Keystone XL didn't die, it just changed names

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Kate Sheppard: Obama helped to cover up extent of BP Spill

via MoxNews.com

I am proud to have sat for her cat, George. Who has his own twitter profile.

Also, you can follow Kate on twitter here: click it!

What if we started spending money on Green Energy instead of Oil Wars?

It's 2am. I'm working on a video for an organization I volunteer with.

I posted on my facebook profile a link to an article in Reuters about how 15% of Americans are on foodstamps, and how wages are so low, and the cost of living so high, that many people cannot afford to live without them.

One of the responses was thus:

" Can you just imagine if gas prices dropped to less then $1.18 a gallon how that would stimulate the economy and create thousands of jobs because we all would have more disposable income. We wouldn't need to be a food stamp nation then would we?????"

Here's the thing:
Gasoline prices are never coming down. Ever. This type of thinking doesn't even begin to tackle the actual problem. Yes, it's true that the increase in the cost of living is largely due to increases in energy prices. And by "energy" I mean "petroleum."

If we had spent as much money on developing renewable energies as we have on oil wars, we could have solved the energy crisis several times over. But we're so stupidly stuck in the old ways of doing things, we may end up sending our species back to the stone age. Petroleum has been a party since it was discovered, but the supply has been decreasing since it started coming out of the ground. Many scientists place Peak Oil, the point at which the maximum rate of global petroleum extraction before terminal decline is reached, at right about now. After this point is reached, it will begin to take more energy to extract the oil than you can get by burning it.

And here's a dirty secret: alternatives to petrol, like Solar and Wind, they require physical infrastructure. You gotta build solar panels out of stuff. You gotta build wind turbines out of stuff. That takes energy too. During this last hurrah of oil, we should be fanatically shifting to solar and wind power, to replace out current energy infrastructure with renewables. If we don't, we may not have the energy infrastructure in place to create the energy infrastructure we will need. Get it?

The only energy input the Earth has is the sun. This is referred to as solar income. Via the fossilization of massive swaths of ancient forests, petrol was created. Petrol was like being given an inheritance by a rich grandfather (who happened to literally be a dinosaur). Now, we're not going to get any more solar income than we ever had in the past. We should be investing that inheritance on the things we need to allow our technology to sustain itself on that solar income. Instead we've been pissing it away on cars, tvs, and cheap plastic toys.

We are at a crucial, and possibly terminal juncture in human history. If we as a species can gather the collective forethought to invest in a rapid and complete transition to renewable energy, and bring our civilization in line with the laws of biological economics, we can continue to flourish and grow and evolve. And so can our technology. In this scenario, we may even achieve that Star Trek future, where we live in peace and explore the infinite vastness of outer space for the rest of eternity.

But if we fail to make the transition to renewable energy during this brief window of time when we still have relatively cheap and abundant oil, there is no second chance. If we decide to do what is cheapest in the short term, the party is over. Thanks to petrol, we've been living beyond our means. Even our food supply is infused with petrol based fertilizers. We have been running up a literal energy bill, and when biology calls in their collections agents, it's not going to be pretty. I'm talking massive death tolls, famine, disease, decay, and our permanent decline as a species.

Forget that Star Trek future. We will be stuck here on earth, and our existence will be erased from the history of the universe when the sun burns out. Just another species of dumb ape, doomed to extinction by our foolish shortsightedness.

TheRealNews interviews Ray McGovern about Wikileaks

They are the real deal

Ex-CIA analyst, and anti-war activist Ray McGovern is on Team Wikileaks!


BUY THIS SHIRT

Also, Donate to The Real News Network

DON'T REVOKE BP'S CORPORATE CHARTER!

DON’T REVOKE BP’S CHARTER!

Then they’ll be off the hook, and stick the US taxpayer with the bill! Right?

Besides they stopped the spill, everything is cool now.

FALSE! OPPOSITE!

In fact, quite the opposite! Currently, BP has an escrow fund of 20 billion dollars, but there's a catch. Just like after 9-11, if you make a claim to this fund, you have to sign away your right to sue for damages later on. And we all know how well that's worked out for the 9-11 Rescue workers. (Or do you? They're being fucked over and they're all dying of lung disease, that's how well it turned out)

We have no idea what the long-term health effects are going to be from this spill. From the oil, as well as the dispersants used to send the oil to the ocean floor, and is now allowing unnatural toxic compounds to work their way through the food web.

BP's clean-up responsibilities are capped at a mere $75 million-- which is absurd when compared with the actual cost of long term damages to the environment, to people’s health, to people’s livelihoods, etc. If BP spends more than this, they can call it quits at any point in time, no matter how much mess is left. And that's exactly what they're doing.

--And it seems even MORE absurd when you account for the fact that BP made more than 186 times as much as that in profits alone JUST LAST YEAR.

That’s PROFITS. That’s what they had laying around after they got done paying for all their expenses, after paying out all their wages, after paying for all their leasing rights, after paying pensions, after paying for equipment purchases.

Hey Taxpayers, Don’t want to get stuck with the bill for cleaning up all that oil that's on the ocean floor (thanks to Corexit)? Well you should know that right now, BP is claiming a nearly $10 BILLION dollar tax credit for the spill. Yeah that’s right: they want the US taxpayer to PAY THEM for doing what they should be doing anyways.

What about legal claims against them? Well, if this spill ends up being anything like the Exxon Valdez spill, legal claims could well be tied up in courts for the next 20 years, many of the plaintiffs will die as a result of toxins they’ve been exposed to, and then after the claim is finally won, it will be reduced to a mere pittance.

Another possible outcome if we fail to revoke BP’s corporate charter: They could pull a Union-Carbide. After an explosion at a Union-Carbide plant in Bhopal India released toxic gases that killed or injured thousands, Union Carbide simply folded, and sold everything to Dow Chemical. Dow Chemical has refused to pay out any of the claims held against Union Carbide, and the CEOs of Union Carbide jumped ship with millions of dollars.

If you REALLY don’t want the US taxpayer to get stuck with the bill, and you REALLY want to see things done right, then you REALLY should be in favor of revoking BP’s corporate charter.

If BP’s corporate charter is revoked, they won’t have the right to do business in the USA anymore. Their assets will be seized, and they will be put into receivership- which means that the Government then has control of their assets, AND the legal obligation to pay out all the bills, fines, and lawsuits that BP has racked up.

Rather than holding on to those $14 billion of annual profits to pay out to shareholders, those $14 billion dollars in profits could go to doing what’s right-- cleaning up the gulf, and paying for the damages to people’s health, people’s livelihoods, and our planet.

And the most upsetting thing of all, is that this is just ONE SPILL, I'm talking about here!

BP has been playing it fast and loose with safety procedures for YEARS. How the hell are we supposed to trust that when they go up to Alaska to drill, they're going to do better?

Or when they come back to drill in the same spot as the Deepwater Horizon? They didn't smarten up after any of the OTHER times that they've fucked up, in Alaska, in Texas City, and so on, why should this now be any different? It's obvious that so long as they keep making profits, they couldn't give a rat's ass what the consequences are.

Please join me in the push to revoke BP’s corporate charter. As Tony Hayward once said: “We can get this done. We can make this right.”

RightChange.com -The Ultimate in Right-Wing Greenwashing

Have you seen this load of tripe?

Talking Feds 3 from RightChange on Vimeo.

You would think that a video depicting Obama as being soft on the oil companies would be coming from some progressive leftist organization like GreenChange.org or GreenPeace.

But no. This right-wing PAC called "Right Change" is playing on anger over the oil spill, and placing blame squarely on the shoulders of Obama.

There's one problem: the disaster in the Gulf of Mexico isn't his fault.

Sure, Obama's administration shares some of the blame for continuing the rubber stamp policies for drilling permits at the MMS, and for dragging their feet when it comes to cleaning out the former employees who were literally in bed with the industry, but the disaster does not start with Obama.

What is Right Change's solution? Elect Republicans.

It's the conservative mantra of "Deregulate, Deregulate Deregulate!" that was at the source of the problem. Conservatives wanted less government, and corporate democrats wanted the same thing, with different language (they're pro-business.)

That this organization is riffing on the public's anger over the oil spill, and then offering the election of Republicans to "take back washington" is beyond disingenuous.

This double-think required to NOT see the contradiction here would scare even George Orwell.

Here's something you can do to hold Democrats and Republicans accountable, and prevent future oil spills from happening:

Revoke BP's Corporate Charter

REVOKE BP'S CHARTER- A walk through

This is User supported media. PLease concider donating to keep this going

So what if I told you that some kid in Maine had in his mind that he was going to start a grass roots campaign to take down the second biggest oil company in the USA?

What if I told you that within a couple weeks he’d recruit thousands of members to the cause?

What if I told you that after organizing the effort of thousands of people, he’d win over a National Political Organization, who would provide the movement with web tools to make it as easy as possible to take action?

What if I told you that eventually the movement would be reported on in CounterPunch, CommonDreams, and the Corporate Crime Reporter?

What if I told you that grassroots democracy works when you have the skills and put enough effort into it?

I’m that Kid in Maine, and you are one of those thousands of supporters, and I couldn’t have gotten this idea off the ground without your help. So THANK YOU. Also to “I’m Just A Girl” and “Davis Fleetwood” who are much better at this youtube thing than I am, I couldn’t have recruited membership like you did. Thank you!

If you don’t know already, the Revoke BP’s Corporate Charter movement was taken up by GreenChange.org, and has been reported on in CommonDreams, CounterPunch, and the Corporate Crime Reporter.

Do you remember the last video I had with all those links you had to sort through? There were a lot of links. Instead of going through that bull***t, now, thanks to GreenChange’s web tools, you can now participate in three simple steps:

Step one: go to http://bit.ly/RevokeBP1 and write a letter to Attorney General Beau Biden.

After you’re done there, it will redirect to the page where you can send a letter to the State Legislature.

Then finally you can write a letter to the editor for your local paper.

Why are these things important?

Step One: Beau Biden can bring a case against BP.

Step Two: Through a simple act of legislation, the Deleware State Legislature can overturn BP’s charter.

Step Three: You need to keep building the movement. Just because you participated doesn’t mean your job is over.

Now I know for a fact that most of the membership of the facebook group has yet to participate in this action. This IS NOT a facebook petition. We’re trying to actually DO something here.

What if I told you that Grassroots Democracy actually worked? All you have to do is put in the effort.

Hilarious twitter accounts have arisen out of tragedy:

So eleven people are dead. An environmental disaster such as the world has not seen is destroying communities and natural resources for decades to come. Government refuses to act. BP refuses to spend the money it needs to in order to make things right.

Is there any condolence for us while we drift towards apocolypse?? Well, at least we can laugh at these great twitter accounts!

Two of my favourites are Spill Updates and BPGlobalPR, both of which seem like they are legitimate accounts.

Until one reads the content of their tweets.






Does anybody know of any others?

The OTHER huge uncontrollable oil spill in PA

There's another HUGE and UNCONTROLLABLE oil spill that happened this past Thursday.

From the Post-Gazzette

The accident occurred when EOG's operators lost control of the well after fracturing, or cracking, the Marcellus formation more than a mile underground to release the natural gas locked in the shale. High pressure pushed the gas and "frack fluid" laced with toxic chemicals out of the well for 16 hours, spraying more than 35,000 gallons and maybe as many as 1 million gallons 75 feet into the air.

Read more: http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/10159/1063980-455.stm#ixzz0qHFquu3K

Holy s**t. You'd think we'd have seen footage of this, or pictures or something. Why haven't we? Well, reporters have been told by oil company officials that if they go on this site to take photos or video, that they will be trespassing, and have been threatened with arrest, or even being shot.

From DailyKos's Michael Morrill:

EOG Resources, the owner of the wells, won’t allow anyone on the site, especially with a camera. When I tried to shoot some video, they not only wouldn’t let me on the site, they told me I might be shot for being on their property and then sent thugs to chase me and threaten me.

{snip]

I’m not one to back down easily, but I wasn’t ready to take a bullet for a grainy video of the spill site. I wished them a good day and turned back to my car, a couple of miles and bridgeless brook away. As I crossed the brook barefoot I noticed another pickup truck parking on the opposite hill, blocking the path. When I approached the truck two men got out. The older man got in front of me and said “Show me some ID.”

I asked him who he was and he grabbed my arm and told me I was on private property. I shook his hand off and continued walking. Without looking back, I told him there was nothing posted that indicated the land I was on was private property. He yelled to me, “We know where your car is. We called the police. You’ll be arrested when you get back to your car.” He then added, “We know you’re taking water samples.”

The truth is, I had filled up some drinking water bottles with samples of water from various sites along my hike. I’m not sure what use they will be, but I thought it was important to at least get something that could be independently tested.

When I got a few hundred yards from my car I could hear the last two men who confronted me. As I approached my car the older man took out an old disposable film camera and took my picture. I tried to get my Flip Camera to take some video of them, but the battery was dead and I only got a few seconds.

They tried to get me to stay and wait for the police to come, but I wasn’t about to test the fairness of the local criminal justice system. I told them to back off or be charged with assault, and susprisingly they complied.

As a parting shot the younger one said,” Don’t come back.” I replied, childishly, “I’ll do what I want.” He said, “If you come back you won’t leave.”

Even HOLIER s**T!

I recommend you read both articles in full. I'll be posting more about this as I learn more about it.

---

UPDATE:

Here's a photo of oil company goons telling people that they can't take photos, from TheState.com. That's the best we've got right now.

Dana Milbanks of WaPo calls for the REVOCATION OF BP's CORPORATE CHARTER!

Check out the full article here at the Washington Post

God spoke to Moses through a burning bush on Mount Horeb. He apparently speaks to Republicans through a spewing oil well at the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico.

Rep. Tom Cole (R-Okla.) delivered the startling revelation last week that the BP oil spill was caused not by a faulty blowout preventer but by the Almighty Himself. He explained the spill to an Oklahoma City radio station like this: "Acts of God are acts of God." With this curious theology, Cole has joined the ministry of Texas Gov. Rick Perry, a fellow Republican, who last month said of the oil spill: "From time to time there are going to be things that occur that are acts of God that cannot be prevented."

So if God is responsible for the spill, and BP is the spill's "responsible party," what these men are really saying is that BP is . . . God?

This interpretation is at the very cutting edge of ecclesiastical thought. In the past, our Heavenly Father has involved himself in floods, droughts and the occasional earthquake, but this may be his first foray into industrial disasters.

The Valdez spill was an act of Exxon. Bhopal was an act of Union Carbide. But the BP spill is an act of God. Oiliness is next to godliness.

Forgive this blasphemy, but is it perhaps time to question the Doctrine of Boardroom Infallibility? In Washington, belief in corporate divinity has become a bipartisan religion, and it's polytheistic: Lawmakers, despite the occasional bit of populist rhetoric, routinely provide generous offerings to the automotive, aerospace, financial, pharmaceutical and insurance industries, along with petroleum.

An article by The Post's Dan Eggen explains why: More than 1,400 former members of Congress, staffers and federal employees registered as lobbyists in the financial services sector alone since the start of 2009, according to a study by Public Citizen and the Center for Responsive Politics. Many of these lobbyists, of course, moonlight as fundraising captains for lawmakers.

Check out the full article here at the Washington Post

Join the Citizen's movement:

t r u t h o u t: BP May face Negligent homocide charges

From Truthout:

Like previous BP-related disasters in Alaska and Texas, evidence has emerged that appears to show BP knowingly cut corners on maintenance and safety on Deepwater Horizon's operations, which, according to blogger bmaz, who writes about legal issues at Emptywheel, could amount to criminal violations of the Clean Water Act. Additionally, because people were killed, BP and company officials could also face prosecution for negligent and reckless homicide.

Wouldn't that be nice? I'd like to see their corporate charter revoked.

Read the entire article here.

BP: Bringing People Together

I picked this up from my friend Davis Fleetwood over at NO CURE FOR THAT

It comes from Andy Cobb and the Partisans

It's one of BP's old greenwashing adverts, where they talk about going "Beyond Petroleum"-- with a new twist.



Brown: It's the New Green.

Dolphins are washing up dead

I think we're finally starting to understand just how grim the situation in the Gulf is. The damage has already been done, and even if "Top Kill" hadn't failed, we still have to deal with an environmental disaster on the scale of Chernobyl.

The NOAA has recorded that 22 Dolphins have been recorded washed up dead.

From CNN (emphasis added):

Dolphins have washed up dead. Endangered sea turtles have been found with oil stuck on their corneas. Lifeless brown pelicans, classified as endangered until recently, have been carried away in plastic bags. Beaches in Grand Isle, Louisiana, are spattered with gobs of sticky crude. And when the moon rises over the coast there, the oil-soaked ocean sparkles like cellophane under a spotlight.

{snip}

If scientists' worst fears are realized, the oil plume in the Gulf could choke off and kill coastal marshes in the productive Mississippi Delta and barrier islands, turning these verdant tufts of life -- which look like hairy putting greens floating out on the water -- into open ocean. That would snap the region's marine food chain, exposing and starving all kinds of organisms.

{snip}

Equally frightening, the oil also could spawn a massive oxygen-free "dead zone" deep in the Gulf's waters, which would suffocate all marine life on the ocean floor. Samantha Joye, an oceanographer at the University of Georgia, said that if that happens, the dead zone could change marine chemistry in the Gulf of Mexico forever.

Despite being told repeatedly NOT to use their chemical dispersant, chemicals that have been banned in England (BP's home country) due to their toxicity, BP has continued to use it anyways, causing the oil to break up and fall beneath the surface, where it cannot be retrieved. It hides the problem from public scrutiny, but doesn't actually fix anything. In fact it makes things worse. And we have no clue how bad things are going to get. Again from that same CNN article:

Researchers know almost nothing about what the oil and chemical dispersants used to try to break up the oil will have on life below the Gulf's greasy surface, Joye said on her boat in Gulfport, Mississippi, just before heading out toward the epicenter of the spill.

"I don't think we know what's going on yet, and it's a month into this thing," she said.

Bacteria eat oil and in the process also chew oxygen out of the ocean. There's so much oil in the water, the bacteria may deplete oxygen reserves until deep-water fish like grouper and snapper and "benthic" communities of sea tubes and oysters suffocate, she said.

{snip}

BP has released more than 28,000 gallons of chemicals on the ocean, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, in hopes these "dispersants" will break up the oil and minimize its impact on the environment. Such a huge amount of dispersant has never been released deep into the ocean before, according to the EPA, and some independent researchers and the EPA have questioned whether those chemicals may be making matters worse.

I highly reccomend that you read the entire article, which is found here.

BP Declares 'TOP KILL' a failure

The new solution sounds a lot like something they should have done 5 weeks ago. From NOLA:

That next attempt should be a procedure known as Lower Marine Riser Package or LMRP. This procedure involves cutting off the failed, leaking riser at the top of Lower Marine Riser Package on the blowout preventer to get a clean-cut surface on the pipe. A cap will be installed with a sealing grommet connected to a new riser from the Discoverer Enterprise drillship, with the hopes of capturing most of the oil and gas flowing from the well.

But WAIT! It gets better!

"We expect to capture most of the oil," said BP CEO Doug Suttles. "I emphasize most because the cap will not result in a complete seal."

BP's Criminal Record

Environmental Criminals need to be treated the same as rapists and murderers.

Watch CBS News Videos Online

Amature Footage of the Oil Spill- Worse than BP admits

This video is from Alabama resident John Wathen, as a volunteer pilot flew him over the area where the oil rig sank.

Officials have stopped guessing at the amount of oil leaking although some speculate it may be closer to 1 million gallons per day. Don't let BP spin this into something trivial.

>http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=524_1273510578

Repost, but still relevant

So for all those who are flipping out about Obama's administration still granting waivers to the oil industry, allowing them to break the law when it comes to offshore drilling- despite the recent spill in the Gulf.

Or whatever other disappointment you find yourself fretting about. Just keep this in mind:



Personally, when a politician says that they support some terrible thing, I take their word for it.

Rural Commuting by Bike

Long before the oil slick in the Gulf of Mexico, I've been trying to reduce my consumption of gasoline and kick the car habit. With the ecocidal disaster striking now, I realize that it's providential I've come across my new bike when I did.


I finally was able to squirrel away enough money to purchase a road bike that I got at a Bicycle Coalition bike swap. It was in my price range (under $150) and it was my size (I'm 6'4" so my needs in frame geometry are statistical outliers.) It needed a little work (new seat clamp, new derailleur cable, some adjustments on the brakes) but now it's ready to rock and roll!

Now, as a musician who needs to carry around large and awkward gear, including but not limited to: an upright bass, two 120 watt amps, two electric basses, I know that I'm never going to kick the automobile habit entirely.

But for all that other stuff where I don't need several dozen cubic feet of hauling capacity, like grocery shopping, picking up a paper from the corner store, or heading into town to see friends, I don't actually NEED a car. Now this might seem obvious to city dwellers, but I live in a very rural area. The closest grocery store is a 14 mile round trip through hills and valleys, and "in town to visit friends" means a 40 mile round trip.

So my plan is to start IMMEDIATELY using my bike as much as possible for small errands and casual visits to friends, which is actually kind of a big deal. To that end, I'm making sure to keep my body and bike conditioned, and I'm riding at least 10 miles every day, which isn't really a big deal.

Now in the past I've done long distance bicycle commuting, but today on my 14 mile trip I was reminded of all the revelations I'd had previously and I wanted to share them.

The first thing one notices when biking on routes they take frequently by car, is that there is a LOT OF STUFF along the way that you have never noticed before. Part of this is obviously because you are moving at a slower pace, but I think that the real reason the experience is so much different, is that the rider exists in a different mental state than the driver.

When one drives a car, they are in transition between one place and another. One sits in a comfortable seat, and looks out of windows which are very much like movie screens, and uses controls which are very much like video game controls. Options are limited to the road you are on, and places to park. There is air conditioning, and the ability to block out the air outside.

When one is riding a bike, no matter where along that distance between points, one is always presently where they are. There's no floor under your feet, just the road. Smells from flowers you never have noticed while flying by at 55 mph are suddenly potent and immersing. There is no point of departure or arrival, only a continual state of being. You always have the option to stop, and investigate side routes, to walk through a field of dandelions, or to investigate a brook flowing under a bridge.

Tomorrow I'll be sure to take pictures along my route, and I'm sure I'll have more to say.

BP's Oil Rigs -- Too Big to Fail?

Apparently Western Industrial Society learned absolutely NOTHING from the sinking of the Titanic. Catastrophic Failure WILL occur. Plan for it.


From Associated Press

BP's 52-page exploration plan for the Deepwater Horizon well, filed with the federal Minerals Management Service, says repeatedly that it was "unlikely that an accidental surface or subsurface oil spill would occur from the proposed activities."

And while the company conceded that a spill would impact beaches, wildlife refuges and wilderness areas, it argued that "due to the distance to shore (48 miles) and the response capabilities that would be implemented, no significant adverse impacts are expected."

Robert Wiygul, an Ocean Springs, Miss.-based environmental lawyer and board member for the Gulf Restoration Network, said he sees nothing in the document that suggests BP addressed the kind of technology needed to control a spill at that depth of water.

"The point is, if you're going to be drilling in 5,000 feet of water for oil, you should have the ability to control what you're doing," he said.

Although the cause of the explosion was under investigation, many of the more than two dozen lawsuits filed in the wake of the explosion claim it was caused when workers for oil services contractor Halliburton Inc. improperly capped the well — a process known as cementing. Halliburton denied it.

At least the Titanic had SOME lifeboats, even if they WERE only for show.


Oh, by the way, in case you were thinking that since we have a Democrat in the White House that everything is fine, Obama said on the 2nd of April that, "Oil Rigs don't cause spills."



What a difference a couple weeks make.

Black Wave: The Legacy of the Exxon Valdez

When are we going to learn?

With the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico reaching shore Thursday night, I only thought it proper to take a moment to review what happened with the Exxon Valdez, and the lasting environmental degradation that occurs even still to this very day.