Updates

Just a few quick updates:

First, I want to say how thrilled I am that Occupy Wall Street has spread throughout our area and the country. I went down to City Hall the very first day to offer my support and was thrilled at how many people showed up and how very organized the group was. And now we have movements in Norristown and Doylestown, too. This is so important because the movement has caught the attention of the media and the White House. The pressure needs to remain so stop down and show your support. They also need warm blankets as the weather gets colder, and other supplies such as food and legal and medical support.

Second, for those of you interested in fracking, the DRBC (Delaware River Basin Commission) has changed the date for releasing regulations for drilling in the Marcellus Shale to Monday November 21st, 10 AM – 12 PM. This is being held in Trenton, NJ at the War Memorial and a rally is being organized to make certain our views are heard. Busses are available from center city (see http://salsa.wiredforchange.com/o/6055/p/salsa/event/common/public/?event_KEY=33251 or http://www.delawareriverkeeper.org/about/event.aspx?Id=163) and I am carpooling there. Get there early. Rally starts at 7:30 am.

Don’t forget to get out and vote because it does matter.

Also, the survey for how to make Cheltenham township sustainable has not yet been completed but please sent your suggestions to me. The next meeting is next Thursday so get them in as soon as you can. You can send them in comment form here, or to info@transitioncheltenham.org. Spread the word, folks, we need real community involvement.

Meet The Candidates…Well, Some of Them, Anyway

Last night, a crowd of local citizens was treated to an evening of getting to know their candidates for the position of township commissioner, well, getting to know some of them, anyway. The only incumbent to grace the table was Ward 1 commissioner and candidate, Drew Sharkey.

What was more important to the other current commissioners than meeting with their constituents, I couldn’t say, but I’m sure I am not alone in believing that they had a duty to turn up.

Alongside Drew were newcomers to the field of politics: Melanie Vallerio, the Ward 3 Republican candidate, Daniel Norris, Ward 5 Democratic candidate, Mark Sirinides, Ward 5 Republican candidate and Heidi Morein, Ward 7 Democratic candidate. The event was jointly sponsored by the Cheltenham Chamber of Citizens, We The People of Cheltenham, Melrose Park Neighbor’s Association, Wyncote Civic Association and Transition Cheltenham in conjunction with the League of Women Voters. Thanks also to Linda Jean’s who donated some excellent coffee and wonder desserts.

After a brief opening statement, the questions began. Some of the topics discussed included such issues as what they would do about the recent flooding problems and the change in the 911 calling system along with how the township website description meshes with what is actually in the township and how to make the township sustainable and more business friendly.

I’ll give you a brief summary of some of the positions but first I’d like to say I was glad to see at least one incumbent at the table. Drew has been part of the commissioners for a term now; his understanding of the issues, and the commissioner process, threw an interesting light on the proceedings and highlighted the fact that everyone else at the table was definitely new to politics.

Summary: (Not every candidate answered every question)

Term Limits: Mark – No, decided by voting; Melanie – Term limits across the board.

Jenkintown Septa Parking Garage: Daniel, Melanie and Heidi were all against the current design of 600 spaces.

Raise taxes to help budget shortfall: Melanie – No, taxes are a problem here, people can’t qualify for mortgages; Daniel – As a CPA, he would review the budget and the expenses, see what services we are getting for our tax dollars; Mark – need to reduce taxes on our senior citizens so they can stay in the township; Heidi – there is perception that we have very high taxes, she found that Cheltenham twp was the best bang for her dollars when she moved here; Drew – the shortfall in the budget is in three areas – $490,000 in health insurance benefits, $477,000 in wages, $390,000 sewer costs. Two bargaining units are up for contracts in 2013, can start the discussions there.

Apparent contempt for citizens at Commissioner meetings: Mark – vote for people who will listen to you; Daniel – responsiveness to residents is one of the most important tasks of a commissioner; Melanie – all people should be treated with respect, everyone has a right to speak even if they are repeating what someone else has said; Drew – people behind the table sometimes feel they don’t belong to the same community, but the “audience” needs to be civil; Heidi – has seen this firsthand.

If elected, what would be your top priorities: Heidi – Environmental impacts of proposed developments, sewage and stormwater management, anti-discrimination legislation; Mark – revenues, creating a sustainable and vibrant community; Daniel – balanced budget, transparency and responsiveness to constituents; Melanie – Sensible development of open spaces, encouraging businesses, balanced budget; Drew – reduce spending, sewer system and redoubling efforts to the township.

Baby Steps – A Repost (from July 2008) and Response (to a comment sent to me 10/11)

NOTE: Although these Baby Steps reference the construction industry, in fact, the sentiments stated are true with regards to any industry or agency, and sustainability. Incremental steps are not enough; it is no more than putting a bandaid on a torn artery and patting ourselves on the back while the patient bleeds out. In fact, I would go so far as to state that they are hampering the cause of true sustainability. Doing a little, or doing what our legislators know will be easy to pass, is not going to save our planet. What it will do is make those involved feel that they have done or are doing something worthwhile. In my book, that’s not nearly good enough and is giving in to greenwash/sin.

I am more than willing to work with our government to create sustainability but I will not agree to call something sustainable when it obviously is not. And, I will not allow incremental steps to be representative of the path for my community or the world. I will continue to work towards true sustainability and I will continue reporting on the failures and successes as I find them. I will also not apologize for blasting those who believe that baby steps or incremental change is a sign of success; for me, if that’s all we achieve, well, I call that a failure.

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Baby steps are usually a worthwhile process.  Taking small steps to lead to an ultimate goal works for many things – therapy, teaching skills, etc.  Unfortunately, some building architects and engineers are touting baby steps when designing for sustainable or green buildings.  Here is where taking baby steps runs us afoul.  The reason is simple.  A baby step in the construction industry can last as long as one hundred years or more.  (Think of the great cathedrals in Europe or even Independence Hall here in the United States.)  A baby step for the building itself can last for the life of a building.  The ducting and pipework can last almost that long, too.  These choices are directly related to the choices that are made for the heating and air conditioning systems, locking the building into a specific type of heating and cooling.  These systems are not easily changed.

This means that whatever the original building construction decisions are, more than likely the building will be stuck with them for a very long time.  (Think how many times you’ve changed your home heating system.  It’s not something you do on a regular basis; it’s a long term decision that impacts your pocketbook so you think about it carefully.  Should I change from heating oil to gas?)  So when the architect or engineer takes the building forward in baby steps, those steps will have to hold that building for many years to come.  As the price of oil climbs ever higher we should ask ourselves, do we really want this building to save only 10% of the energy?  And remember, as the systems age, or if the systems are not maintained as they need to be, the savings in energy drops.  Therefore, will a 10% decrease in energy use be enough to make the system practical in 10 or 15 years time?

The answer to this question should be obvious – NO!  A 10% savings is not enough for this country, or any country, to reduce its dependence on oil.  Baby steps are not the answer, the answer is giant steps.  In order to save energy, buildings need to take giant steps towards green or sustainability.  This means installing heating and air conditioning systems that use a minimum of 75% less energy.  This is not impossible.  There are many renewable energy sources readily available today.  From solar to wind to geothermal to microturbines, renewable energy is abundant.  Yes, right now these sources can be more expensive than conventional sources of energy such as oil, steam and gas, however, the more these renewable sources are utilized, the more reasonable the prices will become.  The more these renewable resources are utilized, the more technologies will be created to take advantage of them for less cost.  And, the more these renewable resources are utilized, the less dependent we will all be on oil.

Remember, renewable energy is just that, renewable, it, unlike finite sources of energy such as oil and natural gas, will never run out.  They can never be owned solely by a foreign power.  As a matter of fact, some sources, such as solar and wind, cannot be owned by anyone.  By creating electricity using renewable resources, there will no longer by any such thing as an electric bill.  Sounds to me like a pretty good reason to switch to renewable energy.  Now if I could only do the same with my health insurance costs.

Cheltenham Township Sustainability Committee, Take 3

On Thursday September 22nd, the full committee met for the first time since the summer hiatus. Art Haywood, the chair, opened the session which was attended by about 30 people. Lorna Rosenberg, the co-chair introduced Lori Braunstein of Sustainable Cherry Hill who then gave us a presentation about her community. In my opinion, our time together as a committee is so short it might have been better to simply highlight what they and other communities are doing and then give a list of websites if individuals would care to explore further.

The main problem with many community plans is that they have absolutely no end goals; most are shotgunning things. In the case of Cherry Hill, their main achievements appear to be recycling and hybrid township vehicles with an emphasis on outreach and education. Now, while I believe both outreach and education are integral to a successful plan, they are not the plan but only a small piece of the whole picture.

Next up was Hannah Mazzaccaro who works for MCPC and is facilitating the process. She gave a powerpoint that practically from its first slide, raised controversy. She read out the scope of work and the question was, Who created the scope/mission? The answer: Consultants. What consultants? MCPC as they are the ones the township hired.

The first line reads “Our mission is to create aggressive but achievable goals that will further the vision of a Sustainable Cheltenham…” One of our general members pointed out that aggressive and achievable are not sustainable. I also want to add that in my experience these types of goals signify what the elected officials believe they can easily pass rather than what is truly worthwhile, sustainable goalmaking. It gives the appearance of doing something rather than actually achieving anything. Lorna interjected that each of the groups will work on a piece of the plan, but again, I repeat that we need to set end goals so that all the groups are working towards the same goals.

Hannah then talked about a future land use map which is the legal basis for zoning. She told us that it will be updated for 2015. A member of the group wanted to know if this map, which is currently being changed, will stop being developed now so that sustainable growth and development will be incorporated. Hannah finally said the land use task force of the committee should work on this and she agreed, as she is the one writing the code, that she will incorporate suggestions from the task group into the code. She agreed that sustainability and land stewardship should be a priority. (A nice little victory for the group.)

Next, she went over some of the work that was done this summer with GHG inventory and info gathering, most of which came from the 2005 GHG emissions inventory done by the DVRPC. She told us they have a “powerful” toolbox that creates a spreadsheet which they, the DVRPC, I believe, can then analyze and make suggestions as to what the township can do to save money. It was suggested that it might be better to see what they have to say AFTER we get some ideas together. Only then should they come up with suggestions and only if we on the committee so desire. There was some agreement about this. There was also some talk about air and water quality days, but again, all yet to be discussed.

There was supposed to have been an exercise on SWOT – Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats to a sustainable future. Fortunately, or unfortunately, what with the presentations running longer than foreseen, it was voted to skip this and just have some comments/questions from the committee members.

We were then told that at the next meeting, sometime in October, we will be setting goals and then breaking up into task forces which will be decided by what goals are set. The timeline ends in 2020. Part of what we are being charged with doing is finding funding for large projects for the community, create engagement and activism within the community and search for infrastructure projects that are necessary and over which the township government has control.

Part of the implementation matrices to be created will include project priorities such as cost, timeline, funding sources and main partners that can help make the projects happen.

And lastly, we continued our on-going discussion on community involvement. Art still preferred an April start, but many on the committee expressed an unwillingness to wait that long. Many of us would like to see a survey created which will be posted on the website (https://sites.google.com/site/sustainablecheltenham/home-for-real Try finding THAT without knowing what to look for. Guess what? You can’t. I tried and gave up. Had to look back through my emails to find out what it was! How’s that for easily accessible!). We’d like all the commissioners to send it out to their constituents; we’d like to see it on the township website. In the meantime, we are hoping to create our own survey and posting it around. I’ll put it up on my blog, or a link to it, and I know other groups will email it to their mailing list. We hope to get the word out by writing letters to the editor, putting a notice on Citizen’s Call and on Abington Patch and everywhere else we can think of.

So please, once you see the survey, fill it out and send it back asap. Let your voice be heard. It’s your township, what is your vision of a sustainable Cheltenham? Many of us on the committee would love to know and I will keep you informed as to our progress. We are attempting to hold the township’s feet to the fire on this one. Let’s hope we succeed. In the meantime, if you have specific ideas, please feel free to send them here as comments. I will gladly share them with the committee.

Cheltenham Township Sustainability Committee – Take Two

On Tuesday September 20th, the Steering Committee of Cheltenham Twp Sustainability Committee (made up mostly of township “connected” people – those on other township committees, other recognized organizations and businesses) met to discuss a visioning workshop planned for Sept 22 (more later) that would be attended by the entire committee. Yours truly, as one of the great unwashed, is not a part of the Steering Committee, but my extendable ears came in really handy. I slipped them under the closed door and here’s the gist of what heard:

First, there was a brief discussion about the agenda for the Sept 22nd meeting. After that, the conversation appeared to be exclusively about public outreach/participation. Many ideas were thrown out including:

-   Hosting a table at all township sponsored events including first Friday, the Harvest Festival, Sundays in the Park, etc.

-   Presentations at back-to-school nights to promote specific sustainable practices for the schools and to recruit parents and students

-   An expert in one area of sustainability to speak as part of the CTAS Speaker’s Series

-   Targeting neighbors to engage communities using libraries and community centers as gathering places

-   Giving out a set of question and inviting the public to discuss them

-   Create a list of ideas, post them on the township website and get people to vote on them.

At one point, it was remarked that the timeline that I believe was created by MCPC, has public open houses scheduled for April and that we should stick to this schedule. Another suggestion was that each task force could do its own public outreach as necessary. My italics! And lastly, a comment was made that one of the obstacles to overcome is that those with higher incomes are more wasteful and so we need to gradually (again, my italics) get buy-in from the community.

As someone who has been working towards sustainable buildings and communities for quite some time, it’s my opinion that community involvement is a critical piece to ensure success. When people see their ideas being developed, when they feel a part of the process, they have ownership. This makes taking the necessary steps that much easier because the community as a whole already is invested.

Freedom From Fracking – The Conference for Organizers

As many of you know, there was a rally on September 7, Shale Gas Outrage, to protest the gas frackers meeting at the PA Convention Center. Although 2,000 people showed up, the press, owned as they are by the corporations, basically ignored us. The next day, we held a conference to learn how to organize together against the frackers. This time, the press totally ignored us which was fine by us.

The night before the conference, you may remember we had a horrific thunderstorm and the next day many roads, including all of Broad street, were nothing by parking lots. Three of the five train lines that pass through Jenkintown were not running. Somehow, my friend and I, who started out late, made our way along the backstreets to Rodeth Shalom, where the conference was being held, and managed to arrive only twenty minutes after the start.

We came in time to hear ecologist, author and poet Sandra Steingraber give the keynote and she was powerful. She told the group of almost 200 activists and activists-in-training that the Marcellus Shale is actually an ecosystem; it’s alive, she reminded us, just like a coral reef. And in order to extract the gas in the shale, biocides are pumped into the ground to kill all the living organisms. She urged us to reach out to a nationwide network of groups including faith-based organizations; farmers, whose milk is most susceptible to radiation contamination; mothers and others who care about the milk they pass along to their babies. She urged us to reach out to scientists and remind them that there must be no more objectivity; they must find their voices and speak out on this dire issue. The medical community; the breast cancer community (and tell Susan G. Komen to break from their connection to Chesapeake Energy as breast cancer rates rise where gas drilling occurs); real estate and mortgage companies because the housing market is non-existent in areas where there is drilling or those directly downstream or downwind of drilling sites; right to lifers because chemicals in frack fluid cause deformities, stillborn babies and all sorts of birth defects; teachers and parents because the chemicals also cause and exacerbate asthma and learning disabilities, just to name a few of the groups that need to come on board and start making their voices heard.

Our main task, Sandra stated, was to make the invisible visible because we can’t see the damage being done, not like mountaintop removal. She told us to embed the issue into the human rights struggle because it’s really an economic issue as much as anything, just as slavery was. The anti-abolitionists claimed the economy would fall apart without slavery and recommended a gradual movement from slavery to non-slavery just as today’s corporations recommend a gradual movement away from fossil fuels. But just as slavery came to an abrupt end and the economy did not collapse, so too can we swiftly change from fossil fuels to clean, renewables without collapsing our economy.

Framing it yet another way she asked, “Do you want to be a good German in the ecological holocaust or do you want to be a member of the French resistance?”

Reach out to artists, she told the audience, the Marcellus Shale is a national treasure. Lastly, she reminded us that Marcellus was a Roman general who died at home because he didn’t have an exit plan. That is worth considering, we all agreed.

After that awe-inspiring speech, we broke up to attend sessions that included Creating a Moratorium Action Plan; Media Savvy Framing and Messaging; Drilling Through Loopholes: How Exemptions Fuel the Industry and Fail the Public; Legal Strategies to Fight Fracking; Environmental Justice and Environmental Racism; The Health Impacts of Fracking; and What to Do When You Suspect Contamination, to name a few. Sessions were taught by people from organizations as wide ranging Energy Justice Network, Food and Water Watch, Pipeline Safety Coalition, PennEnvironment and Earthworks’ Oil and Gas Accountability Project.

At the closing session, Josh Fox reminded us that fracking is happening in 34 states, 50 nations and on all 5 continents. He reiterated his call for civil disobedience and urged us to help him build a coalition – statewide, countrywide, worldwide.

Iris Marie Bloom of Protecting Our Waters and the sponsor of the conference reminded us that the DRBC will be announcing their regulations on Oct 21 in Trenton at the Trenton War Memorial. The time is 10am-12. These regulations will lift the current moratorium on gas drilling in the Delaware river basin and allow drilling and fracking to start. We all need to go there and rally and have our voices heard. (The Delaware Riverkeeper is still one of the spearheading organizations. Please visit their website, http://www.delawareriverkeeper.org/act-now/urgent-details.aspx?Id=93 scroll to bottom and sign the petition and send a letter.)

At the end, Josh Fox played his banjo and we all joined hands and sang Woody Guthrie’s This Land Is Your Land including the fourth verse:

As I went Walking I saw a sign there

And on the sign it said “No Trespassing.”

But on the other side it didn’t say nothing

That side was made for you and me.

 Sadly, the way things stand today, maybe we should change the lyrics to This Land Is The Corporation’s Land. But hopefully, we learned enough to take back the lyrics and the country.

Lastly, kudos to Weaver’s Way Coop who supplied an absolutely delicious array of vegetarian and vegan fare that satisfied the taste buds of even the staunchest carnivore.

If you are interested in attending the rally, you can contact me (leave a comment here or call me if you have my number) and keep an eye out on protectingourwaters.com for buses that will be leaving from Philadelphia. We need a huge turnout so take a day off work if you have to (I am) and tell the DRBC to stop the fracking now.

In another note, they are now looking at the Utica Shale formation which encompasses the Marcellus Shale and is even larger and deeper than the Marcellus Shale. Be aware that very soon, if we can’t stop the drilling now, all of us will be fighting against fracking there as well.

No Fracking Way!

What an amazing day! Shale Gas Outrage Rally, March and Blessing of the Water.

It started with a jam-packed press conference at 10:30 this morning.

Speakers included Iris Marie Bloom, head of Protecting Our Waters and initiator of this day. She told the group that 65 organizations got together to join the protest today.

Steven Cleghorn, an organic farmer from Jefferson County, PA told the group that 200,000 well bores are planned for Pennsylvania alone.

People who have been directly impacted by shale gas drilling spoke as did Josh Fox of Gasland fame.

Josh Fox at the Press Conference

Josh called the gas drillers “Liars, cheaters and thieves”. And said the gas drillers would like to carve up the state like a third world country.

Then we all made our way over to rally in front of the PA Convention Center. And believe me, there were at least 1,400 people there, carrying signs, chanting, and telling those inside at the Shale Gas Driller’s convention NO FRACKING WAY!!

All of the speakers from the press conference also spoke at the rally. Additional speakers included faith-based group representatives and Philadelphia City Council Moratorium advocates Blondell Reynolds Brown and Curtis Jones.

Then came the march which wended its way around City Hall and stopped in front of Gov. Corbett’s office in downtown Phila where Josh Fox and others spoke again and a letter from a woman whose water was polluted was hand-delivered.

Oh yeah, and did I mention the police? I’ve never seen so many cops. When I got off the train at 9:30 am and walked to the press conference I must’ve passed aver 4 dozen, but that was just the tip of the iceberg. The cops were everywhere and they lined the route the whole way. I think, from what I’ve read, they thought we were going to go into the convention center and attempt to disrupt some of the workshops. Gee, now there’s a thought.

All-in-all, it was an amazing day. Hats off to all those who worked so hard to put this all together (and all in 6 weeks!). It was an amazing feat. It’s just a shame that although I saw cameramen from all three television networks (we don’t count Fox), I didn’t see any film of the day on any station. Guess the dog with the longest ears is more important news.

To Be Continued…

Brave New World – 2011

In 1932, Aldus Huxley published his novel, Brave New World. It looks at a society where people are bred in bottles. They are treated physically and chemically so they belong to one of five classes and will be fulfilled by the role they have been bred for. They are “psychologically conditioned” by having ideas implanted into their brains while sleeping so that they will behave the way they are supposed to according to the mores of their society. Huxley, like many of his contemporaries, saw the industrialization of the world as a major step down a very wrong path.

After living through the second World War, Huxley went back and revisited his famous tome. In 1958, he published Brave New World Revisted. Here he sees that the seeds of our current problems have not only been sown, but are beginning to reap the rewards for those who are rich and powerful. He talks about how corporations and governments are using propaganda to sell the masses (read US!) the bill of goods they would have us buy. The following are some highly relevant quotes from this book so full of foresight.

“In their anti-rational propaganda the enemies of freedom systematically pervert the resources of language in order to wheedle or stampede their victims into thinking, feeling and acting as they, the mind-manipulators, want them to think, feel and act…And yet children are nowhere taught, in any systematic way, to distinguish true from false, or meaningful from meaningless, statements.”  (pgs 130-131)

“Certain educators, for example, disapproved of the teaching of propaganda analysis on the grounds that it would make adolescents unduly cynical. Nor was it welcomed by the military authorities, who were afraid that recruits might start to analyze the utterances of drill sergeants. And then there were the clergymen and the advertisers. The clergymen were against propaganda analysis as tending to undermine belief and diminish churchgoing; the advertisers objected on the grounds that it might undermine brand loyalty and reduce sales….In its present form, the social order depends for its continued existence on the acceptance, without too many embarrassing questions, of the propaganda put forth by those in authority and the propaganda hallowed by the local traditions.”  (pg 132)

“Under the relentless thrust of accelerating over-population and increasing over-organization, and by means of ever more effective methods of mind-manipulation, the democracies will change their nature; the quaint old forms – elections, parliaments, Supreme Courts and all the rest – will remain. The underlying substance will be a new kind of non-violent totalitarianism. All the traditional names, all the hallowed slogans will remain exactly what they were in the good old days. Democracy and freedom will be the theme of every broadcast and editorial – but democracy and freedom in a strictly Pickwickian sense. Meanwhile, the ruling oligarchy and its highly trained elite of soldiers, policemen, thought-manufacturers and mind-manipulators will quietly run the show as they see fit.” (pg 137)

“Or take the right to vote. In principle, it is a great privilege. In practice, as recent (prior to 1958 when this book was written) history has shown, the right to vote, by itself, is no guarantee of liberty. Therefore, if you wish to avoid dictatorship by referendum, break up modern society’s merely functional collectives into self-governing, voluntarily co-operating groups, capable of functioning outside the bureaucratic systems of Big Business and Big Government.”  (pg 141)

“At this point we find ourselves confronted by a very disquieting question: Do we really wish to act upon our knowledge? Does a majority of the population think it worthwhile to take a good deal of trouble, in order to halt and, if possible, reverse the current drift toward totalitarian control of everything?”  (pg 144)

This next quote appears to mark the root cause of why we ended up where we are today:

“In the United States – and America is the prophetic image of the rest of the urban-industrial world as it will be a few years from now – recent public opinion polls have revealed that an actual majority of young people in their teens, the voters of tomorrow, have no faith in democratic institutions, see no objection to the censorship of unpopular ideas, do not believe that government of the people by the people is possible and would be perfectly content, if they can continue to live in the style to which the boom has accustomed them, to be ruled, from above, by an oligarchy of assorted experts. That so many of the well-fed young television-watchers in the world’s most powerful democracy should be so completely indifferent to the idea of self-government, so blankly uninterested in freedom of thought and the right to dissent, is distressing, but not too surprising.” (pg 144)

The question is, should this be the final word on how we are ruled:

”In the end,” says the Grand Inquisitor in Dostoevsky’s parable, “in the end they will lay their freedom at our feet and say to us ‘make us your slaves, but feed us.”

Or should this:

 “Under a scientific dictator (by this Huxley is referring to the science of psychology where it is understood how to influence people to make certain us see only what the overseers want us to see, and we believe it to be true), education will really work – with the result that most men and women will grow up to love their servitude and will never dream of revolution…Perhaps the forces that now menace freedom are too strong to be resisted for very long. It is still our duty to do whatever we can to resist them.” (pg 147)

Iceland’s On-Going Revolution

For those of us still angry about the financial institutions taxpayer funded bail-out and the on-going worldwide recession directly linked to the fiasco, please read Deena Stryker’s diary page entitled Iceland’s On-going Revolution (see link below).

The Icelanders just said no to paying for the mistakes of the financial institutions; they threw out their government and their constitution, told the international community that they would not allow their citizens to be personally responsible for paying off that debt. Damn the International Monetary Fund and the European Union! Their government, unlike those throughout the rest of the world including our own, got behind its citizens and launched investigations into those responsible for the crisis.

At last, a country with a backbone! Maybe it’s time the US took a leaf out of Iceland’s book on democracy.

To read the entire article, go to http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/08/01/1001662/-Icelands-On-going-Revolution

ALSO: Don’t Forget: SHALE GAS OUTRAGE, WEDNESDAY SEPT. 7TH NOON. It’s time to make our voices heard. Come out and protest the polluting of our water supply from unconventional gas drilling in the Marcellus Shale. http://shalegasoutrage.org

Sit Up and Take Notice

With all the talk about gas fracking here in the Marcellus Shale, it might be interesting to note that an investment advisory group in the UK has been looking into the carbon emissions problems of fossil fuels and how controlling carbon emissions will impact market investors. The Carbon Tracker Initiative notes that fossil fuel companies continue to list coal, gas and oil reserves as a way to fund further exploration and development. (http://www.carbontracker.org/carbonbubble)

There are two problems with this: First, as noted by Ian Urbina in his excellent New York Times series, gas drilling companies are not above inflating their estimates to help fuel a rise in their stock prices. (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/26/us/26gas.html?_r=1&ref=ianurbina) No one is sure exactly how much gas is to be found at any particular drilling site but companies are not above painting a rosy picture, paying a small amount for the privilege of destroying the land and then abandoning wells that prove not to be productive.

The second problem is much more curious. According to the Carbon Bubble, a report by the Carbon Tracker Initiative, if governments are to hold global warming to the 2°C that has become the designated upper limit for temperature increases, then 80% of the current total fossil fuel reserves must go unburned. But that’s not why anyone buys stock, to abandon the riches untapped. This leaves investors “exposed to the risk of unburnable carbon” and “investors would be subject to impairment as these assets become stranded”. In other words, if the fossil fuels are not dug up and burned investors lose their money.

So the Carbon Tracker Initiative is suggesting that perhaps it’s time for investors and regulators to respond to this risk. They suggest that investors diversify their portfolios so that they are not so heavily invested in fossil fuel-reliant stocks. And they recommend that regulators require companies to list their fossil fuel reserves and their potential CO₂ emissions based upon those reserves. They would also like to see regulators assess the risk to the markets and do something to prevent the bursting of the carbon bubble from wrecking havoc with the markets.

What exactly regulators can do is not clear and what, if anything, will those who regulate the regulators do. (in the case of the US markets that would be the US Securities and Exchange Commission, in the UK it’s the Financial Services Authority) But remember, it was these same regulators who allowed the markets to crash in 2009 and although the markets might have rebounded, most of the world’s economies have not.