Forget about the "lazy" part of the Lazy Environmentalist blog name. The Lazy Environmentalist is a former barrister, living in London, U.K.,  who blogs about issues to do with climate change and the environment; also writes a column for Concept Living mazagine; and has an eco-emporium.  Here is the address of the blog: http://thelazyenvironmentalist.blogspot.com/ , followed by her post on George Monbiot's article and also on the IPCC report:

Friday May 11, 2007

Monbiot: Giving Up On Two Degrees, IPCC Report

Sometimes I read an article, book or blog that addresses an issue so succinctly, argues a point concisely, presents a universal truth that is being ignored or overlooked - and I make a mental note to raise it in my blog. Then, life comes along and other demands take over and the moment has passed. But this is one article that has struck such a chord with me, that I have returned to re-read. I urge anyone who is concerned about what the target level of greenhouse gas emissions should be to read George Monbiot's article, Giving Up On Two Degrees

Monbiot, in his usual well researched fashion, sets out why we need higher targets - and targets that must be met sooner. Infact, not only is our government relying on out-of-date figures, so is the European Union. Working on the basis of a 50% chance of preventing more than 2°C of warming, a global cut of 80% by 2050 would be required.

Monbiot explains that this is a cut in total emissions, not in emissions per head. If the population were to rise from 6 to 9 billion between now and then, we would need an 87% cut in global emissions per person. If carbon emissions are to be distributed equally, the greater cut must be made by the biggest polluters: rich nations like us. The UK's emissions per capita would need to fall by 91%.

As Monbiot points out, what the recent IPCC report shows is that we have to stop treating climate change as an urgent issue. We have to start treating it as an international emergency.


This latest IPCC Report, "Mitigation of Climate Change" was published on the 4th of May. Here is a brief summary of the key findings of the report:
1. the world has until 2020 to reverse the trend of rising greenhouse gas emissions to avoid the most dangerous effects of climate change,
2. achieving this would reduce the world's annual gross domestic product by 3 per cent in 2030,
3. cuts in emissions of GHGs can be achieved with existing technologies,
4. bringing that technology into widespread use is likely to require extensive changes in public policy,
5. US$20,000 billion must be spent by 2030 on the world's energy infrastructure to help reduce costs.

The report also estimates that carbon emissions will cost between US$100 per tonne. Multiple strategies are proposed to prevent the potentially catastrophic consequences of climate change at a reasonable cost. These include measures such as switching to renewable energy and biofuels, taxing fossil fuels, incentives for improving the energy efficiency of transportation, buildings and industry, as well as changes to agricultural and forestry practices. The key findings of the report have been agreed unanimously by more than 100 governments, including those of the US, China, India and the European Union and will form the basis for international policy. They will also provide the framework for discussions, set to begin this December in Bali, on a successor to the Kyoto protocol on climate change, whose main provisions expire in 2012. Whilst the latest IPCC report makes it clear that the world has a substantial challenge, it also shows that there is an emerging consensus.

*Giving Up On Two Degrees
* IPCC Working Group III Report "Mitigation of Climate Change"

Posted by The Lazy Environmentalist at 10:26 AM 0 comments    

Labels: IPCC report, Monbiot

This article is confirmation to me that climate change is indeed already occurring. It is from the World section of a Monday, October 29, 2007, Toronto Star, page AA2:

Greenland

CLIMATE CHANGE TURNING SNOWSCAPE GREEN
Dormant trees reviving locallly grown cabbage and broccoli sold in stores for first time

Sarah Lyall
New York Times

NARSARSUAQ, GREENLAND -- A strange thing is happening at the edge of Poul Bjerge's forest, a place so minute and unexpected that it brings to mind the teeny piece of land that Woody Allen's father carries around in the film Love and Death.

Its four oldest trees -- in fact, the four oldest pine trees in Greenland, named Rosenvinge's trees after the Dutch botanist who planted them in a mad experiment in 1893 -- are waking up. After lapsing into stately, sleepy old age, they are exhibiting new sprinklings of green at their tops, as if someone had glued on fresh needles.

"The old ones, they're having a second youth," said Bjerge, 78, who has watched the forest, called Qanasiassat, come to life, in fits and starts, since planting most of the trees in it 50 years ago. "They're growing again," he beamed.

When using the words "growing" in connection with Greenland, it is important to remember that although Greenland is the size of Europe, it has only nine conifer forests like Bjerge's, all of them cultivated. It has only 51 farms. (They are all sheep farms, although one man is trying to raise cattle.) Except for potatoes, the only vegetables most Greenlanders ever eat are imported, mostly from Denmark.

But now that the climate is warming, it is not just old trees that are growing. A Greenlandic supermarket is stocking locally grown cauliflower, broccoli and cabbage this year for the first time. And Kenneth Hoeg, the region's chief agriculture adviser, says he does not see why southern Greenland could be like this," Hoeg said, walking through Qanasiassat, a boat ride from Narsarsuaq, a tiny southern community notable mostly for having an international airport. "If it gets a little warmer, you could talk about a productive forest with enough wood for logs," Hoeg said.

Father north, Greenland's great ice sheet, a vast whie landscape covering 80 per cent of the island's land mass, is melting rapidly, alarmingly, with repercussions not only for the traditional way of life on an island of 56,000 people, but also for the rest of the world. The more the ice melts, the higher sea levels will eventually rise.

But here in the subarctic south -- a land of icy water, forbidding mountains, rocky hills, shallow soil, sudden winds and isolated communities slipped in, almost apologetically, along a network of glacier-studded fjords, the changes are more subtle and carry more promise.

"The limiting factor for human survival here is temperature, and there's a lot of benefits with a warmer climate," Hoeg said. "We are on the frontier of agriculture, and even a few degrees can make a difference."

Winter is coming later and leaving earlier. That means there is more time to leave sheep in the mountains, more time to grow crops, more time to work outdoors, more opportunity to travel by boat, since the fjords freeze later and less frequently.

Cod, which prefers warmer waters, have started appearing off the coast again. Ewes are having fatter lambs, and more of them every season. The growing season now lasts from mid-May through mid-September, about three weeks longer than a decade ago.

"Now spring is coming earlier, and you can have earlier lambings and longer grazing periods," said Eenoraq Frederiksen, 68, a sheep farmer whose farm, near Qassiarsuk, is accessible by a harrowing drive across a rudimentary road ploughed in the hillside.

"Young people now have a lot of possibilities for the future," she said.

Hans Gronborg, a Danish horticulturalist, said: "Greenlanders are hunters, and it takes time to change their way of livng and being.

"But I am confident that things can grow in south Greenland," he added.

In his book, The Little Green Handbook, Ron Nielson lists "seven groups of critical global trends and events... that have four common features:

1.  They are associated with a hastened deterioration of the environment, both physical and social.

2.  They show that, for the first time in human history, we are approaching and crossing global limited: the ecological limits of our planet.... and the limits of human-induced damage to the planet.

3.  They are happening in a relatively short time. They began about 200 years ago....

4.  They docus on an even shorter time: the second or third quarter of the 21st century.  They show that we are likely to experience dramatic changes, with the possibility of a global collapse of life-supporting systems.


So what are the seven groups of critical global trends and events listed in the book?

1.  The population explosion
2.  Diminishing land resources
3.  Diminishing water resources
4.  The destruction of the atmosphere
5.  The approaching energy crisis
6.  Social decline
7.  Conflicts and increasing killer power

For those of you who do like statistics and charts to back up a writer's points, this book is full of charts. For those who aren't fond of charts, etc., you will still get the bleak picture even without the exact details of the bleakness.

The best quotation in the book is one from U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower which talks about the effects of war and the costs of war have on society at large. As a result, it is one of the best quotations I have seen for striving for peace in the world:

"Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its labourers, the genious of its scientists, the hopes of its children. The cost of one modern heavy bomber is this: a modern brick school in more than 30 cities. It is two electric power plants, each serving a town of 60,000 population. It is two fine, fully equipped hopsitals. It is some 50 miles of concrete highway. We pay for a single fighter with a half million bushels of wheat. We pay for a single destroyer with new homes that could have housed more than 8000 people. This, I repeat, is the best way of life to be found on the road the world has been taking. This is not a way of life at all, in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatending war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron."

The last chapter of The Little Green Handbook by Ron Neilson is a dire reminder of the kinds of "progress" humanity has made over the last couple hundred years. 

Opening the chapter, Landmarks of Progress, is a quotation from Aldous Huxley, a British writer, 1894-1963.  Following that are the titles of the  landmarks of progress.   For more description on each landmark, you may wish to get the book from your local library or bookstore.


"Technological progress has merely provided us with more efficient means for going backwards." --Ron Neilson

1857: the limit of lavish global consumption is reached

1880: the onset of critical global trends

1920: the limit of moderately high consumption is reached

1930: the global availability of water declines to 'high'

1958: US crude-oil discoveries peak

1960: the global limit of an adequate diet is reached

1962: global crude oil discoveries peak

1968: global natural gas discoveries peak

1970: undeveloped fisheries disappear

1975: US crude oil production peaks

1976: global crude oil production per person peaks

1977: global fish production by person peaks

1977: the global availability of water declines to 'adequate'

1983: the global grain-harvested area peaks

1984: the global production of cereals peaks

1985: the limit of global ecological capacity is reached

1985: the gap between crude oil supply and demand in the United States widens

1985: North American crude oil produce levels off

1987: crude oil in the former Soviet Union peaks

1989: the world's fisheries collapse

1989: the global reserves-to-production ratio for crude oil peaks

1997: Australian crude oil production levels off

2002: global crude oil production levels off

2007: global urbanisation reaches halfway mark

2010: global crude oil production reaches its absolute maximum

2012: developing fisheries disappear

2015: OPEC's dominance in crude oil production begins

2018: arable land reaches its limit

2020: will superbugs rule?

2030: global production of natural gas peaks

2034: the global availability of water declines to 'low'

2045: weather-related losses cause global bankruptcy

You can become a part of the fight against global warming. Former Vice President Al Gore shares the five things you can buy now that will help solve the climate crisis -- and save you a few bucks! Plus, more of his easy going green tips!

Five things you can buy

by Al Gore, from Oprah.com

1. Compact fluorescent lightbulbs

These energy-efficient bulbs are produced by major corporations like GE. If every household in America switched five regular light bulbs for five fluorescent bulbs, it would be the equivalent of taking 1 million cars off the highways for a full year.

2. Outdoor solar lighting

These yard or patio lights cost less than $20, and they don't burn any electricity or produce any CO2.

3. Programmable thermostats

Though these thermostats cost from $50 to $100, they can actually cut your heating and cooling costs. Set the setting so it's a little bit cooler in the winter and warmer in the summer when you're not in the house. A difference of 2 degrees can reduce a home's CO2 emissions by up to 9 percent over the course of a year.

4. Air filters

Changing the air filters in your heating and cooling systems regularly can knock 2 percent off of your CO2 output each year.

5. Electric water heater blanket

Water heaters use a lot of energy and generate a lot of CO2. A blanket costs less than $18 and can cut your home's CO2 emissions by almost 4½ percent.

Keep green in mind!

Gore says that when you're shopping for major home appliances, look for the Energy Star label. "This is a signal that you're getting an environmentally efficient appliance that's going to save you money at the same time," he says.

During a simple trip to the grocery store, you make hundreds of decisions that can have real environmental impacts. With just a few easy changes, you can make a positive difference in the world.

Instead of regular aluminum foil or plastic wrap, buy recycled aluminum foil. It uses just 1/20th of the energy needed to produce regular foil.

Look for items without extensive packaging. Most food packaging material uses some petroleum-based plastic. There are several ways to cut down on the energy and waste this produces. Look for minimally or unpackaged items instead. Experiment with bringing your own packaging or buying in bulk. Purchase brands that use bio-based instead of petroleum-based plastic. Recycle or reuse packaging materials you end up having to buy.

Bring a cloth bag to the grocery store instead of using its plastic bags. An estimated 500 billion to 1 trillion plastic bags are consumed worldwide each year. That's 1 million bags used per minute.

And, according to the EPA, more than 380 billion of those are discarded in the United States. Less than 1 percent of those are actually recycled. Instead, these bags will clog landfills, create litter, choke streams and harm marine wildlife, like whales, seals and sea turtles.

Buy local and organic. Buying seasonal, locally produced food helps in a number of ways. Most food travels 1,500 miles from "farm to fork." But buying local food drastically reduces the energy spent on food shipping. Local goods also tend to use minimal packaging, are fresher and come in more varieties.

The best place to track down local food is at your local farmers' markets or through the Community Supported Agriculture Department. Farmers who grow produce organically use less fossil fuel and release fewer greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere. Organic farming is better for the land, for the farmers and for the consumers.

From the Winter 2007/08 issue of World vision's Childview, The Magazine for Child Sponsors, page 22, "Faith in Action" section, is an article by Father Raymond J. de Souza, a Catholic priest and National Post columnist about breaking the cycle of poverty and about progress being made in the worldwide rate of poverty.

Faith in Action
Catholic priest and National Postcolumnist Father Raymond J. deSouza examines how our generation can end extreme poverty

A TIME OF HOPE FOR THE POOREST

"The poor you will always have with you, but you will not always have me" (Matthew 26:11, NIV). Jesus Christ made this statement more than 2,000 years go, and plenty of poverty still exists in the world today. This reality, however, can sometimes be discouraging because it implies we may not able to end this cycle of poverty. Or so it seems, at least. But poverty is not an inevitable condition.

For the first time in history, the number of people worldwide living on less than a dollar a day is significantly decreasing. Since 1990, the number of people living in extreme poverty has decreased from 1.25 billion to 980 million in 2004. The World Bank attributes the worldwide decline in poverty rates to the average 3.9 per cent annual growth in gross domestic product across the developing world. Economic reforms, openness to markets and competition, focus on private initiative and market mechanisms fuelled this progress. This news gives us some reason for hope that wealth can be more evenly distributed among the poorest.

In the long view of history, until quite recently, the vast majority of all societies lived at subsistence levels, acquiring just enough food to survive. And the few who were considered wealthy appeared to become so only by unfairly taxing others and using slave labour -- one person's wealth being extracted from that of his or her poor neighbour.

The last few decades have challenged this notion that wealth can only be generated at the expense of others. Rapid advances in technology and productivity mean the average person in Canada today has access to food, shelter and transportation that was previously unavailable, even to the very rich. Does this mean that Jesus was wrong about the poor? No, since the poor clearly remain among us, even in the richest countries. But it does mean that for the first time we have both the ability and knowledge to lift large numbers of people out of extreme poverty.

Christian charity always seeks two goals -- to ameliorate suffering and to allow maximum space for the creativity and productivity of the poor to be developed. That's just another way of saying that the poor are children of God, made in his image. They are entitled to a dignified life and are also called to use the gifts the Lord has given them to help themselves.

But in ancient times, even the most generous of souls regarded the poor as somehow fixed in their station in life. Compassion and perhaps even pity could be offered, in addition to direct material aid, but society accepted as fact that individuals could not really change their lot in life.

Today, the avenues of Christian charity have been immensely broadened, as recent experience has shown how entire populations have rapidly advanced. Even though many developing countries are undertaking very ambitious and courageous reforms, these reforms may not be sufficient to completely break the cycle of poverty. These countries still need the expertise of the international community, rich countries and organizations like World Vision. Material aid and compassion will never disappear form the life of the Christian disciple, but now more can be done.

It is an exciting time to be engaged in such work. What has previously always been an attempt to simply help the poor is now a battle against poverty itself. Yes, the poor will always be with us, not as mere objects in need, but as gifts of creation, who, with our assistance, can realize their god-given potential.

Father Raymond J. de Souza is a Roman Catholic priest in Kingston, Ontario, where he serves as the Catholic champlaincy at Queen's University. Father de Souza is also a regular contribution to the National Post.

I have only started reading this book by Jane Goodall and Marc Bekoff, but I am enjoying it and I thought I would mention the Ten Trusts that are mentioned in the book. I'm sure everyone is familiar with Jane Goodall and her work with chimpanzees and conservation, you may not be familiar with the name of Marc Bekoff.

Marc Bekoff is a professor biology at the University of Colorado at Boulder, Colorado, an author of many books, former Guggenheim Felow, cofounder with Jane Goodall of the Ethologists for the Ethical Treatment of Animals: Citizens for Responsible Animal Behavior Studies.

There is a short quotation by Bill McKibben, the author of The End of Nature, about this book:

"With customary good sense and wisdom, The Ten Trusts attempts to defuse some of the polarizing controversies around people and animals, and remind us of the real tenderness we owe towards the rest of creation."  --Bill McKibben

Here is the list of ten different trusts which make up the framework for the book:

1.  The First Trust: Rejoice That We Are Part of the Animal Kingdom

2.  The Second Trust: Respect All Life

3.  The Third Trust: Open Our Minds, In Humility, to Animals and Learn From Them

4.  The Fourth Trust: Teach Our Children to Respect and Love Nature

5.  The Fifth Trust: Be Wise Stewards of Life on Earth

6.  The Sixth Trust: Value and Help Preserve the Sounds of Nature

7.  The Seventh Trust: Refrain From Harming Life in Order to Learn About It

8.  The Eighth Trust: Have the Courage of Our Convictions

9.  The Ninth Trust: Praise and Help Those Who Work for Animals and the Natural World

10. The Tenth Trust: Act Knowing We Are Not Alone and Live WIth Hope

There is also a Coda section:  "After All is Said and Done, Silence is Betrayal."


I would have to say I am primarily interested in human rights rather than animal rights. However, that is a matter of interest and best use of my time to support what I most passionately believe in.  But even that has had to change this year because of the consequences of climate change, which I have had to put ahead of any other issue.

When I think about climate change, it isn't  just the problems we have caused to the atmosphere.  It seems to be an entire lack of respect by humans (as propelled by corporations and governments) for everything and everyone on earth - toxic chemicals not only in the air, but in the water, soil, oceans, atmosphere, people, plants and animals.

I can see where the lack of respect for animal rights has also helped to cause tremendous amounts of pollution and disgusting agri-business practices. Boxing animals up in inhumane circumstances degrades current giant agri-business practices, the people who work there, and invest in those corporations, and degrades the environment (manure lagoons polluting groundwater, rivers, lakes) and the health of the people who live near and work in the agri-businesses, and the health of the animals (pumped full of antibiotics). It has degraded the food industry and much of our food, particularly as these practices continue into plants where animals are slaughter and packaged.

It all needs to be fixed.

Let me know what you think about the book or the trusts in the book, if you decide to read it.

Here is a very interesting article from the Saturday, September 29, 2007, Toronto Star, "Wheels Section," page W21:

BIODIESEL HELPS KICK THAT OIL HABIT
California-based company develops niche finding cars that adapt to the alternative fuel

Linda McAvoy
Special to the Star

These days, we shouldn't be so quick to judge.

Take a closer look at the SUV you're tsk-tasking and you might realize it isn't a gas-guzzler at all; rather, it's running on 100 per cent biodiesel.

Okay, so here in Canada that might still be the exception to the rule, but not in Culver City, Calif., where Colette Brooks can be spotted behind the wheel of a big, black Chevy Tahoe which, as her licence plate proclaims, is OFF OIL.

If you somehow miss the plate, you're sure to notice the back window cling, which reads: "Time To Kick Gas" and sports the logo for a company called Biobling.

Biobling is the car brokerage company Brooks founded three years ago with the aim to match environmentally conscious car shoppers and biodiesel-friendly cars.

It's based in California, one of five American states that ban the sale of new diesel-powered passenger vehicles -- Maine, Massachusetts, New York and Vermont being the others.

Biobling fills a niche by locating, for a fee, used diesel-powered vehicles that owners can then run on locally-sourced biodiesel with few, if any, modifications.

Clients can also opt to add a little "bling" to their purchase, perhaps in the form of faux fur seats, video screens and tinted windows, or even just a simple chrome BIODIESEL emblem.

"Biobling is fun and it's got a hip factor and I think that's really important, particularly when you're looking at altnerative technologies that can be dry and scientific and kind of unsexy," says Brooks.

Brook's enthusiasm for environmentally friendly transportation began years ago when she bought a Toyota Prius Hybrid. That purchase ultimately led Brooks, through her primary business -- a marketing and communication firm called Big Imagination Group, to arrange for celebrities to arrive at the 2003 Oscars in the chauffeur-driven Priuses.

Soon after came the discovery that purchasing a diesel-engine powered vehicle meant it could run on 100 per cent biodiesel and get off oil altogether.

"Then I found this 1979 Cadillac El Dorado Biarritz, which truly was blinged off of the assembly line. It had, and still does have, burgundy fur carpet and white leather interior. A stainless-steel roof. It is definitely pimped out, but again, off the assembly line. I didn't do anything to it, and that was a diesel. I saw that and said 'You know what, there's a business here.'"

Thus Biobling was born.

Garnering about 20 email inquiries a day, (www.biobling.com), Biobling has filled client requests for everything from a Volkswagen Passat to a Mercedes and to the rare late '90s diesel Tahoes and vintage Cadillacs.

The latter being more in line with Brook's own taste in cars. Though her personal car collection does harbour a gas-guzzling '66 Torononado and a '61 For Econoline, which she calls her "dirty little secrets," the rest are biodiesel-powered, including a 1968 220 D Mercedes, 1964 190D Mercedes, an '87 Mercedes 300 Turbo wagon and a 1984 Lincoln Continental gold-on-gold Mark VII Bill Blass edition.

A purist, she runs them all on B100.

That's 100 per cent soy oil, which as Brooks points out, makes the word "biodiesel" a bit of a misnomer.

"There's no petrol in it. It has nothing to do with diesel other than that's the engine that biofuels work in. It happens to be a really efficient engine. Now we're using a renewable clean fuel to power that engine.

"It's 100 per cent soy, or walnut oil, or rapeseed oil, or whatever the feedstock is, so it's 100 per cent renewable agricultural stock that reduces emissions off the tailpipe, CO2 emissions, by 78 per cent."

And while today Brooks can pull up to any of the three gas stations on the west side of Los Angeles and fill up with biodiesel ($3.25 U.S. gallon; 86 cents/L), that wasn't always the case.

After initially having biofuel delivered to her home, she became one of 15 investors in the Los Angeles Biodiesel Co-op, which started out in 2005 with one trailer, a 1,000-gallon tank and a pump.

Today, the co-op boasts 100 members with four filling facilities and is credited with being the catalyst for making biodiesel more accessible at bricks-and-motor stations.

And accessibility is, for Brooks, the key to public acceptance of biofuels and other ecologically friendly technology.

"If you can make it a little bit more accessible, and a little bit more fun, and a little more community-oriented, then it too becomes adopted into the mass culture."

Reflecting on the consumptive culture in the U.S. where "bigger is better and more is better without regard for our footprint that we're leaving on this earth," Brooks points to her big biodiesel-fuelled Tahoe.

"This car demonstrates that you can have your cake and eat it too. You can have your SUV but you know what? Get a diesel, get off oil, and drive it responsibility."

From the Saturday, September 22, 2007, Toronto Star, Ideas section, page ID7, an article about how contaminated we all are because of our environment. The article is about a Canadian study, but we all have "body burdens" of chemicals, no matter where we live in the world.

The Risk Society

TREATING TOXIC NATION
We are bathed in contaminants. They're in our food, water, the air we breathe. More and more people are responding by going green, practising what sociologists call precautionary consumption. But is it doing any good? And doesn't it let government off the hook?

Lindsay Borthwick
Special to the Star

Earlier this month, just as Ontario's body politic moved into election mode, the public was given a peek inside our leaders. Literally.

Environmental Defence, an advocacy group, revealed the "body burdens" of Premier Dalton McGuinty, John Tory and Howard Hampton. Our politicians, it turns out, are polluted with dozens of toxic chemicals found in the environment, including lead, mercury, pesticides, flame retardants and non-stick chemicals, known as PFCs. And they're not alone.

Every Ontarian, indeed, every Canadian, is exposed to harmful chemicals through the air we breathe, the food we eat and the water we drink. McGuinty, Tory and Hampton reacted with surprise and alarm to the results of their tests and they immediately promised to introduce tough measures to safeguard the environment and the Canadian public from these substances.

Were there more empty promises or had Environmental Defence finally delivered the jot that would move government to take responsibility for our toxic nation? After all, isn't it up to government to manage this risk for us?

Or is it?

According to several North American sociologists, legions of consumers are taking the responsibility on themselves. They're trying to manage the risk of exposure to environmental contaminants by buying green; in so doing, they're redefining environmentalism.

The problem is, it's not necessarily for the better.

At the University of Toronto, not far from Environmental Defence's office, Professor Josee Johnston and her graduate student Norah MacKendrick are exploring what it means to live in an age of consumer activism.

Johnston, who specializes in the sociology of food, including the organics movement, has witnessed the rise of hybrid citizen-consumers who both exert their politics and satisfy their pleasures through shopping. These shopping activists are voting with their wallets "to stop child labour, to support social justice, to protect their health and to save the environment," she says. "But the goals behind consumerism and the goals behind citizenship are actually quite distinct and often contradict each other."

Then there is MacKendrick, whose work is specifically concerned with the issue of the environment. Ours has become a "risk society," she argues, in which environmental risks, including climate change, nuclear accidents and oil spills, are all around us.

The accumulation of contaminants in the human body is another such ubiquitous environmental risk. These chemicals don't respect the division between urban and rural, rich and poor, and they don't honour national borders. They're a collective problem that requires a collective response.

But what happens, MacKendrick asks in her research, to a society in which people worry about invisible contaminants in their food, water and air, and feel that government isn't adequately protecting them? The answer is something she has termed "precautionary consumption." It describes a shift in the way we shop; nowadays, people are carefullly selecting products that may be better for their health and the environment, such as organic foods and biodegradable cleaners, and are avoiding products that may be harmful.

This trend is borne out in the Canadian marketplace where, in 2006, annual sales of certified organic products surpassed $1 billion, according to a recent study by the Organic Agriculture Centre of Canada. In Ontario alone, sales jumped 24 per cent over 2005 figures.

Why is the booming market for organic foods, a reflection of our concerted effort to avoid pesticides in our food, a cause for concern? Put simply, we're losing sight of what it means to be green. At a practical level, being green has become synonymous with buying green, an idea that Andrew Szaaz, chair of the Department of Sociology at the University of California Santa Cruz, explores in his forthcoming book Shopping Our Way to Safety.

In the face of the current environmental crisis, he says, Americans (like Canadians) have gone shopping -- making what were niche commodities in the 1980's, such as organic food, into mass market items readily available on the shelves of Wal-Mart.

"It struck me at some point that this was a strange, new, mutant form of environmentalism," he writes. "There is an awareness of hazard, a feeling of vulnerability, of being at risk. That feeling, however, does not lead to political action. . .it leads, instead, to individualized acts of self-protection, to just trying to keep those contaminants out of one's body."

In the book, which will be published this November, he also outlines two major conseuences of the urge to shop our way to safety. First, it won't work. Second, it leads to political inaction.

"We become anaesthetized," he says. "People believe they've solved the problem, therefore they're less likely to line up and advocate for more political responses."

Johnston and MacKendrick's work echoes these concerns. "(Consumer activism) may give people a sense of agency and control. . .but it cn also give people a false sense of what they can achieve," says Johnston. "Norah's work really illustrates that. There's no escape from these body burdens. Everybody has them and we can't buy our way out of this."

Environmental Defence, by choosing to test a handful of politicians, has clearly placed the onus on government to protect us. "You can make personal choices to avoid certain types of exposures," says Aaron Freeman, policy director at Environmental Defence. "But this is one area where government cannot be left off the hook."

The message that emerges seems clear: Go ahead and vote with your wallet but don't forget to go to the polls.

From the Summer 2007, Issue #7, of the bullfrog Buzz, the big voice on green power that's making a difference in the world we share information on a new sustainable clothing line by Cotton Ginny:

bullfrogpowered
Here are just a few of the many organizations that have made the switch to Bullfrog Power since our last newsletter. Bullfrog Power thanks all of its customers for their support.

Sustainable style

This spring, Cotton Ginny launched "OLOGY", a new sustainable clothing line. The OLOGY collection is part of Cotton's Ginny's commitment to offering affordable eco-friendly fashions. Bamboo-ology, Soy-ology and Corn-ology, the first three collections in the OLOGY line, are made from 100 per cent sustainable fibers. By combining sustainable fibers such as bamboo, soy and corn with certified organic cotton, Cotton Ginny wants to expand the sustainable apparel landscape while continuing to offer comfortable, quality clothing. Five Cotton Ginny locations are now bullfrogpowered: Calgary (Westhills Town Centre) and Edmonton (West Edmonton Mall) in Alberta; and Collingwood, Guelph (Stone Road Mall) and North York (Yorkdale Plaza) in Ontario.

http://www.cottonginny.ca/
http://www.cgology.ca/

Saving paper means saving forests which we need to slow climate change. The Ancient Forest Friendly website, http://www.ancientforestfriendly.com/ , has the following guide to reducing paper use (http://www.ancientforestfriendly.com/paper-efficiency/home).

A Practical Guide to Increasing Paper Efficiencies

In this section you'll find practical ways to make your paper use much more efficient. Paper efficiency means you are acting smart about your environmental and financial resources. We ask this of our signatory companies, but individuals can practice paper efficiency as well.

The three R's of waste reduction are Reduce, Reuse, Recycle. The first ‘R' is the most resource efficient of them all.

At Home and Work

• read newspapers online, read magazines from the library or buy digital magazine subscriptions,
• have your name removed from catalogue mail lists,
• post a ‘no unaddressed mail' notice on your post box and don't print your emails.

And here are more tips for around the office:

Photocopiers

• Set photocopy machines to double-sided by default. Your photocopy technician can perform this simple service.
• Introduce codes for use of photocopiers. This will provide everyone with insights to their consumption by tracking the paper consumption of various departments. This is particularly helpful and motivating when working towards increasing efficiencies. Add a little incentive to your paper efficiency drive - set up inter-departmental competitions or annual targets for each department based on the previous quarter/year's consumption.
• Adjust photocopy machine for recycled paper to avoid any potential of copier jamming. Your photocopy technician can perform this simple service.
• When purchasing new printers and photocopy equipment, ensure they can easily print double sided.

Mail

• Wherever possible shift to electronic bills and online application forms. For clients who require hardcopies, print double sided bills and application forms.
• Reduce the basis weight of the paper - it will save postage costs.
• Where possible, reuse envelopes for correspondence. Use address labels to cover original information.
• Use inter-office envelopes which can be re-used multiple times.

Computers and the Paperless Office! Use your computer to reduce paper consumption not increase it!

General Office Use

• Reduce the basis weight of the paper used in the office and for promotional use. E.g. switch from a 60lb sheet for general office use to a 50 lb sheet.
• Post memos on a central bulletin board.
• For editing processes, have several people edit the same document using different colour ink and track changes.
• Use single sided waste paper for printing drafts.
• Maximize formatting by reducing font size and increasing margins.
• Buy 100% post consumer recycled copy paper. Many brands are available and they work well in today's machines.

Company Documents and Reports

• Reduce size of printed pieces by working with your designer and printer to try creative formatting to maximize use of parent sheets for printing.
• Post reports electronically.
• Reduce the basis weight of paper used.

Faxes

• Use fax stick it forms rather than cover sheet.
• Use plain paper faxes
• Program your machine to eliminate printed confirmation sheets
• Format fax carefully so that excessive pages are eliminated.

 

From the Sunday, October 28, 2007, Toronto Star, page A12, an article about how making preserves is now about more than just keeping a taste of summer fruits and vegetables for the winter:

Getting Pickled

PRESERVES BECOME IDEOLOGY IN A JAR
Home canning isn't just about preserving produce. For many, it's a way to support farmers and resist the corporatization of food

Leslie Scrivener
Feature Writer

Mary Pratt's painting of jelly jars, luminous with a spark of October light, appeared on Canada Post stamps this year. Pratt, one of Canada's foremost painters, had been in her kitchen when the cluster of jars on the counter, sent by her sister Barbara, caught her eye.

"I'd taken them out of the box where I could look at them," she recalls, "then I went around doing my housework and the sun came at just the right moment and just the right way. It was too good to lose."

The painting is a simple one. "I thought not much of it, and then someone came over and made a great fuss," she says. "I thought it must have hit a nerve."

Like many Canadians, Pratt is a home canner -- surprisingly, it's not a dying art -- and, like many, she has given a lot of thought to the enterprise. It is more than simply putting up food from the harvest, or the back garden. Preserving is an ideology, a political act, a hands-on vote in support of local farmers and their produce. It is a way of withholding, even in small measures, from the vast corporatization of our food. And in its subtle and serene way, it is a link to the past.

Wayne Roberts, co-ordinator and sole employee of the Toronto Food Policy Council, says humans need to engage in preparing their own food. "People who said the purpose of food is to consume it made a mistake . . . The species would not survive if people were not engaged in the labour of making and preserving food.

"The whole concept of the ideal life in which we do no labour has been proven erroneous. We're not burning all of the calories we consume, and we are not a happier species. It's resulted in mass obesity and mass dissatisfaction and under-utilization of the hormones that flow when we are working.

"Why is it when you know someone well, you move into the kitchen, not the living room?" he continues.

"You involve them in doing some work. The reality of who we are as a species keeps bumping up against the commodity nature of food."

Are we hard-wired to preserve food? Probably not. But preserving food has long been a human habit, says Raymond Hames, professor of anthropology at the University of Nebraska -- Lincoln.

"There is no known genetic mechanism to store . . and besides, we are descendents of tropical primates who do not store. We not descended from nut-storing rodents."

"My mother had a window counter that faced west, so when the setting sun came through her jelly, it was just magic," says Pratt from her home in St. John's. "Light would go to the dining room, two rooms away. She'd put the jelly in a crystal dish and it would send light through the room, a wonderful rainbow of light, perfect, like something almost holy."

Pratt sees biblical associations with home-preserved food. "I know this may sound silly, but anything I'm serious about, I sometimes equate with the Bible. I never paid much attention in Sunday school, but I found reading Northrop Frye and being with people like my husband (Jim Rosen) who's a scholar, I refer things back biblically."

She's not alone in this view. Sushil Saini, who's researching sustainable gastronomy at the University of Victoria, sees food preparation as an art form with a spiritual basis.

"Food is the most intimate interface humans have with the natural world," she says. "This profound relationship requires interction more authentic than an anonymous purchase at the grocery store. People want relationships not mediated by commerce, but by creative, hands-on interaction. I believe that food satisfies a spiritual need in people, just as people get a satisfaction out of a ritual."

Saini says she's seen a mild renaissance in home canning, at least on Vancouver Island, where notices for canning workshops are posted in local coffee shops.

"Those who can are not old-fashioned. They are a strong contingent who wish to have a more authentic and intimate relationship with their food, their source of life."

No one needs to can food today, the way our forbears did. The markets and grocery stores have bushels of fresh vegetables. You don't have to wait until Easter for fresh asparagus; the important stuff is available all winter.

But as chef Jamie Kennedy says, this year-round availability just isn't right.

"We're re-examining the whole philosophy of sourcing food from wherever and whatever time of year, in favour of observing the gifts of the seasons,' says Kennedy, whose wine bar on Church St. has a wall of shining preserves made in his kitchens. He buys 50 or more bushels of vegetables and then cans them, all for use in the restaurant.

"You also have the experience of anticipation -- of asparagus, of fiddleheads, of wild leeks. Otherwise you have a dilution if asparagus is available all year long."

Still, why do both men and women spend hours over bubbling canning pots with the arcane tools of the craft: old jars, seals and rings, magnets on dowels. Are they spurred by cultural memory, family tradition or homemaking impulse?

"I expect the answer is one similar to why a well-fed cat plays with a mouse," says Frances Burton, retired professor of anthroplogy at the University of Toronto. "It is gratifying though not necessary."

We retain cultural traditions and attitudes because they are satisfying, she says. "You can't recall if it was the image of the Pillsbury Doughboy that defined what it meant to be a warm, fuzzy mother, or was it your own grandmother and memories of when you were in the ktichen when you were a two-year old . . . the feelings of warmth and security extend into food.

Burton also notes that home canning satisfies "internalized standards" for being a good, well-rounded homemaker.

Many canners cite creative expression, too. At home in Elora earlier this month, author and culinary activist, Anita Stewart had a sink full of tomatoes, brought over by a neighbour, that she will make into green tomato pickle. She puts up for most of the year, for political reasons -- to help keep local growers in business -- and personal ones: "It's part of who I am. When creating these things for the winter, it's another way of speaking."

Judi Kingry, marketing manager of canning-supplies company Bernardin Ltd. in Oakville, has been putting up preserves since her 4-H days in Kansas. "It's not a dying art in any sense among people who have gardens and people who are interested in what they eat," she says, adding that Bernardin's sales have held steady over the years.

Canning appeals to those who want to know the source of their food, control its sugar and salt content, avoid pesticides, and take advantage of farmers' markets, she says. "It becomes almost a community event. You get to know the farmer who grew the products, you meet other people, and it gives people a connection to food, which they do more now than even a decade ago."

The federal and provincial governments once envouraged canning, providing information on safe practices, says Toronto food historian Liz Driver. She reads from a 1947 British Columbia canning booklet that observed, "the 'squirrel' instinct to store up for the winter is strong and is to be encouraged in the Canadian housewife."

But now, says Driver, there are no unbiased sources to turn to. "We only have companies pushing their (canning) systems. There's no one acting on behalf of the consumer."

Interest in home preserves began plummeting in the 1950s, she notes. Women entered the workforce, and with the Depression and the war years behind them, families could afford prepared heat-and-eat meals, while home freezers provided an efficient, virtually labour-free means of storing food.

Tamara Sharp, a graduate student focusing on food and culture at Bowling Green State University in Ohil, belives the continued practice of canning is attributable to "topophilia," or "love of place.""

She makes strawberry and raspberry jam, she says, because of  "memories of washing, sorting and hulling the fruits with my grandmother and mother." She still uses her grandmother's bowl to crush the berries.

It brings back "the feeling of belonging to the family group, the sense of history and confidence in the future as we carried out these tasks year after year, the price we took in our work, and especially the camaraderie.

"Of course," she adds, "the jams really do taste exctly like they did when I was a child."

From Greenest City, a non-profit, community-based environmental organization dedicated to building healthy liveable urban environments. Their website is: www.greenestcity.org.


25 CHEAP AND EASY WAYS TO SAVE ENERGY

Windows & Shading
Windows account for almost 25% of a building's energy loss. These convenient options let you save on energy costs without spending a bundle on renovations.

1.  A insulating plastic sheet secured over the interior side of the window can improve its efficiency. If properly installed, the plastic is hardly noticeable. Found at most hardware stores.

2.  Shades, drapes and interior shutters help reduce heat loss at night and can block sunlight during the day. Don't underestimate the impact closing your drapes or shades can have on cutting air-conditining and heating bills.

3.  Double-paned glass in new doors and windows may cost more intially, but can reduce heating costs by 34% in cold climates and save you 38% on summer cooling.

4.  Trees purify the air in addition to providing shade in summer and shelter from cold winter winds. Visit your local garden centre fo find out which trees would suit your site.

Draft Proofing
All those tiny gaps and cracks in an older building can add up to a one-foot square hole. You can save up to 40% on heating and cooling by filling them in - it's easy to do and very inexpensive.

5.  Caulking is a great way to seal small cracks around windows and wherever you find gaps at the floor or ceiling doors. Cauling is available in a variety of colours and materials. Latex caulking is paintable, blending with your decor.

6.  Caulk around plumbing, the holes around pipes often let in drafts. Use silicone caulking for areas with high moisture.

7.  Weather-strip around doors; complete weather-stripping kits are easily available at hardware stores. Commercial (metal) doors may require speciality weatherstripping.

8.  Fill oddly shaped gaps with fiberglass insulation, or spray foam, which can be cut and painted after it hardens.

9.  Seal off unused chimneys to prevent heat loss by blocking the chimney flue with styrofoam and sealing around the edges with spray foam.

10. Use removable foam pads or plastic plugs to fill electrical outlets, another source of drafts.

Lighting & Appliances
One of the easier ways to save energy is to turn off lights and appliances when you're not using them. These products make it easy.

11. Sensors turn lights on when motion is sensed, making them great for backyards, storerooms, basements and entrances, reducing lighting consumption up to 30%. Businesses find sensor lights most helpful in storage and loading areas when you might not have a hand free to turn on the lights.

12. Timers save money both at home and in commercial buildings by automatically switching off lights at specified times.

13. Manually turning off lights when not needed can help to reduce waste heat and save you lots of energy.

14. Keep office equipment and large household appliances, such as computers, photocopiers, faxes, printers, dishwashers, and washing machines in standby or in energy saving modes if kept on, and turn equipment completely off when not in use.

15. Compact Fluorescent Lights
Incandescent lamps are the most common kind of light bulb, and the most inefficient. They're short-lived (1,000 hours) and produce 95% waste heat. Compact fluorescent lamps (CFLs) are an ideal alternative, because they:

* last 10 times longer than incandescents.
* have high light output combined with low heat out put, saving 75% on energy costs.
* fit regular sockets, come in a variety of colours, and work with dimmer switches.

Heating and Cooling
Heating and cooling homes and businesses is expensive which means you can save a lot by making simple changes to the way you heat.

16. Change your thermostat settings to save energy the easy way. When heating a set point reduction of 1 degree Celsius can give you energy savings of 1-3%. Make the change gradually so no one's uncomfortable.

17. Programmable thermostats are easy to install and can reduce your heating and cooling bills up to 10% a year. Programmable thermostats are easily available at hardware stores and cost under $100 dollars.

18. Reversible ceiling fans push down hot air in winter and ventilate in summer by pulling hot air up. A ceiling fan can lower the temperature by about 2 degrees Celsius. They're especially well-suited to rooms with high ceilings.

19. Regularly changing filters (about once every one to two months) in your furnace can improve the efficiency of your furnace by up to 50% and it is very easy to do.

Hot Water
Heating water is costly, so cut utility bills by following these tips:

20. Lower the thermostat on your hot water tank. 49 degrees Celsius should be more than adequate. Reducing the temperature by just 11 degrees Celsius can cut your water heating costs by 10%. If your thermostat is hard to locate, have the temperature lowered by a service technician. (Businesses that sterilize their water will need to keep temperatures higher, however.)

21. Tank insulation is a low-cost way to save. You can buy affordable, easy-to-install insulating jackets for hot water heaters at most hardware stores. Be sure to ask your service technician whether your tank can be safely insulated.

22. Insulating water pipes can save a tremendous amount of energy and reduce condensation and moisture in your basement. Install pre-slit pipe insulation on the hot and cold water pipes from your tank for the first 1.5 metres, taping the seams to prevent slippage and condensation.

23. Regular maintenance of your hot water tank is an easy and economical way to save energy, improving the efficiency of your tank by up to 70%. Ask your service technician about sediment build-up in hot water tank, particularly in areas with hard water.

Water
Most people use 200 to 780 litres of water every day. Reducing water use in your home not only saves you oney, but also saves energy, because both pumping and heating water use up electricity.

24. Toilet dams, available at hardware stores or through your water utility, reduce the water lost per flush by up to 25%. Simply place it in the toilet tank where it won't interfere with the flushing mechanism.

25. Low-flow showerheads and aerators - small caps that fit over faucets - reduce water use by up to 50% but increase the pressure, so you won't even notice you're using less water.

There are a number of green flooring options these days from cork and bamboo to recycled rubber flooring, salvaged wood and concrete. From the Dreamhomes & Condominiums section of Metro, Thursday, November 8, 2007, here is more information:

FLOORING GETS GREEN WITH CORK
Cork, bamboo part of new home trend

By J. Lynn Fraser
Metro Dreamhomes and Condominiums

Environmentally sensitive and energy efficient flooring can add beauty to your home and save you money. Going green doesn't mean you have to give up style or functionality. Think of cork as an example. Although we may think of cork as an example. Although we may think of cork as a new "green" product, it has actually been in use since the end of the 19th century. Cork farming is strictly controlled so that cork can only be harvested from mature trees. Cork is also a renewable resource.

Cork is known for its sound insulation properties. It will decrease noise levels in the room it is placed in. It will also retain heat. Visually, cork is a warm material that comes in a variety of colours and lovely patterns. What should be remembered with cork is that it could [sic, should] be allowed to "rest" in the room it will be installed in for about 72 hours before it is laid odnw. As well, it should have a good quality underpadding as that is where is durability will come from. Additionally, it will need to be sealed.

Cork works best in ground or upper-level floors. It does not do well in basements where it may be damp. As in any floor covering, you should look for a warranty. Cork floors can last as long as 25 years.

Bamboo is another renewable natural resource. Like cork, it comes from strictly controlled farms and the material is made from the bamboo stalks that are shredded. This flooring is shaped into laminate planks, as well as tongue and groove planks just like wood flooring. It is very durable and easy to install. Another benefit is it has low levels of VOC or volatile organic compounds; in other words, the gases released by new building materials. Like cork, bamboo has to "rest" in the room it is to be installed in for 72 hours.

The room bamboo is installed in should have a temperature of between 16 and 21degrees Celsius, and the room's temperature should not vary by more than 15 degrees. The humidity of the room should remain between 40 to 60 per cent.

Recycled rubber flooring is another option for the home. This versatile product works well in basements, laundry roooms, workshops, garages, mudrooms and breezeways. This flooring can look quite minimalist and stylish, as well as easy to look after. You would never know by looking at a recycled rubber floor that it is made from recycled tires.

Salvaged wood flooring is another decorating option. taken from old barns, houses, factories and churches, salvaged wood has wood planks in widths that are hard to find in regular flooring stores. This wood tends to come from old growth forests so the wood is denser, the planks thicker and you can find wood types that are not available anymore.

Salvaged wood does not mean cheap, however. Because this wood had a previous life, nails may have to be removed from it along with paint. This adds to the cost. However, using reclaimed wood keeps it out of the local dump and it also means you get a wood floor with instant character.

Concrete is a chamelon. It can be styled and coloured to look like stucco, tiling or stone. It is very easy to clean and wears well. For the energy-conscious homeowner, it brings an added benefit as it absorbs heat during the day and radiates it back at night.

Flooring today can be good for the environment, as well as for your home.

Consider going green and gorgeous.

For more information: visit www.Sustainabuilding.com, go to Links section, and then go to Green Building Materials.

Iraq Body Count, http://www.iraqbodycount.org/database/, lists documented civilian deaths from violence in the range of 76,701 to 83,571.

The United Nations refugee agency, http://www.unhcr.org/iraq.html, says the violence in Iraq forces 60,000 people a month to leave their homes and that approximately 2.2 million Iraqis are displaced from their homes and still in Iraq and another 2.2 million have fled to Syria, Jordan, Egypt. "In 2006 Iraqis had become the leading nationality seeking asylum in Europe."

Icasulties.org, http://icasualties.org/oif/US_chart.aspx, shows that 3,863 American soldiers have died in Iraq since the start of the war and 28,451 have been wounded.

Billions are being spent by the U.S. to accomplish the above, instead of being used to provide health care for children, providing more teachers, universal health care, doing something for the environment and climate change. Deficit getting bigger and bigger. U.S. dollar has become devalued against many world currencies. Are Americans safer because of the war? No, probably less so than ever.

You would think, with the harm that has been done in Iraq that the U.S. would not be trying to squeeze another war in(Iran) before the election. The majority of Americans were lied to by the Bush administration about the evidence of weapons of mass destruction, which convince Americans and Congress to go to war. There are many books which deal with the topic of this deceit, one of which is: The Best War Ever: Lies, Damned Lies and the Mess in Iraq by Sheldon Rampton and John Stauber (http://www.amazon.com/Best-War-Ever-Lies-Damned/dp/1585425095).

In the Confidence in U.S. Foreign Policy Index: Fall 2007, http://www.publicagenda.org/foreignpolicy/pdfs/foreign_policy_index_fall07.pdf, although an increased number of Americans want to threaten military action against Iran (9%) or take military action against Iran (10%), 35% of Americans still want to use diplomacy, 30% to use economic sanctions, and 13% think the U.S. need not take any action with respect to Iran.

From the same index, 48% think the U.S. should withdraw from Iraq in the next year, 19% think the withdrawal should be immediate. 51% say there's not much the U.S. can do to create a democratic Iraq or to control the violence (49%) and nearly 47% consider Iraq a civil war. Six in 10 Americans believe the safety from terrorism is not dependant upon success in Iraq, and 52% say they don't think the government has told them the truth about the war in Iraq.

From the March 3rd, 2007, The Economist, page 67:

ECO-WARRIERS AT THE GATE

Austin, London and New York
Does the record-breaking purchase of TXU signal a new strategy for private equity?

Another week, another record-breaking private-equity deal. But the $45 billion purchase of TXU, a Texan energy utility, is fascinating not just because of the high price agreed by a gang of private-equity firms let by Kohlberg Kravis Roberts (KKR) and Texas Pacific Group. The preparation of the deal was as much about politics as the number-crunching and financial alchemy that are private equity's stock in trade. In essence, the buyers are betting that the increasingly sensitive question of how to produce energy in an environmentally acceptable way is better handled by a privately owned firm than by one exposed to the public markets.

In recent months TXU has become the bogeyman of green activists, thanks to its plans to build 11 old-tech, "dirty coal" power plants in Texas - and possibly more in several other states. Such plants belch carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, contributing to global warming, and produce other noxious substances. Protesters demonstrated last month outside the capital building in Austin. The mayor of Dallas has led a coalition of Texas cities opposed to the new coal plants. And the governor of Texas, Rick Perry, was roundly criticised for trying to speed through the construction of TXU's coal plants, before being blocked by a state judge.

The new private-equity owners of TXU say they will adopt a radically different approach. Capitalism's legendary "Barbarians at the Gate", made infamous by KKR's acquisition of RJR Nabisco in 1989, have become a bunch of tree-huggers. They will cut the number of new coal plants to three and abandon thoughts of similar plants elsewhere. They will invest heavily in new clean-energy technologies. And they promose to put environmental stewartship at the heart of TXU's culture, under the guidance of William Reilly, a former chairman of WWF, a green lobby group. That comes naturally, you understand, to a board member of WWF like David Bonderman, co-founder of Texas Pacific.

Greenmail
Environmental Defence, another lobby group, which had been suing TXU, greeted the new strategy as a "watershed moment in America's fight against global warming." Although campaigns against the three remaining plants will continue, many of TXU's critics have concurred. Such is the reward for a huge amount of behind-the-scenes work led by Mr. Reilly, who is admired by green activists for his efforts to improve America's Clean Air act while serving in the administration of George Bush senior.

Texan politicians were also lobbied by Don Evans, a former commerce secretary, and James Baker, a former secretary of state, both of whom will serve on TXU's new Board. Mr. Baker will be chairman, which should take the heat off TXU's chief executive, John Wilder, who will remain in his post. All this is faintly humiliating for Mr. Wilder, who must renounce a strategy he vigorously advocated (though he will be well paid for it.) The new owners want him working for them, since he is an "excellent operations guy".

The Texas state legislature is threatening to block the deal, even though that is strictly beyond its power. Locals gripe that since the state deregulated its electricity market five years ago, rates have risen fast. The buyers have already promised a 10% rate cut for some customers, at a cost of $300m, but some lawmakers want more.

The new buyers argue that the politicial threats to energy firms are hard for a public company to handle. "The company before was focused on one constituency, public shareholders. That meant it had to concentrate on short-term growth," says Michael MacDougall, a partner at Texas Pacific. "This deal adds two more constituents, the consumers of the state of Texas and environmentalists. By balancing these three constituencies, we will get the best long-term result for the firm."

As well as the cancellations and the rate cut, TXU will increase spending on energy conservation. It will build a pilot "clean coal" plant on one of the cancelled dirty coal sites. It will invest more in alternative energy - Texas is already America's leader in wind power - and, controversially, keep an open mind about more nuclear power.

In spite of all that, cynics question how virtuous the new owners really are. In recent years KKR and Texas Pacific each failed in separate bids for energy utilities. Their sudden greenery may have been devised to see off the sort of opposition that wrecked those deals. And cancelling the planned plants might benefit TXU, by leaving Texas short of power and so allowing the firm to raise prices. The private-equity buyers insist that the three plants being built, plus conservation, will give TXU and its stakeholders long enough to come up with a plan but the state's population is expected to double by 2060 and Texans need plenty of electricity to run their air-conditioners in the blazing summer heat.

Whatever the motive, cutting back on new coal plants was a wise business decision. Doubters also note that the cost of building coal-fired plants has risen in recent years. Last year Duke Energy, another big utility with green pretensions, raised the projected cost of two coal-fired plants from $2 billion to $3 billion.

Lastly, new regulations could change the economics of coal by putting a price on carbon emissions. "It makes sense to assume we will have carbon regulation within three to five years," says Mr. Reilly. On February 26th five western states agreed to set up a schme to cap emissions; nine north-eastern states are already implementing one and Congress is contemplating a national cap. Even the Edison Electric Institute, an industry lobby, says it would not oppose mandatory limits on emissions under the right circumstances.

Wood Mackenzie, a research firm, forecasts that most of America, including Texas, will need more generating capacity in the next few years. But so long as the regulatory outlook remains highly uncertain, the safest option for many utilities, including TXU, may be to build fewer plants - a strategy that would at least bring the consolation of higher energy prices.

By betting that they can profit from social and political change, TXU's private-equity buyers seem to be following a road much travelled by their peers in venture capital, says Josh Lerner of Harvard Business School. This strategy has been "a long time coming," he says. But he notes that it is more dangerous than private equity's traditional approach. Playing politics may prove a risky business even for private equity's masters of the universe.

These tips for greening schools is from the World Vision Canada's site: http://www.worldvision.ca/ContentArchives/content-stories/Pages/5-Steps-to-Go-Green-at-School.aspx .

Five Steps to Go Green At Work

If you've got kids in school, you have an ideal place to combat climate change and the harsh effects it has on the developing world.

According to Statistics Canada, nearly 5.3 million children spend a good chunk of each weekday in public schools across Canada. Imagine the positive environmental impact if students and staff decided to go as green as possible in their schools.

Climate change has a disastrous effect on poor families around the world. For example, children and their parents in Africa who can least afford to cope with natural disasters are facing increased flooding and droughts. And scientists predict that this will only worsen unless steps are taken to stop global warming.

Fortunately, many Canadian schools are embracing the challenge to go green, knowing that the future of children here and around the world depends on it. The British Columbia Ministry of Education, for example, now offers guidelines and resources to help schools become eco-friendly.

Here are some simple ways to go green at your school. (These suggestions can also be used in community centres, arenas or any public gathering place.)

1. Start or join a committee comprised of students, parents and teachers. Begin by contacting your school board or checking its website for information. Think of ways you can motivate the entire student body to join in. Kids embrace causes-especially ones where they can see their immediate impact.
    
2. Contact a community service club that has conservation as its goal. Ontario, for example, has the Ontario Environmental Network that lists 500 environmental organizations across the province. When starting a movement at your school, you can benefit a great deal from an established organization's know-how.
    
3. Try to go "carbon neutral." This simply involves estimating the green-house-gas emissions the school is responsible for (check out DavidSuzuki.org for online carbon calculators) and finding ways to compensate through projects like wind farms or reforestation projects. Organizing fundraisers will help you invest in these green projects.
    
4. Ban idling. Walk through any school parking lot and you will likely find an idling vehicle. According to Friends of the Earth, Canadians idle away $1.3 million in greenhouse-gas-producing fuel each year. Create a policy that urges parents, school-bus drivers and anyone else who visits your school to turn their vehicles off while waiting.
    
5. Do what you already know. Many steps that energy-efficient families use in their homes can translate into a school setting. Something as simple as switching off computer monitors when they are not in use can have a significant impact. The average desktop computer is estimated to consume 420 kilowatts of power each year. When you are talking about more than 1 million computers being used in Canadian schools, the energy savings add up.

From the StopGlobalWarming.org website,  http://www.stopglobalwarming.org/sgw_read.asp?id=6385211172007 , here is a brief summary of the "Synthesis Report" from the International Panel on Climate Change's  Climate Change 2007 report. 

The three other sections of the report are available online to read at the IPCC website, http://www.ipcc.ch/ , or if you are a scientist or independently wealthy from Amazon.com, etc.; (1) The Physical Science Basis;  (2) Impacts, Adaptation & Vulnerability; (3) Mitigation of Climate Change. I imagine copies will also find their way into libraries around the world, as they are available in many languages.

Key Findings of United Nations' Scientific Report

by: Associated Press    17 November 2007

The following are some key findings in a report issued Saturday by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change:

• Global warming is "unequivocal." Temperatures have risen 1.3 degrees Fahrenheit in the last 100 years. Eleven of the last 12 years are among the warmest since 1850. Sea levels have gone up by an average seven-hundredths of an inch per year since 1961.
  
  
  
• About 20 percent to 30 percent of all plant and animal species face the risk of extinction if temperatures increase by 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit. If the thermometer rises by 6.3 degrees Fahrenheit, between 40 to 70 percent of species could disappear.

• Human activity is largely responsible for warming. Global emissions of greenhouse gases grew 70 percent from 1970 to 2004. The concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is far higher than the natural range over the last 650,000 years.

• Climate change will affect poor countries most, but will be felt everywhere. By 2020, 75 million to 250 million people in Africa will suffer water shortages, residents of Asia's large cities will be at great risk of river and coastal flooding, Europeans can expect extensive species loss, and North Americans will experience longer and hotter heat waves and greater competition for water.

• Extreme weather conditions will be more common. Tropical storms will be more frequent and intense. Heat waves and heavy rains will affect some areas, raising the risk of wildfires and the spread of diseases. Elsewhere, drought will degrade cropland and spoil the quality of water sources. Rising sea levels will increase flooding and salination of fresh water and threaten coastal cities.

• Even if greenhouse gases are stabilized, the Earth will keep warming and sea levels rising. More pollution could bring "abrupt and irreversible" changes, such as the loss of ice sheets in the poles, and a corresponding rise in sea levels by several yards.

_A wide array of tools exist, or will soon be available, to adapt to climate change and reduce its potential effects. One is to put a price on carbon emissions.

• By 2050, stabilizing emissions would slow the average annual global economic growth by less than 0.12 percent. The longer action is delayed, the more it will cost.

Here is an article from the Daily Green, November 9, 2007, about a study done finding synthetic chemicals in our bodies (http://www.thedailygreen.com/environmental-news/latest/body-burden-47110904).

Although this was a U.S. study, similar Canadian studies have shown that we are also contaminated.  Until the U.S. and Canadian governments (and others who haven't acted already) stop harmful synthetic products showing up in our personal care products, food "products", and other manufactured products, we are going to have to look out for ourselves  as consumers and also lobby government for tougher regulations.


STUDIES FIND CHEMICALS IN HUMAN BODY
Chemicals have been linked to hormonal disruption

by Dan Shapley

bisphenol-A, PBDEs and phthalates -- Oh my!

They're chemicals, potentially toxic or unhealthy, and they are in you, and me, and every one of us -- or so it seems, based on new studies written about in today's Newsday.

PBDEs are polybrominated diphenyl ethers, used as flame retardants. Bisphenol-A and phthalates are ingredients in plastics, among other products.

Studies found the compounds in the blood and urine of people nationwide. What that means for our health is an open question, but animal studies have turned up some worrying information about these polysyllabic chemicals, primarily that even at low levels they may tongue-tie the body's instant messenger, the hormonal system.

[Here is the article referred to from the Friday, November 9, 2007, Newsday (New York), News section, page A36. If you want a Canadian version of the study, see http://www.toxiccanada.ca/.]


CHEMICALS TRACED IN BODY
Study finds evidence of compounds in blood, urine that can interfere with the function of natural hormones

BY DELTHIA RICKS. delthia.ricks@newsday.com

Compounds used in a vast array of everyday products that range from plastic microwaveable containers, toys and medical devices were found in the blood and urine of participants in a nationwide monitoring program sponsored by a coalition of environmental health groups. Even though there were only 35 volunteers, and the research did not rise to the level usually required of scientists who report findings in peer-reviewed journals, results were strikingly similar to those in a much larger, ongoing study overseen by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Results from the project were released in Albany, as well as in several other states where groups sponsored the study. Participants, who ranged from 12 years old to people in their 50s, volunteered from around the country. All were found to have evidence of the substances in their bodies. The upshot of the analysis was to find whether compounds known as bisphenol-A, polybrominated diphenyl ethers - PBDEs - and phthalates (pronounced: THA-lates) are permanently in the tissues and blood of children, teens and adults. Volunteer John Sferazo of Huntington Station said chemicals from each of the categories was found in tests he submitted to the project. He believes information from the biomonitoring project can help consumers choose household products wisely. "People should learn from other people's problems," said Sferazo, who founded Unsung Heroes Helping Heroes, an organization that aids workers who volunteered at Ground Zero after the World Trade Center attacks. "They should be astute and take care of their health now, based on the personal information I am willing to give out on what my body carries," said Sferazo, who worked at the site after the collapse. Bisphenol-A has been used in plastic baby bottles, food containers and other household items and has been known to leach into foods when the containers are heated. When word spread earlier this year that bisphenol-A was leaching from infants' bottles, parents nationwide abandoned the bottles and turned to glass. Phthalates are have been used in cosmetics but are also the key chemical softener in polyvinyl chloride, which makes up a range of products from garden hoses and plastic shower curtains to plastics used in the medical industry. PBDEs are flame retardants, used in products such as televisions and sofas. Together, the compounds are known as endocrine disrupters because they can act as estrogens in the body and block the function of natural hormones. Sheldon Krimsky, a science policy expert at Tufts University in Boston, said studies have demonstrated that endocrine disrupters cause sex changes in fish and amphibians. He added, however, that a growing body of evidence suggests human harm. "Analyses like the one reported today are body-burden studies," Krimsky said of the biomonitoring project. "This is a genre of studies that give us information about the accumulation of chemicals in our bodies and therefore gives us some idea about exposure. "There's no question that people are being exposed," he said, adding that we now have to find out what it means. An estimated 6 billion pounds of bisphenol-A are produced annually in the United States, according to data from the CDC, which reported last month in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives, that 92.2 percent of Americans carry traces of the compound in their tissues. CDC scientists found that the compound is excreted in urine. Agency spokeswoman Dagny Olivares, said the CDC could not comment on the environmental report released yesterday. She added that the CDC's biomonitoring program is not looking for adverse health effects but is examining people nationwide in an attempt to determine the prevalence of bisphenol-A, as well as a host of other chemicals. "Our baseline numbers will allow other researchers to explore what they mean," Olivares said yesterday. Biomonitoring at CDC began in the 1970s. In laboratory studies, bisphenol-A has been shown to alter human egg development, and phthalates caused so-called phthalate syndrome in male lab rodents, characterized by lowered testosterone levels and a shortened distance between the anus and scrotum. The animals also had reduced sperm counts. PBDEs also are associated with underdeveloped male reproductive organs.

From a Tuesday, November 13, 2007, Toronto Star, page L2, Living section, an article about a "miracle" food that saves children who are starving:

Feeding the World
MIRACLE FOOD AIDS STARVING CHILDREN

Barbara Turnbull
Living Reporter

A peanut-based paste making its way across developing countries is rescuing malnourished children from the brink of death.

Dubbed Plumpy'nut by its French inventor, Andre Briend, the paste, which is loaded with calories and vitamins, is saving lives in famine- and drought-ravaged countries including Ethiopia, Niger, Malawi and Sudan.

"Recovery rates in some countries for severely undernourished children have been as high as 90 per cent to 95 per cent," says Robyn Chomyshyn, UNICEF Canada's acting director international programs. "It's really exciting."

Developed in 1999 in France, production has now expanded to four factories in Africa. The latest and largest, which opened in Ethiopia last February, will be capable of producing 12 tonnes of the paste per day when fully ramped up.

The high-protein, high-energy meal comes in 92g packages, and has many advantages  over traditional methods of dealing with severe malnourishment. The paste needs no preparation, refrigeration or even supervision, so it can be administered at home, rather than at a feeding centre. "That puts the power back in the hands of the parents and it frees up health facilities," says Chomyshyn.

Children consume three to four packages a day and it reverses malnutrition in one month.

"In Kenya we've used ... a corn-soya blend which is also very nutritional, but it doesn't have quite the same benefits as Plumpy'nut," says Collen Malone, program manager for child protection in emergencies with Save the Children Canada. "It's used in situations in which there is severe malnourishment and where that extra boost is necessary."

With a shelf life of one to two years, the paste is also for children taking HIV medication, helping make the medicine more effective by absorbing the nutrients in the food, Chomyshyn notes.

UNICEF offers Plumpy'nut as a stocking stuffer in the Gift of Magic catalogue, where a donation of $13 purchases 27 packages. Last year the organization distributed $9 million of the paste, Chomyshyn sayas.

Malnourishment is responsible for more than half of all child deaths in Ethiopia.

From the Saturday, October 20, 2007, Toronto Star, Ideas: Faith and Ethics section, page ID6, is this article containing the argument against torture from the viewpoint of organized religion. The quotation which follows the title and name of the person who wrote the article is an inspiration call to action for each one of us. As the National Religious Campaign Against Torture is mentioned in the article, here is their web address, for further information or to sign the Statement of Conscience (against torture): http://www.nrcat.org/ .

Terror
A FAITH BASED CASE AGAINST TORTURE

Stephen Scharper

"I swore never to be silent whenever and wherever human beings endure suffering and humiliation."
Elie Wiesel, Holocaust susrvivor and Nobel Laureate

It is both the courage and conviction behind Elie Wiesel's words that have helped inspire U.S. faith coalitions to confront their own government's thinly veiled embrace of torture.

According to one such group, the National Religious Coalition [sic, should be Campaign] Against Torture (NRCAT), based in Washington, DC, torture has become a regular part of America's war on terrorism - an abomination, they assert, that can no longer be tacitly ignored. These groups are not alone in their assessment.

New York Times columnist Frank Rich, for example, in an article last Sunday noted that newly uncovered documents indicate "yet another round of secret Department of Justice memos countenancing torture."

Speaking of the U.S., Rich concluded that "by any legal standards except those rubber-stamped by (former U.S. attorney general) Roberto Gonzales, we are practising torture, and we have known we are doing so ever since photographic proof emerged from Abu Ghraib more than three years ago."

Among the interrogation practices sanctioned by the White House are "waterboarding," or simulated drowning, mock executions, and the denial of pain medication. Then there are the unofficial techniques.

As Newsweek has reported, for example, acts of sexual degradation on one Al Qaeda internee at Guantanamo Bay "provided insights" into the Sept. 11 attacks on America, according to U.S. Southern Command's Gen. Bantz Craddock.

The "few bad apples" excuse of the Bush administration has, it seems, run out of steam.

Canadians have been painfully aware of the secret U.S. offshore torture sites involving "extraordinary renditions" of suspected terrorists since 2002, when Maher Arar was whisked away to Syria by U.S. authorities and tortured before finally being released the following year.

For faith groups such as NRCAT, torture is not only illegal but deeply immoral, a profound violation of the sanctity of human life. To help galvanize resistance, NRCAT last year introduced a statement of conscience entitled, Torture is a Moral Issue, which has been signed by 18,000 people.

The statement says that "torture violates the basic dignity of the human person that all religions, in their highest ideals, hold dear. It degrades everyone involved - policy-makers, perpetrators and victims. It contradicts our nation's most cherished ideals. Any policies that permit torture and inhumane treatment are shocking and morally intolerable. Nothing less is at stake in the torture abuse crisis than the soul of our nation. What does it signify if torture is condemned in word but allowed in deed? Let America abolish torture now - without exceptions."

Another U.S. religious group, No2Torture (http://www.no2torture.org/), is also striving to raise awareness of torture among religious congregations.

According to No2Torture member Rick Ufford-Chase, "the question of slipping standards on the use of torture is one of the most critical moral issues facing our country..." Ironically, an administration that so systematically curried favour with fundamentalist Christian groups in order to get elected is now finding some of its most vocal and organized opponents among Christian groups who find its policies increasingly ghastly - and ungodly.

Stephen Scharper is with the University of Toronto's anthropology department.
Stephen.scharper@utoronto.ca

Although the Elie Wiesel quotation appeared in my last post, I thought the two quotations together are a reminder (whether you are religious or not) of the necessity and rightness of doing the right thing and speaking out against injustice of any kind.

Cowardice asks the question - is it safe?
Expediency asks the question - is it politic?
Vanity asks the question - is it popular?
But conscience asks the question - is it right?
And there comes a time when one must take a position
that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular
but one must take it because it is right.

--- Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.


I swore never to be silent whenever and wherever human beings endure suffering and humiliation.

-- Elie Wiesel, Holocaust survivor and Nobel Laureate

From the Monday, October 8, 2007, Business section of the Toronto Star, page B-B4, an article on how the environment and climate change was not discussed during the Ontario provincial election early in October:

CLEAN BREAK
Climate went AWOL during this election

Tyler Hamilton
Business Reporter

If only the provincial election could get Bullfrog powered.

Last Thursday, the green electricity retailer celebrated its second anniversary at The Roundhouse, the headquarters of Steam Whistle Brewing. It was a strangely warm and humid October evening, reminding the hundreds of energy do-gooders in attendance that climate change isn't some event we can tackle on another, more convenient day.

The people in room were among the nearly 5,000 residential customers that Bullfrog Power has signed up since its launch in 2005. About 400 businesses in Ontario have also signed up, including Wal-Mart Canada, RBC Financial, BMO Financial and Cadbury Adams. (Disclosure: the Hamilton household is also Bullfrog powered.)

These are people who voluntarily pay a monthly premium for their electricity to assure, out of principle, that their money is not directed to building more nuclear and coal-fired power plants. Bullfrog takes a small cut, as profit-drive businesses typically do, but the rest goes toward the purchase of renewable power and the development of new wind and small hydroelectric projects.

Given the bias in the crowd - a microcosm of change that's slowly infecting the province - it wasn't difficult to find disappointment with how the provincial election is proceeding, and the surprising lack of attention to environmental and energy issues. Oh, and that little threat to humanity called global warming.

"It's completely off the radar," said one Bullfrog customer, who's also a venture capitalist by day. "You know, you're right, it never really did take off as an election issue," commented another.

Gordon Downie, lead singer of the Tragically Hip and devoted Bullfrog customer, was perhaps best at expressing the frustration that many voters with the current election campaigns. Downie volunteered his time to sing a few  "unplugged" songs for the crowd.

"We all know there's one burning issue facing the planet ... funding for faith-based education," he remarked sarcastically in between songs. He didn't look particularly happy.

Rather than talking about adding creationism to the curriculum, maybe, added Downie, we should be honest about what we're doing to the planet and, as he put it, "start teaching kids about destructionism."

It was a fitting jab, given the expectations that were set earlier in the year. The Ontario Liberals, after all, did polling that found the environment was the top issue on voters' minds, even ahead of health care.

Star columnist Ian Urquhart predicted on April 20 that climate change "could well be the defining issue" of the election. The Star wrote in a June 22 editorial that it would be "one of the biggest issues."

With two days left to go, the exact opposite seems to have happened. The three main parties have spent most of their time attacking each other, while the media has obsessed over the faith-based funding issue. Then there's the Green Party, which was excluded from the one and only candidates debate on TV, once again losing its chance of raising the bar on discussion.

Greg Kiessling, co-founder and executive chairman of Bullfrog Power, is also a bit miffed about that outcome.

"We're going to be making some big decisions in the province that are going to be with us for a long time," he said before the company's anniversary party. "It would have been nice to debate the issues."

The fact that Bullfrog has 5,000 customers is encouraging but, kept in perspective, it's a drop in the bucket for a province the size of Ontario.  "There's still a long way to go before green is mainstream," said CEO Tom Heintzman.

Word has it, however, that when candidates go door to door, their constituents are routinely raising issues around environment, energy and climate.

It's not that the voting public doesn't want to hear the issues debated. It's that the political parties - at least those in the media spotlight - have been afraid to raise them, beyond shallow references to wind, solar and conservation.

We deserved more.

Tyler Hamilton's Clean Break appears Mondays. You may email him at thamilt@thestar.ca

Although this article says the "U.S. power elite" are worried the war in Iraq has somehow hampered America's ability to lead, U.S. still seems to be leading itself into another war before the Bush administration's time in power is over.  The world's weariness and contempt for the self-important view of the U.S. as the military and financial power of the universe is at an all-time high. Who died and made you king?

From the Sunday, October 14, 2007, Toronto Star, Comment section, page A15:

SUN SETS EARLY ON THE AMERICAN CENTURY
Even hard-headed realists in the U.S. power elite fear the Iraq war has crippled America's ability to lead

Philip S. Golub

The disastrous outcome of the invasion and occupation of Iraq has caused a crisis in the power elite of the United States deeper than that resulting from defeat in Vietnam 30 years ago. Ironically, it is the very coalition of ultranationalists and neo-conservatives that coalesced in the 1970s, seeking to reverse the Vietnam syndrome, restore U.S. power and revive "the will to victory" that has caused the present crisis.

There has been no sustained popular mass protest as there was during the Vietnam War, probably because of the underclass sociology of the volunteer U.S. military and the fact that the war is being funded by foreign financial flows. However, at the elite level the war has fractured the national security establishment that has run the United States for six decades. The unprecedented public critique in 2006 by several retired senior officers over the conduct of the war, plus recurrent signs of dissent in the intelligence agencies and the state department, reflect a much wider trend in elite opinion.

Not all critics are as forthright as retired general William Odom, who tirelessly repeats that the invasion of Iraq was the "greatest strategic disaster in U.S. history"; or Col. Larry Wilkerson, Colin Powell's former chief of staff, who denounced a "blunder of historic r" and has recently suggested impeaching the president; or former National Security Council head Zbigniew Brzezinski, who called the war and occupation a "historic, strategic and moral calamity."

Most public critiques from within the institutions of state focus on the way the war and occupation has been mismanaged rather than the more fundamental issue of the invasion itself. Yet discord is wide and deep: Government departments are trading blame, accusing each other of the "loss of Iraq." In private, former senior officials express incandescent anger, denounce shadowy cabals and have deep contempt for the White House. A former official of the National Security Council compared the president and his staff to the Corleone mafia family in The Godfather. A senior foreign policy expert said: "Due to an incompetent, arrogant and corrupt clique we are about to lose our hegemonic position in the Middle East and Gulf."

"The White House has broken the army and trampled its honour," added a Republican senator and former Vietnam veteran.

NONE OF THESE, nor any of the other institutional critics, could be considered doves: Whatever their political affiliations (mostly Republican) or personal beliefs, they were - and some are still - guardians of U.S. power, managers of the national security state, and sometimes central actors in covert and covert imperial interventions in the Third World during the Cold War and post-Cold War.

As a social group, these realists cannot be distinguished from the object of their criticism in terms of their willingness to use force or their historically demonstrated ruthlessness in achieving state aims. Nor can the cause of their dissent be attributed to conflicting convictions over ethics, norms and values (though this may be a motivating factor for some). It lies rather in the rational realization that the war in Iraq has nearly "broken the U.S. Army," weakened the national security state, and severely, if not irreparably, undermined "America's global legitimacy" - its ability to shape world preferences and set the global agenda. The most sophisticated expressions of dissent such as Brzezinski's, reflect the understanding that power is not reducible to the ability to coerce, and that, once lost, hegemonic legitimacy is hard to restore.

The signs of slippage are apparent everywhere: in Latin America, where U.F. influence is at its lowest in decades; in East Asia, where the United States has been obliged, reluctantly, to renegotiate with North Korea and recognize China as an indispensable actor in regional security; in Europe, where U.S. plans to install missile defence capabilities in Poland are being contested by Germany and other European Union states; in the Gulf, where old allies such as Saudi Arabia are pursuing autonomous agendas that coincide only in part with U.S. aims; and in the international institutions, the UN and the World Bank, where the United States is no longer in a position to drive the agenda unaided.

Transnational opinion surveys show a consistent and nearly global pattern of defiance of U.S. foreign policy as well as a more fundamental erosion in the attractiveness of the United States: The narrative of the American dream has been submerged by images of a military leviathan disregarding world opinion and breaking the rules. World public opinion may not stop wars but it does count in subtler ways. Some of this slippage may be repairable under new leaders and with new and less aggressive policies. Yet is is hard to see how internal unity of purpose will be restored: It took decades to rebuild the U.S. military after Vietnam and to define an elite and popular consensus on the uses of power.

The invasion and occupation of Iraq is not the sole cause of the trends sketched. Rather, the war significantly accentuated all of them at a moment when larger centrifugal forces were already at work: the erosion and collapse of the Washington Consensus and the gradual rise of new gravitational centres, notably in Asia, were established trends when President George Bush went to war. Now, as the shift in the world economy towards Asia matures, the United States is stuck in a conflict that is absorbing its total energies. History is moving on and the world is slipping, slowly but inexorably, out of U.S. hands.

FOR THE U.S. POWER ELITE this is deeply unsettling. Since the mid-20th century U.S. leaders have thought of themselves as having a unique historic responsibility to lead and govern the globe. Sitting on top of the world since the 1940s, they have assumed that, like Great Britain in the 19th century, they were destined to act as hegemon - a dominant state having the will and the means to establish and maintain international order: peace and an open and expanding liberal world economy. In their reading of history it was Britain's inability to sustain such a role and America's simultaneous unwillingness to take responsibility that created the conditions for the cycle of world wars and depression during the first half of the 20th century.

The corollary of the assumption is the circular argument that since order requires a dominant centre, the maintenance of order (or avoidance of chaos) requires the perpetuation of hegemony. This belief system, theorized in U.S. academia in the 1970s as "hegemonic stability," has underpinned U.S. foreign policy since World War II, when the United States emerged as the core state of the world capitalist system. As early as 1940 U.S. economic and political elites forecast a vast revolution in the balance of power. The United States would become heir to the economic and political assets of the British Empire.

A year later, Timemagazine publisher Henry Luce announced the coming American Century: "America's first century as a dominant power in the world" meant that its people would have "to accept wholeheartedly our duty and our opportunity as the most powerful and vital nation and exert upon the world the full impact of our influence as we see fit and by such means as we see fit." by the mid-1940s the contours of the American Century had already emerged: U.S. economic predominance and strategic supremacy upheld by a planetary network of military bases.

The postwar U.S. leaders who presided over the construction of the national security state were filled, in William Appleman Williams's words, with "visions of omnipotence": The United States enjoyed enormous economic advantages a significant technological edge and briefly held an atomic monopoly. Though the Korean stalemate (1953) and the Soviet Union's nuclear weapons and missile programs dented U.S. self-confidence, it took defeat in Vietnam and the domestic social upheavals that accompanied the war to reveal the limits of power. Henry Kissinger's and Richard Nixon's "realism in an ear of decline" was a reluctant acknowledgement that the overarching hegemony of the previous 20 years could not and would not last forever.

But Vietnam and the Nixon era were a turning pointing another more paradoxical way: Domestically they ushered in the conservative resolution and the concerted effort of the mid-1980s to restore and renew the national security state and U.S. world power. When the Soviet Union collapsed a few years later, misguided visions of omnipotence resurfaced. Conservative triumphalists dreamed of primacy and sought to lock in long-term unipolarity. Iraq was a strategic experiment designed to begin the Second American Security. That expiment and U.S. foreign policy now lie in ruins.

HISTORICAL ANALOGIESare never perfect but Great Britain's long exit from empire may shed some light on the present moment. At the end of the 19th century few British leaders could even begin to imagine an end of empire. When Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee was celebrated in 1897, Britain possessed a formal transoceanic empire that encompassed a quarter of the world's territory and 300 million people - twice that if China, a near colony of 4540 million people, was included. The city of London was the centre of even more far-flung trading and financial empire that bound the world. It is unsurprising that, despite the apprehensions over U.S. and German industrial competitiveness, significant parts of the British elite believed that they had been given "a gift from the Almighty of a lease of the universe forever."

The Jubilee turned out to be "final sunburst of an unalloyed belief in British fitness to rule." The Second Boer War (1899-1902) fought to preserve the routes to India and secure the weakest link in the imperial chain, wasted British wealth and blood and revealed the atrocities of scorched-earth policies to a restive British public. The world war that broke out in 1914 bankrupted and exhausted all of its European protagonists. The long end of the British era had started. However, the empire not only survived the immediate crisis but hobbled on for decades, through World War II, until its inglorious end at Suez in 1956. Still, a nostalgia for lost grandeur persists. As Tony's Blair's Mesopotamian adventures show, the imperial afterglow has faded but is not entirely extinguished.

For the U.S. power elite, being on top of the world has been a habit for 60 years. Hegemony has been a way of life; empire, a state of being and of mind. The institutional realist critics of the Bush administration have no alternative conceptual framework for international relations, based on something other than force, the balance of power or strategic predominance.

The present crisis and the deepening impact of global concerns will perhaps generate new impulses for co-operation and interdependence in future. Yet it is just as likely that U.S. policy will be unpredictable: As all post-colonial experiences show, de-imperialization is likely to be a long and possibly traumatic process.

Philip S. Golub is a journalist and lecturer of the University of Paris VIII.

From the Comment section of the Toronto Star, Tuesday, November 27, 2007, page AA6, a comment by Jasmeet Sindhu, Community Editorial Board, about what impact gender inequality has in politics:

GENDER INEQUALITY DISTORTS POLITICS

Jasmeet Sidhu
Community Editorial Board

Although there have been great strides in equality among men and women in Canada since Agnes MacPhail became the first woman elected in the House of Commons in 1921, we have a long way to go before we achieve equality in political expression.

For Canada to truly be an equal-opportunity society, bringing women into one of the most important roles in the political domain is critical. Yet it is precisely in this area where we are failing most embarrassingly.

After the last federal election, only 20.7 per cent seats were held by women, despite the fact that women constitute 52 per cent of the nation's population. The picture is no better at the provincial level, with women winning only 26 per cent of the seats in the recent Ontario election.

How can Canada claim to be an equal-opportunity society when the demographics of our decision-makers are so out of proportion with the gender demographics of Canadian society?

Our failure to achieve a truly representative democracy has resulted in Canada slipping to 47th place internationally in female participation in national parliaments, behind several developing countries, including many from the poorest, most conflicted areas in the world, such as Rwanda, Uganda, Iraq and Afghanistan.

Statistics Canada indicates that the majority of students graduating from post-secondary institutions are women. So why aren't more Canadian women, who are considered to be some of the world's most educated and talented, engaging in parliamentary politics?

When seats in Parliament do not accurately reflect the demographics of this country, there is something fundamentally wrong with the structure of opportunity in our political system, and the appeal of politics to women in general.

The 1970 Royal Commission on the Status of Women identified the highest hurdle for potential women parliamentarians to be winning the nomination in their constituency. Thirty-seven years on, and political parties still haven't found a way to address the lack of elected female politicians. The parties and their respective leaders need to be proactive in recruiting and supporting women candidates and make tackling this inequality a priority in the nomination process.

Political parties need to fundamentally alter their nomination processes to include more women candidates in winnable ridings. Quota systems have been demonstrated to ensure greater participation of women in decision making for many countries, whether it is through creating a minimum requirement for the number of parliamentary seats held by women, or ensuring that candidate lists submitted by parties include a certain percentage of women.

In the 2002 Moroccan election, 10 per cent of parliamentary seats were reserved for women, and subsequently the number of female parliamentarians increased from two to 35. In France, a 1999 constitutional amendment required that 50 per cent of the candidates submitted by parties be women.

Our hopes that equal opportunity in politics can also be achieved through a realization by young women themselves of the benefits of political participation.

Young women should be encouraged to get involved in politics. They need to understand that political experience can equip them with transferable skills considered highly valued in our fast-paced, competitive society. Politics encourages a multidisciplinary knowledge of law, history, sociology, philosophy and foreign affairs, and encourages critical analysis of complex issues.

Engagement in politics requires highly developed communication and public speaking skills, which lead to confidence, community leadership and higher levels of self-esteem.

Politics also demands more than just a superficial knowledge of current events. Understanding the issues and their root causes helps to create a more engaged citizen, equipped with the skills and background to seek solutions to both local and global problems.

By focusing on the positive aspects that politics can have for the development of young women, and by pressuring political parties to restructure the nomination process to allow more women to participate equal representation in Canada is an achievable goal.

It is only through equal participation in politics by both men and women that we can set national objectives truly representative of the needs of all Canadians.