Oil, Gas, Coal, Pipelines

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.

Brave New Films have updated their documentary, Koch Brothers Exposed: 2014 Edition, on the billionaires David and Charles Koch. The Kochs like to operate in the dark, where evil is said to thrive. The best tonic is said to be shining a light in the darkness, and that is what Brave New Films has done.

Climate change is occurring with extreme rapidity. Recent news headlines warn us: “Earth Could Warm 11 Degrees by 2100,” “Huge Antarctic Ice Sheet Is Collapsing,” and “Climate Change Risks Security and Wars.” — and this is just the beginning.

Think about the last time you reached the top of a mountain one mile high. Now think about descending that distance below the surface of the earth, foot by dark foot, far below all life, light or oxygen. You go down there to dig.
What you’re digging for, deep in the hot, fetid bowels of the earth is carbonized life forms, millions of years in the making, turned to a type of rock that ignites and burns; one that your prime minister and energy analysts tell you will help the economic future of your country.

Now that the Obama administration has publicized their report, 2014 National Climate Assessment, about the dangers of global warming with concomitant climate change, the Republicans have decided to informally declare war on the planet.
As such, the thesis herein is that global warming and climate change are now so widely recognized and so well defined by science that opposition to the problem is tantamount to an act of war. Furthermore, as a matter of principle, purposeful acts that serve to perpetuate global warming are acts against all of humanity.

Through a shadowy group called the American Legislative Exchange Council, the billionaire Koch brothers have helped advance a number of state laws that benefit corporate and right-wing interests. An internal document shows ALEC is tracking 131 bills which, among other issues, seek to roll back renewable energy standards, combat federal coal regulations and tout the Keystone XL tar sands oil pipeline. ALEC’s efforts recently paid off in Oklahoma where Gov. Mary Fallin has signed a measure allowing utilities to charge customers who generate energy from solar panels or small wind turbines.

The findings of the most recent IPCC report are sobering. We have 15 years to mitigate climate disaster. It is up to us to make a major transition to a carbon-free, nuclear-free energy economy within that time frame.

Like a spear thrusting into the Gulf of Mexico’s gut, the Isle de Jean Charles is turbulent with ruinous daily oil and gas accidents, rising sea levels, and tropical storms. Homes on the Isle de Jean Charles perch on delicate wooden stilts thirteen feet high, their paint peeling in the sun. A solitary road snakes down the spine of the shrinking island. Stained American flags billow slowly in the Gulf breeze, affixed to porches where one can catch the nasal tones of plaid-clad men bantering in Cajun French.

If, perchance, you have the opportunity to read the long list of health benefits from eating an apple a day, then for sure you’ll have an apple on your table every morning. It is a remarkable fruit that helps with almost every organ, crack, and crevice throughout the human body by curbing cancer, Parkinsonism, diabetes, Alzheimer’s, gallstones, hemorrhoids, liver problems, cataracts, and it even helps whiten teeth (sounds like the polar opposite of fast-talk warnings on TV ads for medicine). Why eat anything else?

Carbon dioxide (CO2) emitted into the atmosphere and absorbed by the ocean may be invisible to the naked eye, but it is extraordinarily visible in its effect, as will be chronicled herein, and it shows up in the weirdest places.
Burning oil, gas, and coal spews tons upon tons upon tons of CO2 into the atmosphere, and similar to blowing up a balloon too much, the earth’s atmosphere can only hold so much before bad things start popping.
Are you sitting?