Thanks again to Oceana for countering mendacity as it impacts oceans, especially among politicians made fabulously wealthy from extraction businesses, who dare redefine the otherwise honorable word, sacrifice. Thanks also for their educational contributions on the value of seamounts and ongoing efforts to get this law passed.
Activism
Mongering Marine Merchandise Mendaciously
Click here to go to Oceana’s report, which documents a study in which, through sampling and DNA testing, it is found that 39% of seafood peddled in major metro markets is fraudulently labeled:
Executive Summary
Seafood fraud can happen anywhere – even in the Big Apple. Fraud includes any false information accompanying seafood, from short weighting to swapping out one species of fish for another. Oceana’s investigation focused on species substitution, or the swapping of a lower value or lower quality fish for a more desirable species. This “bait and switch” hurts our oceans, our health and rips off consumers. And most importantly, it is illegal. Continue reading
Thank You, Mr. Who Did Not Have To
Jeremy Irons is comfortable enough, surely, that he could rest on his laurels and not give a hoot about all this. He is more than likely removed from the subject of the film he has just completed, most if not all the time. So why bother? But he got off his duff and did something, and for that we are impressed and give thanks:
A new documentary about the ultimate fate of just about everything we lug home from the mall opens on Friday in limited release in the United States. “Trashed,” directed by Candida Brady and starring Jeremy Irons, delves into the less festive side of consumerism and waste disposal — overflowing landfills in England, a toxic trash incinerator in Iceland, a hospital for children with birth defects in Vietnam.
We sat down recently with Mr. Irons to talk trash. Following are excerpts, edited for brevity and clarity. Continue reading
Just Say No
Golden Cap holiday park is on the edge of Dorset’s world heritage-listed Jurassic coast, which includes Studland Bay, above. Photograph: Adam Burton/Robert Harding World Imagery/Corbis
Does the world really need another five-star holiday village? Maybe. But does it need one in Studland Bay? No way. Click the image above to go to the story in today’s Guardian:
One of Britain’s most popular beauty spots could be disfigured by the expansion of a modest caravan park into a five-star holiday village, say opponents of a scheme in Dorset.
Golden Cap holiday park, at the foot the highest point on the south coast, is in England’s only natural Unesco world heritage site and in an area of outstanding natural beauty. It is also surrounded by National Trust inalienable land. Continue reading
Friends In High Places
A judge is due to decide whether to authorise a fresh round of forced police evictions in Notre-Dame-des-Landes. Photograph: Jean-Sébastien Evrard/AFP/Getty Images
Alain, meet Miranda; Miranda, Alain. You both have done your part to reverse a long history of human unfriendliness to trees. Those efforts strengthen the likelihood of additional collective action:
The protesters, including farmers, locals and green politicians, argue that building a brand new airport for France’s sixth largest city, which already has an award-winning airport, is both an environmental disaster and a waste of public money during an economic crisis. Support groups have sprung up across France. Continue reading
You, and 999,999 Other Email Protesters, Can Sometimes Save The World (In This Case, The One Whales Inhabit)
South Korea had planned y to conduct ‘scientific’ whale hunts similar to those carried out by Japan in the Antarctic every winter. Photograph: Momatiuk – Eastcott/Corbis
Bravo, activists of all stripes, but in this case especially the emailing type. And thank you, Korea, for finally rejecting false justification for whale-killing and doing the right thing. Click the image above for the whole story in the Guardian (whose consistent coverage to these issues deserves credit, too):
Japan, which uses the loophole to kill hundreds of whales every year, is expected to send its whaling fleet to the southern ocean in the next few weeks.
South Korea initially said an increase in whale stocks in its coastal waters had prompted the decision to resume whaling. The fisheries ministry said rising whales numbers posed a threat to squid and fish stocks.
The ministry reportedly began to reconsider after criticism from anti-whaling nations and an online petition that attracted more than 1,000,000 protest emails in three weeks.
Et tu, Japan?
Tribute Is Due
His academic work is so far removed from what we do day to day, it would be difficult to explain why this post must be. His political activism is not the reason, though we admire his taking the side of the underdog, being friend to the friendless, giving voice to the powerless. When someone leads as he has led, he deserves a birthday tribute. Do yourself a favor and take 5-10 minutes to read this in its entirety, or at least these last two paragraphs:
When I was a second-year graduate student at M.I.T., Chomsky taught a class on philosophy, which I was lucky enough to sit in on. The class itself was an event, almost a circus; people came from all over Boston, not just M.I.T. Continue reading
Guardian, Angel, Sea Shepherd
Paul Watson, founder the animal rights and environmental group, Sea Shepherd Conservation, has returned to Antarctic waters after months on the run. Photograph: Markus Schreiber/AP
We feel fortunate to have the Guardian’s coverage of our favorite angelic trouble-maker, Paul Watson, since few other publications seem willing to pay attention to his cause. From our relatively comfortable, distant perch on dry land we nod to the southern waters where he and his band of activists righteously take on the whale-killers:
From aboard a Sea Shepherd ship, Paul Watson told Associated Press on Tuesday that his job is to protect whales, and he can’t do that if he’s in custody. He said the Sea Shepherd fleet is already in the Southern Ocean.
“I want to stay in the ocean,” the 62-year-old said. “I’m not going to be able to do that from some holding cell in Japan.”
Read the whole story here.
Bill McKibben Down South: Activisim’s The Thing To Counter Climate Change
Click the banner to the left for an interview with the relentless organizing activist Bill MKibben, who says it all in plainspoken English:
We’ve got lots of good progress coming, it’s just much different than what we’re used to. Continue reading
Alms For Aristocrats
‘Not long ago, farm payments were justified on the grounds that world demand was low. Now they are justified on the grounds that world demand is high.’ Photograph: Andrew Matthews/PA
We are overwhelmingly in favor of supporting family farms whenever and wherever possible. Family farms are increasingly a form of heritage in danger of extinction. Sometimes but not always charity or government support is a solution to specific needs of family farms (search on Willie Nelson’s Farm Aid initiative for examples). But charity from the poor flowing to the wealthiest landowners? There are boundaries to the definition of a family farm that we had not thought to specify until reading this Guardian editorial today:
Squatting at the heart of last week’s summit, poisoning all negotiations, is a vast, wobbling lump of pork fat called the common agricultural policy. The talks collapsed partly because the president of the European council, pressed by François Hollande, proposed inflating the great blob by a further €8bn over six years. I don’t often find myself on their side, but the British and Dutch governments were right to say no. Continue reading
Crowd-sourced Project Finance 101
Recently, I happened upon the pitch above and was at first thrilled to see yet one more alternative approach to raising awareness and appreciation for nature: good production values and the style is quirky and fun. The Kickstarter pitch came midway through and then my thoughts started wandering. Continue reading
Soy Versus Forest
Brazil soon expects to overtake the US as the world’s biggest soy producing nation. In the Amazon, soy farmers have rapidly expanded their land by using fire, bulldozers, saw mills and logging teams to clear the rainforest. But amid mounting concerns about global warming and biodiversity loss, Brazil’s government is deploying more personnel and equipment to hold the line between the food and the forest
Click above to go to the video and the accompanying story in the Guardian:
As his helicopter descends through the smoke towards an Amazonian Continue reading
Art & Climate Change
‘The Scream’ at MoMA. (Spencer Platt/Getty Images)
Click the image above to go to the article in full:
Until visiting The Scream two weeks ago at the Museum of Modern Art, to which it has been loaned for six months by its new, anonymous owner, I had forgotten that it has three figures: besides the alarmed man who gets all of the attention, there is another man in a top hat, his head bowed as if in deep despair, and a third man, further in the distance, who stares out at the landscape, strangely unaware—or in denial—of the fact that the world is coming undone around him. Factoring in those other two, it’s easier to follow Mr. Olsen’s thinking: when it comes to the effects that humans are having on nature, most of us are the second or third person.
In the United States, at least, most politicians and even many businesspeople (who would seem to have a vested, profit-driven interest in staving off climate change) have been incapable of addressing, or even acknowledging, the problem.
Really, Canada?
Click above for the video and related article from CBC News. Click here for the original source of the open letter reprinted below:
OTTAWA, ONTARIO–(Marketwire – Nov. 6, 2012) –
We, the undersigned, are independent scientists with expertise in marine biology and marine mammals in Atlantic Canada.
We have reviewed the Senate Fisheries Committee report ‘The Sustainable Management of Grey Seal Populations: A path toward the recovery of cod and other groundfish stocks’.
We call upon the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans to reject the recommendation to cull grey seals in Atlantic Canada. Continue reading
Connect The Dots
We find the simplicity–analyze the evidence; note the danger; take action–compelling. A sister organization here in India takes a similar approach. Click the banner above to add your dot-connecting to the collective action:
We’re connecting the dots between extreme weather and climate change.
Stay up to date with rapid-response campaigns by signing up at 350.org, submit your local stories to the Connect the Dots Tumblr, and find out if there’s a local 350 group in your area.
Famed Photographer Goes With The Floe
Thanks to the Guardian, click above to go to the audio slide show of Daniel Beltra in which the
Prix Pictet-shortlisted photographer discusses his recent expedition to the frontline of climate change, on board the Arctic Sunrise along with John Vidal, documenting the lowest sea-ice level ever recorded
Mixing Up The Medicine
Although we steer clear of politics, we pay close attention to policy; we do our part to support policy outcomes that match our values and interests; and (given the complexity of it all) mostly we just try to keep on our radar the various issues that lead to the need for policy in the first place. You don’t need a weatherman. You need be neither policy wonk nor know-it-all nor tree hugger to know where those winds are blowing us. Case in point:
Dear President Obama,
As the lead negotiator for the world’s 48 Least Developed Countries (LDCs) in the United Nations climate change negotiations, I congratulate you on your re-election. I also want to express my admiration for your response to superstorm Sandy: without the preparations that you made, the impacts to those hit by the storm would have been even more devastating. As communities in the north-east work to rebuild and recover, the world has an opportunity to begin a new, reality-based conversation about climate change. Continue reading
An Award, In A Word: SafetyNet
Safetynet won this year’s James Dyson Award and is explained on the website of that award program:
Function
The goal of the SafetyNet system is to make commercial fishing more sustainable by significantly decreasing the numbers of non-target and juvenile fish caught during the trawling process. Escape Ring devices form a part of this system, and are currently the focus of the development work. The rings tackle the problem of
Coal-Averse Collective Action In India
A Forest With Miranda Rights
Click above for the video made by Australian environmental activist Miranda Gibson, who has been living on a platform in a Eucalyptus tree in Tasmania’s southern forest. She has vowed to stay there until the forests receive more protection from logging. She writes about it at Observertree:
Observer Tree needs your help!
I’ve been at the top of this tree for over 300 days now. I think it’s time for the world to know I’m here. The more people who find out and add their voice to the call for forest proteciton… the sooner we can save Tasmania’s forests and I can get down! Continue reading
Organikos 
