O.R.C.

Well, Canada has refused to call polar bears “endangered”, while more evidence emerges about how screwed they are by climate change, and it looks like artic ice is melting even faster than expected. The magic global-warming quick-fix atmospheric sulphur-injection plan has will probably make everything worse by furthering ozone depletion, surprise surprise. Honey bees continue to disappear, and the pathogen behind sudden oak death syndrome is evolving and spreading up the western coast of North America. The US will be building dozens of coal power plants right next to national parks, and every liberal’s darling, the EU, will be building over 50 new coal plants. In slightly better news, the national park service has announced that they’ll be funding a bunch of new projects, mostly focused on maintaining the parks. We cynics at O.R.C. can’t help but suspect that this will somehow be used as an excuse for more logging roads and crap like that. And what’s that? It looks like Bush’s spotted owl plan means more logging! In fact, close to 900 scientists with the EPA reported political influence on their work from industry and government. Another “green” product has been debunked: Palm Oil is the major cause of deforestation in Indonesia. 17-year-old accused arsonist Michael Sykes (background of his story here) got his charges reduced and is now facing 10 years in prison. (His address for letters of support can be found here). Mohawks have set up barricades in Ontario to protest development, and Sioux tribal members in South Dakota have set up blockades to protest against the construction of a hog farm. Salmon-lovers are proposing to reintroduce salmon to the Upper Klamath Basin in Oregon. The Arizona legislature is considering withdrawing funds from state schools that teach anything that is deemed un-american and is contrary to capitalism, democracy, etc. (as well as banning minority-group student groups) by way of bill SB 1108. It looks like the government might finally have admitted that right-wing extremists are more dangerous than “eco-terrorists, although we’ll have to see if their level of infiltration agrees. To end on a positive note, a crocodile killed an illegal mangrove logger in Myanmar (often called Burma).

There’ve been a few internet-things related to the whole FBI provocateur “Anna” being in Elle Magazine thing (see our previous post). First of all, the rest of the article is now online, including all pages.

Secondly, it appears that someone has begun to detourn the magazine, claiming (with stickers, the pdf of which is available) that Elle wishes to retract the article. Elle, of course, denies the retraction.

An impassioned plea for intervention in the case of Eric McDavid has been posted around the internet, entitled “A Humble Appeal to the Intellectual and Literary World For Intervention in The Case of Eric McDavid” that describes anarchists as the caged canaries of the free-speech mine.

Finally, an excellent analysis of the Elle article has been posted as well. For an introduction to the case, see the earth first journal story about him, and visit his support website.

On Earth Day, the “Greenwash Guerrillas” pied neo-liberal, capitalist Thomas Friedman. [video footage]. Friedman was speaking at Brown University for Earth Day, where he went on about “market solutions” to global warming, when two pie-throwings ascended the stage and threw green whipped-cream pies at him. They then tossed leaflets explaining themselves to the crowd before escaping out the side door.

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40 miles east of Portland, Oregon, Bonneville Dam blocks the Columbia River. Bonneville Dam is maintained by The US Army Corp of Engineers and serves the Bonneville Power Adminstration (located in Portland). The dam has had a devastating effect on Columbia River’s salmon population, only a minority of which is able to make it up the fish-ladders to spawn. California sea lions have discovered the gathering of endangered fish at the base of the dam and have begun to eat them, naturally enough. But rather than remove the dam and restore the Columbia River to its natural balance, the government has decided to kill the protected (but not “endangered”) california sea lions, at the same time that fishing quotas are expected to go up 33%, proving that the government respects human, but not non-human, fishing.

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On April 21st, ALF Cascadia, of the decentralized, leaderless Animal Liberation Front, took credit for liberating mink from Jefferson Fur Farm in Jefferson, Oregon. According to the industry group Fur Commission USA (contact information here), 53 mink were released, but all were later recovered. Economic damages from destroyed records are estimated at around $5000. Below is the press release from the ALF:

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Reposted from Bombs & Shields
Palmerston North, Manawatu-Wanganui, New Zealand - Vandals stalled construction in the Manawatu River watershed by torching a $750,000 drilling machine. Multimillion-dollar construction projects have have sparked heated battles between current residents, environmental advocates and developers. While above ground eco-groups attempt to slog out compromises in the courts, clandestine saboteurs have been costing the construction industry millions in additional expenses each year. According to Malcolm Abernethy, a technical adviser with the Contractors’ Federation, small acts of arson and vandalism are a serious threat to industrial progress. “Every night something probably happens, but it’s not always reported.”

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The food-chain is critical to bio-diversity. Big predators keep the populations of smaller predators in line, helping keep small animals alive. Big predators keep populations of large herbivores in line, helping keep grasslands and forests intact. But here in Cascadia, the powers-that-ought-not-be are reinstituting a massive cougar hunting campaign, citing an increased number of human-cougar interactions (despite the remarkably few number of fatal attacks). According to numerous sources, there has never been a fatal cougar attack in Oregon.

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As the oceans continue to rise (1.5 meters by 2100) and desalinate, US President Bush pretended for a moment to care about global warming, although of course only if it didn’t affect the US economy. While illegal fishing is decimating the arctic, Canada arrested two sea shepherd activists for interfering with seal-clubbing. The USA’s Department of the Interior continues to procrastinate on listing polar bears as an endangered species, while the EPA has basically given up pretending that it will rule on whether or not CO2 is a pollutant or not, despite being ordered to by the supreme court a year ago. Everyone is freaking out as they finally realize that drinking from plastic Nalgene bottles isn’t actually a very good idea: they contain Bisphenol A (BPA), which is about to be designated as toxic by Canada. Of course, Nalgene says that there is nothing wrong with BPA, but will stop using it anyway. Nalgene is owned by Thermo Fisher Scientific, a maker of laboratory restraints used by animal testers. Despite the fact that there’s enough food to feed the world (kept wasted by capitalism and agricultural subsidies), more countries are buying GMO crops because of the current food crisis. Speaking of frankenfoods, PETA, proving once again that it has nothing to do with anything good, has offered $1 million to whomever can grow test-tube flesh for us to eat.

Over on Livejournal, it looks like someone has posted scans of the Elle Magazine article on that infamous provocateur “Anna” who was so instrumental in destroying Eric McDavid’s life. Unfortunately, some pages appear to be missing at the moment on the livejournal page, but hopefully that will be rectified soon.

Eric McDavid’s sentencing has been moved once more, to May 1st. For more information on the whole of the Green Scare (this latest rounding up of environmentalists by the US Government), please check out CrimethInc’s excellent analysis of the situation.

Associated Press writer Matthew Brown published an article April 4, 2008 detailing a new but seemingly innocuous gadget soon to be employed by California Forest Service agents. This device is known as the SkySeer Unmanned Air Vehicle, or UAV. The California Forest Service has purchased two SkySeer vehicles, each costing 50,000 U.S. dollars. They claim the vehicles will aid them in catching illegal marijuana growers in California’s remote woodlands.

Produced by Octatron, a known defense contractor, the SkySeer boasts a wide array of technological crime-fightery. Each of the two units acquired by the Forest Service can fly at just under 30 miles per hour, can sustain flight for about an hour, weighs around 5 pounds, and soars practically silently. One of the two SkySeers is equipped with a thermal camera for night missions.

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