by Deep Green Resistance News Service | Jul 16, 2012 | Mining & Drilling, Obstruction & Occupation
By Laurie Tuffrey / The Guardian
Greenpeace activists shut down 74 Shell petrol stations in Edinburgh and London in a protest against the company’s plans to drill for oil in the Arctic that saw 24 campaigners arrested on Monday.
The campaigners are attempting to shut off petrol to London’s 105 Shell stations and Edinburgh’s 14. Seventy-one have been closed in London and three in Edinburgh.
There have been 24 confirmed arrests, 18 in London and six in Edinburgh. The police in Edinburgh have reportedly parked cars outside all Shell stations across the capital.
Protesters have scaled the roof of the Shell station on Queenstown Road near Battersea Park in London and on Dalry Road in Edinburgh, with police and fire crews attending the scene in Edinburgh.
Activists arrived at the Battersea Park branch at 6.45am and used the station’s barriers to close down the forecourt. They have since covered the Shell sign with a Save the Arctic banner and positioned a life-sized polar bear model on the station’s roof.
The activists are shutting down the stations by using an emergency shut-off switch to stop petrol going to the pumps and then removing a fuse to delay it being switched on again. The organisation has since posted a picture of an activist posting one of the fuses to Shell’s head of Arctic drilling, with the message: “We’re being careful not to destroy property. Even the carefully removed components will go back to Shell.”
The protest is part of Greenpeace’s Save the Arctic campaign, which is aiming to prevent oil drilling and industrial fishing in the Arctic by having the region recognised as a world park. The organisation understands that Shell is going to begin drilling in the Alaskan Arctic in the coming weeks, with the Russian oil company Gazprom also due to work in the region.
The campaign group’s website is running a TV talkshow-style live broadcast covering the protest and showing interviews and videos about the Arctic campaign.
Sara Ayech, a campaigner at the Battersea Park station, said: “It’s time to draw a line in the ice and tell Shell to stop. That’s why today we’re going to shut down all of Shell’s petrol stations in the capital cities of London and Edinburgh. We’ve got dozens of people who will hit over 100 Shell garages throughout the day.”
Graham Thompson is another campaigner who helped shut down the station: “The staff were very pleasant and very reasonable. Obviously they’re not entirely happy about what’s going on but they’ve responded in a very civilised way.
“Obviously, we need to ratchet up the pressure, we need to let Shell know that this isn’t just a publicity campaign, we’re going to put pressure on them until they agree to stop what they’re doing,” said Thompson, commenting on future plans.
Read more from The Guardian: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/jul/16/greenpeace-activists-shell-petrol
by Deep Green Resistance News Service | Jul 12, 2012 | Mining & Drilling, Toxification
By Abrahm Lustgarten / ProPublica
New research has concluded that salty, mineral-rich fluids deep beneath Pennsylvania’s natural gas fields are likely seeping upward thousands of feet into drinking water supplies.
Though the fluids were natural and not the byproduct of drilling or hydraulic fracturing, the finding further stokes the red-hot controversy over fracking in the Marcellus Shale, suggesting that drilling waste and chemicals could migrate in ways previously thought to be impossible.
The study, conducted by scientists at Duke University and California State Polytechnic University at Pomona and released today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, tested drinking water wells and aquifers across Northeastern Pennsylvania. Researchers found that, in some cases, the water had mixed with brine that closely matched brine thought to be from the Marcellus Shale or areas close to it.
No drilling chemicals were detected in the water, and there was no correlation between where the natural brine was detected and where drilling takes place.
Still, the brine’s presence – and the finding that it moved over thousands of vertical feet — contradicts the oft-repeated notion that deeply buried rock layers will always seal in material injected underground through drilling, mining, or underground disposal.
“The biggest implication is the apparent presence of connections from deep underground to the surface,” said Robert Jackson, a biology professor at the Nicholas School of the Environment at Duke University and one of the study’s authors. “It’s a suggestion based on good evidence that there are places that may be more at risk.”
The study is the second in recent months to find that the geology surrounding the Marcellus Shale could allow contaminants to move more freely than expected. A paper published by the journal Ground Water in April used modeling to predict that contaminants could reach the surface within 100 years – or fewer if the ground is fracked.
Last year, some of the same Duke researchers found that methane gas was far more likely to leak into water supplies in places adjacent to drilling.
Read more from TruthOut: http://truth-out.org/news/item/10244-new-study-fluids-from-marcellus-shale-likely-seeping-into-pa-drinking-water
by Deep Green Resistance News Service | Jul 12, 2012 | Mining & Drilling
By Dawn Paley / Vancouver Media Co-op
Paraguay’s major newspaper is reporting today that the government of Paraguay–which came to power after a coup on June 22–has agreed to resume negotiations with Montreal-based Rio Tinto Alcan for a $4 billion aluminum plant.
The announcement follows a coup that led to the deposition of President Fernando Lugo, who was replaced by Federico Franco, head of the right-wing Paraguayan Liberal Party. Corporate media have called the coup a “lightning-quick impeachment,” but Lugo himself has said his removal constitutes an “institutional coup.” He was deposed after a rapid political trial which took place over a total of 32 hours.
According to Lugo, the coup was the work of a handful of economic elites and members of the political old guard. It appears there are Canadians among those preparing to make good off of the political upheaval in Paraguay.
Prior to the coup, Montreal based Rio Tinto Alcan was in negotiations with the Lugo government regarding the company’s plans to build an aluminum smelter in Paraguay. Talks, however, had stalled because of a disagreement on the price Rio Tinto Alcan would pay for energy.
“Evidently there were negotiations between Lugo’s government and Rio Tinto [Alcan], not negotiations as to whether we would permit the arrival or Rio Tinto [Alcan] or not,” Abel Enrique Irala, a researcher with the Paraguay Peace and Justice Service (Serapaj) told the Media Co-op this morning from the capital, Asunción. “The arrival of the company was a given. The negotiations were about the use of energy and the price or subsidy that the company would be granted to the transnational.”
Irala noted that the negotiations were advancing slowly, and were becoming increasingly part of a national public debate. “Now, with Franco in power, the negotiations are closed, taking place behind four walls as we say here, and will certainly happen more quickly,” said Irala. “The government will certainly be more charitable towards Rio Tinto Alcan and their work in the country.”
Reuters reported last week that since the swearing in of the new finance minister following the coup, the government planned to sign a decree shortly to allow the resumption of negotiations regarding the smelter. That decree passed today, authorizing the coup government to negotiate with Rio Tinto Alcan.
Rio Tinto Alcan doesn’t appear to be the only corporation taking advantage of Lugo’s ouster. “One can deduce that [Franco] has already met with regional, national and international business people, who represent transnational power,” said Irala.
From Vancouver Media Co-op: http://www.mediacoop.ca/story/rio-tinto-alcan-talks-paraguay-coup-government/11625
by Deep Green Resistance News Service | Jul 7, 2012 | Agriculture, Biodiversity & Habitat Destruction, Climate Change, Mining & Drilling, Strategy & Analysis, Toxification
By Derrick Jensen, for Orion Magazine
There isn’t a chance in hell that something like the original Wilderness Act could be passed today. Environmentalists today are too much on the defensive. Sure, there have been green platforms and policy papers, but nothing I’ve read matches the urgency of this moment. So I decided to draft a declaration. It goes like this:
We, the citizens of the United States of America, hold these truths to be self-evident: that a rapid decline in living conditions is taking place all around us; that compromise is no longer an adequate way forward (and perhaps never was); that more drastic measures must be taken immediately in order to preserve a livable planet. From these beliefs springs the following list of demands:
We demand that the United States Constitution be rewritten to explicitly prohibit the privatization of profits and the externalization of costs by the wealthy, and to immediately grant both human and nonhuman communities full legal and moral rights. Corporations should no longer be considered persons under the law. Limited liability corporations must be immediately stripped of their limited liability protection. Those whose economic activities cause great harm—including great harm to the real, physical world—should be punished. Environmental Crimes Tribunals must be immediately put in place to try those who have significantly harmed the real, physical world. These tribunals should have the force of law and should be expected to impose punishment commensurate with the harm caused to the public and to the planet.
We demand the immediate, explicit, and legally binding recognition that perpetual growth is incompatible with life on a finite planet. Economic growth must stop, and economies must begin to contract. We demand acknowledgment that if we don’t begin this contraction voluntarily, it will take place against our will, and will cause untold misery.
We demand that overconsumption and overpopulation be addressed through bold and serious measures, but not by approaches that are racist, colonialist, or misogynist. Right now, more than 50 percent of the children who are born into this world are unwanted. We demand that all children be wanted. The single most effective strategy for making certain that all children are wanted is the liberation of women. Therefore we demand that women be given absolute economic, sexual, and reproductive freedom, and that all forms of reproductive control become freely available to all.
There is consensus among the scientific community that in order to prevent catastrophic climate change beyond what the industrial economy has already set in motion, net carbon emissions must be reduced by 80 percent as soon as possible. Because we wish to continue to live on a habitable planet, we demand a carbon reduction of 20 percent of current emissions per year over the next four years.
Dwayne Andreas, former CEO of Archer Daniels Midland, has said, “There isn’t one grain of anything in the world that is sold in a free market. Not one! The only place you see a free market is in the speeches of politicians.” He’s right. Capitalism is based almost entirely on subsidies. For example, commercial fishing fleets worldwide receive more in subsidies than the entire value of their catch. Timber corporations, oil corporations, banks—all would collapse immediately without massive government subsidies and bailouts. Therefore, we demand that the United States government stop subsidizing environmentally and socially destructive activities, and shift those same subsidies into activities that restore biotic communities and that promote local self-sufficiency and vibrant local economies.
We demand an immediate and permanent halt to all extractive and destructive activities: fracking, mountaintop removal, tar sands production, nuclear power, and offshore drilling chief among them. The list of activities to be halted must also include the manufacture of photovoltaic panels, windmills, hybrid cars, and so on. We must find nondestructive ways of becoming a sustainable society.
We demand an immediate end to monocrop agriculture, one of the most destructive activities humans have ever perpetrated. All remaining native forests must be immediately and completely protected. We demand an end to clearcutting, “leave tree,” “seed tree,” “shelter tree,” and all other “even-aged management” techniques, no matter what they are called, and no matter what rationales are put forward by the timber industry and the government to justify them. Likewise, we demand that all remaining prairies and wetlands be permanently protected.
Further, we demand that all damaged lands be restored, from the redwood forest to the Gulf Stream waters. Because soil is the basis of terrestrial life, no activities should be allowed that destroy topsoil. All properties over sixty acres must have soil surveys performed every ten years, and if they have suffered any decrease in health or depth of topsoil, the lands shall be confiscated and ownership transferred to those who will build up soil.
We demand that no activities that draw down aquifers be allowed, and that all polluted or compromised rivers and wetlands be restored. There are more than 2 million dams in the United States, more than 60,000 dams over thirteen feet tall and more than 70,000 dams over six and a half feet tall. If we removed one of these 70,000 dams each day, it would take 200 years to get rid of them all. Salmon don’t have that much time. Sturgeon don’t have that much time. Therefore, we demand that no more dams be built, and we demand the removal of five dams per day over the next forty years, beginning one year from today.
We demand that the United States make an annual survey of all endangered species to ascertain if they are increasing in number and range, and if they are not, we demand that steps be taken to make sure that they do. The U.S. government must be charged with the task of doing whatever is necessary to make sure that there are more migratory songbirds every year than the year before, that there are more native fish every year than the year before, more native reptiles and amphibians.
The United States must immediately withdraw from NAFTA, DR-CAFTA, and other so-called free trade agreements, because these agreements cause immeasurable and irreparable harm to working people, local economies. Likewise, we demand that the United States remove all support for the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, because these organizations promote and support vast infrastructure projects such as highways, dams, thermal power projects, and mines that disrupt or destroy entire biomes and dispossess and immiserate hundreds of thousands of people (in India alone, 50 million people have been displaced by large “development” projects).
From this day forward, the only conditions under which the United States of America should go to war is by a direct vote of more than 50 percent of U.S. citizens. Furthermore, we demand immediate closure of all U.S. military bases on foreign soil. All U.S. military personnel should be brought home within two years. The U.S. military budget must be reduced by 20 percent per year, until it reaches 20 percent of its current size. This will provide the “peace dividend” politicians promised us back when the Soviet Union collapsed, will balance the U.S. budget, and will more than pay for all necessary domestic programs, starting with biome repair and including food, shelter, and medical care for all.
In addition to the aforementioned, we demand that the U.S. government itself undergo a significant transformation in recognition of the fact that it can only be of, by, and for the people if it is concurrently of, by, and for the earth. And no, the fact that the animals and plants and natural communities don’t speak English is not a valid excuse for failing to provide for their well-being.
Once these demands have been met, we will come up with more, and then more, until we are living in a sane, just, and sustainable culture. We believe that such a culture is our birthright, both as human beings with inalienable rights and as animals who love our home. We have not forgotten that the Declaration of Independence states that when a government becomes destructive of our rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, then it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it.
From Orion Magazine: http://www.orionmagazine.org/index.php/articles/article/6916
by Deep Green Resistance News Service | Jul 7, 2012 | Mining & Drilling, NEWS
By Max Frankel / Think Progress
The 20th century was characterized by the frenzied acquisition, storage, and use of oil. But many experts believe that the 21st century will be remembered as the century of water.
One of the most alarming emerging issues is the symbiotic — and often conflicting — relationship between electricity generation and water.
A new report called “Burning Our Rivers: The Water Footprint of Electricity” details this relationship, illustrating the massive amounts of water resources used for electricity generation — particularly from fossil fuels and nuclear.
An average U.S. household’s monthly energy use (weighted by cooling technology and fuel mix) requires 39,829 gallons of water, or five times more than the direct residential water use of that same household…. Electricity—as we generate it today—depends heavily on access to free water. The impact to our freshwater resources is an external cost of electrical production. What the market considers ‘least cost’ electricity is often the most water intensive.
According to the U.S. Geological Survey, 53 percent of all the fresh surface water withdrawn for human consumption in 2005 was used for electricity generation.
While consumption in the U.S. is falling, coal is still the most dominant source of power in the country. It is also the single largest consumer of water resources:
A MWh of electricity generated by coal withdraws approximately 16,052 gallons and consumes approximately 692 gallons of water…. On average (a weighted average taking into account the current mix of cooling technologies being used at coal plants in the U.S.), coal-fired electricity requires the withdrawal of approximately 13,515 gallons and the consumption of 482 gallons of water per MWh for cooling purposes.
The water not used directly for power generation is used in mining coal and other treatment before burning, creating millions of gallons of “sludge” that can potentially pollute freshwater supplies.
Nuclear power is not much better:
Similar to coal-fired power plants, nuclear power plants traditionally operate with single-cycle cooling technologies, which are systematically more water intensive than all other thermodynamic cooling technologies. Additionally, because nuclear fission is less thermodynamically efficient than the combustion of coal, the water required to generate nuclear power is slightly greater than that of coal-fired power.
According to the report, Nuclear power plants “(withdraw) approximately 14,881 gallons and (consume) 572 gallons of water per MWh.” Large amounts of water are also used in the uranium mining process and for storage of fuel rods. In Georgia, for example, two large nuclear power plants use more water than all the water used by people living in Atlanta, Augusta and Savannah combined.
Read more from Think Progress: http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2012/07/02/508879/burning-rivers-how-coal-and-nuclear-are-sucking-up-our-fresh-water/
Photo by Ajay Pal Singh Atwal on Unsplash
by Deep Green Resistance News Service | Jul 5, 2012 | Mining & Drilling, Protests & Symbolic Acts, Repression at Home
By the Associated Press
A civilian was killed and a prominent anti-mining activist arrested in protests on Wednesday against Peru’s biggest gold mining project, further inflaming tensions after the government declared a state of emergency.
Peru’s prime minister, Oscar Valdés, announced the civilian’s death at a news conference in Lima but did not provide further details. It was the fourth protest-related death in two days.
Marco Arana, a former Roman Catholic priest, was arrested hours earlier in Cajamarca, one of three provinces where the state of emergency was declared. A video broadcast by a local TV channel showed riot police scooping him off a bench in the city’s central square and taking him away in a chokehold.
The 49-year-old veteran of anti-mining protests wrote on Twitter that “in the police station they hit me again, punches in the face, kidneys, insults”.
Chief local prosecutor Johnny Diaz told AP he had designated a prosecutor to investigate Arana’s claim. Diaz said Arana was arrested for organising meetings, an activity prohibited during a state of emergency. He said authorities had not issued any arrest warrants or made any mass arrests on Wednesday.
In addition to Cajamarca, the state of emergency was declared in two neighbouring provinces late on Tuesday after three people were killed during a violent protest in the region.
It was the second emergency declared in five weeks to quell the protests. A 30-day emergency period had just ended in Espinar, a highlands province near the former Incan capital of Cuzco. Two people were killed in the area on 29 May while protesting against a copper mine.
The focus of Tuesday’s protest is the $4.8bn (£2.5bn) Conga gold mining project, which was suspended late last year by US-based Newmont Mining Co. Protests were started by local residents who said the mine would hurt their water supplies.
Read more from The Guardian: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/jul/05/peru-anti-mining-protests-escalate
