protest – Page 3 – Greg Blee

Globe & Mail & Lawyers

My search for that rarest of commodities, reliable reportage on the climate issue and the Copenhagen summit, lead me to The Globe & Mail and an article headlined Facts and Fiction on Climate Change. Good stuff, or a good start anyway.

But it included a dozen or so comments from climate change deniers of one stripe or another (there seem to be several). I wanted to post my own reasonable reasons for pursuing a strong carbon treaty, so i decided to create an account.

Simple enough: name, email, password, postal code. Oh, and the check box beside the little sentence that reads “Yes, I have read, understand and agree to the Privacy Policy and Terms and Conditions.”

I know most people just click the little box and get on with it, but like to know what i’m agreeing to. So i clicked the Privacy Policy link, only to find a page easily twenty screens long — the longest by far i’ve ever seen. In fact, i just pasted it into a blank OpenOffice text document to do a word count, and it weighs in at 4,528 words — a respectable short story (written in boring legalese).

The Terms and Conditions? Even longer: 5,654 words, 27 sections, and a whopping 15 pages as cut-and-pasted into a blank text document.

If newspapers are wondering why they’re having difficulty attracting and holding readers, this might offer one tiny clue.I mean, i like thoroughness, but if i can buy a newspaper with $1.25 why do i have do sign a contract to read it on-line?

The Privacy Policy page had a form at the bottom for “Privacy Inquiry.” I submitted this:

I just started to register for your site, but thought i’d better check out your privacy policy and terms & conditions.

The former is about twenty screens long, and the latter is longer still.

If you cannot do better than making me read half an hour of legalese to sign up with your site, i’ll have to go elsewhere.

Put the lawyers out to pasture and get some real people on the job. I’d love to read and interact with and support the G&M, but this makes it impossible.

Cheers,

~greg

Dear council … about that sludge …

Thanks to local gadabout and civic tornado Jackie Windh and her public-spirited Tofino Residents blog for the heads-up on this gross-looking and undoubtedly insalubrious slick that washed about in Tofino harbour last Thursday — apparently the result of some epic, industrial-style cleaning at a posh waterfront establishment that i will be delighted to name here when it is confirmed. (Click pic to go to her post, with more pics and video.)

Jackie urges concerned residents to ask council to get DFO looking into this, and i concur. If we can’t take even this much responsibility for our immediate surroundings, how can we think ourselves worthy of living in Clayoquot Sound?

Here’s my letter to council:

Dear Tofino Mayor and Council,

I am writing to ask that you vigorously look into the source, effects and punitive measures for the shocking discharge of sludge and trash that was dumped into Tofino harbour on Nov. 19.

If we are to take even a modicum of responsibility for our immediate surroundings, this incident cannot be dismissed or let slide. As Tofino’s elected guardians, I see it as your responsibility to invoke some action on this front. Because it happened on the ocean, it seems to me that DFO is the body responsible for looking into it. Please urge them to undertake an investigation.

If we do not — as individuals, as governing bodies, and as a town — bring censure or repercussion to this grossest form of industrial discharge, then anybody can get away with anything and we might as well write off the whole of Clayoquot Sound.

I suspect — I hope — the whole debacle was just a foolish mistake on someone’s part, rather than a deliberate act of irresponsibility. But even accidents have consequences, and it would be well for those responsible to know people are watching, and people care.

I look forward to hearing more about the cause of this egregious abuse.

Sincerely,

greg blanchette

UPDATE (26 Nov.): It appears i flew off the handle a little, and that the sludge is of natural origin: worm casings. Who’da thunk? That doesn’t explain all the beer cans, but the best biological minds in Tofino are pretty sure. Details at this blog post.

~greg (flying off the handle since … well … birth)

Letter to Ukee council

Here’s my (uncharacteristically restrained) letter to Ucluelet council, put in the mail yesterday. Thanks to the apparently defunct Ukee Tattler for the borrowed pic, and for reminding me what year the logging happened.

Dear Mayor Russcher and Ucluelet council,

I recently had the opportunity to drive to Toquart Bay, past the Maggie Lake timber block that was logged back in the summer of 2006. I see that it has still not been replanted, and is growing wild with brush and alder.

As I recall, this cutblock was an initial step, after much negotiation, in creating a permanent “community forest” for Ucluelet. I believe the UEDC was the driving body behind both securing this piece of land and (in conjunction with Interfor) in logging it.

“Community forest,” in most people’s minds, speaks to a notion of stewardship, of a piece of forest being under the care of a neighbouring community, as opposed to being a mere entry in an account book in some faraway city. Continue reading “Letter to Ukee council”

My letter to Rich

To:
Rich Coleman, Minister responsible for Gaming;
Kevin Krueger, Minister of Tourism, Arts & Culture
Premier Gordon Campbell

cc: Scott Fraser, MLA

Dear Honourable Members,

It’s finally sinking in, just what your BC Liberal government has done to arts and culture in B.C. Your most recent kick in the teeth will cripple the creative life of this province for decades.

Your unprecedented, sweeping and brutal cuts display an astonishing ignorance of what holds a society together. As government, are you merely the manager of our economy? Or are you the stewards of our society? Because a society requires much, much more than a balanced till at the end of the day. Exactly what else could be the topic of an interesting debate, but one ingredient every side would agree on is that a functioning society requires a strong culture as the glue that holds it together. This is harder to count than dollars, which is why it takes wisdom and vision to properly lead. The cuts you have just affected, I’m afraid, put you out of that club.

In an economic downturn, interest in culture expands. There’s a reason visionary leaders, like President Obama in the U.S., have increased cultural spending in these recessionary times. Continue reading “My letter to Rich”

Tanker feedback by Apr. 14

From the annoyingly persistent but usually effective Dogwood Initiative:

The approval process for tar sands related tankers and pipelines in B.C. is inadequate and time is running out to get our voice heard. We only have until April 14th.

Write to Stephen Harper and let him know the Enbridge Northern Gateway project needs a comprehensive public inquiry, not a rubber stamp.

The current approval process run by National Energy Board NEB and the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency CEAA is set up to assess how a project proceeds, not if a project proceeds. It won’t consider the consequences of eliminating the longstanding tanker ban, the impact of pipelines on the expansion of the tar sands, nor the projects relationship to Canada’s policy on global warming.

Write the Prime Minister and tell him that proposals to ship half the current production of the Alberta tar sands to Asia via pipeline to tankers in the waterways of the Great Bear Rainforest needs real scrutiny.

Click hear to send a letter to the Prime Minister and Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency.

www.dogwoodinitiative.org/notankers/actions/letter-demanding-real-scrutiny

The comment period for the scope of the NEB/CEAA review ends April 14th so don’t delay.

I just sent my letter, for what it’s worth. It’s easy to roll your eyes and say What good will it do?, but c’mon, folks. This is still a democracy we live in, and the politicians still have to be elected by popular vote. Besides, look at the world we are handing off to our children. Do you want to look them in the eye in 20 years and say (or think, because you won’t have the heart to say it), “I didn’t even try”?

Try!