In Case You Miss Me

I've started writing in two other places, mainly because I had to learn how to use wordpress.  I'll stick to strictly environmental and social justice posts here.  But you can find posts on education in general (and technology in the classroom in particular) at Snyder's Symposium.  And you can find posts on human nature and life in general (philosophy, psychology) at A Puff of Absurdity.  Feel free to comment.
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Reduce Weight Gain with This One Life-Changing Tip!

There's an article in the paper today about kids under five needing a 3-hour daily exercise regimen to prevent obesity.  I'm taken with the words "exercise regimen" as opposed to, say, "playtime."  Apparently parents are keeping children trapped in swings and strollers all day instead of actually interacting with the wee ones.

From my limited sample of people on my street, it's not the case at all.  But I live on a street uptown with big front porches - where I live all summer (to do my people-sampling) - and places to walk to, and I think that affects how often people are outside.  Generally, elsewhere, we're pushing technology over nature.

But I still think the biggest cause of rising obesity rates is how our food has changed.  The local grocery store has huge ads everywhere saying, "Ontario corn-fed beef coming soon!"  They make it sound like a really great thing.  I like that we can eat local beef, and I admit I naively thought we were all along.  But "corn-fed" is a huge problem.  Beef should be grass-fed to prevent e-coli, reduce methane emissions, and reduce potential obesity.  I won't get into details here, but watch Food Inc. for the bigger picture.  And I have to wonder, if the cows weren't eating grass or corn before, what were they eating?  I'm actually restraining myself from vandalizing the signs with "Watch Food Inc. to find out the problems with this ad!"

Okay, here's the one life-changing tip:  If you want to avoid obesity, avoid one food:  high-fructose corn syrup.    See this study for why.  The problem is it's in everything, so good luck with that.  If you eat low on the food chain, and entirely unprocessed foods, you'll have no problem with this - but you probably don't need to lose weight then either. It's labelled as fructose (the same name as sugar from fruit, but not the same thing), sucrose, glucose, dextrose, etc.  Essentially, if you're buying processed food, look for "sugar" and no "-ose" ingredients.  Give yourself twice as long to do groceries next time you go though.
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Questionable Economic Models Driving Policy

Tom Rand wrote in the Globe & Mail today that the climate-policy debate is using an economic model, DICE, that mistakenly views climate change as a slowly accelerating process rather than a non-linear model that recognizes the impact of sudden catastrophic changes in climate already happening (as explained in the Stern Review).  As such, we're doing precious little - pretty much ignoring the risks to our livelihood.

In Australia, on the other hand, the PM, Julia Gillard, is making industry pay $23 a tonne for carbon emissions which is expected to lead to reductions in emissions on par with taking 45 million cars off the road.  The article also notes that "Ms. Gillard's government is the most unpopular in 40 years."

This is exactly what we need: elected officials who aren't afraid to be hated in their quest to do what's right for their country and the world.

Here's more from Rand:



That's it!
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The Energy Glut

Philobiblon wrote a post the way I like to - an annotated summary with page references.  The book's called:  The Energy Glut: The Politics of Fatness in an Overheating World, and it's driving home what I've been saying for years.  If you want to save the environment and lose weight, ditch your car.  You can also save scads and scads of cash.  


I'm creeping up on 50, and I still haven't bought a car yet.  I think I can go the distance on this one.   I almost succumbed to teenager-pressure, but I re-did the math and assured myself that taking the occasional taxi when necessary is a very cost-effective way to travel.


That's it.
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Summer Movie List

ETA - I'm going to use this post as a bookmark of all the movies I loved or hated this summer.

First of all, I understand the Provincial NDP's move to alleviate poverty by lowering the gas tax and as a means of wooing voters for the fall election, but from an environmental perspective and from a socialist perspective, it's a bad move.  Or at the very least, it's not a direction one would expect from the NDP.  It just gives opponents ammo when they insist the NDP policies will never work.

Secondly, I managed some serious escapist marathon movie-watching to mark the end of school.  I'm hand-sewing cushions which I thought I could do in front of a few movies, but I foolishly chose several sub-titled ones which made it difficult to look anywhere other than the screen.  Here's a summary of the best and worst of what I watched last night (and into the wee hours this morning):

Don't Bother With...

Cry-Baby - With Johnny Depp, how could you go wrong?  This is how.  Directed by John Waters of Hairspray fame, I couldn't make it through more than twenty minutes.

Breaking Upwards - A very realistic portrayal of a couple in crisis, but I find it hard to sit through all the angst.  I made it about 3/4 the way through.  What is it about Annie Hall that I can watch that break-up over and over, but most movies like this are just grating?  I think it's often all the petty arguing that, instead of getting just a taste, just the idea of how they bicker, we have to sit through entire episodes.  I hate it in real life; why would I want to watch other people do it?

Adventureland - Teen angst and drama without anything new to the story.  Plus, I'm really tired of Kristen Stewart.

I Admit I Kinda Liked...

Knight and Day.  I've still got a soft-spot for Tom Cruise and action flicks that don't really make sense.  The best part is the car chase when Diaz has to steer a car with a dead man's foot flooring the gas pedal, and Cruise blocks her vision with his body across the windshield while making quips to calm her down, and, despite swerving insanely on the freeway, she hits nothing - of course.  Sorry if I gave that away for anybody.

Middle Men - It's a telling of how one man can get sucked into some nasty stuff trying to make money off porn.  It's Goodfellas-lite.  Good to sew pillows to.

Definitely Check Out....

Tell No One - A very tense and exciting murder mystery with a few clever twists.  I love this stuff!

Volver - Gorgeous film.  Breaks the barrier between the living and dead, but not in a Ghost kind of way.  At all.

The Bothersome Man - A man gets dropped off in this weird town where everything is simply pleasant. There are endless dinner parties and mindless conversation particularly about home renovations!  There are no children - children are chaotic and cause upheaval. Nor is there any delectable food.  It's all pretty bland, but everyone is really happy with this version of perfection - except for him of course.  We need a bit of chaos, something to spice things up, for better and worse.  Some of us do, anyway.    

And then I watched So I Married An Axe-Murderer for maybe the fourth time.  "Piper down" still slays me.

Here's more must sees....

Terribly Happy - Corrupt cop trying to do good, but just can't get a break.  Loved it!

Buddy - A cute movie that could be used to look at if the ends can justify the means.  Also a good look at friendship and love.  Thoroughly enjoyable, and good for the whole family - well, my family.

Barney's Version - Fantastic film about a guy and his love of a good woman.  I question the analysis that she's a saint - a bit of a doormat if you ask me.  But lovely nonetheless.  He loves her, but what's the difference between love and need?  He can't cope without her, even for a few days, but he gives nothing back to her, ignoring her accomplishments completely.  Personally, I don't think that's love.  Also, the wife is lovely, but I thought her acting a bit stilted and, well, monotone.  It reminded me of the girl in High Fidelity - who almost ruined that movie for me.  

The Station Agent - Loved it!  A train-nut inherits a station in the middle of nowhere.  And he's a dwarf (the word he uses in the film).  An excellent look at friendship and coping and such.

Win Win - Liked it a lot - mainly the ending.  A nice, but mildly corrupt lawyer neglects an elderly client for cash and ends up developing a sweet relationship with the grandson.  A bit contrived (he's a wrestling coach and the grandson's a ringer), but I liked the refreshing view of an ethical conundrum - i.e. he actually does the right thing.

Death at a Funeral - Very funny.  And a good bit about the nature of love also.  A good blow-off line to an obsessive guy about the nature of love.

Bridesmaids - Hilarious.  And the love interest is one of my favourite characters from Pirate Radio - one of my favourite movies.  The ending is likely intentionally reminiscent of another favourite movie, but I won't spoil it by saying which one.  "What kind of name is Stove anyway?"
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Avoiding Environmental Toxins: Start Young

A guest post from Krista Peterson:

Cigarette smoke, lead-based paint, pesticides, asbestos, and household chemicals are just a few examples of environmental toxins that are currently known to be harmful, especially to children. And the only way to minimize the risks of these environmental hazards is to limit exposure to them. Luckily, unlike certain health issues that we have no control over, environmental toxins present an issue that can be thwarted. But in order to do so, there needs to be a concerted national effort focused on raising awareness and reducing their existence.

Educating children on the importance of avoiding environmental toxins at an early age can be a useful tool for promoting a healthier, eco-friendly lifestyle. Children are particularly vulnerable to environmental toxins because they are growing, their organs are developing, and their behavior often puts them in close contact with the ground. Due to increased susceptibility, it is crucial for kids to know how to protect themselves at an early age.

Because of their widespread nature, it is nearly impossible to completely avoid environmental toxins. But by making some environmentally friendly decisions, it is possible to minimize your exposure. Nativevillage.org provides a pretty comprehensive list of ways to avoid toxins:

• Buy and eat, as much as possible, organic produce and free-range, organic foods.
• Rather than eating fish, which is largely contaminated with PCBs and mercury, consume a high-quality purified fish or cod liver oil.
• Avoid processed foods -- remember that they're processed with chemicals!
• Only use natural cleaning products in your home
• Switch over to natural brands of toiletries
• Remove any metal fillings as they're a major source of mercury. Be sure to have this done by a qualified biological dentist.
• Avoid using artificial air fresheners, dryer sheets, fabric softeners or other synthetic fragrances as they can pollute the air you are breathing.
• Avoid artificial food additives of all kind, including artificial sweeteners and MSG
• Have your tap water tested and, if contaminants are found, install an appropriate water filter on all your faucets (even those in your shower or bath).

Another important step to take is to make sure your home and school are free of mold and asbestos. Asbestos is a common toxin that was widely used as insulation on floors and ceilings throughout the 1950’s to 1970’s. The material is extremely dangerous and is known to cause a deadly cancer called mesothelioma. If you live in a home or go to a school that is particularly old, get a professional to come and ensure that you’re not breathing in the deadly material on a daily basis. Doing so can potentially save your life; the mesothelioma life expectancy, after diagnosis, is only 14 months long.

Even if we take all the steps necessary to protect ourselves from the threats of environmental toxins, the fact remains, an enormous amount of pollution still occurs on a daily basis. Environmental toxins are simply a byproduct of the modern lifestyle, and with the current state of our society, it may seem like there is no going back. But that doesn’t have to be true. If we can educate the young and promote healthy, green lifestyle decisions, there is hope that our population can live in peaceful unity with the environment.
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Strip the Streets

After being disappointed in We Day, it was a delight to participate in Strip the Streets this weekend.  A couple hundred students from 14 schools got together to raise awareness and some funds for several groups that help local homelessness.  (I think it's okay to put this photo here since its from The Record.)

There were excellent speakers, a meal at the legion, then a night outside.  I like that the schools were mixed together to talk about different issues.  It's an event that actually develops community along with awareness.  But what had the most impact was breakfast the next morning.

We went to First United Church where many people without homes spent the night sleeping in the basement.  Students shared porridge and toast with people who live like this every day.  Many of the students were moved to tears.

As I stood on the sidewalk, away from the rest, getting a panorama shot of people taking down tents in the morning, someone in a car slowed down to yell, "You guys are dressed too well to be homeless!!"   I didn't share that with the others, and it completely missed the point anyway.  The event raised money, collected tons of toiletries and other essentials, and completely transformed the participants.  The students weren't pretending to be without homes; they were getting a small taste of what it must be like for many people, including about 1,000 youth in the region, to have to go without something we take for granted.  It was an eye-opener, and I found it to be profoundly effective.

ETA - A student today commented on the evening.  She thought the worst part would be suffering through a cold night, but what was far worse was a total lack of privacy 24/7.  It's degrading to not be able to get yourself presentable in the morning without seeing other people in the mall washroom.  We have a need for private space that can't be helped with temporary group sleeping areas.

My weekend was topped off with an excellent drama presentation last night - excellent except for the silly bandz that we've decided to give away at every event.  My 6-year-old was thrilled.  Me?  Not so much.  They're made of a silicone rubber polymer which in itself isn't particularly toxic or problematic.  Careful of choking if you try to eat them, or cutting off your circulation if you wear them.  But it's trendy crap that's destined for the landfill where they won't decompose.  They might, however, photodegrade so in a few years we can breathe in the particles and decrease our fertility.

This is where environmentalists are total downers, but, I think, necessarily so.  I was excited to see the play without the toys that came with the ticket.  It doesn't make our school suddenly cooler to jump on a marketing trend.  It just makes more garbage to clean up at the end of the night.  

The weekend as a whole reminded me of a line in the film No Impact Man.  Colin's talking to an old hippie gardener who tells him:  "It's always 50/50.  Some thing get better and some things get worse.  It'll always be like that."

True that.  We just need those little bits of "better" to keep us going over the worse.
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Me2We Day

I appreciate the excitement many felt at We Day Waterloo, but I have a few concerns.  I considered sending this to The Record to balance out Carragh Erhardt's glowing editorial, but I decided otherwise.  Here's good enough.

If a rally is going to change how we live it has to do more than shout homilies at us. It has to model how to be. In this respect We Day failed. In words it told us to change the world, but in actions it told us to be wasteful consumers.

If these kids are our future, it’s a problem that so many bought bottled water. A few students told me it’s all they had for sale. This begs a question that I didn’t have the heart to ask: Why didn’t each of these “ambassadors of the future” bring a reusable bottle full of water? Thousands of water bottles were purchased in those four hours that made up the day.  As we listened to tales of women who had to miss school to walk hours for water, so many felt they couldn't make it for four hours without.

People like Al Gore were flown in to talk for less than ten minutes, then flown home again. A live video feed could have been as useful, and people would still have come for that, especially if it meant reducing GHGs. The “pumpers” made everyone stand up for most of the day, so we couldn’t see most of the speakers on the stage anyway, we had to watch on screens close to the ceiling.

They encouraged kids to buy t-shirts and jewelry and books as souvenirs of the day.  Right after the lunch break, some students spent a few entire speeches playing with their new purchases.  If you need a new shirt or necklace, then by all means, this is the place to get it where it's made or designed by hand and traded freely.  But do you really need more stuff?  We've trained our kids to want mementoes of everything they do, but it's just another consumerist scam under the cloak of charity.

Then we left the building to find, in the parking lot, 100 buses idling for over 45 minutes as kids got on to go home. They had to sit until every last person boarded a bus. It’s kind that they made the buses warm for us, but I think we can tolerate the cold for the sake of the planet. If we want to change behaviours, we can start by telling kids and the bus lines that it’ll be cold waiting in the bus, but we can handle it!  We just spent half a day listening to real hardships.  It's pathetic that we expect water on demand and a warm bus to wait in.

I’ve seen Craig Keilburger before without the flashing lights and pumpers and shouting. He is truly an inspirational speaker able to hold an audience for hours, right up there with David Suzuki and Stephen Lewis. The stories are the inspiration; if they only have an hour’s worth of stories, then make it an hour-long presentation. But why not have speakers tell their whole story instead of just teasers. There were little kids in the audience too, and some people think they need lots of variety to maintain their interest. But that belief actually creates a dwindling attention span.  Caught early, little kids love a good story told well. Everyone does.  We can foster that instead of expecting people to fall asleep if their attention is sustained by a single voice for more than ten minutes.

Dancing and chanting energize people so they think something important’s happening, that some connection has been made between all these strangers, but it doesn’t last. It’s fun and exciting for some, but doesn’t have the power to sustain us in a struggle to keep fighting the good fight. It certainly didn’t get kids to question their “XCI is the best school ever!” signs they held aloft right to the very end – ironic at an event that works to get us to shift our focus from a “me” to a “we”.

The day was frustrating because it’s so close. They’ve got the bodies and the interest, but too many words instead of actions of substance. They could cut out some time spent on dancing and have students do some good. Make people talk in small groups and pledge specific acts right there and then to be started before June, and have them submit them to a website co-ordinator so their promises are made public and they're held accountable.  Have schools sitting next to each other shake hands and say hello. Get names and make some new Facebook connections that can be counted on to join us for our next school event. Have people change their signs to “The world is the best school ever!”  And challenge students that didn't bring water with them to go the whole time without, to actually feel what it is to be thirsty and unable to get water, rather than fill our landfills and oceans with more plastic.

It was a pep rally that got everyone riled up, but a stunning waste of resources unless every one of the 6,000 in the audience actually starts to think globally with every action all the time - and they couldn't do it for a day.
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Silent Spring Backlash

On a student's recommendation, I checked out the book The Fly in the Ointment by Dr. Joe Schwarcz.  I'm always going on about the increase of toxins in our environment and how to avoid getting overloaded.  Schwarcz insists eating spoonfuls of DDT is perfectly safe and that Rachel Carson (of Silent Spring fame) used junk science to convince the masses that DDT is harmful.


Schwarcz examines one of the many studies from Carson's book and shows how the treatment group of birds (exposed to DDT) had almost as many eggs hatch as the control group (no DDT).  And there are a few studies that show no harm, in fact an improvement in egg hatching.  Therefore, according to Schwarcz, all her studies are flawed.  I was just about to count the number of principle sources she used in her book, but they take up 53 pages of notes, and I don't want to count that many.  Suffice it to say, that study he jumped on wasn't the only study she used to back up her claim that DDT affects fertility in birds and likely affects fertility in people.  Eating a spoonful of DDT won't kill you.  But if you're a woman, and you inhale the stuff over years because you live on a farm or near a golf course, you might end up having problems conceiving.

Schwarcz laments the many children dying of malaria because of Carson, but Carson never advocated for a total ban of DDT, she just wanted it much more controlled than it was back in 1962.  I agree with both of them that spraying to stop deadly malaria is a good use for this pesticide.  Spraying it on our fields as a regular practice here - not so much.  And, most importantly, spraying it on lawns and golf courses to kill off cinch bugs and other "pests" because we love the aesthetics of a monoculture - not at all.

Schwarcz also is a consultant for Monsanto.  Just saying.

There are a lot of conflicting studies and scientific expertise on different scientific topics.  Carson is a marine biologist with a masters in zoology.  She wanted to do a PhD, but had to leave school to support her family. Devra Davis is an epidemiologist with a PhD in sciences and post doc work in oncology.  Schwarcz has a PhD in chemistry.  When PhDs conflict, how do we know what's true?

We can take the time to look at the research the scientists have studied.  It's especially important with "pop" science and social science books.  I did that with The Tipping Point series.  The studies are fun and interesting, but I want to withhold judgment until I read the original studies. It's usually pretty easy to find them on-line.  Look for controlled and treatment groups, large sample sizes, random samples, isolated variables, if the studies were repeated with similar results, and other markers of good scientific research.

A fast method, though, and the bottom line for me is that if we can live without certain synthetic products, then we should.  Eat low on the food chain, free range, organic, when it's possible, and here and now, that's really easy to do.  Avoid plastics and fragrances.  Really none of that is a big deal or difficult.  And I don't think it's paranoid to avoid buying a whole lot of crap we don't need.  Also, when studies conflict, always follow the money.  If Carson made up her studies (or Davis), what would she have to gain from that?  But Monsanto has a whole lot to lose if they can't find some PhDs to rail against these claims that pesticides can harm us.

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God vs Trees: A Confession

Okay, I was totally busted in the paper today.  I wrote a letter to the editor at the Record last Tuesday suggesting that one thing we hadn't considered in the whole giving-Bibles/Korans-to-every-grade-5-in-the-region issue was the number of trees destroyed to make all that paper.  But I used a quotation to further my argument from Revelations 7:3 about not hurting trees.  Truth be told, I knew I was taking the passage out of context.  The point of that bit of writing is that nothing bad will happen to the world (like the apocalypse or the second coming or what have you) until after God saves his loyal servants, not that we should be nice to the planet.

What was I thinking?  Well, I thought for those in the know, it would get a chuckle (if they knew that I knew, that is), and for those not, it might get a following.  The mere suggestion that it's right there in the Bible that we mustn't harm the trees might go a long long way towards their protection - maybe more than would happen from a more secular environmental approach.  Underhanded?  Perhaps.  I'm at a loss for what else can possibly influence people to care about the earth.

But the letter outing me sends the whole dialogue in a different direction.  First the writer suggests that if we get flyers we don't ask for which wastes paper, and the Bible's more valuable than flyers, then it's not a waste of paper to print off tons of copies of the Bible that people don't request.  In other words, since we get some things we don't want, then it should be acceptable to get other things of greater value that we also don't want.  That's two wrongs don't make a right.  I don't like flyers either, so that argument doesn't really convince me.  The Bible is definitely more valuable than flyers, but the question remains:  is it valuable enough to allow many trees to meet an untimely death for copies that might go untouched or get tossed when it can be easily read on-line in full with professional commentary to boot?

But a more interesting thing is how the letter is being interpreted.  Several people told me that there's a rebuttal in the paper that suggests that God is more important than trees.   If you read it carefully, it doesn't really say that.  But that's how it's being interpreted, and it certainly suggests that.  So which matters more:  what's actually said, or how it's understood by the people reading it?  Because the people who brought it to my attention seemed to miss the fact that I was being chastised for quoting out of context, but instead wanted to start a dialogue on which is more important, God or trees.

I'm leaning towards trees, myself, but can't it be both?  And, for some, isn't it the same thing anyway?

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An Eco Rap

Video by EcoPanik
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Disconnect

I just finished Devra Davis' new book, Disconnect, about cell phones.  Here's the main point:

KEEP YOUR CELL PHONE OUT OF YOUR POCKET AND AN INCH AWAY FROM YOUR HEAD, AND THAT GOES DOUBLE FOR CHILDREN AND TEENAGERS!

This is a controversial topic, and she lays out every bit of research out there in heavily annotated detail.  I'll summarize the most compelling pieces of information below with page numbers from the book.  If you want a summary of my summary, just read what's in bold.

She explains how radio waves work and why many think nonionizing radiation shouldn't harm us (16).  "If nonionizing radiation didn't break ionic bonds, and the intensity used was too low to produce any change in temperature, what trouble could it possibly cause?" (19)  One of the biggest arguments against cell phones being a problem is that there's radiation everywhere, right?  The sun radiates us.  So what's the big deal?  Well, nothing sits next to our bodies giving off a constant source of artificial radiation like cell phones do.  And there are many experiments that show a serious problem with nonionizing radiation.

THE MAIN IDEA

“There is more religion in men’s science, that there is science in their religion.” - Henry David Thoreau

There’s no money for independent research in science, so almost all research is funded by industry. (Universities are also funded by industry.) So there is no impartiality any longer. There’s no certainty around cell phones because “this issue has been manufactured by those with deep pockets whose bottom line remains their primary focus…. As it did with tobacco, asbestos, benzene, and hormone replacement therapy” (202).

Several governments (France, Finland, Israel) are acting to reduce exposures to cell phone radiation and insisting on more public information (202). We insist on seeing proof that an epidemic is under way before acting to restrain exposures to an agent that damages DNA, weakens the blood-brain barrier, and unleashes destructive free radials throughout the body (203).

The Stewart Commission recommends limits on cell phone use and advises that children under age sixteen not use cell phones at all (208).

Davis ends the book with this: “Years from now our grandchildren will look back and ask: Did we do the right thing and act to protect them, or did we harm them needlessly, irresponsibly, and permanently, blinded by the addictive delights of our technological age?” (243).

Everything on cell phones here also goes for cordless phones and wireless signals to computers. It’s all the same type of radiation.

But there’s radiation everywhere, right? “The levels of radio frequency signals that started the only world we know were billions of times less than those that are getting into our heads today around the world” (81).

Her information told a compelling story. Below, it’s all chronological.  I’ve been told this concern is just another way to get us afraid. I don’t think so. I don’t think telling people to keep their phones an inch from their bodies when they’re on is any more fear inducing than telling them to wear a seatbelt or a bike helmet. I don’t advocate destroying them, just using them safely. Even if the research is all a big hoax (to whose benefit I must wonder), why fight against taking some very simple precautions?

Absence of research has become the rationale for making no changes. There are many studies finding inconclusive results, but most of these are funded by the cell phone industry including the WHO Electromagnetic Field project (48). Science is limited by political and economic circumstances that determine what questions are asked, who gets to answer them, and whether that work becomes public (52).

Why do similar studies show different results? “Those who set up studies that are supposed to replicate work on the blood-brain barrier, can make changes in the design that are small but critical. Basically what is supposed to be an identical experiment with contrary results turns out to be not similar at all – significant changes have been made to ensure the study won’t work. Studies are done not to clarify the problem, but to confuse people. Most of the studies that find no problem have been sponsored directly by the industry and have used slightly different approaches. The generation of negative studies in this area has been deliberate” – Allan H. Frey (68).

“Because the causes of chronic disease can take decades to be detected, we should not wait for definitive human evidence” (56). “It is far easier to keep doing studies aimed at evaluating whether there is a problem and probing the numerous uncertainties of the field than it is to come up with policies to curtail or control potential sources of that problem while studies continue” (49).

3G and 4G phones use a wider bandwidth, and continually send digitally pulsed signals to base stations to get new information. As a result, they can result in greater cumulative exposure to radio frequency signals (46).

THE STUDIES

1960s - Milton Zaret, an ophthalmologist in New York – examined 1,600 air force, navy, and army workers to see if their jobs with radar and radio frequency exposure had any impact on their eyes. Typically half of all people age 70 have cataracts in both eyes. Almost no one has cataracts in their 20s or 30s or only one eye unless something has damaged the membrane. He found posterior cataracts in men under 40 uniquely tied with microwave exposure (196).

1962 – Safety standards for radio frequency radiation in the U.S. date back to 1962, long before cell phones moved from theory to reality (74).

1970s - Allan H. Frey, Office of Naval Research, demonstrated that radio frequency radiation relaxed the membrane surrounding the brain. This information was used to help chemotherapeutic agents pass across the brain barrier (65). Exposures to radio frequency add up over time. If the same area gets tweaked over and over again, repair may not happen as easily or at all (90). Frey showed that radio frequency signals opened up the normally closed barrier between the blood and brain. He injected dye into the bloodstream of white rats then exposed them to pulsed microwave signals. Within a few minutes the brains of the injected rats began to darken. The rats not exposed to the microwaves did not get dye into their brains (111). Others claimed the studies were wrong through a repeated study in which, instead of injecting dye into the artery where it could circulate, they injected it into the abdomen, waited a minute before killing the rat, then found no evidence that the dye reached the brain because it did have time to circulate completely – they made sure of that (113).

1973 – Dietrich Beischer found radio frequency signals raised triglycerides and blood pressure in humans. Just before he was going to report the results publically, he called a colleague to apologize that he couldn’t make it, and he couldn’t ever talk to him again (157).

1980s - Leif Salford, a neurosurgeon at the Lund, Sweden, was concerned that if microwaves can help chemo get into the brain, what else do they let in. For the past twenty years at the Rausing Laboratory of Sweden, they examined brain cells from rodents using mobile phone exposures of 2-6 hours a day. Animals exposed to just two hours of cell phone signals were much less able to complete simple tasks at which they usually excelled. Even two months later exposed rats remained less capable (66).

Using computers to characterize gene patterns, Salford showed that rats subject to cell phone radiation have more direct brain damage, less ability to fix this, and greater chances of growing and acting strangely. Once the blood-brain barrier is breached, then anything circulating into our bodies at the time, alcohol, drugs, toxic chemicals, cigarette smoke, diesel exhaust, will more readily enter the brain from the blood (66).

Henrietta Nittby has shown that rats exposed to cell phone signals for just two hours a day for a single week began to leak microscopic fluid from their brains into their blood which makes them vulnerable to taking in other agents in the blood that would normally never enter their brains.

The Lund team concludes that cell phone use in children may, “in the long run, result in reduced brain reserve capacity that might be unveiled by other later neuronal disease or even the wear and tear of aging” (67).

1993 – In a memo located by Microwave News, the FDA concluded that several studies showed that microwave radiation increased cancer risk – but by 1997, the FDA changed their mind and decided little is known about the health effects of exposure (44).

1994 - Henry Lai, University of Washington, subjected living rats to two hours of radio frequency radiation at the same level used in cell phones. Brain cells were taken from the animals and evaluated. DNA from the cells of these rats were broken. The broken brain cells found in these cell-phone-exposed animals are the same as those known to occur in cancer. To remain healthy, DNA needs to remain intact. This was the first time we saw direct evidence that cell-phone-type radiation adversely affects DNA (60).

1994 - Mays Swicord, University of Maryland, produced basic research that showed that radio frequency signals at the same frequency as cell phones could disturb the DNA within the center of brain cells for the FDA, but left the year cell phones were approved without any safety testing at all (42).

1996 – The Federal Telecommunication Act prevents local authorities from considering health concerns in deciding where cell phone towers can be placed (42).

1996 - Om P. Gandhi, University of Utah, contracted by the Defense Department, found that radio frequency signals were absorbed much more deeply into the brains of children than those of adults (79). The heads of smaller adults also absorb more radiation. To determine safety levels, the FDA uses a SAM model – a mock-up of a “standard” brain that is similar to a 200 pound man, and uniform in consistency, unlike our own brains which are of varying densities throughout. The SAM model is useless for developing real-life safety standards.

1997 – Jerry Phillips, a Motorola-supported scientist showed that genes of rodents exposed to cell-phone-like radiation looked significantly worse than those of unexposed animals. The paper was published, but someone added a line at the end, “…is probably of no physiologic consequence” that Phillips insists didn’t appear in his original report (43).

2000 – The FDA advised that the National Toxicology Program should test radio frequency radiation for its potential to cause cancer noting that there’s “insufficient scientific basis for concluding that wireless communication technologies are safe” (44).

2000 – Israel – The world’s heaviest cell phone users have triple the rate of cancer in persons under the age of twenty (84).

2000 – A Swedish analysis compared 1,400 people with brain tumors to a similar number without the disease from 1997 to 2000. They found that tumors of the auditory nerve were three times more frequent in people who had used cell phones for more than a decade (182).

2000 – Franz Adlkofer, head of the Verum Foundation which was funded by tobacco money for years. They worked with human cells and rat cells exposed and not exposed to radio frequency radiation found in cell phones. The DNA from the exposed cells looked sick. There was an increase in DNA strand breaks. Not just in this lab, but in two separate facilities as well. They consistently found increases in a type of damage called micro-nuclei, which proves the existence of serious genetic defects leading down the path to cancer (106-7). “The kind and extent of DNA damage became a very inconvenient fact of life.” They found ten times higher rate of broken DNA with the new 3G phones compared to 2G (121 – published in the International Archives of Occupational and Environmental Health). Then one of his research assistants suddenly was claimed to have admitted to fudging the data, and Adlkofer was charged with fraud. The assistant later insisted she said no such thing, but his name was already muddied. It didn’t matter that there were, at the time, eleven other independent studies that found similar results (122), the industry published the findings that “Cell Phones Do Not Damage DNA” based on the claims of one piece of fudged research. To make matters worse, the university demanded that all Adlkofer’s research be destroyed (127).

2001 – A commission of the Royal College of Physicians, chaired by William Stewart, said that children might be more vulnerable because of their developing nervous system, the greater absorption of energy in the tissues of the head, and a longer lifetime of exposure. “We believe that the widespread use of mobile phones by children for nonessential calls should be discourage.“ By children, they mean anyone under 16 (91).

2002 – Industry did a major study to prove the safety of cell phones. They reviewed health records of over 400,000 people who signed up for private use of cell phones between 1982 and 1995. They kicked out almost half the people – anyone who was part of a business that used cell phones (that is, the heaviest users), and only included people who used cell phones for personally purposes only and for less than eight years in total. They found that there was no evidence of harm. But, duh, they diluted the high-exposure group to lower their chance of finding an effect (181). They did agree, however, that cell phone signals do penetrate the brain. “During operation, the antenna of a cellular telephone emits radio frequency electromagnetic fields that can penetrate 4-6 cm into the human brain” (182), but they insisted it’s not clearly harmful.

2005 – C.K. Chou replaced Gandhi as advisor to the Defense Department. He also was a senior executive with Motorola – a clear conflict of interest. Under Chou, the committee relaxed the standards for cell phones. Today’s standards for cell phones have more than doubled the amount of radio-frequency radiation allowed into the brain (86). They use a model that holds the phone at least half an inch from the brain to determine levels of impact on the brain. Also nowadays phones are smaller with three or four antennas built directly into their backs. As a result, exposure to radio frequency radiation inside the brain is many times higher (87). Four different peer reviews of Chou’s critique of Gandhi’s work indicated that Chou’s critique was scientific junk (87).

All new manuals for cell phones include warnings to keep the phones away from the body – typically almost a full inch. This ensures that people can’t sue if the cell phones cause a problem unless they can prove they used them appropriately.

2008 – Ashok Agarwal, Cleveland Clinic, - Cell phones in the pocket lead to men with fewer sperm with more deformities (138). From a study of 400 men, men with the lowest sperm counts were significantly more likely to keep their phones on their bodies all the time. Men who used no cell phones had far healthier sperm than those who used a phone over two hours/day. Men who used the phone over four hours/day had the sickliest sperm counts. There is a clear and direct correlation between health of sperm and cell phone use (141). These aren’t the first studies to show this – it’s been shown in many different countries over decades (142).

2009 – Melaka Manipal Medial College – “teenaged” white rats exposed for just one hour a day had more damaging free radicals in their blood, reduced sperm counts, and lowered amounts of male hormones.

2009 – German study – Contrasted the life experiences and reported cell phone use of 366 people with deadly tumors of the brain called gliomas and 381 people with slow-growing, benign tumors of the membranes that cover the spinal cord, against 1,500 people between 30 and 69 who did not have brain tumors. Those who reported having used cell phones for ten years or more had twice the risk of gliomas.

2010 – Austria - Children’s brains are smaller and also developing faster. They absorb at least twice as much radio frequency radiation as those of adults. Bone marrow can take in ten times more radiation in children than in adults (82).

2010 – John Aitken, - After little more than a day of exposure to cell phone radiation, sperm becomes sluggish. There’s a dose-response relationship – as the dose goes up, so does the damage. The radiation does not directly damage the sperm’s DNA straight on, as happens when X-rays hit, rather, cell phone radiation weakens the ability of a sperm cell to function (143). Free radicals are generated through leaking mitochondria which harms DNA by weakening the basic structure of the genetic material (143). – Like a rubber band that’s been stretched too many times.

2010 - Lennart Hardell, Sweden, an expert on microwave radiation - “In my studies I find one pattern over and over again. Those who have used their phones the most and for the longest, have more malignant brain tumors than others” (176). Similar findings have been developed by scientists in Israel, Finland, Russian, and England. Hardell has also shown that those who start using cell phones regularly as teenagers have four to five times more brain cancer about ten years later, in their 20s (176).

On-going – For the past five years, scientists in Moscow have been following two groups of children between the ages of 5 and 12 – one group using mobile phone and the other not. Every year the children get a battery of tests. They found changes in the working of the brains of the cell phone users ranging from decreased capacity to work, increased fatigue, decrease in attention and semantic memory, and significant loss of the ability to tell the difference between different sounds. They also have functional problems – difficulties with learning and behaviour (61).

For the past twelve years, Lukas H. Margaritis, at the University of Athens, employs real cordless phones, Wi-Fi systems, and baby monitors and sends signals into cages where rats live. He then does memory tests with the rats. They are taught to swim to a platform – something they learn easily. Exposed rodents get confused and swim around in circles, unable to remember what it learned just a few hours earlier.

Other research from Greece found that the brains of rats whose mothers are exposed to cell phone radiation during pregnancy have cells that look different from those of unexposed rats. Small amounts of pulsed radio frequency radiation leave rat offspring with what looks like brain damage. They also studied a worm that can grow back when the animal is cut in half. After simple exposure, the worm grows back snarled and bent instead of straight and flat (62).

That’s It – Except….
There’s another whole section of the book about other concerns with power lines and particularly electricity used in the treatment of sports injuries strongly correlated to Lou Gehrig’s disease – but I just focused on phones here. That was enough!

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EcoSchools - This Time It's Personal

"I have not failed.  I've just found 10,000 ways that don't work."
       - Thomas Edison

I went to a staff Christmas party where there was, quite literally, some jovial pointing and laughing going on because I don't shop at Wal-Mart, don't eat at McDonalds, and have never owned a car.  Of course there are good reasons for these lifestyle choices, but that's besides the point.  If you're the EcoSchool rep, and you live by your convictions when it's not too difficult, then you might be perceived as being a bit of a freak show.  And that just sucks.

However, I was quite impressed by the instinctive social mechanisms that create community through conformity.  People who are different are relegated to the out-group until they start to tow the line.  That's a useful dynamic if we want to train people to be honest and trustworthy, ostracizing those that lie, cheat or steal.  It's just really unfortunate that what we conform to today has been largely determined by industry - consumerist mantras in the form of jingles.  Have you had a break today?

The question is, how do we make living with a conscientious worldview the in thing to do?  



It's easier not to care, and that won't likely change unless we're willing to elect a totalitarian government who will make us live ethically.  So it can't be a matter of making everything environmental easier to do. It has to be cool to be eco-friendly.  We've got celebrity endorsements on our side, but that's not enough. It has to be younger and hipper.  I wonder if a different teacher could get more people on board.  Hmmm...


But back to me.  One time I walked into a room with colleagues finishing their lunch, and one teacher said to the other, "Uh oh, we'll have to recycle today.  Marie's here."  I'm the bad guy, the eco-police.  People feel like they have to be careful around me.  And, truth be told, it never stops surprising me that people don't automatically recycle or compost or walk places.  Some eco-behaviours that were once ingrained in society, have actually been lost.  We were trained not to litter as kids.  Once the indoctrination between cartoons ended, the behaviour ended for the next generation.  It's curious how briefly good ideas stick around before they disappear and have to be re-introduced.

If someone puts recycling in the garbage, I'll question it because it's so baffling to me, or I'll just take it out myself and put it six inches to the left in the recycling bin which makes me a garbage-picker.  Excellent.  If I see people with a single-use cup every day, or even several times a day, I'll suggest they get a travel mug, or even offer to buy them one.  It's no wonder people avoid me.  It's a tricky line to walk:  reminding and encouraging people to get on board without being a thorn in their side or seeming self-righteous.

Maybe I just take being a gold-standard eco-school way too seriously and should just cut corners:  fudge the results, only compost in the staff room for instance (which still counts as composting), not actually try to decrease waste or energy, but just do the bare minimum to continue to qualify for a sticker each year.  Forget about the whole point of the program, and just go for it as a status symbol to attract more students to our school.  

The situation is reminiscent of when I did my Master's degree.  Many students in my class actually bragged about not reading the books we were assigned.  I read them and did the additional reading as well, not because I was told to, but because it makes sense to get the most out of the educational opportunity.  They could recount details of the previous night's Ally McBeal episode, but had to b.s. their way through questions asked in class.  It's the power of the immediate rewards over distant punishers.  Watching TV is more rewarding than reading regardless of the possible pain it will cause the next day in class - apparently even in grad school.   And getting good deals at WalMart is rewarding despite the long-term impact it may have on the uptown core of a city.

I remember one fellow grad student who shook his head at how much work I put into the program.  "You really don't have to do so much.  It's really easy to get the credits without any effort."  But that was never the goal I was going for - the credits.  I wanted to learn something.  And I'm not into Eco-Schools for the status, but because it really will make a difference if we can get over 1,000 people to care about the world - if we can train them to recycle and compost and use travel mugs and re-usable water bottles, and to think a bit about where they shop and what they eat.  I think when that fellow student chastised me it was really in order to alleviate his own guilt.  He had to convince himself that he wasn't doing anything wrong by ignoring the pile of books in the corner; I was the crazy one for making an effort.    

That grad student successfully jumped enough hoops to be a professor - just so you know.  

It's so ridiculously easy to reduce waste and energy use, to decrease car use, to stop supporting stores with a history of social injustices, but people really really really don't care.   And I don't believe people will begin to care until life gets very very bad for us.

In Australia, after a ten year drought, the government requested that people dramatically cut their water use in their homes last year - stop flushing toilets unless absolutely necessary, wash clothes less often, don't wash cars, etc.  It took just two weeks for the public to cut their water use in half.  It's very possible to do, but we won't budge until the ground is parched.  We are just too stupid to live.

I include myself in that last line.  Having access to a car briefly, I found myself using it for little trips where I used to walk.  It's just so easy.  It's hard to walk past the thing and keep on going.  But in just a few months of driving, I have the weight gain to show for it!  We're a lazy lot, and how do we remember the impact of our actions on the whole world when we're just one single person taking just a short trip by car?  It's hard for sure.

A relative recently asked me if it's depressing reading all those books I read on the problems in the world.  I said:  Absolutely not!  It's exciting and inspiring because we know what harms us, we know what's wrong but we also know all the solutions.  We have the ability to solve all these issues.  And we have the power to act on that knowledge by educating others or writing and protesting corporations and governments.

What's depressing isn't the knowledge; it's the apathy.

Ignorance isn't bliss.  It's just plain ignorance.

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Water on the Table

I saw this film yesterday with the filmmaker, Liz Marshall, there to talk afterwards. After seeing Sharkwater with Rob Stewart there, I learned never to miss a filmmaker talk about his/her film.   They always have a few good stories to add.  Plus, I think I fell in love with her a little bit.  Check out this protest letter she wrote, apparently not her first, when she was 8.

She followed around Maude Barlow for a year.  By sheer luck of the dice, it happened to be the very year that Barlow was the Advisor on Water to the UN.

The rich will drink; the poor will die.

Here's some random notes from the film and discussion.  The film was very heartfelt.  I lean towards just the facts.  See the film if you want to laugh and cry.  Read this for the bare bones of the message.

Water as a Commodity:  A History

Under the FTA (a precursor to NAFTA before Mexico was entrenched), water was included as a potential commodity for sale.  NAFTA added new dimensions to that, and a 40-year debate has ensued.  Under NAFTA, once one province decides to sell water, all of Canada has to sell it.  We need a treaty at the UN on water.  

Water is Canada's sacred cow and should benefit all of North America according to Bob Pastor who figured prominently in NAFTA's regulations.  I think he has a point - sort of, and a commenter afterwards brought this up again.   We need to share the water, but selling it puts the power in the hands of the corporations.  We need to be able to keep water where it needs to stay, as part of the ecosystem, and not drain it from environmentally sensitive areas.  We have to think about it as a very fragile resource, not a commodity.

The private sector can offer cash to invest in sewage systems and treatment plants, but when they get involved, because they're entirely profit motivated, either the rates go up or they cut corners on quality.

Canada only has 6% of the available drinking water in the world, not the abundance people think we have.  The Canadian government still opposes water as a basic right.  In July 2010, there was a motion made by Bolivia for a vote on water and sanitation.  The majority of the UN said yes, water is a right.  Nobody voted "no," but there were many countries who abstained from the vote including Canada, Australia, and the U.S.  We're still stuck in the market model approach to water.  Now, because of this vote, water as a right is a "soft law" - it's a commitment, but it's not legally binding.

The worldwide trend is towards privatization of water.  This is why it's so necessary to fight each action.


The Alberta Tar Sands

We've been extracting bitumen from Athabasca since 1967.  For every barrel of oil taken, 3-5 barrels of water are destroyed.  Right now, three million barrels of water are destroyed each day.  They clear-cut a forest the size of Greece to access the oil.  The water in the tailing ponds leeches north into the 1st Nation area of Fort Chipewyan, where cancer is rampant, likely from the toxic sludge.  If it flowed South into the city, people might do something about it.  As it is, the 1st Nations people used to be able to dip a cup into a lake to have a drink.  Now their water's all toxic.

Alberta will be out of water soon.   The tar sands will triple capacity by 2015.

The picture above is of Moldor, not Alberta, but that's how Barlow kept describing the landscape.

Site 41, Simcoe County

Apparently, Simcoe County, just northwest of Barrie, has the cleanest water in the world.  I didn't link that because, while there's plenty of sites that claim that to be fact, I can't find any with any kind of proof.  If you've got a good link, let me know.  Otherwise, it's right up there with Goderich being the pretty town in Canada.  It's more of a cultural belief than a fact.

Regardless, there was a proposed dump site for the area, an important piece of real estate for groundwater re-charging.  Tons of people protested and won.

Glacier Howser Water System

AXOR is an Independent Power Producer (IPP).  They move too fast to be easily stopped.  AXOR is controlled by Dupont.  It started asking for 20% of the water, but then shift to up to 90%.  Thousands of people protests, then the contract was cancelled.

Other Stuff

She also interview Jim Prentice, but his footage was unusable because he talked in circles no matter how many direct questions she asked.

It was in some way sponsored by Alternatives Journal.

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Christmas Shopping Ideas

I like this post by fake plastic fish so much, I'm copying and pasting instead of just linking!  I've always loved Christmas, but I hate getting lots of presents that get shoved in the attic until they've made it through the waiting period finally to be trashed or recycled or given away.  FPF has some great ideas and thoughts about how to make gift-giving more environmental and less stressful too.  I'd add to wrap presents green-ly also - in newspaper or brown paper, or re-use boxes and bags.  As kids we saved wrapping paper for years.  At the very least, recycle the wrapping paper.  It's curious how many people I know shove all the wrappings into a big garbage bag when they'd never do that with newspapers.  

Her links didn't copy, so if you want to check out any of the sites she mentions, click the title.

Green Gifts Don't Have to Suck

1) Surprise is overrated. As a kid, I used to hunt for and secretly open all my presents before Christmas, careful to replace the tape and wrapping paper so as not to get caught. I wasn’t merely satisfying my curiosity, but I wanted to prepare my face ahead of time for that weird sweater from an aunt or pink gag wig from my dad....

Once I’d said my polite thank you on Christmas day, those things would be headed for the back of the closet and eventually the landfill. Nowadays, I’d stand in line to exchange or find a way to donate or regift an unwanted present. But how much happier could we make each other if instead of giving what we think the person should have, we make an effort to give what they really want? The greenest gift is one the recipient will appreciate and actually use.

2) Leave the preaching to the preachers. There’s no better way to turn someone off of the green movement than using your holiday gift to send a message about how you think they should live. In her post, 10 Green Gifts That Suck, Lisa from Condo Blues bemoans “green” gifts like compact fluoroscent light bulbs and rechargeable batteries (unless, of course, the recipient has asked for those things) that have more to do with sending a message than making someone happy. A stainless steel water bottle in the back of the cupboard is a waste of materials and energy and isn’t doing anyone any good.

3) Value experiences over stuff. I love good food. I’d much rather have my friends chip in and give me a gift certificate to Chez Panisse than individual tchotchkes for my home. And I know people who would enjoy a membership at their favorite museum, movie passes or tickets to a show. These kinds of gifts require no packaging or shipping and leave nothing behind except for happy memories. Just don’t be like Larry David on the show Curb Your Enthusiasm who begrudged his friends the restaurant gift certificate he’d given after learning they used it to take another couple out to dinner. A gift is a gift, after all.

4) Secondhand can be better than new. Secondhand gifts not only create less impact for the planet but can be even better than new stuff if chosen carefully. Consider the sweet little thrift shop dragonfly tea cup and saucer I found for a co-worker who collects any and all things dragonfly. I spotted it while out shopping in June and kept it for months until her birthday in December. The gift was perfect. And how about the beautiful vintage Kitchenaid mixer my friend Jen gave as a gift one year? She found it on eBay in perfect shape and felt good about giving an appliance that was actually made to last and that could be repaired rather than tossed after a year.

5) Give gifts made by hand — yours or someone else’s. Aside from a crazy knitting phase I went through a few years back, I’m not particularly crafty. But I love it if you are! From cookies to bath salts to handmade jewelry, making our own gifts or buying them from craft fairs or online sites like Etsy.com can be a great way to shift our spending away from mass-produced junk, as long as we don’t forget the first guideline on this list: choose gifts the recipient will appreciate. Giving handmade jewelry is no good for someone who never wears the stuff. Bath salts don’t work for someone who only takes showers. Cookies are not helpful to someone limiting their sugar intake.

6) Donate with care. Around this time of year, my email inbox is flooded with requests from nonprofits to give gift donations in my loved ones’ names. These kinds of gifts can be very thoughtful if handled in the right way. Give to an organization that both you and the recipient feel good about. Once again, refrain from using the holidays as a means to push your agenda. And really think through the appropriateness of your gift. A vegan, for example, might not appreciate a donation to Heifer International.

7.) Offer your skills. Gift certificates to help with cooking, childcare, bookkeeping, gardening, etc. can be great, as long as you actually have the skills to do the job and are willing to follow through on your promise. And make sure the recipient actually needs the help that you offer! Make an appointment so your giftee doesn’t feel awkward about calling to “cash in” on the gift or you don’t end up with a last minute request for babysitting that you hadn’t planned on.

8) Choose greener electronics. Living green doesn’t have to mean living in a cave. While sales of computers, mobile phones, electronic games, and other gadgets skyrocket during the holidays, there are ways to reduce our impact while still having some of the things that make our modern lives better. Check out the Center for Environmental Health’s (CEH) 2010 Holiday Shopping Guide for Finding Greener Electronics (PDF) as a place to start. Consider a refurbished computer instead of buying brand new. Microsoft provides a list of certified refurbishers. CEH recommends Redemtech, which is not only a Microsoft-certified refurbisher but is also an “e-Stewards recycler and a world leader in promoting sustainable computing strategies for businesses.”

9) Think about media types. Books, CDs, and DVDs are just some of the ways we consume information these days. Now, we can also choose e-Books, audiobooks, downloadable music, streaming videos, and probably other types of media I haven’t even heard of yet. Instead of buying a bunch of DVDs that will be watched once and stored on the shelf, why not give a membership to Netflix or other service that lets you stream videos directly to your TV set? A book is great, but not if the recipient never has time to pick it up and read it. Maybe your giftee would rather listen to an audio version downloaded from iTunes or read it on their iPad. Choose the medium that will give your recipient the most pleasure while creating the least environmental impact.

10) Bring Your Own Bag. Many of us are getting into the habit of bringing our own bags to the grocery store, but how many of us think about bringing our tote bags with us shopping for gifts and other stuff? And bags are just part of the holiday packaging problem. Wrapping paper, ribbons, Styrofoam peanuts, cardboard boxes, bubblewrap, clamshells that require special tools to cut into… the waste from holiday gift giving is staggering. Many of the gift ideas above involve little to no packaging waste. We can cut even more waste by requesting that online shippers (like Etsy.com sellers, for example) skip the plastic packaging or supporting programs like Amazon’s Frustration-Free Packaging, and wrapping gifts in reusable cloth gift bags.

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We Day Waterloo

Free the Children is holding a "Me to We Day" in K-W! It's on Thursday, February 17, 2011, from 9-2 at the Kitchener Auditorium.  It says "We Day Waterloo," but it's really in Kitchener.  Whatever.  Maybe they just liked the alliteration.   I hate to spread rumours, but there's a possibility, I can't find proof on-line, but only a definite possibility that The Barenaked Ladies will be there along with maybe possibly Al Gore. 

Too cool.
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Inside Job

I saw this movie a week ago, then took students on Friday.  Here's my handout if anyone's interested in how the whole sub-prime mortgage crisis happened.  There's current news links at the very very bottom.


Inside Job (Dir: Charles Ferguson, 2010, 108 min.)

A film exposing the truth behind the economic crisis of 2008. In a nutshell, progressive deregulation of the financial sector since the 1980s gave rise to an increasingly criminal industry, whose “innovations” have produced a succession of financial crises. Each crisis is worse than the last, yet few people are being sent to prison despite fraud that caused trillions of dollars in losses.

Crisis Timeline

PART I – How We Got Here

1930-1979 – Traditional Banking
– Bankers earned salaries in line with other professionals; tightly regulated financial sector. It’s illegal to speculate (make risky investments to make a higher return) with depositors’ savings. Traditionally partners in banks would put up their own money to make money.

1980s – The Reagan Era – laissez-faire and trickle-down economics
- deregulation; lax enforcement led to massive fraud in the savings and loan scandal
- Banks were allowed to go public meaning people not in the bank could hold shares (make money from the bank transactions). Bankers were allowed to make risky investments with depositors’ money.
- Savings and Loan Crisis – 1st major crisis - people lost their life savings from their bank’s bad investments.
- A few people were arrested.

1990s – Clinton era
- passed the Gramm-Leach Bliley Act (Citigroup Relief Act) making it legal for banks to merge despite potential losses to customers.
- a new law gives the Federal Reserve power to regulate the mortgage industry but Alan Greenspan refuses to enact any regulations on the grounds that it’s unnecessary.
- Clinton enacts the Commodity Futures Modernization Act which bans all regulation of financial derivatives and exempts them from anti-gambling laws
- 2000 – Dot-com bubble bursts – 2nd major crisis; players settled for cash and promised to change.
- 2002 – Eliot Spitzer sued 8 investment banks for conflict of interest and recommending dot-com stocks they thought were junk
- Players keep getting caught committing fraud, accounting scams, laundering money (for Iranian nukes, Pinochet, Mexican drugs, etc.), overstating their earnings, and evading taxes.
- Larry Summers wants regulation of derivatives to be made illegal.
2000s – Bush era – further deregulation and relaxed enforcement
- Securitization food chain changes – now people who make loans are no longer at risk if people fail to pay. Bankers used to be careful about who they loaned money to, to prevent losing money themselves. Now they don’t have to worry. They sell loans to investment banks who lump them altogether. If one fails, it’s negligible. But it meant bankers made much riskier loans. Thousands of subprime loans were combined into a group called CDOs. They knew it was dangerous to loan to people who can’t repay. But there were incentives based on the most profitable loans (which were the highest risk of non-repayment).
-The rating agencies are paid by the investment banks. They have no personal responsibility for their ratings. “Ratings are just opinions.”

Part II – The Bubble

- Bankers started borrowing money to buy loans for CDOs. The more they borrowed, the higher their leverage (% borrowed compared to % owned).
- Hank Paulson passed regulation allowing more leverage – so bankers could borrow more and own less.
- AIG started selling derivatives and credit default swaps – a system where many people could take out insurance against other people’s risky loans, and they’d all cash in if the loan failed.
- 2000-2007 – massive housing and mortgage credit bubble sweeps the U.S.
- 2005 – IMF chief economist warns of dangerous incentives and risks – Larry Summers calls him a Luddite;
- 2005-2008 – Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Deutsche Bank and others use credit default swaps to bet against the same mortgage securities they are selling as safe based on questionable ratings.

Part III – The Crisis

- 2008 Great Recession as the bubble burst – Sub-prime Mortgage Crisis – 3rd major crisis
- People warned the public and the bankers: Rajan in 2005, Roubini in 2006, Sloan in 2007, Strauss-Kahn, Akman in 2007, Morris in 2008. Bankers were told over and over, but wouldn’t change anything.
- The market for CDOs collapsed. Lagarde told Paulson it was like he’s watching a tsunami, and he’s worried about what to wear.
- Federal takeover of Freddie Mac (Federal Home Loan and Mortgage Corporation – FHLMC) and Fannie Mae (Federal National Mortgage Association –FMNA)
- Companies had AAA ratings as they were going bankrupt.
- Bankruptcy happened worldwide.
- AIG given a bailout of $160 million provided AIG has no right to sue Goldman Sachs (Paulson – conflict of interest?)
- 6 million foreclosures in the U.S. – estimate another 9 million will lose homes in the next year.
- collapse of Bear Stearns, Lehman Brothers,
- House prices drop by 32%; unemployment rises to 10% in one year;
- $700 billion emergency bailout for the financial industry from Bush

Part IV – Accountability

- Many people who destroyed their own companies got bonuses instead of being fired.
- Banks became bigger and more concentrated (JP Morgan and Bank of America)
- Bankers still fight any move to regulate.
- Financial services have too much influence over government lobbying cheques and political contributions.
- Look at corrupted study of economics at universities. (Nobody mentions Milton Friedman!)
Some economics profs are getting the bulk of their salaries from doing consulting work for governments or financial organizations. Is it a conflict of interest when they write papers on finance or teach classes when they’re paid to promote certain questionable (illegal) economic practices (similar to a doctor writing about a drug when he’s being paid by the drug company)? There’s no policy to disclose financial conflicts.

Part V – Where We Are Now

- 2010s – Obama Era – Business as usual? “It’s a Wall Street government.”
- Inequality of wealth is higher in the US than any other country.
- Timothy Geithner becomes Secretary of the Treasury
- Larry Summers becomes director of the National Economic Council (until Sept 2010)
- Ben Beranke re-appointed as Chairman of the Federal Reserve
- Obama resisted regulation even as other countries took action. Many governments asked the G20 to impose regulations. Done in Europe now. Nothing done in the U.S. It’s all still seen as a temporary blip.
- Nobody was arrested or prosecuted. They could be prosecuted if enough underlings came out to tell the truth. (Gnaizda)
- Spitzer was forced to resign for being a client with a high-profile prostitution ring.


The Players: People making millions by scamming other people (the top 1%)

David McCormick – formerly at the U.S. Department of Treasury; professor of Public Policy at Carnegie Mellon’s Heinz College – prefers no legal controls over banks
Scott Talbott – lobbyist for the Financial Services Roundtable – on behalf of 100 of the top banks including Citigroup, JP Morgan Chase, Wells Fargo, Bank of America; “Mistakes happen.”
Donald Regan – On Wall Street during Reaganomics.
Alan Greenspan – Private advisor. Former Chairman of the Federal Reserve since the savings and loan scandal. He assured the public there was no problem with the banks.
Larry Summers – President of Harvard. Governmental advisor. Told Brooksley Born to stop trying to regulate derivatives. (He also recently said women are underrepresented in science because of their different “aptitude at the high end”, and proposed dumping toxic waste in 3rd world countries.)
Henry (Hank) Paulson - CEO of Goldman Sachs, became Treasury Secretary in 2006; when he joined
Bush and sold his stock, he didn’t have to pay taxes on the income.
Richard Fuld – CEO of Lehman Brothers, and on the board at the Federal Reserve bank
John Paulson – Hedge Fund Manager, sold securities he bet against, knew they were junk even though they were rated AAA.
Timothy Geithner – President of the Federal Reserve, Treasury Secretary.
Ben Bernanke – Chairman of the Federal Reserve, “We never see house prices go down.” Didn’t admit to a problem until March 2009.
Frederic Mishkin – American economist and professor at Columbia Business School member of board at Federal Reserve to 2008; paid to write praising report on Iceland’s finances.; said “I don’t know the details… I can’t remember…” when questioned about the crisis.
Glenn Hubbard – Chief Economic Advisor under Bush, Dean of Columbia University Business School;

The Opposition – People trying to stop the scams.

Sigridur Benediktsdottir – Yale economics lecturer – Part of the special investigation commission analyzing causes of Iceland’s financial crisis. Blames the rating agencies.
Andri Magnason – Icelandic filmmaker; wrote Dreamland: A Self-Help Manual for a Frightened Nation produced “Dreamland,” a documentary about Iceland’s financial problems
Paul Volcker – American economist; Chairman of Federal Reserve under Carter and Reagan; currently Chairman of the Economic Recovery Advisory Board under Obama
George Soros – Currency speculator, philanthropist, political activist – used an oil-tanker analogy to explain how the market should work; the market is unstable and must be compartmentalized to prevent huge crises.
Nouriel Roubini – Professor of Economics at the Stern School of Business; wrote Crisis Economics
Robert Gnaizda – Former President of Greenlining Institute in Berkeley; advocates of social justice for over 40 years. Points out it was illegal for banks to merge at risk to depositors.
Williem Buiter – Citigroup economist, professor of European Political Economy; says banks did it because they knew they’d be bailed out.
Eliot Spitzer – lawyer, former Governor of NY, former Attorney who initiated major lawsuits against major U.S. investment banks alleging fraud. Banks don’t create anything, don’t have a product to sell, and shouldn’t be making fortunes just moving money around.
Andrew Sheng – Chief Advisor to the China Banking Regulatory Commission General – said they brains behind the cold war moved into finance and are making different weapons of mass destruction.
Andrew Lo – Harris & Harris Group professor of Finance at MIT – Points out that people didn’t take this seriously enough. Discussed the study with people getting money as a prize – like cocaine.
Brooksley Born – Chair of the Commodities Futures Trading Commission - tried to regulate derivatives; proposed regulation, but lost
Michael Greenberger – Professor of University of Maryland School of Law; technical advisor to the President of the UN General Assembly on Reforms of the IMF system; Director of Trading & Markets under Clinton
Satyajit Das – Former trader at CitiGroup and Merrill Lynch; Global authority on derivatives and risk management; author of Traders, Guns & Money
Barney Frank – Dem. Rep. for Massachusetts; Chairman of the House Financial Services Committee
Gillian Tett – journalist at the Financial Times; wrote Fools Gold – tracing the CDO market
Martin Wolf – Editor at the Financial Times
Jonathon Alpert – Psychotherapist and advice columnist for Wall Street executives
Joseph St. Denis – Resigned from AIG after trying to alert them to problems with the system.
Raghuram Rajan – professor at Booth School of Business, Chicago; former chief economist at IMF; criticized financial sector in Has Financial Development Made the World Riskier
Frank Parnoy – Professor of Law at the University of San Diego; former investment banker at Credit Suisse First Boston and Morgan Stanley; wrote The Match King: The Financial Genius Behind a Century of Wall Street Scandals
Harvey Miller – Bankruptcy lawyer
Allan Sloan – wrote for Fortune Magazine about the wrongdoing that led to the crisis
William Ackman – CEO of Pershing Square Capital Management; an activist investor who wrote Who Is Holding the Bag? – one of the first warnings about the impending crisis (2007); said the rating agencies gave high ratings because they were paid to by the investment banks.
Christine Lagarde – French Minister of Finance – “Holy cow.”
Simon Johnson – expert on financial crises; professor of Entrepreneurship at MIT; in 2008 he was Chief Economist at the IMF; co-wrote 13 Bankers: The Wall Street Takeover
Jerome Fons – Director of Credit Policy at Moody’s Investor Services; Consultant in credit risk
Dominique Strauss-Kahn – French economist, Director of the IMF. Said when people were afraid, they told him they need to be regulated. Once the solution was in sight, they changed their minds.

Quotations:

* When you think you can create something out of nothing, it’s very difficult to resist. - Lee Hsien Loong (PM of Singapore)
* There’s no investigation so they don’t have to find the culprits. - Nouriel Roubini
* If you are told you can make more money by putting your company at risk and there’s not penalty, would you make that bet? - Frank Parnoy
* These are Type A personalities. – Jeffrey Lane
* This is all just a pissing contest. – Williem Buiter
* These are impulsive risk-takers. It’s just their personality. – Johnathon Alpert
* At the end of the day, the poorest, as always, pay the most. – Dominique Strauss-Kahn
* Why should a financial engineer be paid 100 times a real engineer? A real engineer builds bridges. A financial engineer builds dreams.  Also Spitzer commented on the fact that we can't compare electronic technology rise in millions and the bank's rise, because tech is actually creating something - the banks are just moving money around.
* By 1986 he was making trillions and he thought it was because he was smart. – William Ackman



Questions for Contemplation

1. What are your views about the role of government in the markets?

2. Why do banks traditionally require a down-payment on a home mortgage loan?

3. Why would a bank make a sub-prime loan if they think the loan will fail?

4. Whose fault is this? What should they have done differently?

5. Would you make that bet? Would you sacrifice millions of people’s savings for millions of dollars without risk of punishment?

6. How can the financial sector turn their backs on the very people they’re supposed to serve? How can that practice be maintained?

7. Eliot Spitzer was made to resign from politics because of his involvement with a prostitute. Many high-finance players are involved with prostitutes and invoice them as company expenses, yet they’re never charged. Why?

8. Should anyone go to jail for this? Explain.

9. Should there be a policy regarding conflicts of interest in education? If Sony Pictures paid me to show you this movie, should I have to tell you that?

10. What’s different about the crash of 1929 and the crisis of 2008?

11. To what extent was Greenspan right about the benefits of the free market (de-regulation)?

12. How can this situation be stopped when the most powerful people in the U.S. don’t want it stopped? What kind of fighting needs to happen to make a difference?

13. Obama said, “What is required of us now is a new era of responsibility – a recognition, on the part of every American…and those of us who manage the public’s dollars will be held to account.” And then he hired all the same players. What happened?


Glossary

ABS – Asset Backed Security – a financial security backed by a loan; other than a mortgage; eg. Credit card debt, etc.

CDO - Collateralized Debt Obligation – a type of ABS whose value and payments are from a portfolio of fixed income underlying assets. They’re split into different risk classes. Each CDO is made up of hundreds of individual residential mortgages. CDOs that contain subprime mortgages are at the greatest risk of default and should have a really low rating.

CDS – Credit Default Swap – An insurance contract in which the buyer of the CDS makes payments to the protection seller in exchange for a payoff if a security goes into default. They can make money whenever a loan goes bad.

CRA – Credit Rating Agency – a company that assigns credit ratings of issuers of debt securities

Deregulation – the removal of government rules that constrain the operation of market forces. It began in the Reagan Administration and is also known as Reaganomics.

Derivatives – An agreement between two parties that is dependent on a future outcome – a financial contract with a value linked to the expected future price. Derivatives allow risk about the prices of the underlying asset to be transferred from one person to another. Types of derivative are options, futures, and swaps. They don’t have value of their own; their value is derived from another asset.

Go public - A corporation goes public when it issues shares of its stock in the open market for the first time, in what is known as an initial public offering (IPO). That means that at least some of the shares will be held by members of the public rather than exclusively by the investors who founded and funded the corporation initially or the current owners or management.
Hedge Fund- a portfolio of investments that uses strategies in domestic and international markets with the goal of getting high returns. They’re set up as private investment partnerships that typically require a very large minimum investment. They carry more risk than the overall market. They’re unregulated because they’re used by sophisticated investors who are thought to have more resources in making investment decisions.

Leverage – The use of borrowed money to increase the potential return on an investment. It’s the amount of debt used to finance a company’s assets. A company with more debt than equity is considered highly leveraged. It’s risky to use because if the investment fails, the loss is much greater than it would’ve been if the investment had not been leveraged.

Money-Market Funds – A mutual fund that invests in short term securities. It’s easily liquefied.

MBS – Mortgage Back Securities – Investors in a MBS are essentially lending money to a home buyer or business. It’s a way for a bank to lend mortgages to customers without having to worry about whether the customer has the assets to cover the loan.

Ponzi Scheme – An fraudulent operation that pays returns to separate investors from their own money, or money from other investors, rather than from any actual profit earned. It usually offers abnormally high short-term returns. It only works as long as there are new investors.

Predatory Lending – The practice of a lender deceptively convincing borrowers to agree to unfair and abusive loan terms, or systematically violating those terms in ways that make it difficult for the borrower to defend against.

Security – A negotiable instrument representing financial value.

SEC – U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission

Speculate – Make a higher than average risk in order to get a higher than average return

Subprime – Loans to borrowers with a tarnished or limited credit history. They carry more risk but also a higher interest rate.


Current Articles of Interest

Feds must dislose bank loans
Greenspan says gov should break up larger banks
Fuld to get $10 million from Lehman Brothers
Bernanke is impotent
QE2 update
Mishkin on credibility of the feds
Video of Mishkin wanting to stop potential audit of feds proposed by Ron Paul
Roger Ebert's review
New York Times review

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