Yesterday, the NRDC Action Fund launched a campaign featuring a powerful new ad by renowned environmental activist and celebrated actor, Edward James Olmos. In the video, which you can view here, Olmos explains what makes people - himself included - "locos" when it comes to U.S. energy and environmental policy. Now, as the Senate moves towards a possible debate on energy and climate legislation, we need to let everyone hear Olmos' message.
Hi, I'm Edward James Olmos. They say insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. I guess that's what makes Americans "locos." We keep yelling "drill baby drill" and expecting things to turn out ok. But the disaster in the Gulf of Mexico is nothing new. The oil industry has been poisoning our oceans and wilderness for decades. It's time to regain our sanity. America doesn't want more oil disasters. We need safe, clean and renewable energy now. Think about it.
Sadly, Olmos' definition of "insanity" is exactly what we've been doing for decades in this country -- maintaining policies that keep us "addicted" to fossil fuels instead of moving towards a clean, prosperous, and sustainable economy.
As we all know, dirty, outdated energy sources have caused serious harm to our economy, to our national security, and of course - as the horrible Gulf oil disaster illustrates - to our environment. In 2008 alone, the U.S. spent nearly $400 billion, about half the entire U.S. trade deficit, importing foreign oil. Even worse, much of that $400 billion went to countries (and non-state actors) that don't have our best interests at heart.
As if all that's not bad enough, our addiction to oil and other fossil fuels also has resulted in tremendous environmental devastation, ranging from melting polar ice caps to record heat waves to oil-covered pelicans and dolphins in the Gulf of Mexico.
As Edward James Olmos says, it's enough to drive us all "locos."
Fortunately, there's a better way.
If you believe, as we passionately do, that it's time to kick our addiction to the dirty fuels of the past, then please help us get that message out there. Help us air Edward James Olmos' ad on TV in states with U.S. Senators who we believe can be persuaded to vote for comprehensive, clean energy and climate legislation. If we can convince our politicians to do their jobs and to pass comprehensive, clean energy and climate legislation this year, we will be on a path to a brighter, healthier future.
Good afternoon, I'm Forrest Brown, senior organizing fellow at the Progressive Change Campaign Committee.
This morning, we sent out an email to PCCC members letting them know that BP blocked workers cleaning up the oil disaster in the Gulf from wearing protective respirators.
In just 8 hours, more than 23,000 Today more than 27,000 people have joined our coalition. Can you help us keep up the momentum? Join here.
At present, oil saturates the Gulf Stream. An official six-month cessation of permits for new drilling did not actually affect the industry or government decisions. Despite Moratorium, Drilling Projects Move Ahead. To explain such an authorization and waiver, the Department of the Interior and the Minerals Management Services Division which regulates drilling, pointed to public statements by Interior Secretary, Ken Salazar. He did not intend to forbid all first cuts in the Earth's crust. Absolutely not. The Federal Government approved wells off the coast of Louisiana in June. Regardless of the day, or realities that are anathema to our citizenry, little has truly changed. Today, just as in yesteryear, we, the people of the United States of America, in order to form a more perfect Union, polish policies to appear as though our civilization would wish to protect and defend all beings, equally.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is hosting four public information meetings on the proposed study of the relationship between hydraulic fracturing and its potential impacts on drinking water...The meetings will provide public information about the proposed study scope and design. EPA will solicit public comments on the draft study plan.
The public meetings will be held on:
* July 8 from 6 p.m. to 10 p.m. CDT at the Hilton Fort Worth in Fort Worth, Texas * July 13 from 6 p.m. to 10 p.m. MDT at the Marriot Tech Center's Rocky Mountain Events Center in Denver, Colo. * July 22 from 6 p.m. to 10 p.m. EDT at the Hilton Garden Inn in Canonsburg, Pa. * August 12 at the Anderson Performing Arts Center at Binghamton University in Binghamton, N.Y. for 3 sessions - 8 a.m. to 12 p.m., 1 p.m. to 5 p.m., and 6 p.m. to 10 p.m. EDT
Brighton, Colorado (FNS)-Attorneys from the Republican Study Group (RSG) descended upon the 17th Judicial District courtroom of Judge John T Bryan today to present an amicus brief and associated oral arguments in order to prevent a settlement in a lawsuit related to an automobile accident in this Colorado city.
The intervening attorneys claim the settlement reached between the two parties to the accident is a "shakedown" because the plaintiff had not yet exhausted all possible legal remedies when the agreement was finalized, and because the agreement was executed in the presence of the plaintiff's brother, a well-known local attorney.
They hope Judge Bryan will decline to approve the settlement in today's hearing, and that he will order the parties to move forward to trial.
"What we have is government transferring property from one party, an admittedly unattractive one, to others, not based on preexisting laws but on decisions by one man, a car czar", said Crush Mimbaugh, attorney for the RSG, "and we are here today to protect all Americans from this legally sanctioned rape of an innocent driver."
Honestly, I am absolutely sick of commercial air travel these days. Just dealing with security is bad enough, but then there's the airlines, and...hey, all you really need to know here is that there has to be a pretty good reason for me to fly cross-country.
Well, I had one Saturday night, which is how I came to be in the Colonnade Room of the Fairmount Hotel, Washington DC with about 250 of my closest friends, in a classic shawl-collar tuxedo, attending one of the most exclusive "passing of the torch" ceremonies in recent Washington memory.
And when it was all over, Douglas Feith was a happy man.
BP is using a chemical dispersant, Corexit, supposedly to break up the oil so bacteria can eat it faster. This is not what is happening. It is causing the oil to sink out of sight to relieve pressure on the company, but may be causing far more damage than the spill otherwise would.
Environmental engineer Joe Taylor has a dire warning for BP: they have to stop using their chemical dispersant, Corexit, immediately. Or else, according to a report from WKRG in Mobile, everything is going to die!
He says the sulfur and sulfuric acid based dispersant makes the oil spewing into the gulf sink, where its impossible to clean up--and where it depletes oxygen levels under the water, killing plankton and everything above plankton in the food chain. "Corexit is toxic, petroleum is toxic, and its depleting the oxygen levels," he says.
What's worse says Taylor, is that if he knows this information, so does BP. "They have a lot of chemists who are a lot smarter than I am, and they know this," he says.
BP's use of a toxic dispersant to break up oil on the surface of the Gulf of Mexico will cause worse long-term damage to the ecosystem than had the company allowed the spill to reach coastal shorelines, contends a group of oystermen suing the petroleum corporation.
For more than a century, in unison, the planets' population proclaimed, thankfully petroleum flows. Oil powers our machines. The refined product has helped us manufacture massive quantities of clothing, aluminum sheet, and photovoltaic (PV) solar cells. "Plastics." As was professed in a popular film decades ago, "There's a great future in plastics." Presently, and in the past, BP understood this and much more. The company's Executives knew petroleum could and would provide endless profits, power, and a perpetual presence.
I just wanted to take a minute to say hello and to see how things have been for you lately, and to maybe bring you up to date on a bit of news from here.
Well, right off the bat, we hear you have a new Conservative Prime Minister and that his Party and Nick Clegg and the Lib Dems are in partnership, which I'm sure will be interesting; you probably heard that us Colonials are again having Tea Parties, which has also been very interesting.
I have a Godson who's getting married this September, so we're all talking about that, and I hear Graham Norton was even better than last year at hosting Eurovision, despite the fact that it's...frankly, it's Eurovision.
Oh, yeah...we also had a bit of an oil spill recently that you may have heard about-and hoo, boy; you should see how the Company that spilled the oil has been acting.
Americans acknowledge there is a problem. Petroleum pours out from a broken pipe. Thousands of barrels of fuel flow freely through the Gulf of Mexico, just as they have for more than a month. Plants, animals, and people are affected. People express distress. Millions are dismayed. What can BP do. Indeed what can any company or citizens do? Most call upon the President. Mister Obama, the electorate pleads, please, protect us. These same citizens ignore that the protection we need is from ourselves. Our present circumstances are a reflection of our past. Many Americans have forgotten an earlier time, when another of this country's Chief Executives attempted to avoid the nightmare we experience today.
We're now into day way too many of the BP oil spill, and the President has just yesterday been down on the Louisiana coast-again.
There have been suggestions that the Administration should take action to essentially push BP out of the way and take over the work itself, particularly as it relates to the cleanup.
It may have even occurred to you that an official declaration of some sort might be needed, in order to bring the full power of the Feds into play.
That's some good thinking, but before we go jumping right into declaring things we better understand the law, because if we don't, we could actually make things worse.
A cap placed over a severed pipe is siphoning some oil from the broken BP well in the Gulf Coast, the company said today. The company's CEO said this morning on CBS that it was possible that this fix could capture up to 90% of the oil, but that it will take 24 to 48 hours to understand how well this solution is working. Adm. Thad Allen, the former Coast Guard chief and oil spill incident commander, called the cap "only a temporary and partial fix."
When Scott Roeder shot Dr. George Tiller in church last year, media accounts described him as a lone wolf. Roeder acted alone on the day of the assassination, but he was part of a community of career anti-choice terrorists, as Amanda Robb reports in Ms. Magazine.
OK. As we look at the alarming crisis that BP and the oil industry has brought us to, as we evaluate the amount of military spending we are pouring into the middle east for no evident return (and as we consistently apologize for killing innocent civilians with airborne missiles), as we observe politicians and lobbyists letting payoffs and focused fundraising deny the needs of voters in favor of the needs of corporations, as we see the Supreme Court gradually eliminate generations of civil rights achievements, we are getting more and more convinced that making a change in America... indeed in the whole world... is getting less and less possible.
Last Thursday was the one-month anniversary of the Gulf oil disaster and every day, we see more and more evidence that collectively we have failed to not only act, but also we have failed to organize and express our anger about the disaster, and its truly shocking long-term consequences.
This isn't Katrina II, it's worse. As the oil keeps gushing and the damage keeps growing, we are squandering a rare chance to turn the tide against those whose laziness and greed and ignorance is imperiling every living thing on our wonderful and beautiful -- and wounded --- planet.
Words are a necessary precursor to deeds, anger is an essential ingredient for social change. Speaking up and speaking out is the difference between apathy and action.
We all do need to speak up, we all do need to speak out and we all need to make our voices heard. Every single day, the catastrophe is getting worse.
Today, as I debate why America is so apathetic towards the spill, I am in Los Angeles. As you travel the country, it's not top of the news anywhere anymore. It's fading away, but as the oil floods the Gulf, I was sent another great post by Pete Altman at NRDC, check out these shocking numbers about what one day of inaction looks like.
Because every day we delay,
The United States imports 11.7 million barrels of oil. According to the American Petroleum Institute, the U.S. imported an average of 11.7 million barrels per day of crude and other oil products in 2009.
Iran earns $173 million in oil revenues. The Economist Intelligence Unit forecasts that Iran will generate oil export revenue at $63.4 billion this year from output of 3.82 million barrels per day (bpd). $63.4 billion divided by 365 days is $173.7 million. Up to 4 million gallons of oil surges into the Gulf. The official estimate is that about 5,000 barrels of oil are spilling per day, but independent experts contend that the actual amount is far higher -- as much as 95,000 barrels per day. A barrel holds 42 gallons.
China invests $95 million in clean energy -- nearly double the United States investment ($51 million.) In 2009, China invested $34.6 billion in clean energy compared to $18.6 billion in the U.S. ($34.6 billion/365 = $95 million a day, $18.6 billion/365 = $51 million a day.)
100,000 solar panels roll off Chinese production lines. Solar module production in China and Taiwan will increase 48 percent to 5,515 megawatts in 2010, according to a February, 2010 report by Yuanta. One megawatt requires about 5,000 panels. Assuming 250 production days per year, this translates to 110,300 panels per day.
The United States generates 19 million tons (metric) of greenhouse gas emissions per year. EPA's most recent greenhouse gas inventory reports that the U.S. produced 6,956.8 million metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions (CO2 equivalent basis) in 2008. That's 19,059,726 metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions each day.
Clearly we need to move from apathy to action. Because as every day passes, as the evidence of our collective failure washes up on the beaches of the Gulf and deeper and deeper into the marshes of Louisiana, what's Washington's reaction?
"Pathetic" would be kind.
There will evidently be a commission to study this disaster, but as we saw with the 9/11 commission, even solid recommendations are usually ignored by one or both parties with little hope of action.
