Posts Tagged ‘water’

The National Disgrace of the #DAPL

Posted: November 30, 2016 in Anarchy Journal Constitutional
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By @anarchyroll

What could be a more authentic way to celebrate Thanksgiving in America than rich white people trying to take land and resources away from Native American tribes?

It’s practically a reenactment going on in North Dakota. Although instead of small pox infested blankets, the weapons of choice are water cannons, rubber bullets, and concussion grenades.

What is going on in North Dakota in the bigger picture is truly a teachable moment for those paying attention. It teaches all of us who is in charge of America. It teaches all of us what American values actually are. It shows us and the world the true colors of America.

American history is literally impossible to tell without telling the story of genocide against the indigenous population that preceded the Europeans who settled here. I guess that’s not fair to say. To be fair it was more a cycle of forced evacuation, genocide, reparation, reneging, repeat.

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The more things change, the more they stay the same. Don’t let the virtual reality, rise of kale and loot crate economy fool you. The world is more or less the same for more people as it was decades ago. That point can be disputed but what can’t be is who is in charge in America. The election of Donald Trump was an emphatic reminder of that.

The old, rich, white men who posses the resources and finances are who controls America regardless of who is in the Oval Office.

Want to guess the demographic of the person in charge of the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL)?

One might think the outgoing, minority President, who understands a thing or two about discrimination might be speaking out about the DAPL. One might think the recent loser of the presidential election might be making noise to further endear her to minority groups feeling scared, threatened, and cheated by her loss. One might think any prominent member of the Democratic party might be speaking out about the treatment of the DAPL protesters, given that the party has been tagged with being only working for the economic elitists, who are neutral on social issues. One would be wrong, total media silence.

Double emphasis on media silence as the media has been too busy talking about glutenous eating, shopping, travel, and the recent election to inform the masses of what is happening at Standing Rock.

I’ll give you one guess to figure out who the most prominent politician who is talking about the Dakota Access Pipeline. You only need one guess, though if you voted for Clinton, you probably don’t want to know who it is.

Any public school student in America from the last half century knows how much the Native American people have had taken from them…repeatedly. What is left to take?

Who gives a shit about North Dakota? Exactly, that’s why we gave land to them there. Can we not let the people who we have taken everything and then some from, have some land that we don’t want? North Dakota doesn’t even qualify as a flyover state and all of a sudden this real estate is too valuable to continue abiding by the law of the land that federal treaty protected?

Something stinks and if the ETP has its way that stench will be oil polluted drinking water.

#waterislife

#Water Inequality is the Next Income #Inequality

Posted: February 20, 2016 in Frackishima
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by @anarchyroll

Global Disaster

There is something about those two words paired with each other that grabs one’s attention and holds it like a vice. When the two words are placed next to each other by a scientist studying ten years worth of data from NASA, the vice is more like the jaws of life.

When that decade long study involves an additional 35 years of weather data? Eek. BUT, this is not another global warming warning. This is about the next wave of haves and have nots. Economic inequality? That is so 20th century.

A world with such water scarcity that wars are fought for it? Seems like science fiction dystopian bullshit. Except if you live in California during the last half decade, or the country of Ethiopia or the continent of Australia.

The study of Famiglietti et al, directly talks about the rich-get-richer-mechanism and emerging classes of haves and have nots in regards to water access. That is the language of the scientist.

That prospect wouldn’t be worrisome if economic poverty wasn’t a thing or wasn’t increasing or wasn’t pervasive or wasn’t silently condoned by the actions of the first world.

The rich get richer and the poor get poorer paradigm applied to water access will be the literal manifestation of trickle down economics. People will literally be dependent on the miniscule droplets of the source of life to survive while the haves bathe their terminally ill pets in triple filtered, reverse osmosis purified agua.

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Global Disaster

Groundwater depletion coupled with rising sea levels and no meaningful action being done about either while hoping human beings will share resources voluntarily after those resources have been consolidated involuntarily.

Sounds like a recipe for disaster…..Sounds like another day, in Frackishima.

A Historic #Climate Deal, #MethaneLeak, & #Water Crisis is Just Another Month in #Frackishima

Posted: February 1, 2016 in Frackishima
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by @anarchyroll

Tackling environmental causes is as important as it is thankless.

There is nothing more important to the survival of the human race, than insuring that we have clean air, drinkable water, harvestable land as well as habitable temperatures and sea levels. Other issues are as important on micro/local levels. Some issues are artificially inflated to seem as important. The only other topic that carries the gravitas of capability of wiping out the human race is warfare…..and asteroids from outer space. But as long as Bruce Willis and Ben Affleck are alive, we’re safe.

Warfare and environmental issues parallel each other. Both can have truly global impacts. Both issues have resulted in global changes over the past century. Both issues are so complex it’s hard to wrap one’s head around them. Both issues are so important they are boring. Both issues change and evolve in a way inconvenient for twenty four hour news cycles. Both issues see new sub issues come up immediately after victories making celebrations both limited and moot.

WWI to WWII to Vietnam to Gulf War One to Gulf War Too to Al Qaeda to ISIS. Global warming to drought to famine to flooding to super storms. But it’s not just the big macro stuff. It is also the smaller micro topics. Terrorist attacks and poisoned drinking water reservoirs. Hostage crises to methane leaks.

People who care about the environment and know about climate change should still be rejoicing over the historic Paris Climate Deal that was signed in mid December. 200 countries signing an agreement with legal force to reach zero carbon emissions in the second half of this century is certainly worth a celebration. 2015 closed with the biggest victory to date in regard to the biggest macro environmental issue.

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In the United States, 2016 has begun with a two micro environmental issues making the Paris Agreement feel a world away. The California Methane Leak and the Flint Water Crisis have grabbed attention and headlines usually reserved for sports and celebrity gossip. If the body count goes up, maybe either issue can be talked about as much as the weather.

EMERGENCY!!!

A State of Emergency has been declared in California over the three month and counting leak of underground methane reservoirs into the air. 2,000 people have been evacuated from their homes with many more seeking relocation assistance in Southern California. A bonafied environmental disaster has struck the Porter Ranch area.

EMERGENCY!!!

A presidential emergency declaration has been given to Flint, Michigan by Barack Obama. $80 million in resources will be given to city that has had its water supply poisoned via bureaucratic cost cutting. 100,000 people including schools full of children have been exposed to toxic drinking water for years.

Wide reaching and far stretching damage at a biblical scale. That is why environmental issues are the most worthy of the attention and resources of the masses and those in power. 200 countries came together in Paris knowing this. That economic bickering and small scale terror attacks mean nothing in the face of environmental crises capable of wiping out the entire human race.

Flint and Porter Ranch merely scratch the surface of the severity of negative environmental issue impacts. Poisoned air, poisoned water, and a poisoned atmosphere that will effect global warming. Each issue individually can lead to death instantly and severe pain, discomfort, and displacement. The negative consequences of the issues will be on a monumental scale at an unceasing length.

Environmental issues are real issues. Nothing soft news about them, they are very hard news second to none. Scientists giving speeches or scientific reports/studies being released don’t get the play or attention that war stories get. If it bleeds it leads in the broadcast news world. It is not wrong to care and focus on the casualties of war. But please remember that just because the destruction is immediate and sensational, doesn’t mean it is the most austere.

A gun can kill many. A bomb many more. But a poisoned water supply? Unbreathable air due to toxic gas? If an army or terrorist group poisoned the water supply or the air supply of two American cities, what would the reaction be? Does incompetence of a corporation or governing body make the consequences less grave?

The impact of environmental issues are immune to perception and/or plausibility. You can choose to not believe or not care about the methane leak in Southern California. I can choose to tell my social circle the effects on global warming of the methane leak won’t be huge and felt for decades to come. But the gigantic amount of methane leaking into the air, like the lead in the Flint water supply is immune from peoples’ perceptions and beliefs.

The same is true for battles and war. The people of Paris probably believed they were safe from ISIS. America perceived the constant conflict in the Middle East wouldn’t have any effect on the homeland before 2001. Perception and belief just don’t mean anything when it comes to the facts and events that are happening. It is how we react to them and what we do going forward to minimize damage and maximize the effect of the lesson(s) learned from the events.

The methane leak is happening, the water crisis is happening, global warming is happening. These are hard facts immune from political beliefs and personal perception. What are we going to do to minimize their damage? How are we going to maximize the effects of the lessons learned from these events going forward? The answers to these questions don’t just effect a community, a country, or a continent.

They literally effect the entire human race and the entire planet we inhabit. That is why environmental issues are the most worthy of the attention and resources of the masses and those in power. The answers to these questions will be difficult, inconvenient, expensive, and require massive sacrifice. Which is why ;

Tackling environmental causes is as important as it is thankless.

Did You Hear the One Where #California has Record #Drought & #Wildfires Simultaneously?

Posted: September 30, 2014 in Frackishima
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by @anarchyroll
9/29/2014

I wonder how many of the 300-400,000 people who attended the recent People’s Climate March in NYC were from California. I wonder this because in the continental United States, nowhere else is being nearly as hard hit by the real-time, negative effects of climate change as the state of California.

California is simultaneously experiencing record drought and record wildfires.

The LA Times has two separate archived databases on their website listing all stories written about the historic drought and wildfires that have been ravaging the state. Both sections are definitely worth checking out to see just how far-reaching the effects of both of these catastrophic events each have.

Some of the numbers found in the archive of stories are simply astounding;

  • 100% of the state effected by the now 3 year drought
  • 5,000 fires reported/responded to since January 1st, 2014
  • 14 residential communities on the verge of being completely waterless
  • $200 million and counting spent on to contain wildfires 9 months into 2014

The droughts and wildfires in California have been getting steadily worse over the past half decade. Each year for the past decade has been hotter than the previous. Are we to believe these things aren’t connected? It is easy to be a climate denier when the state you live in isn’t burning around you while at the same time your community has lost access to freshwater.

Perhaps the water utility of Detroit can send some of the water they are saving from shutting access to it off from residents and send it to one of the two disasters occurring in California due to a lack of water.

Global #Water Scarcity is Just #Business as Usual

Posted: July 30, 2014 in Frackishima
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by @anarchyroll
7/30/2014

“Insurmountable water crisis” jumps off the page, don’t you agree?

Massive droughts won’t just be for California anymore by 2040 unless societies move away from water intensive power production. Does that mean hydroelectric power is a no go? No, it means the opposite. It turns out that the largest usage of water in the industrialized world is the water used to cool  (coal and nuclear) power plants.

Yes we need electricity, but you know what we need more than electricity? You guessed it, we need to be able to live, and we can’t do that without fresh, drinkable water.

Reducing pollution seems like less and less of a hippy issue when we’re talking about an “insurmountable” water shortage in less than three decades. If three decades seems like a long time, worry not, because there are seven states running out of water in the continental United States right now.

A global shortage from which there is no going back in three decades, a national shortage going on currently, sounds like commercial/industrial conservation should be on the menu. Instead, businesses in the US and the UK are doubling down on fracking which in addition to poisoning fresh water reserves, also uses massive amounts of freshwater as part of its process.

Fracking has been viewed as the light at the end of the tunnel in regards to energy concerns. But in the face of a national and global water scarcity both now and in the future, fracking is nothing more than a freight train. Cheap energy creating economic booms are useless if we are all dying of thirst.

#Detroit is in the Midst of a Humanitarian Crisis Worthy of #UN Attention

Posted: July 21, 2014 in Anarchy Journal Constitutional
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by @anarchyroll
7/21/2014

Did you know the United Nations said that Detroit is violating the human rights of their citizens?

Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness are fundamental rights in America. So if that is actually true, and we can’t live without water, is water a right? The water companies in Detroit don’t think so and have been shutting off water supplies to delinquent customers.

The problems of the urban dystopia that is Detroit are pretty well-known. But I don’t think most people in America thought the situation in Detroit was worthy of the attention of the United Nations. Since we are in the United States of America after all, it is hard to fathom human rights violations worth of the attention of international governing bodies could be allowed to occur here. Well, welcome to the new normal.

Why are so many people (up to 30,000) so behind on their water bills that they are having access to it turned off? Maybe it has something to do with the 119% increase in cost as the city inches closer and closer to privatization of utilities.

As horrific as the situation in Detroit is, what is even scarier than municipalities and private corporations literally denying access to the essence of life to their citizens, is that the problems with water in Detroit is soon to become the rule not just an exception.

Poisoning the #Water for 300,000 is Worth $11,000

Posted: July 16, 2014 in Frackishima
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by @anarchyroll
7/15/2014

Did you know you could poison the drinking water for 300,000 people and the only penalty you’ll face will be an $11,000 fine?

Freedom Industries is the company responsible for the West Virgina Chemical Spill that took place in January. 10,000 gallons of the chemical MCHM (used in coal production) spilled into a river that was the main source of fresh drinking water for 300,000 civilians in West Virgina across nine counties in the western part of the state. They have been fined $11,000 by the Labor Department of the federal government.

Freedom Industries has since filed for bankruptcy, and a bill regulating chemical tanks has been passed in the wake of the spill. But $11,000 as a penalty for leaving 300,000 people without drinkable water for ten days?

My attention is pulled towards stories that involve mass poisoning of fresh water. A vast minority of the amount of water on planet Earth is drinkable. We can’t survive as a species without fresh water. Yet we seem content with having the essence of life poisoned at a rate that could be classified as habitual and doing virtually nothing about it. What does that say about us?

Poisoning the essence of life should at least carry a penalty similar to a DUI. I know people who have gotten DUI’s who have had to pay more than $11,000 when it was all said and done. Is drinking and driving a vehicle on an empty road in the middle of the night worse than poisoning water for 300,000 people?

40 people were sent to the hospital from drinking or simply being exposed to the contaminated water. If I did something that sent 40 people to the hospital, would I not face a penalty more severe than an $11,000 fine?

There is no law without order and no order without law. If people can get away with stealing, murder, and rape then it has been shown throughout history that people will murder, steal, and rape vastly more than if there are immediate and severe consequences for those evil actions.

I certainly classify poisoning water as an evil action, do you?

If we continue to let companies and corporations break the law without having to worry about the consequences everyday people have to worry about, why do we think they’ll do the right thing and follow the laws/rules? Do we think that for profit corporations will engage in a thought and decision-making process in a way that is evolved beyond human nature?

The Supreme Court has said that corporations are people. If companies and corporations are people, then shouldn’t we  punish them for hurting people the way we punish individuals for hurting people?

 

 

#BeachLife Now Means No Swimming Due to #Pollution

Posted: July 10, 2014 in Frackishima
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by @anarchyroll
7/10/2014

I suppose my generation will be the generation that grows up to say, back in my day, you could actually swim in the water at the beach.

Thanks to massive amounts of pollution and bacteria, beaches are now strictly for selfies, volleyball, tanning, sand castle building, and of course drinking.

Poisoning of water is something that always gets my attention. Mainly because we can’t survive without water, we being human beings.

I wonder if the people who are big on the #BeachLife social media trend will care as much about the environment as they do their own self image and egos.

Some generation will eventually have to care in mass about water pollution. The Greatest Generation, Baby Boomers, Generation X and Y polluted the Earth exponentially more each time around as if there was a prize at the end. Well I guess there is, the prize is the privilege of being able to go to the beach and not being able to swim or even touch the water due to the public health hazard the bacteria causes. But I’m sure breathing the air coming off that water is still perfectly healthy. Certainly no worse than the air breathed in citing in bumper to bumper highway traffic.

#Fukushima Makes No Dollars or Sense

Posted: June 30, 2014 in Frackishima
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by @anarchyroll
6/29/2014

Which is of more importance; billions of dollars or nuclear contaminated water?

Do we have a right to electricity and water? Or do utility companies own the resources they sell?

The common link between fracking and Fukushima is that both involve high levels of poisoned/contaminated water. That is why I feel both subjects deserve vastly more attention that either or both get from the media or the common person.

The economic impact of Fukushima on the country of Japan gets more play than the environmental damage. Environmental damage that is of the biggest ever in the history of Earth variety. Why is that? What do we value?

The story to tell of Fukushima is so horrible, it is only natural to not want to think about it at all. To ignore, pretend it didn’t happen or doesn’t continue to exist. Focus on other things besides the fact that we are continuously poisoning the essence of life on increasingly larger scales.

The environmental impacts of Fukushima will not be ignored. All that contaminated water in the ocean will have an effect at some point. All that poisoned freshwater from fracking will not be ignored. There is only so much fresh water on this planet.

Facing these terrors and moving towards solution is the answer, not distracting ourselves and trying to escape from them.

C’est la vie

#Fracking: Unregulated, Uninspected, Unacceptable

Posted: May 13, 2014 in Frackishima
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frackishimalogo1ajclogo2by @anarchyroll
5/12/2014

Are there people who don’t know that humans can’t survive without drinkable water? No matter how much money a person may have, they will die without drinkable water just as quickly as a person living in poverty. Fracking poisons our drinkable water and it was recently revealed fracking is poisoning even more water than originally thought or reported.

In addition to that horrendous fact, it has come to light that the federal government has failed to even inspect fracking sites and equipment in high risk contamination sites.

Neither economic booms to local economies or job creation are worth the poisoning of the essence of life. No one person’s ability to provide for their family is as important or more important to the greater population of their race if their job threatens the ability for the species to survive. Fracking companies at large and fracking workers individually should be ashamed of themselves and should be publicly shamed for what they are doing. We are talking about possibilites or probabilites of what may or may not, can or can not happen. Fracking IS poisoning our drinking water, the real world, in real-time, in the present.

Did oil and gas companies get tired of poisoning water with oil spills for 25 years?

The negatives of fracking are different from other environment movement. It’s not like clean energy or climate change debates. The negative effects of fracking are happening now! If we poison the fresh water supplies, we’ll all be dead before the sea levels can rise 10 feet due to polar ice cap melting. The ramifications of fracking won’t be felt in 20 years or in a century. They are being felt now. Fracking must be banned now. Otherwise clean water becomes the new oil. The main difference being a person won’t die in three or four days without gas to put in their car.

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