Monthly Archives: October 2014

CALL FOR ACTION

Coalition forces bomb from above while Kurdish fighters defend the town of Kobane. Image via Facebook.

While we continue to watch the most valiant warriors defend the town of Kobane on the Syrian border with Turkey while the rest of the world hears Erdogan proclaim that Kobane will fall. There are those who are doing all they can, such as a group of researchers, scholars and academia associates have taken action to call for immediate intervention.

The Kurdish Studies Network is a group of over 1,000 members who research and study the issues, ideas and history that surround the Kurdish people, their continued struggle for autonomy and nationalism and the impacts of the diaspora on the Kurds.

As is often the case, scholarly people seldom speak out regarding current events and world affairs. When they choose to do so, one must recognize the importance of the message as well as the urgency which brought the action. Here is their statement on Kobane (Kobani in Kurdish):

Kurdish Studies Scholars’ Statement of Solidarity and Call for Action to Support Kobani

The humanitarian crisis caused by the Islamic State (IS) continues to terrorize and displace hundreds of thousands of people in the Middle East. The autonomous canton of Kobani is now bearing the brunt of the IS’s attacks as the international community has mostly been passive. The city has been under siege for three weeks. Despite fierce resistance by the defenders of the town, the advance of the IS forces towards Kobani is threatening to set off another massacre similar to that of Shengal. As scholars working on issues related to the Kurds and other peoples of Kurdistan, we are profoundly concerned about yet another imminent humanitarian crisis and stand in solidarity with the people of Kobani. We urgently call on the coalition forces against the IS and the broader international community to take immediate action to prevent an impending disaster by supporting the Kurds in their fight for self-defense.

We view the situation in Kobani as one of self-defense against the military aggression of the IS, notorious for its macabre forms of violence against ethnic and religious minorities. The defenders of the city of Kobani have repeatedly and desperately tried to bring their predicament to the attention of the world community and called for more focused and effective air strikes against IS targets around Kobani in coordination with the political authorities and resistance fighters of Rojava (Western Kurdistan). They are once again asking for diplomatic and political recognition, weapons of self-defense, and humanitarian aid to protect themselves against the relentless onslaught of IS. They are too ill-equipped to be able to fend off the most advanced American and Russian arsenals used by the IS. If global support is not provided immediately, they may not be able to withstand the IS’s incessant bombardments; tomorrow may be too late.

We fully support Kobani’s demands and spirit of self-defense and call on the international coalition forces and the broader international community to support Kobani immediately. In expressing our solidarity, we need to stress the fact this statement is not a call for any military aggression or occupation, including that of the Turkish military. We encourage the Turkish government to negotiate with the Kurdish representatives in good faith to ensure the ongoing peace process, which holds much promise. As Kurdish political representatives of Rojava have repeatedly declared, if they are recognized as a legitimate authority and provided with the needed weaponry and other support, they are capable of driving away the threat of the IS.

Ultimately our appeal for extending the necessary support to Kobani has as much to do with the survival of a pluralistic city and its residents, as it has to do with the defense of freedom everywhere else.

* * *

Kurdish Studies Network began their statement with 299 signatories and they now invite all academia people throughout the world to endorse their statement by signing a petition on Change.org. You can add your name to the petition here:
https://www.change.org/p/international-community-scholars-statement-of-solidarity-and-call-for-action-to-support-kobani

This is not the first time this group has taken action. Most recently, they were instrumental in bringing international attention to the Kurdish prisoners held in Turkey’s prison system, who began a hunger strike as a last resort to call attention to their plight.

The hunger strike started on September 12, 2012 by 65 prisoners convicted of belonging to outlawed Kurdish parties. The hunger strikers demanded Kurdish language rights in education and in court, where language barriers prevented Kurdish speaking accused the ability to defend themselves. The petition played an important role in drawing international attention to the hunger strikes of the political prisoners in Turkey. The hunger strike ended on its 68th day. The petition read as follows:

Prisoners will begin to die soon. Every second is valuable.

We, the undersigned, are deeply concerned about the situation and condition of hunger strikers in Turkish prisons. We understand that over 700 Kurdish political prisoners have passed their 46th day on hunger strike, without their demands being addressed by the authorities. Medical experts confirm that in the course of a hunger strike the 40th day is a turning point where physical and mental dysfunctions commence, as well as cases of death begin to occur.

According to international conventions signed by the Republic of Turkey, the government is in charge of a prisoner’s health. As top-ranking members of the government, the President, Prime Minister and the Minister of Justice will personally be held responsible for any damage to the prisoners’ physical condition.

Furthermore, the prisoners’ demands consist primarily of the right to defense in mother tongue and freeing Abdullah Öcalan from solitary confinement. We would like to express our full support of these demands since they are based on fundamental human rights.

We therefore urge the Turkish government to enter in constructive dialogue with the prisoners to respond to their demands.

The international community’s opinion on Turkey and its reform process will be strongly shaped by the way the present hunger strikes are handled and the prisoners are treated. Turkey’s reputation might be seriously harmed should this incident turn into a human tragedy.

* * *

Occupy World Writes stands in Solidarity with Kurdish Studies Network’s statement, all those who choose to sign it, and all those known and unknown people who are doing whatever they possibly can to help this crisis.

THE WHOLE WORLD IS WATCHING.

Where’s Waldo – DPRK Version

Leave a reply

By HarryCane (Own work) [CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

Today marks the anniversary of the founding of the Workers’ Party of Korea; the sole political party of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK), more commonly referred to as North Korea. But, there’s something different about this year; nobody outside the North Korean government knows where the leader of the country is.

Like an international game of “Where’s Waldo?” (with added nuclear content), Kim Jong-un’s whereabouts have been the subject of much speculation. The last time he was seen in public was September 3, which is the longest he’s disappeared from public view since taking control of North Korea in December of 2011. He failed to appear at a recent session of the Supreme People’s Assembly, and he failed to make his annual post-midnight visit today to the Pyongyang mausoleum where his father and grandfather are interred.

The official version says that he’s suffering from an unnamed “uncomfortable physical condition.” There’s been multiple stories about what that condition is: one source said: “I understand that he is suffering from gout along with hyperuricemia, hyperlipidemia, obesity, diabetes and high blood pressure,” and that a North Korean medical team had traveled to Germany and Switzerland to consult with colleagues about his health.

Another source told the Daily Telegraph that Kim had fractured his ankles by wearing shoes with Cuban heels during a long tour of military bases and factories. The stress this put on his feet and ankles combined with him being grossly overweight led to the ankle fractures.

Of course, there’s also those who say that Kim isn’t in power any more. One of the more common coup rumors had Kim being replaced by Vice Marshal Jo Myong-rok. The big problem with that is that Jo was reported to have died four years ago. Another (and more likely, we think) rumor has Kim’s younger sister Kim Yo Jong running the country in Kim’s absence, which would still have the power firmly in the Kim family’s hands, and would more than likely revert to Kim Jong-un when and if he reappears.

That being said, there have been unusual events recently regarding North Korea and the outside world. Last week, three high-ranking North Korean officials arrived in a surprise visit to South Korea. The head of this group was Hwang Pyong So, chief of the General Political Bureau of the army and vice chairman of the National Defense Commission; the highest ranking official to have ever visited South Korea. This week, North Korea’s deputy U.N. ambassador Ri Tong Il acknowledged the existence of labor camps in his country, and said that the secretary of the Workers’ Party had visited the E.U. for negotiations. These events have to be taken with a healthy amount of skepticism though, as North and South Korea were back to exchanging fire over a border incursion by a North Korean boat on Monday.

The bottom line – nobody seems to be really sure what’s going on in the DPRK. This worries us; besides being a rogue nuclear power and supporter of terrorist groups, the North Korean government’s a big player in the illegal drug and arms trade. The last thing the world needs is for there to be someone even more unbalanced than Kim Jong-un in control.

The Only Moral Stand

Leave a reply

Census Bureayu map of Sayreville, New Jersey. Graphic via Wikimedia Commons

We write a lot of stories about people avoiding responsibility. Whether it’s BP trying to get out of paying for the Deepwater Horizon disaster or the NFL with their ongoing domestic abuse scandal, it seems as if nobody’s willing to own up when they do something wrong. This week, we have an exception to this.

Last Thursday, Sayreville War Memorial High School in Sayreville, New Jersey unexpectedly cancelled their football game against South Brunswick. The next day, Sayreville Schools Superintendent Dr. Richard Labbe said in a press conference that the cancellation was due to significant allegations reporting unacceptable conduct within the football program, and announced that the Middlesex County Prosecutor’s Office and the Sayreville Police were investigating the matter.

On Monday, Dr. Labbe announced that the high school football program was cancelled for the remainder of the season. “There was enough evidence that there were incidents of harassment, of intimidation and bullying that took place on a pervasive level, on a wide-scale level and at a level at which the players knew, tolerated and generally accepted, Based upon what has been substantiated to have occurred, we have canceled the remainder of the football season.”

The players, parents and townspeople were unhappy about this decision. You see, Sayreville is a powerhouse in New Jersey high school football; they’ve won the Central New Jersey Section IV championship three out of the last four years. The last thing they wanted to see was their prize football team being told they can’t play again this year.

On Tuesday night, the school board met, and unanimously approved Dr. Labbe’s decision. School board president Kevin Ciak said; “It’s a sad situation to be in, but I really believe, at the end of the day, when we come back next year, it will be with a stronger sense of commitment and character.”

Of course, there were numerous people who disagreed. Derek Rodriguez, a senior on the team, said: “We’re not going to have that closure of finishing our senior year and going out like we wanted to go out. It got taken from us for something that we didn’t even know that was going on.”

Madeline Valet, the mother of one of the team captains, said; ““No one was hurt, no one died. I don’t understand why they’re being punished… I don’t believe the punishment fits the crime.”

We beg to differ. Any form of hazing is unacceptable, and if the police and county prosecutors are involved, we’d think that it goes beyond mere hazing. As it happens, it definitely goes way beyond that. We’d like to think that the parents and townspeople didn’t know about the actual facts before they shot off their mouths. As for the players’ denials, who do they think they’re kidding?

Occupy World Writes applauds Dr. Labbe and the rest of the school board for taking the only truly moral stand over this. For the people who are upset that the season’s cancelled – you are what’s wrong with society.

Disingenuous Behavior

Leave a reply

Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, President of Turkey. Photo via Wikimedia Commons

In yesterday’s post, we talked about what’s been happening recently in Kobane and the utter failure of the U.S. media in covering it. We discussed the protests in Europe over the lack of support for the Kurds, and we talked about the Turkish government’s criminal behavior in regards to Kobane and the Kurdish refugees fleeing the area.

Yesterday, police used tear gas and water cannons to disperse Kurdish protesters as unrest spread to at least six Turkish cities. At least eighteen people died in the unrest. This violent reaction to protests is nothing new for the Erdoğan government, as Human Rights Watch pointed out in a recent report.

Why the protests? It’s because of Turkey’s actions (or to be more precise, the lack of action) in the coalition against Daesh. The Turkish government last week won parliamentary approval for military action against Daesh inside Syria, but Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu says this will only happen if “others do their own part:” in other words, if the international coalition moves against the Assad regime, and not just Daesh.

However, given Turkey’s history of animosity towards the Kurdish population, we have to wonder if the Turks are just letting the Daesh exterminate the Kurds before they make any move towards countering the threat they pose. Right now, the Turkish army sits on the Syrian border watching utter destruction take place in Kobane. They aren’t making any move towards Kobane; in fact, they aren’t allowing the Kurdish refugees from that area cross the border, but instead are forcing them back towards the Daesh. A curfew has been instituted in the Kurdish regions and cities of Turkey in response to this crisis.

The Human Rights watch report states, ironically enough, that one of the positive things happening in Turkey in regards to human rights is the government’s negotiations with the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK). Turkey’s publicly stated vs actual stance on dealing with the PKK is disingenuous, to put it mildly.

But the MOST DISINGENUOUS insistence by the Turkish government to attempt using this crisis to further their elimination of the “Kurdish problem” within Turkey, a plan which has been enacted and practiced on for well over 30 years. Turkey wants to establish a no-fly zone and a “security” zone in the Rojava region of Syria, the only part of Assad’s country that, until the emergence of Daesch, remained stable because it is controlled by the Kurdish population within Syria.

If you are confused, you are not alone. The following plea is urgent and explains things better than we can. The importance of its message can not be over stated. Considor what you can do to help save Kobane. Contact information is included at the end. ACT TODAY, BEFORE IT IS TOO LATE.

Urgent Call: Stand Against Demands for a Buffer/Security Zone Between Turkey and Syria

Kobanê, one of the three autonomous Kurdish enclaves in Northern Syria, on the border with Turkey, is once again under attack by the IS. The Islamic State (IS – formerly known as ISIS, the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria) has besieged Kobanê on three separate fronts and is at the moment shelling the city relentlessly.

The border between Syria and Turkey is a straight line that runs mainly through flat plains. A tank or armoured car can sail through these plains with no difficulty. The plain is inhabited by peoples of diverse ethnic or religious background: Arab tribes, Yezidis, Syriac Christians, Armenians and Kurds. Many of the Kurds are relatives of Kurds on the Turkish side of the border and have been in constant interaction in the past. Kurds had been living in Syria without any formal citizenship status. After the start of the uprising in Syria, they declared their autonomy in July, 2012. These autonomous zones are small enclaves where the majority population is Kurdish and which are separated from one another by zones inhabited by Arab tribesmen. Since 2012, the Kurds of Syria have tried to establish a democratic form of self-rule where everyone would be equal, regardless of ethnic or religious identity and of gender. They have called these enclaves of self-rule Rojava, or The West. Kobanê is one of these enclaves and, since September 15, the target of fierce attack by IS, armed by superior weapons.

Local observers ranging from international reporters to Kurdish inhabitants of the region and the Kurdish forces of Kobanê have regularly claimed that the Turkish-Syrian border is systematically transgressed by the IS. They obtain, it is said, personnel and ammunition from supply routes through Turkey. This has led them to conclude that Turkey is using the IS to clean the region of its Kurdish inhabitants.

The Turkish government has, since the inception of the Syrian civil war, made no effort to hide its opposition to the Assad government and has provided support to various Islamic groups fighting in the Free Syrian Army. It is now claiming that the best way to fight Assad and the IS, is to establish a buffer/security zone between Turkey and Syria. This zone can be in no other place than in Rojava.

We, the women from the Women’s Initiative for Peace see this proposal as a disingenuous move to kill many birds with one stone. The Turkish state has initiated a peace process with the Kurdish guerrilla forces (the PKK – Kurdistan Workers’ Party) with which it has been waging what it called a ‘low intensity war’ for over thirty years. In spite of talks between the Turkish state and the imprisoned leader of the guerrillas, the government of Turkey has been refusing to honour the agreements they have reached and does not take the steps necessary for the peace process to go forward, steps which the Kurdish side has been waiting for, for more than a year. It is in this atmosphere that we now see the state of Turkey at best allowing the IS to raze Kobanê to the ground and proposing a buffer zone which will allow the declaration of Rojava as an empty land. According to the Kurds, this is another way of fighting a dirty war against the Kurds, another way of not recognizing the will of the Kurdish people. They say talking to the Kurds in the north (Turkey) while fighting those in the West (Kobanê) means ending the peace process and the ceasefire that has lasted almost two years.

We, women, want the Turkish state to honour its pledges. We do not want the peace process to end. As women, we know that war targets women and that women pay a very high price during war. Turning overnight into refugees, women have crossed the Rojava border and flocked into Turkey, a country that does not grant legal refugee status to persons arrivingfrom its southern borders. Refugee camps, forced resettlement, the declaration of their homes as empty land is the bleak future that Rojava women now face.

This future need not come to be. Lobby your government, lobby the Turkish government, and lobby the UN. We are sending attached template emails/fax that you can send to the UN and the Turkish government. Do not let them establish a buffer zone in Rojava. Tell them:

Rojava is not empty.
Kurds have a government there.
Not having a state should not mean not having a home.
Stop the forced eviction of Kurds from yet another of their homelands.

Please send the attached letters to the Turkish government and to the United Nations.

Addresses for the United Nations:

Ban Ki Moon, fax: 1 (212) 963 4879; email: bkm@un.org

UNHCR, fax: (41) 22 739 7377; email: hunbu@unhcr.org, swest@unhcr.org, furley@unhcr.org

UNICEF, fax: 1 (212) 887 7465/7454

WHO, fax: (41) 22 791 0746

Adresses for the Turkish govt:

E-mail:assembly@tbmm.gov.tr

Dutch Vs Daesh

Leave a reply

Flag used by Islamic State. Image via FaceBook.

Yesterday, hundreds of Kurdish protesters stormed and occupied the Tweede Kamer, the Dutch Parliament’s House of Representatives. The protesters are calling for more action to combat the Islamic State in Iraq and the Daesh, particularly in regard to the Daesh’s currently ongoing siege of Kobane.

So far, the occupation has been peaceful. The protesters have stated that they will not leave until Kobane has been liberated. Socialist Party MP Sadet Karabulut said about the protesters; “It’s a sign, they want to be heard by the House and the international community.”

The Dutch defense ministry had announced on Sunday that “Dutch F-16s flew today over the conflict zone in Iraq for the first time,” and that the planes were “completely ready to be deployed over Iraq.” A protester responded in kind: “ISIS has undertaken violent actions in Kobane. Why are the Dutch F-16s not in use now?” We feel this is a very good question.

Similar protests took place elsewhere in Europe, as Kurdish protesters took to the streets in several cities, including Rome, London, Vienna, Cologne and Stockholm. In the case of Stockholm, protesters reportedly occupied a building at the city’s international airport.

We’d like to say that we’re shocked about the lack of coverage of this in the U.S., with the exception of AlJazeera America, but unfortunately we aren’t. Occupy World Writes began our publication of Kobane’s plight on September 20, Since that time, the world has failed to act.

Weaponry and ammunition were promised to the Kurds. NOTHING has been delivered to date.

ISIS returned 49 Turkish hostages in exchange for 180 of their fighters to be released from Turkish prisons. They were allowed to cross the border back into Syria to rejoin the fight. The international community remains silent on the issue.

Turkish forces are sitting on the border within a mile of Kobane. They now refuse to allow ANY Kurds to cross the border into Syria to help defend their own city. The US and the UN have failed to criticize this hypocrisy.

At this moment of press time, Breaking News on AlJazeera show Turkish forces using their forces on the border to REPEL KURDISH REFUGEES FLEEING ISIS. We believe this act by Turkey to be a WAR CRIME.

Meanwhile, Joe Biden is forced to apologize for telling the truth about Turkey.

We remain steadfast in our support of Kurdish fighters, the region of Rojava and specifically the Kobane defenders.

DEMAND THE WORLD ACT TO SAVE KOBANE.

A Better Educational Model

Leave a reply

Office lab building at Hannover Medical School. Photo by ChristianSchd (Own work) [CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

On Tuesday, the German state of Lower Saxony abolished tuition fees for its universities. This means that all of Germany’s universities are now tuition free, as Lower Saxony was the last holdout.

However, this isn’t a first for Germany; they didn’t start charging tuition until 2006. In that year, the German Constitutional Court ruled that limited fees and loans were not in conflict with the country’s commitment to universal higher education. This proved to be a very unpopular decision, and the states that had instituted fees started dropping them.

Dorothee Stapelfeldt, Hamburg’s senator for science, said; “Tuition fees are unjust. They discourage young people who do not have a traditional academic family background from taking up study. It is a core task of politics to ensure that young women and men can study with a high quality standard free of charge in Germany.”

The average student here in the U.S. would have been happy to pay what Germany was charging. Tuition averaged around $635 per semester, and students received other benefits such as cheap or free transportation through and between cities. Compare that to the $33,000 debt that the average U.S. college graduate in the class of 2014 carries in student loans.

Student debt in the U.S. totals $1.2 trillion dollars. That’s almost one and a half times the total credit card debt in the U.S. Furthermore, ever since the privatization of the Student Loan Marketing Association (more commonly known as Sallie Mae) in 2004, student loans cannot be discharged in bankruptcy. The latest estimates say that there will be 414,000 fewer houses sold this year to younger families because the money that would normally be spent on buying a house is going towards paying student debt instead. That’s $83 billion dollars a year in lost home sales.

The government spends around $69 billion subsidizing college education and another $107.4 billion on student loans. Tuition at all public universities comes to much less than that; around $62.6 billion in 2012. If the public universities were made free of charge (and by the above numbers, that’s easily doable), the private colleges would be forced to lower their cost to compete for students. And, you’d have a boost in the economy due to people having more to spend. That sounds like a win-win to us.

Why We Do These Things

Leave a reply

Typical small town street. Image public domain via WikiMedia Commons.

Richard Nelson is 81. He is a widower, a veteran and my neighbor.

We went away for a few days. We returned unexpectedly late in the night. We were in our house less than 15 minutes when the phone rang. It was Richard.

“Who is this?” he asked when I answered.

He was calling because he thought we were out of town and saw lights on at an unusual time. He knew troublemakers don’t answer the phone, so he called to see if he should call police.

The next day, I took Richard some applecrisp and homemade jelly to thank him for being such a good neighbor. Alarm companies have nothing over this man!

Why do people look out for others? Why do we care if our neighbor is in trouble?

Because it is the right thing to do. Because we want someone to care for us, and we understand these things to be reciprocal. Because that inner voice we all have sometimes speaks loudly to tell us we are all connected in our humanity. We are all neighbors. We are all family.

When was the last time you did something kind for someone just because you could? Look out your window and ask yourself, “Who can I reach out to, and how can I encourage them to pass it on?”

Richard looks out his window all the time. I will always look out for him.

Voter Fraud – Southern Style

Leave a reply

A month from today, people across the country will (hopefully) go and vote for who they think will best represents their interests. And, as usual, there’s a lot of news dealing with the elections. One story out of Arkansas really caught our eye, though.

On Tuesday, Pulaski Circuit and County Clerk Larry Crane cancelled Leslie Rutledge’s voter registration. Why is this news? Leslie Rutledge is the Republican candidate for Attorney General in Arkansas.

In 2008, Rutledge moved to Washington D.C., and registered to vote as a D.C. resident in July. However, in November of that year, she voted via absentee ballot in the 2008 Arkansas general election. And, in 2010, she registered to vote in Virginia.

Crane said his office received documents last week alleging irregularities with Rutledge’s voter registration. When his office checked out the allegations, he found them to be accurate, and canceled her voter registration for being registered in multiple states. What makes this so interesting is that under Arkansas law, it’s a felony for a person who is not a qualified voter to vote in an election., and it’s against state law for anyone who is not registered to vote in the state to be elected to public office.

Rutledge for her part claims that in March 2013, she had gone to the county office and told an employee she was registered outside the state and needed to re-register; according to her, the employee said she’d just need to fill out a change of address card. Crane claims that she had never mentioned being registered in another state.

Rutledge, as is to be expected, is claiming that it’s all a political stunt engineered by Crane (who happens to be a Democrat), and that she found out about the cancellation at the same time that the news broke in the papers. She said; “They did contact me late afternoon, this was after the decision had been made. They never notified me that there might be a problem. That’s the concerning part. You have Larry Crane, a Democrat clerk who is a contributor to Nate Steel’s campaign, my opponent’s campaign, arbitrarily throwing me off the rolls without any sort of notification.”

The Republican National Lawyers Association (RNLA) is furious that Rutledge was removed from the voter rolls. This is the epitome of hypocrisy, as the RNLA is the group that’s been at the forefront of pretending there is massive voter fraud going on, and pushing for polling-place photo ID restrictions that disenfranchise the elderly, young and minorities as well as supporting mass voter registration roll purges by Republican officials. And, while mass voter purges within 90 days of federal elections are illegal, the RNLA supported Rick Scott’s attempt to do that very thing in Florida the last election cycle. And, Rutledge herself is a supporter of such laws. “As AG,” Rutledge said on her Facebook page in May, “I’ll defend voter ID laws to protect the integrity of our elections.”

Rutledge submitted a new voter registration to the Arkansas Secretary of State’s office on Friday; Crane had given her until Monday to re-register. Whether the story ends here or not remains to be seen.

Aren’t politics fun?

Enbridge’s Sandpiper Blues

Leave a reply

Image via Facebook

On Tuesday, Enbridge Energy announced that the Sandpiper pipeline project will be delayed for at least a year due to permitting problems in Minnesota. The start of construction was to be in 2015, with the pipeline becoming operational in early 2016.

Minnesota regulators have requested a more extensive study of the environmental impacts of six possible routes for the pipeline that have been offered by opponents of Enbridge’s proposed route, which crosses many rivers, streams and wetlands. Enbridge for their part says the alternate routes are longer and more expensive. Furthermore, most don’t terminate in Superior, Wisconsin; the proposed ending spot of the pipeline and a major hub for pipeline distribution.

Needless to say, some were unhappy with the announcement. Calling the pipeline “a very important project” for his state’s oil production, Justin Kringstad, director of the North Dakota Pipeline Authority, said; “The pipeline will provide growing volumes of crude oil a safe and reliable method of transportation to markets around the United States.”

In some ways, Kringstad almost has a point. The alternative method of transporting the oil is by rail, and we’ve seen how that’s been working for them. We’ve discussed exploding Bakken oil trains on a couple occasions; they in no way represent a safe way of transporting the extremely volatile crude coming out of the Bakken field. But – and this is a huge but – all pipelines leak. It’s not a matter of if; it’s a matter of when and how much.

Is either alternative worth the possible consequences? We say no. We’d like to see the time, ingenuity and effort the energy companies put into extracting fossil fuel resources being spent on renewable energy sources instead. To see those companies invest in such things as high speed rail instead of blocking such things because they want to sell more gas to individual people. To have them put the general welfare of the people and the planet above profit. To be responsible stewards instead of reprehensible ones.

Killing A Planet

Leave a reply

On Tuesday, the World Wildlife Federation (WWF) released the latest Living Planet report, Living Planet 2014. Published every two years, the WWF says it “gives us a picture of the changing state of global biodiversity and the pressure on the biosphere arising from human consumption of natural resources.”

This year’s report points out, as so many reports have done recently, the harm we humans are doing to the planet and the creatures who live on it. The Living Planet Index (LPI) measures more than 10,000 representative populations of mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians and fish, and it’s declined by 52 per cent since 1970.

This means that in the last 40 years (or less than two human generations), the population of vertebrate species have dropped by over half because of us. Whether it’s us hunting them for food, or polluting and/or destroying their habitats, we’ve managed to kill off over half the animal population.

Mike Barratt, director of science and policy at WWF, said; “We have lost one half of the animal population and knowing this is driven by human consumption, this is clearly a call to arms and we must act now.” He also stated that more of the Earth must be protected from development and deforestation, and that food and energy needs to be produced sustainably.

Professor Ken Norris, director of science at the Zoological Society of London (ZSL), said; “If half the animals died in London zoo next week it would be front page news. But that is happening in the great outdoors. This damage is not inevitable but a consequence of the way we choose to live.”

Another index in the report calculates humanity’s “ecological footprint”, in other words, the scale at which it is using up natural resources. As it stands, we are cutting down trees faster than they regrow, catching fish faster than the oceans and lakes can restock, pumping water from rivers and aquifers faster than rainfall can replenish them, and emitting more carbon dioxide than the forests and oceans can absorb.

The report concludes that today’s average global rate of consumption would need 1.5 planet Earths to sustain it. Four planets would be required to sustain US levels of consumption, and 2.5 Earths to match UK consumption levels.

The choice couldn’t be much clearer. We either change the way we live, or we die. We either work towards providing equal rights and opportunities for our fellow men, or we go further down the rabbit hole of income and social inequality where a very few people own everything while the rest of us fight for the scraps. We either stop destroying the earth with our wanton waste and pollution, or the earth will destroy us. And, we need to do it now.