Tag: Environment

S-1629 is not a bill to help veterans of Vietnam be compensated for Agent Orange exposure. It's a bill for all Americans

Agent Orange-The dirty secret of the US Government

On some level I have a feeling that we've poisoned the oceans to a point that the fish, many of them, have said "the hell with it" and simply decided to move on in a kind of reverse "dust bowl" desperation and to try the landlubber's life.

I turned on the news this morning and instantly received my first commercial message of the day. You've probably seen it, it's a pitch from Time Warner which offers up well scrubbed "employees" who spend thirty seconds or so reading a script designed to convince us that they are "Moms," "Dads," and regular working schleps, just like us... pardon that - just like me. The ad is an attempt to put a face on the faceless, to create the illusion that the giant soulless organization is really warm and fuzzy with a friendly beating heart and smells like fresh baked cookies.

- WMDs and the War on Terror: Lies that won't die - By Jim Staro Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) has become the new mainstream term...

Sickening? Yes, this oil, this poison brings a sickness of the senses, of sight and touch and smell ... it poisons air and water, killing all it contacts, but it also brings a sickness of the soul, of the heart which many will not survive.

BP's 'Prince of Public Relations' Tony Hayward left his reluctant witness chair in Washington and headed (by private jet I assume) for the Isle of Wight for a typical family weekend of ... yachting or more correctly 'yacht racing.'

The Guardian reports that according to figures provided by BP 'Weasel in Chief' Tony Hayward, the Macondo field reservoir now emptying into the Gulf of Mexico contains enough oil to continue spewing at the current rate for more than two years.

From the White House: Beyond Basic: Training Veterans for Careers in the Clean Energy Economy By Secretary Hilda Solis No one pays a higher price for our...

The subtitle of the BP oil spill is the Price of the Pelican. We will never fully know the cost of this spill to wildlife and wetlands, because it will continue its slow-motion rampage long after the lawyers have settled. Rowan Gould, the acting director of the US Fish and Wildlife Service, said the spill “in all likelihood will affect fish and wildlife resources in the Gulf and across the North American continent for years, if not decades to come.’’

For animal lovers, one of the most heartbreaking aspects of the Gulf spill is the oil-drenched wildlife washing up on shore. If you're too horrified to look at any photos, you're in luck — BP doesn't want you to see them. As of Friday morning, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s tally of dead animals collected in the Gulf area was 527 birds, 235 sea turtles (six to nine times the average rate), and 30 mammals, including dolphins

I asked the sheriff of St. Bernard Parish, Jack Stephens, if he was at all optimistic about BP stopping the gusher of oil that is fouling the Gulf of Mexico in time to prevent a long-term environmental catastrophe in the southern Louisiana wetlands.

Oil spewing from BP's ruptured undersea well in the Gulf of Mexico has now reached the US coast, choking marshlands and fragile marine life. Amid the massive mop-up operation, Al Jazeera's John Terrett takes a boat ride around southern Louisiana's coast. The thick slick is already causing the local economy and the environment massive damage, but many fear the worst is yet to come.

VENICE, La. -- A flotilla of shrimp boats skimmed the waters of Brenton Bay at the mouth of the Mississippi Thursday in a desperate attempt to limit the damage to coastal marshes from the long tendrils of oil snaking in from the giant spill.

The energy company BP has said that its efforts to contain an oil spill from a broken well deep in the Gulf of Mexico using a 100-tonne steel-and-concrete box have not succeeded so far. Ice-like crystals encrusted the walls of the box on Saturday, forcing crews to repeal their attempts to stop the leak, BP said.

Last Thursday, BP began putting more than 100,000 gallons of chemicals into the Gulf of Mexico to disperse some of the hundreds of thousands -- if not millions -- of gallons of petroleum its undersea volcano of oil has gushed so far. Chemically dispersing oil spills "solves the political problem of visible oil but not the environmental problem," Robert Brulle, a 20-year Coast Guard veteran and an affiliate professor of public health at Drexel University, told me. These dispersants "do not actually reduce the total amount of oil entering the environment," as a 2005 National Academy of Sciences report on the subject put it.

A confidential government report on the unfolding spill disaster makes clear the Coast Guard now fears the well could be on the verge of becoming an unchecked gusher shooting millions of gallons of oil per day into the Gulf. A confidential government report on the unfolding spill disaster in the Gulf makes clear the Coast Guard now fears the well could become an unchecked gusher shooting millions of gallons of oil per day into the Gulf.

A former contractor who worked for British Petroleum (BP) claims the oil conglomerate broke federal laws and violated its own internal procedures by failing to maintain crucial safety and engineering documents related to one of the firms other deep water production projects in the Gulf of Mexico, according to internal emails and other documents obtained by Truthout.

The oil spill that began when one of oil giant "BP's" offshore oil rigs exploded and sank in the Gulf of Mexico last week was initially reported as leaking at the rate of 1000 barrels per day. Last night the Coast Guard upped the estimated leak rate to 5000 barrels per day. I assume that they are talking about the typical 42 gallon "barrel" the standard measurement for the toxic fluid now gushing from a pipe drilled in a hole in the sea floor. If so, that's 210,000 gallons of toxic, flammable, carcinogenic, fish, fowl and coral killing sludge every day.

A few days ago, the oil gushing out of the ruins of the Deepwater Horizon was termed "manageable." By Monday, "manageable" had evolved into 42,000 gallons of oil a day gushing unabated from the wellhead beneath the sunken rig off the coast of Louisiana. The sheen on the Gulf of Mexico had spread across 1,800 square miles of water. Seven skimming boats attempting to mop up the oil began to look overwhelmed.

* By Robert S. Eshelman The Nation * Scott Parkin, an organizer at the San Francisco-based Rainforest Action Network (RAN), is a straight-talking, get-things-done kind...

"The Toxic 100 Air Polluters informs consumers and shareholders which large corporations release the most toxic pollutants into our air," said Professor James Boyce, co-director of PERI's Corporate Toxics Information Project. "We assess not just how many pounds of pollutants are released, but which are the most toxic and how many people are at risk.

As part of the Administration’s comprehensive energy strategy President Barack Obama and Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar today announced more details of the Obama Administration’s efforts to strengthen our energy security. President Obama and Secretary Salazar announced that the Administration will expand oil and gas development and exploration on the U.S. Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) to enhance our nation’s energy independence while protecting fisheries, tourism, and places off U.S. coasts that are not appropriate for development.

In case you've missed the ongoing coverage here of David de Rothschild and his Plastiki recycled plastic boat expedition, it's a mission worth learning about. Plastic has not spared an inch of the planet from its toxic effects, including the depths of the most remote waters in the world's deep blue oceans.

What if the Tea Party ruled? Imagine a land, let’s call it Glennbeckistan, where white, patriarchal, religiously zealous, Tea Party-type patriots hold a super-majority in both houses of the legislature, sit in the governor’s mansion, and control most local governments. It’s a place so out of sync with the rest of the nation that states’ rights and even secession are always on the agenda. It’s a place where gun-ownership trumps all other rights, climate change is considered an insidious socialist conspiracy, and a miscarriage can be investigated as a potential crime. Welcome to Utah.

Dive into our endangered oceans with these photos of the smallest shrimps to the largest whales. Despite the threats, no marine species received additional protection by the recent United Nations CITES convention. See more amazing wildlife photos.

Among today's picks, Reining in the Gods of the Fed, Did Obama Win the Iraq War?, Taxing Wall Street Down to Size, The crime of not "Looking Backward," Tomgram: William Astore, Going Rogue in Combat Boots, Alaska Sen. Murkowski's attempt to curb EPA draws criticism, George Will Displays Core GOP Value: Cheap, Disposable Labor # In eastern Afghan province, preview of upcoming surge strategy