Toban Black

Audio interviews with…

• Stacy and Leah, the organizers of A Walk to Remember the Victims of Asbestos
• Zak, a Sarnia resident who has been actively raising local environmental issues through S.H.A.M.E.

They speak about Canadian asbestos exports, victims of asbestos exposure, a history of asbestos around Sarnia-Lambton’s Chemical Valley, and other related topics.

(Note: I would have spoken with other speakers from the rally if it wasn’t so windy afterwards.)

An extended version of a statement that I co-wrote with Robert Cory for The Sarnia Observer

Chemical Valley industries are arranging to use shale gas supplies that very likely could be contaminated with radon, given how these gas feedstocks are extracted through fracking — a technique that is used to retrieve gas from shale rock located very deep underground. Two Texas companies have agreed to send this shale gas from the northeastern United States to the Nova Chemical plant in Sarnia, and there is wider industry support for these imports of gas from fracking.

For the sake of the health and safety of the residents of Sarnia-Lambton — and others around the region — it is important that we apply the precautionary principle to this issue. We should assume that shale gas could come with radon contamination, if we cannot prove otherwise.

This gas is from shale that often contains significant quantities of uranium, as well as the products of its radioactive decay, including radium and radon, a colourless, odourless, and intensely radioactive gas. Because it is common in many rock formations throughout North America and elsewhere, radon is responsible for most of our daily exposure to damaging radiation. Radon gas that seeps up from subterranean rock formations often accumulates in basements — sometimes resulting in dangerous levels. Lung cancer caused by breathing radon contaminated air already is estimated to cause 25,000 deaths per year in the United States alone and is the second most frequent cause of lung cancer, after cigarette smoking.

[Read more →]

At the end of May, some of us gathered for a “Don’t frack with us!” protest in London, Ontario.

The rally call-out said -

Fracking is a toxic, dangerous, and wasteful form of natural gas extraction that we may see around London, Ontario. The water pollution is the worst of the fracking impacts. Tap water has become flammable after fracking is done to break gas out of nearby shale rock. A stew of toxic chemicals is pumped into each gas well, and radium is one of many underground substances that can be unintentionally released during this extraction.

In spite of all of those dangers, there are plans for shale gas exploration around London -
http://stopfrackingontario.wordpress.com/fracking/in-ontario/london/
In addition to water contamination, we also should be concerned about explosion risks, air pollution, water depletion, methane greenhouse gas releases, earthquakes, increased truck traffic, and deforestation.

If you are worried about all of these threats from fracking, please come out to this rally to show your concern, and learn more about what we are up against.

Two sets of photos from the protest can be seen here (on Facebook) and here (on Flickr).

This video shows some of the rally.

[Read more →]

Some of us have started to campaign against shale gas fracking around Ontario.

On May 19th, we had a rally outside of a North American shale gas conference at Holiday Inn Sarnia — which actually is located in Point Edward. At our protest, we focused on threats to water supplies from the toxic stew of fluids injected into fracking wells, as well as methane, radium, and other substances that can be let loose from around the shale rock that the gas is extracted from.

The shale gas conference was about profits that corporations could gain by securing U.S. gas exports for the petro-chemical industries in Sarnia-Lambton. On the Ontario side of the border, those arrangements basically would come down to keeping the Chemical Valley status quo going, with possible savings for the companies purchasing gas supplies from U.S. shale (at least until Ontario shale gas is made available).

Industry representatives travelled out to their closed-door conference from more than one province, and from multiple U.S. states. They came in to support and extend the hype about fracking ‘benefits without trade-offs.’ This spin was about imports from states around West Virginia, but the same points will be made about Ontario fracking, arranged by the same industry players, who will try to profit from shale gas here. Yet, fracking could be done in Ontario to export gas to the United States, or to the Alberta tar sands.

Videos from our rally are posted on Facebook — here and here.

Some more photos from our protest can be seen here, here, and here.

[Read more →]

Audio recordings from a Green Scams workshop, which was linked to local People’s Assembly for Climate Justice organizing -

Emissions intensity and GDP
Cortney spoke about climate change policies that officials in the most affluent nation-states have been supporting and promoting.

Organic agriculture
Sean discussed organic agriculture and consumer choices.

Cap and trade
Mike spoke about cap and trade policies.

‘Sustainable development’ and the Boreal Forest Agreement
Kota presented on compromised and anti-indigenous ‘sustainable development’ concepts. The Canadian Boreal Forest Agreement is discussed as an example.

After each of the presentations, we collectively discussed these topics.

The climate bill image with Al Gore is from a Trillionaires for Bad Math protest.  We used it on our poster for the event.

I arranged, recorded, and edited the presentations.

Rainbow Park is immediately beside the ESSO / Imperial Oil facilities in Sarnia. These photos were taken there on Thursday, May 19th -

[Read more →]

An activist reportback that I put together for a Sarnia activist network called S.H.A.M.E. -

A mile-long vapour cloud was released from ESSO / Imperial Oil on Tuesday, May 17th.  No emergency siren was sounded after this blue-ish grey cloud drifted away from the plant.  At first, Imperial Oil did not publicly take responsibility for the release.  When the company did acknowledge that the cloud came from their facilities, they made excuses and said that the cloud was made up of sulphur dioxide which was supposed to have been completely non-toxic.

The Observer reported that:

St. Clair Township Fire Chief Roy Dewhirst was one of those who witnessed the blue/gray plume as it wafted over Mooretown, which he described as a low-flying cloud carried on north winds. …

“It was fairly fast moving. It went on down south. It had kind of a crude-oily smell,” he said.

The plume was seen by people as far north as the Lambton Fire School, Lanxess and Provident Energy.

We responded to all of this a very small rally on a busier street corner.  Our smallest sign said “Demand more from City Hall”.

[Read more →]

A reportback that I put together for Climate Justice London -

For April 20th, activists in London, Ontario, Canada gathered for a bike rally; and many of us joined a “public participation” event at city hall, immediately afterwards.   The critical mass bike rally was held to join the Day of Action Against Extraction, and the municipal meeting afterwards was about Wal-Mart plans for a “SmartCentre” around an environmentally sensitive area known as the Meadowlily Woods.

During our bike rally, we returned to a Shell station where we had a protest in October, 2010.  Those October and April gas station protests were about the worldwide impacts of extractive industries.

The ride was our first local critical mass rally this year.  Climate Justice London called the bike rally, with support from the People for Peace (London), and other local activists.

Here‘s a video from our latest rally against extraction.

Cortney and Jon kicked off our ride with a Party at the Pumps rap, which Cortney re-wrote for the Day of Action Against Extraction.  As you can hear in the rap, local organizers agreed to support Rising Tide North America’s demands for the Day of Action.

[Read more →]

An extended summary of a presentation I will be giving during an Earth Day Colloquium on April 15th, at the University of Western Ontario -

Since the 1960s, Social Ecology analysis has critiqued a wide range of social inequities, a series of interrelated institutions (including government systems), as well as various environmental problems. By the 1980s, Environmental Justice research and social movement activities were raising some similar points about how environmental problems can be connected with social inequality. In this presentation I will compare Social Ecology and Environmental Justice approaches to highlight their commonalities and differences. My discussion of Social Ecology basically will consist of points about the foundations laid out in Murray Bookchin’s works. As I address Environmental Justice discourse, I will focus on its more typical forms, over its initial two decades. Although Social Ecology also has emphasized questions about social inequality, these two perspectives very rarely have been compared. I will touch on the distinct histories of these discourses as I discuss their concepts, priorities, and claims. The environmentalism from proponents of Environmental Justice has been more consistent and focused, across the series of local cases which have received attention. Conversely, Social Ecology has covered a wider range of topics, with far more historical and theoretical analysis. While there appears to be no significant historical cross-fertilization connecting the two approaches, commonalities are apparent, nevertheless. In addition to their shared emphases on social inequality, Environmental Justice and Social Ecology discourses both call for social change that may be beneficial to human beings. However, Environmental Justice reforms (such as calls for “green jobs”) would be deemed to be inadequate, based on the bolder standards of Social Ecology.

—

That summary had to be shortened before I submitted it as a presentation proposal. I was over the word limit.

The wording also takes into account the context — which has a lot of commonalities with a context where I gave a recent presentation about environmental justice at the campus. More than anything, what I’m getting at right now is that the presentation won’t advocate for aspects of the Social Ecology and Environmental Justice approaches in the way that I would if I were just bluntly giving my personal point of view. This event won’t be a place for that sort of presentation.

This is the summary write-up that went with a presentation that I gave in an Environment & Sustainability seminar, a couple of days ago -

Proponents of environmental justice focus on how groups who are more vulnerable to environmental and human health impacts also can be less responsible for these ecological problems. Above all, these environmental justice critiques and concerns are about how social inequality — including inequities along ‘race,’ class, and gender lines — can be bound up with environmental problems. I will illustrate this perspective by pointing to ways in which it would apply to Sarnia-Lambton’s Chemical Valley, to the recent Gulf Coast oil disaster, and to the Alberta tar sands. Throughout this presentation, I will be providing an overview of forms in which environmental justice priorities have taken, over time. By the 1980s, research and social movement activity in the name of “environmental justice” had begun in the United States. Since these beginnings, this environmental justice label has tended to be associated more with certain American issues. In particular, proponents of this approach have devoted considerable attention to toxic waste sites near people of colour in the United States. Yet, as others have been indicating, an environmental justice approach is much more widely applicable — to different countries, and to groups who have received less attention in American environmental justice discourse, and practices. There also is a prehistory of inequities which have environmental justice dimensions, despite how this language had not been applied to these issues before the 1980s (even as relevant indigenous land claim conflicts have occurred for centuries — to mention one pertinent set of issues). Around the turn of the new millennium, a “climate justice” variation on this approach has arisen, as some have began to collectively focus on climate and fossil fuel issues.

—

The people in the audience focus on empirical studies in Biology. In their terms, it is far too general to say that an environment is “toxic,” and it’s almost impossible to specify how industrial plants are connected with human health impacts. Just making statements about what the industries actually are emitting can be an immense challenge — especially when there are a set of plants, with each releasing a series of substances. A Biologist would ask: how much of each substance (e.g. coal particulates) was released during a particular measurement time frame, and where did it blow or flow to? It also would be necessary to take into account previous environmental conditions (e.g. in the soil), for baseline comparisons. To make any claims about health impacts, it would be necessary to specify exposure rates for each individual, within their wider personal history, and in relation to each source of each substance; so any industrial plant would have to be tied to all of those other contextual details.

[Read more →]