Month: March 2013

Came across this video a few days ago, but there’s not a lot of media on this. Looks like another battleground and chokepoint for tar sands bitumen.

If anyone has more information, let me know.

Censored News:

For over two weeks now, Nizhawendaamin Inaakiminaan (We Love Our Land) has been occupying land directly above four pipelines across an easement that Enbridge has claimed since 1949 when the company, then called Lakehead Pipe Line Company, installed the first of four pipelines across land owned by the Red Lake Band of Chippewa despite not having an easement from the Red Lake Chippewa Nation. These pipes carry toxic tar sands, Bakken oil, as well as Canadian crude. By threatening the local lakes, these pipes endanger the lives and economic livelihood of Red Lake Band members.

The grassroots group of Red Lake Chippewa and Anishinaabe Indians is joined by blockaders and solidarity activists determined to shut down the pipelines, hold Enbridge to account for stealing land, and protest Enbridge’s proposed expansion of the nearby Alberta Clipper toxic tar sands pipeline.

Located in Northern Minnesota near the town of Leonard, the occupation of the Red Lake land began Thursday, February 28. Requests to Enbridge regarding internal safety regulations related to above-ground activity over their pipelines resulted in a spokesperson claiming that activity such as fires and the construction of permanent structures like fences and houses would result in a pipeline needing to be shut down as documented in this viral video.(above)

Most band members were unaware of Enbridge’s illegal activity until the encampment started. “When I was informed about the illegal trespassing of the company Enbridge on my homeland, I knew there was something I could do. I started calling as many Red Lakers as I could to try and make them aware,” said Angie Palacio who initiated the encampment with the support of the Indigenous Environmental Network.”

Honor the Earth:

What happens when you’ve had enough of oil companies illegally passing pipelines through your tribal land? You practice self-determination and your sovereign rights to occupy that land. That is exactly what a group of Red Lake Tribal members are doing.

In a small town called Leonard in northern Minnesota, a traditional camp has been set up by Red Lake tribal members, allies and supporters. Lodging is in a tipi and a sacred fire is burning 24/7. The occupation started Thursday afternoon, February 28th and is still going strong today, Sunday, March 3rd. There is a safety law concerning oil pipelines that states nothing or no one can be above a pipeline for 72 hours or the pipeline will have to be shut off. The occupation is seeking to stop the oil flowing through their pipeline, for good. The 72-hour mark passed today, but no pipelines were turned off.

In talking to a few of the Red Lake tribal members, they explained this occupation is purely against the Enbridge Company and its pipeline. There are no ulterior motives here except to stand in solidarity with the First Nations Cree who are facing blatant environmental destruction on their homelands caused by the Canadian Tar Sands.
Some of the oil running through the veins of this pipeline come from the tar sands region. Tar sands oil is sent to Minneapolis, MN, one of many cities refining the bitumen oil and is dispersed across the nation through several different pipelines,this Enbridge pipeline being one of them.

Chattanooga Times Free Press:

NASHVILLE — In advance of legislative hearings today on a bill banning “mountaintop” removal of coal in the state, the Tennessee Conservative Union on Tuesday launched a blistering ad attack on the practice and charged the Volunteer State will “become the first state in America to permit a communist Chinese company to destroy our mountains.”

TCU Chairman Lloyd Daugherty said, “Every Tennessean, regardless of political affiliation, should be appalled by the idea of allowing the red Chinese to destroy the very mountains crossed by Daniel Boone.”

While Tennessee is “a proud red [Republican] state … the Tennessee Conservative Union is not willing to go that red,” Daugherty said.

He noted that while the group, which bills itself as the state’s largest and oldest conservative group, is “100 percent pro-coal, [however] our organization does not support destroying our mountain heritage.”

He charged that using explosives on ridges above 2,000 feet “kills mining jobs because it takes fewer workers to blow up a mountain.”

The ad alludes to a Wall Street Journal MarketWatch article from last May that revealed China-based Guizhou Gouchuang Energy Holdings Group said it had raised $616 million in a private placement to be used mainly to acquire and develop Triple H Coal Co. in Jacksboro, Tenn.

That would make Guizhou Gouchuang the first Chinese company to invest in coal in America, MarketWatch reported.

Continue reading “No Dang Commie is Going to Blow Up Our Mountains. That’s Our Job.”

Every once in a while you see something that you just kind of feel is going to start a wave.  I felt that way the first time I saw an Imac. I’m getting that tingle up my leg again.

New at the Geneva Auto show.

Green Auto Blog:

This video might rank up there with Katrina & The Waves’ “Walking On Sunshine” when it comes to putting the viewer in a good mood. Toyota does the honors by showing off a quartet of its all-electric i-Road concept vehicles literally sashaying through what appears to be a French seaside town in glorious digital effect style.
Narrow roads, stone streets, windy oceanside drives and traffic congestion are no match for these happy little vehicles, which are 850 millimeters wide (that’s 33.4 inches to you and me, about as wide as a baseball bat is long). If you were wondering how the concept sways back and forth, it’s because of what the Japanese automaker calls its “Active Lean” technology. Note how the fenders move up and down through the turns. “iRoll, iRock, i-Road” indeed.

Autoblog:

We’ve seen plenty of three-wheeled creations in our day, but none quite like the Toyota i-Road Concept. The “personal mobility vehicle” offers seating for two with driver and passenger positioned in a tandem position. While that may sound more like a motorcycle than a car, the closed cockpit means riders don’t need a helmet. The design also takes a page from the 2008 Peugeot HyMotion3 Concept with an articulating front suspension that allows the driver to lean through corners thanks to “Active Lean” self-balancing technology. Unlike the funky Pug, however, the i-Road is a fully electric plug-in vehicle.

While there are just five-horsepower on hand from an electric motor, the i-Road should serve up a range of around 30 miles thanks to its lithium-ion battery, and Toyota claims the cells can be topped off in three hours with a “conventional domestic power supply.” Sounds majestic.

Katrina and the Waves below:

Continue reading “Toyota I-Road. I-Want One.”

A perennial climate denial crock is that there is something wrong with the temperature records of the last century, because evil scientists are not taking into account placement of thermometers, urban heat islands, etc.

New research has re-created the record entirely with “proxy” data – evidence from natural systems which are affected by temperature – that, again, confirms the thermometers. The video above is a good proxy primer.

National Climatic Data Center:

A new compilation of temperature records etched into ice cores, old corals, and lake sediment layers reveals a pattern of global warming from 1880 to 1995 comparable to the global warming trend recorded by thermometers. This finding, reported by a team of researchers from NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center, the University of South Carolina, the University of Colorado, and the University of Bern in Switzerland, resolves some of the uncertainty associated with thermometer records, which can be affected by land use changes, shifts in station locations, variations in instrumentation, and more.

“Using only temperature-sensitive paleoclimate proxy records, un-calibrated to instrument data, it is possible to conclude that the warming trend in the global surface temperature record is supported by independent evidence,” said David Anderson, head of the Paleoclimatology Branch at NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center and lead author of the paper. The new research is detailed in “Global Warming in an Independent Record of the Past 130 Years,” published online this week in Geophysical Research Letters.

The thermometer-based global surface temperature record provides meaningful evidence of global warming over the past century, and it is critical to have independent analyses, like this one, to verify that record. For this analysis, the team used environmentally sensitive proxies to compile a temperature record that is independent of thermometer-based records. Proxies such as coral growth layers, shells of tiny marine plankton, lake sediments, ice cores, and caves are biologically, physically, or chemically connected to environmental conditions. For example, coral skeletons and plankton shells record temperature changes in the ratio of oxygen isotopes.

Continue reading “Measuring Temps – No Thermometers”

Above, Oklahoma farmer Clay Pope, breaks the stereotype – an Oklahoma farmer pleads with the President to recognize climate change. (this was recorded before the State of the Union address)

Anthony Leiserowitz’ “6 Americas” study on climate change awareness has become the benchmark for monitoring changes in public opinion on climate issues. There is now a new update, which tells us what some observers already suspected – climate change skepticism topped out a few years ago, and understanding of the threat is on the rise.
In this model, the populace is divided into 6 groups based on level of engagement and awareness of the climate issue.

The category that Yale Pollsters call “Dismissive” on climate change has now shrunk  to 8 percent of the population. That would be made up almost entirely of AM talk show hosts and republican congressmen.  The segment that they refer to as “alarmed” has increased to a way too low 16 percent, but moving in the right direction.

Yale Project on Climate Change Communication:

   Today we are releasing the fifth report from our latest national survey. In Global Warming’s Six Americas, September 2012 we report that the Alarmed have grown from 10 percent of the American adult population in 2010 to 16 percent in 2012. At the same time, the Dismissive have decreased in size, from 16 percent in 2010 to 8 percent in 2012.
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As of September 2012, the largest audience segment is the Concerned (29%), who are moderately certain that global warming is occurring, harmful and human-caused; they tend to view global warming as a threat to other nations and future generations, but not as a personal threat or a threat to their community. They support societal action on climate change, but are unlikely to have engaged in political activism.

The Cautious (25%) – the second-largest group – are likely to believe that climate change is real, but are not certain, and many are uncertain about the cause. They are less worried than the Concerned, and view global warming as a distant threat. They have given little thought to the issue and are unlikely to have strongly held opinions about what, if anything, should be done.

The third largest group – the Alarmed (16%) – are very certain global warming is occurring, understand that it is human-caused and harmful, and strongly support societal action to reduce the threat. They discuss the issue more often, seek more information about it, and are more likely to act as global warming opinion leaders than the other segments. They are the most likely of the six groups to have engaged in political activism on the issue, although only about a quarter have done so.

These three groups – the Alarmed, Concerned and Cautious – currently comprise 70 percent of the American public. Although they range in certainty about the reality and dangers of climate change, they are similarly inclined to believe it is a real threat that should be addressed. Thus, some level of support for action is the predominant view among the majority of Americans.

Continue reading “Consensus on Climate Grows Even Stronger”

Watch this, and ask yourself, who might be writing that script?

All manner of vapors, demonic possession, bad juju, soured milk and frightened horses have been blamed on wind turbines, especially by phony, fossil funded “grass roots” organization that are, let’s say, tea party top-heavy in their views. If a fraction of it were true, we’d be seeing thousands of body bags coming out of Germany and Denmark.

Fortunately – and, you already knew this – its all bullshit.

Guardian:

Sickness being attributed to wind turbines is more likely to have been caused by people getting alarmed at the health warnings circulated by activists, an Australian study has found.

Complaints of illness were far more prevalent in communities targeted by anti-windfarm groups, said the report’s author, Simon Chapman, professor of public health at Sydney University. His report concludes that illnesses being blamed on windfarms are more than likely caused by the psychological effect of suggestions that the turbines make people ill, rather than by the turbines themselves.

“If windfarms were intrinsically unhealthy or dangerous in some way, we would expect to see complaints applying to all of them, but in fact there is a large number where there have been no complaints at all,” Chapman said.

The report, which is the first study of the history of complaints about windfarms in Australia, found that 63% had never been subject to noise or health complaints. In the state of Western Australia, where there are 13 windfarms, there have been no complaints.

The study shows that the majority of complaints (68%) have come from residents near five windfarms that have been heavily targeted by opponent groups. The report says more than 80% of complaints about health and noise began after 2009 when the groups “began to add health concerns to their wider opposition”.

Desmogblog:

ANTI-WIND farm activists around the world have created a silent bogeymanthey claim can cause everything from sickness and headaches to herpes, kidney damage and cancers.
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Despite the ubiquitous nature of infrasound, anti-wind farm groups such as Australia’s Waubra Foundation like people to think that it’s only inaudible infrasound from wind turbines which might send residents to their sick beds.

But two new studies suggest the cause of health complaints by people living near wind farms could in fact be down to the scare campaign of the anti-wind groups and reports about such scares in the media.

Continue reading “Wind Turbine Syndrome is Bullshit”