by Eric Tucker and Dina Cappiello, The Associated Press
WASHINGTON — The federal government on Thursday reached a $5.15 billion settlement with Anadarko Petroleum Corp., the largest ever for environmental contamination, to settle claims related to the cleanup of thousands of sites tainted with hazardous chemicals for decades.
The bulk of the money — $4.4 billion — will pay for environmental cleanup and be used to settle claims stemming from the legacy contamination.
The settlement resolves a legal battle over Tronox Inc., a spinoff of Kerr-McGee Corp., a company Anadarko acquired in 2006.
The Justice Department said Kerr-McGee, founded in 1929, left behind a long legacy of environmental contamination: polluting Lake Mead in Nevada with rocket fuel, leaving behind radioactive waste piles throughout the territory of the Navajo Nation, and dumping carcinogenic creosote in communities throughout the East, Midwest and South at its wood-treating facilities.
The company, rather than pay for the environmental mess it created, decided to shift the liabilities between 2002 and 2006 into Tronox, the Justuce Department said, while Kerr-McGee kept its valuable oil and gas assets.
“Kerr-McGee’s businesses all over this country left significant, lasting environmental damage in their wake,” Deputy Attorney General James Cole said. “It tried to shed its responsibility for this environmental damage and stick the United States with the huge cleanup bill.”
The settlement releases Anadarko from all claims against Kerr-McGee.
“This settlement … eliminates the uncertainty this dispute has created, and the proceeds will fund the remediation and cleanup of the legacy environmental liabilities,” said Anadarko CEO Al Walker.
The settlement funds will be paid into a trust that covers cleanup of contaminated sites across 22 states and the Navajo Nation.
Among the sites targeted for cleanup under the settlement are a former chemical manufacturing site in Nevada that has led to contamination of Lake Mead and a Superfund property in Gloucester, New Jersey, contaminated with thorium. About $1 billion will be directed to the Navajo Nation to address radioactive waste left behind by the region’s abandoned uranium mines.
The U.S. initially sought $25 billion to clean up decades of contamination at dozens of sites. A U.S. bankruptcy judge in New York in December found Kerr-McGee had improperly shifted its environmental liabilities to Tronox and should pay between $5.15 billion and $14.2 billion, plus attorney’s fees. Cole said at a news conference Thursday that the government decided that the $5.15 billion amount was more than enough to cover the damages.
“It provides us with recovery now as opposed to years and years down the road,” he said.
Tronox said in a statement that the settlement means environmental cleanup can begin and that people harmed by the pollution can be compensated.
After the settlement’s announcement, Anadarko’s stock rose 15 per cent, to $99.43.
Fisheries Minister Gail Shea thinks everything is A-ok with DFO (Chris Wattie/Reuters)
I registered the first Environmental Petition (a protocol, not list of names) on the Cohen Report with the federal Auditor General late last fall, and have received the first reply from Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO). My request was specific, technical, and DFO was required to respond in 120 days – and it did! – on the last day, March 26, 2014.
Here is what I asked:
[quote]1. It is one year since the $26.4 Million Cohen Commission on Decline of Fraser River Sockeye delivered its report to DFO. One year later, I would like to know: What concrete results, and detail them individually, with associated timelines and funding that DFO has committed or expensed to resolve each of the 75 environmental recommendations in the three volume Cohen Report on the Decline of Fraser River Sockeye. The recommendations are pages 105 – 115, of Volume 3. I am speaking of the boldfaced recommendations and the concrete results DFO has taken to achieve each of the 75 recommendations that can also be found in a Cohen PDF of Chapter 2, Volume Three.[/quote]
You will note the important phrase: concrete resultsand the specifics in red above. I asked for concrete details, concrete funding commitments, concrete numbers of people committed, timelines achieved and individual responses to each and every Cohen recommendation. All 75.
It is non-specific mush designed to anaesthetize and give the impression of a potentially plausible positive possibility, while committing, not so much. I used to work for government and it was my job to generate the same milquetoast so everyone got the same story every single time.
So in ‘themes’, here are Gail Shea’s first words:
[quote]Theme: Mandate
Related to Recommendations 1, 2 and 3
The roles and responsibilities of the Minister and the Department of Fisheries and Oceans with respect to decisions related to fisheries management and fish habitat within federal jurisdiction are clearly communicated to First Nations, other governments and stakeholders. This includes making conservation the first priority in the delivery of regulatory responsibilities.[/quote]
Really? Sorry, Gail, but on recommendations 1, 2 and 3, Cohen says that the weakening of the Fisheries Act and the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act, removed a lot of the DFO minister’s ultimate authority (Volume 3, Chapter 3). I would add that if ‘conservation’, was a primary concern, DFO would have taken fish farms out of the water a long time ago.
Justice Cohen: Harper govt weakened fish protections
Cohen goes on to say the ‘omnibus’ bill changes weakened habitat restoration… and even if it hadn’t that DFO doesn’t have the money and people to do much, even though its Wild Salmon Policy says it must. Cohen notes that in seven years since generating the policy, DFO has gotten nowhere on implementation. Testifying, the western director could not confirm any action in the next 2 to five years, as in, the Wild Salmon Policy is off the table, even though Shea says it is not.
In the inconvenient evidence – Cohen evidence is that rare text where once on the record, it is there as incontrovertible fact forever – Cohen notes, among other things, that changes to the Fisheries Act took it from being very strong legislation for environmental protection for salmon and made it the weakest legislation.
DFO’s conflict of interest
Furthermore, DFO has (Volume 3, Chapter 2, P 11) internal confusion on doing conservation work. And its Science Branch spends too much time and resources on clients like the Canadian Food Inspection Agency that have no conservation need. So the legislation is bad, the money is bad, and the focus is bad.
Cohen goes on to say in recommendation 2 that DFO should be stripped of its conflict of interest in supporting fish farms and should focus only on wild salmon. He said that DFO was spending more time and resources on the tiny fish farm sector (only 795 actual jobs) than on wild salmon in BC (P11), for Pete’s sake.
Furthermore, he said DFO should not put any fish farm in the water – nor leave any farm in the sea – if it can’t eliminate risks to wild salmon beforehand. The task falls to that confused, poorly funded Science Branch.
Aquaculture industry nets tax dollars for dead, diseased fish
You may recall that in Clayoquot Sound there are 22 fish farms. We, the taxpayer, paid Norwegian derivative fish farms $5.56 million for their dead diseased fish last year in BC (over $50 Million across Canada). Near Tofino, there are only 501 wild chinook left in six streams and the Kennedy Lake sockeye run has been wiped out. This is where Dr. Kristi Miller found 25% of farmed chinook had the killer diseases ISA and HSMI. Little wonder there are no wild salmon left.
DFO likes to say it is following Cohen – that fish farm ‘moratorium’ in the Discovery Islands, for example – but it does not come clean that it set his terms of reference and limited him to only one species of salmon in only one river, the Fraser. What this means is that his report should be taken as applying to all of BC.
Cohen zeroes in on fish farms
In Cohen’s complete list of 75 recommendations, the first 22 regard fish farms, that’s how big a problem he considers them. And Shea has not instituted the western director general Cohen called for to cover wild salmon and habitat restoration. The rest of her answers are the same bland stuff that we spent $26 Million to get. Wild BC salmon deserve more.
The PQ’s Pauline Marois and Pierre Karl Péladeau (Photo: Graham Hughes/CP)
It is not unusual to hear and read about Québécois saying they don’t like any of the four options offered in this election. What is often referred to as mudslinging/insults – between Philippe Couillard of the Liberals (PLQ); Pauline Marois of the Parti Québécois (PQ); and François Legault of the Coalition avenir Québec (CAQ) – has become the main focus on this election campaign. To her credit, Françoise David of Québec Solidaire (QS) has managed to stay away from the mud.
[quote]Sadly, in this election, there isn’t any party proposing a road map for a prosperous, inclusive and green Quebec.[/quote]
What happened to the issues people care about?
Two leaders’ debates failed to rise above the mudslinging and the all-important issue of health was treated as an organizational or structural challenge.
Worse, the environment is one of the forgotten issues for the 3 main parties.
Only 4% of Québécois consider the Charter of secular values a priority issue, but the Charter has been and continues to be central to the campaign of the PQ, and by ricochet, for the other parties as well.
In the midst of all this, Philippe Couillard is trying to distract attention from the PLQ’s record of corruption and their weak platform by saying that Pauline Marois, if elected, plans on holding a referendum – which two thirds of Québécois don’t want – during her next mandate. Pauline Marois’s reply is that there will be no referendum until such time as the Québécois are ready, thus providing herself with very elastic time lines.
Sadly, in this election, there isn’t any party proposing a road map for a prosperous, inclusive and green Quebec. Many Québecois, federalists and independentistes alike – and myself included – feel like orphans in this campaign. In effect, a recent poll gave low marks on “integrity” to all four leaders.
Environment takes back seat to resource economy
For his part, Philippe Couillard’s vision for the economy is a re-run of an old Jean Charest movie to the effect that Quebec will generate much of its new wealth from the mining and export of raw natural resources from northern Quebec – the old economy tunnel vision.
The environment doesn’t even rank as an important election issue for Couillard.
Indeed, Couillard omitted the environment from the moment he submitted his vision as a candidate for the leadership of the Liberals. For the 2014 election campaign, continuing along the same lines, other than rhetorical messages that resource development practices would respect the environment, the environment gets little to no attention from Couillard – not all that different from Stephen Harper in this regard.
In replaying Jean Charest’s “Plan nord” to pour government money into infrastructure for developing northern resources, Philippe Couillard has simply added a few bells and whistles for a “new and improved” plan.
For its part, the PQ is equally focussed on a resource economy – the economy of the past – and has its own version of a nebulous Plan nord which it pairs with lottery-like, high-risk government investments in shares of shale oil activities for Anticosti Island in the Gulf of the St-Laurent (St-Lawrence River).
The reality is that the UN Conference on Trade and Development has indicated that resource economies are formulae for trade deficits because the price of raw resource exports relative to high-tech manufactured goods has been falling for more than a century.
I am not sure what planet Couillard and Marois live on, but they seem to have not noticed that China, the EU, and even the US, are well-engaged in the emerging global green economy. In effect, the green sectors are now among the highest job creation sectors of our times. There are currently 3.5M jobs in the EU green sectors, 1.2M jobs in EU renewables and the German green sectors employ more people than the German auto sector.
To be fair, however, Marois, while favouring investing government money in shale oil exploration on Anticosti Island, also claims to be interested in promoting a green economy. Against the backdrop of Quebec’s emerging electric vehicle industrial base – which includes manufacturers and developers of batteries; electric motor wheels; urban and intercity electric buses; and charging stations – the PQ platform proposes $517M over 4 years for the electrification of transport. But in the final analysis, this is a small sum of money that won’t go very far in supporting the electric vehicle sector in Quebec when spread out for charging stations, vehicle rebates, subway and commuter extensions, leaving little for supporting innovation and the development of a local industry.
In any case, it’s hard to say where all the money for Marois’ many electoral promises will come from because Quebec is broke – the cupboard is bare.
Pierre Karl Péladeau and the Charter of Secular Values
Not to be outdone by the Liberal nonsense, the PQ, to make itself attractive to nationalist right wing voters, has offered us its anti-Muslim secular Charter; its draconian greed representative, Pierre Karl Péladeau; and, the icing on the cake, its hysterical, anti-anglo, paranoiac outburst on the invasion by Ontario anglos of Montreal voters’ lists (where there are 2 English, as well as two French, universities).
If one believes the PQ, a miniscule percentage of anglos and non-Christians wearing religious symbols are to blame for Québec’s incapacity to realize its “noble” identity.
The Charter’s purpose is supposedly to promote the equality of the sexes and the neutrality of state by eliminating the wearing of religious symbols by public sector employees – because these symbols are associated with the inferiorization of women and the undermining of government neutrality. Trouble is that the equality of the sexes exists in places like BC and California and the neutrality of their respective state institutions is not undermined by having a female doctor with a headscarf treat a patient.
The Charter is, in effect, political theatre for the purposes of cultivating a sense of fear, while exploiting ignorance of the other/unknown, in the regions of Quebec which have little to no multicultural presence.
On March 31st, in a seemingly desperate attempt to head off criticism regarding years of judicial battles that would follow the adoption of the Charter, Pauline Marois spoke of using the “notwithstanding clause” to permit exemptions from the Quebec and federal charters of rights and freedoms. In reality, in the event of the adoption of the Charter as proposed by the PQ, one should still expect legal battles that go on for years, plus generalized civil disobedience in the greater Montreal area – which represents half of the population of Quebec.
Does Marois plan on building lots of prisons for this battle?
CAQ and QS: The other parties
The CAQ is a Quebec version of the Conservative Party of Canada (CPC), with its plan to reduce the size of government and offer a $1000 reduction in personal taxes. This CAQ/CPC formula would not only result in a deterioration of government services, it would also lead to greater deficits and consequently further justification for cuts – a vicious circle.
Meanwhile, the QS is focussed on the re-distribution of the wealth and a green Quebec but doesn’t seem to have any interest in, or knowledge about, creating wealth and developing a green economy. QS doesn’t even appear to be aware of the relationship between the green economy and job creation.
Also, as amazing as it may seem, QS is so disconnected that it is unaware that a green economy is as diversified as a resource-based economy and includes nearly every economic sector. Consequently, when the QS says it will finance going green by redistributing the wealth to invest in public transportation for all parts of Quebec, it reflects how naive or inept is the QS.
By way of magic, the QS’ fluffy platform for a green and equitable Quebec suggests these goals require an independent Quebec. With only 9-10% of the vote in Quebec, it may be argued that the QS stands a better chance of realizing its re-distribution of wealth and green objectives by joining with progressives from the rest of Canada.
Moreover, addressing the green economy challenges is like addressing the challenges of poverty and as such does not lend itself to the short wish list of QS generalities. Rather, a holistic approach is required so that a wide range of measures can converge in a synergistic manner to produce transformative change. A combination of fiscal and legislative initiatives, policies, programs and projects, incentives/disincentives and other related measures are essential for a successful migration to a green economy.
Four bad choices
In the final analysis, for progressives with their feet on the ground, all four parties are unattractive.
As for which party is more corrupt or deficient in integrity – the PLQ or PQ – under the circumstances, it doesn’t really matter. Unless, of course, one feels the choice boils down to a corrupt federalist party versus a corrupt “independantiste” party.
Accordingly, whatever the results on April 7th, a word of caution about the pundits’ explanations of the results: don’t buy any of it. Too many will not have voted for something they want.
While Tom Mulcair has made some hints about the creation of a provincial NDP party in Quebec,for those wanting an option offering a path to a prosperous, inclusive and green economy, there isn’t anything available for April 7, 2014.
A Vancouver rally against Kinder Morgan’s proposed pipeline (Photo: Damien Gillis)
by Dene Moore, The Canadian Press
VANCOUVER – The National Energy Board hearings into Kinder Morgan’s proposed pipeline expansion through Alberta and British Columbia will begin in August and hear from more than a thousand people, groups and communities.
But only 400 of the more than 2,118 applicants who applied to be interveners in the hearings will be allowed to participate.
Those groups given approval will be allowed to question experts and company officials and present evidence at the hearings.
They include: dozens of First Nations, the Alberta Federation of Labour, B.C. Green MLA and climate scientist Andrew Weaver, BC Nature, the BC Wildlife Federation, BP Canada, BC Hydro, the Burnaby Teachers’ Association, the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers, the Chamber of Shipping of British Columbia, and cities from Kamloops to Victoria.
Environment Canada, Aboriginal Affairs and the federal Fisheries and Oceans department will also have intervener status, as well as the B.C. and Alberta provincial governments and the conservation groups Living Oceans and Raincoast Foundation.
Additional 1,250 invited to submit letter
Another 1,250 individuals and groups will be allowed to submit a comment letter to the panel but won’t be able to participate directly in the hearings.
Of the applications received, 452 that requested intervener status were given commenter status.
Another 468 were denied participation.
They include: New Democrat MP Kennedy Stewart, the Business Council of British Columbia, Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, Canadian Natural Resource Alliance, the City of Fort St. John, Dogwood Initiative and the Okanagan Upcycling Resource Society.
Texas-based Kinder Morgan’s $5.4-billion pipeline expansion would have the capacity to transport up to 890,000 barrels per day from Alberta to the company’s Westridge terminal in Burnaby.
A “rigged” process
Changes to the National Energy Board Act that came into effect in July 2012 limit participation to those directly affected by a project or those with specific expertise or information.
Caitlyn Vernon of the Sierra Club BC said the decision to deny participation is “profoundly undemocratic.” Added Vernon in a statement:
[quote]This is a rigged process, deliberately designed to silence the legitimate voices of British Columbians on an issue that has profound implications for our province. All British Columbians are directly affected by the Kinder Morgan proposal, which threatens B.C. families, jobs, salmon and climate.[/quote]
Trans Mountain took no position on individual applicants.
But the company told the panel “the legislative change is meant to avoid parties that may be affected by a project from being ‘lost in the crowd’ of parties whose issues are unrelated to a specific project,” the board stated in the decision released Wednesday.
Panel defends changes to Act
The panel said the changes to the National Energy Board Act were made to promote fairness and efficiency in the review process.
“If you are directly affected, you will be given an opportunity to present your concerns to the board, and the board will make its decision based on the application and all of the evidence before it,” the agency said.
The review panel will hear aboriginal evidence this August and September and hearings will begin next January.
The panel has until July 2, 2015, to complete its report and recommendation for the federal government.
Corporate power uses special nomenclature to deceive Canadians (image: Bloomberg Business Week).
by Mark Taliano
Sometimes, the simplest solutions are the best ones. Unfortunately, though, Canada’s extreme concentration of corporate power often precludes the solutions from ever seeing the light of day.
The first step towards resolution of this problem is nomenclature. We need to free corporate-fashioned words from their false meanings.
Here are some examples:
Trade deals, including the so-called ‘free trade’ deals which have crippled North American manufacturing, are more accurately described as ‘corporate empowerment’ deals. Invariably, these deals empower transnational companies to relocate where wages are low (or in the case of prison labour, non-existent), where collective bargaining doesn’t exist, and where unions are impotent or non-existent.
Corporate empowerment deals, including the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and the as yet unratified Foreign Investment Promotion and Protection Agreement (FIPPA), a bilateral agreement with China, empower corporations to the extent that government legislation becomes subordinated to corporate profits.
Corporate power deals are all shrouded in secrecy, but at least NAFTA arbitrations have pretensions of transparency (and Canada has yet to win a case), but the FIPPA arbitrations will likely not even be made public. If Canada determines that its sovereignty, economic, or environmental needs are more important than Chinese state-owned corporate profits, the case will be heard outside Canadian law, and in private.
Free trade is not free
PM Stephen Harper with Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao in 2012
The ‘freedom’ being exercised by these deals is clearly corporate freedom from the shackles of democratically legislated rules, regulations and laws. The false notion that they are ‘free’, or that ‘liberalized’ trade agreements are ‘liberal’ for anyone but the corporations, should be put to rest. Trade agreements negotiated over the last 30 years or so have been neither free, nor liberal, for the people of Canada.
‘Globalization’ is another corporate-engineered word that is intentionally deceiving. The globalization being described is not ‘democratic’ globalization, nor is it the globalization of improved human rights, or a globalized respect for the environment. In fact, it is the opposite. Corporate globalization, a more accurate description, has led to top-down corporate rule, diminished respect for human rights as defined by the United Nations, and reckless destruction of the world environment.
The word ‘capitalism’ is also wearing new clothes, thanks to corporate messaging of the ‘free marketeers’, and those who profess a love for ‘free enterprise’. Now the term more often refers to state-subsidized ‘monopoly capitalism’ (think Walmart, Monsanto, etc.). The new ‘capitalists’ are the speculators who drive up world prices of food and fuel, as they trade in commodities, derivatives, and hedge funds. In the world of these boom/bust/starvation-creating ‘capitalists’, the term is divorced from production, and it is too often divorced from the notion of the ‘public good’ as well.
Hyper-privatization
The term ‘privatization’, a hallmark of neoliberalism/neoconservatism, has also been crafted to mislead the public. Now the term more accurately describes anti-public ‘hyper-privatization’.
In many instances, hyper-privatization means that para-private interests are making in-roads into the public sphere to the detriment of the public. One such instance would be Public Private Partnerships (P3 arrangements). Evidence clearly shows that P3 hospitals cost more and are, therefore, an unnecessary burden on the public. This, however, has not stopped them from gaining a foothold in Canada.
Another example of hyper-privatization would be healthcare. Once the insurance lobbies persuade the public of the false-logic that privatized healthcare is the way to ‘move forward’, we will be stuck with a multi-tiered, inefficient, and costly healthcare system, (similar to the U.S. system) that will be an unnecessary disservice to the public.
The deconstruction of the corporate nomenclature gives us a clearer view of what is happening, but there are still huge impediments, or firewalls, to achieving a better economy and a better world.
Self-Interest lobby groups
Some of these firewalls include self-interested lobby groups that have disproportionate influence over public discourse and legislative polities. A list of these powerful organizations, as described by award-winning investigative reporter Nick Fillmore, in “It’s high time the Liberals or NDP challenged our ‘corporate elite’” includes:
Once past the nomenclature and the corporate-media supported ‘firewalls’, the list of better alternatives reveals itself.
The Bank of Canada advantage
One of many glaring examples, as described by George H. Crowell in his article,”An Urgently Needed Change in Monetary Policy: Borrowing from Bank of Canada would make governments debt-free” is brilliant in its simplicity.
Crowell argues that we should do what we did until about 1974 — instead of paying billions of dollars in interest on debts to private banks, the federal government should resume the practice of borrowing from the publicly-owned Bank of Canada, interest free. The benefits that would accrue, including the elimination of government debt, would empower the government to spend money on public institutions, improve the economy, and so on.
This change to monetary policy, endorsed by the Committee on Monetary and Economic Reform (COMER), is self-evident, but largely ignored by corporate media, since such a policy wouldn’t serve the immediate self-interests of their corporate owners.
Getting past the nomenclature and the lobby groups are the first steps to opening up the dialogue for a better Canada. Powerful special interest groups, such as the ones listed above, will not be our partners in the endeavour, but unearthing the seemingly simple solutions is a necessary step to rebuilding this country and the global community.
Mark Taliano is a writer, an activist and a retired teacher.
Watch Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s recent speech on the increased influence of corporations on the Canadian and US governments:
An earlier CNRL leak in Cold Lake, Alberta (Chester Dawson / Wall Street Journal)
SLAVE LAKE, Alta. – A pipeline owned by Canadian Natural Resources Limited has spilled 70,000 litres of oil and processed water northwest of Slave Lake, Alta.
The Alberta Energy Regulator says the breach happened on Monday and was reported by CNRL (TSX:CNQ) the same day.
The regulator says the spill is not an emergency, the oil is not near any people, water or wildlife, and a cleanup is underway.
Low amounts of hydrogen sulphide gas were also detected.
Greenpeace Canada says CNRL has had almost twice as many pipeline incidents as other companies in Alberta.
Calgary-based CNRL could not immediately be reached for comment.
A battle has been brewing in recent months over the future of Langley, BC – a rural community on the edge of Metro Vancouver, known as the horse capital of the province.
Plans to triple the density of one Langley Township neighbourhood – Brookswood and Fernridge – over the next several decades have roiled local residents intent on protecting the rural nature of their community. A rally yesterday drew hundreds of protestors on the eve of council’s vote on the density plan.
Lifelong Brookswood resident Ann-Michelle Dereus noted that she isn’t opposed to development, but that this proposal goes overboard in terms of density:
[quote]We’ve been saying that we want the environment protected, yet the final proposal that came out was the densest one to date.[/quote]
The plan would involve rezoning much of the largely detached home community for condos and townhouses, with an increase to the local population of 13,000 to some 42,000.
Langley Township Council will vote on the plan tonight.
Besides the many diverse costs resulting from our environmental damage to nature, we are now beginning to suffer a loss of reputation. Under a new category of study called “ecopsychology”, thinkers from a wide range of disciplines have started an honest and penetrating examination of mechanisms guiding our collective behaviour. The resulting image of humanity is not flattering. Words such as “psychopathic” are appearing, along with invented derivatives such as “ecopathic”, “ecopath” and “ecopathy”.
Coining a new term
Ecopathy is derived from two Greek words, oikos for “house” and pathy for “sickness”, “disease” or “suffering”. The word is sobering because it recognizes that the deteriorating ecological condition of our planet is the direct result of an indifference and negligence in our human behaviour that we seem incapable of correcting, even though we have known for decades what to do and how to do it. The medical term for this condition is a pathology.
The origin of the term ecopathy may have emerged about 1979 from the reflections of environmentally conscious Buddhist scholars in the West who would have been comparing the importance of compassion in their tradition to its relative absence in humanity’s treatment of nature.
The psychological and philosophical character of Buddhism would have noted that a cultural insensitivity to the well-being of the plants and animals surrounding us could be construed as a fundamental failure in awareness. As ecologies suffered increasing damage, this absence of empathetic connection would have become increasingly obvious. Although earlier Buddhist thinkers would not have used a term such as ecopathy to identify this condition, the modern use fits uncomfortably well.
Diagnosis of ecopathy
The symptoms of ecopathy match the classic symptoms of psychopathy. Rather than applying to the social pathology of interpersonal relationships, however, the symptoms of ecopathy apply to our treatment of the natural world. The following characteristics that compare the behaviour of the ecopath to the psychopath are derived from the World Health Organization via two environmental writers, Derrick Jensen and Michael Harris:
a callous unconcern for the feeling or well-being of other things in the environment;
a gross and persistent attitude of irresponsibility and disregard for ecological norms, rules and obligations;
an incapacity to maintain enduring ecological relationships, but no difficulty in establishing them;
a very low frustration tolerance and an equally low aggression threshold, with discharges that include violence toward the environment;
an incapacity to feel guilt and to learn from experience, particularly from threats and punishments from nature;
a distinct inclination to blame others or to invent implausible rationalizations for behaviour that has brought the culture into conflict with ecologies.
Such a diagnosis and comparison, of course, is a generalization with obvious inaccuracies. Many people are concerned about environmental issues — some are even alarmed — but, as a society, a culture and a civilization, we have not yet reached the critical mass of awareness that is able to recognize the symptoms, accept them as valid and thereby cure the pathology.
Too many people are still oblivious or indifferent to the evolving environmental crisis, while others remain dismissive or even hostile to the existence of a problem — if they won’t acknowledge the problem, then they certainly won’t recognize the symptoms.
Seeking the treatment
The symptoms of this disorder are many and varied. We have been cultivating them for centuries and millennia. They can be found throughout our mythology, religion, philosophy, psychology, sociology, economics, politics and technologies. Some may be hidden in the biochemical recesses of our genetics and brain functions.
These are the symptoms that are most worrisome because they may be traits entrenched in the cells and structure of our physiology, designed and nourished by the same evolutionary processes that made us. If ecopathy is more an indication of “who we are” than “what we do”, then the possibility of reform will be exponentially more difficult.
How do we become who we are not? How do we remake ourselves to be compatible with the natural world out of which we grew if we have become who we are because of our incompatibility with it? If this incompatibility with nature is our distinctive quality, then how are we to integrate into an ecological system that is governed by immutable laws, that is limited by the finite, and that is brutally unforgiving of mistakes?
The uncomfortable answer to these questions may be that, like incurable psychopaths, we are incurable ecopaths, committed to an endless struggle against nature’s imposed limits because our narrow willfulness knows no other way. And so, while indifferent and oblivious to consequences, we will continue to use our ingenuity and cunning to do what we must to get what we want. The eventual outcome is hidden in the future. And we have no idea what this future will be.
From the age of five, Fred Urquhart was fascinated by monarch butterflies in his Toronto neighbourhood. Born in 1911, he spent hours watching the orange and black insects flutter about, wondering: Where did they go in winter? At school, he read voraciously about nature, especially monarchs and other insects.
He eventually became a zoology professor and married Norah Patterson, who shared his love of butterflies, as did their son, Doug. To answer the question that had nagged Fred since childhood, in 1940 they found a way to attach tiny labels to individual butterflies that read, “Send to Zoology University of Toronto Canada.” They started the Insect Migration Association, now known as Monarch Watch, enlisting “citizen scientists” to tag butterflies.
Solving the monarch mystery
They finally solved the mystery in 1975 – with the help of two citizen scientists in Mexico. Ken Brugger and Catalina Aguado had come across millions of butterflies in the mountains west of Mexico City. The couple took the Urquharts there in 1976 and, miraculously, Fred found one of his tagged insects within hours. Their fascinating story is told in the documentary film Flight of the Butterflies and in an episode of CBC’s The Nature of Things, “The Great Butterfly Hunt”.
Now, monarchs are in trouble, their numbers drastically reduced from the days when the Urquharts pursued their passion. And once again, experts and others are calling on citizen scientists – and politicians – to help.
Letter from a Mexican poet
Monarch populations in Mexico plummeted to a record low of about 33.5 million this year from an annual average over the past 15 years of about 350 million and highs of more than one billion. Causes include illegal logging in Mexico, herbicide use on genetically modified crops in the U.S. and climate change.
In February, in response to a letter by Mexican poet Homero Aridjis, signed by more than 100 scientists, writers and environmentalists – including Canadians Margaret Atwood, Michael Ondaatje and John Ralston Saul – U.S. President Barack Obama, Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto and Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper agreed to “establish a working group to ensure the conservation of the monarch butterfly, a species that symbolizes our association.”
The letter to leaders said:
[quote]As Mexico is addressing the logging issues, so now must the United States and Canada address the effects of our current agricultural policies.[/quote]
GMO’s and butterflies
Those problematic practices are mainly associated with large-scale planting of corn and soy genetically modified to resist the herbicide Roundup, or glyphosate. It doesn’t kill crops – just pretty much everything else, including the milkweed monarchs need to lay their eggs and that is their caterpillars’ main food.
How citizen scientists can help
We can only hope our leaders live up to their commitment, and we can speak up to hold them to it. But we can also become citizen scientists to help researchers better understand the butterfly’s breeding, migrating and overwintering cycles and help monarchs survive. Monarch Watch offers classroom resources, student-scientist research projects and information about building monarch way stations, raising your own monarchs and planting milkweed and butterfly gardens. The U.S. Monarch Joint Venture website offers resources for citizens to track migration, count butterflies and monitor larval populations and disease for monarchs – as well as other butterflies.
Helping monarch and other butterflies and insects is a fun way to get kids interested in nature’s wonders. Planting milkweed and nectar-producing native flowers on balconies and in gardens, parks and green spaces will beautify the area around your home and bring bees and butterflies to the neighbourhood.
Scientists still don’t know everything about monarchs and their migration, but we know they play an important role in ecosystems. And we know everything in nature is interconnected. When something that travels such long distances through a range of habitats is removed, it can have cascading effects on those environments.
The world wouldn’t know where North American monarchs travel if it weren’t for the Urquharts and the continent-wide battalion of citizen scientists they inspired. We can all help ensure monarch butterflies continue this wonderful journey every year.
With contributions from David Suzuki Foundation Senior Editor Ian Hanington.
TRU’s dean of trades and technology is featured in an Ajax mine video (Youtube: Ajax Project )
The latest chapter in the controversial Ajax mine proposal planned for the edge of Kamloops, BC was released as a sleek corporate video titled “The Conversation” by mining company, KGHM International. “The Conversation” featured Lindsay Langill, the dean of trades and technology at Thompson Rivers University (TRU), where he publicly expressed his support for the Ajax mine project.
After the video was released earlier this month, TRU received many complaints about Langill’s statement in the video. Discussing the benefits Ajax would provide for his trades students, Langill said :
[quote]If we step back and look at what can be gained by a project such as Ajax, I think that there are many, many opportunities that open themselves up. So we can tell our students, take your training with us, stay in Kamloops, British Columbia and make a difference within the community.[/quote]
The University’s Vice-President Advancement, Christopher Seguin, responded to the complaints about Langill’s appearance in third-party corporate marketing material, telling Kamloops this Week:
[quote]Participation of the school’s dean of trades and technology in a pro-Ajax mine video does not mean Thompson Rivers University is supporting the proposed project.[/quote]
The university may want to maintain a neutral stance on the Ajax mine proposal, but Langill voluntarily allowed himself to be identified as a TRU faculty member, which reflects upon the institution.
The video highlights the job openings Ajax mine would create, its care for the surrounding environment and its neighbourhood approach to the city of Kamloops residents.
Ajax Project – an open-pit copper-gold mine at the historic Ajax-Afton mine site that finished operation in 1997 – is being developed by KGHM International, a wholly-owned subsidiary of KGHM Polska Miedź S.A., a Polish company of which the Polish government owns 80 percent of its shares.
Earlier this month, KGHM announced a new target of March, 2015 for filing its formal application. The delay comes as concern over the environmental footprint of the mine that would be located on the border of Kamloops’ city limits prompted the company to modify its design.
Although this plan hasn’t been publicly unveiled by the company, external-affairs manager Yves Lacasse said the redesign will allow the mine’s infrastructure to move south, away from the city.
After barring users from embedding the video elsewhere, the company took down the original video earlier this week. It was then reposted yesterday.
