tagged w/ Tar sands
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by Sarah Laskow, Media Consortium blogger
SALT LAKE CITY, UT USA
Environmental activist Tim DeChristopher was convicted yesterday of two felony counts. DeChristopher was on trial for bidding on more than 22,000 acres of public land that he could not pay for: his two crimes are making false representations to the government and interfering with the land auction.
DeChristopher made the $1.79 million bid in order to “do something to try to resist the climate crisis,” he told Tina Gerhardt, in an interview published by AlterNet. But, as Kate Sheppard explains at Mother Jones, the judge threw out “the defense that his actions were necessary to prevent environmental damage on this land and, more broadly, the exacerbataion of climate change.”
“They’re hoping to make an example out of me.”
DeChristoper now faces the possibility of a $75,000 fine and 10 years in prison. In an interview with YES! Magazine’s Brooke Jarvis, before the trial started, DeChristopher said he had faced the possibility that he would be found guilty.
“There is still the possibility of acquittal, but I think the most likely scenario is probably that I will be convicted,” he told Jarvis. “The prosecution has been very clear that they’re hoping to make an example out of me, to convince other people not to fight the status quo.”
Wild lands
What is the status quo? Bureau of Land Management land, like the parcel DeChristopher bid on, is owned by the government, which often leases out the rights to develop the natural resources, like gas and oil, to private companies.
Up until 2003, the Department of the Interior had the option of setting aside some of its lands for preservation, pending final Congressional approval. But during the Bush administration, the DOI gave up that option and only considered uses like recreation or development for its holdings.
Back in December, the current Interior Secretary, Ken Salazar, reversed that policy, again putting on the table the option of using public lands for conservation purposes. But as I write at TAPPED, Republicans are throwing a hissy fit about the change.
Truth or consequence?
The Republicans’ argument goes something like: Using public lands for conservation will deprive Americans of jobs and hurt the bottom lines of states with large tracts of public lands. What they don’t discuss is the potential damage that drilling for, say, natural gas could cause. The Mulch has been writing about the dangers of hydrofracking for awhile now, but over the past week The New York Times began weighing in on the issue with a long series on the dangers of hydrofracking.
The Times‘ series brings even more evidence of hydrofracking’s dangers to light—in particular, about the radioactive waste materials being dumped into rivers where water quality is rarely monitored. As Christopher Mims reports at Grist, the series has already prompted calls for new testing from people like John Hanger, the former head of Pennsylvania’s environmental protection department, which has not been among the staunchest opponents of new drilling protects. According to Mims, Hanger has written that:
The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection should order today all public water systems in Pennsylvania to test immediately for radium or radioactive pollutants and report as soon as good testing allows the results to the public. Only testing of the drinking water for these pollutants can resolve the issue raised by the NYT.
Or, as Mims puts it, “No one has any idea if the radioactive material in the wastewater from fracking is appearing downstream, in drinking water supplies, in quantities in excess of EPA recommendations.”
Tar and feather ‘em
Fracking is not the only environmentally destructive practice that the energy industry is increasingly relying on. Earth Island Journal has two pieces looking into the tar sands industry in Canada. Jason Mark’s piece is a great introduction to the history of the tar sands and takes a sharp look into the impact development has had on the community and the environment.
And Ron Johnson details the U.S.’s connection to the destruction: The federal government is considering approving a pipeline that would allow the oil from the tar sands to travel to Texas refineries. Johnson writes:
Green groups warn that the pipelines will keep North America and emerging economies hooked on oil from the Alberta tar sands for years to come. By greasing the crude’s path to market, the projects will encourage further reckless expansion of the tar sands. That would delay the transition to a renewable energy economy, while further degrading Canada’s boreal forests and spewing even more CO2 into the atmosphere.
A new regime
The decision to approve the pipeline lies with the executive branch. But all of Washington isn’t a particularly friendly place to green groups and their causes these days.
For example, as Care2’s Beth Buczynski reports, the newly empowered House Republicans have done away with one of the smallest green programs the Democrats put into place, an initiative to compost waste from House cafeterias. They’ve justified the cut by saying it was “too expensive,” but as Buczynski writes, “Spending must be dramatically reduced, yes, but also strategically. It’s interesting (and disheartening) to see which programs the new GOP House has targeted first.”
It’s a small thing, but it shows how committed Republicans are to the status quo: They’re not even willing to mulch their leftover salad.
This post features links to the best independent, progressive reporting about the environment by members of The Media Consortium. It is free to reprint. Visit the Mulch for a complete list of articles on environmental issues, or follow us on Twitter. And for the best progressive reporting on critical economy, health care and immigration issues, check out The Audit, The Pulse, and The Diaspora. This is a project of The Media Consortium, a network of leading independent media outlets.by Sarah Laskow, Media Consortium blogger
SALT LAKE CITY, UT USA
Environmental... more
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Recently published emails written by Canadian Embassy and government employees show that the Embassy directly lobbied the Bush Administration and Congress over a law that could have restricted exports of tar sands-derived crude oil. The emails also show that the Bush Administration asked Canada to convince oil companies to lobby Congress on the Bush Administration's behalf.Recently published emails written by Canadian Embassy and government employees show... more
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It’s been quite a while since the last big fuss about ‘peak oil’: hardly surprising, once oil fell from its pre-crash peak. A guy who made a lot of that fuss is back giving his post-crash perspective in a video. He believes the ‘local vs. global’ balance could be about to changeIt’s been quite a while since the last big fuss about ‘peak oil’:... more
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FTA:
“What’s striking in our conversations is that those who don’t depend on the land, and who don’t really have a deep connection to the land, are seemingly not invested in its health, its vitality, its beauty," said NWF's Felice Stadler. "They see the land as a resource that will line their pockets with money. Is it any different in the coal fields of West Virginia or the gas fields of Wyoming? Or is it, sadly, more of the same? Big oil making big profits at the expense of people and wildlife, and the resources on which we depend to sustain life: clean air, clean water, healthy lands."
http://www.nwf.org/News-and-Magazines/Media-Center/News-by-Topic/Global-Warming/2010/10-12-10-Tar-Sands-Tour.aspxFTA:
“What’s striking in our conversations is that those who don’t... more
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1. Torch Cock Block
2. Take Back our City
3. Heart Attack
4. The Motherfuckin NLG
5. Gord Hill breaks it down.1. Torch Cock Block
2. Take Back our City
3. Heart Attack
4. The Motherfuckin NLG... more
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Within minutes of being found guilty of failing to protect 1,600 migrating ducks from being smothered in Syncrude's toxic black tailing lake in 2008, the company's lawyer told reporters he would recommend an appeal. But the judge still has to decide what the sentence will be and the company could be facing fines of up to $300,000 per dead bird.
http://looncanada.wordpress.com/2010/06/26/syncrude-set-to-appeal-dead-duck-verdict-before-trial-is-over/Within minutes of being found guilty of failing to protect 1,600 migrating ducks from... more
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by Sarah Laskow, Media Consortium blogger
Oil has hit shore in Louisiana, and despite BP’s best efforts to keep the media away, reporters can now touch the greasy stuff with their hands and feet. The onrush of oil into the Gulf has continued for over a month now, and while BP is still trying to staunch both the spill and media spin, the company is losing control over the information that’s reaching the public.
The Environmental Protection Agency demanded this week that the company use a less toxic dispersant to clean up the spill, and independent scientists are releasing estimates of the spills volume that dwarf BP’s numbers in terms of magnitude.
Right now, a catastrophe of this scope seems like an unprecedented, one-off event. But across the energy industry, at other drilling sites, in other industries, companies are taking risks and courting environmental disasters on the same scale.
“Bayou Polluter”
BP, which was operating the rig before the spill, has other sins on its head. In Louisiana, “fishermen say BP spills oil every year and they point out marshes still dead from dispersants that were sprayed there,” marine biologist Riki Ott writes for Yes! Magazine.
The latest disaster could cause more exponentially more damage, but it is far from unique. On Democracy Now!, former EPA investigator Scott West, describes a case in which one of the company’s Alaska pipelines burst, spilling oil out onto the frozen tundra. BP had ignored workers’ concerns about the integrity of the pipeline, West says, and during warmer months, the resulting spill could have reached the Bering Sea and created a much bigger mess.
“Now we’re seeing the same sort of thing in the Gulf, in this catastrophe,” West said. “And information is coming to light that corners were cut and that employees’ concerns were being ignored. It’s the exact same pattern that we saw with BP in Alaska.”
Beyond BP
But a new report, which combs over the oil industry as a whole, shows that “BP can’t be singled out,” writes Public News Service. The report “found that operating errors and incidents around the globe are more common than the public likely realizes because most events don’t make the news.”
As countries like the United States become more desperate for fuel, accidents like the spill in the Gulf Coast become more likely. Extracting oil from tar sands, hydrofracking, deep-sea oil drilling: these are tricky techniques for extracting fossil fuel that are becoming popular only because the world’s store of easily accessible energy is almost gone. In The Nation, Michael Klare writes about the new quest for “extreme energy options” and the contingent risks.
“By their very nature, such efforts involve an ever increasing risk of human and environmental catastrophe—something that has been far too little acknowledged,” Klare writes. “As energy companies encounter fresh and unexpected hazards, their existing technologies…often prove incapable of responding adequately to the new challenges. And when disasters occur, as is increasingly likely, the resulting environmental damage is sure to prove exponentially more devastating than anything experienced in the industrial annals of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.”
Tar sands a slow-motion spill
It’s not just BP that’s playing fast and loose with its environmental impact. Extracting fuel from tar sands, a source for oil that’s gaining in popularity as an alternative to off-shore drilling, takes a dramatic toll on the environment.
Inter Press Service writes that, according to a new report, “Oil sands development is “kind of like the gulf spill but playing out in slow motion.”
The extraction process demands lakes of water, which, once contaminated, are held in pools. “Those toxic ponds pose a hazard to migrating birds, risk contaminating nearby soil and water resources, present health problems to downstream communities and, the report notes, pose the risk of “a catastrophic breach,”” IPS explains.
A director at the National Resource Defense Council described tar sand extraction as “a slow-motion oil spill every day,” writes The Texas Observer’s Forrest Whittaker. The United States is poised to consume even more oil from this source, too, he reports:
“In the works is a 2,000-mile underground pipeline from Alberta to refineries in Houston and Port Arthur, including BP’s Texas City facility. The high-pressure pipeline, proposed by TransCanada, would be capable of carrying 900,000 barrels per day, enough to more than double consumption of tar-sands oil in the U.S.”
Government intervention
As Whittaker reports, the Obama administration has been supportive of these sorts of efforts, and this week questions about the government’s leniency towards BP and the energy industry started bubbling up. In this climate, the government should be stepping in to defend the safety of the country’s people and its environment; instead, even the Obama administration is giving the energy industry a long leash to pursue its projects. On Democracy Now!, Scott West, the EPA investigator, described the pattern he saw during his investigation:
“What the government has done over the past several years is taught BP that it can do whatever it wants and will not be held accountable. So, decisions have been made, very poor decisions have been made, to increase profits and put workers at risk and been allowed and endorsed by the federal government.”
The current oversight has not much improved. Sen. Bob Menendez (D-NJ) and his colleagues are pushing for a $10 billion cap on liability for oil companies, for instance, but the administration has argued for a lower limit, the Washington Independent reports.
Without real accountability from the government, BP could escape with little damage, Riki Ott explains in her Yes! Magazine piece.
“In the Exxon Valdez spill, people counted on the oil company to respond to and clean up the mess, and we counted on Congress and the legal system to hold the oil industry accountable for damages to the environment and local communities and economies. In hindsight, these turned out to be bad ideas,” she writes. “Exxon dodged penalties through long court battles, systematically underestimating the scope of the spill, and leveraging the costs of clean-up to avoid fines and penalties.”
BP doesn’t need to escape accountability in the same way, though; Ott has suggestions for actions that anyone can take to ensure the company pays the price for the damage it has caused.
This post features links to the best independent, progressive reporting about the environment by members of The Media Consortium. It is free to reprint. Visit the Mulch for a complete list of articles on environmental issues, or follow us on Twitter. And for the best progressive reporting on critical economy, health care and immigration issues, check out The Audit, The Pulse, and The Diaspora. This is a project of The Media Consortium, a network of leading independent media outlets.by Sarah Laskow, Media Consortium blogger
Oil has hit shore in Louisiana, and... more
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In protest over Shells investment in the Canadian Tar sands UK protestors shut down the Islington based Shell petrol station for 5 hours on the 15th of May 2010
Crank up the volume and enjoy.......
Party at the Pumps is in solidarity with communities around the world who are resisting Shells destruction of lives and livelihoods, poisoning of lands and waters, and fuelling of climate chaos. In Northern Canada, Shells tar sands projects are ignoring First Nations treaty rights, causing rare forms of cancer and killing wildlife.
This action is jointly called by London Rising Tide/London Tar Sands Network and Climate Camp London.
http://www.no-tar-sands.org
http://www.risingtide.org.uk
http://www.climatecamp.org.uk/london
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hv6z4XhyJG0In protest over Shells investment in the Canadian Tar sands UK protestors shut down... more
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The tar sands in the province of Alberta cover a wide area centered on the town of Fort McMurray. They lie in the heart of Canada's Boreal forests, and produce close to one-and-a-half million barrels of oil a day.
The area is the epicentre of a struggle between environmentalists and multinational energy companies, with each side painting different pictures of how oil extraction impacts the region.
Al Jazeera's Steve Chao reports from Fort McMurray, Canada.The tar sands in the province of Alberta cover a wide area centered on the town of... more
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Canada, and more specifically the province of Alberta, is ground zero for tar sands extraction.
As North America’s number one source of foreign oil, the tar sands produce the world's most harmful type of oil for the atmosphere, emitting high volumes of greenhouse gases during development, which contribute to global warming.
To access these underground stores, Big Oil companies must strip mine huge tracts of forest, causing cancer hot spots in indigenous communities living downstream from the toxic byproducts.
As if these characteristics weren't horrifying enough, these same companies are now pressuring the Obama administration to allow construction of a pipeline that would pump oil from the Canadian tar sands to refineries in the Gulf Coast that supply our country's gasoline.
Known as the "Keystone XL," oil companies are counting on this massive pipeline to make the expansion of tar sands operations profitable profitable, but they've failed to take into account (at least publicly) the "extra-large" effects this will have on environment, wildlife, and human health.
Keep reading and sign the petition to tell Obama America doesn't need another dirty oil pipeline! http://ow.ly/1CUWECanada, and more specifically the province of Alberta, is ground zero for tar sands... more
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George Poitras, member of Mikisew Cree indigenous First Nation talks about the issues of pollution and cancers suffered by many of the First Nations people as a result of the Oil companies action extractive industries.
"My people are dying, and we believe British companies are responsible. My community, Fort Chipewyan in Alberta, Canada, is situated at the heart of the vast toxic moonscape that is the tar sands development. We live in a beautiful area, but unfortunately, we find ourselves upstream from the largest fossil fuel development on earth. UK oil companies like BP, and banks like RBS, are extracting the dirtiest form of oil from our traditional lands, and we fear it is killing us." - George
BP has been prompted to disclose much information that has not been publicly available before. Tar sands has become a hot topic among the investment community and BP has been subject to a far higher level of investor scrutiny on the issue than ever before.
The shareholder resolution about BP’s involvement in tar sands production was discussed and put to the vote at the oil major’s AGM. Results presented by BP at the meeting show that almost 15% of voters either supported the resolution or abstained despite the board’s recommendation to reject it. This is a significant expression of concern about the company’s decision to invest in new tar sands projects.George Poitras, member of Mikisew Cree indigenous First Nation talks about the issues... more
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100 animal and plant species become extinct
1,000 acres of peat bogs are excavated
150,000 acres of tropical rainforest are destroyed.
22 million tons of oil are consumed
100 million tons of greenhouse gases are released
Every day there is....
large scale habitat destruction
massive soil erosion
extensive desertificationmass
extinction of species
irreversibility of extinction.
for our children, help us make ecocide a crime against peace......
http://www.thisisecocide.com100 animal and plant species become extinct
1,000 acres of peat bogs are excavated... more
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On Saturday, 10th April, hundreds of people from London and beyond gathered at the pumps to send a message to BP: youre not going into the tar sands without a fight!
Checkout the great quote from Andy Slaughter - Labour Candidate for Hammersmith & Shepherds Bush relating to the peaceful protest.
Today, oil giant BP was struck by multiple protests over its controversial plans to extract oil from the Canadian tar sands Hundreds of climate activists in London, Brighton, Oxford and Cambridge targeted the company with simultaneous demonstrations and street parties, including forecourt invasions which closed three BP petrol stations in London and Brighton.
Activists hailed the day as a major success, stating that the protests would send a strong message to BP and its investors. Sheila Laughlin of the UK Tar Sands Network said:
Today, we did exactly what we set out to do we hit BPs profits by shutting down their petrol stations, and we hit their brand by informing thousands of people about their destructive tar sands plans. Nearly everyone we spoke to was shocked and outraged by the horrific climate, ecological and human impacts of tar sands extraction. If BP want to completely alienate the UK public, theyre going about it in exactly the right way.On Saturday, 10th April, hundreds of people from London and beyond gathered at the... more
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In honor of their continued support of the Tar Sands Project, Canada as awarded the Fossil Fool of the Day Award by the Sierra Club.
For more information on The Tar Sands, here is a video we did with Rain Forest Action Network after dropping a banner over Niagara Falls.
In honor of their continued support of the Tar Sands Project, Canada as awarded the... more
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When I got wind that the Rain Forest Action Network (RAN) was planning to welcome the Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper before his first official visit to the White House with a "warm welcome", my imagination took off. I wondered what RAN had up it's sleeve this time. You've got to love RAN, they've managed to walk that fine line of activism where their larger than life actions (aka activism) usually involve humor, make a memorable point, and rarely have the grandiose offensive air that many people have expressed about some of their activist counterparts. But the term "warm" welcome really got my imagination going and I started wondering, "geesh, are they going to go off the deep end and light something on fire to illustrate some point about global warming?"
Well, I was right about RAN going off the deep end (but that's all I was right about). They dropped a 70 foot banner over (nothing warm about it) Niagara Falls to illustrate the point that continuing to mine the tar sands was taking the world in one direction, while climate change activism is working toward the opposite direction.
Joshua Kahn Russel of RAN explains the reason behind the action in greater detail:
"During Harper’s first official trip to meet Obama in the U.S., the two leaders are expected to discuss climate change and energy policy ahead of the upcoming G20 Summit. Canada supplies 19% of U.S. oil imports, more than half of which now comes from the tar sands, making the region the largest single source of U.S. oil imports. The expansion of the tar sands will strip mine an area the size of Florida. Complete with skyrocketing rates of cancer (by 400%!) for First Nations communities living downstream, broken treaties, toxic belching lakes so large you can see them from outer space, churning up ancient boreal forest, destroyed air and water quality, the tar sands have been called the most destructive project on Earth."
Tomorrow’s visit to the U.S. by Prime Minister Harper is the latest attempt by Canadian Federal and Provincial officials to lock in subsidies for 22 new and expanded refinery projects and oil pipelines crisscrossing 28 states, which would transport and process the dirty tar sands oil. Many are concerned that Prime Minister Harper wants to protect the tar sands even though it is one of the fastest growing sources of greenhouse gas emissions in Canada."
We caught up with Tar Sands Campaigner, Eriel Deranger a few hours after their 5 climbers had been arrested to explain what they hoped to accomplish:
Please tell us if there is a specific topic that you want to see covered.When I got wind that the Rain Forest Action Network (RAN) was planning to welcome the... more
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You may remember Joshua Kahn Russell from when he took us from Oakland, CA to Washington DC in ACT UP! A video journey chronicling his experience as an activist organizing the capitol climate action (the largest claimte change protest organized to date).
Joshua is an organizer for the Rain Forest Action Network (RAN) and is working on the Freedom From Oil campaign. RAN states that, "The Freedom From Oil Campaign is breaking America’s oil addiction by working to halt the development of the Canadian Tar Sands, the dirtiest and most deadly attempt yet to profit from and prolong humanity’s crippling addiction to oil. In partnership with communities on the ground, we are pushing government and industry to instead invest in clean, sustainable energy to power the next generation’s economy. Learn more."
I've gotten a kick out of watching these videos, they capture the thrill of the moment, and Joshua's enthusiasm and zest for life is contagious.
Below you find the first three submissions of his journey. You can follow Joshua over the course of the next 7 days at Freedom From Oil Tour.
freedom from oil tour #1 - propagandhi, strike anywhere, & activism to stop dirty energy
Freedom From Oil tour diary #2 - trapdoors and Tar Sands
Freedom From Oil tour diary #3 - crossing to Canada!
You may remember Joshua Kahn Russell from when he took us from Oakland, CA to... more
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Much of the more than 2 million barrels of oil Canada sends south every day comes from the tar sands of the Athabasca region in Alberta. The ongoing tar sands boom in the area has been called an environmental crime of enormous proportions, and there are hints that some of the dirty processes required might be heading south as well, to the Uintah Basin in Utah.
Several companies have been operating small-scale projects in tar sands areas mines in Utah. Now, Earth Energy Resources has obtained the permits required to expand its site to a 62-acre mine that the company hopes will eventually produce about 2,000 barrels of oil per day.
This doesn’t compare with the enormous projects in Alberta — some of which are in the hundreds of thousands of barrels per day range — but environmentalists are concerned about the impact on Utah's other natural resources.
“Even if it were economically viable, I think it would be extremely destructive environmentally, and we would be very eager to see the competent authorities keeping an eye on water and air quality problems,” said Mark Clemens, of the Sierra Club’s Utah Chapter. ...
http://solveclimate.com/blog/20100330/athabasca-south-activity-hints-tar-sands-development-utahMuch of the more than 2 million barrels of oil Canada sends south every day comes from... more
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The Coastal First Nations, a coalition of aboriginal communities in Canada’s Great Bear Rainforest, publicly announced their strong opposition this week to the Northern Gateway pipeline, a project would would run tar sands oil from Alberta to a port near the Pacific Ocean.
Enbridge Inc.'s plan is to open export markets for tar sands oil outside the United States — notably China. However, the Coastal First Nations see the pipeline as a major threat to their territory and way of life.
“We are still gatherers, and the ocean is our supermarket. To jeopardize that so we can eat bologna and spam with the rest of the country is not acceptable." ...
http://solveclimate.com/blog/20100325/coastal-first-nations-oppose-canada-tar-sands-pipelineThe Coastal First Nations, a coalition of aboriginal communities in Canada’s... more
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