by Deep Green Resistance News Service | Mar 12, 2012 | Biodiversity & Habitat Destruction, Climate Change, Mining & Drilling
By Jeremy Hance / Mongabay
Environmentalists have targeted the oil-producing tar sands in Canada in part because its crude comes with heftier carbon emissions than conventional sources. Now, a new study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) has found an additional source of carbon that has been unaccounted for: peatlands. Mining the oil in the tar sands, dubbed “oil sands” by the industry, will require the wholesale destruction of nearly 30,000 hectares of peatlands, emitting between 11.4 and 47.3 million metric tons of additional carbon.
Once destroyed peatlands will not return note the researchers: “Constraints imposed by the postmining landscape and the sensitivity of peatland vegetation prevent the restoration of peatlands that dominated the premining landscape.” Instead drained peatlands will be turned into upland forests, which will store considerably less carbon.
“Claims by industry that they will ‘return the land we use—including reclaiming tailings ponds—to a sustainable landsca that is equal to or better than how we found it’ and that it ‘will be replanted with the same trees and plants and formed into habitat for the same species’ are clearly greenwashing,” the researchers write.
Already carbon emissions from the tar sands produce significantly more carbon than conventional sources with various research showing around 20 percent higher than conventional oil to three times higher. However, such estimates have not included the loss of carbon due to peatland destruction, which the researchers estimate will be equal in total to “seven years worth of carbon emissions by mining and upgrading (at 2010 levels).”
A recent study has found that if the entirety of the tar sands were exploited it would raise global temperatures 0.64 degrees Fahrenheit (0.36 degrees Celsius). This represents around 45 percent of how much the world has warmed since the Industrial Revolution.
“Oil sands mining is frequently criticized as a carbon-intensive means of acquiring oil. Its contribution to the global carbon imbalance has provoked numerous calls to slow oil sands development, including, most recently, a letter to Canada’s prime minister signed by eight Nobel Peace Laureates,” the authors write.
Criticism of the tar sands does not rest on carbon emissions alone. The tar sands has resulted in the destruction of pristine environments, consumes massive amounts of freshwater, and is allegedly linked to high cancer rates in nearby communities. The mines themselves have been dubbed the world’s largest industrial project.
Still the Canadian government, under Prime Minister Stephen Harper, has relentlessly pursued the expansion of the mines and is now pushing controversial pipelines to bring tar sands oil to a global market either south through the U.S. (the Keystone XL Pipeline) or west to the coast of British Colombia. The government argues exploiting the full-scale of the tar sands is essential to the Canadian economy.
by Deep Green Resistance News Service | Mar 11, 2012 | Biodiversity & Habitat Destruction, Colonialism & Conquest, Indigenous Autonomy
By Edward Helmore / The Guardian
Of the many projects commissioned by the Obama administration to showcase its commitment to renewable energy, few are as grandly futuristic as the multibillion-dollar solar power projects under construction across broad swaths of desert on the California-Arizona border.
But at least two developments, including the $1bn, 250-megawatt Genesis Solar near Blythe in the lower Colorado river valley and the Solar Millennium project, are beset with lengthy construction delays, while others are facing legal challenges lodged by environmental groups and Native American groups who fear damage to the desert ecology as well as to ancient rock art and other sacred heritage sites.
Out on the stony desert floor, Native Americans say, are sites of special spiritual significance, specifically involving the flat-tailed horned toad and the desert tortoise.
“This is where the horny toad lives,” explains Alfredo Figueroa, a small, energetic man and a solo figure of opposition who could have sprung from the pages of a Carlos Castaneda novel, pointing to several small burrows. Figueroa is standing several hundred metres into the site of Solar Millennium, a project backed by the Cologne-based Solar Millennium AG. The firm, which has solar projects stretching from Israel to the US, was last month placed in the hands of German administrators and its assets listed for disposal.
Figueroa is delighted with the news. “Of all the creatures, the horny toad is the most sacred to us because he’s at the centre of the Aztec sun calendar,” he says. “And the tortoise also, who represents Mother Earth. They can’t survive here if the developers level the land, because they need hills to burrow into.”
Figueroa, 78, a Chemehuevi Indian and historian with La Cuna de Aztlán Sacred Sites Protection Circle, has become one of the most vocal critics of the solar programme and expresses some unusually bold claims as to the significance of this valley: he claims it is the birthplace of the Aztec and Mayan systems of belief. He points out the depictions of a toad and a tortoise on a facsimile of the Codex Borgia, one of a handful of divinatory manuscripts written before the Spanish conquest.
On a survey of the 2,400-hectare site Figueroa points out a giant geoglyph, an earth carving he says represents Kokopelli, a fertility deity often depicted as a humpbacked flute player with antenna-like protrusions on his head. Kokopelli, he says, will surely be disturbed if the development here resumes.
The area is known for giant geoglyphs, believed by some to date back 10,000 years. Gesturing towards the mountains, he also describes Cihuacoatl – a pregnant serpent woman – he sees shaped in the rock formations. All of this, he says, amounts to why government-fast-tracked solar programmes in the valley, where temperatures can reach 54C, should be abandoned. It is a matter of their very survival.
“We are traditional people – the people of the cosmic tradition,” Figueroa explains. “The Europeans came and did a big number on us. They tried to destroy us. But they were not able to destroy our traditions, and it’s because of our traditions and our mythology that we’ve been able to survive. If we’d blended in with the Wasps – the white Anglo-Saxon Protestants – we’d have been lost long ago.”
At the Genesis Solar site, 20 miles west, Florida-based NextEra has begun to develop an 810-hectare site. The brackets that will hold the reflecting mirrors stand like sentinels. Backed by a $825m department of energy loan, Genesis Solar is planned as a centrepiece of the administration’s renewable energy programme, with enough generating capacity to power 187,500 homes.
But local Native American groups collectively known as the Colorado River Indian Tribes are demanding that 80 hectares of the development be abandoned after prehistoric grinding stones were found on a layer of ashes they say is evidence of a cremation site “too sacred to disturb”.
Read more from The Guardian: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/mar/11/solar-power-mojave-desert-tribes
by Deep Green Resistance News Service | Mar 6, 2012 | Biodiversity & Habitat Destruction, Mining & Drilling
By Oliver Milman / The Guardian
A UN environmental team has arrived in Australia for a crunch 10-day assessment of the Great Barrier Reef, warning that the coral ecosystem is at a “crossroads” due to the soaring activity of the mining industry in the World Heritage Area.
The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (Unesco) visit comes amid fears that the reef’s world heritage listing, which it has held since 1981, could be placed in jeopardy after rapid escalation in coal exports and gas exploration.
“The Great Barrier Reef is definitely at a crossroad and decisions that will be taken over the next one, two, three years might potentially be crucial for the long-term conservation [of the reef],” said Fanny Douvere, from Unesco’s World Heritage marine programme.
Australia’s coal boom is set to open up the previously undeveloped Galilee Basin in central Queensland, greatly increasing the number of developments along the state’s coast, where the 1,800-mile reef stretches.
The proposed infrastructure includes Abbott Point, which would become the largest coal export port in the world.
At full capacity, the expansion would see more than 10,000 coal-laden ships a year cross the Great Barrier Reef by the end of the decade – a sizeable increase on the 1,722 vessels that entered the World Heritage Area in 2011.
Environmentalists are concerned that ships navigating reef passageways – many of which are narrower than the English Channel – will run aground, as a Chinese vessel did in 2010, tearing a two-mile gash into the coral and spilling several tonnes of oil.
There are also warnings that the reef’s six species of turtle, including the endangered loggerhead and Olive Ridley turtles, and the snubfin dolphin, Australia’s only endemic dolphin, would be affected by any mass industrialisation of the Queensland coast.
Read more from The Guardian: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/mar/06/great-barrier-reef-mining-boom
by Deep Green Resistance News Service | Mar 5, 2012 | Biodiversity & Habitat Destruction, Toxification
By Dahr Jamail / Al Jazeera
Hundreds of thousands of people living along the US Gulf Coast have hung their economic lives on lawsuits against BP.
Fishermen, in particular, are seeing their way of life threatened with extinction – both from lack of an adequate legal settlement and collapsing fisheries.
One of these people, Greg Perez, an oyster fisherman in the village of Yscloskey, Louisiana, has seen a 75 per cent decrease in the amount of oysters he has been able to catch.
“Since the spill, business has been bad,” he said. “Sales and productivity are down, our state oyster grounds are gone, and we are investing personal money to rebuild oyster reefs, but so far it’s not working.”
Perez, like so many Gulf Coast commercial fisherman, has been fishing all his life. He said those who fish for crab and shrimp are “in trouble too”, and he is suing BP for property damage for destroying his oyster reefs, as well as for his business’ loss of income.
People like Perez make it possible for Louisiana to provide 40 per cent of all the seafood caught in the continental US.
But Louisiana’s seafood industry, valued at about $2.3bn, is now fighting for its life.
‘The shrimp are all dead’
Perez is not alone.
“They said they’d make things right and they never did,” said Nicholas Harris, a fourth-generation oyster fisherman in eastern Louisiana. “Business has been s****y, and BP kept low-balling us with how much money they said they’d give us for compensation, so we got our attorneys involved.”
Harris, like Perez, is suing the oil giant for property damage and loss of income.
His family has a 4,000-acre private lease for oysters, but it was destroyed when the State of Louisiana diverted fresh water from the Mississippi River in a failed attempt to flush BP’s oil from the oyster fishing grounds in his area.
The situation in Mississippi for shrimpers is nearly as grim.
“I was at a BP coastal restoration meeting yesterday and they tried to tell us they searched 6,000 square miles of the seafloor and found no oil, thanks to Mother Nature,” Tuan Dang, a shrimper, told Al Jazeera while standing on a dock full of shrimp boats that would normally be out shrimping this time of year.
Song Vu, a shrimp boat captain for 20 years, has not tried to shrimp for weeks, and is simply hoping that there will be shrimp to catch next season.
His experience during his last shrimping attempts left him depressed.
“The shrimp are all dead,” he told Al Jazeera. “Everything is dead.”
Read more from Al Jazeera: http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2012/03/20123571723894800.html
by Deep Green Resistance News Service | Mar 5, 2012 | Biodiversity & Habitat Destruction, Indigenous Autonomy, Obstruction & Occupation
By Polinizaciones
“This is not done here, we will continue to fight, but this feels worse than when the humans destroy the tree in the movie AVATAR,” lamented Luisa Aguas, from the local community organization Comunidad. On March 3 at approximately 5:37pm, Emgesa, affiliate of Spanish-Italian Energy Giant Enel-Endesa, announcedthat they had successfully begun the diverting of the Guacahayo-Yuma-Magdalena River from its natural course as part of the construction of the Quimbo Hydroelectric Project in Huila, Colombia. Project Manager Julio Santafé told local press that late Sunday the remaining rocks and dirt will be excavated from the tunnel where the river will be diverted through to enable the next phase of the project of building the dam. The complete diverting of the river should be completed by Monday.
“The diverting of the River will only make us stronger and will for sure, lead to the death of Emgesa” said Miller Dussan, ASOQUIMBO Investigator and Professor of the South Colombian University, next to the highway during the meeting. Dussan shared that “Senate Vice-President Alexander Lopez has already released his questionnaire investigating the Minister of the Interior, German Vargas Lleras, for claiming he could not do anything about the violent removals on the [Feb.] 14th and 15th when later the Mayor of Paicol informed that he was pressured to do so by Vargas Lleras. Vargas Lleras brother is José Antonio Vargas Lleras who is the director of CODENSA the Colombian affiliate that owns and operates Endesa affiliates Bogotá Electrical Company and Emgesa.
After being pushed back over a month from protests and strikes held by affected local populations by the dam, Saturday’s diverting was programmed for the morning. However, multiple direct actions in the area of the construction delayed the diverting to the late afternoon. Nearly 300 hundred campesinos, indigenous, students and youth faced off with riot police at the construction sites entrance near the damaged Paso del Colegio Bridge closing off traffic to the entrance of the site, eventually marching to the national highway. At the same time around 90 fisher-people up river of the dam site occupied the tunnel and surrounding beaches until they were apprehended and detained for some time before being released. The group that marched to the highway held a meeting and blockade until the end of the day and there is currently still an encampment of fisher-people up river of the site. Throughout the day internet cyber-activist Anonymous, as part of #OpQuimbo, was blocking the website for the Ministry of Mines, Emgesa and the Huila regional government.
Saturday’s actions were part of a series of protests and direct actions called for by the Association of the Affected of the Quimbo Hydroelectric Project –ASOQUIMBO that have been happening globally over the last week. In Huila the towns of Gigante, Garzón, La Plata and regional capitol Neiva, has seen thousands of grade-school students and youth take to the streets in marches paralyzing those urban centers. On national level solidarity actions in Bogotá, Cali, Pereira, Mocoa, and Medellin have taken place with calls to “flood the Ministry of Environment”. Internationally the support has come over the last week from protests or visits at Colombian Embassies in Miami, Washington DC & New York City, United States; Buenos Aires, Argentina and in London, UK. This next week there are more actions planned for Barcelona, Spain and second protest planned in Rome, Italy at the Enel Offices. All the actions have been in solidarity with the people of Huila and calling for a suspension of the Quimbo Dam and an end to the State violence used against protesters.
Since the violent removals of protesters from the bank of the river in Domingo Arias, Paicol on February 14 and 15, President Santos has publicly claimed that riot police used completely “normal procedures” and made no mention of the 7 people wounded, including one person who lost his right eye. He also stated that the “progress of the country would not be held back by personal interests”. During the day´s actions President Santo´s told media that the protests are “infiltrated by guerrillas” and “people not from the area”.
This comes a day after that President Santos receives the Hero of Environmental Conservation Award in Cartagena, presented to him by pro-business environmental organization Conservation International (CI). CI is best known for helping environmentally destructive corporations green-wash their image, while also being accused by indigenous communities of acts of biopiracy. Last week the new ranking for the 2012 Environmental Performance Index (EPI) of the world´s countries was released by Yale University and Colombia had dropped 17 spots (EPI).
During Saturday´s mobilization the Minister of Mines and Energy, Mauricio Cárdenas, told national media, that three of the country’s major hydroelectric projects—Ituango in Antioquia, Amoyá in Tolima and the Quimbo—were all being threatened with “sabotage” by political and armed forces opposed to the projects.
On a continental level, these mobilizations against hydroelectric projects have increased in recent months throughout South and Central America. Just last month protesters of the Ngobe-Buglé people were brutalized and left two people dead in protests in Panamá against mining and a planned Dam and the conflicts with Brazil´s mega dams in the Amazon Basin such as Belo Monte are on-going. In addition to the Quimbo Dam, Endesa is also damming rivers and creating multiple conflicts within Mapuche Territory along the Bio Bio River in Southern Chile and along the Chixoy River in Mayan Territory of Guatemala.
Also Saturday, the National Treasury announced that starting next week prosecutors from the Environmental Crimes and Anti-Corruption Unit will be opening an investigation to look into possible irregularities with the U$334 million contract that the Colombian government signed with companies Emgesa and Impregilo for the Quimbo Hydroelectric Project . The prosecutors will also look into allegations of environmental destruction, forced displacement and threats to local inhabitants. In the evening further south in the municipality of Timaná, approximately 60 milometers from the Quimbo site and the site of a future dam Emgesa hopes to build in Huila in the Pericongo Canyon, an earthquake hit the area with a rating of 3.5 on the Richter scale.
This week a statement is expected from the Comptroller’s Office regarding an on-going investigation since January of irregularities in the company’s census, compensation and resettlement of the affected population.
More marches are expected regionally and internationally on Tuesday, March 6 and ASOQUIMBO is maintaining its call for solidarity direct actions. Regionally the communities in resistance prepare for the next steps in the struggle for the defense of the Upper Guacahayo-Yuma-Magdalena River Valley.
While riding in the back of a truck in the rain leaving the site of the day´s actions, unemployed day laborer and part time fisher-woman Ximena Chavarro shared that “The State is leaving us very few options. It is disregarding and abusing its own laws and due process that protect us the inhabitants, our territory and the river which is everyone’s all to be able to secure Uribe´s ‘investor confidence’. Right now we all feel so violated and furious that we understand why others in similar situations resort to violence even though we have never wanted to go there.”
