a placard reading .All Pipelines Leak All Markets Peak. at a protest rally.
(Image by Tar Sands Blockade) Details DMCA
a placard reading .All Pipelines Leak All Markets Peak. at a protest rally.
(Image by Tar Sands Blockade) Details DMCA
* Fossil fuels will be around for a while, if not quite a while. So to make the best of a bad situation, Big Oil & Gas needs to put more focus on creating machines that burn natural gas rather than oil and coal. Natural gas is cleaner and doesn't affect the environment as much as dirtier-burning petroleum and coal. According to Smithsonian.com: "Burning natural gas...produces nearly half as much carbon dioxide per unit of energy compared with coal. Natural gas is thus considered by many to be a 'bridge fuel' that can help nations lower carbon emissions while they transition more slowly from fossil fuels to renewable, carbon-neutral forms of energy. Meantime, the U.S. Dept. of Energy reports: "Natural gas is increasingly being used to replace gasoline in smaller applications, such as in forklifts and commercial lawn equipment. Because natural gas is a low-carbon, clean-burning fuel, a switch to natural gas in these applications can result in substantial reductions of hydrocarbon, carbon monoxide, oxides of nitrogen, and greenhouse gas emissions."
* Other alternative energy sources must be explored and substantial investments made in establishing them as viable power sources, like solar and wind power. Perhaps even steam and nuclear power sources can be added here. Of course, much must be done to improve a safer harnessing and harvesting of nuclear power, since radiation can create even more of a problem to a city or village than a pipeline break. The major energy companies should be allocating more money and technology into solar and wind power sources. Energies that create no nasty byproducts and carbon footprints should be placed at the forefront and not made into a public relations tool by Big Oil & Gas. These are the forces of the future and if the major energy conglomerates fail in focusing a lot of their efforts here, they will go by the wayside, like the manual wind-up handle.
* Corporate executives and government leaders should be held accountable if and when a large oil spill or any other type of environmental catastrophe encroaches on the threat to human life and well being. Particularly in the case of government leaders, who rely heavily for campaign contributions from Big Oil & Gas companies. If the unbelievable and unthinkable occurs, swift justice needs to be levied against all parties involved with implementing and operating the source of the ecological vampire. Presently, there are no real mandates in environmental areas of International Law, or even in U.S. federal law, for that matter, that govern horrid acts of mass pollution that may even result in genocide. But it's time for such laws to be written and endorsed. If the Keystone XL pipeline is constructed and begins operation, for example, and if most of the crude oil is shipped overseas and this very dirty crude creates a Frankenstein of environmental menaces, all parties involved in pipelining this monster through governmental channels should be held accountable and tried and convicted in the same fashion as war criminals. Such heinous blasphemy against Mother Nature should not go away with the impunity of the guilty saying, "We had no idea this was going to happen." And simply fining the guilty culprits isn't good enough when a world balance, potential mass exodus, and the loss of human life result in such draconian manipulation and maneuvering of our politics and economy. State laws must also be considered for cases in which errors of judgment may result in the loss of human life. Although there were no reported casualties after the recent oil spill in the Yellowstone River, what if people drank the polluted water and suffered illness and death? Shouldn't the officials who neglected to upgrade a dinosaur of a pipeline be seen as criminals? So laws should be written holding county commissioners or even a small-town mayor responsible for allowing the creation of such an environmental menace. Although it's going to be too late after some horrid genocide occurs due to a pollution "accident", all major players involved should be tried and judged for their actions in the criminal arena. [Although some of this was covered in my first suggestion (see first bullet above), more discussion was required here.]
* It must also be mentioned, too, that more concrete laws must be written to govern any incidence of an actual act of terrorism in which a pipeline is deliberately used to poison the water supply of a major city. A ruptured pipeline, after all, can create as much havoc, mayhem, and even death as an explosive device. Although this has not happened yet, the threat of such an act of terror is looming and needs to be addressed by our state and federal law makers. Any such case of eco-terrorism needs to be attacked with all the urgency and force as the 9-11 Twin Towers attacks or the Boston Marathon bombings. Swift justice needs to be levied on any such violators. The lives of American people are at stake and our citizenry needs protection from eco-terrorism of this type. Are our police and fire departments being trained and educated in the various areas of possible eco-terrorism threats? Diabolical forces that will resort to the unimaginable, unthinkable, and even the ingenious are always at work. Such evil never takes a break nor does it go on a holiday. It's always at work. Our police and firefighters need to be aware of ways in which eco-terrorists may strike, particularly in communities that have a river, a lake or reservoir, or even the ocean nearby. And of course, the air is everywhere, so this should become a national campaign. It's important that the brave men and women who protect and serve us are made aware of ways to fight such threats of environmental-borne terrorism.
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"You don't need people's opinion on a fact. You might as well have a poll asking 'Which number is bigger, 15 or 5' or 'Do owls exist?' or 'Are there hats?' The debate on climate change ought not to be whether or not it exists, it's what we should do about it. There is a mountain of research on this topic." John Oliver as quoted in Daily Kos
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For a long time now, geologists have been concerned with the effects of hydraulic fracturing and this industry's connection to earthquakes near fracking wells. According to The Vindicator, the Mahoning Valley's major daily, on April 11, a team of geologists and regulators blamed hydraulic fracturing for what they deem a probable trigger for earthquakes in Poland Township, an affluent, growing, residential environ of the Youngstown-Warren Ohio Metropolitan Area. "ODNR geologists believe the sand and water injected into the well during the hydraulic fracturing process may have increased pressure on an unknown microfault in the area," ODNR, the agency responsible for regulating the state's oil and gas industry, said in a statement.
Ray Beiersdorfer, Ph.D., a geology professor at Youngstown State University in Youngstown, Ohio, for 21 years, told OpEdNews last year the economic impact of hydraulic fracturing has been grossly over-exaggerated. Oil and gas companies involved with fracking are experiencing the highest profits in the history of industry while labor costs have diminished drastically since Beiersdorfer switched jobs more than two decades ago. Prior to joining the YSU faculty, Beiersdorfer worked as a geologist and manager for a company in the oil and gas harvesting industry.
Dr. Beiersdorfer forsees no long-term bounty for anyone working in industries related to fracking, except for the big oil and big gas companies. "A six-state study confirms that job numbers are grossly exaggerated more than 10-fold by the fracking industry," Beiersdorfer said. Not only is fracking a danger to water pollution in areas where fracking wells operate, but the air pollution created by fracking operatives also pose risks. Surface spills around oil and gas wells threaten the well being of wildlife, too, for example, he said during a private interview with this reporter last spring.
And what about earthquakes? Beiersdorfer asserts that in 2011, Ohio had a record number of earthquakes - 18 in all, with 11 in Youngstown and three in Marietta. Fourteen of the 18 earhquakes occurred very near fracking injection wells. "Youngstown never had an earthquake - with data dating back to Revolutionary War times," he explains. "Injection well drilling began in December of 2010 in the Youngstown area and the first earthquake occurred in March of 2011."
As for the political pipeline pushers, along with the fracking fanatics, I'd just like to give this warning: When the Last Tree Is Cut Down, the Last Fish Eaten, and the Last Stream Poisoned, You Will Realize That You Cannot Eat Money. That's not my quote, it comes from someone much wiser than me. It's an old Indian proverb. The Congressional Research Service issued a report saying the Keystone XL project could raise U.S. greenhouse gas emissions by as much as 21 million metric tons a year--the equivalent of adding 4 million cars to the road. The Alberta oilsands produce a strain of crude oil of high carbon-burning quality. Pollution from tar sands oil will be extremely tough on a planetary atmosphere already burdened with a never-ending bombardment of toxic emissions since the Industrial Revolution.
Our world's reliance of fossil fuels and our addiction to it is long overdo for a thorough rethinking. And tougher criminal laws need to be implemented and enforced for environmental violators. And it's time to do a lot more to protect the planet. It's not like we have another pristine new world to easily skip off to, right?
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