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Category Archives: scarcity

Peak Oil, Peak Food, Peak People, Peak Water Or Peak Sex – Every finite resource runs out

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I don’t run much about Peak Oil. Don’t get me wrong. I read their best web postings and sometimes I even publish some of the stuff they report on.

http://www.peakoil.com/

I rarely ever post stuff directly from the “Peak Oil” perspective for the same reasons that I do not post “end of days” stuff. They are BOTH true. That is OIL will run out and the Earth will come to an end but the predictiveness is problematic to say the least. For sure Peak Oil will come true before Peak Days, till either happens though…well the less said the better. They are having a conference in Denver and I thought I would post a couple of pieces so it doesn’t seem like I don’t like them.

Is there such a thing as Peak Sex? Well think about it (:)) there IS only so much that you can have.

http://www.energybulletin.net/node/50359

http://transitionculture.org/2009/10/09/whither-resilience-and-transition-why-peak-oil-has-yet-to-outlive-its-usefulness/

9 Oct 2009

Whither Resilience and Transition? Why ‘Peak Oil’ Has Yet to Outlive its Usefulness

stress_city

It’s been a fascinating few days.  Early in the week, Nate Hagens and Sharon Astyk were suggesting the perhaps the term ‘peak oil’ has outlived its usefulness, given that we have almost certainly peaked, and that the peak oil movement needs to shift its focus.  It echoed something I wrote a while ago, likening ASPO and the wider peak oil movement to a Loch Ness Monster Society, dedicated to establishing the existence of this fabled creature.  They organise conferences, scientific searches of the loch, write papers and journals, and then one day, an entire, intact Loch Ness Monster washes up on the shore.  Then what?  They have no reason to exist any longer, their whole raison d’etre vanishes overnight.

However, I don’t think it is that straightforward.  For me, what we are seeing, taking a step back and looking in the longer time context, is a series of pulses.  Peak oil won’t go away as an issue, it pulses in and out of the collective consciousness and hopefully will increasingly come to underpin Government policy-making.  In July 2008, peak oil was pulsing as the oil price hit record highs, and issues around economics were in the background.  Now, economics has been the key pulse for the last year or so, and peak oil has been pushed off the side of the stage until the last few days.  If Colin Campbell’s original analysis, elaborated by David Strahan in his talk at the 2009 Transition Network conference, is correct, what looks likely is that the two will pulse alternately, as any kind of economic recovery increases demand, which raises the oil prices, which dampens economic recovery, which reduces demand and lowers prices, which increases demand, and so on and so on.  Until the connection between the two becomes clear, they will continue to pulse alternately.

Over the last couple of days, the peak oil pulse has become most prominent, with two excellent reports which will hopefully give Ed Miliband a lot to think about, and dampen the complacency brought about by Malcolm Wicks’ dreadful and fairly pointless report on UK energy security.  The first report, by the UKERC, the UK’s premiere research establishment, sets out to answer the question “what evidence is there to support the proposition that the global supply of ‘conventional oil’ will be constrained by physical depletion before 2030?”, via. a review of 500 published papers on the subject. Its findings are striking (you can read David Strahan’s excellent analysis of it here).  It argues that there is a ’significant risk’ of conventional oil production peaking before 2020, and brands those who argue that it will come some time beyond 2030 as being ‘at best optimistic and at worst implausible’.

ellipse ellipse ellipse as they say in the citation business:

Then today, Ofgem, which regulates electricity and gas markets in the UK, publishes its Project Discovery: energy market scenarios report.  It generates 4 scenarios about where energy prices might go between now and 2020, concluding that its worst case scenario means a 60% increase in energy bills.  In order to be prepared for the decline in UK gas supplies, the shift to low carbon energy generation and the phasing out of nuclear plants, the UK needs to be prepared to invest £200 billion.  Under all of its scenarios, fuel bills will rise, and interestingly, they note that the slower the economic recovery, the less steep the rise in prices.  It is a shot across the bows of what it sees as Government’s keeping of the issue on the long finger, and failure to invest (although it does put nuclear centre stage as part of the solution).

This morning on Radio 4’s Today Programme, shadow energy secretary Greg Clark and energy analyst David Hunter discussed the implications of the Ofgem report with presenter John Humphries.  It was a fascinating piece, mostly along the lines of “how has the Government let this slide for so long”, with Clark trying to make out that the Conservatives have been onto this for years, in spite of the lack of any evidence for this.  When asked what the Tories’ response would be, he replied ‘clean coal’, a technology which Humphries had to point out, doesn’t actually exist yet, a phenomena Clark had tried to sidestep by describing it as ‘pre-commercial’.  No talk, of course, of reducing demand, conservation, rethinking supply chains, of resilience.

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Righto, the Brits are so fascinating to read and watch. Kinda like watching Gold Finches feeding upside down.

While the Americans just call each other names…

http://www.thedenverdailynews.com/article.php?aID=6010

Will oil demand soon outgrow supply?

Peak oil believers think so, but oil, gas companies say that theory is bogus

Gene Davis, DDN Staff Writer

Tuesday, October 13, 2009


A “peak oil” conference wrapping up today in Denver is sounding the alarm that oil demand will soon outgrow supply, posing a potential economic threat to the country’s economic well being.

However, most oil and gas companies say the peak oil theory is bogus and that there are plenty of the natural resource to go around.

Mayor John Hickenlooper is among the peak oil believers. The former geologist told conference attendees yesterday that it’s not a question of if the world will reach peak oil ” meaning the time of maximum oil production ” but when it will happen.

“We cannot afford to ignore the issue,” he said in a statement. “By anticipating the expected rapid changes in both supply and demand, we can begin to frame the issue not only as a challenge but also as an economic opportunity.”

But The Colorado Oil and Gas Association, for one, doesn’t think Hickenlooper’s school of thought has much credibility. 

“For more than five decades, various individuals have claimed that the world had reached, or was nearing, peak oil,” said a statement from the group. “With more than 200 new oil discoveries in the last year alone, it’s safe to say that peak oil enthusiasts are every bit as wrong today as they have been for the past 50 years.”

The Association for the Study of Peak Oil and Gas has been hosting the International Peak Oil Conference at Denver’s Sheraton Hotel since Sunday. The event has featured more than 70 speakers who have talked about “energy, oil, and our future.”

David Bowden, ASPOG executive director, said that after maximum oil production is reached, the United States economy might have difficulties growing without the constant input of steady and inexpensive oil.

As a result, Bowden is urging for people to “conserve, conserve, conserve” and shy away from “our monolithic oil consumption habits.” Although the United States has around 5 percent of the world’s population, the country uses approximately 25 percent of the world’s oil supplies, largely because of automobile usage.

Bowden supports light rail projects like FasTracks instead of building more roads or expanding highways. FasTracks is a multi-billion dollar transit expansion plan to build 122 miles of new commuter rail and light rail.

“Even though FasTracks has its challenges and the system is a bit limited right now, as oil supplies tightens and the prices go up, it will be necessary,” he said.

Critics have continually slammed FasTracks for running behind schedule and over budget.  

“(FasTracks) was such a faulty fiscal plan, it’s inexcusable,” said Jon Caldera of the libertarian Independence Institute earlier this year.

The recession and falling prices at the pump have taken the oil and gas issue out of the headlines. “But when the country pulls out of the recession and starts consuming more oil and growing populations in countries like China and India do the same the issue will become intensified, especially if oil production drops”, Bowden said.

“Anyone who tries to predict the timing and price of oil is engaged in a fools errand,” he said. “But we see the long-term writing on the wall.”

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Oh that is so BIBLICAL:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_writing_on_the_wall

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China Threatens Fragile Environment To Get At Frozen Gas Hydrates

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China is such a mess. Yet they may also lead the world to a green economy. I guess we stand against the bad they do and applaud them when they do good.

In this case a big BOOOOOOOOOO:

http://chinatibet.people.com.cn/6773590.html

10:15, September 30, 2009

 


Photo shows the gas hydrates. China will likely make a breakthrough in developing gas hydrates, which have been recently discovered on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, according to an expert in geological prospecting. (China Daily Photo)
China will likely make a breakthrough in developing gas hydrates, which have been recently discovered on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, according to an expert in geological prospecting.The hydrate, which is also known as combustible ice, is a solid matter formed by water and natural gas under high-pressure and low-temperature conditions. It is considered the new energy with the largest deposit in the world.

Zhang Hongtao, chief engineer of China’s Ministry of Land and Resources, said that the discovery of gas hydrates is comparable to the discovery of the Daqing Oilfield 50 years ago.

With a combined permafrost area of 2.15 million sq km, China enjoys advantages in gas hydrates deposits.

Scientists estimate that the hydrates can provide the equivalent of 35 billion tons of crude oil in energy, enough for consumption for 90 years in China, whereas the deposits in Qinghai Province alone make up one quarter.

Wen Huaijun, chief engineer of the No.105 Qinghai Coal Geological Prospecting Team, said that the unique geographical and topographic features make Qinghai’s Muli Region China’s first place where gas hydrates have been found.

He said that thanks to the shallow burial of coal deposits and the thin layer of permafrost soil in the region, breakthroughs are likely to be made in developing the gas hydrates.

However, how to protect the fragile ecological environment on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau remains a major challenge in tapping the gas hydrates.

It is estimated that the world’s deposits of gas hydrates are 50 times that of natural gas. The discovery of this new energy has brought hopes to the mankind suffering from energy crisis.

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This Planet Is About Shot – They argue over climate change cause they do not want you to see the big picture

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What the Industrialists of the world and their Bankers do not want you to see is  that the oceans are depleted, the atmosphere is seriously screwed up (not just with green house gases), and the land has effectively been stripped. Humanity has literally sucked the resources out of this planet, goaded on by religious and political leaders.

http://www.scienceagogo.com/news/20090824001733data_trunc_sys.shtml

24 September 2009
New doomsday map shows planet’s dire state
by Kate Melville

Human activities have already pushed the Earth beyond three of the planet’s biophysical thresholds, with consequences that are detrimental or even catastrophic for large parts of the world, conclude 29 European, Australian and U.S. scientists in an article in Nature. This force has given rise to a new era – Anthropocene – in which human actions have become the main driver of global environmental change.

“On a finite planet, at some point, we will tip the vital resources we rely upon into irreversible decline if our consumption is not balanced with regenerative and sustainable activity,” says report co-author Sander van der Leeuw, of Arizona State University. The report started with a fairly simple question: How much pressure can the Earth system take before it begins to crash? “Until now, the scientific community has not attempted to determine the limits of the Earth system’s stability in so many dimensions and make a proposal such as this. We are sending these ideas out to be vetted by the scientific community at large,” explains van der Leeuw. Nine boundaries were identified in the report, including climate change, stratospheric ozone, land use change, freshwater use, biological diversity, ocean acidification, nitrogen and phosphorus inputs to the biosphere and oceans, aerosol loading and chemical pollution. The study suggests that three of these boundaries -climate change, biological diversity and nitrogen input to the biosphere – may already have been transgressed.

Using an interdisciplinary approach, the researchers looked at the data for each of the nine vital processes in the Earth system and identified a critical control variable. Biodiversity loss, for example, is based on species extinction rate, which is expressed in extinctions per million species per year. They then explored how the boundaries interact. Here, loss of biodiversity impacts carbon storage (climate change), freshwater, nitrogen and phosphorous cycles, and land systems.

The researchers stress that their approach does not offer a complete roadmap for sustainable development, but does provide an important element by identifying critical planetary boundaries. They also propose a bold move: a limit for each boundary that would maintain the conditions for a livable world. For biodiversity, that would be less than 10 extinctions per million species per year. The current status is greater than 100 species per million lost per year, whereas the pre-industrial value was 0.1-1.

“Three of the boundaries we identify – 350 parts per million of atmospheric carbon dioxide, biodiversity extinction rates more than 10 times the background rate, and no more than 35 million tons of nitrogen pollution per year – have already been exceeded with fossil fuel use, land use change, and agricultural pollution, driving us to unsustainable levels that are producing real risks to our survival,” notes report co-author Diana Liverman, of the University of Arizona.

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We are in the midst of a very large extinction event that we are essentially causing…

Mass extinctions require 2 events. In other words the Dinosaurs didn’t evolve into birds because of a single event…the comet strike. What happened was they filled every niche, ate themselves out of house and home. Probably started eating themselves, thus the gigantisism movement AND then the comet struck. Humans are heading for the same fate.

http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2009/02/17/mass-extinction-theory.html

Mass Extinctions May Follow One-Two Punch

Michael Reilly, Discovery News

Illustration of Volcanic Eruption

The “Press” | Discovery News Video

 

Feb. 17, 2009 — As agents of extinction, comet and asteroid impacts may be losing their punch.

According to a new theory about how mass dyings work, cosmic collisions generally aren’t enough to cause a major extinction event. To be truly devastating, they must be accompanied by another event that inflicts long-term suffering, like runaway climate change due to massive volcanic eruptions.

In other words, a comet couldn’t have killed the dinosaurs by itself — unless they were already endangered species.

This kind of one-two punch could explain more than the extinction of dinosaurs, Nan Arens of Hobart and William Smith Colleges said. In a recent paper in the journal Paleobiology, she and colleague Ian West argue that there are two types of events that can cause extinctions — “pulses” (quick, deadly shocks, like comets) and “presses” (drawn-out stresses that push ecosystems to the brink but may not kill outright, like million-year-long volcanic eruptions).

The chances of mass dyings go way up when both happen together, argues Arens.

 

eruption

WATCH VIDEO: What constitutes a mass extinction?

Related Content:

But are all mass extinctions created equal? Can researchers come up with a “Grand Unified Theory” of ancient apocalypse?West and Arens think so. They combed the last 300 million years of geologic record, noting impact craters, massive eruptions, periods of ancient climate change, and then comparing them to extinctions. The rate at which species die off spiked dramatically, they found, when a “pulse”-type event occurred within a million years or so of a “press.”The theory fits well for the dinosaurs. Around the time of their demise 65 million years ago, a comet slammed into the Yucatan Peninsula and a huge volcano, the Deccan Traps, was erupting in what is today India.

But other extinctions are problematic. The greatest dying in geologic history, the Permian-Triassic extinction, killed 90 percent of all life on Earth, but there is no record of an impact. Instead, all signs point to a 200,000-year-long volcanic eruption in Siberia as the murder weapon.

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The Drift River Terminal Evacuated As More Eruptions Loom, Cheveron looks for ways to restart Cook Inlet operations

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At least that is the headline from Energy News Today:

http://www.energynewstoday.com/

I wouldn’t even bring it up but I do because I am a Google Slut and I think it points to a problem on another front.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/greenspace/2009/09/decision-due-soon-on-arctic-ocean-oil-drilling.html

Decision due soon on Arctic Ocean oil drilling

September 21, 2009 |  7:07 pm

Arctic-oil-protest

Opponents of offshore oil drilling in the Arctic are making a last-ditch effort to convince the Obama administration to impose the same kind of moratorium on oil and gas development that it did on major commercial fishing in the Far North.Signatures from nearly 300,000 people supporting a halt on new drilling in the Chukchi and Beaufort seas, and also in Alaska’s Bristol Bay, were unveiled outside the Department of Interior in Washington, on the last day available for public comment before the department decides on future leases on the Outer Continental Shelf.

A group of more than 400 scientists also is joining the public push against Arctic drilling. In a letter to the president timed to the deadline for offshore oil comments, a large group of biologists, oceanographers and other scientists warned that profound physical and biological changes in the Arctic Ocean connected to the rapid shrinking of sea ice leave too many unanswered questions to proceed with new oil and gas development.

“Offshore oil and gas activity poses risks to marine mammals, sea birds and fishes from oil spills and chronic habitat degradation through noise, bottom disturbance, and pollution,” the scientists said in their letter. “Adequate technology does not exist to clean up oil spills in broken ice, and the cumulative impacts of widespread industrial activity will only grow.”

The letter urged a delay in new development until adequate studies give scientists a better understanding of the ecosystem. It also said delays would allow for better consultation with Alaska residents in the Arctic concerned about the impacts of oil drilling on the whales and other marine mammals that form the backbone of their livelihoods.

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How can we allow this when the Oil Companies do this type of thing on dry land?

http://www.adn.com/volcano/story/737432.html

Mud flows in Drift River; oil terminal status uncertain

By RICHARD MAUER
rmauer@adn.com

Published: March 26th, 2009 12:25 PM
Last Modified: March 27th, 2009 10:55 AM

An eruption of Redoubt volcano Thursday morning triggered a flood of mud-choked water in the Drift River, but officials were at a loss to say whether it passed harmlessly by the oil facility near the mouth of the river or penetrated the protective dike there.

Rod Ficken, vice president of Cook Inlet Pipeline Co., said remote monitoring equipment on two tanks that each contain 3 million gallons of crude oil showed no change in their level, strong evidence that they remain intact.

But until observers can fly over the Drift River oil terminal and report back, no one will know how high the river reached and whether water and mud got into the tank farm, Ficken said. The facility has no remote video or flood sensing equipment, he said.

The terminal was evacuated Monday morning early in the series of eruptions that have periodically swollen the river and threatened the facility.

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What they can’t plan for an Active Volcano?

http://www.adn.com/money/industries/oil/story/944581.html

BP pays $1.7 million for rules violations at North Slope fields

By ELIZABETH BLUEMINK
ebluemink@adn.com

Published: September 22nd, 2009 12:03 PM
Last Modified: September 22nd, 2009 10:07 PM

BP Exploration Inc. has paid $1.7 million to the state due to inadequate oil spill protection measures at Prudhoe Bay and other North Slope oil fields, state officials announced Tuesday

BP and the Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation last month signed two compliance agreements to resolve violations of state regulations discovered during routine inspections in 2007, according to the DEC.

BP said Tuesday that it worked with the DEC to find and fix the violations.

The initial inspections showed that at least three BP spill containment areas didn’t meet the capacity requirements spelled out in state rules. As part of the settlement negotiations with the DEC, BP surveyed all of its secondary containment areas and found 16 others that violated the capacity requirements, according to the DEC.

The violations occurred at the Prudhoe Bay, Endicott and Badami oil fields — in truck loading areas and at oil field storage tanks. The tanks, for example, hold thousands of gallons of fuel, oily waste or snowmelt and their spill containment structures are berms that prevent tank leaks from spilling onto the tundra

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What they can’t read?

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Weatherstripping – Having a leaking house does not make sense

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It is an obvious point…the trouble really is in the temperate zones of the world. In theory where it is really hot most of the time you want either a totally open house or a totally closed house. In a predominately cold climate you definitely want a totally closed house. However where you have nice Springs and Falls humans like to “open up the house and air things out”. Thus weather stripping.

http://home.howstuffworks.com/home-improvement/repair/how-to-apply-weatherstripping.htm

How to Install Weatherstripping

If you had a 6-inch-square hole in the middle of your front door, you would certainly do something in order to plug it up. Yet there are thousands of homes in which a 1/8-inch-wide crack exists all the way around the door, and this gap is just about the equivalent air loss of that 6-inch-square hole. Letting these cracks exist is like throwing dollars out the door or window. Fortunately, weatherstripping can reduce your heating/cooling bills by as much as 30 percent while reducing drafts that can cause discomfort.

Your home may or may not need weatherstripping. Luckily, there are some very simple ways to find out. If you can feel cold air coming in around doors and windows on a windy day, you know the answer. If you are uncertain, you can create your own windstorm at the precise spot where you suspect air might be leaking. Go outside with a handheld hair dryer and have a helper inside move his or her hands around the door and/or window frame as you move the hair dryer.

Learn More

­ You may discover that all your doors and windows are airtight. Or you may find a door or window that is airtight around three edges but needs help along the fourth edge. What you will probably conclude, however, is that your home has several drafty areas that would benefit from weatherstripping.
In this article, we’ll show you how to install weatherstripping on all parts of your house. We’ll also examine the various types of weatherstripping, which is our first order of business

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weatherstripping

Weatherstripping

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Jump to: navigation, search

Weatherstripping is the process of sealing openings such as doors, windows, and trunks from the elements. The goal of weatherstripping is to prevent rain and water from entering by either blocking it outright or by blocking most of it and returning or rerouting it. A secondary goal of weatherstripping is to keep interior air in, thus saving energy with heating and air conditioning.

The materials used in weatherstripping are thresholds, a piece of material, either a sweep or a J-hook, to match the door to the threshold, and the actual weathstripping itself.

Every exterior door, or door to an uninsulated room such as an attic, must be weatherstripped as required by code enforcement in various states of U.S.:}

There is so much of it out there:

http://www.randysurleymfg.com/

Randy Surley Manufacturing Company has a wide variety of commercial and residential weather stripping materials suitable for any circumstance. Our product line consists of perimeter weather stripping for doors and windows such as cushion and spring bronze, kerf, brush, and pile. We also have a wide variety of thresholds including interlocking, saddles, aluminum, and brass. We also carry many different door bottoms, sweeps, and seals. We are continually expanding our product line to meet your needs. Contact us if you do not see what you are looking for.
Manufacturer and supplier of premium weather stripping and door thresholds for interior and exterior applications for both commercial and residential jobs.

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http://www.foamtapes.net/?gclid=CKGI456G-ZwCFQMNDQod4Uwqbw

Now You Can Buy Tapes Online From The Industry’s Leading Manufacturers at Competitive Prices!

 

Choose a category from below, use the toolbar on your left to select by material or go directly to our FAQ’s  

Gasket Tape
Adhesive-Backed, closed cell foam and sponge tapes designed to prevent the escape of gas or liquid.

Weatherstripping Tape
Adhesive-Backed, open or closed cell foam and sponge tapes designed to protect an interior from external extremes in temperature.

Mounting Tape
Closed cell foam tapes with adhesive on both sides, designed to bond irregular surfaces together, primarily for mounting lightweight objects to surfaces.

Glazing Tape
Specially engineered double-coated mounting tapes designed specifically for mounting glass into window sashes.

Flashing Tape
Uncured Butyl Rubber tape designed to provide long-term, watertight window and door installations.

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http://www.technologylk.com/products.aspx?category_dept=301&category_ID=1209&source_ID=google&keyword=Door_Weatherstripping&gclid=COGxyMqG-ZwCFSXyDAod0EjKbw
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http://www.lowes.com/lowes/lkn?action=howTo&p=Improve/Weatherstripping.html

Weatherstripping Windows and Doors

Skill Level: Beginner
 
   

You may not think that those small cracks and crevices around your doors and windows are a very big deal. But, did you know that a 1/8″ space between a standard exterior door and its threshold is equivalent to a two square inch hole in the wall? Closing those gaps can save you up to 15 percent in heating and cooling costs and also can reduce the demand on your heating and cooling system. Best of all, you can probably weatherstrip your entire home in a single day. Lowe’s is happy to provide this information as a service to you.

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WHoooof

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The EnCana Bomber – Why doesn’t this get more American Press?

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We get 14% of our oil and natural gas from Canada so where is the American Press on this one?

 http://www.vancouversun.com/news/EnCana+bomber+probe+chills+community/1969701/story.html

 

EnCana bomber probe chills B.C. community

Neighbours paranoid over unsolved attacks

By Hanneke Brooymans, Edmonton Journal, September 7, 2009

I t is early evening in Tomslake and the rural roads are eerily quiet.

This corner of northeastern British Columbia is no longer the place to go for an idle drive, even on one of summer’s last beautiful days.

As the tension ratchets up around the now 11-month search for the EnCana bomber, chances are a watchful, nervous neighbour will call the RCMP.

“You don’t just hop in your truck and drive around anymore,” says one local farmer. He hasn’t driven certain roads for months now, because he doesn’t want people second-guessing why he is there. Nevertheless, he feels strongly enough about the burgeoning gas development to take a reporter and photographer on a short tour to point out the many drilling rigs, flares and compressor stations in his area.

The farmer is too nervous to have his name published, for fear of becoming the target of RCMP interrogations, harassment and phone tapping. This is what happens to anyone who openly criticizes the oilpatch in the area, he says, a view echoed by others.

The wish to avoid police attention has made residents reluctant to talk, even to each other, about the bomber or development issues for fear their views might be misconstrued.

At the Dawson Creek RCMP detachment, Staff Sgt. Stephen Grant is conscious of those concerns, but he won’t comment further on the chilling effect the incidents and the resulting investigation are having on the community. The RCMP, along with the Integrated National Security Enforcement Team, have thrown considerable resources at the hunt for the perpetrator–or perpetrators –of the six explosions on EnCana pipelines.

Grant says they’ve had more than 250 staff working on the case over the last 11 months — as many as 40 or 50 at certain points in time. About 1,000 interviews have been conducted, he adds.

Last week, the Dawson Creek detachment set up a new rural unit in Tomslake, 28 kilometres to the south. Part of the mandate of the four officers in the new unit is to ease the security fears of people in the area.

But residents say they won’t relax until the bomber is caught. Not even the bomber’s most recent letter –promising a three-month vacation from attacks to give EnCana time to announce a withdrawal from the area –has provided any relief.

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Been going on for awhile too:

http://www.sqwalk.com/bc2009/001491.html

Pipeline bombers probably local: expert

By Jamie Hall
The Edmonton Journal
January 6, 2009

Attacks audacious, U of A researcher saysWhatever the bombers lack in technical ability, they make up for in will and audacity, a University of Alberta researcher said after the latest pipeline bombings at EnCana natural gas facilities in northern B.C.

“We’re clearly dealing with someone who’s an amateur, but it does show that although they lack technical ability, their will is certainly not lacking,” said eco-terrorism expert Paul Joosse.

“They’re continuing to carry out these attacks, even though we’re throwing everything we have at them from a law enforcement perspective.”

Evidence of the fourth explosion in three months was discovered Sunday by EnCana workers near the community of Tomslake, about 20 kilometres southeast of Dawson Creek.

The crew noticed damage to a small building housing a natural gas meter at a well site, which was promptly shut down as a precaution. A company spokesman said there was no damage to the wellhead or the pipeline, nor was there a gas leak at the facility.

The RCMP in Dawson Creek are investigating the bombings, with help from the Integrated National Security Enforcement Team, the explosives disposal unit and the forensic identification unit.

Joosse is convinced the attacks are being carried out by someone who lives in the area, but said it’s difficult to say whether it’s a single individual or a “small tightly knit group.”

“Even if it is an individual,” said Joosse, “there are other people who know about this person and are complicit in helping, if only through their silence.”

Residents blocked oil and gas vehicles on a road running through the community of Kelly Lake last summer, an event Joosse said was a precursor to the explosions.

Joosse said the blockade was an illustration of “widespread community support for civil disobedience, and a widespread sentiment of frustration” by locals angry over what they see as the destruction of their land.

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Apparently not everyone is real happy about the enormous damage being done to the environment AND the quality of life there. Can’t let the American Press know about that. Or do they care.

Is the EnCana Bomber a Terrorist or a Hero?

Posted by jl on 7/27/09 • Categorized as Canada, arguments, collaboration, juri, polis

alberta-tar-sands

Since last October, a man has been blowing up EnCana pipelines in B.C.  (Everyone seems to assume the bombings are the work of a man acting on his own.)  So far, no one has been injured by these attacks.

There have been six incidents in the past 10 months, and the police appear to have approximately zero leads.

From a July 16 story in the National Post: “Despite a $500,000 reward, more than 250 investigators and 450 local people interviewed, there has been no public break in the investigation.”

Earlier this month the bomber sent a letter to the Dawson Creek News in which he gives EnCana “three months to convince the residents here and the general public” that they will “cease all [their] activities and remove all [their] installations”.  (He calls this a “summer vacation”.)

The writer indicates that failure to comply with this demand will result in attacks more destructive that the “six minor and fully controlled explosions” that have occurred to date. (The RCMP for their part describe the explosions as “extremely violent in nature and … very dangerous to the local community.”)

Although the letter is certainly the work of a radical, its tone and content do not appear delusional.

“You are on the wrong side of the argument,” the bomber writes.  “Use your excessive earnings to install green energy alternatives… That can be negotiated here but there will be no negotiation with you on fossil fuel activities.”

Radical and threatening?  Yes.  Deranged and out of control?  Not really.

In any case, the RCMP have now decided to call the bomber a “domestic terrorist”.

This may be an attempt to provoke the man in the hope that he screws up in response.  (“B.C. Bomber Makes TV Appearance to Deny Link to Al Qaeda.”)  Or it could be a public-relations effort by the RCMP in which the EnCana bomber is very subtly inserted into people’s mental category of the universally-detested villain.

If theory #2 is correct, however, it’s not clear who’s winning the PR battle.

Indeed, a sampling of recent newspaper stories and readers’ comments on the topic shows that the EnCana bomber enjoys a significant level of popular support.

“mikebreta” commenting on the Globe & Mail web site:

I like what the bomber is doing. I wish there were more people like him. Standing up for what he believe in. Way to go bomber.

“Joe Canadian” writing on the National Post web site:

The RCMP, and many news outlets are painting Encana as good guys. I suppose they are given that the person(s) who are blowing up their pipelines are committing illegal acts. Still, I have to side with residents who don’t want this sour gas pipeline running nearby their town, and especially near their children’s school. Even if they catch the person doing this, no jury in this country is going to send the perpetrator to jail for doing a public service.

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I know how I would vote.

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Happy Birthday To Oil, Happy Birthday To Oil, Happy Birthday To OOOOOOil

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Happy birthday to you…You belooooong in a zoo. Actually you made Zoos absolutely necessary as ARKS for the species that our use of oil has driven either to extinction or near extinction.

 http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/08/oilat150/

Wired Science News for Your Neurons

Happy 150th, Oil! So Long, and Thanks for Modern Civilization

 

  • By Alexis Madrigal Email Author
  • August 27, 2009  |
  • 2:39 pm  |
  • Categories: Energy

shootingthewell

One hundred and fifty years ago on Aug. 27, Colonel Edwin L. Drake sunk the very first commercial well that produced flowing petroleum.

The discovery that large amounts of oil could be found underground marked the beginning of a time during which this convenient fossil fuel became America’s dominant energy source.

But what began 150 years ago won’t last another 150 years — or even another 50. The era of cheap oil is ending, and with another energy transition upon us, we’ve got to scavenge all the lessons we can from its remarkable history.

“I would see this as less of an anniversary to note for celebration and more of an anniversary to note how far we’ve come and the serious moment that we’re at right now,” said Brian Black, an energy historian at Pennsylvania State University and and author of the book Petrolia. “Energy transitions happen and I argue that we’re in one right now and that we need to aggressively look to the future to what’s going to happen after petroleum.”

When Drake and others sunk their wells, there were no cars, no plastics, no chemical industry. Water power was the dominant industrial energy source. Steam engines burning coal were on the rise, but the nation’s energy system — unlike Great Britain’s — still used fossil fuels sparingly. The original role for oil was as an illuminant, not a motor fuel, which would come decades later.

Before the 1860s, petroleum was a well-known curiosity. People collected it with blankets or skimmed it off naturally occurring oil seeps. Occasionally they drank some of it as a medicine or rubbed it on aching joints.

Some people had the bright idea of distilling it to make fuel for lamps, but it was easier to get lamp fuel from pig fat or whale oil or converted coal. Without a steady supply, there was no point in developing a whole system and infrastructure dedicated to petroleum.

Nonetheless, some Yankee capitalists from Connecticut were convinced that oil could be found in the ground and exploited. They recruited “Colonel” Edwin Drake, who was not a Colonel at all, mostly because he was charming and unemployed. He, in turn, found someone skilled in the art of drilling, or what passed for it in those days.

Drake and his sidekick “Uncle Billy” Smith started looking underground for oil in the spring of ‘59. They used a heavy metal tip attached to a rope, sending it plummeting down the borehole like a ram to break up the rock. It was slow going.

On Aug. 27, 1859, at 69 feet of depth, Drake and Smith hit oil. It was a big deal, but the Civil War stalled the immediate development of the rock oil industry.

“When the discovery happened, the few people who were there and not involved in the war, went around and bought all the property they could and had outside investors come in,” Black said. “But the real heyday of the development happened from 1864-1870. It’s that 11-year period when the little river valley was the world’s leading supplier of oil.”

derrickforest

The “little river valley” in western Pennsylvania earned the nickname Petrolia. Centered in the Oil Creek valley about one hundred miles north of Pittsburgh, the wells of Pithole, Titusville and Oil City pumped 56 million barrels of oil out of the ground from 1859 to 1873.

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Though there is some question about whether it was the first well in the world or even in the US:

http://www.scientificamerican.com/blog/60-second-science/post.cfm?id=whither-the-oil-age-150-years-of-bl-2009-08-27 

And let's get the record straight. The Drake well was not
the first oil well in the U.S. Historical geologic research data
my father paid for circa 1979 pegged a well outside Oneida Tenn.
as the first producing oil well in the U.S. It preceeded the
Drake Well by a couple of decades or more (I believe the well
was struck around 1819 but I am going from memory as I read the survey
a long time ago). Unfortunately it was deep in mountainous terrain
making it nearly impossible to commercialize. Plus there wasn't
much of a use for oil yet. The well was accidental - they were actually
after water. The survey mentioned the Drake well as being considered
the first viable commerical well. But the Drake well definitely was
not the first oil well in the U.S. Dad commissioned the survey because
of a good oil producing lease on the mountain that over looks
Huntsville Tenn. In fact, the land was leased from Bobby York - one of
the grandsons of Alvin York. Yes, that Alvin York, a.k.a. "Seargent York"
 of WWI fame.

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Even then there were people who thought that the mass consumption of oil would cause big problems:

http://www.enotes.com/earth-science/arrhenius-svante-august

Arrhenius, Svante August (1859-1927)

Swedish chemist

Svante August Arrhenius was awarded the 1903 Nobel Prize in chemistry for his research on the theory of electrolytic dissociation, a theory that had won the lowest possible passing grade for his Ph.D. two decades earlier. Arrhenius’s work with chemistry was often closely tied to the science of physics, so much so that the Nobel committee was not sure in which of the two fields to make the 1903 award. In fact, Arrhenius is regarded as one of the founders of physical chemistry—the field of science in which physical laws are used to explain chemical phenomena. In the last decades of his life Arrhenius became interested in theories of the origin of life on Earth, arguing that life had arrived on our planet by means of spores blown through space from other inhabited worlds. He was also one of the first scientists to study the heat-trapping ability of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere in a phenomenon now known as the greenhouse effect.

Arrhenius was born on February 19, 1859, in Vik (also known as Wik or Wijk), in the district of Kalmar, Sweden. His mother was the former Carolina Thunberg, and his father was Svante Gustaf Arrhenius, a land surveyor and overseer at the castle of Vik on Lake Mälaren, near Uppsala. Young Svante gave evidence of his intellectual brilliance at an early age. He taught himself to read by the age of three and learned to do arithmetic by watching his father keep books for the estate of which he was in charge. Arrhenius began school at the age of eight, when he entered the fifth-grade class at the Cathedral School in Uppsala. After graduating in 1876, Arrhenius enrolled at the University of Uppsala.

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Yahoo Attacks The Illinois State Fair – Well not really but my Yahoo account was attacked

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The reason this Post is so late in the day is because I opened my web browser today and it showed that I had 35 messages waiting for me. Someone had unleashed a worm on my address book and it was busy sending all my friends spam. Some of it dangerous spam. I was mortified. I spent over 2 hours checking to make sure it was originating on my computer. People sent some of it back to me so I could see what the heck was spewing out of my account. Then in consultation with my computer expert Afredo I determined that just changing my email password could halt the attack…So I did and it ended. I had to blow off lunch with David Lasley, Dave Fuchs and the Sangamon County Democrats just to get to here…Damnit.

There were some things that I saw at the Illinois State Fair that I did not really care for. One of those things was the prominence of Biofuel in both of  Governor Pat Quinn’s tents. We all know that biofuel, especially ones made from foods, distract people from getting rid of the internal combustion engine. It also drives up food prices so this:

fairs4.jpg

and this:

fairs81.jpg

were NOT appreciated.

Though the latest craze in biofuels is watermellons that are farm waste:

http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2009/08/26/watermelon-fuel.html

Watermelon Juice: The New Fuel?

Michael Reilly, Discovery News

Fill 'er Up

Fill ‘er Up | Discovery News Video

Aug. 26, 2009 — A staple of backyard barbecues and summer time snacks, watermelon is also a promising new source of renewable energy.

According to a new study, leftover watermelons from farms’ harvests could be converted into up to 9.4 million liters (2.5 million gallons) of clean, renewable ethanol fuel every year destined for your car, truck, or airplane’s gas tank.

Agriculturally, watermelon is a peculiar fruit — each year farmers across the country leave between 20 and 40 percent of their crop to rot on the ground. These are the ugly ducklings of the lot; though perfectly fine on the inside, the misshapen or blemished melons simply won’t sell at the grocery store.

“If a crow lands on a melon, takes two pecks at the rind, and then flies away, it’s no good,” Wayne Fish of the United States Department of Agriculture in Lane, Oklahoma said. “I had farmers telling me, ‘I’m leaving one-fifth of my melons on the land. Is there anything I can do with them?'”

Across the United States, he estimated that 360,000 tons of watermelons spoil in fields every year.

Some local growers wondered whether the waste melons could be turned into ethanol, the clean-burning fuel derived from plant sugars. In a series of new experiments published yesterday in the journal Biotechnology for Biofuels, Fish and a team of researchers showed that they can.

What’s more, watermelon juice may turn out to be the perfect way to optimize industrial-scale production of ethanol from corn, molasses and sugar cane.

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Then there was this. What the hell. This causes Earth Quakes in Texas yet it makes it to the State Fair?

fairs2.jpg

Fracking is Coming to Decatur. People better get ready for it:

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,526233,00.html

Drilling Eyed as Possible Culprit Behind Texas Earthquakes

Sunday, June 14, 2009

CLEBURNE, Texas  —  The earth moved here on June 2. It was the first recorded earthquake in this Texas town’s 140-year history — but not the last.

There have been four small earthquakes since, none with a magnitude greater than 2.8. The most recent ones came Tuesday night, just as the City Council was meeting in an emergency session to discuss what to do about the ground moving.

The council’s solution was to hire a geology consultant to try to answer the question on everyone’s mind: Is natural gas drilling — which began in earnest here in 2001 and has brought great prosperity to Cleburne and other towns across North Texas — causing the quakes?

“I think John Q. Public thinks there is a correlation with drilling,” Mayor Ted Reynolds said. “We haven’t had a quake in recorded history, and all the sudden you drill and there are earthquakes.”

At issue is a drilling practice called “fracking,” in which water is injected into the ground at high pressure to fracture the layers of shale and release natural gas trapped in the rock.

There is no consensus among scientists about whether the practice is contributing to the quakes. But such seismic activity was once rare in Texas and seems to be increasing lately, lending support to the theory that drilling is having a destabilizing effect.

On May 16, three small quakes shook Bedford, a suburb of Dallas and Fort Worth. Two small earthquakes hit nearby Grand Prairie and Irving on Oct. 31, and again on Nov. 1.

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Why Rightwing Fundamentalism Is So Environmentally Destructive

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Why are Conservatives so stupid. Usually right away I get accused of name calling and class warfare. I usually respond that I am not questioning their intelligence so much as I am questioning their larger view of the world. I point out there is a class war going on and most of us are losing it. In much the same way that the VERY Rich slave holders perpetuated the fighting and hatred of the less wealthy poor whites and blacks, the world destroyers and the mega wealthy must have the lower classes fighting and bickering over “tree huggers” and Cap and Trade. This is what the fundamentalists miss. For lofty ideals that do not exist like “personal freedom” they are watching the only world that we have slip away for the enrichment of the very few.

Further more as I have said for 30 years it is not the “little guy” that is to blame for things like destabilizing the climate and acidifying the oceans. It is in this order, The militaries of the world, the Airline Industry, the Big Smoke Stack users (mainly megawatt coal fired electrical plants), and the Shipping industry. That is it. The little guy can ride his stinky garden tractor, fire up his stinky grill and drive his F150 to work everyday if he wants to. THINK about it for a moment. The aforementioned Earth wreckers want the burdened pushed off on the public. It means they get to keep on polluting because we STOP.

http://www.usnews.com/articles/business/economy/2007/11/14/the-10-biggest-carbon-dioxide-polluters.html

The 10 Biggest Carbon Dioxide Polluters

By Marianne Lavelle

Posted November 14, 2007

Ten large companies generate more than one third of the 2.8 billion tons of carbon dioxide emitted each year by U.S. electric power

generators, according to figures in a first-of-its-kind database unveiled Wednesday.

American Electric Power, based in Columbus, Ohio, and Southern Co. of Atlanta, which run the largest coal power plants in the country, top the list of U.S. companies responsible for greenhouse gas emissions from electricity, according to data compiled by the Center for Global Development, a global economic development think tank in Washington, D.C.

The database, called CARMA or Carbon Monitoring for Action, culls for the first time data both from government regulators around the world and commercial databases to provide an up-to-date look at the state of CO2 from power production—which accounts for one quarter of all carbon emissions. (The database doesn’t look at other large sources, like transportation and manufacturing.) Here are the top sources of greenhouse gas emissions from electricity generation in the United States:

The 10 Biggest Carbon Dioxide Polluters

COMPANY TONS OF CO2 PER YEAR
1. American Electric Power 174 million
With 5 million customers in 11 states from Ohio to Texas, its biggest carbon emissions come from its Gavin coal plant in Cheshire, Ohio.
2. SOUTHERN 172 million
Has 4.3 million customers in the Southeast and owns the top three carbon-emitting power plants in the country: Scherer, in Juliet, Ga.; Miller in Quinton, Ala.; and Bowen in Cartersville, Ga.
3. (tie) AES CORP. 108 million
Has power plants from New York to California, with the worst emissions from its Petersburg, Ind., plant.
3. (tie) DUKE ENERGY 108 million
Serves 4 million customers in the Carolinas, Ohio, Kentucky, and Indiana. Its Gibson plant in Owensville, Ind., is the nation’s fourth-largest carbon emissions source in the power sector.
5. TENNESSEE VALLEY AUTHORITY 101 million
The nation’s largest public power company serves the 8.7 million residents of the Tennessee Valley. Its Cumberland City, Tenn., plant ranks eighth in the nation in CO2 emissions.
6. NRG ENERGY 82.7 million
A wholesale power producer that operates in deregulated electricity markets throughout the country, its W.A. Parish plant in Thompsons, Texas, is the nation’s No. 5 carbon emissions source.
7. XCEL ENERGY 76.1 million
With 3.3 million customers in the West and Midwest, its largest carbon generator is its Sherburne County plant in Becker, Minn.
8. MIDAMERICAN ENERGY HOLDINGS 70.9 million
A Warren Buffett Berkshire Hathaway company, MidAmerican serves customers in Iowa, Illinois, and South Dakota, with its largest CO2 emissions from the Jim Bridger plant in Point Of Rocks, Wyo.
9. PROGRESS ENERGY 68.1 million
Based in Raleigh, N.C., its plant in Roxoboro, N.C., is its biggest emissions source.
10. DOMINION RESOURCES 66.6 million
Dominion is based in Virginia, with operations stretching into the Northeast and Midwest. Its biggest carbon emissions source is its Mount Storm, W.Va., plant.

……

Strikingly, three Chinese power companies, South Africa’s giant Eskom, and India’s NTPC all generate more CO2 emissions than any single U.S. firm—underscoring the shared challenge posed by global climate change. The largest, Huaneng Power International of China, has emissions 68 percent higher than American Electric Power’s.

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I am quoting extensively from the article because it makes the point rather well. It is well researched and Lavelle is a good writer. In a startling 2 paragraphs she cuts through all the smoke and the fog to the heart of this story.

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One of the most striking findings in the data, says David Wheeler, a Center for Global Development senior fellow who led the research, is how concentrated the problem is among a relatively few large power generators. He said the top 100 companies worldwide produce 57 percent of CO2 emissions coming from the power sector. The top 30 companies produce 30 percent of the total. “On the one hand, it’s sobering,” he says. “But it might be hopeful. You could actually assemble the CEOs of those firms, and there might be many channels through which they can organize and address this as a group themselves. I think that’ll be critical to a solution.”

Wheeler was a former lead economist in the World Bank’s Development Research Group, where his team used public disclosure as a strategy to generate pressure from lenders and communities for pollution reduction in China, Indonesia, and the Philippines. Wheeler says his team similarly hopes the CARMA data will be used not only by environmental groups but by institutional and private investors and insurers, to encourage power companies to use less coal and oil and shift to renewable resources

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If you want to check the data here is the CARMA site:

http://carma.org/

About CARMA

Posted by Christopher Frazier on March 25, 2006

Frequently Asked Questions
CARMA’s Partners
All About Icons
Plant-Specific Information
Citation Policy
CARMA Version Tracker

At its core, Carbon Monitoring for Action (CARMA) is a massive database containing information on the carbon emissions of over 50,000 power plants and 4,000 power companies worldwide. Power generation accounts for 40% of all carbon emissions in the United States and about one-quarter of global emissions. CARMA is the first global inventory of a major, emissions-producing sector of the economy.

CARMA is produced and financed by the Confronting Climate Change Initiative at the Center for Global Development, an independent and non-partisan think tank located in Washington, DC.

The objective of CARMA.org is to equip individuals with the information they need to forge a cleaner, low-carbon future. By providing complete information for both clean and dirty power producers, CARMA hopes to influence the opinions and decisions of consumers, investors, shareholders, managers, workers, activists, and policymakers. CARMA builds on experience with public information disclosure techniques that have proven successful in reducing traditional pollutants.

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Yet yet at least one of the social values issues also comes into play and that is abortion. Now I could go on and on about a woman’s right to control her body and how god does not play an active role in the world so birth is not a “miracle”. But the fact is that the main hatred of abortion by the various world’s religions is based on their desire for world domination. The idea being that once the world is “totally” christian for instance then NIRVANA will arrive. But what this ignores is the Over Population that this has caused. The world population stands at 9 billion people. The Earth has a carrying capacity of about a billion people soooooo at some point there is going to be a huge die off. Probably when my niece Taylor is in her 30s or 40s. I just want to say to my mother and others like her…don’t you realize that you are killing Taylor off?

http://www.overpopulation.org/cgi-bin/cgiwrap/popaware/article.pl?display_subsection%%%NewsDigest_NewsItem%%1

If we don’t halt population growth with justice and compassion, it will be done for us by nature,
brutally and without pity – and will leave a ravaged world.”
Nobel Laureate Dr. Henry W. Kendall 023934

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Tough Decision – My mom is stupid or burning is stupid

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OK so Mom wins but let me very quickly qualify that I love my Mother and I mean that unconditionally. My Mom is a rightwing fundamentalist Christian. So really what I am saying is that I hate the ideology more than my mother. I am not talking about the social agenda either or most of it anyway. I am pro abortion. I think everyone should have one. I am pro civil rights which means I am for samesex sexuality. I think everyone has tried just one. I am for universal health care.

I am more talking about her pro corporate business, pro rich, pro military, deregulation, anti union and anti evolution stances. Mom things that rich people and powerful people are the best. She got this from Eureka College where Ronald Reagan was big man on campus:

http://www.hindu.com/2009/07/07/stories/2009070750300200.htm

Budget pro-rich, says TDP Special Correspondent

‘No solution shown for unemployment and agricultural crisis’

Budget failed to specify how 1.20 crore jobs would be generated’

‘Promoting disinvestment in PSUs amounts to encouraging privatisation’

KADAPA: The Union budget is pro-rich and not oriented towards poverty alleviation and ignored the cause of the middle classes, Telugu Desam Party leaders alleged.

The budget failed to specify how 1.20 crore jobs would be generated, TDP State Secretary V.S. Ameer Babu, TNTUC president S.A. Sattar and party leaders S. Goverdhan Reddy and J. Rayappa Raju said in a statement. They deplored the government’s contention that it would attract foreign direct investment when there was global economic recession and did not specify how it would clear the foreign debt and interest.

The budget did not show any solution to unemployment, agricultural crisis and suicides. There was no mention of unearthing the black money of Rs. 1 lakh crore, they alleged. Inflation grew from 2.8 per cent last year to 6.7 per cent this year. The Bill passed for unorganised workers was confined to paper.

Promoting disinvestment in public sector units amounts to encouraging privatisation, the TDP leaders alleged.

Steps were not taken to curtail the increase in petrol and diesel prices. The budget made no mention of the lakhs of workers who lost jobs in IT industry, they said.

The TDP is opposing the budget, they asserted

‘Highly disappointing’ Tirupati Correspondent adds: Federation of the Farmers’ Association and various other farmers organisations have termed the general budget introduced today as highly disappointing from the farmers point of view.

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Which I think should clash with her Christian values. Lets face it, the rich just want more money at the expense of not just the poor but the environment. As long as they believe that their money can buy them clean water and clean air – even if it has to come in a bottle – well then the heck with the rest of us.

http://a4a.mahost.org/fakes.html

DON’T BE FOOLED!

Only after the last tree has been cut down,
only after the last river has been poisoned,
only after the last fish has been caught,
only then will you realize that money cannot be eaten.
–The Cree People

Big Business is terrified of the environmental movement, which remains the single most popular left-wing movement in the US. The dirty secret of Big Business is that it is principally responsible for pollution and environmental degradation around the world. The majority of Americans want a safer, cleaner environment. They know that, and have taken extensive countermeasures to protect themselves from the people at large, including pouring money into bogus environmental groups designed to further industry causes while appearing to be environmentally conscious. They also launch massive PR campaigns to paint themselves green.These anti-environmental initiatives are, in essence, efforts to thwart democracy.It’s important to note that the only green behind these efforts is money, not concern for the environment. These groups are very well-financed, backed, as they are, by corporations and other capitalist interests. What they lack in public support, they make up for in resources and powerful connections.Going over the list, you can see the copious use of buzzwords by the anti-environmental movement, as they strive to create the appearance of a broad mandate and public support. However, these groups are funded and controlled by economic and political elites, with a vested (financial) interest in thwarting and reversing environmental reforms.The following is excerpted from The Greenpeace Guide to Anti-Environmental Organizations, put out by the excellent Odonian Press, Box 32375, Tucson, AZ 85751, and is part of their Real Story series

TACTICS

  • Greenwashing: When a company adopts marketing strategies whereby the company appears to be adopting a more environmentally-conscious stance, when really it’s simply doing its usual routine.
      Examples:
    1. Mobil Chemical added a small amount of starch to the plastic in Hefty trash bags and called them “biodegradable” (however, the bags would not degrade if buried in landfills, but only if left out in the sun; moreover, the bags didn’t degrade, but rather broke up into smaller plastic pieces — not the same thing!) A Mobil Chemical pitch man said, “degradability is just a marketing tool. We’re talking out of both sides of our mouth because we want to sell our bags.”
    2. Coors Brewing sponsors a greenwashing campaign called Pure Water 2000 that funds “grassroots organizations [engaged in] river cleanups, water habitat improvements, water quality monitoring, wetland protection, and pollution prevention.” In 1992, however, Coors pleaded guilty to charges that it had dumped carcinogenic chemicals into a local waterway for 18 years!
  • Astroturf organizing: These are industry-funded organizations meant to function like environment grassroots groups, except that they are heavily financed by industry and seek to manipulate public opinion by distorting facts. They seek to put environmentalists in an unfavorable light by launching personal attacks against them, charging that activists are “anti-family,” “anti-American,” and pitting jobs and the economy against environmental reform. They are termed “astroturf” because they are designed to look like they are genuine grassroots movements.
  • Physical violence: Activists are routinely harassed by the FBI, which considers any progressive movements “terrorist” in nature, justifying surveillance, break-ins, arrests, and worse. Activists find themselves the victims of assaults, sabotage, death threats, and worse.
      Examples:
    1. 1990: Earth First! activists Judi Bari and Darryl Cherney were nearly killed by a car bomb — incredibly, the authorities arrested them and accused them of transporting a bomb, which was later thrown out for lack of evidence. The actual perpetrators were never apprehended.
    2. 1992: Activist Stephanie McGuire of Florida was assaulted by three men for opposing a Procter & Gamble pulp mill’s practice of dumping toxins into the Fenholloway River (this mill still does this, btw). They beat her, burned her with a lit cigar, and cut her with a straight razor, while saying “now you have something to sue us over.” No one was arrested in this crime.
    3. The Center for Investigative Reporting noted 104 violent attacks on environmentalists from January 1989 to January 1993, averaging one every two weeks.
  • Government involvement: Through official government channels, whether Congress or the courts or the Executive Branch, government has been shown to regularly side with Big Business where environmental issues are concerned. The conservative 104th Congress recently showed this in its efforts to weaken endangered species laws, open up wetlands and parklands for economic exploitation, and lessening clean air, food, and water legislation. They also cut the funding for the EPA to the bone, all of which pleased industry greatly!

SIX TYPES OF ANTI-ENVIRONMENTAL GROUPS

Most industries will rely on a combination of the following to undermine and roll back environmental reforms, lavishly spending money on campaigns to secure their financial gain at our expense!

  • Public relations firms
  • Corporate front groups
  • Think tanks
  • Legal foundations
  • Endowments and charities
  • Wise Use and Share groups

Of these, the misnamed “Wise Use” and “Share” groups need the most explanation. This anti-environmental movement is mostly a western phenomenon where timber, mining, ranching, chemical, and recreation companies banded together to fight the environmental movement. Ron Arnold, the movement’s founder, is a self-described reformed environmentalist, one who has “seen the light”. As he puts it: “We want to be able to exploit the environment for private gain, absolutely.”

Makes you wonder what kind of environmentalist he must have been, with an attitude like that!

“Wise Use” and “Share” (Canadian version of “Wise Use”) act basically as stormtroopers for industry, because, according to Arnold, the “Wise Use” movement can “do things the industry can’t. It can stress the sanctity of the family, the virtue of the close-knit community. And it can turn the public against your enemies.”

Wiseguys are recruited from the ranks of workers at company meetings (typically compulsory meetings, by the way), and through door-to-door canvassers claiming environmentalists are responsible for unemployment.

Here you see a classic tactic of capitalists, turning the working class against itself when they should be fighting their common enemies, the capitalists themselves! News flash, folks — capitalists cause unemployment, environmentalists don’t!

What the wiseguys want was hammered out in their 1988 conference in Reno, Nevada, where they created a 25 point platform cementing their goal to destroy the environmental movement. Below are eight of their “lofty” goals:

  • “immediate development of the petroleum resources of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska”
  • opening “all public lands, including wilderness areas and national parks” to mineral and energy exploitation and to recreational vehicles
  • exempting from the Endangered Species Act any species whose protection would interfere with resource exploitation (buzzword for “capitalist profit”, I’d say)
  • opening 70 million acres of wilderness that is currently protected by the Wilderness Act to commercial exploitation
  • logging 3.4 million acres of the Tongass National Forest in Alaska
  • making enviromentalists pay industry back if they lose cases in court, as well as to pay for lost industry profits (this is the classic “big guy” versus “little guy” tactic, where the industry hopes to scare off potential suits because they know that while they have the money to fight a successful court battle, environmentalists don’t — it’s not unlike a wealthy incumbent’s campaign war chest scaring off would-be challengers)
  • giving anti-environmental groups the right to sue environmentalists on behalf of the industry (this is a real gem, where industry uses these goons as dupes to do their dirty work, while the industry keeps its nose clean — ever the capitalist way!)
  • implementing free-trade agreements (e.g., NAFTA and GATT) that will grant US industry access to natural resources (e.g., raw materials) globally

Looking at these, one wonders where the “Wise Use” comes in! Far from being populists, these wiseguys are snugly in the vest pockets of their capitalist employers. They are what you’d call “ruling class heroes,” I suppose, making the world safe for wealth, power, and privilege — and they even get paid for their effort!

ANTI-ENVIRONMENTAL GROUPS

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More on this later but suffice it to say that couching all of the above in a religious certainty and finding proof of that in the Bible is just plain wrong. In fact it is what all the polluters want to happen. Ready made stooges.

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