SOLSTICE GREETINGS

Winter solstice in Fairbanks, a time of dim light, frequent sub-zero cold, and celebration. Each day will now get slightly longer, and the sun just a little higher. By the end of January, while still cold, there is much more light with which to enjoy our frozen landscape, and the promise of even more as we head into A.P.R.'s favorite months in the far North, February and March.

This year, of course, your lead editor is missing the winter solstice at home, and getting two summer solstices, the second one here in the southern hemisphere at latitude 34 South. The longest day of the year here begins around 0530, and ends around 2030. So far, during my time in Sydney, it has been unseasonably cool, only 20 to 28C for daytime highs (68-84F). But I have been assured by my mates in the B.O.M. office, that it can reach 45C (113F!), at any time. Certainly not something I hope happens during my time here!

Today, walking around the beautiful rocky blue-water coast around Sydney, it was cool and windy, with even a few showers, and temperatures only around 20C. Very comfortable for an Alaskan.
Surroundings like this always bring out my contemplative side, Being around bodies of water, whether it is the ocean, a lake, rivers, or fast-flowing streams, tend to have that effect on me. Today was no exception.

hol⋅i⋅day 
–noun
1.
a day fixed by law or custom on which ordinary business is suspended in commemoration of some event or in honor of some person.
2.
any day of exemption from work (distinguished from working day ).
3.
a time or period of exemption from any requirement, duty, assessment, etc.: New businesses may be granted a one-year tax holiday.
4.
a religious feast day; holy day, esp. any of several usually commemorative holy days observed in Judaism.
5.
Sometimes, holidays. Chiefly British. a period of cessation from work or one of recreation; vacation.
6.
an unintentional gap left on a plated, coated, or painted surface.–adjective
7.
of or pertaining to a festival; festive; joyous: a holiday mood.
8.
suitable for a holiday: holiday attire. –verb (used without object)
9.
Chiefly British. to vacation: to holiday at the seaside.
Origin: bef. 950; ME; OE hāligdæg. See holy, day

Winter solstice for me has always been my favorite holiday, after reaching adulthood and developing my own world-view.

at⋅a⋅vis⋅tic 

 /ˌætəˈvɪstɪk/
–adjective
of, pertaining to, or characterized by atavism; reverting to or suggesting the characteristics of a remote ancestor or primitive type.
Origin: 1870–75; atav(ism) + -istic

at·a·vism

(āt'ə-vĭz'əm) Pronunciation Key n.
The reappearance of a characteristic in an organism after several generations of absence, usually caused by the chance recombination of genes.
An individual or a part that exhibits atavism. Also called throwback.
The return of a trait or recurrence of previous behavior after a period of absence. [French atavisme, from Latin atavus, ancestor : atta, father + avus, grandfather; see awo- in Indo-European roots.]

What better descriptions for the meaning of Solstice, to me and many other green-oriented/progressive type people in the European/Caucasian industrialized countries, than this? Our ancestors, before Christianity, lived lives totally in the rhythm of the seasons, and in the cool or cold European winters, the arrival and passage of the shortest day of the year had great meaning.

This is a great article, once again, not from a U.S. source:

How Astronauts Went to the Moon and Ended Up Discovering Planet Earth

Photos of Earthrise from Apollo 8 changed the way we look at the world
by Juliette Jowit

Forty years ago this Christmas the first human beings reached the moon. But their historic feat is better remembered for an image of what they left behind - planet Earth.

Earthrise from Apollo 8. (NASA)Looking back from more than 200,000 miles away, the crew of Apollo 8 saw Earth floating "like a Christmas tree ornament lit up in space, fragile-looking". They pointed their cameras through smeared porthole windows and began snapping. It seems almost incredible now, but nobody thought to take a photo of Earth until they saw it, because nobody had seen it before.

One of those photos, an Earthrise over the grey and inhospitable lunar horizon, has become one of the most reproduced and recognized pictures of our planet. LIFE magazine selected it as one of 100 photographs that changed the world; more recently it featured in an Oscar-winning film about climate change, An Inconvenient Truth.

"That one picture exploded in the consciousness of humans," said Al Gore, the film's Nobel prize-winning narrator and campaigner. "It led to dramatic changes. Within 18 months of this picture the environment movement had begun."

There is still some dispute over which of Apollo 8's crew took the first Earthrise photo, but the official version selected by the American space agency, NASA, was by Bill Anders, who spoke to the Guardian from his home in San Diego, California. "After all the training and studying we'd done as pilots and engineers to get to the moon safely and get back, [and] as human beings to explore moon orbit," he said, "what we really discovered was the planet Earth."

Anders and fellow crew members Frank Borman and Jim Lovell left on December 21 and began orbiting the moon on Christmas Eve. For the first and second loops, Apollo 8's crew faced backwards, but on the third revolution Borman, the commander, turned their capsule around. "Suddenly Borman said something like 'look at that' and here was the Earth coming up," recalled Anders. "There was a mad scramble for cameras: I just happened to have one with color film in it and a long lens. All I did was to keep snapping.

"It's not a very good photo as photos go, but it's a special one. It was the first statement of our planet Earth and it was particularly impressive because it's contrasted against this startling horizon."

In the following weeks it is estimated that 2 billion people - more than half the humans alive at the time - watched the blurred black and grey TV film of the moon and listened to crackling voices speaking to them across space as Apollo 8's crew read the first 10 verses of the Bible.

In what now seems symbolic of the impact of seeing the whole planet for the first time with human eyes, Borman appeared to cast off the nationalistic cold war fervor surrounding the mission and ended the broadcast saying: "A merry Christmas and God bless all of you, all of you on the good Earth."

The impact of the photo in 1968 was immediate in a world already shaken by Rachel Carson's explosive book on pesticide pollution, Silent Spring. Four decades later, climate change is the great environmental threat and Earthrise is still used by campaigners trying to draw attention to the problem.

Landscape photographer Joe Cornish said he had been haunted by the image: "It's a new perspective from space, but it's a totally new perspective when you see it in relation to another body in space."

For Anders, the fragility of life on Earth is shown even more powerfully by three photos of the Earth alone in space: "Earthrise has a reference - there's the moon and the Earth, you don't get a vastness - whereas the other ones, particularly the smaller one, it's Earth and black to the frame ... it goes on and on."

He added: "I think it's important for people to understand they are just going around on one of the smaller grains of sand on one of the spiral arms of this kind of puny galaxy ... it [Earth] is insignificant, but it's the only one we've got."
© 2008 Guardian News and Media Limited

Interesting, isn't it? The most advanced technology in the World at the time, manned space flight, a technology which if fully exploited would have serious deleterious effects on the environment, gave humanity a way of visualising the one-ness of all people and beings. Enabling us to develop a global consciousness necessary to start tackling global problems that technology is creating.

We here at A.P.R. do tend toward atavism in our spiritual outlooks. Mattie especially, with her animist beliefs, sees the sacredness in all beings and things, living always in the present moment. A constant inspiration for me, since I tend to focus on the future over-much at times. We view with dismay the major religions of the Earth, which cling to exclusivity, (Christianity, Islam, Judaism to some extent), i.e., that their spiritual concepts are the "truth" to the exclusion of the others, and that their adherents are either specially chosen and/or will only be granted true peace and serenity in an afterlife, whilst non-believers will be destroyed. It is not our place here to tell people how or what to believe, evangelism has always been something we detest, especially when the Mormons or Jehovah's Witnesses show up at our door. But, with the looming inter-related global crises of climate change, and overpopulation/resource-depletion, global solutions will be required. Exclusivity-based belief systems stand in the way of this, and make it easier for wars to occur. One look at Middle Eastern history and current affairs is illustrative, as well as the troubles in Northern Ireland in the 1960s-1970s, and the history of relations between indigenous peoples and Europeans in the Americas and Australia.

Our rule of thumb, here at A.P.R. in our spiritual questing, is very basic. We don't eat things that we know will make us feel bad. Similarly, we don't believe things that we come across, that will make us feel bad. When we are seeking, and come upon information or beliefs that resonate with us, we look at three prime qualifiers. Does the material openly and without hesitation accept all races, cultures, and beings? Does it or will it promote understanding and rapproachment between all other religions, cultures, and belief systems? Does it provide a framework in which our lives have true meaning and purpose? If any of these three questions are not met, we reject the material as not healthy for us.

A quick example: Pure science, in it's most orthodox sense, would say that we are essentially just a mix of chemicals in a random universe. That life developed and evolved it's extraordinary complexity by chance, and that the life we have now, is all that we will have. And further, that life necessarily then, is essentially meaningless. We rejected this long ago, as it did not make us feel good, and it violates the third prime qualifier.

So that's how we have chosen to act in our spiritual seeking, and for us, here at A.P.R., we find meaning in our lives, and see things in a larger framework. It goes without saying, that we believe many, if not all, of our problems on Earth, stem from a lack of spiritual consideration and awareness. The greed and short-sightedness of our Capitalist system is a prime example. Do you think people who had a true appreciation and understanding of the one-ness of all life would launch, or allow to be launched, a war based on lies, knowing that there would be large numbers of deaths and injuries, and suffering of those not injured? Or, would shift factories and jobs to poor countries, throwing people out of work, in order to seek higher profits from near-slave labor, and lax environmental regulations/enforcement?

What have we here at A.P.R. found in our years of seeking? Well, we have settled upon a "New-Age" belief system encompassing elements of Native American and other Indigenous peoples systems, as well as insights from modern day teachers and guides. One of our favorite sources is the Seth material, laid out in several books by Jane Roberts, two of the best being "Seth Speaks", and "The Nature of Personal Reality".

A very interesting psychic named Edgar Cayce lived in the southern U.S. from 1877-1945. He gave thousands of readings to people while in trance, about all manner of subjects, health/medicine, current affairs, spiritual matters, missing persons, etc.. He was investigated and tested by many prominent researchers in his day. He was able, while in trance, to pinpoint locations of hidden materials, and other things that would be impossible to know in our ordinary lives. He left a rich legacy of material that many people still study, including those of us here at A.P.R. Any bookstore in their philosophy/religion section will have a number of books about him, as dozens have been written.

In closing, I'd like to describe an interesting incident that happened to your lead editor last week, while at work. I was tired from lack of sleep, due to a bad head cold. After riding my bike to the office, and locking it up, I just left the keys on a wall by the bike, because of my grogginess. Upon leaving for the day, with dismay I realized I had lost my keys. After extensive fruitless searching, I borrowed a hacksaw, and began cutting the cable. As I was about a third of the way through, I noticed a wadded paper note stuffed in the seat. Opening it up, there were my keys, along with this message:

1153 am 17/12/2008

2 Whom it May Concern

1.) I just sat down in the shade 4 a smoke

2.) Keys lying there

3.) Hmmm.... - interesting!!!

4.) Keys fit mongoose bike lock

5.) I give u a Christmas present

God Bless U

(Jesus is born)

Now, there is a real Christian! Needless to say, I was speechless and had to show all my mates in the office the note, and it gave us all good cheer. Isn't it great when things like this happen, to show us that there are kind and concerned people in the World? Cheers.

Happy Solstice!

IF THE SHOE FITS

Hey folks. Greetings from Sydney, Australia, where A.P.R. is operating remotely, but still keenly aware of goings on in the homeland, both in Alaska and the USA.

In fact, after I got in here sunday, I did a quick browse of my usual news-sources, and came across this interesting article.

Published on Sunday, December 14, 2008 by The Guardian/UK
Bush Sneaks Through Host of Laws to Undermine Obama

The lame-duck Republican team is rushing through radical measures, from coal waste dumping to power stations in national parks, that will take months to overturn

by Paul Harris

After spending eight years at the helm of one of the most ideologically driven administrations in American history, George W. Bush is ending his presidency in characteristically aggressive fashion, with a swath of controversial measures designed to reward supporters and enrage opponents.

By the time he vacates the White House, he will have issued a record number of so-called 'midnight regulations' - so called because of the stealthy way they appear on the rule books - to undermine the administration of Barack Obama, many of which could take years to undo.
Dozens of new rules have already been introduced which critics say will diminish worker safety, pollute the environment, promote gun use and curtail abortion rights. Many rules promote the interests of large industries, such as coal mining or energy, which have energetically supported Bush during his two terms as president. More are expected this week.

America's attention is focused on the fate of the beleaguered car industry, still seeking backing in Washington for a multi-billion-dollar bail-out. But behind the scenes, the 'midnight' rules are being rushed through with little fanfare and minimal media attention. None of them would be likely to appeal to the incoming Obama team.

The regulations cover a vast policy area, ranging from healthcare to car safety to civil liberties. Many are focused on the environment and seek to ease regulations that limit pollution or restrict harmful industrial practices, such as dumping strip-mining waste.

The Bush moves have outraged many watchdog groups. 'The regulations we have seen so far have been pretty bad,' said Matt Madia, a regulatory policy analyst at OMB Watch. 'The effects of all this are going to be severe.'

Bush can pass the rules because of a loophole in US law allowing him to put last-minute regulations into the Code of Federal Regulations, rules that have the same force as law. He can carry out many of his political aims without needing to force new laws through Congress. Outgoing presidents often use the loophole in their last weeks in office, but Bush has done this far more than Bill Clinton or his father, George Bush sr. He is on track to issue more 'midnight regulations' than any other previous president.

Many of these are radical and appear to pay off big business allies of the Republican party. One rule will make it easier for coal companies to dump debris from strip mining into valleys and streams. The process is part of an environmentally damaging technique known as 'mountain-top removal mining'. It involves literally removing the top of a mountain to excavate a coal seam and pouring the debris into a valley, which is then filled up with rock. The new rule will make that dumping easier.

Another midnight regulation will allow power companies to build coal-fired power stations nearer to national parks. Yet another regulation will allow coal-fired stations to increase their emissions without installing new anti-pollution equipment.

The Environmental Defence Fund has called the moves a 'fire sale of epic size for coal'. Other environmental groups agree. 'The only motivation for some of these rules is to benefit the business interests that the Bush administration has served,' said Ed Hopkins, a director of environmental quality at the Sierra Club. A case in point would seem to be a rule that opens up millions of acres of land to oil shale extraction, which environmental groups say is highly pollutant.

There is a long list of other new regulations that have gone onto the books. One lengthens the number of hours that truck drivers can drive without rest. Another surrenders government control of rerouting the rail transport of hazardous materials around densely populated areas and gives it to the rail companies.

One more chips away at the protection of endangered species. Gun control is also weakened by allowing loaded and concealed guns to be carried in national parks. Abortion rights are hit by allowing healthcare workers to cite religious or moral grounds for opting out of carrying out certain medical procedures.

A common theme is shifting regulation of industry from government to the industries themselves, essentially promoting self-regulation. One rule transfers assessment of the impact of ocean-fishing away from federal inspectors to advisory groups linked to the fishing industry. Another allows factory farms to self-regulate disposal of pollutant run-off.

The White House denies it is sabotaging the new administration. It says many of the moves have been openly flagged for months. The spate of rules is going to be hard for Obama to quickly overcome. By issuing them early in the 'lame duck' period of office, the Bush administration has mostly dodged 30- or 60-day time limits that would have made undoing them relatively straightforward.

Obama's team will have to go through a more lengthy process of reversing them, as it is forced to open them to a period of public consulting. That means that undoing the damage could take months or even years, especially if corporations go to the courts to prevent changes.
At the same time, the Obama team will have a huge agenda on its plate as it inherits the economic crisis. Nevertheless, anti-midnight regulation groups are lobbying Obama's transition team to make sure Bush's new rules are changed as soon as possible. 'They are aware of this. The transition team has a list of things they want to undo,' said Madia.

Final reckoning
Bush's midnight regulations will:
Make it easier for coal companies to dump waste from strip-mining into valleys and streams.
Ease the building of coal-fired power stations nearer to national parks.
Allow people to carry loaded and concealed weapons in national parks.
Open up millions of acres to mining for oil shale.
Allow healthcare workers to opt out of giving treatment for religious or moral reasons, thus weakening abortion rights.
Hurt road safety by allowing truck drivers to stay at the wheel for 11 consecutive hours.
© 2008 Guardian News and Media Limited

Whilst pedaling back to my apartment downtown yesterday, after a day of sun, running, swimming, and gawking at the powerful 10-12 foot waves slamming into the rocks at the north point of beautiful Bondi Beach, it came to me. Does anything sum up better the overall methods and mendacity of the Bush Regime, over the past eight years than what is described in this article? The actual regulations that are being altered, and the method used to do so, secretive, without oversight or vote. The message this sends is stunning; complete and utter contempt for the environment, future generations, and the health and welfare of people in the U.S. and abroad. All sacrificed at the holy altar of greed. How has this come to pass, and why? Will things ever change in the U.S?

I'm sure all of you are aware now of the shoe-throwing incident Bush endured in a press conference in Baghdad http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2008/12/14-1 . The A.P.R. certainly understands and sympathizes with the viewpoints of that Iraqi Journalist, and he has caught global attention and concern http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2008/12/15-3 .

This may actually be one of the first incidents where Bush has gotten even a glimpse of the anger and rage engendered by his and his regime's actions that have caused such suffering in Iraq and throughout the World. It is serving as a lightning-rod for conversation about this, which is even better. In fact, earlier today, when I dropped in to my new office for a visit, it was a hot topic for a few minutes, after people asked me about Sarah Palin (naturally I felt free to offer my complete no-holds-barred viewpoint concerning her and her party's platform). All my mates there in the office were in good cheer talking about it, and felt it was deserved!

This is sure a breath of fresh air for your lead editor, to be in a place where nearly everyone he runs into is in agreement, in at least a general sense, about the current U.S. and global socio-political situation. Three cheers for the good people of Australia! Not that things are perfect here by any means, they have their share of problems and I want to examine some of them while I'm here, to see if anything useful can be learned for those of us in the North.

Next week, A.P.R. will offer up a Solstice/Christmas article that will examine things in a more spiritual sense, it being thought an appropriate time for that. Cheers!

CAPITALISM WITH A HUMAN FACE ~ and ~ A SUMMER JOB

This week's review will hopefully be a little more uplifting than last week's. A.P.R. just felt that not enough attention has been paid recently to the Iraq War/Tragedy, and a review of that situation was necessary. We did not intend to upset anyone with graphic imagery, but at the same time, felt a reminder was necessary of what war really entails. And since this one was totally un-necessary, illegal, and immoral, that those responsible need to be held to accounts. OK, enough said.

1968 was an interesting year in modern history, and arguably, if you could pick one year in the past 200 where the pace of technical, social/cultural, scientific, and political change was the greatest (at least in the "Western" developed countries), it would be hard to beat it. The tragic episodes of the escalating Vietnam War, assasinations of MLK and RFK, were also accompanied by other more uplifting events. One of these was known as the "Prague Spring", which occurred in Czechoslovakia, beginning in January, 1968, although it did not survive the year. The following is an encyclopedia description of what happened there during that year.

"Socialism with a human face (in Czech: socialismus s lidskou tváří, in Slovak: socializmus s luďskou tvárou) was a political programme announced by Alexander Dubček and his colleagues when he became the chairman of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia in January 1968. It was a process of mild democratization and political liberalization that would still enable the communist party to maintain real power. Alexander Dubcek (November 27, 1921 to November 7, 1992) was a Slovak politician and briefly leader of Czechoslovakia (1968-1969). ... The Communist Party of Czechoslovakia, in Czech and in Slovak: Komunistická strana Československa (KSČ) was a political party in Czechoslovakia that existed between 1921 and 1992. The programme was an attempt to overcome the disillusionment of the people in Czechoslovakia with the current political and economic situation. As the name suggests, the plan was to breathe new life into the ideals of socialism, which had lost popular support due to the government policies of the previous two decades. It never intended to bring back market capitalism. The subsequent developments became known as the Prague Spring. This was a period of political liberalization in Czechoslovakia starting January 5, 1968, and running until August 20 of that year when the USSR and its Warsaw Pact allies (except for Romania) invaded the country. ...

Programme
The programme initially called for greater participation of people in local and country politics under umbrella of communist party, for greater freedom of press and in culture and emphasised need for personal initiative in economics. The most loathed representants of previous style of ruling were left to go.

The programme didn't suppose existence of independent political parties or private ownership of companies. Participation on structures of Eastern Bloc was not questioned. Events of Prague Spring, especially their speed and escalation left the original programme behind current development, often to suprise and dismay of its authors. During the Cold War, the Eastern Bloc (or Soviet Bloc) comprised the following Central and Eastern European countries: Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary, East Germany, Poland, Albania (until the early 1960s, see below), the Soviet Union, and Czechoslovakia. ...

Supression
The Soviet Union feared losing control over the country and invaded Czechoslovakia on August 21, 1968, with 200,000 troops and 5,000 tanks. The liberalizing reforms were eliminated step by step, and the country eventually returned to the centralized model with the communist party organizing every aspect of political and economical life. Most of the influential persons involved in the programme lost their political power and became target of persecutions."


Resistance to Soviet invasion, Prague,
August, 1968

The following article came from today's Counterpunch.org web-site:

A Classic Battle for Workers' Rights
Raising the Stakes at Republic

By LEE SUSTAR and NICOLE COLSON

Day four of the Republic Windows & Doors factory occupation in Chicago saw another surge in labor solidarity--plus a rare boost from the media and politicians trying to outdo one other in showing support for the struggle. Just hours after the Chicago Tribune published a December 8 report apparently verifying workers' suspicions that production had been moved from their now-closed factory to a nonunion facility in Iowa, Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich arrived at the plant just north and west of downtown Chicago. The governor announced that state agencies would suspend their business with Bank of America (BoA), which triggered the closure of Republic's plant by cutting off its line of credit.
"During these times of economic turmoil, we must ensure that workers' rights are protected," Blagojevich said, adding that the Illinois Department of Labor would file a complaint in federal court if negotiations between the factory's owners, the workers' union and BoA officials didn't provide the approximately $1.5 million that workers are owned under federal and state law as well as their union contract. The 250 workers, members of the United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America (UE) Local 1110, are demanding that BoA either resume making loans to Republic to reopen the plant or help the company make good on its obligations to workers. The workers are angry that BoA received $25 billion in taxpayer bailout, but won't lend to viable companies.
Blagojevich vowed to help. "We're going to do everything possible here in Illinois to side with these workers," he said. Also on hand was Sen. Dick Durbin. "Over the last several weeks, we have been debating in Washington how to spend hundreds of billions of dollars," he told reporters afterward. "We have been sending billions of dollars to banks like Bank of America. The reason we sent them the money was to tell them they have to loan this money to companies just like Republic."
Soon after the politicians' limos left the plant, a scene more familiar to labor activists took shape. Amid the forest of mobile TV satellite feed dishes, some 20 burly members of the International Union of Operating Engineers Local 150 installed giant inflatable rats on either side of the plant entrance and took up positions near the door. Local 150 Business Manager/President Jim Sweeney explained the motivation for this delegation in one word: "Solidarity." Why the large delegation? "We heard they [management] were going to try to move them out," he explained, adding that his locals' members would be on hand for the duration of the occupation. For Sweeney, the struggle "summarizes where we are as a movement," he said. "We've come full circle. Seven percent of the workforce is unionized [in the private sector], and we're back to sit-down strikes like in Flint, Michigan," he said, referring to the famous factory occupation of 1936-37 that forced General Motors to recognize the United Auto Workers. "We need a catalyst," Sweeney said. "And this may be what starts it for the American worker again."
Alongside the operating engineers, a delegation of more than a dozen nurses from Cook County Stroger Hospital stood behind their banner, carrying signs in support of the Republic workers and chanting, "The workers united will never be divided."
"This is important, because this is a form of union-busting," said Diane Ellis, the chief steward for the National Nurses Organizing Committee at Stroger. "Their contract was violated. Workers' rights were violated, when the company just shut them out. It's happening to them today, and it could happen to us tomorrow. You've got the fat cats walking away with the money and leaving all the workers here with nothing." As the chanting resumed, union members, community activists and students threaded their way through the reporters crowding the building foyer, making now-routine deliveries of food and beverages. Cameras crowded the inner door to the plant, as journalists strained to capture images of workers seated near stacks of recently manufactured windows as a handful of children played nearby.
* * *
MEANWHILE, ANOTHER group of politicians assembled to turn up the heat on BoA.
At a press conference at City Hall, Alderman Ricardo Muñoz announced a proposed ordinance that would shift city funds from Bank of America to other banks, require City Council approval for any BoA underwriting or marketing of city bonds, and force the bank to bring any proposed zoning changes on property directly to City Council. "Under the law, the City Council has the authority and responsibility to take into account the interests of Chicago and its residents when deciding which banks to do business with," Muñoz said. "Bank of America profits handsomely from the business it gets from the City and other governments. We have a right to demand that workers are treated fairly." Following a three-hour meeting on Monday afternoon between union, company and bank representatives, it was announced that no settlement had been reached and the sit-in would continue. A new round of talks was slated for the next day--and if the workers don't get satisfaction, a big protest is planed for 12 noon the following day at BoA's Chicago-area headquarters. Will BoA buckle under the pressure? "Obviously, there's tremendous public support for the workers here, and for the sense that workers need to have jobs, said Carl Rosen, western region president for UE. "I think there is a lot of pressure on the bank with regard to this, but banks have their own agendas, and they're not the peoples' agenda." He added, "Anyone who has the ability to let Bank of America know they want something done should go ahead and do that."
Activists did do that in the largely Mexican-American community of Little Village. After a picket at BoA's large 26th Street branch organized by the March 10 immigrant rights coalition and other groups, participants made their case against BoA in a press conference.
According to labor organizer and journalist Jorge Mújica, immigrants rights activists supported the Republic workers not only because they are mostly Latino immigrants, but because they are literally fighting the same institutions. "There are dozens of shops that have closed down in the last month and a half," Mújica said. "Why? Because of the same reason--lack of money, lack of credit, lack of resources....So we are going to demand from Bank of America to keep open the line of credit from Republic, but also to open up the credit for 26th Street, so we don't keep losing more jobs." Ricardo Caceres, a 15-year worker at the plant and a union shop steward, used the press conference to remind the media that the boss shut the plant on two day's notice as the holidays loomed--and to express gratitude to the solidarity movement that's sprung up. "I want to say to your organizations, unions and communities, thank you so much for everything--for the food, and your support," he said. One of the speakers at the press conference was Rev. José Landaverde of Our Lady of Guadalupe Mission, a church centrally involved in the local movement against immigration raids and deportations. "People are losing their jobs because businesses are closing, and the banks won't support the needs of small business and the workers," he said as he walked the picket line. "They just want to support themselves. And this we see also with the government, with the Bush administration and the Obama administration. It's about saving Wall Street and the banks, but it's not saving the peoples' economy."
* * *
FOR REPUBLIC'S managers, the objective seems to be saving themselves at workers' expense. Confirmation came on Monday that--as workers suspected--Republic is not, in fact, shutting down operations, but planning to move production to Iowa under a new name, "Echo Windows & Doors."
Reports indicate that Echo would be nonunion, pay only $9 an hour, and offer workers limited benefits and no vacation pay for the first three years--a drastic cut compared to the average $14-an-hour wage and health and retirement benefits that Chicago Republic workers had been getting.
According to the Chicago Tribune:
People who apparently have ties to the financially strapped Republic Windows formed a limited liability corporation in Illinois last month, Echo Windows & Doors, that has bought a similar plant in western Iowa.
Sharon Gillman, who shares an address with Republic President and CEO Rich Gillman, is listed as an officer of Echo Windows & Doors LLC, which was incorporated in Illinois on November 18, according to secretary of state records.
Neither she nor Rich Gillman could be reached for comment on Sunday. A secretary who answered the phone at the Iowa plant purchased by Echo said Rich Gillman was not in on Sunday, and that she did not know when he would be in.
An "echowindows.com" Internet domain has been registered, but no content has been placed on the site. The administrative contact on the domain registration is Amy Zimmerman--the same name as the vice president of sales and marketing at Republic...
Echo Windows officials told employees at the former TRACO manufacturing plant in Red Oak, Iowa, on Thursday that the workforce would be doubled from the current 50 employees because they have production orders lined up.
None of this surprises Melvin Maclin, vice president of UE Local 1110, and Ron Bender, a union shop steward.
"I don't think they want to stay here, period," Bender said. Maclin added, "It was never the owner's plan to save the plant. And the bank was aware of it. I don't know that for a fact, but it seemed like the bank was aware of what's going on. They were just running a game."
Whatever Republics' owners and BoA had planned last week, it's a different world now. By trying to add to the misery of laid-off workers by stealing their severance pay, they've managed to demonstrate to the world the inequity and double standards of the Wall Street bailout.
And now they've discovered that workers are capable of demonstrating something else--resolve, struggle and solidarity in what has become a classic battle for workers' rights.

These are hopeful developments. President-elect Obama even came out in support of the workers occupying the factory, and pledged to support the process of getting them their severance pay and benefits. And now, as the above article mentions, this company, Republic Window and Door, closed the factory to move to a non-union facility, where they could pay lower wages and benefits. This, and the fact that the Bank of America, which received 25 billion dollars in bailout money from the federal government recently, but would not release monies to Republic, so that these workers could receive what is owed them, shines a glaring spotlight on the current socio-economic system we have in this country. With many more such factory closings likely in the coming months and years, due to the depression we seem to be entering, it's likely more such events as this will occur as well. It helps to recall, that none of the benefits we associate with the modern workplace, the 40 hour week, workers compensation/accident coverage, health and vacation benefits, etc., came about easily. They were won only after decades of protracted struggles like these, with many fatalities, and even some massacres (http://members.tripod.com/~RedRobin2/index-29.html).

It will be more important than ever for workers of all stripes, in the face of the coming depression, to become cognizant of the history of the labor movement in this and other countries, and to be prepared to engage in actions similar to those that won us what we currently enjoy, when attempts are made to rescind/repeal these. Which is happening, and will continue to, unless resistance is given. One particular piece of legislation that the new Congress will vote on early next year is the "The Employee Free Choice Act (also known as "card check") which would end secret ballots in union elections. It may be the most important piece of legislation in a decade. Its passage would ease union organizing and help to grow union membership which has dwindled to about 10 percent of the work force. Forget about the fake differences between the two political parties. There aren't any. The only hope for deep structural change is to strengthen the unions and give workers a place at the policy table. That's the only peaceful way to dismantle this parasitic financial regime and bring about a more equitable distribution of wealth." (Mike Whitney, Counterpunch.org, 12/09/08). It is very important that members of the House of Representatives and Senate receive pressure to pass this. With the new larger Democratic majorities in both bodies, it may just have a chance. After all, if Capitalism doesn't transform and develop a human face in this country, where consideration is given to human factors, it will not and should not survive. The transition to a new system could be chaotic and violent, which is not certainly not something we would want to experience. That's why we presented the Prague Spring as a lead-in, to show that unforeseen events can be the catalyst for positive changes, and we certainly hope the Republic factory occupation will be one like that, shining a spotlight, as it does, on the injustice and greed inherent in our current socio-economic system.

A SUMMER JOB

Your lead editor of the Alaska Progressive Review has to occasionally travel for his day (and sometimes night) job, as that of a meteorologist, specialising in the prediction of wildfire danger and weather for fire suppression activities. The government of the country covering the entirety of the far southern continent, the former British penal colony, has been contracting for the past several years to send specialists like us, to aid in their fire weather forecasting efforts. I was called this year, and will be working with the Australian Bureau of Meteorology, in their New South Wales/Sydney office, from 12/16 until 1/18, during the peak of their summer.

I will be returning to the frozen winter landscape of Alaska on 1/25, after taking some days off to do some scuba diving on the Great Barrier Reef, and other touring of that interesting continent.

Whilst we here at A.P.R. envision the day when we become nationally and globally syndicated, with print, radio, and television operations, enabling us to give up our other jobs and devote ourselves fully to working for a more sane and just World, current reality dictates that other means of financial support are necessary. This trip will be an excellent opportunity though to learn about a country that in many ways is like the U.S. A former British colony, though one that peacefully separated, and is still in the British Commonwealth (and as such, Queen Elizabeth remains the official head of state), Australia is of a similar size to our lower 48, and has a fairly similar history of relations with it's indigenous peoples. We hope to learn more about this history and see what the current state of these relations are. And, to look at what is different there, Australia does have a Parliamentary from of government, greater social spending/benefits, including universal-access health care, all with only 20 million people! I hope to learn about and share information from Australia that I think will be helpful for A.P.R.'s efforts to work for a more sane and just way of life on this continent.

Mattie of course will have to stay in Fairbanks and hold down the fort at our main research centre. But she is happy to do so, and will protect our facilities well until my return. I hope to provide you with at least a couple of articles during my stay in the Southern Hemisphere. Happy Holidays!

WHO ARE WE?

The Alaska Progressive Review strives to present information that we feel will aid in developing more sane, just, and sustainable political, economic, social, and environmental policies at all scales. Effective changes in this light by this country can not be undertaken without acknowledging and dealing with one of the greatest criminal and tragic events of the past 30 years. One in which we are all involved, and must work to put an end to, and heal the victims of.

There is no doubt now, that the invasion and occupation of the sovereign country of Iraq, begun in March, 2003 by our country, was illegal according to domestic and international law. The reasons given initially, that Saddam Hussein and his government proposed an imminent threat to this and other countries because of their possession of "weapons of mass destruction", was a smoke-screen for the real reasons.

** Investigative Reporter Greg Palast, in his book, Armed Madhouse, after interviewing numerous U.S. governmental officials (posing as an oil industry researcher), and oil industry figures, states that the invasion and occupation of Iraq was undertaken, with Saudi Arabia's blessing.http://www.amazon.com/Armed-Madhouse-Baghdad-Orleans-Sordid-Secrets/dp/0452288312/ref=

Not so much to gain direct control and ownership of Iraq's oil, but to eliminate Sadam Hussein's control of it, as he was causing too much instability in the pricing of oil by his manipulation of Iraq's production/export. In addition, for all the usual other benefits, raised oil prices for oil industry profit expansion, other military-industrial corporate profits, and rallying of the masses around the administration as they scapegoated Iraq for the 9/11 attacks.

While most progressive-oriented people knew from the start that the Iraq war/occupation was based on lies, some hard evidence of that was needed to help convince others. The Downing Street Memo serves that purpose very well. What is it? There is a web-site devoted to spreading the word about it.
http://downingstreetmemo.com/

In their words,

"The Downing Street "Memo" is actually the minutes of a meeting, transcribed during a gathering of many of the British Prime Minister's senior ministers on July 23, 2002. Published by The Sunday Times on May 1, 2005 this document was the first hard evidence from within the UK or US governments that exposed the truth about how the Iraq war began.

Since that time, much more information has come to light through leaks of secret government documents and the accounts of an increasing number of people who have witnessed the administration’s wrongdoing firsthand.

There is now in the public record a large body of evidence that vividly illustrates:

Bush’s long-standing intent to invade Iraq
Bush’s willingness to provoke Saddam (in a variety of ways) into providing a pretext for war
The fact that the war effectively began with an air campaign nearly a year before the March 2003 invasion and months before Congressional approval for the use of force
The administration’s widespread effort to crush dissent and manipulate information that would counter its justification for war
The lack of planning for the war’s aftermath and a fundamental lack of understanding of the Iraqi society

Even as the Bush presidency winds down, a recent Senate investigation final report shows how the administration manipulated information to overstate the WMD threat and conjure up a connection between Saddam Hussein and Al Quaida that did not exist.
A majority of the American people now believes that the president intentionally misled our nation into war, and many more believe the sacrifice made in Iraq has not been worthwhile. This web site is intended as a resource to document the truth about how we were misled into war, so that we might avoid such a mistake in the future."

Knowing that this war/occupation is illegal, and that hundreds of thousands, possibly even as many as 1.2 million Iraqi citizens have been killed (and 3-4 million driven from their homes) because of it, and over 4500 American and British soldiers, we need to ask ourselves, what is going to be done about it? If nothing is done (which at this point seems likely), what does that say about us, as citizens of the country responsible for it?

The Alaska Progressive Review does not want to engage in sensationalism or needless displays of human suffering. Yet, because of the tight control the corporate media in this country has of the flow of information from Iraq, pictures like this are essential to remind us of what modern warfare really means. Since World War I, and the advent of aerial bombardment and other enlightened technological advances, 80-90 percent of wartime casualties have been innocent civilians. Regardless of who is in the right or wrong, this is what happens. It is thought that one of the reasons for widespread opposition to the Vietnam War, besides the draft, was images of dead and dying civilians, children even, in circumstances like that of the poor Iraqi child shown here. A lesson which the powers that be keep in mind.

Here's a little something to ponder. Your editor used to serve as a medic in our nearby volunteer fire department several years ago, while considering a career change. During those duties I got to know how our emergency medical services work here in Fairbanks, Alaska. We have around 20 emergency room beds in our main hospital, Fairbanks Memorial. The Fort Wainwright Army Base hospital probably has a similar amount. 40 beds for a population center of about 90,000 people. When 750 cruise missiles rained down on Baghdad in March of 2003, a city of 6.5 million, how many emergency room beds and doctors do you think they had? In a city decimated by sanctions and failing infrastructure, without as advanced of a medical/emergency services system, as in this country.

Fairbanks has 1/70th the population of Baghdad, suppose 11 cruise missiles rained down on it. Places like the federal courthouse downtown, the power-plant along the Chena River, and buildings on the Air Force and Army bases, which have military housing nearby. Don't forget, cruise missiles do not necessarily hit their targets directly, and can be off by hundreds or thousands of feet, for many reasons. That would guarantee hundreds, possibly even a thousand or more immediate casualties in Fairbanks. Do you think any city this size could handle that? What do you think happened in Baghdad that night and the following several days, in March, 2003. Reports and images of truckloads of casualties were never seen in this country, but they were in much of the Middle East. DO NOT CLICK ON THIS LINK if you don't want to see real images of what the Iraq War/Occupation has brought to innocent civilians. http://mindprod.com/politics/iraqwarpix.html

Every society raises its children with basic ethics, that it is wrong to lie, hurt others, and certainly to kill. And that killing of others, when not in self-defense, is murder. Why shouldn't these standards also apply to governments and nations as well? Well, at one time they did. After World War II, when the main architects of the Nazi Party and power structure were tried during the Nuremburg Trials. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuremberg_Trials. One of the main things to come out of this process, were the Nuremburg Principles, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuremberg_Principles, one of which Principle VI, is given below.

Principle VI
The crimes hereinafter set out are punishable as crimes under international law:
(a) Crimes against peace:
(i) Planning, preparation, initiation or waging of a war of aggression or a war in violation of international treaties, agreements or assurances;
(ii) Participation in a common plan or conspiracy for the accomplishment of any of the acts mentioned under (i).
(b) War Crimes:
Violations of the laws or customs of war which include, but are not limited to, murder, ill-treatment or deportation of slave labor or for any other purpose of the civilian population of or in occupied territory; murder or ill-treatment of prisoners of war or persons on the Seas, killing of hostages, plunder of public or private property, wanton destruction of cities, towns, or villages, or devastation not justified by military necessity.
(c) Crimes against humanity:
Murder, extermination, enslavement, deportation and other inhumane acts done against any civilian population, or persecutions on political, racial, or religious grounds, when such acts are done or such persecutions are carried on in execution of or in connection with any crime against peace or any war crime.

The Democratic Party of this country has already stated many times, that impeachment of President Bush and/or Vice President Cheney, who, along with their colleagues and advisors, are the architects of the Iraq tragedy, is "off the table". Why? Is it because they are equally implicit, since most of them voted for the initial authorization of use of force, in 2002, knowing, deep at heart, that the justifications were false? But most of them voted for it anyway to maintain political office and all that entails. President-elect Obama has never said in any way that this tragedy is wrong, and must be ended at once.

But there is at least some discussion and effort to begin the process to indict and prosecute those responsible for these incredible crimes.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/vincent-bugliosi/the-prosecution-of-george_b_102427.html.

The above link describes a book written recently by Vincent Bugliosi, the retired District Attorney for Los Angeles County. He is most well-known for being the prosecutor in the notorious Charles Manson murder trial in the 1970s. He lays out the case that President Bush should be tried for murder in a court of law. Who better to make that informed kind of decision?
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2008/09/19-2. This link describes an article, whereby Vincent Bugliosi and Charlotte Dennette, a candidate for the Vermont Attorney General, propose to begin the indictment process.

"George Bush and his people have gotten away with thousands and thousands of murders," Bugliosi said, citing both American and Iraqi deaths in the five-year-old war. "We, the American people, cannot let him get away with this."
Bugliosi said any state attorney general or local district attorney can bring criminal charges against Bush once he leaves office early next year. He said Vermont could take on the soon-to-be ex-president by bringing conspiracy to murder charges against him, using his own public statements during the build-up to the Iraq war as evidence.

Unfortunately, Charlotte Dennette didn't win the Vermont Attorney General position. But, the important thing is, other people in similar positions, can start the indictment process. And officials must be pressured to do this. Because if not, the rest of the World will think that the American people accept what was done in Iraq by the Bush/Cheney regime.

ARCTIC CLIMATE CHANGE UPDATE, PART II

Winter in Fairbanks is a time of great peace and beauty. The Alaska Progressive Review's head office and research center is fortunate enough to be perched 500 feet atop the first ridge rising on the northern end of the broad valley of the middle reach of the Tanana River. Chena Ridge, it is called, and this is a typical view on an average mid-winter day, from just down the street. A view to the south over the broad valley which encompasses hundreds of miles, from the tip of Denali to the southwest, east 200 and more miles to the distant volcanoes of the Wrangell mountains.

Hard on days like that, often below 0F, to realize just what a predicament humanity is creating, with our carbon emissions from our fossil-fueled ways of living. Yet the signs are there, our declining Arctic summer sea ice, as you read last week, alpine glaciers in the tropics and mid-latitudes in fast recession world-wide (as we saw on Illimani, Bolivia), increasing droughts and wildfire acreages in many areas, and changing weather patterns. So, part II of our Arctic Climate Change Update, will focus on what we can do, on a large, governmental scale, and a small, personal one, to head off looming threats a warming World will deliver.

Yesterday was one of those magical days in Fairbanks when the weather pattern changed from a milder south flow of Pacific air, to a westerly flow, which brings in our colder, Arctic air. We are blocked from northwest and north winds by hills and low mountains in those directions. When this change to colder air occurs, we usually get a few inches of much needed new snow, and a light west wind, gradually cooling. I was able to squeeze in 90 minutes of skate skiing on our University of Alaska trails during this transition, which had been hard-packed and icy before, fast and fun, but requiring focus and concentration, so as not to lose balance on bumps, etc.. But the day's new snow rendered the trails as smooth as goose down, so gliding around felt like sliding along on a down pillow, very forgiving, smooth, and almost effortless. Four-leggeds are not allowed on the ski trails though, even co-editors of prestigious journals, so Mattie had to wait for her run around campus after my skiing ended.

While we were on our campus circumnavigation last evening, enjoying the downy, light snowflakes brushing our faces in the light 0F headwind, and gazing at the rimed and snow-shrouded trees, I fell into thinking, will times like this be much less frequent 20 or 30 years from now? What will it even be like, it seems like things have changed so fast in my lifetime already. As an operational meteorologist in the western lower 48 states and Alaska, since 1986, I have personally seen many changes. Winter arctic air incursions into the northwestern states are much less frequent and weaker now, than they were 20 years ago. Summers have been much drier there, 1994 seemed especially to be a year of transition in the inter-mountain West to a new type of weather regime, with hotter drier summers, and longer, more severe wildfire seasons. Winter snowpacks have been skimpier most years since then as well, later to start and with earlier melt-offs, contributing to the drought and wildfire trends. The health of the forests in the Northern Rockies especially reflects this. Vast areas of this region in Idaho, Montana, and even south into Utah and Colorado have been decimated by insect pests such as pine beetles and spruce budworms that have weakened and killed large swaths of sensitive species. Insect pests that have wreaked havoc because winter temperatures are often no longer cold enough to kill over-wintering larvae, and then more of these pests are available to infest drought-weakened trees in the ensuing summer.

This really sank in to me during the fire seasons of 2003 and 2006, when I worked in Idaho and Montana during those summers, forecasting weather for wildfire suppression teams. It was heart-breaking to me to see vast areas that I remembered as healthy, from the 1980s and early 1990s, with 30-50 percent stand mortality in many of the tree species there such as lodgepole pine, englemann spruce, and sub-alpine fir. Here in Alaska, a huge expanse of the boreal spruce forest on the Kenai peninsula was killed by a spruce budworm infestation in the 1990s, which also occurred in the Southern Yukon territory, to our east. This infestation and spruce mortality is moving north, and west, with each year, and last year, many people had budworm infestations on local trees here in Fairbanks. So, we will likely here, within 10 years or so, begin to see our spruce trees die off in the Interior of Alaska. Amongst other things.

Dr. James Hansen is a physics professor who heads the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, Earth Sciences Division, in New York City, and also works at Columbia University in an adjunct position. He is credited with being one of the first broadly-respected and established scientists to raise the issue of global warming as a looming threat, in his speeches to Congressional committees in 1988. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Hansen. His latest research and opinions are even more sobering, and frankly, cause for occasional great pessimism in our darker moments, at the Alaska Progressive Review. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-james-hansen/twenty-years-later-tippin_b_108766.html. And the news just seems to be getting worse. http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2008/11/30-1. Times when we need to take a run/ski or wilderness break, to remember how fortunate we are to be here and refocus on the present moment.

But we do need to plan for the future. If, as Dr. Hansen and other researchers are saying, is true, that our current atmospheric CO2 concentration of 385 ppm is unsafe, that we are heading to the tipping points mentioned earlier, and must get back to 350 ppm or less, then serious action is needed now. Since we are increasing each year 3-4 ppm, which is also expected to keep increasing, unless changes in global energy production use and generation methods occcur. His proposal for a non-regressive carbon tax, with proceeds used to fund research and manufacturing of alternative energy methods sounds to us like a great large-scale initiative, and one that could be emulated on a global, not just national, scale. Wouldn't it be nice, if our country could take the lead on this important issue, and be a global inspiration, as it was during the space race of the 1960s? Moratoriums on coal-fired power plants are very important as well, besides being one of the dirtiest, greatest contributors of national and global CO2 emmissions, the destruction of entire mountains in Appalachia http://www.ohvec.org/galleries/mountaintop_removal/007/ stands as a testiment to our short-sitedness as a country and culture. What will future generations think, 200 years hence, if they are here, when they gaze upon these areas? We don't really have the time to debate back and forth about what kind of things should be done, ACTION NEEDS TO BE TAKEN NOW, as researchers state. To prevent catastrophic sea level rises and worsening droughts. And on the upper end/worst case scenario, runaway greenhouse warming leading to mass extinctions.

I have many times read a marvelous book, written in 1974, by Ursula K. Leguin, an amazingly progressive and foresightful woman, called "The Dispossessed". Set on a moon, Annares, of a planet, Urras, in the Tau-Ceti star system, 11 light-years from Earth. Anarchists and socialists on Urras, which had a culture like the depression-era U.S., but more technically advanced, rebelled. They were able to colonize and develop their own socialistic-anarchistic culture on it's barely-inhabitable moon of Annares, so long as they kept mining and sending valuable minerals back to the home-planet. One of the many really interesting things in this book, was when the main character, a physicist who develops a theory of faster-than-light travel, meets the ambassador from Earth, taking refuge in the Terran embassy, since he is being pursued for his theory. He doesn't want the near-fascist states on the home planet to use it for their own profit. Only this Earth is as it is hundreds of years in our future. The Terran (Latin for Earth, commonly used in the sci-fi genre)

ambassador tells him that her (our) planet is a burnt out shell, mostly deserts. Runaway global warming decimated the planet and the human race, and the survivors live hard lives under totally regimented circumstances, the only way any kind of technical culture is able to continue. A different race, the Hainish, brought sub-light space-travel to Earth and the neighboring star systems and helped them (us). Remember, this was written in 1974, when very few people had ever even thought of global warming. One of my high-school english teachers in 1980 gave this book to me, and I've always been in awe of it's beauty and foresight. http://www.amazon.com/Dispossessed-Ursula-K-Guin/dp/0061054887/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1228117569&sr=1-1. Is this the kind of future we want, and which will occur, if nothing is done? So, for our large-scale efforts, the Alaska Progressive Review, supports and will work for large-scale solutions like those proposed by Dr. Hansen, and encourages everyone to do so as well. Pressure our/your politicians!

But what can and should we do on a personal scale? Ah...there is the dilemma, because what you are about to read, means significant changes to our current ways of living. Changes that even for us here at the A.P.R. will be difficult to implement and continue, but really MUST be done. There are three main categories, and we'll look at each one, and describe what we here at A.P.R. are or plan on doing in the near future. These categories are: 1. Food 2. Transportation 3. Domestic Energy Use

So, let's look at number 1, Food.

This is a picture of Amazonian rain forest in Peru being cleared for cattle grazing. A practice that has been accelerating over the past 25 years, not just in Central and South America, but in tropical areas of Asia and Africa as well. Why? Besides the critical problem of rising population (which also needs to be addressed, and is directly related to climate change), small-scale farmers and multi-national agribusiness conglomerates continue to clear and develop forested tropical areas to grow soy and grain for animal feed, as well as for grazing land. All so we can continue to have our $2.00 Whoppers and Big Macs. As you are probably are aware, the tropical rain forests are the "lungs" of the planet, exchanging vast amounts of CO2 and O2 on a daily and seasonal basis. Their conversion to grazing land exacts a terrible environmental cost, as the soils in these areas are easily eroded, with thin organic top layers. When this thin topsoil layer is lost, the strong tropical sun and hot climate bakes the remaining surface into a brick-like surface in which it becomes very difficult for new growth to resume. On a large scale, this accelarates surface warming and desertification, and if large enough, is another strong positive feedback in the global warming cycle. So, for this reason alone, we all need to consider cutting back on our meat consumption, or eliminate it entirely. Another disturbing aspect of large scale livestock production is this:
http://www.grist.org/news/daily/2006/12/01/6/index.html. It is a tremendous contributor of greenhouse gas emissions.In addition, it has been calculated that to provide all the people on Earth a diet similar to that we in this country or Europe enjoy, would be beyond the resources available. How sane or just is that, that others must go without, so we can enjoy whatever kinds of foods we want?

Another consideration in our diets, is transportation effects. Think of the environmental effects and use of resources that goes into hauling grapes from Chile to Europe, or North America. Even worse, many fish processors ship salmon caught off Alaska and Canada to China for processing, then back to be sold! If that is not a testament to the insanity and unsustainability of our current socio-economic system, I don't know what is! So, when considering our food choices in a sustainable light, and to help mitigate climate change, go local! Farmers markets, local food co-ops (if you're lucky enough to have one!), and natural food stores are the way to go for that. Look at the labels of your food and produce, choose those that are closest to your area, and organic, if possible, since no fossil-fuel based fertilizers and pesticides will have been used in their production.

So what are we doing here at the Alaska Progressive Review? Well, we've eliminated red meat entirely from our diets, though Mattie has had a few beef steaks for very special occasions. Such as birthdays and after running off threatening bull caribou. We eat sustainable Alaska salmon and halibut, but not every day, and very limited amounts of poultry. We buy locally produced eggs from free-range chickens, when possible. The hardest part is reducing our dairy intake, which is just as harmful as red-meat consumption. But we do love our cheese, butter, and ice cream. We have eliminated ice cream though as an un-necessary luxury, and gone over to soy and rice-based desserts, and are searching for an ideal cheese substitute. Milk was easy to eliminate, plenty of soy, rice, and nut-based alternatives there. So are we saying everyone should live a Vegan (non-animal based diet) lifestyle? No, we realize that requires large sacrifices in time and consideration, to live that way, though if more people did, it would be very beneficial on all scales. And we at A.P.R. are not living that way entirely either. If you really feel the requirement for meat in your diets, by all means try and go organic/free range, poultry if possible, and if you are fortunate enough to live in an area that permits, consider subsistence hunting/fishing. Of course, those of us here in Alaska are fortunate enough to be able to do that.

Category 2, Transportation:


Here is one of the latest new passenger jetliners, the Boeing 777 Dreamliner. Using lighter carbon-composite airframe technology, and the most fuel-efficient engines available. One of the most technically advanced jetliners in the World. Unfortunately, jet travel greenhouse gas emissions have increased 83% since 1990, and are forecast to continue that trend, barring unforeseen circumstances, over the next 30 years. Jets to do not just emit CO2 in their exhaust, but also nitrogen oxides (NOx), which are many times more potent of a greenhouse gas, as well as the ice-crystal contrails, which help trap surface heat in. In fact, when the U.S. airspace was shut down on 9/11, 12, and 13, 2001, the effect was noticeable in the temperature record!




The graph to the right shows Carbon emissions per passenger kilometer of travel. Note how aviation fits in to the spectrum there, with short-haul being the most damaging. But, in the fine print for this image, from this report,




http://www.davidsuzuki.org/Climate_Change/What_You_Can_Do/air_travel.asp, upper-air effects of emissions are not shown. If they were, the aviation emissions would be 2.7 times greater! There are research initiatives underway to develop alternatives to kerosene jet fuel, using plant and algae-based material. If this can be done in a way without affecting food supplies, this would be of great benefit. However, there still would be the damaging nitrogen oxide emissions and contrail formation effects. So, what should we do? The article above, describes some useful things. What are we here at the A.P.R. doing? Well, although we love to travel, realizing the effects, we are cutting back. Living in Alaska is especially difficult in that regard, since our family/relatives are in the lower 48, and driving there is so time-consuming. So, we now limit our personal jet travel to one trip per year, combining trips to other countries with that to see family. In addition, if possible, we try and perform some socially useful purpose in doing so, such as information exchanges, or visits to progressive/sustainable research facilities. It sometimes happens in my other career that I have to fly to distant areas, and mixed feelings about this occur, but these trips are usually to provide useful services. Since we here at A.P.R. strive to develop and share ideas about sustainable and "greener" ways and methods of living, how about this? Why can't we in America develop high-speed electric rail networks between our cities, and eventually, even to Alaska? Wouldn't it be wonderful to be able to get on a high-speed 200 mph electric train to the lower 48? One that would have tunnels underneath wildlife corridors, to mitigate effects on their travel and habitat. We need to envision things like this to make them happen.

How about local car traveling? Obviously we all need to have more fuel-efficient vehicles, drive less and use mass transit more, if available. But throwing aside our current vehicles for newer ones isn't all that helpful, since the manufacturing and distribution of them exacts a high cost. So, use your current one as little as possible, and when it is time for a newer one, buy used high-efficiency if possible. Our current A.P.R. 2006 Ford Escape with the more efficient 2.3L 4 cylinder engine may last us until 2012 or so, in which case we hope a plug-in hybrid with similar 4WD capabilities will be available. If walking/biking, or mass transit is not an option for many of your in-town trips, consider getting or transforming a bike into an electric cycle. We are going to purchase a bike electrification kit here at A.P.R. soon, for about 450.00. It is a nickel-metal-hydride battery (hopefully soon more efficient lithium-ion batteries will be available) powered front-wheel motor that you just replace the current front wheel with. So you can still pedal it when you want. It is advertised as giving 30 miles per charge, at 20 mph. http://www.werelectrified.com/index.php#overview
We envision this as viable for almost all in-town trips, to work, stores, etc.. Even in our cold winters, with studded tires, traction concerns are not an issue.

Category 3. Domestic Energy Use

Probably the easiest way to effect changes in our current ways of living, to ease our effects on the global climate system and resource depletion. If you are going to build a new house, find a builder who uses green methods and recycled materials. Use a design that will incorporate things like passive solar heating, partial wall burial for insulation, ultra-efficient heating methods, energy/water-efficient appliances, and green landscaping methods for shading, if you live in a warmer environment. For those in established residences, when the time comes for newer appliances and lighting, there are many new high-efficiency alternatives now. Compact Fluorescent Lightbulbs (CFL) should always be used in every fixture. Although they do contain mercury unfortunately, they are 3-4 times more efficient than the old incandescent bulbs. LED bulbs are being developed that are even more efficient, but these are a few more years from mass production. Turn off all appliances when not in use, computers, stereos, etc.. It's amazing when calculated, how much energy is wasted by keeping computers and other electronics on, even in a standby mode. Lower your thermostats if at all possible, and use electronic, programmable ones, as they will increase the efficiency of your heating/cooling systems. We here at A.P.R. do all of these things.

If you live in an area where wood-burning is possible for heating, use this as much as you can. At least the CO2 from burning of wood, a renewable resource, will be offset by the growth of new trees that replace the ones harvested. Here in Fairbanks, we have some of the strongest winter temperature inversions in the World. That is, colder air, in still calm weather patterns, settles in the valleys, with warmer air above, keeping a lid on mixing and dispersion of pollutants. When heating oil prices shot up last year, thousands of people in this area began more wood-burning. The result has been a great increase in fine-particulate pollution over our Middle Tanana Valley, which Fairbanks is nestled in, often to unhealthy levels during strong inversion periods. So, while we at A.P.R. try and use our woodstove as often as possible, to use less heating oil, during strong inversion episodes, we voluntarily cut back on this, to limit our contribution to the unhealthy fine particulate loading. Which affects small children, the elderly, and anyone with respiratory problems the greatest. If you live in an area like this, keep that in mind.

This link, http://www.nrdc.org/greenliving/, from one of A.P.R.'s favorite organizations, gives very useful tips, and is highly recommended.

So, to sum this all up, remember, we as a society and a race, don't have the time to continue waffling and deciding if or what should be done to limit greenhouse gas emissions. Action is necessary now. The last eight years in this country especially, have been a global setback, and we need to make up for it. Please think about the way we live, and what can be done, and share that information as much as possible. Future generations are relying on us.