I arrived in Amsterdam on Tuesday morning. And unlike any other time that I have been in this city, it's beautiful!! Warm and sunny. It's like a whole new city to me.
I wanted to share a couple things that I've read over the last couple days.
Why We Hate The Oil Companies by John Hofmeister: Unlike what the title suggests, this is not a pro-climate change movement book. John Hofmeister is a former president of Shell Oil Company. In the book he gives his arguments about we must adapt to a changing climate by diversifying our energy sources. Though he often uses the words 'climate change fearmongers' often, he states that he believes climate change exists and that we must clean up our act to mitigate impacts. It's an interesting read that has the ability to move an average climate denier, pro drill baby driller close to where the rest of the world is, which is a start.
Anyways, one particular passage about how sustainable business just makes sense. Though his examples are completely false and a good reminder about why communities really do hate oil companies.
pg 67
"As a consequence of [clean water] regulation, we live in far greater safety, and our surroundings are much cleaner than before.
There are still liquid waste issues. Runoff from rainstorms continues to carry pollutants from the surfaces of roads, highways, parking lots, playgrounds, yards, and fields into our water systems. But overall, the nation's rivers, ponds, and lakes are cleaner than they were a generation ago when factories, processing plants, and utilities, as well as homes and offices, emitted wastes directly into waterways I have been to refineries that pull water from rivers and emit water back into the river that is clean than what they removed."
When I began reading this paragraph, I was listening some jazz, drinking my old lady summer cocktail (Martini Bianco spritzer) completely relaxed, until I finished this paragraph. Did he just say that there are no longer industry facilities polluting our waterways? Is this a joke? You don't have to receive EPA emails for more than one day to realize that industry facilities all over the country are being fined everyday for water pollution. You can sign up directly on EPA to receive news from national headquarters and all regional offices on various issues.
Then this paragraph arrived.
"The amazing thing is that I never hear anyone bellaching over the costs of water treatment. They know better. They know that if they did not do the right thing for their company and society, if they dumped foul wastes into public waterways, it would only come back to haunt them. They know that water is finite and we need to have clean water to drink. In the past 25 yeras, in all the plants that i have been a part of, from manufacturing electric motors or jet engines or telecon switches to processing oil and chemical products, I do not recall one lament over the costs of water treatment. It was simply a part of doing business responsibly. Costs of investments were capitalized, preventive maintenance was built into the operating plan, staffs were trained to do their jobs. As long as the plant was up and running, water treatment was part of its operations, no ifs, ands or buts."
Shell's water pollution problems:
Royal Dutch Shell environmental wiki
Shell to pay $1 million for water pollution
Shell Oil company in Nigeria
These are links that I pulled from a 20 second google search.
What world do these people live in? And why do communities fall the lies that people in power tell them?
I'm off to explore this city. What are you doing today?
Ciao,
Renee Claire
Saturday, July 24, 2010
Monday, July 19, 2010
Repost: Chemical Reform is the New Our Bodies Ourselves
A good friend and I are developing a joint project about the links between social and environmental justice and art in South America. I am particularly interested in how women and girls are empowering each other to control the path of their community and stop chemical pollution. I'm also in the process of expanding a blog I wrote for Momsrising earlier this year called "Chemical Reform is the New Our Bodies Ourselves, so I thought I would repost it here. I'm really interested in your thoughts on this subject. Feel free to shoot me an email and post comment if you feel inclined. Ciao. Renee Claire
Chemical Reform is the New Our Bodies Ourselves
Originally posted February 16, 2010
Recently, I’ve had some time to sink my teeth into some really good reading. Three Cups of Tea and Stones into Schools by Greg Mortenso, Long Walk to Freedom by Nelson Mandela, Half the Sky by Nicolas D. Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn to name just a few. I don’t know about you, but many of the books I’ve read in my 30 years stand out as powerful moments in my life. I still remember receiving a book about the suffrage movement from my uncle when I was 9 years old. It was full of pictures including photos of women being arrested for their struggle for equal rights. (A possible origin of my own tendency for getting arrested for environmental and social justice throughout the years)
I also remember the day I first discovered Our Bodies Ourselves. A book that has empowered women to understand and care for their bodies, their health, and their community since it was first written in 1970 by the women at the Boston Women’s Health Book Collective. Forty years after Our Bodies Ourselves was first published, we are finally starting to see a larger societal understanding that to care for our girls and women is to directly nurture our community at large.
As we see a greater movement towards gender equality, we are also understanding that toxic chemicals are impacting our health, specifically our reproductive system, making this nurturing needlessly more difficult. Reproductive and developmental systems are extremely delicate and without a real commitment to the designing out of toxins, corporate interests are putting our daughter’s right to a healthy and safe future at risk.
This I believe is the next battle of the women’s rights movement. The right to not be poisoned by the things we buy for our homes, our children, and ourselves. And the right to live in our community without being regularly targeted by polluting companies. It is no secret that runaway corporate interests keeping toxic chemicals inside products we use everyday while convincing politicians to beat back regulation is creating serious environmental and health consequences, particularly to women and therefor our entire family.
With the fight to pass comprehensive and transparent federal chemical reform, we are seeing women and girls educate themselves and others on the importance of a toxic free future. Just take a look at your state’s initiatives to ban toxic chemicals and all the groups working to reform of the federal toxics laws. Moms and young women are attending community meetings and putting pressure on corporations to eliminate harmful chemicals, writing articles and talking to their friends and family members. This just isn’t a collection of environmental and health groups tackling the next big issue, this is my generation’s women’s right movement.
For a toxic free future,
Renee Claire
Chemical Reform is the New Our Bodies Ourselves
Originally posted February 16, 2010
Recently, I’ve had some time to sink my teeth into some really good reading. Three Cups of Tea and Stones into Schools by Greg Mortenso, Long Walk to Freedom by Nelson Mandela, Half the Sky by Nicolas D. Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn to name just a few. I don’t know about you, but many of the books I’ve read in my 30 years stand out as powerful moments in my life. I still remember receiving a book about the suffrage movement from my uncle when I was 9 years old. It was full of pictures including photos of women being arrested for their struggle for equal rights. (A possible origin of my own tendency for getting arrested for environmental and social justice throughout the years)
I also remember the day I first discovered Our Bodies Ourselves. A book that has empowered women to understand and care for their bodies, their health, and their community since it was first written in 1970 by the women at the Boston Women’s Health Book Collective. Forty years after Our Bodies Ourselves was first published, we are finally starting to see a larger societal understanding that to care for our girls and women is to directly nurture our community at large.
As we see a greater movement towards gender equality, we are also understanding that toxic chemicals are impacting our health, specifically our reproductive system, making this nurturing needlessly more difficult. Reproductive and developmental systems are extremely delicate and without a real commitment to the designing out of toxins, corporate interests are putting our daughter’s right to a healthy and safe future at risk.
This I believe is the next battle of the women’s rights movement. The right to not be poisoned by the things we buy for our homes, our children, and ourselves. And the right to live in our community without being regularly targeted by polluting companies. It is no secret that runaway corporate interests keeping toxic chemicals inside products we use everyday while convincing politicians to beat back regulation is creating serious environmental and health consequences, particularly to women and therefor our entire family.
With the fight to pass comprehensive and transparent federal chemical reform, we are seeing women and girls educate themselves and others on the importance of a toxic free future. Just take a look at your state’s initiatives to ban toxic chemicals and all the groups working to reform of the federal toxics laws. Moms and young women are attending community meetings and putting pressure on corporations to eliminate harmful chemicals, writing articles and talking to their friends and family members. This just isn’t a collection of environmental and health groups tackling the next big issue, this is my generation’s women’s right movement.
For a toxic free future,
Renee Claire
Friday, July 16, 2010
Storyville
Buenos Diaz!
I landed in Miami late last night and have been spending the day watching the entire first season of Treme, which goes with the new books that I'm reading. The World that Made New Orleans and Letters from New Orleans. Treme is from the producers and writers of The Wire. Best damn series next to Weeds! Can't beat a sweaty cursing John Goodman screaming into a webcam about the political shit show of a post-Katrina New Orleans.
Interesting projects that I'm following:
Music Maker Relief Foundation: "Music Maker Relief Foundation, Inc. helps the true pioneers and forgotten heroes of Southern music gain recognition and meet their day to day needs. We present these musical traditions to the world so American culture will flourish and be preserved for future generations.
Our criterion for recipients is they be rooted in a Southern musical tradition, be 55 years or older and have an annual income less than $18,000."
Bridge the Gulf Project: Bridge the Gulf is a storytelling initiative promoting cultural survival, environmental justice and sustainable development in Gulf Coast communities. The project is led by Gulf Coast community activists and supported by filmmakers and new-media artists.
New Orleans Murals by Tony Green
Check out the latest video of the Macarthur and Seminary mural and community garden. Last weekend a handful of us built a garden out of found wood planks and rusted steel bars we found in the lot where several artists wrote a new mural. It was a great day, though challenging. In fact at first we all stood there staring at the huge pile of unfit boards and rusty steel, no water source, no tools, barely any donated soil and thought fuck this. But then Desi said, make it happen, and so we did.
I'm on my way to Amsterdam on Monday, Milan at the end of the month, and then driving cross country with my dad in August. Hopefully I'll find my way home.
Ciao,
Renee Claire
I landed in Miami late last night and have been spending the day watching the entire first season of Treme, which goes with the new books that I'm reading. The World that Made New Orleans and Letters from New Orleans. Treme is from the producers and writers of The Wire. Best damn series next to Weeds! Can't beat a sweaty cursing John Goodman screaming into a webcam about the political shit show of a post-Katrina New Orleans.
Interesting projects that I'm following:
Music Maker Relief Foundation: "Music Maker Relief Foundation, Inc. helps the true pioneers and forgotten heroes of Southern music gain recognition and meet their day to day needs. We present these musical traditions to the world so American culture will flourish and be preserved for future generations.
Our criterion for recipients is they be rooted in a Southern musical tradition, be 55 years or older and have an annual income less than $18,000."
Bridge the Gulf Project: Bridge the Gulf is a storytelling initiative promoting cultural survival, environmental justice and sustainable development in Gulf Coast communities. The project is led by Gulf Coast community activists and supported by filmmakers and new-media artists.
New Orleans Murals by Tony Green
Check out the latest video of the Macarthur and Seminary mural and community garden. Last weekend a handful of us built a garden out of found wood planks and rusted steel bars we found in the lot where several artists wrote a new mural. It was a great day, though challenging. In fact at first we all stood there staring at the huge pile of unfit boards and rusty steel, no water source, no tools, barely any donated soil and thought fuck this. But then Desi said, make it happen, and so we did.
I'm on my way to Amsterdam on Monday, Milan at the end of the month, and then driving cross country with my dad in August. Hopefully I'll find my way home.
Ciao,
Renee Claire
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