Originally Published on the ECOreport The Federal Government responded within 24 hours of Vancouver’s calling for a referendum on Kinder Morgan’s proposed Trans Mountain expansion project. Not by ensuring BC residents can obtain a proper hearing before the National Energy Board – Vancouver’s complaint – instead, Harper stiffens regulations for oil spills. The possibility of
The Keystone pipeline proposal has hit a Nebraska stop sign, but it has deeper problems than right-of-way issues across the United States. After all, the controversial proposal for transporting Canada’s tar sands was never just about the pipeline. Just ask the thousand students who rallied in front of the White House recently, who were willing
There’s a decent chance you’ve seen the ridiculous “young Republican” or “Republican hipster” commercials that came out on March 16. They’re so ridiculous that I think most of us thought they were parodies. Apparently, not. Of course, parodies have since been made. Below are the original commercials in case you missed them (first two), followed
Ignoring the tremendous risks of global warming and climate change (you know, the ones that threaten human civilization as we know it), how risky is it from a purely financial perspective to invest in oil companies? I can’t say that I (or anyone) can answer that question, but some numbers recently shared in an article
Laying a pipeline across agricultural land (photo: eponline.com). Friday afternoon, and officials at the State Department are probably breathing a huge sigh of relief. The official public comment period on the northern extension of the $5.4 billion Keystone XL pipeline expired today. And the unofficial public comment that’s making the news is today’s release of
When the hydraulic fracturing measure passed the Los Angeles City Council today, several tweeters posted photos of this meeting (source of the above: Walker Foley on twitter). The City Council of Los Angeles, second-most populous metro in the United States, voted 10-0 today to prohibit hydraulic fracturing (“fracking”) and other “unconventional” deep-underground drilling methods to produce
A facilities engineer for Shell is featured in the video below in order to inform us of how swell it is to work for Shell. You know, if you can just block out that whole “destroying the world” thing. Anything for a little money, eh? Truthfully, this video really stands out to me for how
The EU Commission recently proposed new renewable energy and carbon targets. This is great news for Europe. (Well, it would be better if they were a bit more aggressive, but….) The new video above from DG Clima gives a good overview of the new targets and some reasons why such targets rock. For example, it
http://youtu.be/J_QAdup7G0o Legendary rocker Neil Young, born in Toronto, recently went on a tour in Canada aiming to support the rights of First Nations when it comes to tar sands development. Needless to say, First Nations citizens are being almost completely ignored and greatly harmed by reckless development of the tar sands. Young asserted that Canadian
Crude oil is a fossil fuel and was made naturally from decaying plants and animals, like this prehistoric dunkleosteus, living in ancient seas millions of years ago. Damn dunkleosteus, why couldn’t your decayed remains have become solar PV cells? Joe Mohr is a cartoonist for a variety of publications and children’s writer and illustrator. His
This is part of a 10-part series on the “Top 10 Toxic Ingredients Used By The Fossil Fuel Industries.” Read, share, and check in tomorrow for the next part, which will focus on sulfur dioxide (SO2) and nitrogen oxides (NOx). 4. Petroleum Coke (Pet Coke) Fossil Fuel Source: Oil Pet coke is a rapidly expanding byproduct
This is part of a 10-part series on the “Top 10 Toxic Ingredients Used By The Fossil Fuel Industries.” Read, share, and check in tomorrow for the next part, which will focus on formaldehyde. 6. Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons (PAH) Fossil Fuel Sources: Oil and Coal In actuality, this is not a single listing — polycyclic aromatic
Arctic methane emissions this month were recorded at historic-high levels, causing great concern among climatologists, who cite rapidly melting Arctic sea-ice and warming oceans as the main causes. As reported in the blog Arctic News, “huge amounts of methane are now escaping from the seabed of the Arctic Ocean, penetrating the sea ice, and entering the
I can’t say that I agree with everything Russell Brand says here, but I think I agree with 99% of it. Check this out for an impassioned political tirade or 5 from Russell Brand: Related Stories: Occupy Wall Street Cartoons, News, + How Republicans Try to (& Do) Rob the 99% to Pay the 1%
The Union of Concerned Scientists’ Clean Vehicles program recently released an updated version of its rather comprehensive “backgrounder” on electric vehicles — “how much the technology is growing in the country, the opportunities it presents for consumers and automakers, and the challenges facing its adoption,” to be specific. Also included in the updated backgrounder is
By Maggie Fox, President and CEO, Climate Reality Project It’s funny. A lot of the rhetoric we hear pushing back against putting a price on carbon pollution parrots the argument that “it would threaten our way of life.” Nothing could be further from the truth. Fossil fuels like oil and coal helped power us through the
At about 1:15 Saturday morning, a 72-freightcar train carrying crude oil from North Dakota’s Bakken shale development, bound for Irving Oil’s plant in Saint John, New Brunswick, slipped its brakes in the eastern Quebec town of Nantes. The train’s only human passenger — the engineer — had checked into a nearby hotel. Driverless and continually
Last week, climate activist Tim DeChristopher received a warm welcome on the David Letterman Show. The 12-minute interview with Dave was productive and seemed to give the host a little insight into climate activism. DeChristopher had a chance to discuss climate activism, the upcoming documentary Bidder 70, and the events leading up to DeChristopher’s imprisonment. During the interview,
One of our great writers, Don Lieber, has created a petition on MoveOn.org targeted at Obama that I thought was worth quickly passing along. It’s a Father’s Day petition pushing Obama to reject the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline. Here’s the petition statement: Dear President Obama, Father’s Day represents a celebration of our cherished obligation
First, a historical parallel: The US tobacco industry, during the late 1990s, targeted children in underdeveloped parts of the world — South America, Asia, and the middle-East — with a particularly abhorrent marketing program: they gave away free cigarettes to children in order to introduce them to smoking at an early age. At the same
One oil spill is too much. Three oil spills happened in the last short week, bringing horror to humans and wildlife alike. Dirty oil, at the root of this, has no moral compass. It is a style of bullying at the worst level. If the earth did not have the resources for renewable energy that its
22 families had to evacuate a suburban neighborhood in Mayflower, Arkansas due to Exxon’s recent oil spill. It is not yet a week since Mayflower began to suffer from the Exxon oil spill, which is estimated at 12,000 barrels of oil and chemicals. The smelly mess is horrific, with risks to nearby bodies of water
Dr. James E. Hansen has announced his retirement as head of NASA’s Goddard Institute of Space Studies, where he began his career in 1967. He plans to engage more actively in politics around the issue of climate change, continuing his work as the most educated pioneer of scientific climate change research. Dr. Hansen, now 72 years
“We can see oil running down the road like a river,” explains a Mayflower resident. Crude oil has leaked and this is extremely unfortunate to Mayflower, Arkansas; damaging neighborhoods, and possibly endangering Lake Conrad. The size of the spill remains unclear. Faulkner County Judge Allen Dodson said the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has estimated the spill
Reposted from RenewEconomy: Australia’s newly appointed Minister for Energy and Resources, Gary Gray, admitted he was once a fierce climate sceptic, but now says he is embarrassed by his former position on climate science. Asked on ABC TV’s Lateline program, Gray admitted that he had once branded climate science as a middle class conspiracy, as
Public opposition to the Keystone “Tar Sands” Pipeline continues to increase, with protests against ‘the dirtiest fuel on the planet‘ taking new and increasingly organized public forms of civil disobedience in the United States and around the world. Last week, the “National Week of Action Against Tar Sands Profiteers” resulted in over 50 protest actions against
Germany’s largest research institution — one of the world’s most prestigious — has withdrawn from a multi-million dollar Canadian-funded “tar sands” research project, citing the tar sands’ significant environmental concerns as posing a ”risk to our reputation”. “It’s a clear signal that Canada’s energy and climate policy is not accepted by the international community, especially
Dirty energy is changing our world. Global warming and climate change are threatening our society. But people are coming together to stop it.
Brand new viral video “After Ever After” from Paint just popped onto my radar. After two days, the video has almost 1.5 million views. I decided to check it out for basically two reasons: 1) I was curious what might be the next big, big thing (following Gangnam Style & Harlem Shake), and 2) the
If you can’t beat a competitor on simple merits, logic, science, or economics, simply pump hundreds of millions of dollars into disinformation campaigns. Heck, if deceiving the public and corrupting legislators and government officials isn’t a good and honorable practice, what is? What am I talking about? Today, I’m referring to Donors Trust and Donors Capital
Four days before President Obama promised, during his second inauguration address, to combat climate change, officials at the US State Department received a new report by scientists which details how a particular byproduct of the Keystone XL pipeline — “Petroleum Coke” — renders the project even more dangerous to the climate than previously estimated. The
Adding to the increasing numbers of celebrities adding their voice to the anti-fracking and anti-extreme extraction movement overall, Yoko Ono and Sean Lennon today joined protesters at a rally at the offices of NY Governor Andrew Cuomo in Albany. The rally was organized by a coalition of anti-fracking activists, including “Artists Against Fracking” and
Protesters yesterday mounted joint occupations of TransCanada’s corporate offices in at least three cities as the increasing protests against the Keystone “Tar Sands” Pipeline escalated into more public, direct confrontations. Various reports confirm 50 to 100 people ‘stormed’ the Houston offices of the giant Canadian oil company, utilizing street-theater tactics such as hanging orange
Leading national environmental organizations and climate policy experts reacted quickly to the December 21 nomination of Senator John Kerry as the next Secretary of State, stating clearly what their expectations of him are: decisive action on climate change, including full rejection of the Keystone Pipeline; establishing the United States as a world leader in
Protests against the Keystone Pipeline — and other new fossil fuel pipelines (i.e., Enbridge) — continue across North America and are increasing in scope. From Canada to the southern United States, people are organizing a variety of protests, locally and on a nationwide basis. Among the more dramatic of these is the ongoing “Tar
Seriously. This is the best environment infographic ever. Politicians and oil companies might waste time debating whether or not we’ve reached peak oil. What they ignore is that we run out completely in under 40 years’ time, by which time a third of the planet’s biodiversity will be lost. In the meantime, tantalum, that great
To my friends, family, acquaintances, and readers who think that there isn’t enough of a difference between Democrats and Republicans to bother voting (i.e. for the Democrats), let me be absolutely 100% clear — actually, there are HUGE, HUGE differences between these two parties these days, and in nearly every situation I’m aware of, Democrats
If you’re voting in the Massachusetts election today or tomorrow, you should be voting for Elizabeth Warren without any hesitation — she’s one of the best politicians I’m aware of. Here’s a quick rundown of how her and her opponent, Scott Brown, differ: Not many politicians are so dedicated to the people as Elizabeth
A new survey conducted by UK pollsters YouGov has shown that support for renewable energy remains consistently strong in Britain whilst support for fossil fuels continues to decline. However, the same survey shows that there is division over whether large scale fracking in the north of England should go ahead, and most people continue to
Note: This article is satire. The Nobel Peace Prize was awarded today to Canadian oil giant TransCanada for its innovative public policies on climate change and reducing greenhouse gas emissions. The Canadian fossil-fuel infrastructure company, whose earnings exceeded $1 billion in 2011, has received strong praise from environmentalists in recent days over its unique
Should brave men die so you can drive? And what about innocents burning? There is nothing new about our concern with the nonsense and destructiveness of our dependency on oil. Our gross needs for gas could be done away with, transformed to clean energy, or at least mitigated to a lesser need. By using mass transit, bicycles,
In the latest example of the widening gap in climate change policies between the USA and Europe, the Government of Norway last week announced the world’s largest new tax on carbon emissions, stating in explicit terms its desire to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and mitigate against global warming — just two weeks after the
The Canadian fossil fuel giant Transcanada (net earnings 2011: $1.5 billion) is encountering increased resistance from the “Tar Sands Blockade” in eastern Texas — now in its 18th day of an extensively constructed “tree sit-in.” And it is employing increasingly draconian police measures to prevent any public awareness of the protests and confrontations. Today, two
Dear Ms. Rimel, I am an independent writer with an interest in environmental issues. I am a father, and an informed citizen. The credentials I hold as a writer and citizen are no less important than those of yours, which, I presume, may be bred from similar motivation: intellectual curiosity and, mostly, a committed
Shell Oil has had its eyes on the Arctic for over five years now. Hundreds of meetings and billions of dollars later, this summer was supposed to be Shell’s year to finally drill in the Arctic Ocean. Thankfully, a series of embarrassing safety setbacks have held Shell back. The announcement that the company would
Protest against the controversial Keystone XL “Tar Sands” Pipeline has escalated dramatically in recent days, largely unreported in the national media. Protesters have established a human blockade in front of the construction path of the pipeline, in an old oak forest outside of Winnsboro, Texas. The confrontation is shaping up to be a defining
Tomorrow, the US House of Representatives will vote on H.R. 3409, the “Coal Miner Employment and Domestic Energy Infrastructure Protection Act.” The bill has been called the “single worst environmental law” proposed by the most virulently anti-environmental US legislators in history. The bill is aggressively anti-science and anti-public health. Its priority is made clear:
In a little-noticed Aug 2012 report, Bloomberg News reported that gas and oil energy companies failed to comply with their own voluntary plan to disclose chemicals in their operations — and, further, failed to report on the very existence of half of their wells. The report analyzed the efficacy of “FracFocus.org” — a voluntary
