Extreme weather, no context from our corporate media

February 17, 2015February 16, 2015 ~ susie ~ 3 Comments

Yeah, like Brian Williams lying is the biggest problem with the media!

And it’s not as if they’d mention this, either:

A senior US scientist has expressed concern that the intelligence services are funding climate change research to learn if new technologies could be used as potential weapons. Alan Robock, a climate scientist at Rutgers University in New Jersey, has called on secretive government agencies to be open about their interest in radical work that explores how to alter the world’s climate.

Robock, who has contributed to reports for the intergovernmental panel on climate change (IPCC), uses computer models to study how stratospheric aerosols could cool the planet in the way massive volcanic eruptions do. But he was worried about who would control such climate-altering technologies should they prove effective, he told the American Association for the Advancement of Science in San Jose.

Last week, the National Academy of Sciences published a two-volume report on different approaches to tackling climate change. One focused on means to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, the other on ways to change clouds or the Earth’s surface to make them reflect more sunlight out to space.

The report concluded that while small-scale research projects were needed, the technologies were so far from being ready that reducing carbon emissions remained the most viable approach to curbing the worst extremes of climate change. A report by the Royal Society in 2009 made similar recommendations.

The $600,000 report was part-funded by the US intelligence services, but Robock said the CIA and other agencies had not fully explained their interest in the work. “The CIA was a major funder of the National Academies report so that makes me really worried who is going to be in control,” he said. Other funders included Nasa, the US Department of Energy, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Oh look, yet another crude oil train explosion

February 17, 2015February 16, 2015 ~ susie ~ 4 Comments

So this is the second crude-oil train crash in 72 hours (there was one this weekend in Ontario). Yay, deregulation! Yay, petroleum-based economy!

Two West Virginia towns are being evacuated after a train carrying crude oil derailed nearby, local media report.

Emergency officials said that people from towns of Adena Village and Boomer Bottom are being evacuated. At least one tank car ended up in a local river, while another slammed into a house and burst into flames.

Several fire departments are working to contain the flames and the Department of Homeland Security as well as the Department of Environmental Protection have been notified of the accident, the Charleston Gazette reports.

Oh boy, another oil train crash!

February 16, 2015February 15, 2015 ~ susie ~ 2 Comments

You’d almost think the oil industry ruled the world, since they get away so easily with despoiling it:

TORONTO — Seven rail cars were on fire in northern Ontario after a train carrying crude oil derailed late on Saturday night, Canadian National Railway said on Sunday.

The train, heading from Alberta to eastern Canada, derailed shortly before midnight about 50 miles south of Timmins, Ontario, a CN spokesman said. Canada’s largest rail operator said 29 of 100 cars were involved and seven were on fire.

“The derailment occurred in a remote wooded area and there are no reports of injuries. There is a fire at the scene,” Patrick Waldron said in an email.

Investigators from the Transportation Safety Board have been sent to the site, the agency said on Sunday.

Scott Walker is a Kochsucker

February 6, 2015June 17, 2015 ~ susie ~ 3 Comments

Could he be any more of a shill?

This article originally appeared in the Huffington Post and is republished here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration.

The two-year, $68 billion budget proposal Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker unveiled Tuesday includes a request for $250,000 to study the health impacts of wind turbines.

Page 449 of the budget proposal includes a recommendation from the governor “directing the commission to conduct a study on wind energy system-related health issues.” The request states that a report should be submitted to the governor and legislature within a year after the budget goes into effect.

“The request for a Wind Energy Health Issues Study was included with the intent to provide the Public Service Commission with comprehensive information to consider as they receive requests for future wind energy projects,” said Laurel Patrick, Walker’s press secretary, in a statement to The Huffington Post.

Wind power in the state has been the subject of some public debate, drawing campaigns paid for by conservative groups with ties to fossil fuel interests on one side and by renewable energy advocates on the other.

Last October, health officials in Brown County declared that eight turbines located at the Shirley Wind Farm posed a health hazard to residents. The chairwoman of the local board of health cited “ear pain, ear pressure, headaches, nausea” and “sleep deprivation” as symptoms among nearby residents. Local reports suggest Brown is the first county in the country to reach such a conclusion.
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Near miss

February 3, 2015February 2, 2015 ~ susie ~ 4 Comments

When I saw this, I just assumed it was an old story. There was another one? WTF?

Over the weekend, 11 cars from an 111-car CSX train derailed in South Philly. The cars were carrying crude oil, but there were no leaks, no deaths and no injuries.

This time.

But the incident happened almost exactly a year after seven crude-oil-carrying cars on a CSX train derailed over the Schuylkill River, raising questions — never entirely answered — about whether Philadelphia citizens are adequately protected from the possibility of an oil catastrophe as the city grows into a possible “energy hub” future.

“Both accidents were predictable, preventable, and a near miss from potentially catastrophic impacts,” activist Iris Marie Bloom blogged on Saturday. “There must be no third derailment. That no rupture occurred is extremely lucky. We can’t leave prevention to luck.”

She is right to be concerned. Where there are oil shipments, there are frequent — if frequently minor — incidents: ProPublica’s Isaiah Thompson reported in November that “in at least 65 cases over the last two years, tank cars bound for or arriving in Philadelphia were found to have loose, leaking or missing safety components.”

And while catastrophic events involving crude don’t happen every day, they can be devastating. In 2013, an oil-train derailment in Quebec set off an explosion that killed 47 people. There have been several more huge explosions in recent years, albeit with fewer casualties, but even federal regulators think there is good reason to be concerned.

Will Dems hold the line on TPP?

January 30, 2015February 9, 2015 ~ susie ~ 4 Comments

Christ, I hope so:

PHILADELPHIA, Jan 29 (Reuters) – Senior Democrats in the House of Representatives said on Thursday they would insist President Barack Obama provide hard evidence that proposed free trade deals will boost median U.S. incomes, laying out tough terms to support his trade agenda.

The demands, hours before Obama’s address to a House Democratic retreat, are part of a renewed focus by the party on middle-class economic issues.

Republicans have made free trade a top priority and have called on Obama to bring Democrats into line.
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Oops

January 30, 2015February 9, 2015 ~ susie ~ 1 Comment

So our new progressive governor announced a moratoriun on oil and gas leases in state lands, but leaves forests available for drilling. I can understand the problem — Tom Corbett left a huge deficit, and Wolf’s going to have to come up with revenue somehow. But still!

Thursday’s order does not stop the Department of Environmental Protection from permitting wells, pipelines, or compressor stations on existing leases, where there is room for as many as 6,000 wells, according to PA DCNR. If all of those wells are drilled and developed, approximately 25,000 forested acres would be converted for roads, pipeline right of ways, and well pads. As of October, PA DCNR had approved more than 1,000 Marcellus wells on state forests and nearly 600 of them — clustered on about 230 well pads — had been drilled.

According to the PA DEP online permit report, the Wolf administration permitted 22 shale gas wells for five counties in just three days from January 21-23. One of those well permits, Chief Oil’s Teel 4H, is within a mile of a cluster of 19 water wells in Dimock, PA that were spoiled by gas drilling in 2008.

Ray Kemble, a Dimock resident with contaminated water said, “Keeping 700,000 acres of our public lands on the table for the drillers is like letting quarterback Tom Brady keep his deflated footballs for the Super Bowl. This is the Big Game and Tom Wolf is blowing it. I have a front row seat.”

energy-justice-networkThe 22 new well permits last week were granted to operators including Chevron, Rex Energy, Cabot Oil & Gas, Chesapeake Energy, Chief Oil, and EQT. Combined, the six drilling companies have been cited for 118 well casing failures by PA DEP, according to a report by Energy Justice Network. Steel and cement well casing failures endanger water supplies across the state.
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Jim Imhofe, global warming denier

January 27, 2015January 26, 2015 ~ susie ~ 1 Comment

And new chair of the Senate’s Environment and Public Works Committee.

Crazy, man, crazy

January 22, 2015January 21, 2015 ~ susie ~ 6 Comments

Let’s just burn the whole damn thing! Fuck it, we’ll figure out what to do later:

It’s not possible to listen to petroleum industry executives defending their reckless extraction of oil without feeling that we are living in an age of madness.

In a recent private conversation under the Chatham House rule, one of the world’s most senior industry leaders, who is considered to be at the more moderate end of the spectrum, insisted that we are going to burn all the world’s hydrocarbons despite the consequences.

His reasoning is that a growing population in the developing world needs energy to raise living standards, that renewables will not become a dominant energy source till the end of the century and that politicians don’t have the courage or power to limit production.
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The State Of The Ocean: ‘On the verge of a major extinction event’

January 16, 2015 ~ susie ~ 3 Comments

I had some idea this was happening (my niece is a marine biologist and she’s been telling me for years we’re overfishing the oceans) and friends who went scuba diving in Belize talked about how their world-famous coral is dying off. But when you see it all collected in one piece, it’s so obvious that our greed is killing the ocean that even a Republican can see it.

And of course they’ll immediately attack the study instead of doing anything:

A team of scientists, in a groundbreaking analysis of data from hundreds of sources, has concluded that humans are on the verge of causing unprecedented damage to the oceans and the animals living in them.

“We may be sitting on a precipice of a major extinction event,” said Douglas J. McCauley, an ecologist at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and an author of the new research, which was published on Thursday in the journal Science.

But there is still time to avert catastrophe, Dr. McCauley and his colleagues also found. Compared with the continents, the oceans are mostly intact, still wild enough to bounce back to ecological health.

“We’re lucky in many ways,” said Malin L. Pinsky, a marine biologist at Rutgers University and another author of the new report. “The impacts are accelerating, but they’re not so bad we can’t reverse them.”

Scientific assessments of the oceans’ health are dogged by uncertainty: It’s much harder for researchers to judge the well-being of a species living underwater, over thousands of miles, than to track the health of a species on land. And changes that scientists observe in particular ocean ecosystems may not reflect trends across the planet.

Dr. Pinsky, Dr. McCauley and their colleagues sought a clearer picture of the oceans’ health by pulling together data from an enormous range of sources, from discoveries in the fossil record to statistics on modern container shipping, fish catches and seabed mining. While many of the findings already existed, they had never been juxtaposed in such a way.

A number of experts said the result was a remarkable synthesis, along with a nuanced and encouraging prognosis.

“I see this as a call for action to close the gap between conservation on land and in the sea,” said Loren McClenachan of Colby College, who was not involved in the study.

There are clear signs already that humans are harming the oceans to a remarkable degree, the scientists found. Some ocean species are certainly overharvested, but even greater damage results from large-scale habitat loss, which is likely to accelerate as technology advances the human footprint, the scientists reported.

Coral reefs, for example, have declined by 40 percent worldwide, partly as a result of climate-change-driven warming.

Some fish are migrating to cooler waters already. Black sea bass, once most common off the coast of Virginia, have moved up to New Jersey. Less fortunate species may not be able to find new ranges. At the same time, carbon emissions are altering the chemistry of seawater, making it more acidic.

“If you cranked up the aquarium heater and dumped some acid in the water, your fish would not be very happy,” Dr. Pinsky said. “In effect, that’s what we’re doing to the oceans.”