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Archive for November 29th, 2012
Susan Rice Has Stake in Keystone Pipeline
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on November 29th, 2012
New York Times: Should Susan E. Rice, the United Nations ambassador, be nominated for Secretary of State, one issue likely to arise during confirmation hearings, aside from the lethal attack on the American Mission in Benghazi, Libya, is her large stock holdings in TransCanada, the company seeking an American permit to build the proposed the Keystone XL pipeline.
According to financial disclosure documents filed in May, Ms. Rice owns from $300,000 to $600,000 worth of stock in the Canadian pipeline company (See...
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Activists Arrested, Launch Hunger Strike in Protest of Keystone XL Pipeline
Posted by EcoWatch: Tar Sands Blockade on November 29th, 2012
EcoWatch: Longtime Gulf Coast activists Diane Wilson and Bob Lindsey Jr., locked their necks to oil tanker trucks destined for Valero’s Houston Refinery in solidarity with Tar Sands Blockade’s protests of TransCanada’s Keystone XL pipeline. Valero Energy Corp. is among the largest investors in TransCanada’s toxic tar sands pipeline that will terminate near the community of Manchester, located in the shadow of Valero’s refinery. Not only did Wilson and Lindsey blockaded the Valero refinery, the two lifelong...
Polar Ice Sheets Shrinking Worldwide, Study Confirms
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on November 29th, 2012
National Geographic: The polar ice sheets are indeed shrinking-and fast, according to a comprehensive new study on climate change.
And the effects, according to an international team, are equally clear-sea levels are rising faster than predicted, which could bring about disastrous effects for people and wildlife.
Rising seas would increase the risk of catastrophic flooding like that caused by Hurricane Sandy last month in New York and New Jersey. Environmental damage may include widespread erosion, contamination...
Protesters target tanker truck in effort to stop Canadian oil
Posted by KTRK: Ted Oberg on November 29th, 2012
KTRK: It is latest bit of protest news for TransCanada, the pipeline company trying to connect Houston to Canadian tar sands.
Valero wants the Canadian oil. They've said so before. But it's not coming anytime soon. Remember, the president still hasn't approved the pipeline. Nonetheless, protesters on Thursday set out to embarrass a pipeline customer in hopes to make the whole project unattractive.
It was at best an indirect target. The Houston Valero refinery is huge sure, but it's not owned by the...
Fracking, Climate Change, And What Gets Lost In The Shuffle
Posted by Seeking Alpha: None Given on November 29th, 2012
Seeking Alpha: Today as I pen these notes natural gas is trading at $3.89 per million BTU, down about 4 percent from Friday's close.
The news driving the commodity lower is not a sudden increase in production but forecasts of a warmer December than previously expected. Still, despite the drop natural gas is trading today at a higher price than its average over the past four years, or to be more precise, since the beginning of 2009.
Why pick 2009? Because it was the beginning of the surge in unconventional...
Frac-Sand Mining: Is British Columbia the Gas Industry’s Next Wisconsin?
Posted by EcoWatch: Carol Linnitt, DeSmogBlog on November 29th, 2012
EcoWatch: Stikine Gold Mining Corp. will provide unconventional gas producers with British Columbian silica sand for fracking operations if the Ministry of Forests, Lands and Natural Resource Operations approves the company`s open pit frac-sand mine project application. According to the Ministry`s website the project, located 90 kilometers north of Prince George, is in pre-application status with the Environmental Assessment Office.
If granted approval, Stikine could gouge a 5 kilometer wide and 200 meter...
World has lost half its wetlands
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on November 29th, 2012
Mongabay: Half of the worlds wetlands have been destroyed in just the last 100 years, says a new report. Published by the Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity (TEEB), the report found that of the 25 million square kilometers of wetlands that existed in 1900 just 12.8 million square kilometers now remain. The rate of destruction varies geographically with notable loses in East Asia running at 1.6 per cent per year. In places where aquaculture, over-exploitation (e.g. unsustainable harvesting of fish) and...
Arab youth activists seek ‘ambitious’ plans on climate change
Posted by BDlive: Sue Blaine on November 29th, 2012
BDlive: ARAB Youth Climate Movement (AYCM) regional co-ordinator for the Middle East and North Africa, Reem al-Maella, 24, first heard about climate change when she was 19, she told journalists at the United Nations climate change talks in Doha, Qatar, on Thursday morning.
Qatar is the first Middle Eastern country to host the climate change talks, and saw one of its first protests over climate change at about 1pm on Thursday, when AYCM members staged a mock soccer match in which Qatar scored a goal by...
Canada: Tar Sands Oil Boom Drives Push for A Northern Pipeline
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on November 29th, 2012
Yale Environment 360: The Great Bear Rainforest is a 27,000-square-mile wilderness that stretches from southern British Columbia to the Alaska border. One of the last undisturbed temperate rainforests in the world, it is home to cougars, wolves, wolverine, grizzly bears, and the iconic Kermode, a unique subspecies of black bear with a recessive gene that is responsible for its fur being white.
The rainforest is far from the sprawling oil sands mines of Alberta. But if the Canadian government, the Alberta government,...
Enbridge Bid to Dismiss Landowners’ Lawsuit Fails, Pipeline Case to Continue
Posted by Inside Climate News: Lisa Song on November 29th, 2012
Inside Climate News: A lawsuit against pipeline company Enbridge Inc [3]. was returned to Michigan state court on Tuesday, after a judge ruled that a group that is trying to stop work on the company's 210-mile pipeline replacement project could not pursue the case in federal court. The ruling didn't address the merits of the case. POLAR (Protect Our Land And Rights) [4], the nonprofit group that filed the suit, is seeking an injunction against Enbridge, claiming the Canadian company hasn't obtained all the necessary...