Shades of "No one could have predicted..."

Save The East Bay Hills

In addition to increasing the risk of another devastating fire, the City of Oakland's deforestation/poisoning plan will also expose citizens to large amounts of dangerous chemicals, exacerbate climate change by releasing 17,495 metric tons of greenhouse gases into our environment, poison, displace and kill wildlife (including several protected species), radically alter the appearance and therefore the experience afforded by our public recreation areas, threaten homeowners values by degrading the aesthetics upon which those values depend, eliminate erosion control for hillside homes, result in (according to FEMA) “significant alternation of community character,” as well as cause a variety of other harms that FEMA admits are “unavoidable."

Read a letter to the Oakland City Attorney urging the City to rethink the dangerous policy: http://goo.gl/hfr7U0

This is a subject close to my heart.  I lived in the Bay Area for 30 years and to even THINK that this kind of measure is on the table is beyond my wildest nightmares.  The Bay Area has been the "greenest" places I've lived - people were very concerned about the environment.  It is heartbreaking and horrifying to me that this concern is dying and/or being overridden by political and corporate decisions that do not respect the environment or the people.

I happened to have lived in the area when the Oakland-East Bay Hills Fire occurred.  Eucalyptus trees were NOT the problem - the wind was very strong that day; the fire department thought it had the original fire completely doused - they did not; narrow streets crowded with cars prevented fire trucks from getting to the area; fittings for the hydrants did not work; the fire department ran out of water; there was no "perimeter" set by the fire department; there was no evacuation order.  None of which was the fault of eucalyptus trees.

The letter that Nathan has written (linked above) is lengthy but spells out why clear cutting these trees will not prevent another fire, and, in fact, will exacerbate a fire if one starts.  The grasses are the fuel, not the trees.

In addition to the clear cutting, other problems arise: the use of glyphosate (Monsanto's RoundUp) in very large doses - it is a carcinogen; the welfare of the wildlife who live in the area being clear cut; no trees to sequester carbon; home values decreased.  It is such a bad decision overall and it is beyond comprehension how it can be implemented.

Image is from here - the article is worth reading, too.

What price coconuts?

Nathan Winograd

Did an abused monkey pick your coconut?

Agile and adept climbers, pig-tailed macaques—native to coconut growing regions in Southeast Asia—are capable of harvesting several hundred more coconuts a day than a human can. Chained by the neck and trained to pick only ripe coconuts, they are forced to do so, day in, day out and all day long. They are trained at monkey training facilities one visitor described as such, “The primitive, primate campus, a simple, open sided shed,” contains, “individual, meter high stakes, driven into the dirt floor… Onto each perch is tethered a solitary monkey by collar and chain. There are a dozen such perches, each one just out of reach of its neighbor.”

During training and beyond, the monkeys are tethered or caged 24/7, sometimes with little to no opportunity for socialization. Where do these monkeys come from? According to one monkey handler, “Sometimes the monkeys are offspring of berok (already trained monkeys); sometimes they are caught on the forest with nets or traps. Often though, nursing mothers are shot and their babies are taken.”

Unfortunately, much of the reporting you will find on this issue approaches it from a disturbing “entertainment” angle in which the subjugation and forced labor of primates is treated as a curious, amusing oddity rather what it really is: exploitation of highly intelligent individuals. Instead of living fulfilling, autonomous lives in deference to their natural instincts and will—lives that would include social interaction with others of their kind, mating, raising young, moving about freely and resting whenever they choose—these monkeys spend their lives in endless toil and forced obedience to the will of humans.

And though many articles about these monkeys contain quotes from handlers who state that they care about their animals, it is impossible to square such assurances with the long hours, hard labor, constant shackling and lack of autonomy these animals are forced to endure day in and day out for no personal benefit. It is, in a word, slavery. And as human nature and history demonstrate again and again—where there is a profit to be made on the backs of non-humans, those backs are strained and often broken.

This is an excerpt from a FB post; you can read Nathan's entire article here.  And here is another article which lists some companies that do not use monkeys or small children to harvest the coconuts.