A few years back, under the watchful eyes of Halliburton Company CEO Dave Lasser, an underling executive supposedly drank a glass of fracking fluid, namely, CleanStim, then under development. This was to convince attendees at a conference presented by the Colorado Oil and Gas Association that fracking fluid was safe.
Andy Grove, former CEO of Intel, famously said: “Success breeds complacency. Complacency breeds failure. Only paranoid survive.”
Grove’s sage advice hopefully rings a bell with advocates of the climate change issue. They should take heed, stop and listen to what is said, because they may be inadvertently breeding complacency when paranoia is needed more so than ever before.
New York State faces a fateful choice over its energy, environmental, and economic future.
It can chose a 21st century upgrade to clean energy and create a sustainable prosperity that protects our climate, cleans our air, and revives our economy. Or it can continue to rely on a 19th and 20th century fossil fueled energy system that will leave it battered by climate change, poisoned by pollution, and economically stagnant while other states and nations pass it by as they adopt the new sustainable technologies of the 21st century.
No longer dominated by the traditional “Big Green” groups that were taking big donations from corporate polluters, the new environmental movement is broader, more assertive and more creative. With extreme energy extraction and climate change bearing down on the world, environmental justice advocates are taking bold actions to stop extreme energy extraction and create new solutions to save the planet. These ‘fresh greens’ often work locally, but also connect through national and international actions.
When Prime Minister David Cameron pulls a stunt or announces a “ground breaking” new policy, it is pretty well guaranteed to backfire. Indeed, his coalition government policy U-turns are heading for encyclopedic.
Peter B. Collins Presents Melinda St. Louis of Public Citizen
I'm not sure if my friend Adam is still addicted to drugs but I do know he's still addicted to the drug addicts on Hate Talk Radio who get all hopped up on coke or speed and just let it rip. Adam took it on himself last week to spread the latest set of meticuloulsy-crafted right-wing propaganda about the woeful fate of the Jews of Donetsk in eastern Ukraine. He cited the now debunked USAToday fantasy by Oren Dorell, a shady Beltway journalist.
Ted Nordhaus and Michael Shellenberger’s op-ed “Global Warming Scare Tactics” was published in the New York Times on April 8. Participants in recent debates over climate change may recognize their names. They’re the guys who run the Breakthrough Institute, a pseudo-contrarian “environmental research organization.”
Snake Oil: How Fracking’s False Promise of Plenty Imperils Our Future by Richard Heinberg (Post Carbon Institute, 2013) is about the economics of fracking. Also known as hydraulic fracturing, fracking refers to using pressurized water and chemicals to release oil or natural gas trapped in underground rock formations. Heinberg’s new book describes the behind-the-scenes role of Goldman Sachs and other investment banks in driving the present fracking boom.
How many people wait with bated breath for Earth Day to arrive in April of each year? Who knows, but taking a wild guess, probably nobody. Earth Day kinda died out along with the fade-out of the counter-culture of the sixties and seventies. Today, they’re all grandparents and Earth Day has dissipated.
Earth Day was started to provide “support for environmental protection,” and as shall be described, Earth Day came onto the scene like the Big Bang, but ever since, it has been a fizzler, failing to impact, even slightly, the biggest environmental problem facing America, ever.
