ConocoPhillips to Use Drones in Alaska

by Ryan Koronowski / Think Progress

Credit: (AP Photo/University of Alaska Geophysical Institute, David Giessel)

The FAA issued an approval in July that paved the way for a “major energy company” to fly unmanned drones in U.S. airspace. Yesterday it became clear which corporation would be using drones to aid its Alaskan oil drilling efforts: ConocoPhillips.

This marks the first time a private company has received permission to fly “unmanned aircraft systems,” UAS — or drones — in America for non-experimental purposes.

“Until now, obtaining an experimental airworthiness certificate — which specifically excludes commercial operations — was the only way the private sector could operate UAS in the nation’s airspace,” the FAA announced last month. FAA hailed the move as “a milestone that will lead to the first approved commercial UAS operations later this summer.”

“A major energy company plans to fly the ScanEagle off the Alaska coast in international waters starting in August.”

That “major energy company” is ConocoPhillips, as reported by Petroleum News.

AeroVironment, one of the two companies that manufacture the drones approved for use by ConocoPhillips, hailed the approval at the time: “This marks the first time the FAA has approved a hand-launched unmanned aircraft system for commercial missions.”

The Ecology of a Police State

Or, why hating cops may be the most environmentally sustainable decision you can make in your life

by Panagioti / Earth First! Newswire

The police state in effect at 2013 RNC in Tampa.

Imagine being an environmental activist in a world where police can get away with killing young people for vandalizing a fast food joint; where a government’s local law enforcers are collaborating with giant energy corporations to stifle opposition; where a sheriff demands funding for a program urging neighbors to snitch on anyone who says they hate said government.

Sadly it doesn’t take much imagination, does it? In case you weren’t inspired to click the embedded links above, they reference recent stories of these things occurring in the US.

In light of this reality, it’s crystal clear that global ecology will never be stabilized as long as the police have anything to do with it.

That’s right. Stopping the tar sands’ atmospheric climate bomb, keeping GMOs out of our food, and defending wolves’ ability to restore biodiversity depends on getting rid of the fuzz. Perhaps this is the beginning of a new movement initiative that aims to reduce the CO2 parts per million (ppm) by simultaneously slashing the cpms (cops per million). Cops are not only the industrial empire’s first line of defense against, well, us. They are also massive usurpers of the public financial resources that might otherwise be put towards restoring the Earth.

Where the Earth First! movement was once known for its epic wilderness corridor proposals in the ‘80s which became a basic foundation for the future of conservation biology, I think this plan too will shape the face of the ecology to come. 

Pilot Whale and Dolphin Slaughter in the Faroe Islands

by Erwin Vermeulen / Sea Shepherd Conservation Society

On August 13th, 135 long-finned pilot whales were brutally slaughtered in Húsavík.

It’s been an extremely bloody few weeks in the Ferocious Isles, even by Faroese standards. On August 8, 107 Long-finned Pilot whales were slaughtered in Sandavágur. On August 11, 21 were butchered in Leynar and on the 13^th, 135 lost their lives in Húsavík.

The grind(adrap), as the Pilot whale drive is called, has a recorded history since 1584. There are 23 whaling bays assigned to six districts in which the meat and blubber are divided among the population. A drive is initiated when fishermen or ferries offshore sight dolphins. The dolphins are driven into a bay with boats and even jet skis and pulled up onto the beach with a hook in the blowhole. Then the spinal cord is cut with a knife.

The Húsavík massacre on the 13^th was not the only one that took place that day. In Hvalba, the incredibly high number of 430 Atlantic White-sided dolphins were driven into ‘whale bay’ and brutally murdered. Some people might be surprised to hear that these islanders are targeting species other than Pilot whales, but they have always hunted smaller dolphins, especially in Hvalba. They last killed Atlantic White-sided dolphins in Hvalba in August 2010 and Risso’s dolphins earlier that year in April. Oravik took 100 Atlantic White-sided dolphins in August 2009. That same month, Hvalba killed two Northern Bottlenose whales that were reported as stranded, and a month later Klaksvik took three Risso’s. In June 1978 that town even butchered 31 Orcas.

Genetically Pure Bison Returned to Fort Belknap After a Century Away

from Indian Country Today Media Network

Rion Sanders/Great Falls Tribune
Read more at http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2013/08/23/bison-return-fort-belknap-after-century-151007

Onlookers hooted, hollered and cheered as bison were coaxed off the trailer and went racing off onto the plain of the Fort Belknap Reservation in Montana. On Thursday, 34 genetically pure animals were set loose. It marks the first time in a century the animals have roamed the area.

“It’s a great day for Indians and Indian country,” Mark Azure, who heads the tribe’s bison program, told the Great Falls Tribune moments after the final two big bulls rumbled out of a trailer and trotted away onto the prairie. The bulls were kept in a trailer separate from the others.

The animals had traveled the 190 miles from the Fort Peck Indian Reservation where Fish, Wildlife and Parks had put 70 of them last year from Yellowstone National Park. Fort Peck already had a herd of some 200 animals, but the Yellowstone bison are the only remaining genetically pure and free ranging wild bison in the United States, the same animals that covered the western plains 200 years ago and numbered in the millions.

Lawsuit: Company Lied About Coal Ash Dangers

“At one point, workers were told ‘you could drink fly ash daily and suffer no adverse health effects,’ according to the complaint …. In fact, when some workers were prescribed respirators or protective masks, ‘they were ordered not to wear said items.'”

by Bob Flowers / knoxnews.com

In a Dec. 23, 2008, photograph, the stacks of TVA’s Kingston Fossil Plant in Roane County stand over 5.4 million cubic yards of ash sludge after the failure of a storage cell. (J. Miles Cary/News Sentinel)

They call it Fly Ash Flu.

It’s the name some workers at the Kingston ash spill site gave health woes they say they incurred from prolonged exposure to a witch’s brew of toxic substances in coal ash.

A federal lawsuit filed Thursday in U.S. District Court targets the company hired by TVA to make sure cleanup of the disastrous coal ash spill at its Kingston Fossil Plant [in Tennessee] was done safely.

Jacobs Engineering Group Inc., an international provider of professional technical services based in Pasadena, Calif., had a TVA contract that “greatly exceeded $40 million” to oversee safety guidelines, according to the lawsuit.

The complaint seeks compensatory damages for pain and suffering and punitive damages of up to 20 percent of all contracts Jacobs Engineering had with TVA for its work.

The lawsuit hadn’t been served on Jacobs Engineering late Thursday.

Knoxville attorney James K. Scott filed the 21-page complaint on behalf of 34 current and former workers at the ash spill cleanup site, along with 17 spouses.

Other plaintiffs are expected to join the complaint, Scott said Thursday.

Virtually all of the plaintiffs have respiratory problems, Scott said. Other health issues range from heart problems to sinus ailments to skin rashes.

The federal complaint alleges that Jacobs Engineering knew coal ash contained toxic, hazardous substances but lied to workers about it.

TWAC Maine October 19th-21st!

from TWAC

Trans and/or Womyn’s Action Camp, October 19 – 21. Augusta region, Maine.

Who: TWAC is an action camp for folks who identify as female and/or trans, gender queer and gender variant. This space is not for people who were assigned male identities and continue to identify that way. TWAC Maine aims to bring folks together to grow solidarity and community in our region of the world.

What: TWAC Maine is inspired by similar action camps around the country, committed to building safer spaces and united cultures of resistance. At TWAC we will share campaign information, organizing and direct action skills in a conscientious and empowering environment for voices often marginalized. At then end of the camp we will take collective action, as decided by those who attend.

Cattle Auction Website Hacked

from Bite Back

received anonymously (translation – seguir adelante para español):

“In these images you can see the before and after of our visit, you can see a small modification. Similarly other modifications were made to the website which, though not visible on the main page, surely will take them a few hours to return to how they had it, if they can. On the page, all references to the sale of cattle were removed. All the orders, auctions, types of animals auctioned and some news.
The hacked website is http://www.unionganadera.com and although our way to enter it was with tools to get user names and passwords, the lack of security on the page was surprising. The user name was ‘Admin’ (without quotes) and the password was ‘123456’ (again without quotes).

While there are those who benefit from suffering, we’ll be there.
We will not allow the torture and murder to happen freely.
FLA”

Hunting Towers Destroyed in Sweden

from Bite Back

According to media reports, as many as 20 hunting towers in Jämtland County were cut down or overturned early on August 18. (photos: Pär Eriksson)

What The US, Russia Are Really Quarreling Over: Pipelines

For both countries, the Snowden affair is just another ho-hum spat in the greater imperial rivalry.

by Steve Horn / Mint Press News

Secretary of State John Kerry, right, listens to a translation as Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov speaks to reporters during their meeting in Washington, Friday, Aug. 9, 2013. The much-discussed Snowden affair is only the latest surface-level event in a geopolitical standoff between the U.S. and Russa over natural gas. (AP/Charles Dharapak)

Nearly two months ago, former National Security Agency (NSA) contractor-turned-whistleblower Edward Snowden handed smoking-gun documents on the international surveillance apparatus to The Guardian and The Washington Post in what’s become one of the most captivating stories in recent memory.

Snowden now lives in Russia after a Hollywood-like nearly six-week-long stint in a Moscow airport waiting for a country to grant him asylum.

Journalists and pundits have spent countless articles and news segments conveying the intrigue and intensity of the standoff that eventually resulted in Russia granting Snowden one year of asylum. Attention now has shifted to his father, Lon Snowden, and his announced visit of Edward in Russia.

Lost in the excitement of this “White Bronco Moment,” many have missed the elephant in the room: the “Great Game”-style geopolitical standoff between the U.S. and Russia underlying it all, and which may have served as the impetus for Russia to grant Snowden asylum to begin with. What’s at stake? Natural gas.

Willits Bypass Protester’s Account of Lock-down Action, Time in Jail

from Save Little Lake Valley

Kim Bancroft is a writer, homesteader, and retired teacher who lives in Willits.  She has been working to oppose the Caltrans Willits Bypass since The Warbler’s tree sit commenced in January.  Earlier this month, Kim and Arcata resident Maureen Kane were arrested for locking down to an excavator in the Bypass southern interchange area, with Willits resident Steve Keyes being arrested as part of the same action.  She chronicles the experience in detail on her blog, Urban Woman’s Guide Back to the Land, in a series of six very well-written posts. It is the most detailed chronicle of a Bypass protester’s experience of an action and their subsequent incarceration that anyone has written.

In the same vein, Will Parrish published the first in a series of two articles on his experience as a crane sitter in the Anderson Valley Advertiser last week.

Kim’s posts recount her experience of being locked to the excavator, her interactions with a kindly, God-fearing negotiating officer who believes God has commanded people to obey the government and that global warming is a farce, the experience of total surveillance that exists in jail, her sense of the injustice vis-à-vis the incarceration of other inmates for minor (or non-existent) offenses, the camaraderie among inmates, the solidarity she experienced upon being released, and much more.