This video is pretty amazing news. Electrical trash is increasingly a big problem because of all the nasty metals and chemicals inside. What caught my ear was the bit about electrical trash being masked as “donations.” There are a lot of programs out there dedicated to taking your old computers and giving them to less priviledged societies to be utilized. How do we know who to trust?

It’s happening in China too.

I heard The Noise (check out the site redesign!) hit the streets today, and finally, I’m in it again. I’m sitting here with strep throat, Yogi “throat comfort” tea, and a huge wool blanket.

eeeer it is.

On my knees, I part the leaves of my garden looking for the perfect ripen tomato. Today is one of those propitious September afternoons in Northern Arizona where the sun is bright above my head while storm clouds build and grumble in all directions. I find two tomatoes, one for now and one for later, and gently twist them off their branches.

I roll one of them into my shirt in a half-assed attempt toward removing the dirt. It’s more of an empty gesture really, as I secretly enjoy the complementary taste of rich earth in the food that comes from my garden. As I puncture it’s soft skin with my teeth, I slurp and swirl and savor. Only seconds after removing it from the plant, the fruit is warm; if I close my eyes, I swear I can taste the sun.

This is my second successful attempt at a garden in Northern Arizona and it has quickly and dramatically altered my understanding of food. Tomatoes from the grocery store, even organic tomatoes, seem bland and lifeless. Still, it isn’t so much the taste of the tomatoes from the store that turn me off, as it is my lack of a relationship to them. While I am overjoyed to directly experience such a beautiful gift from the land, I do not rely on my garden to live and therefore, I will never fully understand the value of this gift.

There is an ever-shrinking population of people on this planet who know and understand the true value of food. In fact, the poorest two-thirds of humanity live in what can be appropriately called the biodiversity-based economy: corn farmers in Mexico, subsistence farmers in India, and indigenous populations throughout the world. Still, I do not aim to illustrate the lives of these people as idealistic. In 2008, those people who rely on the land to live lead increasingly despondent lives, through dismantled communities, impossibly large debts, and uncertain futures, where fields of cotton function more like giant prison cells and stocks of corn function more appropriately as enclosing iron bars.

It may seem impossible to ensure a harvest is stolen before it is planted. There is, however, one transnational corporation that has figured out how to achieve this while maintaining an increasingly desperate supply of workers.

The Monsanto Corporation was founded in 1901. A recent Vanity Fair article noted that it’s founder, John Francis Queeny, was a “tough, cigar-smoking Irishman with a sixth-grade education.” He named his company, Monsanto Chemical Works, after his wife’s maiden name. Queeny originally went into business selling an artificial sweetener called saccharin, which was then imported from Germany. After the German cartel that controlled the market dramatically lowered the price of saccharin, Queeny nearly went out of business. In fact, if it weren’t for the steady business of a new soft drink company in Georgia called Colca-Cola, it is likely that Monsanto would have gone under.

After the U.S. Department of Agriculture tried to ban saccharin after questions about it’s safety, Monsanto began to add more products like vanillin, caffeine, and drugs used as sedatives and laxatives. Monsanto also became the world’s largest producer of aspirin and after World War 1, it’s legacy as a leading global chemical manufacturer was secured.

Just before Queeny ironically died of cancer in the 1920’s, his only son, Edgar, became president. Under Edgar’s watch, Monsanto was built up like a toxic empire, producing plastics, resins, rubber goods, fuel additives, artificial caffeine, industrial fluids, vinyl siding, dishwasher detergent, anti-freeze, fertilizers, herbicides, and pesticides. Through out the sixties and seventies, Monsanto was perhaps best known for its production of an extremely toxic chemical used during the Vietnam War. This chemical, which instantly and painfully seared the flesh of any southeast Asian who was unfortunate enough to come in contact with it—and there were millions who did—was known as Agent Orange.

During this chemical boom, Monsanto produced some of the deadliest chemicals known to man. Among the worst of these chemicals, dioxin and poly chlorinated biphenyls, better known as PCBs, reign supreme. Dioxin is one chemical among many listed by the U.S. Government as a “known human carcinogen,” that is, a cancer causing agent. Even in small amounts, dioxin has been linked to heart disease, liver disease, human reproductive disorders, and developmental problems. Dioxin is a substance that remains and accumulates in the environment and the body. Recent studies have found significant traces of dioxin in mother’s breast milk.

PCBs are classified as a group of chemicals that act as hormones and have been linked to damage to the liver and irreversible damage in the neurological, immune, endocrine, and reproductive systems. Though Monsanto no longer produces these toxins, there are places such as Nitro, West Virginia and Aniston, Texas where spills and chemical plant explosions left an environmental legacy that continues to kill people to this day. Further, the Environmental Protection Agency has listed Monsanto as being a “potentially responsible party” for 56 contaminated sites in the U.S. And today dioxin is released into the atmosphere every time a flame is put to plastics.

In an effort to change it’s tarnished image and secure a legacy of future profits, Monsanto rebranded itself, no longer as a chemical manufacturer, but as a “life sciences” company, thus it began pooling more and more of it’s resources into biotechnology. In 1981, Monsanto scientists became the first to genetically modify a plant cell. Earnest Jaworski, the director of Monsanto’s Biological Sciences Program at the time noted “It will now be possible to introduce virtually any gene into plant cells with the ultimate goal of improving crop productivity.”

Under the guise of productivity, Monsanto has since introduced the hormone supplement, rBGH, also known as rBST, a hormone that increases the output of milk in cows. Though, the growth hormones are banned in all of Canada and Europe, Monsanto’s independent scientists insist that it is safe. They have even unsuccessfully tried to sue dairy farmers who label their products as being “growth hormone free” stating that it sends mixed signals to consumers. Even if it is safe, the artificial growth hormone speeds up the metabolism of cows and increases their chances of contracting illnesses, which causes great pain and shorter life spans among those cows unfortunate enough to be injected.

Today, 15 years after the Food and Drug Administration’s (F.D.A.) approval of the hormone, no long-term studies have been done regarding the safety of the milk from cows injected with the hormone. And Michael Hansen, senior staff scientist for Consumer’s Union told Vanity Fair that the only data that does exist all comes from Monsanto. “There is no scientific consensus about the safety,” he added.

The fact that this hormone is widely banned throughout the world, yet was approved by the F.D.A. in the U.S. says more about Washington’s “revolving door” than it does about the safety of Monsanto’s products. Former Monsanto employees such as Clarence Thomas, Michael R. Taylor, Ann Veneman, Linda Fisher, Michael Friedman, and William D. Ruckelshaus, currently hold positions in U.S. government agencies such as the F.D.A., E.P.A. and even the Supreme Court. Even Donald Rumsfeld who used to be chairman and C.E.O. of the pharmaceutical company G.D. Searle & Co, reportedly gained $12 million in increased stock value after Monsanto acquired the company in 1985.

Despite all the atrocities committed by Monsanto in the name of progress and productivity, it is the tight stranglehold it has on the distribution of genetically modified seeds that has garnered the most attention world-wide. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, since the 1980’s, Monsanto has acquired 674 biotechnology patents, taking advantage of a U.S. Supreme Court case in 1980 that broadened the definition of a patent to include “live human-made microorganisms.” Monsanto’s patents cover herbicide resistant corn, wheat, rice, cotton, sugar beet, rapeseed, canola, flax, sunflower, potato, tobacco, alfalfa, poplar, pine, apple, and grape among others.

Traditionally, when farmers planted seed and grew food, the best, strongest seeds were selected and saved to ensure an even stronger crop for the next growing season. In the late spring, when I go to Warner’s Nursery & Landscaping or Flagstaff Native Plant & Seed, either to buy seed or budding plants to make their home in my garden, I am reaping the benefits of thousands of years of this selection process. When I bite into a delicious tomato, I have thousands of years of poor farmers and desperate seed savers to thank.

Through the use of genetically modified “terminator” seeds and their patented Round-up Ready seeds, among other patented seed products, Monsanto has systematically undermined one of the oldest, life-sustaining traditions in our history of life on this planet.

Monsanto has aggressively entered the corn market in Mexico with their patented genetically modified seed. The trouble comes when Monsanto seeds cross-pollinate with the native seeds. When this happens, the results are what Mexican farmers refer to as “monster plants,” which are corn stocks that branch off in freakish ways, shooting 5 or 6 stocks in all directions from a single plant. Co-opts warn farmers to destroy these plants as soon as they are sighted. Farmers are increasingly finding themselves in a loosing battle because when the seeds cross-pollinate, Monsanto’s plants dominate and destroy the native seeds. Thus Monsanto slowly dominates the market.

Northern Arizona University Professor of Ecology and Evolution, Dr. Tom Whitham, has argued in many high profile journals, concluding that “community and ecosystem phenotypes of genetically modified organisms need to be evaluated as part of the approval process.” Company’s like Monsanto and Dupont, Dr. Whitham continues, “need to have their products evaluated at higher levels than is currently standard…to avoid the problems that have arisen or are likely to arise with unregulated GMOs”

The biggest tragedy is taking place in India where Monsanto owns the two biggest seed distributors available to subsistence farmers. The real danger of patenting seed lies in the “terminator” technology, which was created to prevent farmers from saving seed. When these seeds are planted, the seeds that are reproduced are sterile. Farmers are given little information on the seeds they are purchasing, just promises of higher yields, fewer weeds, and less hassle. Then after farmers have purchased and planted the seeds, which can cost up to four times more than the native seeds, they are locked into a system where they quickly discover that they need to purchase patented herbicides that are necessary to ensure the success of the harvest.

In debt to Monsanto, and because of the subsequent shame that comes with an inability to feed their family, subsistence farmers in India are committing suicide in astonishing numbers.

From this writer/gardener’s perspective, the gravest injustice is the ethics, or lack thereof, of patenting life. The biggest fear in journals, documentaries, and those working on these issues revolves around the issue of control. By controlling the means of food production, Monsanto is systematically controlling the world’s food supply under the guise of ending food shortages.

I am reminded of a famous line coined by the 19th century French anarchist Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, “La propriété, c’est le vol!” or “property is theft!” The Latin root of private property is privare, which means “to deprive.” By patenting the means of food production around the world, Monsanto, is depriving the poorest two-thirds of humanity of their human right to self-determination.

Technologies are not social forces unto themselves, nor merely neutral “tools” that can be used to satisfy any social end we desire. Rather they are products of particular social institutions and economic interests. Once a particular course of technological development is set in motion, it can have much wider consequences than its creators could have predicted: the more powerful the technology, the more profound the consequences.

In her essay “Biotechnical Development and the Conservation of Biodiversity,” Vandana Shiva states that “during periods of rapid technological transformation, it is assumed that society and people must adjust to change instead of technological change adjusting to the social values of equity, sustainability and participation.” She further described a view of technology that places it as a “a process that is shaped by and serves the priorities of whoever controls it.” Monsanto needs to be stopped.

For past and current information regarding this case, refer to savethepeaks.org

The case over the San Francisco Peaks has caused deep divides in Northern Arizona. The judicial pendulum, which temporarily favored indigenous rights and environmental justice, has radically swung back toward the advantage of those profiting off the destruction of environment and religious and spiritual identity. When I write of religious and spiritual identity, I’m referring to at least 14 different people’s cosmologies, all of which the San Francisco Peaks play a central role.

This is inadequate still. The Peaks do not “play a role” because if one plays a role, that person must stray from their true self for the service of others. The Peaks are perfect as they are. The Peaks are sacred. But even “sacred” is a European word, as is the etymology behind it. Yet it is the best word local indigenous people have found as a means to translate the emotional, spiritual, and religious connections they have with the mountain. The words available to me in my language will always fall short because they do not represent the same idea of sacredness that indigenous peoples intend. I believe this back and forth in the courts is largely a result of the dominant culture’s incapability or unwillingness to understand that which is “sacred.” But if we follow the word’s etymology all the way back before Christianity to Old Latin, we find that the definition could have encompassed the physical world. This connection needs to be rediscovered.

The word “Sacred” arrived in the 12th century from the Old French, sacrer, which came from the Latin, Sacrare, meaning “to make sacred, consecrate,” from sacer, the “sacred, dedicated, holy, accursed,” and finally prior to the influence of theocracy, it’s Old Latin origin, saq, “bind, restrict, enclose, protect.”

If one is in a non-binding commitment, it is one that cannot be broken. There are restrictions, like guidelines, and those restrictions must be protected. The metaphors indigenous peoples use in an attempt to bridge the gap are lousy, but it’s not their fault. Not since Old Latin, which became extinct in first century B.C., could our understanding of the word encompass something physical. It seems as though sometime during the 12th century, the word “sacred” became integrated into the Christian cosmology. Words like “holy” and “consecrate,” I believe, come straight from Christianity.

For example, Indigenous people will say, “putting waste water on our mountain is like pissing in a Catholic church.” Well, no it isn’t. What our civilization deems sacred is not something physical. This phrase might strike a chord because the church symbolizes the Christian faith. It is a place of community and worship. But lets face it; they are not sacred. Churches are bulldozed all the time. Churches are built all the time.

The Peaks are sacred; they do not represent or symbolize that which is sacred and intangible at the same time. The Peaks, in their physical and experiential presence, are sacred. They are “sacredness” incarnate. It has been a very long time since people from our civilization were able to experience the sacred in such a tangible way. In the dominant culture, what do we have that is sacred in its truest definition? What do we experience in our life that binds us to restrictions and orders our protection? Sure we have ideals such as liberty and freedom, but there is no collective understanding of these words. Liberty and Freedom have definitions that become more hollow with each administration. These are ideals that those in power have used as tools, the manipulations of these ideas have been used to spread great injustice through out the world. Remember, a logger is not deforesting and destroying eco-systems, rather he is “developing natural resources.” Similarly our country is not occupying another to secure a scarce resource, they’re spreading democracy, spreading freedom. Further, liberty and freedom might mean something different to me than it does to you. These ideals might pull at our heartstrings, but they are no longer sacred.

What about our economic system? On the surface, it might seem ridiculous to call our economic system, sacred. But consider the way we talk about it. The market is in “recession,” it “needs our help,” it is in decline, it is in recovery. The language we use to describe the ups and downs of our economic system is not far from the codlings of a mother to a child. But our economic system is not real either, so even if we do view it as sacred, it does not help local indigenous people translate a tangible sacredness.

Maybe our children are sacred. Children are our future right? They are tangible, they are our future and represent our past. As long as there are children, our people will live forever. But still we press on, further down this destructive, exploitive path; one that is leading our people off the edge of a cliff. If our children were sacred to us, we wouldn’t be destroying their home, their future, their communities.

In some cultures, nonhuman animals are sacred. Not just native cultures, but in Hindi traditions, for example, we’ve all heard of the “sacred cow.” Anyone who has seen the inside of a factory farm knows that in our culture, nonhuman animals are not sacred. They, like the San Francisco Peaks, are understood as objects, a resource to be exploited at our will. We are not terrible to all animals. Many families grow up with dogs and cats that are loved and considerd family. We recognize they have a spirit; they have preferences and personalities.

Perhaps that’s it. In our culture, in order for something to be sacred, for something to have value on it’s own, it must be recognized as having a spirit. I believe that if something or someone is to be sacred, this implies a great love. Unconditional love, not of an idea or ideology, but love first for the absolute singularity for who or what it is. What is it that we love? If we recognize that our pet dogs have preferences and a spirit that is unique to them, if their lives mean just as much to them as our lives mean to us, why can we not extend this respect to all animals? And is it really so much of a leap to see and understand that even trees and rivers and mountains have spirits? Even if this seems goofy at first, it’s a worldview that has sustained humanity for hundreds of thousands of years. This destructive civilization has only been around for the last 10k years or so, which is a blink in the eye of 300,000 years or more.

The truth is, everything in the physical world is sacred. It is here; it is present. We owe our lives to the world around us. We are both a part of the natural world and manifested as the natural world. That means that we are also sacred. In this civilization, we are provided with limited ways in which to express the sacredness of the world around us. The Peaks are sacred to native people because they have entered into a bind with the land, to protect it, not as an ideology, but as a necessity. If one protects the land that allows them to live, they holding up their end of the bargain, of the bind. Their blood has mixed with the soil and the mountain’s soil is in their blood. How can they possibly be able to express this sacred bond to foreign people, in a foreign language? And how are these foreign people, with no direct physical or emotional ties to the land, supposed to truly understand?

I’d like to think our children are sacred to us, but again, if something is sacred, it must be loved unconditionally for the singularity of who it is. Many of our parents love us unconditionally for who we are, but as a culture, we could care less. In our culture, of course we love our kids, but we don’t treat them as sacred. Good parents give most of their resources, their time, and their energy into their kids, but as a culture, our resources service corporations and the military (and if those things are sacred, we’re already fucked). Still, even if education were funded more, our understanding of education is in service of this culture, which is no longer run by well-meaning hearts like ours.

“Education,” coming from the root, educere, means to “lead forth, to draw out.” In other words, if we were true to the definition of education, children should be led in ways that allow them to become their true selves and enact their own lives. I would argue that the reality of industrial education stems from a different but similar word seduction, which essentially means to “lead astray.” (for more on this, read Jensen’s “Walking on Water: Reading, Writing, and Revolution”). We teach our children, not how to be a human on this planet, but as a citizen in this country, a consumer, one of many well-greased and easily replaceable cogs in a machine that doesn’t serve them.

Yet, this is the only world we know. There are good, kind, loving people that run this exploitive and destructive system. Ask someone with 4 kids, a 50 hour a week job, credit card bills, and a mortgage to “start identifying with the needs of the physical world,” they will laugh at you. In this culture, you don’t feed and house your kids with meaningful connections to the land, or empathy for those communities your culture systematically destroys.

Local indigenous groups will never translate “sacredness” to these people in the courts. Even if the most destructive, insane members of this culture started giving a rat’s ass about the land, about local communities, they don’t live here. Most of the people that ski on the Peaks are from Phoenix. Snowbowl itself is owned by rich people that live on the east coast. Why would they give a damn about what sacred means? All they know is they could make a grip of cash by putting fake sewage snow on the mountain and deforest some of the last pristine old growth that exists in our country.

But as long as we’re arguing about what “sacred” means or how safe or unsafe reclaimed water is, we’re forgetting the bigger picture on this issue. In the southwest, we’re in the middle of an extended drought. If the water is safe, pumping 1.5 million gallons of water up a 15-mile-pipeline to be turned into snow is a really shitty waste of water. Further, the world is warming. Whether humans are causing it or not is irrelevant. It’s happening. So here we have a proposal that will not only desecrate a sacred site and disrespect communities that have been living here since the beginning of time and potentially permanently alter a fragile eco-system, but it will temporarily make a few east coast assholes a bit richer for a bit longer.

The comments here are amazing. Racism is alive and well in Flagstaff.

This isn’t over. Save the fucking Peaks.

PHOENIX

A Department of Public Safety officer faces almost four years in prison for allegedly asking a woman to expose herself during a traffic stop, authorities said Monday.

Chris Young, 28, of Williams, was charged with one count of bribery of a public servant, according to the Arizona Attorney General’s Office.

The Attorney General’s office said that Young made the proposal in April 2006 after stopping Kyle Parcell, of Temecula, Calif, for speeding on Interstate 40 in Yavapai County.

During the traffic stop, Young allegedly asked Parcell’s passenger, Myrla Ryan Brock, to expose herself with the understanding that “Young’s opinion, judgment, exercise of discretion or other action as a police officer might be influenced.”

Young is a nine-year DPS veteran. He resigned in November 2006.

Every week, in my political science class (on global human rights), we have to write a paper on the readings. I’m posting this one here, not because I received a good grade (though I did receive a good grade…), but because the topic is close to my heart. And I’m too tired to come up with something new today….enjoy….and please don’t steal without my permission.
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Sanjeev Khagram’s book, Dams and Development: Transnational Struggles for Water and Power, raised a lot of important questions for me and illuminated a lot of necessary conclusions in terms of how “development” is understood and what actions are justified in the name of progress. Khagram has also illuminated the importance of linking human rights to the environment, how the development of big dams violates both positive and negative freedoms in terms of subsistence. Lastly, and perhaps more importantly considering the dams are still standing, I felt Khagram’s analysis on sustainable development fell short in regards to solutions that truly serve the land base and ultimately the rights of those humans affected by the project.

“Development,” says Khagram, “is socially produced and reproduced as well as socially constructed and reconstructed” (Khagram 211). When it comes to the construction of large dams and the affect such construction has on local communities, human rights and freedoms, the way development is understood, as Khagram demonstrates, is contingent upon different discourse communities. Each discourse community will have a different understanding of development depending upon its affects on that community. The controversial Narmada Project, for example, will benefit politicians, involved corporations and will help supply water to and irrigate crops in Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, and Rajasthan. These benefits are not without cost, however, as 200,000 people would be displaced by the project, not to mention the affect that large scale flooding will have on the fragile eco-system along the coast of the Narmada. Therefore, depending on which side of this power dynamic one is aligned, will determine their understanding of development.

This disconnect among perceptions of development are intimately tied to power. “A range of powerful, transnationally allied groups and organizations have historically promoted the construction of these projects” (Khagram 4). Each group that Khagram goes on to mention that support proposals to build large dams directly benefit from the projects, either politically, financially, or both. These proposals come at the expense of small farmers, indigenous peoples, and the local environment that must bare the brunt of decisions made by more powerful interests and institutions. We should not be surprised by this “top-down” vision of development, whereby a few profit (either politically, monetarily, or both) at the expense of the less powerful masses. After all, the “technocratic pursuit of economic growth through the intensive exploitation of natural resources,” has reigned supreme for a long time (Khagram 4). In fact, Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru solidified this power dynamic in the name of nationalism when he said, “‘If you are to suffer, you should suffer in the interest of the country’” (Khagram 37). Obviously Nehru has the power to make decisions that will not result in his own suffering, but because the less powerful will suffer at the hand of his decisions, he must justify this through nationalistic rhetoric.

Those that live alongside the dam, however, experience the world in a much different way than those who seek to exploit it. When one relies on the land for food, water, and shelter rather than on an economic system that provides these things, “big dams…become symbols of the injustice of humanity through the unprecedented destruction of nature, and the sacrifice of diverse cultures to inappropriate science and technology in the name of progress” (Khagram 5). Therefore resistance against the construction of big dams is not only morally and rhetorically justified, but it is essential to maintaining cultural traditions, rights to subsistence, and preserving human rights. People, therefore, who are displaced by big dam projects, have a lot more taken from them than just the land. If big dams do not positively benefit everybody affected by their construction, we should not view these monstrosities as ‘development” or “progress.” On page 121, Khagram notes that most politicians and bureaucrats understand big dams as synonymous with progress and that this mindset was being “challenged by the domestic movement on the ground” (Khagram 121).

Big dam developments impede both positive as well as negative freedoms. Water, obviously, is a resource that everyone requires to live. Therefore, if governments and corporations, through the construction of dams, privatize the resource, these institutions are, in a sense, stealing resources from one community only to supply another. Furthermore if one, who relies on the land for water and food, is displaced by a big dam project, they are being denied their “right to means of subsistence” as well as their right to live autonomously (Gould 146). This is a violation of positive freedoms. On the other hand, this same scenario violates people’s freedom from government oppression, and corporate exploitation. These violations are virtually transparent because they are done in the name of development; that is, violations occur through an understanding of development that is held by those unaffected by the projects but powerful enough to execute them. Getulio Vargas, the first Brazilian president solidified the priorities of those in power without regard to communities or traditions. “I have come with the purpose of seeing to the practical possibilities of putting into execution a plan for the systematic exploitation of the wealth and the economic development of the region” (Khagram 142). Here Vargas characterizes exploitation as a component of “development,” which clearly illustrates the way in which the meaning of this term is dependent on the discourse from which it is uttered.

Human rights doctrines should take into consideration the way in which big dam projects require both a universal understanding of rights as well as culturally relative ones. The construction of big dams undermines a sense of responsibility to the community and emphasizes a more individualized pursuit of power over the environment and communities, and doesn’t recognize that the two are in fact interrelated. A universal understanding of human rights should be tied to the land. It should be recognized that any degradation of the environment ultimately affects those that rely on the land to live. The idea of responsibility should not be limited, therefore, towards just human relationships, but should include relationships between humans and the natural world as well. This understanding of responsibility “calls for a more continuing concern with taking care of the well-being of others, including a concern with helping to bring about good and just outcomes for them (Gould 146). A universal understanding of human rights, therefore, is necessary in promoting a foundation for equality. “We can be jointly responsible for meeting the basic needs of all the others, and this imposes some fundamental human rights obligations on each of us” (Gould 146).

It should also be recognized that the construction of big dams also result in a form of ethnocide, which prevents cultures from maintaining the traditions of their ancestors. If a culture has farmed a particular land base for thousands of years, built their religion and belief system upon it, it should come as no surprise that when the construction of a big dam results in the destruction of this culture’s community and land base, and are forced to relocate, traditions will be lost.
This brings us to the issue of sustainability. On page 210 Khagram discusses the issue of sustainable development in regards to dam construction. “Sustainable development is understood as longer-term progress toward greater public participation, political accountability, social equity, and environmental sustainability.” While democratic institutions, as Khagram states, may be more prone to promote sustainable development over authoritarian regimes, this promotion should not be viewed as progressive by any stretch of the imagination. This definition of “sustainable development” is concerned with the implicit question: what can we do to make dams sustainable? The assumption here is that dams can be made sustainable.
In Dams and Development: Transnational Struggles for Water and Power, Khagram doesn’t seem willing to connect her own “dots,” in that the large-scale dams that have characterized the last thirty years of development are not and can never be sustainable. Over and over again, she goes into detail regarding the displacement of people and traditions, the systematic extinction of fish species, and the death of the rivers themselves, yet not once in the book does Khagram say that the dams need to come down. This was problematic for me as it reinforces my own concern regarding the mainstream discourse on sustainability as only interested in figuring out how we can maintain this lifestyle in a sustainable way.

The problem is, we don’t know what a sustainable future looks like and any community, like those that rely on the Narmada, that do live sustainably are being systematically exterminated by the production of unsustainable practices like large dams. Another problem is the discourse on sustainability takes the economic system as a given and any solutions that harm the economic system (but will be good for the land and the communities that thrive there) are not taken into consideration. This mindset, at its core, is not sustainable. In fact, it is exactly backwards. It is, therefore, crucial that any doctrine on human rights must put the needs of people and the natural world above all else and recognize that they are interrelated. That is, the destruction of the natural world—through big dam projects—results in human rights violations. If you take a way a people’s river, you take away their access to water, to fish, traditions, and the freedom to live autonomously.

Source:

Gould, Carol. Globalizing Democracy and Human Rights. Cambridge. Cambridge University Press 2004. Chap. 6

Khagram, Sanjeev. Dams and Development: Transnational Struggles for Water and Power. Ithaca and London. Cornell University Press. 2004

I know I don’t usually post international news articles, but I came across this recent one during my research for my final paper for my political science class on human rights. I’m writing about oil drilling/ extraction on indigenous land. Particularly, I’m looking at the indigenous Achuar community in the Ecuadorian rainforest. They’ve been fighting for over three years to keep Burlington Resources, an American oil company (now a part of ConocoPhillips, from drilling on their land.

During my research, I’ve noticed that the oil companies that have been allowed to drill in Ecuador have been grossly irresponsible. Insanely, unfathomably irresponsible. Chevron is currently in a battle with the courts for messing up the land there. ConocoPhillips, it appears, is backing off their plans to drill (which actually had the support of the Ecuadorian government), because of the great fight the Achuar people have put up.

Quito, Ecuador: The Ecuador judge hearing a $6 billion class-action environmental lawsuit against Chevron for contamination of the Amazon rainforest has ordered that the final phase of the trial, which includes a damage assessment, be completed in 120 days.

The order, made over Chevron’s objection, poses new legal challenges for CEO David O’Reilly and company management as they face what experts believe could turn out to be the largest judgment against an oil company in history.

Chevron is currently battling to avoid liability from its Ecuador operations in two different courts and before three investigative bodies, including the Securities and Exchange Commission and the U.S. Department of Justice. Just last week, the leader of Ecuador’s largest indigenous federation called for a criminal investigation of top-level Chevron employees over the contamination, which experts consider to be among the most extensive in the world.
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The ruling means that the evidentiary portion of the case should end by this summer, with a decision by the beginning of 2008. Filed in Ecuador in 2003, the lawsuit alleges that Texaco (now Chevron) dumped 18 billion gallons of toxic waste into Ecuador’s rainforest and abandoned roughly 1,000 open-air toxic waste pits, causing widespread health problems for indigenous peoples and other communities living in the area.

Now, do you think Chevron would attempt to get away with this kind of shit in a first world, developed country? Not on your life. Read the last paragraph of the excerpt again. Chevron has already proved the premises of my argument. That drilling for oil on land, results in gross human rights violations and, therefore, needs to stop. Chevron has made air unfit for breathing, water unfit for drinking, and land unfit for growing. In other words, oil extraction (which cannot be made safe and clean) hampers the Achuar’s ability to live autonomously on their own land.

Now ConocoPhillips want to do the same thing? It’s bullshit. It goes beyond human rights. It’s heartless. It’s racist. It’s genocide. And with so many undiscovered species of plants in the rainforest, many which likely have medicinal benefits (just ask the Achuar; they’ve lived there for thousands of years), it’s really really stupid.

MIAMI (Reuters)

Police in Florida have arrested an activist for feeding the homeless in downtown Orlando.

Eric Montanez, 21, of the charity group Food Not Bombs, was charged with violating a controversial law against feeding large groups of destitute people in the city center, police said on Thursday.

Montanez was filmed by undercover officers on Wednesday as he served “30 unidentified persons food from a large pot utilizing a ladle,” according to an arrest affidavit. The Orlando area is home to Disney World and Universal Studios Florida.

The Orlando law, which is supported by local business owners who say the homeless drive away customers but has been challenged in court by civil rights groups, allows charities to feed more than 25 people at a time within two miles of Orlando city hall only if they have a special permit. They can get two permits a year.

Police collected a vial of the stew Montanez was serving as evidence.

Police spokeswoman Barbara Jones said in an e-mail it was the first time anyone had been arrested under the feeding ban.

Montanez was charged with a misdemeanor.

word. Finally some good news. I have to say, I really wasn’t expecting this.

From the AZ Daily Sun

The operators of Arizona Snowbowl cannot use reclaimed wastewater to make snow, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled today.

In a unanimous decision, the judges said there is no evidence that denying the operators of Snowbowl the ability to use sewage for artificial snow would force the facility, located on U.S. Forest Service land, to shut down. They said there is no “compelling governmental interest'’ in having artificial snow on the San Francisco Peaks.

From San Diego
From the Sierra Club
New York Times
North Country