One thing I’ve noticed about big environmental issues is they often sound so benign. Fracking? Sounds like something you do at a party with a bunch of pals. Clear cutting? Sounds like a bad haircut. Deep sea mining? Sounds like a ramped up version of scuba diving. Ooh…look there’s an abandoned pirate’s chest full of gold! Where’s Jim Cameron with a camera?
But of course these words are benign labels for rather nasty business. And of those three, deep sea mining, is the newest. Rather than figure out how to recycle and reuse the minerals and ore we've already yanked out from the earth, I guess I could say 'extracted' (which sounds more like a good deed than it is), there’s a huge rush to just head to the bottom of the sea and take minerals from there. And implications are enormous.
Kasia Gladki gives us just some idea of what deep sea mining is and what it might mean.
Our environmental word of the month is; squalene! If you are concerned about the ocean, check out your face and body creams! And your olive oil! They may well contain squalene, whic is our environmental word of the month. It is avoidable...which I find a great relief.
Melina Labouc
an-Massimo is an environmental superstar. Rolling Stone magazine has described her as a "green hero". She’s the godmother of the iconic ship of Greenpeace, the Rainbow Warrior. She’s spoken about the tar sands to the US Congress.
Melina talks a lot about the tar sands. As a Lubicon Cree from Northern Alberta she’s witnessed first-hand the impacts of tar sands development on her Nation’s people, culture, and land. This is a stunning slideshow of her talking about what that looks like. If you don’t feel you really understand the tar sands, or just want to post something amazing on your FB page, this is it.
Recently Melina helped launch It Starts With Us a new site with a database on indigenous women in Canada. who are missing or murdered. Their cases may not grab the attention of the press or the police but at least this site gives families the chance to document the lives of our loved ones, commemorate and celebrate them.
If you would like to understand more deeply what Melina referred to in her brief chat with me as well as why this is so personal for her, you can read a recent article she wrote for the northern news agency APTN, here.