Letter to President Barack Obama concerning your re-election as President of the United States of America
Dear President Barack Obama,
On behalf of the Global Community
,
all life on Earth, I thank you for your decision to delay approval of the Keystone XL Pipeline,
a 1,700 mile pipeline that would have brought environmentally-disastrous crude from Alberta’s tar sands to Gulf Coast refineries.
At the time when people started digging for coal, oil and gas, and now ever since the 80s the tar sands of Alberta, and then the burning of all this fossil fuel which sent carbon into the air to the point of threatening the global life-support systems, this was enough to ensure astronomical profits for a handful of fossil-fuel corporations. I know I have lived in the province of Alberta for 12 years and fought hard to bring to the public arena the harmful effects of fossil fuel products.
In Alberta these corporations are the rule of law everywhere even at the University of Calgary where most of so call research and development projects are subsidized and controlled by big oil corporations. Just another way of not paying taxes to government. They will make sure you will live in the 'ghetto' if you so happen to be writing reports showing hard evidence of harmful done to the environment and, eventually, to people health and all life on Earth. It was at a time when the word 'environment' was just making its way into the human psyche.
I urge Americans to vote to re-elect you as President of the United States of America. This is a one time help to you Sir and only because of your decision to delay approval of the Keystone XL Pipeline. I am giving you an A+ grade for your decision. You had the courage to stand up for value. And you will be re-elected.
Those people who circled the White House in asking you to stop any further development of the pipeline on US soil have already been rewarded. Soullife has already rewarded each and everyone of those Souls. That is right Sir! They are the Souls of your country. You are the Soul of the White House, and I wish you were the Soul of Congress as well.
We also thank authors listed here
for their hard work and activism in the energy sector and the protection of the global life-support systems.
The Global Community has published all of those articles and papers in its Current News section .
As you can see, over the past several decades, those authors have fought hard along with the Global Community
for the protection of the global life-support systems and, certainly, the tar sands of Alberta, an environmental nightmare
of global proportions, have been the subject of many of us. Not over yet! But for now thank you and keep writing to us.
The short list of articles, reports and papers can be found in the
Current News of the Global Community.
and in Earth management: energy and protection of the global life-support systems
While in Alberta I struggled to find employment related to my education and training. Being seen as an environmental activist never help me, my wife and her two daughters. Then my wife and I decided that I would go to Ottawa and campaign to re-elect Prime Minister Brian Mulroney as Prime Minister of Canada. We thought helping will translate into a job for myself.
I campaigned with the team in Ottawa Centre. We re-elected him. And yes I got a job offer, an eleven months contract work as Analyst with the Energy, Mines and Resources Branch in Calgary, my home base. My job was to analyze oil and gas applications for incentives, i.e. money to explore and develop new oil and gas wells mostly found in Alberta.
When I started working the Branch was already giving away 33 1/3 % for any expenses incurred during and after exploration of wells including their development afterward. This percentage was down from a 50% incentive of previous years. Even expenses for wells that did not end up producing anything. Imagine that! You yourself Sir helped the U.S. auto manufacturing industry with large amounts of US taxpayer dollars in the hope they will pay back every penny. And they have! But here in Alberta the oil and gas industry never paid back the amounts of Canadian tax payer dollars given to them. Neither did the big corporations pay taxes to government. Many of them are not even Canadian owned corporations. They are getting away from paying taxes due to loopholes everywhere in the system. In the 80s instead of paying taxes big oil corporations found ways to waste money everyway they could, including money used to develop tar sands projects.
Throughout the 80s the development of the tar sands was very costly and the price of oil was low. Indeed it was not good economics to produce the crude oil from the tar sands. But this way the big oil corporations did not have to pay taxes. It was classified as research and development by Conservatives. During those years I was doing activism work on my own against the development of the tar sands. Of course I was labelled as a social nonsense.
During those years big oil corporations were very successful with their Public Relations (PR) strategy. They kept saying how badly they were taking avantage by Ottawa. The reality was that Ottawa was paying for half of their expenses. Today those same big oil corporations are using a PR strategy that says how good they are: "look we remediate sites after using them by growing grass over the land". Of course they never mention what happens in between because that would not be good PR. Here is what really happens. The environmental impacts of tar sands development include: irreversible effects on biodiversity and the natural environment, reduced water quality, destruction of fragile pristine Boreal Forest and associated wetlands, aquatic and watershed mismanagement, habitat fragmentation, habitat loss, disruption to life cycles of endemic wildlife particularly bird and Caribou migration, fish deformities and negative impacts on the human health in downstream communities, and the destruction of the global life-support systems with their enormous quantities of greenhouse gase emissions resulting from the production and processing of the tar sands, and the transportation and burning of the crude oil.
The Energy, Mines and Resources Branch was grandfathering oil and gas applications made in 1980s and kept paying throughout the 90s. I myself analyzed and paid over 200 millions dollars to applicants during my eleven months contract work in Calgary, Alberta. I must say that analysing was nothing but following a protocol designed and approved by the Conservative Government. It really meant to just sign an apllication. Each application was worth at least a million dollar to tens of millions. And there were 10 other analysts like myself doing the same work. They had been around for much longer then I was and kept working after my eleven months and throughout the 90s. Very likely billions of Canadian tax payers money went back to Albertans towards oil and gas exploration expenses in the 80s and 90s.
Noone truly knows how many of those expenses were really exploration and development expenses. There was corruption everywhere. Money spent may have been expensive private jet flights to Vegas and extravagant meals CEOs were having with friends and relatives. They treated themselves as do princes in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, an absolute monarchy where the royal family dominates the political system. Saudi Arabia has the world's largest oil reserves and very much your friend. There were a few scandals in Alberta on the fraudulent use of tax dollars but the media was reluctant to report on them because the media itself was and still is own by large corporations with a definite Conservative agenda. And the Energy Branch was not about to do anything about them.
But then could the people of Saudi Arabia have told King Abdul Aziz and his princes not to waste resources money the way they have done? The people over there have been kept so backward that they cannot even research and develop the working of a toaster. They buy everything from elsewhere, especially the military armament from the US. What a waste of Earth resources, the military. You should be ashamed Sir of your military and your war industry, and so should the British people of their military and war industry.
The US military and its war industry are the worst polluters on the planet. Not only do they pollute the planet but they also bomb communities and destroy everything, the latest examples being Iraq and Libya. These countries and their people were sent back to stone age by your military Sir. You decided not to use diplomacy because you did not like either Iraqi President Saddam Hussein or Col. Mu'ammar al-Qadhafi!? Your invasions were truly uncivilized, barbaric, and unjust. You have shown no respect for life on our planet. And it was truly for the oil owned by the people of those countries. You just had to steal the oil. You figure your military should be good for something. Stealing being one of them. In my book Sir, Americans and British people are plundering the Earth resources wherever they are found. And of course your war industry is back there again selling armaments to rebels, and they will pay you with their oil revenues. What a disgusting waste! You shut down the Tar Sands Keystone XL Pipeline project but you should completely shut down your military Sir. And that would be good!
During my 12 years of living in Alberta I embraced Conservative values and campaigned with Conservative candidates provincially and federally. One thing that still is stuck on my mind to these days was a fundamental Conservative value we, as Conservatives, all agreed upon and was that "growth should pay for itself". Government should not be helping corporations to pay for there expenses. Tar sands projects are an obvious example of large corporations not paying for their own growth. Beside not paying taxes, they also never paid for building the infrastructures and facilities needed by their own workers. Schools, hospitals, fire stations, health care services, and so on! What we have witnessed happening in the tar sands kingdom was that the fundamental Conservative value, "growth should pay for itself", was truly not on the agenda of the big corporations. In fact, not only they would not pay for their growth but they would not even participate in the 'growth' of every one else in Canada. That makes them 'separatists'. They would gladly separate from the rest of Canada and join the US. Big oil corporations figure they are a country themselves and own the planet resources. They are the 1% .
Here is an extract of an article I wrote a while back
.
"First of all I want to thank you Harper for selling us your best corporations. The US is bankrupted but we can still print out as many dollars as we want. Not a problem! You need not to worry about the North and its resources. It has all been taken care of. We don't want to eliminate the border between our two nations. At least not yet! To make that an acceptable deal, Canada needs to be bankrupted as well just like we are! So keep spending and increasing your national debt and annual deficit. We got Mexico and its resources that way! Actually we do that all over the world. That works well! Hum! In some nations we use our military, but that also works well. Then you will need us to lend you money through our World Bank and IMF. That will cut any avenues of Canada going on its own. And then we will just get your resources, and maybe we will eliminate the border between our nations. That might make it easier and cheaper for us to get your resources and control the bunch of you. So no more Canada! It is so obvious! Over the pass several decades, Alberta has been Americanized in so many ways, and the facts that oil and natural gas from wells all over the province are being pipelined to the USA, has made a breakup from the rest of Canada an obvious scenario which the Conservatives from Alberta are keenly aiming at. There are more separatists in the province than anywhere else in Canada. Albertans want power, money, a lifestyle based on oil & gas revenues, the most polluting resources on the planet, and be a State of the USA to keep this lifestyle. And a breakup of Canada would be a dream come true for Americans as this would be the cheapest way ever to gain control of Canada resources and gain an easy access and control of the North Pole resources. Don't be like P.E. Trudeau. He used to cause us trouble. Too much of an intellectual! Gosh he was a pain! Imagine he spent billions in mega projects for Canada, and thus creating jobs for Canadians. We like you Harper much better! You buy our armaments and planes. You give us jobs. That’s good! We are proud of you. Our military industry is all very please of you. We ought to make you an honorary citizen of the United States of America. Just a title, no money here! Hillary is busy right now but P. Tidbits can take care of that. I will arrange for Tidbits to come over to see you?!! We might sign a deal now without Canadians approval, and while you are still in power."
Growth implies the building of a community and its sustainable development. Fort McMurray, Alberta, the place where oil sands resource is found, was not build by big corporations, the 1%. They never paid for the development of this community. Big oil corporations never paid for growth. They rather use loopholes to get away from paying for growth. Big oil corporations are responsible for the destruction of the global life-support systems, and they sure will not pay for fixing them up. They are behaving as if they live in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia with his princes: they destroy the planet by producing atmospheric greenhouse gases and never want to fix it up. It probably coud never come to their mind that what they do is bad, very bad. It is much worst when it comes to producing crude oil from tar sands.
Under the forest in northern Alberta, lie the world's largest deposits of tar sands, sand mixed with thick, tar-like oil. To produce one barrel of heavy crude oil from tar sands requires strip mining the forest, extracting four tons of earth, contaminating two to four barrels of fresh water, burning large amounts of natural gas, and creating vast holding ponds of toxic sludge.
The extraction of tar-sands oil is the most destructive of all oil production methods: Not only does it routinely involve clearing ancient boreal forests and strip-mining the soil, it also leaves behind enormous toxic lakes—visible from space—that have been linked to abnormally high rates of cancer among residents of nearby communities.
First Nations people right downstream from the huge oil project in Alberta are sick, and get more and more sick all the time. There are pictures of all of these deformities in fish and cancer in the moose. Women are having reproductive problems.
Cancer rates in the Fort Chipewyan community, downstream from the Alberta mining project, have been found 30 percent higher than average. Another study, conducted in 2007, revealed dangerously high levels of arsenic, aluminum, mercury and other toxins in Fort Chipewyan’s water, sediment and fish.
People of color and low-income communities are systematically targeted for fossil-fuel development and waste dumping.
Oil sands mining is licensed to use twice the amount of fresh water that the entire city of Calgary uses in a year. At least 90% of the fresh water used in the oil sands ends up in tailing ponds so toxic that propane cannons are used to keep ducks from landing.
Processing the oil sands uses enough natural gas in a day to heat 3 million homes. Producing a barrel of oil from the oil sands produces three times more greenhouse gas emissions than a barrel of conventional oil.
All life on Earth is fighting for survival and freedom from development, pollution in all its forms, overconsumption and overpopulation. Here Sir I will introduce you to the Global Community concepts.
The Global Community is defined around a given territory, that territory being the planet as a whole, as well as a specific population, which is all life forms. That makes the Global Community the 21st century framework for Earth governance, and the only legitimate body with the power to make the laws of the land and to make the rules for the territory of the Earth.
This is the fundamental definition of the expression "Global Community" first defined by myself and my wife Virginie in 1985. This definition includes all people, all life on Earth. It also implicitly says that no-one in particular owns the Earth but we all own it together. Not just us people, but all life on Earth owns it. The beginning of life stretches as far back as 4 billion years, and so Life claims its birthright of ownership of Earth, and so does the Soul of all Life, the Soul of Humanity.
This definition of the Global Community concept is truly the 21st century "philosophy of life" framework, some called it the religion of the third millennium, others called it politics of the future generations now.
The Global Community has given back responsibility to every citizen on Earth. Everyone shares responsibility for the present and future well-being of life within the Global Community. We will work together in working out sound solutions to local and global problems. It would be wrong and dishonest to blame it all on the leader of a country. Most problems in the world must find solutions at the local and global community levels (and not assume that the leader alone is responsible and will handle it). There is a wisdom in the ways of very humble people that needs to be utilized. Every humble person deserves to have ideas respected, and encouraged to develop his or her own life for the better. Sound solutions to help manage and sustain Earth will very likely be found this way. Everyone can help assess the needs of the planet and propose sound solutions for its proper management, present and future. Everyone can think of better ideas to sustain all life on Earth and realize these ideas by conducting positive and constructive actions. The Global Community can help people realized their actions by coordinating efforts efficiently together.
The Global Community concept of ownership states that land and all other natural resources of the planet are a common heritage and belong equally to everyone as a birthright. Products and services created by individuals are properly viewed as private property. Products and services created by groups of individuals are properly viewed as collective property.
Taxes should be designed to conserve resources and energy. Rather than taxing jobs and profits, taxes should be moved to resource use and energy consumption and to reward conservation. The community should benefit from the use of commonly held resources. Taxes should be designed to increase employment. Moving taxes onto resources and land use and off of incomes should make people less expensive to employ. Products produced by green production methods, which tends to use fewer resources and less energy should avoid taxation. As energy costs rise, the price of labour becomes more economical, and green products which tend to encourage value-added processes, should provide more high quality, skilled jobs than resource intensive products. Resource taxes should be assessed as early as possible. Resources should be taxed before entering the manufacturing process in order to green all aspects of the manufacturing process from extraction to the finished product. Increasing taxes on resource and energy use will encourage resource and energy efficiency, innovation, reuse, repair, recycling, and used material recovery.
A proper and fair Earth management can take care of global problems. The important tool of Earth management developed
by the Global Community is the Scale of Global Rights .
The Scale indicates right away what needs to be done with all problems
humanity is facing, and offers a fair and just way forward to resolve them. The Scale gives us
a sense of direction for future family and community planning, and of managing Earth in a fair and just way.
We have the responsibility of managing Earth. Everyone shares responsibility for the present and future well-being of life within the Global Community. When there is a need to find a solution to a problem or a concern, a sound solution would be to choose a measure or conduct an action, if possible, which causes reversible damage as oppose to a measure or an action causing an irreversible loss.
One of the most important factors in our lives is the inter-connection we now have to others, to other countries. Through these connections we are able to create changes for good on a global scale. We are all linked to others in faraway places on a much deeper level, and we are working together to keep our planet healthy, productive and hospitable for all people and living things. Indeed, we have become the Global Community, the human family. Every human being now lives within " a Global Community." This is his (her) global private community. One imagines he is inside a glass bubble ~ everything he can see from this glass bubble is his own " global community". Wherever we go, we are inside " a Global Community." Everything, every living creature there,
interacts one upon the other. Influences inter-weave and are responsible for causes and effects. We are worlds within worlds
orbiting in and out of one another's space.
The concept of the Glass Bubble can be extended to include the planet Earth and all the "global communities" contained therein. That is "the Global Community".
Every single human being must deal responsibly with the affairs going on in his own " glass bubble " ~ when a person takes personal responsibility for his own affairs ~ he or she becomes empowered as a person. Over the past centuries, the human species has given control to leaders to govern their affairs anyway they wish. War, conflicts and human miseries, and destruction of the environment resulted. Now, today, control has been given back to the individual. Survival has forced the issue. The individual can deal with his own affairs, reach beyond his own property and family, and help to work with others living in and around, even a part of the local community he lives in ~ the villages, the town community, the surrounding territory, and so on. It becomes possible for the people of the community to influence the political chain of power to the national level and to the Global Community. Politicians have now to deal with communities and their needs to sustain themselves. People have become conscious of the power and control they have and are no longer subject to the wishes of an unfit governing body. In this way, socio-political-economic reconstruction will be achieved to sustain all life on Earth.
Throughout the 20th century, cheap oil provided the energy needed for wars, economies, settlements, and lifestyles. It was a century of wasteful extravagance and inefficiency that encouraged us to squander virtually all Earth's resources -- including water, land, forests, fisheries, soils, and minerals. Cheap oil is no more and the global projection of military and economic power it made possible is no longer possible.
Conservation, restoration, and management of the Earth resources is about asking ourselves the question of "Who owns the Earth?" The Global Community has proposed a democracy for the people based on the fact that land, the air, water, oil, minerals, the electromagnetic spectrum, and all other natural resources rightly belong to the Global Community along with the local communities where those resources are found. The Earth is the birthright of all life.
To speak of enforceable global law is to speak of world power. Global Parliament has the power to make the laws of the land and to make the rules for the territory of the Earth. Global Law has been and continue to be researched and developed for this purpose.
Today's problem is that democracy has not grounded itself. We have not extended democratic principles to the ownership and control of the Earth. The democratic global government as currently proposed by the Global Community, is grounded in equal rights to the Earth, and thus can create the world of peace and justice that we seek.
The large gap between rich and poor is conected to ownership and control of the planet's land and of all other Earth natural resources. This causes a fundamental threat to democracy. What has become of democracy? What has become " we the people? "
We need to take a giant step forward to a new form of democracy. We, the Global Community, must now direct the wealth of the world towards the building of local-to-global economic democracies in order to meet the needs for food, shelter, healthcare, education, and employment for all.
When humanity first discovered a way to control fire at will, humanity dreamt about all the benefits of such power over Nature and, over the thousands of years following this discovery, humanity realized all its dreams of having this control. It was good, and more. A matter of survival! Humanity was discovering itself as we are doing today with Global Law
Global Law: Constitution Short Version Part V (6 pages, 7.5 MB)
Global Law is like the control over fire. Global Law is the control over ourselves as a species, our human nature, for our own survival. Humanity discovering itself again. We know Global Law is needed! Humanity knows it is a matter of survival. We know it in ourselves just like humanity knew the control over fire was going to be beneficial. Let us all dream about the benefits of Global Law, and what they will do to our survival as a species. The control over fire now requires the control of ourselves as a People, one humanity, and as the Global Community, over the destructive impacts of our activities on the planet. We just need to use our brain a bit more, that is to understand better what we are doing to the global environment and the global life-support systems, and to act accordingly.
Over time, the control over fire has had consequences that can bring about our own destruction, the end of humanity and of life on Earth. Our activities are causing the global warming of the planet and climate change.
Now we see that the control over fire has brought us close to the extinction of our species and that of all life on the planet. We must now control our activities to benefit all life. The burning of fossil fuels is no longer an option and need to be replaced by processes none-threatening to the global life-support systems. That is today's challenge. And that is the reason for researching, developing and implementing Global Law worldwide.
Global Law comprises four fundamental pillars:
Each and everyone of those pillars are meant to reinforce one another for the protection and survival of life on our planet.
Global Law includes legislation covering all essential aspects of human activities.The work of the Global Community, the global civil society, and the determination of government worldwide, make it possible for everyone to comply with the law.
The building of global communities required a mean to enforce Global Law for the protection of life on Earth. The Global Protection Agency (GPA) will train and lead a global force that will enforce the law. And that is how we can stop the global warming of the planet and protect the global life-support systems, thus largely improving the quality of life of the next generations.
And finally Sir I would like to show you an artwork I have done to summaryze what the Global Community stands for.
What we stand for is found in Constitution Short Version Part IV (1 page, 4.2 MB)
Germain Dufour
Spiritual Leader of the Global Community
Copyright © 2011
Global Community, Global Parliament, Federation of Global Governments
Dear President Barack Obama,
On behalf of the Global Community
,
all life on Earth, I thank you for your decision to delay approval of the Keystone XL Pipeline,
a 1,700 mile pipeline that would have brought environmentally-disastrous crude from Alberta’s tar sands to Gulf Coast refineries.
At the time when people started digging for coal, oil and gas, and now ever since the 80s the tar sands of Alberta, and then the burning of all this fossil fuel which sent carbon into the air to the point of threatening the global life-support systems, this was enough to ensure astronomical profits for a handful of fossil-fuel corporations. I know I have lived in the province of Alberta for 12 years and fought hard to bring to the public arena the harmful effects of fossil fuel products
.
In Alberta these corporations are the rule of law everywhere even at the University of Calgary where most of so call research and development projects are subsidized and controlled by big oil corporations. Just another way of not paying taxes to government. They will make sure you will live in the 'ghetto' if you so happen to be writing reports showing hard evidence of harmful done to the environment and, eventually, to people health and all life on Earth. It was at a time when the word 'environment' was just making its way into the human psyche.
I urge Americans to vote to re-elect you as President of the United States of America. This is a one time help to you Sir and only because of your decision to delay approval of the Keystone XL Pipeline. I am giving you an A+ grade for your decision. You had the courage to stand up for value. And you will be re-elected.
Those people who circled the White House in asking you to stop any further development of the pipeline on US soil have already been rewarded. Soullife has already rewarded each and everyone of those Souls. That is right Sir! They are the Souls of your country. You are the Soul of the White House, and I wish you were the Soul of Congress as well.
We also thank authors listed here
for their hard work and activism in the energy sector and the protection of the global life-support systems.
The Global Community has published all of those articles and papers in its Current News section .
As you can see, over the past several decades, those authors have fought hard along with the Global Community
for the protection of the global life-support systems and, certainly, the tar sands of Alberta, an environmental nightmare
of global proportions, have been the subject of many of us. Not over yet! But for now thank you and keep writing to us.
The short list of articles, reports and papers can be found in the
Current News of the Global Community.
and in Earth management: energy and protection of the global life-support systems
While in Alberta I struggled to find employment related to my education and training. Being seen as an environmental activist never help me, my wife and her two daughters. Then my wife and I decided that I would go to Ottawa and campaign to re-elect Prime Minister Brian Mulroney as Prime Minister of Canada. We thought helping will translate into a job for myself.
I campaigned with the team in Ottawa Centre. We re-elected him. And yes I got a job offer, an eleven months contract work as Analyst with the Energy, Mines and Resources Branch in Calgary, my home base. My job was to analyze oil and gas applications for incentives, i.e. money to explore and develop new oil and gas wells mostly found in Alberta.
When I started working the Branch was already giving away 33 1/3 % for any expenses incurred during and after exploration of wells including their development afterward. This percentage was down from a 50% incentive of previous years. Even expenses for wells that did not end up producing anything. Imagine that! You yourself Sir helped the U.S. auto manufacturing industry with large amounts of US taxpayer dollars in the hope they will pay back every penny. And they have! But here in Alberta the oil and gas industry never paid back the amounts of Canadian tax payer dollars given to them. Neither did the big corporations pay taxes to government. Many of them are not even Canadian owned corporations. They are getting away from paying taxes due to loopholes everywhere in the system. In the 80s instead of paying taxes big oil corporations found ways to waste money everyway they could, including money used to develop tar sands projects.
Throughout the 80s the development of the tar sands was very costly and the price of oil was low. Indeed it was not good economics to produce the crude oil from the tar sands. But this way the big oil corporations did not have to pay taxes. It was classified as research and development by Conservatives. During those years I was doing activism work on my own against the development of the tar sands. Of course I was labelled as a social nonsense.
During those years big oil corporations were very successful with their Public Relations (PR) strategy. They kept saying how badly they were taking avantage by Ottawa. The reality was that Ottawa was paying for half of their expenses. Today those same big oil corporations are using a PR strategy that says how good they are: "look we remediate sites after using them by growing grass over the land". Of course they never mention what happens in between because that would not be good PR. Here is what really happens. The environmental impacts of tar sands development include: irreversible effects on biodiversity and the natural environment, reduced water quality, destruction of fragile pristine Boreal Forest and associated wetlands, aquatic and watershed mismanagement, habitat fragmentation, habitat loss, disruption to life cycles of endemic wildlife particularly bird and Caribou migration, fish deformities and negative impacts on the human health in downstream communities, and the destruction of the global life-support systems with their enormous quantities of greenhouse gase emissions resulting from the production and processing of the tar sands, and the transportation and burning of the crude oil.
The Energy, Mines and Resources Branch was grandfathering oil and gas applications made in 1980s and kept paying throughout the 90s. I myself analyzed and paid over 200 millions dollars to applicants during my eleven months contract work in Calgary, Alberta. I must say that analysing was nothing but following a protocol designed and approved by the Conservative Government. It really meant to just sign an apllication. Each application was worth at least a million dollar to tens of millions. And there were 10 other analysts like myself doing the same work. They had been around for much longer then I was and kept working after my eleven months and throughout the 90s. Very likely billions of Canadian tax payers money went back to Albertans towards oil and gas exploration expenses in the 80s and 90s.
Noone truly knows how many of those expenses were really exploration and development expenses. There was corruption everywhere. Money spent may have been expensive private jet flights to Vegas and extravagant meals CEOs were having with friends and relatives. They treated themselves as do princes in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, an absolute monarchy where the royal family dominates the political system. Saudi Arabia has the world's largest oil reserves and very much your friend. There were a few scandals in Alberta on the fraudulent use of tax dollars but the media was reluctant to report on them because the media itself was and still is own by large corporations with a definite Conservative agenda. And the Energy Branch was not about to do anything about them.
But then could the people of Saudi Arabia have told King Abdul Aziz and his princes not to waste resources money the way they have done? The people over there have been kept so backward that they cannot even research and develop the working of a toaster. They buy everything from elsewhere, especially the military armament from the US. What a waste of Earth resources, the military. You should be ashamed Sir of your military and your war industry, and so should the British people of their military and war industry.
The US military and its war industry are the worst polluters on the planet. Not only do they pollute the planet but they also bomb communities and destroy everything, the latest examples being Iraq and Libya. These countries and their people were sent back to stone age by your military Sir. You decided not to use diplomacy because you did not like either Iraqi President Saddam Hussein or Col. Mu'ammar al-Qadhafi!? Your invasions were truly uncivilized, barbaric, and unjust. You have shown no respect for life on our planet. And it was truly for the oil owned by the people of those countries. You just had to steal the oil. You figure your military should be good for something. Stealing being one of them. In my book Sir, Americans and British people are plundering the Earth resources wherever they are found. And of course your war industry is back there again selling armaments to rebels, and they will pay you with their oil revenues. What a disgusting waste! You shut down the Tar Sands Keystone XL Pipeline project but you should completely shut down your military Sir. And that would be good!
During my 12 years of living in Alberta I embraced Conservative values and campaigned with Conservative candidates provincially and federally. One thing that still is stuck on my mind to these days was a fundamental Conservative value we, as Conservatives, all agreed upon and was that "growth should pay for itself". Government should not be helping corporations to pay for there expenses. Tar sands projects are an obvious example of large corporations not paying for their own growth. Beside not paying taxes, they also never paid for building the infrastructures and facilities needed by their own workers. Schools, hospitals, fire stations, health care services, and so on! What we have witnessed happening in the tar sands kingdom was that the fundamental Conservative value, "growth should pay for itself", was truly not on the agenda of the big corporations. In fact, not only they would not pay for their growth but they would not even participate in the 'growth' of every one else in Canada. That makes them 'separatists'. They would gladly separate from the rest of Canada and join the US. Big oil corporations figure they are a country themselves and own the planet resources. They are the 1% .
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Here is an extract of an article I wrote a while back
.
"First of all I want to thank you Harper for selling us your best corporations. The US is bankrupted but we can still print out as many dollars as we want. Not a problem! You need not to worry about the North and its resources. It has all been taken care of. We don't want to eliminate the border between our two nations. At least not yet! To make that an acceptable deal, Canada needs to be bankrupted as well just like we are! So keep spending and increasing your national debt and annual deficit. We got Mexico and its resources that way! Actually we do that all over the world. That works well! Hum! In some nations we use our military, but that also works well. Then you will need us to lend you money through our World Bank and IMF. That will cut any avenues of Canada going on its own. And then we will just get your resources, and maybe we will eliminate the border between our nations. That might make it easier and cheaper for us to get your resources and control the bunch of you. So no more Canada! It is so obvious! Over the pass several decades, Alberta has been Americanized in so many ways, and the facts that oil and natural gas from wells all over the province are being pipelined to the USA, has made a breakup from the rest of Canada an obvious scenario which the Conservatives from Alberta are keenly aiming at. There are more separatists in the province than anywhere else in Canada. Albertans want power, money, a lifestyle based on oil & gas revenues, the most polluting resources on the planet, and be a State of the USA to keep this lifestyle. And a breakup of Canada would be a dream come true for Americans as this would be the cheapest way ever to gain control of Canada resources and gain an easy access and control of the North Pole resources. Don't be like P.E. Trudeau. He used to cause us trouble. Too much of an intellectual! Gosh he was a pain! Imagine he spent billions in mega projects for Canada, and thus creating jobs for Canadians. We like you Harper much better! You buy our armaments and planes. You give us jobs. That’s good! We are proud of you. Our military industry is all very please of you. We ought to make you an honorary citizen of the United States of America. Just a title, no money here! Hillary is busy right now but P. Tidbits can take care of that. I will arrange for Tidbits to come over to see you?!! We might sign a deal now without Canadians approval, and while you are still in power."
Growth implies the building of a community and its sustainable development. Fort McMurray, Alberta, the place where oil sands resource is found, was not build by big corporations, the 1%. They never paid for the development of this community. Big oil corporations never paid for growth. They rather use loopholes to get away from paying for growth. Big oil corporations are responsible for the destruction of the global life-support systems, and they sure will not pay for fixing them up. They are behaving as if they live in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia with his princes: they destroy the planet by producing atmospheric greenhouse gases and never want to fix it up. It probably coud never come to their mind that what they do is bad, very bad. It is much worst when it comes to producing crude oil from tar sands.
Under the forest in northern Alberta, lie the world's largest deposits of tar sands, sand mixed with thick, tar-like oil. To produce one barrel of heavy crude oil from tar sands requires strip mining the forest, extracting four tons of earth, contaminating two to four barrels of fresh water, burning large amounts of natural gas, and creating vast holding ponds of toxic sludge.
The extraction of tar-sands oil is the most destructive of all oil production methods: Not only does it routinely involve clearing ancient boreal forests and strip-mining the soil, it also leaves behind enormous toxic lakes—visible from space—that have been linked to abnormally high rates of cancer among residents of nearby communities.
First Nations people right downstream from the huge oil project in Alberta are sick, and get more and more sick all the time. There are pictures of all of these deformities in fish and cancer in the moose. Women are having reproductive problems.
Cancer rates in the Fort Chipewyan community, downstream from the Alberta mining project, have been found 30 percent higher than average. Another study, conducted in 2007, revealed dangerously high levels of arsenic, aluminum, mercury and other toxins in Fort Chipewyan’s water, sediment and fish.
People of color and low-income communities are systematically targeted for fossil-fuel development and waste dumping.
Oil sands mining is licensed to use twice the amount of fresh water that the entire city of Calgary uses in a year. At least 90% of the fresh water used in the oil sands ends up in tailing ponds so toxic that propane cannons are used to keep ducks from landing.
Processing the oil sands uses enough natural gas in a day to heat 3 million homes. Producing a barrel of oil from the oil sands produces three times more greenhouse gas emissions than a barrel of conventional oil.
All life on Earth is fighting for survival and freedom from development, pollution in all its forms, overconsumption and overpopulation. Here Sir I will introduce you to the Global Community concepts.
The Global Community is defined around a given territory, that territory being the planet as a whole, as well as a specific population, which is all life forms. That makes the Global Community the 21st century framework for Earth governance, and the only legitimate body with the power to make the laws of the land and to make the rules for the territory of the Earth.
This is the fundamental definition of the expression "Global Community" first defined by myself and my wife Virginie in 1985. This definition includes all people, all life on Earth. It also implicitly says that no-one in particular owns the Earth but we all own it together. Not just us people, but all life on Earth owns it. The beginning of life stretches as far back as 4 billion years, and so Life claims its birthright of ownership of Earth, and so does the Soul of all Life, the Soul of Humanity.
This definition of the Global Community concept is truly the 21st century "philosophy of life" framework, some called it the religion of the third millennium, others called it politics of the future generations now.
The Global Community has given back responsibility to every citizen on Earth. Everyone shares responsibility for the present and future well-being of life within the Global Community. We will work together in working out sound solutions to local and global problems. It would be wrong and dishonest to blame it all on the leader of a country. Most problems in the world must find solutions at the local and global community levels (and not assume that the leader alone is responsible and will handle it). There is a wisdom in the ways of very humble people that needs to be utilized. Every humble person deserves to have ideas respected, and encouraged to develop his or her own life for the better. Sound solutions to help manage and sustain Earth will very likely be found this way. Everyone can help assess the needs of the planet and propose sound solutions for its proper management, present and future. Everyone can think of better ideas to sustain all life on Earth and realize these ideas by conducting positive and constructive actions. The Global Community can help people realized their actions by coordinating efforts efficiently together.
The Global Community concept of ownership states that land and all other natural resources of the planet are a common heritage and belong equally to everyone as a birthright. Products and services created by individuals are properly viewed as private property. Products and services created by groups of individuals are properly viewed as collective property.
Taxes should be designed to conserve resources and energy. Rather than taxing jobs and profits, taxes should be moved to resource use and energy consumption and to reward conservation. The community should benefit from the use of commonly held resources. Taxes should be designed to increase employment. Moving taxes onto resources and land use and off of incomes should make people less expensive to employ. Products produced by green production methods, which tends to use fewer resources and less energy should avoid taxation. As energy costs rise, the price of labour becomes more economical, and green products which tend to encourage value-added processes, should provide more high quality, skilled jobs than resource intensive products. Resource taxes should be assessed as early as possible. Resources should be taxed before entering the manufacturing process in order to green all aspects of the manufacturing process from extraction to the finished product. Increasing taxes on resource and energy use will encourage resource and energy efficiency, innovation, reuse, repair, recycling, and used material recovery.
A proper and fair Earth management
can take care of global problems. The important tool of Earth management developed
by the Global Community is the Scale of Global Rights .
The Scale indicates right away what needs to be done with all problems
humanity is facing, and offers a fair and just way forward to resolve them. The Scale gives us
a sense of direction for future family and community planning, and of managing Earth in a fair and just way.
We have the responsibility of managing Earth. Everyone shares responsibility for the present and future well-being of life within the Global Community. When there is a need to find a solution to a problem or a concern, a sound solution would be to choose a measure or conduct an action, if possible, which causes reversible damage as oppose to a measure or an action causing an irreversible loss.
One of the most important factors in our lives is the inter-connection we now have to others, to other countries. Through these connections we are able to create changes for good on a global scale. We are all linked to others in faraway places on a much deeper level, and we are working together to keep our planet healthy, productive and hospitable for all people and living things. Indeed, we have become the Global Community, the human family. Every human being now lives within " a Global Community." This is his (her) global private community. One imagines he is inside a glass bubble ~ everything he can see from this glass bubble is his own " global community".
Wherever we go, we are inside " a Global Community." Everything, every living creature there,
interacts one upon the other. Influences inter-weave and are responsible for causes and effects. We are worlds within worlds
orbiting in and out of one another's space.
The concept of the Glass Bubble can be extended to include the planet Earth and all the "global communities" contained therein. That is "the Global Community".
Every single human being must deal responsibly with the affairs going on in his own " glass bubble " ~ when a person takes personal responsibility for his own affairs ~ he or she becomes empowered as a person. Over the past centuries, the human species has given control to leaders to govern their affairs anyway they wish. War, conflicts and human miseries, and destruction of the environment resulted. Now, today, control has been given back to the individual. Survival has forced the issue. The individual can deal with his own affairs, reach beyond his own property and family, and help to work with others living in and around, even a part of the local community he lives in ~ the villages, the town community, the surrounding territory, and so on. It becomes possible for the people of the community to influence the political chain of power to the national level and to the Global Community. Politicians have now to deal with communities and their needs to sustain themselves. People have become conscious of the power and control they have and are no longer subject to the wishes of an unfit governing body. In this way, socio-political-economic reconstruction will be achieved to sustain all life on Earth.
Throughout the 20th century, cheap oil provided the energy needed for wars, economies, settlements, and lifestyles. It was a century of wasteful extravagance and inefficiency that encouraged us to squander virtually all Earth's resources -- including water, land, forests, fisheries, soils, and minerals. Cheap oil is no more and the global projection of military and economic power it made possible is no longer possible.
Conservation, restoration, and management of the Earth resources is about asking ourselves the question of "Who owns the Earth?" The Global Community has proposed a democracy for the people based on the fact that land, the air, water, oil, minerals, the electromagnetic spectrum, and all other natural resources rightly belong to the Global Community along with the local communities where those resources are found. The Earth is the birthright of all life.
To speak of enforceable global law is to speak of world power. Global Parliament has the power to make the laws of the land and to make the rules for the territory of the Earth. Global Law has been and continue to be researched and developed for this purpose.
Today's problem is that democracy has not grounded itself. We have not extended democratic principles to the ownership and control of the Earth. The democratic global government as currently proposed by the Global Community, is grounded in equal rights to the Earth, and thus can create the world of peace and justice that we seek.
The large gap between rich and poor is conected to ownership and control of the planet's land and of all other Earth natural resources. This causes a fundamental threat to democracy. What has become of democracy? What has become " we the people? "
We need to take a giant step forward to a new form of democracy. We, the Global Community, must now direct the wealth of the world towards the building of local-to-global economic democracies in order to meet the needs for food, shelter, healthcare, education, and employment for all.
When humanity first discovered a way to control fire at will, humanity dreamt about all the benefits of such power over Nature and, over the thousands of years following this discovery, humanity realized all its dreams of having this control. It was good, and more. A matter of survival! Humanity was discovering itself as we are doing today with Global Law
Global Law: Constitution Short Version Part V (6 pages, 7.5 MB)
Global Law is like the control over fire. Global Law is the control over ourselves as a species, our human nature, for our own survival. Humanity discovering itself again. We know Global Law is needed! Humanity knows it is a matter of survival. We know it in ourselves just like humanity knew the control over fire was going to be beneficial. Let us all dream about the benefits of Global Law, and what they will do to our survival as a species. The control over fire now requires the control of ourselves as a People, one humanity, and as the Global Community, over the destructive impacts of our activities on the planet. We just need to use our brain a bit more, that is to understand better what we are doing to the global environment and the global life-support systems, and to act accordingly.
Over time, the control over fire has had consequences that can bring about our own destruction, the end of humanity and of life on Earth. Our activities are causing the global warming of the planet and climate change.
Now we see that the control over fire has brought us close to the extinction of our species and that of all life on the planet. We must now control our activities to benefit all life. The burning of fossil fuels is no longer an option and need to be replaced by processes none-threatening to the global life-support systems. That is today's challenge. And that is the reason for researching, developing and implementing Global Law worldwide.
Global Law comprises four fundamental pillars:
- Ecclesiastical teaching
- Civic Law by government
- Natural processes and laws
- God Law
Each and everyone of those pillars are meant to reinforce one another for the protection and survival of life on our planet.
Global Law includes legislation covering all essential aspects of human activities.The work of the Global Community, the global civil society, and the determination of government worldwide, make it possible for everyone to comply with the law.
The building of global communities required a mean to enforce Global Law for the protection of life on Earth. The Global Protection Agency (GPA) will train and lead a global force that will enforce the law. And that is how we can stop the global warming of the planet and protect the global life-support systems, thus largely improving the quality of life of the next generations.
And finally Sir I would like to show you an artwork I have done to summaryze what the Global Community stands for.
What we stand for is found in Constitution Short Version Part IV (1 page, 4.2 MB)
Germain Dufour
Spiritual Leader of the Global Community
Copyright © 2011
Global Community, Global Parliament, Federation of Global Governments
