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You may think you have unlimited access to water, but just because it flows like the Nile River doesn’t mean it’s never-ending. If you live in a developed country, it is most likely in your culture that you should bathe everyday (which includes washing your body and hair). If you don’t bathe every day–don’t tell anyone!! People will think it’s “disgusting,” “gross,” or “stinky!”

I was a Peace Corps volunteer in Morocco for about six months a few years ago, and it was encouraged by everyone there (volunteers, Peace Corps staff, and Moroccans), not to wash yourself every day. In fact, I felt that it was impolite to take a bath at my host family’s house every day. The town I was living in just got running water–and it was not plentiful. Honestly, it was something that I had to get used to, because my fine, oily blonde hair turned to brown after a couple of days without washing, but I was proud of my conservation of water. Read the rest of this entry →

Britain’s financial class is very concerned about average people and their pensions. So concerned in fact, that they’re criticising US President Barack Obama for “excessively” criticising BP.

Wait, what? That’s the message of this article in the Telegraph. And before I begin to criticise it, I should point out that I do not have a television and my uterus is not wandering, so this nonsense from Jason Kenney, an oil and gas analyst at ING (no ulterior motives there, I’m sure!), doesn’t apply to me:

The US reaction is getting towards hysterical. Half of them seem to think the US is knee deep in oil. It’s difficult to underestimate the effect 24-hour TV dinner media coverage of the spill is having over there

No, Mr. Kenney, I’m pretty sure that most US residents can step outside and observe that the country isn’t “knee deep in oil”. But what they have also seen, along with the rest of the world, are the images of dolphins with their skin burned away, birds unable to lift their wings because of the oil. We’ve heard (or read) experts say that they do not know what the long-term effects on the ecosystem are going to be. And we know that the reason the oil has continued gushing for so long is because BP did not have a backup plan.

How exactly do you define excessive criticism for all that?

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The recent BP oil spill in the Gulf Coast has spurred a renewal of environmental awareness. Although, sadly, it takes a catastrophe of this magnitude to bring attention to the matter on a grand scale, educators and activists are constantly trying to alert the public to the frightening abuses of nature we commit every day and the effects these have on our bodies.  Several weeks ago, I attended a panel discussion at the Center for American Progress (CAP)  titled “Tackling Toxics: Reforming Chemical Policy and Improving Reproductive Health”.  Due to privacy laws that heavily favor manufacturing companies, unregulated amounts of harmful chemicals exist in our food and the products we use daily, often without our knowledge. The overexposure to some of these toxins  has led to fertility and other reproductive health problems in both men and women.  Increasing rates of certain deformities and other health problems in newborns are also traced to copious amounts of toxic substances we imbibe daily.

Bisphenol A (BPA), perhaps the most well known of these toxins due to recent press, is a chemical present in plastics goods from water bottles to infants’ toys.  A hormone disruptor, BPA alters our bodies’ natural hormone balance necessary for healthy reproduction. The leader of the panel discussion informed us that if tested, everyone in the room would show levels of BPA in his or her blood.

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I grew up in Maine and Massachusetts, and I was told that I couldn’t be Indian because all the Indians were gone. – Buffy Sainte-Marie

When I first went to the Hillside Festival on Guelph Island last year, I have to admit, I hadn’t heard of Buffy Sainte-Marie. As it turned out, I had heard one of the songs she had co-written without actually knowing she had written it and you’ve probably heard it too; it’s called “Up Where We Belong.”

But I was at Hillside for the headlining acts of Tokyo Police Club and Owen Pallett. Who was this down-to-earth performer who had managed to score a headlining act among indie favorites known for creating noise inducing chaos? As I made my way to the front of the stage (in hopes of reserving a spot for the Tokyo Police Club set that would follow) I wished that somebody could have told me to remove my socks. Because little did I know they were about to be blown off.

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Deepwater Horizon is a beautiful name for something so ugly. It brings up the brilliant colors of sunset or sunrise on the open sea, where land is not to be seen. But the explosion on that oil rig (bright colors, indeed) has led to the spewing forth from of 25,000 barrels of crude oil per day, creating a slick larger than the state of Delaware.The full effects of this disaster on the environment and on regional economies will not be known for months, but the spill is threatening oyster beds and the breeding grounds of migratory birds. Coastal towns are facing potential economic ruin:

For the residents of Empire, a small fishing town about two-thirds of the way down the spit, this is a spill of personal significance. “I’ll show you what this means for us,” says Clark Fontaine, the owner of a wooden seafood shack on the side of the main road that has a dilapidated hoarding outside advertising “L VE CRAWF H”.

“Look at these guys!” He holds up a handful of plump shrimp, about four inches in length. The creatures are grey in colour, and several have an orange stripe along their backs. “That’s the eggs they will lay in the marshes that will produce our next crop in August. If we lose these shrimp, then we lose our living for the rest of the year.”

As long as we continue to rely on fossil fuels to run our cars and keep the lights on, there will we be a risk of spills, but that’s not the entire story here. Read the rest of this entry →

Recently, a Brazilian rancher was convicted of the murder of a nun, Dorothy Stang, who was originally from the US but became a naturalised Brazilian citizen. She had dedicated her life to the struggle to preserve not only the rain forest ecosystem but also the rights of the poor and disenfranchised living there. According to the New York Times:

Vitalmiro Moura was sentenced to 30 years for ordering the killing of 73-year-old Dorothy Stang in 2005 because she blocked him and another rancher from taking over land the government gave to farmers.

Hundreds of activists have been killed in Brazil in the last 20 years — but only about 80 triggermen, usually paid by powerful ranchers with land claims at stake, were behind bars before Tuesday. Moura is the only so-called mastermind of one of the killings to join them, raising hopes that the climate of impunity in the Amazon is finally nearing an end.

While the outcome of this trial certainly represents progress, it must not be forgotten that it is not only activists who have come from elsewhere who are killed in the conflicts over the Amazon rain forest, nor is Brazil the only nation in which such violence occurs. The Indigenous people of these lands, and Indigenous women in particular, suffer the most. Read the rest of this entry →

“She was disobedient at a time when disobedience was not tolerated.” - Taking Root film

“Taking Root brings to life the confidence and joy of people working to improve their own lives while also ensuring the future and vitality of their land.” – Taking Root website synopsis

Last month, our nation’s capital hosted the 18^th annual DC Environmental Film Festival, which was packed with films meant to highlight and give a fresh look at environmental issues across the world.  One such piece was the documentary Taking Root: The Vision of Wangari Maathai hosted by the National Museum of African Art.  The film captures the intersection of three important topics – women, politics and the environment—and it does so by telling the story of how Professor Wangari Maathai forever changed the landscape of her native Kenya.

Born in a rural village, Professor Maathai completed undergraduate and masters studies in the U.S. before returning to Kenya to become the first woman in East Africa to earn a PhD and the first woman in Kenya to head a university department.  While teaching at the University of Nairobi, she developed a side interest in environmental degradation, a project that eventually grew into the Green Belt Movement, a grassroots organization she founded in 1977 to encourage rural women to plant trees.  This basic act—planting trees—was intended to bring attention to significant issues such as deforestation and water access as well as provide an income source for local women. The GBM continued to grow and thrive, expanding into areas of political activism and awareness campaigns.  In 1989, Professor Maathai led a standoff with the Kenyan government when it set its sights on developing the only remaining park in downtown Nairobi.   Additionally, after an outbreak of ethnic violence between tribes following highly contentious elections in 1991, the GBM added programs to rebuild the sense of community that was lost.  For her efforts and activism, Maathai received a Nobel Peace Prize in 2004, becoming the first African woman and the first environmentalist to do so. Read the rest of this entry →

Every other year, the Olympics bring inspirational stories and a good deal of spectacle to the living rooms of just about everyone who has a TV or Internet access. Even though the coverage often reinforces gender roles, it at least gives women athletes an opportunity to have the cameras focus on their abilities and thus provides role models for girls and young women. Behind the pageantry, however, lies quite another kind of story.

The latest example of this is that the UN Environment Program is criticising construction in Sochi for its impact on local wildlife and other aspects of the ecosystem. Remember, it isn’t just wild animals who will face the consequences of heavy metal pollution; the local people will have to deal with it too.

Of course, the Olympics are rarely good for the places they are held; they bring a certain amount of pride for the privileged, and income for certain kinds of businesses but too often they end up perpetuating oppression. Read the rest of this entry →

Last week, the Gibe III hydroelectric power plant in Ethiopia has to shut down following a tunnel collapse, a problem similar to one suffered by Gibe II, but this is not a permanent closure. The impact of this project highlights some of the paradoxes and problems of hydroelectric energy, as subject I’ve blogged about before in the contexts of China and the American Pacific Northwest. While dams provide electricity without the greenhouse emissions of coal-burning plants, they can hardly be called green or clean given the damage they do to local ecosystems. Gibe III endangers the balance of the world’s largest desert lake, Lake Turkana, and in so doing it threatens the ability of more than half a million people who live around the lake to get enough to eat. The hundreds of thousands of indigenous people who live in the Omo River Valley will see their agriculture disrupted by changes to the river’s flood cycle. These groups were not consulted during the dam planning process. Read the rest of this entry →