Kenya plans wildlife cull - for trophies - what is the world coming to?

Rhino killed with arrows


When in the late 90s I was working at the Bandhavgarh and Kanha tiger reserves in Madhya Pradesh, India, I observed a serious weakness in the park system almost right from the start. Not only was this weakness not conducive to wildlife preservation, it was downright destructive.

This weakness became immediately apparent when I came upon the park system of Nepal, which suffered much less poaching and habitat destruction. The only major difference that I could see was the park entrance fee and how it was handled. The entrance fee of a Nepalese national park was about $20 per person per visit, and the proceeds were split 50/50 between government and villagers. The villagers had a stake in the park and its wildlife, and therefore participate in preserving it to perpetuity. In contrast, the entrance fee of Bandhavgarh and Kanha was only about $2 per visitor per visit, and what meagre revenue this generated went all to the government. The villagers therefore consider the park and its wildlife as something to be opposed and exploited and pillaged, and cut down, and poached. The $2 is extra ridiculous considering that the tourists spend $4000 flying there, and $200 per night at a tourist lodge.

I made the recommendation for the Indian park system to adopt the Nepalese policy, and, finally, 12 years later, whether or not due to my input, the change is being made. As of October 2011, the park entrance fee will be 4000 rupees per vehicle, or about $85, to be shared by about 4 tourists, and, hopefully, it is to be shared with the villagers.

And through it all, tiger hunting is forbidden.


Elephant killed with arrows.

Meanwhile, over in Africa, hunting is on the rise. Hunting of the Big 5 (elephant, lion, rhino, leopard and buffalo) is again in vogue, and is offered in Namibia, Botswana, Zimbabwe, Tanzania, Zambia, Mozambique and South Africa.

Here are some typical examples:

• Elephant (30lbs tusks) $ 22,000 - $ 26,000
• Elephant (50lbs tusks) $ 42,000 - $ 46,000
• Elephant (65 - 80lbs tusks) $ 60,000 - $ 70,000
• Elephant (100lbs) POR
• Elephant License Fee: $ 1,500

• Lions: $ 18,000 - $ 45,000
• Lions License Fee: $ 1,000

• White Rhino - Trophy Hunting: $ 55,000 - $ 150,000
• White Rhino - Green Hunt: $ 8,000
• White Rhino License Fee: $ 1,000
• Black Rhino - Trophy Hunting: $ 250,000 - $ 350,000
• Black Rhino - Green Hunt: $ 20,000
• Black Rhino License Fee: $ 1,000

• Leopard Trophy: $ 10,000 to $12,000
• Leopard Pre Baiting: $ 2,500
• Leopard License Fee: $ 1,000

At the same time, Rhino poaching reache epidemic level, this year alone totaling over 700, which to me also means that legalized hunting does not deter poaching.

Note that Kenya is not among these countries. In fact, hunting has been banned in Kenya since 1977. Unfortunately, human encroachment has skyrocketed. In just one of the areas adjacent to the Masai Mara Reserve, the number of Masaai villages increased from 44 in 1950 to 368 in 2003, while the number of huts increased from 44 to 2,735, which led to increased human-wildlife conflict. This is exacerbated by Kenya's policy being similar to that of the old Indian system, where wildlife belongs to the state and the villagers have no stake and do not benefit from ecotourism. The resulting hostility combined with the ivory black market led to wide-spread elephant poaching, cutting the elephant population from 150,000 to less than 6,000.

This opens the door to trophy hunters and hunting guide-outfitters to clamor for elephant hunting, claiming that hunting is the best means towards elephant protection, since the revenue from hunting could and would be applied to wildlife conservation. Like the standard pro-hunting argument, this is patently idiotic, though probably intentionally so to suit the equally idiotic I-don't-know-and-I-don't-care sector of the public, who would not check to see the truth.

The truth is that filthy rich American trophy hunters pay $250,000-$350,000 for a Black rhino hunt - to the hunting guide-outfitter which is also American. Only the $1,000 license fee goes to the host government. Some conservation revenue.

Hunting is certainly not the way for Kenya to go, and Kenya may already know it. But due to the human-wildlife conflict, Kenya is now talking about culling "excess" wildlife, and have their remains sold as trophies. How very perverse!

Read about this in: http://www.africanconservation.org/200903231416/conservation-news-section/kenya-new-law-to-allow-killing-of-wildlife.html

My dear friend Raabia Hawa, of Kenya, also a director of the Global Anti-Hunting Coalition, is asking for our help. Please friend her and offer you whatever help you can.

And please join the Global Anti-Hunting Coalition to ban hunting worldwide, however long it may take. One thing for sure. The soon the more of us fight it, the sooner it will meet its inevitable demise.




Anthony Marr, Founder and President
Heal Our Planet Earth (HOPE)
Global Anti-Hunting Coalition (GAHC)
Anthony-Marr@HOPE-CARE.org
www.HOPE-CARE.org
www.facebook.com/Anthony.Marr.001
www.facebook.com/Global_Anti-Hunting_Coalition
www.myspace.com/AnthonyMarr
www.youtube.com/AnthonyMarr
www.HomoSapiensSaveYourEarth.blogspot.com
www.DearHomoSapiens.blogspot.com (AM's 3rd-book-in-the-making)
www.myspace.com/Anti-Hunting_Coalition
www.ARConference.org

HOPE-GEO's CARE-6 tour field-journal #7

Heal Our Planet Earth (HOPE)’s

Global Emergency Operation (GEO)’s

Compassion for Animals Road Expedition #6 (CARE-6)’s

Field journal #7

August 19, 2008

Dear HOPE-GEO team and all friends in compassion:

Today (Aug. 19) is the second day of the 4-day Animal Rights National Conference (www.ARConference.org). I gave my first 3 of 12 speeches, signed dozens of books, and collected a jarful of donations, but this journal entry is about West Virginia , and is a story unto itself.

Before I go on to West Virginia , I should relate a little story from a previous state (can’t recall which). When I pulled into one of the toll booths, the big guy in the booth took a look at the magnetic sign on the side of my car and said, “Global warming – what a load of BS.” “Al Gore doesn’t share that opinion,” I said. “Al Gore is a nut job,” he spat. “According to whom?” “George W. Bush.” “I rest my case,” I said as I drove off.

I left the trailer park at Galena , Ohio , in the mid-morning of August 9^th, and arrived at the UU Church in Charleston , West Virginia , in the mid-afternoon, slightly ahead of time. I walked around the building, and noticed a large caliber bullet hole in a window and another through its inner pane, with the two holes lined up at the house next door. My host Chris Higgins arrived shortly after, who introduced me to another man from another car named Julian _____, who explained to me that the bullet was fired by a young man next door while in a state of rage with his mother, and who was now serving time. This was something not often heard of in Canada , where almost no one owns a gun.

Julian then whisked me off to view one of West Virginia ’s mountain-top-removal open-pit coal mines. After a lengthy gravel road traverse and a steep climb through forest, he parked the vehicle in a parking area with a few uninhabited houses. From there, we walked uphill, until we reached a rise. I topped it, looked down, and promptly exclaimed, “HOLY SHIT!” It was partly surprise and partly disgust. It was in fact a much smaller and drier version of the tar sands. Still, the whole mountain-top had been leveled, and a deep crater had further been dug into the plateau thus created. The general color of the near moonscape was black, and there were thick and opague clouds of brown dust enveloping the huge machinery. I don’t know how the workers could see what they were doing, and just breath, much less maintain health lungs. Surrounding the ex-mountain were so-called reclaimed land, and it was no more than flattened ridges covered thinly with brown-green grass. Julian pointed at the mountains all around ( Appalachians ) and said that they would all meet the same fate in due course. Painful just to try to imagine it.

As Alberta is the tar sands capital of the world, West Virginia could be the coal capital, or one of them. I hope I’m not misquoting Julian, but there are some 800 of these mines operating in West Virginia . John Denver would weep. The debeautification of beautiful West Virginia . And for what? More lung-wrecking jobs for young men who might otherwise have gone on to university? A stock price rise of $10? 10% higher dividends?

Julian dropped me off at the UU Church and I gave him a copy of my book, writing in it: “To Julian: Thank you for the Holy Shit experience.” He burst out laughing upon seeing it.

After waving Julian good-bye, I drove to a restaurant called A Taste of Asia for some veg noodles, then drove on up to the rural property of Don Gartman with its steep driveway and two artificial ponds complete with large coy fish and a protective net against heron predation. A very hospitable couple, who also led me by car to the UU Church the following day, the 10th.

The UU church event had two components. A 9 – 10:30 a.m. forum to about 50 people, and an 11 a.m. sermon to about 150 people, both with ovations. Many accepted the book with gratitude and volunteered donations. In the forum audience were Capri and Mandy, university students, both going to the AR conference. So, the connection overflows into another state.

After the sermon, I drove on to Rebecca Goth’s home in Wheeling some four hours due north, re-entering Ohio , then re-entering West Virginia and almost entering Pennsylvania . There, you could walk from Ohio through West Virginia into Pennsylvania within an hour or two. The only way to beat this is to walk in a small circle around the 4-Corners – 4 states within minutes.

Rebecca’s home is of a log-cabin-type construction sitting on a fairly steep slope overlooking a forested hillside well away from the city. She received me warmly and treated me like a prince as all other hosts do. When I first met her on myspace, I saw that her cover picture showed her holding a horse. I half-jokingly remarked that what I missed most while touring was horseback riding. Lo and behold, she had booked me a trail-ride the next morning at 10 at a riding academy nearby.

Shortly after my arrival, her husband Helmut came home. Almost immediately after our introduction, he said that thanks to the interference of “environmentalists”, West Virginia ’s economic development had been negatively impacted. Then he bluntly said that global warming was non-factual. Ensuing was a bluntness-versus-bluntness verbal collision in which I in all these years and tours had never engaged with a host. While I was telling him about the Alberta tar sands, he was of the opinion that the environmental damage was not important, since northern Alberta was by and large uninhabited. I said, “The native peoples don’t count?” He said nothing. At one point, Rebecca interjected, directed at Helmut, “Difference of opinion is one thing, but you don’t have to be sarcastic about it.” This more or less ended the debate. Some time later in the evening, I opened www.HOPE-CARE.org and showed him a picture of the tar sands. He looked intensely at it for a moment, then said, “This does look bad, but as I’ve said before, it’s in the middle of nowhere. So what does it matter?” I said, “It matters because it poisons the whole water shed as well as the aquifer for hundreds of years and thousands of square miles, toxifies fish and moose alike, besides causing cancer in the native people.” He ambled off, saying nothing. Somewhere along the line, I asked him about his profession. He told me that he was an accountant. This explains a lot of what he was coming from – the world of numbers, numbers of dollars, dollars of corporations. His clients are businessmen and CEOs, not grassroots activists. On the other hand, in all his bluntness and environmental insensitivity, and though he cannot exactly be said to be bursting with warmth, he was not discourteous, and at no point made me feel that I should not accept their hospitality. In the three days of my stay at his home, he had never made me feel unwelcome or intrusive. Whenever he returned from work, he always shook my hand in renewed welcome. I hope to have gotten through to him a little. A note of interest: Along with Rebecca, he is a vegetarian, and has lived in India for several years, yet he says Christian grace before dinner, and talks red neck talk about the environment. One strange combination.

The next day, the 11th was a bit of a rest day, as if I needed one. It was the day of the equestrian outing. It was a gentle ride through a West Virginian forest. Both Rebecca and I are “horse whisperers”, meaning that our relationship with horses are diametrically opposed to that of rodeo riders and horse “breakers”. Still some AR theorists disapprove of any kind of equestrianism, on the ground that however humane it is still human domination over animals. To these I usually ask one question: “How many rats and cockroaches and deer and raccoons live in your house, which has forcibly evicted them from their natural habitat where your house now stands?” I don’t need to ask if they have ever taken care of a horse. And it matters not to them that most private horse guardians, except the real horse exploiters, treat their horses as they would their own children. But to the rest, here is an example of a definitive difference: Rodeo riders ride against their horses, and humane riders ride with them. The former electro-shock their horses and pinch their genitals to start the ride; the latter almost always pet their horses on the neck at the end of each ride, our way of saying thanks.

After the ride, Rebecca drove me to a huge “outdoor sport” store named Cabela’s, which sits on a road named after it – Caleba - basically just to shock me, and succeeding. I must say, even having checked out so many hunting stores, such as Gander Mountain in Ohio near where Lane lives, this one can be described only in superlatives. Bebecca told me that hunters come from all over the country to pay it homage. Would you believe that inside it is a 50’-high artificial mountain all over which stand taxidermy-mounted North American fauna – bears, mountain goats, Dall sheep, cougars, wolves, elks… All over the walls are mounted countless more, including Asian and African animals. The gun department alone is bigger than most sporting goods stores in their entirety. There is a section displaying dioramas of African wildlife, and even a great hall of the Whitetail deer, containing hundreds of magnificent specimens, all lifeless of course. And there were groups of children being led around by docents telling them how the hunting heroes brought down such fleet-footed prey, while the children looked around in awe. The poisoning of a generation at work before my pained eyes.

August 12 was a busy day. We had a 3:15 pm radio interview lined up, and a library lecture to deliver at 6 pm. In the early afternoon, Rebecca drove me to visit the Krishna Palace – easily the biggest Hindu temple complex in North America , covered with black and gold paint in every ornate corner, marble flooring and chandeliers in every hallway, amidst a sea of green covering five private square miles. Wheeling , West Virginia , is a city of contrasts and extremes – the largest hunting store and the biggest Krishna temple in one small city of one small state. How unlikely is that?

While Rebecca was driving me to the radio station, I asked her how long the interview was supposed to last. She said anywhere from 15 minutes to 45 minutes, depending on how interested in the subject the host was and how the interview went. 45 minutes was what the host gave to Howard Lyman when he was in town, as organized by Rebecca herself. By this measure, the host must be enormously interested in our subject matter, and the interview must have gone incredibly well, since it lasted 1 hour 15 minutes. It was an open-line program, so a few phone calls came in, and all said essentially that global warming was a hoax. And while the host was open-minded, his side-kick wasn’t, who interrupted me several times in mid-sentence. At one point, the guy interjected, “ West Virginia is having one of its coolest summers for some time. So, talking about global warming is complete and utter nonsense.” I’ve about had it with this guy, and fired right back at him, “We’re talking about global average temperature. Every time you name one example of cooling, I can name you ten examples of heating. Are you willing to bet your children’s future on an anecdotal anomaly?” He did not respond. Near the end, he interjected again, this time loudly, “So, you want us all to just stop eating meat and stop using our power lawn-mowers tomorrow?” Without hesitation I found myself saying, “THAT’S RIGHT!” The host wound up by saying that climate change is the most perplexing subject he has encountered by far, adding, “So many say that Al Gore is wrong, then carry on business as usual. But what if he’s right?”

The library talk was attended by about 20 people, including a few from the Krishna Palace whom Rebecca had invited (she had been vigorously inviting everyone she came across), and maybe a few who came as a result of the radio talkshow. As with almost every other speech, this one was video recorded. So far, unlike the radio audience, I haven’t had one live lecture audience member who dissented on global warming.

Aug. 13 I drove the 7 hours from Wheeling WV to the place of Charlotte Templeton in St. Michaels , Maryland , arriving in the late afternoon. The most memorable part of the drive was the Bay Bridge , probably the longest bridge I’ve ever driven over.

On the morning of the 14^th, Charlotte went to her parents’ place to exchange her small sedan for the a pick-up truck. I GPSed my way to it at an agreed-upon time, and met her there at the Alternative Mini Storage where 1650 copies of [Homo Sapiens! SAVE YOUR EARTH] lay waiting in 45 cartons, 44 copies per carton. We loaded 20 cartons into the truck and I led the way by GPS to the Hilton Mark Center in Alexandria VA 1.5 hours away. Upon arrival, I parked my car right next to the rear entrance of the hotel on the lower level of the car park with “FIX GLOBAL WARMING or kiss our children’s future good-bye” catching the eyes of most conference attendees who entered through that entrance. One woman said, “I LOVE this!”

More later.

Anthony Marr

Anthony Marr, founder
Heal Our Planet Earth (HOPE)
www.HOPE-CARE.org
www.MySpace.com/AnthonyMarr
www.ARConference.org

HOPE-GEO'S CARE-6 tour field-journal #6

Heal Our Planet Earth (HOPE)’s

Global Emergency Operation (GEO)’s

Compassion for Animals Road Expedition #6 (CARE-6)’s

Field journal #6

August 12, 2008

Dear HOPE-GEO team and all friends in compassion:

This entry covers Ohio which was good to me and for the tour.

I left Indiana with fond memories and headed for Ohio on August 3 and drove to my long time friend Vicki Trachsel’s in Galena which is a satellite town of Columbus . She has a large trailer and a big GM truck to match, but due to rising fuel prices, she’s had the rig parked semi-permanently in a large gated trailer park, the best I’ve seen where trailer parks go. Vicki is a childhood buddy and close friend of soprano Sharon Christman, of whom I was guest of honor in the 2004 New Year’s Eve concert at the Kennedy Center , who is also the chair of the Music Department of the Catholic University in Washington DC . Vicki herself is a music major. When she sold her grand paino, she purchased a harp which I took to like fish to water. I was plucking fairly fluently through a Bach piece by nightfall, you know, the one that goes: 3123544655171531234565432317125724323123544… (1 = doe, 2 = ray, 3 = mee, etc., blue = higher octave, red = lower octave). Vicki said something about my genes.

After night had fallen, I went on a solo walk through the maze of unpaved, unlit and winding roads in the huge compound, with a flash light in my hand and a cell phone in my pocket. After a few turns, I found myself hopelessly lost. The trees were so thick all around that I could not even take a bearing from the stars. Since I’m a man, I did not deign to knock on any door for directions. Half an hour later, past 11 pm, I finally relented, and called Vicki on my cell, getting her out of bed in the process. Not just out of bed, but out of the trailer. After a bit, her truck appeared, and I climbed in meekly. She drove me back to the trailer, which happened to be only a couple of hundred yards from where I was. So much for the intrepid globe trotter.

On Aug. 4, Monday, I went to the nearest Starbucks by GPS first thing in the morning, but unlike other Starbucks outlets elsewhere which offer wireless internet access for free, this one charges $5 for 5 days, 2 hours max per day. I noticed a Caribou Coffee nearby, and drove over to see. They did offer the service for free, so I settled in for the day. I had so much internet work to catch up it took me until dinner time to get done with it.

On Aug. 5, Tuesday, I drove to Lane Ferrante’s in Bedford , to where Lightning Source was supposed to have shipped 150 copies of Homo Sapiens! SAVE YOUR EARTH. Lightning Source was supposed to call Lane at her work number upon delivery, but as of late Tuesday afternoon, still no call, and no notification card in Lane’s mail box either. I had a lecture to give at the Lancaster campus of Ohio University the next morning, so, after a quick dinner with Lane, I drove the three hours to Lancaster and arrived in the late evening at the place of Janice Kobi, who had generously taken on organizing events for me in Ohio .

Janice is all business by email and phone, but in person could not be warmer and friendlier. The next morning, she drove me to campus. In the audience was a bearded man name Fritz from the Parks Department, who paid laser-like attention to every word about RUNAWAY global heating and every picture of the Alberta tar sands. After the lecture, he said to me, “Very interesting. Too interesting.”

After the talk, Janice took me to meet a 98-years-old local environmental activist named Grace Ray Moon at the quality care home where she resides, where I also met Lancaster City Parks Director Mitch Overton. Subsequently, Janice wrote up a press release as follows:

International Speaker Raises Awareness of Global Warming

Anthony Marr, author, lecturer, environmentalist and founder of the organization HOPE – Healing Our Planet Earth, stopped by Carriage Court for a visit with one of Lancaster’s own environmentalist, Grace Ray Moon. At 93 years old, Moon was the recipient of the Floyd Wolf Community Service Award in 1993. Today, at 98, Moon continues to offer her services to make Lancaster a “Green” community. Joining Marr to recognize Moon for her years of service were Janice Kobi, Fairfield County CARES President and Mitch Overton, Lancaster City Parks Director.

Marr was in Lancaster to present a program on Global Warming. Kobi arranged for Marr to make a stop in Lancaster on his sixth cross country tour in an effort to raise awareness to climate change and how it affects all life on earth. He also has a new book just published entitled, Homo Sapiens! Save Your Earth.

This year’s tour is entitled, “Global Warming and Mass Extinction.” Marr presented his program at Ohio University- Lancaster Campus on Wednesday, August 6, 2008. During the program, Marr made the comparison that the earth is a living planet. He pointed out by taking a terrestrial view from space that earth has gone through many noticeable changes. He added that from a cosmic perspective, “the earth is sick.” He listed six planetary diseases. “Any one of them alone can kill you but they are all linked together”, he injected.

Marr stated, “The earth has a planetary fever…and it’s called Global Warming.”

During the presentation, Marr discussed the serious nature of high carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere but emphasized methane gas is a much more lethal gas. His concern is that as the permafrost melts around the world more methane gas will enter the atmosphere and increase the speed of global warming.

Trees take in carbon dioxide and give off oxygen. Marr stresses that as man destroys the rain forest worldwide we not only destroy trees but many species that depend on each other for survival. Scientists warned for years that destroying the Amazon rainforest would have negative results. These scientists predicted these areas would dry up and become deserts. Recent droughts in these areas indicate this may be their fate.

Marr’s first book is entitled, Omni-Science and the Human Destiny.

For more information go to the website at www.HOPE-CARE.org.

Shortly after the lecture, I called Lane and asked her about the books, suggesting that perhaps she should call her apartment manager to see if the books had arrived anyway. She did, and got back to me saying that the books had arrived, and actually arrived on Monday, but had the wrong apartment number for them, and the notice of delivery had been placed into the wrong mail box. GRRRRRR. By then, it was past 2 pm, and the manager’s office in which the 5 boxes of books were stored would be closed at 5 pm, while the drive would take some 3 hours. I gave it a try anyway, but did not arrive till 5:30. So, I overnighted at Lane’s, and got the books the next morning. As it turned out, each box contained about 50 copies of the book, so 4.5 boxes equaled 225 copies, instead of the 150 as ordered. I left with Lane 1.5 boxes, all copies signed, and took away 3 boxes or 150 copies, and headed back to Janice’s for the evening, from where I would head for Athens where my next events were scheduled on Thursday.

Subsequently, Lane wrote me an email saying: “Yeaaaaaaaaaaaa!! I have tried to call you but your voice mail has been full. I wanted to tell you that your book is utterly fantastic and I think every human that inhabits this earth should be made to read it cover to cover. I actually cried. I have it at work and am really pushing people to read it. I have even gotten Reggie to start reading it…”

Janice said that she could distribute a number of copies of the book to her contacts, so I left her one box, for now and upon my planned return to Ohio Oct. 6-9. In the early afternoon, I drove south to Athens for my two events. The first was thought to be a radio interview at WOUB, which turned out to be a TV interview, which began with a discussion on animal rights and the AR Conference, which then moved on to global warming and mass extinction. My local hosts John and Kati Davis, who went into the TV room to watch the interview, later told me that I had received a compliment. There were two program directors present, one of whom said to the other, “This guy’s good. Looks like he’s done it all before.”

After the interview, we drove on to a lake, on the bank of which the local Sierra club was holding its annual meeting. There were about 20 people there. The meeting also double-duties as a vegetarian pot-puck. After the dinner, club president Loraine McCosker asked me to make a speech, which, judging by their questions and comments afterwards, seemed to have captured their attention and imagination. I said at one point that we should internalize environmental cost in fossil fuels extraction and charge it against the oil companies up front, and got many agreements in return, including one from Loraine. I gave each a copy of the book, and there were several $5-$20 donations without solicitation.

I was going to overnight in Athens , but received a dinner invitation in Columbus from Michelle Gatchell (Deputy Director of Communications for Nancy H. Rogers, Attorney General, State of Ohio ) for Friday evening, so I drove back to Vicki’s for the night. In the course of the day, Michelle called to inform me that more people are joining the dinner, including Ritchie Layman, who had hosted a tiger preservation presentation for me at the University of Ohio at Columbus a couple of years back.

On Friday, the 8^th, I spent all day at Caribou Coffee until the late afternoon when I drove to the Dragonfly restaurant in Columbus by 5:30. Participating in the dinner were six women including Michelle, Ritchie, Elizabeth Bonfield (Director of Capital Giving, Wittenberg University ) Linda Orenchuck, who had attended one of my talks before, Alita _____, Michelle’s mother, and myself. Upon my arrival, Alita, in a spiffy western cow-girl suit complete with hat, was saying something about Anthony being a Romeo. I sat down and said, “I didn’t know that Ohio women were so fast. I’ve hardly sat down and am already being called a Romeo.” HAHAs. As it happened, “Anthony” was Alita’s dog. At one point, Alita said that she had been single for 30 years. I said, “That’s nothing. I’ve been single for 64 years.” They looked at me as if I were Methuselah. I went back out to my car to get 6 copies of the book and gave them one each, all signed upon request. Without solicitation, Ritchie donated $25, and Linda wrote me a folded cheque, which of course I did not opened to look at. They talked and planned an event for my return to Columbus on Oct. 7. After the dinner had broken, and I back in the driver’s seat of my car, I then opened and looked at Linda’s cheque, and it said $500.

After the dinner, I drove back to Vicki’s place, ready to drive off to West Virginia for my next adventure.

More later.

Anthony Marr

Anthony Marr, founder
Heal Our Planet Earth (HOPE)
www.HOPE-CARE.org
www.MySpace.com/AnthonyMarr
www.ARConference.org

HOPE-GEO's CARE-6-tour field journal #5

Heal Our Planet Earth (HOPE)’s

Global Emergency Operation (GEO)’s

Compassion for Animals Road Expedition #6 (CARE-6)’s

Field journal #5

August 1, 2008

Dear HOPE-GEO team and all friends in compassion:

I know, I know, this HOPE-GEO CARE-6-tour field-journal #5 has been long in coming. However, I have to abide by my own rule that this is a report of action. If I went through a temporary period inaction, the journal would have to wait. Either this, or I went through a temporary period of intense activity with no time to write, but I cannot apply the latter to the last ten days.

Of course few things are 0% or 100%. These last ten days have served as the time required to study the book Stupid to The Last Drop (by William Marsden, given to me by Patrick Moore of CURE, Montevideo, Minnesota). Even for me, who has created the website part of which dealing with the Alberta tar sands, the book is an eye-opener. It takes a historical perspective to the beginning of tar sands discovery to how the Canadian government contemplated using nuclear weapons to extract oil from the tar sands, to the selling out of Canada’s resources to the U.S.A. via the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) in which, for example, Canada is required to ship to the U.S.A. 60% of its oil output, regardless of whether Canada itself falls short of oil or not, and via other political and commercial devices, by incompetent and impotent and/or unethical and corrupt, and/or foolish and, yes, stupid, “statesmen” such as former Prime Minister Brian Mulrooney, former Alberta Premier and former Alberta “Environment Minister” Ralph Klein, current Alberta “Environment Minister” Rob Rennie, current Alberta Premier Ed Stelmach and current Prime Minister Stephen Harper, who have shown not one iota of concern for human health (e.g. the cancer epidemic amongst the First Nations peoples inhabiting the Athabasca watershed) nor environmental integrity (e.g. the deformed fish they consumed and the ducks that died by landing into one of the tailing “ponds”), and how psychopathic and sociopathic Big Oil took and are still taking full advantage of this weakness and all but invaded Canada with their heavy machinery for leveling the forest and tearing up the land, and light bribes for officials and natives (see Chapter 5 titled “Washington’s Doomsday Politics in which the Americans discover the oil sands, contemplate the invasion of Canada and find it’s not necessary”) , and, worst of all, how Canadian and especially Albertan investors and voters keep voting these criminals-against-nature-and-humanity back in, even though their deeds are destroying the Canadian ecology, the entire biosphere, and their own children’s future. This infuriates me, and has hardened my resolve to defeat them ASAP, and given me the extra ammunition to hasten our victory. So, these 10 days have in fact been very fruitful, without which, charging full speed ahead, I would have had no time to read at all.

I arrived at Janesville on July 17^th, on the same evening of which I gave a talk to about a dozen people in the gazebo of a park in Beloit, including organizer Les Blumreich and my dear friends Amy Burns, her husband Mark Dwyer and their daughter Luciana, Allegrea Rosenburg, and a few others I did not recognize. When I was concluding my talk, it was twilight, and all around the gazebo the fireflies performed their magic. It was beautiful and enchanting. Unfortunately, there was no reporter there to witness it.

On Saturday the 19^th, Amy and I went to Madison to attend the Dalai Lama’s public talk. When we were standing in line waitings to enter the stadium, in the fierce sun in the asphalt parking lot, we could not help but notice a demonstration by a group of Tibetans against the Dalai Lama. There were large banners saying “DALAI LAMA, STOP LYING!” The demonstrators were chanting “DALAI LAMA! (Something something in Tibetan)!” Amy went over to talk to them, and was told that they were a Buddhist sect not recognized by the Dalai Lama, who had refused to meet with them. In other words, they were accusing the Dalai Lama of religious persecution! Upon finally entering the stadium, a guard confiscated my bottle of water. We were seated way up on the third level and the sound system left a lot to be desired. I had to strain to catch the odd recognizable phrase from “His Holiness” (a term I disdain, be it applied to the Dalai Lama or the Pope or any other spiritual “supreme master”). The format of the talk basically involved the man sitting next to him asking him questions which he then answered. Unfortunately, the questions were posed by one with almost no environmental or global awareness, and most questions were mundane and pseudo-spiritual in the extreme, and the terms “global warming”, much less “mass extinction”, did not arise even once that I could discern. Amy did not hear them either. She has attended the Dalai Lama’s talks before, and said that indeed this time his performance was substandard. Subsequently, she gave me a book by the Dalai Lama in support of science. However, Julie Johnston attempted to gain me access to the Dalai Lame, and it was not granted.

Here is how I feel about the Dalai Lama; many who admire him may feel personally affronted, but so be it – this being a field journal of truth, at least truth as I see it. The Dalai Lama has the power to fill a stadium with ease. If I were him, especially since he is a man of science and a global warming acceptor, in view of the urgency of the matter, I would not rest, but instead give public talks everyday, 365 days every year, city after city, country after country, until the world is enlightened, Big Oil is trounced, and the tar sands are shut down for good. But that afternoon, I saw little if any sign of urgency. I cannot respect a world leader with his enormous power of global influence, who would not try to accomplish at least what the miniscule HOPE-GEO team is trying to accomplish. And to add to the mediocrity of the day, except Amy’s company, I ended up with a heat stroke for the trouble, which led to my vomiting later at her parents’ place.

Amy’s parents are Betty and Marvin Burns, age 58 and 60, who are staunch Christians and Creationists, which normally would have set me diametrically opposed to them, but their caring hospitality has not only neutralized this intellectual barrier, but instilled within me a sense of unconditional love for them. While their son Michael has followed in their footsteps and become a pastor, Amy has struck out on her own into the realm of science, logic and evolutionary thinking, and is home-schooling her delightful younger daughter Luciana, while maintaining an uneasy yet loving truce with her parents. Marvin is a bit of a missionary at heart. After finally raising the money, he is now poised to go back to Uganda on August 3 for 15 days to help build a house for their Ugandan minister. He had had his luggage packed 10 days ahead of time, unlike me who seldom start packing until the very morning of my departure, even on a 4.5-month-long tour. Betty is a homebody, and could only look on in semi-amusement and semi-resignation, with their three cats around her heels. About Marv’s trip, I have always found Christian missionaries indoctrinating Third World people with their dogma objectionable, but again, on the personal level, I sincerely wish Marvin a safe and fruitful journey. Whereas they, fully knowing that I’m an evolutionist, have avoided broaching the subject even once for all the time I’ve known them since 2005. On Amy’s side of the family, she has had recent heated debates against Marv in blog form, but I have yet to see them duel it out verbally in person. Unfortunately, the conflict between her and her eldest daughter Dejanique had come to a head on Dage’s 18^th birthday, and only after some serious confrontations did it die down. Quite a few late evenings, I walked the several blocks from Betty’s to Amy’s to unwind and hang out, with Allegrea and Mark almost always there with us, and of course all nine of Amy’s cats. I love their whole family deeply.

When I arrived at Betty’s place and checked into my assigned bedroom, I found the proof copy of our new book Homo Sapiens! SAVE YOUR EARTH lying on the bed. I looked at it for a moment before picking it up and holding it in my hands, as if it were a new-born babe. By the time I entered Wisconsin, I had contacted Lightning Source to have 2000 copies of the book printed ($3980 vs $3363 for 1500 copies) and have 200 copies sent to Peter and Julie on Pender Island BC, 150 copies to Lane’s place in Bedford Ohio, and 1650 copies sent to the Alternative Mini Storage in Maryland rented by Charlotte (shipping cost $702, vs $648 for 1500 copies). They would be shipped on August 1, Friday, and should arrive within 3-4 days, in time for the AR Conference.

On July 29, Tuesday, I bade farewell to Amy’s family, and drove to South Bend, Indiana, for the engagemnt at the St. Joseph County Library scheduled for 6-9 pm, organized by Lisa Funkhouser, a MySpace friend of mine nicked Latasomi. I arrived at 4 pm as arranged, and was instantly struck by her feel of freshness, youthfulness and warmth when we met at the library parking lot. She and her friend Jim, who brought his video and projector equipment, treated me to dinner in a Thai restaurant nearby. While driving, I called Lisa on my cell to see if she had contacted the local media, she said, while we were walking to the restaurant, “You have to teach me how to do it properly next time.” As she had feared, the audience was small, but it could also have been caused by some mix up on the date on the part of others. While still in Wisconsin the day before driving to Indiana, i.e. July 28, Monday, I received an email from an Indiana woman named Jamie, who wrote that she had heard about the presentation at her work place, and would like to attend, but the date she mentioned was July 28, Monday. I wrote back to give her the correct date of July 29, Tuesday, and she did show up, but goodness knows how many people went to the library on the wrong date. It was not Lisa’s mistake, because her announcement did say July 29, Tuesday. Just goes to show that however careful we try to be, we cannot control the carelessness in others.

Lisa, who opened her home to me for my stay, where she lives with her young daughter Kaley, is a highly intelligent woman with a university degree and excellent computer skills, and is applying them to improve my websites and my telecommunications capabilities. She offers to host another event for my return visit in October, and to help with the HOPE-GEO campaign in the long run, pro bono. To help save the Earth has been her aim in life, and she deems our campaign worthy of her time, energy and talents.

Jim did video-record the presentation, and is working on the recording for YouTube and elsewhere as we speak.

The next 2 weeks will be busier than the last 2 weeks, with presentations in Ohio and West Virginia prior to the AR conference. Alex (FARM) just wrote me saying that Joanne Chang could not make the conference, and asked me to take on one of her talks. So now, I have 12 speeches at the AR Conference to make.

More later.

Anthony

HOPE-GEO's CARE-6-tour field journal #4

July 17, 2008, Thurs.

Heal Our Planet Earth (HOPE)'s

Global Emergency Operation (GEO)'s

CARE-6 tour

Field Journal #4

by

Anthony Marr

founder of HOPE

lead campaigner of GEO

“road warrior” of CARE-1, CARE-2, CARE-3, CARE-4, CARE-5 & CARE-6

My last entry was written in Missoula, and now I’m in Janesville, Wisconsin, at the home of Marv and Betty Burns, parents of WI activist Amy Burns, with Montana, North Dakota and Minnesota already behind me. I arrived at 1:30 last night, from Minneapolis where I started driving around 9 pm. Betty had left the back door open for me and I just walked in and went straight to my assigned bedroom, which was spic-and-span as always, with a stack of fresh towels on the bed, and the faint night-lights left on. One of her two cats, Libby, was there to welcome me. As I had half-expected, I found the proof copy of “Homo Sapiens! SAVE YOUR EARTH” lying in the center of the bed facing the heavens. The first thing I did in the room after laying down my laptop and toiletry kit was to pick up the book and hold it in my hands. It was a magical sensation. Of course I’ve held thousands of books in my hands since I began reading some 60 years ago, but I’ve had this magical feeling holding a book only once before, and that was when I picked up a copy of my first book “Omni-Science and the Human Destiny” for the first time back in 2003. I’ve never had a child of my own, but it must be what a mother and father would experience when they hold their new-born child in their arms.

While I was still in Missoula, I had a few phone conversations with Lynn Wolff, the Organizer of the Dakota Resource Council head-quartered in North Dakota, which culminated in him making a series of phone calls to his colleagues in Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Minnesota and Iowa. These states have something in common. They all have separate pipelines planned or already partly constructed, all stemming from Canada of course – the Montana one(s) coming straight down from Alberta, the Dakota one(s) down from Saskatchewan and the Minnesota one(s) down from Manitoba, all ultimately originating from the Alberta tar sands. Lynn’s efforts led to a series of meetings on my way east.

I left Missoula on July 14, Monday, around 8:30 a.m.. My first stop was Billings MT, driving time over 4 hours. The person to meet there was Mike Scott of the Northern Plains Resource Council, whose office is situated in a “green” building called Home On The Range, of some local fame, time set for around 1 pm. His group is a soft one in my view, and though they are aware of the pipeline situation, are hesitant to do hardcore battle against their government, and does not seem to look beyond the U.S. border to the root cause in Canada and do battle there. They appear to work only with the private landowners whose land would or might be impacted negatively by the pipeline. Their pipeline is in the public consultation process and they seem to be concentrating on this front. I asked him if any pipeline has been stopped by this process, and he said no. When I asked him to have their organization join the Coalition to Abolish the Tar Sands (CATS) to cut the pipelines upstream, he quickly responded with, “I’ll have to run this past the board.” When I asked him to come to Billings Gazette newspaper office with me, he said a very quick no, adding that currently, their organization had no hard position or strategy to present to media on the pipelines issue.

I called up the Billings Gazette myself, and talked to the editor Steve Prosinski. He was friendly enough, but said that he had no reporter available that day, but asked me if I would be in town the next day. Unfortunately, I had to go to Bismarck ND for further meetings the next morning. Anyway, without Mike’s cooperation to provide a local angle for a local newspaper story, chances are that there would be no story for the Gazette. I could check with Prosinski by phone when I have time, but a phone-call is likely all it’s worth. While walking towards my car on the way out, I noticed, to my unpleasant surprise, that my rear right tire had run itself almost bald since the start of the trip, and the left one wasn’t much better, neither had much tread left before the tour in the first place. It would be downright dangerous to run on them much farther, especially if it got wet, which thankful it didn’t, but no time to change tire tires for now, at least not till I get to Wisconsin. Meanwhile I reduced my speed from 125 kph (80+ mph) to about 115 kph (75 mph, which is the standard interstate speed limit in these parts).

By the time I arrived in Bismarck, it was around 9 pm. I got a room at the Motel-6 right off the highway, room cost about $50. At one point, after loading my laptop, etc. into the room, I went out to my car one more time, and found that I’d left the key-card in the room. So I went back to the office to get a spare key-card. In there was a young man at the counter getting a room, and behind him in the small lobby was an older gentleman around 55, with salt-and-pepper hair and beard, waiting to get a room. While the young man was about done, I’d had a light chat with the older gentleman, and told him with some embarrassment that I had locked myself our of my room. He offered for me to go before him, since to get a spare key-card would take much less time than to book a room. I thanked him, got I spare key-card, said good-night and left. The next morning, I went to my 9 a.m. meeting with Mark Trechock, head of the Dakota Resource Council and Lynn Wolff’s boss, and Mary Mitchell and Wayde Schaefer, both of the Sierra Club, at the Mr. Delicious cafe. We had a little initial laugh when Mark recognized me as the guy who locked himself out of his room, and I him as the courteous gentleman who let me go first. In the meeting, it was Mark who talked the most, and most freely. All three had pretty well accepted that the pipeline through North Dakota was a done deal, but its extension into South Dakota was still being fought. Upon being asked to join CATS, Mark had no trouble saying yes, whereas the Sierra Club people again said they had to consult their board. Before ending the meeting, one of them mentioned an anti-tar-sands group in Montevideo MN, called Clean Up the River Environment (CURE). Finally, there was a group not just about the pipelines, but about the tar sands itself, for me to talk to.

While in Bismarck, I also had a long phone conversation with Stephanie Trask of Dakota Rural Action, South Dakota, and they are tackling the pipeline that is now coming down from North Dakota, but again, I feel that their method is a little on the soft side, and concentrating only on the local property owners impacted by the pipeline..

Before leaving Bismarck, I called the newsroom of the Bismarck Tribune. I’ve been forewarned that all North Dakota politicians and media and average Joe either pay no attention to global warming or think/say that global warming is a hoax, and are generally in favor of the pipeline. The editor John Irby, on the other hand, was friendly, and passed me on to a reporter-columnist named Crystal Reid. Crystal invited me to go into their office for the interview. The interview lasted a good half an hour and it went well, but even before it began, Crystal had forewarned that there were no promises.

After the interview, I drove on to Fargo, ND, to meet with Lynn Wolff. We met in a restaurant parking lot around 8 pm, and shared a late bite. He looked exactly like the image I had formed of him based on his voice on the phone – late 60s, slightly heavy-set, and very affable. He and I liked each other on sight, and had a nice dinner together, during which he called his wife to look up CURE for me, and went on to make an appointment for me with CURE for first thing the next morning, while I called the Fargo Forum daily newspaper, and had a 20 minutes chat with the night editor, who sounded interest, but again no promises.

After saying goodbye to Lynn around 9 pm, I drove on towards Montevideo, but soon ended up on a slow 2-lane highway, which, just past midnight, brought me to a town called Morris about 40 miles from Montevideo. Along the way, all gas stations were closed, and all small towns and villages seemed asleep. Morris was the first place with a motel, and there was no guarantee there would be anything in Montevideo when I got there. So, I went to a road side Super8 in Morris, which proved to be full, but the counter lady made a phone call for me, and found me a room in a nearby motel called the Prairie Inn for $69; no choice but to take it, but that would be about the last motel I would need for much of the rest of the trip.

The next morning, I spent some time on the internet before driving the 40 miles from Morris to Montevideo, and got there in time for lunch, CURE’s treat. The executive director is named Patrick J. Moore. When I called CURE to inform them of my ETA, I asked the front lady if Patrick had come from British Columbia, to make sure he was not the infamous Dr. Patrick Moore who had turned from being a co-founder of Greenpeace to a logging advocate. Good thing he was not. Patrick, in his late 50s, with bushy grey hair, invited his colleague Duane Ninneman, 40s, bald but with a full dark beard, titled Long Range Development Consultant, to join us for lunch. I liked them both, and they are both well versed with the tar sands. In fact, while in their offices, Moore gave me a copy of “STUPID TO THE LAST DROP – how Alberta is bringing environmental Armageddon” by William Marsden, to keep. When I asked them to have CURE join CATS, Moore said without hesitation, “Absolutely.” I asked him, “You don’t have to run it past your board?” He said, “I can make unilateral decisions for CURE.” So that’s a done deal.

Moore also lined me up with an environmental attorney for Plains Justice in Minneapolis named Paul Blackburn and his spouse Kelly Fuller, environmental advocate. After the lunch with Patrick and Duane, I drove on to Minneapolis and arrived at Paul and Kelly’s by 7 pm. We chatted until about 9 pm, and I punched into my GPS the address as Marv and Betty Burns in Janesville, Wisconsin, where I will be staying for the next several days, ETA 1:30 in the morning. I finally got to bed by about 2 a.m..

This morning, I woke up around 8 Central time, and read in bed for a while before getting up for a shower. I started on STUPID TO THE LAST DROP. Its Prologue outlined how the oil industry considered used low-yield atomic bombs to extract crude oil from the tar sands. And its Chapter 1, titled Highway to Heaven, started as follows:

Dr. John O’Conner, the coroner for Fort McMurray, had warned me: “Never drive Highway 63 south or north on Thursdays…Sundays or Mondays.”

“Why’s that?”

“Shift changes at the oil sands. The traffic is crazy. Your heart is in your mouth.”

Then, he told me about the last accident he investigated: it’s winter and dark. A logging truck swerves to avoid a pickup truck parked on the shoulder but with one wheel on the road, its driver fast asleep. Logs fly off the flatbed, piercing the windshield of an oncoming van. Two workers died, one screaming for an hour before his heart finally gave out…

Let me add to not drive on Hwy 63 on Saturdays either, the day I almost had the head-on collision while passing two vehicles.

Now, it’s July 17, Thursday, afternoon. At 6:30 pm, I’ll be giving a talk in a park in Beloit WI. Last time I got a newspaper article out of it. Let’s hope for a repeat performance this time.

More later.

Anthony Marr, founder
Heal Our Planet Earth (HOPE)
www.HOPE-CARE.org
www.MySpace.com/AnthonyMarr
www.ARConference.org

HOPE-GEO's CARE-6-tour field journal #3

2008-07-12-Sat.

Heal Our Planet Earth (HOPE)’s
Global Emergency Operation (GEO)'s

Compassion for Animals Road Expedition #6 (CARE-6)

Field Journal #3

by

Anthony Marr

founder of HOPE

lead campaigner of GEO

“road warrior” of CARE-1, CARE-2, CARE-3, CARE-4, CARE-5 & CARE-6

I’m still in Missoula , staying at Anja’s place. But the tar sands have not been left to the back of my mind. What I saw from the air and on the ground, in the latter case also smelled, will never leave the fore-front of my mind for as long as I care for this Earth.

When I entered the UBC back in 1966, I put myself into the pre-med program, but I’m not destined to be a healer, at least on the bodily level. I was so squeamish and weak-stomached that I could not tolerate even the sight of the color photographs of skin diseases and almost all internal ailments exposed to view, let alone the real thing. Meanwhile, I did an IQ test, and deemed myself fit material for physics, and switched over to pure science. Why physics? Well, since my childhood I’ve been wondering what I was. I mean, I asked myself as a child, “What am I?” The notion that I was a human being and sitting at the pinnacle of all creation just didn’t make sense me. In secondary school, under the Irish Jesuits, my quest for meaning and purpose was formalized in the Catholic format. For example: Question: What is your purpose in life? Answer: To glorify God, and to get my soul into Heaven. I almost volunteered myself for the priesthood, until I found out, and not from the Church, about the Inquisition, where, in the Middle Ages, millions of people were burnt at the stake, and at that after prolonged and hideous torture, for basically the freedom of thought and speech and non-violent action. I was shot out of the Church as if by a canon propelled by my revulsion. So, what does that leave me? Physics. I wanted to know what I was made of, physically, and most basically, on the subatomic level. Spiritually, I’d just have to pray, basically to myself, and nonetheless arrived back at that I was a healer at heart.

So, by a series of seemingly random events spanning the ensuing decades, I found myself, on July 1, 2008, in the co-pilot’s seat of a Cessna 172 chartered from McMurray Aviation for 1.5 hours, looking down upon the gaping wounds and oozing sores on the face of my beloved Mother Earth, I found confirmation for the name of the organization I founded in 1999 – Heal Our Planet Earth (HOPE).

Perhaps due to that dark landscape haunting my vision on my drive from Fort McMurray back to Edmonton , I had a near miss that could have ended the tour right there and then, not to mention the lives of Taina and myself. I value the life of Taina highly, but place my own life way below that of Mother Earth, which explains why I mentioned the tour first. To me, the tour means the life of Mother Earth herself. If the tour fails, Mother Earth herself may fail. The tour is tough going, even with the able help and generous backing of Dr. Peter Carter, Julie Johnston, Taina, Nan Love, Rebecca Monaghan, Charlotte Templeton, Dominique Landis, Lane Ferrante, Janice Kobi, Doris Lynn, Lois Baum, Natalie Jarnstad, among others. If I do not believe that our mission can save Mother Earth, I’d just as well go to another planet. Anyway, Highway 63 is a two lane highway, namely one lane in each direction, which means that if you want to pass somebody, you always have to take a risk. And, as you may well guess, many of the vehicles were 18-wheelers. So, at one point, I initiated action on passing an 18-wheeler, when, not until I was halfway past it before I saw that in front of it was a small pick-up truck that the 18-wheeler was in process of tailgating. This totally screwed up my calculations. Oncoming was another 18-wheeler, which all of a sudden looked lethally close. As soon as Taina saw the pick-up truck, she said, “Yikes!” I forgot what I said, but remember doing a quick calculation on whether I should jam on my brakes and retreat behind the 18-wheeler I had half-passed, or going for it. The pick-up truck was being tailgated by the 18-wheeler anyway, so it couldn’t slow down to let me in even if it wanted to. My foot chose to press on the gas pedal, and my car issued a growl and shot forward and slipped in front the pickup truck with a very slim margin to spare.

After we resumed cruising, I asked Taina if her heart rate had risen. She said, “Nope, I trust the driver, and yours?” I said, “Nope, I trust my car. By the way, did I say anything when you said ‘Yikes’?” She said, “Yeah, you said, ‘Yep’.” Not one of the famous last words, haha.

Back to Missoula , as I mentioned in the last entry, I was invited by the Independent to go to their office for an interview, which happened 2:15-3:00 pm on Thursday. I brought with me my laptop, and showed the editor Skylar Browning the photos of thawing permafrost on the spot. He had no problem grasping the seriousness of the situation, but being a new editor (as of June this year), he might have wanted to stick by the book, and said that he needed a local “hook” to run the story. I asked Browning back, “What if WW3 breaks out, but it hasn’t bombed Missoula yet, do you still need a local hook to run the story?” He said, “Yes, and the hook would be maybe a Missoula man fighting the war somewhere.” So I took my fall-back position and told him that I gave a presentation to Footloose, Anja’s Missoula-based anti-trapping group – not exactly a lie, since Anja was Footloose – whom Local activist Jerry Black calls Miss Footloose Montana) and I had spoken about global warming to her. She also added subsequently to me, and I to Skylar, that the wolverine, which is a trapped animal, needs snow covered dens to give birth to young. He said these might work, and that he might call up Dr. Steve Running (see entry#2) and ask him a couple of questions about my RUNAWAY global warming HAS BEGUN! claim. So, there might be a story next Wednesday, or there might not. I also checked out the Missoulian, whose editor also said that it was an important issue, but needing a local angle for a story. The fallback position on this is to recontact them when local activists bury their time capsule. Well, you win some, you lose some; can’t win them all. And, as I say to the HOPE-GEO team, we work on percentages. If for every 10 attempts we get 5, that’s 5 successes, not 5 failures. So for every failed attempt, we move one closer to the next success. I guess here’s proof that I’m the cup-half-full kind of guy.

By Anja’s intervention, I got to meet two man also on Thursday, Steve Woodruff, Deputy Director, Northern Rockies branch of Western Progress (www.westernprogress.org). It is not a sharply focused group, and Woodruff, according to Anja, is a hunter, but he is pro-environment where global warming is concerned, and has testified in Congress. We might consider inducting his group into our Coalition to Abolish the Tar Sands (CATS).

The other person I met was David Merrill, Executive Director of Global Warming Solution (www.globalwarmingsolution.org). They had thought of the same problem of how to build a global green fund, but has advanced a different solution – for the UN to impose a half-percent tax on all foreign currency exchange. This might be even easier to achieve (or should I say: less difficult) than ours, though it would not simultaneous achieve a step in global disarmament as ours would. I ran this by Peter while on the phone; he said both should proceed, and I concur.

One person I contacted yesterday was Lynn Wolff of the Dakota Resource Council at Fargo , North Dakota . He and I had a phone conversation back in April or May. Their problem was, and still is, the tar sands’ southern pipeline going right through North Dakota and South Dakota on its way south to Texas . At this point, the pipeline has by-and-large been laid in ND, but not yet SD, and they still intend to stop it. Upon hearing that I had over-flown and actually visited the tar sands, he became even keener than before, and offered to organize a mini tour for me to cover the cities of Billings (MT), Miles City (MT), Dickenson (ND), Bismarck (ND), Jamestown (ND), Fargo City (ND) and Cedar Rapids (IA). This I will have to execute Monday through Wednesday, because my first talk in Wisconsin is on August 17, Thursday. He and I talked again twice today. The second time, I told him about the Animal Rights Conference and my profile in it. I said that 1,000 people will attend that conference, and I intend to transform the movement with my 11 speeches, particularly my 12 minute Sunday evening plenary speech titled “Act Globally” shared with only the famous Jewish author Richard Schwartz (a great honor), and that stopping the ND/SD pipeline and the BC pipeline is of enormous importance in the global warming scheme of things. I said, “Trust me, I will do my best to make it happen.” He was driving, and asked me to email him the link to the AR2008 Conference site. We agreed to talk again tomorrow.

Well, so far on this tour, timing has not been my strong suit. While I was in Calgary , my media was pre-empted by the infamous Calgary Stampede, and it looks like my August 19^th presentation in Madison , Wisconsin will be pre-empted by the famous Dalai Lama. Too late to change it now. Our dear Madison friend Lynn Pauly could not change the date again, so, whether I give a talk or not, I will attend the Dalai Lama’s talk, and make sure the RUNAWAY global warming by methane and the global Green Fund message gets out, if not by him then by me. The silver lining is that the audience will be huge for my 3-minute speech during the question period at the end of the Dalai Lama’s speech. If no question period, I will speak up anyway.

Over the last days in Missoula , I spent almost all my wakeful hours on the internet and the phone. I did have dinner with my dear friend Dave Taylor, his spouse Jerry and Anja on Thursday evening. Otherwise, all Anja could do was to drag me out on nature walks an hour a day. She has two dogs, one looking like a wolf, named Jasper, and one looking like a fox, named Annie. They barked at me for the obligatory initial 10 seconds upon my first arrival (when Anja was not home), but after that, it was all tail-wagging and lying-next-to. Jasper slept in my room two nights, and comes when I call. Annie is a little aloof, but trustingly eats out of my hands (with Anja’s permission of course). In one walk, we encountered a Vietnam vet named Dennis West with two half-Husky-type dogs, one black, one white. He showed us the front view of an advancing grizzly bear taken at close quarters (within 10’) with his cell phone, and told us that he was saved by his two dog right after taking that picture, that the white dog leapt on to the back of the bear, and when the bear stood up, she hung on, while the black one bit the bear in its groin area, causing it to flee. “My ex told me it’s my dog or her, and guess which I chose,” he said. Yes indeed, if anyone said something like that to me, whether or not I loved the dogs, I would chosen them.

While walking by a swift-flowing river yesterday, I received a call phone call from Charlotte , telling me that she had rented a storage space near the conference hotel for the 1300 books I’ll be asking Lightning Source to ship for conference. She has constant physical pains, and a family to raise as a single parent, and yet, is putting out energy galore, as do Nan and Rebecca and Lane and Janice. I am so bless, as is Mother Earth in these small yet profound ways.

Today, Julie sent me a copy of the 6-pane brochure she’s been working on over the last three days. Looked excellent. I made a couple of changes, and she finalized it.

This evening, I will write media releases to my immediate destinations in MD, ND/SD and IA.

More later.


Anthony Marr, founder
Heal Our Planet Earth (HOPE)
www.HOPE-CARE.org
www.MySpace.com/AnthonyMarr
www.ARConference.org