Energy

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
October 30, 2008
5:15 PM

CONTACT: Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC)
Eric Young, NRDC, 202-289-2373 or 703-217-6814 (cell)

Bush Administration Christmas Gift to Oil Companies Will be Announced on Election Day

Sale of Pristine Wilderness Slated to Happen Six Days Before Christmas

SALT LAKE CITY - October 30 - On election day, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) plans to announce that it will sell oil and gas leases on areas in eastern Utah, including sections of Desolation Canyon, White River, Diamond Mountain, Bourdette Draw, and other lands in the Nine Mile Canyon region. These public lands had largely been off-limits to new oil and gas leasing because of a series of federal court and administrative decisions overturning earlier illegal BLM leasing decisions.

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The Natural Resources Defense Council is a national, nonprofit organization of scientists, lawyers and environmental specialists dedicated to protecting public health and the environment. Founded in 1970, NRDC has 1.2 million members and online activists, served from offices in New York, Washington, Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Beijing.

Posted in Corporatism, Energy, Environment, oil

Mountaintop Removal Destroys Wildlife and the Way of Life for Local Residents

Imagine earth-shaking explosions, rock and debris flying through the air, and mountains blasted to smithereens by explosions 100 times more powerful than those that blew up the federal building in Oklahoma City.

When the dust settles, the remaining land looks like another planet: no trees, no plants, no animals - just a barren moonscape.

These are the shocking images of Jeff Barrie's documentary, Kilowatt Ours, that prompted me to write the song, "Don't Blow Up the Mountain."

Posted in Energy, Environment, biodiversity, Coal, Deforestation, Nature/Conservancy, Pollution

Canola Oil Powers Gasless Race Winners to Vegas

SAN FRANCISCO -- Wayne Keith, a hay farmer from Springville, Ala. (population 3,000), pulled into Berkeley last week driving a lime-green pickup truck that runs mostly on wood chips but sometimes cow dung, too.

Posted in Energy, transportation

McCain Said It, Why Don't We?

John McCain said it. Right out loud in the third debate.

"Obviously, we had to take Saddam Hussein out of Kuwait or it would've threatened the Middle Eastern oil supply."

The first gulf war was about defending access to oil after all. McCain reiterated the theme later on, as he has in past debates, when he said that we need to "eliminate our dependence on the places in the world that harm our national security."

Posted in Energy, Politics, War/Empire, Election 2008, Iraq, Oil

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
October 15, 2008
11:02 AM

CONTACT: Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS)

So-Called 'Clean Coal' Technology Offers Promise Along with Considerable Risks, New Report Finds

Government Should Back Demonstration Projects;

Nix New Coal-Fired Power Plants that Don't Capture and Store Carbon Emissions

WASHINGTON - October 15 - With domestic policy the focus of tonight's third presidential debate, the discussion likely will touch on energy and the future of coal, which currently generates about 50 percent of U.S. electricity. Both John McCain and Barack Obama have frequently mentioned their support for "clean coal" on the campaign trail, but neither one of them has fully explained what that means. Today, the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) issued a report that examines the pros and cons of a proposed technology that would capture coal plant carbon dioxide emissions and store them underground.

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Posted in Energy, Politics, Coal

Ecologists Raise Alarm Ahead of UN Climate Summit

WARSAW - Ecologists raised the alarm Monday over global warming as environment ministers from more than 30 states met in Warsaw ahead of December's UN Climate summit focused on slashing greenhouse gases.

"We're ringing alarm bells -- the UN summit in Poznan must deliver a deal that will keep global warming below two degrees Celsius to the end of this century," Kaisa Kosonen from the global environmental group Greenpeace told reporters.

Posted in Energy, Environment, Climate Change

The Banality of Clean Coal: Extraction Crimes

Three more retired coal miners died of black lung today. Over 105,000 Americans have suffered and died from black lung related diseases; 10,000 miners, according to the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, have died from black lung in the last decade.

Posted in Energy, Environment, Coal, Nature/Conservancy

Green Policies Can Have Big Economic Spinoffs: UN

BARCELONA, Spain - The credit crunch is distracting from a shift to green policies that have big but often overlooked economic benefits, the head of the U.N. Environment Programme said on Monday.

Achim Steiner called on governments to do more to set higher value on the natural world, ranging from wetlands that purify water to forest parks that store billions of tons of greenhouse gases in their vegetation.

Posted in Economy/Trade, Energy, Environment

World Needs To Rethink Biofuels - UN Food Agency

ROME/MILAN - The Western world needs to rethink its rush to biofuels, which has done more harm pushing up food prices than it has good by reducing greenhouse gases, a United Nations report said on Tuesday.

The U.N. Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) said policies encouraging biofuel production and use in Europe and the United States was likely to maintain pressure on food prices but have little impact on weaning car users away from oil.

Posted in Energy, Environment, Biofuel

Protesters Move In Path of Pipeline

KERROBERT, Saskatchewan - Led by two men on horseback, roughly 60 First Nations people carried placards and marched through Kerrobert on Monday as part of a demonstration over the construction of a 1,590-kilometre oil pipeline known as the "Alberta Clipper" through traditional Treaty 6 territory.

The protesters say they haven't been consulted and are demanding a share of the revenues.

Posted in Activism, Energy, Human Rights, protest