Heroes of the Environment 2008: Annie Leonard
By BRYONY SCHWAN
Bryony Schwan is executive director of the Biomimicry Institute in Montana

My friends often don't believe me when I say I can spend an entire evening listening to stories about garbage and be completely mesmerized. That's because they haven't met Annie Leonard. She has been relentlessly explaining the absurdity of our throwaway culture to me and many others for decades. While her mastery of detail is impressive, it's her passionate style that transforms bleak facts into emotive stories that compel you to take action.

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Please join us: Bay Area Speaking dates:

• City Lights Bookstore,
San Francisco, 7PM, Dec. 10

• Modern Times Bookstore,
SF, 7 PM, Jan. 28

• Pt. Reyes Books,
Pt. Reyes Station, 7PM, Feb. 7

• Book Passage,
Larkspur, 4PM, Feb. 8

• Others to be announced

NEW BOOK BY IFG’S JERRY MANDER

"The SuperFerry Chronicles"
Hawaii’s Uprising Against Militarism, Commercialism, and the Desecration of the Earth

“Open this book and dive into a story of almost allegoric proportions. Let it embolden you to stand up for our Earth, its beauty and its creatures, including ourselves.”
---Frances Moore Lappe, author Diet for a Small Planet and Hope’s Edge

“The idea of boats to connect the Hawaiian Islands is so natural and lovely that it makes one doubly made to read how in this case it’s been perverted into yet one more sad scheme for our paranoid future. Good for you—people of Hawaii—who’ve raised the alarm, and to these authors for pulling back the curtain.”
--- Bill McKibben, author Deep Economy, founder 350.org

“In every era, simple events become symbols of greater forces that shape human history. The “Superferry Chronicles” brings one such moment alive. This book captures the spirit of that defining event and reveals the corporate manipulation, political bullying, corruption, and deceit that lay behind the Hawaii Superferry.”
----Lucienne de Naie, Chair, Sierra Club Hawaii

“I applaud the authors for bringing the voices of the grassroots to the foreground. The people make history, and the people of Kauai have made us proud.”
----Ikaika Hussey, Publisher, the Hawaii Independent

Book also available now at Amazon.com

THIS INSPIRING new book by award-winning Kauai film-maker Koohan Paik, and IFG director Jerry Mander, is an astonishing report of a successful local citizens’ uprising confronting an invasive corporate project controlled by big military financiers 6,000 miles away, with potentially disastrous environmental consequences especially for whales and other sealife. Their investigation also reveals interlocking connections to Pentagon plans for U.S. Navy expansion in the Pacific, as well as the deeply shocking performance by Hawaii’s rightwing governor, Linda Lingle, who pushed the project forward despite a Supreme Court ruling against it.

John F. Lehman: The infamous wealthy NY military financier, former Secretary of Defense under Reagan (where he famously advocated for first strike nuclear war), a leading neocon—-close colleague of Richard Perle, a member of 9-11 commission, and the man that the NY Times said would likely be John McCain’s chief of staff (if he’d won.) Lehman ALSO owns this odd new ferryboat service in Hawaii, which sounds innocent enough, but it isn’t. The boat is a hi-tech, very high speed shallow water aluminum catamaran boat much bigger than a football field, five stories high, completely out of scale for use in Hawaii. Many observers believe it’s the prototype for the Navy’s hopes to expand the Pacific fleet--a strong desire of Lehman's going back to Reagan days-- by building 55 similar high speed ferries, fitted as transports and gunboats, to be part of the controversial Joint High Speed Vessel and Littoral Combat Ship programs. John McCain talked about the project in the second debate. The idea is to be prepared for possible military threats from China, which is reportedly now developing similar shallow water high speed boats. Many believe its introduction of this colossus to Hawaii was mainly as a try-out, or an in-the-water test run for its military uses. A few days ago, the Navy announced it would go ahead with ten more almost identical boats from the same manufacturer that builds the Superferry.

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