People in Rural Communities of Nigeria, Which Supplies 40% of US Crude, Now Only Live to 40 Years
With 606 oilfields, the Niger delta supplies 40% of all the crude the United States imports and is the world capital of oil pollution. Life expectancy in its rural communities, half of which have no access to clean water, has fallen to little more than 40 years over the past two generations. Locals blame the oil that pollutes their land and can scarcely believe the contrast with the steps taken by BP and the US government to try to stop the Gulf oil leak and to protect the Louisiana shoreline from pollution.
Opinion: We Must Not Allow Oil Drilling in the Canadian Arctic
There is extreme danger in exploring for oil in the Canadian Arctic. Even with same-season relief well equipment at the ready, there’s no guarantee winds wouldn’t shift the ice during the short Arctic summer and make efforts to repair a well blowout impossible.
Not only would an oil spill in this region be catastrophic, but the response of some concerned with preventing this, as you’ll see below, falls short of what many of us believe is truly needed:
A moratorium on all offshore oil exploration and drilling in the Arctic, by all circumpolar nations, including Canada, pending the negotiation of an international treaty to protect its resources, its people and its environment.
Video: UBC Professor William Rees on Humanity’s Need to Reduce Consumption
An eight part video of Dr. William Rees, professor at the University of British Columbia’s School of Community and Regional Planning, talking of humanity’s survival depending on an 80% reduction in energy use.
How Big is the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill?
View a shocking interactive map of the BP Deepwater Horizon catastrophic oil spill and enter the name of your own city to see the shape of the spill area superimposed on a Google map of your area.
Another Affront to Our Intelligence: Oil Drilling Off BC Coast a Strong Possibility
BC Liberals favour offshore oil drilling. Big oil eyes B.C. coast, notwithstanding Gulf of Mexico spill. Marine mammals have made a remarkable recovery in this province, but that could be erased by a catastrophic oil spill.
Two Articles on Dangers of Tar Sands Expansion
Friends of the Earth reports the successful development of the controversial oil sands in Canada has prompted oil companies to invest in similar operations elswhere, including Russia, Venezuela, the Congo, and Madagascar.
But the dramatic impact of oil sands expansion should give the companies involved and their investors pause, cautions a new report commissioned by Ceres, a coalition of investors and environmental groups, and authored by the financial risk management group RiskMetrics
Limits to Growth for Big Oil, Big Coal, Big Fish Farms and Our Big Economy Crucial
Our individual and collective human effort seems to have a momentum, a predictable trajectory that tracks a compulsive course from less to more and from little to bigger. In the progression from deep to deeper and from some to many, our technology increases in sophistication, our problems rise in complexity and our risks multiply in tandem. So far we have been able to race just ahead of catastrophe. But this basic strategy is an invitation to eventual calamity, as the blowout in the Gulf of Mexico attests, as our mining pollution proves and as our fish farm problems confirm.
In the great scheme of things – should anyone feel confused about all that’s happening these days – we are presently engaged in the search for a fundamental sense of proportion and balance. This arduous process begins with global awareness. But it’s really about our inner growth and maturation, about our discovery of limits.
ET Meets IT: Video of TIME Magazine interview with Google
Video: Brian Walsh of TIME Magazine interviews Dan Reicher, director of climate change and energy initiatives at Google, who talks of what the Internet giant is doing in the clean energy sphere.
Moratorium on Offshore Drilling Across Top of North America Critically Important
It Could Happen Here: Canada should demand a moratorium on Arctic oil drilling until we’re certain it will be done safely – Article by Professor Michael Byers on the danger of drilling for oil in the fragile Arctic and how Canadian waters would be affected.
Imagine an Oil Rig Blowout in the Arctic. Oil Drilling There Must Be Prevented.
Two items:
Press Release from the World Wildlife Federation: All Drilling Must Be Halted in Arctic Pending Full Investigation of Gulf of Mexico Blowout; Despite calls for drilling “time-out,” Shell still set to begin exploratory drilling in Arctic on July 1 -
PARIS, May 5, 2010 (IPS) – The disastrous oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico has given increased urgency to the fifth Global Oceans Conference taking place here at the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO).
