China Mining Tibet To Death

by Claude Arpi / Niti Central

On March 29, China’s State media reported that 83 miners had presumably died following a major landslide at the site of a gold mine in Gyama Valley, near the Tibetan capital, Lhasa. A few days later, 66 miners were confirmed dead and 17 were declared missing despite massive rescue efforts.

Reports from Tibet further stated that the miners (only two of them were Tibetans) were asleep in their tents when the tragedy occurred. They were buried by a 3-kilometre wide and 30 metres deep mass of rocks and debris.

How Obama Defanged the Environmental Protection Agency

by Joshua Frank / Counterpunch

It was a tumultuous tenure, productive by some accounts, lackluster by most, but one thing is for certain, Lisa Jackson’s short time as administrator at the Environmental Protection Agency was anything but dull. On December 27, 2012 the often-fiery Jackson announced she was not going to return for a second term, and it is surely not difficult to see why she’s fleeing her post.

Since President Obama was ushered into office in 2008, the EPA has consistently faced ridicule and criticism from corporate polluters and their greedy allies in Washington. On virtually every occasion Obama refused to side with Jackson’s more rationale, often science-based positions, whether it was cleaning up the air or forcing the natural resource industries to abide by existing regulations. Ultimately, the EPA is only as formidable as the White House allows it to be, and on Obama’s watch the agency has not received the support it has desired or deserved.

Take the case of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. Even though those three horrible months watching oil spew into the Gulf have seeped out of our collective memory, the BP disaster is one of the largest stains on Jackson’s four-year stint at EPA. Soon after the underwater blowout, Jackson, a New Orleans native, demanded BP halt their use of the toxic dispersant Corexit 9500 to clean up their gushing mess. She took a tough line against a company that had gotten away with far too much for too long.

Monsanto’s Dirty War

by Zach Kaldveer and Ronnie Cummins / Counterpunch

The biotech industry, led by Monsanto, will soon descend on the state of Washington to try their best to defeat I-522, a citizens’ ballot initiative to require mandatory labeling of foods that contain genetically engineered (GE) ingredients. Voters should prepare themselves for an onslaught of discredited talking points, nonsensical red herrings, and outright lies designed to convince voters that they shouldn’t have the right to know what’s in the food they eat.

Topping the biotech industry’s propaganda playlist will no doubt be this old familiar tune: that requiring retailers to verify non-GMO ingredients in order to label them will be burdensome and costly, and the additional cost will be passed on to consumers who are already struggling to feed their families.

In Memoriam: Joe Feller, Much More Than a Law Professor

by Holly Doremus / Legal Planet

Joe Feller, second from left, with students in his Natural Resources Field Seminar in 2008. Photo by Bret Birdsong.

Today I learned the sad news that Joe Feller, Professor of Law at Arizona State University, has died after being hit by a car. Joe was a fine scholar (coincidentally, I was reading a terrific piece he wrote on The Adjudication that Ate Arizona Water Law when the news came in), but he was so much more than that. Joe, whose father David was a highly respected labor and civil rights lawyer for two decades before he joined the faculty at Berkeley Law, knew firsthand that (to borrow the words of Dan Tarlock) environmental law is all about marrying wonder to power.  Joe loved the west’s great landscapes, even the ones most people don’t find picturesque or beautiful. He knew that law review articles don’t save landscapes. Joe did just that. He used every tool available, from buy-outs to litigation, to reduce the amount of livestock grazing on some of the west’s most ecologically fragile lands. And he got his students out to those lands, passing along both his love of them and his deep understanding of how easily and lastingly they could be damaged by careless use.

Smuggler Caught with More than 10 Percent of an Entire Species

by P. Tanson / Traffic

Ploughshare tortoises, native to Madagascar, are one of the most critically endangered species on the planet. And, while countless conservation groups are actively working to save them, the arrest of a wildlife smuggler in Thailand is proving just how easily a handful of criminals could bring about their demise.

Authorities say they recently arrested a 38-year-old Thai man at an airport in Bankok attempting to collect a bag containing 54 ploughshare tortoises smuggled in from Madagascar. Although that may seem less severe than some larger scale environmental crimes, this haul of tortoises actually accounts for nearly 13 percent of the estimated 400 or so individuals thought to still be in existence in the wild.

Tax-payer Funded Eco-saboteur Video Game Draws Controversy

A screen grab of the controversial video game called “Pipe Trouble” shows a telling threat from a bearded “eco-terrorist”. The video game is meant to accompany a new documentary about the pipeline debate in British Columbia. A string of pipeline attacks have taken place in recent years in the region. You can play the game  here.

from CTV News (play the game here)

An online video game funded by Ontario taxpayers is causing a firestorm of controversy in three provinces for depicting pipeline bombings.

The game, called “Pipe Trouble,” was released by TV Ontario, the province’s public broadcaster. TVO recently removed the game from its website after critics charged that it depicts eco-terrorist activities. The broadcaster said the game will be independently reviewed.

The game is described on a TVO blog as a “companion ethical game” to a documentary called “Trouble in the Peace,” which addresses local opposition to pipelines and the bombing of pipelines in Peace River, B.C.

Fracking Boom to Hit New Mexico

 by Kevin Robinson-Avila / from the Albuquerque Journal

 

FARMINGTON — Preliminary results from Mancos shale wells in northwestern New Mexico are boosting industry excitement about a new oil and gas boom in the region.

Companies must learn a lot more about the shale formation before any gushers explode, but some of the 22 exploratory wells drilled to date have shown solid commercial potential for oil and gas production, according to industry executives who attended a conference this week in Farmington to discuss production potential in the Mancos play, a previously untapped section of the San Juan Basin.

14 Religious Leaders Arrested at Climate Action in DC

by Rabbi Arthur Waskow

Dear friends,

Yesterday, along with 14 other religious folk, clergy and committed “laity,” I was arrested for standing at the White House with signs and songs, reciting the names of more than 100 people who had been killed by one result of the climate crisis: Superstorm Sandy.

The action was organized by Interfaith Moral Action on Climate, of which The Shalom Center is a vigorously active member. We were calling on the president to act swiftly to heal our Mother Earth from the climate crisis, from the plagues that modern Pharaohs — Big Oil, Big Coal, Unnatural Gas — have brought upon us.

Senate Approves Keystone Pipeline in Bipartisan Vote

by Juliet Eilperin / the Washington Post

The Senate voted 62 to 37 Friday in favor of constructing the Keystone XL pipeline, the controversial project that would transport heavy crude oil from Hardisty, Alberta, to Gulf Coast’s refineries.

The bipartisan amendment to the Senate budget resolution, authored by Sens. John Hoeven (R-N.D.) and Max Baucus (D-Mont.), has no binding authority. But it shows the significant support the proposal enjoys on Capitol Hill, despite the fact that opponents argue its construction will accelerate global warming and could cause harmful oil spills on ecologically-sensitive habitat.

The Penan Blockade Against a New Gas Pipeline in Borneo

from Survival International

The Penan in Long Seridan are protesting against the building of a gas pipeline which is cutting through their ancestral land.
© Survival

Penan from the Long Seridan region have mounted a blockade to protest against the building of a gas pipeline which is cutting through their ancestral land and destroying their source of drinking water.

The 500km pipeline is being built by the Malaysian national oil company Petronas and is nearing completion. It will transport natural gas from the Malaysian state of Sabah, south to the coast of Sarawak.