HOT ISSUES @ bpeg.ca

Since acid rain became a buzz word in the 1980s we earthlings seem to have been assaulted progressively by a steady flow of self-inflicted crises. Ozone holes, pollution, garbage disposal, wildlife habitat destruction and, of course, climate change, perhaps the most threatening of all.

Perhaps.

Canadian icon Maude Barlow has spent much of the last decade, however, working to draw attention to and generate action on, the issue of water: globally and not excluding Canada. I have just finished reading her first book on this, 'Blue Gold', which details the ways in which many parts of the world are in crisis and in which even the 'have' countries may be heading for disaster. Gross overuse, pollution and waste of fresh water sources, now clearly demonstrated to be finite, are one side of the problem but almost as significant is the takeover of supply by corporations - the privatization of water - on a massive scale and, of course, for profit, for those who can pay. Maude's conviction is that water is a human right, not a commodity.
The great hope, though, is that there is a growing movement to change this. I can't do better than to quote from the back cover of Blue Gold.

"Water is our most important resource; we literally can't live without it. And yet, in almost every region of the world, it is being used up faster than it can be replaced. Alarmingly, a number of transnational corporations are positioning themselves to profit from water scarcity and are taking ownership of a resource that should never be sold into private hands.
Arrayed against these Goliaths is a powerful new grassroots movement dedicated to fighting for fair access to safe water. Maude Barlow and Tony Carke are global leaders of this campaign and Blue Gold is the book that originally fired the debate. Originally published in 2002, it has become an international phenomenon, a rallying cry and keystone document in the greatest ecological and human rights struggle of our time"

BPEG has managed to bring Maude Barlow in person to the Peninsula to update us on this vital issue and I urge everyone who can possibly attend her single presentation at the Peninsula Shores District School to do so. You will not be disappointed. For details and ticket information see our Home Page, our many posters or the local press.

August 6, 2010

Today the Niagara Escarpment Commission announced that they will be postponing the Hearing to consider the Harold Sutherland Construction Ltd.'s application to expand the Keppel Quarry until September 16, 2010. The Hearing will now take place at the Best Western Beacon Harbourside Resort and Conference Center in Jordon, Ontario. The location is neaby St. Catherine's Ontario at 2703 Beacon Blvd., Jordon, Ontario.

The NEC Staff will now release their staff report and recommendations to the Commission on August 19th.

see details at this link:
http://www.smugmug.com/gallery/6000046_zj4H8#952205892_oKp7N

The staff report will be available by request on August 19th, 2010 from Jannette.westman@ontario.ca or 905-877-3566.

The public are encouraged to attend and provide comments to the Commission before their Final Decision is made. To attend you must contact Annemarie Bochenek at annemarie.bochenek@ontario.ca or call 905-877-1728 before 3:30 PM Tuesday September 14th.

I am concerned about shore waterwells along Isthmus Bay. The number of wells drilled into the shore rock appears to be growing and as expected, the wave action is starting to break apart the rock surrounding some of these installations. Fiberglas embedded concrete has, in some cases, been installed to stabilize the degradation of the rockbed. In fact, large shelfs of rock have been noted beginning to break off in the near vicinity of what I would deem to be a shoreline intrusion. How much research was done on the the line of water UNDER the rock before these wells were allowed?

If you haven't seen one, you should. Not only do they disturb the natural shoreline but also the rock shelves leading to them in order for the equipment to get to the proposed locations. Will there be a stop to these installations? Have problems been reported? I realize that some mechanical means are necessary for water uptake but many cottagers have (seasonally) drawn water directly from the lake for years and although they have had their time with waterlines during excessively rough water weather, for the most part, the black waterline running above the rock through guides has provided clear, clean drinking water (surprisingly free of contaminants). If anything gives during bad weather in this design it is the guide, not the rock. Do we call these wells 'progress'?

The problems of maintaining the pristine nature of this portion of the Bruce Trail is, in my own opinion, jeopardized by year round living. It is going to mean more destruction if the municipality goes ahead with running full services to the year round homes that are being built here. This will mean realigning part of the roadway and digging trenches and lines to each property.

To what degree are these new homes required to be (for the sake of another word) green-designed? I'm not sure how we got to this point! If year round habitation results in destruction of the shoreline and (please remember) this portion of the coveted Bruce Trail, perhaps there should be more stringent planning and building controls enforced to protect the natural environment. With the size of development going on along this stretch and especially with the proximity to both water and roadway, if I was a Bruce Trail hiker, I would think I had taken a wrong turn.

Can you feel it yet, can you see it?
‘Cause it’s happening I guarantee it
A tide is rising working underground
To bring this system of corruption and consumption down!

How did you like your last election?
Or as I call it a process of pre-selection
You think different colours on signs represent a real choice?
Man, these fools are all speaking with the same voice
Maybe that’s why turnout reached a staggering 50%
This province is rapidly becoming low rent

What we need is an ideological eradication
Before we lose what little is left of our nation,
Of this system capitalistic, materialistic, hedonistic
Not enough carrot, too much stick

Have you done the mathematics
Or do I have to draw you a schematic
4 in 20 give McGuinty a majority?!
What the hell is wrong with me?
When I think I still live in a democracy
Get this parasitic system off of me

MP3, CD, DVD, HDTV…
Ever wonder why all the distractions rhyme with free or tree or things that really matter like just BE…
At one with nature and stop living in prison of your own construction
And banish the lies of psychological occupation
Remove yourself from the process of converting the living to the dead
And stop the brands and slogans and perversity from swimming inside your head

Can you feel it yet, can you see it?
‘Cause it’s happening I guarantee it
A tide is rising working underground
To bring this system of corruption and consumption down!

Get out to your local big box, arctic fox
Can’t hear the squawk of the Great Auk or the songs of the Beothuk…What the $#@%?
I couldn’t make this stuff up
This culture just won’t stop

Condemning species and cultures to eradication, extirpation, extinction and annihilation!
Are these words too confusing? Can’t you see the connection?
Pick up a dictionary or a book and stop twiddling your thumbs flipping from station to station.
The media thinks elections are there for our entertainment
But what we have is lies, disinformation and cultural enslavement
Indoctrination followed by mass capitulation
And it happens in every “civilized” nation
Without fear of retaliation
Democracy has degraded to a sporting event and we’re just spectators
Blindly marking X’s on paper giving credibility to the next dictator

Whenever some are brave enough to truly challenge this authority
By taking to the streets demanding peace and life with dignity and equality
Remember Winnipeg, Haymarket, Seattle, Kent State or Quebec City!
They bring it down upon us like a hammer
Tear gas Rubber bullets or real ones or rendition in some foreign rat-hole slammer
What they want is complete obedience
And consumerist subservience

Gotta keep the militaristic war drums drumming
And this cancerous economy humming
Invent some foreign enemy
And keep the populace sedated with booze, pills,gadgets and pornography

Can you feel it yet, can you see it?
‘Cause it’s happening I guarantee it
A tide is rising and I know it
This system, we’ll overthrow it

Man those Romans really knew what they were doing
Before they got corrupted and fell in ruin
Keeping their populations in sedation with circuses and bread
While irrigating, expanding and quenching their empire with rivers of blood and mountains of dread

Today it’s the same we’re being kept fat and lazy
And our knowledge of history is being made intentionally hazy
Keeping us buying and shopping and filling our houses with all the products the system keeps flogging
While the people in the 3rd world are doing the real slogging
Picking your coffee and cocoa or scraping coal from a mine
and breeding kids to fill the sweatshops so you can buy a shirt for $7.99

I tell you what I know and you may not want to hear it
This system is about to meet people who no longer fear
They are full of seething rage and hatred for this immoral culture
Which treats the earth like a rotting carcass and we’re the hungry vulture

Do you have enough distractions yet?
Are you being adequately entertained?
Have your freedoms faced enough contractions yet?
Have your rights been sufficiently constrained?
How about your habits and patterns? Are they yet completely surveilled?
How about your movements and travel? Are they now somewhat curtailed?

Well you aint seen nothing yet. This system doesn’t trust you
It thinks you are a consumable cog and when you’re spent will crush you.
It won’t be truly happy until every thought you have or move you make
Is patrolled or tolled or told to you or recorded on some tape

Take back this world and rip what’s yours from their greedy hands.
A purge is needed to cleanse what contaminates this land
Throwing a spanner in the works of this death cult, picking easy targets
The globalists, polluters, the liars and the prophets of the market
Take to the streets the damage we must inflict it.
The current ideology, we must contradict it
We must act in secret taking actions with autonomy
With deception, and disguises sabotaging the economy
Blowing up gasoline tankers under concrete overpasses,
Toppling towers of communication causing chaos for the masses
This system is a house of cards. A fragile yet hungry snake
The destiny of those who follow decided by the actions that we take

We outnumber them, we’re right, we just have to believe
That the only limit to what we can attain is what we can conceive

Can you feel it yet, can you see it?
‘Cause it’s happening I guarantee it
A tide is rising working underground
To bring this system of corruption and consumption down

It appears that the shrimp ring has become an expected part of the holiday appetizer table, centered like a wreath between the cheese ball and plate of shortbread. And for good reason… they taste great, they are easy to purchase, and it is the season for indulgence. So why should I run the risk of sounding like a Grinch by questioning one of our nouveau traditions?

Well, worldwide our fisheries are in crisis and although we’ve heard this our entire lives, there is little evidence to suggest a change in tide. We continue to fish down the food web (e.g., we now fish for smaller/lower things including jellyfish, sea cucumber, etc…), destroy habitat, over harvest (e.g., since the 1950’s we’ve lost 90% of the large fishes), and drive species to commercial extinction. Unwittingly, our consumption patterns support economies that are not sustainable.

Although shrimp appear as common as cod in a 1970s grocer’s freezer, they are not exempt from this crisis. In fact most of the shrimp we are likely to find in the local grocery stores (e.g., imported black tiger shrimp, tiger prawn, white shrimp, etc…) do not come from sustainable fisheries. As much as I like shrimp I feel compelled to avoid these products. Imported wild shrimp are usually caught in trawl nets which have the highest bycatch of any commercial fishery - for every pound of shrimp hauled in, three to 15 pounds of unwanted animals die in the process. Imported farmed shrimp has problems too. About 3.7 million acres of tropical coastal mangroves have been converted to shrimp farms, destroying important habitat for fish,
birds and people. So much waste builds up in the farm ponds that the farmers have to move on within a few years, leaving a legacy of polluted water and destroyed mangrove forests.

My background is as a fishery biologists and I’ll admit it is a daunting task sorting out this whole issue of what seafood we should buy or avoid. But, fear not there is lots of help out there. While on vacation a few years ago, we found ourselves in Monterey Bay, California. Two things, Steinbeck’s Cannery Row and a friend researching sea otters drew us there. Both were great to see, but the one thing I carried away was an introduction the Monterey Bay Aquarium Seafood WATCH program (http://www.montereybayaquarium.org/cr/seafoodwatch.asp). I strongly
suggest you go to the website and copy the one page handy pocket reference guide. The intention of the program is to help consumers make wise seafood choices – choices that create a market demand for sustainable fisheries. So have a look and discover why Atlantic salmon and bluefin tuna should be avoided, while Alaskan sockeye or canned skipjack are better choices.

The Seafood WATCH website can also help us figure out what to do with that jar of shrimp sauce. It tells us, for example that there are some sustainable shrimp fisheries out there. The BC spot prawn fishery uses traps (I even had my own sets) thereby minimizing habitat destruction and bycatch. In Oregon the trawl configuration used to catch pink shrimp is deemed to be less damaging and to have less bycatch than traditional bottom trawlers.

The reality though is that these products can be hard to find. Most often you’ll read packages and ask questions only to learn the shrimp are from Thailand or India, two areas to be avoided. And so, as we set the appetizers out this holiday season, the shrimp wreath can still be the centerpiece, but perhaps you could look to the North Pole or at least northern BC for your supply.

Just one more thing for our conscience to machinate.

Scott Parker