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Mountains To Climb

I fell asleep late yesterday afternoon while watching Season 1 of Whale Wars. Sleep as avoidance, surely, for I got very riled up when Paul Watson and Peter Brown started dissing Greenpeace and didn’t really want to watch much more.

Why is it that two organizations with the same goal (that is, to save whales and other animals) cannot work peaceably together? Yes, of course there is “bad blood” between GP and Watson since he was asked to leave. Still, Watson should understand that GP was founded largely on the Quaker beliefs in bearing witness and non-violence.

And GP should realize that there is more than one way to save whales, recognize Watson’s intentions as good, and stop withholding important and potentially helpful information.

It seem so dramatic, this rivalry. I thought both organizations would help one another in any way possible, agreeing to disagree about the “how’s.” Seriously… it’s not like Watson and his crew are doing anything that GP activists would not do also.

Truly, what is the difference between tossing stink bombs onto whalers’ decks and painting signs on the roofs of office buildings? What is the difference between peacefully boarding a harpoon ship and handcuffing oneself to an office door? How is one tactic more or less aggressive than another?

Hostility between to the two groups seems quite petty to me.

One of the Sea Shepherd crew members told an Esperanza (Greenpeace) crew member to “get (their) head out of (their) ass.” Why? To what end? How did that exchange help either party? It seems to me that it only damaged both.

I was also disappointed with myself. I had taken the word of former GP colleagues against the Sea Shepherds and Paul Watson for granted. It seems the hostility has spread throughout GP, even down to the lowest ranks. I used some of my colleagues’ words against Watson and his team when canvassing without doing an ounce of research. I told potential donors that Watson was violent and that the Sea Shepherds used tactics which hurt the movement.

What a shameful thing to do!

I’ve spent hours looking into the “power facts” of our pitches, making sure that everything I said against companies and politicians was correct. Why did I not do the same for Watson?

In truth, I watched 6 1/2 of the 8 episodes of Whale Wars. I doubt I missed much in the last 1 1/2 episodes that would have changed my mind about the first 6 1/2 shows. What I saw made it quite clear to me that Watson and the Sea Shepherds deserve very little of the criticism that has spread down the ranks at Greenpeace. Watson seems passionate, dedicated, and determined to do anything he can to protect both whales and humans. I never once witnessed him thoughtlessly putting lives in danger. In fact, I felt, as the South Park episode on Whale Wars indicated, that Watson and his crew did very little at all.

I actually agree with Watson that simply “bearing witness” to the slaughter of hundreds of whales each season just isn’t enough. However, are the Sea Shepherds truly doing anything more than Greenpeace?

I have the feeling that both organizations use the rivalry between them as a media spring board as well as a fund raising talking point. But if the two cannot have peace between them, how can they promote any sort of peace anywhere else? I am completely stunned that such animosity exists after nearly 30 years of separation. That is longer than most of my ex-colleagues have been alive! It’s ridiculous and disappointing.

This topic has made me look at my own grudges from a new perspective. Am I using past hurts to justify present actions? Why else would I hold onto them? Why do I carry so much negativity into the present when I have the choice to let it stay in the past where it belongs?

I also have to look at other situations in which I may have taking someone’s negative opinions/feelings about others for granted and then spread that negativity myself. How many times have I formed opinions in third person? How many times have I held fast to those beliefs without investigating the situation?

It’s gossip. It’s that simple. And transcending gossip is one of my New Year’s Intentions.

My other Intentions include:

• Thinking before speaking/acting
• Being mindful that nothing/no one is against me–I can only be against myself
• Being present for friends/family in pain/turmoil rather than letting my attention wander toward “fixing” the problem
• No longer avoiding conflict, but instead facing it compassionately and openly head-on
• Listening to my body
• Truly dedicating myself to a local/sustainable diet
• Creating more
• Laughing at myself more and ridding myself of defensiveness (again, no one is against me)

These intentions come free of self-doubt and self-criticism. Though they are high mountains to climb, I recognize their loftiness and will not despair should I stumble on the journey.

Sustainability and Your Consumer Votes

I am nearly finished reading The Omnivore's Dilemma and it is magnificent! Seriously... it should be required reading for ALL Americans!

I find it incredibly fascinating that people read it and then become either vegetarian or vegan! Wait... not fascinating... ummm... CRAZY! I am even more convinced now that eating a local, sustainable diet which includes animal protein is not only healthy for us... but healthy for the earth... that it is an integral part of the chain of life, the biodiversity of our planet, and our connection to it all.

Here is an excerpt I particularly love:

"The farmer would point out to the vegan that even she has a "serious clash of interests" with other animals. The grain that the vegan eats is harvested with a combine that shreds field mice, while the farmer's tractor wheel crushes woodchucks in their burrows and his pesticides drop songbirds from the sky; after harvest whatever animals that would eat our crops we exterminate. Killing animals is probably unavoidable no matter what we choose to eat. If America was suddenly to adopt a strictly vegetarian diet, it isn't at all clear that the total number of animals killed each year would necessarily decline, since to feed everyone animal pasture and rangeland would have to give way to more intensively cultivated crops. If our goal is to kill as few animals as possible people should probably try to eat the largest possible animal that can live on the least cultivated land: grass-finished steaks for everyone.

"The vegan utopia would also condemn people in many parts of the country to importing all their food from distant places. In New England, for example, the hilliness of the land and rockiness of the soil has dictated an agriculture based on grass and animals since the time of the Puritans. Indeed, the New England landscape, with its rolling patchwork of forest and fields outlined by fieldstone walls, is in some sense a creation of the domestic animals that have lived there (and so in turn of their eaters). The world is full of places where the best, if not the only, way to obtain food from the land is by grazing (and hunting) animals one it--especially ruminants, which alone can transform grass into protein.

"To give up eating animals is to give up on these places as human habitat, unless of course we are willing to make complete our dependence on a highly industrialized national food chain. That food chain would be in turn even more dependent than it already is on fossil fuels and chemical fertilizer, since food would need to travel even farther and fertility--in the form of manure--would be in short supply. Indeed, it is doubtful you can build a genuinely sustainable agriculture without animals to cycle nutrients and support local food production. If our concern is for the health of nature--rather than, say, the internal consistency of our moral code or the condition of our souls--then eating animals may sometimes be the most ethical thing to do."

These few paragraphs very nearly sums up my own eating philosophy. Just think of all the places we live... all 7 billion of us... from Michigan to Peru, from Alaska to Australia. There is no way a vegan or even vegetarian diet could feed us AND the earth. There is not a single vegan in Boulder who can say they eat a sustainable diet... for what locally raised vegetable protein is there to be had in the mountains in December? I'll tell you. None.

The only family members I have who could potentially live as vegetarians and still be healthy... are my mom and brother in Kentucky... and only if they did a lot of canning and freezing for the winter. None of the San people of Botswana could survive. None of the Mongolians. None of the Inuits. None of the Aborigines. None of the New Yorkers.

While it is true that most of us should eat far LESS meat, it is also true that we can in good conscience eat locally and ethically raised animals... and SHOULD.

Every purchase we make is a vote. I swear, I'm going to tattoo that on myself somewhere visible to my own eyes! EVERY PURCHASE we make is a VOTE... for a product, for how it was made, for the corporation that made it, and for all the practices of that corporation.

When you buy Nestle products, you are voting for the 4.6 million acre/year burning of the Paradise Rain Forest in Indonesia, Malaysia and Borneo... and the death of endangered animals like the orangutan, Sumatran tiger and bird of paradise. When you buy an HP, Del, or Acer computer or any Nintendo, Fujistu or Microsoft product, you are voting for mercury and PVC poisoning in Third and Second World countries. When you buy Atlantic cod, salmon, sea scallops or halibut, albacore tuna, Chilean sea bass, orange roughy or grouper... you are voting for over-fishing and destruction of vast swaths of our oceans and the ecosystems of COUNTLESS other species. When you buy sushi in St. Louis, MO and/or ripe tomatoes in Toronto in November, you are voting for dependence on fossil fuels. When you buy a veggie sub from Subway, you are voting for Genetically Engineered foods.

Yes, it is HARD to be a mindful consumer! It's also expensive! Our society isn't currently set up to accommodate sustainability. That is precisely why your consumer votes are more important now than ever! Gross changes need to be made... and it is our consumer power that will make them!

Compromises inevitably need to be made, of course. We can vote for Chipotle because 35% of their meats are grass fed/free range and because none of their meats have growth hormones or antibiotics. But aren't we also voting for the 65% of their meat that is not ethically/locally raised?

And what about budget and convenience? If I can afford to spend $8 on a meal, should I drive an extra 5 miles in my fossil fuel dependent car to buy a small, locally grown salad at Watercourse, or should I walk across the street to Safeway to buy an apple from Washington and a hunk of cheese from Boulder?

We're so far from being able to be 100% sustainable that it can sometimes feel overwhelming... but the more demand we make for local, ethically raised foods... the more they will become available to us... and the cheaper they will ultimately become. It's simple supply and demand. So WHY are so few people demanding sustainable foods?

We've managed to remove ourselves from the land on which we depend. How many Americans know where their food was grown or how it was raised? How many people know what a CAFO is? How many understand the link between Monsanto seeds and Agent Orange? We are uneducated... and purposefully so... not only because ignorance is (temporarily) bliss, but also because the government is so utterly planted in the back pockets of the very companies who wish to hide their practices.

While reading The Omnivore's Dilemma, I've simultaneously been reading Climate Cover-Up. The fleecing of America is not a myth... we have been fleeced... and how! Because of "fair and balanced" media coverage, Americans are fooled into believe that 50% of scientists believe in climate change and 50% don't. They don't see that the topic isn't truly up for debate because the fossil fuel companies pay millions of dollars to make sure of it... their think tanks release fictitious documents into the media... which then gives it equal air time in the name of "fair and balanced." In fact... if the media coverage of climate change and pollution were "fair and balanced," then 99.9% of all legitimate climate scientists would receive 99.9% of media coverage!

In an effort to uncover the truth about global warming, a survey of legit scientific publications was taken between 2003 and 2006. Over 900 publications were found and every one of them indicated that global warming is REAL and that it is caused by humans... NOT by the earth's natural cycles. There were NO legit scientific publications anywhere in the world which suggested otherwise. NONE!

Whatever you see in the media or online about the "myth" off climate change will have been written by someone who is NOT a climate scientist. In fact, the majority are written by the think tanks of huge fossil fuel companies and those corporations most dependent upon them.

Here is an excerpt from the book:

"Starting in the early 1990s, three large American industry groups set to work on strategies to cast doubt on the science of climate change. Even though the oil industry’s own scientists had declared, as early as 1995, that human-induced climate change was undeniable, the American Petroleum Institute, the Western Fuels Association (a coal-fired electrical industry consortium) and a Philip Morris-sponsored anti-science group called TASSC all drafted and promoted campaigns of climate change disinformation.

"The success of those plans is self-evident. A Yale/George Mason University poll taken late in 2008 showed that — 20 years after President George H.W. Bush promised to beat the greenhouse effect with the “White House effect” — a clear majority of Americans still say they either doubt the science of climate change or they just don’t know. Climate Cover-Up explains why they don’t know. Tracking the global warming denial movement from its inception, public relations advisor James Hoggan (working with journalist Richard Littlemore), reveals the details of those early plans and then tracks their execution, naming names and exposing tactics in what has become a full-blown attack on the integrity of the public conversation.

"Leveraging four years of original research conducted through (Hoggan’s) website, DeSmogBlog.com, (Hoggan and Littlemore) documented the participation of lapsed scientists and ExxonMobil-funded think tanks. Then they analyzed and explained how mainstream media stood by — or in some cases colluded — while deniers turned a clear issue of science (and an issue for public safety) into a partisan argument that no one could win."

And yet... so few Americans will ever read this book or pick up a legitimate scientific journal to find out for themselves! They will continue to watch Fox News and listen to their favored politicians, keeping the wool pulled tightly over their eyes.

It's so hard not to despair... not to just throw my hands up in the air and go hide in a cave somewhere until the end of the world. I'm so tired of holding up my shield against the "it's too late's" and the "I can't make a difference's." It is particularly difficult to keep my chin up when some of my own colleagues are undermining the integrity of an organization hell bent on making a difference! But...

There is a line I keep saying over and over again lately...

I will go down fighting!

Down, Down, Down

My car was broken into and my laptop and camera were stolen. I'm too tired to be angry... And so annoyed with myself for both leaving them in the car and for being so attached to them as to care.


I'm a snail.

Life is not fair, of course. I just wish it were a little less cruel. Seeing bad people succeed...

Perhaps the mountains will be gracious enough to swollow me tomorrow.

Forcing The Square Peg

I don't know what is going on in my chart/stars right now... but it's clearly something wacky. Things keep being dangled before my eyes... and then quickly snatched away. What is the lesson in this? I have no idea. If only I had my very own (read: free) astrologer/counselor/mentor/life planner. If only.

Can I just go to bed and start all over again tomorrow?

Yes, I suppose I can.

Alas.