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Pipeline builder advised to gin up fake grassroots support
Posted by Grist: None Given on November 18th, 2014
Grist: TransCanada Corp., the company seeking to build the Keystone XL pipeline, has teamed up with the world`s largest public relations firm to promote a proposed alternative pipeline that`s entirely in Canada.
Greenpeace Canada obtained documents that the U.S. public relations firm Edelman drafted for TransCanada that outline a campaign to promote Energy East, the company`s proposed 2,858-mile pipeline that would transport crude oil from the Alberta tar sands to the east coast of Canada. The company...
Posted in Water Conservation 
Comments Off on Pipeline builder advised to gin up fake grassroots supportHoly sh*t, a town in Texas just banned fracking
Posted by Grist: None Given on November 5th, 2014
Grist: This was the year of the fracking ban, at least in local elections: Eight municipal and county-wide bans went to voters in Ohio, Texas, and California on Nov. 4. Considering the money poured in by the opposition, they did pretty darn well: Four out of eight won by a country mile.
California
Happily for local farmers like Paul Hain, San Benito County`s moratorium on "high-intensity petroleum operations" passed with flying colors (at least by American standards): 57 to 43 percent. And in Mendocino...
This proposed pipeline would be even bigger than Keystone XL
Posted by Grist: None Given on October 16th, 2014
Grist: Meet Energy East: It will be 2,858-miles long, putting it right up there with some of the longest pipelines in the world. It would pump about a third more crude than Keystone XL was intended to. It`ll be bigger than the Druzhba pipeline, which carries oil 2,500 miles from Southeast Russia to the rest of Europe.
"Bigger" is the point. There`s no sense in extracting crude from Canada`s tar sands if you can`t sell it in extreme bulk, and a big part of selling it is figuring out how to get it to people....
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on This proposed pipeline would be even bigger than Keystone XLWhere does Hillary Clinton stand on fracking?
Posted by Grist: None Given on September 5th, 2014
Grist: Hillary Clinton never actually said the word "fracking" during her keynote address at the National Clean Energy Summit in Nevada on Thursday, but she still clearly laid out her views on the technique: She`s all for it. She says it needs to be conducted and regulated properly so it doesn`t cause excessive environmental harm, but she believes that can be done. Which puts her totally in line with President Obama, and out of line with most of the environmental community.
During her address, Clinton...
Thanks to fracking, there’s something in the water in Pennsylvania
Posted by Grist: None Given on August 29th, 2014
Grist: It’s been a bad, bad summer for the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection. But arguably, it’s been a much worse summer for the actual citizens of Pennsylvania, because they have been repeatedly and consistently screwed over by an unhappy combination of corporate interests, bureaucratic incompetence, and methane. That’s quite a cocktail of misery - when life gives you a Long Island iced tea, if you will.
The latest development: The DEP has released a list of 243 reports of drinking...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Thanks to fracking, there’s something in the water in PennsylvaniaTexas messes with Texas, pits landowners against pipeline-builders
Posted by Grist: None Given on August 14th, 2014
Grist: Texas has a complicated relationship with oil. On the one hand, it`s a state that`s really into private property. More than 95 percent of land in the Lone Star State is privately owned. On the other hand, Texas is really into oil - both digging it up and moving it around.
Basic physics suggests that, eventually, someone would want to move their oil through a space that belonged to someone who didn`t want it there. Lo, when the Keystone pipeline came on the scene, that came to pass in Texas. And...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Texas messes with Texas, pits landowners against pipeline-buildersFracking operations get closer to drinking water sources than we thought
Posted by Grist: None Given on August 13th, 2014
Grist: Fracking companies have tried their best to quell the public’s fears about the practice. But, uh, they’re not doing a very good job of it. A new study shows that oil and gas companies are fracking at much shallower depths than previously thought - sometimes even through potential underground sources of drinking water.
To be clear, the study - which looked at the fracking operations at two geological formations in Wyoming - did not find current drinking water sources to be contaminated. But Stanford...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Fracking operations get closer to drinking water sources than we thoughtNot even Jesus is going to save California from this drought
Posted by Grist: None Given on July 30th, 2014
Grist: California is looking pretty thirsty these days, having gotten less than half the historical average rainfall over the past year. But a few months ago the state began think that a great wet hope might step in to save them: El Niño, the weather system named after Jesus himself. Now the forecasts have changed, however, and it looks like Californians are SOL.
Back in April, scientists said there was a close-to-80 percent chance that an El Niño would form this year. Some believed that all of the pieces...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Not even Jesus is going to save California from this droughtDrilling in Pennsylvania has damaged the water supply 209 times in last seven years
Posted by Grist: None Given on July 24th, 2014
Grist: Whether or not you think that`s alright depends on your perspective. According to Patrick Creighton, those numbers are pretty good -- so many oil and natural gas wells have been drilled in Pennsylvania in the past seven years that 209 problem wells is a mere 1 percent of the total. But Creighton happens to be the spokesperson for the Marcellus Shale Coalition, a trade group composed of natural gas drillers. So there`s that.
According to Steve Hvozdovich, 209 is a lot. "You are talking about somebody’s...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Drilling in Pennsylvania has damaged the water supply 209 times in last seven yearsAustralia repeals carbon tax, scientists freak out
Posted by Grist: None Given on July 17th, 2014
Grist: The cartoonish stereotype of Australia of yesteryear featured a rough-headed bloke in an Akubra hat wrangling crocodiles. That image has finally been scrubbed from our collective memories -- only to be replaced with something worse. Today, when we read news dispatches from Australia, we`re seeing a dunderheaded prime minister cartoonishly wrangling commonsense, becoming the first leader in the warming world to repeal a price on carbon.
It`s like George W. Bush, Crocodile Dundee-style.
Conservative...