Category: RT Newswire

BRIMINGHAM, Ala. – The bus had just left Drummond Co. Inc.’s coal mine carrying about 50 workers when gunmen halted it and forced two union leaders off. They shot one on the spot, pumping four bullets into his head, and dragged the other one off to be tortured and killed.

In a civil trial set to begin Monday before a federal jury in Birmingham, Ala., union lawyers have presented affidavits from two people who allege that Drummond ordered those killings, a charge the company denies.

The Chiquita banana company admitted paying right-wing militias known as paramilitaries to protect its Colombia operations. Human rights activists claim such practices were widespread among multinationals in Colombia, and that Drummond went even further, using the fighters to violently keep its labor costs down.

The Drummond case, they say, is their best chance yet of seeing those allegations heard in court.

The union has presented affidavits to the Alabama court from two people who say they were present when Drummond’s chief executive in Colombia, Augusto Jimenez, handed over a large sum of cash to representatives of the local paramilitary warlord. They claim the money was for the March 10, 2001, killings of Sintramienergetica union local president Valmore Locarno and his deputy, Victor Orcasita. Continue reading

In my humble opinion, there are no coincidences…a Greater Power is at work-and this was manifested on the morning of our tour presentation in the small western Nebraska town of Chadron (which was, incidentally, 1 of the most well-attended and well-received in the entire Rocky Mtn. leg of the roadshow-thanks, Bruce!). We had been in town for a couple days-and were thankful for a break in the brutal heat of the previous days, as well as in our schedule. Quite fatigued, we were debating whether or not to stop in the Daily Grind coffee house before-or after-starting our errands for that day & preparing to head east to Lincoln. We opted, rather whimsically, to go for fair-trade, shade-grown caffeine 1st-& happened to encounter 3 Native wimmin there who were headed to the Pine Ridge Rez just to our north for an annual ceremony given the next day by Leonard Peltier’s family in his honour-to take place on the Jumping Bull property outside of the poverty-stricken community of Oglala, where the tragic shootout occurred 27 years ago on that date (June 26). Conversation between us all just seemed to spring up instantaneously, and 1 of these wimmin recognized 1 of us from repeated mutual attendances at the Indigenous Environmental Network’s Protecting Mother Earth Conferences between 1997 and 2004. They invited us up to the Rez to participate in the ceremony-and we postponed our trek to Lincoln in order to do so. We made the right decision-and this fact is further borne out by the recognition that-had we postponed our daily visit to the Daily Grind by just a few minutes-we would have missed completely this interaction and the invitation that arose from it, leaving Chadron without ever knowing this event was taking place.
The next morning we packed up and drove north from Chadron to Oglala, where we met w/ other participants (many of them locals from the Rez, others from many other places-including as far away as Australia) at the “Our Lady of the Sioux” Catholic Church (anybody else get the twisted irony in that?) outside of Oglala. We then drove to the cemetery where many Native victims of the infamous BIA/FBI/GOON “Reign of Terror” of the mid-1970s are buried, and-after a prayer/ceremony in their honour-we all walked prayerfully to the Jumping Bull property about a mile away, where an incredibly powerful and poignant ceremony transpired that which included a recorded statement from Peltier from inside the Ft. Leavenworth concentration camp in Kansas. It was a beautiful day, and-thank God especially for the children, Elders, and pregnant wimmin-we were spared the ruthless heat of the previous week.

After the ceremony we drove back to the church compound outside of Oglala for an evening of food, music (Traditional, folk, blues/rock, & hip-hop), & spoken-word statements. Much to our pleasant surprise, RTNA was invited to speak on stage between bands-and 1 of us gave a 5-minute talk about RTNA’s efforts and aspirations (particularly along the lines of environmental justice/anti-racism, Indigenous solidarity, and cross-cultural alliance-building). After this, we were responded to what was almost a standing ovation-with hand-shakes, hugs, and tears-and invited back for next year’s ceremony. We gave away much literature and traded contact information, and were sent away with food, clothing, and many, many prayers and blessings. As we left, we were told: “Come back next year! The People will remember you!” We were also told by Leonard Peltier’s family that they would tell him about us. When we left that night to log some miles toward Lincoln before sleeping on the side of the road along with half the mosquitoes in the Great Plains-we were changed people….
There is hope.

Claiming to protect the planet from greenhouse gases, geo-engineer, Planktos, Inc., is poised to dump iron in waters off the Galapagos Islands and thumbing its nose at the International Maritime Organization and the US government

The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the International Maritime Organization’s (IMO) London Convention (dealing with ocean dumping) should urgently launch investigations into the activities of Planktos, Inc., a private climate-engineering firm, according to ETC Group (Ottawa, Canada) and the International Center for Technology Assessment (ICTA – Washington, DC). The two civil society organizations believe that the company may soon begin dumping iron particles in an 100 km. by 100 km. expanse of ocean near the Galapagos islands – if it has not already begun. Planktos may also have violated the U.S. Ocean Dumping Act during iron dumping experiments carried out in 2002. ICTA and ETC Group submitted a formal request to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency early today even as IMO member governments meet in Spain to consider the legality of such high-risk geoengineering experiments. The letter to EPA is available here.

“There is a law against dumping material into the ocean without permits. Yet, this is exactly what Planktos plans on doing,” explains George Kimbrell of ICTA, a staff attorney based in Washington D.C. “We are today asking EPA to launch an immediate and full investigation into Planktos’ ocean dumping activities.” Simultaneously, the two organizations are working with environmental groups to press the international meeting in Spain to take action.

Planktos Inc., a for-profit geoengineering company with offices in the U.S. and Canada, announced that it will dump 100 tons of iron particles in the Pacific Ocean west of the Galapagos islands – an act that critics believe may violate national and international ocean protection laws, and potentially cause serious damage to the ocean ecosystem.

Planktos is in the business of selling “carbon credits” to individuals who want to “offset” their personal climate change impact. The company claims that iron particles dumped in the ocean will stimulate growth of phytoplankton and draw carbon dioxide (a climate changing gas) out of the atmosphere, a scheme that will allow the company to make money from carbon trading.

The United States government is also concerned about Planktos’ plans, and is advising the London Convention, the international body (under the International Maritime Organization) responsible for regulating dumping at sea, that the companies proposed activities “should be evaluated carefully.” [i] An intergovernmental scientific committee of the London Convention is meeting this week in Spain, 18-22 June. According to a submission by the U.S. government, Planktos has not received any authorizing permits from the applicable U.S. authorities nor undertaken any environmental impact assessment.

Planktos’ website says that the company will dump iron into the ocean near the Ecuadorian Galapagos Islands in mid-June 2007 from its ship, the Weatherbird II, a US flagged vessel. However, according to documents submitted by the U.S. government to the London Convention, Planktos informed the EPA on 23 May that, “the company will use a non-United States flagged vessel for releasing the iron so as not to be subject to regulation under the United States’ Ocean Dumping Act.”

 “It is rank hypocrisy that Planktos, which claims to be a ‘green’ company, is now planning to ‘outsource’ their dumping to a foreign ship in order to evade U.S. environmental oversight,” says Jim Thomas of the ETC Group, a Canadian-based civil society organization that has been monitoring Planktos’ activities. “Clearly the only ‘green’ that Planktos cares about is the money they hope to make by selling carbon credits.”

 “Planktos’ website still claims that it will be dumping nano-scale particles of iron, and we know they’re looking for a new flag, so we suggest the company sail under a nano-hazard warning flag,” said Hope Shand of ETC Group, which sponsored a design competition earlier this year to come up with a nano-hazard warning symbol to label engineered nanomaterials. A study by a scientific body in the UK warns that environmental release of nanoparticles – which are not adequately regulated by any government body – should be prohibited until more is known about their health and environmental impacts.

The U.S. authorities are not alone in their concern for Planktos’ dumping experiment. In a news release issued on 23 May 2007, the Galapagos National Park authorities expressed concerns about the proposed dump by Planktos, asserting that it is “scientifically dubious, environmentally dangerous and capable of altering marine food chains.” The Galapagos National Park authorities said they had not been able to talk to Planktos directly despite concerns that currents from the dumping site could allow pollutants to enter the national park area.

According to Pablo Barriga, Project Coordinator of FUNDAR Galapagos, a non-profit organization that supports sustainable development and conservation of the islands, “It is imperative that the impacts and legitimacy of Planktos’ experiment are carefully scrutinized by the international community, including the London Convention meeting in Spain this week. For us it is clearly immoral for a company in pursuit of profits to conduct this kind of experiment so close to a World Heritage site. This is absolutely unacceptable,” said Barriga.

Although Planktos would not tell the EPA which vessel or flag they now intend to fly under, Planktos may still be in violation of the U.S. Ocean Dumping Act if they attempt to export their iron particles from the US without a permit.  ETC and ICTA called on EPA to investigate and take urgent oversight actions on Planktos’ current activities and the company’s previous iron dumping expedition as possible Ocean Dumping Act violations. The company’s previous iron dump occurred on June 22, 2002 just east of Hawaii and took place without any authorizing EPA permit. It involved a U.S. registered yacht, the WN Ragland – which the company claims was loaned to Planktos by the singer Neil Young. Photos of the 2002 dump on Planktos’ website clearly show the US flag flying as the iron is dumped in the ocean.

Geoengineering for Profit
 “Iron fertilization” is one of a number of large-scale “geoengineering” schemes that seek technological fixes to counteract climate change. Last year, for example, Nobel laureate Paul Crutzen called for more research on a plan to blast sulfate-based aerosols into the stratosphere to deflect sunlight. Others have proposed sucking excess carbon dioxide out into space. The president of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, Ralph J. Cisero, has said that such proposals should be taken seriously. Last month, the United Nations Inter-Governmental Panel on Climate Change, the leading international scientific authority on climate change, criticized geoengineering projects as short-sighted, potentially harmful and unlikely to succeed. Since 1993 at least nine national governments and the European Union have supported “iron fertilization” experiments in the ocean to nurture plankton and sequester carbon dioxide. In April 2007 forty-seven ocean scientists writing in the journal Nature concluded that attempts to artificially seed the ocean to sequester carbon will not work.[ii]

Planktos is not the only company hoping to profit from commercial-scale iron dumping. GreenSea Ventures, Inc. conducted two early experiments on ocean fertilization in the Gulf of Mexico in 1998. Michael Markels, a board member of GreenSea Ventures, holds at least 5 patents and patent applications related to iron fertilization for sequestering CO2. A new company, San Francisco-based Climos, will also reportedly work on ocean fertilization for controlling atmospheric carbon.

“The overwhelming scientific conclusion based upon the numerous governmental and intergovernmental experiments is that iron seeding is risky and may only temporarily sequester carbon dioxide,” concludes Jim Thomas, “leaving the CO2 below the surface just long enough for private geo-engineers to cash their cheques.”

For further information, please contact:

Jim Thomas or Pat Mooney, ETC Group, jim@etcgroup.org  tel: +1 613 241-2267

George Kimbrell, ICTA, gkimbrell@icta.org   tel: +1 202 547-9359    
Hope Shand, ETC Group, hope@etcgroup.org, tel: +1 919 960-5767
Silvia Ribeiro, ETC Group, silvia@etcgroup.org, tel: +52 5555 6326 64
Pablo Barriga, Fundar Galápagos, pbarriga@fundargalapagos.org

Notes to Editors:

To view copy of the letter submitted by ICTA and ETC Group to the U.S. EPA: “Letter of Concern Regarding Imminent Violations of the Ocean Dumping Act by Planktos, Inc.” go here: http://www.icta.org/doc/EPA_planktos_geo-engineering_letter%20of%20concern.pdf

For more background on Planktos’ iron dumping expedition to the Galapagos see previous ETC Group News Release “Geoengineers to Foul Galapagos Seas – Defying Climate Panel Warning,” May 3, 2007 – on the Internet: http://www.etcgroup.org/en/materials/publications.html?pub_id=617

For more background on iron fertilization and other geoengineering schemes see  “Gambling with Gaia” report available at http://www.etcgroup.org/en/materials/publications.html?pub_id=608

The U.S. governments’ submission to the London Convention about Planktos is available here: http://www.imo.org/includes/blastDataOnly.asp/data_id%3D18837/INF-28.pdf

—

[i] International Maritime Organization, United States submission to Scientific Group of the London Convention’s 30th Meeting, June 1, 2007.  Available on the Internet: http://www.imo.org/includes/blastDataOnly.asp/data_id%3D18837/INF-28.pdf
[ii] Uirin Schiermeier, “Only mother nature knows how to fertilize the ocean – Natural input of nutrients works ten times better than manmade injections” published online in Nature, April 23, 2007. Available on the Internet: http://www.nature.com/news/2007/070423/full/070423-8.html

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
EXXON PROPOSES BURNING HUMANITY FOR FUEL IF CLIMATE CALAMITY HITS
Conference organizer fails to have Yes Men arrested

Text of speech, photos, video: http://www.vivoleum.com/…

Imposters posing as ExxonMobil and National Petroleum Council (NPC) representatives delivered an outrageous keynote speech to 300 oilmen at GO-EXPO, Canada’s largest oil conference, held at Stampede Park in Calgary, Alberta, today.

The speech was billed beforehand by the GO-EXPO organizers as the major highlight of this year’s conference, which had 20,000 attendees. In it, the “NPC rep” was expected to deliver the long-awaited conclusions of a study commissioned by US Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman. The NPC is headed by former ExxonMobil CEO Lee Raymond, who is also the chair of the study. (See link at end.)

In the actual speech, the “NPC rep” announced that current U.S. and Canadian energy policies (notably the massive, carbon-intensive exploitation of Alberta’s oil sands, and the development of liquid coal) are increasing the chances of huge global calamities. But he reassured the audience that in the worst case scenario, the oil industry could “keep fuel flowing” by transforming the billions of people who die into oil.

“We need something like whales, but infinitely more abundant,” said “NPC rep” “Shepard Wolff” (actually Andy Bichlbaum of the Yes Men), before describing the technology used to render human flesh into a new Exxon oil product called Vivoleum. 3-D animations of the process brought it to life.

“Vivoleum works in perfect synergy with the continued expansion of fossil fuel production,” noted “Exxon rep” “Florian Osenberg” (Yes Man Mike Bonanno). “With more fossil fuels comes a greater chance of disaster, but that means more feedstock for Vivoleum. Fuel will continue to flow for those of us left.”

The oilmen listened to the lecture with attention, and then lit “commemorative candles” supposedly made of Vivoleum obtained from the flesh of an “Exxon janitor” who died as a result of cleaning up a toxic spill. The audience only reacted when the janitor, in a video tribute, announced that he wished to be transformed into candles after his death, and all became crystal-clear.

At that point, Simon Mellor, Commercial & Business Development Director for the company putting on the event, strode up and physically forced the Yes Men from the stage. As Mellor escorted Bonanno out the door, a dozen journalists surrounded Bichlbaum, who, still in character as “Shepard Wolff,” explained to them the rationale for Vivoleum.

“We’ve got to get ready. After all, fossil fuel development like that of my company is increasing the chances of catastrophic climate change, which could lead to massive calamities, causing migration and conflicts that would likely disable the pipelines and oil wells. Without oil we could no longer produce or transport food, and most of humanity would starve. That would be a tragedy, but at least all those bodies could be turned into fuel for the rest of us.”

“We’re not talking about killing anyone,” added the “NPC rep.” “We’re talking about using them after nature has done the hard work. After all, 150,000 people already die from climate-change related effects every year. That’s only going to go up – maybe way, way up. Will it all go to waste? That would be cruel.”

Security guards then dragged Bichlbaum away from the reporters, and he and Bonanno were detained until Calgary Police Service officers could arrive. The policemen, determining that no major infractions had been committed, permitted the Yes Men to leave.

Canada’s oil sands, along with “liquid coal,” are keystones of Bush’s Energy Security plan. Mining the oil sands is one of the dirtiest forms of oil production and has turned Canada into one of the world’s worst carbon emitters. The production of “liquid coal” has twice the carbon footprint as that of ordinary gasoline. Such technologies increase the likelihood of massive climate catastrophes that will condemn to death untold millions of people, mainly poor.

“If our idea of energy security is to increase the chances of climate calamity, we have a very funny sense of what security really is,” Bonanno said. “While ExxonMobil continues to post record profits, they use their money to persuade governments to do nothing about climate change. This is a crime against humanity.”

“Putting the former Exxon CEO in charge of the NPC, and soliciting his advice on our energy future, is like putting the wolf in charge of the flock,” said “Shepard Wolff” (Bichlbaum). “Exxon has done more damage to the environment and to our chances of survival than any other company on earth. Why should we let them determine our future?”

About the NPC and ExxonMobil: http://ga3.org/campaign/lee_raymond/explanation
About Alberta oil sands http://www.sierraclub.ca/prairie/tarnation.htm
About liquid coal: Sierra club on liquid coal http://www.sierraclub.org/coal/liquidcoal/