Take this one for example. I believe I’m a member because I have Making Music as something I like in my profile:

You can see these posts because these people have very VERY low privacy settings

The thing is, I do like making music, but I don’t like that facebook has assumed my (and 10,700 some odd other people) liking the making music page on their site. I actually really dislike it, it’s a terrible page. It brings nothing to the table, offers no value to any of us, just scrapes our posts for the keywords making music and drops them on it’s wall.

So now I guess we need to be aware that when we post about what we’re up to we’re not actually networking with friends and family, and sharing our lives with our community. We’re also now generating content that is pulled without our knowledge or express consent on a post-by-post basis. I think this is all or nothing thus far, I can’t find a trigger or setting for it to ask permission.

I want to know your thoughts on this though – Is this creating fresh new dialogue between like-minded individuals where none existed? Is it building stronger communities? Or is it just another step towards our entire lives being a matter of public record?

Fort St. John, BC, April 23, 2010: Energy Minister Blair Lekstrom revealed a startling disregard for the value of agriculture in British Columbia. Speaking on CBC Radio’s BC Almanac, Thursday April 23rd, Minister Lekstrom dismissed concerns about flooding over 7,000 acres of Class 1 and 2 farmland1 in the Peace Valley on the basis that farmers are already struggling financially. In response to a listener’s question on how the government could justify destroying important farmland, Lekstrom stated, “it is very difficult to make a living farming.” Does the Energy Minister really believe the solution to the difficulties faced by Canadian farmers (crop failures and inclement weather, Mad Cow disease, international subsidies that make it hard to compete, and a marketing system that favours foreign factory farms) lies in simply destroying the land?

When it comes to agriculture, Mr. Lekstrom would be well advised to look where the puck is going, not where it has been. Speaking in Dawson Creek last September, noted Canadian military historian, Gwynne Dyer, and author of Climate Wars2, pointed out that governments around the world are attempting to prepare for a future where droughts resulting from climate change increasingly spawn famines and regional conflicts. In response to a question from the audience regarding flooding Class 1 and 2 agricultural lands in the Peace Valley, Dyer suggested that given the pace that climate change impacts are occurring, within two years there would be no appetite for destroying high-quality Canadian farmland. In his book, Why Your World Is About to Get A Whole Lot Smaller3, former Chief Economist at CIBC World Markets, Jeff Rubin states that “Energy and food inflation are inextricably linked.” He warns that the inevitable rise in the price of oil as supplies dwindle will result in a return to producing food locally. Shipping romaine lettuce around North America from California in July will soon be a thing of the past.

The agricultural potential of the Peace River valley, within the proposed Site C flood reserve, has been recognized for well over a century.4 In Geography of British Columbia: People and Landscapes in Transition5, Brett McGillivray states that the proposed Site C dam would flood “some of the finest agricultural land in the province.” Thanks to the high-quality soils, the warm Pacific air that flows east through the gap in the Rocky Mountains created by the Peace River valley, and the long summer days at 56°N latitude, farmers in the Site C flood reserve can already grow cantaloupe in their gardens. Their land has the ability to provide northern British Columbians with a “Hundred-Mile Diet” vastly more varied than surrounding areas could support.

Mr. Lekstrom owes it to the current and future citizens of British Columbia to become better informed on the serious issues facing our ability to grow food in the 21st Century. Perhaps then he will not think flooding out farmers in the Peace River valley is the answer.

For more information contact:
Brian Churchill, Director, Peace Valley Environment Association, Cell: (250) 261-0555
Ken Forest, Director, Peace Valley Environment Association, Cell: (250) 785-3094
Sandra Hoffmann, Coordinator, Peace Valley Environment Association, Phone: (250) 787-1749 or (250) 263-1074

BACKGROUNDER

1. http://www.bchydro.com/etc/medialib/internet/documents/info/pdf/site_c_- _agricultural.Par.0001.File.12Site_C_Agricultural_Resources_Inventory_Status.pdf 2. Dyer, G. Climate Wars. Random House Canada, Toronto, ON. 3. Rubin, J. 2009. Why Your World Is About to Get A Whole Lot Smaller. Random House Canada, Toronto, ON. 4. “The climate of this favoured land is singularly mild, notwithstanding its high latitude…The early opening of the spring upon the Peace River is well established, not only by meteorological registers, but by the accounts of the present residents. On the other hand, the winter months are not a whit more severe than on the Saskatchewan or Red River, while the atmosphere is very much drier…Mr. Macoun, the botanist, who accompanied me through the country, states that the flora on the Peace River indicate a climate almost as warm as that of Belleville, in Ontario; and he further remarks that almost two-thirds of the species observed between Lesser Slave Lake and Fort St. John are identical with those in Ontario…” (Horetzky 1873; Peace River Chronicles p 87)
Horetzky, C. 1873. The future garden of the west. In G. E. Bowes. 1963. Peace River Chronicles. Prescott Publishing Co. Vancouver, BC. 5. McGillivray, B. 2005. Geography of British Columbia: People and Landscapes in Transition. UBC Press, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC.

We Are Here: The Pale Blue Dot from dmahr on Vimeo.

Totally worth a listen. It’s good.

Chris Jordan’s shots of dead albatross chicks on Midway atoll.

Go see more of Chris Jordan’s amazing work, and QUIT USING PLASTIC SO MUCH.

Have you watched The Cove yet?

You should.

It’s a film that elicits a strong reaction from all sides; I’ve heard everything from “I laughed all the way through” to “OhmygodIcriedsomuchmyeyesfellout!”

Whaling, and the dolphin slaughter that is the focus of The Cove are hard issues for someone like me (a Canadian meat-eater) to tackle. Our country defends an annual seal hunt that’s as much of a slaughter as anything else.

Mind you, the seal hunt doesn’t spread toxic food through our country.

We’re up against a wall when it comes to fisheries around the world. A great number of people depend upon them to survive, but a greater number are complicit in destroying ocean habitat as quickly and completely as possible.

As someone who grew up fishing our rivers, lakes, and coastal waters, the decline in what I hate to call “stocks” is truly frightening. Equally frightening is that jobs, money, and fierce nationalism are in the driver’s seat, while our health and that of our planet rides in the back, if not in the trunk wrapped up in an old carpet.

I quit eating seafood a long time before I watched The Cove, and I’m not ashamed to say I won’t be eating seal again any time soon – it just wasn’t for me, but the white fur gloves are great thankyouverymuch.

This is just a really longwinded way of me saying you should watch The Cove, and put some thought into what you consume and how that plays out in the world around you.

Natural gas may be a cleaner burn, but getting it out of the ground isn’t as simple as tapping a tree to make syrup.

Hydro-fracturing or fracking involves forcing a secret cocktail down into the earth to fracture the layer holding the gas so it can be recovered at a well.

So what’s in this frack juice we’re pumping billions of liters of into the earth?

The Oil and Gas Commission, British Columbia’s decade-old one-stop shop for gas and oil oversight, isn’t curious. “The question I ask in reverse,” said the OGC’s leader for corporate affairs, Steve Simons, in his Victoria digs—the temple to sustainable building, Dockside Green—“is why? Why is it important to know?” – Via the Georgia Straight

I’d say it’s as important to know as what’s in the food you put into your own body. Am I wrong in thinking that eventually whatever we put in the ground will make it’s way into our food-chain?

Just as important is how much water it takes to frack the gas-holding shale. It’s known to take around 2,000 cubic meters of water for a fracking.

So if each hole is fracked an average of 12 times, that’s 24,000 cubic meters of water – That’s 24 Million liters of frack juice per hole.

That’s a lot of juice, and we’re not being told exactly what’s in it.

Certainly the locals should know, and we as British Columbians and Canadians as a whole should really be pressuring for proper oversight and transparency.

Start by reading this article by Chris Wood for The Georgia Straight - It may scare you, but it’s pretty on-the-money.

Then start writing people like the Minister of Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources – The Honourable Blair Lextrom, and then maybe Alex Ferguson, Commissioner & CEO of the Oil and Gas Commission.

I’m sure it’s an extremely challenging job to balance our economic goals and our environmental security, but I’m also sure that way too many of us don’t voice our concerns.