The People's Record

Upcoming United States actions:

May 18th: ‘Operation Green Jobs’ March from Philadelphia to Washington, DC organized by the Poor People’s Economic and Human Rights Campaign.

May 18th to 23rd: the  Home Defenders League Week of Action against the banks and foreclosures in Washington, DC.

May 18th to 20th: there is a  weekend of protests against the closure of schools in Chicago.

May 22nd:  Stop the Frack Attack People’s Forum in Washington, DC.

May 25th: Protests against Monsanto everywhere

May 25th to June 3rd: March from Philadelphia to Harrisburg against prison spending.

June 1st:  Get on the Bus For Bradley Court Martial Trial  with buses leaving from Baltimore, MD, Washington DC, New York City and Willimantic, CT.

June 14th to 16th:  Trade Justice Action Camp in Bellingham, WA by the Backbone Campaign

June 24th to 29th: is the beginning of “ Fearless Summer” that starts “ an epic summer of actions.”

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Reblog with your own additions to the list.

Google+ demonstrates deforestation and other man-made climate disasters with satellite images
May 18, 2013

It’s one thing to talk about deforestation, disappearing habitats, and shrinking glaciers and water resources, and another thing entirely to demonstrate it with actual satellite imagery. And thanks to Landsat images and the Google Earth Engine, we’re getting a glimpse at some key locations across the planet as they are changed by the hands of man. A series of interactive timelapse GIFs that use Landsat satellite data to display massive changes to the Earth’s surface could be a potent tool for motivating individuals and organizations to take action on key issues.

Google’s Animated GIFs of Earth Over Time focuses our attention on key features of our planet, such as the Amazon rainforest, the coal beds of Wyoming, the Columbia Glacier, the Aral Sea, and the deserts of Saudi Arabia.

Today, we’re making it possible for you to go back in time and get a stunning historical perspective on the changes to the Earth’s surface over time. Working with the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), NASA and TIME, we’re releasing more than a quarter-century of images of Earth taken from space, compiled for the first time into an interactive time-lapse experience. We believe this is the most comprehensive picture of our changing planet ever made available to the public.

- Google

Some of the visualizations are kind of subtle, and need to be put into context to really hit home (such as the massive increase in irrigated areas in Saudi Arabia, which affects local water supplies, or the urban sprawl of Las Vegas, which also puts increased demands on local resources), but some of them, such as this one documenting the rapidly disappearing rainforest in the Brazilian Amazon, speak for themselves:

Explore a global timelapse of our planet, constructed from Landsat satellite imagery. The Amazon rainforest is shrinking at a rapid rate to provide land for farming and raising cattle. Each frame of the timelapse map is constructed from a year of Landsat satellite data, constituting an annual 1.7-terapixel snapshot of the Earth at 30-meter resolution.

- Google Earth Engine

These interactive time-lapse images can be manipulated by pausing or zooming in to them, as we’ve come to expect from Google Earth, and may serve as a pivot point for those who are on the fence about the effects that our booming population and its increased demand for resources has on our Big Blue Marble.

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You can view all of the images at Google +, and you can read a backstory at TIME.

Two radioactive goldfish were found swimming in a juice pitcher of nuclear reactor water in an underground steam tunnel at an Ohio power plant. Investigators are baffled as to how the radioactive fish remained unnoticed in the ‘secure’ facility.
May 16, 2013

Investigators from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and officials of the plant, which is operated by FirstEnergy Corp., have been looking through surveillance tapes to try to identify who was responsible for leaving the radioactive goldfish in the tunnel on May 2.

They believe one of the 700 employees and contractors who work at the plant smuggled the fish into the facility, Jennifer Young, spokeswoman for FirstEnergy Corp., told AP. The fishy tale has served as an embarrassment for the plant, which has already come under scrutiny for a case in which four contractors were exposed to life-threatening hard radiation in 2011. The plant has also been scutinized for a serious lack of security.

“Last year, Perry got into trouble with the NRC about weaknesses preventing unauthorized access to the plant,” David Lochbaum, a spokesman at the Union of Concerned Scientists, told The Plain Dealer. “Goldfish are not authorized to be inside the tunnel, yet they were there. And Perry cannot determine how they got there or who put them there.”

Officials believe the goldfish were taken through the front door and likely hidden in a plastic bag in a worker’s pocket. All workers are required to pass through security, which detects metal and bombs but not fish and water. Investigators believe the fish were left unnoticed in the tunnel for several days before scaffolding crews discovered them and filed a report.

But despite looking through surveillance tapes for more than a week, little progress has been made in identifying the perpetrator(s). “While we continue to look at the video for evidence, identifying folks in the video has been challenging,” Young told AP.

Both of the 1 ½-inch-long fish died shortly after their discovery, but officials at the plant claim that neglect and starvation may have been the cause – not radiation. Chemists found that the fish were admitting small amounts of radiation, but not enough to put anyone at risk, including the fish. “They did not have exposure to enough radioactivity to hurt them,” Young told The Plain Dealer.  “It was probably due to lack of care before they got to the plant. The radiation could not have killed them.”

Lochbaum said the story might sound funny to some, but that smuggling live animals into the plant shows a serious lack of security. The story has caused some to recall an episode of the “Simpsons” in which Blinky, an orange fish, has a third eye due to his exposure to radiation.

“What might be an amusing account of misplaced goldfish today could become tomorrow’s nightmare story if someone with an axe to grind, another Timothy McVeigh type, places a bomb instead of two goldfish in Perry,” Lochbaum told The Plain Dealer, referring to the 1995 bombing of the Oklahoma City federal building.

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I saw the original venn diagrams on Tumblr yesterday, attached the top image & the appropriate quotes at the bottom. Check them out & share them on Facebook here (at The People’s Record Facebook page).

All spills in order of occurrence:

March 11 – 21: Gwagwalada Town, Nigera
A week-long leak of Kilometer 407.5 NNPC (Nigeria National Petroleum Corp) pipeline. No official number of barrels spilled released, however the spill saturated a hectare (10,000 sq metres) of marshy ground near a major water source.

Tuesday, March 19: Fort Simpson, Northwest Territories Canada
Enbridge Norman Wells Pipeline leaks 6,290 barrels of crude oil

Monday, March 25: Fort MacKay, Alberta Canada
Suncor tar sands tailings pond leaks 2,200 barrels of toxic waste fluid into the Athabasca River

Wednesday, March 27: Parker Prairie, Minnesota U.S.
CP Rail train derails and spills 952 barrels of tar sands crude oil

Friday, March 29: Mayflower, Arkansas U.S.
Exxon Mobil’s Pegasus Pipeline suffers a 22 foot-long rupture, spilling at least 12,000 barrels of diluted tar sands bitumen

Sunday, March 31: A power plant in Lansing, Michigan U.S.
16 barrels of an oil-based hydraulic fluid spills into the Grand River

Tuesday, April 2: Nembe, Nigeria
After suffering a reported theft of 60,000 barrels of oil per day from its Nembe Creek Trunkline pipeline, Shell Nigeria shuts off the pipe for nine days to repair damage

Wednesday, April 3: 350KM southeast of Newfoundland, Canada
A drilling platform leaks 0.25 barrels of crude oil

Wednesday, April 4: Chalmette, Louisiana U.S.
0.24 barrels (100 lbs) of hydrogen sulfide and 0.04 barrels (10 lbs of benzene) leak at an Exxon refinery

Monday, April 8: Esmeraldas, Ecuador
The OPEC-managed OCP pipeline leaks 5,500 barrels of heavy crude oil, contaminating the Winchele estuary

Tuesday, April 9: 29KM NE of Nuiqsut, Alaska U.S.
Human error during maintenance spills 157 barrels of crude oil at a Repsol E&P USA Inc pipeline pump station

Visit EcoWatch’s ENERGY page for more related news on this topic.

Daily Kos: The traditional media’s shoddy reporting on the Keystone XL pipeline is no surprise
April 21, 2013

It’s no secret that the traditional media have done a horrendous job on climate change, ignoring it or misreporting it, even in the face of an overwhelming scientific consensus, and even as the real world impacts continue and accelerate. In 2012, coverage of climate change dropped to a four year low on the Sunday talk shows, with not one person quoted being an actual scientist. Of course, when the science is so convincing, it’s difficult for the traditional media to play their usual game of creating false debates where there aren’t any real ones. On broadcast television, overall, coverage of climate change has plummeted, while newspaper coverage was no better, with climate deniers receiving more attention in the United States and the United Kingdom than in other countries, regardless of the ideological leanings of the specific papers. Which is to be expected, particularly given that the climate change deniers are so well-funded.

So, with President Obama soon to make a decision on the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline, it is no surprise to learn that the traditional media once again are living up to their horrendous standards. Media Matters has the story:

Television outlets overlooked the threat of Keystone XL to the sensitive ecosystems along the pipeline route, mentioning the risk of a spill in just 20 percent of coverage since Election Day, November 6, 2012. Meanwhile, 43 percent of television coverage promoted the jobs benefits of the pipeline, and 27 percent incorrectly suggested it would reduce our dependence on Middle East oil.

And making it even worse is that the supposed jobs benefits themselves are wildly overstated. As I wrote last month, regarding the State Department’s shamefully dishonest Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement on the pipeline:

The earlier Environmental Impact Statement estimated no more than 500 to 900 local jobs would be created throughout the entire construction throughout the entire region, and the new SEIS estimates no more than a few dozen permanent jobs, once the pipeline has been built. A 2011 study by the Cornell Global Labor Institute found that Keystone may actually destroy more jobs than it creates, and of course neither the fossil fuels industries, nor apparently the State Department that outsourced the SEIS to the fossil fuels industry, seems to care that the pipeline will damage the economy, overall.

So, of course the traditional media coverage would focus their coverage on what the dishonest supporters of Keystone want them to focus on, despite of its dishonesty. And as the Media Matters report explains, even though a tar sands pipeline recently ruptured in Arkansas, dumping thousands of gallons of oil into a residential neighborhood and wilderness area, the media coverage of Keystone did not then increase its discussion of spill risks, and the coverage by ABC, CBS and Fox didn’t even bother to mention that Keystone would carry the same type of heavy crude. And of course, both Murdoch-owned Fox and the Wall Street Journal minimized the pipeline’s climate impact, hardly ever mentioning it, and at times flat out dismissing it. On Fox, 76 percent of those quoted support the pipeline, and only 13 percent oppose it, and not one of the politicians quoted or hosted by Fox— only one of whom, other than the president, is a Democrat—opposed it.

As for the overall reporting on Keystone’s impact on climate change? Media Matters:

Scientists accounted for less than 1 percent of those hosted or quoted by TV outlets and less than 4 percent of those quoted by the major papers. CNN was the only television outlet to quote a scientist about the pipeline, and it was Patrick Michaels — a prominent climate contrarian who receives funding from the oil industry. The Los Angeles Times, USA Today and the Wall Street Journal did not quote a single scientist.

That might just be because so many prominent climate scientists oppose the pipeline, including John Abraham, David Archer, Jason Box, Ken Caldeira, James Hansen, John Harte, Ralph Keeling, Michael MacCracken, Michael Mann, James McCarthy, Michael Oppenheimer, Mauri Pelto, Raymond Pierrehumbert, Alan Robock, Terry Root, Ted Scambos, Richard Somerville and George Woodwell. As usual, the problem with traditional media coverage of anything related to climate change is that science is subjugated to the false political narrative that creates debates and controversies where there aren’t any.

If the traditional media were professional and honorable, they would research and report facts, as accurately as possible. On questions of science, they would talk to scientists. When talking to scientists, they would not give equal or even more time to those whose opinions are in a teeny tiny minority. But on climate issues, the traditional media are not professional and honorable, they almost never talk to scientists, and when they do talk to scientists they give wildly disproportionate coverage to the opinions of those who are so marginal and discredited as to be no better than flat-Earthers.

Appropriately and with great timing, this year’s Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting went not to any traditional media outlet, but to the online site InsideClimate News, “for their rigorous reports on flawed regulation of the nation’s oil pipelines, focusing on potential ecological dangers posed by diluted bitumen (or ‘dilbit’), a controversial form of oil.” InsideClimate has an entire page dedicated to Keystone, tar sands, and oil sands. The information is plentiful, even if the traditional media choose to ignore or distort it.

What should be good news is that the decision on Keystone lies in the hands of one man, and he is smart enough and diligent enough to be able to learn and act on the facts. It is up to him. There are no excuses. He can and must do the right thing, even when so many of the usual won’t.

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Today we honor Vandana Shiva, because as the corporate oligarchy continues to destroy our planet, it is clear that we need more leadership like hers:

• Video of Vandana Shiva on Bill Moyers’ show back in July.
• Here is a list of additional quotes by Vandana Shiva.
• This is Vandana Shiva in February @ ISFIT 2013: Changing Norms.
• This is Vandana Shiva @ Rio2012.
• This is Vandana Shiva talking about the capitalist patriarchy in March 2013 on Democracy Now with Amy Goodman.

All of these available on our Facebook page: (links: Tumblr | Facebook | Twitter)

These are all pictures that have been posted on the Rising Tide North America Facebook page (links: Facebook | Twitter | Website)

On the last image:

15 dead, 150+ injured, dozens still unaccounted for & possibly dead. No Osha inspection since the 80’s, ammonia-smell complaints in the early 2000s that ended with a report from the plant that claimed there was NO risk for fire.

I want to know why all of the force of the American Military Industrial Complex was directed at finding Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, but no one seems to be talking about holding the people & policies accountable for the ending of 15+ real human lives who did not have to die. The thoughts & dreams & possibilities of those real human lives did not have to end.

Can we PLEASE talk about some justice in this society, some logical policy changes that can save lives, and about challenging the system that makes this kind of injustice go unanswered, putting people before profits at the cost of human lives again & again?!!

resistkxl:

BREAKING!

Two Lifelong Oklahomans have shut down a KXL construction site near Bennington, Oklahoma!

Gwen Ingram has locked herself to a piece of heavy machinery and Eric Whelan has ascended a 40 ft tower into the air in an arial blockade that has tied up the remainder of heavy machinery on site.

Follow here for live updates

Oklahoma Grandmother Nancy Zorn, 79, has U-locked her neck to a piece of KXL heavy machinery, effectively halting construction near Allen, OK.

Nancy is taking action today in solidarity with residents of neighboring Mayflower, Arkansas who have been forced from their homes and are suffering the health impacts from tar sands toxins.

Read more about Nancy’s action here.

Tar Sands Blockade published new videos today (4/7) showing oil from the Arkansas pipeline rupture diverted from a residential neighborhood into a wetland area to keep it out sight and, most importantly, out of the media & public view.
April 7, 2013

While it’s not clear if the oil was intentionally moved into the wetland, the company says it is cleaning pavement with power washing devices, which could cause some of the oil to be pushed off neighborhood streets and into other areas.

Activists also interviewed a local resident who claimed the oil has continued “flowing” into Lake Conway since the spill happened.

“I don’t have allergies,” the man said. “But now my sinuses are bothering me. My throat’s bothering me. My eyes water constantly. But Exxon acts like nothing’s wrong. They don’t have to live here, we do. And we’re not moving just because of them.”

The activists noted that they were turned away from the area several times before by police and Exxon spill cleanup workers, but they returned on Saturday just before sundown and managed to sneak in to capture footage of the oiled wetlands. In two separate videos, nearby residents say they’ve been made sick by the spill, which has tremendously affected their air quality.

This footage has largely remained out of the media due to the lockdown that’s descended upon Mayflower nearly a week since the spill. Reporters touring the damage with Arkansas Attorney General Dustin McDaniel were allegedly turned away by Exxon workers. One journalist, Inside Climate News’s Susan White, was even threatened with arrest when she asked a question of Exxon’s “public affairs” desk inside the spill cleanup command center. The company has also secured a no-fly zone over the spill area.

Video of Lake Conway’s wetlands shows thousands of what Exxon called “absorbent pads” — which appear to be nothing more than paper towels — littering the blackened landscape as thick, soupy crude bubbles across the water’s surface. The company insists that air quality in the affected region is being measured by the Environmental Protection Agency, and that tests show “levels that are either non-detect or that are below any necessary action levels.” Exxon also says that the area’s drinking water remains unaffected.

A phone number given by Exxon to reach the company’s “downstream media relations” team did not appear to be correct, and a spokesperson was not available for comment.

Don’t let Exxon sweep this thing under the rug! Share this now, far & wide, with everybody you know! We cannot allow these corporate-committed environmental tragedies to continue to claim people, land & our future as victims in the wealth-owning, corporate elite’s illogical profit-making endeavors.

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Fracking spurrs biggest earthquakes yet
March 29, 2013

A new study in the journal Geology is the latest to tie a string of unusual earthquakes, in this case, in central Oklahoma, to the injection of wastewater deep underground. Researchers now say that the magnitude 5.7 earthquake near Prague, Okla., on Nov. 6, 2011, may also be the largest ever linked to wastewater injection. Felt as far away as Milwaukee, more than 800 miles away, the quake — the biggest ever recorded in Oklahoma—destroyed 14 homes, buckled a federal highway and left two people injured. Small earthquakes continue to be recorded in the area.

The recent boom in U.S. energy production has produced massive amounts of wastewater. The water is used both in hydrofracking, which cracks open rocks to release natural gas, and in coaxing petroleum out of conventional oil wells. In both cases, the brine and chemical-laced water has to be disposed of, often by injecting it back underground elsewhere, where it has the potential to trigger earthquakes. The water linked to the Prague quakes was a byproduct of oil extraction at one set of oil wells, and was pumped into another set of depleted oil wells targeted for waste storage.

Scientists have linked a rising number of quakes in normally calm parts of Arkansas, Texas, Ohio and Colorado to below-ground injection. In the last four years, the number of quakes in the middle of the United States jumped 11-fold from the three decades prior, the authors of the Geology study estimate. Last year, a group at the U.S. Geological Survey also attributed a remarkable rise in small- to mid-size quakes in the region to humans. The risk is serious enough that the National Academy of Sciences, ina report last year called for further research to “understand, limit and respond” to induced seismic events. Despite these studies, wastewater injection continues near the Oklahoma earthquakes.

The magnitude 5.7 quake near Prague was preceded by a 5.0 shock and followed by thousands of aftershocks. What made the swarm unusual is that wastewater had been pumped into abandoned oil wells nearby for 17 years without incident. In the study, researchers hypothesize that as wastewater replenished compartments once filled with oil, the pressure to keep the fluid going down had to be ratcheted up. As pressure built up, a known fault — known to geologists as the Wilzetta fault—jumped. “When you overpressure the fault, you reduce the stress that’s pinning the fault into place and that’s when earthquakes happen,” said study co-author Heather Savage, a geophysicist at Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory.

Full article

http://greedylyingbastards.com/

Why Chavez chose social safety net over skyscrapers
March 11, 2013

Since news broke last week of the death of Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez, reactions to that leader’s passing have been pouring in. While many argue that Chavez did incredible things for Venezuela and its people, there are those, especially here in the US, who don’t have such a rosy view of the former leader.

That’s where Associated Press business reporter Pamela Sampson comes in.

In a piece from last Tuesday, speaking about the legacy of Chavez, Sampson wrote that, “Chavez invested Venezuela’s oil wealth into social programs including state-run food markets, cash benefits for poor families, free health clinics and education programs. But those gains were meager compared with the spectacular construction projects that oil riches spurred in glittering Middle Eastern cities, including the world’s tallest building in Dubai and plans for branches of the Louvre and Guggenheim museums in Abu Dhabi.”

You heard that right.

Sampson appears to be arguing that providing healthcare, education and employment opportunities for millions of people is far less important than flaunting your wealth for the entire world to see. Lifting an entire nation out of crippling poverty is nothing compared to building a big glitzy building or opening up a new museum.

Now, if these were the feelings of just one journalist, we could move on. But the problem is that these sentiments are echoed throughout our country. Oil corporations have become so powerful and influential in our society that the idea of nationalizing our oil and using the money from it – the way the Venezuelans, the Saudis, and the Norwegians (among others) do – to help the American people is, according to conventional wisdom, crazy and absurd.

This is the reason why, up until Chavez’s death, the U.S and Venezuela had frosty relations at best. Chavez’s decision to use his nation’s vast sums of oil wealth to help his people, instead of adding to the bottom-lines of corporations, irked many U.S. politicians and government officials. But what’s really going on here? Why do so many Americans believe that corporate luxury is more important than “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness”?

In a society, achieving safety and security is step one.

For hundreds of thousands of years, humans achieved safety and security by giving it to others, and getting it in return. And similarly, the more safety and security you gave to people, the higher status you achieved. Archeologists call societies like this “Potlatch societies,” as status is gained by giving away as much as you can at giant feasting parties called Potlatches.

This is only a slight variation on the model that Hugo Chavez used in Venezuela, and it’s why his people loved him so much. By using his nation’s oil wealth to give Venezuelans access to education, healthcare, improved housing and better living conditions, Chavez gave safety and security to millions of people, and was rewarded with high levels of admiration and respect.

The late professor of Native American studies at UC Davis, Jack Forbes, told me his people called it wetiko, a Native American word meaning “cannibal” or “thief.” In western society (with a culture dominated by capitalism), we get safety and security from making money, and then using that to buy goods and services. The more goods and services you produced, the more you were paid, and the more you were paid, the more you were able to purchase to help achieve safety and security.

This is the model that America has today. And, in its extremely mentally ill form, it’s why some billionaires say things like “I only have $30 billion. Once I have $40 billion, I’ll be happy.” And it’s why Americans might think that shiny skyscrapers are more important than the social welfare of an entire nation.

But let’s look at the numbers behind these two approaches to safety and security.

Before Hugo Chavez was president, according to the British newspaper The Guardian, unemployment in Venezuela was at 15%. As of 2009, it was at 7.6 %.

Before Hugo Chavez was president, extreme poverty was at 23.4%. As of 2011, it was at 8.5%

Meanwhile, here in the United States, millions of Americans are consistently unemployed each year. And, in the last 15 years, extreme poverty in the United States has doubled. The number of U.S. households living on less than $2 per person a day, which is known as the “extreme poverty” line, more than doubled between 1996 and 2011, from 636,000 to 1.46 million

And, according to the latest Census Bureau data, a staggering 50 percent of Americans are either low-income or living below the poverty line.

The numbers here paint a pretty clear picture: The Chavez approach to governance, and his Robin Hood-esque mentality worked for Venezuela.

During 14 years in office, Chavez managed to drastically improve the lives of Venezuelans, while rebuilding an entire nation. He knew that the best way to achieve safety and security was not by constructing lavish buildings, but through maintaining a strong social safety net and ensuring that Venezuelans had the resources they needed to survive.

America should take a page out of the Chavez playbook.

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