tagged w/ Environment
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Oscar-winning film star Colin Firth today launched a major Survival International campaign to save ‘Earth’s most threatened tribe’ – the Awá of the Brazilian Amazon.
The centerpiece of the campaign is a short film, featuring an appeal by Colin Firth and music by Grammy-winning composer Heitor Pereira.
The Awá are a small tribe whose territory has been invaded by a vast army of illegal loggers, ranchers and settlers. Astonishing graphics on the campaign website show the devastating destruction of the Indians’ forest – which is happening faster than any other Amazon tribe.
Illegal settlers have reached just 30 minutes' walk from Little Butterfly's community
© Survival
The situation is now so critical that several Brazilian experts have spoken of a ‘genocide’ and ‘extinction’.
There are around 360 contacted Awá. Many are the survivors of brutal massacres. It is believed that 20-25% more are hiding in the rapidly-shrinking forest, desperately seeking a refuge from the constant destruction.
The campaign aims to persuade Brazil’s Justice Minister to send in federal police to clear out the loggers, ranchers and settlers, and keep them out.
In his appeal Colin Firth says, ‘The Awá’s forest is being illegally cut for timber. When the loggers see them, they kill them. Their bows and arrows are no match for guns. And at any other time in history, that’s where it would end. Another people wiped off the face of the earth, forever. But we’re going to make sure the world doesn’t let that happen…
More at the linkOscar-winning film star Colin Firth today launched a major Survival International... more
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Climate scientists have been saying for years that one of the many downsides of a warming planet is that both droughts and torrential rains are both likely to get worse. That’s what climate models predict, and that’s what observers have noted, most recently in the IPCC’s report on extreme weather, released last month. It makes physical sense, too. A warmer atmosphere can absorb more water vapor, and what goes up must come down — and thanks to prevailing winds, it won’t come down in the same place.
The idea of changes to the so-called hydrologic cycle, in short, hangs together pretty well. According to a new paper just published in Science, however, the picture is flawed in one important and disturbing way. Based on measurements gathered around the world from 1950-2000, a team of researchers from Australia and the U.S. has concluded that the hydrologic cycle is indeed changing. Wet areas are getting wetter and dry areas are getting drier. But it’s happening about twice as fast as anyone thought, and that could mean big trouble for places like Australia, which has already been experiencing crushing drought in recent years.
More than 3,000 robotic profiling floats provide crucial information on upper layers of the world's ocean currents. Credit: Alicia Navidad/CSIRO.
The reason for this disconnect between expectation and reality is that the easiest place to collect rainfall data is on land, where scientists and rain gauges are located. About 71 percent of the world is covered in ocean, however. “Most of the action, however, takes place over the sea,” lead author Paul Durack, a postdoctoral fellow at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, said in a telephone interview. In order to get a more comprehensive look at how water is exchanged between the surface and the atmosphere, that’s where Durack and his colleagues went to look.
Nobody has rainfall data from the ocean, so Durack and his collaborators looked instead at salinity — that is, saltiness — in ocean waters. The reasoning is straightforward enough. When water evaporates from the surface of the ocean, it leaves the salt behind. That makes increased saltiness a good proxy for drought. When fresh water rains back down on the ocean, it dilutes the seawater, so decreased saltiness is the equivalent of a land-based flood.
Fortunately, as the scientists make clear, research ships have been taking salinity measurements for decades in most of the planet’s ocean basins, so it’s possible to see where and how fast salinity has been changing. And it turns out that the saltiness has been increasing, especially in the waters surrounding Australia, southern Africa and western South America — all places where drought has increased as well.
The climate models weren’t really wrong, Durack hastened to add. “They’re accurately capturing the spatial patterns in hydrologic changes, and they’ve got the basic physics right. They’re just providing very conservative estimates of how big the changes are, and now we’re starting to understand that.”
More at the linkClimate scientists have been saying for years that one of the many downsides of a... more
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Scientists see rise in 2,4-D chemical use on farms
* Say human health and environment could suffer
* Dow defends corn, chemical as safe and well tested
* Government taking public comments through April 27
By Carey Gillam
April 26 (Reuters) - Opponents of a new biotech corn variety developed by Dow AgroSciences are making a final push to get U.S. regulators to reject Dow's application to roll out herbicide-tolerant crops that critics believe will wreak havoc on the environment and endanger human health.
Farmers, scientists and consumer groups scheduled a news conference on Thursday to urge U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack to shut down Dow's regulatory application for a multi-crop project it calls "Enlist."
Opponents of Dow's new Enlist corn said opponents have submitted more than 350,000 letters, emails and other public comments against the product.
Dow wants to roll out Enlist corn, soybeans and cotton along with an Enlist herbicide that are able to survive dousings of a combination of the herbicide 2,4-D with glyphosate. The new chemical aims to wipe out weeds that have become resistant to glyphosate alone.
Dow officials voiced frustration with the activism of opponents. The company said it is trying to educate farmers and others about the benefits of its products, which it said are safe and well tested.
"This is going to be a solution that we are looking forward to bringing to farmers," said Joe Vertin, Dow's global business leader for Enlist.
Opponents say Dow's biotech corn and new highly potent herbicide would result in a substantial increase in the volume of chemicals sprayed across U.S. farm fields, damaging nearby crops, inciting increased weed resistance and possibly contributing to disease.
"Farmers are on the front lines of this potential chemical disaster," said Iowa conventional corn and soybean farmer George Naylor in a statement.
2,4-Dichlorophenoxyacetic acid (2,4-D) was one of the ingredients in Agent Orange, the Vietnam War defoliant that was blamed for numerous health problems suffered during and after the war.
Charles Benbrook, chief scientist for the Organic Center and former executive director of the agriculture board of the National Academy of Sciences, said widespread planting of 2,4-D corn could trigger as much as a 30-fold increase in 2,4-D use on corn by the end of the decade.
Overall 2,4-D use in American agriculture would rise from 27 million pound to more than 100 million pounds and the release of 2,4-D soybeans and cotton following corn would boost usage still more, according to Benbrook.
Several medical and public health professionals have sent a letter to the U.S. Department of Agriculture warning of health threats that could accompany such an increase in 2,4-D use.
"Many studies show that 2,4 D exposure is associated with various forms of cancer, Parkinson's Disease, nerve damage, hormone disruption and birth defects," said Wenonah Hauter, executive director of Food & Water Watch. "USDA must take these significant risks seriously and reject approval of this crop."
More at the linkScientists see rise in 2,4-D chemical use on farms
* Say human health and... more
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Seeds of Change®, an organic seed and food company, is celebrating spring with the launch of the "Sowing Millions, Growing Minds" initiative and will donate 25 million seeds to help school children nationwide plant organic school gardens. Organic school gardens are a growing trend nationally and offer children valuable lessons in science, health, conservation, nutrition education and life skills. Beyond the individual level, increased numbers of school gardens can help expose entire communities to healthy foods and eating, which is especially important in communities that have little or no access to healthy food choices, known as food deserts. It can also help make a dent in public health issues such as childhood obesity.
(Photo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20120425/CG94690)
"At Seeds of Change, we are passionate about growing good food. We are committed to helping teach children where food comes from and how it is grown," said Tricia Lang, brand manager for Seeds of Change. "As part of these efforts, we are kicking off the 2012 spring gardening season with this exciting donation. We want kids to get their hands dirty and learn about the joy of eating organic produce fresh from the garden."
To announce the donation program, Seeds of Change hosted an event in partnership with Green City Market, a not for profit supporting local, sustainable agriculture. The event took place in Chicago at the Edible Gardens at Lincoln Park Zoo's Farm in the Zoo. To further demonstrate their commitment to organic gardening and education in Chicago, Seeds of Change awarded a grant to the Green City Market that will make it possible for hundreds of Chicago Public School students to visit the Edible Gardens on field trips to learn about organic gardening first hand. In addition, Seeds of Change donated gardening tools to the Edible Gardens.
As part of the festivities to launch the "Sowing Millions, Growing Minds" initiative, Seeds of Change and Green City Market invited children from the Garden Club at Yates Elementary School located in Chicago's Humboldt Park neighborhood to participate. The area is known for its staggering statistics related to childhood obesity and lack of fresh food access, and the students are doing their part to educate their classmates and the community about gardening. Jeanne Nolan, an organic gardening expert and director of the Edible Gardens program, led a planting demonstration and helped the students plant the first seeds of 2012. The students planted lettuce, radishes, broccoli, carrots and more, as they learned about the benefits of organic gardening, and techniques they can apply at school and at home. The students also enjoyed a cooking demonstration led by Seeds of Change executive chef, Chris Skolmutch. He taught the children simple recipes using organic vegetables and herbs they can grow in their own gardens to further reinforce healthy eating.
"It's such a thrill for me to see kids roll up their sleeves, plant seeds, watch them grow and taste the fruits of their labor," said Nolan. "Numerous studies have shown the connection between gardening, eating habits and school performance, and I'm a full believer in the many gifts gardening can offer students."
Read more here: http://www.sacbee.com/2012/04/25/4442105/seeds-of-change-to-donate-25-million.html#storylink=cpy
http://img.scoop.it/ZpgkfMSRH5v7vDsKkT08VDl72eJkfbmt4t8yenImKBVaiQDB_Rd1H6kmuBWtceBJSeeds of Change®, an organic seed and food company, is celebrating spring with the... more
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Royal Society study yields unsurprising results, Ecoscience co-author calls for “move to population shrinkage as humanely and as rapidly as possible”
The Royal Society, an organisation made up of renowned eco-fascists and depopulation fanatics, has released a “major report” calling for the “stabilization” of global population and reductions in consumption in developed countries.
The report is the unsurprising result of a 21 month “objective” study on human population growth and its implications for social and economic development.
“The number of people living on the planet has never been higher, their levels of consumption are unprecedented and vast changes are taking place in the environment. We can choose to rebalance the use of resources to a more egalitarian pattern of consumption … or we can choose to do nothing and to drift into a downward spiral of economic and environmental ills leading to a more unequal and inhospitable future”, the report reads.
The report also claims that developing countries will have to build the equivalent of a city of a million people every five days from now to 2050 in order to cope with the rate of population increase .
“In material terms it will be necessary for most developed countries to abstain from certain sorts of consumption, such as CO2,” said Jules Pretty who was on the Royal Society working group.
The study argues that there should be a demand to “reduce fertility” in poorer nations, particularly in Africa.
The Royal Society has also conducted extensive research into geoengineering the planet to manipulate its climate, and continually lobbies the government to divert funding into the area. The UK government recently published a lengthy report on geoengineering, drawing heavily on Royal Society research. The report proposed methods including spraying sulphate aerosols into the stratosphere to mimic the cooling effect produced by volcanic eruptions, as well as placing mirrors in space to reflect the Sun’s rays away from the Earth, a technique known as Solar Radiation Management (SRM).
The same talking points raised by the Society have been re-iterated again and again by public policy groups and environmentalists, as well as the most influential scientists in the US government.
While you and I may think the notions of sterilization and depopulation could never be accepted by the public, those very concepts are now being embraced and popularized as the way forward for humanity.
Steve Watson
Infowars.com
April 27, 2012
so many links to official reports and documentation...Depopulation may be trendy for those who think its' cute to kill 3rd world brown children, but guess what, they're pumping your kids up with the same vaccines, your drinking the same water, your eating the same genetically modified garbage. So all you hipster yuppies out there better wake up...they're killing you too.Royal Society study yields unsurprising results, Ecoscience co-author calls for... more
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Why do 'walkable' cities tend to be liberal? -- Where does your city rank?...
http://veracitystew.com/?p=34490Why do 'walkable' cities tend to be liberal? -- Where does your city... more
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A giant oil slick is flowing along Russia's Angara river, in southeastern Siberia. Authorities have declared the situation an emergency, with some 80,000 people stranded without water.
Reports say the slick is about ten kilometers long. Emergency services are trying to stop the oil from making its way any further, but have not succeeded so far.
The concentration of oil in the water still exceeded the norm by several times on Thursday.
About two tons of diesel oil spilled into the river on Wednesday as a result of an accident caused by illegal siphoning, officials say.
Cashing in on suffering
The incident disrupted the local water intake, which supplies water to three towns, leaving about 80,000 people without water.
Local authorities in the affected towns had to close schools and kindergartens in the area, though hospitals are working as usual.
The centralized water supply can be restored only after probes show that the oil concentration in the water is lower than the maximum permissible concentration.
Meanwhile, there are reports of merchants trying to cash in on the catastrophe by doubling and tripling prices for bottled water.
Authorities urged them not to turn a profit on the ecological disaster, and said they would closely monitor the situation to eliminate such cases.
Forty tons of free bottled water have been delivered in the affected are as emergency workers try to restore the intake's ability to operate.
Threat of ecological catastrophe
The oil leak may become a serious ecological problem if urgent measures are not taken to deal with the spill, WWF Russia official Aleksey Knizhnikov told Ria-Novosti.
The incident at the Sayano-Shushenskaya power plant revealed that Russia's emergency services were not ready for an oil spill in the river, because it is a rare case, he explained.
"Unfortunately no recovery operations can fully clear the river from the oil spill; floating barriers will just localize between 20 and 30 per cent of the spill,” he said, adding that time is working against cleanup teams.
http://rt.com/news/oil-spill-siberia-river-056/A giant oil slick is flowing along Russia's Angara river, in southeastern... more
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Europe has adopted an extensive monitoring programme to keep tabs on the environment whilst keeping us safe; it is called GMES, or Global Monitoring for Environment and Security.
The Sentinels, a multi satellite project, is already underway but financially clouds are looming on the horizon.Europe has adopted an extensive monitoring programme to keep tabs on the environment... more
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Ever thought about building your own house, or putting up a garden wall with just the mud you have around you? Forget expensive builders’ costs and environmentally oh-so-painful machinery to do your work. Here’s how to do it yourself. Do let us know how you get on.Ever thought about building your own house, or putting up a garden wall with just the... more
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Happy Earth Day, everybody! Just when we thought our faith in the drunkards had been restored, we spotted this disaster area left behind after throngs of Marina District revelers took their overconsumption outdoors yesterday afternoon. After a brief stop at the Marina Dateway, where the neighborhood grocery store was experiencing a run on domestic beer and ladies were overheard discussing the caloric content of various vodkas, we found this scene on the grass at Fort Mason around 7 p.m. Saturday evening.
What looked something like this during the afternoon, by sunset looked like a good place to catch Hepatitis. That's also when the seagulls started swooping in, probably looking for beer can rings to choke themselves to death with. (Because of how disappointed in humanity they were.)
Not to get all hippie-preachy or anything, but this is kind of an offensive amount of trash, right? Do normal and reasonable human beings not look at that mess and say, "...maybe we ought to like, I don't know? Take some of this trash with us? To a trash can?" or "Maybe we should bring that coffee table back home?" We've seen our share of litter-y days in Dolores Park and some embarrassing trash pileups in Golden Gate Park, but leaving actual pieces of living room furniture is a whole new level of prickish park use.
more at link...
Just another example of how hypocritical, ignorant and brainwashed these global warming clowns are. They know nothing about science, climate or the environment. Pathetic.Happy Earth Day, everybody! Just when we thought our faith in the drunkards had been... more
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As the Earth’s climate warms, glaciers are shrinking worldwide. But Fox News is using a recent study showing stable glaciers in one region of the Himalayas to obscure the global melting trend and cast doubt on climate change.As the Earth’s climate warms, glaciers are shrinking worldwide. But Fox News is... more
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United States authorities have made their first arrest in the 2010 Deepwater Horizon disaster, charging an ex-BP engineer with trying to destroy evidence tied to the country's largest environmental disaster.
The US justice department on Tuesday said it had charged drilling engineer Kurt Mix, 50, with two criminal counts of obstruction of justice for trying to destroy hundreds of text messages on his iPhone that related to the incident.
The messages, some of which investigators recovered, showed that BP knew that the leak was more than three times larger than its official estimates and that its "Top Kill" effort to plug the well at the end of May 2010 was failing.
Mix, of Katy, Texas, is the first person to be charged in the April 20, 2010, disaster that killed 11 men and sent millions of barrels of oil leaking into the Gulf of Mexico, killing sea life and coating shores popular with tourists.
The messages Mix allegedly attempted to wipe from his iPhone came from the weeks after the Macondo well blowout, when BP sought to halt the undersea leak.
The charges say Mix was part of BP staff trying to estimate the amount of oil flowing from the well for the Top Kill effort aimed at halting it.
Bleak estimations
According to the charges, he sent hundreds of "real time" messages to a BP supervisor on the flow of the well and progress of the operation.
BP, based in Britain, had reported at the time that the well was leaking about 5,000 barrels a day of crude oil. The messages allegedly give a different picture.
"Too much flowrate - over 15,000," said one message Mix sent on May 26, the first day of the operation.
Even before the operation commenced, the justice department said, "Mix and other engineers had concluded internally that Top Kill was unlikely to succeed if the flow rate was greater than 15,000 barrels of oil per day."
Returning to the Gulf two years after the BP oil spill
The effort in fact did fail and the well flowed for 10 weeks more until a new effort plugged it on August 4, after 4.9 million barrels of oil had polluted the Gulf of Mexico waters.
US authorities said Mix had been under instructions from BP to retain all communications.
However, it said, as investigations were launched into the disaster, on two instances in mid-August 2010 and then again in October, he deleted strings of text messages relating to the Top Kill operation.
"By the time Mix deleted those texts, he had received numerous legal hold notices requiring him to preserve such data and had been communicating with a criminal defense lawyer in connection with the pending grand jury investigation of the Deepwater Horizon disaster," the department said.
In a statement, BP said it was co-operating with the investigation and that the company "had clear policies requiring preservation of evidence in this case".
Mix faces up to 20 years in prison and a fine of up to $250,000 on each count if convicted.
"The Deepwater Horizon Task Force is continuing its investigation into the explosion and will hold accountable those who violated the law in connection with the largest environmental disaster in US history," Eric Holder, the US attorney general, said in a statement.
More at the linkUnited States authorities have made their first arrest in the 2010 Deepwater Horizon... more
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Indigenous communities around the world are highly vulnerable to climate change but instead of seeing them as victims, policy-makers should tap into their centuries-old knowledge of adapting to extreme weather patterns, aid workers say.
In Iran, which has some 700 nomadic tribes, pastoralists have been successfully adapting to climate fluctuations for 12,000 years, development expert Catherine Razavi told an international conference on climate change.
In recent years they have adjusted their migration patterns and switched to more drought resistant strains of livestock, said Razavi who is executive director of Iran’s Center for Sustainable Development (CENESTA).
In central Iran, where much pastureland has been destroyed by drought, she said pastoralists were now planting drought tolerant crops on previous grazing land. These crops include pistachios and fodder barley which can be used to feed livestock.
The story of Iran’s nomads was highlighted during the sixth International Conference on Community-Based Adaptation to Climate Change, hosted in the Vietnamese capital Hanoi.
Indigenous communities are vulnerable to climate change partly because they are marginalised and poor and have little access to information and services.
But far from watching passively as their ancestral lands and traditions are threatened by climate-related hazards, many such communities are actively adapting to new conditions, the conference heard.
In Bac Kan province, a few hours north of Hanoi, nearly 80 percent of the inhabitants are ethnic minorities. They are now cultivating drought resistant rice, banana and green bean varieties as well as cold resistant potato.
They have also adapted their farming techniques, for example, intercropping banana and local ginger, said Tran Van Dien from Thai Nguyen University of Agriculture and Forestry.
Intercropping improves a farmer's chances of getting at least one good crop and can improve soil quality.
In parts of Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia and the Philippines, indigenous farmers have introduced both upland rice and lowland rice at the same time to reduce the risk of crop failure from drought or floods, according to Nasiri Sabiah of the Malaysian community organisation PACOS Trust. Lowland rice is generally grown in flooded paddies. Upland rice is more drought tolerant.
CENTURIES OF KNOWLEDGE
"Climatic changes are now taking place on a scale, severity and frequency beyond living memory," said CENESTA’s Razavi, showing a photo of a mountain with almost no snow cover. “We’ve never, never seen (this) mountain without snow before these (last) few years,” she told AlertNet during the conference which finished on Sunday.
Another picture showed a dried, cracked waterbed. It used to be the biggest river in Iran, she said, before climate change and ill-conceived dams and agricultural projects severely reduced ground and surface water.
Razavi said indigenous communities had inherited techniques from their ancestors for predicting weather patterns and hazards and were well-versed in monitoring and assessing how many livestock their pasturelands could support in a given year.
“We believe and we work really hard to explain to the government that some of the indigenous practices are applicable (to other places) and are worth learning (from),” she said, adding that CENESTA has been observing the practices of pastoralists for three decades.
More at the linkIndigenous communities around the world are highly vulnerable to climate change but... more
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They say hindsight is always 20-20. In other words, when you look back at things gone wrong, you gain the wisdom to do things differently. But facing difficult times also provides the chance to hide our heads in the sand and let history repeat itself. This Earth Day, as we stand in the shadow of some major environmental losses, we have the opportunity to decide how we’re going to use the hindsight we’ve gained.They say hindsight is always 20-20. In other words, when you look back at things gone... more
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In another stark warning about the dangers of Arctic Ocean drilling, the German bank WestLB announced on Friday that it would not provide financing to any offshore oil or gas drilling in the region. The company’s sustainability manager said the “risks and costs are simply too high.”
The decision was made just a week after insurance giant Lloyd’s of London issued a report concluding that offshore drilling in the Arctic would “constitute a unique and hard-to-manage risk” and urged companies to “think carefully about the consequences of action” before exploring for oil in the region.
Dustin Neuneyer, sustainability manager at the corporate and investment bank WestLB, explained the decision to Environmental Finance:
“The further you get into the icy regions, the more expensive everything gets and there are risks that are hard to manage.… There are projects that are evidently unsustainable in an encompassing sense. For WestLB, the risks and costs are simply too high.”
The bank’s new eight-point policy on offshore drilling lays out specific criteria for the projects and companies that are eligible for financing — excluding any exploration or production activities in areas where the average temperature for the warmest month is below 10°C (50° F). Additionally, the policy’s criteria — which are binding for any company seeking a loan — require companies to use the best available technology, abide by the highest technical safety standards, and show that activities are validated by an independent third party.
The concerns raised by Lloyd’s of London and WestLB come as Royal Dutch Shell prepares to drill in Arctic waters off the coast of Alaska this summer. The recommendations of these institutions echo those in the recent Center for American Progress report, Putting a Freeze on Arctic Ocean Drilling: America’s Inability to Respond to an Oil Spill in the Arctic.
The dearth of supporting infrastructure throughout Alaska’s North Slope — including ports, roads, railroads, and permanent Coast Guard facilities — coupled with the lack of sound science and extremely volatile conditions make any potential offshore operations precarious at best. The remote location, harsh and unpredictable conditions, and absence of proven clean-up technologies designed for Arctic conditions would make large-scale response efforts nearly impossible.
Those factors represent a cost and risk WestLB isn’t willing to shoulder.
The stakes are high for Royal Dutch Shell, which after spending nearly five years and $4 billion, will likely soon receive the necessary permits for exploratory drilling in the remote Beaufort and Chukchi Seas. And other oil giants aren’t far behind — Exxon and ConocoPhillips are aiming to start offshore operations in the pristine Arctic Ocean by 2013.
WestLB might be the first bank to explicitly refuse financing for offshore drilling in the Arctic, but they may not be alone for long. “Other banks contacted us and are very interested in this approach and policy,” Neuneyer told Environmental Finance.
How many influential corporate voices will have to raise concerns before someone hits the pause button on Arctic Ocean drilling?
by Kiley KrohIn another stark warning about the dangers of Arctic Ocean drilling, the German bank... more
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Evidence now implicates top BP executives as well as its partners Chevron and Exxon and the Bush Administration in the deadly cover-up—which included falsifying a report to the Securities Exchange Commission.
Yesterday, Ecowatch.org revealed that, in September 2008, nearly two years before the Deepwater Horizon explosion in the Gulf of Mexico, another BP rig had blown out in the Caspian Sea—which BP concealed from U.S. regulators and Congress.
Had BP, Chevron, Exxon or the Bush State Department revealed the facts of the earlier blow-out, it is likely that the Deepwater Horizon disaster would have been prevented.
Days after the Deepwater Horizon blow-out, a message came in to our offices in New York from an industry insider floating on a ship in the Caspian Sea. He stated there had been a blow-out, just like the one in the Gulf, and BP had covered it up.
To confirm this shocking accusation, I flew with my team to the Islamic republic of Azerbaijan. Outside the capital, Baku, near the giant BP terminal, we found workers, though too frightened to give their names, who did confirm that they were evacuated from the BP offshore platform as it filled with explosive methane gas.
Before we could get them on camera, my crew and I were arrested and the witnesses disappeared.
Expelled from Azerbaijan, we still obtained the ultimate corroboration: a secret cable from the U.S. Embassy to the State Department in Washington laying out the whole story of the 2008 Caspian blow-out.
The source of the cable, classified “SECRET,” was a disaffected U.S. soldier, Private Bradley Manning who, through WikiLeaks.org, provided hot smoking guns to The Guardian.
The information found in the U.S. embassy cables is a block-buster.
The cables confirmed what BP will not admit to this day: there was a serious blow-out and its cause was the same as in the Gulf disaster two years later—the cement (“mud”) used to cap the well had failed.
Bill Schrader, President of BP-Azerbaijan, revealed the truth to our embassy about the Caspian disaster:
“Schrader said that the September 17shutdown of the Central Azeri (CA) platform…was the largest such emergency evacuation in BP’s history. Given the explosive potential, BP was quite fortunate to have been able to evacuate everyone safely and to prevent any gas ignition. … Due to the blowout of a gas-injection well there was ‘a lot of mud’ on the platform.”
From other sources, we discovered the cement which failed had been mixed with nitrogen as a way to speed up drying, a risky process that was repeated on the Deepwater Horizon.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr., president of Waterkeeper Alliance and senior attorney for Natural Resources Defense Council, calls the concealment of this information, “criminal. We have laws that make it illegal to hide this.”
The cables also reveal that BP’s oil-company partners knew about the blow-out but they too concealed the information from Congress, regulators and the Securities Exchange Commission. BP’s major U.S. partners in the Caspian Sea drilling operation were Chevron and Exxon.
The State Department got involved in the matter because BP’s U.S. partners and the Azerbaijani government were losing more than $50 million per day due to the platform’s shutdown. The Embassy cabled Washington:
“BP’s ACG partners are similarly upset with BP’s performance in this episode, as they claim BP has sought to limit information flow about this event even to its ACG partners.”
Kennedy is concerned about the silent collusion of Chevron, Exxon and the Azerbaijani government. “The only reason the public doesn’t know about it is because the Azerbaijani government conspired with them to disappear the people who saw it happen and then to act in concert, in collusion, in cahoots with BP, with Exxon, with Chevron to conceal this event from the American public.”
Kennedy’s particular concern goes to the connivance of the State Department, then headed by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, in the cover-up and deception. Chevron, noted Kennedy, named an oil tanker after Rice who had served on the oil company’s board of directors. “BP felt comfortable—and Chevron and Exxon—in informing the Bush State Department, which was run by Condoleezza Rice,” he said, “and they felt comfortable that that wasn’t going to come out.”
The U.S. Securities Exchange Commission requires companies to report “material” events. BP filed a “20-F” report in 2009 stating, “a subsurface gas release occurred below the Central Azeri platform,” suggesting a naturally occurring crack in the seafloor, not a blow-out. This contradicted the statements of three eyewitnesses and the secret statement of BP’s Azerbaijan President in then WikiLeaks cable.
“The three big actors, Chevron, Exxon and BP all concealed this from the American public,” concludes Kennedy. “This is a criminal activity.”
And why would the Azerbaijan government cover up a disaster costing it $40 million to $50 million a day? According to another insider, Les Abrahams, it has to do with at least $75 million in bribes that he paid to Azeri officials in Baku.
By Greg Palast/ecowatch
More at the linkEvidence now implicates top BP executives as well as its partners Chevron and Exxon... more
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Historically, my annual Earth Day message has been doom and gloom, along with most others, but this year, I’m going to break from that pattern and cover some of the dew good things we have going on and the need to protect them from ongoing Republican assault. Happy Earth Day!Historically, my annual Earth Day message has been doom and gloom, along with most... more
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By EDDIE BARNES
Published on Sunday 22 April 2012 00:00
US TYCOON Donald Trump will warn the Scottish Parliament this week that his plans to build a luxury hotel alongside his Aberdeenshire golf course will be axed if ministers back a series of “insane” wind turbines nearby.
The billionaire property developer will appear at Holyrood on Wednesday to attack the Scottish Government’s renewable energy proposals, accusing Alex Salmond of “destroying” the country’s natural heritage.
His championship golf course, ten miles north of Aberdeen, is scheduled to open as planned in July, but the entrepreneur’s senior representative said additional plans for a major hotel and housing development could not “co-exist” with an offshore wind farm planned for the coastal waters nearby.
George Sorial, vice president of The Trump Organisation, said: “If there is an industrial power plant on the shore line, the concept of having a luxury hotel and resort is simply incompatible. The two can’t co-exist.”
Sorial’s comments throw fresh doubt on the 500-hectare development, along with the job hopes of the thousands of workers which the Trump Organisation claims will be needed to build the entire project.
However, Trump was accused of “showbiz bluster” by environmental campaigners last night, as they produced a poll showing that 71 per cent of Scots back wind power as part of the country’s energy mix. The Scottish Government is committed to sourcing all of the country’s electricity needs from renewable sources by 2020. Trump’s dispute centres on plans to construct 11 new “next-generation” wind turbines, that will be clearly seen from his development.
The American billionaire will give evidence this week to Holyrood’s economy and energy committee. He is also expected to renew his attack on both Salmond and former first minister Lord McConnell, claiming he was given assurances that the windfarm development would not go ahead. Both Salmond and McConnell, who lost power at the 2007 Holyrood elections, deny any such guarantees.
Trump is expected to speak both inside and outside parliament on Wednesday as anti-wind farm protesters gather to rally against the Scottish Government’s plans to increase the number of turbines both on land and at sea. Trump has turned on Salmond over the push, claiming the move will do more damage “than any event in Scotland’s history”.
Both Salmond and McConnell have said the matter of the Aberdeenshire wind farm proposal, known as the European Offshore Wind Deployment Centre, is now a matter for the planning authorities to decide. However, Sorial said that it was “disingenuous and ridiculous” for Salmond to claim he was not backing the wind farm programme off the north-east coast. “Everybody in Aberdeen knows that Alex Salmond is the driving force behind the EWDC application,” he said.
He added: “A lot of people won’t agree with us and a lot of people may feel uncomfortable agreeing with us but on this issue we were misled.
He went on: “It wasn’t until we built the course that the application went in. We knew the proposals were out there but we were always led to believe they wouldn’t get anywhere.”
Last month, Trump claimed he had been assured by McConnell there would be no wind turbines over-looking his course.
He said: “Jack McConnell and his administration said, ‘We really want you to spend your money in Scotland. We will not build the windmills.’ ... I said: ‘Do I have your word?’ They said: ‘You have our word.’”
However, McConnell hit back last night. He said: “Mr Trump was treated with the same respect and courtesy that I and my government treated all potential inward investors. It is a pity that he doesn’t return that courtesy now.”
Meanwhile, Trump flew into the former Soviet republic of Georgia yesterday to expand his global real estate empire, lending his name to a glitzy tower on the Black Sea coast. Unveiling a $250 million (£155m) residential high-rise planned for the Georgian coastal resort town of Batumi, Trump said the country had become a prime destination for foreign investment.
• http://snh.gov.uk/docs/B961030.pdf|Click here for a map of current and proposed windfarm projects in Scotland|Windfarm map}By EDDIE BARNES
Published on Sunday 22 April 2012 00:00
US TYCOON Donald Trump... more
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