Monday, September 30, 2013
GLOBAL: REDD/Carbon Trading: On the question on carbon trading, one set of impacts in Latin America
On REDD, the program to 'Reducing Emissions From Deforestation and Forest Degradation' - and its impacts
Continued Support for Keystone XL Pipeline?
If Obama makes a decision based on how things are polling, than chances are he'll ok the Keystone pipeline.
See recent Pew Research Center Energy Poll, take special note of how they ask the questions:
Continued Support for Keystone XL Pipeline
Here is how that question was phrased (note: oil, oil sands, nothing on emissions from those operations):
Here is the full report, and the full questionnaire. The Pew folks have made some questionable alliances in recent years, some with former oil/gas traders. The founder was an oil-man. Are these alliances impacting their ability to carry out and report neutral public opinion polls? This one, from question to presentation, seems to have an agenda.
See recent Pew Research Center Energy Poll, take special note of how they ask the questions:
Continued Support for Keystone XL Pipeline
Here is how that question was phrased (note: oil, oil sands, nothing on emissions from those operations):
Here is the full report, and the full questionnaire. The Pew folks have made some questionable alliances in recent years, some with former oil/gas traders. The founder was an oil-man. Are these alliances impacting their ability to carry out and report neutral public opinion polls? This one, from question to presentation, seems to have an agenda.
Sunday, September 29, 2013
US GULF: How much oil did BP spill? How much do they owe?
Why say "amount of oil 'lost'"? Lost? Who writes these headlines? NY Times still hoping for advertising revenue from BP?
New York Times, September 29, 2013
In BP Trial, The Amount Of Oil Lost Is at Issue
New York Times, September 29, 2013
In BP Trial, The Amount Of Oil Lost Is at Issue
The fines against BP hang in the balance, and depend on the level of negligence that is determined and how much oil was spilled.
Thursday, September 26, 2013
WE ARE THE NEZ PERCE NATION: More on the struggle against tar sands truckers in Idaho
New York Times
September 26, 2013
The Nez Perce Indians were drawn into the national brawl over the future of energy last month when they tried to stop a load of oil-processing equipment from moving through their lands.
Tuesday, September 24, 2013
CHINA: Extending its Oil Consumption Reach Westward
New York Times. September 24, 2013
A Chinese presence at a vast new oil field in Kazakhstan is another indication that China’s influence has eclipsed even Russia’s across the former Soviet republics of Central Asia.
Saturday, September 21, 2013
Friday, September 20, 2013
US: LOANS FOR CLEAN ENERGY RENEWED
New York Times, September 20, 2013
A controversial federal loan-guarantee program intended to support greener energy technologies will shift to supporting development of cleaner oil and coal technology.
ONE SMALL STEP FORWARD: COAL COMPANIES TRYING TO PUSH US BACK
The proposed rules are an aggressive move by President Obama to bypass congress on climate change with executive actions.
Thursday, September 19, 2013
GERMANY: PUSHING TO POST-CARBON ERA, CONFRONTS CHALLENGES
New York Times
By MELISSA EDDY and STANLEY REED
Published: September 18, 2013
Germany’s plan to convert to renewable energy sources is running into problems in execution that are forcing Germans to face the costs of sticking to their principles.
The Marcellus Effect: Colorado Floods Break Pipeline and Engulf Gas Well...
The Marcellus Effect: Colorado Floods Break Pipeline and Engulf Gas Well...: photo by Andy Cross/ the Denver Post The rain pummeling Colorado this past week caused epic flooding. Photos show miles of devastation...
Monday, September 16, 2013
Exclusive: Pipeline Safety Chief Says His Regulatory Process Is 'Kind of Dying' | InsideClimate News
From BG: A year or so ago I argued that there would be more spills coming, precisely because of the way that regulation has been stripped to nothing, and the way that the industry continues to fight any new rules or regulations. And, now, from the mouth of the industry-friendly regulators themselves:
Exclusive: Pipeline Safety Chief Says His Regulatory Process Is 'Kind of Dying' | InsideClimate News
Exclusive: Pipeline Safety Chief Says His Regulatory Process Is 'Kind of Dying' | InsideClimate News
Saturday, September 14, 2013
TAR SANDS: One judge + organized Nez Perce + environmentalists + Nat'l Park Service = good sense
On a back road in Idaho, a significant contest over democracy, oil, and nature unfolds. The company involved argued that their materiel would actually have environmental benefits in tar sands operations. Even if this were convincing, it would still evade the reasons for restricting transit of these megaloads, in this case on Native and national lands, because of the destruction they wreak on infrastructure. Similar struggles ongoing across Native lands in the Dakotas. –BG
See more on "megaloads" at Idaho Rivers United and the Nez Perce Tribal Web Site.
New York Times, September 13, 2013
The move came in response to a lawsuit filed by the Nez Perce tribe and an environmental group, which charged that the Forest Service failed to enforce its own rules to protect the environment through the corridor.
COAL: increasing exports was a bad idea anyway
As per our conversation on the threat posed by growing coal consumption over the next 40 years, a global glut, and some significant shifts (esp. in Europe) are calming US coal companies' dreams of exporting US coal abroad. Conclusion: leave it in the ground, for a long, long time.
U.S. Coal Companies Scale Back Export Goals
U.S. Coal Companies Scale Back Export Goals
American mining companies confront a global coal glut and a price slump, along with persistent environmental opposition.
COAL, Criminality and Massey Energy
As discussed in Global Energy, 2011, the march of justice continues in the case of the Upper Big Branch mine, plodding slowly toward former CEO Blankenship. 29 dead miners due to systematic and illegal evasion of safety regulations, aka 'industrial homicide.' - BG
(New York Times Editorial Board - September 13, 2013.
(New York Times Editorial Board - September 13, 2013.
Mismanagement and Death in a Coal Mine
It is heartening that a former executive with Massey Energy was sentenced to three-and-a-half years in prison.
Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/13/opinion/mismanagement-and-death-in-a-coal-mine.html?smid=pl-share
China Update: Baby steps on coal- and oil-linked pollution
weakened by leaving room for regional leaders to implement.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/13/world/asia/china-releases-plan-to-reduce-air-pollution.html?smid=pl-share
New York Times, September 13, 2013
China’s Plan to Curb Air Pollution Sets Limits on Coal Use and Vehicles
The plan represents the most concrete response yet to growing criticism for allowing the country’s air, soil and water to degrade to abysmal levels
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/13/world/asia/china-releases-plan-to-reduce-air-pollution.html?smid=pl-share
Thursday, September 12, 2013
Remarks by the President on America's Energy Security | The White House
Remarks by the President on America's Energy Security | The White House (transcript)
(March 2011, re: our conversation on the discourse of "energy security")
(March 2011, re: our conversation on the discourse of "energy security")
Tuesday, September 10, 2013
Thursday, September 5, 2013
ARGENTINA: CHEVRON INKS DEAL WITH YPF TO EXPAND FRACKING, MAPUCHE AND ALLIES IN RESISTANCE, POLICE DEPLOY VIOLENCE
How multinational firms and 'nationalist' governments come together to expand fracking, despite international covenants on indigenous rights, and how these contracts are backed up by compliant legislators and riot police.
Wednesday, September 4, 2013
HOW BIG OIL CAPTURES LAW, POLITICIANS, ETC: LOOK AT LOUISIANA
Facing Fire Over Challenge to Louisiana’s Oil Industry
NYT: Ever Hopeful, Not Critical, Hopeful: Silver Lining in China’s Smog as It Puts Focus on Emissions
A plan would swiftly limit the carbon dioxide China produces from fossil fuels, which constitute over a quarter of the world’s total such emissions.
MANKIW on the CARBON TAX: CONSERVATIVE THINKER APPROACHING REASON; NOTE: APPROACHING
A Carbon Tax That America Could Live With
"THIS summer, the Obama administration released the President’s Climate Action Plan. It is a grab bag of regulations and policy initiatives aimed at reducing the nation’s carbon emissions, which many scientists believe contribute to global warming.
This got me to thinking: What might I do to reduce my own carbon emissions? Here are some things I came up with. Think of them as Greg Mankiw’s Climate Action Plan."
The Environmental Consequences of Privatizing Mexico’s Oil
http://www.dissentmagazine.org/blog/the-environmental-consequences-of-privatizing-mexicos-oil
Environmental contamination in Minatitlán, Veracruz (Amigomodular/Wikimedia Commons)
On August 16, an eight-inch pipeline ruptured at Mexico’s oldest refinery in Minatitlán in the south of Veracruz state. Even as oily wastes poured into the Coatzacoalcos River, stretching out twenty miles by the day’s end, a group of long-time residents meeting in this same city recalled the long, damaging toll that the petrochemical industry has inflicted on the environment and people of this region. But their harrowing past and present have barely registered in the many headlines that Mexican oil was making in this nation’s capital, as well as leading American newspapers. There, for the past few weeks, talk has swirled around the new Mexican president’s proposal to (more or less) privatize the country’s oil industry, for well over half a century run by the Mexican state.
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