I was rather charged up by the Joe (McCarthy) Oliver letter last week. Though I don’t define myself as radical, I know some do simply because I think about and act on issues. To me that’s engaged citizenship; to them it’s radicalism. Says a lot about our society, doesn’t it? Citizens become engaged and they are dismissed, written off, red-baited by their families, communities and elected officials. Isn’t that what fascism is about, creating an Other to despise? Would they rather I park my brain and my butt and remain silent until there is one left to speak?
I don’t do that kind of silence. I do love the silence of nature, which is never really silent, and the silence of meditation, which is also never really silent. But instead of being silent on this issue of national importance, I’m going to own the radicalism with which I’ve been pegged and pass along a list of links which deepen and further the dialogue the Minister of Natural Resources has begun.
First, an article by Andrew Nikiforuk, the man who has been on the trail of the Big Oil and Gas boys for a long time. In this piece, he offers important bits and pieces from a 30-page report on the Northern Gateway Pipeline proposal by J. David Hughes. One observation Nikiforuk makes:
Hughes’ damning report also posits a simple question that Canada’s media routinely neglects: why does the Canadian government support a proposal to export oil to China when nearly half the country (Quebec and Atlantic Canada) is nearly 100 per cent dependent on declining or volatile reserves from the North Sea and the Middle East? (The study was funded by the author and by Forest Ethics with intervenor money for the Gateway hearing provided by the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency.)
Both the article and the report are well worth the read.
If you haven’t already read the connect-the-dots piece at desmogblog, you really must. It exposes the interconnections among the ethical oil (sic) folks, the oil moneymen and the Prime Minister’s Office in one fell swoop. Follow that up with a look at the work of the good folks at Pacific Free Press and with a very detailed look at ISPs and web developers and media managers connected to the aforementioned groups by the folks at deep climate. It’s excellent research which, I think, warrants further investigation, perhaps by the authorities.
Finally, take a boo at what the Common Sense Canadian has to say about the recent appointment of a former HarperCon insider to the Christy Clarke inner circle in BC. In Clark, Harper, Enbridge Taking Suicidal Risks With BC’s Future CSC says:
I don’t want to deal with economics here but simply the wilderness of the province of British Columbia.
We must understand that Enbridge has an unbelievably bad track record. Since 2002 their American subsidiaries alone racked up 170 leaks, and the company itself had a staggering 610 leaks from 1999-2008, including a 2007 explosion in Minnesota that killed two men and brought it $2.4 million in fines – this in addition to a 2003 gas pipeline explosion that killed 7 in Ontario. More recently there is the Kalamazoo River spill in July 2010 which will never be cleaned up.
I leave it thusly:
Is there any set of circumstances, other than an assurance of God Himself, under which you would approve any pipeline going through our precious wilderness?
As I’ve said elsewhere, this pipeline will go ahead over my dead body.
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* With thanks to Dave at The Galloping Beaver for inspiring the title of this post. Are we all round-up ready now?
