About me: Click here for the Bob Hunter Foundation...
Perhaps more than anyone else, Bob Hunter invented Greenpeace. His death on May 2nd 2005, of cancer, marks the passing of a true original, one of the heroes of the environmental movement.
In 1971, the word "Greenpeace" hadn't yet been coined. Bob was a hippy journalist in Vancouver, a town which he described as having "the biggest concentration of tree-huggers, radicalized students, garbage-dump stoppers, shit-disturbing unionists, freeway fighters, pot smokers and growers, aging Trotskyites, condo killers, farmland savers, fish preservationists, animal rights activists, back-to-the-landers, vegetarians, nudists, Buddhists, and anti-spraying, anti-pollution marchers and picketers in the country, per capita, in the world."
A student of Marshall McLuhan, he was bent on changing the world with what he termed "media mindbombs" -- consciousness-changing sounds and images to blast around the world in the guise of news. He got involved with a few folks in a church basement who wanted to stop a US nuclear weapons test off Amchitka, which he called the "Don't Make a Wave Committee".
But their plans were going nowhere until Marie Bohlen suggested that the group simply sail a ship into the test site. Bob thought it was a perfect "mindbomb," and on September 15, 1971, he and 11 other rag-tag activists would sail out to challenge the greatest military force on Earth in a rusting fishing boat they called "The Greenpeace." In doing so, they set off a wave of public support and protest which closed the US-Canadian border for the first time since 1812, ultimately shut the testing programme down, and created a new force for environmental and peace activism which continues to this day.
Over the next decade, Bob's madcap creativity, strategic smarts, and hard-nosed journalistic sense of story would indelibly mark the Greenpeace brand of action. From the pack ice of Newfoundland, where he dyed the whitecoats of Harp Seal pups to make them commercially worthless, to the Pacific Ocean where he stood between Russian harpoons and the whales they were hunting, he inspired a new brand of personal environmental activism.
"Bob was a storyteller, a shaman, a word-magician, a Machiavellian mystic, and he dared to inject a sense of humour into the often shrill and sanctimonious job of changing the world," says Greenpeace Executive Director Gerd Leipold. "He was funny and brave and audacious, inspiring in his refusal to accept the limits of the practical or the probable. He revelled in life's ability to deliver little miracles in the form of impossibilities achieved, and Greenpeace will forever bear the mark of his crazy, super-optimistic faith in the wisdom of tilting at windmills."
In 1978, Hunter chronicled the birth of Greenpeace in his book "Warriors of the Rainbow." It was a masterful feat of storytelling, one which attracted a further generation of young people into the ranks of the organisation. In its introduction he wrote:
"We fought... an unequal battle against American and French nuclear weapons makers; Russian, Japanese, and Australian whalers; Norwegian and Canadian seal hunters; multinational oil consortiums and pesticide manufactures; cynical politicians; angry workers; and, again and again, ourselves. The people involved were men and women, young and old, not all of them brave or wise, who found themselves face-to-face with the fullest ecological horrors of the century..."
Among Hunter's stock stories was the tale of how he'd stumbled on to the Cree Indian myth of the "Warriors of the Rainbow" -- a legendary tribe of spirits who would rescue nature when the Earth became sick. The story involved a gypsy dulcimer maker, an old set of fenceposts, and the gift of a book which Hunter claimed leapt into his hands -- quite literally -- when The Greenpeace dropped down a steep swell on its way to Amchitka. The story itself was magical and mythological, and over the years Hunter would embellish and polish it into a hilarious and inspirational piece of campfire folklore.
Hunter was born in Winnipeg, Manitoba in 1941. In his own words "I was an awful, rebellious, early attention-defficient kid who was loved by my art and English teachers, but hated by the rest. I cheated by scribbling novels when I was supposed to be doing schoolwork." He became a journalist for the Winnipeg Tribune and later wrote a column for the Vancouver Sun in which he featured environmental subjects. He quit writing the column when he joined the first Greenpeace voyage to save the whales, becoming a reporter explicitly to ensure his somewhat less than objective "message" would reach a global audience, because "the subjective stuff written by columnists [was] never picked up by the wire services."
He readily confessed that this made him "a traitor to my profession," but believed he had a higher calling: "If we ignore [the] laws of ecology we will continue to be guilty of crimes against the earth. We will not be judged by men for these crimes, but with a justice meeted out by the earth itself. The destruction of the earth will lead, inevitably, to the destruction of ourselves."
Hunter became president of the Greenpeace Foundation in 1973, and served in that post until 1977.
He joined Toronto's City TV as an ecology specialist in 1988, and for years hosted a highly successful morning TV spot for Breakfast TV in his bathrobe, in which he read the day's newspaper headlines and sputtered scandalously witty commentaries in a form of rapid-fire stand-up journalism.
Over the years he continued to contribute to Greenpeace as an advisor and occasional speaker, and kept up good relations with the organisation's original luminaries, including many who were no longer on speaking terms with one other. He authored several books and founded a tongue-in-cheek religion, the Whole Earth Church.
In a recent book, Rex Weyler writes about reflecting with Hunter on their experiences in the early days of Greenpeace:
"The ironies and tension of history simultaneously provided the gift of history: that we got to live, to see the flourishing Earth, the flying fish, dolphins, caribou, seal pups, the raging sea, the blue light of morning, the miracle and terror of survival all rolled into one; and that we were blessed with an opportunity to serve it."
Bob Hunter made much of his opportunity to serve the Earth, and Greenpeace will always be blessed with his spirit.
To see and hear Bob...Please click this link...
Not fast enough to elude the cop unfortunately, but I've got a much faster bike now. :D
Of course that mini-Harley (not mine really) barely sips gas, but even my Kawasaki Ninja ZZR, capable of 175 kph and 0-60 mph in 5.7 seconds, gives 80+ mpg hwy. This is about as green a personal vehicle as one can find capable of long distance travel, short of a full electric vehicle with a range of 250 miles per charge like the Tesla. But then, the Tesla costs $100,000, whereas the Ninja cost me barely $3000 with only 2,000 mi. on the odometer. And even if I had a full electric vehicle, as long as the electricity comes from coal, it's just like burning gas. By the way, the Ninja 250 is so popular with women it has the nickname of "Ninjette" (see www.Ninjette.org).
Regardless of gender, I strongly advise you to try out motorcycling as a means of transportation. Of course, the rider should be vegetarian if not vegan, to cut methane emissions from the animal industries. A vegan driving a Hummer emits less greenhouse gasses than a meat-eater riding a bicycle! Besides, short of flying, motorcycling is about as much fun as fun can get!
Despite there being a ban on commercial whaling, Right now the Japanese whaling fleet are in the southern ocean whale sanctuary, where they plan on slaughtering 935 minke and 50 endangered fin whales, Goverments of the world are not doing enough if anything to stop this, I urge people to boycott Japan and please sign petitions and write to Japanese embassies around the world to put pressure on the Japanese Govt, as well as your own govt. Whaling is totally unnecessary, barbaric and cruel, whaling needs to end today!!
FUNERAL MOTORCADE FOR THE DEER Project report by Anthony Marr
Urban deer massacre ("culling"), combined with unadulterated fun-killing (bow-hunting), is a national disgrace. Through my last 6 Compassion for Animals Road Expeditions (CARE-1 - CARE-6, 2003-2008, each covering 25-42 states over 3-7 months), I have worked with activists in no less than 25 states whose by-and-large pro-culling and pro-hunting officials discharge their "deer management" duties by means of bullets and arrows.
The current hottest battle in the "Deer War" is at the Shawnee Mission Park, Kansas City, which local activists have dubbed "Death Park". There were supposedly some 575 deer living in the 3.7 sq.mi. urban park. Local officials estimate the maximum deer population density to be 50 per sq.mi., which produces the maximum allowable total number of 185 in the park. Up to December 9, 313 deer had been culled by "Dr. Death" Anthony DeNicola. This yields a remaining population of about 260, about 75 higher than the limit of 185, and 75 is about what the Park Board has allocated to the bow-hunters, 15 of whom have been granted permits to do the dirty deed, with pleasure of course...
Recently, the Northern Territory government announced plans to kill 3000 camels by means of aerial shooting in the township of Docker River. Thirsty and in search of water, the camels converged on the community of Docker River. Instead of assisting the community by building barriers to keep the camels out of the township and investing in long term solutions such as research into birth control or the construction of a manmade waterhole for the camels to drink from, the government are planning to herd the animals away from the town, shoot them and leave their bodies to rot. Despite the outrage of thousands of concerned people from around the world, the Northern Territory government has given the green light for the cull to go ahead and thousands of scared camels are now being annihilated by marksmen from helicopters.
THE MIRACLE WORKER: for those who feel meaningless, powerless and worthless
Legend has it that in the Snows of Kilimanjaro, the carcass of a plains leopard was found; no one knows what the leopard was up there to seek. But when I ascended the great mountain, I knew, for I was there to seek the very same thing.
At pain of extra weight, I packed a gun, not that there anything to hunt up on that altitude, nor was I a hunter in any sense of the word. And in an ice cave amidst the cravasses of the glacier, when the setting sun suffused my chosen tomb with a rosey glow, I shed my last tear on the shoulder of no one who cared, said my final farewell to the cruel and meaningless world, and pointed the gun at my head...
Anthony Marr will lead a FUNERAL MOTORCADE FOR THE DEER in Kansas City on Dec. 9, Wednesday, at the Shawnee Mission Park - "Death Park" - where 313 deer have been slaughtered in November, and another 70-90 are slated to be killed by bow-hunters as of Dec. 9.
Bear in mind that the non-lethal wounding rate by arrow is close to 50%, meaning: to kill 90, they have to shoot 180. And this is in spite of the Immuno-Contraceptive (IC) technology for deer having already been approved for field implementation by both the FDA and the EPA, plus Anthony's own humane, effective and economical IC-delivery invention known as the Auto Deer Assembler (DAA).
Jason Miller, on left in the following video (Part 1 of 7), one of the hot activists and revolutionary thinkers of our time (www.ThomasPaynesCorner.org), will be the organizer and host of the event.
Aussi important que le traité de Yalta et la suite logique du traitée
de Kyoto
La conférence de Copenhague sera-t-elle, porteuse de ses promesses. A
contrario le traité de Kyoto et ses multiples modifications, n'a pas eu
l"effet escompté, notamment "le principe du pollueur payeur".
L’enjeu principal de cette conférence portait sur une limitation de
l'émission des gaz à effet de serre notamment le plus connu d'entre
eux, le CO2 ou dioxyde de carbone.
REAGISSEZ ICI: WWW.EVOLUTIONNAIRE.FR
Since I posted my Japan pieces, my Space has come under intense scrutiny from diverse sources in Japan. Latest is a series of 30 hits over the last 48 hours, from a source, would you believe, right within the grounds of the Japanese Imperial Palace!
Now that I have inadvertently captured His Majesty's attention, I may as well take this opportunity to open to him my heart and mind, and thereby to the whole people of Japan. This what I have to say:
It wiped out 85% of all species on Earth in the End-Permian Mass Extinction 251 million years ago, and can do it again, right now. The much milder Cretaceous Crisis was the one that wiped out the dinosaurs.
Global warming is real and unfolding. The deniers are either blind or lying.
On September 14, 2007, Wisconsin activst Amy Burns sent out a circular urging her readers to go to the Baltimore Sun to join in what is destined to be one of its hottest forums ever, a war of minds over the "sport" of hunting, with emphasis on bow-hunting. While her readers began pondering, comments from the pro-hunting side came in hard and fast. "America's most-hated Anti" Anthony Marr jumped in head first, and so did leading anti-huntresses Tierra and Mamasita. Amazingly, the battle is still raging as we speak, more than two years later in November 23, 2009! The total number of comments so far has exceeded 93,000, and growing. This is a phenomenon, and destined to be a classic, not to be missed if you care about animals at all.
Calcutta sounds like a fable in a song, but in reality, it is where John, my colleague and successor, was murdered. He was on the job for only three days when he got his throat slashed. As an undercover investigator targeting the illegal wildlife trade, especially in tiger parts, his real name was unknown, even to me, nor mine to him. We were just John and James to each other. All I know is that he was Chinese American, while his predecessor James - real name Anthony Marr - is Chinese Canadian, and how sincere he was in helping to save the Bengal tiger from being poached out of existence, while its habitat continues to dwindle due to human pressure...
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