Fighting for the right to water

June 23, 2014   ·   0 Comments

Water advocate Maude Barlow will be speaking at the Minden Hills Community Centre on July 11, 2014. Photo by Wolfgang Schmidt

By Jenn Watt

When renowned Canadian activist and author Maude Barlow was growing up, it was a commonly held belief that the world would never run out of clean water.
Most people never considered that water would become a scarcity – threatened by pollution, agriculture, manufacturing and global trade.
Today, water is under threat and Barlow has distinguished herself as one of the most prominent international voices for its protection.
“It’s true that the water’s still on the planet somewhere,” says Barlow, “but we’ve either polluted it or diverted it for mass flood irrigation, for food production for the global food market (therefore it’s in commodities and it’s not in the ground anymore) or we’ve sent it into big cities where when they’re finished with it they dump it in the ocean so it doesn’t get cleaned and returned to the land.”
Barlow is a guest of Environment Haliburton scheduled to speak at the Minden Hills Community Centre on July 11.
She recently authored Blue Future: Protecting Water for People and the Planet Forever, one of 17 books she has released over the years.
The last in a trilogy of non-fiction about the world’s water situation, it offers solutions to solving what is an ever-intensifying and frightening situation.
“[On July 11] I’ll talk about the fact that water should be seen as a public trust,” she says. “It belongs to the people; it belongs to the ecosystem; it belongs to the future generations.”
Barlow first became interested in water as a cause in the mid 1980s. An active part of the women’s movement, she noticed that water was largely a women’s issue around the world.
“When I started realizing there were so many million people without access to water, I realized the vast majority of people affected were women. It’s women’s responsibility in the poorer countries in the global south to go out and walk kilometres, maybe five or six kilometres, to get the water and get it back,” she says.
“They are responsible for cooking and the health care of their family, gardening and all the things you need water for.”
At the same time, she was researching free trade agreements and made a startling discovery: water was being listed as a tradable good.
“I realized there was a very big move by corporations, both private utilities that wanted to come in and run water services on a for-profit basis, bottled water companies, all sorts of others that were getting into the water business.”
The topic led to three books, a lengthy list of articles and commentaries and then into the United Nations where in 2010 Barlow became the senior advisor on water to the 63rd president of the UN general assembly.
And on July 28, 2010, the UN passed a declaration that all humans have the right to water – an achievement Barlow says is the pinnacle of her career so far.
“It is the responsibility of each government in the world to make sure that the human right to water and sanitation is fulfilled in their country,” she says.
Of course, that doesn’t mean every country will follow the rules, but there is now a means to enforce that human right in places such as Detroit, which has been kicking users off water access as costs steadily increase.
One of Barlow’s organizations – The Blue Planet Project – partnered with a local organization to write a report on the subject, which was sent to the UN Special Rapporteur on the Human Right to Safe Drinking Water and Sanitation.
“It’s not a perfect process,” she says, but without the declaration, water advocates would be in a tougher position than they are now.
Barlow is also a fierce critic of the bottled water industry and has campaigned against corporations such as Nestlé for draining water out of one part of the world for export to another.
“Bottled water not only creates all that plastic garbage … but it also destroys local water sources because these companies come into a local community and they take the local water and mine it until it’s gone. When it’s gone the companies move on,” she says.
“People need to remember that … where there’s water in a bottle it’s come from a plant somewhere and that plant’s based on fresh spring water somewhere and that’s how we’re using up our groundwater so fast.”
To combat growing demand for bottled water and privatization of public water facilities, Barlow helped create the Blue Communities Project through the Council of Canadians, where she is the national chairperson.
The project asks communities to pledge to support public water utilities, ban the sale of bottled water in municipal buildings and at municipal events and to declare water a human right.
Maude Barlow will speak at 7 p.m. on July 11 at the Minden Hills Community Centre. Copies of her book will be for sale at the event. Cost of admission: Suggested Donation of $10.

Lake Ontario Waterkeeper

http://www.waterkeeper.ca/2012/05/01/heartbreaking-news-for-canadas-water-lovers/

Heartbreaking news for Canada’s water lovers

I remember the first time I sat around a kitchen table in a rural community giving environmental law advice. I was speaking with a farmer who was beset by pollution running across his fields and destroying his fish and hunting camp along the Rideau Canal.
The family had asked my law firm what we could do about the landfill leachate from a major Ontario city dump that was destroying habitat. No one from the City, the waste company or government had offered to help them. Now everyone in the room — his wife and mother at the wood stove, his sons and daughters and grandkids around the table — was keenly awaiting what I had to say.
I asked: Are there any fish in the fields, ditches or nearshore?  The family told me the bay was once the best fishing area around and that fish still spawned in the fields and ditches every spring.
I asked: Can I get access to the water draining from the dump to sample as it runs onto your land? The family told me the exact locations where the water bubbled up on the dump walls and ran year-round onto their property.
I answered: I can help.
We documented the fish in the ditches and the bay. We sampled the leachate (it was toxic). We contacted government authorities and the company, alerting them that we had evidence the dump was in contravention of the Fisheries Act. Immediately, they took action to stop the pollution. To this day, that area on the river is protected from landfill toxins.
My story is not unique. It has been played out across Canada thousands of times. When evidence of a Fisheries Act contravention was compiled, the harmful acts were almost always stopped.

Even when government or industry did not act, the Fisheries Act allowed citizens to enforce the law independently. In fact, the Fisheries Act says that, if convicted, a polluter pays half of the fine to the individual who brought the charges. This is meant to “encourage the public to participate in the protection of community resources.”
Such citizen-led actions form an important part of Canada’s environmental protection laws. In the past 16 years, I have personally been involved in investigating legal actions against the Cities of Kingston, Hamilton, Moncton, Montreal, and Toronto as well as the Ontario Ministry of Environment, Ontario Hydro, OPG, DTE and other polluters for Fisheries Act violations. That work resulted directly or indirectly in clean-ups on the Cataraqui River, Humber River, Moira River, Petitcodiac River, St. Clair River, Lake Ontario, St. Lawrence River and other waters across Canada.
All of this was possible because the Fisheries Act made it illegal to pollute or destroy fish and fish habitat in Canada. The offenses under the Act were criminal in nature, meaning enforcement was free from political interference or economic lobbying by industry. The laws protected every community, regardless of the size of the project, the abundance of fish, or the “economic value” of nature.
That is all about to be wiped out. The budget implementation bill that Parliament is considering now radically changes the Fisheries Act. Under the new law, cabinet ministers and industry will have unprecedented influence over fish and fish habitat policy.
Under the new law, decisions about which Canadian communities deserve protection will be made based on political and economic factors. There is no role for science or the rule of law.
The consequences of the changes will be felt immediately. Will Lake Ontario’s fish be protected? Or will our small commercial fishery be deemed “insignificant”? Will we see sewage treatment plant upgrades in Vancouver, Victoria, or Halifax? Or will environmental benefits be deemed “insignificant” in light of the cost? Clean-ups like the ones we saw at the dumpsite beside the farmers field will most certainly be things of the past.
When I read about the changes, I know that every farmer, hunter, angler, and community member who loves access to swimmable, drinkable, fishable waters will lose out.
I know that, if I was a young environmental lawyer sitting at that kitchen table today, I wouldn’t be able to offer the same help I did all those years ago to the farmer and his family. That breaks my heart.

The Tyee – What's the Big Deal About CETA?

http://thetyee.ca/Opinion/2012/05/03/Secrets-of-CETA/?utm_source=daily&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=030512

What the BC government can't tell you about the sweeping new treaty being framed with Europe.

By: By Robert Duffy, 3 May 2012, TheTyee.ca

View full article and comments: http://thetyee.ca/Opinion/2012/05/03/Secrets-of-CETA/

The proposed Canada-Europe Union Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) is generating serious questions and concerns from local governments across Canada. CETA, a sweeping trade and investment deal, is currently in its tenth round of negotiations, and the Canadian government believes it could be concluded by the end of the year.

Since 2010, more than 50 Canadian municipalities, local government associations and school boards have passed resolutions expressing concern about the CETA's potential impact local public services and decision making.
This concern spans across the political spectrum, from progressives like Burnaby Mayor Derek Corrigan all the way to right-of-centre municipal politicians like Toronto Mayor Rob Ford and Mississauga Mayor Hazel McAllion.
Both McAllion and Ford supported recent council resolutions calling for full disclosure of provincial CETA offers and allowing municipalities to choose a "clear and permanent exemption" from the deal. A number of other Ontario municipalities have passed similar resolutions in the past few months, joining the Union of BC Municipalities, the BC School Trustees Association and others who passed CETA resolutions in 2010 and 2011.
Losing procurement as a policy tool
So what's in CETA that has local elected leaders so concerned?
Only EU representatives, the Canadian federal government and the provinces have official access to CETA negotiations, so local governments and the Canadian public don't know all the details. And recently B.C.'s minister on the file said he is prohibited by the federal government from sharing information with citizens about the treaty negotiations.
But ongoing leaks of key negotiating documents have provided observers with a strong sense of where the deal is headed.
These documents show that the European Union is seeking sweeping access for EU companies to Canadian government procurement contracts, especially "subnational" procurement by provincial governments, municipalities, school boards and other public bodies. While NAFTA and other earlier trade deals applied to federal government procurement, CETA would mark the first time that local government purchasing in Canada was covered under a long term international trade agreement. The leaked documents also show that neither the federal or provincial governments' trade offers are including clauses to protect local government authority and public services.
It's easy to see why the EU is interested in Canadian subnational procurement. Local governments in Canada spent more than $120 billion on goods and services in 2011 alone. From goods such as transit vehicles, energy equipment, uniforms, food and office equipment, to services like engineering, accounting, legal, and energy conservation -- not to mention spending associated with major construction and infrastructure projects -- local government purchasing is potentially a huge market.
The EU is home to some of the world's biggest private companies involved in drinking water, transit and other municipal services. France's Veolia, for example, made more than €12.6 billion in 2011 from water operations in 67 countries and an additional €5.7 billion from transit operations in Europe and the USA.
To help companies like Veolia expand in Canada, EU trade negotiators are explicitly targeting the ability of Canadian local governments to use procurement for environmental, social or local economic development objectives. Under proposed CETA rules, "made in Canada" content requirements for transit vehicles or "buy local" policies for cafeteria food contracts could be prohibited as so-called "offsets" that "discriminate" against EU suppliers. A 2010 legal opinion on leaked CETA documents commissioned by the Columbia Institute found that many environmental considerations could also be prohibited as "offsets." As trade lawyer Steven Shrybman notes in the legal opinion:
The ban on offsets is arguably the more serious constraint imposed by the regime, and it is important to note that it applies to all procurement contracts regardless of the national pedigree of the prospective bidders.
This means that where CETA rules apply, procurement can no longer be used as a tool to foster local or Canadian economic or sustainable development, facilitate innovation, promote social goals, support food security, or address local or Canadian environmental problems. At a time when procurement is one of the few economic levers available to governments, CETA rules would take it out of the hands of government and other public bodies.
Earlier this spring, a report from Toronto's city manager similarly warned that CETA could potentially impact the city's local food policy and transit procurement contracts, as well as local hiring quotas required in some city projects.
If implemented, these CETA requirements would be much more stringent than those in existing inter-provincial agreements such as the Agreement on Internal Trade (AIT) and New West Partnership Trade Agreement (NWPTA -- formerly known as TILMA). The AIT allows municipalities to apply "Buy Canadian" rules, as long as the rules are applied "transparently."
According to Shrybman's legal opinion, CETA rules would prevent municipalities from requiring even a portion of these billions of dollars of local government funds be used to support local economic, social and environmental goals.
Locking in privatization and removing public options
One of the aspects of CETA most worrying for local leaders is the deal's potential to undermine public control over water and other key municipal services. The leaked initial offer showed that the EU companies want access to contracts in Canadian local government services, going so far as to name specific local utilities, public transit agencies and other public services in dozens of municipalities across the country.
As proponents of CETA note, the deal does not in itself require privatization of public services. However, CETA would make it very difficult for municipalities to take any public service that has been privatized back under public control or extend public ownership into new services.
Because the federal government is at present funding only municipal infrastructure projects with private sector involvement, almost all new water and other infrastructure projects in Canada would likely be covered by CETA. In effect, private companies are currently guaranteed a "foot in the door" for infrastructure and public service projects and CETA would prohibit municipalities from "pushing that foot back out."
Hamilton, Ontario's experience with privatized water highlights why this issue is so important. In the mid 1990s, financial challenges led Hamilton to privatize its drinking and wastewater services. In 2004, after a decade of bad experiences -- including rising costs, failure to maintain infrastructure and even a major sewage spill -- Hamilton decided to take water services back "in house" and end its experiment with privatized water. This choice would likely have been impossible under CETA -- Hamilton would have been stuck looking for a new private provider or renewing its existing contract.
It's interesting to note here that many EU municipalities have taken their own water back under public control after problems with privatized water systems (often privatized under the same EU firms that are trying to get into the Canadian market). Paris, France took water back under public control after contracts with Veolia and Suez ended in 2009. The city claims an annual gain of €35 million from transferring water services back to the public sector and was able to cut residential water prices by eight per cent.
Legal risks and added administrative burden
The CETA legal opinion commissioned by Columbia Institute also found that the deal would likely add to the administrative burden of municipalities and open the door to legal challenges from European corporations should the corporations disagree with local purchasing decisions.
An example of what this may foreshadow can be seen in current WTO challenges from the EU and Japan against local content and hiring requirements in Ontario's Green Energy Act. These challenges jeopardize thousands of jobs and billions of dollars worth of investment in the province. In addition to legal costs and possibly requirements to pay damages in the event of losing a trade challenge, local governments may also face the prospect of having to put major projects on hold while trade challenges move through the courts or trade tribunals.
The increased administrative burden for local governments would include revised tendering procedures, accounting to unsuccessful suppliers for local government decisions and providing the federal government with additional procurement information and statistics.
What next for local governments in Canada?
Negotiations are moving rapidly, and the federal government has indicated that a CETA agreement in principle is likely sometime in 2012.
The most recently leaked CETA documents show that neither the federal nor any of the provincial governments have sought to exempt water or other key municipal services from CETA (although the EU is seeking to exempt its water services from the deal).
Municipal leaders and others concerned about the CETA are increasingly focusing their attention on Canada's provincial governments. Unlike NAFTA and previous trade deals negotiated exclusively between national governments, the EU has insisted that Canadian provinces sign on to the CETA. This means that provincial government concerns have weight, and provinces could ask for concessions such as municipal procurement exemptions or higher procurement thresholds.
In the last week of April, federal cabinet ministers, government MPs and senators fanned out to launch what government press releases are describing as "Cross-Country Events that Highlight Benefits of Deeper Canada-EU Trade." Local governments and others will likely be there to voice their concerns about the deal.

Robert Duffy is an analyst with the Columbia Institute which regularly publishes public policy research.

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EcoNews: Earthfuture.com

The latest from Guy D'auncey in Victoria
http://www.earthfuture.com/econews/back_issues/12-05.asp

CYCLING IN COPENHAGEN
With Bike to Work Week starting on May 28^th and 224 teams registered in Victoria, it’s worth asking how Copenhagen has built such a strong cycling culture. 80% of the city’s residents ride a bike once a week, and 32% of all trips are by bike (37% of commuter trips).

Their goal is that by 2015 50% will bike to work or study. 25% of families use a cargo-bike to ferry their kids around, and they retain an 80% ridership level in winter thanks in part to their bike-lane snow-plows.
Back in the 1970s, Copenhagen had a low level of cycling. But after the 1979 oil crisis the residents organized a huge protest outside City Hall, which started investing in cycling infrastructure.
At a recent talk in Victoria, Andreas Rohl, Copenhagen’s bike program leader, emphasized that cycling is always a means to an end, not a goal in itself.
Only 1% of Copenhageners cycle for environmental reasons. 57% do so because it’s easy and fast, 22% because it’s good exercise.
The city bike-planners’ goal is to make it easy to go all the way from A to B, even when it is difficult. Every bike lane should be safe, easy and convenient, and should never be created outside a row of parked cars.
They have built several bike-bridges across difficult areas, and synchronized the lights on several roads creating a green wave that enables cyclists to sail through the lights, saving 20% on trip time. They are now looking at the need for 3-lane conversational cycling lanes, allowing two cyclists to talk to each other, while a third can overtake.
Every taxi in Copenhagen must carry a bike-rack, and cyclists are allowed to ride the wrong way down one-way streets. They also use on-line Citizen Improvement Maps to enable cyclists to tell the city where improvements are needed.
Constant marketing and appreciation are very important to the city’s bike culture. Per kilometre, it costs $1.5 million to create a bike track, compared to up to $17 million for a wide motorway and $176 million for the metro.
Because of its health benefits, for every kilometre that someone cycles, society benefits by 25 cents. For every kilometre someone drives a car, society loses by 12 cents.
In cost-benefit terms the benefits of cycling are seven times
 greater than the accident costs.
Cyclists live five years longer than non-cyclists, Andreas said, and they also die quicker, representing a considerable savings to Denmark’s health budget. The risk of premature death from any cause falls by more than 50% for fast cyclists doing 30 to 60 minutes cycling a day. Average speed cyclists reduce their risk by one-third. And since it’s so safe, no-one wears a helmet.
See www.kk.dk.cityofcyclists
Here in Victoria, the Great Victoria Cycling Coalition is the place to be for cyclists who want Victoria to be more like Copenhagen. Are you a member yet? As well as organizing regular events, they also advocate for change. See www.gvcc.bc.ca. For Victoria’s Bike to Work Week, see www.biketowork.ca/victoria

PM Inconsistent on Use and Abuse of Budget Implementation Bills | Green Party of Canada

http://www.greenparty.ca/en/node/20711

30 April 2012 - 3:06pm

OTTAWA – Green Party Leader Elizabeth May and Member of Parliament for Saanich-Gulf Islands today stated that Stephen Harper has been blatantly inconsistent in his attitude relating to the content and purpose of Budget Implementation Acts.
“While Leader of the Opposition in 2005, Stephen Harper held some clear principles about what was acceptable and what was not when introducing a budget bill,” said May.  “He has reversed these entirely in his 421-page Bill C-38, which he is using as a policy black hole.”
In the spring of 2005, both Harper and NDP leader Jack Layton threatened to bring down Paul Martin’s Liberal government because Environment Minister Stephane Dion wanted to make one amendment to the Canadian Environmental Protection Act – in order to clarify the government’s power to regulate greenhouse gases.
Harper was clear in his opposition to using the Budget Implementation Act to change laws.
“This is an attempt by the government to get unlimited power to impose multi-million-dollar fines on any basis, without any parliamentary approval or discussion, whatsoever.  It is completely unacceptable,” Harper stated in the House of Commons.
He then went on to clarify:  "This is a back-door way ... a dangerous way of proceeding, and it will certainly not have the support of this party.”
“At one time in his political career, Harper understood that changes in law and policy, especially relating to the environment, did not belong in the Budget Implementation Act.  One crucial reason is that the Act will be analyzed by the Finance Committee, which does not have the expertise to examine non-finance issues.
“In light of his former stand, Harper’s burying of the destruction of the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act and the Kyoto Implementation Act, the gutting of the Fisheries Act, along with the undermining of  the Species at Risk Act and more in Bill C-38 is all the more shameless,” said May. 

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Anti-environment measures tucked into Liberal budget bill - thestar.com

http://www.thestar.com/opinion/editorialopinion/article/1166667--anti-environment-measures-tucked-into-liberal-budget-bill

Clayton Ruby

What is Premier Dalton McGuinty hiding in your budget bill? The legal ability to hurt Ontario’s most vulnerable species, that’s what.
Ontario appears to be echoing the mood of the federal government, which also used its budget bill to introduce significant changes to environmental protection laws, a move that had less to do with budgets and more to do with undoing transparency, accountability and environmental responsibility.
Likewise, the Ontario Liberals have buried several proposed changes in their new budget bill that strike at the heart of Ontario’s Endangered Species Act (ESA), a piece of legislation this government proudly touted a mere five years ago.
The province’s backsliding on the protection of Ontario’s endangered wildlife is surprising from what has been a pretty darn good government. And it ignores reality: once-common species, like the barn swallow and the monarch butterfly, are now increasingly rare.
Here are the proposed changes that this government doesn’t want you to know about.
First, McGuinty introduces an open-ended list of exemptions to the law — rarely a good sign in legislation promising protection for Ontario’s most vulnerable plants and animals. Sweeping new powers permit the government of the day to exempt private landowners from the requirement to protect endangered wildlife or habitat. Yet most species at risk are found in southern Ontario, and most of southern Ontario is securely in private hands. In other words, protection will be exempt in the region where you find the highest concentration of endangered wildlife.
Second, right now if development harms a threatened or endangered species or its habitat, that work can only proceed if the owner creates alternatives so that the species is better off than before. This way, the wheels of economic growth can keep turning, but the owner has to make meaningful attempts to conserve declining species. The budget gives industry free reign to operate without regard to this protection. Habitat, we can do without you!
Third, the 2013 deadline to complete plans to protect and re-establish plants and animals whose populations have plummeted so dramatically they will disappear from the province — and in some cases the country — has been taken out. With no legal teeth, who could expect that such plans will ever move forward?
Ontario’s ESA was passed in 2007 with the support of almost all MPPs. It has gained international acclaim and helped build McGuinty’s reputation as a man who cares for our heritage. The act sets clear requirements for basing decisions on the best scientific information available, yet it provides a great deal of flexibility in how these protections are implemented.
Take the widening of Highway 400 near Parry Sound.
On the face of it, a wider highway would not be good news for the endangered animals in the area. But thanks to some fairly modest measures, like special fencing and crossing culverts, the new highway is significantly less lethal than the old highway. It’s also safer for drivers, who don’t need to swerve to avoid turtles or other creatures. Clearly, proper environmental planning does not bring development to a grinding halt.
Yet this gutting of the ESA is unrelated to any major budget commitment. They are just anti-environment measures tucked into a hefty finance measure solely to escape the scrutiny that would otherwise be guaranteed by the Environmental Bill of Rights, which requires public input into changes in Ontario’s environmental laws.
The Liberals used to tell Ontarians that they believed in collaborative planning designed to protect species and habitats and avoid problems down the road. If they’ve changed their minds, let them publicly wear it. We need that debate out in the open, not buried in the fine print of a spending bill.
Clayton Ruby is one of Canada’s leading lawyers, an outspoken proponent of freedom of the press, and a prominent member of the environmental community.

Canada's 'pearl' of Arctic research hit with funding freeze

http://www.canada.com/technology/Canada+pearl+Arctic+research+with+funding+freeze/6352101/story.html#ixzz1q8qtuXOK

Atmospheric scientist Pierre Fogal headed north in February to help check on Earth's protective ozone layer high in the Arctic stratosphere.
But he spent much of his time on his knees dealing with burst water pipes and frozen sewer lines at Canada's beleaguered Arctic research station.
Then this week, the electrical system malfunctioned, says Fogal, site manager for PEARL, the Polar Environmental Atmospheric Research Laboratory at the northern tip of Ellesmere Island.
The station, now limping along at half power and a chilly 10 C inside, is one of the world's premier observatories for tracking the health of the Arctic atmosphere. The station houses millions of dollars worth of scientific equipment used to monitor the ozone layer, greenhouse gases and pollution swirling around the polar vortex.
But it has been a bad year. Unusually frigid weather has taken a big toll on the station's plumbing and power system, and the chilly financial wind blowing out of Ottawa has left PEARL in dire financial straits.
Federal grants that have kept the station running continuously since 2005 have run out, forcing the science team that runs PEARL to shut it down, at least temporarily.
With no money for salaries, the station's three operators were let go in December.

See more

http://www.canada.com/technology/Canada+pearl+Arctic+research+with+funding+freeze/6352101/story.html#ixzz1q8qtuXOK

Hope in the Age of Collapse | Thoreau Farm

Orion magazine recently published a piece by Paul Kingsnorth titled "Confessions of a Recovering Environmentalist"
http://www.orionmagazine.org/index.php/articles/article/6599/

His "confessions" inspired a dialogue with Wen Stephenson of the Thoreau Farm Trust.
http://thoreaufarm.org/2012/04/hope-in-the-age-of-collapse/
includes a link to the video "Welcome to the Anthropocene"

Useful at a time when the climate scientists are saying it's too late to stop major climate change

Kingsnorth is one of the founders of the Dark Mountain Project,
http://dark-mountain.net/

This is a summary of the founders views

"These are precarious and unprecedented times. Our economies crumble, while beyond the chaos of markets, the ecological foundations of our way of living near collapse. Little that we have taken for granted is likely to come through this century intact.

We don’t believe that anyone – not politicians, not economists, not environmentalists, not writers – is really facing up to the scale of this. As a society, we are all still hooked on a vision of the future as an upgraded version of the present. Somehow, technology or political agreements or ethical shopping or mass protest are meant to save our civilisation from self-destruction.

Well, we don’t buy it. This project starts with our sense that civilisation as we have known it is coming to an end; brought down by a rapidly changing climate, a cancerous economic system and the ongoing mass destruction of the non-human world. But it is driven by our belief that this age of collapse – which is already beginning – could also offer a new start, if we are careful in our choices.

The end of the world as we know it is not the end of the world full stop."

Faulty premise underlies Budget 2012 “streamlining” of environmental review process | iPolitics

http://www.ipolitics.ca/2012/04/04/simon-dyer-faulty-premise-underlies-budget-2012-streamlining-of-environmental-review-process/

"If you followed coverage of the federal budget last week with an eye to environmental issues, you could be excused for thinking Canada's environmental review process is a tangled web of unnecessary red tape that is stifling investment in Canada's energy sector.

Building on the theme that Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver has been doggedly repeating in stops across the country, last week's federal budget documents argued the environmental review process needs to be unraveled in order to attract capital and keep Canada's economy moving forward. It would make sense if it weren't based on such a phony premise.

To illustrate the need to slash all that red tape, the government repeatedly points to Exhibit A: the fact that it took six years for the federal government to approve the Total Joslyn oilsands mine. Six years does seem like a long time — until you consider one important fact: mid-way through the process, the oilsands company behind the project chose to completely change its approach to extracting the bitumen from the oilsands and managing the resulting tailings waste, and submitted a new application for the project, essentially hitting re-set on the regulatory review."
<more>

http://www.ipolitics.ca/2012/04/04/simon-dyer-faulty-premise-underlies-budget-2012-streamlining-of-environmental-review-process/

Sandra Steingraber Breaking Up with the Sierra Club

http://www.orionmagazine.org/index.php/newsfrom187/entry/6799/

Sandra Steingraber, after learning that the Sierra Club had taken $25 million from Chesapeake Energy, wrote a letter severing her relationship.
Chesapeake Energy is one of the largest gas-drillers in the world.

Breaking Up with the Sierra Club

March 23, 2012, by Sandra Steingraber

Orion‘s search for a more truthful relationship between humans and the natural world occasionally calls for the expression of outrage. The more we learn about a gas-drilling practice called hydraulic fracturing—or “fracking”—the more we see it as a zenith of violence and disconnect, impulses that seem to be gathering on the horizon like thunder clouds.

Long-time friend and Orion columnist Sandra Steingraber has been particularly vocal about the dangers of fracking. Her columns in recent issues of the magazine have frequently been dedicated to the issue; and last year, after receiving a Heinz Award for her work, Steingraber donated the cash prize to the fight against fracking in her home state of New York.

In February, Time magazine broke the news that the Sierra Club, an old and respected environmental defender, had, for three years, accepted $25 million from Chesapeake Energy, one of the largest gas-drillers in the world. (In 2010, Michael Brune, the Sierra Club’s new executive director, refused further donations from the company.) The story prompted Steingraber to write an open letter to the Club, posted below. We invite you to read the letter, which testifies to the confusion, fear, and outrage that’s pouring out of communities in gasland—but which is also, importantly, a bold call to courage.

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No right way is easy. . . .We must risk our lives to save them.
—John Muir, Sierra Club’s founder

Dear Sierra Club,

I’m through with you.

For years we had a great relationship based on mutual admiration. You gave a glowing review of my first book, Living Downstream—a review that appeared in the pages of Sierra magazine and hailed me as “the new Rachel Carson.” Since 1999 that phrase has linked us together in all the press materials that my publicist sends out. Your name appears with mine on the flaps of my book jackets, in the biography that introduces me at the speaker’s podium, and in the press release that announced, last fall, that I was one of the lucky recipients of a $100,000 Heinz Award for my research and writing on the environment.

I was proud to be affiliated with you. I hoped to live up to the moniker you bestowed upon me.

But more than a month has past since your executive director, Michael Brune, admitted in Time magazine that the Sierra Club had, between 2007 and 2010, clandestinely accepted $25 million from the fracking industry, with most of the donations coming from Chesapeake Energy. Corporate Crime Reporter was hot on the trail of the story when it broke in Time.

From the start, Brune’s declaration seemed less an acknowledgement of wrongdoing than an attempt to minister to a looming public relations problem. Would someone truly interested in atonement seek credit for choosing not to take additional millions of gas industry dollars (“Why the Sierra Club Turned Down $26 Million in Contributions from Natural Gas Interests”)?

Here, on top of the Marcellus Shale, along the border between Pennsylvania and New York—where we are surrounded by land leased to the gas industry; where we live in fear that our water will be ruined, our mortgages called in, our teenage children killed in fiery wrecks with 18-wheelers hauling toxic fracking waste on our rural, icy back roads; where we cash out our vacation days to board predawn buses to rallies and public hearings; where we fundraise, donate, testify, phone bank, lobby, submit public comments, sign up for trainings in nonviolent civil disobedience; where our children ask if we will be arrested, if we will have to move, if we will die, and what will happen to the bats, the honeybees, the black bears, the grapevines, the apple orchards, the cows’ milk; where we have learned all about casing failures, blow-outs, gas flares, clear-cuts, legal exemptions, the benzene content of production fluid, the radioactive content of drill cuttings; where people suddenly start sobbing in church and no one needs to ask why—here in the crosshairs of Chesapeake Energy, Michael Brune’s announcement was met with a kind of stunned confusion.

The Sierra Club had taken money, gobs of it, from an industry that we in the grassroots have been in the fight of our lives to oppose. The largest, most venerable environmental organization in the United States secretly aligned with the very company that seeks to occupy our land, turn it inside out, blow it apart, fill it with poison. All for the goal of extracting a powerful heat-trapping gas, methane, that plays a significant role in climate change.

Climate change: identified by The Lancet as the number-one global health problem of the 21st century. Children, according to the World Health Organization, are among its primary victims.

It was as if, on the eve of D-day, the anti-Fascist partisans had discovered that Churchill was actually in cahoots with the Axis forces.

So, I’ve had many weeks now to ponder the whole betrayal and watch for signs of redemption from Sierra Club’s national leadership. Would it be “coming clean” (to quote the title of the executive director’s recent book)?

Freed from the silence that money bought, would it now lend its voice in support of environmental groups in New York State that seek a statewide prohibition on fracking? Would it come to the aid of those in Pennsylvania calling for a halt to the devastation there?

Would it, at the very least, endorse the modest proposal of Physicians, Scientists and Engineers for Healthy Energy, who recommend a national moratorium on fracking until human health impacts are researched?

And would Michael Brune humbly ask forgiveness from antifracking activist Lisa Wright, formerly on the executive committee of the Sierra Club’s Finger Lakes chapter? As recently as last May, in response to a direct query from Wright, who had become suspicious, Brune wrote, “I do want to be clear about one thing: we do not receive any money from Aubrey McClendon, nor his company Chesapeake. For that matter, we do not receive any contributions from the natural gas industry. Hopefully this will alleviate some concerns.”

The answer to all of the above questions: No.

So, Sierra Club, call some other writer your new Rachel Carson. I’ll be erasing your endorsement from my website.

And take back these words, penned by your own fierce and uncorruptible founder, John Muir, that have hung for years by my writing desk:

Climb the mountains and get their good tidings. Nature’s peace will flow into you as sunshine flows into trees. The wind will blow their own freshness into you, and the storms their energy, while cares will drop off like autumn leaves.

There is no peace in the mountains and hills over the Marcellus Shale. No glad tidings. The forests of Pennsylvania are filled with chainsaws, flares, drill pads, pipelines, condensers, generators, and the 24/7 roar of compressor stations. The wind that blows east from the gas fields carries toluene, benzene, and diesel exhaust. Sunshine turns it all into poisonous ozone. Storms send silt into trout streams from denuded hillsides and cause good people to lie awake at night, worried about overflowing impoundment pits full of neurotoxic chemicals and overturned frack trucks full of carcinogens.

Even now, plans are being laid to transport 88.2 million gallons of liquid propane and butane to caverns that lie beneath the idyllic New York lakeshore where my ten-year-old son was born. (“This transaction is yet another example of the successful execution on our plan to build an integrated natural gas storage and transportation hub in the Northeast,” says the company called Inergy.) When you tramp through the fields and forests where I live—40 percent of the land in my county is leased to the gas industry—cares don’t drop off like autumn leaves. They accumulate like convoys of flowback fluid laced with arsenic, radium, and barium with no place, no place to go.

And, yes, they are fracking in Rachel Carson’s beloved Allegheny County, too.

The hard truth: National Sierra Club served as the political cover for the gas industry and for the politicians who take their money and do their bidding. It had a hand in setting in motion the wheels of environmental destruction and human suffering. It was complicit in bringing extreme fossil fuel extraction onshore, into our communities, farmlands, and forests, and in blowing up the bedrock of our nation. And I can’t get over it.

So, here are some parting words from the former new Rachel Carson.

The path to salvation lies in reparations—not in accepting praise for overcoming the urge to commit the same crime twice. So shutter your doors. Cash out your assets. Don a backpack and hike through the gaslands of America. Along the way, bear witness. Apologize. Offer compensation to the people who have no drinkable water and can’t sell their homes. Whose farm ponds bubble with methane. Whose kids have nosebleeds and mysterious rashes. Write big checks to the people who are putting their bodies on the line in the fight to ban fracking, and to the grassroots groups that are organizing them.

Finally, go to Washington and say what the Sierra Club should have said in 2007: Fracking is not a bridge to the future. It is a plank on which we walk blindfolded at the point of a sword. There is no right way to do it. And the pirates are not our friends.

Sincerely,

Sandra Steingraber

Low-tech Magazine

http://www.lowtechmagazine.com/

A wonderful website subtitled
"Doubts on progress and technology"

Elizabeth May: Muzzling of Government Scientists - YouTube

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CK9fTy3qCZo&NR=1

Wisdom from Bucky

"There are three kinds of people in the world,
those who are asleep,
those who are stirring,
and those who are awake.
If you try to wake up the sleeping person he will just mumble and go back to sleep.
If you wake up the stirring person he will wake up just long enough to curse you and then go back to sleep.
Instead of trying to wake them up, if you come across someone who is asleep or stirring what you should do is,
fluff their pillow, tuck them in, and kiss them on the forehead.
The important joy for those who are awake is to seek each other out, connect with others who are awake, talk, sing and celebrate together.
This will create a groundswell of awareness.
As this groundswell increases and spreads out, it will awaken the stirring and will begin to stir those who are still sleeping."
~ Buckminster Fuller

-- 

Haliburton in Transition

Environment Haliburton! is investigating the Transition Initative and its application locally. This is a grassroots movement that started in Ireland and England several years ago. It has since spread around the world. The Transition movement is about communities responding to the challenges of:
1. Peak Oil….with the profound implications of the inevitable contraction of oil-based energy;
2. Climate Change …which is destabilising the planetary biosphere with implications for habitation, agriculture and food supplies;
and now
3. Economic Instability… which is reflected in rising food and transportation costs, unemployment, and the contraction of credit.

The Transition movement arose to confront these challenges and seeks to re-examine core values and essential functions of commuity life with creativity, imagination and humour . It is positive, solutions-focused, viral and fun. It provides an opportunity to improve the health and resilience of the community during the transition that awaits us.

At a meeting held on January 29th, members of Environment Haliburton! watched the video, ‘In Transition 1.0’ (http://vimeo.com/8029815). ‘In Transition 1.0’ is the first detailed film about the Transition movement filmed by those that know it best, those who are making it happen on the ground. We then discussed its relevance to the citizens of Haliburton County.

It was noted that there are already organisations in Haliburton County engaged in aspects of what Transition addresses. Local food, improved public transportation, the farmer’s market, community gardens, Healthy Communities are all aspects of Transition. Co-operation and mutual support with a positive attitude to transition is the aim.

It was agreed that we would invite a representative of an existing Transition group to describe how the Transition movement started in their community and how it might work here. We also agreed that we would invite individuals and representatives of existing organizations in Haliburton County who might be interested in learning about the Transition movement.

Environment Haliburton has invited David and Bonnie Collacut of Transition Barrie to speak and dialogue with those who come, on Saturday February 26, 10am in Room 12 at the Haliburton campus of Sir Sandford Fleming College.

Call 705-754 -9873 if you plan to attend or if you cannot, but would like to be kept informed. We are asking that you watch the video referred to above, if you can, prior to the meeting. Searching on Transition Town or Transition culture will also provide information on the the global Transition movement.

Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it.
Boldness has genius power and magic in it! (Goethe)

Tree cutting bylaw coming for county - Haliburton Echo - Ontario, CA

http://www.haliburtonecho.ca/ArticleDisplay.aspx?e=2951962

By Chad Ingram

Updated 20 minutes ago

The county is moving towards the establishment of a tree preservation bylaw.

County councillors voted at a Jan. 26 meeting to put out a request to the four lower-tier municipalities to delegate all or part of their powers to create bylaws surrounding the destruction of trees to the county.

The bylaw would look mainly at the destruction of vegetation in shoreline areas and county planner Jane Tousaw said putting it in the hands of the county would be the most cost-effective for all municipalities.

Tousaw said the county would incur unknown costs affiliated with licensing, site inspections and enforcement related to the process, but that if not all townships agreed to the process, there could be overlapping of duties and possible duplication of costs.

"It's a huge enforcement issue if it isn't handled properly," said Dysart et al Reeve and county warden Murray Fearrey.

Tousaw said there was a drive from the public to see action on the issue.

"There is some urgency from the public's sort of view … to go through with this policy," she said.

Tousaw said while many people want to see increased protection of shoreline vegetation, there are some who don't feel it's not the government's place to be telling them what trees they can and can't cut on their properties.

The county's various lake associations should also be called on for input, she said.

Tousaw said how far the setback would be still has to be identified.

None of the county's townships currently has a such a bylaw.

H20 Woes: Measuring the Damage of our 'Water Footprint' - SPIEGEL ONLINE - News - International

http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,644867,00.html

By Samiha Shafy

A Dutch hydro engineer has come up with a "water footprint." At a conference in Sweden, he and other participants discussed water waste, supermarkets filled with fruits and vegetables produced in some of the world's most arid regions and ways we can stop wasting our most precious resource.

Arjen Hoekstra didn't really stand out in the crowd of 2,000 scientists, activists, politicians and representatives of industry roaming the halls of the Stockholm trade fair. Far more attention-getting figures than the 42-year-old Dutch hydro engineer attended World Water Week in Sweden last week. Asian delegates wore glowing saris. And Indian businessman Bindeshwar Pathak drew flocks of media everywhere he went at the event after being named the recipient of this year's Stockholm Water Prize for inventing a toilet for slum dwellers.

But Hoekstra preferred to keep a low profile at the annual global conference, which focuses on water-related issues. He had nothing to prove. Still despite his apparent efforts to keep a low-profile, Hoekstra's creation served as a magnet for debate here. Hoekstra came up with the idea of the "water footprint."

10,000 Liters of Water for a Pair of Jeans

His equation is actually just a couple of numbers used to describe the amount of water that is used -- or polluted -- during the manufacture of various products. Anyone can calculate their water footprint by looking at the amount of water they use directly and then by looking at the amount of "virtual water" they use -- that is, how much water is used in the production of any goods they consume. The global average for an individual's water footprint is 1,243 cubic meters of water per year. In the US, this goes up to 2,483 cubic meters per year; in Germany it's 1,545 and in China, 702.

Hoekstra's water footprint formula has already made headlines around the world with its estimates of the amount of water that is used or abused in the simple products that are a part of our everyday lives:

• 140 liters of water for one cup of coffee!

• 2,400 liters for a hamburger!

• 10,000 liters for one pair of jeans!

In the dicussions and workshops in Stockholm, participants debated what sort of action should be taken as a result of the water footprint figures. The WWF environmental group first recognized the validity of the water footprint, and further conservation and environmental protection groups as well as the United Nations and the World Bank soon followed suit. Finally, even multinational companies like Nestle, Unilever and Pepsi got on board.

Virtual Water Heading In The Wrong Direction

And they all seem to agree that Hoekstra's numbers could be potentially explosive -- mainly because they make it clear how thoughtlessly water, the most precious of resources, is handled in so many areas. "Because of the international trade in water-intensive products, there are floods of virtual water flowing around the world," Hoekstra said. "And many of them are flowing in the wrong direction, going from water-poor regions to the water-rich."

Mostly these flows involve food, biofuels and cotton. Between 70 and 80 percent of all the water consumption in the world is used for agricultural purposes. The European Union, for example, contributes indirectly to the drying out of the ever-shrinking Aral Sea in Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan through its cotton imports from the region. And when the Germans buy ham from Spain or oranges from Israel, they are also contributing to water scarcity in those areas. In fact, Germany, a country that has plenty of water, is one of the biggest importers of virtual water in the world.

Today, around 1.4 billion people live in areas where water is scarce. Climate change, population growth and the flows of virtual water only serve to exascerbate the problem. "By 2050, we will be confronted with the paradoxical situation of having to feed another 2.5 billion people, but with significantly less water," said Colin Chartres, director general of the International Water Management Institute, an internationally funded, non-profit organization looking into ways to improve land and water management.

'In Dry Areas There Should Be No More Agriculture'

Against that backdrop, delegates in Stockholm argued about how realistic Hoekstra's more radical ideas are. "In dry areas there should be no more agriculture," the Dutchman has suggested. His idea involves using the trade in virtual water to rebalance the earth's water budget. Instead of watering desert fields, Egypt would be better off importing beans or millet from Ethiopia, for example. And Australia, where the Outback is one of the world's most arid regions, should also cease to export virtual water in the form of meat, fruit and wine production.

The same arguments could be applied to all of Earth's dry zones -- from the Middle East to northern China and northwestern India to Southern California. Hoekstra says all of these regions could mitigate their water paucity by letting their fields dry up and importing more virtual water. "These water-poor regions need to come up with a new vision for the future," Hoekstra argued. "Just as the oil producing countries, where oil is starting to run out, have had to do."

But what would make any country abandon agriculture, altogether or partially? British environmental researcher Tony Allan, 72, first coined the phrase "virtual water" in the 1990s and he agrees with Hoekstra. "Singapore is an interesting example," he said. "They don't have water sources or agriculture. Ninety percent of their water needs are covered by the import of virtual water. The rest comes from recycling and desalination."

Rich Countries Buying Up Land To Insure Water Supplies

Of course, Allan knows that Singaporean model isn't necessarily appropriate for the rest of the world. Even he admitted that no country would voluntarily give up its agricultural practices in the foreseeable future. "But it is no longer taboo to talk about these things," he noted.

During the Stockholm workshops, experts quickly agreed that new pricing structures could steer the water trade in the right directions. Today, water prices are often distorted through government subsidies to farmers -- mainly because if the subsidies were not there, then agriculture and animal husbandry would very quickly become prohibitively expensive in those dry regions and no longer worthwhile.

Meanwhile, countries like China and Saudia Arabia are buying up large, fertile pieces of land in places like Africa, Asia and Latin America. By buying land instead of food, they are ensuring access to water in the future. The land-grabbing countries aren't alone, either -- they're competing directly with food production giants like Nestle and Coca-Cola, which have been buying up rights to water reservoirs around the world for years.

Many companies are welcoming the increasing debate about water footprints in Stockholm. It's a great opportunity for them to do something to improve their image. Indeed, several large corporations sent whole delegations to Stockholm. At the workshops, the delegates continually repeated the same message: Their employers are trying their very best to leave a smaller water footprint.

URL:

• http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,644867,00.html

RELATED SPIEGEL ONLINE LINKS:

• The New Colonialism: Foreign Investors Snap Up African Farmland (07/30/2009)
  http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,639224,00.html
• Worldwide Crisis: The Geopolitics of Food Scarcity (02/11/2009)
  http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,606937,00.html
• Deserts of Libya Under Threat: A Sea without Water (12/03/2008)
  http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,594273,00.html
• SPIEGEL 360: Our Full Coverage of Energy and Natural Resources
  http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,k-6944,00.html

Popular Insect Repellent Deet Is Neurotoxic

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/08/090804193230.htm

ScienceDaily (Aug. 6, 2009) — The active ingredient in many insect repellents, deet, has been found to be toxic to the central nervous system. Researchers say that more investigations are urgently needed to confirm or dismiss any potential neurotoxicity to humans, especially when deet-based repellents are used in combination with other neurotoxic insecticides.

Vincent Corbel from the Institut de Recherche pour le Développement in Montpellier, and Bruno Lapied from the University of Angers, France, led a team of researchers who investigated the mode of action and toxicity of deet (N,N-Diethyl-3-methylbenzamide). Corbel said, "We've found that deet is not simply a behavior-modifying chemical but also inhibits the activity of a key central nervous system enzyme, acetycholinesterase, in both insects and mammals".

Discovered in 1953, deet is still the most common ingredient in insect repellent preparations. It is effective against a broad spectrum of medically important pests, including mosquitoes. Despite its widespread use, controversies remain concerning both the identification of its target sites at the molecular level and its mechanism of action in insects. In a series of experiments, Corbel and his colleagues found that deet inhibits the acetylcholinesterase enzyme – the same mode of action used by organophosphate and carbamate insecticides.

These insecticides are often used in combination with deet, and the researchers also found that deet interacts with carbamate insecticides to increase their toxicity. Corbel concludes, "These findings question the safety of deet, particularly in combination with other chemicals, and they highlight the importance of a multidisciplinary approach to the development of safer insect repellents for use in public health".

---

Journal reference:

1. Vincent Corbel, Maria Stankiewicz, Cedric Pennetier, Didier Fournier, Jure Stojan, Emmanuelle Girard, Mitko Dimitrov, Jordi Molgo, Jean Marc Hougard and Bruno Lapied. Evidence for inhibition of cholinesterases in insect and mammalian nervous systems by the insect repellent deet. BMC Biology, (in press) [link]

Adapted from materials provided by BioMed Central, via EurekAlert!, a service of AAAS.

Canadian Feds Grossly Underestimate Impact of Gutting Environmental Law

Thanks to Doug Smith

Up to 14,000 projects will evade assessment over the next 2 years

June 26, 2009

CONTACT: Ecojustice
Justin Duncan, Lawyer, Ecojustice (416) 368-7533 ext 22
Stephen Hazell, Executive Director, Sierra Club Canada (613) 241-4611 ext 238; (613) 724-1908 (cell)

Two months after announcing the enactment of controversial regulations that will allow more than 2,000 projects across the country to evade legally required environmental assessments, the federal government has revealed that the number of projects being exempted from assessment will now be up to 14,000 over the next two years.

"It is clear that the Harper government is having troubles with basic mathematics," said Ecojustice lawyer Justin Duncan. "In addition to a spiralling fiscal debt, they're saddling Canadians with an environmental debt that may never be paid back."

In April, Ecojustice launched a lawsuit on behalf of Sierra Club Canada claiming that the federal government acted unlawfully in issuing two federal regulations that gut the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act (CEAA). The Federal Court has just allowed the groups to amend their filings to challenge the expanded exemption of 14,000 projects.

The lawsuit challenges the Exclusion List Regulations that exempt thousands of projects such as highways, bridges, roads and sewer systems from facing the scrutiny of legally required federal assessments over the next two years. The lawsuit also challenges the Adaptation Regulations that unlawfully give powers to the Minister of the Environment to exempt any other project from federal environmental assessment (EA) that is funded under the Building Canada Fund.

"EA is a key tool to identify and assess the adverse environmental effects of development projects so good decisions can be made" said Sierra Club Canada Executive Director Stephen Hazell, "in throwing 14,000 economic stimulus projects out of the EA process, the federal government is effectively saying we don't want to know the environmental effects. Damn the environmental torpedoes, full speed ahead."

CEAA was passed in 1992 to promote sustainable development by ensuring that federal decision makers have good information about the environmental impacts of projects and to ensure public participation in the environmental assessment process.

The government was served with formal notice on Monday that the groups seek to amend the lawsuit to include the expanded exemption list. The case is expected to be heard in Federal Court later this year.

The Transition Initiative | Orion Magazine

http://www.orionmagazine.org/index.php/articles/article/4792

If the Transition Initiative were a person, you’d say he or she was charismatic, wise, practical, positive, resourceful, and very, very popular. Starting with the town of Totnes in Devon, England, in September 2006, the movement has spread like wildfire across the U.K. (delightfully wriggling its way into The Archers, Britain’s longest-running and most popular radio soap opera), and on to the U.S., Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and Japan. The core purpose of the Transition Initiative is to address, at the community level, the twin issues of climate change and peak oil—the declining availability of “ancient sunlight,” as fossil fuels have been called. The initiative is set up to enable towns or neighborhoods to plan for, and move toward, a post-oil and low-carbon future: what Rob Hopkins, founder of the Transition Initiative, has termed “the great transition of our time, away from fossil fuels.”

-

Nuclear-plant workers face elevated cancer risk

http://www.canada.com/Nuclear+plant+workers+face+elevated+cancer+risk+report/1724362/story.html

By Jeremy Warren, Canwest News ServiceJune 23, 2009

Saskatoon Star Phoenix

SASKATOON - Those working in, and living near, nuclear-power plants -- such as the one being considered for construction in Saskatchewan -- are more likely than the general population to develop cancer or die from it, according to a research paper being released Tuesday.

The 30-page Exposure to Radiation and Health Outcomes, commissioned by the Saskatchewan Union of Nurses and the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, found that chronic exposure to low doses of radiation causes the higher risk.

A 15-country, 12-year, 407,391-person study of nuclear-power workers found the employees are twice as likely to die from all causes of cancer than the general public because of the extra radiation exposure, said the report written by Saskatchewan-based health researcher, Mark Lemstra.

But in Canada, one of the 15 countries studied, reactor workers are 7.65 times more likely to die from all causes of cancer compared to non-employees, said the report. Researchers are unsure why Canadian reactor workers seem to face a higher cancer risk than those in other nuclear countries.

"We don't know why Canadians are more likely to get cancer than others,'' said Lemstra, a former researcher with the Saskatoon Health Region. "We are going to have to consider revising the protection standards of nuclear workers. ''

Another study, which looked only at cancer rates among Canadian workers, concluded nuclear-power workers are still 3.8 times more likely to die from radiation-related cancer than non-workers, said the report. "The results . . . confirm that chronic exposure to low doses of radiation are associated with an excess relative risk of cancer mortality,'' it said.

The report was presented to the Future of Uranium in Saskatchewan stakeholder conference in Regina. Lemstra cited 22 articles in the report, pared down from a review of more than 1,700 articles he found in medical databases, reference lists and on the Internet. The report found that, even outside the workplace, radiation has effects on the human population.

A German study cited in the report found children below the age of five who live within five kilometres of a nuclear facility are 2.19 times more likely to develop leukemia. "There's a simple solution: Keep children more than 10 kilometres away from a nuclear facility,'' said Lemstra.

Children are more susceptible to radiation because, in the early stages of development, their bodies are more sensitive to the effects of inhalation, ingestion and other forms of internal exposure, said the report. "The association between leukemia incidence and mortality from radiation exposure is very strong. The greatest risks are found for youth under the age of 20,'' said the report.

Health effects of nuclear power go beyond radiation. Consistent cost overruns of constructing a nuclear reactor can siphon off government money that could be spent elsewhere, according to the report. If the provincial government is responsible for all, or a percentage of, cost overruns -- a common deal between private and government partners -- there is less money for health or education spending, wrote Lemstra.

In Finland, a reactor under construction has already gone 50 per cent over its $4.2-billion budget and will cost $8 billion to finish. Based on the $10-billion estimate to build a reactor in Saskatchewan, the final tally could rise to $20 billion, and if the province is responsible for a portion of the extra costs, government coffers will be stretched thin to the detriment of other departments, said Lemstra.

``Where will this money come from? In the U.S., the costs are transferred to the public or the ratepayers,'' he said. ``We don't really have the extra money to spend on risky ventures.''

jjwarren@sp.canwest.com

© Copyright (c) Canwest News Service