tagged w/ ENVIRONMENTAL ETHICS
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THE REAL NEWS NETWORK ~ http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=6037
30,000 indigenous Ecuadorians fight for compensation against Texaco (now Chevron), accused of 3 decades of massive toxic dumping in the Amazon. The damage long done... We watch today as the indigenous people of that land stand up to Chevron to get restitution for their destroyed environment after Chevron's/Texaco's decades of open deliberate ecological misdeeds.
What do we all get in return?
We get to watch another text book example on how Large Corporations avoid doing the honorable thing and correct their past actions and misdeeds. We see a powerful corporation use every means possible to corrupt the legal the system, so Chevron can walk away from the ecological disaster destroyed lives and they created as they sucked-up $$$ billions of dollars of Ecuadorian Oil.
This is how Corporations Do Business...? = YES
This is how Corporations Should do Business...? = NO
We need to clean - up the way our Governments and our Corporations do business!
We need to DEMAND TRANSPARENCY and Personal Responsibility in both our Governments and in our Corporations.THE REAL NEWS NETWORK ~... more
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PHOTO: Orangutan populations in Indonesia's Borneo and Sumatera island are facing severe threats from habitat loss, illegal logging, fires and poaching. Conservationists predicted that without immediate action, orangutans are likely to be the first great ape to become extinct in the wild, 17 Aug 2010. http://www.voanews.com/english/news/The-Malaysian-Government-See-Red-on-Borneo-Over-Fresh-Dam-Plans-105667523.html
Borneo island is home to some of the world's rarest animals and plants. But conservationists are alarmed by new plans to dam some of the rivers on Borneo, which is divided among Malaysia, Indonesia and Brunei. Luke Hunt reports from Kota Kinabalu, on Malaysian Borneo.
The Malaysian government has approved construction of dams in the Kaiduan Valley and near Kota Belud in the state of Sabah. Another dam on the Tutoh River is planned for the neighboring state of Sarawak.
Conflict brews
The government says the dams and perhaps more will be needed to ensure East Malaysian water and electricity needs.
However, environmentalists, villagers and a growing number of people in the broader electorate disagree. They want the dams stopped.
S.M. Muthu is a spokesman for the Malaysia Nature Society and says energy supplies - such as biomass fuel, gas and solar - are plentiful in Sabah and Sarawak and should be developed.
He says engineers have examined East Malaysia's infrastructure needs and determined dams are not required to produce electricity given the abundance of fast flowing rivers and natural catchments that are capable of producing electricity.
"The problem is we are destroying the water catchment areas. Then we have a lack of water. Then we want to build dams which is actually trying to find a solution to a problem we keep repeating," Muthu says, "Whereas if you go to the root cause of the problem and we maintain our water catchment areas then you don't even need a dam.
Residents and environmentalists opposition against dam
Residents in the Kaiduan valley have built a blockade to stop preliminary work on the dam. They raised a 1.8-meter Christian cross and the dam location and have also voiced opposition to the dam planned for Kota Belud.
Activists in Sarawak state on the island warn a hydropower dam on the Tutoh River also risks changing the boundary of a national park. That could see its World Heritage status revoked under the regulations of the United Nations cultural body UNESCO.
In addition, Bakun Dam - also in Sarawak - has raised eyebrows. The federal government decided to sell the project, which covers an area the size of Singapore, back to the state government despite intense criticism over environmental damage caused by its construction.
Malaysian Borneo's wildlife threatened
Borneo is home to scores of rare species, including the orangutan, the pygmy elephant and the Borneo rhinoceros. Its wildlife, however, is threatened by development, logging and the expansion of palm oil plantations.
The environmental movement in Malaysian Borneo has grown significantly in recent years. It has managed to block construction of a coal-fired power plant along a pristine stretch of coastline. Environmentalists say the plant threatened the globally recognized Coral Triangle off east Borneo.
Cynthia Ong is the executive director for LEAP Conservancy, an environmental advocacy group that has been at the heart of a coalition of organizations challenging the authorities over their environmental practices. "You know about the coal fired power plant issue. That single issue has mobilized the environment movement in a way I haven't seen before. We hung in there with each other and then made breakthrough after breakthrough after breakthrough and each time when we had successes on our campaign it really empowered us," Ong said.
As momentum within the environmental movement in Sabah spreads among the villagers and urban middle class, environmentalists and government officials in Malaysia, Indonesia, Brunei and beyond are closely monitoring developments here.
"Whether it's coal or whether it's logging it doesn't stop at our borders. It's a line on a map, right. As we work locally there's always this alignment with what's happening in Borneo and what's happening in the region, what's happening globally even," Ong says, "It's not grandiose for us to think that Sabah's a leader and has the potential to be a leader in the region of Southeast Asia."
The Malaysian government says the dams are needed - not only to ensure water supplies - but to guarantee electricity to power the economic growth this country must generate if it is to meet its target of becoming an industrialized nation by 2020.
Managing those economic targets within the constraints of a burgeoning environmental movement could prove difficult, if Borneo's rare and endangered species are to be protected.PHOTO: Orangutan populations in Indonesia's Borneo and Sumatera island are facing... more
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The last of the big summer holidays is almost here. An upswing in boating traffic is expected throughout the long Labor Day weekend, and Save the Manatee Club is urging the boating community to be extra vigilant, especially in light of the crises manatees have already had to deal with this year.
“The events of 2010 have been tragic for the entire manatee population, which has been dealt one terrible blow after another,” said Patrick Rose, Save the Manatee Club’s Executive Director.
“Last year’s all-time record for total mortality has already been shattered this year. Since January 1st, over 600 manatees have died. That’s more than 10% of the entire known population! Nearly half died as a result of Florida’s unprecedented cold winter.
Although the Deepwater Horizon Well is sealed, the unprecedented oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico remains a major threat to manatees, and the large variety of marine and freshwater vegetation upon which they depend. Oil can directly pollute the seagrasses and other vegetation that manatees and other wildlife depend on for their very survival and can also block sunlight required for vegetation to grow. We also have substantial concerns regarding massive amounts of chemical dispersants that have been pumped and sprayed to break up the oil and need to watch for ill effects on endangered manatees and other wildlife.
A recent report by Georgia Sea Grant indicates that as much as 79% of the oil that was spilled remains in the Gulf, and we are still just one storm away from even more serious consequences.”
Further, last year a record number of manatees were killed by boat strikes. Recent manatee mortality statistics from the Florida Fish & Wildlife Conservation Commission reveal that deaths from boat strikes in 2010 are keeping pace with prior years.
“We feel it’s vital to work with the boating community to help minimize watercraft-related manatee injuries and deaths,” said Dr. Katie Tripp, Director of Science and Conservation for Save the Manatee Club.
“We believe in empowering the boating community so that each boater is aware of his or her ability to protect manatees by always looking out for them while safely enjoying Florida’s beautiful waterways.”
The Club produces and distributes a variety of free public awareness materials designed to keep the waterways safer for Florida’s endangered manatees. Florida boaters can request bright yellow waterproof boating banners to alert other boaters when manatees are in the area.
There are also newly designed shoreline property signs which encourage boaters to keep it slow, and it also features the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission’s (FWC) hotline number (1-888-404-3922) for reporting injured manatees. Plus, the new matching boating decal can be placed on all Florida watercraft, from kayaks to jet skis.
Requests for the banners, signs, and decals can be sent via e-mail to education@savethemanatee.org, by calling toll free at 1-800-432-JOIN (5646), or by contacting:
Save the Manatee Club
500 N. Maitland Ave.,
Maitland, FL, 32751.
Dr. Tripp asks Florida boaters to help with manatee protection this Labor Day weekend by watching out for the meandering marine mammals on their travels. “Slow down if manatees are sighted, follow posted boat speed regulations at all times, and stay in deep water channels whenever possible.”
Those who see an injured, dead, tagged or orphaned manatee, or a manatee who is being harassed, are asked to call the FWC hotline number at 1-888-404-FWCC (3922) or #FWC or *FWC on cellular phones, or use VHF Channel 16 on marine radios. She is also recommending that recreational boaters carry up-to-date navigation charts aboard their vessels to avoid shallow areas where manatees feed and rest.
http://www.savethemanatee.org/news_pr_labor_day_10.html
For further information or to arrange an interview with one of the Club’s biologists, contact:
Janice Nearing
Director of Public Relations
Phone: (407) 539-0990
E-mail: jnearing@savethemanatee.org
Note: The Club's yellow boating banner is free to boaters & available upon request.
"PLEASE SLOW - MANATEES BELOW" (banner)The last of the big summer holidays is almost here. An upswing in boating traffic is... more
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NEW ORLEANS — An offshore oil rig exploded in the Gulf of Mexico on Thursday morning, injuring one worker, the United States Coast Guard said.
The rig was located just west of where another rig leased by BP blew up and sank this spring, killing 11 people and touching off an environmental calamity.
All 13 members of the work crew on board on Thursday were accounted for, the Coast Guard said.
News reports said there was smoke rising from the platform, but it was unclear whether the rig was actively burning or in danger of foundering, or whether the explosion had set off any underground oil leaks.
Several helicopters, airplanes and boats were speeding to the scene of the explosion, south of Vermillion Bay in Louisiana.
Citing the Department of Homeland Security, the Associated Press reported that the rig was owned by the Texas-based Mariner Energy, and was not actively producing oil and gas.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/03/us/03rig.html
The Environmental Impact of Oil Spills
http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2010/07/17/science/earth/20100718-ENVIRO.html?ref=gulf_of_mexico_2010
Related Article: After Oil Spills, Hidden Damage Can Last for Years
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/18/science/earth/18enviro.htmlNEW ORLEANS — An offshore oil rig exploded in the Gulf of Mexico on Thursday... more
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From: http://dcbureau.org/20100810782/Natural-Resources-News-Service/qyoure-killing-meq-how-whales-and-dolphins-sacrifice-for-national-security.html
The largest international naval exercise in the world off the waters of Hawaii known as the 2010 Rim of the Pacific or RIMPAC exercise involved 14 nations including South Korea, Thailand, Colombia, Peru and Malaysia with a total of 32 ships, five submarines, more than 170 aircraft and 20,000 personnel.
One of the primary threats the month-long series of exercises were designed to address comes from quiet diesel-engine submarines, which national security experts say North Korea, Iran and other potential adversarial nations possess. The best way to detect something as quiet as a submarine running nearly entirely on battery power – as opposed to a noisy nuclear sub – is with high-intensity active sonar, which sends out pulses of mid-frequency sound as loud as a rocket blast underwater.
The general consensus, with which courts over the past decade have largely agreed, says high-intensity mid-frequency sonar can kill whales and dolphins. The National Marine Fisheries Services – part of the National Oceanic and Atmosphere Administration – explicitly allows Navy sonar tests and training exercises to result in the deaths of specific numbers of whales and dolphins as long as they have a negligible impact to the population.
It’s under an exception to the Marine Mammal Protection Act of 1972 that NOAA authorized the Navy this year in the waters around Hawaii to inadvertently harass thousands of marine mammals and kill up to 20 whales and dolphins among 10 different species during the course of its sonar exercises, including RIMPAC. (See attached)
Similar authorizations exist for training grounds bordering the entire west, east and gulf coasts of America including the Mariana Islands and Alaska, several of which the Navy is in the process of expanding.From:... more
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Loulan Pitre Sr. was born on the Gulf Coast in 1921, the son of an oysterman. Nearly all his life, he worked on the water, abiding by the widely shared faith that the resources of the Gulf of Mexico were limitless.
As a young Marine staff sergeant, back home after fighting in the South Pacific, he stood on barges in the gulf and watched as surplus mines, bombs and ammunition were pushed over the side.
He helped build the gulf’s very first offshore oil drilling platforms in the late 1940s, installing bolts on perilously high perches over the water. He worked on a shrimp boat, and later as the captain of a service boat for drilling platforms.
The gulf has changed, Mr. Pitre said: “I think it’s too far gone to salvage.”
The BP oil spill has sent millions of barrels gushing into the Gulf of Mexico, focusing international attention on America’s third coast and prompting questions about whether it will ever fully recover from the spill.
Now that the oil on the surface appears to be dissipating, the notion of a recovery from the spill, repeated by politicians, strikes some here as short-sighted. The gulf had been suffering for decades before the explosion of the Deepwater Horizon rig on April 20.
“There’s a tremendous amount of outrage with the oil spill, and rightfully so,” said Felicia Coleman, director of Florida State University’s Coastal and Marine Laboratory. “But where’s the outrage at the thousands and millions of little cuts we’ve made on a daily basis?”
The gulf is one of the most diverse ecosystems in the hemisphere, a stopping point for migratory birds from South America to the Arctic, home to abundant wildlife and natural resources.
But like no other American body of water, the gulf bears the environmental consequences of the country’s economic pursuits and appetites, including oil and corn.
There are around 4,000 offshore oil and gas platforms and tens of thousands of miles of pipeline in the central and western Gulf of Mexico, where 90 percent of the country’s offshore drilling takes place.
At least half a million barrels of oil and drilling fluids had been spilled offshore before the gusher that began after the April 20 explosion, according to government records.
Much more than that has been spilled from pipelines, vessel traffic and wells in state waters — including hundreds of spills in Louisiana alone — records show, some of it since April 20.
Runoff and waste from cornfields, sewage plants, golf courses and oil-stained parking lots drain into the Mississippi River from vast swaths of the United States, and then flow down to the gulf, creating a zone of lifeless water the size of Lake Ontario just off the coast of Louisiana.
The gulf’s floor is littered with bombs, chemical weapons and other ordnance dumped in the middle of last century, even in areas busy with drilling, and miles outside of designated dumping zones, according to experts who work on deepwater hazard surveys.
The likelihood of an accident is low, experts said, but they added that federal hazard mitigation requirements are not strong enough to guarantee the safety of drillers working in the gulf.
Even the coast itself — overdeveloped, strip-mined and battered by storms — is falling apart. The wildlife-rich coastal wetlands of Louisiana, sliced up and drastically engineered for oil and gas exploration, shipping and flood control, have lost an area larger than Delaware since 1930.
“This has been the nation’s sacrifice zone, and has been for 50-plus years,” said Aaron Viles, campaign director for the Gulf Restoration Network, a nonprofit group. “What we’re seeing right now with BP’s crude is just a very photogenic representation of that.”
History of Neglect
All along the coast, people speak of a lack of regulatory commitment and investment in scientific research on the gulf by state and federal lawmakers.
They note, for example, that over the last decade, the Environmental Protection Agency’s financing for the Chesapeake Bay Program, a regional and federal partnership, was nearly five times the amount for a similar Gulf of Mexico program, and a Great Lakes program was given more than four times as much.
“The funding had never been equivalent to other great water bodies,” said Lisa Jackson, the administrator for the Environmental Protection Agency. “That’s absolutely true. But it’s also absolutely true that this administration changed that long before the spill.”
While the Gulf of Mexico program financing remains at roughly the same levels, Ms. Jackson pointed to other programs to address gulf health that have been created and received tens of millions of dollars in the last two years.
On July 19, the Obama administration announced the recommendations of the Interagency Ocean Policy Task Force, a committee created in 2009 to coordinate governance over the country’s major bodies of water.
The White House also announced the creation of a gulf restoration road map before the spill to address the long-term problems on the Louisiana and Mississippi coasts.
Multiple Interactive Gulf of Mexico maps - http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2010/04/28/us/20100428-spill-map.html?ref=us
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/30/us/30gulf.html?_r=1Loulan Pitre Sr. was born on the Gulf Coast in 1921, the son of an oysterman. Nearly... more
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The truth about your beauty products...
If you've been hanging out on the site lately, you know we've been doing a lot of writing about cosmetics, personal-care products, sunscreen, and the like in our No More Dirty Looks series. Based on a book I wrote with my friend Alexandra Spunt, the series is our attempt to share what we've learned about the health and environmental impacts of all the goop we put on ourselves every day.
Anyway, the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics has been working tirelessly to change legislation since 2004, and today they have some huge news. First, they announced the introduction of new legislation by Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-IL), and second, they have launched this amazing new video with the Story of Stuff Project. It's eight minutes long, and you should watch all eight of them.
GOOD is a collaboration of individuals, businesses, and nonprofits pushing the world forward. Since 2006 we've been making a magazine, videos, and events for people who give a damn.
http://www.sustainlane.com/reviews/the-story-of-cosmetics/1H1I82QIWZBC9O3JUQOS1CNJ78PYThe truth about your beauty products...
If you've been hanging out on the site... more
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PHOTO: Kevin Reed’s dad taught him to swim at Pensacola Beach. It’s here that he taught his own son. “This will never be the same,” he says.
PENSACOLA BEACH, FLORIDA
The tide came in Tuesday night, under a moon almost full, and when the sun came up and the water retreated there it was: a broken band of oil about 5 feet wide and 8 miles long.
It looked like tobacco spit and smelled foreign, and it pooled in yesterday's footprints as far as you could see. State officials called it the worst show of crude on shore from the gusher 120 miles away.
As word spread, the people of Pensacola Beach walked to the black band to take a look, to take photographs, to be sure this wasn't some apocalyptic dream. They poured over the dunes all day, on pilgrimages to bear witness.
Here came Courtney Laczko, 16, who has been coming to the beach almost every morning since school let out because she knew the days were numbered
"It's actually really here," she kept saying.
She thought about the dolphins and how she used to pretend they were a happy little family. She thought about the time her mom wasn't working and she took the kids to the beach every day.
"It was always the prettiest beach around here. You can't say that anymore."
Here came Kathy Allen, 15, a native. She thought about that night in November, after the homecoming dance, when a boy named Dakota leaned in and kissed her lips, her first ever, and how the stars seemed so bright and sparkly.
Here came Stef Ackerman, 22, who learned to fish here and surf here. He walked to the oil and squatted and ran his finger up under his sunglasses. He thought about all those journeys to the beach with his dad to watch the Blue Angels zing down the shoreline and about that fishing trip when his older brother came home from war. How they talked and fished all day.
This? He doesn't know how to process it.
"I don't know what to do," he said. "I don't know if anybody knows what to do."
Four buses of cleanup men showed up. Bulldozers rolled onto the white sand. Men with shovels scooped black onto plastic sheets and fed them to the dozers.
Gov. Charlie Crist came, too, with his people, to the same beach where a week ago he walked and talked with President Barack Obama. He was expecting scattered tar balls, not this.
"It's pretty ugly," he said.
"It's worse than I expected," said Mike Sole, secretary of Florida's Department of Environmental Protection.
"What do we do now?" asked Morgan White, 15, who has a scar on her hip from skimboarding on this water. "This is what we do. We wake up and we come here."
Up the road, a sign flashed: OIL ON BEACH. The bulldozers beeped. News crews gathered.
If the beach is church, Wednesday felt like a funeral.
Kevin Reed, 36, who learned to swim here and taught his own son, right here, how to swim, walked to the oil and cried.
"I can't help it," he said. "This just kills me. It feels like somebody just ripped my heart out. I knew it was going to be bad. I didn't know it was going to be like this."
He looked back at the band. He noticed there were no birds.
"It's damn near biblical."
http://www.tampabay.com/news/environment/article1104604.ecePHOTO: Kevin Reed’s dad taught him to swim at Pensacola Beach. It’s here... more
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News release from the official Deepwater Horizon Incident Joint Information Center website - http://www.deepwaterhorizonresponse.com/
NEW ORLEANS -- This morning at approximately 8:45 a.m. CDT, a discharge of liquids was observed from a diverter valve on the drill ship Discoverer Enterprise,which is on station at the MC252 well-site.
As a precautionary measure,the lower marine riser package (LMRP) containment cap system, attached to the Discover Enterprise, has been moved off the Deepwater Horizon's failed blow-out preventer to ensure the safety of operations and allow the unexpected release of liquids to be analyzed.
Capture of oil and gas through the LMRP cap is therefore temporarily suspended until such time that the cap can be re-installed. Capture of oil and gas through the BOP's choke line to the Q4000 vessel on the surface continues.
http://www.deepwaterhorizonresponse.com/go/doc/2931/691031News release from the official Deepwater Horizon Incident Joint Information Center... more
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In less than a week, the rescue center at Fort Jackson has received more than five times as many oiled birds as it received in the previous six weeks since the Gulf of Mexico oil spill began.
A report Wednesday from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service shows that the Louisiana center has reported 415 birds since the BP PLC well blew wild in April. Sixty-six of those had been reported by last Thursday. The number since then is 349, with 61 of them added since Tuesday.
In addition, 14 birds have been brought to the Alabama center, 12 in Florida and one in Mississippi.
Since the start of the spill, bird rescue crews have found 633 dead birds -- about one in six VISIBLY oiled.
A total of 32 sea turtles have been rescued, 28 of them in the Gulf of Mexico. http://www.nola.com/news/gulf-oil-spill/index.ssf/2010/06/oiled_birds_arriving_at_rescue.html
NOTE: Thses numbers do not include the number of sea turtles (dolphins, seahorses or other wildlife) found dead due to the oil spill or toxic dispersant.In less than a week, the rescue center at Fort Jackson has received more than five... more
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OF COURSE THERE ARE PLUMES... WHY WOULD BY EVEN ATTEMPT TO LIE ABOUT IT?
WHAT ABOUT ALL OF THE DEADLY SLUDGE THAT HAS SUNK TO THE BOTTOM OF THE SEAFLOOR?
THE EPA APPROVED USE OF THE TOXIC CHEMICAL DISPERSANT MAKES THIS DISASTER EVEN MORE HORRIFIC. WHEN COREXIT MIXES WITH THE OIL AND WATER, IT EVENTUALLY IT BECOMES INVISIBLE TO THE NAKED EYE, MAKING IT IMPOSSIBLE TO CLEAN UP.
http://www.cnn.com/2010/US/06/08/gulf.oil.spill/index.html?hpt=T2OF COURSE THERE ARE PLUMES... WHY WOULD BY EVEN ATTEMPT TO LIE ABOUT IT?
WHAT ABOUT... more
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By Holly Case, Natural Food Network Newsletter Editor
Every now and then the media reports a story that intends to "prove" that organic foods are no better than their conventional counterparts. However, there are flaws that can usually be found with each such story.
What is also not disclosed is the name of the company behind the research: MONSANTO.
The latest example is a story by researchers with the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Health in the UK that shows no health advantages of organic foods.
The study in question was actually a literature review of 162 articles, looking for any studies that directly compared organic foods to conventional. The results were very small, with only 12 articles found that directly compared the two.
What the researchers found is that few studies have been done to date that evaluate the health benefits of organics, and what studies exist mostly look at antioxidant effects.
The authors of this literature review admit that not only is there a limited number of published data on the topic, their own research only looks at relatively short-term effects of organics rather than a long-range view of the effects of pesticides.
The article's source is listed as "The American Society for Nutrition." This represents a conflict of interest because MONSANTO is a "sustaining member" of this group.
There is not anything significant or new in this review of the literature and committed organic shoppers should not be swayed by this study.
http://www.naturalfoodnet.com/ME2/Audiences/dirmod.asp?sid=By Holly Case, Natural Food Network Newsletter Editor
Every now and then the... more
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A top BP executive insisted today that the dispersant that the Environmental Protection Agency has ordered it to stop using to control the gulf oil spill was approved by the EPA, is working well and is the best dispersant available.
"The EPA had to approve and the Unified Command and the Coast Guard had to approve the use of that product. It is approved and in fact we've been using it and it has been effective," BP chief operating officer Doug Suttles told "Good Morning America" today. "It's making a difference in this fight to try and keep this stuff from coming to shore."
Though Suttles said BP will continue to search for a better alternative, he said "right now we cannot identify another product that is available that's better than [dispersant] Corexit." His statement brings into question whether BP will comply with the EPA's deadlines for replacing Corexit.
In a statement Thursday, the EPA gave BP 24 hours to find a "less toxic" http://yosemite.epa.gov/opa/admpress.nsf/d0cf6618525a9efb85257359003fb69d/0897f55bc6d9a3ba852577290067f67f!OpenDocument ispersant and 72 hours to start using it. For weeks, BP assured the government that using Corexit was safe, with officials describing them like soap suds. But on Thursday others painted a far more sinister picture.
"Any living organism that contacts this stuff, particularly the mixture of dispersant and oil, is at significant risk of acute mortality," said marine biologist Rick Steiner.
In fact, EPA testing released Thursday indicates that where the dispersant had been used, 25 percent of all organisms living at 500 feet below the surface died.
"I haven't seen any evidence to show that," Suttles said today. "We're doing extensive monitoring as is NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) and the EPA. What we're trying to do is make sure this oil doesn't meet the shoreline... We do have some trade-offs here."
BP has already dumped 700,000 gallons of the dispersant into the sea, and prior to the EPA's announcement, the company defended its use of Corexit after questions were raised about a corporate connection between BP and Nalco, the maker of the product.
In a statement to ABC News Thursday, BP called the chemical "one of the most well-studied dispersant" and said it chose Corexit in part because it could "get a sufficient supply to meet our needs on short notice."
http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/oil-spill-bp-official-epa-approved-toxic-dispersant/story?id=10708060A top BP executive insisted today that the dispersant that the Environmental... more
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Finally ... some good news! Today, Nestle, the world's biggest food and drinks company, announced that it will cease using products that drive the tropical rainforest destruction.
This is great news for our environment in what has otherwise been a bleak few weeks as
President Obama continues to dig in (or drill in) and stand firm behind his plans to increase offshore drilling...despite the BP Deepwater oil disaster AND continues to work to LIFT THE BAN on COMMERCIAL WHALING.
In Indonesia, palm oil and pulp plantations are both driving deforestation and pushing orangutans to the brink of extinction. After being caught red-handed, Nestle has committed to identify and exclude companies from its supply chain that own or manage "high-risk plantations or farms linked to deforestation."
This exclusion would apply to companies such as Sinar Mas, Indonesia's most notorious palm-oil and pulp-and-paper supplier, if it fails to meet the criteria set out in the policy.
It also has implications for palm oil traders, such as Cargill, which continue to buy from Sinar Mas. http://www.organicconsumers.org/articles/article_20860.cfm
http://www.greenpeace.org/usa/press-center/reports4/caught-red-handed-how-nestleFinally ... some good news! Today, Nestle, the world's biggest food and drinks... more
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A joint report released today by the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) and the UN Environment Program (UNEP) finds that our natural support systems are on the verge of collapsing unless radical changes are made to preserve the world's biodiversity. Executive Secretary of the Convention on Biological Diversity, Ahmed Djoghlaf, called the bleak report "a wake-up call for humanity."
The report is the third edition of the Global Biodiversity Outlook (GBO-3). Employing scientific assessments and 110 government reports, the report confirms that governments around the world have failed in their 2002 pledge to reduce biodiversity loss by this year. Instead, the five biggest causes behind biodiversity loss—habitat destruction, over-exploitation of resources, pollution, invasive species, and climate change—have either worsened or stayed the same.
"We need a new vision for biological diversity for a healthy planet and a sustainable future for humankind," Secretary-General of the UN, Ban Ki-moon, said.
In addition the report warns that several ecosystems are heading toward tipping points from which they may never recover. Due to a combination of climate change, deforestation, and fires, the Amazon rainforest may change irrevocably; while coral reefs are being pounded by overfishing, warmer waters, and ocean acidification; finally freshwater ecosystems like lakes and rivers are losing biodiversity and abundance due to nutrient runoff.
"Business as usual is no longer an option if we are to avoid irreversible damage to the life-support systems of our planet," Djoghlaf said.
Officials are increasingly comparing the current biodiversity crisis to the global economic meltdown of 2008-2009, stating that while governments moved quickly to tackle the economic crisis they have responded languidly to the many threats to the world's environmental systems. These systems underpin the human economy by providing food, clean water, pollination, pest control, buffers from natural disasters, medicine, and carbon sequestration to name a few of their natural goods, known to researchers as 'ecosystem services'.
"For a fraction of the money summoned up instantly to avoid economic meltdown, we can avoid a much more serious and fundamental breakdown in the Earth’s life support systems," write the report's authors.
Yet, Achim Steiner, the Executive Director of the UNEP, says that "many economies remain blind to the huge value of the diversity of animals, plants and other life forms and their role in healthy and functioning ecosystems from forests and freshwaters to soils, oceans and even the atmosphere."
* see comments below for more
http://news.mongabay.com/2010/0510-hance_wake_up.htmlA joint report released today by the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) and the... more
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The US Environmental PROTECTION Agency has approved the use of the toxic chemical dispersant for CONTINUOUS use by BP.
A BP official is telling The Associated Press that the company has received federal approval to continuously spray chemicals underwater on the massive oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico.
BP PLC spokesman Mark Proegler said the company received Environmental Protection Agency approval and began pumping dispersant on the site starting at 4:30 a.m. Monday. The company plans to continue spraying and taking tests.
The dispersant has never been tried at such depths before this spill and officials have been 'worried' about the effect on the environment.
http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=6469610n
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/05/10/national/main6470974.shtmlThe US Environmental PROTECTION Agency has approved the use of the toxic chemical... more
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Winds average 18 mph across the great plains of South Dakota and one Indian tribe has been a pioneer in harvesting this natural resource. The Rosebud Sioux Tribe was the first tribe to own and operate a commercial scale wind turbine in 2003. Located in south-central South Dakota on the Nebraska border they now are in development for two large-scale wind farms - a 30 megawatt and 190 megawatt.
Indian reservations have high rates of unemployment, homelessness and poverty. Clean energy projects will help rebuild impoverished economies, create jobs and better ways of life for America’s First Nations.
Recent reports and surveys estimate the potential for renewable energy projects on Indian Tribal lands would meet the energy needs of one quarter of the entire U.S.Winds average 18 mph across the great plains of South Dakota and one Indian tribe has... more
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