Ecofeminist and Mothering Ruminations

It has begun: Humanity's Immune Response

2012-01-25T15:06:00.000-08:00

There is hope, there is beauty. It has no ideology. Earth care.

Civil Disobedience

2012-01-23T03:52:00.000-08:00

Civil Disobedience

Tim DeChristopher explains why he committed an act of Civil Disobedience to protest the
exploitation of the environment and climate change.

An Inconvenient Truth (9/10) Movie CLIP - Greenland (2006) HD

2012-01-23T03:41:00.000-08:00

Clip from Al Gore's Inconvenient Truth

The Feedback Loop: Ecological Damage Soon Beyond Control

2012-01-23T03:36:00.000-08:00

2. Bill McKibben explains the tipping point further...

350 PPM CO2: Earth's Tipping Point? - Bill McKibben

2012-01-23T03:31:00.000-08:00

Bill McKibben explains what 350 means

350 eARTh: Climate Change Art Visible From Space

2012-01-23T03:28:00.000-08:00

350 Branding--

Bill McKibben Speaking at Power Shift 2011

2012-01-23T03:22:00.000-08:00

Bill McKibben from 350.org speaks about Climate Change at Powershift 2011

Polar Bears Discuss Climate Change

2012-01-23T03:17:00.000-08:00

A Day for Change - Global Day of Climate Action

2012-01-23T03:14:00.000-08:00

Grist TV (on youtube) based on the online magazine Grist- showing 'how to avoid climate change'.

earthrise - Big Thinker: Polly Higgins

2012-01-23T03:02:00.000-08:00

cuts and invasions

2012-01-21T07:04:00.000-08:00

Alarm

Eyes hands how many hands have touched my breasts i'm not just talking about lovers hands i'm talking about doctors and nurses and technicians and surgeons and radiologists and machines pressing and radiation Eyes heart and neck /cut/ my neck and breasts and womb and belly and face Eyes for that I am alive for that I am Eyes for that I am dead Eyes inside airport breasts hospital bed sonogram MRI catscan mammogram watchful arms up! dig in

Eyes

NO PRIVACY
secret what?

Post location here ## .... ten second to press # button

shoes off
coat off
belts off
scarf off
put your personal belongings
in this plastic

airport nakedness

all bags are black

Where did you purchase those BIG breasts?

What color [are your] blinders?

Thank you
for not speaking
do not be a busy body
Just So

are you an eco terrorist?

drones are flying up high

private groups talking privately
## can they accomplish?
meetings
fake bellies marching
penguins marching
In front of Japanese consulate
penguins voting
will they get arrested?
[unspoken fear]
quietly 200 species dying each day
not enough poetry not enough
deep greens
solar panels ## solution
not so
do not look for solutions
back to the forest
but when they are lost
~~no more forests~~
what then?
it's not just humans?
so anthropomorphic are you!

GUILT for all that I have not done

the babies

shhhhh

listening now

raining tears

you certainly understand
though you pretend
not to

FRYING DUTCHMAN - humanERROR

2012-01-20T08:27:00.002-08:00

NO MORE FUKUSHIMAS PEACE WALK

2012-01-19T08:36:00.000-08:00

No More Fukushimas Peace Walk
March 2- March 21, 2012

Oyster Creek Nuclear Power Plant- Forked River, NJ
to Indian Point Nuclear Power Plant- Buchanan, NY
toVermont Yankee Nuclear Power Plant- Vernon, VT

One year after the Nuclear disaster at Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Facility the situation is far from under control. Dangerous levels of radioactivity are still being found hundreds of miles from the site of the accident. Almost 90,000 people have been forced to leave their homes with little hope of returning. In addition to the incalculable health costs and psychological trauma, the decades-long process of clean-up and decontamination of almost 1000 square miles of land may cost as much as 250 billion dollars with limited prospects for success.

Our walk is a prayer for the suffering of the Japanese people as a result of their government’s reckless nuclear policies. It is also a plea for the people of New Jersey, New York, and New England to recognize the grave dangers that nuclear energy poses to our lives, our property, and all life on our Mother Earth. Nuclear energy is neither safe nor clean. The threat of a nuclear accident at one of our own aging nuclear facilities is all too real and the consequences would be unimaginably catastrophic.
We walk together in love and solidarity for a nuclear free future. A more just, sustainable, and compassionate world built on respect for all living beings and for the earth that sustains us is possible now more than ever. Please join us to help make it a reality.

March 2— (Friday): Evening Gathering-- Forked River, NJ area
March 3—(Saturday): Forked River (Oyster Creek Power Plant) to Toms River, NJ
March 4—(Sunday): Toms River to Point Pleasant Beach, NJ
March 5—(Monday): Point Pleasant Beach to West Long Branch, NJ
March 6—(Tuesday): West Long Branch to Perth Amboy, NJ (Stay on Staten Island)
March 7 – (Wednesday): Staten Island, NY to Hoboken, NJ
March 8— (Thursday): Wall St. (Manhattan) to George Washington Bridge
March 9-- (Friday): Leonia to Paterson, NJ (Stay in Wayne)
March 10-- (Saturday): Tallman, NY to Nyack, NY
March 11-- (Sunday): Croton-on-Hudson to Indian Point (Vigil @ Indian Point, 1pm; afternoon program in Peekskill)
March 12 – (Monday): Rest Day (Vigil at Entergy Headquarters, White Plains, NY @ 12pm; Evening program in Manhattan)
March 13— (Tuesday): Shuttle to Hudson NY. Walk from Hudson to Kinderhook, NY
March 14-- (Wednesday): Kinderhook to East Greenbush, NY (stay in Albany)
March 15—(Thursday): Albany to Niskayuna, NY (Vigil at Knolls Atomic Power Laboratory)
March 16-- (Friday): Shuttle from Niskayuna to Worcester, MA. Meet the Leverett Peace Pagoda walkers.
Walk from Worcester to Springfield, MA.
March 17—(Saturday): Springfield –Holyoke, MA
March 18—(Sunday): Holyoke- Northampton, MA
March 19— (Monday): Northampton- Montague, MA
March 20— (Tuesday): Montague- Northfield, MA
March 21-- (Wednesday): Northfield – Vernon, VT (Vermont Yankee)

[This schedule is subject to change. Please check with the contacts listed below for any changes and/or for daily start and finish locations]

Walk initiated by Nipponzan Myohoji, Grafton Peace Pagoda.

For more information, contact: 518-658-9301
Before the walk: Christian Collins, cheythiya@gmail.com; 718-850-1094(home); 413-320-2856(cell)
During the entire walk: Jules Orkin, julesorkin@yahoo.com; 201-566-8403
For the MA portion of the walk: Tim Bullock, walk4newspring@gmail.com; 413-485-8469
Website
http://nomorefukushimaswalk.tumblr.com

I'm A Climate Scientist - Extended Version (NSFW)

2012-01-18T09:16:00.000-08:00

I miss you, Dr. Martin Luther King

2012-01-16T11:02:00.000-08:00

I miss you, Dr. Martin Luther King.

This morning, when driving my daughter to a play rehearsal, we heard a Martin Luther King rap song on WBAI. My daughter smiled a big one.

King’s voice rang out, surrounded by powerful beats and drums.

“I remember hearing those words live on TV,” I told my daughter.

His words still ring true—the plight of African Americans in this country remains an unfair and terribly hard one.

Then, she asked me about my experiences with King and Civil Rights growing up.

“Didn’t your parents do Civil Rights actions?” She asked.

“Yes, when I was just a baby and toddler, my mom and her friends took us to the courthouse in downtown Miami. In the late 1950s and early sixties. They made us drink from the ‘negroes only’ water fountain. That stunned the white folks who worked there! How shocking for them to see a group of little white kids and babies in strollers, all lined up to get a drink of water from the ‘negroes only’ fountain.”

My daughter listened intently.

“And, you know the story about the Freedom Riders who came down south from up north, blacks and whites who road deep into the south to protest the Jim Crow laws and racial oppression? Well, around this time, a similar group called CNVA (Committee for NonViolent Action) came to Miami. They stayed with my parents and their friends in the early sixties. The did Civil Rights work with local African American ministers. Meetings were held at our houses, money was raised. We took rides in their 'Spirit of Freedom' boat-–the boat that CNVA tried to take to Cuba during the Cuban Missile Crisis. Of course CNVA was stopped before they got anywhere near Cuba—but my parents and their friends marched in support of this voyage--across the bridge in heavy rain in Miami Beach, while the 'Spirit of Freedom' group attempted to boat to Cuba. After, their boat was confiscated.”

“Neighbors called us Reds, and the FBI watched very closely—lodging themselves outside of our houses. All these upper-middle class Jews (doctors, lawyers, dentists) in their houses in Miami Beach and Miami! What a time it was.”

I also told my daughter about how my mom and dad refused to go into any restaurant or hotel that my Caribbean nanny, Margie, couldn’t eat or sleep in. We just saw the movie, The Help. I told my daughter it was like that back then for real. She’s seen The Long Walk Home, which I also show in my classes on feminist mothering. The Long Walk Home –it’s one of my very favorites on this theme, along with Corinna, Corinna.

It was a different time.

It was a different time, but not different enough.

Case in point: today, as we drove past the lower income part of my town, and police checked each car for updated registration, they let me pass with just a wave. My car registration, in fact, is out of date; I'd forgotten to put the new one in. When one policeman caught this and asked about it, I explained that the new one was at home. He said, "I trust you. Go on." A white woman in a nice car. What if I had been a woman of color? Would he do the same thing? Would he trust me then?

“Why are they over here, stopping cars, mom?” My daughter asked.

For the very reason Mr. Luther King, the Freedom Riders, Rosa Parks, and so many others risked their lives, I tell my daughter.

Thank you, Dr. King. Yet words of thank you do not justice to what you are owed.

I would like to say things are all better now--that our world is color blind-- but in far too many ways, racial discrimination abounds. Count up percentages of inequity today, just as you did then in your speech: who fill our prisons, who die (most) on death row, who attend the most poorly rated public schools, who earn the lowest wages, who live in the (most) contaminated areas, who have the highest rates of infant mortality, and who die (most) from curable diseases?

I miss you very much, Dr. Martin Luther King.

We still need you.

Photo Courtesy of seavisioneternelly at Flcker.

A Few DAYS more to fight Fracking in N.Y. FLOOD the DEC and Cuomo with calls and Letters

2012-01-08T08:24:00.000-08:00

January 11, 2012 is the deadline for public comments before Cuomo moves
ahead with hydrofracking in NYS.

Please, if you will, take any or all of the
actions below in the next 3-4 days to protect New York's precious air,
water, land, and economy.

THREE EFFECTIVE THINGS YOU CAN DO TO STOP HYDROFRACKING IN NY NOW:

#1: Call Governor Cuomo every day. Be polite & direct and
tell him to ban hydro-fracking and commit to using renewable energy. New
Yorkers want safe and sustainable jobs and energy for generations to come.
Tell him that you vote in the Presidential race and will not forget his
stand on this issue. If he allows hydrofracking, you will not support his
future gubernatorial or presidential campaigns.

Here is his phone number: Albany: 518-474-8390

Here's his contact info for e-mail BUT THAT'S NOT NEARLY AS EFFECTIVE AS A
LIVE CALL OR A POSTAL LETTER (SEE BELOW):
http://www.governor.ny.gov/contact/GovernorContactForm.php

#2: ** DEC PUBLIC COMMENT PERIOD ENDS JANUARY 11, 2012 ** Send the DEC at
least one letter. Multiple short letters that address different points are
even better. DEC has one approved web-based form, but snail mail (has to go
out soon) is considered to be much better. All comments must be received by
them before January 11.

Here is a link to learn how to submit effective comment(s) to the DEC.
Please note that the DEC has requirements on how comments can be submitted
and comments sent by email, fax or telephone will NOT be entered into the
official record. Please read this web page with instructions and act
immediately:
http://unitedforaction.org/2011/10/13/dec-sgeis-comment-action-center/
AND
"to see cliff notes on draft doc only" --
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=DSGEIS_Responses

Mail your comments to:
Attn: dSGEIS Comments
New York State Department of Environmental Conservation
625 Broadway
Albany, NY 12233-6510

AGAIN - IMPORTANT
The DEC demands that any comment address specific content of the RD SGEIS
draft document, so you will want to go to those "cliff note" type web pages
above for some quick help on this. Here are some suggested points to
address:
* No adequate assessment of the serious health impacts of fracking
* Inadequate and unclear rules about fracking in floodplains
* Limited protection for primary aquifers
* Unacceptable set-backs, even for NYC watershed
* Fracking waste is not classified as hazardous
* Tracking of fracking waste is left up to gas industry operators
* Open pits for storing fracking waste have not been outlawed
* Drilling is allowed under state-owned land
* No comprehensive, focused plan to analyze the cumulative impact of a full
build out of gas wells
* Have ignored documented science about natural migration of methane and
contaminants in drinking water

Go to any of the following web sites for more information on writing to the
DEC.
Shortcut to "cliff notes" at
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=DSGEIS_Responses

http://www.foodandwaterwatch.org/water/fracking/fracking-action-center/activist-tools/

http://www.United for Action.org
http://frackaction.com/content/action-center

#3: Send this well-organized coalition letter to Gov. Cuomo to
demand the withdrawal of the DEC draft, RD SGEIS, (DEC recommendations to
Cuomo). This is a group letter that follows the public comment guidelines in
a powerful way. The SGEIS has been called "a political document only - not
scientific." Please read and sign this letter and please tell all your
neighbors & friends to do the same:
http://toxicstargeting.com/MarcellusShale/cuomo/coalition_letter/2011

IMPORTANT ACTION FOR NOW OR AFTER JANUARY 11, 2012
#4: This one you can do now or after the deadline. Write a personal letter
to Gov. Cuomo and send it by snail mail. See One Million Fracking Letters
for further information and a sample letter (there is an online letter here as well).
Mail to:
The Honorable Andrew Cuomo, Governor of New York State NYS State Capitol
Building Albany, NY 12224

These are the most powerful & effective actions you can take at this
time...but you are not enough...please forward this request to your neighbors,
friends, relatives, children, real estate agents & businesses you know who
don't want Fracking (read: toxic poisoning). Please forward as soon as
possible. The clock is ticking. DEC wants comments by Wednesday, January 11,
2012.

Thanks for doing what you can to protect our air and water!

Sincerely,
Leslee Rachel Cooper
High Falls, NY

The Fall of Water and the New Year

2012-01-03T07:31:00.000-08:00

We are all so busy.

I am a full-time single mom, professor, writer, and editor of TerraSpheres ‘planet.’ I also consider myself an environmental activist and spend a good deal of time promoting environmental issues, as well as protesting on the ground.

What does this mean? It means I never sleep. It means I’m constantly chasing after the carrot, never catching it-quite-and always feeling like I’m 'not good enough.' Most women I know feel this way.

My students find me to be scattered. Some of them grumble. Others are more forgiving, as they know my heart is in the right place--it is just that I'm over-extended. My adolescent daughter has no patience for my seeming inattentiveness and failures. My editors shake their fingers at me because I’m late on deadlines. Some friends are offended because I'm forgetful or don’t have more time for them. It's true, my memory often fails me because there is so much, too much, on my mind, and too much to keep track of. My house needs work. My cooking is pathetic. My diet is not what it should be. My daughter is often late and it's my fault. Sometimes when I speak, words fail me. I frequently have a cold and a hoarse voice. I'm plain worn out.

I am a woman/mother of the twenty first century.

I care deeply about the earth, and I want to do everything in my power to try and preserve this beautiful planet in my last few years here, to end the suffering from early and unnecessary cancers, illnesses and genetic defects, to save the water, to save our vanishing species. If it means I’m a bit late, or that my lesson plans are not letter perfect, well that is a price that must be paid. The ocean matters more, the seals, whales, dolphins, and the lives of my neighbors and the future generations matter more to me than winning a prize for the homemaker or professor with the best organizational skills. I do the best I can. I really do try. I'm not going to parties (okay, I go very occasionally--new years', for example). I'm not painting my nails or getting facials. I'm not watching TV. Even my daughter tells me to take a break and socialize more. I swear, I'm working as fast and as hard as I can!

Is this a feminist issue? Would I be this disorganized if I were a man? Probably not. I'd either have a wife, or a secretary, or an assistant--or all of the above. How do men do make that happen?

How many of us are raising children alone, trying to take care of the many every-day tasks that must be tended to: bill paying, shopping, cooking, laundry, household upkeep, scheduling, schlepping and agonizing over our children-- as well as taking care of our outside-of-the-home paid job responsibilities, and doing some kind of volunteer work? Yes, crazy as it sounds, many working moms are also volunteers. We're also trying to maintain our figures (under the guise of mental health--we 'need' excercise to think straight!). We're superwomen, see. Well, sort of. At least in my case, we're cobbling-it-together-very-very-tired-while-trying-to-be-superwomen. We walk, we run. Nope, we can't fly.

There are millions and millions of us.

Not that being married made it any easier once upon a time. Having a partner at home did not help me with my workload. I know some people find their partners to be helpful, but statistically, most women carry a double-shift, and most men do not. (For those men who really do their equal share, kudos to you—I know you are out there, and I know some of you. To date, however, you are in the minority!). Personally, I work a triple shift, at least. Much of it is unpaid.

Recently, I was visiting with a couple—the man has a mirror career to mine. Yet, he has a stay-at-home-wife who helps him with everything. She is highly efficient. I want to steal her. In listening to their conversations, I was struck with deep dark envy. He has so much help-- help that I will never have unless I inherit a huge sum of money. That is never going to happen (perhaps I should say that--miracles do happen). She (my friend's wife) makes sure the bills are paid, the house is in good order, the refrigerator is stocked, the kids are alright, and all the home stuff is tended to--all the seemingly 'little things' that add up to a lot and that women do not get compensated for. She even helps him with his job! If I had that help, maybe I would be less forgetful, more timely, more efficient, and better, oh so much better at everything and, finally, ‘good enough’! Surely, I would even be more popular!

Of course, this makes me sound like I’m complaining.

Don’t I have a great life? You bet. I'm cancer free. I’m a tenured professor. I teach wonderful courses that I design-- with super cool students who take them. I write and live in a safe, warm place. My child is healthy and well adjusted. Meanwhile, much of the planet is struggling. We’re in hard times in the western world! So many poor folks are out of work, out of homes, scrambling just to survive. Throughout the planet, there are disasters of every variety-- rape, murder, starvation, violence, exploitation, environmental crises, and mass species extinction. Who am I to say a thing about my exhaustion? I'm not carrying wood and water on my shoulders, or digging ditches. Women and people and nonhuman forms of life are suffering all over the planet in such profound ways. Certainly, my petty worries are nothing by comparison. I have no room to complain.

I'm just saying, if I were a guy, I'd do more, I'd do it better, and I'd sleep a lot more. Added to that, my middle-aged roll in the middle, my aged eggs, or my facial lines and greying hair wouldn't stop me from the perpetual youth thing. I could have two more sets of families if I dared and, a few more young and beautiful spouses who would admiringly ask me while batting their eyes, "what can I do for you, dear?"

Seriously, I am very grateful for the privileged position I occupy and gifts I've been given. I have a long line of feminists (female) who came before me to thank for my tenure and my writing career. Many wonderful men helped me along the way and I thank them profusely for their support of my career path. Without these mentors--male and female, I would be....who knows, but I wouldn't be who, what, and where I am today.

I guess it is all about balance. There are many, many extraordinary men, but by and large, women still do too much.

Anyway, as tired as I am, and as little time as I usually have for my daughter, I decided we would go away for the Christmas break. Taking a break meant staying off the computer for a week (for the most part). We went to California where we have family and many good friends. It was the usual scramble to see the relatives and “get through the holidays”-- which for me is not always particularly easy (the subject of another piece of writing).

I love my friends and family, but nevertheless, the best part of the whole trip was taking my daughter to visit the Pacific ocean.

After several holiday parties, and much visiting—in the Berkeley area—we drove to Monterey. As soon as we got out of our rental car and stood by the edge of the cliffs by the water, both of us relaxed. We smiled--deeply smiled.

My heart cracked wide open for the first time in a long while.

The tension of a long semester released.

The tension of family get togethers, lack of sleep, and holiday travel released.

The ocean embraced and welcomed us.

We stood in silence.

The waves crashed against the cliffs and grew still momentarily. Then, the ocean raged again.

The salty air whipped through our hair --making it curly and wild.

What was the ocean saying?

Relax. Slow down. I am here. I am stronger than anything you know.

We spied a few seals. On the beach down below, children laughed. A band of seagulls flew high in the distance.

The waves crashed against the cliffs. A large roll of sea foam folded seductively and boldly into itself.

Relax. Slow down. I am here. I am stronger than anything you know.

In northern California –in the Monterey/Carmel area, trees are bent by the strong sea winds. Ansel Adams made them famous. These trees are perfect in their angular elbow shapes. I remember them from my childhood family jaunts when we lived in Berkeley. My dad would load us up in our VW van on weekends, and we traveled to Big Sur, Pt. Reyes, Asilomar, Carmel, Yosemite. Dad was big on getting us outside. We spent our weekends hiking or walking in nature.

When I stand by the ocean, now, it is a sacred experience. All thoughts vanish, all concerns about my “self” are gone. I stand and listen to something much greater and grander than any human creation. As Deena Metzger suggests, this body of water, all bodies of water, are much stronger, vaster, and wiser than any of us, stronger than this poisonous human race. Water will outlast humans and our insanity, our narcissism, our greed.

Yet, what form will this water take after the damage we humans have done?

We are poisoning the ocean, we are poisoning the water.

Rachel Carson warned us of 'man's hubris' in the Sea Around Us and Silent Spring--she explained how biomagnification moves up the food chain from seaweed to small fish, to larger fish, to mammals, and finally to us --thus intensified poisons enter our bodies. She warned of such poisoning as the U.S. tested nuclear bombs in the Bimini Islands (and elsewhere) in the 1950s, destroying populations in an act of grave environmental injustice to the peoples of those islands and the world, and to the beings of the sea. (To see a powerful visual timeline of nuclear bomb tests, watch this).

I watch a lot of anti-nuclear films and I show some in my classes. The most powerful one of all is the 1959, On the Beach. It takes place, as many of you know, in Australia, and it begins with and contains ocean water as its primary and fundamental symbol. The film is post-apocalyptic and tells of the story of the final month or so of the last human beings on earth to survive nuclear war. Over and over the filmic depictions of the sea remind us of what is at stake: everything.

Now the Japanese government fills our oceans with endless tons of radiation. They are not the only ones. Many countries, including our own, dump atrocities in the water. We drill and spill. We invade the sacred. Where is the public outcry? Where is the U.N.? Where are the world governments?

Where are you?

Since 3/11 post Fukushima, more radioactive material than has ever been released in human history continues to be dumped in the sea by Japan. The consequences of radioactive ocean dumping are vast. The radioactive waste, as Deena Metzger and ocean scientists show us, harms seals and other ocean life. Surely more violence will be done. Right now, a large swathe of radioactive debris is making its way to the west coast of the US—the very coast I stood on with my daughter two days ago. Right now, radioactive waste from Japan is hitting Vancouver beaches, a friend tells me. Right now, we are witnessing the pain this waste brings to our ocean brothers and sisters. Right now, cancer is on the rise-- one in two people will be diagnosed in their lifetimes.

Right now, the ocean is calling out to us.

We come from the ocean.

Water. What will we drink? What will we eat?

What creatures will survive?

Between the radiation and toxics that humans dump into our waters, and the ocean acidification from man-made climate change, what will be left for future generations?

Who will swim in a radioactive and toxic sea?

A day may come, and soon, when children will not swim in any body of water. What will those children think of us? Do we want to be remembered as a generation of ecocidal murderers?

Many writers have predicted this for years--Marge Piercy wrote of this in He, She and It; Margaret Atwood hints at it in Oryx and Crake and The Year of the Flood, as does Starhawk in Fifth Sacred Thing.

A day will soon come, when our sister and brother sea creatures will/may vanish altogether. Scientists say if sea life is destroyed, we cannot live.

Environmental injustice and ecocide are hard to face, but we must face the water. We must. This is not a time for resting, hiding, or covering eyes. There is no time to waste.

We must open our eyes, hearts, brains and spirits to make vast changes in how we live, whom we vote for, what we do with our days.

I call on everyone everywhere to become an environmental activist!

Find your own voice and way to participate, join the cause of preserving this earth.

We need more environmental supermen and superwomen.

All hands on deck. The ocean water is calling.

I am stronger than anything you know, but I cannot save you. Only you can save yourselves.

I close with these words of Deena Metzger's:

"I put out my arms but I cannot hold them all or from such a distance. And yet I know that deep empathy can take us down into the heart of the matter and we will find the ways that turn us toward restoration. How long will it take, looking at these photos, to live in such ways that we do nothing, nothing, nothing at any time to harm the earth so?"

By Heidi Hutner. This piece was originally posted at TerraSpheres "Planet"

Inspiring--light--TEDxAsheville - Leah Quintal - Beyond handouts in Haiti

2011-12-22T23:30:00.000-08:00

This is a beautiful vision of what 'seemingly small' environmental and sustainable actions can do. Bringing light can change lives.

"Hold the light up high!"

This is the season of light... for Channukah, for Christmas, for all world religions.

It is the time to shine the "light up high."

Fukushima Safety Level NOT SAFE!

2011-12-20T08:11:00.000-08:00

Women Be Kind

2011-12-20T07:10:00.000-08:00

always tangled

her eyes look
with
envy
or
her eyes look
with
disdain
or
her eyes look
with
pity

(oh criticism)
ism
ism
critic

why can't
women
be
kind
?

the sun comes up up
it is up up up
see the sun
sun the see
e.e.cummings
said
that
one
morning at
breakfast
see the sun
in us so
pretty

(please)
release
these
dark
dart
shots
will not I
dignify
them
with
nature
images
not not
remembering
are they
worth

see the sun
up up up up
so pretty
so very

waiting

the sun oh
wants
to
see
women
(in
a
dancing
circle)

Benefit for the Women's Anti-Nuclear Movement in Japan

2011-12-18T05:25:00.000-08:00

Permanent Wave presents:

A Benefit for the Women's Anti-Nuclear Movement in Japan
 
WHEN: Thursday December 22nd, 8pm to 12am
WHERE: Big Snow Buffalo Lodge - 89 Varet Street, Brooklyn, NY 11206
 WHAT: Live music, bake sale, video screening, flag-making workshop, speakers, calls for solidarity with women in Japan.
 WHO: Permanent Wave (organizer) http://thepermanentwave.wordpress.com
BANDS: THE SUZAN, FIELD MOUSE, SPEEDY ORTIZ (mem. QUILTY), ME&MARS
$7, ALL AGES
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After 9 months, the ongoing nuclear crisis in Fukushima continues to haunt the lives of the people in Japan. Every day, reports indicate high levels of radioactivity in Northeast Japan, including the Tokyo Metropolis. The Japanese government is still withholding information, while failing to provide logistical and financial support for the people who need to move out of the area. Out of the 300,000 children in the Fukushima area, only 3,000 have been evacuated. Kids are still playing in schoolyards that are highly contaminated. People are trapped, and forced to live with radiation without knowing the consequences for their health or the possible effects on their bodies.

In the U.S., however, much of the information has ceased to come to public attention and been almost forgotten after the initial shock of the disaster, when many of us “prayed for” Japan's recovery. In the meantime, radioactive rain has contaminated the people and the land. There is no return to normalcy in Japan.

In this ongoing struggle, women are standing up to oppose the Japanese government’s suicidal logic. In particular, mothers have bravely organized counteractions against the authorities who are abandoning children to be irradiated. They have staged countless demonstrations, both in the form of street action and in the form of negotiation with government officials, in order to protect the lives of children.

As a feminist art collective, Permenent Wave is going to host a benefit event to support women's efforts and learn about the situation that we don't see in the media. The event will feature The Suzan, an all-female rock band from Japan, as well as local female-fronted groups. There will be a special holiday bake sale and speakers who will talk about the current movement in Japan, and the feminist issues within. The proceeds from this event will be sent to a DIY-group Human Recovery Project in Tokyo, a group of musicians and activists who have been working in support of the people in the affected area.

Sandra Steingraber Speaks Out Against Fracking: Waste Hearing 12-12-11

2011-12-13T08:52:00.000-08:00

Starhawk at Occupy this Week in NYC

2011-12-12T01:55:00.000-08:00

Starhawk's Schedule:

Mon. Dec 12, 2:00 – 5:00 Collaborative Groups, training by Starhawk. We will look at issues of power, group conflict and facilitation for horizontal organizing. Location: 16 Beaver St.

Tues. Dec 13, 10:00 AM – 1:00, Deconstructing Empire, Building for the Long Haul offered by Starhawk and Lisa Fithian this session will explore strategic nonviolent action; how we might topple the pillars of empire and build a sustainable and liberating culture while doing it! Location: 16 Beaver St.

Tues. Dec 13, 3:00 – 5:00, Healing Communities: Teach-In and Ritual with Starhawk. Understanding how trauma affects our work and how we might begin the healing needed to free us all. Location: Liberty Plaza

Read more here:

http://www.terraspheres.com/blogs/starhawk-at-occupy-new-york-city-this-week

wild things

2011-12-11T10:55:00.000-08:00

she wanted to watch him dance
like the elephants
his teeth were capped very white
as he swayed back and forth

she did not dress to please him
so wild and unkempt
her belly too soft
her body too old

she saw he still loved her

this earth this wounded earth
reeled again from another blow

this earth watched its heart ache
each horn ripped from itself

this earth

she wanted to stretch
across African
hills now enclosed

this earth no longer
this aching
this aching old lover's heart

a baby elephant watched
her mother
her father
the wounded
the blood
the tusk

just as the last tree falls

(Inspired by Deena Metzger)

A Call to the Environmental Movement and responding to Enough is Enough

2011-12-04T06:44:00.000-08:00

Helen Caldicott, pediatric physician, mother of the Nuclear Freeze Movement and founder of Physicians for Social Responsibility, writes that "Enough is Enough" for nuclear power after Fukushima in her New York Times Op Ed piece on Dec 2, 2011.

In the meantime, it turns out a core meltdown ate two thirds of the way through a containment vessel in Fukushima. Tepco says "their latest calculations showed the fuel inside the No. 1 reactor at the tsunami-hit plant could have melted entirely, dropping its casing and melting through the concrete containment vessel." This information comes now after repeated lies and denials since March 11 by Tepco and the Japanese government. As many have been saying all along, particularly mothers and concerned citizens in the Fukushima region, the nuclear disaster was and is much worse than the Japanese government or Tepco want(ed) to reveal.

Another possible cover-up: what about the story of Masao Yoshida , Chief of Operations of the Fukushima-Daiichi plant and the 'hero' who led the fight to bring the nuclear stations under control post 3-11? He has just been hospitalized for 'unknown health reasons'? Why such secrecy? Could it be-- after nine months of working in dangerous radioactive conditions, that Yoshida is ill because of exposure to these lethal materials? Do we have another cover up here, too? What are the poor Japanese people to believe? Why not just tell the truth, one way or another? Could it be that by admitting Yoshida has some radiation-related sickness, the government and Tepco would find themselves with hundreds of thousands of hysterical Fukushima residents on their hands who might demand, with no uncertainty, that they be evacuated?

Meanwhile, the US press remains largely mum about Fukushima, about nuclear energy in general. I wonder why it is that most Americans don't care or notice, or why they believe that our own nuclear reactors are safe.

There is some temporarily heartening news in England. Surprisingly, the House of Lords--determined recently that building new nuclear plants might not be such a good idea! They have put off building a proposed 10 new plants for a few years because, the plans "lack credibility" and economic efficiency. England has been staunchly pro-nuclear since the 1950s, so this is one hopeful sign.

Daily I ask myself--how to energize the general public on our environmental crises, how to wake them up to the dangers of nuclear power and weapons?

It's true, there are so many environmental problems before us. Probably it is just too daunting for many folks to take it all in. It is heartening that Americans have begun to wake up to Tar Sands, Fracking, and Toxics issues--and with Occupy, political awareness and concern in general is most certainly on the rise. Yet Climate Change and Global Warming remain ignored or dismissed by our government, as we are seeing in worldwide climate negotiations right now in Durban.

It isn't just the general public or the US government, though. The environmental movement in general (other than Greenpeace) has been relatively quiet, on nuclear, too. Why anti- nuclear power activism has not become a core project of the environmental movement right now, remains surprising to me. Maybe the key players are tired--spread thin enough already? Josh Fox, Sandra Steingraber and McKibben must be exhausted. Or is it that environmentalists are so compartmentalized (perhaps deliberately?); perhaps they focus on their own separate projects and in doing so hope to accomplish much in that single area? It's true, it is hard to take on everything, and we do need specialists who really know their stuff. Or is it that the global warming people--buttressed by the pro-nuclear power James Hansen-- believe that nuclear power is a solution to global warming? Have the climate folks divided the movement to some degree?

We need to come together. Environmentalists need to be on the same team. We have enough to do trying to keep the general public on target and our politicians voting for the earth.

What do we do to wake people up to the dangers of nuclear power? What do we do to change our ways in general--when we have so many environmental problems?

The nuclear power issue is complex.

It has to do with the military industry that has been brainwashing the world since the 1950s: Atoms for peace? Yeah, right.

Nuclear power plants make plutonium and other horrible radioactive material. Plutonium is used for nuclear bombs! This is hardly peaceful. Plutonium lasts for 250,000 years. We have tons of it sitting in pools throughout the U.S. Some of these are open and exposed. We have no means for safe disposal of this deadly material, and it sits just outside of metropolitan areas inhabited by millions --such as NYC. These plants are accidents waiting to happen--earthquakes, terrorist attacks, engineering problems that can lead to meltdowns. I, for one, don't like living 35 miles away from the equivalent of a possible nuclear bomb explosion. I love New York, and I don't want to see my fellow New Yorkers poisoned and killed, or see my region turned into a sacrifice zone.

There is also the problem of visibility and know-ability with it all. We come out of the Age of Enlightenment. We want empirical proof. We can't see toxins and radiation, so we think it can't be true that these poisons are responsible for our cancer epidemics, and a host of other diseases. In the case of global warming, unless you're living near glaciers, the rise in temperature seems remote. Okay, we've got a lot of storms. So what's a little wind and rain, a tornado, some flooding?

Look, we're all junkies. We like our comfortable modern lives. We're used to it and its all we know. We like our air conditioning, central heat, cars, airplanes, food flown in from all over the planet, computers, and shopping malls. We like believing the status quo and thinking everything is peachy keen. We're all addicts who don't want to admit we're sick, and yet on some level we know that all this addiction might not be so good for us in the long run. But, like addicts, we're so stuck, so self-destructive, so selfish, so narcissistic, that we don't care. We just want instant satisfaction now: more, more, more.

How do we get the monkey off our back? We need to figure it out, and fast, because while we're shooting up and nodding off, time is running out.

Yes, we have to get off of this addiction and fast. We have to.

Those of us who might be more aware and willing to get off the train or wagon--so to speak-- will have to learn a new way and create a polluters/consumers AA program for those are who are still lost.

We need a plan, we need a vision, and now.

Some of us are better about getting off the drug than others. It's our job to get to work to help each other.

First of all, I think we need an environmental movement that will unify all of our core "issues" into one umbrella. And, no, we can't work within the current ideology--because the capitalist system feeds off of our addiction. It's our dealer. It likes us addicted.

We need a plan that incorporates a sustainable and unified environmental vision. Such a vision would include a new way of being and thinking--a new sustainable ideology that is child-centric, earth-centric, and future generation-centric. How to begin to make this vision happen: anti-nuclear groups and the rest of the environmental movement need to work together to create 'solutions' to the enormous problems that face us. Trading oil for nuclear, or coal for nuclear, won't end well. Each of these forms of energy produces its own set of catastrophic results. We must shift to renewables: wind, solar, and geothermal. We have to look forward beyond the immediate moment--what will the earth look like in 100 years? 200 years? 500 years? How do we want to leave our home for our ancestors?

We need a strong and loving center for our environmental movement that will hold, and agreement among environmentalists to work together peacably, honorably, and lovingly. We need a roundtable council that includes everyone--even those who do not have voices--nonhuman species, biotic and nonbiotic-- and the dismissed/ignored/oppressed indigenous folk who know so much about earth and nature. These latter groups have much to teach Westernized and post-modern humans about earth care.

Environmental groups need to be careful not to be divisive or to undermine one another. We need revolutionary thought that embraces all living beings. In the spirit of Occupy and Gandhi and King, we need love. That love can be firm, but never hostile or violent. The reformation of our addiction must come with respect and validation for the earth and all beings. Saving the earth, preserving the beauty and wealth of this planet's resources, must come before economic profit. This new vision needs to be a national and international priority.

This plan must include the precautionary principle. We must remember that we all live downstream, as Steingraber teaches us. What we pollute will end up right back inside us. Always. We need to put safety and preservation before profit.

Here are some simple and immediate solutions that we should promote now: reduction of over all consumption and waste; widespread implementation of solar, wind and geothermal; improved recycling methods for every possible waste product; widespread construction of new and energy efficient rapid transit systems; and the promotion of strong and unified community living with localized production and consumption. Educate, educate, educate. One thing I know from teaching college: fewer people understand environmental degradation than we realize (those of us who know, already know). Once my students start reading and learning, their minds are forever changed.

Education is key. With increased education, anything is possible. We need new inventions in almost every area of our lives to increase efficiency and less waste.

We need to work with and educate educators, religious leaders and groups, civic organizers and groups, and politicians. We need to encourage environmentalists to become politicians and get them in office.

We junkies need help. We need crisis hot lines. We need detox centers.

Get outside in nature. Get active.

Activists need to articulate plans for renewable living loudly and clearly to the American public and the world. We must drown out the lies of corporate industries that have only one thing in mind: profit. They'll say anything to make money. They do not care if it kills us. If you think I'm crazy, remember the cigarette industry? Enough said.

Let the fun begin. What shall we call this AA? Eco-cide Addicts Anonymous?

Days like these

2011-11-29T17:28:00.000-08:00

So, today, one of my students grumbled and said, "I thought I was signing up for a literature and film class, but there's so much activism." I said, "Well, what are you going to do? I didn't plan it this way. There's a revolution going on this semester. Everyone we're reading is on the streets marching. Are we going to sit in here and talk about their work, or get out there and join them?"

What was our reading and viewing list? Starhawk, Bill McKibben, Terry Tempest Williams, Sandra Steingraber, Gasland, On the Beach, Mary Oliver, Wendell Berry (and lots more).... I mean.... we had to go to Occupy and the Fracking and Tar Sands rallies and DC and NYC. Most of my students were so fired up. They went to Trenton on their own, and to the Tar Sands protest outside the white house on their own, and to the anti-nuke rallies on their own.

Another student--this was the real kicker, countered, "oh no, the activism has been great. I am a Republican. This course woke me up and I can't go back to sleep. This is about saving the earth. Environmentalism has nothing to do with political parties! My husband doesn't recognize me anymore. The people I talk to don't get it right away, but then they do once I explain it to them..." She's a volunteer fire woman who has been out there stomping against Fracking to the fire departments in Long Island. When her fire chief said she couldn't talk about Fracking because it's "too political," she told him, "That's bull. When you guys talk Republican politics, that's not 'politics'?--but something environmental is too 'political'? No way!" Today, the fire was in her eyes....

Maybe she's the next Erin Brockavitch. I would not be surprised!

Days like these, I know I've found my calling. I'm in love.

So, whoever said reading books or watching films has to be passive? Many of the these writers and filmmakers I teach make you want to jump up and move the world. Josh Fox, for example, has a way of making his viewers into activists. I remember listening to him speak at a conference with a lot of flowery environmentalists who were waxing poetic about saving the earth, and he just said, "I think we need activism." McKibben has jumped off his own page. So have writers like Noami Klein, Noami Woolf, Sandra Steingraber, and others. Reading Starhawk makes me cry. These days her words in Fifth Sacred Thing are so deeply prescient. May we come to build a village such as she envisions... Occupy has that loving utopian spirit.

All I want to do is march, write, teach. (oops, and be a mom, too)

Addendum

2011-11-29T07:55:00.000-08:00

400 years later
a man with a camera
tells her
to stop eating
to start eating
to cover herself
to wear nothing
to wear everything
to stop talking
to talk more
to wear make up
to wear no make up
to shrivel
to expand
to work hard
to stop working
to clean
to clean better
to lay this way
to stop lying
to hide at night
to come out
to hate herself
to feel nothing
He then ate her
He was looking for a feminist

Thanksgiving Victories....and then some leftovers

2011-11-26T10:18:00.000-08:00

Some good things to be thankful for on the environmental front:

The US President put off the Tar Sands and the Keystone Pipeline XL decision--which Bill McKibben thinks will effectively kill the plan. Thanks to the thousands who have worked tirelessly on this issue at and with 350.org, a major victory was won. Thank you, in particular, to the leader on this one-- Bill McKibben (author of The End of Nature and Eaarth)--and thank you to all the activists!

The vote in Trenton, NJ, set to take place by the Delaware River Basin Commission on November 21, 2011, to allow for Fracking in the Delaware river region was postponed indefinitely-- thanks to the Delaware Governor Markell's letter of opposition to the commission stating that he would not vote in favor of the drilling. New York was opposed as well.

For this amazing action--a huge thanks goes to to Josh Fox -- the brilliant filmmaker of Gasland and tireless activist, for alerting the American public to the dangers of hydraulic fracking and spearheading "fractavisim"! Gasland is quite possibly the most important environmental film ever made--it has woken our nation up to the horrors of gas drilling and will save millions of lives. Thanks, also, to all the impassioned activists who have joined this battle--including the actor Mark Ruffalo, writer and biologist Sandra Steingraber, Bill McKibben, and the thousands of other activists who worked and work to save the water and lives in our region! The fight is not over yet, but we're on our way...

Fall, 2011, my Stony Brook students and all of us have experienced revolution in action--Occupy--energizing the environmental movement and changing the status quo. Many of my students went to the rallies for Tar Sands, Anti-Nuclear power and weapons, Occupy and Fracking, and they have written letters to the politicians, called and protested, and spread the environmental word in a myriad of ways. In all my years of teaching, I have never seen such positive action... It is so heartening to be teaching environmental literature and film at this time in history.

Marches, teach ins, sit ins in New York City and many cities throughout the U.S. have seen the revolution come alive. What the Occupy movement makes so clear: the sinking of our economy and the middle class, the growing rise in poverty, homelessness and hunger, the demise of our educational programs, the high cost and inaccessibility of medical benefits for so many, the destruction of our environment, and the lack of "community and connection"-- throughout the US, are systemic and interconnected crises. Capitalism benefits the 1% and too many of the 99% are in desperate straits, including planet earth. We've become nation of shoppers-- not creators, doers, thinkers, lovers, or good citizens. All that is changing now. Thank you to all the Occupiers who are working so hard, so joyously, and with love to build a more unified, healthy, and safe world and way of thinking for all! Unfortunately, and very sadly, police and University officials in some rallies (such as NYC, U.C. Davis and Penn State, among others) have responded with violence. This is horrific and unacceptable.

Fukushima and Nuclear Power/Radiation: the suffering and much denial continues in Japan by Tepco and the Japanese Government, and many Americans are clueless--we have 23 of the same nuclear plants here. GE MARK 1. Whistle blowers (engineers who worked for GE) Dale Bridenbaugh et al warned GE about the design flaws of the GE Mark 1 in the 1980s. Just a few google searches and I learned this easily. Why isn't the New York Times broadcasting this? What are we waiting for? Another accident here or elsewhere? Why don't Americans know this? Why are we not afraid right here in the U.S.A?

Notice how high cancer rates are since the 1950s. What changed post WWII? Two major industries were born and have taken root with a vengeance: chemical and nuclear. Since the mid-twentieth century, these industries have been producing and polluting a lethal combination of toxic materials. Our government does not control them, they control our government. Our bodies and planet are filled with this lethal combination of contamination and it continues to get worse. No wonder we're all so sick.

The nuclear industry will tell you there is no factual basis for linking 'much' cancer to low level exposures to nuclear leaks, etc, but this is because they don't want you to connect the obvious dots.... of course lower level radiation causes cancer. That is why we stopped giving x-rays except when they are absolutely necessary. That is why we don't x-ray fetuses. Epidemiologists, doctors, and scientists know this and have known this since the 1950s. Read the seminal work and studies of Dr. Alice Stewart, Dr. Rosalie Bertel, Dr. Helen Caldicott, Barry Commoners, Linus Pauling, Joe Mangano, among many others. The nuclear industry downplays the dangers of radiation leaks and exposures, double-speaks it, and creates doubt. Doubt, as in the climate change debate, causes Americans to get very sleepy and confused--which is precisely what the nuclear industry wants. Don't worry be happy. 'Clean nuclear energy', as in 'clean coal' is baloney. Neither are clean! Exactly how much radiation causes cancer, in whom, and when--is hard to prove, because scientists can't put people (or babies, children or pregnant women--who are the most vulnerable) in a laboratory and test them over the long term for low level exposures--so we don't have nice and neat peer reviewed studies on the subject to show the precise links. Just because we don't have exact numbers, however, does NOT make nuclear safe.

The people in Fukushima and many areas of Japan right now are, therefore, guinea pigs.

So, along with one of my heroes, Sandra Steingraber (author of Living Downstream), I'd rather that our children live in safety and precaution. I'd rather be safe than sorry. Animals can smell/sense danger--they don't need a data set or computer chart to prove to them their children are not safe. Mothers and fathers smell it right now in Japan. We need to heed this horrific event in Fukushima, take warning, and take action all over the world.

Stay tuned with the Safe Chemicals Act 2011, set to overhaul our chemical safety regulations in the US. Legislation was introduced in April and November. We'll see what the outcome is. To learn more and lend your voice, read about the bill introduced by Senators Lautenberg, Schumer, Boxer, Klobucher, here.

My students did projects on food just before Thanksgiving.... timely, but now, how to eat or buy anything. I forked out $80 for a local turkey and I was told it walked around outside, ate healthy food, and had a somewhat acceptable life for a turkey while it lived. Laugh, but watch a few movies on factory farming and you'll never feel the same way about eating meat again! I think it is time to go back to being a vegetarian.

Noticing it is way too warm outside this holiday. I like warm weather, but New York at 70 degrees in on Thanksgiving? As the nun says in the Madeleine stories when she senses mischief is afoot, "something is not right." Until last year, Thanksgiving was always frigid. Climate Change. Not good.

Tomorrow great environmental rally in NYC with all the big names speaking--Fox, McKibben, and Greg Palast....

Climate Day Rally. November 27 @NYC Washington Square, 2pm-5pm
Followed by a march to Liberty Square
Investigative journalist Greg Palast will prosecute BP for ecocide.
Day will also feature speakers Josh Fox and Bill McKibben, founder of 350.org

I'll be there...

Time to go for a hike!

How is my body like the land?

2011-11-20T10:40:00.000-08:00

A man lies on top of
woman/land

drinking and digging

sinking himself

planting his seed

Andrew Marvell

My America

John Donne

our jewels

Shakespeare

island madness

John Smith

virginia’s girl

Pizarro

gold and Malinche

Our breasts are mountains

Our blood/sea

Our womb/garden

Our hymen/boulder

400 years later

Industrial woman/body

blood fills with cancer

neck

spine

heart

--December, 2008

The Japanese Women As They Complete Their Sit-In In Tokyo

2011-11-06T13:07:00.000-08:00

Aileen Mioko Smith sent me this photograph of the final moments of the protest this week in Tokyo.

Alieen writes that the people in the photo above are saying:

Women Don't Need Nuclear Power!
女は原発いらないぞ～う！
Women Will Protect the Children!
女は子どもを守るぞ～う！
Women Will Change the World!
女は世界を変えるぞ～う！

The wool ball at in the center of the circle was woven by Fukushima women. It got so
long they encircled METI with it. Then women from all of Japan
continued to weave it until it became a huge ball. On the last day it was
changed into the earth and was born at 10:30am, Saturday, November 5th, 2011.
It is now traveling around Japan and will circle
the entire earth.

You can read more about the protest here.

In addition: please sign the petition to save the children of Fukushima. The mothers want the Japanese government to evacuate the children from dangerous areas of Fukushima city. Please help them by signing on.

Delivering the Petition to the Japanese consulate in NYC--Stop Spreading the Contaminated Rubble

2011-11-04T11:40:00.000-07:00

Oh the things we can do. I stood there with a bull horn on the streets of NYC saying that the children of Fukushima need to be evacuated and the transporting, burning and dumping of contaminated waste into Tokyo Bay must be halted. I've never imagined doing such a thing before, but it sure felt right. Right on the steps of the Japanese Consulate!

Tomoi Zeimer, Priscilla Star and I went up to the offices of the Japanese consulate on 49th and Park, but they would only listen to us in the hallway. Two male "robots" as Tomoi called them, stared at us while we read the petition to stop spreading the contaminated rubble. Then I launched in on why the children need to be evacuated beyond the twelve mile limit and how children are so much more vulnerable to getting cancer than men --and the standard by which "acceeptable" levels are determined are based on adult male bodies. What craziness. A fetus is far more susceptible and vulnerable to the dangers of radiation than a grown man. Who thinks these things up? I'm no medical genius, but these pregnant women and little kids and babies must be protected... Seems more than obvious.

Well, the Japanese male robots who work for the consulate just stood there. They were expressionless. They would have let us speak for hours. I don't even know if they speak English. They uttered no words.

A Japanese news station filmed us. Bianca Jagger has delivered her petition in London. Kim Roberson is delivering the petition in San Francisco on Nov. 7 at the Japanese Consulate, 50 Fremont St., San Francisco, at 9:30 am. A bunch of people all over the world are doing the same. You can see a short film of our afternoon here:

http://www.oneworldnonukes.org/One_World_No_Nukes/OCCUPY_Japanese_Consulate.html

Here is a great video of the Japanese women who are protesting right now for their children in Tokyo. There are sit-ins and peaceful protests taking place. Watch here:

http://www.greenpeace.org/usa/en/news-and-blogs/campaign-blog/send-your-message-of-solidarity-to-japanese-w/blog/37467/

Breaking News: This just in From Kim Roberson who delivered the petition today in San Francisco:

Hi everyone,

Sorry for the delay but I was sending our press release to the AP desk here in SF and following up with more info to the news station who filmed us this morning. I am assured that they will cover the story tonight on the news, and possibly a further story soon. Hopefully the AP will pick this up as a national story since FFAN was hard at work today on both coasts, with one group in SF presenting Tomoi's petition, plus Diane D'Arrigo and Cindy Foulkers presenting letters to Senator Feinstein and Boxer's top aides during meetings in DC. This happened almost simulataneously, PLUS Tomoi was being interviewed on local radio here. It felt synergistic for sure, in a good way!

Some details of our meeting, Tomoi your petition was presented this morning to Mr Iwata, Consul at the Japanese Consulate office. The experience was one that none of us here will ever forget. Mr. Iwata was very cordial and invited us into a room which had three men lining one wall and one man sitting next to him. Present also were activists Leslie de Taillandie, activist and author Cecile Pineda, activist and artist Kafre James, activist and artist Rachel Gertrude Johnson, activist and filmmaker Marybeth Brangan and yours truly were all present (Jim Heddle interviewed us all however was not given a pass into the meeting). I'll write in more detail soon of the actual exchanges but suffice to say that Mr. Iwata at one point had to force back tears as he spoke of his grandfather who, at 92, survived the earthquake however died in the tsunami. Rachel printed the petition in beautiful blue parchment paper and tied with a string and two yellow rose buds. We also delivered 18 yellow roses and 10 large sunflowers. We conveyed our condolences but were also firm in telling Mr. Iwata that the incineration will prove to be disasterous. He told us that he will contact the Tokyo office to convey our concerns.

My son is pretty active right now, need to go, but hope at least that this at least gives you an idea of our day.

take care,

Kim

Mama power!

Save the children of Japan from radiation- Worldwide petition led by Bianca Jagger

2011-11-01T15:10:00.000-07:00

New York City, NY - An international event is taking place on Wednesday November 2 , 2011. A
petition is being presented to Japanese Consulates and Embassies worldwide.

Remember Tomoi Zeimer and her beautiful baby whom I blogged about a little while ago? She's been working on her petition to stop the shipping of contaminated rubble to Tokyo (and burning and dumping it in Tokyo Bay). The petition also appeals to the Japanese goverment to protect the children of Japan by evacuating them from highly radioactive areas.

So, tomorrow, November 2, 2011, Tomoi Zeimer, Priscilla Star and I are going to deliver this petition to the Japanese Consulate in NYC. Bianca Jagger, Founder and Chair of the Bianca Jagger Human Rights Foundation, has lent her support and endorsement, and she's hand-delivering the petition in London, to the Embassy of Japan at 101-104 Piccadilly.

A group of powerful women in San Francisco, led by Kim Roberson, will be delivering the petition and protesting there as well.

Other cities participating include Paris, New Delhi, Hong Kong, Munich, Osaka, Washington DC.

The nuclear disaster at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant has poisoned the air, food supply, soil and
water. Small children have been tested and found to be contaminated with radiation. The Japanese
Government has not evacuated these children, instead they have the raised the limits of exposure. The
petition also addresses the spread of radioactive contamination. Tokyo has ofﬁcially agreed to accept
500,000 tons of radioactive disaster rubble. In a matter of days the ﬁrst shipment of 1,000 tons of
radioactive rubble will be delivered to Tokyo to be burned and dumped into the Tokyo Bay.

The world must insist the Japanese government protect the people, not the corporation TEPCO. Two academic journal reports released this month ﬁnd that the radiation fallout from the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant accident is bigger than that reported by the Japanese government and up to 30 times the amount stated by TEPCO.

In New York City the petition will be delivered to the Consulate-General of Japan at 3pm, located at
299 Park Ave, New York, NY. A peaceful sit-in will take place in front of the building from 11AM to
5PM.

New York City residents greatly concerned about the Indian Point nuclear plant which is located
only 25 miles from the Big Apple will also be in attendance. Residents have voiced concerns about the
accident prone facility and the similarities between TEPCO and the Entergy Corporation in regard to
irresponsible management and the failure to meet required safety measures. Legal contentions against
Entergy have been ﬁled in New York State regarding the relicensing of the aging plant for 20 years
beyond its engineered life. More information is available at the ofﬁcial website for the cause: ShutDownIndianPointNow.org

About the organizer of this event - One World No Nukes: “Through the arts, we aim to raise
awareness regarding the devastation in Fukushima and the ongoing effects of radiation throughout
Japan and the world. Our efforts include art exhibitions, screenings, lectures and performing arts.”

The GREEN MOVEMENT is ALIVE! Your presence is required!

2011-10-29T09:50:00.000-07:00

There is so much energy in the Green Movement right now and there are many opportunities to make a difference.

Here is a list of really important events that you can attend. You are needed, wanted, invited. It is fun, and it is important.

Bill McKibben says we can't beat the corporations out with money (they have more than we'll ever have), but we can show up and stand up with our bodies and voices. We are the 99%. We will be heard.

CLIMATE JUSTICE DAY, SUNDAY, OCTOBER 30, 2011 at Occupy in NYC

Please help build this movement and engage with activists.

Sunday's activities begin at 11AM inside the Atrium at 60 Wall Street (East of Broadway), Subway: # 2,3,4,5 to Wall St.

SCHEDULE: Climate Justice Day #1

11-12:30 Panel Discussion: (60 Wall St Atrium) Nightmare on Wall St: Capitalism and the Roots of the Ecological Crisis, Shut Down Indian Point

12:30-1:00 Lunch

TEACH-INs (Liberty Square, East Stairs, by Red Sculpture)

1:00-2:00 Mountain Top Removal/Coal Mining Tar Sands Action, Beehive Collective

2:00-3:00 Fracking UFA, Frack Action, Gasland, Clare Donohue

3:00-4:00 Nuclear Shut Down Indian Point, Todos Somos Japon, Eco-Logic, Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, Indian Point Safe Energy Coalition

4:00-5:00 Tar Sands Tar Sands Action

5:00-6:00 Renewable Energy NYU Prof. Lisa DiCaprio, Michael Roche

6:00-7:00 Closing Remarks / Next Steps Josh Fox, Joshua Kahn Russell, Ken Gale, Gusti Swartz

November 2, 3 pm NYC Japanese Consulate--anti-nuclear and #Occupy Event. Stop the Spreading of Contaminated Rubble in Japan. 299 Park Ave # 19 New York, NY 10171-0025
A Japanese mother in the U.S. is organizing a protest to stop the spreading, incinerating and dumping of contaminated rubble in Tokyo Bay. She is delivering a petition (with thousands of signatures on it) to halt this action to the Japanese Consulate. The event is being staged as an Occupy protest. On the same day, Bianca Jagger is carrying this petition to the Japanese Consulate in London, and a group being led by Kim Roberson (kimroberson@hotmail.com) are planning a similar action in San Francisco. (If you wish to join or help Kim, feel frree to contact her directly). Join us in this Occupy Protest in NYC. I will be there! Sign the petition to stop the spreading of contaminated rubble here.

November 6: Tar Sands Action Day in Washington DC:

This is a critical Action! We need you in D.C.!

We will encircle the whole White House to ask President Obama to reject Keystone XL and live up to his promise to free us from the tyranny of oil. In doing so, we want to remind him of the power of the movement that he rode to the White House in 2008. This is bigger than any one person - President or no - and we will carry on, with or without him.

We'll be getting started at around 2 pm, and finishing up early evening. We'll be carrying signs with Obama's own words to show him we haven't forgotten his promises. Sign up here to the Tar Sands Action in DC to push President Obama to stop the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline. All the information you need is at this link.

November 21st Stop Fracking on the Delaware Action (Trenton, NJ)

This is a crucial day for fracking legislation in the New York, NJ, and Delaware.
November 21, 2011, the Delaware River Basin Commission made up of four governors from New York, New Jersey, Delaware and Pennsylvania and a federal agent will meet in West Trenton to vote on whether or not to allow fracking in the Delaware River Basin, the drinking water source for over 15 million people in the region. This will immediately impact the drinking water of 1.5million people in Philadelphia. Be present on November 21! 9:15 AM — 12:00 PM, New Jersey War Memorial, 1 Memorial Drive Trenton, N.J.

We need you there at 9:15 am to protest fracking. There are buses and ride shares planned as explained in the following link: If you want to go, sign up here.

If you can't go to this action-- call, write letters, or sign the anti-fracking petition at this link (phone numbers and contact information are at this link as well). Also, especially important for New York Residents, write a hand-written letter to Governor Cuomo at this link. New York is in the brink of starting major fracking upstate, and this will pollute our water, air, and destroy beautiful upstate areas forever. It will impact the water safety of NYC city and more. Tell Cuomo you are opposed! Hand-written letters are proven to make a much stronger impact on your politicians. They view a hand-written letter as real vote. Get others to write a letter, too!

Risk

2011-10-24T06:57:00.000-07:00

Japan's children, radiation and women, and Blind

2011-10-23T10:02:00.000-07:00

The powerful sci-fi short film, Blind, posted below, expresses the terrible sense of anxiety and trauma that the Japanese are experiencing about the radioactive contamination in Japan after 3/11 and the Fukushima nuclear catastrophe. The focus of the film is clearly on children and mothers.

Notably, this issue of how to protect children and mothers from the radioactive contamination is hitting the Japanese most forcibly.

It is well known that fetuses and children are the most vulnerable to the dangers of radioactive contamination. Ionizing radiation harms children more because: "first, smaller body mass results in a higher dose from a given level of radiation; second, since a growing child's cells divide rapidly, their DNA is more exposed and vulnerable to damage from

radiation."

A recent study has found that women are 50% more susceptible to getting cancer from radioactive exposure than men. "The data is startling; the fact that it has been un-reported, including by the National Academy itself, is shocking. The data shows a consistent fifty percent higher cancer incidence and also cancer death in women compared to men. A disproportionate impact

at that level is stunning. More research is warranted and action is needed now to ensure that the vulnerable are protected," said Mary Olson, NIRS Staff Biologist. "Let us be clear: radiation causes disease and death in men; the same rate of exposure causes more harm to women. The Precautionary Principle dictates that we protect first, study second."

So, the fear for mothers and children is a very real and frightening one.

Of major concern: The Japanese government has raised the "acceptable" levels of radioactive exposure and so many families have not been evacuated from areas that are known to be highly contaminated. 300,000 children in the Fukushima area are attending schools that are contaminated. Families that leave these areas are not compensated for their losses (homes and jobs) and so many cannot afford to do so--and they remain. Communities and families are divided about what to do and how to survive.

Now many hot spots are being discovered in Tokyo, and the Japanese government has a plan to spread contaminated rubble by moving it to Tokyo and other locations, incinerating and dumping it in Tokyo Bay. Japanese mothers are distraught by this new plan and have been staging protests. One Japanese mother, Tomoi Zeimer, who is strongly opposed to the incinerating and dumping of rubble in Japan, has created a petition to demand that the government give up their plan. Zeimer, along with many other green activists, believes that spreading the rubble, burning and dumping it will cause further contamination and endanger even more children. Please sign her petition here and pass this urgent petition on to others!

Fracking the Finger Lakes: Speaker Sandra Steingraber

2011-10-21T10:55:00.000-07:00

Great explanation of the geology of the Finger Lakes and what fracking will do to the landscape, water, and earth.

2011-10-17T10:41:00.000-07:00

loss of friendship
(it ends with an angry email
such is post-modern life)

fall leaves fading colors
spiny skeletons remaining
there is the rage of
impatience
for/of others
when they do not
comply with your wishes
such sadness when others
do not give you what you
need or kiss for
such sadness when
you have been completely
misunderstood
when you open your heart
or body and hope
this will last, this kiss will stay
this friend will know us
just as they promised
but people are frail and
fractured
and speak
so many languages
and the walls between
are so thick
she says: you need a long leash
what strange words
'to be leashed to another'
the fall is coming on
then winter darkness
she says: the only women
who remain in love
are the cow-like ones
patient big thighs
heavy full udders
a scholar of the middle
east says it is a Jewish
thing: loss and betrayal
are the havdalah prayer
she says she regrets
the abortion and the child
who would have stayed
by her side

Helen Caldicott Interview October 2, 2011

2011-10-14T19:28:00.000-07:00

I have wanted to interview Helen Caldicott for two years, ever since I began my deep interest and research on anti-nuclear issues. Her name, image and ideas were part of my childhood. Both of my parents admired and were inspired by her-- as they worked hard as activists on issues of nuclear disarmament and nuclear freeze in the 1970s and 1980s.

Fukushima brought Helen Caldicott to New York recently. She spoke at the October 1, CAN anti-nuke rally, and again a week later at #Occupy #Wall Street. During her visit, I was fortunate to meet with Helen and video our talk.

Helen Caldicott is a medical doctor, mother of three, and grandmother of seven. She is a renowned author, founder of Physicians for Social Responsibility, and crusader for the safety of our planet.

Please listen to her moving and meaningful words. She is a brilliant environmental advocate and courageous leader of the anti-nuclear movement.

I feel grateful and honored to have spent this time with her.

Thank you, Helen.

As the situation in Fukushima grows more complicated in Japan, environmentalists worldwide are becoming more and more alarmed about the safety of nuclear power plants. In India there are massive protests to prevent the opening of new plants, Germany has vowed to shut down its nuclear plants, Switzerland and Italy have vowed to stay away from nuclear power, French citizens are expressing much opposition to nuclear power, and U.S. anti-nuclear activists are working hard to shut down our old and leaky reactors (many of which are of the same design as the Fukushima reactors). The radiation from Japan continues to spread around the country and the world. On the recent radioactive hotspots in Japan, see http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/15/world/asia/radioactive-hot-spots-in-tokyo-point-to-wider-problems.html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=tha22

In these troubled times, Helen's prophetic words are important to listen and take heed to. We must protect our planet.

You can find this article and other work of mine at: http://www.terraspheres.com/planet/helen-caldicott-interview-october-2-2011

The mothering dance

2011-10-09T18:36:00.000-07:00

Last night: Yom Kippur is over. I've fed a bunch of people and they've gone home and my daughter wants to curl up on the couch with me and watch a movie. She puts on Salt. She's a young teenager now, so it is 'sort of' okay for us to watch something violent. I really don't like violent movies: even the violence in Harry Potter bothers me. Maybe it was being raised by peaceniks. Our typical favorites are girl movies like My Big Fat Greek Wedding, Raising Helen, and film versions of Jane Austen books. My daughter still loves Cheaper By the Dozen. I can't convince her to watch my old favorite Kate Hepburn movies and other classics yet. I keep trying!

But we're hooked on Salt.

Was Angelina/Salt on the Russian side or the American? We had to know.

Angelina/Salt kills everyone and, like spider woman, she dances down the inner walls of the elevator shaft, bounces around and out of crashing cars, flips out of planes-- and never dies or gets seriously injured. Salt is a computerized-cartoon gumbie in a black wig. She's lighter than air, loaded with weapons, and bloody-faced. She just goes on killing and killing and I feel myself getting angrier and angrier. I tell my daughter we should turn off the movie, but we have to know. Whose side is Salt on? Salt goes on shooting, kicking, and cutting up men and it turns out she's going to stop the big bad Russians from starting a nuclear war. At the point at which they are in the situation room with the President, and he pulls out the "black box" and proceeds as if to destroy the planet, I cannot bear it. I cannot watch. My fear is far beyond the film, it fills every fiber of my being. It hurts me in a visceral way.

How many bombs do we have aimed at Russia right now? How many are aimed at us? Far, far, too many--thousands upon thousands. Why? The cold ward is over. It really, really angers me that the movie industry plays up such seriousness as entertainment. Maybe they are they playing it up on purpose in order to stir a sense of American patriotic need for yet more bombs? Has the military contributed to the making of the film? I know it is a ridiculous theory, but I am furious that Hollywood makes potential nuclear war look like fun. And, as a woman, Angelina should know better.

Life is not a video game, and yet it surely feels like it at times.

We've been watching all of this for so long.

We're all hyped up and scared, and yet not scared at all--numb, in denial, unable to feel anything unmediated by media, by technology. I think we move around in this hyper-tense hyper-real space of electrical buzzing that keeps us perpetually on edge. We have 900 friends online. We chat on the computer. We write emails all day. How many people do we actually speak to or make direct eye contact with? How do we measure connection? Are we so terrorized by a fear of death--annihilation-- that we choose denial?

Do we feel anything?

Have we forgotten how to love?

I suppose I should speak for myself.

I just wish those bombs would go away--that the atom had not been split. I wish for the mothers and children of Japan, that they didn't have to spend their days worried about thyroid cancer and leukemia, and broken DNA.

There are so many environmental crimes worldwide--too many to list here--and their impact on people, children, the poor, the indigenous--is so heartbreaking, appalling, shocking--and if we were to face it head on? Most people can't, won't, don't.

Is this widespread cultural denial, this shutting down of one's heart, a form of eco-trauma? I think so.

If we are in an ever-constant state of terror and avoidance--how can we feel anything? If we don't feel anything, how will we do anything to change what we're afraid of? By avoiding, denying, we remain passive, nonthinking, hyper-tense consumers. (Yippee, let's run to the mall!)

So we turn to figures like Salt--she can flip around and nothing ever happens. Her neck never breaks. People die, but so what. It's all 'not real'.

Still, I wish we could decommission all those nuclear bombs and power plants. Move entirely to solar, wind, geothermal. Stop drilling and fracking and poisoning. Ride bikes, get rid of cars, develop a viable mass transit system. Live in villages. Slow down, spend less, live simply, and take care of each other with kindness and love.

Are these futile wishes? I have to wish for them and envision a peaceful, beautiful planet and a happy people in a vibrant, toxically uncontaminated world--- a world where breast milk and amniotic fluid are not filled with hundreds or thousands of dangerous toxins. A world where the frogs don't change genders because of the overload of hormone disrupters in ponds and rivers. A world where we don't need geiger counters when we go grocery shopping. A world where cancer isn't the new cold. A world where the word environmental "sacrifice zone" is not known.

My choice: to live in terror, or to transform that fear and join a movement to build something beautiful.

I'll work to build something beautiful.

Come join me.

Green Tara

2011-10-06T12:48:00.000-07:00

the the hyper-real the the
ding, pop, electronic crickets
irradiated child on top of
radioactive ash
dreams of falling skies falling
bridges of people falling
bridges of falling people
souls dead in faux castles
marching sleeping movies
dreams of America screaming
crossing bridges arising
(to) voices voices voices
Robert Thurman
praying for the enemy's joy
Dick Cheney suckling
(of) green tara merging
Japanese mothers merging
screening movies bombs
about bombs bombs bombs
under the covers with my mother
watching about after
movies of after of days
my mother of atoms
the blue eyes of Helen Caldicott
(on) my screen in her hotel room
asking about my cancer
on the streets in my books
the bull of death the bed of my father
moving seamlessly between
image/self/real black and white
hyper/real real/hyper
Are you hyper she asks me?
All this makes me hyper I say
ding, pop, electronic crickets
green tara speaks
sings awakes me no hand
America sings the river of death
weeps a body bag
no father no cry
no more no more
she will hold you if you pray
om tare tuttare ture soha
oh these rivers oh
oh wonder of what becoming
oh America of thee I weep
"oh, the times, they are a stranging"
everybody's marching at me now
can they see
can they see
all this from the heavens?

Mothers, the Children of Japan, Anti-Nuclear Rallies: Wake Up Americans!

2011-10-03T16:55:00.000-07:00

Overwhelmed. Exhausted. I cannot think straight. As a writer, as a mother, as a professor, I have to be able to think clearly. What to do first? Write here? Write my academic article on anti-nuclear mothers in real life and film? Finish my book? Write for the popular press? Talk about it in my classroom? March? Protest on Wall Street? What about all of the other environmental problems: fracking, toxics, tar sands, species extinction? Ach!

In this piece, I want to share with you (among other things) the voices of the mothers and children of the Japanese Delegation. Sachiko Sato, a mother and organic farmer, and her children, Mina (13) and Yuuki (17), spoke in New York last week about their losses and the current disaster in Japan--their fears for the world at large. They came here--to NYC--to the U.N.-- to be speak out against nuclear power. The Japanese government is not listening, nor is the U.S government paying attention. You can watch and listen to the powerful testimonies of the Japanese Delegation here: http://politube.org/show/3285 This particular event took place on Friday, September 23, 2011.

I personally heard Sachiko and her children speak at the Gary Null event at the Ethical Culture Society, on Wednesday, September 21, 2011. I spoke with them at length after. The other important speakers at this event included: Gary Null, Harvey Wasserman, Vandana Shiva, Kevin Kamps, Greg Palast and Karl Grossman. Null showed his powerful anti-nuclear film: Knocking on the Devil's Door.

At this event, Sachiko Sato and her children told a heart wrenching story of all that they have lost--their farm, their friends and schools. They miss the "little" things like taking care of the chickens, and helping out at their mother's daycare center. Mina is sad that she will never get to sleep in the new bedroom that was being built for her. There are five children in the family and this was to be Mina's first private bedroom. They are isolated. Bereft. Lost. The children have been living alone since their mother whisked them away from their home to safety a few days after March 11, 2011. The Japanese delegation is calling on Americans to shut our plants down before we have a Fukishima disaster here.

All of these speakers addressed the problem of the greed, power and corruption of the nuclear industry worldwide. Null and others explained about the danger Indian Point poses to millions of New York City area residents. The plant is an easy target for attack by terrorists. It leaks. It is on a fault line. We have no evacuation plan if it should melt. It is only 25 miles from Manhattan--so millions of lives are at stake as well as the world economy. Yet the NRC wants to extend its date for closure! It makes no sense. What is wrong with our government?

Shiva explained how in India, the government has "land grabbed' beautiful fertile farms and dismissed local governmental decisions (and the will of the people) to ban the building of new nuclear plants. Thousands have been protesting (peacefully) in resistance to the building of such new plants. Many innocent citizens have been shot at and killed. In Koodankulam, protesters have at least temporarily stopped the opening of a new plant. I wrote more about this at Terraspheres.

Do we hear about the Indian protests in mainstream U.S. press? Not much.

Do we hear about the ongoing Japanese nuclear disaster in the U.S. press? Barely.

These talks and Null's film scared me terribly.

I also had the opportunity this past weekend, on October 1, 2011, to film/live-stream the C.A.N. anti-nuclear rally to Shut Down Indian Point. Many of the speakers were Japanese women, such as the mother Tomoi Zeimer, who a gave painful account of how scary it is for the families in Japan right now. Many Japanese parents can't find food for their children to eat, or safe water for their children to drink. School playgrounds are contaminated and whole communities are poisoned. The government is not evacuating their people from dangerous areas. It is horrifying. Helen Caldicott, my heroine, was the keynote speaker and she called out for U.S. citizens to stand up and say 'enough is enough'! I had a chance to interview Helen privately the next day. I will post my interview with her soon. She also spoke at the Occupy Wall Street rally last night. Helen is a brilliant Australian physician who has been a staunch anti-nuclear activist since the 1980s. She told me she feels obligated as a physician to save lives and this sense of duty drives her to be an anti-nuclear activist. She looks at nuclear radiation as a medical problem because she understands how it impacts human health. Caldicott says it is up to women to save this earth and to stop this madness. We have to find our voices, stop being afraid of speaking out, and stand up to the men who have their greedy fingers on the bomb, on nuclear power, and on other forms of environmental destruction.

I left this event and the October 1 CAN Rally concerned about the safety of where I live in Long Island--wondering if I should move away. One of the leading Japanese green activists, Aileen Mioko Smith, with whom I spoke after the event, gave me haunting advice. Aileen told me:

'When (not if) Indian Points melts, you won't be able to leave right away. There will be chaos. The roads will be flooded with people trying to escape and with nowhere to go. So keep plenty of water. Keep enough canned food to last a few weeks. If you have a basement, stay down there. When the roads clear, drive far, far away. You will be exposed to the radiation, but at least you will get away. You will never be able to go home again. The entire New York City region will be unsafe to live in for lifetimes. Thousands.'

I'm not moving anywhere just yet, but living downstream from Indian Point sure makes me stop and think. Of course, where would I go? Where is it really safe, anyway? There are nuclear power plants in so many places. There are toxic sites everywhere. Radiation and toxins travel. Rachel Carson taught us all that. The point isn't to run away--it is to stop ignoring the dangers and take action.

In case you don't know--23 US reactors are identical to those at Fukushima-Daiichi. The GE Mark 1 containment vessels (those in Fukushima and here) have serious design problems. GE has known about this since Dale Bridenbaugh and other engineers resigned over the design of the containment vessels in the 1980s. Why has our government ignored this information for all this time? Why have so many children been forced to suffer because of this criminal negligence?

Japan and the U.S. are silent on this issue. In Germany and other countries throughout Europe, nuclear plants are being shut down. Where can't Americans force the U.S. Government to abandon nukes as well?

I will leave you with some beautiful photographs, taken by my fourteen- year old daughter, of Tomoi Zeimer and the orphan baby she adopted from Ibaragi (next to Fukushima). Ibaragi is a highly contaminated area, full of hot spots. Tomoi spoke passionately at the rally about her fears for the people of Japan, for her baby's birth mother (who is in high school there), for her sisters, for the children who are suffering.... Tomoi worries, also, because many of the folks in Japan are in denial and she finds this to be "very spooky."

On the way home from the rally, my daughter asked me: "Mom, are we going to die?" I told this to Helen Caldicott the next day, and she said, "that is why we have to shut these 104 plants down. That is why we have to disarm our nuclear weapons."

Afterward: on the drive to work today, I heard from a good friend who met a young officer who works for the U.S. Navy. I will not name names. The officer is a nuclear physicist and an engineer. His job is to travel round the world to study levels of radiation in areas that are contaminated. He spent several months in Japan after March 11, 2011 and the Fukushima accident. He said the radiation levels were shockingly high--way off the charts. Yet the Japanese government covered it up, and said the wind would blow the 'small' amounts of radiation away! The government told their people it was nothing to worry about. They are still doing this. What about the American government? What about the rest of the world? This is an abomination and a crime of the highest order. And, it CAN happen here.

I am mortified. I am called to action. Please heed this call: get involved. Express your outrage. It is time to march.

Activists prevented Shoreham Nuclear Power Plant from going forward in Long Island. Andrea Merkel has vowed to decommission all nuclear plants in Germany. It can be done here.

We Shall Overcome. We MUST!

Eco-Warrior and My Heroine: Wangari Maathi Died Last Night

2011-09-26T14:57:00.000-07:00

Kenyan Dr. Wangari Maathai, the first woman from Africa to win the Nobel Peace Prize, and the first woman in East or Central Africa to hold a PhD, died late Sunday night after a battle with cancer. She was 71. She is survived by three children and one grandchild. Her death was a surprise to many.

Maathi is one of my most revered environmental and human rights heroines. Her beautiful, beaming face and many pictures and posters flank my office walls. I have read all of her books with deep fascination--especially her autobiography, Unbowed-- a story of tremendous courage, adversity and triumph. As a woman in a very patriarchal society, Maathi battled for her every achievement.

Maathi selflessly fought for the earth and the rights of women and children throughout her lifetime. Her Green Belt Movement helped to restore ravaged landscapes and has saved countless lives. The millions of trees women planted (yes, Maathi started her movement as a means to help the land and women and children), helped to restore soil quality (for farming and otherwise) and also provided firewood (fuel) for cooking, water, and heat. Maathi showed the world that planting trees is both empowering for women and it is good for the earth. So far, The Greenbelt Movement has planted over 40 million trees.

It wasn't always easy for Maathi. Not one bit. A brilliant and highly educated woman was not welcomed in her culture--not at first. During her lifetime, Maathi was brutally beaten by police, jailed, and she went through a nasty divorce with a husband who admitted to being quite displeased with her strength. Maathi wore a lot of hats--scientist, professor, mother, activist, environmentalist, writer, politician. She was and is a role model to all women everywhere.

In my teaching on environmentalism (I'm a professor of English, Sustainability, and Women's Studies), we read a lot of depressing information about environmental degradation, and about how human beings are driven to poverty and despair as a result of the ravaging of our earth and natural resources. In order to help my students learn that it is possible to successfully combat environmental degradation, in one of our class assignments, I ask that my students create research and presentation projects on an environmental hero. Of course, Maathi is one of the most important figures in this group of eco-warriors.

It is for this reason my office walls are covered with posters and pieces of art with Maathi's words, photographs, and images. These student projects are a testament to Maathi's strength, inspiration, and power.

She will be missed.

We should all plant trees in her honor.

To hear and see Maathi speak, watch here: http://greenbeltmovement.org/w.php?id=93
To learn more about Maathi, her life and work, see her Greenbelt Movement site: http://www.greenbeltmovement.org/w.php?id=59

Published originally at TerraSpheres: http://www.terraspheres.com/blogs/wangari-maathi-eco-warrior-and-human-rights-acivist-dies

TRAIN WRECK of an anti-environmental bill: TRAIN Act H.R. 2401

2011-09-25T19:37:00.000-07:00

This past week, the House of Representatives passed a shocking anti-environmental bill that stands in the way of two important public health safeguards against air pollution. The TRAIN Act H.R. 2401, spear-headed by the anti-environment Rep. Eric Cantor, blocks requirements that would limit mercury emissions from power plants and would limit pollution that travels across state lines. The act also endangers the health of all communities.

Many refer to the Train Act as a Train Wreck. How can our leaders put big business before the health of our children? Study after study links air quality to good health. The EPA's recent report, The Benefits and Costs of the Clean Air Act from 1990 to 2020, found that reducing air pollution through the Clean Air Act will save $2 trillion by 2020 and prevent over two hundred thousand deaths annually. Fortunately, the President has said he will veto the Train Act if it gets to his desk. Tell your senators to vote against the Train Act, and support President Obama in his promise to veto it!

Environmental and public health groups (as listed below) issued the following statement after the shocking House vote:

“We are heartened by the President’s strong stand against the TRAIN Act and against pollution with his promise to veto this dangerous legislation. His leadership will keep Americans from being forced to breathe smog and other dangerous air pollutants. We call on the U.S. Senate to stand strong and reject the TRAIN Act and its deadly impacts on public health. Hundreds of thousands of asthma attacks and heart attacks and tens of thousands of premature deaths can be prevented with common sense clean air safeguards proposed by the Environmental Protection Agency."

“The House today showed they have bought the false argument that we need to choose between protecting lives and creating jobs. Now we need the Senate and the President to protect our right to breathe.”

Environment America
Natural Resources Defense Council
Sierra Club
League of Conservation Voters
US Climate Action Network
League of Women Voters
Environmental Defense Fund
Earthjustice

Read more about the Train Act here: http://earthjustice.org/blog/2011-september/house-passes-train-actwreck

By Heidi Hutner. Original Post from: http://www.terraspheres.com/blogs/house-passes-shocking-anti-environment-train-act-or-train-wreck

The Japanese Delegation Speaks about the Fukishima Disaster

2011-09-21T07:20:00.000-07:00

This week in New York City, a delegation of families, farmers, and spokespersons from Japan has come to tell the story of the Fukishima disaster to the U.N. They are speaking, as well, at various public locations in NYC. They want to share their stories and tell the world, "It is time to stop nuclear power." I've listed the dates and times for these talks in my previous post on "Green Events." Tonight, I will hear them speak at the Ethical Culture Society (5-9), and I will share more about this afterwards.

The two countries that have not learned from the Fukishima disaster are Japan and the U.S.

In the U.S., we have 23 reactors that are identical to those that melted in Fukishima and some of our reactors are in precarious geological positions (faultlines) where they are threatened by future earthquakes.

Are we crazy?

What are we waiting for? It is time to mobilize and shut our plants down now. Our children's lives are at great risk.

The Japanese delegates speak here:

GREEN EVENTS 9-19-10-1 and a visit from Fukishima Families in NYC

2011-09-18T15:36:00.000-07:00

This is a busy time for anti-nuclear, fracking, climate change and other green activism. I’ve created a short list of green talks, rallies, and other events taking place mostly in NYC. You can find the “Green Events” list at the end of this blog piece. In future lists, I'll highlight events elsewhere as well.

For this week’s list, I’ve highlighted an important series of events including talks and discussions by a delegation of Japanese families who have been impacted negatively by the radiation released from the nuclear plant meltdowns in Fukishima since March 11, 2011. They are coming to the U.S. to share their stories. This week we have a rare opportunity to learn about this nuclear disaster from live, powerful first-hand accounts.

One of the speakers, Kaori Izumi--director of Shut Tomari-- states, “The immense suffering of people affected by the Fukushima-Daiichi disaster can only be given meaning if we now learn from this catastrophe and those that preceded it at Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Three Mile Island, Chernobyl and elsewhere.”

The delegation of families from Japan have come to NYC to appeal to the UN High Commission on Human Rights to recognize and address the plight of children in the Fukushima region. Many of these children were not evacuated far enough – or at all – out of harm’s way from the radiation contamination from the reactor meltdowns. The speakers also ask that the Fukushima disaster becomes a new opportunity for the world to shut down all nuclear power plants.

The members of the Japanese delegation include Sachiko Sato, an organic farmer from Fukushima and a board member of “Fukushima Network for Saving Children from Radiation” and her 13- and 17-year old children, Mina and Yuuki who will talk about the disruption and damage to their lives and livelihoods; Yukiko Anzai, a resident near the restarted Tomari reactor, who will talk about the fate of farmers after the meltdowns; Kaori Izumi, director of Shut-down Tomari, who will discuss the unhealthy and corrupting relationship between government, business, the media and pro-nuclear intellectuals and the Japanese judiciary. They also include Aileen Mioko Smith, Executive Director of Green Action and a veteran anti-nuclear campaigner in Japan who will speak about the plight of Japan’s children and the petition she submitted on their behalf to the UN.

Hearing the voices of the Japanese families is important to our understanding of the catastrophic events in Fukishima since March 11, 2011. As we consider the future of nuclear power in the U.S. and throughout the world, we need to understand the risks, dangers and realities of such disasters on local children, families, farms, economies, and more. Come listen to the families speak.

I will go and listen, and then I'll write.

*                *                *              *            *             *               *             *               *
Green Events (mostly in NYC):

--September 19, 2011 8:30 p.m. Busboys & Poets, Langston Room, 2021 V St, NW, Washington, DC. Tel: 202.387.7683. The Japanese Delegation will speak.

--Sep 21, 2011 5:00-9:00 pm. Ethical Culture Society, 2 West 64th Street at Central   Park West in New York City. Film showing of: Knocking on the Devil's Door: Our Deadly Nuclear Legacy, directed by Gary Null. Special presentations will be given by Gary Null, Harvey Wasserman, and the Japanese Delegation.   (tickets: $25; $15 for students).

--Sep 22, 2011 noon. Friends Meeting House, 15 Rutherford Place NYC.
Meeting with Delegation of Japanese families from Fukushima.

--Sep 22, 2011 2 pm. 250 Broadway City Council Hearing on Hydrofracking
16th Floor. NYC. Committee Room Revised Environmental Impact Statement Impact.

--Sept. 22 7-9:00 pm.   Cooper Union’s Great Hall 7 East 7th Street. NYC
Food Rights and Peace: An Evening with Frances Moore Lappe, Vandana Shiva, and Anna Lappe. (Free)

--Sep 23, 2011 7:00 pm.   Center for Remembrance Sharing, 123 4th Ave (2nd Floor) NYC
Meet and hear report from the Japanese Delegation from Fukishima.

--Sep 24, 2011 2:00 pm. Converging on UN 47th St & 1st Ave. NYC
Moving Planet: Bike/ Walk Rally opposing Climate Change, 350.org., Anti-nuclear Rally.

--Sept 25, 9:30-5:30pm.  26^th St @ Pier 46  NYC Friends of Clearwater Water Festival. Talks on nuclear power and fracking with Ken Gale (WBAI) and Chris Williams

--Oct 1, 2011 12:00-3 pm. Pier 95, 55th St & 12th Ave. NYC
Coalition Against Nukes in NYC (rallies taking place throughout the
U.S. locations listed here http://www.coalitionagainstnukes.org/) Anti-Nuclear Power Rally in NYC with Dr. Helen Caldicott, Harvey Wasserman, Karl Grossman, Alice Slater, Kevin Kamps, John Hall.

If you would like to suggest events to be included and posted in my future “Green Events” lists of happenings, email your requests to: hjhutner@gmail.com.

This post is available at TerraSpheres as well-- where I am editor (and a writer) of the environmental section called "Planet".

Celtic Voices

2011-09-14T15:49:00.000-07:00

It is relief not to want
not to want
instead to be content
with words
with wind
with waves
or a grey billed bird
with a red feather
on its head
preening
or the sound of a
neighbor's mandolin

at three am

windows wide

voices celtic clear
harmonizing
strings
these are the mysteries
that appear
so much better
than all that
wanting

The earth is falling on my head

2011-09-07T03:42:00.000-07:00

I love this image by my friend Chip Thomas, the wheat pasting photographer and medical doctor on the "Rez" in Shonto, AZ. It speaks volumes.

©chip thomas

September

2011-09-04T06:22:00.000-07:00

Sweet morning
writing

sleeping child
(she's taller now)

stories
remembering

all the ones who

died

remembering
all those
whose
fingers
playfully
touch/ed
poisons

who
wake to
Fukushima
(and everywhere)

Are we
sleeping?
listening?

there is birdsong
late summer crickets
patter of waking feet
drawers opening

the gift of a new day
the gift of solitude

A New Semester: Teaching Environmentalism and Living Through Irene the Hurricane

2011-08-31T12:28:00.000-07:00

So you think it only takes place in books and movies?

Two books I teach regularly deal with post-Apocalyptic narratives--Parable of the Sower (Octavia Butler) and Into the Forest (Jean Hegland). I spent the summer weeding through a few more: Kunstler's The Long Emergency, The World Made By Hand, and Atwood's Year of the Flood. I also spend much of my time contemplating nuclear disaster, climate change scenerios, and dire water predictions.

So, when a week ago my house rocked back and forth from the earthquake, and a few days later a tornado and hurricane struck my neighborhood-- and, in the middle of the night there was a large blast of sound and red in the trees behind my house that signalled "fire"--I fearfully wondered: what if?

What if?

I know one thing; I have no ability to survive in a world made by hand. I have no survival skills. If "it" happened right now-- my little family would be the first to go. I can't build a windmill, a generator, a house, or grow food. I don't recognize wild edible plants. I can't make fire. I am not prepared.

So, here I am. Long Island: 2011. In the first day post- storm, driving was risky. Many trees and electrical wires were down. They still are. The streets were pretty empty and there was/is no word about when the lights will come back on. Gas was scarce for a few days, so I stayed put. What was the point of leaving? After the storm ended, I charged my cell phone in my car and listened to the radio there. Most of the world seemed to be carrying on, and there was no information about our burn-out or predictions about when stuff would come back on. It's four days into post-Irene: and many of us still have no electricity, no internet, no landline phones, no warm water. Laundry is piling up. Our refrigerators are full of rotting food. Nobody seems to know when things will return to normal.

The libraries (the ones that are open) are jam packed with folks trying to work. I'm huddled in one now.

My university, where I teach, was open for business yesterday, though. So, while I might be camping at home, I needed to get there to teach my first class.

I left bright and early, hoping to get my syllabi printed out for my students and accomplish other work on my office computer. Plans thwarted: I got a flat on the way. The local tire stores didn't have electricity, so I had to drive quite a distance to get help on a lousy spare. It was nerve racking. Would I find something on time? Would I have a second flat? It took several hours to fix things, which meant that I arrived on campus with only five minutes to find my new classroom.

It isn't the end of the world. Not yet. So, I arrived with no syllabi to hand out. So what? I managed to text a student to ask her to pick up some films from the library I wanted to show. That worked. The students will get their syllabi copies in the next few days.

Still, it makes you think.

This event is a perfect one for our class topic of Environmental Literature and Film.

What if? And, why? And, how might we do things differently to prevent the worst from happening? How must we change the way we live and what we call "normal"?

---------------------------------------------------------

So here is something you can do right now:

Join the campaign to write a million letters to Governor Cuomo of NY to Ban Fracking (hard copies). Enlist others to do the same. All the information you need is at this link. Tomorrow, there will be a great film you can watch there, too:

www.amillionfrackingletters.com

Tar Sands Film by Josh Fox: What You Should Know and Why You Should Protest

2011-08-23T15:14:00.000-07:00

Tar Sands Action/ Josh Fox from JFOX on Vimeo.

Bill McKibben just out of jail... :

Song for the Ocean

2011-08-13T21:45:00.000-07:00

Speaking of ecology and interconnections: I saw Kristin Hoffman perform for the first time in Northport Village, NY and sang harmony with her on a Joni song a few months ago; then Carolyn Raffensperger posted this fabulous song of hers on FB (link above), and I watched and said, "Wow. I just met this woman! Small world!" Been thinking of Kristin ever since and wanting to reconnect with her somehow, and on my last morning at Omega Institute this past week, as I was chewing on my breakfast, Kristin walked by and I recognized her yet again. We huggged and she told me where she'll be playing this week back home. What a small and amazing world. When you want to see someone, just close your eyes, and there they are.

Take a listen to this gorgeous song Kristin wrote about our precious oceans.

A poem in Chronogram Magazine

2011-08-13T17:56:00.000-07:00

My poem, "Long Island Sound", is in the August, 2011 edition of Chronogram Magazine:

Long Island Sound

The same swans waiting
Year after year
long black beaked
We are still walking
Each time the sky is different
Orange, ridged in black
My arms floating
He prances up through the grass
Steps back in that moment
Criss-crossing the sand
He looks for me

You said she lay in your arms
Wind flowing through the promise of
Beautiful white breasts
Your hand across her small oval stone
Slices of blue on light
That crease and cause the fusion

Then, it all passes

Vanishing into the future of pregnancy and birth
Apocalypse

Others, tossing their sex into each other’s nets
Year after year, successfully loving
Successfully married couples, coupling

While the feeble fail
Skimming small waves
Licking the edge of sand
Licking the broken oar
A dark cloud rises

Omega: A goblin and many secrets

2011-08-11T08:43:00.000-07:00

Visiting Omega Institute in Rhinebeck, NY during family week: this morning I was startled by the tangled morning glories on a wooden fence. I miss them so; my yard at home won't host glories for some reason. When I lived in New York City, my window boxes were filled with them and they crawled up the sides of the old frames. I love that Omega has an organic vegetable garden at its center with young folks picking and digging and tending--slowly, in unison, as a perfect dance. For some reason I feel as if I'm in some futuristic science fiction ecofeminist novel--perhaps Woman on the Edge of Time. I am also reminded of places I've lived, visited, and loved~such as the berry land of the San Juan Islands and Celo Community.

Things I like:
1) the plantings--flowers, veggies, green
2) the kindness of people (they look in your eyes, stop and ask you how you are and really listen, and share honestly about themselves)
3) crazy hairdos (turbans, wildness, shaved heads, colorful scarves, dreadlocks)
4) flowing skirts and scarves
5) impulsive wild laughter
6) mixed ages--babies and the very old
7) mixed human cultures (I've been practicing my french)
8) tennis in the rain
9) teenagers wear antlers and pointy ears
10) spontaneous hugging
11) dancing, dancing, dancing
12) groundhogs
14) sunshine on the lake
15) the little forest people
16) singing pete seeger on the porch with Izzie on guitar with a host of folks~young, old, black, yellow and white
17) my daughter is a goblin with a sword of many secrets (they won the battle)
18) a startling show of masks and rock and roll

Oh glory that humans can dream up such fanciful beauty~

Oh glory that I am here~

Oh amazing grace how sweet you are~

My dream:
That we should all find and build sustainable, loving, beautiful communities to live and be in, in a permanent way (such as permanence goes!)~not just short term visits (although these are good for learning and rejuvenation). Oh, yes, we need to create and support human communities that contribute to, but do not drain, our planet's precious and gifts!

What is a new poem?

2011-08-06T15:32:00.001-07:00

I want to tell you about The Long Emergency

And talk to you of the vanishing bees

Just as I want to touch the crease and wrinkles
On the sides of your eyes

The slack aging skin of your jaw

And take you inside me

And hear of your protests at the Nevada Test Site

And listen to you tell me of prison

And inhale your chemistry lessons

Just as I tell you to look in my eyes

And speak of the two children in red

(Our children)

Each book I read has a reference

To the sea where you are now

Each day I move closer

To the light beneath the water

At night understanding more

Yet you do not know my days!

Or see my words!

You make love to others--

Do they read of the end of the world, too?

Do they read of the heat and the tar?

Do they read of the explosions in the desert?

Only I can know

As I go deeper into the carbon

And the fossil

And the shale

Who you are

Summer Reflections

2011-07-16T10:51:00.000-07:00

Environmental over-load and unfortunate sad stories. Three parents of my daughter's peers have died from cancer within the last two months. Lovely people. Devoted mothers and fathers. All under fifty. Another friend is dying of lung cancer. Another dear friend is doing well post breast cancer treatment (radiation). I just had a mole removed that might be melanoma. I'm scared. I'm hoping it is nothing, but I cannot help but worry. I'm also due for the full round of tests--colon, breast, blood. None of these tests are fun (blood being the least bothersome), but all are deeply nerve wracking and fear grips me right in the solar plexis. My mind races to the worst; unfortunately, I can see the outcome of these cancers quite vividly, as I have sat near too many bedsides of the dying.

The thing is: we all know so many people in the same situation, and we're all living in this kind of high intensity state of environmental fear. A perpetual eco trauma.

It is in moments like these that I don't like doing this work. When I'm in my own personal panic, I don't want to read about nuclear radiation in Japan poisoning children and leaking into the seas, or about toxics, fracking, tar sands, deforestation, and all the rest.

I want to escape into the world of Anne of Green Gables. I want to walk in the woods, throw off my clothes, jump into a pond of cool green water.

Maybe that is why I send my daughter to a camp that is from another time. They don't play competitive sports, or do computer art, or put on fancy plays, or get in buses and travel the country, or learn how to make robots. Instead, they farm, sleep outside, swim in the lake, cook in the kitchen. They make simple crafts in the woodshop. They put on on a play in a barn and wear costumes cobbled together by hand. They folk dance and sing. They go on a canoe trips and hike up a mountain or two or three.

Oh to a more simple time I long to go!

Fracking: Hydraulic Fracturing 101

2011-07-16T08:31:00.000-07:00

Fracking: Water Quality

2011-07-16T08:27:00.001-07:00

Fracking: Air Quality

2011-07-16T08:27:00.000-07:00

Red Riding Hood

2011-07-11T13:14:00.000-07:00

a hand in the dark
careful what you wish for
spoken only in sleep

wild storms wild love

you were covered in fur

tore
from me
that
crashing

what wound had you
carried
in your skin
what cancer burn

that love
sweet love

could
not
stick

Luminescent Motherhood

2011-07-05T19:28:00.000-07:00

Olivia sleeps with the light on

dreaming of horses and ice skates

throws herself upside down

on bruised knees kicking

arms locked around

this flat heart

I miss the nursing child

baby in the sling

gums on my chin

calling, Mama nuna

I thought when god gave

me a baby

she would stay

a baby

but she grows longer, longer, longer

when will she die

or leave me?

when will I die

or leave her?

have I left already?

would I feel such shyness

if I had had more children?

or if I had not

lost everything

including my

eyebrows and pubic hair?

or if my parents had

died happy deaths?

mother under serene white

lights hallow

nurse telling me to

rub her dry skin with lotion

feet peeling with disease

(for years) I could not bear to

touch or see her epidermis

waiting for my mother to die

too quickly in the ICU

asking for her other daughter

father broken head

big body no longer

wrapped but zipped and

carried off by stranger men--

after we so many hours, sung

Joel's rabid guitar

by the rivers of Babylon

where he sat down

and there he wept

how did the sun

do this?

do I cry out?

(what that spindly spider child

wove and dug

under my baby's skin

taking the prescient

precious red)

about my own cancer?

about such volumes of bluegrey bile?

Things we can do and places we can read about what to do....Optimism, focus, and effort

2011-06-30T07:20:00.000-07:00

Several readers and students have asked that I post positive information about what we can do to take care of ourselves and our planet and make it safer for our kids. Is this information on my blog too depressing? I'm not sure how else to tell this story other than to say--yes--it is very depressing and the only way it will stop being this way is if each of us becomes pro-active in combating environmental degradation. Things are bad, and they probably will get much worse....unless we do something about it. We all possess the power to change things around, but these changes will take effort and focus on all of our parts. We don't have much of a choice. We must participate in environmental activism, or the world will become uninhabitable for human beings and many other creatures. The time for laissez faire living is over. We have to fix things or our heirs will be left to struggle for survival in a hot, toxic, undrinkable and inedible soup.

"What will you do with your one precious life?" Mary Oliver asks us.

What can you do to make changes immediately in your own lives?

I'll make some suggestions.

1) Go to my list of news sites on the sidebar of this blog. I've listed many on Nuclear, Toxics, Climate Change, and other issues.

2) Greenpeace has up-to-date information on current legislation and pertinent information about toxics, global warming, and other environmental problems. Environmental Working Group is fantastic, also. Enviroblog (part of EWG) is great as well. Hit these and you'll go to their sites.

3) My favorite local activists (New York) are Patti and Doug Wood. They help towns and schools go green, and they are amazingly brilliant and generous with their time. If you live locally (as in New York City area), go listen to them talk! Their website is: http://www.grassrootsinfo.org/about.html. Their website offers excellent information about product safety, toxins, food, and so on. They are also on WBAI every other Tuesday evening at 8 p.m. Their show is called Green Street.

4) Read Silent Spring--Rachel Carson, The End of Nature, Eaarth--Bill McKibben, Living Downstream, Having Faith, and Raising Elijah-- Sandra Steingraber, The Long Emergency --Jay Howard Kunstler, Our Stolen Future--multiple authors. More suggestions to come.

5) Film suggestions coming up, but definitely watch Gasland, Fast Food Nation, The Cove, Rachel's Daughters, Homeland, and Food Inc. Standard oldie "popular culture" favorites: A Civil Action, Erin Brockavitch, Silkwood, and China Syndrome.

5) Andy Revkin at The New York Times has an enormous amount of information on Global Warming (primarily) and environmental issues. He keeps a blog called Dot Earth and all of his articles are superb. I recommend that you follow him!

6) Watch Annie Leonard's the Story of Stuff. You'll never look at the stuff you buy in the same way again. Hit the title and you'll go directly there. She's got a bunch of new "Stories" there as well...on bottled water, and more. Watch them and pass them along to others!

7) Pick one environmental issue (if you feel overwhelmed with the many problems at hand) and do something about it. Volunteer, stay on top of it and sign petitions, spread the word, tell your friends and family what you know and what they can do.
Key issues to focus on: toxic chemicals, global warming, fracking, nuclear power/bombs, Tar Sands, Coal/Mountaintop Removal.

The most important things you can do? Get informed. Get involved. Reduce, Reuse, Recycle. Buy less stuff! Educate yourself about the current state of the environment. Stop eating processed foods. Eat less or no meat (meat production is a major contributor to climate change and pollution). Drive less. Drive smaller cars. Don't use pesticides and chemicals on your lawn and plants! Buy or grow organic. Eat your vegetables. Don't eat out of or cook with plastic. Don't buy water-get a filter and a reusable water bottle. Use less electricity and gas/oil. Buy or make your own non-toxic cleaning products. Don't cook with non-stick pans. Don't put chemicals on your body (go to Cosmetics Database and find safe body products--this goes for men, too). Sign petitions to support environmental causes. Volunteer or work for environmental organizations! Tread lightly on the earth!

Send me your favorite suggestions and I'll post them!

More to come.... My exhaustive list of best environmental books to read.... Yes, I keep promising... it will come!

Lecture from UC Berkeley on Climate Change with some of my favorites

2011-06-23T15:20:00.000-07:00

Take a listen to these lectures on climate change from a UC Berkeley meeting on the environment (2009). Some of the speakers are among my favorites-- including the ecofeminist historian Carolyn Merchant (author of numerous books on environmentalism, such as The Death of Nature and Reinventing Eden), and Professor Timothy Morton from UC Davis (author of Ecology Without Nature and Ecological Thought). Morton speaks eloquently on the grief and abstraction associated with environmental degradation and global warming, and Merchant explains her important concept of a "partnership ethic" for sustainability.

http://ecologywithoutnature.blogspot.com/2011/06/creativity-in-face-of-climate-change.html

The Sea, part I

2011-06-05T07:27:00.000-07:00

A fierce open sky

impossible exacting clouds

majestic/crystalline edges

against grey and deep blue

a wide wide open ocean

the silence of an

unpeopled sea—

we stand on sand dollars
he says: 'walk here and

you will feel them'

I dive under and see:

layers of cream-white circles

softly rocking in cream sand
he tells a story of sharks

later we walk

not holding hands

he is just above my height

on the uneven beach

just there--

a changing rivulet

a sea of hermit crabs

herds and herds

emerging from their holes--

as he walks towards them

they scuttle away
in waves

'the beach is closing'

he says

‘we must go’

(what irony! closing for

whom? not the birds or crabs

or rivulets or sea)

we return to our place

quickly shake off

our blankets and bags--

rushing back to the car--

driving home in silent darkness

I wonder: 'what is it to fall in love?'

awakening in a fierce open sky

open wide in an open sea

sometimes shivering--

sometimes ecstatic--

noticing noticing

such small things as

sand dollars

beneath our

feet.

Part II.
In january, alone--
up north--
   it snows and snows --
I dig myself out (again)--
unfold the pages of my words:
what was this day at Fort De Soto beach?
what majestic clouds?
what scuttling crab?
what sacred white beneath my feet?
what ocean man?

Part III.
spring, spring light
my garden awakens
birds--blues and reds
the wonder
the joy
the birth
I know now--

It was
the wide wide open sea
   in me


October/10 and June/11

Just the other day... a little bit of Hydraulic Fracking on May 26th, 2011.

2011-06-01T20:46:00.000-07:00

I'm posting what Sandra Steingraber presented at the Hydraulic Fracking hearing in Albany on May 26th. She sent it to me with her blessing to pass it along to others. The material comes largely from her most recent book, Raising Elijah: Protecting Children in an Age of Environmental Crisis.

I traveled to Albany with my friend Patti Wood from Grassroots Environmental Education, who quietly organized this hearing, along with the help of Citizens Campaign for the Environment. A host of pediatricians and scientists spoke (Adam Law MD, Kevin-Chatham-Stephens MD, Larysa Dyrszka MD, Ronald Bishop PhD, Eric London MD, Amy Freeth MD--I won't mention the names of the three who were planted by the gas and oil industry), almost all arguing about the negative impact of fracking on the environment- including noise, air, and water pollution that will destroy communities throughout New York State. So much damage has been done throughout the U.S. in places where fracking has taken place. Josh Fox filmed. PBS interviewed Sandra.

Sandra sat behind me before she spoke. She was dressed in black. Sleek and grim, she carried a loaf of healthy-looking bread and a jar of water. We said our hellos. Sandra told me that fracking is "the single most important environmental issue on the table. If we don't stop this, we will all die."

As I listened to over six hours of testimonies from a host of experts--without any breaks for liquid or food--I felt shell shocked and numb. The politicians looked stupified. They appeared to feel just as I did. What kind of government allows its corporations to poison its citizens? How did we get to this point? How can we be such a stupid race of beings? What sense does it make to inject poisons into our water, to release radiation into our environment (through the fracturing of the shale--and otherwise, of course--here we are with Fukishima), or to pollute our pristine air? What mad, mad beings are we? For the first time, I felt glad to have only one child (me, the mama who always wanted more). What kind of earth are we leaving as a legacy to future generations? What kind of fools call this "natural gas" clean energy?

Grief.

Water is life.

The damage of fracking is irreversible.

Directly from the source.... a brilliant and heroic woman....

The Potential Health Impacts of Hydraulic Fracturing

Testimony before the New York State Assembly Standing Committees

on Environmental Conservation and Health

May 26, 2011

Sandra Steingraber, Ph.D.

Distinguished Scholar in Residence

Department of Environmental Studies

Ithaca College

Ithaca, New York 14850

Chairman Sweeney, Chairman Gottfried, and distinguished members of the committees:

Thank you for convening this hearing on a topic that is of urgent concern to all New Yorkers. Hydraulic fracturing relies on pressure, water, and high volumes of inherently toxic chemicals to shatter the bedrock beneath our feet and beneath our drinking water aquifers. Once shattered, the bedrock releases more than just bubbles of natural gas. The rock itself releases inherently toxic materials that have been bound together with the shale for 400 million of years. As we, in New York, consider whether to permit or prohibit this form of energy extraction, it is essential that we understand the possible consequences to public health as a prerequisite for making that decision. Once shale is shattered, it cannot be unshattered, nor groundwater unpoisoned.

Some of the chemicals used in hydraulic fracturing—or liberated by it—are carcinogens. Some are neurological poisons with suspected links to learning deficits in children. Some are asthma triggers. Some, especially the radioactive ones, are known to bioaccumulate in milk. Others are reproductive toxicants that can contribute to pregnancy loss. Cancer, miscarriage, learning disabilities, and asthma are not only devastating disorders, they are expensive. They add rocks to the pockets of our health care system and cripple productivity.[1] A recent analysis published in our nation’s preeminent public health journal, Health Affairs, estimates that we now spend $76.6 billion each year on health care for children exposed to toxic chemicals and air pollution.[2]

So it is right that we ask if hydraulic fracturing brings with it involuntary environmental exposures that may increase our disease burden here in New York. I applaud you for initiating this conversation. It feels like an historic moment.

My name is Sandra Steingraber. I’m a distinguished scholar in residence at Ithaca College, and my Ph.D. is in biology from the University of Michigan. More specifically, my training is in systems ecology, which means I’m interested in understanding how a dynamic web of direct and indirect interactions—from pollination to groundwater flow—helps shape the natural world.

Early on in my career as a biologist, I had a profound personal experience that led me to the work I do now, which is focused on understanding how the cumulative impacts of multiple environmental exposures to toxic chemicals create risks for human health.

At the age of 20, I was diagnosed with bladder cancer, a quintessential environmental cancer with well-established links to particular classes of chemicals. Questions about my possible chemical exposures posed to me by my own diagnosing physician led me, years later, to return to my hometown in Illinois and investigate an alleged cancer cluster there. Among other things, I discovered the presence of dry-cleaning fluid in the drinking water wells. That was a surprise because the underlying geology of the area should not have allowed toxic contamination to happen. But there it was. I came to appreciate how little we really know about the unmapped, subterranean landscape below our feet, which has intimate, unseen connections to the world above ground. It’s not just an inert lump of rock down there.

My investigation of the environmental links to cancer became the topic of my book Living Downstream, which was released last year as a documentary film. I’ve also published two books on pediatric environmental health, the most recent of which is Raising Elijah: Protecting Children in an Age of Environmental Crisis. The book’s final chapter addresses the potential health threats of hydraulic fracturing, and I’m pleased to share the results of my research with you.

I’ll begin by saying that a comprehensive study of the long-term, cumulative, public health impacts of fracking has not been done. However, we do know quite a lot about the risks to human health posed by some of the chemicals used in the process or released by it.

Health Effects from Air Pollution

Because breathing is our most ecological act—we inhale a pint of atmosphere with every breath—I’ll begin with air.

Air pollution is an inevitable consequence of horizontal hydrofracturing. It is not the outcome of a catastrophic accident. It is not a hypothetical risk. Compromised air quality is a certainty. Because four to nine million gallons of fresh water are required to frack a single well and because wells must cover the landscape for Marcellus shale development to be profitable, fracking is a shock and awe operation. 77,000 wells are envisioned for upstate New York alone.[3] Each well requires 1,000 truck trips. 77,000 times 1,000 equals a number with six zeroes after it. This represents a prodigious amount of diesel exhaust. And, of course, in addition to endless fleets of 18-wheelers, gas production requires generators, pumps, drill rigs, condensers and compressors, which also run on diesel. At the same time, the wellheads themselves vent volatile organic chemicals—such as benzene and toluene—that are themselves highly toxic and can combine with combustion byproducts to create smog.[4]

This kind of air pollution is lethal. It contains large amounts of ultrafine particles, soot, ozone, and the carcinogen benzo-a-pyrene. In adults, these pollutants are variously linked to bladder, lung, and breast cancer, stroke, diabetes, and premature death. In children, they are linked to premature birth, asthma, cognitive deficits, and stunted lung development.[5]

Again, this harm comes with economic costs. Premature birth, which is the leading cause of disability in the United States, carries $26 billion a year price tag. The direct and indirect costs of childhood asthma are $18 billion a year.[6]

What’s more, the airborne contaminants from gas drilling travel long distances, up to 200 miles.[7] That is to say, the health costs of drilling will be borne by children living in areas where no one is benefiting financially from land leases. Albany will be affected. So will New York City.

In the gas-producing areas of Utah and Wyoming, formerly pristine air now contains more ozone than downtown Los Angeles.[8] As the mother of a child with a history of asthma, this concerns me deeply. New York is not Wyoming. Our starting point here is not pristine, and our population density is much greater. The cumulative impact of the air pollution that would be generated by hydraulic fracturing and the air pollution already here in our state is a question that, I submit, requires investigation before any permits are issued.

Health Effects from Water Pollution

We are each of us in this room 65 percent water by weight. As such, we enjoy an exquisite communion not only with the atmosphere but with the water cycle, too.

Fracking turns millions of gallons of fresh water into poisonous flowback fluid that requires permanent disposal. The technology does not exist to turn this waste into drinkable water nor remove the radioactive isotopes. You cannot filter radioactivity. This much we know with certainty. The unfolding nuclear disaster in Japan illustrates the point.

We also know that there are many documented cases of surface and ground water contamination with compounds associated with gas extraction, including the carcinogen benzene.[9] However, because hydraulic fracturing has been granted the environmental equivalent of diplomatic immunity—and enjoys special exemptions from both the Clean Water Act and the Clean Drinking Water Act—it is difficult for those of us in the research community to quantify the public health consequences. Researchers lack knowledge about the behavior of groundwater, and, because of trade secrets, they also don’t know what chemicals to test for.[10]

We do know, from a study released earlier this month, that drinking water wells near gas extraction sites in Pennsylvania and New York have, on average, 17 times higher methane levels than wells located farther away.[11]

Other than possible explosions, what are the health consequences of drinking and inhaling methane? For pregnant women? For children? For anybody? We don’t know. Those studies have never been done. The federal government does not regulate methane in drinking water.

We do know that disinfection byproducts are created when water containing carbon-based contaminants is chlorinated. These include trihalomethanes, such as chloroform, which are, in fact, linked to both bladder and colon and cancers.[12] Can methane serve as a raw material for the creation of carcinogenic compounds during the disinfection of public drinking water? To my knowledge, we in the scientific community don’t have an answer to that question.

I have brought with me a jar of water from my kitchen tap in the village of Trumansburg, which comes from a municipal well sunk into a groundwater aquifer next to Cayuga Lake, where fracking fluid from Pennsylvania has been dumped. Every day, I pour this water into glasses and hand them to my children. Every day, this water becomes their blood plasma. It becomes their tears. It becomes their cerebral spinal fluid. According to the most recent annual Drinking Water Quality Report for my village, this water contains 29.2 parts per billion trihalomethanes. That’s not in violation of regulatory limits, but it’s worrisome as there is no documented safe threshold level of exposure. This water also contains nitrates, probably as the result of agricultural run-off. Their presence in this jar is, all by itself, not a call for alarm. But it is a sign that our municipal water, which draws from an unconfined aquifer, is vulnerable to chemical contamination. It shows that there exist hidden connections between the surface of the earth and the watery vaults of groundwater deep beneath our feet.

What would happen to this water if the fields that surround my village—many of which are already leased to gas industry—become a staging ground for fossil fuel extraction?

This is not a hydrological experiment that I am interested in running.

Impact on Food

I have also brought with me a loaf of bread and a bag of flour. Both are made from organic heirloom wheat and rye that is grown in my home county and milled right in my village. You can find similar loaves of artisanal bread—made from this same flour—in Brooklyn bakeries. This particular loaf was created by Stefan Senders of the Wide Awake Bakery in Mecklenburg, New York. Baker Senders asked me to submit this loaf as his personal testimony to the Assembly today. And it comes with a message:

“Please tell the committees that bread is mostly water. The flour and the yeast are just a matrix to make water stand up. I can’t bake bread without a source of clean water.”

He also told me that the farmers who grew the organic wheat to make his flour are surrounded by leased land. He believes whole farm-to-table enterprise is threatened by fracking.

Baker Stefan and his suppliers have reason to feel concern. Organic farmers who raise food near fracking operations are facing potential boycotts and will lose their certification if their crops and animals are chemically contaminated.

Upstate New York was recently identified by the New York Times as a national hotspot for organic agriculture, which itself is the most rapidly expanding sector of the food production system that has continued to grow even during the economic downturn.[13] Cows, wheat fields, vineyards, maple syrup, and apple orchards: they are all part of a healthy human food chain. They all require clean water, and they are all affected badly by exposure to air pollution.

Of course, public health is also served by employment opportunities in the form of non-toxic jobs. The above-mentioned mill and bakery are currently hiring. They both have plans to grow their businesses as demand for locally produced, organic bread is rising. The grain farmers, too, are seeking additional land. However, as baker Stefan Senders informs me, concern about the area gas leases and the possible end of the current state moratorium on horizontal drilling have negatively affected plans for locally expanding organic wheat agriculture and artisanal bread baking. This raises a question: is the human health of New York best served by jobs that involve organic bread production or fossil fuel extraction?

Conclusions

I fervently hope that these hearings are the beginning, not the end, of an essential conversation. In its current incarnation, the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation’s draft Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement—on which the future of hydraulic fracturing hangs—considers neither human health consequences nor the cumulative impacts of the numerous hazards that gas drilling has brought to our doors.

The human health impacts of fracking cannot be understood by looking at one chemical exposure by itself, one river at a time, one well pad in isolation. We all know that it is not just the last straw that breaks the backs of camels. I urge the Assembly to look at the all straws, employing the new tools of cumulative impacts assessment to do so.[14] Until that work is complete, benefit of the doubt goes to New York’s children, water, cows, and wheat fields, not to things that threaten them.

[1] President’s Cancer Panel, Reducing Environmental Cancer Risk: What We Can Do Now, 2008-2009 Annual Report (National Cancer Institute, May 2010)

[2] L. Trasande and Y. Lui, “Reducing the Staggering Costs of Environmental Disease in Children, Estimated at $76.6 Billion in 2008,” Health Affairs 30 (5): 863-70, 5 May 2011.

[3] This estimate is based on assumptions about how much of the shale will be tapped over what period of time. 77,000 wells assumes that 17 New York State counties are drilled and that the shale is 70 percent developed over 50 years at a density of eight wells per square mile. T. Engelder, “Marcellus 2008 Report Card on the Breakout Year for Gas Production in the Appalachian Basin,” Forth Worth Basin Oil and Gas Magazine, Aug. 2009, pp. 18-22, and Anthony Ingraffea, Ph.D., personal communication.

[4] C.D. Volz et al., “Potential Shale Gas Extraction Air Pollution Impacts,” FracTracker—Marcellus Shale Data Tracking, Foundation for Pennsylvania Watersheds, 24 Aug. 2010.

[5] American Lung Association, “Health Effects of Ozone and Particle Pollution,” State of the Air, 2011; President’s Cancer Panel, Reducing Environmental Cancer Risk: What We Can Do Now, 2008-2009 Annual Report (National Cancer Institute, May 2010).

[6] American Lung Association, Asthma and Children Fact Sheet, Feb. 2010; J.M. Perrin et al., “The Increase of Childhood Chronic Conditions in the United States,” Journal of the American Medical Association 297 (2007); U.S. Centers for Disease Control, Summary Health Statistics for U.S. Children: National Health Interview Survey, 2006 and “Premature Birth,” 2010.

[7] S. Kemball-Cook et al., “Ozone Impacts of Natural Gas Development in the Haynseville Shale,” Environmental Science and Technology 15 (2010): 9357-63.

[8] M. Bernard, “Air Pollution Becoming a Basin Concern,” Vernal Express, 5 Oct. 2010; D.M. Kargbo et al., “Natural Gas Plays in the Marcellus Shale: Challenges and Potential Opportunities,” Environmental Science & Technology 44 (2010): 5679-84.

[9] A. Lustgarten and ProPublica, “Drill for Gas, Pollute the Water,” Scientific American, 17 Nov. 2008.

[10] For example, U.S. Agency for Toxics Substances and Disease Registry, Evaluation of Contaminants in Private Residential Well Water, Pavillion, Wyoming, Fremont County, August 2010.

[11] S.G. Osborne et al., “Methane Contamination of Drinking Water Accompanying Gas-Well Drilling and Hydraulic Fracturing,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, May 2011, epub before print.

[12] R.D. Morris et al., “Chlorination, Chlorination By-products and Cancer: A Meta-analysis,” American Journal of Public Health 82 (1992); H.W. Weinberg et al., “Disinfection By-Products (DBPs) of Health Concern in Drinking Water: Results of a Nationwide DBP Occurrence Study (Athens, GA: EPA National Exposure Research Laboratory, 2002).

[13] H. Fairfield, “The Hot Spots for Organic Food,” New York Times, 3 May 2009.

[14] “Cumulative impacts” refers to the combined effect of numerous adverse impacts on public health or ecosystems from environmental hazards. The Science and Environmental Health Network has launched a new website that describes the latest science on cumulative impacts assessment: www.cumulativeimpacts.org.

A mother and son were checked for radiation exposure in Fukushima

2011-04-07T18:45:00.000-07:00

Fukushima Mother of worker: 'They Have Accepted They Will All Probably Die’

     Japan nuclear crisis: Mothers-to-be flee Fukushima leak after        radiation alert

    Banker Matt Saunderson, 33 - among Brits determined to get      families clear - said: "I'm sending my wife and children home. "It doesn't matter what the Japanese authorities are saying - when it comes to nuclear fallout, or the risk of it, I'm not taking chances with my kids."

Tragic ... grief-stricken Yoshie Murakami reaches out to hold her mother's hand after finding her dead in the rubble - her 23-year-old daughter is also missing Milk contaminated A Mother and Son
were checked for radiation exposure

GET OUT OF TOKYO NOW

Water contaminated unsafe for babies

Mothers for Peace on alert

Preparing for my talk on nuclear bomb films, mothers, and activism

2011-04-05T09:52:00.000-07:00

I am going to NEMLA (Northeast Modern Language Association) at the end of this week to speak on an environmental literature and film panel. My topic is on the nuclear mothers, activism and film. The time allotted to me to speak is fifteen minutes! It seems absurd. I can only begin a very simple discussion--how insane at this moment in time.

I am the only person at the conference talking about nuclear issues.

For the past two years, I've been in living in my own personal bubble of strange nuclear studies, trying to pull together science, feminism, ecology, mothering, film and literature. Watching movies in my dark living room through the afternoon and night. Taking notes. Reading books on nuclear history (not being a nuclear scientist by any stretch of the imagination, I have a lot of catch up work to do!). Reading up on nuclear activist history. Reading feminist histories of about the dangers and impact of nuclear destruction by Rebecca Solnit, Carole Gallagher, Susan Griffin, Helen Caldicott, and Terry Tempest Williams. Many of my friends want to hear nothing of my work, research or fears. Many think nothing of the dangers of nuclear bombs, and they love to argue with me that nuclear power is "clean." No one, except one of my wonderful graduate students, Nicole Buscemi-Garret, will watch the films from my collection with me. I'm sure Nicole watched only out of obligation!

Helen Caldicott describes this dismissal of the dangers we are under as an act of suicide. 40 hydrogen bombs are aimed at New York City; we have 60 aimed at Russia. Some crazy number of bombs are aimed at Washington, DC. A nuclear war started whether by human error, or intention, and life as we know it would be over, for good. Nuclear Winter. The nuclear plants in this country are old, leaking, and dangerous---many the same model as those of Japan's and we, too could have a natural disaster, or error, and Fukishima could happen here. Our government wants to keep these plants open; they want to loan 54 billion to the nuclear industry to build a bunch more; and, they plan to dig up and poison our precious earth to acquire more uranium. Vermont Yankee is an opportunity. If Vermont can manage to shut their leaking nuclear plant down, this may provide a model for other states to follow suit. Speaking of terrorism: if terrorists should hit one of our nuclear plants, the results would be devastating. Are we prepared for this? Caldicott says no.

Environmental friends, colleagues, so-called "experts"--oceanographers, climate change people (mostly men) tell me that nuclear isn't the "major" or "most important" environmental issue: it is global warming we should fear and focus on. Most of these folks say we need nuclear to stave off climate change. Some scoff at me when I mention my great admiration for Helen Caldicott. Some tell me she is a nut. They probably think I'm a nut, too.

Saving the planet seems worth being scoffed at. Saving the human race from cancer and other horrific diseases and genetic mutations is worth fighting for. I hope that our young people will wake up. My students are more active than ever, and with the Fukishima disaster, suddenly more folks are paying attention to the dangers at hand. Before the Japanese crisis of March 11, nuclear issues were absent from public discussion, and all but absent from the major environmental and activist conversation and actions. Of course groups like No Nukes NIRS, the Baby Tooth Project, and Caldicott's groups post their information and call for petitions, but they are separate and entities, set apart from the other major environmental groups such as Sierra Club, EDF, EWG, and even Greenpeace. Now, the dangers of nuclear power and bombs are back on the table and in the press. So, my friends, this is an important potential moment for radical change and awakening. Ears are perked a bit. Not surprisingly, the main voices that are speaking most pointedly against nuclear are such eco-feminist writers and thinkers as Susan Griffin, Carole Gallagher, Carolyn Raffensberger, Alyson Rose Levy, Vandana Shiva, Ira Helfand (and the Physicians for Social Responsibility), and of course Helen Caldicott. Quite strikingly, these are mostly female voices. The gender divide prevails on issues of war and bombs, and nuclear power. Why is this topic and problem so hard for people to contemplate and work to solve?

Friday, I'll talk. I don't know how much I can say in fifteen minutes, but I'll do my best.

Afterward, I will go back to my book and work on a nuclear activist vision with my female sisters. My parents were activists and their memory inspires me. My white Jewish mother and her sister-mother friends in Miami in the 1950s pushed their strollers into town hall and drank with their kids from the "negro" water fountain; mom and and dad and their friends housed freedom riders and supported boats to cuba during the cuban missile crisis. My mother refused to eat in a restaurant in North Carolina because my African American nanny could not join us; and mom took the train to Washington D.C. and fought to end above ground nuclear bomb testing, along with so many women from Women Strike for Peace. They were heard, because they were mothers. She worked at the Peace Center in Berkeley and taught methods of nonviolent protest to Mario Savio and the Berkeley students; my mom and dad took rocks from the Cubans who called them "communists" when protesting against nuclear power in South Florida, and so much more. My parents and their friends took political action. That was what made their lives worth living.

I have to find a way to put my own passion into more action. I worry, though: As a busy mother and professor, how and where will I find enough hours in the day to teach, write, grade, parent, and take care of the business of life, as well as take on an activist project of such large proportions? If I take on too much, how will this impact my mothering of my child? I am already stretched so thin. These are the same questions all working and/or environmental mothers must ask.

Here are a series of clips I recommend watching with a recent interview with Helen Caldicott; she fills in the blanks of what is at stake at the moment worldwide. Her hope is in our youth. Mine, too.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lcp9J5B7l3w&NR=1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C0RR6e-uySU&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=71O4ZpHV4ck&feature=related

A great explanation of what has happened (and is happening) at the Fukishima nuclear plants from If You Love This Planet:
http://ifyoulovethisplanet.org/audio/IYLTP%20-%20Ep%20125.mp3

Tears

2011-03-15T21:30:00.000-07:00

First there is heartbreak of the personal kind--familial, love, and this kept me from writing. It emptied me out for a while. Now there is heartbreak of a different sort--huge, vast, beyond comprehension--the death of thousands and thousands, disaster, nuclear madness.

It has been days and days of dismay. Sorrow for the Japanese. The news is profoundly alarming and everyone I meet is going on their merry way, barely noticing a country called Japan.

Nuclear madness--the words of Helen Caldicott.

I teach my classes and talk about safety and power, energy and sustainability, poetry and words. Ironically, we just watched Silkwood and we read Terry Tempest Williams' Refuge--a memoir of cancer, nuclear bombs and Mormon downwinders. To have this happen--to bring in newspaper clippings and have it all right in our faces--beyond shocking. Of course there is water and walls and cities crashing and people smothered and destroyed--too much to take in--too many of all the disaster movies I've been watching these past few years--about nuclear disaster, and climate disaster. The Day After, The Day After Tomorrow, all those last man on earth movies. Creepy. Haunting.

What would Rachel Carson say? Man's hubris?

Teaching is healing. My students--so many of them--innocent and yet not at all so. I do feel maternal with them. I never used to. Maybe I'm becoming more of a mother as I age, as my own daughter ages.

In the car tonight (oh oil--!), my daughter says, "In school they said nuclear energy is renewable. Is it renewable, mom?"

Is it renewable? How do I answer that question? I don't know where to begin.

It was a brief moment. (I keep listening to the radio--just an ear out to see if a plume will get to California where I have so many loved ones.)
Charlie--he's still in Japan--I keep checking his mom's facebook page to see if he's back yet, and feeling guilty that I can't do something.

I said, "Honey, we'll go home and study up on nuclear fission and nuclear plants. We'll talk about it. Together."

She asks, "Did they know there would be earthquakes?" Why yes, dear, they did.

Tonight I will not sleep.

Mama (papa) 2011

2011-03-15T21:21:00.000-07:00

Mama I hear you

I hear you screaming out

Helen Caldicott

I hear you laughing out

loud over

that

bottle of wine

that story

about Linus Pauling

Barry Commoner

that story

of baby teeth

strontium 90

You stood there taking

the rocks as they

called you dirty reds

while you tried to save

the world

pushing a baby stroller

warning

about

milk

babies

bomb shelters

"the fallacy of safety!"

there is

no (safe) place to hide

that, my friends, was the good old 1950s

tonight, oh mom,

what are you saying

from the sky?

are you shaking your head

in dismay as

radiation

spews

back in Japan where we blew them to hell?

dear god, they are saying: move

the children

away from

the melting plants!

but where

oh where

can they move

them to?

$54 billion in loans for more

of these fission monsters

and billions more for modernizing

bombs

digging up more uranium

from our mother earth

building more monsters

spewing more poisons

cancering and monstering

us all

there are a few of us talking

shaking our heads-

(mostly women)

why always women?

talking only to ourselves?

most are sleeping

and having a nuclear love affair---

tonight I took a walk and looked at the sky

tonight I looked in the monk's eyes

there were pools of love

words of compassion

for the Japanese

there were pools

of love

at the monastery

on the hill

Winter

2011-01-06T20:09:00.001-08:00

It is winter. Last week, at the end of the holiday season, it snowed. It was a large storm and all was immobilized in New York. There was so much silence. The streets and lawns and waters were covered with snow and ice. The mayor of New York vanished and the streets of the city were filled and filled with angelic whiteness. Winter swallowed up human activity. In the suburbs, we peered out from our windows at the angry storm. The wind raged. As the wind slowed on the second day, snow covered everything—a mountainous heavy covering. Slowly, we (suburbanites) emerged from our warm shelters and began shoveling. It took hours. The snow was deep and wet and thick. Our backs ached when we had done with clearing our driveways and porches and stairs. We returned to our warm shelters and lit fires and read books and thought about how winter changes everything. In winter, we become internal creatures. We return to the selves we were before the warm summer—dark and pensive and inward. How wonderful it is to have seasons. How simple and bland must it be to live in a place of single or only mildly different seasons. For those of us who go from a hot green summer to dark cold winter again and again, we experience death and rebirth in profound ways. We get to be different people living in vastly different worlds—in summer, we are outgoing and free, corporeal and lush and sensual; in winter—our bodies quiet and our minds become ethereal and wordy things.

Summer now seems like a dream.

Heart of the Goddess

2010-12-31T06:30:00.000-08:00

Receiving the Goddess: A Call to Feminist Activism and Leadership

2010-10-02T13:07:00.000-07:00

Last weekend, I attended the Omega Institute's Women and Power: Our Time to Lead Conference, in Rhinebeck, New York.

I was fortunate to have been given scholarships by Omega to bring six students to attend this conference. Cherica, Saajida, Noelle, Janice, Sonia, and Anna are all passionate about ecofeminism, feminism, and/or women's history. They are intense, smart, thoughtful, humble and loving people with high ambitions for their lives. The were so excited to join me; they each soaked up every bit of the weekend--from rowing on the lake (for several of them this was a first), to hiking, to taking yoga classes, to listening and considering all of what the speakers shared in their stories. Several of them have spent little to no time in nature or in the country--so just getting out of the New York metropolitan area and into the beauty of the fall colors and the gardens, paths, and lake of the Omega campus, was eye opening. It was an honor to share the special weekend in the country and the call for feminist change and power with them.

The conference organizers want/ed to raise our awareness about the denigration and violation of women worldwide. More importantly, they call/ed on each of us to become leaders and activists in a woman's movement to end violence, to end war, to end world hunger, to end the denigration of our environment, to end religious divisiveness and hatred, to end racism, and more. Thus, bringing young and impressionable women to learn from the feminist activist speakers, was a crucial component of the conference.

The speakers at Women and Power included women who have established proactive women's organizations worldwide--such as Zainab Salibi's Women for Women, Jensine Larsen's World Pulse and Pulse Wire, and Malika Saada Saar's The Rebecca Project . These organizations successfully work to combat the trafficking, abuse and rape of girls and women everywhere. (As an important aside, I urge you, as readers, to go to the links above and learn more about and help these organizations. Sponsor a Woman, which is part of Salbi's Women for Women, for example, is an easy and important way to help desperate women war survivors. ) Other speakers, such as Mae Jemison, Pat Mitchell, Leymah Gboweer, and Gail Collins, spoke about women's and feminist history, the need for creating women's social and media networks (so that women's voices and needs can be heard and served), and they gave inspiring accounts of extraordinary female intellectual, political, and scientific accomplishments. All of these moving stories were interwoven with the rocking music of Retumba and Ani Defranco, as well as with movement, yoga, and meditation.

There is so much to say about all of the speeches and talks from the weekend--too much to write in one blog entry--- so, instead, I will share a few of my notes from my journal:

It is a time of action, no whining--women must lead---
It starts with a dream, 27 things you want to do with your life
Be the change you want to see in the world (Gandhi)
Dignity and Integrity
Burgha or no Burgha
It is all about women having a choice
A strong heart is a happy heart
The heart of darkness is inside us
Get off the horse and drop the sword
Strength comes from within
No longer silent
Courage and resilience
It is not just about saving the world
It is about saving ourselves
We can be the Sun--
We must be the Sun--
Building bridges
Most of the world's poor are women
Most of the world's violence is against women
500,000 women raped in Burma
500,000 women raped in the Congo
1 in 3 girls raped worldwide
Who is listening?
Not the male dominated media
Only 17% of news sources cover women's issues
Social media allows rural women to expose the violence
This is our new force; we need to harness and develop it
The world we are creating right now shapes are future
You, woman leader, must make yourself known
Reconciliation: stop the violence
Stop the hatred
Stop the battering
Stop the destruction
Stop the erasure
Stop the trafficking and slavery
Love is a stronger impulse
The moment a woman comes back to herself
The resurrection begins
We who believe in freedom cannot rest until it begins
Sex Trafficking, Sex Slavery happens right here in the U.S.
Beloved: "the only grace they can have is the grace they
imagine...
They do not love our bodies...
They do not love our hands...
They do not love our children...
We must come to the field and imagine..."(Toni Morrison)
Beloved emerged to remind us
They rape/d us forever
They shackle/d our ankles during birth
We, women and men (yes, we need the men)
Must be the change
Must be the sun
Must embrace the enemy other
Weaken them with love
Weaken them with our power
Weaken them with our truth

I was so proud and honored to have experienced this weekend and to have shared it with my students. The speakers at the conference encouraged all of us to (re)think how we can be leaders and do the right thing (the only ethical thing) on this earth, and it made us question what it means to be feminine and female and human in a patriarchal world. Together, we all spoke of the need for women to feel our./their power, and love and respect our bodies. We must reinvent and reinvigorate a feminine belief system which honors women and girls, and no longer accept the mysogynistic ideology of our world culture which promotes female self-hatred and self-deprecation. Each of my students expressed a renewed desire to empower themselves, and to help others in their future work as teachers, doctors, mothers, and lawyers.

As the conference ended, on that fall day in September--the sky was grey and cloudy, but the trees were glowing in red, gold, and orange. Before going back home, all seven of us took a five mile walk around the lake. When we finally came to the parking lot to say our goodbyes, my beautiful women students gave me a thank you gift of a statue of an earth/woman/goddess. As they handed me the statue, the students said that I represent the earth/woman/goddess to them. I was stunned and moved to tears by their words! I believe that the goddess they see in me is really a reflection of themselves--for they are the true goddesses, so full of hope and imagination-- they are the sunlight of the future.

The mother goddess's body is both tree and woman: her arms reach high in a circle above her head, as she unifies heaven, earth, and spirit.

______________________________________________________________________________

Below is the response of one of my student "daughters" to the
Women and Power Conference:

I Am Woman, Hear Me Roar!

Anna Urazov

9/27/2010

I am a woman. I am a daughter. I am a Russian Jewish immigrant. I am an American. I am a student, a hard worker, a lover, and a well-wisher. I am hopeful, passionate, aggressive, energetic, opinionated, and proud.

How did I come to know myself and accept myself? I was always a quiet and self-judging individual. How did I become this assertive person who looks in the mirror and says, “I’m Ok” and “I like what I see”? While I can’t solely attribute my weekend at Omega Institute’s ‘Women and Power Conference’ to this development, for this has been an ongoing and long journey of self-improvement, it certainly molded me into a more aware, tolerant, and compassionate individual. I am now, more than ever, aware of what it means to be a leader. If you look up this word in the dictionary, you can see phrases that describe a leader as one who guides, influences, commands, and directs. Other descriptions narrow this definition to being superior or having an advantage over another individual. After this conference, after listening to some powerful and honest female speakers, my definition of a leader is this: it is a person who inspires someone to call on change, to question the norm, to fight hate, violence, and discrimination. It is someone who is able to stir in someone’s soul a deep and unmistakable passion to fight evil with good, to change oneself and thereby change the world, to find courage and a voice, and to let that voice be heard.

If someone asks me what will forever echo through my mind after this conference, I will remember the words of some influential and courageous women: Leymah Gbowee’s phrase, “We need to redeem our time”; Malika Saada-Saar’s phrase, “Only you can tell your story”; Elizabeth Lesser’s “We are all Cassandras”; and Zainab Salbi’s “Dance, when you’re broken open/Dance, when you’re perfectly free”. Salbi’s story and journey was particularly inspiring to me. She is an Iraqi woman who lived in a time of war, witnessed its detrimental affects on humankind, was forced into an abusive arranged marriage, and yet survived and rebuilt her life on her own accord. Her organization, Women for Women International, has sponsored thousands of women around the world by establishing a partnership and sisterhood between those who have the ability to help and those who need a support system more than ever. During her speech she contrasts life in Saddam Hussein’s private circle and the misery faced by everyone else. Every woman listening to her story felt her pain. Her face hardened as she recounted her parents’ attempt to save her by arranging a marriage in which she would move to America. How she had the courage to rebuild her life at such a young age and channel her fears and pain into a positive way should be an inspiration to everyone. Listening to her story was a humbling experience. I have never experienced the traumas of war first hand, I have never been separated from my family and forced into a relationship, and I have never rebuilt my life from scratch. And while I have all the comforts in the world, I have never done anything to not only better myself, but also to better humankind. Salbi has inspired me to not take my life for granted. She, along with many of the speakers, allowed me to believe that my small voice, grouped with other women’s voices, may make a change. I logged onto worldpulse.com and signed a petition to pass the International Violence Against Women Act. At first it seemed like a small gesture but then I realized that any action I take, no matter how small, is better than not taking action at all.

As a woman who majored in English and is pursuing a career in science and medicine, I was particularly interested in Mae Jemison’s speech. While I sat in complete awe of this unbelievable woman, astronaut, dancer, engineer, physician, and author, I was able to take away two very important messages. For one, she says that science and art stem from a single root, our creative instinct. She comically says that when deciding whether to be a dancer or doctor, her mother helped her. Similarly, my mother also helped me in deciding what profession to pursue. She told me, you can always write or read when you doctor, but you can’t always doctor if you write or read. I then took a moment to thank my mother, the most important leader in my life, in always helping me see clearly, make the right decisions, continuously strive to better myself, and have compassion and understanding for everyone around me. Jemison’s second point was how precious time was. There are 86,400 seconds in a day, she notes, and we can be doing so much with each passing second. It is up to me how I choose to spend my time and how productive I lead my life.

This weekend retreat of learning, discovering, and uniting has changed my life and way of thinking. I’ve never tried vegetarian food, yoga, or meditation. While I can’t rid myself of meat, I am trying to be a more health conscious eater. I went out and purchased a yoga mat and I’ve been doing yoga in the morning. I am going to make an effort to be more eco-friendly. My small step of not using water bottles will hopefully open the door to other good deeds. I cannot thank Omega and Professor Hutner enough for this wonderful experience. The bonds and the sisterhood I have created with all the girls I spent these days with were certainly unforgettable and hopefully long lasting. This was an incredible intellectual and spiritual experience, and like Salbi, I would like to close with a Rumi poem:

The intellectual quest is exquisite like pearls and coral,

But it is not the same as the spiritual quest.

The spiritual quest is on another level altogether,

Spiritual wine has a subtler taste.

The intellect and the senses investigate cause and effect.

The spiritual seeker surrenders to the wonder.

Thirteenth Birthday

2010-09-11T09:35:00.000-07:00

three o:clock
open/ed womb
mother arms
pinned
at the cross
doctors
scrambling
screaming
stop the blood
father chant/ing
golden light
golden baby
golden light
born
from this
cancer/ed
body
little mira/cle
little fingers
little lips
(encircling)
awaken
sunlight
awaken
little o