Frack Everything (and Merry Christmas)

The USA is on a great upswing in oil and natural gas production, and a lot of people don't see the need to talk or worry about "peak fossil fuels" (i.e. dwindling cheap supply) because of technological advances such as with hydraulic fracturing ("fracking").

The thing is: even if our net available supply of natural gas has increased, that doesn't change the fact that the industry is operating in a market/system that pretty much completely discounts human and environmental health. It doesn't mean that mixing highly toxic chemicals into very large amounts of water and pumping it at high pressure into shale formations to release natural gas deposits is the answer to our "energy crisis".

You wouldn't know it by the way we dump our feces and industrial poisons into it, but water is more valuable than oil or natural gas. It's one of those really essential things.

City-councilman Doug Shields successfully introduced a hydro-fracking ban in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania shortly after the city's public drinking water supply was shut down due to highly toxic gas industry waste being dumped directly into rivers with minimal and inadequate treatment. The industry was well aware of these millions of gallons of waste, not just in Pittsburgh, but all over Pennsylvania.  A recent article in The Nation by Elizabeth Royte states, "Between 2008 and 2011, drilling companies in Pennsylvania reported 2,392 violations of law that posed a direct threat to the environment and safety of communities." This is especially surprising because the industry sits in a 2005 Energy Bill loophole to exempt them from key elements of the Clean Water Act according to the website of the documentary Gasland--- they already have fewer laws to "follow".

It's no small wonder New Yorkers are protesting and petitioning their Governor to deny industry access to their stretch of Marcellus Shale in the name of their abundant freshwater supply --- and most recently, in the name of their food supply. Alongside the compromised lives and livelihoods of neighboring ranchers, exposure to some of the myriad hazardous chemicals associated with hydraulic-fracking has led to the serious illness, death, and still-birth of nearby livestock (according to one peer-reviewed study, personal testimonies, and that fantastic Elizabeth Royte article).

These are some pretty high externalized costs for energy independence, don't you think? Why are we scaling up and auctioning public lands to this industry instead of figuring out how to live without it and deal with the messes it already creates? We can only handle so many more millions of gallons of toxins...

On the Doha Dud and Tar Sands Treaty

I've been hesitating on this one--- I drank too much Hatorade. And even before that, the subject was depressing.

The 18th United Nations Conference of the Parties (COP18) came together in Doha, Qatar to negotiate the future of international climate negotiations (as ironic as that is). Who are the Parties and why aren't they partying? They are the countries that form the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and they're not partying because they're too busy wallowing in the frustrations of international diplomacy.


Witness:

In 2010, the Parties agreed that emissions need to be reduced such that temperatures didn't rise more than 2 degrees Celsius ---- because, you know, most of the world agrees that the climate is changing  and that it's linked to greenhouse gas emissions (in large part from industry; including industrial cow farts).

Because if they don't change now, carbon-independence will be even harder to accomplish and problems will compound upon themselves as the "carbon-sinks" such as corals, algae and trees die, the permafrost melts to expose methane-bogged peat bogs, smaller glaciers reflect smaller amounts of solar radiation, etc. etc.

The way things stand, as was abundantly clear at Doha, there is no way that "government" is going to take drastic enough measures to accomplish this objective. Seems like the only thing these conferences are good for is making small-island diplomats cry and giving a platform for Canadian Ministers of the Environment to lie through their teeth.

According to the Climate Change Performance Index 2013 :

Not one of the examined countries has managed to change to a development path that is compatible with limiting global warming substantially below 2 degree C. No country's effort is deemed sufficient to prevent dangerous climate change.

The small yet comprehensive CCPI report, produced annually by Germanwatch and Climate Action Network Europe since 2005, ranks Denmark as the best performing country based on the weighing of emissions level (30%), emissions development (30%), renewable energy (10%), efficiency (10%) and policy (10%). But, again, it has found that no country does nearly enough--- so how can we reasonably expect them to do so collectively?

The Parties passed a "Doha Climate Gateway" to next year's COP 19, which could lead to an extension of the Kyoto Protocol (KP2?) --- the only ratified and thereby legally binding international climate negotiation on the book, which pledges to reduce GHG emissions below 1990 levels by 20XX.

But even that is: yep, not gonna cut it.

The USA, China, India -- and as of 2011, Canada --  are all not legally bound to the Kyoto Protocol. The data in the CCPI 2013 report suggests that these four countries are responsible for more than 44% of global CO2 emissions. Their carbon leadership probably won't change considering:

•  So many politicians and good-common-folk in the USA are so scared of the UN imposing on their sovereignty-- having never bothered to consider reading the UN Charter-- that the federal government can't possibly ratify UN proposals, even when they are founded squarely upon American policy and principle. And let's not forget the Heritage Foundation backed mindset that "the only consensus on climate change is that there is no consensus". 

• Canada has a legacy of obstructing climate negotiation. Canada's government is incredibly influenced by the fossil fuel industry. The tar sands extraction and refining in Alberta is claimed to be the largest industrial project in human history, with an equally larger-than-acknowledged carbon footprint, and they hope to triple in scale by 2030 to 6 million barrels per day.  To support tar sands development is to support continued reliance on fossil fuels, continued pillage of indigenous peoples' lands, and subsequent rapid climate change and biodiversity decline: 

James Hansen, head of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, described it as "game over for the climate". And as the Canadian Youth Delegation puts it, Canada has Commitment Issues: Tar sands extraction invalidates Canada’s obligations to the UNFCCC and undermines global climate change negotiations. 

• Finally, India and China aren't going to budge until the USA and Canada do. Especially China, which has state-owned enterprises heavily invested in Canada's tar sands operations.

All of this is to say, the politics and the anything-but-laissez-faire energy market are far from protecting the planet, or the vast majority of its over-7-billion people. Extending the Kyoto Protocol won't accomplish much at all to reduce GHGs, because the biggest players aren't involved. And as for guaranteeing funds for the $100 billion per year Green Climate Fund to help those most affected... good luck, delegates.

As the talking heads talked in Doha, 92 died and 80,000 people lost their homes in the Philippines from Typhoon Bopha. I think the status-quo calls for revolution. TRUE "change"-- and I don't mean from a centralized global governing body. While climate science and politics continues to be scandalized, our environment is being under-valued and our mega-markets are market-failing on us. My question to the investors, the decision makers, the listened-to's among us is: How are you going to enjoy your resort  holidays-- your retirement-- if the ocean's beaches and high tides are all littered with petro-plastics and the coral reefs are all dying and dissolving by mid-century? Or if even you are too busy running from disaster or starvation? You're not. We're not.

I will not live my life in fear-mongering and depression, but I will neither deny this real possibility and condone a  tar sands economy at the direct cost of more peaceful and closed-loop economic innovation.

Speaking of PSY and Things Wrong With America!:

Check out this feisty comment by Glenn Greenwald with the Guardian:

The PSY scandal: singing about killing people v. constantly doing it

Americans would benefit from less outrage at anti-US sentiment and more energy toward understanding why it's so widespread

He suggests a lot more than I have the balls to. He's also got a great George Washington quote i'll take the liberty to cut and paste:

Actually, I'll also include a paragraph of his sentiments, for those too lazy to click a hyperlink:

If you want your country to rule the world as an aggressive and militaristic empire, then accept the inevitable consequence of that: that there will be huge numbers of people in the world who resent and even hate your country for that behavior. Don't cheer while your country constantly kills, invades, occupies, and dominates the internal affairs of countless other nations - and then expect to be liked. Immorality aside, producing this reaction is one reason not to do such things. This kind of imperial behavior, inevitably and in every era, generates extreme levels of animosity and, ultimately, returned violence. That's why George Washington, in his 1796 Farewell Address, warned against all of this:

"[N]othing is more essential than that permanent, inveterate antipathies against particular nations, and passionate attachments for others, should be excluded; and that, in place of them, just and amicable feelings towards all should be cultivated. The nation which indulges towards another a habitual hatred or a habitual fondness is in some degree a slave. . . .

"Antipathy in one nation against another disposes each more readily to offer insult and injury, to lay hold of slight causes of umbrage, and to be haughty and intractable, when accidental or trifling occasions of dispute occur. Hence, frequent collisions, obstinate, envenomed, and bloody contests."

... Sorry, GW.

Art's Disturbing Sometimes .2

(Sometimes it's not even really art, it's just purposed craftwork.) 

The Collapse of the American Dream Explained in Animation:

The Rise of the Globalized Dream Explained in Korean/Dance: 

The juxtaposition of these two things is happenstancial, and therefore artistic and beautiful.

Because I said so.

Sorry that this is the first thing i've posted since Tuesday... ... 
Fact is: I'm slow to write.
#***worst blog ever***

Another Lousy Petition Totally Worth Signing .2

To:
U.S. Attorney General (Eric Holder) 

Don't impose a death sentence on an 82-year-old nun.

Sister Megan Rice and two U.S. veterans, Michael Walli and Greg Boertje-Obed, went to Oak Ridge TN in a spirit of nonviolence and peace, to bring an end to the scourge of nuclear weapons. New charges against them would amount to a death sentence and ought not be considered.

These courageous people remind us of the United States' obligations under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty to make concrete steps towards full nuclear disarmament. It is your duty as Attorney General to make sure no new charges are brought against these three heroes.

Sincerely,
[Your name here]

These people called their peaceful protest of USA uranium/nuclear stockpiling "Transform Now Plowshares"-- and they acted on religious principle. For photos of the action they are serving time for, go: here

"The Transform Now Plowshares action focuses attention on the ongoing production of nuclear weapons of mass destruction in Oak Ridge [,Tennessee] and the plans for a new $7.5 billion weapon production facility, the Uranium Processing Facility, at Y12."

Anyone Feel Like Harassing NYC Mayor Mike Bloomberg Today? Someone Might Thank You

Four weeks after super-storm Sandy, there are still places in Staten Island that are without running water or a working electric grid. Though they do have an assortment of molds and strange coughs. Mayor Bloomberg, shortly after flying in to the area via private helicopter to get a picture of the situation--- which he's got a real skill for doing without actually stopping to talk to anyone --- ordered city officials to "clear public spaces" and to evict local relief volunteers and the Occupy Sandy volunteers from their organizing hub near Midland Beach.


This information from an article on the Occupy Wall St website:

This Friday morning Staten Island police representing the mayor’s office have threatened eviction action against the crucial Staten Island hub at 489 Midland Avenue, in the heavily hit Midland Beach area. Aiman Youssef, a 42-year-old Syrian-American Staten Islander whose house was destroyed in the hurricane, has been running a 24/7 community pop up hub outside his property at 489 Midland Avenue since the day after the storm. He and a coalition of neighbors, friends and community members are serving hot food and offering cleaning supplies, non-perishables, medical supplies, and clothing to the thousands of residents who are still without heat, power, or safe housing. This popular hub is well-run, well-staffed, and has a constant hum of discussion, support, and advice as well as donations and pick ups and volunteer dispatch through another pop-up group, volunteers who call themselves “The Yellow Team.”



If you feel that Mayor Bloomberg's actions are blatantly contrary to the public's best interest and true needs--- TELL HIM.


You can call the Public Advocate's office at: (212) 669-7250 9am-5pm, and EMAIL: GetHelp@pubadvocate.nyc.gov


Is there any good reason to shut down a site where people are massing food and clothing for the most desperate? Or is Bloomberg just acting childishly because he perceives the Occupy movement as his enemy -- a threat to his powerdigm?



Much of this information was re-blogged from the Daily Kos, which sourced it from other places. Thanks, ek hornbeck.

TEENAGE MUTANT CORN

 These pictures brought to you by a weed-loving Facebooker: "Genetics Gone Mad" ---he says they're from Fukushima... that might be a joke, it might not. He also says he's a HAZMAT certified first-responder. I don't know what the frack this is. I don't even know if they grow corn in Japan. We could always blame Monsanto... 

I don't even know...

Art's Disturbing Sometimes .1

but "BEAUTY IS THE PROMISE OF HAPPINESS"

dogonaut.com presents

"Strange Overtones" by David Byrne and Brian Eno
A Short Film by Jon Yeo

Syrian Government Shuts Down Internet, Damascus Netted in Conflict, Chaos and Tragedy

International peacekeepers remained relatively dormant and gridlocked this year, and Syria is in the thick of civil war, now.

The internet was shut down yesterday; it is believed the government did it to stymie rebel group communications. I have no idea how long this will last. The Guardian article i've linked to also suggests that nearby airlines are ceasing inbound flights.

I am told that this is one of the last videos to surface on YouTube before the communications were cut, published November 29th. I believe it depicts Damascus---- the city is in ruin, and men are gathering in the streets to gather the injured children and other civilians from the rubble scattered everywhere around them. It is devastating footage, and one can bet that its tragedy is mirrored in many other videos that won't be uploaded any time soon. 

WARNING: INCREDIBLY GRAPHIC

May the violence end its tyranny over the people, May peace come soon.

Reason 555 to Fight Tar Sands Extraction: We Can Literally Make Fuel Out of Thin Air if We Want To

This is a re-post from Mother Nature Network, demonstrating the potential to make clean, high-efficiency synthetic petroleum, through a process that is rather different from the synthetic crude we're facing here in the USA--- from an irreparably devastating tar sands extraction process wrecking large areas of wild habitat to play around in the sand with big dump-trucks and create toxic tailing-ponds that are leaking by the millions-of-gallons-a-day into the local waterways that provided fish and fresh-water to the indigenous people downstream for generations. It's a vast understatement to say these people have been marginalized and their land polluted.

While Alberta, Canada continues clear cutting a forest the size of Britain, a British scientist is meanwhile working to bring his brilliant work to an industrial scale by 2015, to address the dire need to meet energy needs without exacerbating the climate crisis.

Can you see all the un-met potential we are bypassing by choosing to rely on "bigger is better" dirty fuel mega-corporations for our solutions, in the name of energy "independence" and "security"?

It's folly. Their bottom line is nothing but profit. Revolutionary clean technologies will be filed away under "uneconomical".

There are cheaper, cleaner, better fuel solutions all around us--- in our McDonald's grease, in our AIR for crying out loud---but America, and much of the world beside us, is in too big of a hurried petrol-political Chinese checkers game to see any of it.

So, who is really living the pipe dream?

Another Lousy Petition Totally Worth Signing .1

To Ms. Christiana Figueres, Executive Secretary of UNFCCC,

And,

To the participants and attendees of "The 18th session of the Conference of the Parties" (COP18) and "The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change" (UNFCCC)) in Doha, Qatar: 

An appeal aimed at electrifying 600 schools, in poor, rural areas of the least developed countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America, with solar power.

As a sign of good will! We the undersigned, heartily appeal to you to endorse the goal of our petition, which is aimed at electrifying 600 schools in poor, rural areas of Africa, Asia and Latin America, with solar power. Our cost estimation for 600 units of the 30kw/h Off Grid Solar PV System, is about 30 million dollars.

We explain, herewith, our motives to launch this petition as follows:

First, climate change aggravates the already dire living conditions of the people in these areas and manifests itself as a catastrophe, which we believe should be dealt with accordingly. In other words, direct, drastic measures should be taken, and should not be entrusted to routine national develepment schemes.

Second, we believe, electrifying schools in these areas would serve as a starting point for a holistic approach to address crucial issues such as, health care (e.g. solar water pasteurization; portable solar units for midwives), combating illiteracy, food security through trickle irrigation, and a work-based route to teach skills in the field of solar and renewable energy.

Furthermore, we cherish the hope, that these schools will serve as "contact points" for these communities and thus connect them with their fellow humans all over the world. In this way, a new channel would be created through which solidarity activites, assistance, and participation from individuals, NGOs and other organizations can flow.

Third, for overseeing the implementation of this initiative, we suggest a body composed of representatives from UN organizations (UNICEF, WHO, UNESCO, UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food), as well as representatives from NGOs and Civil Society Organizations, in order to guarantee direct, transparent, and fair impelmentation. This body, acting as "legal representative", should set a name and a bank account for the program.

What better Chrismas and New Year greeting card, could we send to these communities?

Thank you, we remain humbly and sincerely at your service,
YOUR NAME HERE

THE SKY IS PINK by Josh Fox and the GASLAND team

I hadn't seen this yet--- what a great find.

Gasland was a documentary released in the summer of 2010 that showed amazing footage of many, many, many people lighting their faucets' tap water on fire. Fox's take on the situation is that this was linked to the increased use of industrial hydro-fracturing practices in the natural gas industry.

It seems this video is a follow-up: the debate, the science, the lobbied cover-up since then.

Turns out the industry also occasionally and very-recently-in-Pennsylvania dumps chemicals and known carcinogens straight into the water. And then paints some gas rig pink to celebrate the fight against breast cancer...

All this right as New York gets hit by Sandy and threatened to get fracked to hell.

Thank you, Josh Fox.



THE SKY IS PINK by Josh Fox and the GASLAND Team from JFOX on Vimeo.

(Draft)

http://www.jamespowell.org/index.html

People Progress in Opposition to Japanese Dolphin Slaughter and Whaling

Check out this GREAT NEWS from Ric O'Barry--- the man behind the training of many-a Flipper dolphin, and the spearheading of the fantastic documentary, "The Cove". Working hard daily to stop dolphin killings funded by humans' food and entertainment consumption, Ric is the head of the Dolphin Project, monitoring the cove in Taiji, Japan, where the killings take place.

This weekend, more than 70 people, predominantly from Japan, held the first ever public protest against these government-backed practices. With little cultural history of public protesting it's not easy to stand up and say your peace in Japan, and these activists were very brave to do so.

Photos by Save Japan Dolphins volunteer Cove Monitor Yoav Ben-Shushan

The Most Righteous Janine Boneparth Takes on TransCanada with the Tar Sands Blockade

A little over a month ago, I had the real pleasure and honor of meeting Janine Boneparth and helping her get to a medical care center after her involvement with the second mass-action of the Tar Sands Blockade, an organization launched in a sustained non-violent direct action campaign to stop the Keystone XL. Why? Because while it is barely ever stated in press or politics, the "keystone" to this pipeline's market purpose is to carry oil sands dilbit (i.e. tar sands) from a "carbon bomb" development project on previously-forested, indigenous lands in Alberta, Canada--------- all the way across America to refinery communities in the Gulf of Mexico that already suffer high rates of severe health problems linked to petro-pollution. Let's not get into the "What if it spills?" quite yet.

Janine volunteered to be arrested in the fight against these climate and social injustices. A veteran peace activist, and member of Code Pink, Janine is most "known" in a media sense of the word for her dashing attempt to put Karl Rove into a civilian arrest for treason. She also has got quite a bit of environmentalist street-cred, having worked for years in Africa with Wangari Maathai-- the first African woman and the first environmentalist to receive the Nobel Peace Prize.

 Her luck with crooks and handcuffs has not quite improved, though. Janine was attempting to lock down to a piece of heavy machinery on the Keystone XL easement in Winnsboro, TX-- not too far from where the Tar Sands Blockade has had a tree-sit blockade up for more than two months now.

I say "blockade", but the reality of it is that TransCanada/Keystone has used many methods to gain privilege to bulldoze exactly around it, as forced and quickly as possible. This includes hiring a slew of off-duty local cops to work as "private security" to patrol the easement by daylight, campfire, flashlight and flood-light. All the while without identification and with the aid of their government-issued equipment and authority. Corporate/cop collusion is highly questionable, though of course they've already told the press otherwise. I'd start talking about TransCanada's "legal" bullying, but I really can't.




*****

 IMPORTANT SIDE-NOTE: If you're wondering "Isn't the KXL still waiting approval by Obama? Why is this happening?"--- it's because TransCanada's subsidiary company, "Keystone", has made the, in my opinion slippery, move of re-classifying this as the "Gulf Coast Expansion Project" (with a side-wink from Obama ;) to bypass the still-pending State Department approval... even though the pipe still has "Keystone XL" stamped right on it.

*****



 In Janine's involvement, a man in a typical construction outfit, claiming to be a cop, jumped at her and wrestled with her in an attempt to stop her from tying in to her lock-down device. She was determined to stop construction on this disguised tar sands development project for at least a morning, and kept trying to lock down because there were no obvious indicators that this man twisting her arm forcefully wasn't more than a bluffing and aggressive construction worker.

However, she was not able to accomplish her objective, and after a long wait and conversation with the private-security as more cops came, Janine walked away with the local sheriffs en route to the county jail, frustrated and covered in mud.

We first met upon her release from jail.

Bruises and swelling were already forming, and Janine was clearly in pain. It was a few hours before she was able to make it to an open health clinic. The doctor was absolutely appalled by the state of her arm, and he called in others at the clinic to see it because he just couldn't believe this had been done by a policeman.

The doctor determined that no bones were broken, but Janine's rotator cuff had been strained. Her wrist was also quite painful. I tried my best to photo-document how her bruises looked by the following night:

 no breakage, but a lot of pain and a sizable bruise 

 bruising throughout this whole left side of her hand

 Police responses in other counties in the weeks following Janine's encounter include: 

Using cherry-pickers to remove two additional tree-sits further south, attempting to impose the costs of the cherry-picker on the protestors in trumped up felony charges, withholding personal property,  shaking and cutting support lines for occupied tree-sit platforms, using flood lights to wait out subsequently stranded tree-sitters, arresting the Green Party presidential candidate for bringing food and halloween treats to the Winnsboro tree-sitters, using pepper spray on the skin and eyes of people locked down to machines, pepper spraying with little warning into the faces of protesters attempting to block the path of a truck carrying a cherry-picker --- the driver would not stop until he hit one protester and almost dragged him under the truck ---, and strip-searching and aggressively handling protesters after their arrests. 

It's an ugly, aggressive picture. Meanwhile, Keystone's contract workers continue to bulldoze a landowner's biofuel crops in the name of "crude oil" and "energy independence". The pipe will soon be in the ground, tracing smugly around the Winnsboro tree-sit blockade, but the non-violent  direct action will continue all along the pipe route for this "Gulf Expansion Project"--- until it is stopped or every motivated individual in its way is stopped. I don't know what else to say besides: it's a matter of peace, love and justice. 

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The photos, video and writing were done by Aly Tharp

People Problems: A Documentary

On October 31st, 2011, the global human population reached an astounding 7 billion people. The United Nations predicts that this number could increase to 11 billion as soon as 2050. In these coming decades, the world will be changing incredibly fast. This is my first documentary --- it asks the question whether the human population size (and behavior) is to blame for a biodiversity decline so fast that scientists are likening it to the other Great Five Extinctions of Earth's biological history. The plot line is pretty simple: first "everything" happens, and then I ask questions and hand out a bunch of Endangered Species Condoms.

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Creative Commons, Attribution please :)