New Report Indicates Lax Oversight of Drilling on Federal Lands

Little or No Fines for Over 2,000 Safety and Drilling Violations by Oil & Gas Outfits In Past Decade

Just two weeks after President Obama called for increased drilling during his State of the Union speech, an important but largely unnoticed report was released from Congress that reveals the federal government has done little to crack down on drilling violations already occurring on federal lands.

Photo by Roy LuckA natural gas drilling operation in Leon County, Texas. Only six percent of violations by oil and gas
companies actually led to a monetary fine.

The report, which was released by Representative Edward Markey and Representative Rush Holt, indicates that for the past decade, oversight of drilling on federal land has been lax, accidents and violations have been frequent, and fines have been rare and small.

The most striking part of the report is in the details.

The report found that between 1998 and 2011 there were 2,025 safety and drilling violations by oil and gas companies on federal lands. How much were these companies fined for these violations? A cumulative total of $273,875. That’s for all companies, across the entire time span …more

by Sharon Kelly – February 10, 2012

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New Documentary Examines the Drawbacks of a Clean Energy Source

Film Review: Windfall

Wind power has been heralded as form of renewable energy that can wean America off of its disastrous dependence on fossil fuels and help save the planet from climate change. But is it really a safe, nonpolluting, and viable alternative to coal, natural gas, and nukes? These are the questions being asked by some contemporary Don Quixotes who are tilting at 400-foot-high windmills in upstate New York, the subject of the new documentary film Windfall.

The Knight of the White Moon against whom they’re jousting is named Airtricity. The Irish energy company is building the world’s largest offshore wind farm (the 500-megawatt Greater Gabbard project) 14 miles off of the coast of Suffolk, England. Many townsfolk in the Catskill Mountains village of Meredith fear a proposed Airtricity project for their farming community. The Airtricity plan would install 40 behemoth poles with 600-pound turbines and blades up to 180 feet long, weighing 22,000 pounds each.

Windfall is a case of slicing blades versus the sylvan glade, as residents of the rural Delaware County town and of …more

by Ed Rampell – February 8, 2012

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30,000 Rock: A Peek into New York City’s Geological Underpinnings

In a City Where Everyone’s Rushing, Few Ponder the Relentless, Plodding Progression of the Ground Beneath Their Feet

When I moved to Manhattan in August 2010, I already knew the city as a maze of crumbling, gum-stained sidewalks connected to what I considered the real word by ribbons of concrete and steel. Crossing one of the largest of those ribbons — the George Washington Bridge — one day, I found myself immediately lost. Highway entrance and exit ramps curled to and fro in an indeterminate tangle. Before too long, though, I'd regained my composure, and the rather serpentine course I'd taken through Harlem's grid of one-way streets led me more or less in the direction I wanted to go.

Photo courtesy Stig Nygaard/Wikimedia CommonsBelvedere Castle in Central Park stands atop an exposed part of the 380 million-year-old Manhattan schist.

Just as Harlem’s greasy pavement spat my battered car into Morningside Heights, I found myself face-to-face with a most curious sight  — a building perched atop a huge mass of boulders which looked to be embedded in the side of a small hill. Having seen rocks strewn about Central Park on earlier visits to …more

by Benjamin Preston – February 3, 2012

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Wolf Advocates’ Rage Against The Grey Might Be Misdirected

Hollywood Film Isn’t Part of the Assault Against Real Wolves

In early January movie trailers for writer-director Joe Carnahan’s new film, The Grey, started to run in advance of its January 27 national release: Somewhere in the northern Alaskan wilderness, a shuttle plane full of oil field works crashes on frozen tundra during a blizzard. Only a handful survive, wounded, freezing, stunned at their fate. And then the howling starts, weird, loud, frightening howling. Giant wolves materialize. Bloody wolf tracks mark all that remain of one worker — the monsters have dragged him off!  Hero John Ottway, played by Liam Neeson, tapes a knife to one hand, and broken, miniature liquor bottles to the other, then charges into battle.

Promotional Poster/Open Road FilmsWhen wolf conservationists denounced the film in mid-January and
advocated a boycott, no one had actually seen the movie, only
the trailers.

News of The Grey's imminent release came as yet another depressing blow to wolf advocates in the Northern Rockies, who are now entering their fourth year of brutal political conflict trying to save the region’s remaining wolves. This wolf war began in 2009, …more

by James William Gibson – January 31, 2012

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Some Biofuels Are As Dirty As Tar Sands Oil, Shows Leaked EU Data

The Difficult Task of Distinguishing Good and Bad Biofuels Remains Essential

by Damien Carrington

Photo by Achmad Rabin TaimA palm oil plantation in Bogor, Indonesia. Palm oil biodiesel also received another blow on Friday, with the US
Environmental Protection Agency suggesting it fails to meet the US requirement of emitting at least 20 percent
less carbon than diesel from crude oil.

There are good biofuels and bad biofuels: the trick is telling one from the other. That's particularly difficult when trying to take account of the natural forests and wetlands that can destroyed in the drive to grow some biofuel crops. But we're getting closer, it seems, and palm oil and soy beans now appear utterly unsupportable as a source of biodiesel.

The new data comes from a leak obtained by EurActiv from the European Commission. The EC is considering what level of carbon emissions each type of biofuel causes once burned, after everything - including "indirect land-use change" - is taken into account.

It is obvious that for a biofuel to be useful in cutting the emissions driving global warming it needs to have a …more

by The Guardian UK – January 27, 2012

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Feed 9 Billion People, Cut Out the Food Waste

Improving Food System Efficiency Shouldn’t be Hard

I’ve been hearing this “9 billion” figure a lot lately. Nine billion people on the planet by 2050. It’s a big number, and most of the extensive coverage in papers, magazines, and blogs jump straight to the issue of food: how are we going to feed all 9 billion?

Photo by Gabriel AmadeusOne testament to the increased awareness of food waste is the new wave of
popularity for dumpster-diving. But this kind of scavenging isn't always easy.

Most articles jump straight to scientific and political solutions. The Economist touted the latest agronomic practices: matching the “best plants, fertilisers, fungicides, and husbandry” to get higher crop yields. American Public Media’s new project, Food for 9 Billion, discusses subsidized birth control in poor areas, soothing the political tensions that lead to famine in Africa, and, again, agriculture science. Even our good friends over at Monsanto have a page devoted to the topic of 9 billion mouths to feed, emphasizing — can you guess? — advanced breeding and biotechnology.

But looking for high-tech scientific solutions to the …more

by Brian Scoles – January 26, 2012

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Obama Administration to Appeal WTO Decision Against Dolphins

Mexico Is Seeking to Overturn the Dolphin Safe Label on Tuna

The Obama administration announced last week that it is in the process of appealing a 2011 decision by the World Trade Organization (WTO) that seeks to weaken the US Dolphin Safe tuna standards. The move has been applauded by Earth Island Institute’s International Marine Mammal Project (IMMP), which established the international Dolphin Safe Tuna labeling program in 1990 and monitors tuna companies around the world for compliance.

Photo by Steve JurvetsonThe Mexican government uses a much weaker standard for calling canned tuna “Dolphin Safe.”

More than 7 million dolphins have been drowned by tuna boats since the practice of chasing and netting dolphins to catch tuna that swim with them was developed in the late 1950’s. There are other ways for fishermen to catch tuna without chasing or harming dolphins. Under US standards, canned tuna cannot be labeled as Dolphin Safe if dolphins were chased by boats, surrounded by nets, killed or seriously injured during the catching of tuna. Dolphin deaths have dropped by 98 percent since the implementation of the IMMP Dolphin Safe …more

by Mark J. Palmer – January 25, 2012

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