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Archive for category Environment

How Congress let Monsanto off the hook

Mar 29

Posted by Michael Collins in Environment | Comments off

vilsackNot many people like the messes Congress makes but everybody should see how they’re made.

This article takes a close look at the legislation just passed by Congress and signed by President Obama allowing the Secretary of Agriculture to issue executive orders that bypass regulations, safety, and science for the purpose of speeding genetically modified organisms (GMOs) and genetically engineered seeds (GE) and crops to market.  The way the law is written, Secretary Tom Vilsack can lift restrictions on GMOs for a set period and, it appears, do so without hindrance from the courts.

Are genetically modified organisms (GMOs), seeds, and crops  safe for human consumption?  How has the scientific testing of these seeds been conducted and what are the results?  Is there undue influence of the government and legislative process to fast track the delivery of GMOs to market?  Who benefits from that influence, if it is present, and how are the benefits derived?

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XL Pipeline Demonstration – Washington, DC February 17, 2013 Pam Burbul, Photographer

Feb 18

Posted by Michael Collins in Environment, Health, Obama | Comments off

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Also see People Tell Obama NO XL Pipeline, Start Leading on Environment by Michael Collins Read the rest of this entry »

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Citizens Tell Obama to Stop Pipeline and Get Busy on Environment

Feb 17

Posted by Michael Collins in Big Money, Environment | Comments off

(Washington, DC 1/17)  The nation’s capital hosted over 40,000 citizens assembled to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.  The crowd urged President Obama to bring to reality his lofty words on climate change in the inaugural address just days ago.  By stopping the construction of the Keystone XL pipeline, the president would deal a blow to the rogue energy companies who, by their actions, are ready to sacrifice everything to transport oil from Alberta, Canada’s tar sands, across the United States, for refinement in Houston, Texas and shipment to China.

The broader concern of the gathered citizens and march sponsors, 350.org, and the Sierra Club, represents the existential issue of our time.  We need to get very real, very soon on the manifest threat to the earth’s climate posed by fossil fuels and the threat to the human species embodied by insane ventures like the Canadian tar sands project.  The verdict of science is clear.  As leading climate scientist James E. Hansen said, the full exploitation of tar sands oil and use by China, or any nation, is “game over for the climate.”

Citizens gathered at the Washington Monument, where speakers outlined the last chance scenario for reversing climate change.  While nowhere near the entire solution, stopping the Keystone XL pipeline offers the biggest win in the war for survival.  Bill McKibben, founder of 350.org, opened the program with the demand that President Obama live up to his campaign rhetoric and stop the pipeline from crossing the Canadian border.  That action would devastate the corporate partnership of Enbridge, TransCanada, and the other vultures seeking to profit at the expense of everyone else.  Michael Brune, executive director of the Sierra Club, argued that the coal and oil industries are on the run.  He cited energy use estimates for Texas, Colorado, and other states that show 30% of energy needs will be met by alternative fuels.  Brune chained himself to the White House fencing February 14 in the Sierra Club’s first sanctioned act of civil disobedience in 120 years. Read the rest of this entry »

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Strategic threat of climate change – from Consortiumnews.com

Jan 5

Posted by Michael Collins in Environment, War (endless) | 1 Comment

Outstanding read, excellent and timely points.

Consortiumnews.com

As the American Right loses credibility – from the Tea Party to the neocons – there’s a chance for the reassertion of rationality, a new respect for empirical evidence and disdain for propaganda. Perhaps most importantly is the recognition of the grave threat from climate change, says Winslow Myers.

By Winslow Myers

Because the United States is the wealthiest nation on the planet, Americans have the luxury of being proactive in ensuring their future security. But the path to that security looks very different from the way it did even a few years ago.

A primary example of this transformed security context is the realization that there is only one atmosphere surrounding the earth. Unless all nations make a concerted effort to convert to sources of clean energy, global mean temperatures will continue to rise and cause undesirable extremes of weather.

A tornado forming over Oklahoma. (Photo credit: U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration)

Strategic competition between superpowers like Russia, China and the U.S. becomes irrelevant to the larger crisis of fossil fuel use and carbon dioxide emissions from all countries. The violence of storms in one country may be intensified by the environmental policies of another country, and vice-versa.

More at Consortiumnews.com

 

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Susan Rice’s Conflict of Interest – Major Holdings in Tar Sands Oil, Keystone XL Pipeline, and Canadian Financiers

Nov 29

Posted by Michael Collins in Big Money, Environment | 2 Comments

By Michael Collins
Photobucket(Washington, DC 11/29) United Nations Ambassador Susan Rice will face serious and blatant conflicts of interest if nominated and confirmed as United States Secretary of State.  Rice has major financial interests in the company extracting oil from Canada’s tar sands, the company building the pipeline that will carry the oil across the U.S., and the Canadian banks financing this deadly project. (Image)

As Secretary of State, Rice would be responsible for the key recommendation to President Barack Obama on lifting the president’s ban on construction of the Keystone XL pipeline imposed in January.  She would make the decision knowing that there would be major impact on nearly one third of her (and her husband’s) investments.

According to her 2011 financial disclosures, “Rice and her husband own at least $1.25 million worth of stock in four of Canada’s eight leading oil producers.” These include Enbridge,  the oil company extracting the highly toxic tar sands oil from Alberta, Canada’s boreal forest, which are being destroyed to access the oil (boreal forests sequester carbon). Read the rest of this entry »

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Nothing Lasts Forever – Do the Math!

Nov 19

Posted by Michael Collins in Big Money, Environment, Health | Comments off

By Michael Collins
Photobucket
(Washington, DC 11/18)  Bill McKibben, founder of 350.org. had some tough words for the oil giants at the organization’s events in the nation’s capital.   He announced to a packed house at the Warner Theater, “We’re going after the fossil fuel industry” for trying to wreck the future.  It’s that simple.  He argued that we have a choice.  Either we take on the oil giants and end their rapacious behavior or we find a way to change the laws of physics to accommodate the insanity of ongoing pollution in the face of calamitous outcomes.

Shell, Exxon, BP, and the others in the fossil fuel industry were portrayed as world killers, rogue corporations whose relentless pursuit of profits threatens the lives and culture of every human being on earth.

The 350.org Do the Math Tour started in Seattle on November 7.   The nationwide tour visits 21 cities across the country and culminates in Salt Lake City on December 3.   Yesterday’s presentation at the Warner Theater was followed by demonstration during which participants encircled the White House to remind President Barack Obama to hold fast on suspending work on the Keystone XL oil pipeline.

The math is simple and painful in its implications: Read the rest of this entry »

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The Elephant in the Living Room

Aug 31

Posted by Jill in Big Money, Climate Change, Environment | Comments off

Historic Global Temperature

The elephant has grown so enormous that it is pressing against all four walls, the floor, and the ceiling of the living room.

All summer we have blasted through high temperature records, drought and fire in the Midwest, and heat waves on the East Coast followed by storms so destructive that they tear up the ozone layer. It’s been predicted for decades: rising temperatures, more rainfall on the coasts, less rainfall inland. Now it’s here and getting worse.

Dr. James Hansen, NASA climate scientist, has compared seasonal temperatures over the past three decades with those from the three decades before that. There was not much change in the temperature from the 1950s through 1970s. But in the 1980s, temperature started to creep up. And it increased more and more in the next two decades. Very high temperatures called “hot anomalies” occurred over just 0.1% to 0.2% of the globe from 1951 to 1981, but over the past several years, they
occurred over 10% of the globe. Dr. Hansen concluded that “the area covered by extreme hot anomalies will continue to increase in coming decades and that even more extreme outliers will occur.” Read the rest of this entry »

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