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Climate change activists vow to step up protests around world

by DanGetty38 Posted on December 21, 2018

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This story was originally published by the Guardian and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration.

Civil society groups have pledged growing international protests to drive rapid action on global warming after the U.N. climate summit in Poland.

The summit agreed on rules for implementing the 2015 Paris agreement, which aims to keep global warming as close to 1.5 degrees C (2.7 degrees F) as possible, but it made little progress in increasing governments’ commitments to cut emissions. The world remains on track for 3 degrees C of warming, which scientists says will bring catastrophic extreme weather.

Many NGOs said national leaders at the summit had failed to address the urgency of climate change, which is already making heatwaves and storms more frequent and intense, harming millions of people.

May Boeve, the executive director of the 350.org climate change campaign group, said: “Hope now rests on the shoulders of the many people who are rising to take action: the inspiring children who started an unprecedented wave of strikes in schools to support a fossil-free future; the 1,000-plus institutions that committed to pull their money out of coal, oil, and gas, and the many communities worldwide who keep resisting fossil fuel development.”

The school strikes began in August as a solo protest by 15-year-old Greta Thunberg in Sweden. Addressing the summit in Poland, she said: “If children can get headlines all over the world just by not going to school, then imagine what we could all do together if we really wanted to.”

“You say you love your children above all else,” Thunberg continued, “and yet you are stealing their future in front of their very eyes. We have run out of excuses and we are running out of time. We have come here to let you know that change is coming, whether you like it or not. The real power belongs to the people.”

Members of the Extinction Rebellion (XR) movement said there was a rising tide of protest. “We pay tribute to activists, students, civil society, and the leaders of vulnerable countries who are rising up all over the world demanding more,” said Farhana Yamin, from XR U.K. “We need now to work together to build an emergency coalition focused squarely on tackling climate devastation.”

XR branches have been set up in 35 countries, organizers said. U.S. protesters aim to organize a day of action on January 26, 2019, and international activists are planning a global week of action from April 15, 2019. XR protests took place in more than a dozen towns across the U.K. over the weekend, from chalk-spraying a government building in Bristol to holding a “die-in” demonstration in Cambridge and handing out trees in Glasgow.

Patti Lynn, the executive director of the Corporate Accountability campaign group, said: “We will continue to build our movements at home and we will escalate global campaigns to hold big polluters accountable for their role in the climate crisis. The movement to demand climate justice has never been more united, organized, or determined. Our day is coming and we will win.”

Jennifer Morgan, the executive director of Greenpeace International, said: “People are fed up, outraged and are taking action to defend their homes and children and pushing their leaders to act. These people are the hope of our generation and governments must finally stand with them and give us all reasons for hope.”

In the U.S., Michael Brune, the head of the Sierra Club environmental campaign group, said: “The American people are joined by the rest of the world in signaling that they will not tolerate any more of Trump’s shameful blustering and inaction, and they have taken up the mantle of climate action while Trump abdicates any semblance of global leadership.” He said more than 100 U.S. cities had committed to 100 percent clean energy, covering 15 percent of the U.S. population.

Stephan Singer, a chief adviser at Climate Action Network, an umbrella group for 1,300 NGOs in more than 120 countries, pointed to the wide range of people taking action and demanding more, including youth and faith groups, indigenous peoples, health authorities, farmers, trade unions, city authorities, and some financial institutions. “All these actions and many more have to magnify and multiply in the next years,” he said.

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Climate change activists vow to step up protests around world

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The Price Affair Is a Dark Horse Corruption Scandal Just Waiting to Erupt

by PhilippASV Posted on April 1, 2017

Mother Jones

It’s been previously reported that HHS Secretary Tom Price has made some questionable stock trades that appear to be based on inside information he had as a congressman. But Robert Faturechi reports that there’s more:

On the same day the stockbroker for then-Georgia Congressman Tom Price bought him up to $90,000 of stock in six pharmaceutical companies last year, Price arranged to call a top U.S. health official, seeking to scuttle a controversial rule that could have hurt the firms’ profits and driven down their share prices, records obtained by ProPublica show.

….On March 17, 2016, Price’s broker purchased shares worth between $1,000 and $15,000 each in Eli Lilly, Amgen, Bristol-Meyers Squibb, McKesson, Pfizer and Biogen….The same day as the stock trade, Price’s legislative aide, Carla DiBlasio, emailed health officials to follow up on a request she had made to set up a call with Patrick Conway, the agency’s chief medical officer. In her earlier emails, DiBlasio said the call would focus on payments for joint replacement procedures. But that day, she mentioned a new issue.

“Chairman Price may briefly bring up … his concerns about the new Part B drug demo, as well,” she wrote. “Congressman Price really appreciates the opportunity to have an open conversation with Dr. Conway, so we really appreciate you keeping the lines of communication open.”

The “Part B drug demo” refers to a proposed Obama rule that removed the incentive for doctors to prescribe expensive drugs that don’t seem to improve patient outcomes. As it happens, there were plenty of folks in Congress from both parties who opposed this rule, so Price’s opposition wasn’t unusual. The difference is that all the others didn’t buy lots of pharmaceutical stock at the same time they were lobbying to stop a rule that might have eaten into pharmaceutical profits.

So far, the Price affair hasn’t attracted all that much attention. There are too many other Trump administration scandals to worry about. But this one has a decent chance of blowing up one of these days.

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The Price Affair Is a Dark Horse Corruption Scandal Just Waiting to Erupt

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This poo-powered bus runs on the regular as long as you do

by JosephineCandel Posted on November 20, 2014

Take the #2

This poo-powered bus runs on the regular as long as you do

By on 20 Nov 2014commentsShare

A bus that runs on gas made from feces and food scraps makes its maiden voyage today. Bath Bus Company’s new crapmobile delivers passengers along the No. 2 line between Bath and Bristol Airport.

Here’s The Guardian, on what it calls the U.K.’s first poo bus:

The 40-seat “Bio-Bus” runs on biomethane gas, generated through the treatment of sewage and food waste. It can travel up to 186 miles on one tank of gas, which takes the annual waste of around five people to produce. …

Engineers believe the bus could provide a sustainable way of fuelling public transport while improving urban air quality.

Hold up. Burning turds and rotting foodstuffs will improve air quality in cities? OK, so they’re not filling up the tank with actual turds. 

The gas is generated at Bristol sewage treatment works, run by GENeco, a subsidiary of Wessex Water. It produces fewer emissions than traditional diesel engines and is both renewable and sustainable.

Sustainabuzzwords aside, the fact that shit fuel pollutes less than fossil fuel paints an unpleasant picture of just how dirty fossil energy really is.

GENeco’s biofuel plant not only gases up the airport shittle, I mean shuttle, but also supplies the national gas network with enough fuel for 8,500 households. That’s good news, since those homes, like most, otherwise meet heating and cooking needs with natural gas, one of those climate-warming fossil fuels.

Yesterday — World Toilet Day — came with a reminder that billions lack a Super Bowl to which to take the Browns, so to speak. (And access to sanitation is not only a poor-country problem; check out this map of San Francisco’s sidewalk stools.)

Today, the butt-mud bus gruntingly calls out supposedly modern waste systems for treating (toilet) treasures like trash. From fertilizer to fuel, the fruits of our feculence and food refuse are making “human waste and food waste” sound like quaint fogeyisms.

As if making poops weren’t gratifying enough.

Source:
UK’s first ‘poo bus’ hits the road

, The Guardian.

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This poo-powered bus runs on the regular as long as you do

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This giant Canadian mine spill doesn’t make us feel good about Alaska’s Pebble Mine

by CerysGollan Posted on August 8, 2014

The Fault Is Mine

This giant Canadian mine spill doesn’t make us feel good about Alaska’s Pebble Mine

By

Reuters

Well, damn. If a picture’s worth 1,000 words, my swear jar just got full enough to send all of the Duggar kids to college.

The photo above shows the results of a copper and gold mine tailings pond spitting more than 10 million cubic meters of discharge into nearby creeks and lakes.

It doesn’t just look ugly. The Monday spill could contain “unknown levels of arsenic, mercury, lead, copper and cadmium, among other toxins and heavy metals.” And the Mount Polley spill is threatening an important salmon spawning ground. Al Jazeera reports:

The contaminated water and debris flowed into a local creek, expanding its width from 4 feet to 150 feet, the ministry’s release said, before entering nearby Quesnel Lake — where many salmon are expected to arrive for their annual spawning in the coming weeks. …

Quesnel Lake and its connected waterways are important habitats for Chinook and Sockeye Salmon, as well as Rainbow Trout and White Sturgeon — an ancient species that can live for more than 100 years and is considered “endangered” by U.S. standards or “critically imperiled” in B.C.

This Canadian spill adds more fuel to the fire for critics of the proposed Pebble Mine in Alaska. The controversial copper mine is planned for a site near the productive Bristol Bay wild salmon fishery. It would be about 10 times the size of Imperial Metals’ Mount Polley mine, NRDC’s Joel Reynolds points out. And the same company that provided designs for the failed B.C. tailings pond was also involved in pushing for Pebble Mine. From Knight Piesold Consulting’s comments on the EPA’s 2012 draft Bristol Bay watershed assessment:

[T]he assessment report is based on a fundamentally flawed premise that considers that a faulty mine design, inadequate mine development, and inappropriate mine operations would be permitted to occur within the state of Alaska.

Oh, phew. For a minute there we were worried, and then we remembered faulty mines are only built in Canada, not the good ol’ U.S. of A. See, here’s Imperial Metals President Brian Kynoch at a news conference on the Mount Polley breach: “If you asked me two weeks ago if this could have happened, I would have said it couldn’t.”

Fuck.


Source
Salmon run threatened by ‘unprecedented’ British Columbia mining spill, Al Jazeera

Darby Minow Smith is Grist’s assistant managing editor. Follow her on Twitter.

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This giant Canadian mine spill doesn’t make us feel good about Alaska’s Pebble Mine

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E.P.A. Says It Will Fight Mine Project in Alaska

by Myrna Posted on February 28, 2014

The agency’s decision makes it unlikely that developers of the huge open-pit project in the Bristol Bay watershed will be able to proceed. Continue at source:  E.P.A. Says It Will Fight Mine Project in Alaska ; ;Related ArticlesCoal Ash Spill Shows How a Watchdog Was DefangedFertilizer Limits Sought Near Lake Erie to Fight Spread of AlgaeU.S. Moves Toward Atlantic Oil Exploration, Stirring Debate Over Sea Life ;

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E.P.A. Says It Will Fight Mine Project in Alaska

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While EPA is furloughed, Republicans hold hearing to bash it

by Leon51tt8 Posted on October 14, 2013

While EPA is furloughed, Republicans hold hearing to bash it

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Rep. Doug Lamborn (R-Colo.) is more interested in bashing the EPA than solving the budget impasse.

You would think that the Republicans in Congress would dedicate every waking minute to figuring out how they can end the budget standoff and government shutdown. But, then, you don’t think like a Republican in Congress.

Last Thursday, while 94 percent of the EPA was furloughed and the country continued edging ever closer to a debt default, House Republicans dillydallied with an EPA-bashing hearing that repeated worn-out talking points.

The name of the hearing offered clues to its content: EPA vs. American Mining Jobs: The Obama Administration’s Regulatory Assault on the Economy. And the opening statement [PDF] by Rep. Doug Lamborn (R-Colo.), chair of the House Subcommittee on Energy and Mineral Resources, did not deviate from the predictable course:

The Obama Administration’s “war on coal” can be felt throughout the country, from Logan County, West Virginia to Farmington, New Mexico. Now it has seemingly expanded to an all out “war on mining jobs” threatening workers from Chicken, Alaska to Superior, Arizona.

The Natural Resources Defense Council has more on the hearing:

Three of the four witnesses chosen to testify expounded on the Obama Administration EPA’s “burdensome red-tape, onerous federal regulations, and abusive actions” — Edmond Fogels, Deputy Commissioner of the Alaska Department of Natural Resources, Sheldon Maier, President of the Fortymile Mining District in Alaska, and Chris Hamilton, Senior Vice President of the West Virginia Coal Association.  Norman Van Vactor, CEO of the Bristol Bay Economic Development Corporation, was the sole witness who voiced support for the agency that works hard every day to implement the laws and regulations that protect our public health and natural resources.

So, while global economic leaders warn that deadlock over the debt ceiling threatens not just America’s economy but the world’s, Republicans are accusing the EPA of ruining the economy. That’s some gall.


Source
Congress Talks EPA and Mining Jobs, NRDC
World Leaders Press the U.S. on Fiscal Crisis, The New York Times

John Upton is a science fan and green news boffin who tweets, posts articles to Facebook, and blogs about ecology. He welcomes reader questions, tips, and incoherent rants: johnupton@gmail.com.

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While EPA is furloughed, Republicans hold hearing to bash it

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Pebble Mine project in Alaska is on the ropes

by Arthur Crown Posted on September 17, 2013

Pebble Mine project in Alaska is on the ropes

By

Friends of Bristol Bay

A waterway that leads to Bristol Bay.

The future of the controversial Pebble Mine, which could excavate 186 square miles [PDF] of pristine Alaskan terrain, is now very much up in the air.

The proposed mine near Bristol Bay would dig up an estimated $300 billion worth of gold, copper, and molybdenum. But it would threaten another treasure: one of the world’s biggest salmon runs, which provides half the world’s supply of sockeye.

One of two global mining giants involved in the project announced Monday that it was walking away from what it regards as a high-risk venture. U.K.-based Anglo American had spent $541 million getting the 50/50 joint-venture project nearly to the point where it could begin applying for state and federal permits. By quitting now, it avoids spending nearly $1 billion more it had agreed to sink into development of the mine. Anglo told shareholders it would write $300 million of intangible assets off of its ledger at the end of the year — the price of walking away from a deal that it once thought would lead to bountiful riches.

It’s too early to say what this will mean for the fate of the project, but environmentalists rejoiced in the news while investors choked on it.

“Anglo American’s decision to pull out of the potentially disastrous Pebble Mine highlights the incredible risks the project brings to Bristol Bay’s local communities and fisheries,” World Wildlife Fund Arctic campaigner Dave Aplin said. “When a company is willing to accept a $300 million charge to walk away from a project, it gives you a sense of just how bad of an idea the proposed Pebble Mine really is.”

Opponents of the mine worry that it would wreck an ecologically rich and remarkable landscape. Local fishermen are particularly concerned, fearing the project could destroy their livelihoods — and the livelihoods of the processors and traders that rely on them [PDF].

The timing of the announcement was interesting: It came just weeks after EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy visited the site, which environmentalists and fishermen are lobbying her to protect using provisions of the Clean Water Act. Results of a recent poll indicated that more than 60 percent of Alaskans would vote in a favor of a proposed 2014 ballot initiative to block the mine.

The announcement also coincides with falling worldwide commodity prices.

In Monday’s announcement, Anglo American said it wants to reduce financial risks and reduce spending on “such projects during the pre-approval phases.”

Northern Dynasty Minerals, a publicly traded subsidiary of Canadian mining company Hunter Dickinson, is now left all alone in trying to push through with the mine. Its chief executive put an optimistic spin on the news during a call Monday with reporters. “We will now be back in possession of 100 percent of the Pebble Project and the beneficiary of something north of $540 million worth of expenditures by Anglo over the past five years,” Ron Thiessen said. He insisted the project would move forward, but acknowledged that he really doesn’t know what lies ahead. The company’s board of directors has not yet met to discuss next steps.

Northern Dynasty might be trying to sound upbeat, but investors were having none of it. The company doesn’t have enough money to develop the mine alone. Shares in the company were being traded at $1.50 on Monday — an all-time low, well below the $5 at which its shares were trading a year ago.

If the project is called off, what’s bad news for the mining company’s investors would prove to be wonderful news for the environment.

John Upton is a science fan and green news boffin who tweets, posts articles to Facebook, and blogs about ecology. He welcomes reader questions, tips, and incoherent rants: johnupton@gmail.com.Find this article interesting? Donate now to support our work.Read more: Business & Technology

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Pebble Mine project in Alaska is on the ropes

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