Christine Shearer - Will Fossil Fuel Companies Face Liability for Climate Change?

Friday 9 December 2011

by: Christine Shearer, Conducive Chronicle [3] | News Analysis

http://www.truth-out.org/will-fossil-fuel-companies-face-liability-climate-change/1323803340

In a recent article [4] in National Journal, Americans for Prosperity [5] (AFP) President Tim Phillips said there is no question that AFP and others like it have been instrumental in the rise of Republican candidates who question or deny climate science: “We’ve made great headway. What it means for candidates on the Republican side is, if you … buy into green energy or you play footsie on this issue, you do so at your political peril.”

AFP is a section 501(c)(4) [6] organization, meaning it does not have to disclose its donors, but has been tied to significant funding [7] from the Koch Family Foundations [8] - founded by the billionaire Koch brothers of Koch Industries – as well as smaller donations from companies like ExxonMobil. Koch Industries [9] and ExxonMobil [10] are among the largest funders of studies questioning climate change science, often drawn upon by conservative politicians to legitimize their view that regulation of greenhouse gases (GHGs) is not needed because the science is still under debate.

These organizations and their supporters say they are just funding their own independent studies of climate change science. Yet these studies almost all go against observable scientific data [11] to question global warming – so much so that one study funded in part by the Kochs that confirmed a rise in average world land temperature [12] was regarded as an anomaly. Which raises the question: if these studies are largely designed not to shed light on climate change, but to create doubt and confusion to delay greenhouse gas regulations, why is it legal, and do those deliberately spreading misinformation face liability?

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People Speak Truth to Power - Indian Point Rally! [Video]

Gary Null speaks at the highly successful Rally to Close Indian Point and Stop Hydrofracking on Saturday, October 8.

Don't forget to sign the Online Petition to the Governor and State Assemblies of NY:

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"James Hansen"- Why the Tar Sands Pipeline Will Be Game Over for Our Planet

posted on September 6, 2011, Printed on September 7, 2011

http://www.alternet.org/story/152314/why_the_tar_sands_pipeline_will_be_game_over_for_our_planet

Tar Sands Action organized a civil disobedience sit–in at The White House to oppose construction of the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline that began on August 20 and will culminate in a big rally on September 3rd. On August 29 I joined 60 religious leaders and other fellow protestors. I was arrested that day. But before I was handcuffed, I addressed fellow activists who had gathered outside The White House with these words:

Let us return for a moment to the election night in 2008. As I sat in our farmhouse in Pennsylvania, watching Barack Obama's victory speech, I turned my head aside so my wife would not see the tears in my eyes. I suspect that millions cried. It was a great day for America.

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Dahr Jamail: The Scourge of 'Peak Oil'

Published on Tuesday, July 26, 2011 by Al Jazeera English

http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth/features/2011/07/201172081613634207.html

When demand for oil consistently surpasses supply, experts warn that our lives will look "very differently".

by Dahr Jamail

Energy derived from oil reaches, quite literally, every aspect of our lives.

From the clothes we wear, to the food we eat, to how we move ourselves around, without oil, our lives would look very differently.

Yet oil is a finite resource. While there is no argument that it won't last forever, there is debate about how much oil is left and how long it might last.

Tom Whipple, an energy scholar, was a CIA analyst for 30 years - and believes we are likely at, or very near, a point in history when the maximum production capacity for oil is reached, a phenomenon often referred to as "peak oil".

"Peak oil is the time when the world's production reaches the highest point, then starts back down again," Whipple told Al Jazeera. "Oil is a finite resource, and [it] someday will go down, and that is what the peak oil discussion is all about."

There are signs that peak oil may have already arrived.

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Mariel Nanasi: A Future Without Coal

Published on Monday, July 25, 2011 by ClimateStoryTellers.org

http://www.climatestorytellers.org/stories/mariel-nanasi-a-future-without-coal-in-new-mexico/

Advocates for a Renewable Energy Future In New Mexico Supreme Court, Again

by Mariel Nanasi

It’s time we secure a future without coal in New Mexico, across America, and around the world. It won’t be easy. Along the way, we will need a lot of help, creativity and inspiration.

While we draw strength from each other, our movement to end coal and save our planet from climate change also honors the millions of people viciously poisoned and ruthlessly exploited by the relentless, destructive impact of coal. From infants and children to adults and our beloved elders, the litany of coal’s negative effects is brutal and it’s growing.

Coal mining, coal transportation and coal-fired electricity generation are widely recognized to increase rates of asthma, emphysema, lung cancer, heart disease, stroke, neurological damage in children and infant mortality. The more we learn, the worse it gets. Everyday, tons upon tons of CO₂, ozone, nitrous oxides, sulfur dioxides, particulate matter and mercury—all from coal, exact a staggering price in blood and sorrow.

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CNN: 'Ice Wars' heating up the Arctic

http://www.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/americas/07/15/larsen.arctic.ice.wars/index.html

(CNN) -- On a small, floating piece of ice in the Beaufort Sea, several hundred miles north of Alaska, a group of scientists are documenting what some dub an "Arctic meltdown."

According to climate scientists, the warming of the region is shrinking the polar ice cap at an alarming rate, reducing the permafrost layer and wreaking havoc on polar bears, arctic foxes and other indigenous wildlife in the region.

What is bad for the animals, though, has been good for commerce.

The recession of the sea ice and the reduction in permafrost -- combined with advances in technology -- have allowed access to oil, mineral and natural gas deposits that were previously trapped in the ice.

The abundance of these valuable resources and the opportunity to exploit them has created a gold rush-like scramble in the high north, with fierce competition to determine which countries have the right to access the riches of the Arctic.

This competition has brought in its wake a host of naval and military activities that the Arctic hasn't seen since the end of the Cold War.

Now, one of the coldest places on Earth is heating up as nuclear submarines, Aegis-class frigates, strategic bombers and a new generation of icebreakers are resuming operations there.

Just how much oil and natural gas is under the Arctic ice?

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Vandana Shiva: Climate Change and Agriculture: Biodiverse Ecological Farming Is the Answer, Not Genetic Engineering

Industrial globalised agriculture is heavily implicated in climate change. It contributes to the three major greenhouse gases: carbon dioxide (CO2) from the use of fossil fuels, nitrogen oxide (N2O) from the use of chemical fertilizers and methane (CH4) from factory farming. According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate change (IPCC), atmospheric concentration of CO2 has increased from a pre–industrial concentration of about 280 parts per million to 379 parts per million in 2005. The global atmospheric concentration of CH4 has increased from pre–industrial concentration of 715 parts per billion to 1774 parts per billion in 2005. The global atmospheric concentration of N2O, largely due to use of chemical fertilizers in agriculture, increased from about 270 parts per billion to 319 parts per billion in 2005.

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Dire Predictions, Conspicuous Omissions and Our Perilous Energy Future

Only days before President Obama delivered this year's State of the Union speech, a startlingly grim little piece appeared in IPS. The article, which highlighted a newly released assessment of global climate change by the International Energy Agency (IEA), was as definitive as it was dramatic.

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5 Mining Projects That Could Devastate the Entire Planet

Ill tell you about five Godzilla-scale fossil-digging projects in North America that if approved will set us on a course to repeat our past with grave implications for the future of our planet. You may have already heard about some of these projects individually, but the urgency to stop them collectively is more than ever before.

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James Howard Kunstler: The Delusional People Who Want to Frack This Country Up

On Sunday night CBS hauled Aubrey McClendon, CEO of Chesapeake Energy, on board their flagship Sunday infotainment vehicle, 60 Minutes, to blow a mighty wind up America's ass (as they say in professional PR circles). America is lately addicted to lying to itself, and 60 Minutes has become the "go-to" patsy for funneling disinformation into an already hopelessly confused, wishful, delusional, US public.

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