Envirohoe

Just a hoe trying to save the planet

[a-joyfuljourney]

[nativenews]

A pipeline just spilled 176,000 gallons of oil near Standing Rock

A major pipeline spill has just occurred in North Dakota, where a rupture in the Belle Fourche Pipeline leaked 176,000 gallons of crude oil into a creek just 150 miles from the Standing Rock Očhéthi Šakówiŋ and the NoDAPL camp.

The leak is believed to have been caused by a slough of earth on a nearby hillside. It’s “unclear” why electronic monitoring equipment failed to alert the True Cos. oil company to the spill, which has traveled six miles down the Ash Coulee creek and has “fouled an unknown amount of private and U.S. Forest Service land along the waterway.”

Cleanup crews have recovered 37,000 gallons so far, but much of it remains trapped under the frozen river.

Oil spills have been a frequent occurrence in North Dakota, where True Cos. operates three pipelines. In the last ten years, 320,000 gallons of oil have leaked out, the vast majority of which was “never recovered.” The incident highlights just why the Standing Rock water protectors were fighting so determinedly against the proposed Dakota Access Pipeline, which would have not only desecrated sacred Očhéthi Šakówiŋ lands but also would have put local water sources in great danger from chemical contamination and spills.

While the Energy Transfer Partners have promised that sophisticated monitoring equipment would prevent spills, the failure of the devices on the Belle Fourche pipeline tell a very different story.

The Army Corps of Engineers denied an easement to Energy Transfer Partners last week, marking a huge victory for the protectors who had stood strong against horrifying violence from police and private security forces. This terrible oil spill confirms that the fears of the water protectors were well-founded and is a symbol of what little care fossil fuel corporations show for the natural environment.

[modern-politics111]

Another Pipeline Bursts Endangering Drinking Water Of 6 Million People – Same Company Behind Dakota Access Pipeline

While most of us are enjoying lower gasoline and natural gas prices these days – a big help to the family budget – it is increasingly difficult to defend the oil and gas industry when it keeps polluting our treasured natural resources. The most recent incident occurred in Pennsylvania, and it involves the same company behind the Dakota Access Pipeline, and which bulldozed ancient Native American ...

[oilchangeus-blog]

ExxonMobil May Have to Pay for Misleading the Public on Climate Change

Scientists at the biggest U.S. oil company understood as early as anyone that fossil fuel emissions were heating up the earth’s atmosphere.

[envirohoe-blog1]

Natural Godess Vibes. This is the closest my hair has been to its natural color in years!

[faehaseul]

Gov Orders Police To Cut Water Supply To Native Americans As Pipeline Protesters Skyrocket In Number

Thousands join protest camp as supporters are holding a rally in Washington D.C. on Wednesday outside of Army Corps hearing. Growing in number and spirit, the Standing Rock Sioux protest against the Dakota Access Pipeline is swiftly gaining strength ahead of a federal hearing on the controversial project. Support has spread across the country, and thousands have descended on the peaceful "prayer ...

200 fucking years and not a damn thing has changed.

These are human beings. 

Our brothers, our sisters, our siblings.

They will die.

THEY WILL DIE.

But the pipeline will be good for the economy, right?

[sexymarxist-deactivated20171011]

Action, now!

[inkedeninfinity]

The government did nothing about the armed anti government nuts in Oregon but jump to war strategies with Native Americans. This is so dangerous someone could easily die of dehydration in this heat. 

[mangopapi-deactivated20210928]

Smh fuck the Government

[kbjones-deactivated20260712]

If this makes you angry, sign the “We The People” petition at whitehouse.gov.  It needs 26,674 more signatures to prompt a response by the White House.   https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/stop-construction-dakota-access-pipeline-which-endangers-water-supply-native-american-reservations

[exotericenvironmentalism]

The amount of plastic finding its way into our environment, particularly the marine environment, poses a range of threats for the welfare of wildlife, the aesthetics of coastlines and beaches, and the food chain that we rely on. 

A useful perspective is provided in the article ‘Ocean plastic is likely disappearing into the food chain’ from the Guardian, including this pretty stark observation…

It’s difficult to appreciate the size of this deluge, so let me put it like this: left unabated, in the next decade our ocean will hold about one kilogram of plastic for every three kilograms of fish.

Top image: Some of the sources and quantities of plastics in our marine environments sourced from CIWM Journal (via Friends of the Earth Scotland)

Middle image: Marine Food Web via sciencelearn.org.nz, depicting the interdependence and links between animals in the marine food chain- including, ultimately, humans. Toxins and pollutants can be passed along this chain through the processes of bioaccumulation and biomagnification- an issue to consider in the context of increasing quantities of plastics entering the marine environment, and being consumed by animals are various stages of this food web.

Bottom image: Ultimately the issue is, perhaps, best captured in a cartoon. One of my favourites by Cartoon Ralph.

[oilchangeus-blog]

Exxon "Chose to Mislead": Granddaughter of Former Exxon Climate Scientist

Anna Kalinsky, the granddaughter of former Exxon climate scientist James Black, has berated the company for bankrolling climate change denial despite her grandfather's attempts to inform the company of the risks of burning fossil fuels for the global climate.

“In 1977 my grandfather was a senior scientist at Exxon. He warned Exxon executives that the world was just a few years away from needing to rethink our energy strategy to prevent destructive climate change

Instead, Exxon chose to mislead people about the risks of climate change – and continues to mislead people today. The company says they value their scientists and all the work they do, but that’s pretty hard to believe when they continue to fund organizations – both publicly and anonymously – that spread misinformation about the science.” - Anna Kalinsky

climatetruth.org/exxon

[oilchangeus-blog]

BREAKING NEWS: 17 attorneys general announce they are “exploring working together on key climate change-related initiatives, such as ongoing and potential investigations into whether fossil fuel companies misled investors and the public on the impact of climate change on their businesses.”

Sign the petition calling on all AGs to investigate Exxon for intentionally misleading the public on climate change: http://act.climatetruth.org/sign/states_investigate_Exxon/

‪#‎ExxonKnew‬

[think-progress]

Canada And The U.S. May Be About To Do Something Big On Climate

Everything you need to know about Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's visit to Washington next week.

Environmentalists cheered when Canada’s Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, rode a wave of popularity to the position last fall, replacing the pro-tar sands, anti-carbon regulation Steven Harper. Now, Trudeau is preparing for his first state visit to Washington, D.C., where the Prime Minister and President Obama are set to discuss climate change and trade next week.

[phroyd]

Don’t Be Fooled by Yesterday’s Headlines, EPA Finds Fracking Contaminates Drinking Water

Regarding fracking, EPA concluded that there were no “widespread, systemic impacts on drinking water resources” - an outrageous conclusion. In a shocking display of the power of oil and gas interests, they successfully blocked the agency from gathering data from direct monitoring of fracking operations. Rather than demanding that companies like Exxon (the largest fracker in the U.S.) or Chesapeake allow them to monitor water wells near fracking operations, the EPA caved to industry pressure.

Don’t be fooled. Headlines in the New York Times and other news media about the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) long-awaited study on the impacts of fracking on drinking water are another tragic case of not looking beyond the timid agency’s spin. Despite the lack of new substantive data and the limited scope of the study, the EPA did find instances of water contamination and outlined the areas where this could happen in the fracking process.

Rather than seriously undertaking its mission, the U.S. EPA’s headline and conclusions in the study reflect the agency’s on-going narrative about the safety of fracking. The agency asserted in the report on the study that there were no “widespread, systemic impacts on drinking water resources.” They based this outrageous conclusion on the limited industry controlled data and analysis that was included in the poorly designed research project.

The multi-million dollar study did not answer the fundamental questions about the pollution of water from hydraulic fracturing. The oil and gas industry pressured the agency in the design of the study, narrowing its scope and focusing it on theoretical modeling conducted by researchers that often conduct research favorable to the industry.

In a shocking display of the power of oil and gas interests, they successfully blocked the agency from gathering data from direct monitoring of fracking operations. Rather than demanding that companies like Exxon (the largest fracker in the U.S.) or Chesapeake allow them to monitor water wells near fracking operations, the EPA caved to industry pressure. For the study to be meaningful, the agency needed to conduct baseline water testing at prospective wells that would provide a snapshot of water quality before fracking and that would be retested after a year or more after oil or gas production began.

Geoffrey Thyne, a geochemist and a member of the EPA’s 2011 Science Advisory Board, a group of independent scientists who reviewed the plan for the study, remarked on the failure of its design: “This was supposed to be the gold standard. But they went through a long bureaucratic process of trying to develop a study that is not going to produce a meaningful result.”

Phroyd

[markruffalo]

Race Best Predicts Whether You Live Near Pollution

A great infographic from an article that explains just how environmental racism works. This just goes to show how the Flint Water Crisis isn’t an isolated incident. We still have a lot of changes to make.

[think-progress]

Fossil Fuel Interests Have Spent Millions On The Republican Presidential Race

Donors with strong ties to the fossil fuel industry have funneled an unprecedented amount of money into the 2016 presidential campaign, according to a new Greenpeace analysis.

[sataniccapitalist]

Oregon Passes Historic Bill to Phase Out Coal and Double Down on Renewables - NationofChange | Progressive Change Through Positive Action

Commitments like Oregon’s are essential to the global effort to contain and reduce carbon dioxide emissions to levels that can protect the Earth for future generations.

[oilchangeus-blog]

A Southern California congressman and two other representatives are calling for an investigation of Shell Oil over whether it deceived the public on climate change at the same time it was preparing its business operations for rising sea levels.

Join the club, Shell! 

[envirohoe-blog1]

Literally doing research on this topic for my final paper as a college student.

[oilchangeus-blog]

Moderators have run out of excuses not to ask about climate change in the presidential debate.

The climate discussion in both the Democratic and Republican debates has been a disappointment, especially considering that both Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders have been keen to address the issue. The networks have blown the chance to have an interesting, nuanced debate on climate in favor of sillier questions that probe the candidates’ belief in science.

[oilchangeus-blog]

House Lawmakers Introduce The ‘Keep It In The Ground Act’

There are now bills in both chambers that would stop new offshore drilling and fossil fuel extraction on public lands.

Legislation that would ban coal, oil and gas extraction on US public land has been introduced in Congress by 17 democratic co-sponsors. The bill would also stop new leases for offshore drilling in the Pacific and prohibit offshore drilling in the Atlantic and Arctic Oceans. The Keep it in the Ground Act cites the “significant impact” that climate change has already had on the US economy, and scientists’ consensus that 80 percent of fossil fuels will have to remain unburned to limit global warming to 2°C. Fossil fuels extracted on public lands and in US waters contribute more than 20 percent of the nation’s total greenhouse gas emissions. A similar bill was introduced to the Senate by Senators Bernie Sanders and Jeff Merkley in November.