VANCOUVER ISLAND WINDTALK

I started this new thread in case anyone wants to continue discussion of the Enbridge sponsorship of the Ride to Conquer Cancer that I'm part of. I think it's a good topic to discuss and I'll add my thoughts. I figure that this is a better space on BWD than the "RDood We're Thinking of You" thread.

KUS wrote:
Unfortunate that as an unsuspecting donor you find out about Enbridge only once you have donated and they still call it the "Enbridge Ride" which really sucks. To use this particular cause by a company like that as a way of improving public relations stinks even more.... I knew this and still donated but with less vigor than if there had been another sponsor.

On the other hand, I suppose it is the greater picture that matters more and the fond memory of our friend. Also I will give more $$ and that directly to the BC Cancer Agency. I also completed/participated in C36's link:
www.bcgenerationsproject.ca

Great effort by you, Mike I support your intent 100%

It's akin to the Taliban sponsoring the War Amps

"British Columbians would see $1.2 billion in tax revenue alone - money to pay for education, health care and other valued programs....Working with Aboriginal communities to ensure they have the opportunity to benefit from the project is one of our top priorities.....1150 total long term jobs"....so how far does 1.2 billiion go when paying reparations, health care costs, environmental clean up? Bet we can create more jobs doing THAT.

Enbridge and their affiliates of the Tar Sands will contribute to more cancer occurrence in this country than any association or business in the history of this country It's like their own human testing lab confirming the obvious.....not to mention irreversible environmental damage during potential spills.

And their little tax write-off contribution sponsorship....whatever it is cuz nobody will disclose the amounts exactly..... is a drop in the bucket in comparison to the wealth that is created for those playing ball with them and the costs/overtaxing of the health care system created for the remainder of taxpayers who cannot afford to pay for private healthcare.

I can just imagine the back room deals going on, it's obscene
The importance of today's almighty dollar.....I am certain we will come up with effective and enviro friendly ways of harvesting the sands in time and get way more money for it in 30 years....but hey, let's pollute and ship it all off now to our most dangerous ally of today who will own all of us tomorrow

I promised that I'd make a comment on this thread of discussion, about the Enbridge sponsorship of the Ride to Conquer Cancer.

Back in the fall I took a 1/2 day off work to join the thousands at the legislative lawns in protest of the Enbridge Northern Gateway Pipeline proposal. I was there to express my disgust that we would consider building a pipeline to the coast and invite supertankers to navigate the tricky waters of that area. So, given this, why on earth would I sign up to an event sponsored by this company?

It's likely not widely known that in 2004 my wife was diagnosed with a malignant tumour. The local oncologists didn't know what it was, but a group of oncologists in Vancouver huddled together with oncologists in other countries and were able to identify the cancer to something that had only been seen 100 times before in the world. Not good. You don't want a rare form that has no track record for cures. But, the BC doctors did some more consultation with others in the world and proposed a treatment regime. She underwent a surgery, 3 months of chemo. CURED. She has been in remission for over 7 years now. Thank you cancer treatment in BC

That was my 2nd up close and personal with cancer. The 1st was in 1999 when our best friend's 7 year old daughter was diagnosed with leukemia. To this day, I am haunted by the look on my friend's face when we met shortly after they found out -- utter desperation, utter helplessness. It was their only daughter for gods sake. This was not suppose to happen. She entered the BC cancer system and endured multiple rounds of chemo, steroids. CURED. Thank you cancer treatment in BC.

Then, to the present. Our friend Andrei. Diagnosed with a brain tumour. What I saw was a medical system that tried damn hard to cure him. 2 operations, radiation, chemo. Russian Dood battled hard himself. I had a few lunches with Andrei and he described the treatments. The BC Cancer system tried damn hard to find the cure, but sadly, this time the disease won.

So, with this backdrop do I care that Enbridge is the sponsor? Hell no. I'd make a deal with the devil if I knew what I did could lead to more people surviving this disease. I figure that I owe a lot to cancer research in BC - it's cured 2 people, and tried hard with a 3rd.

This is getting long, but I've got a bit more to say on this topic. So we don't like Enbridge because they are part of the oil sands and pipelines and other dirty stuff we don't like. Fair enough. But, perhaps before we are so critical we could look in the mirror. What I see in myself is a dood with a car, who drives to windsurfing destinations with tarsands oil, who buys gear made in asia (who want tarsands oil to make more gear for me), who drinks local IPAs delivered to the beer store with tarsands oil. So, in some ways we should climb down from the soap box, and take real action, if we're serious, like don't consume the gasoline derived from tarsands oil which drives the demand for tarsands development, like pipelines. Does equating oil development to cancer, imply that we're part of the cancer problem? It's something to think about it.

So, for now, I'll live with the hypocrisy, but I will take what action I can to raise awareness and funds to continue the battle against cancer. This ride raises a lot of money to look for cancer cures and I'm proud to support it.

Cheers,

Mike

I don't believe we should have private enterprises using public issues to manipulate our opinions of their worth. Ever since "RESTRAINT" was introduced back in the 80's our governments have been determined to do less and less us for us. As a result, we now have a constant barrage of causes that anyone can use to publicize their products and politics. And we are left to fight with one another trying to figure out what to do with the mess.
For me, there is something seriously wrong when our caring feelings for our loved ones becomes an obstacle to doing what we believe is right. It seems utterly unfair. And to suggest that Kus should stop driving, and perhaps even windsurfing because of his opinion seems rather unfair too. The person who criticizes should not be expected to provide the solution.
We shouldn't have to ride bicycles anywhere to have resources directed toward cancer or any other disease. This has become a sad fashion of our times that reflects nothing more than the failure of governments to do their job.
Total tax revenues used to be 50% from taxpayers like us and 50% from the corporate community. Today that balance no longer exists as corporate contributions have shrunk to about 10 -15 %. One could certainly expand on this, but, as even Obama has said, over the last generation America has made great wealth but the working class has seen very little of that wealth.

If we wait around for government to cure cancer or anything else we will be waiting a long time. If Enbridge wants to spend money on this then good on them. All they are doing is delivering a product we all use. We are all the problem and better be the solution. And we need to walk the walk as well as talk the talk.

Lets boil this down. Morewind wants to help people. So lets help him. Pretty simple..............
We can all beat up Big Oil later.

GWIND wrote:Lets boil this down. Morewind wants to help people. So lets help him. Pretty simple..............
We can all beat up Big Oil later.

I support Mike 100% and have donated, against my better judgment. But this is not Big Oil, this is the Tar Sands....there is a huge, HUGE difference

morewind wrote:up close and personal with cancer....The BC Cancer system tried damn hard to find the cure, but sadly, this time the disease won.

So, with this backdrop do I care that Enbridge is the sponsor? Hell no. I'd make a deal with the devil if I knew what I did could lead to more people surviving this disease. ....we don't like Enbridge because they are part of the oil sands and pipelines and other dirty stuff we don't like. Fair enough. But, perhaps before we are so critical we could look in the mirror. What I see in myself is a dood with a car, who drives to windsurfing destinations with tarsands oil, who buys gear made in asia (who want tarsands oil to make more gear for me), who drinks local IPAs delivered to the beer store with tarsands oil. So, in some ways we should climb down from the soap box, and take real action, if we're serious, like don't consume the gasoline derived from tarsands oil which drives the demand for tarsands development, like pipelines. Does equating oil development to cancer, imply that we're part of the cancer problem? It's something to think about it.

So, for now, I'll live with the hypocrisy

I have given this a fair amount of thought...in the past and after your post.

Yes, we all want to consume what is available, fuel for one.....some of us can still afford it, others cannot, others make the choice to use less in various ways. In the end, this doesn't really matter

What matters is we need to prevent the occurence of cancer....then there is a lesser need to try and cure it.... To do this we need to prevent causation....we need to stop poisoning ourselves. Land and water/food pollution is huge.

We tend to look at our own neighborhood first, then further afar. In the past what I see is a government, right or wrong, supporting the outdated oil and gas industry just like it supported the auto industry in its failing years.....THIS is the problem. If gas cost $5 per L, guess what, I wouldn't drive very much. If the tarsands and its distribution, the world's likely largest ecological disaster in the making..EVER!! Right here....in our pristine own Canada ...which is now branching not just out in Alberta (whatever our neighbor does, usually doesn't bother our little yard now, does it?) ...if it was not supported by our government, our lands may not have disastrous leachates of this despicable sore on our globe.

It is about to affect all western provinces....for eternity...unlike previous harvesting of fossil fuels this WILL destroy our country....it will and already HAS caused hundreds of cancers in our people. It will cause thousands more....THOUSANDS! We must stop Enbridge, Suncor, all those money grubbing satans in any way possible! Do I not fuel up my truck to do this?? Maybe...but there has to be a better way and the main one is hack away at their public image.....and they know this. Make no mistake about this, we are all guilty in some form of furthering our own needs, it is human nature....at the tar sands I'm drawing the line..I would boycott any fuel station, any retailer, ....any charity.... if I knew their product/$$ came from the tar sands. I would be ashamed to work up there too.....or profit in any way from this development....several of my friends make their living up there....I say you need to live somehow but there's gotta be another way....and maybe perhaps my image is not entirely focused but I can still recognize myself in the mirror.

And "Yes" Mike, despite your best intentions .....and we all want cancer to end and many, many of us have had our direct upclose encounters, trust me your scary background is not unique unfortunately.... indeed you ARE making a deal with the devil when you and the BC Cancer orgs accepts ANY greenwashing or money from an organization that is trying to kill us and our environment by creating this incredible disaster deliberately and with full knowledge of our government. It boggles the mind

I read recently in Scientific American that if the Canadian Tars Sands development is successful the world might as well give up on global warming and air pollution. As well, an article in this month's issue questions whether it is actually a financially profitable enterprise at all in the long run...too costly to produce...negligible real energy return. And causing cancer too? It becomes difficult to justify. Unless one feels it is important to make some rich folks even richer. Worth it? Hmmm...
Putting some stress on their "public image" seems pretty appropriate. Are they worthy of of the honour of hosting this cause?

SO , this means you two trouble makers are going to stop using anything to do with oil.
Maybe you could start with all your plastic toys, your autos and etc.

We are going to use oil till it's all gone or we are all dead. That's the fact.

Remarkably, here comes another Scientific American citing;
The new issue (May) has a very short story about using a plant chemical to replace BPA, the stuff in plastic drinking bottles that pose a 'potential health risk'. To quote, " Researchers at the Industrial Technology Research Institute in Zhudong, Taiwan, are using lignin as the basic building blocks for new non-toxic plastics, including a protective varnish for the inside surfaces of food cans and a substitute for polyurethane foams and polyester."

This indicates that money has been spent on research to replace an oil product instead of being spent making more oil to make more money. People who could have invested that money elsewhere to make more money instead invested in research. It's a sacrifice, but a worthy one to make at his particular time.

Sadly, the people with money, (the percent that is getting even richer as the rest of us get effectively poorer) are more interested in making more money than in research. In fact, we're seeing that here, in our own Canada especially, that they would prefer no research at all into anything that might hurt their bottom line. And they have become very good at deflecting whatever information that becomes a problem with a lot of pretty deplorable techniques, one of which is dressing things up nice, like affixing their name to this well intentioned and popular quest to conquer cancer. And it's not hard to get us fighting among ourselves while they go happily on their merry way.

Just because someone,(in this case, big oil) has you by the throat, it doesn't mean that you have to sanction the situation in which you find yourself. We need to support research which, for us, is a political matter. And we can be less willing to be ever so cooperative and just let things slide along as they are.

I'm really surprised the organizers of the charity chose to adopt this company at this time. I don't see how they could have not thought some people would find it just a bit hard to swallow. And that would hurt their credibility which is, I would think, pretty important to them...It would be interesting to know how it came about.

I saw a guy on TV a while ago who had built "green" surfboards. I can't remember the details, maybe someone here knows. I was impressed with the fellows' endeavor and his boards; they were pretty nice looking. Maybe we could encourage the Cobra Board Factory in Thailand to develop a "greener" board. Any other ideas? Are there things worthy of support? It might be nice to know.

GWIND wrote:SO , this means you two trouble makers are going to stop using anything to do with oil.
Maybe you could start with all your plastic toys, your autos and etc.
We are going to use oil till it's all gone or we are all dead. That's the fact.

I don't think u have read my post....and the sad part is...we probably WILL all be dead before the oil is gone AND before our time because we have poisoned all of our water

jim mckenzie wrote:...they have become very good at deflecting whatever information that becomes a problem with a lot of pretty deplorable techniques, one of which is dressing things up nice, like affixing their name to this well intentioned and popular quest to conquer cancer. And it's not hard to get us fighting among ourselves while they go happily on their merry way.

THIS is the cruz of the matter, well put

And watching the election tonight, I shiver in anticipation of what it would mean if the Liberals pull this off and looks like they did.....paid for by big oil/big corporations, all because people are afraid to pay more taxes and instead wanna cash in on some oil pipelines....the money has to come from somewhere, the NDP knew that too....so let's all poison ourselves, kill our coast and water supplies.... so we can keep going to spend our money at Walmart that we got from.....the drivers of Walmart. Coming from a ravished Europe with its painful attempts at recovery and having seen the beauty and richness of Canada and having watched it erode over the last 30 years here.....it is pitiful how shortsighted, naive, yes, downright stupid Canadians in general really are It is however very much in line with the fading support for any sort of education priorities

One thing with the environment: you can't go BACK after saying OOOPS, why doesn't anyone seem get this? Especially our liberal politicians...

It's simple, really, the wealthy have no concern for the environment as it would be counter productive to making money. They worry about their money more than you worry about the environment. Way more. Seriously. Without their money they are no better than you and that would be intolerable.
It doesn't matter if you ruin the West Coast if you don't plan to live here. The wealthy can always go somewhere nice.
Rich folks don't need to worry about public education as they don't use it.