Posts
While recognizing and supporting the legal strike action by Vancouver Island University professors, I am nevertheless struck by how many people outside faculty, staff, and students this strike is harming. I have witnessed some members of the cleaning staff reduced to scrounging for bottles and cans to support themselves; some of the tutors to students with LD's are now desperately searching for outside employment; and people who work in tangential jobs have been seen applying for welfare in order to survive.
In all of the brouhaha about who is right and who is wrong, no one appears to have given any thoughts to the harm being done to the lives of those who have no vote in this job action: those who do NOT get any strike pay or whose pay is too low to have saved against such an event. Naturally, both sides are self-righteous and convinced of the justification of their reasons for holding out. I am appalled at the combined lack of compassion and brains displayed by all of the PhD's in both administration and faculty with their supposed 'higher-level thinking" skills. Shame on all of you. What a sorry example you all are for your students.
Yes, faculty should fight to retain programs and course offerings, and yes, faculty should be fighting to have transparency over budgetary matters. However, this job action should have been staged in such a way so as not to harm students and tangential staff--perhaps in a series of jobs actions so that the negative results of this job action are mitigated for those who are not directly employed by the three unions.
I most certainly hope that a thorough post-mortem of this disruptive event is conducted after the fact so that all of the negative fall-out and personal harm from this event can come to light. I am certain that for those who do NOT earn in excess of $80,000 a year, this strike has hurt a lot of families. Get over yourselves, stop intellectualizing everything, and start looking at the real lives you are damaging.
Friday, April 1, 2011
Saturday, April 11, 2009
Still want to buy anything plastic? Probably not after you read this:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/apr/12/david-de-rothschild-plastiki-pacific/print
Robin McKie
The Observer, Sunday 12 April 2009
larger smaller
Article history
In a few weeks, the heir to one of the world's greatest fortunes, David de Rothschild, will set sail across the Pacific - in a boat, the Plastiki, made from plastic bottles and recycled waste. The aim of this extraordinary venture is simple: to focus attention on one of the world's strangest and most unpleasant environmental phenomena: the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, a rubbish-covered region of ocean, several hundred miles in diameter.
The patch, north-west of Hawaii, was discovered in 1999 by researchers who found that its waters contained tens of thousands of pieces of plastic per square mile, the remains of rubbish caught in the region's circulating ocean currents. This pollution is now devastating populations of seabirds and fish that live in the region.
During his trip, which is being sponsored by the International Watch Company and Hewlett-Packard, de Rothschild will collect water samples and post blogs, photographs and video clips of the area, in an attempt to publicise the perils posed by plastic pollution.
To further highlight the oceans' plastic pollution problems, the 30-year-old environment crusader has designed a special catamaran with a hull made of frames filled with 12,000 plastic bottles. The cabin and bulkheads of Plastiki have also been constructed out of a special recycled material called srPET, made of webs of plastic.
"The plastic water bottle epitomises everything about this throwaway, disposable society," said de Rothschild, who trained to be a showjumper in England and who has trekked to both the north and south poles. However, he added that he was not aiming to demonise plastic, but was trying to highlight its alternative uses, as well as focusing global attention on the dangers posed to the ecology in regions such as the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.
The Plastiki - its name inspired by the balsa raft Kon-Tiki that was built and sailed across the Pacific in 1947 by the Norwegian explorer Thor Heyerdahl - is now undergoing trials in San Francisco harbour. "The project has gone through several materials, exploring everything from bamboo to plywood, even playing around with the idea of sewing all the bottles together in one giant sock," said de Rothschild. As a result, the 20-metre catamaran has cost several million dollars to construct and has taken three years to reach its current design. When it is ready, in a few weeks, it will carry de Rothschild and a crew of six on a 10,500-mile journey from San Francisco to Hawaii, Midway Island, Bikini Atoll, Vanuatu and, finally, Sydney. There will be no accompanying craft, but the Plastiki will be met by a support team at each landfall.
The destinations for the craft's great voyage have been selected to highlight a variety of environmental threats, including overfishing and climate change. However, the most important part of Plastiki's route will be its voyage round the Great Pacific Garbage Patch in the Pacific, where it will focus global awareness on the issue of marine debris and pollution.
The patch was discovered 10 years ago by the oceanographer Charles Moore when he was sailing off Hawaii. "I was confronted, as far as the eye could see, with the sight of plastic," Moore later recalled. Among the items he spotted were plastic coat hangers, an inflated volleyball, a truck tyre and dozens of plastic fishing floats.
"In the week it took to cross, no matter what time of day I looked, plastic debris was floating everywhere: bottles, bottle caps, wrappers, fragments." Indeed, the term "patch" does not begin to convey the nature of the phenomenon, Moore added. A "plastic soup" has been created, he said, one that has spread over an area that is now bigger than state of Texas.
The plastic - most of it swept from coastal cities in Asia and California - is trapped indefinitely in the region by the North Pacific Gyre, a vortex of currents that circulate clockwise around the ocean. Scientists estimate that there is six times more plastic than plankton by weight in the patch and that this is having disastrous ecological consequences. Fish and seabirds mistake plastic for food and choke to death. At the same time, plastics absorb pollutants including PCBs (polychlorinated biphenyls) and pesticides, bringing poisons into the food chain.
In one study of plastic pollution in the Pacific, scientists found that populations of albatrosses in the north-west Hawaiian islands, a national marine sanctuary, have been devastated by plastic from the garbage patch. "Their body cavities are full of huge chunks of many types of plastics, from toothbrushes to bottle caps to needles and syringes," said Myra Finkelstein, an environmental toxicologist based at University of California, Santa Cruz. "They can't get them up. They can't get them out. It's heartbreaking."
This point is backed by Moore. "The plastic gadgets one typically finds in the stomach of one of these birds could stock the checkout counter at a convenience story," he said.
Last year, a raft built of waste and debris, known as the Junk Raft, was built by the Algalita Marine Research Foundation, which had been set up by Charles Moore after discovering the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. This simply constructed craft floated on a mass of 15,000 plastic bottles and was sailed through the patch by oceanographers Marcus Eriksen and Joel Paschal. They too were aiming to highlight the global issue of plastic pollution in the oceans.
However, de Rothschild insists his project has a grander vision. He is seeking not just to show up the planet's ecological woes but, through the design and construction of Plastiki, he will also be highlighting how disposable plastics can be used in a constructive way.
"I want the Plastiki to make a statement that it's our lack of reuse, uses and disposal that it is at fault, not the material itself," he said.
The eco-warrior has also designed his mission so that it copies key features of the voyage of the Kon-Tiki in which Thor Heyerdahl - a hero of de Rothschild - sailed across the Pacific to show how ancient South American Indians could have colonised Polynesia. As a result, de Rothschild originally set his launch date for 28 April - exactly 62 years to the day when Heyerdahl set out on his epic journey across the Pacific. However, teething problems with Plastiki recently forced him to postpone departure until later this summer.
Nevertheless, de Rothschild insists his craft will sail in the next few weeks and could one day revolutionise the use of recycled plastics in general and the design of boats in particular. Much will depend on how his craft behaves once the Plastiki expedition is under way, he admitted to the New Yorker recently. His craft should perform well, but could break up, he said.
"These are just unknowns," he added. "That's an adventure! If it was planned and everyone knew, no one would be interested."
Life of an eco-toff
David de Rothschild regularly appears in Tatler's list of Britain's most eligible bachelors. He is the third child of Victoria Schott, a former fundraiser for the Conservative party, and Sir Evelyn de Rothschild, head of the British branch of the family banking empire.
He was a member of Britain's junior eventing team, and has taken part in trekking expeditions across the Antarctic and Arctic icecaps, making him the youngest Briton to reach both poles. He owns an organic farm in New Zealand, and later founded Adventure Ecology which aims to use his travels as a way to engage children in green issues.
He is also author of the Live Earth Global Warming Survival Handbook. In 2007, these feats earned him inclusion in the National Geographic's class of Emerging Explorers. He is also known as one of the country's leading "eco-toffs", those young men and women who use their inherited wealth to promote environmental causes. .
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/apr/12/david-de-rothschild-plastiki-pacific/print
Robin McKie
The Observer, Sunday 12 April 2009
larger smaller
Article history
In a few weeks, the heir to one of the world's greatest fortunes, David de Rothschild, will set sail across the Pacific - in a boat, the Plastiki, made from plastic bottles and recycled waste. The aim of this extraordinary venture is simple: to focus attention on one of the world's strangest and most unpleasant environmental phenomena: the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, a rubbish-covered region of ocean, several hundred miles in diameter.
The patch, north-west of Hawaii, was discovered in 1999 by researchers who found that its waters contained tens of thousands of pieces of plastic per square mile, the remains of rubbish caught in the region's circulating ocean currents. This pollution is now devastating populations of seabirds and fish that live in the region.
During his trip, which is being sponsored by the International Watch Company and Hewlett-Packard, de Rothschild will collect water samples and post blogs, photographs and video clips of the area, in an attempt to publicise the perils posed by plastic pollution.
To further highlight the oceans' plastic pollution problems, the 30-year-old environment crusader has designed a special catamaran with a hull made of frames filled with 12,000 plastic bottles. The cabin and bulkheads of Plastiki have also been constructed out of a special recycled material called srPET, made of webs of plastic.
"The plastic water bottle epitomises everything about this throwaway, disposable society," said de Rothschild, who trained to be a showjumper in England and who has trekked to both the north and south poles. However, he added that he was not aiming to demonise plastic, but was trying to highlight its alternative uses, as well as focusing global attention on the dangers posed to the ecology in regions such as the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.
The Plastiki - its name inspired by the balsa raft Kon-Tiki that was built and sailed across the Pacific in 1947 by the Norwegian explorer Thor Heyerdahl - is now undergoing trials in San Francisco harbour. "The project has gone through several materials, exploring everything from bamboo to plywood, even playing around with the idea of sewing all the bottles together in one giant sock," said de Rothschild. As a result, the 20-metre catamaran has cost several million dollars to construct and has taken three years to reach its current design. When it is ready, in a few weeks, it will carry de Rothschild and a crew of six on a 10,500-mile journey from San Francisco to Hawaii, Midway Island, Bikini Atoll, Vanuatu and, finally, Sydney. There will be no accompanying craft, but the Plastiki will be met by a support team at each landfall.
The destinations for the craft's great voyage have been selected to highlight a variety of environmental threats, including overfishing and climate change. However, the most important part of Plastiki's route will be its voyage round the Great Pacific Garbage Patch in the Pacific, where it will focus global awareness on the issue of marine debris and pollution.
The patch was discovered 10 years ago by the oceanographer Charles Moore when he was sailing off Hawaii. "I was confronted, as far as the eye could see, with the sight of plastic," Moore later recalled. Among the items he spotted were plastic coat hangers, an inflated volleyball, a truck tyre and dozens of plastic fishing floats.
"In the week it took to cross, no matter what time of day I looked, plastic debris was floating everywhere: bottles, bottle caps, wrappers, fragments." Indeed, the term "patch" does not begin to convey the nature of the phenomenon, Moore added. A "plastic soup" has been created, he said, one that has spread over an area that is now bigger than state of Texas.
The plastic - most of it swept from coastal cities in Asia and California - is trapped indefinitely in the region by the North Pacific Gyre, a vortex of currents that circulate clockwise around the ocean. Scientists estimate that there is six times more plastic than plankton by weight in the patch and that this is having disastrous ecological consequences. Fish and seabirds mistake plastic for food and choke to death. At the same time, plastics absorb pollutants including PCBs (polychlorinated biphenyls) and pesticides, bringing poisons into the food chain.
In one study of plastic pollution in the Pacific, scientists found that populations of albatrosses in the north-west Hawaiian islands, a national marine sanctuary, have been devastated by plastic from the garbage patch. "Their body cavities are full of huge chunks of many types of plastics, from toothbrushes to bottle caps to needles and syringes," said Myra Finkelstein, an environmental toxicologist based at University of California, Santa Cruz. "They can't get them up. They can't get them out. It's heartbreaking."
This point is backed by Moore. "The plastic gadgets one typically finds in the stomach of one of these birds could stock the checkout counter at a convenience story," he said.
Last year, a raft built of waste and debris, known as the Junk Raft, was built by the Algalita Marine Research Foundation, which had been set up by Charles Moore after discovering the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. This simply constructed craft floated on a mass of 15,000 plastic bottles and was sailed through the patch by oceanographers Marcus Eriksen and Joel Paschal. They too were aiming to highlight the global issue of plastic pollution in the oceans.
However, de Rothschild insists his project has a grander vision. He is seeking not just to show up the planet's ecological woes but, through the design and construction of Plastiki, he will also be highlighting how disposable plastics can be used in a constructive way.
"I want the Plastiki to make a statement that it's our lack of reuse, uses and disposal that it is at fault, not the material itself," he said.
The eco-warrior has also designed his mission so that it copies key features of the voyage of the Kon-Tiki in which Thor Heyerdahl - a hero of de Rothschild - sailed across the Pacific to show how ancient South American Indians could have colonised Polynesia. As a result, de Rothschild originally set his launch date for 28 April - exactly 62 years to the day when Heyerdahl set out on his epic journey across the Pacific. However, teething problems with Plastiki recently forced him to postpone departure until later this summer.
Nevertheless, de Rothschild insists his craft will sail in the next few weeks and could one day revolutionise the use of recycled plastics in general and the design of boats in particular. Much will depend on how his craft behaves once the Plastiki expedition is under way, he admitted to the New Yorker recently. His craft should perform well, but could break up, he said.
"These are just unknowns," he added. "That's an adventure! If it was planned and everyone knew, no one would be interested."
Life of an eco-toff
David de Rothschild regularly appears in Tatler's list of Britain's most eligible bachelors. He is the third child of Victoria Schott, a former fundraiser for the Conservative party, and Sir Evelyn de Rothschild, head of the British branch of the family banking empire.
He was a member of Britain's junior eventing team, and has taken part in trekking expeditions across the Antarctic and Arctic icecaps, making him the youngest Briton to reach both poles. He owns an organic farm in New Zealand, and later founded Adventure Ecology which aims to use his travels as a way to engage children in green issues.
He is also author of the Live Earth Global Warming Survival Handbook. In 2007, these feats earned him inclusion in the National Geographic's class of Emerging Explorers. He is also known as one of the country's leading "eco-toffs", those young men and women who use their inherited wealth to promote environmental causes. .
Saturday, February 14, 2009
Happy Birthday Darwin!
I just found an amazing resource for Darwin scholars. This British site has the complete works of Darwin, including over 20,000 private papers, and his private notebooks. There are also audio books for those who like/need to listen to the content. Use this link:
http://darwin-online.org.uk/
Happy birthday buddy...
http://darwin-online.org.uk/
Happy birthday buddy...
Are we still evolving?
It astounds me that we are still arguing about evolution on Darwin's 200th birthday. Since the only constant is change, how could we not be evolving? I would have thought that this was a no-brainer. I have to challenge the late Stephen Jay Gould on this one. My vote is firmly in John Hawks' camp:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29123062/
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29123062/
I'm amazed and pleased at the number of 'lost' friends that I have located by accident through Facebook. I found people that I thought I had lost touch with forever. When properly used this can be the best resource.
Wednesday, May 21, 2008
Santa Barbara creates parking lots for middle-class homeless to live in
I am appalled at how quickly our society has devolved to a point where people are able to accept that allowing their peers to live in their cars in specially designated parking lots for the homeless is rational behaviour. While I realize that for authorities and advocates for the homeless this is a stop-gap measure, the many comments which accompanied this article spewing venom towards the unfortunates caught in the US housing and mortgage debacle flummox me. Even the people living in the parking lots for the middle-class homeless act as if this is fully where they expect to be, as if there are no other options. Scary and horrifying story...
By Thelma Gutierrez and Wayne Drash-CNN
http://www.cnn.com/2008/LIVING/wayoflife/05/19/homeless.mom/index.html
SANTA BARBARA, California (CNN) -- Barbara Harvey climbs into the back of her small Honda sport utility vehicle and snuggles with her two golden retrievers, her head nestled on a pillow propped against the driver's seat.
Californian Barbara Harvey says she is forced to sleep in her car with her dogs after losing her job earlier this year.
A former loan processor, the 67-year-old mother of three grown children said she never thought she'd spend her golden years sleeping in her car in a parking lot.
"This is my bed, my dogs," she said. "This is my life in this car right now."
Harvey was forced into homelessness this year after being laid off. She said that three-quarters of her income went to paying rent in Santa Barbara, where the median house in the scenic oceanfront city costs more than $1 million. She lost her condo two months ago and had little savings as backup.
"It went to hell in a handbasket," she said. "I didn't think this would happen to me. It's just something that I don't think that people think is going to happen to them, is what it amounts to. It happens very quickly, too."
Harvey now works part time for $8 an hour, and she draws Social Security to help make ends meet. But she still cannot afford an apartment, and so every night she pulls into a gated parking lot to sleep in her car, along with other women who find themselves in a similar predicament.
There are 12 parking lots across Santa Barbara that have been set up to accommodate the growing middle-class homelessness. These lots are believed to be part of the first program of its kind in the United States, according to organizers.
The lots open at 7 p.m. and close at 7 a.m. and are run by New Beginnings Counseling Center, a homeless outreach organization.
It is illegal for people in California to sleep in their cars on streets. New Beginnings worked with the city to allow the parking lots as a safe place for the homeless to sleep in their vehicles without being harassed by people on the streets or ticketed by police.
Harvey stays at the city's only parking lot for women. "This is very safe, and that's why I feel very comfortable," she said.
Nancy Kapp, the New Beginnings parking lot coordinator, said the group began seeing a need for the lots in recent months as California's foreclosure crisis hit the city hard. She said a growing number of senior citizens, women and lower- and middle-class families live on the streets. "You look around today, and there are so many," said Kapp, who was homeless with her young daughter two decades ago. "I see women sleeping on benches. It's heartbreaking."
She added, "The way the economy is going, it's just amazing the people that are becoming homeless. It's hit the middle class."
She and others with New Beginnings walk the streets looking for people and families sleeping in their cars. The workers inform them about the parking lot program.
New Beginnings screens people to make sure they won't cause trouble. No alcohol or drugs are allowed in the parking lots.
"What we are trying to do is we pull bad apples out, and we put good apples in the parking lots and really help people out," said Shaw Tolley, another coordinator with New Beginnings.
Most of the time, the lots are transition points. New Beginnings works with each person to try to find a more permanent housing solution.
"It saddens me when they live in their vehicles," Tolley said. "It is not the most ideal situation for senior citizens and families, but it is reality."
He added, "We need to engage this problem. This is reality."
John Quigley, an economics professor at the University of California-Berkeley, said the California housing crisis has left many middle-class families temporarily homeless or forced them to go to food banks to feed their families.
"Part of the reason why it's so painful in Santa Barbara is, there's so little in the way of alternative housing," Quigley said. "If there were alternative low and moderate housing and rental accommodations that were reasonably close by, you can imagine it wouldn't have this desperate look to it as people living in their cars."
At the only lot for women in Santa Barbara, it's a tough existence. There are no showers or running water. On the night CNN visited, a half-dozen women were in the parking lot before nightfall.
Linn Labou, 54, lives in her car with four cats. She used to be in the National Guard and is on a waiting list for government housing, but the wait is a year long.
"I went looking for family, but I couldn't get them to help me," she said.
As for Harvey, she begins each day by walking her two dogs before going to her part-time job. She leaves the dogs in her car with its windows cracked while she works.
It's another chapter in her life that she's certain she'll get through. Her 19-year-old daughter moved in with friends to avoid being homeless. Her other children live overseas, and she didn't want to tell them about her living status.
Even if her children offered to help, she said, she wouldn't accept it. "They know me well enough to know that I will get through this."
"My daughter especially is very unhappy. Sometimes she'll cry, and she'll call and say, 'Mom, I just can't stand it that you are living in a car,' " Harvey said. "I'll say, 'You know what? This is OK for right now, because I'm safe, I'm healthy, the dogs are doing OK, and I have a job, and things will get better.' "
By Thelma Gutierrez and Wayne Drash-CNN
http://www.cnn.com/2008/LIVING/wayoflife/05/19/homeless.mom/index.html
SANTA BARBARA, California (CNN) -- Barbara Harvey climbs into the back of her small Honda sport utility vehicle and snuggles with her two golden retrievers, her head nestled on a pillow propped against the driver's seat.
Californian Barbara Harvey says she is forced to sleep in her car with her dogs after losing her job earlier this year.
A former loan processor, the 67-year-old mother of three grown children said she never thought she'd spend her golden years sleeping in her car in a parking lot.
"This is my bed, my dogs," she said. "This is my life in this car right now."
Harvey was forced into homelessness this year after being laid off. She said that three-quarters of her income went to paying rent in Santa Barbara, where the median house in the scenic oceanfront city costs more than $1 million. She lost her condo two months ago and had little savings as backup.
"It went to hell in a handbasket," she said. "I didn't think this would happen to me. It's just something that I don't think that people think is going to happen to them, is what it amounts to. It happens very quickly, too."
Harvey now works part time for $8 an hour, and she draws Social Security to help make ends meet. But she still cannot afford an apartment, and so every night she pulls into a gated parking lot to sleep in her car, along with other women who find themselves in a similar predicament.
There are 12 parking lots across Santa Barbara that have been set up to accommodate the growing middle-class homelessness. These lots are believed to be part of the first program of its kind in the United States, according to organizers.
The lots open at 7 p.m. and close at 7 a.m. and are run by New Beginnings Counseling Center, a homeless outreach organization.
It is illegal for people in California to sleep in their cars on streets. New Beginnings worked with the city to allow the parking lots as a safe place for the homeless to sleep in their vehicles without being harassed by people on the streets or ticketed by police.
Harvey stays at the city's only parking lot for women. "This is very safe, and that's why I feel very comfortable," she said.
Nancy Kapp, the New Beginnings parking lot coordinator, said the group began seeing a need for the lots in recent months as California's foreclosure crisis hit the city hard. She said a growing number of senior citizens, women and lower- and middle-class families live on the streets. "You look around today, and there are so many," said Kapp, who was homeless with her young daughter two decades ago. "I see women sleeping on benches. It's heartbreaking."
She added, "The way the economy is going, it's just amazing the people that are becoming homeless. It's hit the middle class."
She and others with New Beginnings walk the streets looking for people and families sleeping in their cars. The workers inform them about the parking lot program.
New Beginnings screens people to make sure they won't cause trouble. No alcohol or drugs are allowed in the parking lots.
"What we are trying to do is we pull bad apples out, and we put good apples in the parking lots and really help people out," said Shaw Tolley, another coordinator with New Beginnings.
Most of the time, the lots are transition points. New Beginnings works with each person to try to find a more permanent housing solution.
"It saddens me when they live in their vehicles," Tolley said. "It is not the most ideal situation for senior citizens and families, but it is reality."
He added, "We need to engage this problem. This is reality."
John Quigley, an economics professor at the University of California-Berkeley, said the California housing crisis has left many middle-class families temporarily homeless or forced them to go to food banks to feed their families.
"Part of the reason why it's so painful in Santa Barbara is, there's so little in the way of alternative housing," Quigley said. "If there were alternative low and moderate housing and rental accommodations that were reasonably close by, you can imagine it wouldn't have this desperate look to it as people living in their cars."
At the only lot for women in Santa Barbara, it's a tough existence. There are no showers or running water. On the night CNN visited, a half-dozen women were in the parking lot before nightfall.
Linn Labou, 54, lives in her car with four cats. She used to be in the National Guard and is on a waiting list for government housing, but the wait is a year long.
"I went looking for family, but I couldn't get them to help me," she said.
As for Harvey, she begins each day by walking her two dogs before going to her part-time job. She leaves the dogs in her car with its windows cracked while she works.
It's another chapter in her life that she's certain she'll get through. Her 19-year-old daughter moved in with friends to avoid being homeless. Her other children live overseas, and she didn't want to tell them about her living status.
Even if her children offered to help, she said, she wouldn't accept it. "They know me well enough to know that I will get through this."
"My daughter especially is very unhappy. Sometimes she'll cry, and she'll call and say, 'Mom, I just can't stand it that you are living in a car,' " Harvey said. "I'll say, 'You know what? This is OK for right now, because I'm safe, I'm healthy, the dogs are doing OK, and I have a job, and things will get better.' "
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)