by Agence France-Presse.
OTTAWA -- A fuel tanker has run aground in Canada's far north, carrying 2.4 million gallons of diesel fuel that risk spilling into the Arctic waters, the Canadian Coast Guard said Thursday.
A Coast Guard spokesman told AFP no leaks from the tanker had yet been detected in the pristine waters.
The ship struck a sandbar in the famed Northwest Passage, southwest of the town of Gjoa Haven in Canada's Nunavut territory, on Wednesday. It was carrying fuel to resupply remote communities in the region.
Authorities and the ship's owner, Woodward's Oil, will attempt to float it off the sandbar, the official said.
Last week, a cruise ship struck an uncharted rock in the same waterway, forcing the evacuation of more than 110 passengers and crew. That crash occurred late Friday as the ship Clipper Adventurer set out from Kugluktuk, Nunavut, for a 12-day voyage through the passage.
None of the tourists onboard were injured, said a spokesman for tour operator Adventure Canada. But it took two days for the Canadian Coast Guard icebreaker Amundsen to arrive at the scene, prompting calls for Canada to beef up its search and rescue capabilities in the far north.
With the acceleration of Arctic ice melt, interest in the region has soared. Shrinking ice has opened up sea navigation, and could give oil rigs improved access to the sea floor.
Canada's claim to the Northwest Passage, however, is disputed by the United States.
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Oil slick spreading after rig explosion forced 13 workers into the Gulf
Feds lease prime solar land, but nary a panel is in sight
Oil-platform explosion in the Gulf. Yes, another one.
by Agence France-Presse.
NEW ORLEANS -- A mile-long slick is spreading from an oil platform in the Gulf of Mexico after an explosion forced its 13 rig workers into the water, one of whom was injured, the U.S. Coast Guard said.
The workers told rescue crews that the slick was about 10 feet wide but hoped that no more oil would leak into the sea, Chief Warrant Officer Barry Lane told AFP.
The rig is still ablaze and the blast raises fresh pollution fears as the region struggles to recover from the largest ever maritime oil spill, caused by a similar explosion 20 miles to the east.
An estimated 4.9 million barrels of oil gushed out of a deepwater well ruptured after the BP-leased Deepwater Horizon drilling rig exploded on April 20 some 52 miles off the coast of Louisiana.
The explosion killed 11 workers and it took nearly three months to stem the flow of oil gushing out of the well some 5,000 feet below the surface.
The Mariner rig was operating in relatively shallow water, about 340 feet, and was not drilling at the time of the explosion, Cassidy said.
There were seven wells producing approximately 1,400 barrels of oil in total in about 12 million cubic feet of gas in total, he said, adding that "the fire appears to have been quite a bit a ways from where the wells are."
Thursday's incident drew immediate condemnation from environmental groups frustrated with lax oversight of the offshore oil and gas industry.
"How many times are we going to gamble with lives, economies, and ecosystems?" John Hocevar, Greenpeace USA Oceans Campaign Director, told AFP. "It's time we learn from our mistakes and go beyond oil."
Helicopters rushed to the scene of the latest blast, some 90 miles south of Vermilion Bay in Louisiana, to fish out workers who apparently jumped into the sea to save themselves.
"All 13 are accounted for and they are all wearing some sort of an immersion suit that protects them from the water," Coast Guard Chief Petty Officer John Edwards told MSNBC.
Nine helicopters had been dispatched to the site, Edwards said, adding the extent of any injuries suffered by the workers was not immediately clear.
"Right now we're focused on search and rescue and then, ultimately, as this thing progresses we're going to be looking into the cause," Edwards added. Four Coast Guard cutters were also en route to the rig.
"We will continue to gather information as we respond, we obviously have response assets ready for deployment, should we receive reports of pollution in the water," White House spokesman Robert Gibbs told reporters.
Gibbs declined to say whether the president believed inspections of rigs in the Gulf of Mexico were moving fast enough in the wake of the BP disaster.
"Obviously we've had taken some, we took a series of steps after the BP incident," Gibbs said. "If this situation warrants, we'll certainly update that."
The Coast Guard said in a statement that it received a report from a nearby helicopter pilot at about 10:00 am EST "stating that 13 people were in the water near an oil platform on fire."
"The 13 people in the water were picked up by the OSV Crystal Clear and taken to another platform," the Coast Guard said.
"Coast Guard helicopters are being utilized to transport the rescued to Terrebonne General Hospital."
Mariner did not immediately return requests for comments.
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Fuel tanker runs aground in Canadian Arctic
Feds lease prime solar land, but nary a panel is in sight
Oil-platform explosion in the Gulf. Yes, another one.
Corals, big mammals and many tropical species could all go extinct in the not too distant future, predict scientists who are attempting to forecast the fate of today's animals by studying what happened to those in the distant past.
by Randy Rieland.
Ready for your morning bowl of crazy? Five years ago, Congress set aside millions of acres of public land in the Southwest for the development of solar farms. This was primo real estate for solar, considered one of the best spots in the world. So far not one solar panel has been erected.
Oh, you want us to build something? This discouraging news comes courtesy of the AP's Jason Dearen, whose investigation shows that the understaffed U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM) focused almost all its time on approving oil and gas projects and leased the land on a first-come, first-served basis, often to outfits with little or no experience in actually building solar farms. Case in point: Cogentrix Solar Services, a subsidiary of Goldman Sachs. Cogentrix had zero solar experience, but holds leases on nearly half the Nevada acreage for which applications have been filed. Another sickening stat: In the last five years, the BLM has approved more than 73,000 oil and gas leases on public land, but hasn't given final approval to one solar lease. Not a one. Writes Dearen:
BLM's solar leasing system ended up allowing developers to lay claim to prime sites -- many located in the deserts that span California, Nevada, and Arizona. All developers had to do was fill out an application, pay a fee and file development plans. But many were so vague that it was difficult for BLM to separate the serious projects from the speculative ones.
The oilman cometh: Bad enough that Sen. Lisa Murkowski's (Alaska) primary loss to Joe Miller likely means another Republican climate change denier ranting in the Senate. Another negative ripple effect is that Murkowski's place as ranking Republican on the powerful Senate Energy Committee probably will be taken by North Carolina's Richard Burr. You may remember Burr. He was one of the senators singled out in a League of Conservation Voters video campaign this summer as particularly chummy with Big Oil. A fan of off-shore drilling, Burr has earned a dismal 7 percent voting score from the League. He also ranks eighth in the Senate in terms of receiving oil and gas money -- almost $220,000 in this election cycle alone. For a good cry, look at his track record on climate and energy.
This party's over: Not that it did a lot of good, but the short run of Democrats as the ruling party in Congress looks to be coming to an inglorious end. The latest Gallup Poll of registered voters shows Republicans with a 10 percentage point lead. That just happens to be the largest margin since Gallup started tracking mid-term elections. It gets worse: a USA Today/Gallup Poll released yesterday suggests that when it comes to handling the economy, the top issue for most Americans these days, 49 percent think Republicans would do a better job, compared to 38 percent for Democrats.
A big sucking sound: All of which means, as Grist's Dave Roberts elegantly concludes, things are pretty much going to suck for the next few years, with Republicans staging a boatload of bogus hearings and silly fishing expeditions. Some Republicans are already looking forward to an attitude change on Capitol Hill by which, for instance, members will stop "demonizing" oil companies, to quote Texas Republican Kevin Brady:
This White House and this Congress is demonizing them -- the new drilling moratorium, the new energy taxes -- all of that is costing us tens of thousands of jobs in the middle of what's supposed to be a recovery, but it's a very poor one.
Class dismissed: One thing you can say about Tea Partiers -- they know what they want in a candidate. To help decide on endorsements, a Tea Party group near Sandusky, Ohio asked local candidates whether they agreed or disagreed with position statements on issues ranging from gay marriage to shutting down the Federal Reserve. Global warming also made the hit list. Here's the survey's climate change statement that candidates responded to:
The regulation of Carbon Dioxide in our atmosphere should be left to God and not government and I oppose all measures of Cap and Trade as well as the teaching of global warming theory in our schools.
With friends like these: It's one thing for Greenpeace to battle with a company drilling for oil in the Arctic. But Facebook? Isn't the site just trying to get everyone on the planet to hold hands? Well, it turns out that the giant social network plans to build a huge data storage center in Oregon. Two-thirds of the power for that operation will come from coal. Not only has Greenpeace cried foul, but it says it has rallied 500,000 people to join Facebook groups that are insisting the data center use only renewable energy.
Air transplants: How bad is the smog in Hong Kong? So bad that a green group is now selling fresh air. For just 25 cents, the Fresh Air Network will sell you a baby-blue canister that comes with a breathing mask and a hit of air. Plus, you have a choice of flavors, like vanilla or beach.
And you don't even get sand in your teeth.
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Fuel tanker runs aground in Canadian Arctic
Buy a breath of ‘Fresh Air’ in Hong Kong
Oil slick spreading after rig explosion forced 13 workers into the Gulf
by Jonathan Hiskes.
An offshore oil platform exploded in the Gulf of Mexico on Thursday morning, injuring one worker, the United States Coast Guard said.
The platform, which was owned by the Houston-based Mariner Energy, was floating in relatively shallow waters 340 feet deep to the west of where a drilling rig leased by BP blew up and sank this spring, killing 11 people and touching off an environmental calamity. All 13 members of the work crew on board Thursday were accounted for, the Coast Guard said, though the injured worker's condition was not immediately known.
It's unclear whether the platform is in danger of sinking or whether the explosion may have set off underwater oil leaks. The platform, 20 miles west of the massive April explosion and leak, wasn't actively producing oil at the time of the accident. More details are, uh, gushing in.
While we're catching up on our fossil-fuel disasters, more than 1,000 barrels of oil spilled in North Dakota this week too. Of course, maybe that's just North Dakota's way of pleading for attention.
As always, Congress may not be up to the task of addressing our oil-dependence, but there are steps you can take to cut your town's dependence on oil. Also, check out what Grist's panel of experts had to say about how, whether, and when we can transition from oil to cleaner, safer sources of energy.
Related Links:
Fuel tanker runs aground in Canadian Arctic
Oil slick spreading after rig explosion forced 13 workers into the Gulf
Feds lease prime solar land, but nary a panel is in sight
by Lisa Hymas.
It's not often that natalism makes the news -- and with guns and bombs and hostages, no less! But population and procreation are in the headlines today thanks to James J. Lee, the eco-wacko who took hostages at the Discovery headquarters building in Silver Spring, Md., before being shot by police.
His list of demands, posted at savetheplanetprotest.com, is a teabagger's wet dream of enviro idiocy. His primary obsession: "stopping the human race from breeding any more disgusting human babies!"
For every human born, ACRES of wildlife forests must be turned into farmland in order to feed that new addition over the course of 60 to 100 YEARS of that new human's lifespan! THIS IS AT THE EXPENSE OF THE FOREST CREATURES!!!! All human procreation and farming must cease!
It is the responsiblity of everyone to preserve the planet they live on by not breeding any more children who will continue their filthy practices. Children represent FUTURE catastrophic pollution whereas their parents are current pollution. NO MORE BABIES! Population growth is a real crisis. Even one child born in the US will use 30 to a thousand times more resources than a Third World child. It's like a couple are having 30 babies even though it's just one! If the US goes in this direction maybe other countries will too!
Lee seems to have been pushed over the deep end by the kid-glorifying content on TLC, which is owned by Discovery. Its pro-natalist offerings include 19 Kids and Counting, Jon & Kate Plus 8, and Baby Block. Yes, the Duggars and Gosselins could drive one to drink ... but kidnap? C'mon.
"All programs on Discovery Health-TLC must stop encouraging the birth of any more parasitic human infants and the false heroics behind those actions," Lee demands. "In those programs' places, programs encouraging human sterilization and infertility must be pushed." (Might I suggest instead some Sex and the City reruns?)
The Discovery Channel and it's affiliate channels MUST have daily television programs at prime time slots based on Daniel Quinn's "My Ishmael" pages 207-212 where solutions to save the planet would be done in the same way as the Industrial Revolution was done, by people building on each other's inventive ideas. Focus must be given on how people can live WITHOUT giving birth to more filthy human children since those new additions continue pollution and are pollution. A game show format contest would be in order. Perhaps also forums of leading scientists who understand and agree with the Malthus-Darwin science and the problem of human overpopulation. ... Develop shows that mention the Malthusian sciences about how food production leads to the overpopulation of the Human race.
Lee is giving us sane and humane enviros and childfree people a bad name. And Ishmael fans too, but they kinda had it coming.
Here's the full manifesto with Lee's demands:
The Discovery Channel MUST broadcast to the world their commitment to save the planet and to do the following IMMEDIATELY:
1.
The Discovery Channel and it's affiliate channels MUST have daily television
programs at prime time slots based on Daniel Quinn's "My Ishmael"
pages 207-212 where solutions to save the planet would be done in the same way
as the Industrial Revolution was done, by people building on each other's
inventive ideas. Focus must be given on how people can live WITHOUT giving
birth to more filthy human children since those new additions continue
pollution and are pollution. A game show format contest would be in order.
Perhaps also forums of leading scientists who understand and agree with the
Malthus-Darwin science and the problem of human overpopulation. Do both. Do all
until something WORKS and the natural world starts improving and human
civilization building STOPS and is reversed! MAKE IT INTERESTING SO PEOPLE
WATCH AND APPLY SOLUTIONS!!!!
2. All programs on Discovery Health-TLC must stop encouraging the birth of any
more parasitic human infants and the false heroics behind those actions. In
those programs' places, programs encouraging human sterilization and
infertility must be pushed. All former pro-birth programs must now push in the
direction of stopping human birth, not encouraging it.
3. All programs promoting War and the technology behind those must cease. There
is no sense in advertising weapons of mass-destruction anymore. Instead, talk
about ways to disassemble civilization and concentrate the message in finding
SOLUTIONS to solving global military mechanized conflict. Again, solutions
solutions instead of just repeating the same old wars with newer weapons. Also,
keep out the fraudulent peace movements. They are liars and fakes and had no
real intention of ending the wars. ALL OF THEM ARE FAKE! On one hand, they
claim they want the wars to end, on the other, they are demanding the human
population increase. World War II had 2 Billion humans and after that war, the
people decided that tripling the population would assure peace. WTF???
STUPIDITY! MORE HUMANS EQUALS MORE WAR!
4. Civilization must be exposed for the filth it is. That, and all its
disgusting religious-cultural roots and greed. Broadcast this message until the
pollution in the planet is reversed and the human population goes down! This is
your obligation. If you think it isn't, then get hell off the planet! Breathe
Oil! It is the moral obligation of everyone living otherwise what good are
they??
5. Immigration: Programs must be developed to find solutions to stopping ALL
immigration pollution and the anchor baby filth that follows that. Find
solutions to stopping it. Call for people in the world to develop solutions to
stop it completely and permanently. Find solutions FOR these countries so they
stop sending their breeding populations to the US and the world to seek jobs
and therefore breed more unwanted pollution babies. FIND SOLUTIONS FOR THEM TO
STOP THEIR HUMAN GROWTH AND THE EXPORTATION OF THAT DISGUSTING FILTH! (The first
world is feeding the population growth of the Third World and those human
families are going to where the food is! They must stop procreating new humans
looking for nonexistant jobs!)
6. Find solutions for Global Warming, Automotive pollution, International
Trade, factory pollution, and the whole blasted human economy. Find ways so
that people don't build more housing pollution which destroys the environment
to make way for more human filth! Find solutions so that people stop breeding
as well as stopping using Oil in order to REVERSE Global warming and the
destruction of the planet!
7. Develop shows that mention the Malthusian sciences about how food production
leads to the overpopulation of the Human race. Talk about Evolution. Talk about
Malthus and Darwin until it sinks into the stupid people's brains until they
get it!!
8. Saving the Planet means saving what's left of the non-human Wildlife by
decreasing the Human population. That means stopping the human race from
breeding any more disgusting human babies! You're the media, you can reach
enough people. It's your resposibility because you reach so many minds!!!
9. Develop shows that will correct and dismantle the dangerous US world
economy. Find solutions for their disasterous Ponzi-Casino economy before they
take the world to another nuclear war.
10. Stop all shows glorifying human birthing on all your channels and on TLC.
Stop Future Weapons shows or replace the dialogue condemning the people behind
these developments so that the shows become exposes rather than advertisements
of Arms sales and development!
11. You're also going to find solutions for unemployment and housing. All these
unemployed people makes me think the US is headed toward more war.
Humans are the most destructive, filthy, pollutive creatures around and are
wrecking what's left of the planet with their false morals and breeding
culture.
For every human born, ACRES of wildlife forests must be turned into farmland in
order to feed that new addition over the course of 60 to 100 YEARS of that new
human's lifespan! THIS IS AT THE EXPENSE OF THE FOREST CREATURES!!!! All human
procreation and farming must cease!
It is the responsiblity of everyone to preserve the planet they live on by not
breeding any more children who will continue their filthy practices. Children
represent FUTURE catastrophic pollution whereas their parents are current
pollution. NO MORE BABIES! Population growth is a real crisis. Even one child
born in the US will use 30 to a thousand times more resources than a Third
World child. It's like a couple are having 30 babies even though it's just one!
If the US goes in this direction maybe other countries will too!
Also, war must be halted. Not because it's morally wrong, but because of the
catastrophic environmental damage modern weapons cause to other creatures. FIND
SOLUTIONS JUST LIKE THE BOOK SAYS! Humans are supposed to be inventive. INVENT,
DAMN YOU!!
The world needs TV shows that DEVELOP solutions to the problems that humans are
causing, not stupify the people into destroying the world. Not encouraging them
to breed more environmentally harmful humans.
Saving the environment and the remaning species diversity of the planet is now
your mindset. Nothing is more important than saving them. The Lions, Tigers,
Giraffes, Elephants, Froggies, Turtles, Apes, Raccoons, Beetles, Ants, Sharks,
Bears, and, of course, the Squirrels.
The humans? The planet does not need humans.
You MUST KNOW the human population is behind all the pollution and problems in
the world, and YET you encourage the exact opposite instead of discouraging
human growth and procreation. Surely you MUST ALREADY KNOW this!
I want Discovery Communications to broadcast on their channels to the world
their new program lineup and I want proof they are doing so. I want the new
shows started by asking the public for inventive solution ideas to save the
planet and the remaining wildlife on it.
These are the demands and sayings of Lee.
Bottom line: squirrels, not kids!
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Climate change poses big risks to China’s crops and economy, study finds
New rules push oil inspectors to clean up their act
PACE homeowners must pay up before refinancing, Fannie and Freddie say
by Agence France-Presse.
PARIS -- Climate change could reduce key harvests in China by a fifth if the gloomiest scenarios prove true, according to a study on Wednesday.
Publishing in the journal Nature, a team of Chinese scientists say China's climate "has clearly warmed" over the past half century, gaining 2.2 degrees F since 1960.
The hotspots were northeastern China, with a warming trend of 0.65 degrees F per decade, and Inner Mongolia, with a warming of 0.7 degrees F per decade.
Nationally, heat waves have become more common, the number of cold days has fallen sharply, and glaciers that are vital river feeders are in retreat, they say.
The last century was the warmest period since 1600 and the country's seven warmest years have all occurred in the past decade.
Climate extremes included droughts that hit the country in the 1960s, the late 1970s, early 1980s, the 1990s, and in northeastern China in the last decade.
In 1998, floods inundated 52.5 million acres of land, destroyed 5 million homes in the Yangtze basin, and inflicted $20 billion in damage.
Floods this year affected 230 million people, of whom more than 15 million had to be evacuated from their homes, and left more than 4,200 people dead or missing, according to a toll issued on Tuesday.
The paper, lead-authored by Peking University environmental scientist Shilong Piao, warns of problems for China's racing economy in coming decades if climate change bites hard. Accurate prediction, though, is hard, it says.
"China experienced explosive economic growth in recent decades, but with only 7 percent of the world's arable land available to feed 20 percent of the world's population, China's economy may be vulnerable to climate change itself," it warns.
The biggest problem could be water stress, amplified by a growing and increasingly wealthy population.
Water is abundant in southern China but sparse in the country's north, and overall China's per capita water availability is only 25 percent of the world average.
"Many regions lie in transitional zones where water resources, and hence agricultural production, could be affected positively or negatively by changes in climate," the study says.
In the most favorable scenario, grain yields by mid-century could remain stable or benefit from the rise in carbon dioxide levels.
But in the worst scenario, there could be declines of 4 to 14 percent for rice, 2 and 20 percent for wheat, and 0 and 23 percent for corn in cases where these crops are rainfed rather than irrigated.
The comparison is the yields of these crops between 1996 and 2000. Any future improvements in agro-technology in coming decades are not factored in.
"The range of model results is large, implying large uncertainties," cautions the paper.
The many unknowns are reflected by the wide range in predicting warming for China as a whole -- from 1.8 to 9 degrees F by 2100, depending on worldwide emissions of greenhouse gases.
Computer simulations for climate impacts have advanced substantially for modelling what will happen worldwide, but lag when it comes to predicting regional effects, especially on rainfall, the paper says.
"To reach a more definitive conclusion, future work must ... develop a better understanding of the managed and unmanaged responses to crops to changes in climate, diseases, pests, and atmospheric constituents."
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