It\’s Getting Hot In Here

Cross-posted from http://gulfdelegation.blogspot.com/ on behalf of Lauren Ressler

A bleary eyed crew of Seattle University students began the day in much the same way they would at home: with a fresh cup of coffee. We had arranged an early meeting with an official from the Department of Homeland Security who had been stationed at the Unified Command Center on the north shore of Lake Pontchartrain since late April, soon after the rig sank. He spent two hours briefing us on everything from the early response, to the BP Deepwater Horizon’s distress signals, to the current status of the remediation process.

Here are just a few of the key points we gleaned from this informative conversation:

• We began by first discussing the containment efforts by BP and the government. This complex topic included a breakdown of the timeline from the initial responses to the distress calls and the difficulties faced assessing the situation in the first days when sediment stirred up by the rig was impeding visibility of the remote operated vehicles (ROVs). The DHS official admitted that the boom, which was a focal point of the media throughout the 24/7 coverage, was primarily a cosmetic solution that did not have much success sequestering oil.
• Our conversation then turned to details of the “vessels of opportunity” hired by BP that employed local fishermen, shrimpers, and what would become anyone with a boat to collect oil with booms and skimmers. Any boat over thirty-five feet in length was compensated $2,500.00 a day plus fuel costs. A more modest compensation of $1,700.00 was given to boats under 35 feet in length plus fuel costs. This ad hoc contracting was important as it allowed fishermen to earn a wage while their primary means of income were inaccessible due to fishery closures and oil encroachment on habitat. However, as the fisheries reopened and these people began to return to work, they found that it was more and more difficult to turn a profit due in part to concerns of hydrocarbon contamination in the seafood. We will be speaking to members of the fishing and shrimping community later on in the week to examine what this process was like from their perspective.
• After this assessment of the ecological and social effects of the oil disaster, we began a deeper discussion of the national implications of both the spill and containment attempts on financial markets. As mentioned before, many national and local entities were involved and working at the Unified Command Center. However, a somewhat unexpected agency turned up proving to hold high stakes in the issue surrounding the eventual containment of the oil. Anticipating the potential for improper gains in stock trading, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) set up shop at the UCC to monitor all correspondence and communication within the command center to ensure there was no insider trading being leaked from within the central hub of command.

Obviously much more was covered in this lengthy conversation, but so as not to overwhelm audience, we will be discussing many other issues that arose during the conversation in posts to follow. This account was delivered candidly, and with first hand experiences of many aspects of the clean up efforts. While many have criticized the efforts of the Unified Command throughout its tenure, it is important to remember it was staffed by dedicated individuals working 16-20 hour days for over three months as these tragic events unfolded.

“We should not develop the unconventional fossil fuels. Those fuels – coal and tar sands – are so dirty and have such large regional negative consequences that it only makes sense to leave them in the ground,” says scientist Dr. James Hansen

“I would seriously consider a moratorium on all tailings ponds until impact is understood,” says “Avatar’ Hollywood Director James Cameron

On Tuesday, October 5th, the ERCB Hearing on Total’s proposed Joslyn North Mine project re-adjourned, this time at the Coast Edmonton Hotel East in Sherwood Park near Edmonton.

For one thing the location is largely inaccessible to the public, located in the heart of upgraders and right next door to Total’s office. Also, the Hearings were located in the ‘Empire Room’ of the Coast Hotel, so very befitting to a packed room full of lawyers and suit-and-ties representing the pro-mining cheerleaders of industry and government.

The first day in Sherwood Park began with Karin Buss from Ecojustice opening as legal counsel on behalf of OSEC (Oil Sands Environmental Coalition). Then it was time for OSEC’s presentation, beginning with Simon Dyer and Nathan Lemphers from the Pembina Institute. The third expert witness was famous scientist Dr. James Hansen. Continue reading ‘We Stand in TOTAL rejection of the Joslyn North Mine Proposal’

This past Friday, after overcoming my hesitancy to let Facebook infiltrate another aspect of my life, I gave in and watched “The Social Network.” I’m going to go ahead and say it but, this movie is definitely a defining moment for the millennial generation, our generation.  It is proof that we are about to be stepping into the primes of our existence in the U.S. and worldwide.  The fact that the largest grossing movie this past weekend is based on a dot com idea hatched five years ago in a Harvard dorm room, is proof that our ideas are starting to be the cultural norm.  If you are not ready for that realization, consider this a wake-up call.  Mark Zuckerberg (the creator of Facebook) is 26, making him 20 or 21 when he created Facebook.

Getting into the movie, I realized that there are some clear take home messages we can apply to the Green Economy movement.  The best part about the movie is the divide between the guys who create the Harvard Connection and Facebook creator, Mark Zuckerberg.  In the movie, shortly after Zuckerberg releases his pre-curser to Facebook, called ‘Facemash’ he is approached by two rich and privileged brothers, The Winklevoss twins.  These two have everything going for them, including captains and Olympians in training for the Harvard row team, hold a 3.9 average and belong to the most prestigious & exclusive social club at Harvard.  However, this is where the movie gets interesting and the story of Facebook becomes a defining moment for our generation.

Frank Chi recently touched on this in his Huffington Post piece,

“The Social Network is about social upheaval in the digital age. It’s about the ability of a new media class to deconstruct centuries worth of privilege and access that would’ve won in every other generation but now.

The Winkelvoss twins had an idea. But they didn’t have the intellectual capacity to execute that idea. They fell back on the assumption they can just buy off a “code monkey” with the trappings of the social structure that has defined paths to power since social structures existed.

In the new media age, the communications industry will be defined by people who not only have an idea, but the ability to execute them.

Mark Zuckerberg is a visionary and a coder. The Winklevoss twins? They’re just wannabe middle men. That’s what makes Zuckerberg so dangerous to the established media industry – an industry full of old middle men who don’t have a clue on how to execute the ideas they talk about. … It’s the ability to have an idea, say it, execute it immediately, and change the way we think – big or small.”

Continue reading ‘“The Social Network” and the Green Economy Revolution’

Written by Cameron Fenton and Maryam Adrangi

 As Enbridge holds its investors meeting in Toronto’s financial district, Environmental Justice Toronto sent them a message about their dirty investments in fossil fuels. Grassroots organizers sent up a banner attached to helium balloons that read “Enbridge Invests in Oil Addiction.” The banner was visible through the glass front of the building, outside of which activists held up another banner that read “Community Resistance is the Cure.”

A message held up with helium balloons, tells investors that their money is funding more than pipelines.

“When it comes to the tar sands, Enbridge is Canada’s pusher, pumping dirty oil through unreliable pipelines which are bound to spill,” said Taylor Flook, an organizer with Environmental Justice Toronto. “Averaging at 61 leaks per year for the past 10 years, Enbridge is celebrating over 600 leaks and breaks—and its investors need to know that. Enbridge pipelines are too risky.”  

 Enbridge is asking investors to support the expansion of tar sands oil pipelines across North America. Recent accidents and breaks, including one of the largest spills in US history when a pipeline leaked into the Kalamazoo River in Michigan this July, are showing that it is not a matter of “if” there is a spill, but “when” there is a spill.  

 Enbridge wants to expand its pipelines to send tar sands oil across the continent through projects like the Northern Gateway Pipeline. The pipeline stretches from the Tar Sands in Northern Alberta to Kitimat, B.C., polluting water and food sources and causing cancers and disease in local communities.  The pipeline has been rejected by communities all along its route, including the Carriere Sekani Tribal Council and now the B.C. Union of Municipalities who voted to oppose the project last week.

 Resistance to the expansion of the Enbridge and other tar sands pipelines is being lead by many First Nations communities along with climate justice activists. “Tar sands projects are one of the largest environmental injustices on earth and is Canada’s largest source of global warming pollution,” says Flook. “If Canada wants to uphold human rights and be a leader at the international stage, projects such as Enbridge pipelines cannot go through.”

Hundreds of people are mobilizing across Canada to stop the Gateway and other pipeline projects with demonstrations in Vancouver, Whistler, Kitimat, and Sarnia taking place over the past two weeks.

St. Louis has long been corporate ground zero for dirty energy. Over the past two years, these corporations have become increasingly close with Washington University: Arch Coal, Peabody Energy, and the dirty energy utility Ameren UE helped found the Consortium for C!#@n Coal Utilization, the CEOs of Arch Coal and Peabody were appointed to WashU’s Board of Trustees, and WashU’s chancellor was the vice chair of a National Research Council report on America’s energy future that advocated for the continued use of coal.

This weekend, Arch, Peabody and Ameren are sponsoring the Symposium on the Global Energy Future, an international event bringing scientists from around the world to St. Louis. While the Symposium has a laudable goal of creating a cooperative vision for our global energy future, the Symposium has been corrupted by corporate greed and a desire for political expediency. The Symposium espouses a belief that true change to our energy system is impossible, and gives coal a prominent place in the world’s energy future.

Yesterday, the CEO of Peabody Energy, Greg Boyce, gave a keynote speech on “The Future of Fossil Fuels.” Before the speech, WashU student Matt Blum summed up students’ frustrations: “Greg Boyce places his company’s coal-dependent profits above our health and the future of our planet. We will take a stand as he speaks at this supposedly-scientific conference. My generation knows coal is over.”

So students took a stand, literally. During Boyce’s speech, about thirty people stood at intervals, revealed yellow Beyond Coal shirts and held signs debunking Boyce’s lies. CEO Boyce did not acknowledge the students, but the 300 international attendees sure did, murmuring and taking pictures of the protesting students. Through discussion questions, students then pressed Boyce on climate change and human impact of coal. They triumphantly exited the talk and directed symposium attendees to view the Beehive Design Collective’s “True Cost of Coal” banner, which was displayed outside the building. Meanwhile, students at the Southeast Student Renewable Energy Conference in Georgia made a video in solidarity with students at WashU. Continue reading ‘WashU Students Reject Coal CEO’s Take on Energy at International Symposium’

I have a column out today in the University of Maryland student newspaper about how if you’re a voter in Maryland and you care about the environment, the choice for governor is obvious.

Voting green: The choice is obvious

by Matt Dernoga

Monday, October 4, 2010

This state has a competitive gubernatorial election between current Gov. Martin O’Malley and former Gov. Bob Ehrlich. At this university, the media and politicians like to talk about tuition. However, I’ve been engaging students on environmental issues for the last four years, and the majority either have an inclination to support environmental policies or actively promote them. The most concrete example of this is the 2007 SGA election referendum in which 91 percent of student voters approved a self-imposed green fee to offset carbon emissions.

If you care about the health of the Chesapeake Bay, reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, creation of clean energy jobs and construction of the Purple Line, the best choice for governor is clearly O’Malley. Continue reading ‘MD Governor’s Race Op-Ed’

Later this year Oregon agencies are poised to make decisions with major implications for the fate of the Boardman Coal Plant – one of the Northwest’s dirtiest polluters.  But before deciding whether to stick to its previous recommendation that the plant’s owner (utility PGE) be forced to clean up its act, the Department of Environmental Quality held another round of hearings this month. 

To its credit, DEQ went the length of holding multiple hearings in different parts of the state – which makes sense considering pollution from the Boardman Plant affects all of Oregon.  This gave students from communities that span the state a chance to weigh on the decision process - and boy, did they do just that.

First came a hearing in Portland, which unsurprisingly drew the largest crowd.  About 150 people attended, two-thirds to support the Sierra Club and other groups that want to see DEQ stand by its original recommendation that PGE close the Boardman Plant by 2015 or install costly pollution controls.  Close to forty students and recent graduates from Reed College, Lewis & Clark College, Pacific University, Linfield College, and Portland State University attended the hearing to support holding the coal plant to the strongest possible pollution standards. 

Unfortunately most students didn’t get to testify at the Portland hearing, because PGE had its representatives show up an hour or more ahead of time and sign up in advance.  This meant PGE dominated the first half of the testimony, and anyone with nighttime classes or a grade-breaking test to study for was out of luck.  Luckily our “Coal Free Oregon” T-shirts and “Choose the 2015 Plan” signs made it unmistakable why we young folks were there: we want PGE to close the Boardman Plant by 2015, and if they don’t we want DEQ to hold the utility accountable for every ounce of pollution. 

“I don’t believe there is a solution that will satisfy everyone’s economic concerns,” said Katie Kann of Linfield, one of the students who did get to testify.  “I don’t believe there is a solution that will satisfy everyone’s political concerns. But I do believe there is a solution that WILL satisfy a shared, fundamental concern of our global community: that there be a future, of the same quality if not better, for those who we love and care about.” Continue reading ‘From North to South, Oregon Students Urge Crackdown on Boardman Coal Plant’s Pollution’