You can have at least waited until February ended to arrive, you know the most terribly cold miserable month on the planet in all that other places that actually experience seasons. But no here you are on my morning run, making me sweat at 7am before even leaving my front steps. When the guy on WWOZ this morning said "its 64 degrees outside" while I was searching for a pair clean-ish socks, I thought wow its going to be great run, but no, no it wasn't. I almost sufficated out there. And then while doing lunges on the riverwalk, I slipped twice because everything is covered in this light invisible dew. It's fucking February. No need for 80% humidity today. No need.
Besides almost dying this morning and realizing that I will need a gym membership if I'm to survive this place, I celebrated the beginning on Mardi Gras this weekend. One night out and two recovery days. I'm not sure if you knew this, but bars don't close here. Second weekend since I moved where someone else mentioned that it was 5am and when I looked around to see I had been locked inside the bar mistakenly, I saw the lights still low, the music still pounding, and no one looking like they are on their way home yet. But it's Carnival season, so I quickly headed to my local for one last miller high life with someone I can only describe as a very young Abraham Lincoln, if Mr Lincoln had a very large pelican tattoo and a La Place accent.
Happy Mardi Gras!
Have you seen this? Infant dolphins dying en mass in Mississippi? Still born dolphins are rolling up on the shores of Mississippi. But don't worry the oil is all gone and everything is back to normal.
Time to finish this strategic plan.
Renee Claire
Tuesday, February 22, 2011
Thursday, February 17, 2011
Thursday Gumbo: Very Sleepy
Hello Lovelies,
It's been quite the whirlwind of activity here on the gulf coast. I took a couple weeks to slow down prior to moving and I'm so glad I did, if only to have memories of what it was like to not be completely exhausted, overwhelmed, single handly keeping the coffee industry in business, and hit by one of my worst allergy seasons to date. My brain is foggy, my eyes can hardly open, and the amount of snot rolling out of my nose reminds me of You Can't Do That On Television skits.
The great thing about this completely overwhelming experience is that I get to visit places like Apalachicola Bay in northwestern Florida. One of the most beautiful places I have ever visited. I am working out a plan to one day buy a house and kayak everyday there as we speak. I have tons of photos that I'm hoping to get up real soon. It was a wonderful place to work after three days of strategic planning or how my team likes to call it Renee! (that's how they write my name) herding cats.
Three days of strategic planning that had been put off for 10 months in Mobile, AL. It ended up being a wonderful experience, but fuck that was hard. There was more than once when I put my head in my hands while the team was working on something and said to myself how the fuck do I get out of this. But if I have learned anything over the past 6 years of my career, it's there is always a solution.
I'll be honest, though, its not just the workload and the allergies that are so overwhelming. It's seeing the impacts still being felt by communities in the wake of the BP oil disaster. People who have quickly become family are really sick, still in the midst of chaos while the rest of the world has seemed to just gone on with their life, and my team is looking to me to help fill a lot of gaps and add capacity to their own workloads and problem solving. On my team I have junior league women from Mobile, a Basque transplant and former commercial fishermen who has lived in the bayous for 30 years bent on bringing down corporate corruption, a president of LA Shrimper's Association, and a former state water management official. It's quite a powerful and inspiring bunch when working in concert.
Onw husband and wife combo on my team, who make their living on the water, have been out of work since April, except for a brief stint working to clean up oil for BP. Having to stop our strategic planning meeting because more than one person had a caughing fit and needs to do a breathing treatment in the back office and then watch their body react to the steroids, makes you wonder what the fuck you have been doing since April 20 and who the fuck do you think you are thinking you have any answers.
My morning runs have become much more important. The fog rolling over the Mississippi is really quite exceptional at dawn. Though sneezing all over the other runners is frowned upon I've learned.
Yesterday I attended the second a series of three public scoping meeting for BOEMRE, the agency that replaced MMS, the federal agency that regulates the oil and gas industry. The scoping meeting was to get public input on expanding offshore drilling. There were the usual industry suspects making statements about the benefits of the oil and gas industry and how we can't judge the entire industry because of one little spill. Community members impacted by the spill and environmental advocates got up one after the other to say that we must not expand our drilling practice until we begin to make changes to the problem that results in 87 days of oil gushing into the Gulf and the poisoning of hundreds of thousands of people all along the gulf coast. A retired woman from the industry sighed while fishermen explained that they are sick and that the seafood is unsafe and that we must take precautions when thinking of adding more drilling. She sighed at them, like they were making it all up.
I said this was going to be a gumbo. So here are some things I find interesting.
Bridge The Gulf
Louisiana Environmental Action Network
BOEMRE is holding public meetings to collect comments on the environmental impact statement of expanding drilling leases in the Gulf (including Florida), Arctic, and Alaska. Send in comments to BOEMRE asking them to not expand drilling before they put in place the recommendations of the Oil Spill Commission or if you are of the more progressive kind - end offshore drilling). You can email your comments here: MultisaleEIS@BOEMRE.gov
Not sure what to say, here are some points:
(1) In order to ensure public participation, BOEMRE must be more transparent and include public meetings that are scheduled at times and in places that the public can attend, evenings, weekends and in community centers, not airport hotels.
(2) There must be no expansion of offshore drilling before the recommendations of the oil spill commission are implemented.
(3) We now know the industry does not have the technology to clean up worst case scenarios, we must work from this point forward from that starting place, not by the industry word that they can clean up and stop any spill. The 87 days of the BP oil spill disaster has proven this.
(4) All new permits must come in front of a citizen advisory council.
(5) There must be a citizen advisory council set up with decision making powers.
Your comments are due no later than March 31, but you might was well send them in right now. Just copy and paste my points and add anything else you are interested in saying about the impacts of the BP oil spill disaster. Feel free to paste what you sent in the comments section below.
Don't forget to come visit me in New Orleans.
Renee Claire
It's been quite the whirlwind of activity here on the gulf coast. I took a couple weeks to slow down prior to moving and I'm so glad I did, if only to have memories of what it was like to not be completely exhausted, overwhelmed, single handly keeping the coffee industry in business, and hit by one of my worst allergy seasons to date. My brain is foggy, my eyes can hardly open, and the amount of snot rolling out of my nose reminds me of You Can't Do That On Television skits.
The great thing about this completely overwhelming experience is that I get to visit places like Apalachicola Bay in northwestern Florida. One of the most beautiful places I have ever visited. I am working out a plan to one day buy a house and kayak everyday there as we speak. I have tons of photos that I'm hoping to get up real soon. It was a wonderful place to work after three days of strategic planning or how my team likes to call it Renee! (that's how they write my name) herding cats.
Three days of strategic planning that had been put off for 10 months in Mobile, AL. It ended up being a wonderful experience, but fuck that was hard. There was more than once when I put my head in my hands while the team was working on something and said to myself how the fuck do I get out of this. But if I have learned anything over the past 6 years of my career, it's there is always a solution.
I'll be honest, though, its not just the workload and the allergies that are so overwhelming. It's seeing the impacts still being felt by communities in the wake of the BP oil disaster. People who have quickly become family are really sick, still in the midst of chaos while the rest of the world has seemed to just gone on with their life, and my team is looking to me to help fill a lot of gaps and add capacity to their own workloads and problem solving. On my team I have junior league women from Mobile, a Basque transplant and former commercial fishermen who has lived in the bayous for 30 years bent on bringing down corporate corruption, a president of LA Shrimper's Association, and a former state water management official. It's quite a powerful and inspiring bunch when working in concert.
Onw husband and wife combo on my team, who make their living on the water, have been out of work since April, except for a brief stint working to clean up oil for BP. Having to stop our strategic planning meeting because more than one person had a caughing fit and needs to do a breathing treatment in the back office and then watch their body react to the steroids, makes you wonder what the fuck you have been doing since April 20 and who the fuck do you think you are thinking you have any answers.
My morning runs have become much more important. The fog rolling over the Mississippi is really quite exceptional at dawn. Though sneezing all over the other runners is frowned upon I've learned.
Yesterday I attended the second a series of three public scoping meeting for BOEMRE, the agency that replaced MMS, the federal agency that regulates the oil and gas industry. The scoping meeting was to get public input on expanding offshore drilling. There were the usual industry suspects making statements about the benefits of the oil and gas industry and how we can't judge the entire industry because of one little spill. Community members impacted by the spill and environmental advocates got up one after the other to say that we must not expand our drilling practice until we begin to make changes to the problem that results in 87 days of oil gushing into the Gulf and the poisoning of hundreds of thousands of people all along the gulf coast. A retired woman from the industry sighed while fishermen explained that they are sick and that the seafood is unsafe and that we must take precautions when thinking of adding more drilling. She sighed at them, like they were making it all up.
I said this was going to be a gumbo. So here are some things I find interesting.
Bridge The Gulf
Louisiana Environmental Action Network
BOEMRE is holding public meetings to collect comments on the environmental impact statement of expanding drilling leases in the Gulf (including Florida), Arctic, and Alaska. Send in comments to BOEMRE asking them to not expand drilling before they put in place the recommendations of the Oil Spill Commission or if you are of the more progressive kind - end offshore drilling). You can email your comments here: MultisaleEIS@BOEMRE.gov
Not sure what to say, here are some points:
(1) In order to ensure public participation, BOEMRE must be more transparent and include public meetings that are scheduled at times and in places that the public can attend, evenings, weekends and in community centers, not airport hotels.
(2) There must be no expansion of offshore drilling before the recommendations of the oil spill commission are implemented.
(3) We now know the industry does not have the technology to clean up worst case scenarios, we must work from this point forward from that starting place, not by the industry word that they can clean up and stop any spill. The 87 days of the BP oil spill disaster has proven this.
(4) All new permits must come in front of a citizen advisory council.
(5) There must be a citizen advisory council set up with decision making powers.
Your comments are due no later than March 31, but you might was well send them in right now. Just copy and paste my points and add anything else you are interested in saying about the impacts of the BP oil spill disaster. Feel free to paste what you sent in the comments section below.
Don't forget to come visit me in New Orleans.
Renee Claire
Wednesday, January 26, 2011
Dinner with Darryl and The President
Last night I met up with my favorite New Orleans activist. He might be my favorite because I don't know many yet, but he also looks like Santa Clause, uses a cane with a giant gold alligator as its handle, and can drink copious amounts of Cider. We ate pizza and plotted change and he told stories. A good night.
Darryl helped start Green Corps, which I've written about in the past before I ever met him, and is a leading voice in the recovery efforts of the Holy Cross and Lower Ninth Ward neighborhoods. Did I mention he looks like Santa Clause? In his younger days before he knew his lifelong path would be pushing back on the chemical industry in Cancer Alley and the Louisiana government in post-Katrina New Orleans, he bummed around the south getting involved in anti-nukes work. Once working as a janitor on the second shift in order to borrow bits of paper with important information to help the community. He has been fired for starting a union at a chemical facility. And he arrived in New Orleans twenty years ago to paint a buddy's house, then a neighbor's house, then another, and another until he didn't have time to paint any longer as his time was being spent organizing with the Sierra Club and other groups to shut chemical facilities that were poisoning his friends and neighbors. He mentioned to me that one of his big regrets was not being a whistle blower during his years of odd jobs at chemical plants. But I think he did alright.
I stumbled across this post from CIEL (Center for International Environmental Law) by Daryl Ditz. I also had dinner with this other Daryl, but that was many years ago. And the only thing I remember is that I had a massive crush on one of the guys that was also at dinner and I was nervous. Then my crush walked away without saying goodnight as Daryl made sure I was safely in a cab.
In this post, Daryl asks the question "Could the new Congress find bipartisan agreement to ratify a global treaty to reduce the risks of the “worst of the worst” toxic chemicals?" The national discussion around the updating of TSCA, our nations chemical policy, is continuing in a climate that shows more people are aware of the chemicals in the products we bring into our homes.
This week I have been shopping a bunch for my new apartment. I'm still unfamiliar with the city and so don't know the little shops to support. So big box stores here I come. Even in, yes I'll admit it, Walmart many plastic household items have big signs that say BPA free. Though these things often sit next to items with big signs that say PVC. This is the PVC manufacturing area of the country after all. I can imagine that those three letters are sources of pride and that strong odor is just the smell of jobs. But if the families who shop at Walmart are aware of the dangers of BPA, then our national conversation is much closer to where it should be on eliminating toxic chemicals than it use to be. So why couldn't this congress find bipartisan support for a better chemical policy?
Well, there is the ACC after all. I hate them. Anyways, ACC is a trade association, which I've also mentioned to you before and everyday they release an email of the day's biggest industry trends. Mostly directly corresponding to some campaign someone I work with is coordinating against them. I've kept all their emails since 2008 in order to better understand where their priorities are moving. It's really interesting to look back and see how many emails they sent on plastic bags or BPA or state bills being introduced on PVC. They send people to attend city council meetings to beat back plastic bag bans. That must be a terrible job. Their biggest defense? Discrimination against poor people. Plastic bag bans discriminate against poor people who can't afford reusable bags. Amazing.
As I was having drinks with Darryl (with two R's), I didn't watch the State of the Union, but I did read it this morning. This part struck me:
"The first step in winning the future is encouraging American innovation. None of us can predict with certainty what the next big industry will be or where the new jobs will come from. Thirty years ago, we couldn't know that something called the Internet would lead to an economic revolution. What we can do -- what America does better than anyone else -- is spark the creativity and imagination of our people. We're the nation that put cars in driveways and computers in offices; the nation of Edison and the Wright brothers; of Google and Facebook. In America, innovation doesn't just change our lives. It is how we make our living.
Our free enterprise system is what drives innovation. But because it's not always profitable for companies to invest in basic research, throughout our history, our government has provided cutting-edge scientists and inventors with the support that they need. That's what planted the seeds for the Internet. That's what helped make possible things like computer chips and GPS. Just think of all the good jobs -- from manufacturing to retail -- that have come from these breakthroughs."
Earlier this year, the state of Louisiana passed an incentive package for technology start ups to encourage this rapidly developing industry to live in New Orleans. One of the compliants of science based industries who think of coming to Louisiana and the Gulf coast is the lack of skilled people in their field. Just yesterday, an Oil industry trade group sent out their own daily trend email and discussed the barriers to safer drilling. Skilled workers. The older generation who have been working on the rigs their whole life are starting to retire and the younger generation hasn't stepped up because the who the fuck wants to risk their life everyday on an oil rig after watching their fathers do it their whole lives. Not many people it turns out.
The area needs a science and math booster shot. Some, many large projects that can help get our people trained and skilled in industries of the future. Sprouting new businesses and trends that will help with the long term recovery of this region and therefore the rest of the country. Businesses that move us away from fossil fuels and towards a greater level of innovation.
au revior,
Renee Claire
Darryl helped start Green Corps, which I've written about in the past before I ever met him, and is a leading voice in the recovery efforts of the Holy Cross and Lower Ninth Ward neighborhoods. Did I mention he looks like Santa Clause? In his younger days before he knew his lifelong path would be pushing back on the chemical industry in Cancer Alley and the Louisiana government in post-Katrina New Orleans, he bummed around the south getting involved in anti-nukes work. Once working as a janitor on the second shift in order to borrow bits of paper with important information to help the community. He has been fired for starting a union at a chemical facility. And he arrived in New Orleans twenty years ago to paint a buddy's house, then a neighbor's house, then another, and another until he didn't have time to paint any longer as his time was being spent organizing with the Sierra Club and other groups to shut chemical facilities that were poisoning his friends and neighbors. He mentioned to me that one of his big regrets was not being a whistle blower during his years of odd jobs at chemical plants. But I think he did alright.
I stumbled across this post from CIEL (Center for International Environmental Law) by Daryl Ditz. I also had dinner with this other Daryl, but that was many years ago. And the only thing I remember is that I had a massive crush on one of the guys that was also at dinner and I was nervous. Then my crush walked away without saying goodnight as Daryl made sure I was safely in a cab.
In this post, Daryl asks the question "Could the new Congress find bipartisan agreement to ratify a global treaty to reduce the risks of the “worst of the worst” toxic chemicals?" The national discussion around the updating of TSCA, our nations chemical policy, is continuing in a climate that shows more people are aware of the chemicals in the products we bring into our homes.
This week I have been shopping a bunch for my new apartment. I'm still unfamiliar with the city and so don't know the little shops to support. So big box stores here I come. Even in, yes I'll admit it, Walmart many plastic household items have big signs that say BPA free. Though these things often sit next to items with big signs that say PVC. This is the PVC manufacturing area of the country after all. I can imagine that those three letters are sources of pride and that strong odor is just the smell of jobs. But if the families who shop at Walmart are aware of the dangers of BPA, then our national conversation is much closer to where it should be on eliminating toxic chemicals than it use to be. So why couldn't this congress find bipartisan support for a better chemical policy?
Well, there is the ACC after all. I hate them. Anyways, ACC is a trade association, which I've also mentioned to you before and everyday they release an email of the day's biggest industry trends. Mostly directly corresponding to some campaign someone I work with is coordinating against them. I've kept all their emails since 2008 in order to better understand where their priorities are moving. It's really interesting to look back and see how many emails they sent on plastic bags or BPA or state bills being introduced on PVC. They send people to attend city council meetings to beat back plastic bag bans. That must be a terrible job. Their biggest defense? Discrimination against poor people. Plastic bag bans discriminate against poor people who can't afford reusable bags. Amazing.
As I was having drinks with Darryl (with two R's), I didn't watch the State of the Union, but I did read it this morning. This part struck me:
"The first step in winning the future is encouraging American innovation. None of us can predict with certainty what the next big industry will be or where the new jobs will come from. Thirty years ago, we couldn't know that something called the Internet would lead to an economic revolution. What we can do -- what America does better than anyone else -- is spark the creativity and imagination of our people. We're the nation that put cars in driveways and computers in offices; the nation of Edison and the Wright brothers; of Google and Facebook. In America, innovation doesn't just change our lives. It is how we make our living.
Our free enterprise system is what drives innovation. But because it's not always profitable for companies to invest in basic research, throughout our history, our government has provided cutting-edge scientists and inventors with the support that they need. That's what planted the seeds for the Internet. That's what helped make possible things like computer chips and GPS. Just think of all the good jobs -- from manufacturing to retail -- that have come from these breakthroughs."
Earlier this year, the state of Louisiana passed an incentive package for technology start ups to encourage this rapidly developing industry to live in New Orleans. One of the compliants of science based industries who think of coming to Louisiana and the Gulf coast is the lack of skilled people in their field. Just yesterday, an Oil industry trade group sent out their own daily trend email and discussed the barriers to safer drilling. Skilled workers. The older generation who have been working on the rigs their whole life are starting to retire and the younger generation hasn't stepped up because the who the fuck wants to risk their life everyday on an oil rig after watching their fathers do it their whole lives. Not many people it turns out.
The area needs a science and math booster shot. Some, many large projects that can help get our people trained and skilled in industries of the future. Sprouting new businesses and trends that will help with the long term recovery of this region and therefore the rest of the country. Businesses that move us away from fossil fuels and towards a greater level of innovation.
au revior,
Renee Claire
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