People Before Profit blog

Chevron’s oil on troubled waters

Thu, 30 Jul 2015 13:14:00 +0000

If you take your kids to the beach this summer, expect a gritty ride home. California has turned off most of the showers that people use at state beaches to clean the sand off their kids before the long ride home. Then, of course, you get to clean the sand out of your car. All this aggravation saves about 18 million gallons of water a year, according to the state.

In a drought like this one, it makes sense to conserve as much water as possible, wherever we can. So you would think we would be trying to stop some big water users too. Like Chevron. This mega-corporation sells 21 million gallons of treated polluted water a day to the Cawelo Water District, which, according to the Los Angeles Times, provides water to 90 Kern County farmers.

Where Chevron gets the water, reports do not say, but the water they sell to the farmers comes from its oil fields. Drillers force a slush of chemical-laced water into the ground to extract oil and gas. Then, after a skimming and filtration process, the water moves into settling ponds and, after some time, it goes to the water district and then to farmers.

Tests of this irrigation water by an advocacy group turned up the presence of the potent industrial solvents methylene chloride and acetone, along with benzene, a known carcinogen. Does this stuff - as well as the chemicals the company acknowledged that it doesn't test for - get into the food chain? No one knows. One laboratory spokesperson said, "I wouldn't necessarily panic, but I would certainly think I would rather not have that."

Allowing the oil companies to continue drilling by using and polluting vast amounts of water that they then sell for agricultural uses doesn't make a lot of sense, especially in this time of drought. Much of Chevron's 21 million gallons of recycled water presumably was once 21 million gallons of fresh water that could have been used by Bakersfield families. An acre foot (AF) of water is 326,000 gallons, which is about enough for two families for a year. At a minimum, Chevron's Cawelo Water District sales come to 64.4 AF every single day, and that's just from one oil company's output of treated water.

Speaking of agriculture, that's another area in which we can save big on water. In a drought like this one, the state could curtail water deliveries to the largest crops subsidized by the federal government. In California the big five are cotton, rice, wheat, livestock feed and corn. Only 10 percent of this state's farmers receive subsidies, meaning that 90 percent of growers receive no subsidies whatsoever. Of the one in 10 who get subsidies, only 10 percent receive more than half of all the money. Meanwhile crops representing half the value of all California grown products get no subsidy, while cotton and rice take 44 per cent of the money even though they represent just three per cent of all agricultural production in this state.

Yet they are big water users. For example, 15 per cent of all water in California, goes to grow alfalfa for cattle. That's five million AF a year, and another three million AF goes to forage for beef. That boils down to one pound of animal protein using 100 times more water than one pound of grain protein. Think about that next time you drive in for a Whopper.

But here's the kicker: Much of the cotton and rice receiving those big subsidies is not consumed domestically. A vast amount of these and other products is exported. At least 40 percent of the rice California grows is shipped to Japan, Korea, Taiwan and Turkey. And an increasing amount goes to China. We export four million metric tons of alfalfa, which is not subsidized in California, that takes 100 billion gallons of water to grow. We ship 90 percent of the state's cotton overseas, and it takes 2.5 AF per acre to grow it. Maybe not so good.

The profits from these crops aren't so big either. The real money is in the pistachios we export to the world, as well as the almonds, the citrus, the fresh fruits and vegetables. That's where the high margins get made, which is why big crop subsidies only keep us growing stuff we do not need and do not use, all requiring an inordinate amount of a substance essential to human life.

I am sure some experts will say that water rights trump all others. But we live in desperate conditions. This is an emergency. If we cannot stop superfluous oil drilling and watering big crops we don't use - and certainly don't need to export - when can we say No to the power of Big Ag and Big Oil? Think about that the next time you are driving back from the beach and the kids are whining in the back seat because they couldn't wash the sand off.

Reprinted, along with photo, by kind permission of the author and Capital & Main. The original publication may be found here.

Rev. Jim Conn is the founding minister of the Church in Ocean Park and served on the Santa Monica City Council and as that city's mayor. He helped found Clergy and Laity United for Economic Justice, Los Angeles, and was its second chair, and was a founder of Santa Monica's renter's rights campaign.

Zimbabwe: Minnesota dentist faces charge of lion poaching

Wed, 29 Jul 2015 13:59:00 +0000

HARARE, Zimbabwe (AP) - Zimbabwean police said James Palmer shot a well-known, protected lion known as Cecil with a crossbow in a killing that has outraged conservationists and others.

Authorities said two Zimbabwean men would appear in court for helping lure the lion outside of its protected area to kill it. Palmer faces poaching charges, according to police spokeswoman Charity Charamba.

Palmer allegedly paid $50,000 to hunt the lion, Zimbabwean conservationists said, though the hunter and is local partners maintain they didn't know the lion they killed was protected.

Walter James Palmer was identified on Tuesday by both the Zimbabwe Conservation Task Force and the Safari Operators Association of Zimbabwe as the American hunter, a name that police then confirmed.

Palmer issued a statement saying he was unaware that the lion was so well known and part of a study.

"I had no idea that the lion I took was a known, local favorite, was collared and part of a study until the end of the hunt," he said, maintaining that to his knowledge, everything about the hunt had been legal.

Attempts to reach Palmer, 55, at his two listed home numbers and his office by phone and in person were unsuccessful.

Palmer, of the Minneapolis suburb of Eden Prairie, pleaded guilty in 2008 to making false statements to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service about a black bear he fatally shot in western Wisconsin. Palmer had a permit to hunt but shot the animal outside the authorized zone in 2006, then tried to pass it off as being killed elsewhere, according to court documents. He was given one year probation and fined nearly $3,000.

Palmer has several hunts on record with the Pope and Young Club, where archers register big game taken in North America for posterity, according to the club's director of records, Glenn Hisey.

Hisey said he didn't have immediate access to records showing the types and number of animals killed by Palmer during hunts, but noted that any club records involve legal hunts "taken under our rules of fair chase." African game wouldn't be eligible.

Hisey, who said he doesn't have a personal rapport with Palme, said he alerted the group's board that Palmer's ethics were being called into question and his domestic records could be jeopardized if he's found to have done something illegal abroad.

The two arrested Zimbabwean men - a professional hunter and a farm owner - face poaching charges, the Zimbabwe National Parks and Wildlife Authority and the Safari Operators Association said in a joint statement. Killing the lion was illegal because the farm owner did not have a hunting permit, the joint statement said. If convicted, the men face up to 15 years in prison.

The lion is believed to have been killed on July 1 in western Zimbabwe's wildlife-rich Hwange region, its carcass discovered days later by trackers, the statement said.

The Zimbabwe Conservation Task Force said in a statement that Palmer paid the $50,000 for the hunt. During a nighttime hunt, the men tied a dead animal to their car to lure the lion out of a national park, said Johnny Rodrigues, chairman of the Zimbabwe Conservation Task Force. Palmer is believed to have shot it with a crossbow, injuring the animal. The wounded lion was found 40 hours later, and shot dead with a gun, Rodrigues said in the statement. They removed the tracking collar and tried to destroy it. The lion was then beheaded and skinned.

The Zimbabwean hunter accused in the case claimed that Cecil was not specifically targeted, and the group only learning after the fact that they had killed a well-known lion, according to the Safari Operators Association.

Cecil, recognizable by his black mane, was being studied by an Oxford University research program led by Dr. Andrew Loveridge. For more information on the project , read: Cecil and the conservation of lions.

Tourists regularly spotted his characteristic mane in the park over the last 13 years, said Lion Aid, also a conservation group.

A Facebook page for Palmer's Minnesota dental practice was taken offline Tuesday after users flooded it with comments condemning Palmer's involvement in the hunt. Hundreds of similar comments inundated a page for his dental practice on review platform Yelp, which prior to Tuesday had only three comments.

A state database of Minnesota dentist licensure lists the status of Palmer's registration as active, but "not practicing in state."

Several news sources reported that records from the Minnesota Board of Dentistry also show that Mr. Palmer was the subject of a sexual harassment complaint that was settled in 2006. A receptionist alleged that he had made indecent comments to her. Mr. Palmer admitted no wrongdoing and agreed to pay out more than $127,000.

Associated Press reporters Amy Forliti in Bloomington, Minnesota, Brian Bakst in St. Paul, Minnesota, and Hannah Cushman from Chicago contributed to this report. PW's Barbara Russum contributed to the story.

Photo: AP

Poverty and child brain damage

Tue, 28 Jul 2015 16:11:00 +0000

Politicians love to tell us that we live in the richest and greatest country in the world despite the fact that our actual ranking when it comes to overall living standards and democratic rights is far from numero uno. We rank 23^rd on the "Satisfaction with Life Index" (Cf. Wikipedia). But no one will get elected telling us we are the 23^rd best über alles in the world.

More to the point, when it comes to how we treat children, it's telling to find out that UNICEF ranks the U.S. at 34 out of 35 industrialized countries (we beat out Romania but eight other former east European socialist countries take better care of their children than we do).

It just so happens that 22 percent of children in the United States live in poverty and are apt to remain there as long as the Republicans and the right use their political power to cut welfare, food stamps, day care, education, feeding programs in schools, tax breaks for low income families, elimination of the sales tax for the poor, decent wages for working people, unemployment insurance, immigration reform, and continue to obstruct the right to vote and union organization with respect to minorities and working people.

What is particularly vile about the these right-wing anti-children policies is that scientists have shown that living in poverty has horrible consequences for the normal development of children's brains, damages their emotional health, and results in under achievement academically.

Scientists have shown, according to Science Daily ("Poverty's most insidious damage is to a child's brain") that low income children living in poverty have mental lags and abnormal development in their frontal and temporal lobes resulting in test scores 20 per cent lower than the norm for children not living in poverty.

We should also note that the brain has not fully developed into a mature organ in humans until the mid 20s. The result of temporal lobe damage will impair normal comprehension and understanding of speech and frontal lobe impairment will effect normal thinking, planning, and decision making ability, personality development and moral and ethical comprehension and behavior among other higher mental functions.

The information in the article is based on the research reported by Dr. Seth Pollak et. al., in "Poverty's most insidious damage: The developing brain" published in JAMA Pediatrics, July 2015.

But besides this article there is an editorial by Dr. Joan A. Luby of the Washington University School of Medicine, who says "early childhood interventions to support a nurturing environment for these children must now become our top public health priority for the good of all." Dr Luby's own research has also shown that the brains of children living in poverty can be damaged causing problems for the rest of their lives.

What can be done to help these children? Should the government guarantee a minimum income to families with children to keep them above the poverty line? Should pressure be applied to the Republicans and other rightist politicians to drop their opposition to food stamps, free meals, and other programs designed to help the poor? Should these programs get more funding so that no child is left behind in poverty?

Dr. Luby says NO. It seems it is the job of the parents of the children in poverty to solve this problem (providing of course they didn't grow up in poverty themselves and suffer some of the problems discussed in this article). Dr. Luby's studies have shown that properly nurturing parents "can offset some of the negative effects" inflicted on the brains of poor children.

All we have to do is teach nurturing skills to parents, especially poor parents, then maybe the children will benefit. This is something the fiscally responsible Republican Congress might be inclined to support. Then we really don't have to make any radical social changes in the way the richest and greatest country (or least the 23^rd such country) runs its social programs (or lack thereof), we only have to encourage and teach better nurturing techniques to parents! This shouldn't cost too much.

"In developmental science and medicine," Dr. Luby wrote, "it is not often that the cause [poverty] and solution [better parenting] of a public health problem become so clearly elucidated. It is even less common that feasible and cost effective solutions [teach parents how to nurture] to such problems are discovered [maybe] and are within reach." So cost effective that the 1% won't even have to face a tax increase or the military a budget cut.

Photo: Living in a car. Children's Defense Fund: Ending Child Poverty Now.

The Pope huddles with mayors to tackle climate change

Mon, 27 Jul 2015 15:48:00 +0000

Last week, Pope Francis convened a two-day conference with sixty mayors from around the world. The goal: to discuss what actions can be taken on a city-wide basis to combat climate change. The mayors also pledged to lobby their governments to work for a binding climate treaty this fall in Paris at the UN-sponsored climate change talks. Among the cities represented were New York City, San Francisco, New Orleans, Boston, Madrid and Rome.

Pope Francis, following from his long climate change and social justice encyclical earlier this spring, signed a declaration stating that "human-induced climate change is a scientific reality and its effective control is a moral imperative for humanity."

One of the attendees, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, gave a speech at the conference, stating, "It's increasingly clear that we local leaders of the world have many tools and that we must use them boldly even as our national governments hesitate."

Another attendee, California Governor Jerry Brown, noted in his keynote speech that "the hope is that local government leaders can create pressure on the national leaders." While the Pope has taken a more radical position on some issues than Gov. Brown, such as opposing cap-and-trade schemes and fracking, the broad movement for "bold, serious action" on climate change by the Paris Conference is growing.

The mayors gathering takes place against a backdrop of alarming scientific studies that show global warming and related changes in the world's climate system are having an increasing impact on the weather systems, oceans, droughts, and other related phenomena.

The Pope continues to link the fight against climate change to issues of social justice. He has stated that part of the problem is "unfettered capitalism." He is also planning to sponsor more conferences on climate change in the lead-up to the Paris negotiations. He appointed as co-chairs of one of these conferences a leading Vatican official and Naomi Klein, the radical activist and writer, whose recent book, "This Changes Everything," explicitly identifies capitalism as a major cause of global warming.

Also noteworthy is an extended series of articles in the Guardian newspaper from the UK. The series covers everything from current divestment battles to scientific studies to coverage of the politics of climate change from around the world.

The coming months will witness more pronouncements from the Pope, demonstrations around the world demanding bold action, continuing steps to transform the energy economy to one based on renewable resources (efforts which are making significant progress), and bi-lateral agreements and pledges such as the agreement last fall between the U.S. and China.

Photo: Mayors gather in the Synod Hall to attend a conference on Modern Slavery and Climate Change at the Vatican, July 21. Dozens of environmentally friendly mayors from around the world met with eco-Pope Francis and committed to reducing global warming and helping the urban poor deal with its effects. (AP Photo/Gregorio Borgia)

An eco-civilization lesson

Thu, 23 Jul 2015 17:36:00 +0000

Every year, every quarter, every month, the conventional economists either praise the increase in Gross Domestic Product (GDP) or anxiously wring their hands because the economy has not expanded enough. Expansion requires two key elements: a constant search for the lowest possible wages and an unending supply of raw materials - particularly fossil fuels, but also fertile soil and fresh water, and sometimes, creatures who live on the earth and in the seas.

While there are still places on the planet where people will take any job they can get, the ability to extract more energy resources gets riskier, and the environment's capacity to absorb more waste is fast approaching zero. Reaching the outer limits of expansion threatens all of life on the planet. That reality is why many people are now calling for an "ecological civilization" as an alternative to more exploitation and extraction, one that offers another pathway for human civilization to take.

The term itself may have been coined in China, where people think it is consistent with the teachings of Confucius. It has roots in the West as well, particularly in the work of Alfred North Whitehead, a British philosopher and mathematician who taught in this country. The idea depends on some of his richer veins of thought, among them, that all entities live in relation to all others. He meant that parts of life do not exist separately but continually interact and entwine with everything else. (Eco-civilization is a major project of the current leadership of China, where some 18 universities teach Whitehead's theories.)

From this base, theologian John Cobb and economist Herman Daly have pushed for an inter-related view of our economic and social life.

Unfortunately, economic growth remains the only measurement this country - and much of the developed world - use to determine our well-being as a species. What we measure includes too little of what makes life healthy, even possible.

Herman Daly defines five types of capital:

"(1) Human capital - individual minds, bodies, spirits and their capabilities; (2) social capital - quality and strength of our relations in community: trust, honesty, common values, including tolerance; (3) natural capital - stocks and funds of things in nature that yield flows of natural resources and life-supporting ecosystem services; (4) built capital - machines, tools, durable consumer goods; (5) financial capital - money and other liquid assets, fungible and acceptable for payment of transactions and debts."

Of those five, we only count two, Daly says. We focus on financial capital and pay some attention to built capital. The problem, he says, is that it is human, social and natural capitals that provide healthy well-being. But we don't measure those. We exclude them from our narrow focus on economics.

A measuring tool for an ecological civilization would quantify all five forms of Daly's capital. So the system would balance economics (the ruling metaphor of our time) with the other human capacities for survival. It would use a "steady-state" process rather than a growth-oriented system. What goes in must come out, and go in again. Recycling points to a direction, but we need it on a massive, macro scale that yields an earth and civilization that are self-sufficient and self-sustaining. It would also ground our fundamental assumption about life in the relationships between all entities - humans, animals, plants and the eco-system it takes to support those.

Across the planet and across this country, people have been experimenting with this notion of how to do eco-civilization. In 1972, the Himalayan country of Bhutan introduced the "Gross National Happiness" (GNH) measure as an alternative to the GDP. The GNH is meant to be a more inclusive scale that considers the overall health and happiness of a populace. Bill McKibben, one of the founders of 350.org, wrote a piece in a recent New Yorker pointing to Green Mountain Power as one way to go. The company supplies energy to users across the state of Vermont. It stepped away from the conventional economics of giant utilities to save energy and decrease prices for consumers.

The Mondragon Corporation in the Basque region of Spain is the world's largest group of worker-owned co-operatives. It now includes 275 different co-ops employing 74,000 people. And if you think such things are too small to do the job, remember that Mondragon co-ops played a major role in constructing Frank Gehry's Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao. We humans know how to do this!

A metaphor for this sort of society that I find compelling is the Pando forest - a more than one hundred acre stand of quaking aspens in south central Utah. On the ground it looks like a grove of separate trees, but below the surface, this forest of individuals is an intertwining root network, one massive relational system that draws nutrients necessary for each tree to flourish. It is one of the oldest and largest living organisms on the planet. What if we created a way for people to live like that with the earth?

Reprinted by kind permission of the author and Capital and Main

Photo: World's oldest organism, a grove of Aspens sharing one root system, from Fish Lake National Forest website. The Pando clone stands above Scenic Byway U-25. J Zapell.

To protect its water, tiny Ohio village takes on a fracking giant

Wed, 22 Jul 2015 14:08:00 +0000

BARNESVILLE, Ohio - This story of a small village in Ohio came to our attention when Gulfport Energy Corporation, a company that employs fracking to extract shale oil, filed suit on March 5 of this year against the tiny village of Barnesville, Ohio. At first look, this looked like a modern David and Goliath story but, as is often the situation where lawyers and politicians are involved, it had so many twists and turns that it seemed like unravelling a giant ball of yarn.

There are at least four major players involved: the Village of Barnesville (defendant), Gulfport Energy (plaintiff), Antero Resources Corp. (which is also engaged in fracking) and, of course, the residents who live in and around Barnesville. The only thing that was clear was that those residents wanted safe and clean drinking water.

The thing that called public attention to the Barnesville situation was a local, sketchy TV report on the suit following its filing. The suit sought to stop the village from allowing another company to extract the same water it had sold Gulfport to use in the fracking process or from interfering with Gulfport's water rights.

It appears that the politicians running the village have sold the same water to two fracking companies and it all seems to have happened behind closed doors - without the knowledge of most residents.

It was more than a year ago when the people of Barnesville first heard that fracking was coming to their town. People in the village, led by John Morgan and Jill Hunkler, got together and formed the Concerned Barnesville Area Residents [C-BAR], which began meeting regularly as questions about the community's water increased and few answers were forthcoming from either the politicians or governmental agencies.

Jill Hunkler is a fiery activist and organizer who founded C-BAR and has done much of the grunt-work in this struggle to protect the water in Barnesville's reservoirs.

In an interview for People's World, she said the purpose of C-BAR was to protect the area's natural resources from the kind of harm that fracking has brought elsewhere. She told us that she co-founded C-BAR (February 2014) in response to the building of a fracking waste disposal site in Barnesville.

She and C-BAR began with a successful petition drive that forced a town hall meeting to inform the public and village officials of the health and safety hazards of fracking. She has made repeated trips to Columbus, has done TV interviews, sought answers from various government agencies, and even went to see Gov. John Kasich [R] of Ohio. He not only wouldn't see her but there was no response from him about the Barnesville citizens' concerns.

"Fracking is one of the greatest threats to not only the health and safety of those living near the sites [but also] to those working at the sites," Hunkler said. She added that there are frequent fracking accidents on or near the well pads and revealed that the well-pad workers were not issued protective safety equipment (such as: respirators, haz-mat suits, etc.).

She said they often work 30-hour shifts at a time. Ms. Hunkler concluded by telling us that the threat is not only to present residents but also any leakage of the process's poisonous, radioactive pollutants into a community's water supply will also impact the health of future generations.

Corrected 7/29/15 to indicate that John Morgan, along with Jill Hunkler, is a cofounder of C-BAR. Gulfport Energy is not itself a fracking company but employs fracking operators to conduct fracking for its wells.

Photo: Activist Jill Hunkler standing at edge of Barnesville Reservoir. | John Milam/PW

Forty years ago: Apollo and Soyuz link up androgynously in orbit

Mon, 20 Jul 2015 11:25:00 +0000

The Apollo-Soyuz Test Project (ASTP), conducted 40 years ago in July 1975, was the first joint U.S.-Soviet space flight. Its primary purpose was to symbolize the policy of détente that the two superpowers were pursuing at the time, and marked the end of the Space Race between them that began in 1957 with the Soviet launch of Sputnik.

The mission included both joint and separate scientific experiments (including an engineered eclipse of the sun by Apollo to allow Soyuz to take photographs of the solar corona), and provided useful engineering experience for future joint space flights.

Prior to ASTP, U.S.-Soviet tensions remained high while the Vietnam War was in progress (the Soviets supported the Vietnamese national liberation front). Space cooperation between the U.S. and the USSR was unlikely any earlier, but by mid-1975 the Vietnam War was over.

Neither side gave the other much news coverage of their achievements in space. Although both sides had severe criticisms of each other's engineering, focused on issues of manned control vs. automation, American and Soviet engineers settled their differences for a possible docking of American and Soviet spacecraft in a series of unpublicized meetings in 1971 in Houston and Moscow. The plan called for an androgynous docking system between the two ships that would allow either to be active or passive during docking.

In April 1972, the U.S. and the USSR signed an Agreement Concerning Cooperation in the Exploration and Use of Outer Space for Peaceful Purposes.

ASTP was made possible by the post-Vietnam thaw in relations, and sought to enhance the improving relations between the U.S. and USSR. According to Soviet Premier Leonid Brezhnev, "The Soviet and American spacemen will go up into outer space for the first major joint scientific experiment in the history of mankind. They know that from outer space our planet looks even more beautiful. It is big enough for us to live peacefully on it, but it is too small to be threatened by nuclear war." Both sides recognized ASTP as a political act of peace.

ASTP was the first space mission to be televised live during the launch, while in space, and during the landing. Furthermore, Soyuz 19 was the first spacecraft to which a foreign flight crew had access before flight. The Apollo crew were permitted to inspect Soyuz 19 as well as the launch and crew training site, an unprecedented sharing of information with Americans about any Soviet space program.

The Soyuz and Apollo flights launched within 7.5 hours of each other on July 15, and docked on July 17. Three hours later, the two mission commanders, Thomas Stafford and Alexey Leonov, exchanged the first international handshake in space through the open hatch of the Soyuz, occurring over the town of Metz, France. During the exchange, the crews were read a statement from Brezhnev, and received a phone call from U.S. President Gerald Ford.

While the two ships were docked, the three Americans and two Soviets conducted joint scientific experiments, exchanged flags and gifts (including tree seeds which were later planted in the two countries), signed certificates, visited each other's ships, ate together, and conversed in each other's languages. There were also docking and redocking maneuvers, during which the two spacecraft reversed roles and the Soyuz became the "active" ship.

After 44 hours together, the two ships separated, and maneuvered to use the Apollo to create the artificial solar eclipse. Another brief docking was made before the ships went their separate ways. The Soviets remained in space for five days, and the Americans for nine.

On the American side there was criticism of ASTP. Some feared that it gave the USSR too much credit in their space program, equating them with the sophisticated space exploration efforts of NASA. Some in Congress simply did not welcome peaceful cooperation with the USSR, as if this suggested there was no conflict at all between the two superpowers.

As the 1970s unfolded, with Vietnam now in the rearview mirror, other issues came to the surface which imperiled deeper superpower cooperation: the anti-colonial wars in Africa, apartheid in South Africa, and then Afghanistan and the election of Ronald Reagan. The lessening of tensions proved short-lived, but an important precedent had been established for future cooperation in space and everywhere.

Adapted from Wikipedia and other sources.

Decline of Earth's plant life threatens human life

Fri, 17 Jul 2015 13:37:00 +0000

A recent scientific study comparing the role of plants in the sustainability of life on Earth and the current rapid destruction of such life has convinced many scientists that human civilization and well-being will be placed in jeopardy. Rainforests and grass lands around the world are being destroyed at an alarming rate to make room for palm oil plantations, commercial crops of no intrinsic value (tobacco), and the practices of illegal logging for the furniture and lumber trades.

This has led to a massive destruction of the total biomass of the planet all of which is fueled by the immense profits available under capitalism for the private exploitation of natural resources at the expense of sustainable use and of preservation in the interests of environmental conservation for the common good of humanity. The drive for profits is led by major private and state owned capitalist enterprises which, in addition to using the political systems they encounter in many countries to get control of the resources they intend to plunder, also resort to bribery, corruption and other illegal operations in order to attain their ends.

Dr. John Schramski, of the University of Georgia, has recently completed (as lead author) a study of the effects of the overexploitation of Earth's plant biomass (Science Daily 7/15/15 "Continued destruction of Earth's plant life places humans in jeopardy"). The rich and diverse animal and plant life of today is the result of several hundred million years of evolution that began when simple one celled organisms developed which were able to chemically change the sunlight they received into useful energy which they could metabolize.

The fact that plants can create their own "food" from sunlight allowed animals to evolve using plants as their source of food: in directly feeding off of the sun. Dr. Schramski used the laws of thermodynamics (the physics of heat in relation to mechanical energy) to calculate the amount of chemical energy the plant world produces and the amount that humanity is at present consuming or destroying via the reduction of forests and other plant environments.

"You can think of the Earth like a battery that has been charged very slowly over billions of years," he said. "The sun's energy is stored in plants and fossil fuels, but humans are draining energy much faster than it can be replenished."

In the last 2,000 years human activity has reduced half of the battery charge (i.e., the biomass accumulated from living carbon over the last several million years). In just the last one hundred years about ten percent of that biomass was wiped out according to the article. This destruction means the Earth has less and less energy to keep the food webs and "biochemical balances" going upon which we all depend.

Dr. Schramski pointed out that, "As the planet becomes less hospitable and more people depend on fewer available energy options, their standard of living and very survival will become increasingly vulnerable to fluctions, such as droughts, disease epidemics and social unrest."

If humans survive this accelerated loss of biomass Dr. Schramski, and his co-authors (James H.Brown and David Gattie) predict that our species will have to abandon our current civilization and return to hunting and gathering or simple gardening (i.e., a pre-neolithic life style), as populations will crash and large-scale industrial agriculture will be impossible. [Perhaps the world population, after the die off, will be about what it was in 10,000 B.C. or so (one to 10 million people).]

Dr. Schramski says," I'm not an ardent environmentalist; my training and my scientific work are rooted in thermodynamics. These laws are absolute and incontrovertible; we have a limited amount of biomass energy available on the planet, and once it's exhausted, there is absolutely nothing to replace it."

The scientists are hopeful that we can take the drastic measures needed to halt this downward spiral to the paleolithic or extinction. "I call myself a realistic optimist. I've gone through these numbers countless times looking for some kind of mitigating factor that suggests we're wrong," Dr. Schramski said," but I haven't found it."

One glance at the U.S. Congress should give us an idea where we are headed.

Photo: Human-caused destruction of plant life, as in the rainforest depicted, is a severe threat to the climate, and as a result, the planet. | Rainforest Awareness Worldwide

Today in history: atom bomb successfully tested 70 years ago

Thu, 16 Jul 2015 11:46:00 +0000

On this day in 1945, at 5:29:45 a.m., the Manhattan Project comes to an explosive end as the first atom bomb is successfully tested in Alamogordo, New Mexico.

Plans for the creation of a uranium bomb by the Allies were established as early as 1939, when Italian émigré physicist Enrico Fermi met with U.S. Navy department officials at Columbia University to discuss the use of fissionable materials for military purposes. That same year, Albert Einstein wrote to President Franklin Roosevelt supporting the theory that an uncontrolled nuclear chain reaction had great potential as a basis for a weapon of mass destruction.

In February 1940, the federal government granted a total of $6,000 for research. But in early 1942, with the United States now at war with the Axis powers, and fear mounting that Germany was working on its own uranium bomb, the War Department took a more active interest, and limits on resources for the project were removed.

Brigadier-General Leslie R. Groves, himself an engineer, was now in complete charge of a project to assemble the greatest minds in science and discover how to harness the power of the atom as a means of bringing the war to a decisive end. The Manhattan Project (so-called because of where the research began) would wind its way through many locations during the early period of theoretical exploration, most importantly, the University of Chicago, where Enrico Fermi successfully set off the first fission chain reaction.

But the Project took final form in the desert of New Mexico where, in 1943, Robert J. Oppenheimer began directing Project Y at a laboratory at Los Alamos, along with such minds as Hans Bethe, Edward Teller, and Fermi. Here theory and practice came together, as the problems of achieving critical mass - a nuclear explosion - and the construction of a deliverable bomb were worked out.

Finally, on the morning of July 16, in the New Mexico desert 120 miles south of Santa Fe, the first atomic bomb was detonated. The scientists and a few dignitaries had removed themselves 10,000 yards away to observe as the first mushroom cloud of searing light stretched 40,000 feet into the air and generated the destructive power of 15,000 to 20,000 tons of TNT. The tower on which the bomb sat when detonated was vaporized.

The question now became, On whom was the bomb to be dropped? Germany was the original target, but the Germans had already surrendered. The only belligerent remaining was Japan.

Great controversy has surrounded the dropping of two atomic bombs on August 6 and 9, 1945, on the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The death and destruction were unparalleled in the history of war, and furthermore the targets were strictly civilian. Defenders claim that more lives would have been lost were the Allies to have committed to a land invasion of Japan and a subsequent battle on the ground to topple the Hirohito regime. Others say the known power of the bomb was simply too horrific to use, and in any case, the Japanese were close to surrender. As an extension of that argument, the claim is made that at that point the use of the bomb was meant more to impress and scare the Soviets, against whom a struggle for global hegemony was already being planned. A number of the original scientists involved in conceiving the bomb, including Albert Einstein, became peace activists.

Despite the inevitable spread of nuclear arms technology to several other countries since 1945, the bomb has never again been used in war, although even more powerful bombs have been exploded into the atmosphere and underground as tests. Peace forces around the world continue to call for an end to all nuclear weapons.

A footnote: The original $6,000 budget for the Manhattan Project finally ballooned to a total cost of $2 billion. There is probably no reliable accounting for how much the global nuclear arms program has cost humanity in the last 70 years, nor what that money might otherwise have been spent on. But it's a lot!!

Photo: History.com

Environmentalists, railroad workers protest oil trains

Wed, 15 Jul 2015 11:59:00 +0000

WASHINGTON - Environmentalists and rank-and-file railroad workers took to the streets in dozens of cities in the U.S. and Canada the week of July 6-12, protesting continued transportation of oil trains - freight trains hauling dozens of oil-laden tank cars through the two nations.

Railroads, however, brushed off complaints the tank cars are unsafe, despite two years' worth of damaging accidents, starting with one explosion in July 2013 in Quebec where authorities later ruled the railroad was responsible for the blast that leveled the downtown of Lac-Megantic and killed 47 people. The latest, in June in Tennessee, forced evacuation of 5,000 people.

"Though it (Lac-Megantic) happened in Canada, the explosion forced a fierce discussion in America about whether we were doing enough to prevent similar incidents at home," said Railroad Workers United, the rank-and-file group that includes members of the Teamsters and Smart's rail conference.

"The volatile oil that caused the explosion, after all, came from North Dakota. And, safety advocates pointed out, that North Dakota oil was being shipped across America by train at a rate 40 times greater than just five years prior to the accident.

"Worse, there had been no upgrades in federal safety regulations to account for that increase. Canada had just experienced a major tragedy - it seemed like America was vulnerable to one as well. And the American public is still being kept in the dark."

The oil tank car protests drew more environmentalists than rail workers, with several environmentalists being arrested on July 6 in Richmond, Calif., for draping an anti-oil train banner on a prominent bridge. In D.C., despite perfect weather, six environmentalists showed up at the U.S. Transportation Department headquarters with a "stop oil trains" banner.

But the protests have drawn some official action and attention.http://peoplesworld.org/admin

Federal officials issued new and final safety standards for the oil trains in May, imposing maximum speeds of 50 mph, except in urban areas, where the maximum is cut to 40 mph. The feds also ordered railroads to update their braking systems for the oil trains, and to better classify and report what hazardous materials - not just oil - the tank cars carry.

The Baltimore City Council held a hearing on July 1 on the hazard of oil trains moving through. A key freight tunnel, which frequently has tank cars running through it, passes just west of downtown Baltimore, diving underground near the armory, the symphony hall and an urban college campus. Environmentalists told the council 165,000 people live within a 1-mile "blast zone" radius of the tracks and the tunnel.

The federal rules are not good enough, the workers and their safety experts say. Fred Millar, a safety consultant, told ThinkProgress that residents of surrounding areas - blast zones, to use the demonstrators' phrase - are still being kept in the dark about the oil trains.

That led to the protests in Richmond. Activists there tried to hang a 60-foot banner in front of the Benicia-Martinez railroad bridge. It read "Stop Oil Trains Now: Are You in the Blast-Zone.org." The bridge runs near Valera, Tesoro, Shell and Chevron refineries. The rail industry says it's part of the route for oil trains moving through the San Francisco Bay area.

Photo: Earthfirstjournal.org

After nine-year star trek, NASA spacecraft passes Pluto

Tue, 14 Jul 2015 15:12:00 +0000

Applause erupted at NASA's New Horizons control center in the wake of the eponymous spacecraft's flyby of Pluto, considered to be the last unexplored planet in our solar system. The probe flew past it at 7:49 a.m. Eastern time on July 14, coming within 7,770 miles of Pluto's surface and providing the first truly close-up photos of the planet ever taken.

This marked the completion of the craft's nine-year journey, and resulted in the U.S. being the only country to now have explored every planet in the solar system. New Horizons quickly moved on past the planet, with its next check-in with Earth not scheduled until 8:53 p.m. E/T on July 15. At that point, it will have finished its data collecting during the mission, and will begin sending that information back to scientists.

That prospect is "like opening up a birthday present every day from now until the end of next year," said Bonnie Buratti, a scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory and a co-investigator on the mission. In the meantime, experts now have more than enough of those informational gifts to keep them busy.

They now have a precise measurement of Pluto's diameter (it's 1,472 miles); they know that enormous amounts of nitrogen are leaking from its atmosphere into space; they've confirmed that there are nitrogen and methane ices at its polar region; and spacecraft photography has revealed perfectly the planet's color and terrain, which, according to mission co-investigator Paul Schenk, "looks like somebody painted it for a Star Trek episode."

Principal investigator S. Alan Stern noted, "You can see regions of various kinds of brightness. Very dark regions near the Equator, very bright regions just to the north of that, broad intermediate zones over the pole. And on the surface we see a history of impacts. We see a history of surface activity. And it snows on the surface."

As for the achievement itself, Stern said, "It feels good. So many people put so much work into this around the country. We've completed the initial reconnaissance of the solar system, an endeavor started by President Kennedy."

John Grunsfeld, head of NASA's science mission directorate, said the images of Pluto beamed back from New Horizons showed the planet was "an extraordinarily interesting and complex world. It's just amazing. It's truly a hallmark in human history. It's been an incredible voyage."

Photo: First close-up photograph of Pluto, provided by NASA.

This article has been been updated and edited. It incorrectly indicated that Clyde Tombaugh - who is deceased - was present at the event.

Will damaged vessel put the freeze on Shell's Arctic drilling?

Tue, 14 Jul 2015 15:10:00 +0000

When Shell declared it would resume its Arctic drilling project, many activists waited with bated breath for the corporation to make the latest in a steady series of blunders, and now it's finally happened. A ship carrying equipment required for offshore drilling has been damaged, and is being sent to the West Coast for repairs. This newest mishap offers concerned environmentalists a moment of respite, but the battle against Big Oil is just beginning.

Those who oppose Shell's drilling plans need not get overly enthused; the company's drilling schedule for the Chukchi Sea this summer is not expected to be delayed by the incident. The 380-foot icebreaker, Fennica, is headed to Oregon to be fixed up before being shipped back out to the Arctic. Its hull was smashed July 3 when it struck an undisclosed object, tearing a hole in it about three feet long and a half-inch wide. The job of the vessel was to provide equipment that would stop an underwater oil well blowout, making this a sad irony for Shell, who assured all those concerned that they would pursue higher accountability and safety standards before renewing their drilling efforts.

This incident offers further vindication for what environmentalists have been saying all along: that accidents are unavoidable in this ecologically sensitive region.

The area would not even be open for exploitation, were it not for the continuing ripple effect of climate change. As a Foreign Affairs report noted, "The portion of the Arctic Ocean covered by ice has been reduced to its smallest size since record keeping began in 1979, shrinking by 350,000 square miles (an area equal to the size of Venezuela)" during the year of 2013. "All told, in just the past three decades, Arctic sea ice has lost half its area and three quarters of its volume."

Greenpeace writer Annie Leonard added, "Rather than taking the time to reflect somberly on the damage unrestrained carbon pollution is doing to our planet, governments and corporations have looked at rapidly shrinking ice with only dollar signs in their eyes. Melting ice didn't just open up the Northwest Passage, it also opened up access to billions of dollars' worth of fossil fuels and the carbon pollution that goes along with them."

Shell's drilling "places Big Oil above people," said Erik Grafe, attorney for Earthjustice. "It puts the Arctic's iconic wildlife at risk and the health of our planet on the line. It's far too risky and undermines the Obama administration's efforts to address climate change and transition to a clean energy future."

In the coming weeks, Shell is expected to move forward with their project as planned, mistakes and mishaps notwithstanding. Luckily, the anti-drilling movement had gotten a much-needed shot in the arm from the celebrity world, with actor Peter Capaldi (Doctor Who) and actresses Maisie Williams (Game of Thrones) and Jane Fonda speaking out against Arctic drilling, with the goal of trying to get 10 million signatures in a petition against it.

"We know this planet is a fragile one," said Capaldi. "Yet we stand and watch as the Arctic shrinks. The time has come to stop watching. We must act."

"The Arctic is a unique and beautiful ecosystem," Williams added. "It provides a home to both indigenous peoples and endangered species. Now it's under threat and we must act."

And Fonda concluded with a hopeful view, remarking, "I'm old enough to have seen change happen. I can be optimistic about people power because I know it works. We know in our bones it can work, we just need the political will. This is the one fight we must win, because without a livable world, nothing else matters. This is the fight of our lives."

Photo: Actress Jane Fonda participates in a Greenpeace event in Vancouver in protest of Arctic drilling. | Darryl Dyck/AP

Apache Stronghold caravan seeks to save sacred site from mining giant

Fri, 10 Jul 2015 14:53:00 +0000

The San Carlos Apache community association, Apache Stronghold, held a rally on June 30 in Tucson, Ariz., to save Oak Flat, a sacred site in the Tonto National Forest that is endangered by a planned copper mine of a goliath mining company. On July 5, Apache Stronghold began a long caravan trek from Tucson to Washington, D.C. stopping at cities and reservations nationwide to gather support and to request the federal government to support the Save Oak Flat Act, a bill introduced by Arizona congressman, Raul Grijalva, in mid-June.

The Tucson rally was organized by the Indigenous Alliance Without Borders and Tucson Supports Oak Flat to support Apache Stronghold's efforts to save the sacred site from destruction by a mining mammoth.

The vehicle caravan will be traveling through Phoenix, Denver, Minneapolis, Chicago, Philadelphia and will arrive in Washington, D.C. on July 21, and will hold a protest rally on the U.S. Capitol lawn on July 22.

This issue is of particular concern to this writer as having lived for several years in Tucson and visited San Carlos Reservation on a number of occasions with friends who were tribal members.

The background of this valiant struggle is that Oak Flat or Chi' Bildagoteel in Apache has been used since time immemorial by the San Carlos Apache Tribe and other tribes in the region for sacred ceremonies and the gathering of medicinal plants. It has been protected from mining since 1955, when President Eisenhower issued an Executive Order to preserve the site culturally and naturally in perpetuity.

Since 2005, Resolution Copper Mining- a subsidiary of global mining marauders Australian BHP, Billion, Inc., and British Rio Tinto have been trying, through legislation, to obtain a certain 2,400 acres (on which sits Oak Flat) of the Tonto National Forest. This acreage holds a massive copper deposit. The legislation is titled the Southeast Arizona Land Exchange. A dozen versions of the bill had been defeated previously by the tribe.

But along comes Sen. John McCain , R-Ariz., with a "dirty trick bag," which included slipping the land swap through Congress in December by stuffing it into the must-pass National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), one of the loathsome government practices that is standard fare for U.S. politics.

The area, in addition to containing the site sacred to the Apaches, has other lands held dear to hikers, birders and rock climbers.

The mining villain has admitted that Oak Flat will be "damaged" by the mine. "Damaged" is an understatement as Resolution Copper foresees a two mile wide, 1,000 foot deep crater will result from the mining. Oak Flat, Chi' Bildagoteel, will be utterly destroyed.

Under the land swap legislation the exchange trades 5,300 acres owned by Resolution for the 2,400 acres of copper rich land in the Forest. The copper mine, if realized, is projected to be largest in North America.

In February, after learning of the smoky backroom land swap, the Apaches set up a protest encampment at the site to protect it. Weekend events organized by the protesters were attended by supporters , in the hundreds, from Tucson and Phoenix. The protesters demanded a repeal of the underhanded legislation that awarded the thousands of acres to the rapacious mining behemoth.

Native nations, near and far, are backing the Apache resistance. The National Congress of American Indians , the Inter-Tribal Council of Arizona and the National Indian Gaming Association have publicly stated their opposition to the threatened mining invasion and the privatization of land sacred to the Apache and Yavapai peoples.

The opposition of the San Carlos Apache Tribe to the land exchange is based on the following objections:

First, the planned copper mine, which would be nearly two miles beneath the earth's surface would destroy the tribe's place of worship and its traditional way of life.

Second, the copper mine would deplete the entire region's water supply.

And third, the exchange would be a giveaway of tens of billions of dollars of U.S. resources to foreign mining corporations.

As a result of consistent tribal opposition, over the years to the land transfer, the U.S. House was forced to pull the bill from consideration on other occasions in the 113th Congress. But, as this 113th Congress came to a close, sleazy proponents of the shifty exchange crafted a closed-door agreement to include the bill as a rider "Section 3003" in the FY 15 NDAA. The NDAA is considered must-pass legislation to fund U.S. troops and the Defense Department. The FY 15 passed Congress and was signed as Public Law No. 113-291 by President Obama on December 19, 2014.

"They declared war on our religion, we must stand in unity and fight to the very end, for this is a holy war," said Wendsler Nosie Sr., San Carlos council member and former tribal chairman, on Apache Stronghold's website.

The land swap deal is also violative of the spirit and the language of the American Religious Freedom Act of 1978. Moreover, this ravenous, hateful land swap took place without any consultation with the tribes. The heinous legislation must be repealed.

Photo: Saving Oak Flat Campground Facebook page

Capitalism the culprit in the Sixth Extinction

Wed, 08 Jul 2015 12:48:00 +0000

The journal Science Advances has published an article in which they state that the Earth's population of mammal species is dying off at 20 to 100 times their average rate. No space rock or massive volcano to blame, the culprit is much closer to home.

The culprit is capitalism.

Dubbed "the Holocene extinction," scientists have found that 477 species have gone extinct in the last 100 years whereas, under normal conditions derived from study of the fossil record, that number of species should have been two.

The Holocene extinction, sometimes called the Sixth Extinction, is a name proposed to describe the currently ongoing extinction event of species during the present Holocene epoch (since around 10,000 BCE) mainly due to human activity.

Scientists blame these developments on the results of human productive activity, which, at this stage, is guided by the profit motive. How many times have we read about industrial plants dumping whatever useless and toxic byproduct they produce into green spaces or waterways to save money?

It's a trope any child would be familiar with: every cartoon having an episode where some mustachioed evildoer is sacrificing natural beauty for unnatural profit.

Energy lobbies fight tirelessly to maintain their ability to flout regulation and the entrenched car companies work to pass state level legislation to prevent clean transport alternatives like Tesla [electric car] from taking steps to make their product affordable.

Credit where credit is due, the people's movements have been able to move the Obama administration to implement rules at the EPA that have done things like double car mileage standards and tighten up restrictions on CO2 emissions. That being said, when the regulations on something like coal plants can be undone like they were recently at the Supreme Court because they fail to take into consideration costs (read: lost profits) we know that we face a deep seated structural problem.

When the court establishes that precedent, the legislative and executive branches can only do so much in their current form. With capitalism at the roots of all three branches of government, how can we expect them to? The passage of fast track for the environmentally irresponsible Trans-Pacific Partnership via some deft maneuvering in the face of a popular uproar led by the trade union movement we're once again reminded that the U.S. government works on behalf of the owning class.

With the 15 largest container ships producing as much nitrogen oxide and sulphur dioxide into the air as the earth's 760 million cars, expanding trade with Pacific Rim countries without regard to serious environmental regulation is a long term loss for the planet.

Any internal change within capitalism toward a trajectory aligned with our higher ideals, as President Obama said during his interview on WTF with Marc Maron, can only be implemented "by degrees." Maron, the former liberal radio show host, described the U.S. president's position as "middle management" and correctly so in this respect.

Can we wrest control?

Humans are capable of great things, but we're a young species. We're hurtling toward catastrophe, but it's exciting! We're pulling resources out of the ground refining them in a crude fashion, stocking our shelves with frivolities, come what may!

Our current stage of ethical consumerism is a trend in production responding to the harsh objective truths of climate change. It's equivalent to those first signs that it may be time to "get help" as a species, like experiencing your first hangover that lasts all day and swearing to drink only on the weekends.

It may take rock bottom, but if life on earth is to survive then we must reorient the means by which we survive currently toward keeping a balance with nature.

Some organizations believe that change by degrees is fundamentally impossible. Though few in number, there are those that recommend total de-industrialization but I cannot square that with considerations for quality of life. Keeping with the alcoholism metaphor, withdrawals can be lethal.

The reason alcoholics enter treatment is because treatment imposes structure. Treatment led by professionals plans out the patient's day and addresses the root of the problem, often trauma in the patient's past. It's an unpleasant process for a while, but it is ultimately liberating. We are experiencing the anarchy of capitalist production, sloppily stumbling and spilling our waste around the planet. Only a socialism that places nature at the center of its plan can turn us around from our self-destructive course.

One of the defined attributes of addiction is continued use regardless of consequences. Rock bottom for individuals manifests in many ways, but the most tragic way is when a person under the influence is responsible for the taking of another life. Our addiction to free market anarchy has cost the lives of 477 whole species in the last 100 years and we haven't truly reckoned with the implications as a society.

"People and nature before profits" is a slogan for the age of the Holocene extinction, but it must be more than that. Any groups organizing around social justice should do their best to incorporate an environmental component. The solidarity between unions and environmental groups especially should be strengthened. A global society must have global responsibilities and its up to the people's movements to lead.

Photo: A sign that perfectly demonstrated the all-inclusive nature of the People's Climate March, October 2014. Heather Craig/Flickr/People's Climate.org

Vigil held for explosion victims as criticism of oil trains broadens

Tue, 07 Jul 2015 15:09:00 +0000

A vigil was held on June 6 in Portland, Maine, honoring the 47 people who lost their lives in the 2013 Lac-Megantic, Quebec oil train explosion. Held by 350.org and the Sierra Club, the event marked the two-year anniversary of the disaster, and served to raise concerns about train safety, especially its life-threatening and inexcusable use in transporting oil. Others took inspiration, and rallies against oil trains took place that same day in California, New York, and Oregon.

In addition to killing civilians, the infamous Lac-Megantic tragedy spilled about 26,000 gallons of crude into the nearby Claudiére River. The site was described as a "war zone" by Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper and drew attention to the dangers of oil transport on an international level. At the vigil, Lee Chisolm, head of the Sierra Club's Greater Portland chapter, said, " The disaster was inevitable. And like the train accelerating toward the unsuspecting town of Lac-Megantic, our exploitation of fossil fuels has itself continued to accelerate, notwithstanding that tragedy."

In San Jose, California that same day, activists demonstrated with much the same sentiment. But at the core of their rally was the fight against a proposed oil refinery expansion in their area, which would turn the Union Pacific railroad that cuts through the heart of their town into a route for oil trains. The refinery is owned by Phillips 66, a Texas-based energy corporation, which wants to forge a connecting pathway so oil trains can deliver crude directly to their 1,800-acre processing facility. The opposition came in the form of residents and members of 350 Silicon Valley.

"We are calling for county planning officials to reject planning permission for projects that aim to transport crude oil by rail or pipeline," said Palo Alto resident Steve Eittreim. "Tar sands need to stay in the ground. There is no safe way to transport them."

Ash Kalra, a San Jose councilman, added, "Just look at the [local] rail lines. There's no doubt that almost anywhere an explosion would occur in downtown or along neighborhoods in South San Jose would endanger hundreds, if not thousands, of lives."

It was no coincidence that the California protest occurred on the same day as the Lac-Megantic vigil, and 350's campaign to stop what it calls "Keystone on Rails" was careful to correlate the two. "In Lac-Megantic, Quebec, an oil train exploded killing 47 people," they said in a statement. "Two years later, Big Oil is pushing harder than ever to move more and more oil trains through North America, while oil trains keep exploding and carbon emissions keep rising."

Meanwhile in New York, nearly 100 people gathered in front of the Executive Mansion in Albany, the residence of Gov. Andrew Cuomo, to call for banning oil trains across the entire state. They hung photos of the Lac-Megantic victims on the mansion's fence, while speakers pointed out the risks the trains pose to the communities through which they travel.

"Governor Cuomo, you have a moral imperative to take the climate seriously," said Peter Iwanowicz, executive director of Environmental Advocates of New York. State officials, he added, should declare oil trains an "imminent hazard" and ban them.

Another oil train protest took place that day in Portland, Oregon. Sixty activists, including members of Portland Rising Tide, blocked the train tracks that led into an oil transfer and storage facility in the northwest part of the city, brandishing signs that read, "Oil Trains Fuel Climate Chaos," and "Ban the Bomb Trains." They also held signs bearing the names of those who died in the Lac-Megantic tragedy.

Local activist Lowen Berman remarked, "It's corporate greed versus the common good, whether it's rail safety or climate change."

For Portland Rising Tide, the demonstration was merely one of many, with more to come. "This is only the beginning," declared Noah Hochman, a representative of the group. "We will continue to blockade [oil train terminals] until it is financially, logistically, and politically untenable for oil trains to threaten climate and communities."

Photo: In Portland, activists hold up signs with the names of those who died in the Lac-Megantic disaster. | Portland Rising Tide

Rail workers, environmentalists to launch week of protests vs. oil trains

Thu, 02 Jul 2015 13:45:00 +0000

LAC-MÉGANTIC, Quebec (PAI) - Two years after an oil-laden train crashed, exploded and destroyed downtown Lac-Mégantic, Quebec-killing 47 people-rail workers and environmentalists will return there to launch a week of protests on that continuing menace.

The Lac-Mégantic commemoration on July 4 starts a continent-wide movement organized by Railroad Workers United and the Corporate Action Network uniting unionists, greens and advocates for corporate accountability not just in a memorial service to honor the dead but in demands for holding rail firms accountable for safety.

Other memorials/oil train protests will occur up and down the East Coast, in the Midwest and at several other Canadian sites from July 6-12. There were 63 demonstrations in 2014.

The demonstrators plan to make the point that such oil-laden trains are so dangerous that transporting oil across the continent by train should be severely curtailed, if not ended.

The Lac-Mégantic disaster was one of a string of accidents involving trains-often only manned by one engineer due to railroad company pressure on government regulators-laden with oil. Other oil train disasters, causing leaks, fires, explosions and evacuations, have occurred in the last few months just east of Galena, Ill., in the Dakotas and in West Virginia.

But Lac-Mégantic, on July 6, 2013, was the worst.

"Two years later, and big oil is pushing harder than ever to move more and more oil trains through North America, while oil trains keep exploding, and carbon emissions keep rising," say advocates for stopping the oil trains. Their website lists other planned local events, including protests at Union Station in Los Angeles (July 11) and Union Station in Kansas City (July 12) and a press conference in the MPCA parking lot in St. Paul, Minn. (July 7).

Ron Kaminkow, a Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers/ Teamsters member from Reno, Nev., and General Secretary of the Railroad Workers United, is urging rank-and-file rail workers to join the events nationwide against the oil trains.

Those events "will honor their lives, and work to ensure no one else has to experience this devastation. These events are being organized by nearly as many different community activists, environmentalists and neighborhood organizations as there are different events.

"These events need you. The voices of railroad workers matter. This is a chance us to meet and talk to people that a part of the stop oil trains movement, to find common ground, and to build relationships that can become the basis of cross-movement solidarity."

That solidarity could also help rail workers in their campaign against rail firms' efforts for 1-person or even zero-person crews on freight trains and in fighting for whistleblower protections," Kaminkow adds.

"It can be a powerful thing when the rank and file from two movements get together and build common cause."

The website for the protests makes clear the trains aren't the only problem. The toolkit for protesters says "Big Oil will stop at nothing" to extract and transport crude. The toolkit not only has rail workers challenging train transport of the oil but also extraction of the oil from one key source: Tar sands underlying the Canadian province of Alberta and the two Dakotas.

"No more exploding trains. No more tar sands," those environmentalists say.

"This May, the U.S. Department of Transportation released new rail safety regulations. While an oil train erupted in flames in Galena, lobbyists for big oil met with federal regulators pressuring them to weaken these proposed rules," the protest organizers say.

"We know these rules will not protect the 25 million Americans who live in the oil train blast zone, because there is no safe way to transport extreme tar sands and Bakken crude."

Jonathan Santerre, who is coordinating the protest in Lac-Mégantic, is also asking people who cannot attend "to take a picture with crossed arms to support Lac-Mégantic people to say no to oil return in the heart of the town that was destroyed by the oil spill of the 6 July 2013, with hashtag #SolidaritéMégantic."

Photo: Stop Oil Trains Week of Action: July 6 - 12, 2015