Planetsave

A federal jury ruled yesterday that Chevron had done nothing wrong a decade ago when it called the Nigerian military to control protesters who had taken control of an oil platform, demanding better treatment and jobs.

In the end, the military killed two protesters. Accounts of the incident vary drastically: Chevron says the protesters were violent, armed, and had taken workers hostage, while the protesters and their lawyers claim they had been entirely peaceful and engaged in civil disobedience.

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Is the Iraq War all about oil? Maybe not. But even former Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan has acknowledged the action was “essential” to protect the world’s access to oil. With many of the world’s top-producing oil and gas fields in decline, is it unreasonable to suggest there will be more military action to defend our “right” to fossil fuels?

Not according to the National Priorities Project, which today released a report that finds the U.S. is spending $97 billion to $215 billion a year on military efforts to defend oil and natural gas reserves around the world. That means as much as 30 percent of the U.S.’s military budget is aimed at protecting access to fossil fuels.

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That fungus among us may be the answer to uranium-polluted soils eventually being brought back into use.

Researchers at Dundee Unversity in the UK have determined that fungi can block uranium from finding its way into plants, animals or the water supply.

Scientists have found that what they call free-living and plant fungi can, “colonise depleted uranium surfaces and transform the metal into uranyl phosphate minerals”. Read the rest of this entry »

The Vietnam-era poster that said, “War is not healthy for children and other living things,” had it right. Modern warfare can wreak environmental havoc like never before, according to the upcoming issue of World Watch magazine.

In the January/February 2008 issue, author Sarah DeWeerdt explores the unprecedented levels of environmental destruction caused by recent conflicts in Rwanda, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Iraq. She also describes ecocide, which is the deliberate destruction of natural places as a war tactic. (The use of defoliants like Agent Orange by the U.S. military during the Vietnam war, for example, has been blamed for the destruction of half of southern Vietnam’s mangroves and 14 percent of its hardwood forests.)

Even the movement of refugees during wartime can inflict serious damage on the environment, DeWeerdt writes. Of the 2 million Hutus who fled the Rwandan genocide in 1994, nearly three-quarter of a million settled near a United Nations World Heritage site, Virunga National Park. To get the firewood and building materials they needed to survive, the refugees cut down about 35 square kilometers of the protected forests.

The full environmental impact of the ongoing Iraq war remains to be seen, according to DeWeerdt. However, scientists have already found that the first Gulf War damaged the protective layer of microorganisms that covers desert areas. The loss of that cover, which might takes thousands of years to bounce back, is being blamed for more sandstorms in the region.

When Iraqi forces retreated from Kuwait during the first Gulf War, they torched nearly 800 oil wells across the region. The fires burned for eight months, and any oil that didn’t burn pooled into lakes that have since hardened or sunk into the sands. The United Nations Environmental Program called the act “one of the worst engineered disasters of humanity.”

Then there are the environment and health threats posed by nuclear materials in today’s Iraq. Not the fabled weapons of mass destruction that were never found, but the depleted uranium the U.S. is using for armor and missiles and the radioactive materials that were looted early on in the conflict. The Sierra Club of Canada reports that barrels of uranium oxide stolen from the Tuwaith nuclear plant in Iraq in 2003 were dumped out then washed in rivers. The containers have subsequently been used to transport and store food.

Incidents like that could eventually cause more than 1,000 people to die of leukemia, according to Iraq’s national nuclear inspector.

“Warfare is likely to have the most severe, longest-lasting effects on protected areas that harbor endangered species, and slow-to-recover ecosystems such as deserts,” DeWeerdt writes in her article. “Even in the most fragile environments, sometimes nature — and people –can surprise us.”

By Anthony J. Gerst

The war-torn and ravaged nation of the Democratic Republic of Congo is a rather confusing issue. A rapid-fired crash course on the subject brings up some interesting facts, however. This nation has basically been at war since 1998, and the result has been an estimated 3.5 million deaths. There are more residents classified as internally displaced persons (IDP’s) than established citizens. OK, that may be a stretch but not by much.

Oddly enough in the nomadic camps throughout this nation, we find citizens from the entire region, as the populations of these camps are composed of people from Angola, Rwanda, Burundi, Uganda, Sudan and of course the Republic of Congo. So what on earth is going on here, in a nation that recently saw an outbreak of Ebola deep in its jungle recesses? Well, to understand anything of the area is to understand what makes the Congo go around. This nation is home to a vast array of precious metals and resources: found here are reserves of cobalt, copper, uranium, timber, gold and silver to name but a few. It is the control over these resources that brings about the constant battles within the Congo. On any given day, from 6-10 different factions are battling for control. Within this number are local indigenous peoples who are simply trying to stay alive.

Terror and terrorism is alive and well here, as the battles are waged at the expense of anyone in the vicinity. The groups battling have no honor; they are simply armed groups of masquerading hired thugs. They instill fear in the populous with rape and rampage. According to the UN, 90,000 people were forced to flea their homes in September alone. The ongoing warfare has prevented 150,000 people from receiving food aid from the UN World Food Programme. Read the rest of this entry »

Holy crap, did you know that your average U.S. soldier in Iraq uses 88 AA bateries during a five day mission!?! The U.S. Military blows through 2.4 million gallons of fuel every day in Iraq and Afghanistan and 2/3 of the stuff soldiers carry in combat is fuel.

All political issues aside, that is a terribly inefficient way to run an army. The military needs to get way more aggressive about embracing renewable energy. Soldiers, missions, and equipment would be more flexible; you would eliminate the need for a lot of convoy driving, which would save lives, equipment, and money; and a whole lotta pollution would be kept from the air.

I’m pragmatic about the world we live in and see the need for our nation to have a strong and kickass military. I have major problems with how it’s been abused by the Bush administration, but that aside- the U.S. Military has gotta be badass.

So why not do it in a way that is smart. Dump a ton of military R&D funds into advancing solar, wind, and thermal energy generation technology. Get advanced solar panels on top of every vehicle, develop panels that can be sewn into uniforms, and build single unit small scale energy power stations that use wind and solar. Consumers will feel the technology overflow love and the whole effort to green up this world will be that much further along.

Swing over to Mother Jones for to read more about the Military’s work to green itself up, also a quick post about how much of an energy hog the military is at the Seattle pi.

I links, you links, we all links, for my links.

Enjoy!

• Africa wages war on scourge of plastic bags

• Crab fishing in the North Sea is a dangerous profession

• Bush thinks the main lesson to be learned from the Vietnam War was that we withdrew too early

• Dirty Coal Boss gets a free pass from CNN on Utah Coal Mine disaster

• North Carolina’s seawall ban

• Mountaintop removal mining: No respect for the hollow

• Global Warming: Still Happening

• Japan To Use Disposable Chopsticks For Biofuel

• Opening up the American lawbooks

• Reality: America Isn’t Conservative

• New Study: 87% of Americans “seriously concerned about the environment” Read the rest of this entry »

I am so ashamed of our moronic, mean spirited, dumbass President. At a recent press conference at Camp David, Bush channeled his inner 9 year old and ripped on the BBC’s political editor Nick Robinson for being bald.

Later on, Bush poked fun at the bare-pate of Robinson, joking, “You’d better cover up your bald head, it’s getting hot out.”

The respected British reporter shot back, “I didn’t know you cared.”

Bush responded with a cool, “I don’t.” The Mirror reports that Bush then “snorted disdainfully” and “walked away to laughter.”

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We. Must. Get. Out. Of. Iraq.

There are too many reasons now why Bush’s stupid war needs to be ended yesterday. Add this one to the pile…

As would be expected, Iraqi children living in Jordanian camps report witnessing gruesome events related to the war. These sorts of trauma leave indelible marks on children’s social and emotional development. According to a World Vision report Trapped! The Disappearing Hopes of Iraqi Refugee Children, “43 per cent of children surveyed in Amman, Jordan witnessed violence in Iraq, and 39 per cent said they lost someone close through violence.”

I can’t imagine how it would be to grow up in a war zone or have to flee your home for a refugee camp. Even as refugees, the children do not feel safe. Electronic Iraq reports, “‘These children have been kidnapped and held for ransom, witnessed brutal home invasions, suicide bombings and murders. Now refugee life offers them little option but to go to work as child laborers, exposing them to the threat of deportation,’ said Ashley Clements, author of the report. Understandably, 25 per cent of the Iraqi refugee children World Vision surveyed did not feel safe in their Jordanian homes. This is a combination of past experiences, lack of refugee status, which leaves the entire family unsure, and the absence of healthy routines like going to school, the report says.”

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