Parvati Magazine December 2014/January 2015: Consequence/Beginnings | Page 45

COMMUNITY
only have become inaudible after thirteen thousand miles – more than
the diameter of the Earth.
We cannot even begin to
understand the subtlety
of such communication –
nor the harm we do on a
day-to-day basis through
travel, shipping, ocean
exploitations, the boom
of jet planes, the emission
of wireless signals… and
now it is ok to bomb the
ocean bed? We are talking about sounds reaching 258 dB - a decibel
level almost double what
you would experience
standing under a jet as it
took off - reverberating
through the ocean. What
living being could sustain such sonic blasts – let
alone beings that communicate via sonar?
As my friends and I
combed through articles and groups about
the issue, we found disturbing behavior on the
part of the oil companies
and the National Energy Board, the regulating
body that according to its
own website should be re-

sponsible for “enforc[ing]
the orders, rules and regulations that are in place to
protect Canadians, their
communities and their environment.” Key affidavits
about the potential harm
of these blasts were being
struck. The Board made
the exceptional application to revisit its own ruling
to allow the testing to go
through. Local communities and Greenpeace
have organized since
2010 to say NO to the testing, have brought legal
challenges and raised
the concern even at the
United Nations. But none
of this has stopped the
National Energy Board or
oil companies from proceeding.
Allowing seismic testing
and offshore drilling in the
Arctic shows a tremendous lack of insight into,
and subsequent respect
for, our ecosystem and
our essential interconnection with nature. It
also shows profound lack
of foresight. What we do
today creates our tomorrow. May we make choices now that always con-

sider the good of all. This is
the true bottom line.
Greed is a virus that kills –
not only animals, but us as
a human race – because
we are all connected. Any
activity that harms nature
harms us and is anti-life as
a whole and as such is not
an option. If we as a society feel the need to harm
nature and the animals to
access oil, it is a sign that
it is time to seek alternate
energy sources to fuel our
economy.
The government of Canada has a handful of marine protected areas in
the Arctic, but they are
hopelessly tiny in the face
of the vast areas being
kept open to exploitation
by big oil companies.
In the next article, I will
share more about the
goals of parvati.org in
light of this concerning
news. Meanwhile, it you
have not yet signed these
petitions, please do so:
SumofUs / SaveTheA ɍѥ