Dec. 15, 2010

1. “Climate Talks Part Three” (4 min)
http://madeinalberta.ca/climate-talks-part-three-flash.shtml
The 192 nations meeting in Copenhagen are searching for common ground. This week on Made-in-Alberta, Barb talks to former Red Deer MP, and current environmental diplomat, Bob Mills. He  explains the damage climate change is already doing to planet Earth and the need for global leadership from the world’s top economies.

2. Copenhagen: http://www.commondreams.org
An activist-eye view of the events unfolding in Copenhagen, with live streaming video from Democracy Now!

3. Barb’s Field Notes: Our collective destiny.
Back in June 2000, I was asked to do activist video coverage of an event in Calgary called “Widening Peoples’ Choices”, a progressive and peaceful peoples’ summit coinciding with the World Petroleum Congress. At the summit, I heard a speaker discussing de-regulation and free trade, accurately predicting the double-whammy spike of both electricity and natural gas prices that shook Alberta like an economic earthquake later that year.  I heard a First Nation speaker telling how they suffer all the ill-effects of oil and gas activities and none of the economic benefits. At the “family march”, I  interviewed oil industry workers with their babies on their backs, senior citizens and university grads, all asking Albertans to evolve by design from fossil fuel specialists to renewable energy specialists. At the petroleum conference site, I saw the largest peacetime militarization in Alberta’s history; thousands of police on an incomprehensible mission to protect foreign invaders from local citizens. I heard of young people detained and homeless people rounded up for simply being near the fenced-off area. And, I saw the Calgary news media reciting engineered falsehoods, arbitrarily calling some demonstrators “terrorists” and the others their naïve victims.

I returned home and was buzzing for three days, a mix of emotions churning within me, my worldview as shaken as the day Canada went into an unprovoked war, and I became an activist. What finally settled was a certainty that this composite issue of energy, economy and environment was going to be, shall we say, BIG! By 2001, scientists were saying the global ecosystem is headed for a crash that humans are causing, but may not survive. The mainstream media obviously could not handle this. We needed a humanistic, regional, independent media service devoted to this imperative for change 24/7/365. This is the seeds of the Made-in-Alberta project, and in nine years I have left not one opportunity untapped to bring it to you.

In January 2010, we cross a threshold. In the new shows, you will notice that I no longer speak about what is coming, but rather in present tense about this transitional era. The ship has left the dock with all of us on board, sailing into an unknown – and as yet undetermined – future. Who will navigate? Who will steer? These questions must be answered by each and every one of us – every morning when we wake up for the next twenty years. Whatever solution the world leaders come up with this week must be supplemented by initiatives at the personal, household, office, neighbourhood, civic, and if possible, provincial level. We must steer with courage, love, humility, good humour and intelligence. Half measures will see us washed up on hostile shores.

If you trust the intuition that has guided me all these years, then I ask for your continued support as this activist media project transforms into a viable new energy media enterprise. Made-in-Alberta is ready to come of age and fulfill its role in this transition. We will be personally contacting as many of you as we can early in 2010 with more information.

For now, happy and peaceful holidays from everyone at RBCC and Made-in-Alberta.

Ph: 780-455-6465
Email: Barb@rbcc.ca

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