By Margaret Flowers for Beyond Extreme Energy. Washington, DC – In an open letter to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), more than eighty health professionals urge the FERC to stop permitting oil and gas infrastructure and to move to clean sustainable sources of energy to protect the health of people and the planet. The construction of oil and gas projects such as unconventional fracking, pipelines, compressor stations and export terminals which pollute with cancer and disease-causing chemicals is akin to an uncontrolled health experiment that is destroying communities and risking lives of residents. These projects also harm the workers who build and maintain them. For the health of all who are involved, health professionals demand that this unethical ‘experiment’ stop.
By Rodrigo Romo for the Guardian – Earlier this summer, two weeks after California’s first-ever hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, regulations went into effect, my family filed a lawsuit against Governor Jerry Brown and California Oil and Gas Supervisor Steve Bohlen. We are challenging the regulations for illegally discriminating against students of color by permitting wells that are disproportionately close to the schools they attend. There are 45 fracked wells within a mile and a half of my daughter’s junior high school. At Sequoia Elementary School, which she attended for years, there are three separate fracked wells within a half-mile of the school, and one that is just 1,200 feet from the school. Shortly after fracking began near her school, my youngest daughter began to suffer from unexplainable epileptic attacks.
By Lori Chandler in Big Think. Shell has received the final permits to drill off the coast of Alaska,courtesy of the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE). Many in the oil industry are timid, citing the many high risks involved from both a business and environmental perspective. One expert even predicts that oil demand is set for a long-term decline. If that’s true, drilling in the Arctic would be an epic miscalculation — and a poor business decision. Former BP executive John Browne has publicly warned Shell of the potentially disastrous consequences of their decision, saying, “I think you’ve got to be careful what you do, and cost includes your long-term reputation.” I
By Capitalism vs Climate. NORTH WINDHAM, CT – In celebration of his 75th birthday today, Middletown resident Vic Lancia locked himself to two giant “birthday cakes”—actually concrete-filled barrels decorated with candles and frosting— on the sole road leading up to a site where Spectra Energy stores construction equipment and materials for use across Connecticut. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission reports posted at capitalismvsclimate.org confirm what local residents have seen: Spectra trucks regularly using the facility to expand fracking infrastructure. By blocking Spectra workers from accessing the site, Vic aimed to disrupt Spectra’s ongoing construction of it’s “AIM Project”, a billion dollar fracked-gas pipeline expansion affecting communities across the State.
By Elizabeth Douglass for InsideClimate News – With the oil industry facing what could be its worst downturn in more than 45 years, the major companies are taking extraordinary, perhaps even desperate, measures to preserve their dividends. This is raising the question of whether the current price slump is just another in a long history of down business cycles, from which oil companies always emerge victoriously, or a sign of more deeply troubled times ahead. In addition to market challenges, however, oil companies face something they’ve never dealt with before: A global call to shift the world’s economies to renewable and low-carbon energy. From the Bank of England to the Pope, international government groups and the world’s largest sovereign wealth fund, there’s a growing push to phase out fossil fuels to save the world from catastrophic warming.
By Staff for the Last Real Indians – On July 28th, several dozen Indigenous and non-Indigenous activists took to the streets of Seattle to hold a solidarity action in support of the Unist’ot’en Camp in B.C. Canada. Currently, eleven companies have proposed to build oil and gas pipelines through Unist’ot’en territory from the Tar Sands in Alberta. Additionally, Pacific Northern Gas (Chevron is the majority owner) has proposed to build the Pacific Trails Pipelines which would carry fracked natural gas from the Horn River Basin through Unist’ot’en territory. Activists briefly occupied the Canadian consulate in downtown Seattle and then marched, occupied and picketed Fidality Investments, a major investor in Chevron. Demonstrators were removed from Fidality’s offices by Seattle police, but continued to demonstrate blockading the entrance to Fidaility.
By Art Edwards for KGW. PORTLAND, Ore. — The fight against drilling for oil in the Arctic has come to Portland. Climate change activists kayaked to Swan Island Friday night and then again on Saturday afternoon, to protest a drilling support ship that arrived in Portland for repairs. Some also lined up on shore, waving signs with slogans like, “Shell No, Save the Arctic.” Around 200 took to the water on Saturday and circled the ship in kayaks. They creatively referred to themselves as “kayaktivists.” The Coast Guard had enacted a so-called “safety zone” around the ship in an effort to keep space between the demonstrators and the massive boat, which is more than 300 feet long.
By Lee Stewart. WASHINGTON, DC–At the Natural Gas Roundtable luncheon in DC on Tuesday, Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) Chairman Norman Bay announced his agency would soon issue a ‘best practices manual’ to help the gas industry win permits for fracked gas infrastructure projects. As he spoke to a packed audience of gas lobbyists, industry representatives, and their supporters in Congress, Bay echoed advice he received from a gas pipeline CEO. “While you certainly want to receive a certificate from FERC, you also want to earn a social license from the communities along the path of the pipeline,” he said.
By Sandra Steingraber of We Are Seneca Lake. Watkins Glen, NY – In an act of civil disobedience against gas storage in Seneca Lake salt caverns, 13 Finger Lakes residents, led by local members of the Ithaca Catholic Worker Movement, formed a human blockade shortly after sunrise this morning at the north entrance of Crestwood Midstream on Route 14. Carrying with them a seven-foot-tall replica of Pope Francis’ recent encyclical letter on climate change, Laudato Si! On Care for Our Common Home, they blocked all traffic from entering or leaving. Schuyler County deputies arrested the 13 shortly after 9:30 a.m. as they sang and read from the Ponitical document.
By Donny Williams for We Are Cove Point. We Are Cove Point formed in December 2014 when a group of impacted local residents teamed up with activists from around the mid-Atlantic, determined to do everything we can to stop the construction of the massive liquefied natural gas (LNG) export terminal Dominion is building in the Cove Point neighborhood of Lusby, Maryland. The domestic fracking industry has seen better days and is counting on exports to be its golden solution that increases the value of fracked gas and funds a massive build-out of infrastructure and new fracking wells. In the eastern US, the success of this export terminal at Cove Point is the pivot point that will either lead to a vast expanse of wells, pipelines, compressor stations and gas-fired power plants (and all of the pollution, risks and health impacts that come with these things), or an industry with an uncertain future that’s struggling to stay afloat.
By Donald Weightman of Beyond Extreme energy. Washington, DC – As Beyond Extreme Energy (BXE) promised, it returned to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) this morning, renewing its May “FERCus” demonstrations, to stage three new interrelated demonstrations, demanding that there be “no new permits” for fracked (aka “natural”) gas infrastructure. Two demonstrators got through heavy federal police security to enter the FERC Commissioners’ meeting. When the meeting was underway, they stood up to address the Commissioners and demand that there be “no new permits”. The protesters were escorted from the building by federal police.
By Emma McCumber in Rising Tide Vermont. ADDISON, VT – Today activists from TWAC (Trans* and/or Women’s Action Camp) and Earth First!, blockaded a shipment of fracked gas en route to the International Paper mill in Addison County, VT and hung a banner proclaiming “Not by Truck, Pipe or Rail” off the Crown Point bridge. [1] They called for an end to the extreme energy extraction, distribution, and consumption that fuels social and ecological violence, which impacts people of color, indigenous peoples, trans* people and/or women, and low-income people the most. About 40 people participated in the action, which blocked an NG Advantage truck for several hours. NG Advantage, owned in part by Texas oilman and billionaire T. Boone Pickens, began shipping fracked gas to International Paper last year after it became increasingly clear that the fracked gas pipeline underneath Lake Champlain was unlikely to be completed.
By Meaghan LaSala, Emma McCumber and Will Bennington for Rising Tide VT. Champlain Valley – Hundreds of people participated today in a coordinated series of actions across the Champlain valley — including a blockade and lake flotilla — demanding an end to extreme energy extraction and transport. Rallying behind the slogan “Not by truck, not by rail, not by pipeline,” participants denounced industry attempts to turn the Champlain valley into an energy corridor for fracked gas, oil, and tar sands which are driving climate change. In Addison County, Vermont, over forty organizers with TWAC (Trans* and/or Women’s Action Camp) blocked trucks carrying fracked gas from making deliveries at the International Paper mill, resulting in five arrests. In Ticonderoga, New York, over 150 people participated in a symbolic oil train blockade and flotilla highlighting threats to the lake posed by the trains.
By Staff of Popular Resistance. The Amsterdam Climate Games is back … and this year it’s bigger, bolder, stronger. Again you can take part in this mega action game with your own team. We promise an even bigger spectacle and better awards. The stakes are high with Amsterdam intending to expand its port in support of a growing fossil fuel industry. The city is siding with the losing team and playing more for profit and economic value than our climate and health! It’s time to interfere with the gameplay of politicians and companies and learn to take action and play the game ourselves! Your team’s goal is to secure a place in Climate Games history by winning one of our highly esteemed awards, while our goal together is to free Amsterdam from polluting industries.
By Lee Stewart for Popular Resistance. Washington, DC – The dome was encased in a rigid web of scaffolding as I rushed by. Looking up at it on my way to the corner of Independence Avenue and New Jersey Avenue SE, I saw a country trying to hide a fatal illness. It’s beyond repair, I mumbled to myself, thinking about the deep underlying rot I see everywhere I look. Walking in the shadow of the Capitol Building in the day’s rising heat, my ears were still ringing. Made uneasy by the inadequate yet intensifying public scrutiny faced by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), the captive government agency that receives its funding from the very industry it purports to regulate, the rule-makers there no longer allow its outspoken critics inside the room where monthly public meetings are held.
|
|
