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Amazon Indians protest oil contamination left by Texaco
Gonzalo Solano, Associated Press via ENN
ESTACION GUANTA, Ecuador — About 50 Cofan Indians, some holding handkerchiefs over their faces to fend off an acrid chemical stench, gathered Wednesday around two contaminated open pits they say were left behind and never adequately cleaned up by the former Texaco Corp.
An ongoing oil-contamination lawsuit, brought by 88 people representing 30,000 poor jungle settlers and Amazon Indians, opened in Ecuador in October 2003 after a decade of wending through U.S. courts.
The plaintiffs claim US$6 billion (euro5 billion) in damages to their jungle homeland. The case is the first time that a multinational petroleum company has been subjected to Ecuadorean jurisdiction for allegedly damaging the environment in this small Andean nation, which depends on oil for its development.
“We are poor people. We want to show the environmental damage from Texaco,” Edita Requalme, a 35-year-old Cofan woman in a brightly colored traditional blouse and skirt, told The Associated Press.
(20 October 2005)
Saving the planet by flicking a switch
Jeremy Lovell, Reuters via ENN
LONDON — Eve Black always turns the light off when she leaves a room and never leaves the TV on standby — and she wishes others would follow suit.
“I do it automatically because I know it is important,” the 17-year-old student said. “It may not seem that one person can make much of a difference. But every little bit helps.”
Black is among a growing band of young people in Britain who have been made abruptly aware of the problems of climate change as a result of campaigns by nongovernmental organizations, scientists and celebrities.
…For Eve Black, whose generation will have to shoulder the burden of the decisions taken now by political leaders but who have no say in those decisions, it is time to act.
“Governments must lead the way, not spend their time worrying about losing votes by telling people they have to change the way they live. It is far bigger than that,” she said.
“People have to be aware that they can’t keep on living as they are. It is a lifestyle choice they have to make. Eventually it will become second nature.”
(20 October 2005)
Its easy to quantitatively mock the ‘every bit counts’ message, but that ignores both the moral responsibility for good stewardship/right livelihood and the pragmatic need to re-educate ourselves to adapt to an energy-descent world.-LJ
Old ways of life are fading as Arctic thaws
Myers, Revkin, Romero and Krauss, NY Times
…For the four million people who live north of the Arctic Circle, in remote outposts and the improbable industrial centers built by Soviet decree, a changing climate presents new opportunities. But it also threatens their environment, their homes and, for those whose traditions rely on the ice-bound wilderness, the preservation of their culture.
A push to develop the North, quickened by the melting of the Arctic seas, carries its own rewards and dangers for people in the region. The discovery of vast petroleum fields in the Barents and Kara Seas has raised fears of catastrophic accidents as ships loaded with oil and, soon, liquefied gas churn through the fisheries off Scandinavia, headed to markets in Europe and North America. Land that was untouched could be tainted by pollution as generators, smokestacks and large vehicles sprout to support the growing energy industry.
But the thaw itself is already causing widespread anxiety. In Russia, 20 percent of which lies above the Arctic Circle, melting of the permafrost threatens the foundations of homes, factories, pipelines. While the primary causes are debated, the effect is an engineering nightmare no one anticipated when the towns were built, in Stalin’s time.
Coastal erosion is a problem in Alaska as well, forcing the United States to prepare to relocate several Inuit villages at a projected cost of $100 million or more for each one.
Across the Arctic, indigenous tribes with traditions shaped by centuries of living in extremes of cold and ice are noticing changes in weather and wildlife. They are trying to adapt, but it can be confounding.
(20 October 2005)
S.Africa opposed to watered down Kyoto
Reuters
JOHANNESBURG – South Africa said on Thursday that it would staunchly oppose any moves to water down the targets laid out for developed countries under the Kyoto climate change pact at an upcoming U.N. meeting in Montreal.
“In Montreal next month, South Africa will do all it can to oppose any weakening of the Kyoto targets and timeframes,” Deputy Foreign Affairs Minister Sue van der Merwe said in prepared remarks at the close of a climate change conference.
(20 October 2005)
Raiders of the Lost Arctic
Oil drills getting closer than ever to the Arctic Refuge
Amanda Griscom Little, Grist Magazine
“The threat to the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge has never been greater than it is today,” according to Brian Moore, legislative director for the Alaska Wilderness League.
And, though the battle over the refuge has a Groundhog Day quality to it — haven’t we heard this same alarm sounding before? — this time advocates on both sides of the issue agree: Congress is closer than ever before to green-lighting oil and gas drilling in one of the largest remaining undeveloped wild areas in the United States.
Wednesday, the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee voted 13-9 to include in a hulking budget package a provision that would not only allow drilling on the coastal plain at the northern edge of the Arctic Refuge, but also require that the land be leased to energy developers as a means of generating revenue for the federal treasury
(20 October 2005)
Senate panel approves Arctic drilling
Felicity Barringer, NY Times
WASHINGTON, Oct. 19 – The Senate Energy and Commerce Committee approved a measure on Wednesday to open the coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil and gas production, moving it an important step closer to becoming official.
The committee voted 13 to 9 to add the measure to the budget reconciliation legislation, which under Senate rules cannot be filibustered. The House has already approved a similar measure.
Aides to the committee’s chairman, Senator Pete V. Domenici, Republican of New Mexico, predicted that a vote by the full Senate on the reconciliation measure was likely within two weeks.
(20 October 2005)
