I attended a rally in Vancouver today along with thousands of others. We were protesting the ramifications of a pipeline that would bring crude oil from the Alberta tar sands through sensitive ecological terrain in Northern BC. This oil would then be transported by super tanker through a precarious and fragile geography to its eventual market. The project would traverse the homelands of First Nations people and others whose way of life would be forever altered and put at risk, as would that of the whales and other marine life who populate this corridor.
Stephen Harper, Canada's erstwhile leader, who is captive and enthralled by the corporate agendas of the big oil companies, indeed corporate interests generally, has demolished environmental legislation, or certainly castrated it, to pave the way for entities like the Enbridge Northern Gateway project, who is orchestrating the venture mentioned above, to move ahead untrammeled, or so he believes. This is the same prime minister who is famous for muzzling government scientists who dare to speak out about environmental degradation and climate change.
But now we see that the Emperor has no clothes, and so while this clandestine activity is taking place, people are speaking out. In rallies like this they are firmly showing the government and their corporate bed partners that they are not cowed and intimidated by the wealth and power that is going into pushing ventures like this ahead, as they are fed up with the duplicity and the greed. Fed up with leaving themselves, the planet and their children's future at risk.
The Earth is dying, and unless you have your head so firmly buried in the sand of your own illusions you know this, deep in your heart. She is ailing precisely because of the greed that still informs our misguided culture, greed coupled with our sense of entitlement, no matter who we put at risk.
We see this in the example of Enbridge: the wanton disregard of governments and vested corporate interests who are following the agenda of a world view that is rapidly becoming derelict. We are at a tipping point as a planet, and the decisions we make in the next few months, the next year or the next few short years, if we have them, will make all the difference in the world. Literally.
Look at the faces of Stephen Harper, and those of his apologists in the corporate world. If they are not following a sacred dictum of the "greatest good for all", which they clearly are not, then what you are seeing are the faces of those who are becoming obsolete. In the end, however, it's really up to us. Do we allow these short sighted non-visionaries to decide our future, or do we take our own destinies firmly into our hands?
Proximity to a venture like this is irrelevant, for we are all part of the inextricable web of life. One decision in a certain part of the planet inevitably, and profoundly, affects us all. We cannot escape each other.
People are waking up. All over the world, and not just here in Canada. We are not entrusting our sacred legacy, our Earth, our values, our children, those who are vulnerable and at risk to those like Harper and his corporate cronies who care not at all for us and who like Nero, fiddles while Rome burns.
Stephen Harper, Canada's erstwhile leader, who is captive and enthralled by the corporate agendas of the big oil companies, indeed corporate interests generally, has demolished environmental legislation, or certainly castrated it, to pave the way for entities like the Enbridge Northern Gateway project, who is orchestrating the venture mentioned above, to move ahead untrammeled, or so he believes. This is the same prime minister who is famous for muzzling government scientists who dare to speak out about environmental degradation and climate change.
But now we see that the Emperor has no clothes, and so while this clandestine activity is taking place, people are speaking out. In rallies like this they are firmly showing the government and their corporate bed partners that they are not cowed and intimidated by the wealth and power that is going into pushing ventures like this ahead, as they are fed up with the duplicity and the greed. Fed up with leaving themselves, the planet and their children's future at risk.
The Earth is dying, and unless you have your head so firmly buried in the sand of your own illusions you know this, deep in your heart. She is ailing precisely because of the greed that still informs our misguided culture, greed coupled with our sense of entitlement, no matter who we put at risk.
We see this in the example of Enbridge: the wanton disregard of governments and vested corporate interests who are following the agenda of a world view that is rapidly becoming derelict. We are at a tipping point as a planet, and the decisions we make in the next few months, the next year or the next few short years, if we have them, will make all the difference in the world. Literally.
Look at the faces of Stephen Harper, and those of his apologists in the corporate world. If they are not following a sacred dictum of the "greatest good for all", which they clearly are not, then what you are seeing are the faces of those who are becoming obsolete. In the end, however, it's really up to us. Do we allow these short sighted non-visionaries to decide our future, or do we take our own destinies firmly into our hands?
Proximity to a venture like this is irrelevant, for we are all part of the inextricable web of life. One decision in a certain part of the planet inevitably, and profoundly, affects us all. We cannot escape each other.
People are waking up. All over the world, and not just here in Canada. We are not entrusting our sacred legacy, our Earth, our values, our children, those who are vulnerable and at risk to those like Harper and his corporate cronies who care not at all for us and who like Nero, fiddles while Rome burns.