June 27, 2016: Utah Tar Sands Resistance is hopeful about the real impact of the recent announcement by US Oil Sands of the scale down of their plans for tar sands strip mining at PR Springs Utah. All beings will continue to gain from the existence of this remote ecosystem and the preservation of this historic source of spring water. From: www.tarsandsresist.org
Consider joining a tar-sands protest vigil in June.
Carbon bubbles arrive.
GR: Let’s hope that former coal and oil cheerleaders, investors, and employees can make a smooth transition to wind and solar.
I admit it. I felt sorry for those poor, duped oil, gas and coal company investors back during the early part of 2015. Many of these guys, fed a constant stream of bad information from the financial news sources, at the time were still enraptured by the notion that fossil fuel stocks were then cheap and that the situation was nothing more than some kind of golden buying opportunity.
Now, six months later, 41 US oil and gas companies have gone bankrupt, powerful major oil companies like Exxon and BP are in the range of 20-40 percent losses in stock price year-on-year, most gas companies have seen even more severe losses, and most coal companies have been reduced to junk stock status (see Arch Coal declares bankruptcy). TransCanada, the parent company of the canceled Keystone XL Pipeline, is challenging United States sovereignty with its 15 billion dollar…
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Dec. 12 demonstration at the SoCalGas Porter Ranch site (Alan Weiner, 350.org)
GR: Energy industry lies might be the most reprehensible in their consequences for the global environment and all its species. However, they resemble the lies told by the chemical industry about pesticides, the lies told by the financial institutions about economic affairs, the lies told by the arms industry about the need for weapons and military support in other countries, the lies told by the insurance industry in its efforts to collect premiums but not fulfill obligations, and the lies of our elected representatives who protect the corporations that fund their power and lifestyles. The cumulative effect of the lies by our major corporations (e.g., VW) is that people are losing respect for the industries they support through their labor and consumption. I don’t think “Made in America” means what it did when I was a beginning consumer. Here are a few stories on divesting as a means to limit the power of our untrustworthy industries (https://garryrogers.com/?s=divest&submit=Search).
It’s the gas leak that just won’t end. One whose impacts have now become so wide-ranging that it has prompted California governor Brown to issue a declaration of emergency. But, even with vast state resources now in place to help deal with this disaster, the impacts are likely to be long-lasting and far-reaching. Serious impacts both to public health and to California’s contribution to global atmospheric, oceanic, and glacial warming.
A Dangerous Industry With Long-Lasting Impacts
(The Environmental Defense Fund issued this aerial infrared footage of a massive gas leak at Porter Ranch, California. In total, more than 250 million pounds of the gas has already leaked from the disaster site — increasing California’s greenhouse gas emissions by more than 25 percent, sickening hundreds of local residents, and forcing the evacuation of more than 2,000 homes. Video Source: The Environmental Defense Fund.)
Poking holes in the Earth or…
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GR: Hard evidence shows that our major oil companies knew the damage they were doing and it shows that they spent money to hide the evidence. Now if we can prove damages, we can prosecute the oil companies for reparations. Winning will force energy producers to cut CO2 emissions and to compensate their victims.
The big question is whether the oil businesses have enough money to subvert national legal systems and prevent prosecution of the corporations and their directors. Will this be like the bank bailouts where we gave the criminals financial rewards?
Peter Sinclair of Climate Denial Crocks submitted the following story. The video and the full story linked to Sinclair’s item are well worth watching.
What Exxon Knew, Texaco Knew, Too
“And so did Chevron, Amoco, Phillips, Shell, Sunoco and Sohio. Newest installment in the incredible and tragic saga of what the oil industry knew about climate change, and when they knew it – the most under-reported story of 2015.
“A snip here, but go to the link for the whole piece. And if you haven’t yet, check the video above, and go to Inside Climate News to follow up on the whole story.”
An InsideClimate News investigative series has shown that Exxon launched its own cutting-edge CO2 sampling program in 1978 in order to understand a phenomenon it suspected could harm its business. About a decade later, Exxon spearheaded campaigns to cast doubt on climate science and stall regulation of greenhouse gases. The previously unpublished papers about the climate task force indicate that API, (American Petroleum Institute) the industry’s most powerful lobbying group, followed a similar arc to Exxon’s in confronting the threat of climate change.
Just as Exxon began tracking climate science in the late 1970s, when only small groups of scientists in academia and the government were engaged in the research, other oil companies did the same, the documents show.”
Climate-change demonstrations show our leaders that we want them to take steps to stop global warming. We must also ask our leaders to change the human activities that are causing climate change.
Even if we stopped burning fossil fuels today, activities causing climate change would continue. Farming, deforestation, industrial fishing, desertification, construction, and growth of the human population would continue to waste the Earth and release CO2 and other greenhouse gases.
“It appears that the only difference between the behavior of Exxon and the tobacco industry is that cigarette companies didn’t publish their research linking smoking and adverse health effects. Exxon’s scientists have published research in scientific journals on the human causes and dangers of global warming. However, in both cases, the industries funded an extensive multi-pronged campaign to misinform the public about the expert scientific consensus and the dangers associated with their products.
“It remains to be seen whether the investigations into the actions of Exxon and the rest of the fossil fuel industry will yield the same results as the investigations into the tobacco industry racketeering.” From: www.theguardian.com
Proposed Loophole Could Cause Millions of Tons of Carbon Pollution, undermine Obama Administration Climate Goals, and Degrade Wildlife Habitat
DENVER— National and local conservation groups today condemned a decision by the U.S. Forest Service to continue pressing to open national forest roadless areas in Colorado to coal mining.
Bulldozer
Photo of bulldozer near Sunset Roadless Area courtesy U.S. Forest Service. Photos are available for media use.
In a notice filed today, the Forest Service announced it would move forward by issuing a draft environmental impact statement on the proposal to pave the way for mining. The proposal would reopen a loophole in the “roadless rule” for national forests in Colorado to enable Arch Coal — the nation’s second largest coal company — to scrape roads and well pads on nearly 20,000 acres of otherwise-protected, publicly owned national forest and wildlife habitat in Colorado’s North Fork Valley.
The loophole was thrown out by the U.S. District Court of Colorado last year because the Forest Service had failed to consider the climate change impacts of mining as much as 350 million tons of coal in the national forest. (Today’s notice reduces the estimated coal available to 173 million tons.) The Forest Service admits that reopening the loophole could result in hundreds of millions of tons of additional carbon pollution from mining and burning the coal. That carbon pollution could cost the global economy and environment billions of dollars, according to today’s notice. From: www.biologicaldiversity.org
GR: Apparently, the U. S. Forest Service isn’t satisfied with just clear-cutting the forests; it wants to widen its attack with more roads and more global warming CO2 emissions. Way-to-go Forest Service!
Analysts say the DRC, one of the world’s poorest countries, has more credible plans to cut greenhouse gas emissions from forestry than several more developed states.
LONDON, 16 November, 2015 – An African country whose people are among the poorest on Earth has won plaudits from US scientists for its clear and detailed plans to reduce climate-warming emissions from its forests and farms.
The strategy of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) – rated next to bottom of the 187 countries on the UN’s Human Development Index in 2013 – is described as “robust” by the US-based Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS).
They also rate it as better than those produced by three other more prosperous countries struggling to combat deforestation − Brazil, India and Indonesia. From: climatenewsnetwork.net
GR: The targets aren’t that far in the future. Meeting them will put pressure on the standard growth model that is followed by the great majority of the world’s businesses. It is essential that energy and resource commodity corporations move toward zero-growth. Eventually, they will have to shrink. Voluntary downsizing now, rather than later when conditions force it to happen, would help preserve some of the planet’s ecosystems.
“The G20 countries spend almost four times as much to prop up fossil fuel production as they do to subsidize renewable energy, calling into question their commitment to halting climate change, a think tank said.
“The G20 spent an average $78 billion on national subsidies delivered through direct spending and tax breaks in 2013 and 2014, according to a report from the Overseas Development Institute (ODI).
“View of smokestacks, about 200m (656 feet) high, at a thermal power plant in Inchon, west of Seoul, Feb. 1, 2007. Credit: Reuters
“A further $286 billion was invested in fossil fuel production by G20 state-owned enterprises. Related public finance was estimated to average a further $88 billion a year.” From: www.climatecentral.org
GR: The energy industry control of government policy and spending will make enforcement of any emissions pledges difficult to enforce. The writing is on the wall, however, and some investors will switch to renewable energy technology and production. The great energy battle to come will be between the distributed individual power producers and government policies controlled by centralized producers. The need to limit corporate power has never been greater.
GarryRogers Nature Conservation 