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Monday, April 30th, 2007
Volume 6, No. 8
5 Articles
1. Where Have All The Bees Gone?
2. When Politics Infects Justice
4. US-Israel Ties Bad For Peace
5. Teachers: Before Using an "Inconvenient Truth" …
1. WHERE HAVE ALL THE BEES GONE?
AND OTHER REFLECTIONS ON THE INTERNATIONALIZATION OF GENOCIDE
BY
FIDEL CASTRO
The Camp David meeting has just come to an end. All of us followed the press conference offered by the presidents of the United States and Brazil attentively, as we did the news surrounding the meeting and the opinions voiced in this connection.
Faced with demands related to customs duties and subsidies which protect and support US ethanol production, Bush did not make the slightest concession to his Brazilian guest at Camp David.
President Lula attributed to this the rise in corn prices, which, according to his own statements, had gone up more than 85 percent.
Before these statements were made, the Washington Post had published an article by the Brazilian leader which expounded on the idea of transforming food into fuel.
It is not my intention to hurt Brazil or to meddle in the internal affairs of this great country. It was in effect in Rio de Janeiro, host of the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development, exactly 15 years ago, where I delivered a 7-minute speech vehemently denouncing the environmental dangers that menaced our species' survival. Bush Sr., then President of the United States, was present at that meeting and applauded my words out of courtesy; all other presidents there applauded, too.
No one at Camp David answered the fundamental question. Where are the more than 500 million tons of corn and other cereals which the United States, Europe and wealthy nations require to produce the gallons of ethanol that big companies in the United States and other countries demand in exchange for their voluminous investments going to be produced and who is going to supply them? Where are the soy, sunflower and rape seeds, whose essential oils these same, wealthy nations are to turn into fuel, going to be produced and who will produce them?
Some countries are food producers which export their surpluses. The balance of exporters and consumers had already become precarious before this and food prices had skyrocketed. In the interests of brevity, I shall limit myself to pointing out the following:
According to recent data, the five chief producers of corn, barley, sorghum, rye, millet and oats which Bush wants to transform into the raw material of ethanol production, supply the world market with 679 million tons of these products. Similarly, the five chief consumers, some of which also produce these grains, currently require 604 million annual tons of these products. The available surplus is less than 80 million tons of grain.
This colossal squandering of cereals destined to fuel production -and these estimates do not include data on oily seeds-shall serve to save rich countries less than 15 percent of the total annual consumption of their voracious automobiles.
At Camp David, Bush declared his intention of applying this formula around the world. This spells nothing other than the internationalization of genocide.
In his statements, published by the Washington Post on the eve of the Camp David meeting, the Brazilian president affirmed that less than one percent of Brazil's arable land was used to grow cane destined to ethanol production. This is nearly three times the land surface Cuba used when it produced nearly 10 million tons of sugar a year, before the crisis that befell the Soviet Union and the advent of climate changes.
Our country has been producing and exporting sugar for a longer time. First, on the basis of the work of slaves, whose numbers swelled to over 300 thousand in the first years of the 19th century and who turned the Spanish colony into the world's number one exporter. Nearly one hundred years later, at the beginning of the 20th century, when Cuba was a pseudo-republic which had been denied full independence by US interventionism, it was immigrants from the West Indies and illiterate Cubans alone who bore the burden of growing and harvesting sugarcane on the island. The scourge of our people was the off-season, inherent to the cyclical nature of the harvest. Sugarcane plantations were the property of US companies or powerful Cuban-born landowners. Cuba, thus, has more experience than anyone as regards the social impact of this crop.
This past Sunday, April 1, CNN televised the opinions of Brazilian experts who affirm that many lands destined to sugarcane have been purchased by wealthy Americans and Europeans.
As part of my reflections on the subject, published on March 29, I expounded on the impact climate change has had on Cuba and on other basic characteristics of our country's climate which contribute to this.
On our poor and anything but consumerist island, one would be unable to find enough workers to endure the rigors of the harvest and to care for the sugarcane plantations in the ever more intense heat, rains or droughts. When hurricanes lash the island, not even the best machines can harvest the bent-over and twisted canes. For centuries, the practice of burning sugarcane was unknown and no soil was compacted under the weight of complex machines and enormous trucks. Nitrogen, potassium and phosphate fertilizers, today extremely expensive, did not yet even exist, and the dry and wet months succeeded each other regularly. In modern agriculture, no high yields are possible without crop rotation methods.
On Sunday, April 1, the French Press Agency (AFP) published disquieting reports on the subject of climate change, which experts gathered by the United Nations already consider an inevitable phenomenon that will spell serious repercussions for the world in the coming decades.
According to a UN report to be approved next week in Brussels, climate change will have a significant impact on the American continent, generating more violent storms and heat waves and causing droughts, the extinction of some species and even hunger in Latin America.
The AFP report indicates that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) forewarned that at the end of this century, every hemisphere will endure water-related problems and, if governments take no measures in this connection, rising temperatures could increase the risks of mortality, contamination, natural catastrophes and infectious diseases.
In Latin America, global warming is already melting glaciers in the Andes and threatening the Amazon forest, whose perimeter may slowly be turned into a savannah, the cable goes on to report.
Because a great part of its population lives near the coast, the United States is also vulnerable to extreme natural phenomena, as hurricane Katrina demonstrated in 2005.
According to AFP, this is the second of three IPCC reports which began to be published last February, following an initial scientific forecast which established the certainty of climate change.
This second 1400-page report which analyzes climate change in different sectors and regions, of which AFP has obtained a copy, considers that, even if radical measures to reduce carbon dioxide emissions that pollute the atmosphere are taken, the rise in temperatures around the planet in the coming decades is already unavoidable, concludes the French Press Agency.
As was to be expected, at the Camp David meeting, Dan Fisk, National Security advisor for the region, declared that "in the discussion on regional issues, [I expect] Cuba to come up () if there's anyone that knows how to create starvation, it's Fidel Castro. He also knows how not to do ethanol".
As I find myself obliged to respond to this gentleman, it is my duty to remind him that Cuba's infant mortality rate is lower than the United States'. All citizens -- this is beyond question -- enjoy free medical services. Everyone has access to education and no one is denied employment, in spite of nearly half a century of economic blockade and the attempts of US governments to starve and economically asphyxiate the people of Cuba.
China would never devote a single ton of cereals or leguminous plants to the production of ethanol, and it is an economically prosperous nation which is breaking growth records, where all citizens earn the income they need to purchase essential consumer items, despite the fact that 48 percent of its population, which exceeds 1.3 billion, works in agriculture. On the contrary, it has set out to reduce energy consumption considerably by shutting down thousands of factories which consume unacceptable amounts of electricity and hydrocarbons. It imports many of the food products mentioned above from far-off corners of the world, transporting these over thousands of miles.
Scores of countries do not produce hydrocarbons and are unable to produce corn and other grains or oily seeds, for they do not even have enough water to meet their most basic needs.
At a meeting on ethanol production held in Buenos Aires by the Argentine Oil Industry Chamber and Cereals Exporters Association, Loek Boonekamp, the Dutch head of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD)'s commercial and marketing division, told the press that governments are very much enthused about this process but that they should objectively consider whether ethanol ought to be given such resolute support.
According to Boonekamp, the United States is the only country where ethanol can be profitable and, without subsidies, no other country can make it viable.
According to the report, Boonekamp insists that ethanol is not manna from Heaven and that we should not blindly commit to developing this process.
Today, developed countries are pushing to have fossil fuels mixed with biofuels at around five percent and this is already affecting agricultural prices. If this figure went up to 10 percent, 30 percent of the United States' cultivated surface and 50 percent of Europe's would be required. That is the reason Boonekamp asks himself whether the process is sustainable, as an increase in the demand for crops destined to ethanol production would generate higher and less stable prices.
Protectionist measures are today at 54 cents per gallon and real subsidies reach far higher figures.
Applying the simple arithmetic we learned in high school, we could show how, by simply replacing incandescent bulbs with fluorescent ones, as I explained in my previous reflections, millions and millions of dollars in investment and energy could be saved, without the need to use a single acre of farming land.
In the meantime, we are receiving news from Washington, through the AP, reporting that the mysterious disappearance of millions of bees throughout the United States has edged beekeepers to the brink of a nervous breakdown and is even cause for concern in Congress, which will discuss this Thursday the critical situation facing this insect, essential to the agricultural sector. According to the report, the first disquieting signs of this enigma became evident shortly after Christmas in the state of Florida, when beekeepers discovered that their bees had vanished without a trace. Since then, the syndrome which experts have christened as Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) has reduced the country's swarms by 25 percent.
Daniel Weaver, president of the US Beekeepers Association, stated that more than half a million colonies, each with a population of nearly 50 thousand bees, had been lost. He added that the syndrome has struck 30 of the country's 50 states. What is curious about the phenomenon is that, in many cases, the mortal remains of the bees are not found.
According to a study conducted by Cornell University, these industrious insects pollinate crops valued at anywhere from 12 to 14 billion dollars.
Scientists are entertaining all kinds of hypotheses, including the theory that a pesticide may have caused the bees' neurological damage and altered their sense of orientation. Others lay the blame on the drought and even mobile phone waves, but, what's certain is that no one knows exactly what has unleashed this syndrome.
The worst may be yet to come: a new war aimed at securing gas and oil supplies that can take humanity to the brink of total annihilation.
Invoking intelligence sources, Russian newspapers have reported that a war on Iran has been in the works for over three years now, since the day the government of the United States resolved to occupy Iraq completely, unleashing a seemingly endless and despicable civil war.
All the while, the government of the United States devotes hundreds of billions to the development of highly sophisticated technologies, as those which employ micro-electronic systems or new nuclear weapons which can strike their targets an hour following the order to attack.
The United States brazenly turns a deaf ear to world public opinion, which is against all kinds of nuclear weapons.
Razing all of Iran's factories to the ground is a relatively easy task, from the technical point of view, for a powerful country like the United States. The difficult task may come later, if a new war were to be unleashed against another Muslim faith which deserves our utmost respect, as do all other religions of the Near, Middle or Far East, predating or postdating Christianity.
The arrest of English soldiers at Iran's territorial waters recalls the nearly identical act of provocation of the so-called "Brothers to the Rescue" who, ignoring President Clinton's orders advanced over our country's territorial waters. Cuba's absolutely legitimate and defensive action gave the United States a pretext to promulgate the well-known Helms-Burton Act, which encroaches upon the sovereignty of other nations besides Cuba. The powerful media have consigned that episode to oblivion. No few people attribute the price of oil, at nearly 70 dollars a gallon as of Monday, to fears of a possible invasion of Iran.
Where shall poor Third World countries find the basic resources needed to survive?
I am not exaggerating or using overblown language. I am confining myself to the facts.
As can be seen, the polyhedron has many dark faces.
2. WHEN POLITICS INFECTS JUSTICE
BY
PETE McCLOSKEY
It seems ironic that U.S. Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich., who was listed on Nixon's Enemies List, will be the one wielding the gavel in another search for the truth at a time when so many of us have begun to wonder whether our government is capable of providing us with the truth.
One of the tragic moments in American history occurred in November 1973. This was the famous "Saturday Night Massacre," when President Richard Nixon, faced with the demand for incriminating tapes and documents by Watergate Special Prosecutor Archibald Cox, took an action that would lead to his resignation from the presidency in disgrace less than a year later. Nixon ordered U.S. Attorney General Elliott Richardson to fire Cox. When Richardson refused and instead resigned, as did his second in command, William Ruckelshaus, U.S. Solicitor General Robert Bork stepped up to fire Cox.
That action triggered a tough inquiry into the Watergate scandal by the House Judiciary Committee, chaired by U.S. Rep. Peter Rodino, a mild-mannered congressman from New Jersey. In July 1974, after seven months of public hearings, the committee in a bipartisan vote adopted several articles of impeachment, the chief of which was for obstruction of justice. Nixon had ordered the FBI to cease its inquiry into the money trail the CIA had discovered, leading from the president's personal lawyer, Herb Kalmbach, through various hands to pay off the Watergate burglary's mastermind, E. Howard Hunt. Hunt had threatened to reveal the details of the burglary to U.S. District Court Judge John Sirica, who presided over the Watergate case, unless he was paid.
One of the younger members of the Judiciary Committee at the time was Conyers, a man Nixon had put on his notorious "Enemies List" for whatever punishment federal agencies such as the IRS might devise.
As a result of the Judiciary Committee's inquiries and the work of several dedicated U.S. attorneys, not only was Nixon forced from office, but his attorney general, John Mitchell, was indicted and sent to jail for his part in the Watergate cover-up.
Now, 32 years later, another Republican attorney general, Alberto Gonzales, faces questioning by both the Senate and House Judiciary committees, on grounds that he has used his high office for political purposes to remove eight U.S. attorneys, several of whom had been involved in investigations of Republican congressmen, such as Randy "Duke" Cunningham of San Diego, Robert Ney of Ohio and John Doolittle of Rocklin (Placer County).
And who chairs the Judiciary Committee today? None other than Nixon's old enemy, John Conyers.
Among the reasons many Americans have lost faith in their government, the perceived use of the U.S. attorney general's office for political purposes looms large. In the past, independent prosecutors, such as San Francisco's John Keker, who prosecuted Lt. Col. Oliver North in the Iran-Contra scandal, and former Chicago U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald, who is the chief prosecutor in the Lewis "Scooter" Libby trial, have preserved respect for the judicial process despite the machinations of political appointees in Washington. Under the Bush administration, however, the White House has been able to convince its attorney general to provide questionable legal opinions on the use of torture, warrant less wire-tapping and other practices that cause ordinary citizens to wonder whether government lawyers, like politicians, can be prevailed upon to change their views for political gain.
The investigations now being conducted by both the House and Senate Judiciary committees can go a long way toward restoring the faith of the people that our nation's courts, laws and prosecutors remain untainted by political influence. Having served with Conyers for some 15 years, I would not want to be in the shoes of Attorney General Gonzales when he is asked to stand and swear to tell the truth about the recent wave of firings of U.S. attorneys, at least eight of whom were presiding over public corruption investigations.
The truth will out and justice will be served.
BY
SEAN POULTER
The first GM food crop containing human genes is set to be approved for commercial production.
The laboratory-created rice produces some of the human proteins found in breast milk and saliva.
Its U.S. developers say they could be used to treat children with diarrhea, a major killer in the Third World.
The rice is a major step in so-called Frankenstein Foods, the first mingling of human-origin genes and those from plants. But the U.S. Department of Agriculture has already signalled it plans to allow commercial cultivation.
The rice's producers, California-based Ventria Bioscience, have been given preliminary approval to grow it on more than 3,000 acres in Kansas. The company plans to harvest the proteins and use them in drinks, desserts, yogurts and muesli bars.
The news provoked horror among GM critics and consumer groups on both sides of the Atlantic.
Gene Watch UK, which monitors new GM foods, described it as "very disturbing". Researcher Becky Price warned: "There are huge, huge health risks and people should rightly be concerned about this."
Friends of the Earth campaigner Clare Oxborrow said: "Using food crops and fields as glorified drug factories is a very worrying development.
"If these pharmaceutical crops end up on consumers' plates, the consequences for our health could be devastating.
"The biotech industry has already failed to prevent experimental GM rice contaminating the food chain.
"The Government must urge the U.S. to ban the production of drugs in food crops. It must also introduce tough measures to prevent illegal GM crops contaminating our food and ensure that biotech companies are liable for any damage their products cause."
In the U.S., the Union of Concerned Scientists, a policy advocacy group, warned: "It is unwise to produce drugs in plants outdoors.
"There would be little control over the doses people might get exposed to, and some might be allergic to the proteins."
The American Consumers Union and the Washington based Centre for Food Safety also oppose Ventria's plans.
As well as the contamination fears there are serious ethical concerns about such a fundamental interference with the building blocks of life.
Yet there is no legal means for Britain and Europe to ban such products on ethical grounds.
Imports would have to be accepted once they had gone through a scientific safety assessment.
The development is what may people feared when, ten years ago, food scientists showed what was possible by inserting copies of fish genes from the flounder into tomatoes, to help them withstand frost.
Ventria has produced three varieties of the rice, each with a different human-origin gene that makes the plants produce one of three human proteins.
Two - lactoferrin and lysozyme - are bacteria-fighting compounds found in breast milk and saliva. The genes, cultivated and copied in a laboratory to produce a synthetic version, are carried into embryonic rice plants inside bacteria.
Until now, plants with human-origin genes have been restricted to small test plots.
Ventria originally planned to grow the rice in southern Missouri but the brewer Anheuser-Busch, a huge buyer of rice, threatened to boycott the state amid concern over contamination and consumer reaction.
Now the USDA, saying the rice poses "virtually no risk". has given preliminary approval for it to be grown in Kansas, which has no commercial rice farms.
Ventria will also use dedicated equipment, storage and processing facilities supposed to prevent seeds from mixing with other crops.
The company says food products using the rice proteins could help save many of the two million children a year who die from diarrhea and the resulting dehydration and complications. A recent study in Peru, sponsored by Ventria, showed that children with severe diarrhea recovered a day and a half faster if the salty fluids they were prescribed included the proteins.
The rice could also be a huge money-spinner in the Western world, with parents being told it will help their children get over unpleasant stomach bugs more quickly.
Ventria chief executive Scott Deeter said last night: "We have a product here that can help children get better faster."
He said any concerns about safety and contamination were "based on perception, not reality" given all the precautions the company was taking.
Mr Deeter said production in plants was far cheaper than other methods, which should help make the therapy affordable in the developing world.
He said: "Plants are phenomenal factories. Our raw materials are the sun, soil and water."
4. US-ISRAEL TIES BAD FOR PEACE
BY
AUTHOR UNKNOWN
George Soros, the billionaire investor, has added his voice to the debate over the role of Israel's lobby in shaping US foreign policy
In the current issue of the New York Review of Books, Soros takes issue with "the pervasive influence of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee [AIPAC]" in Washington and says the Bush administration's close ties with Israel are obstacles to a peace deal between Israel and the Palestinians.
Soros, who is Jewish but not often engaged in Israeli affairs, echoed arguments that have fuelled debate in academia, foreign policy think tanks and parts of the US Jewish community.
"The pro-Israel lobby has been remarkably successful in suppressing criticism," wrote Soros. Politicians challenge it at their peril and dissenters risk personal vilification, he said.
AIPAC has consistently declined comment on such charges, but many of its supporters have been vocal in dismissing them.
Historian Michael Oren, speaking at AIPAC's 2007 conference in March, said the group was not merely a lobby for Israel. "It is the embodiment of a conviction as old as this (American) nation itself that belief in the Jewish state is tantamount to belief in these United States," he said in a keynote speech.
The long-simmering debate bubbled to the surface a year ago, when two prominent academics, Stephen Walt of Harvard and John Mearsheimer of the University of Chicago, published a 12,500-word essay entitled "The Israel Lobby" and featuring the fiercest criticism of AIPAC since it was founded in 1953.
AIPAC now has more than 100,000 members and is rated one of the most influential special interest groups in the United States, its political clout comparable with such lobbies as the National Rifle Association.
The AIPAC members are all US citizens and the group receives no funding from the Israeli government.
Its annual conference in Washington attracts a Who's Who of American politics, both Republicans and Democrats.
Unwavering support
Mearsheimer and Walt said the lobby had persuaded successive administrations to align themselves too closely with Israel.
"The combination of unwavering support for Israel and the related effort to spread 'democracy' has inflamed Arab and Islamic opinion and jeopardised not only US security but much of the rest of the world," they wrote.
No other lobby group has managed to divert US foreign policy so far from the US national interest, while simultaneously convincing Americans that US interests and those of Israel are essentially identical, they wrote.
The two academics said that pressure from Israel and its lobby in Washington played an important role in President George Bush's decision to attack Iraq, an arch-enemy of Israel, in 2003.
Mearsheimer and Walt found no takers for their essay in the US publishing world. When it was eventually published in the London Review of Books, they noted it would be hard to imagine any mainstream media outlet in the United States publishing such a piece.
It has been drawing criticism that ranged from shoddy scholarship to anti-Semitism, chiefly from conservative fellow academics and political supporters of the present relationship between Washington and Israel.
In his contribution to the debate, Soros said: "A much-needed self-examination of American policy in the Middle East has started in this country; but it can't make much headway as long as AIPAC retains powerful influence in both the Democratic and Republican parties."
That influence is reflected by the fact that Israel is the largest recipient of US aid in the world.
Going mainstream
Mearsheimer and Walt are now working on expanding their article into a book - to be published in September by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. The company has not commented on online reports that it paid the two authors a $750,000 advance and plans to print one million copies.
Another mainstream publisher, Simon and Schuster, already discovered that not only is it possible to publish criticism of Israel but it can also be good for the bottom line.
Former president Jimmy Carter's book "Palestine Peace Not Apartheid" shot up the bestseller lists after its publication last November; stayed there for more than three months and is still selling well.
It had an initial print run of 300,000 copies and there are now 485,000 copies in print, said Victoria Meyer, a spokeswoman for Simon and Schuster.
Carter's book and its reference to apartheid provoked angry reactions - more in the United States than in Israel, where leftists opposed to the occupation of the West Bank have been accusing the government of apartheid practices for years and where the word has lost its shock value.
In response to charges of bias and anti-Semitism, Carter said he wanted to provoke a discussion of issues debated routinely and freely in Israel but rarely in the United States.
"This reluctance to criticize any policies of the Israeli government is because of the extraordinary lobbying efforts of the American Israel Political Action Committee and the absence of any significant contrary voices," he wrote in the Los Angeles Times during a tour to promote his book. "It would be almost politically suicidal for members of Congress to espouse a balanced position between Israel and Palestine."
According to Oren, the pro-AIPAC historian, the Carter book and the Mearsheimer-Walt paper had the same "insidious thesis" and suffered from the same flaw - ignoring oil as a driving element in US policies on the Middle East.
5. TEACHERS: BEFORE USING AN "INCONVENIENT TRUTH" IN CLASSROOMS, SHOW "OIL ON ICE"
(A STRATEGY FOR IGNITING CLIMATE ACTION IN OUR NATION'S SCHOOLS)
BY
JOHN F. BOROWSKI
This week, Al Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth” won a much deserved Academy Award for his riveting documentary on climate change science. Many teachers, including myself, are obligated to use Mr. Gore’s carbon dioxide graphs and stunning visuals of glacial melting and climate change exacerbated hurricanes to educate the nation’s 55 million students. But know this, teachers and caring parents, if we want to move climate change knowledge from facts to action, I strongly suggest a “one-two punch strategy”: show “An Inconvenient Truth” after showing the best environmental education film I have ever watched; “Oil on Ice.” This documentary not only outlines the folly of drilling for oil in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, it contains an incredible array of climate change solutions intertwined with the cultural need to create a “sustainable energy society” here in the United States. Couple this showing with a subsequent viewing of Mr. Gore’s work and you will have a populous of young adults questioning our insatiable addiction to fossil fuels and demanding that the adults who hold power right now implement realistic solutions that could reduce carbon dioxide by 80-90% immediately: not the preposterous and woefully inadequate calls for “reasonable” reductions many decades out.
Having taught for 26 years, I have only encountered a handful of “environmental education” films that have interwoven the needed ingredients that produces a visual that captures the attention and hearts of young adults. Oil on Ice has that rare recipe: spectacular wildlife scenes that tug at the heartstrings throughout, hard data-well explained and factual with a riveting narration. Today’s students, their attention spans conditioned by “MTV style” quick pace productions often lose interest in “talking heads,” and the “talk over” strategy in Oil on Ice employing memorable scenes kept my students attentive and in rapid fire order, asking numerous questions. Barely, over 40 minutes long, it took me three days to show the visual, stopping often to “take notes” and engage in lively debate (what teachers fondly refer to as that “teachable moment”). While “An Inconvenient Truth” depicts our climate dilemma in brilliant science, teachers must “massage” the film when it overstays long scenes of Al Gore and references to his political history. Some students asked why Mr. Gore talked so much about his own life and his loss in the 2000 election. It is crucial for good teachers to “connect those dots” for students without detracting from the science. Critics have claimed that Gore used this production as a vehicle to remain politically viable. Some decry no mention of the Clinton/Gore Administration’s environmental failures: from failure to implement the Kyoto Protocol to allowing “carbon storehouses” our national forests to be clear-cut at unconscionable rates. I defend the film for its scientific integrity, the beautifully illustrated graphs and excellent visuals on Arctic and Antarctic melting. What data that is left missing in Gore’s film, be it intentional or not, makes using Oil on Ice as a preface undeniably valuable. The union of the two films strengthens the message of “An Inconvenient Truth” and gives students the “whole truth.”
Oil on Ice frames four main objectives in brilliant clarity and with an uplifting message of hope and possibility:
First, it gives stinging statistics about our fossil fuel dependency. When energy guru Amory Lovins explains that the world uses a cubic mile of oil a year and the United States uses 10,000 gallons a second, the look on your student’s faces will be priceless;
Secondly, it smashes the myth of economic havoc created by reducing and eliminating our oil addiction. From 1977 to 1985 with the implementation of CAFE standards (higher mileage for cars) and energy conservation our nation made outstanding economic growth. Our economy grew by 27%, yet our oil use dropped by 17%, our oil imports dropped by 50% (including an 87% drop in Middle Eastern oil imports) and we doubled efficiency in transportation. Why did we abandon that strategy and continue the folly of oil addiction?
Thirdly, Oil on Ice weaves commentary about our human spirit. Amongst backdrops of polar bears and Arctic wildlife, solar panels and wind mills, passionate beliefs in a sustainable generation of Americans brims hope and an uplifting message: spoken by Native peoples and common citizens alike;
Lastly, Oil on Ice squarely and unapologetically exposes the connection between big oil and our political powerbrokers. It casts light on the incestuous energy relationship between US senators and the biggest fossil fuel cartels.
Those four areas alone make this film a must see and a preface to the Gore film. This one-two punch of using both films with their combined data provides an unforgettable opportunity for soon to be voters and taxpaying citizens to make the wisest possible judgments on our climate change challenge.
I am an unconditional supporter of “An Inconvenient Truth” and have written extensively and critically of the National Science Teachers Association (NSTA) decision to refuse free distribution of 55,000 of Mr. Gore’s DVD. Laurie David, co-producer on Gore’s Oscar winning film, made this educational landmark offer to the NSTA, only to be rebuffed by this organization with over 50,000 science educators.
When some 12,000 teachers collect in St. Louis at the end of March at the annual NSTA conference our organization will be there also. The Native Forest Council will be in St. Louis to give out climate change education materials, information on the vast importance of our National Forests and to expose those who debunk climate change. Yes, the American Petroleum Institute and other corporate powers will be in St. Louis looking to use teachers as pawns to downplay ecological woes by giving them duplicitous and dishonest curriculum honed by the best propaganda oil profits can spin. Funded by gracious donations from around the country, the NFC will counter these lies, not with vast wealth, but, uncompromising truth and peer reviewed science.
I will hand out materials on how to show “Oil on Ice” in conjunction with “An Inconvenient Truth.” Laurie David provided me with some 200 copies of Al Gore’s movie and I will pass them out. I wish I had a couple of thousand of both movies to provide, but we lack the deep pockets of the American Petroleum Institute and their backers. I can only hope that in the next four weeks, a guardian angel will have read this piece and helped us with acquisition of these grand films. For now, I can hope that teachers acquire copies of both films (www.oilonice.org and www.climatecrisis.net/takeaction/) and teach from them with passion and ignite a critical mass of concern, caring and ultimately action from our school children. The message is simple and clear: climate change is real, it can be solved and caring students can pave the way.
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