Solar Eruptions – Feb.9.2014

E120,

Glenn Greenwald Says Congressman Mike Rogers Is Spewing LIES In An Attempt To Criminalize Journalism

E120, e145, media,

9 MILLION Pounds Of Meat RECALLED “The Fear Is Bacterial Infection As Well As MAD COW Disease”

E120, e145, food-matters,

Weather: Climate Change ‘To Blame’ For Storms and UK Flooding

ClimateState

Published on Feb 9, 2014

Follow ClimateState on facebook for climate research https://www.facebook.com/ClimateState

The Met Office’s chief scientist warns that Britain should prepare itself for more severe weather in years to come. http://news.sky.com/story/1208850/wea…

Uk Flooding and the Science of Climate Change http://climatestate.com/2014/02/09/uk…

Global Climate Change
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James Fleming with A Brief History of Weather and Climate Control

Washington Geoengineering Consortium

Published on Jan 19, 2014

In a video produced for the Washington Geoengineering Consortium, Dr. James Fleming, Professor of Science, Technology and Society, Colby College, historian & author of “Fixing the Sky: The Checkered History of Weather and Climate Control” (Columbia University Press, 2010) tells us that “history matters,” and that while considering solar radiation management geoengineering approaches, we should understand what motivated and came of earlier attempts to control the world’s weather and climate.
Dr. Fleming’s website is here -www.colby.edu/directory/?profileid=jfle­ming
Learn more about the Washington Geoengineering Consortium’s work – www.dcgeoconsortium.org

Global Climate Change
Environmental Justice
Environment Ethics

Bill McKibben on Geoengineering

Washington Geoengineering Consortium

Published on Dec 19, 2013

In a video made for the Washington Geoengineering Consortium, author and activist Bill McKibben, co-founder of 350.org and a strong advocate for global action on climate change, speaks about geoengineering.

The conversation around geoengineering is gaining steam and McKibben says, “this makes me annoyed.”

Firstly, no geoengineering ‘solutions’ address ocean acidification, a result of carbon emissions. Acidification would threaten the planet even if the temperature rises didn’t, he tells us.

Secondly, there are renewable energy solutions “easily within our grasp.” These are a serious reality now, he says, and geoengineering would be a distraction from the work to make those technologies better.

Finally, “psychological impulse behind it (geoengineering) is a dubious one,” he argues. It involves avoiding hard but important and necessary work.

Maybe geoengineering could work, says McKibben, but “even so, these are the answers of junkies.”

We’re at a pivotal moment that presents us with an opportunity for important change, and geoengineering,” McKibben fears, “gets in the way of that change.”

What do you think?

You can find a recent Rolling Stone article by Bill McKibben on the Obama Administration’s climate change record here (http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/…). You can find a blog post about this article by Washington Geoengineering Consortium co-founder Simon Nicholson here (http://dcgeoconsortium.org/blog).

Global Climate Change
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What You Need to Know About the Keystone XL Pipeline – Bill McKibben

February 4, 2014
Crews work on construction of the TransCanada Keystone XL Pipeline east of Winona, Texas. (AP Photo/The Tyler Morning Telegraph, Sarah A. Miller)

Last week, the State Department released a long-anticipated study of the likely environmental impact of the Keystone XL pipeline. If approved, the project would move 830,000 of barrels of crude oil from the Alberta tar sands in Canada to refineries on the Gulf Coast of Texas every day.

The project has become politically charged. You’ve no doubt heard the talking points on both sides of the issue. But digging past the politics, what’s really at stake? Who stands to win and who stands to lose if the pipeline is approved? To answer those questions, and others, we’ve put together an essential KXL reader.

What is Keystone XL?

The Washington Post published a Keystone primer complete with graphics showing the entire 1,179-mile route. The Southern leg of the pipeline went into operation last month. Writer Tara Lohan visited with some of the property owners affected by the project for BillMoyers.com — she called them “accidental activists.” Because it crosses an international border and requires State Department approval, the Northern leg has been more controversial. And that controversy is entering its ninth year — Maclean’s has a timeline of the project – and the debate it has ignited.

How Significant Is That Environmental Review?

The environmental impact review was a blow to the project’s opponents. It found that approval of the pipeline wouldn’t have a significant impact on climate change. Barack Obama had said that he wouldn’t approve Keystone if it did. But it’s important to understand that the primary finding was not that extracting huge amounts of tar-sands oil wouldn’t have a significant impact. Rather, as the National Resource Defense Council’s (NRDC) Danielle Droitsch noted, the report concluded that the oil would be extracted with or without Keystone. As such, John Cushman writes at Inside Climate News, the report leaves the door open for the administration to either approve or reject the project. The review itself has been the subject of some controversy, as the State Department’s Inspector General’s office launched an investigation into potential conflicts of interest among the contractors that conducted the study. And Lee Fang reported for The Nation that the government of Alberta paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to the researchers responsible for a previous “independent” study with favorable results. ClimateProgress’s Ryan Koronowski offers “Seven Facts That Weren’t in the New State Department Report.”

What Is “Tar Sands” Crude Anyway?

The nonprofit group Environment Northeast has a primer on how oil is extracted from tar sands, what’s in it and why it comes with a greater environmental impact than crude oil extracted using traditional drilling. John Abraham and Danny Harvey reported for The Guardian that increased production of tar sands crude would make it impossible for Canada to meet its goal of reducing emissions by 17 percent of 2005 levels by 2020.

Another Concern: Safety

Mike Klink, a former pipeline inspector for Bechtel, which was working under contract with TransCanada — the company behind KXL — became a whistleblower when he wrote that TransCanada cut corners on the construction of the pipeline and as a result the project is a spill waiting to happen. Lisa Song reported for Inside Climate News that a major aquifer in Nebraska may be especially vulnerable to a spill. And Julie Dermansky reported for Truthout that TransCanada’s safety record on other projects is a cause for concern. More generally, the CBC has an interactive map of all the pipeline accidents in Canada between 2000 and 2012.

The Politics

Juliet Eilperin wrote a primer on the politics of KXL for The Washington Post. Desmog Canada issued a report detailing TransCanada’s lobbying activities. Jim Snyder reported for Bloomberg News that “at least a dozen state and federal Republican lawmakers” sent letters urging approval of the project which turned out to have been written by the Consumer Energy Alliance,” a Washington-based coalition of energy producers.” A majority of Americans favor the project — 56 percent in the latest USA Today poll. In Canada, public opinion appears to be declining; a poll released last month found 52 percent of Canadians in favor of the project, down 16 points from last April. Opposition to the project had also grown by 12 percentage points during the same period.

Other Controversies

A major issue has been the use of eminent domain to secure property for the pipeline route. Multiple lawsuits have challenged the practice; in Texas, the courts first ruled in TransCanada’s favor, but recently gave landowners hope by ordering the company to submit additional documentation on its use of eminent domain. The Nebraska legislature actually transferred its eminent domain power through Governor Dave Heineman to TransCanada, as Andrew Harris and Tom Witosky reported for Bloomberg Businessweek, and is facing a court challenge. Claims about the project’s potential to create new jobs have also been contested. A report by researchers at Cornell University’s Global Labor Institute found that the company’s projections weren’t accurate, and KXL would create only a marginal number of permanent positions.

Add Your Voice

The public comment period for the Keystone XL Pipeline began on February 5, 2014 and will end on March 7, 2014. Comments can be posted electronically to the State Department or by mailing letters, postmarked no later than Friday, March 7, to: Bureau of Energy Resources, Room 4843, Attn: Keystone XL Public Comments, U.S. Department of State, 2201 C St. NW., Washington, DC 20520.

Key address for comments by 7 March 2014

Or Click here to submit comments electonically

What’s Next?

Zoë Carpenter reports for The Nation that there is no deadline for approval or rejection of the Northern leg of the project. Several agencies have 90 days to respond to the environmental review and a month-long period for public comment begins this week. Activists are redoubling their efforts to pressure the administration to block the project. And John Cushman reports for Inside Climate News that a coalition of environmental groups is suing to force the State Department to expand the scope of the review by including another pipeline project — Enbridge’s Alberta Clipper line — that “would also carry hundreds of thousands of barrels a day of high-carbon tar sands crude from Canada.”

Follow further statements by Bill McKibben and

Bill McKibben as Grassroots/Global Visionary.

Related Features

• Diary of a Dying Country
• Youth Plan Mass Civil Disobedience to Protest Keystone XL
• Bill McKibben on Why the White House Wants to Approve Keystone
• Keystone XL Pushes Ahead and Inspires Unlikely Alliance
• Is the Keystone XL Pipeline the “Stonewall” of the Climate Movement?
• The Keystone XL Pipeline’s ‘Accidental Activists’
• Bill McKibben on Climate Change and the Keystone Pipeline

Global Climate Change
Environmental Justice
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S0 News February 9, 2014: Corrected

Suspicious0bservers

Published on Feb 9, 2014

Website: http://www.suspicious0bservers.org

Global Climate Change
Environment Ethics

Putting ‘Eco’ Back into Economics: Ruud Kleinpaste at TEDxChristchurch

TEDxTalks

Published on Feb 9, 2014

Ruud is one of the amazing people that New Zealand imported from the world at large, in this case from the Netherlands (although he was born in Indonesia). He has held a few positions in the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries but will be forever remembered within New Zealand as ‘the Bugman’. Ruud has carried a flag for a number of environmental causes such as the protection of native birds and more eco-friendly agriculture. He’s reached people of all ages since the 1980s, first through his talkback radio show, “Ruud’s Awakening”, and then in his TV series, ‘Buggin’ with Ruud’.

Global Climate Change
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Food-Matters

Youth Plan Mass Civil Disobedience to Protest Keystone XL | Activism, Blog | BillMoyers.com

February 7, 2014
by Peter Rothberg   This post originally appeared at The Nation.

Protestors gather at the National Mall in Washington calling on President Barack Obama to reject the Keystone XL oil pipeline from Canada, as well as act to limit carbon pollution from power plants and “move beyond” coal and natural gas, Sunday, Feb. 17, 2013. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)

Here we go again. With President Obama on the cusp of a decision on whether to approve the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline, on March 2, hundreds of students and young people are expected to risk arrest in an act of civil disobedience at the White House to pressure President Obama to reject the project.

The sit-in is expected to be the largest act of civil disobedience by young people in the recent history of the environmental movement and it will be led by just the demographic that helped propel Obama to the presidency. The protest, known as “XL Dissent,” is meant to send a clear signal to President Obama that the base that helped elect him sees Keystone XL as a decision that will define his entire legacy.

“Obama was the first president I voted for, and I want real climate action and a rejection of the Keystone XL pipeline,” said Nick Stracco, a senior at Tulane University. “The people that voted him into office have made it absolutely clear what we want, and that’s to reject Keystone XL.”

The tar sands, also known as the oil sands, are one of the largest remaining deposits of oil in the world, and efforts to extract the resource from a mix of clay and other materials underneath Canada’s Boreal forest have created the biggest, and, by the accounts of numerous scientists and environmental groups, one of the most environmentally devastating energy projects, on earth. For details and background, the Natural Resources Defense Council has compiled an extensive document.

The Keystone XL fight has become an iconic issue for environmentally minded young people across the country, many of whom are involved in local campaigns to help stop the pipeline or the broader fossil fuel divestment campaign, which has spread to over 300 universities across the United States.

As 350.org co-founder Bill McKibben aptly puts it:

As the fight to stop KXL enters its final stages, it’s truly inspiring to see young people at the forefront. This pipeline is scheduled to last 40 years—right through the prime of their lives. President Obama needs to look them in the face.

….(read more).

Global Climate Change
Environmental Justice
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Cyprus International Institute (CII) (Harvard School of Public Health) http://Cyprus-Institute.us
Food-Matters