GreenEnergy4.us

Pesticide makers want you to save the bees

Food

Also in Grist

Please enable JavaScript to see recommended stories

Visit site:

Posted in alo, ALPHA, Anchor, FF, G & F, GE, LG, ONA, organic, oven, Uncategorized | Tagged area, european, facebook, food, grist-please, oven, reuters, save-the-bees, syngenta, upton | Comments Off

Lawmakers call for end to animal-deafening, oil-finding offshore surveys

by Myrna Posted on February 1, 2013

Lawmakers call for end to animal-deafening, oil-finding offshore surveys

When oil companies are trying to figure out where to drill offshore, they drag an array of seismic air guns behind a boat as it sails around the ocean. Submerged air guns fire bursts of air downward to create sound waves that travel to the ocean floor and rebound back up to sensors. Here’s what that looks like from the surface:

Underneath, however, it’s much less entertaining. Arrays contain dozens of guns, each of which produces a burst with tens of thousands of times as much energy as a jet engine, according to Oceana Deputy Vice President Jacqueline Savitz, as reported by FuelFix. Good for getting sonar readings on the ocean floor. Bad for any animals that are swimming in the vicinity.

This is one reason that New Jersey lawmakers wrote a letter to President Obama, asking him to stop seismic surveys on the East Coast. The other reason: Who wants an oil well offshore? From FuelFix:

Noting that the geophysical research is the first step in a long path to offshore oil drilling, [Rep. Frank] Pallone said the administration’s Interior Department should “put a stop to [seismic testing] before we experience a Deepwater Horizon-like disaster in the Atlantic.” …

Although the [Bureau of Ocean Energy Management’s] five-year plan for selling offshore oil and gas leases through 2017 does not include any planned auctions of Atlantic waters, seismic research today could pave the way for future drilling in the region. Data indicating potential big untapped resources could add pressure for future administrations to lease Atlantic tracts and help plan any auctions in the area.

magnera

An offshore rig near Norway.

The Interior Department has done an assessment of wildlife in the area where oil companies would like to shoot off their seismic air guns.

According to the ocean energy bureau, 38 marine mammal species are in the area that could be surveyed, including endangered baleen whales and manatees. The bureau’s draft environmental study concluded that seismic surveys could affect as many as 11,748 bottle nose dolphins, 4,631 short-finned pilot whales and 6,147 short-beaked common dolphins.

On one side: 20,000 dolphins and whales not deafened by bursts of air; innumerable sea animals not coated with oil in a worst-case-scenario spill. On the other: more oil — and profits — for oil companies.

In modern American politics, that’s somehow a toss-up.

Philip Bump writes about the news for Gristmill. He also uses Twitter a whole lot.

Lawmakers call for end to animal-deafening, oil-finding offshore surveys

Living

Also in Grist

Please enable JavaScript to see recommended stories

Read this article:

Posted in GE, Uncategorized | Tagged area, business & technology, department, deputy, energy, frank, king, obama, technology | Comments Off

Turbine in the U.K. converts wind power into kinetic, falling-over energy

by Larissaiyb Posted on January 31, 2013

Turbine in the U.K. converts wind power into kinetic, falling-over energy

If you’re wondering why you thought you might have heard a sound something like a combination of giggling and coins jingling and a breeze ruffling the fur of an ugly otter, it’s because Donald Trump is happy today. Trump hates wind turbines, not because he understands how they work or what they’re used for (probably) but because he doesn’t want them in the ocean near his bullshit golf course.

He is happy because this happened. From the Guardian:

A wind turbine in north Devon has collapsed, leaving local residents concerned about safety. It is understood to be the first such reported incident in the UK, although blades have fallen from turbines in a small number of cases.

The turbine was sited on farmland in the Bradworthy area and fell down in the early hours of Sunday morning. Margaret Coles, chairwoman of Bradworthy parish council, which opposed the erection of the turbine, told the Daily Telegraph that strong winds had hit the area. “The bolts on the base could not withstand the wind as we are a very windy part of the country. Dulas [the energy company] have egg on their face,” she said. “There are concerns about safety.”

Well, yes. When a big, heavy thing specifically designed to be used in the wind is knocked over by the wind, that should rightly prompt concerns.

kevinzim

A Devon turbine, presumably in its proper, upright position.

It’s noted that the turbine here was “relatively small.” It could have been worse. It could have been one of these offshore mega-turbines, each blade of which is three times longer than the turbine that fell over. That’s why we put them in the ocean, where they can only fall on whales and such. And, you know, be visible from real estate magnates’ golf courses, infuriating them endlessly.

What the wind farm in Devon really needed was a more robust way of keeping the turbine affixed to the ground. Like a really, really strong adhesive. The sort of thing that one might use to adhere a toupee on a very windy day.

Anyone have any leads on such a product?

Philip Bump writes about the news for Gristmill. He also uses Twitter a whole lot.

Turbine in the U.K. converts wind power into kinetic, falling-over energy

Also in Grist

Please enable JavaScript to see recommended stories

See original:

Posted in GE, LG, Uncategorized | Tagged area, bradworthy, climate, country, daily-telegraph, guardian, news, sunday | Comments Off

Pinnacles in California named nation’s 59th national park

by anjunonstennyao Posted on January 12, 2013

Pinnacles in California named nation’s 59th national park

By Susie Cagle

While California’s state parks are perpetually troubled, at least the Golden State can celebrate a new national park. On Thursday, President Obama signed into law a bill by Rep. Sam Farr (D-Calif.) that makes Pinnacles National Monument in central California a protected national park, the 59th in the country and ninth in the state.

ericinsf

The San Jose Mercury News has more:

“The park’s sanctuary for the California condor and native wildlife, its red crags, caves, impressive displays of spring wildflowers, and opportunities for star-viewing under its noteworthy dark skies make Pinnacles a special place and worthy of its national park status for future generations to enjoy,” said Neal Desai, Pacific Region associate director for the National Parks Conservation Association.

Farr had tried to make the bill stronger, but was foiled by House Republicans:

[T]he last Congress, which ended Jan. 3, was the first Congress since 1966 not to designate a single new acre of public land in America as federally protected wilderness, where logging, mining and other development is prohibited.

Farr’s bill originally called for designating 3,000 acres inside Pinnacles boundaries as wilderness. The area is where biologists in recent years have been releasing California condors as part of a captive breeding program to bring the species back from the brink of extinction. But that provision was stripped out by Rep. Doc Hastings, R-Wash., chairman of the House Resources Committee.

Last month, Obama proposed adding 2,700 square miles off the coast of Northern California to the national marine sanctuary system, permanently protecting the area from oil and gas drilling.

That’s all well and good for the (adorable) sea otters and (unfortunate-looking) condors, Obama, but what about the rest of us? For all he might be doing, Obama is not measuring up to his predecessors when it comes to protecting public lands. According to the usually Obama-friendly Think Progress, under this president, the U.S. has protected less than 10 percent of the acreage protected under Bill Clinton, and less than 25 percent of what was protected under George W. Bush.

I know it’s cold out, but you’d best hustle outdoors this weekend if you’d like to see any of this country’s wild places before they’re turned into one giant drilling field. At least we’ll always have Pinnacles.

Susie Cagle writes and draws news for Grist. She also writes and draws tweets for

Twitter

Living

Politics

Also in Grist

Please enable JavaScript to see recommended stories

See original article:

Pinnacles in California named nation’s 59th national park

Posted in GE, Uncategorized | Tagged america, area, association, extinction, george, grist, living, national, northern, region | Comments Off

Can fed-up Oregon organic farmers get a GMO ban on the ballot?

by biglermyrta910 Posted on January 11, 2013

Can fed-up Oregon organic farmers get a GMO ban on the ballot?

By Susie Cagle

Petitioners in Southern Oregon’s Jackson County are pushing a measure onto the ballot that would outlaw the farming of genetically modified crops in the region.

Recently Jackson County organic farmers found genetically modified sugar beet crops planted by the Swiss corporation Syngenta AG as close as one-eighth of a mile from their farms. Until last year, any GMO crop planted within four miles of an organic farm would’ve been against Department of Agriculture rules. But since then, it’s been a farming free-for-all.

From the Mail Tribune:

Ashland seed farmer Chuck Burr said he has a personal reason to support a proposed ban on genetically modified organisms in Jackson County.

He had to throw away $4,700 in chard seed after learning it might have been contaminated with pollen from nearby GMO fields.

“I’m up against it here,” said Burr, the owner of the 10-acre Restoration Farm on Old Siskiyou Highway. “I have to make a living, and I have an absolutely constitutional right to engage in commerce.

“And if another company comes in from outside the area and prevents me from doing it, then my rights trump theirs.”

The proposal has enough signatures to make it on the May 2014 primary ballot, but those rights will be central to whether citizens will even be allowed to vote on the measure. Oregon’s right-to-farm law states that “farming and forest practices are critical to the economic welfare of this state,” and that it is “in the interest of the continued welfare of the state for farming and forest practices to be protected from legal actions that may be intended to limit [such practices].”

A ban on genetically modified crop farming would definitely be a limit. But then, giving GM crops free rein is sort of limiting to organic farmers, given the way GM crops have of spreading across property lines. Oregon has more than a year to figure this one out, but I’m guessing the fight will get pretty dirty.

Susie Cagle writes and draws news for Grist. She also writes and draws tweets for

Twitter

Food

Also in Grist

Please enable JavaScript to see recommended stories

Link:

Can fed-up Oregon organic farmers get a GMO ban on the ballot?

Posted in Citizen, GE, Uncategorized | Tagged area, economic, food, gmo, grist, region, southern, state, twitter | Comments Off

Caught on video: Mudslide from rain-soaked hill derails freight train

by biglermyrta910 Posted on December 19, 2012

Caught on video: Mudslide from rain-soaked hill derails freight train

It’s a normal, unremarkable scene: A freight train runs along the edge of a parking lot next to a hillside. The sort of thing you see all the time.

Until the hillside gives way.

This happened yesterday in Everett, Wash., just north of Seattle. The Seattle Times describes how it happened:

The surface slide came off an oversaturated 100-foot cliff that geotechnical engineers had been scheduled to check right after the 66-car train passed, according to [Burlington Northern Santa Fe] spokesman Gus Melonas.

A BNSF-led crew of at least 50 people are cleaning up some of the general grocery store merchandise that spilled — products including soap, lemon juice, solvents and disinfectants. The Seattle-bound train came from Chicago carrying a wide variety of general merchandise including meat, ovens and other things.

Here’s what the rainfall totals in Everett have looked like over the past 10 days, in inches per hour. Sunday and Monday were deluged. And Tuesday, the hillside slipped.

WolframAlpha

It wasn’t the only mudslide in the area. In addition to providing bus service around this slide, Amtrak is re-routing passengers around another stretch of track between Olympia and Tacoma.

Luckily, the contents of the train were fairly inert; initial reports that it was a chemical train seem a bit overblown. But it’s nonetheless disconcerting, as more and more oil and other toxics are shipped by train and as we learn that one of the ways in which the climate has been destabilized by warming is a huge increase in storm size and precipitation.

Could have been much worse, like a tar-sands-oil train knocked off the rails by a climate superstorm. It wasn’t that. Yet.

Philip Bump writes about the news for Gristmill. He also uses Twitter a whole lot.

Cities

Caught on video: Mudslide from rain-soaked hill derails freight train

Also in Grist

Please enable JavaScript to see recommended stories

Source:

Posted in GE, oven, Uncategorized | Tagged also-in-grist, amtrak, area, climate, news, northern, philip-bump, seattle | Comments Off

As oil production hits a 14-year high, a look at how it affects one North Dakota family

by Myrna Posted on December 4, 2012

As oil production hits a 14-year high, a look at how it affects one North Dakota family

Another reminder of how much Barack Obama hates oil: U.S. production reached its highest point in 14 years in September, rolling out 6.5 million barrels a day.

EIA

Much of that is thanks to a massive increase in production in North Dakota as oil companies use hydraulic fracturing to extract oil from the Bakken Shale formation.

EIA

We’ve previously noted how this is transforming the state for the worse — crime, housing prices, spills. But today The Guardian describes those changes in the context of one North Dakota family, the Jorgensons, who’ve lived in the state since 1979.

[The oil wells] began appearing in 2006, and within just a few years dominated the area landscape. Today at least 25 oil wells stand within two miles of the Jorgensons’ home, each with a pump, several storage tanks, and a tall flare burning the methane that comes out of the ground along with the petroleum.

Like most people in North Dakota, the Jorgensons only own the surface rights to their property, not the subsurface mineral rights. So there was nothing they could do when, in May 2010, a Dallas-based oil company, Petro-Hunt, installed a well pad on the Jorgensons’ farm, next to a beloved grove of Russian olive trees. First, heavy machinery brought in to build the well pad and dig a pit for drilling wastes took out some trees. Then the new hydrology created by the pad drained water away from the olives, while others became exposed to the well’s toxic fracking fluid. Some 80 trees were dead by the summer of 2011.

electroburger

Oil from North Dakota arrives in Texas by rail.

The Jorgensons’ story gets progressively worse. Another well, even closer to the home, creates a constant, unpleasant smell. In August, a methane flare went out, meaning that toxic, flammable gas was permeating the area — and they had no idea who to contact to resolve the problem.

It seems clear that the state is more interested in facilitating extraction than meeting the needs of even long-time residents. One small change went into effect last year, but doesn’t do much good.

In 2011, North Dakota began requiring oil companies to negotiate with surface rights owners who claimed present and probable future damages to their land, but the state didn’t require them to reach a settlement. Those landowners who have secured settlements normally receive about $1,750 an acre per year in damages. One White Earth rancher who refused to give her name because she worried about “violent retaliation” by oil company workers (she said cattle in the area have been shot by oil workers) says: “You either take the money or they take it [the land] from you anyway by court order.”

“People feel powerless,” says Derrick Braaten, a Bismarck attorney who represents surface-rights owners who are battling oil companies. “The oil company is coming on your property. You don’t have the ability to protect the land. You push the monster back, but at a certain point it’s gonna walk on top of you.”

At the end of the day, this rampant push for more and more oil extraction is worth it, though. It’s worth the damage to property, the health issues, and the disruptions to families. I mean, just look how consistently gas prices have plummeted as we’ve produced more domestic oil.

Gasbuddy.com

Source

How the North Dakota fracking boom shook a family, The Guardian

Philip Bump writes about the news for Gristmill. He also uses Twitter a whole lot.