The psychology underlying people's behaviour is as fascinating as the things they do. “Change blindness” is a case in point. Psychologists describe it as the inability of people to notice anomalies, differences and the unusual in their surroundings. The obvious, it seems, is not always obvious...For example, we seem to have an inherent inclination to overlook or rationalize as normal the weather abnormalities that arise from global warming. If this strategy doesn't serve to diminish the significance of an extreme weather event in our minds, we excuse it by extending the range of normality — a once-in-a-century event occurring once every ten years is deemed normal.
The mainstream media has been appalling in its lack of coverage of key environmental and resource issues. BUT…are times changing? There is evidence that the mainstream media is covering the environmental corporate/political atrocities being inflicted on British Columbia. Meetings of First Nations are being covered and Damien Gillis’ videos and footage are being shown. Especially encouraging is coverage by local papers including those controlled by the mainstream media companies. The Victoria Times-Colonist has been under the parent company’s radar and has, for some months now, challenged those in corporations and governments which would continue and expand their takeover and destruction of our province.
When you see what’s happening with wild salmon because of farmed fish cages, what’s happened to BC Hydro and our rivers because of sweetheart deals it’s been forced to make, what’s happened and is happening to lakes to be mined, to say nothing of the pipelines from the Tar Sands, then tankers down the coast, you must ask yourself where has the mainstream media been? The answer is short and clear: Up Big Business' ass. You simply cannot have a functioning democracy without a media that keeps pressure on the government.
Read this scathing response to a recent column by the Vancouver Sun's Barbara Yaffe, titled "First Nations Need to Embrace Resource Projects" - from the Vice Tribal Chief of the Carrier Sekani Tribal Council and the Tribal Chief of the Tsilhqot'in National Government. (Aug 2, 2011)
Rafe on the history of muzzling DFO scientists for political reasons - including his own role in revealing the cover-up of a key report condemning Alcan's planned Nechako River dam in the 80s and 90s - and the media's consistent ignoring of this pattern of behaviour. "The revelation by the Sun and the Province that a scientist in DFO, Kristi Miller, has been muzzled by the DFO and the Privy Council (which supports the Prime Minister’s Office) simply underscores how badly they have covered environmental matters in general and salmon concerns specifically."
I freely admit my bias – I don’t like the Postmedia papers and didn’t like them when they were Canwest or Pacific Press and before. But I tell you that there’s no malice here - just decades of demanding that they report what’s happening in our province fairly. There have been good years such as when the late Marjorie Nichols, the late Jack Wasserman, Allan Fotheringham, Jim Hume held the government’s feet to the fire – especially the government that I was in...Today’s columnists know that if they get down and dirty on some subjects they don’t get printed.
Read this republication by the Tyee of recently retired CTV Quebec bureau chief Kai Nagata's account of why he quit the business - a story that has become a lightning rod for heated discussion about the state of Canada's mainstream media in recent days.
Op-ed by Al Gore in Rolling Stone. Excerpt: "The answer to the question 'Is [professional wrestling] real?' seemed connected to the
question of whether the referee was somehow confused about his role: Was
he too an entertainer?
"That is pretty much the role now being played by most of the news
media in refereeing the current wrestling match over whether global
warming is 'real,' and whether it has any connection to the constant
dumping of 90 million tons of heat-trapping emissions into the Earth's
thin shell of atmosphere every 24 hours.
"Admittedly, the contest over global warming is a challenge for the
referee because it's a tag-team match, a real free-for-all. In one
corner of the ring are Science and Reason. In the other corner:
Poisonous Polluters and Right-wing Ideologues."
Written by Administrator
- Monday, 13 September 2010
We've all heard about the Florida pastor and the Korans.. it was just about the Number One Story in the world. WHY? Because the Corporate owned media WANTED to make it news - because they want us to focus on stories involving hate and division and the 'war of civilisations' they are trying to start ... that is what they want us focused on, so that is what they tell us about. Otherwise, the guy could have done this stupid thing and it would have been a 'nothing event' that nobody ever knew about... zero!
If you had just arrived from Mars and looked at old issues of the Vancouver Province and the Vancouver Sun going back a decade you would never, for a moment, know that there have been any environmental issues in BC let alone the disastrous Rivers and Fish Farms catastrophe. In fact you would assume that Premier Gordon (Pinocchio) Campbell is a very popular politician.
Article by Elizabeth James in the North Shore News.
"Readers haven't gone to the Internet and other news media because it is cheaper or easier; they've gone because they no longer trust what the major newspapers are printing."
- Edward Reagan, editor, Camas Courier, Fairfield, Idaho (Pop. 395)
Read article
30 year-old William Housty's powerhouse presentation to the National Energy Board's Enbridge hearings in his community of Bella Bella. William describes the history, language and culture of his people in fascinating detail - and how the proposed Northern Gateway Pipeline and Tar Sands supertankers transiting the waters of his people's territory would destroy their traditional way of life.
Highlights from this week's National Energy Board hearings in Bella Bella on the proposed Enbridge Northern Gateway Pipeline and supertankers on BC's coast. Powerful testimony from three members of the Heiltsuk First Nation, sharing their experiences with the sea.rn
The Heiltsuk First Nation learned late Monday that scheduled National Energy Board hearings on the proposed Enbridge Northern Gateway Pipeline will resume Tuesday in Bella Bella, following their cancellation Monday in the wake of a peaceful demonstration to which the Joint Review Panel overreacted.
Close to 2,000 people turned out on a rainy Monday afternoon in Vancouver last week to speak out against Tar Sands oil tankers on BC's coast. The occasion marked the 23rd anniversary of the disastrous Exxon Valdez Oil Spill. The crowd gathered at the Art Gallery to hear from guest speakers like 350.org's Bill McKibben and members of the Heiltsuk First Nation of Bella Bella, who coorganized the rally, along with ForestEthics and Greenpeace.
Rueben George of the Tsleil-Waututh (Burrard) First Nation and Ben West of the Wilderness Committee discuss Kinder Morgan's quiet plan to twin its existing Trans Mountain Pipeline from the Alberta Tar Sands to Vancouver - which would result in up to 300 supertankers a year plying the waters of the Burrard Inlet and South Coast.
Eleven year-old Ta'Kaiya Blaney of the Sliammon First Nation sings her hit song "Shallow Waters" to some 2,000 people outside the Vancouver Art Gallery. She tells the audience one year ago on this day she was chased from Enbridge's Vancouver office when she tried to present her song to company officials.
World renowned climate activist Bill McKibben of 350.org lent his voice to the "Our Coast, Our Decision" rally in Vancouver Monday. McKibben told the crowd of close to 2,000 outside the Vancouver Art Gallery, "This is one of these great moments in human history and you guys are absolutely at the white, hot centre of it."
Rafe Mair pulls no punches in this, the second of a two-part interview with BC NDP Leader Adrian Dix - grilling the potential future premier of BC on Liquid Natural Gas, fracking, the proposed Enbridge pipeline and salmon farms.
Marven Robinson, a spirit bear guide from the Gitga'at Nation of Hartley Bay, speaks to Damien Gillis in Prince Rupert the day after the big rally he helped organize against Enbridge on Feb. 4, 2012.
In the first of a two-part interview, Rafe Mair grills BC NDP Leader Adrian Dix on private power, Site C Dam and BC's flawed environmental assessment process. What will the NDP do with existing and future private river power projects (a.k.a. IPPs) if they form the next government - and where do they stand on Site C Dam?
The beating of drums echoed throughout the seaside community of Prince Rupert, BC, on February 4 as thousands of First Nations and BC citizens banded together to express their opposition to the proposed Enbridge Northern Gateway twin pipelines from the Alberta Tar Sands to nearby Kitimat on BC's central coast.
The various spokespeople for supposed "grassroots" pro-Tar Sands and pipeline organization EthicalOil.org have steadfastly maintained their campaign has no connection to the oil and gas industry or the Harper Government. But as the links between these groups continue to pile up, that contention becomes harder and harder to swallow.
In the wake of the bogus deal Enbridge attempted to foist on the Gitxsan people of Northwest BC last month to help pave the way for its controversial proposed Northern Gateway pipeline, the community has banded together in inspiring fashion - with camcorders and the Web as their weapons of choice.
Watch this series of clips by independent filmmaker Craig Delahunt from the Cohen Commission, including a key hour of testimony from the final day of ISAv hearings and interviews with experts outside the Commission.
See how the Gitxsan are banding together in a moment of crisis, following the unauthorized deal with Enbridge signed by rogue treaty negotiator Elmer Derrick.
