Tuesday, October 06, 2015

Suffering for the Salmon: Native Woman's Five-Day Fast Opposes Nestlé Water Grab

Suffering for the Salmon: Native Woman's Five-Day Fast Opposes Nestlé Water Grab



Temperatures climbed into the mid-90s the week Anna Mae Leonard held a five-day hunger strike across the street from City Hall in Cascade Locks, Oregon. From August 17 to 21 she allowed herself just a ceremonial sip of water taken from the spring she was fighting to save, one in the morning and one in the evening. Displaying a sign reading, "Honor Treaty 1855," she stared at the administration building across WaNaPa Street, hoping a city council member would see her.

"I want them to look at me suffer and think about how the fish will suffer without that cold spring water," Leonard said, according to The Oregonian.

Nestlé S.A., the world's largest multinational food conglomerate, based in Switzerland, wants to build a bottled-water plant in Cascade Locks, a former timber town on the Columbia River about 43 miles east of Portland. The plant would take 100 million gallons per year of pristine mountain water from the nearby Oxbow Springs and bottle it under the Arrowhead brand name.

Bark and Food, Water Watch and other environmental protection groups note that Oxbow Springs flows into the Columbia River. The cold mountain water holds more oxygen than the warmer river water and provides a thermal refuge that is necessary for spawning salmon to survive.

Since the beginning of the 20th century, 14 hydroelectric dams have been built on the Columbia, each one damaging the river by creating reservoirs that warm the surface temperature. Additionally, a hotter-than-normal summer this year combined with a lower-than-normal snow pack have heated the river to deadly levels, killing more than half this year's run of sockeye salmon, the The Oregonian reported.

Despite current drought conditions, Nestlé plans to take the cool Oxbow Springs water, load it into tanker trucks, transport it to the proposed bottling plant in Cascade Locks, put it into plastic single-use bottles, and ship it in still more trucks to cities like Portland, Seattle and Spokane. There, customers will pay what amounts to between $2.50 and $5 per gallon for water that cost Nestlé just over two-tenths of a cent per gallon.

End of excerpt. Read more at link

I find this to be unconscionable. What Nestle is doing is the height of greed and disrespect. I have been writing about this for so long I find myself at times dumbstruck in reading how these water grabs continue without any repercussions to the companies doing it. There is absolutely no need for Nestle to be doing this. They would be willing to destroy a river, a population of salmon and to disrespect the sacred places of a culture during a drought no less to make a few extra dollars.

This is exactly what I was referring to in my entry yesterday on Divestiture and Abstention. It makes little sense in the end to pull your money if you continue to consume the product. Nestle wouldn't be one of the richest multi-national companies if people didn't consume the water they stole. Water is not a commodity. It is not a "product" Nestle created. They are stealing from nature in order to profit from it at the expense of it and other species.

How can that not enrage anyone who cares about this Earth and our water? Are we simply not to care about other species? Or the effect of this theft on the water source itself? I am now wary of humans finding water on Mars or anywhere else. All we will do is try to find a way to steal and waste it.

At a time when we as humans must be conserving and regaining our connection with the Earth why do we continue on the path to our own destruction? Is money really that important? Not to a salmon. Not to someone who knows the intrinsic worth of a clean flowing river undammed and free. Not to someone who knows that for all of the importance placed on money, you cannot drink it.

My respect to Anna Mae Leonard and all those who stand up to those who are blinded by the luster of a false God. It is time for their idol to fall.

Also see;

Nestle' Strikes Deal To Pump Unrestricted Amounts Of Water From Ontario Aquifer During Drought Conditions

How Corporations Took Over a Basic Human Right



They are doing it in California too.

And here is the asshole himself. The people who run these companies are psychopaths. They do not operate anywhere near the level of the majority of us and yet, we keep supporting them with our $$$$$$. That is true insanity!



Monday, October 05, 2015

Divesting Is Easy, Abstention Is Imperative

Update 10/8: Brazil To Auction Amazon Fracking Licences

And yes, Shell, the company people are thanking for pulling out of the Arctic (for their own business reasons) is one of the companies vying for blocks to now kill the lungs of the Earth. How do we stop this assault on our planet and our water if we are going to continue consuming the product they are destroying our resources to get at? It is the same as supporting Nestle while they steal water off indigenous tribal land. We and our wallets are the real problem. We can divest all well and good. However, unless they start to see a real shift in their profits we are running out of time.

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Anyone following the so called climate movement recently knows that the word divest is a big one. Certain groups have been pushing for universities, institutions, etc. to divest their holdings in fossil fuels. They claim this will be the silver bullet in keeping us from the climate point of no return. Now, on the surface this does sound like a good way to move money out of fossil fuels. However, it is no silver bullet and in fact may just be a cleverly devised smokescreen to lull us into a false sense of security regarding "solutions" because we still have fossil fuel subsidies and pipelines going up all over this globe.

Of course, I am not one to totally dismiss anything that sincerely seeks to address the destruction we humans continue to wreck upon this Earth and its resources. However, in reading about the divestment movement I get the feeling it is one big PR campaign for the rich and when you dig deeper you have to wonder: are all those calling for divesting (including yacht loving celebrities like Leonardo Di Caprio) really accomplishing anything?

How many who are involved in this have also pledged abstention regarding using and consuming petroleum products? There are two halves to this equation, although we never quite hear anyone announcing they will abstain from consumption of fossil fuels. They still fly, consume fossil fuel energy and again mention nothing about the damage fossil fuel consumption does to our waterways. It seems that for the most part, the climate movement has turned into one big investment soft sell. Divesting is one thing, abstention is really the sticky part of it. Until we can actually abstain and seek the moral will to live a life free of the trappings of fossil fuels, is just divesting some holdings really going to do much at this point?

I ask because as I survey the climate landscape especially in regards to water it isn't good. We have already passed into a phase that suggests abrupt climate change is at our door step. Just this past week we saw over twenty inches of rain dumped on South Carolina due to Hurricane Joaquin which was hundreds of miles off shore. Anyone following the maps would also have noticed the mangled jet stream that eerily resembled the path Superstorm Sandy took as it came up from the Caribbean. Arctic Amplification, which I have posted about before has been part of this. Yet, we still do not hear these words in media or even from many climate groups. Why is that?

My point being is that at the point we see this Earth at divesting seems to just be a bandaid meant to placate donors to climate organizations and lull followers into thinking we are really saving the world from ourselves. That's all well and good for a rich university or celebrity, but what about the poor? As long as the fossil fuel industry is continually allowed to build pipelines, destroy waterways, frack the Earth and use greenwashing as a way to escape culpability while producing a product still in demand, there is far to go and not much time to get there. I think at this point, divesting has to lead to abstention. If not, the product continues to flow regardless of where those holdings go and that is in antithesis to what scientists now state must be the action: keeping it in the ground to begin with. As I stated above, if this is indeed sincere it is at least something. However, it is no silver bullet without that other half. As long as that other half remains true solutions are elusive.

Also see:

The Arctic, Humanity's Barometer

Another World Water Day Gone

We see another World Water Day pass us by. The theme, Water For All, signifies that though some progress has been made we are woefully behin...