It’s Getting Hot In Here

Cross-posted from Yes! Magazine

I’ve had a hard time wrenching my eyes away from the Gulf since the Deepwater Horizon began spewing poison just over 100 days ago. Google Maps tells me that Grand Isle, Louisiana is 2,316 miles away from my office here in Oakland, CA and yet it feels like that oil is washing right up on my doorstep.

What makes the devastation in the Gulf feel so personal?

For me, it’s the stories of families that have lost everything, shrimpers and fisherman whose livelihoods may never recover. It’s the photos of oil-drenched pelicans, the same birds I remember seeing down in Florida as a kid. It’s watching our political system unable to muster the proper response to the crisis: a full out clean energy mobilization that could finally break our addiction to fossil fuels.

I’ve wanted to know what makes the Gulf disaster tear up our hearts because there are other environmental fights out there that need to feel just as personal.

For the last two months, I’ve been emailing and Skype-ing with Cynthia Ong, one of the leaders of Green SURF, a coalition of organizations in the Malaysian state of Sabah on the island of Borneo. Cynthia and her allies are working to stop a coal fired power plant that could have a devastating effect on the environment and community of the island.

The people of Borneo need the support of the international community to stop the plant. With most of the paperwork already approved and construction ready to begin this August, the Prime Minister of Malaysia, Najib Razak, is one of the few people left with enough power to still pull the plug.

Continue reading ‘Why the fight for the Gulf is also in Borneo’

As a region, the Pacific Northwest is known far and wide for a commitment to environmental responsibility and all things green.  The state of Washington has  many times been on the leading edge of the fight for the climate, implementing policies to encourage renewable energy, reduce carbon emissions, and generate hundreds of good green jobs.  Washington Governor Christine Gregoire has championed many important environmental policies that have served as a model for many other parts of the country. 

Yet there’s another side to Washington’s energy policy that isn’t often mentioned in conversations about the state’s clean energy future.  Washington is addicted to coal: and as in states across the US, concerned Washington citizens have had to struggle to reach the ear of decision-makers as they ask for the state’s TransAlta Coal Plant to be shut down by 2015.

Located in Centralia, Washington, the TransAlta Plant spews out nine million tons of carbon dioxide each and every year, along with 300 pounds of toxic mercury and compounds that contribute to haze, smog, and acid rain.  Yet the governor’s office and the Department of Ecology have been reluctant to crack down heavily on this giant polluter.  In fact the TransAlta Plant receives a $5 million per year tax break from the State of Washington, subsidizing the biggest carbon emitter in the state.  This month Washington residents of all ages in communities around the state have had the chance to speak out against the coal plant tax break at public hearings on the state’s budget-making process.  Continue reading ‘Washingtonians of All Ages Speak Out Against TransAlta Coal Plant Tax Break’

By 1Sky blogger Nick Santos.

By now, most of you have probably heard the double dose of bad news coming out of the Senate (It seems like political bad news too frequently comes from there). Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) has indefinitely delayed action on a climate bill and is still talking of scheduling floor time for Senator Rockefeller’s (D-WV) reprise of Lisa Murkowski’s (R-AK) Dirty Air Act.

There’s a lot of implications to both of those actions, and I’m now beyond frustrated with the Senate, so let’s step through why this extra delay from the Senate is absolutely dangerous for public health and welfare.

Continue reading ‘They’re coming for the Clean Air Act — again’

Part of a three part series on the Keystone XL Pipeline and Nebraska

Hopefully by now you’ve heard of the Keystone XL Pipeline (also known as the Keystone Gulf Coast Expansion), a tar sands pipeline proposed by Canadian company TransCanada that would bring Canadian tar sands oil from Alberta through Saskatchewan before entering Montana, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas and Oklahoma before ending up at its final destinations in Port Arthur and Houston, Texas.

While there are many non-profits, environmental and tribal groups currently fighting this pipeline, this first post of a three part series will focus on the largest issue threatening Nebraska, my home state. This is not to skirt over the horrible effects (dirty extraction, threats to tribal lands/water, a furthered dependence on fossil fuels and insanely large contributions to global climate change) that the pipeline will have on the other impacted areas in Canada and the United States, but Nebraska has a lot to lose from this pipeline being installed, and a lot to gain from fighting it.  So, lets jump in.

Often in fights for environmental and climate justice, the realms of economy and environment are separated and exclusive. However, in Nebraska, OUR ENVIRONMENT IS OUR ECONOMY. Nebraska is an agricultural state first and foremost. Our economy is not as diverse as states like California because the large majority of our state is agricultural land and regardless of some of the potentially negative aspects of our agricultural economy (mono-cropping, GMO crops etc), this is how we exist. Without a pristine natural environment, our crops can’t grow…and what would a world without the famous Nebraska sweet corn be like?

And the Cornhusker state’s agro-economy can’t survive without water.

Continue reading ‘It’s Hard to Husk Corn with Oil in the Soil’

Written by Amy Allen, student leader at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Students at the University of Illinois demanded an end to fossil fuel dependence at the Urbana Farmers’ Market on Saturday. They marched through the farmers’ market dressed as BP executives and oil-tainted fish and chanted about the importance of cleaning up the spill and transitioning to renewable energy.

The action came four days after the three-month anniversary of the start of the oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico and just two days after the Senate dropped the push for comprehensive climate change legislation. In light of this, the students also gathered over fifty signatures for a letter to Illinois Senator Dick Durbin demanding a comprehensive climate bill that imposes a cap on carbon emissions and asking him to stand with people not polluters. Senator Durbin, who has taken $9,000 this year from dirty energy corporations, has the opportunity to be a clean energy champion and make sure that climate change legislation is passed.

One woman from New Orleans approached the protesters to thank them for drawing attention to the issue, and numerous people chimed in chanting, “Oil, oil, on the shore, we don’t want you anymore!” and “Zero, one, two, three, get the oil off of me!” Check it out here.

Today, Arizona’s “show me your papers” anti-immigrant law SB1070 goes into effect. Across the country, July 29th has been declared a national day of action for Human Rights. Phoenix is ground zero for the collective outrage and protest that this bill has inspired. Here thousands of people are in the streets, many showing their courage by participating in civil disobedience across the city. In particular, downtown Phoenix has been transformed into a temporary “Human Rights Zone” with public promises from communities, businesses, and police to not comply with the law. It is an inspiring moment of solidarity and protest during a very dark time. Don’t let the partial-injunction fool you, most of this law has been allowed to continue, and we all know there are no half-measures when it comes to human rights. The hate and racism we are seeing in Arizona is only the latest, in a long series of escalating demonization of brown communities.

There is one unlikely group that has joined in protest against the anti-immigrant law: Environmentalists.

Continue reading ‘Environmentalists say: stop ALL of Arizona’s anti-immigrant law’

Company Responsible for Upper Big Branch Mine Disaster Actively Seeking to Silence Local Critics

Massey Energy has filed a politically motivated civil suit, also known as a Strategic Lawsuit against Public Participation (SLAPP) suit, against fourteen activists arrested last year in relation to a protest on a mountaintop removal mining site. (Photos.) The suit seems to be part of a larger strategy on the part of the mining company to intimidate and silence critics of the company’s safety record and controversial mining practices, particularly mountaintop removal coal mining.

Since the spring of 2008, Massey has filed at least four SLAPP suits against activists in West Virginia working to end mountaintop removal, none of which have yet been resolved. Commonly used to exhaust critics by burdening them with the cost of a massive legal defense, SLAPP suits have been banned by at least 26 states and one territory has protections against SLAPP suits. West Virginia does not have a ban, but its courts have adopted some protections against them.

Donate to the activists legal defense.

Continue reading ‘Massey’s Energy’s dirty strategy: ignore worker safety, persecute environmental activists’

Cross-posted from the Consequence Blog

Senate staffers expecting a typical morning commute were in for a surprise yesterday when they stepped out of Union Station and into a Big Oil Carnival.

While our literal Big Oil Carnival — complete with oil-themed midway games, Tony Hayward clowns, and an enthusiastic, stilt walking Uncle Sam — may have been out of the ordinary, it should have felt familiar for anyone who works on Capitol Hill.

The unfortunate reality is that every single day in the U.S. Senate is a carnival of Big Oil.

At every opportunity, a minority of Senators who are in the pocket of America’s largest polluters choose political games and obstruction over working together to solve America’s energy and climate crisis. As a result of their actions, the big polluters will continue to reap record profits at the expense of Americans.

Continue reading ‘CarnivOIL: Senate Plays Games, Big Oil Has Fun’

Yesterday, the tar sands industry met unexpected opposition.

The Salt Lake Tribune captured it best:

“A small Canadian company, in need of millions for its ambitious plans, also is facing stiff opposition from two Utah environmental groups that are trying to thwart its efforts to build one of the first commercial tar sand mines in the country.”

Photo credit: Sarah A. Miller/Deseret News

The Utah Division of Oil, Gas and Mining (DOGM), held a hearing on Canadian company Earth Energy Resources’ proposal to mine tar sands in Grand and Uintah Counties in Eastern Utah.  Well over half of the people attending the hearing came to support Peaceful Uprising and Living Rivers in opposing the mine.  John Baza, Director of the the Division noted that there were far more people than usually attend these hearings.

“This project has no real value or contribution to society,” said John Weisheit, Colorado Riverkeeper and Conservation Director of Living Rivers.  “The total amount of oil produced by this mine over seven years of operation would cover just 4 hours of American oil demand – a tiny blip on the radar. However, it will take millennia to restore the watershed they are about to destroy.” Continue reading ‘First Tar Sands Mine in US Faces Fierce Resistance in Utah’

Today, emergency response teams in the gulf are torn between two disasters: the ongoing cleanup of the BP disaster and a new oil geyser spewing into the Gulf near Jefferson Parish, LA. In Michigan, teams are still working to contain a spill from a ruptured pipe that threatens the Kalamazoo River. Horrifying images are emerging from China, where an emergency worker nearly drowned in oil while working to contain a spill that now covers over 150 square miles off the coast of China.

At the same time as these pipelines are spewing toxic oil into bodies of water around the country and around the globe, the State Department has pushed back its decision on permitting the Keystone XL project, a huge pipeline carrying extraordinarily toxic tar sands oil from Canada down to the gulf coast. On its proposed 1700-mile path, this pipe crosses over numerous bodies of water and productive farmland, and, were a spill to occur, could contaminate the largest aquifer in the Great Plains.

This week, the EPA released comments on the project’s draft environmental impact statement, compiled by the State Department. In these comments, the EPA highlights the document’s inadequate consideration of pipeline safety and spill response issues.

Continue reading ‘Second Spill in the Gulf: State Dept. Delays Tar Sands Decision’