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Click here for the October 2008 Election issue (pdf 1.5Mb).
Click here for the latest November/December issue (pdf 1.3Mb).
By Susan Martin, Chapter Chair
From Rio Grande Sierran, October 2008
You can’t have my rights
I’m still using them
—Bumper sticker seen in Northern New Mexico
For all of you registered to vote, this fall offers
a chance to exercise the vital right to vote.
You can choose the person who will shape
the course of constitutional law for the next decades
through his Supreme Court selections, the candidate
who will join Jeff Bingaman to represent New
Mexico in the U.S. Senate, and a freshman congressman
in your district.
Your choice in these races will shape whether the
Environmental Protection Agency obeys its mandate
to protect our air, water, and land, or whether
it shirks this responsibility in favor of polluters.
Similarly, the next President’s Secretary of the
Interior can either recognize the importance of
the Endangered Species Act in the context of our
ecosystem, or may choose to disregard the threats
to species in order to promote energy and mineral
development.
If you are in Albuquerque or Northern New
Mexico, your ballot will contain a race for the
Public Regulation Commission. Your vote can
determine New Mexico’s energy policy and how
quickly we reduce our dependence on foreign oil.
Many voters will be selecting county and city officials,
the men and women with the power to shape
how growth occurs, whether water availability is a
criterion in allowing development.
Please review the Sierra Club candidates endorsed
in this special election issue. Our endorsement
process represents the work of many volunteers
spending hours reviewing candidate questionnaires,
interviewing candidates, and researching candidate
legislative and public records. Each endorsement
means that the candidate has been judged by two
separate entities to have a positive environmental
record (or platform, in the case of a newcomer to
public office). In addition, the candidate must be
judged to have a viable campaign and a real chance
of winning his or her election. The Sierra Club
endorsement is not one bestowed lightly or without
much thoughtful discussion and consideration. I
urge you to vote for the candidates endorsed in this
issue as an opportunity to protect and restore the
environment of New Mexico and our country.
—Susan Martin, Rio Grande Chapter Chair
by Ellen Cavalli
From Rio Grande Sierran, October 2008
As a mom and environmentalist,
I find
that everything about
McCain-Palin-Pearce scares the
bejesus out me. I am particularly
horrified by their deceptive “drill
here, drill now” slogan.
First of all, we are drilling here, drilling now. In New Mexico alone, there are over 21,000 oil wells in operation, which pumped out 60.7 million barrels in 2005, according to the most recent numbers from the state’s Oil Conservation Division (OCD). But OCD’s statistics indicate that despite the increase in the number of wells drilled, the large oil deposits in the state are starting to go dry.
Offshore drilling was never banned outright. It is occurring on all coasts, and is only prohibited in particularly sensitive areas where the local economy would be seriously damaged by oil spills. Even if we opened all coastal areas to drilling, it would take up to 14 years before any new oil made it to market.
If we drilled in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, it’d take decades before any of that oil would hit the pumps. And it is estimated to produce at most 3% of the U.S.’s current oil needs.
Meanwhile, this year’s exports of U.S. refined gasoline and diesel have increased by 33% over 2007’s number. Thanks to the international commodities market, whatever petroleum is here doesn’t necessarily stay here to help lower fuel prices.
To all those critics who tout NM’s oil and gas revenues as a boon to our economy and education system, data shows that tourism is actually a more profitable industry for the state, and other states have funded much better schools without money from dirty energy.
Despite all the heart-tugging media ads about how more domestic drilling would help to ease the financial problems of low- and middle-class Americans, the truth is that only the burden – and none of the benefits – would befall those who can’t afford to leave when the drilling rigs roll into town. In fact, the only ones who stand to profit from domestic drilling are the multinational energy corporations. ExxonMobil posted a $12 billion profit for its second quarter of this year. And oil and gas companies enjoy taxpayer-subsidized tax breaks and incentives – to the tune of $18 billion in the past few years. The politicians whose campaigns are bankrolled by the oil and gas industry wouldn’t suffer, either.
And there’s another population we’re putting at risk with this short-sighted, hysterical push for domestic drilling: my son and all your kids. There’s a little thing called climate change that many seem to be inconveniently ignoring. Everyone except the farright fringe agrees that human-caused global warming is happening here, happening now. The drive to produce and burn more carbon-emitting fossil fuels is threatening the very survival of our children. In 15 years, when those few barrels of oil from a new offshore rig finally hit the market, when my son is of age to get his driver’s license, I doubt he’ll have the luxury of complaining about high gas prices. Persistent drought, deadly heat waves, destructive hurricanes, massive fires, rising sea levels, crop failures and food shortages, and tropical diseases could very well be the hallmarks of his teen years. Not exactly what I worried about in high school.
High gas prices are creating hardships for millions of Americans who are already hurting financially. But no amount of domestic oil will ease their pain today or in the near future. And the long-term costs of oil and gas drilling on our land, water, health, climate, and children aren’t worth whatever will hit the market years from now. Politicians and industry want to “drill here, drill now” to get elected and increase their profits. But the people deserve real solutions that will get us off fossil fuels altogether.
Local, organic agriculture alone can cut greenhouse gas emissions by 30% and cut global energy use by one-sixth. We have to rethink the ways in which we use energy, build our vehicles, create our fuels, design our homes and buildings, generate and transmit our electricity, and determine the prices of so-called commodities. But all this can be done – and is being done on scales both small and large throughout the world. The United States has the ability to make renewable, affordable energy for its own people. All it takes now is for Americans to demand “clean energy here, clean energy now” with their votes.
—Ellen Cavalli, Editor of the Rio Grande Sierran
To raise funds for our conservation and climate change initiatives, you can receive a limited edition print of one of seven different raptors, painted by Richard Sloan, by donating $140. You can decorate your wall, make an investment, and help the cause. Details.
Bequests and a Kindly Spirit
Rio Grande Chapter Quarterly Meeting
Earth Day (4/22): Working to Preserve
Ecosystems
Buy a Bird Print / Make a Donation
A Note From the Chair
2004 Rio Grande Sierrans
2005 Rio Grande Sierrans
2006 Rio Grande Sierrans
2007 Rio Grande Sierrans
2008 Rio Grande Sierrans
By Cliff Larsen
From Rio Grande Sierran, March/April 2008
Patricia Van Ingen as Anuba in Wind River (1998). (Photo courtesy of Lion’s Gate Films)
Late last year the Rio Grande Chapter received the timely and surprising news that we had received a bequest from the estate of Patricia Van Ingen. It was timely in that the bequest entirely made up our budget shortfall in 2007, which had been of much concern. It was surprising in that Ms. Van Ingen was entirely unknown to us.
For the next several months we worked to find out more about her – not an easy task as she had died in February 1999 and her estate had been in adjudication since. But what we learned told us about a very surprising individual and one we would have liked to have known.
Patricia Van Ingen was part Anglo and part Cherokee. How much of either is unknown to even her closest friends. But it was from her Cherokee mother that she received her native heritage and created within her the themes that dominated her work and her art.
She studied art first in New York and then in Paris. While in Paris developing her art, she became a part of the expatriate American artist community. Ms. Van Ingen was then – and remained – a very striking individual: so much so that Man Ray, already a renowned photographer, used her as a model in his work. Returning to New York in the 1960s and following a suggestion from Andy Warhol, she opened the PVI Gallery on East 73rd Street. She showed superb ethnic art as well as works by such artists as Warhol, John Chamberlain, Samaras, and Christo.
It was natural then that Ms. Van Ingen ultimately came to live and work in Santa Fe. Those who knew her then referred to her as “exotic” and “mysterious.” She seemed to have lived a modest life in New Mexico. It was a place that seemed to fit her. In 1989, however, she found a new expression for her art – motion pictures. In that year she appeared as “Pueblo Woman” in the feature film Powwow Highway. Small parts followed and in 1994 she moved to Los Angeles, registered with the Native American Indian Talent and Casting Agency, and got more serious about her acting career.
Her friend and agent Marjorie Tanin referred to her in this period as the oldest female Native American in the talent pool. Character roles naturally followed in television (roles in Dr. Quinn – Medicine Woman, Harts of the West, Promised Land, and even Roseanne) and in independent features. Her last role (1998) was as Anuba in the feature Wind River, opposite Russell Means, Wes Studi, and Karen Allen. The photo accompanying this article is from that movie – her last.
We at the Sierra Club thank Patricia Van Ingen for her love of the land and her concern for New Mexico. We would have liked to have known her in life. Our research continues.
For more information or to learn how you can leave a bequest to the Sierra Club, contact Chapter Treasurer Cliff Larsen.
Next Chapter's Executive Committee and Conservation Committee meetings are Saturday - Sunday, October 4 & 5, at Sevilleta Wildlife Refuge. Contact Conservation Chair Ken Hughes or Chapter Chair Susan Martin or more information. Carpooling is encouraged.
