happens to be much better for the environment." And older people whose investments are propping up the fossil fuel industries will only make the switch when we can say, "Here's a secure investment with good payback in the renewable energy field — and it happens to be much better for the environment." 

Yup, our son says, it's our job to make that transition to clean jobs and investments happen — and then to effectively communicate the opportunity.

Third, I've been horrified by the gigantuan (a mixture of gigantic and gargantuan ... doesn't get any bigger than that) backwards step we're taking with our move into fracking to satisfy our addiction to cheap energy. Punish them, Father, for they know what they do. 

I don't know who these people are (I guess I just don't hang out with frackers), though they're certainly being supported by governments at all levels who are salivatingly rubbing their hands together at the thought of LNG (liquefied natural gas) royalties bringing all sorts of wealth to their jurisdictions. ("Environmental assessment? We don't need no environmental assessment. Besides, didn't we lay those assessor guys off?") 

But I do know this: it is the height of stupidity, brainlessness (fossil fuel emissions are neurotoxins, after all) and immorality to allow fracking when we know its devastating consequences — to human and ecosystem health, to the climate, to the future. 

And finally, my horror at what fracking is doing to fresh water reserves* reminded me of something that happened in my hometown when I was growing up. We lived in Burlington, Ontario, next to the Pittsburgh of Canada: Hamilton, aka Steeltown. 

Burlington Bay was becoming terribly polluted and our provincial environment minister at the time, George Kerr, pledged in 1970 that the bay would be clean enough to swim in within five years. Well, Mr. Kerr took the plunge in 1975, bless him! He later admitted that the water wasn't clean enough to swim in, but he wanted to keep his promise (in a fishy sort of way). 

And so ... I've come up with a way to ensure that frackers don't get away with slow murder. If they want to make money from fracking, if they want to use the fresh water that belongs to all living things, and if they want to steal from the commons for their own profit, they should have to purify their fracking waste water — AND THEN DRINK IT. 

"Take a cup and drink it up" says an old nursery rhyme. Yup, if these folks want to put our health, our agricultural food security, and our future right to fresh water at risk, then they ought to take on some of the risk themselves. No? 

(One commenter on a blog post about the health risks of fracking goes one step further: "It would serve the fracking bastards right to have to live immersed in the crap they expect us to swallow while they reap the profits.")

So here's my dilemma. You've heard the Republican refrain Drill, Baby, Drill. How do we create a slogan just as short and pithy that will help the public "get" the dangers of fracking? I've been working on this for hours, and here's all I've come up with. 

Fracking water

What's that stink?

Fill your cup

And take a drink!

But it should be even shorter and pithier than that. 

Before you sink it,

You have to drink it.

No, that's not specific enough. Help!!! All you wordcrafters and rhetoricians, please sharpen your pencils and give me a hand. This ought to be one no-brainer fight we can win.

*from The Columbus [Ohio] Dispatch: "In the fracking process, millions of gallons of water, with some sand and a secret mix of chemicals mixed in, are blasted into shale formations deep underground to break up the rock and release the oil and gas trapped in it. About 15 to 25 percent of that tainted water comes back up. After oil and gas production begins, another liquid is produced. It is briny and often laced with metals, including radium, that occur naturally deep underground."

Did World Water Day Flow Past You, Too?

Yesterday was World Water Day 2010, and it passed me by with far too little fanfare and engagement.

Under the theme “Clean Water for a Healthy World”, World Water Day 2010 saw a series of initiatives organized around the globe to raise awareness and emphasize the key importance of good water quality in improving human well-being.

The global event was a call for action on pollution prevention, clean-up and restoration of waterways in order to sustain healthy ecosystems and human well-being.

DID YOU KNOW (these facts are courtesy of the United Nations Environment Programme, and were presented yesterday during the global World Water Day celebrations in Nairobi)...

• An investment of US$20 million in low-cost water technologies, such as drip irrigation and treadle pumps, could lift 100 million poor farming families out of extreme poverty.

• Repairing leaky water and sewage networks can also secure not only supplies but reduce pollution and generate employment? In some developing countries, 50-60 per cent of treated water is lost to leaks and globally an average of 35 per cent is lost. By some estimates, saving just half of this amount would supply water to 90 million people without further investment.

• Globally, 2 million tons of inadequately treated sewage and industrial and agricultural waste are poured into the world’s waters every day.

• At least 1.8 million children under five years-old die every year from water-related diseases, or one every 20 seconds.

• More people die as a result of polluted water than are killed by all forms of violence, including wars.

• Over half of the world’s hospital beds are occupied with people suffering from illnesses linked with contaminated water.

• Human health, the planet’s ecosystems, our livelihoods, and our future all depend on clean, safe water – yet every year, the world’s lakes, rivers and deltas take in the equivalent of the entire human population – the weight of 6.8 billion people – in the form of pollution.

• In the last three decades of the 20th century, populations of freshwater species fell 50 per cent on average, a rate two-thirds greater than that of terrestrial and marine species. In recent years, the biodiversity of freshwater ecosystems has been degraded more than any other ecosystem, including tropical rainforests.

• One of the most significant sources of water pollution is lack of adequate sanitation. Worldwide, the World Health Organization (WHO) and the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) estimate that 2.6 billion people — 280 million of them children under five — live without improved sanitation, and each year more than 1.5 million children die from diarrhea caused by infectious waterborne diseases. It is a crisis of local challenges with global repercussions.

• Worldwide, it is estimated that industry is responsible for dumping 300-400 million tons of heavy metals, solvents, toxic sludge and other waste into waters each year. New contaminants, such as discarded pharmaceuticals, also threaten water quality and human and ecosystem health.

• The planet’s most widespread water-quality problem is nutrient enrichment. Largely caused by nitrogen and phosphorus from agricultural runoff and human and industrial waste, nutrient enrichment results in excessive plant (principally algae) growth and decay that robs the water of oxygen needed for many aquatic organisms to survive.

• It is almost always cheaper to prevent pollution than clean it up — and poor water quality has significant economic costs, from ecosystem and human-health costs and impacts on economic activities to increased water treatment costs and reduced property values. For example, economic losses as a result of health impacts from the lack of water and sanitation in Africa are estimated at US$28.4 billion, or about 5 percent of GDP. And sanitation and drinking water investments have high rates of return: for every US$1 invested, there is a projected US$3-$34 economic development return.

• Freshwater ecosystems sustain a large number of identified species, including a quarter of known vertebrates. Such systems provide more than US $75 billion in goods and ecosystem services for people, but are increasingly threatened by a host of water quality problems.

Yikes! What are we thinking? More importantly, what are we doing about this? Not much, at least not here in The-Land-Where-We-Take-Water-for-Granted. I suspect that here in northern North America (I can't speak for Mexico), we will take our precious fresh water resources for granted until the day before they "betray" us!

The UN report, "Clearing the Waters," calls for worldwide action to:

• increase awareness to change individual behaviour around what we put into our water
• promote policies that improve water quality with education and advocacy
• increase enforcement of the regulations put in place to protect water quality; and
• put investor and consumer pressure on corporations that pollute waterways.

Sounds a lot like what we're trying to achieve in order to mitigate the climate change emergency. Hmmm, maybe we could do all these things together ... after throwing all the fossil fuel and Big Money crooks in jail perhaps?

Meantime, here's a perky video about reducing, reusing and recycling water, from the funloving Surfrider Foundation:

The Cycle of Insanity: The Real Story of Water - TRAILER 1 from Surfrider Foundation San Diego on Vimeo.

57 Days - One Drop Foundation Reminds Us of the Importance of Water

How does that expression go? Water, water everywhere, but nary a drop to drink? Guy Laliberté of Cirque du soleil started the One Drop Foundation as a way to give back, seeing precious water as a worthy focus.

Last night, his "Poetic Social Mission: Moving Stars and Earth for Water" was a beautiful and captivating way to be reminded of how important water is — and how fragile our drinking water supply is. Less than 3 percent of the water on Earth is freshwater

A child dies every eight seconds because of contaminated water — that's 6000 per day, if my math is correct. Can you imagine how bad that number is going to get with increased droughts and floods and melting glaciers caused by global climate disruption?

The water crisis is going to sneak up on a lot of people very soon, and most of those impacted will be the least responsible for global warming. It's so, so sad and scary.

Many years back, I participated in an Ecological Identity workshop and, following a series of questions and answers, realized that water is my element. My earliest memories are of sitting on the edge of the ditch in front of our home, playing in the tiny stream that ran through it. Special times — picnics, festivals, falling in love — were often celebrated by the lake (Lake Ontario in Canada). Then I moved to British Columbia, where I became a champion for safeguarding the Nechako River near Prince George. And now I live on an island, surrounded by water. Know what? My biggest fear in life is drowning. But my second biggest fear is dying of thirst. That's how much water is my life.

Water is life.