Category: RT Newswire

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
February 4, 2008
10:04 AM
CONTACT: Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER)
Carol Goldberg (202) 265-7337

Leaked E-Mails May Sink Arctic Offshore Lease Sales

Officials Scramble to Suppress Scientific Dissent over Bush Arctic Oil
Initiative

WASHINGTON, DC – February 4 – The Interior Department is scrambling to
stanch the flow of internal e-mails from its own scientists that undermine
the legality of its aggressive offshore oil and gas lease sales in federal
Arctic waters, according to correspondence released today by Public
Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER). The e-mails belie Bush
administration claims that environmental risks were adequately considered
prior to offering tracts in the Chukchi, Beaufort and Bering Seas for
drilling.

During the past three weeks, PEER has released a series of internal e-mails
from current and former Interior scientists raising troubling questions
about how badly environmental assessments of Arctic offshore oil development
were skewed. These e-mails have fueled two new lawsuits in the past week
that threaten to stymie new lease sales and lend further support to ongoing
litigation against earlier lease sales.

Continue reading

Take to the street March 18-19There will be a lot of protest activity and organizing in DC in March, and our goal is to support and compliment other organizing strategies.

Iraq Veterans Against the War is organizing veterans to come to D.C. to give testimony on March 15-16 about the U.S. role in Iraq in an event called Winter Soldier. While many other organizations are discussing their plans and various coalition efforts are underway, a network of individuals and groups is emerging around a common vision of a massive intervention, using nonviolent direct action and civil disobedience on Capitol Hill and elsewhere, to intervene and interrupt the power holders in Washington, D.C. and Corporate America. Continue reading

http://www.ttjonline.com/story.asp?sectioncode=14&storycode=54063&c=3

Timber Trade Journal
4 February, 2008

Scotland’s Forestry Industry Needs to Adapt to Climate Change

Scotland’s forest industry will have to change
its practices in order to keep woodlands strong
and healthy in the face of climate change,
according to Forestry Commission Scotland.

A report from the commission recommends that the
forestry industry looks at the type and range of
species it cultivates, as well as operational
practices such as nursery work through to
harvesting.

Key points from the Impacts of Climate Change on
Forests and Forestry in Scotland report include
integrating more high-quality broadleaved trees
to forests, finding a replacement for Sitka
spruce as conditions change and dealing with the
increased amount of damage to timber by high
winds and wet soil.

“The commission’s proposals will help the people
who manage the country’s forests and woodlands to
consider what steps they can take now to ensure
that those forests remain strong, healthy and
accessible for generations to come,” said
Scottish environment minister Michael Russell.

“Making changes now could help the forestry
industry both to minimise the effects of climate
change in Scotland’s woodlands and to exploit
evolving conditions to best effect.”

Adequate training for staff to ensure they are
equipped with the right information to deal with
the changing nature of Scotland’s forests is also
important, said the report.

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Nice ideas from Belgium…

SUVs/4x4s
Attach bumper stickers with “I’m polluting for nothing, honk at me”
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x3jxl0_klaxonne-moi_politics
http://www.klaxonnemoi.org/Accueil.html

Carbon capture and storage
Pointing out the ridiculousness of carbon capture and storage (which is being touted in the UK as a way to make new coal OK)
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x6eh2_airpollue-film_fun

Targetting the Tar Sands

Every single day over 1 million barrels of oil are taken out of the tar sands. The tar sands located in northern Alberta represent the second largest oil reserve in the world but getting that oil out of the ground comes at an incredible cost. The tar sands, if fully developed, will destroy an area as large as the state of Florida. In the process they will suck the Athabasca river dry, destroy 149,000 sq km of Boreal forest, and single handedly ensure that Canada fails to meet its international obligations under the Kyoto protocol.

The tar sands are the dirtiest source of oil under development anywhere in the world. It takes 3-5 times as much energy to get a barrel of oil from the tar sands as it does from conventional means. In addition, the tar sands use 3-5 barrels of fresh water for every barrel of oil produced. The majority of that water can never be placed back into the natural environment. Instead it will sit in huge toxic tailings ponds – two of which are already visible from space.

POSSIBLE ACTIONS:

Hold an Oil Addicts Anonymous (OAA) Meeting: The first step in breaking any addiction is to admit that you have a problem. With so many people in denial why not hold your own OAA meeting at your local gas station, politicians office, car dealership or oil headquarters. It’s not that difficult a few chairs, some coffee and doughnuts and a public address system and your ready to go.

PLEDGE or INVOICE DELEVERY: Most Fossil Fools are fond of saying ‘bigger is better’ so why not make your own pledge testing a companies or politicians rhetoric or an invoice for the amount it will cost the planet if these companies keep blocking climate action. Simply blow it up and deliver away.

Check out one delivery at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XoQkVYn0gCU&NR

OIL ENFORCEMENT AGENCY (OEA): Sometimes when companies refuse to do what they need to do for the good of the planet and the country an agency needs to step and start laying down the law. The OEA is just such an organization. So join the fight, dawn your best security outfit and take to your local office, dealership, powerplant, or gas station. Tape off the scene off the crime, start your own climate investigation and most importantly protect the public 😉

Hold your own Greenwash: A lot of fossil fools like to make grand statements about the climate to the public and then do exactly the opposite. Why not put those statements in perspective by holding your own green wash? Get a bunch of buckets of soap, some green food colouring, take to your local target and greenwash away.

Billionaires for tar sands/coal: Why not join the other side? Become the only people that benefit from this development – the incredibly uber wealthy. Take on a fabulous name like Bill O’Naire or Annita Subsidy, dress to the nines (hopefully with a nice smoke stack top hat), dawn a british accent and cheer on those that destroy the planet.