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Assault on the Human Brain, IQ and Cognition by EDC Chemicals and Environmental Factors, the War on Science, the War on Education, and the Abdication of Intelligence
Climate Change, Toxics in the Air & Water, Biodiversity Loss, and Land Degradation: #ThisIsZeroHour, and now, we’re all on Notice. THE SCIENCE OF SUPERSTORMS IN A CHANGING CLIMATE After Harvey and Irma, What's Next?
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Assault on the Human Brain, IQ and Cognition by EDC Chemicals and Environmental Factors, the War on Science, the War on Education, and the Abdication of Intelligence
This landmark NIEHS/EPA
‘Impact Report’, entitled, ‘Protecting Children’s Health Where They Live, Learn
and Play”, (published in 2017-120 pages) is the ‘smoking gun’ to a mass crime
against humanity, of allowing millions of American fetuses, babies, and
children to be harmed by the debilitating effects on brain development and
function caused by Endocrine Disrupting Chemicals (EDCs).
We will start by focusing
on one of the most widely used agricultural pesticides, Chlorpyrifos, sprayed
on corn, soybeans, wheat, alfalfa, apples, grapes (wine, table and raisin),
oranges, grapefruit, sugar beets, asparagus, pecans, almonds and peanuts. It is
finally in the process of being banned by Biden’s EPA, long after it had been
found to be so poisonous, that it was voluntarily banned for household use in
the year 2000 in conjunction with Clinton’s EPA, and after it was about to actually
be banned by Obama’s EPA in 2016, a process that takes years, and is next to
impossible. But, tragically, that ban was reversed by Trump’s EPA in March
2017, when they reauthorized its use for another five years, after Dow Chemical
had donated a million dollars to Trump’s Inauguration Fund. All the while,
certainly since the 2000 ban on household use of this lethally dangerous
pesticide, scientists and regulators have been fully aware of the harmful
effects on brain development, confirmed after the chemical had been identified
in umbilical cord blood, indicating certain culpability for this morally
reprehensible crime of maiming our children and their ability to learn and
process complex information, for life.
Prenatal
exposures to pollutants have shown a relationship to adverse cognitive and
behavioral outcomes, demonstrating links to: ADHD, reduced IQ, lessened
self-regulatory capacities, anxiety, depression, attention problems, lower
memory function, and structural changes to the brain.
Prenatal
exposure to chlorpyrifos can interfere with children’s brain development.
Chlorpyrifos is a pesticide still widely used in agriculture, however, in 2000
it was banned for almost all homeowner use.
In
a 1998 sample of pregnant women in New York City, detectable levels of
chlorpyrifos were found in all indoor air samples and 70 percent of umbilical
cord blood samples. Since the ban, levels in indoor air and blood samples have
decreased significantly in study participants. Children exposed to higher
levels of chlorpyrifos before birth displayed adverse cognitive and behavioral
outcomes compared to children exposed to lower levels, including:
• Significantly lower scores on mental
development tests and increased attention problems and symptoms of ADHD at 3
years old.
• Lower full-scale IQ and working memory test
scores at 7 years old. The effect on working memory was more pronounced in boys
than in girls with similar chlorpyrifos exposures.
• Structural changes in the brain in regions
that serve attention, receptive language, social cognition, emotion, and
inhibitory control, and are consistent with deficits in IQ.”
Direct
quote from page 30 of EPA/NIEHS report on the connection with ASD (Autism
Spectrum Disorder):
Children
were 60 percent more likely to develop ASD if their mothers resided near
agricultural fields where organophosphate (OP) pesticides were applied during
their pregnancy. The association was strongest for third-trimester exposures
and second-trimester chlorpyrifos applications.
This
report was published in 2017 under the Trump administration, which, by itself,
was remarkable, because it directly contradicted Trump’s, and his EPA head,
Scott Pruitt’s, stated agenda of Deregulation, actually listing many of the
ongoing negative health effects on children of this lack of regulation. For a
prime example, and the reason we call this report, the “smoking gun”, is that it
warns specifically about the dangers of Chlorpyrifos to babies’ brains, the
chemical they had just yanked back from a completed Obama EPA ban, reauthorizing
it just months before. We were fearful that this report would be buried, but because
it had already been leaked to the press by the scientists working on it, and the
content was already out, Trump’s EPA had no choice, but to let it be published.
It would have looked worse if they hadn’t. But just as they had handled the National
Climate Assessment shortly before, which had also previously been leaked to the
press, they published it with the intention that it be ignored.
This
EPA/NIEHS report was first commissioned in 1997, and it is not brand-new cutting-edge
science. This science of brain damage and lower IQs from exposure to
Chlorpyrifos has been carried out for over 20 years. There have been multiple
studies, not just with hundreds of human subjects, whose IQ’s have been shown
to have been reduced, (on average, in one of the studies, by 7 points) where
the mother and the child had been tested, and found to have Chlorpyrifos levels
in their blood, but also in testing with rats, which were fed Chlorpyrifos, and,
besides memory and behavioral changes, it had been found that in the offspring
of the rats, the brain structure had been changed. The amount of gray matter in
the prefrontal cortex, where, in humans, intellect resides, was found to be
reduced. MRI testing has confirmed similar brain structure defects and brain
activity anomalies in human subjects, who had been exposed.
Again,
this report is not at all theoretical, and the authors were very conservative
in what they decided to include. In fact, in order to not appear the least bit
political, it’s authors stress that this is not an Advocacy Report. “We don’t
do advocacy. We conduct the science and provide it in a way that can empower
both the communities and the policymakers to do something about it.” - Frank
Gilliland, Director, University of Southern California Children's Center.
So,
this is a science report on the impacts of environmental pollutants on children,
purely to help the children, their parents, and policymakers, without going on
to advocate for change, in order to keep even the appearance of politics out of
it. This is not left-wing intellectuals with a “liberal agenda” to harm the
chemical companies, and who have come up with some wild exaggerated theories,
which its critics might profess that it is. No. This is accepted science, which
has been known by scientists since Chlorpyrifos was first banned for homeowner
use in 2000, certainly, if not since it was first produced in 1965. Thousands
have died around the world from lethal doses of this dangerous chemical. That’s
how toxic this chemical is. And it’s extremely toxic to the development of the
brain and central nervous systems in fetuses, infants and children, in minute
concentrations, just parts per million.
Yet,
the USDA, in conjunction with the EPA, has established acceptable levels for Chlorpyrifos
for every specific crop and meat, (which I will put in this report, listing
those, so that you can see how many points per million they deemed tolerable.)
On a poison like this, the level of what is acceptable should always be zero,
especially for pregnant women. You put this in the food supply, and statistically
you know a certain number of women are going be pregnant, and many times,
before they even know they are pregnant, the baby’s brain and central nervous
system has started to develop, and at that point, if this chemical, and others,
are in the baby’s system, through the umbilical cord, which blood has been
tested and found to contain the Chlorpyrifos feeding into the fetus, the baby’s
brain is already in the process of being harmed.It’s an unspeakably horrible crime that our
society allows this to be done to defenseless fetuses. It’s not the fault of
the pregnant mother or father. It’s not the fault of any of us, and I’m not
talking about assigning blame, other than to the chemical companies and the
government, which have been knowingly allowing this crime to be foisted on
American families for decades.
In
this complex, ever-expanding, technological world, these kids are going to need
every IQ point they can get, as much as they’ll need their right arms. And
maiming them in the womb, and beyond the womb, in their infancy and their
childhood, (and the human brain continues to develop all the way up through
teenager), is an inexcusable travesty against the innocent. How can we hold our
heads up and talk about education, and putting money into education, and
investing in our future, while we’re maiming our own children’s ability to
learn and process complex information for life? By any standards, this is a
horrible crime, and what makes matters worse, is that this crime is still
ongoing, with millions of victims being assaulted with brain damaging endocrine
disrupting chemicals as we speak.
And
the public should have been aware. Chlorpyrifos has been in the news multiple
times, in major newspapers, like the Washington Post, the New York Times, the
LA Times, etc., And even the local newspapers published short articles, since
it was first banned for household use in the year 2000. “Wasting babies’
brains.” These words have appeared in dozens of newspaper articles, numerous
times, every time a new lawsuit against its use was filed, at every court
ordered ban, and every time a ban was lifted, and still those words, “wasting
babies’ brains” had little impact, and were largely ignored by the public.
Just
like with the wildfires and floods of Climate Change, there’s plenty of evidence,
everywhere you look, of the chemical assault on our children, the high rates
and increases in childhood cancers, in childhood chronic diseases, in ADHD
(Attention Deficits with Hyperactivity Disorder), in Autism, in Parkinson’s
Disease, etc., and much of this may be related to this (Chlorpyrifos) and other
chemical exposures.
But
unlike the Climate Change issue, where Big Energy has fostered and financed a
large group of Deniers, the Chemical Lobby has very seldom put forward
advocates or quasi-scientists to deny that chemicals like Chlorpyrifos are
poisonous, and to make false claims that they are safe. Instead, here, they
rely on the media making so little impact, on the public largely ignoring any news
that does get out, on lawmakers owned by the Chemical Lobby, and on a
regulatory system that is anemic and ineffectual,
The 1976 law that assigns regulation and enforcement to the EPA,
is called the Toxic Substance Control Act (TSCA), and was updated with the
Frank R. Lautenberg Chemical Safety for the 21st Century Act, that
was cheered and signed into law by Obama in 2016, but, unfortunately, this
updated bipartisan TSCA law, approved by our Congressmen and Senators, turned
out to be just as toothless and spineless as the original law. Under these
laws, since 1976, less than 12 of more than 86,000 chemicals in the US
inventory have ever been regulated. Like the first bipartisan TSCA law, signed by Ford in1976, it is a
complete compromise to the interests of the chemical industry, and does nothing,
and will do nothing, to protect us and our children. The EPA is so constrained
by these laws, that it could never even regulate Asbestos, which is still used
in brake pads in America today, unlike in many other countries, where it is,
and should be, illegal, but Americans and American police are breathing in the Asbestos
dust in the road smog, resulting in lung disease. (It took Congress to pass a
separate law to ban Asbestos in insulation.) . The EPA isn’t even allowed to ask questions
or even investigate a chemical, until they can prove it is harmful. In the US
regulatory system on chemicals, everything is engineered to allow the
businesses to do whatever the hell they want, with no culpability, and with no
real oversight. As such, the EPA, governed by the limitations of the TSCA law,
and few inspectors, is offering us no real protection.
Recognizing how
inadequate the current state of law and regulation is, a new law has recently been
introduced in Congress by Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.)
called The Food Chemical Reassessment Act of 2021, which
would create an Office of Food Safety Assessment within the FDA to ensure
that chemicals that have entered the food supply chain through loopholes or
that were reviewed by the FDA decades ago, are safe to eat. Food packaging,
including baby food packaging, with endocrine disrupting chemicals that harm
cognition is a particular focus of this legislation. Although there are dozens
of Democratic Congressman and Senators, and perhaps some Republicans, that have
already, or will, come out in support of this bill, it’ll take a miracle to
withstand the chemical lobby’s efforts to kill it, and to get this to Joe
Biden’s desk, to protect all of us, and especially our babies.
Although
Republicans seem to have always been against regulation, what we are talking about
here has nothing to do with politics. This is about the health of your children
and about their brains, and their ability to live healthy, successful lives.
These chemicals, however much we’ve known of their potential for damage, have
been tolerated and allowed to be in our food supply for decades through
Republican and Democratic administrations, and just like COVID, these chemicals
do not pick and choose. Republican babies are just as easily brain damaged by
these chemicals as Democratic babies. There’s nothing political about this.
It’s about the health of your children.
Some
“pro-business” people might say, it’s okay to tolerate using these chemicals,
because it’s “good for the economy”, or because these chemicals are
“necessary”, for any of dozens of rationalizations. That’s okay to say that,
until it happens to your baby, or to your niece or nephew, or to your
grandchild. Then it might not be so tolerable. Every baby is special. Every
baby is somebody’s kid, part of a family, and we can’t be taking these chances,
of leaving these toxins in our food supply, that a mother might eat, while she
is pregnant, or before she even knows she’s pregnant, while the baby’s brain is
already developing in the womb. And even beyond pregnancy, the child’s brain is
still developing all the way through teenager, and needs to be protected. Even
in adulthood, these hormone disrupting chemicals harm adults, as well. It’s
just that the harm is much more acute in the developmental stages.
Whereas
a Toxicology report might say a certain small concentration won’t kill you, the
science of Endocrinology teaches us that a very tiny amount, just a few parts
per million, of Chlorpyrifos (or other EDC chemical) is enough to alter the
hormones that affect the brain structure and function. Before the mother even
knows she’s pregnant, the central nervous system in the human embryo is already
starting to develop, and any alteration in the hormones at that delicate point
is an attack on the baby. Our babies are literally under attack in the womb.
There
are many lifelong impacts from this attack, and by Trump’s allowing the ban,
that was about to go into effect when he took office, to be delayed by another
five years, just imagine how many babies’ brains, and how many points of IQ,
have been decimated.
Any
delay in this type of decision to ban something that is clearly poisoning Americans,
and especially American babies, for whatever the reason, is an opportunity for
the manufacture to make many millions more dollars. So even if it looks like,
yes, Chlorpyrifos, may actually be banned soon by the Biden Administration EPA,
what the Trump administration did, amounted to giving Dow and Corteva, and
whoever else manufacturers Chlorpyrifos, another five years, to hell with the
children they are poisoning. It’s more important that Dow Chemical and Corteva
make more profit, and that the US government and politicians get to feel like
they are helping the “economy”, by supporting the chemical industry, which is
supporting their political campaigns with large donations. That’s more
important than our babies’ brains., as they rationalize with the myth that
spraying poisons on our food is the only way they can “Feed the World”.
But
those same babies are our treasures, our hope for the future. And with more and
more individuals being maimed for life by Chlorpyrifos and hundreds of other toxic
EDC chemicals, in addition to Chlorpyrifos, their health, their developing
brains, their cognitive abilities are under attack. And, the assault on every
individual is escalating, now with hundreds of toxic EDC chemicals, with nobody
coming to our children’s rescue.
Chlorpyrifos
has been one of the most popular and highly used Organophosphate pesticides,
and that whole class of pesticides, not just Chlorpyrifos, is known to harm brain
development and cognition. Chlorpyrifos is not the only Organophosphate
pesticide that needs to be banned. All Pesticides and Herbicides are Endocrine
Disrupters, and have the potential to harm the development of babies’ brains
and central nervous systems, so this is an urgent issue. More Pesticides and Herbicides
must be banned, and for the same reasons. And people have got to learn how feeding
their children chemical free Organic food, as the Obamas did, if they possibly
can, is so much safer for their children’s health.
Glyphosate
(Roundup), besides being carcinogenic, is an EDC that has been found to also have
negative effects on cognition. Neonicotinoids, another widely used class of
pesticides, besides killing the bees we, humans, need to pollinate our food, have
recently been found to negatively impact babies’ cognitive abilities. We can’t
go on without mentioning, Paraquat (linked to Parkinson’s Disease), Dicamba
(that drifts, when sprayed near homes and schools, and this drifting is
responsible for killing thousands of acres of neighboring crops), and an
Herbicide called, 2,4-D (an herbicide related to Agent Orange). All of these dangerous
Agrochemicals have been associated with harm to the central nervous system.
Many
other chemical EDCs that negatively affect cognition, besides the Pesticides
and Herbicides, are found in most of our blood samples, and in our drinking
water (both Tap Water and in Spring Water). We are all being poisoned with these
EDCs through what we eat, drink, breathe, and absorb through our skin, (and
babies through their umbilical cords). Chief amongst these dangerous endocrine
disrupting chemicals are: BPA (If BPA-Free, they often use BPS, just as
estrogenic as BPA), Phthalates (in Soaps, Cremes, Deodorants, etc.), PFAS (“Forever
Chemicals” from Nonstick Cookware and Runway Foam, etc.), Perchlorate (in
Fireworks and Food Packaging, etc.), and PBDE (and other Flame Retardants in
most Furniture, etc.). Besides links to cancers and other negative health
effects from these pollutants, each of these have also been associated with
harm to the brain and central nervous system.
It’s
so important that you learn how to avoid each of these toxic EDC chemicals,
especially for the benefit of children in developmental stages. Since we don’t
have time in this article to review all of that, and to discuss how the disruption
of hormones works to degrade health, it’s so important you read our post, Chemistry Gone Wild. We start that article with a strong warning about how you and
your children are being poisoned with BPA, that same estrogenic chemical that
was banned in baby bottles years ago, with every receipt and ticket you touch
every day. Later in this new article, we will warn you about how retailers like
Amazon are doubling down on poisoning you, with many square inches of BPA
labels on each box and package, and Starbucks with new BPA labels on the cups.
All it takes is for you to touch one of these labels, and pick up your child’s
toy, which the child puts in his or her mouth, or, all it takes is a child playing
with the boxes, like most children love to do, and your child is being dosed by
this dangerous, estrogenic, hormone disrupting chemical, BPA. All paper money
is coated with BPA, from touching cash register receipts. Wash your hands
often, and not just for worries of COVID. Unless parents are told about the
minefield of toxic exposures, and no one is telling them, how would they even
know?
And
then there are the Heavy Metals, that are dumbing down our children, Lead,
Mercury, Arsenic, Chromium, amongst others, that maim children for life, attacking the child’s developing central
nervous system and brain, similarly to EDC’s, with the same effects on
cognition and social integration.
Most
of us know about the dangers of children ingesting Lead in paint chips and in Drinking
Water, with terrible lifelong consequences to their ability to learn and
process information, and about Mercury in tuna fish, and in the coal ash
contaminating our water, with grave consequences to brain function and
cognition. In part 4 of our article, Living in a Toxic World, we offer
lots of crucial information on the dangers we face with Heavy Metals, including
adults. In that same article, in part 6, we again discuss the dangers presented
by EDC chemicals, and in part 7, we discuss the Toxic Gases and Particulates in
Air Pollution, not just in Emissions from Power Plants and Traffic Smog, but
also in the Smoke from the massive Wildfires, all of which, besides other
damages, to our Health and Climate, are dumbing our populations down.
The
World Health Organization attributes the apparent lowering of IQ around the
world to high levels of Air Pollution. Perhaps the cause of this is the Heavy
Metals and other components in the Particulates in the smoke and smog, that
penetrate, not just our lungs, but also into our blood and into every organ in
our bodies, including our brains
Another
factor, related to Carbon Emissions and Air Pollution, that is already dumbing
down our students in schools is Carbon Dioxide (CO2). The CO2 levels in
classrooms in the winter with windows closed, and with poor ventilation,
routinely get as high as 1.000 ppm (parts per million). Tests have been
conducted that clearly show diminished cognitive function at 700 ppm, so we are
sending our children to schools to learn, while, at the same time, harming
their ability to learn and process information. As the CO2 level goes up every
year outdoors, (It’s already as high as 420ppm), CO2 levels inside will
correspondingly increase. That’s why we must improve air circulation in schools
and businesses so urgently, and not just for COVID concerns.
Poor nutrition is another significant factor dumbing us down. There have been numerous studies showing that highly processed ‘junk foods’ and ‘fake foods’ process out much of the nutritive value in the foods, and showing that high sugar, high fat, highly processed diets negatively affect learning and cognition in children, adolescents and in adults. We all know hunger degrades students’ abilities to learn. Also, in studies of victims of famine, there is clear evidence of long term cognitive developmental harm from poor nutrition, damage both in the mothers’ wombs, and in the babies, all the way through teenagers. One can also infer the same case in people not challenged by famine, many more of them obese, but with comparably poor nutrition, now on every continent. Even rich people eat poorly.
And
there are more factors that are furthering the dumbing down of the populace,
including the rise in Dementia and Alzheimer’s Disease in an aging population,
the “Brain Fog” of long-term COVID, and, as always, the effects of Drugs and Alcohol.
And
besides all these factors, and besides the Heavy Metals and the EDC Chemicals,
the other major phenomenon that is dumbing down our society is what I call, the “Abdication of Intelligence”. I use the word,
abdication, because I consider intelligence to be the throne of civilization,
of humanity, and, in that sense, giving up our intelligence, and our critical
thinking, is like abdicating our throne. Some have criticized, that the word,
abdication, implies that this is being done intentionally or consciously. It is
partially unintentional, being led by their mind-numbing social media, and it’s
partially intentional, in that a lot of these people have that “Dumb-as-we-want-to-be”
attitude. If we want to be Dumb, we can be Dumb, if we want to, for example,
misspell everything, like Trump and his administration did, we can misspell
everything. We don’t hold ourselves up to any standards, so we can do whatever
we want to do. This is their notion of Freedom, the Freedom to be Dumb, the
Freedom to be Anti-Science, the Freedom to be Anti-Environment, the Freedom to
be Anti-Education. (If recounting History is not according to their accepted
reality, that they get on their social media, from their people, only their
people, they prefer to revise History. That’s called, Revisionism.). Whatever
their people say, are the facts. What anybody else says, no matter how well
credentialed as an expert or scientist, if it doesn’t fit narrowly into their
reality, they consider it false, or better yet, fake. Their Alternate Reality
becomes their Fact, so they’ve chosen not to even consider anything, if they
identify something somebody’s saying as “Science”. Instead of dealing with something
they don’t fully understand, like anybody else would, by realizing that the
scientist or expert has years and a tremendous number of studies backing up what
he or she is saying, and listening in an effort to understand it, instead of that,
they take it as a challenge, that they’ve got to stand up to. Once they
identify anything that an expert or scientist is saying as “science”, and then
as “liberal” and “elitist”, they will not listen to it, so talking to them
about it, or explaining it, is worthless, because they will not even hear you. They
may as well just put their fingers in their ears and go “na-na-na-na-na-na-na”.
They are not listening. They’ve abdicated their ability to learn anything about
what you are telling them, even if just to criticize it. They don’t want to
learn anything about it, because they’ve identified it as “liberal, elitist
crap”, that they don’t want to have anything to do with.
The
fact of the matter is that this type of dumbed down individual is ideal for an
Authoritarian government. A Democracy is never as clean and monolithic as an Authoritarian
society, because where the truth is identified by the leader, or by the government,
and the people accept it in the 80% range, that usually can only be achieved
through an authoritarian-type government, and what it takes is people that are
willing to accept an Alternate Reality, as defined by the Leader, by the
Authority. Once they’ve done that, once they’ve gone down that rabbit hole, it’s
something that is not readily given up. People never want to admit they had
been misled.
Whether
or not they’ve been dumbed down by environmental factors, such as by the EDC
chemicals, yet, or whether they haven’t yet been impaired, and would still
score high on IQ, intelligence quotient, tests, but have given up their critical
thinking, these people are ideal subjects and ideal officials for an Authoritarian
government.
There
is much evidence, for whatever the root causes, be they chemical and
environmental, or whether they be sociological and political, of the dumbing
down of America. Millions of Americans are so gullible, they deeply believe in
whatever they’re told on the Internet and social media, from their side, and
only their side, completely, 100%, with no question, with zero skepticism or thought. The dumber they are, the easier it is for them to believe anything you want them to believe. No matter how outlandish the conspiracy theories and beliefs are, there is no
effort to distinguish between fact and fiction.
One
of the most glaring examples is “America’s Frontline Doctors”. The fact that
millions of Americans trust them as legitimate is hard for me to believe. 10
doctors, (or actors?) with spotless long white lab coats with their logo
embroidered on the lapel, as if “America’s Frontline Doctors” was a real, years
old organization, and as though they were really the doctors in our hospitals
on the frontlines facing the onslaught of COVID. They first appeared on the
steps of the Supreme Court to push Trump’s favorite, at that time, COVID cure, Hydroxychloraquine,
and now, one year later, these same flimflam doctors are charging $90 per
consultation, and prescribing and selling and profiting from the sale of Ivermectin,
an anti-parasitic drug, they are selling as the sure cure for COVID, but their
delivery is so unreliable, and the demand they’ve created is so high, that the Anti-Science
people who, would never even consider, God forbid, taking the free FDA-approved
Vaccine, are coming down with COVID, and are so desperate for the Ivermectin,
convinced it is the only acceptable, effective cure, that they are going to
Animal Feed Stores, and, sick as they are, willing to pay whatever it takes to
get Horse and Cow formulations of Ivermectin, (They’re even eating Ivermectin Paste,
a cream not intended for internal use, not even in Cows and Horses, even after
being warned of possible liver damage, and then ending up so sick from taking
their trusted cure, that they need emergency hospitalizations, at a time when
hospital beds are so scarce.)
This
is so Dumb, and it’s even Dumber that their belief in what they hear on their
social media is so strong, they can’t even see that it is. They don’t see these
doctors in long white lab coats, who call themselves, America’s Frontline
Doctors, as the grifters, charlatans, scammers that they are. Their belief is
so strong in those doctors, (and the anti-vax right wing politicians pushing this), that even when their brother or best friend almost died
taking their advice to take the Ivermectin, and then after only being able to find it in the formulation for Horse and Cow De-wormer causing horrible symptoms, they still don’t
see these doctors, at all, the way I see them. Instead, they see them as legitimate
doctors, and, in fact, they see them as even more legitimate than any doctor in the
medical establishment, which they distrust, distrusting Science, and most
Scientists, and that includes any Doctor that does not have the seal of
approval from their Leader.
There
is no critical thinking as to the veracity of what these people are parroting
back. They fall for it. They have no filter when it comes to what they get on
their social media, and no thought as to the source, where it may have originated (Trolls,
Russia?), so they enthusiastically retweet it and message it to their friends
and family, for a never-ending echo chamber effect, that reinforces these
beliefs in their own minds, and in their group’s, irrevocably.
Maybe
it’s just me, growing older and lacking patience, but more and more often, it
seems, I’m confronted with dumb and even dumber individuals, who just don’t
seem to get it. I often have to control my impatience, reminding myself that
the customer service person I’m dealing with might not just be trying to
exasperate me. Maybe they really are that dumb, and perhaps it’s due to their environmental
exposures, and I should consider that, and be more charitable.
No
scientist has ever tested the effects of a cocktail of 200 or so chemicals in
the bloodstream, on rodents, let alone on humans. But, when our blood is tested,
that is what is already found in most of us. Considering that, we humans are
the lab rats in an experiment of unbelievable proportions, that never happened
before, and no one knows the end result.
These
synthetic chemicals didn’t exist 75 years ago, and like plastics, they don’t
break down easily, but only accumulate, year after year. For a few examples, 6
Billion pounds of BPA are produced and put into consumer products globally each
year. That’s 60 Billion pounds in just the past decade, of BPA, a hormone disrupter,
that is so estrogenic, at one time it was considered for hormone replacement
therapy, and it’s been used heavily for at least the past 7 decades. 5.1
Million pounds of Chlorpyrifos are produced and sprayed on crops per year, and
that’s only in the US. Each year 280 Million pounds of Glyphosate (Roundup and
other formulations) are sprayed on 298 Million acres of crops in the US alone,
not to mention the tonnage sprayed on millions of acres of conventional and GMO
crops in South America, Canada, Central America, Africa, Asia, and Australia.
No wonder these toxic EDC chemicals are in the water, in our blood, and in the
rain..
The
good news on some, not all, of these chemicals is, that you can expel them
through normal kidney, liver, and digestive function, but that just puts these
chemicals into the wastewater. They don’t simply disappear, but the good news
for each of us is, that if you don’t re-tox(ify) yourself or your child with
more of the same chemicals, like most people do, just as fast as you, or they,
expel them (in urine and feces), keeping the toxic level in your blood relatively
stable, you can actually detox in a relatively short time (for example, huge
percentage drops in blood concentrations of EDCs, like BPA, in just a week or
two). But there’s no detox from persistent EDCs, like the “Forever Chemicals”,
or from Heavy Metals, or from the Developmental Defects, Brain Damage, etc.,
which stay with the victim for life. There’s no detoxing from that
Some
of these EDC chemicals are already illegal in the EU (Chlorpyrifos was made
illegal in January 2020 by the EU) and in various other nations. But the large
quantities of all of these chemicals, not just the pesticides and herbicides,
are accumulating year after year, and they have become so ubiquitous, that they
can be found everywhere in the world. They travel in the dust on wind currents,
through the air, and in the rain, so even on the highest mountains, you’ll find
many of these toxic chemicals. Nowhere is safe from them, and it would be to
the benefit of all the world for these chemicals to no longer be produced in
hundreds or thousands or millions of pounds annually. It’s not prudent for us
to continue to allow that, to continue adding on to the toxic burden of our
planet.
Humans
are not the only ones affected by these chemicals. Every vertebrate, (every
animal with a backbone), even birds and fish, have endocrine systems, hormone
systems, very similar to ours, with male and female hormones, etc., and are also
harmed by these chemicals, as are our pets. And the horrible consequences of
these chemicals, of these pesticides,
herbicides, and other toxic EDC chemicals getting into the water and
ecosystems, and disrupting hormones, are causing an increase in reproductive
defects in wildlife, like frogs and fish having been found with both male and
female sex organs, just as we are finding, in humans, more genital birth
defects in infant boys, less fertility in young men, with less sperm, and sperm
with less motility (swim-ability), and in females early puberty and less
healthy eggs. The less the proliferation of these dangerous EDC chemicals, many
of which are very estrogenic, the better everybody and every animal
(vertebrates) in this world will be.
And
regarding what I call the Abdication of Intelligence, it’s not just America and
Americans being dumbed down, (nor being harmed by the chemicals and heavy
metals, etc.). The Abdication of Intelligence is prevalent amongst right
wingers, and perhaps some left-wingers, all over the world. Anti-Science, Anti-Environmentalist,
Anti-Immigrant, Anti-Democracy right wing political parties have sprung up
everywhere, voted in by ideologically monolithic people, who have already,
whether chemically or sociologically, been dumbed down, to fully believe and
accept the reactionary program 100%. And the consequences of these non-thinking,
dumbed down people is paving the way toward the possibility of authoritarian
governments around the world.
I
pray that bringing these subjects into the light might slow down the dumbing
down of our world. In
order to fight against the dreaded possibility of an Authoritarian (in other
words, Fascist, Totalitarian) government, we have to elevate Science, elevate
Education, elevate Intelligence, elevate Democracy. Scientists,
Doctors, Nurses, Teachers, Professors, Experts, the Intelligentsia of any
society should be honored and extolled, not denigrated, ignored, and/or
criminalized. We saw that in Maoist China, during their Cultural Revolution,
where the Intelligentsia was purged. It seems that some sort of Cultural
Revolution is being sought by millions of Americans today, in their downgrading
of Science, History and Education, the revisionist takeover of school boards,
and insistence on curricula in accordance with their social media beliefs, and
not in accordance with History.
And
we have to protect our children from a thousand attacks on their hormones, and
on the climate, that they are facing as they grow older. It’s not okay to harm
our children’s health, their cognitive abilities and their
futures. We all have to make that message clear and forceful, and until we are
able to change the laws, and ban these poisons, we have to educate ourselves
and each other to protect our own children, by limiting their exposures as best
we can. And we’ve got to vote in lawmakers, who care about the health of our
children, our fellow human beings, our pets and wildlife, and who are willing
to stand up to the Chemical Lobby on our behalf.
Part 2:Important Note on the
Structure of this Report
As
has been our practice, we try to tell the whole story, the whole thesis we’re
presenting, in part 1. In
the following sections, we again won’t attempt to cover the subjects listed,
where each one could be a book. We’ll try to keep them as short as possible,
but this time, instead of putting all the links to references in a Documents
section at the end of the report, we’re going to include the links in each of
these corresponding sections, with a separate General Documents section toward
the end, for ones that don’t fit into one of the categories. Where the links
are self-explanatory, we may not say much more, but will insert a few notes as
we see necessary.
But,
before you even delve into the following sections, since we’ve offered you so
little background in this article, we recommend you read, or review, Chemistry Gone Wild, on the history of modern chemicals, how these chemicals can be
EDCs and disrupt hormones, a little bit on the mechanics of how that all works,
where you encounter these chemicals and how you are being poisoned by them in
every day products, in order for you to better be able to avoid them,
especially for your children’s sake. It’s important for you to understand the
relation of the endocrine system, the hormonal system, with every other system
and organ in the human body, and in all vertebrates, and how just a very tiny
amount of these synthetic chemicals can throw off the delicate homeostasis, the
balance, of hormones, with tragic results. it’s a miracle how the living body functions,
and it’s no wonder that it doesn’t take much to throw it all off balance.
For
more background on several other concerns, we urge you to read, Living in A Toxic World, where we discuss Heavy Metals, Lead, Mercury, Arsenic, etc. in
part 4, EDC’s in part 6 and Air Pollution in part 7, all of which are
significant contributors to the dumbing down of America.
In
our article, Beyond the Tipping Points, we don’t just address Climate
Change and Biodiversity, but in part 8 we discuss the combinations of all the various
EDC chemicals, as many as 200 in our water and in our blood, and whether we’re
getting close to a tipping point in the toxic burden on ourselves, and on our
planet, from all these chemicals.
NOTE: The remainder of this report is still in
progress, so it is now just a skeleton of the post, with headings for each section, to give
you an idea of the planned contents.Each section will be populated over the next
several months. Thanks for your patience.
Part 3:Chlorpyrifos and Organophosphates - Dumbing
Down America
Part 4:Glyphosate (Roundup) –
Dumbing Down America
Part 5:Neonicotinoids
Pesticides – Dumbing Down America
Part 6:Dicamba, 2,4-D,
Paraquat Herbicides – Dumbing Down America
Part 7:BPA, and Bisphenols:
BPS, BPF, BPB – Dumbing Down America
Part 8:Phthalates – Dumbing
Down America
Part 9:PFAS, PFOA, PFOS:
“FOREVER CHEMICALS” – Dumbing Down America
Part 10:Perchlorates –
Dumbing Down America
Part 11:PBDE and Flame
Retardants – Dumbing Down America
Part 12:Lead Poisoning –
Dumbing Down America
Part 13:Mercury Poisoning –
Dumbing Down America
Part 14:Arsenic Poisoning –
Dumbing Down America
Part 15:Hexavalent Chromium (6)
Poisoning – Dumbing Down America
Part 16:Air Pollution;
Particulates and Toxic Gases – Dumbing Down America
Part 17:Carbon Dioxide (CO2)
– Dumbing Down America
Part 18:Dementia and
Alzheimer’s Disease – Dumbing Down America
Part 19:“Brain Fog” from
Long Term COVID – Dumbing Down America
Part 20:Drugs and Alcohol –
Dumbing Down America
Part 21: Poor Nutrition - Dumbing Down America
Part 22:Social Media –
Dumbing Down America
Part 23:The Dumbing Down of
America – Final Thoughts
Part 1:Fracking Our Way to Oblivion – Core Article
USA!
USA! That’s what they were trumpeting such a short time ago, the last week of February
2020, when the US produced their record amount of Crude Oil, a staggering
13,100,000 bpd (barrels per day - 42 gallons per barrel), the average daily
output for the week. Trump and Big Oil, the Oil Lobby, and the API (American Petroleum
Institute), and most Republican, and many Democratic, Congressman and Senators,
and, especially Governors of Oil Producing States, were all celebrating it, as
if they had won our country the gold medal at an Olympic event.
And
before Trump, it was Obama, a big champion of fracking, as witnessed at every one
of his State of the Union addresses, though he never mentioned the word, “Fracking”,
and before that, George Bush, with his partner Dick Cheney, whose company,
Halliburton, was the pioneer of Fracking. They all heralded the US, as it
passed Russia in barrels produced per day, and more recently surpassed Saudi
Arabia, and earned the rank of the largest producer of fossil fuels, both in Oil
and in Natural Gas, in the world, the world champion. And many Americans misguidedly
are so proud of the “Energy Independence” this affords us, as if that means
anything 40 years after the last OPEC oil shortage, so proud of this fossil
fuel expansion, in which the objective of massive growth has been achieved.
Nobody
seems to be concerned, but as Greta Thunberg repeatedly reminds us, the world
has a Carbon Budget, as prescribed in the IPCC SR1.5 report, that will be used up in less than 10
years, now 7 ½ years, in order to keep temperature rise below 1.5 Celsius, and
beyond that, once the Carbon Budget is used up, in just a very few years, major
cities and airports, sea ports, many interstate highways and railways, many power
plants including nuclear, which are all at low elevation above sea level, eventually,
not right away, but eventually, will be underwater, and that’s not a good plan.
That would not be good for the ‘Economy’, not to mention the pain and suffering
of people in coastal cities all over the world, whose homes and livelihoods
will also be literally underwater. If we really care about our economy, and if we
still care about our children and their future, and if we hope to leave them a
habitable world to raise families of their own, we better get concerned.
So
back to the story. On February 28,2020,
the US hit a record in oil production of a staggering 13.1 million barrels per
day, and just weeks later, April 22, 2020, coincidentally, Earth Day, the
bottom fell out of the Oil market. The price of Oil actually fell so low, that
it went negative. The bottom was negative $37.63 per barrel. In other words,
nobody wanted, or would pay for Oil. Theoretically, the supplier would have to
pay someone $37.63 just to take a barrel of their Oil. They had such an
oversupply, they literally had nowhere to put it.
So,
do you blame Coronavirus, or can you blame the shutdowns due to Coronavirus? The
answer is, No. The novel Coronavirus has temporarily reduced demand (On jet
fuel, it killed demand.), so it very much did exacerbate the situation, but the
oversupply and the depressed pricing of Oil and Natural Gas had been going on
for many years, well before anyone ever dreamed of the Coronavirus. It is particularly
important that people realize that, and that they not take solace from the
current, very transitory drop in transportation and industrial emissions,
(which, will indeed save lives, however short the lower levels of air
pollution).
Trump
and Big Oil, and taking their lead, the way mass media reported it, blamed the
precipitous drop in the price of Oil on a Price War between Russia and Saudi
Arabia. Trump always deflects blame. No one mentioned, just weeks before, the
US had hit record oil production, and that the Saudis and their OPEC partners
and Russia had been frustrated for years with the prospect of losing market
share to the US, which had just made it legal in 2016, (after a 40 year ban), to export Oil, and had been ramping up their fracking, and offshore
drilling oil production, like there was no tomorrow.
It
wasn’t supposed to happen this way. In the 20th century, the Science,
and what we were taught in schools, was that somewhere before the year 2000 we would meet Peak Oil and Peak Gas. (Some
call 1970, when production from large deposits started to wane, the first Peak
Oil.), In other words, we would start to
run out of Gas and Oil, and we would be forced to at least begin the transition
to other sources of energy. Even back in the 1970's, we knew about Wind and
Solar, and they were already being used by individuals. But the powerful Big
Oil was not going to give up, even though they knew they were running out.
So,
in order for Big Oil and Big Gas to keep up their gravy train, faced with
running out of their dwindling large conventional deposits, or reserves, they
invented new 'unconventional' technologies, to get to the Oil and Gas, in
tiny deposits trapped within Shale rock (Fracking), and deep under ocean floors
(Offshore Drilling/Fracking), with these deposits
previously thought to be inaccessible.
Besides
the pollution, the waste streams, the health risks, the degradation of the
environment and of quality of life, caused by fracking (and here we refer you
to the More Fracking Insanity series of five articles for a background on
fracking, since we try not to repeat information in our stories. They’re long
enough already without repeating. LOL.), every Fracking well has diminishing
yields, so they often have to be fracked repeatedly, as many as 6 times over
years, to enhance the yields, each Frack job, drilling vertically and then
horizontally, involving explosives to perforate the pipes, and requiring 400
tractor-trailer loads of water (5,000 gallons per truck, transferred to Goliath
tanks for quick access} and 160-200 50,000 pound truckloads of Silica Sand, and
hundreds of toxic and hormone disrupting chemical additives, driven down the well
at 15,000 psi, enough pressure to fracture shale rock, and then requires the
sucking out of as much of that ‘produced’ radioactive toxic water as possible,
before the well is ready to produce Gas and Oil. This process and the waste
streams involved, are very costly. And the diminishing returns, over time, of
each well, leading eventually to unproductive wells having to be plugged and
abandoned. What this means is that, in order to meet projections of greater and
greater production, thousands of new wells must always be built, requiring more
and more investment.
This
Ponzi scheme of Fracking requires the borrowing of more and more money from
banks, using the potential yields, not always realized, of existing wells, as
collateral. All this has just about come to a point where the banks have had
enough, and in 2020, Reuters and many media outlets have reported that the
banks had signaled that they were not going to keep lending endlessly to these
unprofitable fracking companies, and so, we’ve been expecting to finally see
lots of bankruptcies, not Exxon and the majors, but now we’ve been watching fracking
companies, like Chesapeake, Range Resources, and Whiting Petroleum, etc., in
big trouble.
On
April 30, 2020, when the Federal Reserve Bank ruled to allow Coronavirus Relief
Funds to be used to service gas and oil debt, we were afraid that these frackers
would soon be bailed out, and we’re pretty sure, without any transparency, that
Exxon and the majors have already been bailed out. But the recent bankruptcies of
Whiting Petroleum of ND (Bakken Shale) and of Chesapeake (a huge fracking
company operating in five States), indicates that not all of them are being
bailed out. But, the whole model of fracking is on such shaky ground, that if some
of them are bailed out, it’s only a matter of time, before they will have to be
bailed out again.
The
price of Oil is in the dirt, currently at back up to around $40 per barrel, from
a floor of below zero in the recent historic drop, however it is estimated that
the cost of extracting a barrel of oil with fracking in the United States is
$50-$90 per barrel (in our estimates, we usually use $60 per barrel). If we
could get the price back up to over $100 per barrel, which it was last in June 2014,
it could be profitable again. But the experts don’t see it going up to anywhere
near that level anytime soon.
The
Saudi Arabian cost of extracting a barrel of oil from the largest conventional
reserve in the world is said to be less than $10 per barrel, and the Russians,
whose economy depends on oil even more than ours, and most of the other
oil-producing nations, with the high costs of fracking, are at a severe
competitive disadvantage to Saudi Arabia. Despite Trump’s Sword Dance with the Sheikhs
of Saudi Arabia, the Saudis are not going to allow the price to be high enough
to be profitable for us, and allow us to keep taking what they consider their
market share, and it would be naive to think that they would,
The
Saudis aren’t dumb. They are avid readers of all the ins and outs of the future
of the oil business. They are continuing to construct multiple large solar
arrays. They see the handwriting on the wall, in what’s happening to the
Climate in the Middle East with the increasingly intolerable heat and the
extreme weather events taking place, and they realize and see what’s happening
with the divestment movement, and with the youth climate movement all over the
world. They realize their market for oil will not last forever, so they’ve got
to sell all the oil they can, now, or, certainly, before the world starts to
divest, and stops buying it.
And
it’s not as if the Saudis’ costs of extraction are going to go up anytime soon,
causing them to have a need to raise their prices, thus allowing us enough room
to compete and still make a profit. With our high costs of fracking and of offshore
drilling in the US, not only are we losing money on every barrel we sell, but
the Saudis, the Russians, dozens of other oil-producing nations, and we keep
trying to outdo each other in production, causing a perpetual oversupply, as if
that will somehow ramp up the ‘economy’. This is insanity.
If
Capitalism, Supply and Demand, is still operative, and still has any effect on
pricing going up or down, how can we believe that the production of an
oversupply will raise prices above costs? Let me repeat, this all has very
little, if anything, to do with Coronavirus shutdowns. This has been going on
for years, before anyone ever dreamed of Coronavirus. And though some experts
may be aware of some of this, none of this has ever been explained to the
American people or internationally.
And,
as bad as the oversupply and the cost versus price is with Oil, the situation
is just as bad, if not worse, with Natural Gas. Every one of the hundreds of
thousands of fracked oil wells in the United States also produces Natural Gas,
but that gas is so cheap, (the selling price, if you could get it to market, is
so low), that it doesn’t make economic sense for them to capture it and build, and
transport it in, pipelines, so, rather than let it collect and risk explosions,
they vent the gas, or flare, burn, it on site. Fracking fields, including urban
fracking fields, next to people’s homes and schools, can be seen from space,
with their multiple “cigarettes in the sky”, (bearing no Surgeon General Warning),
emitting tons of CO2 and Black Carbon Soot, a black oily smoke, with toxic
heavy metal particulates, and toxic gases like Benzene and radioactive Radon
gas (which is inert, so it does not burn, but falls to the ground, poisoning us,
our children, pets, and livestock, risking lung cancer), and that sounds as
loud as a freight train, 24 hours,7 days a week.. Not a good neighbor to have.
But
according to Sharon Wilson, of Earthworks in Texas, her evidence tells us that
a good deal of the time these flares, whether intentionally or not, are not
lit, they’re not burning, and the unburnt Natural Gas, 95% Methane, is being
released, even though it is not visible. This is worse for the Climate even
though flaring is worse for Health. Fortunately, Sharon Wilson, has the
technology and the camera equipment to back up her anecdotal evidence of
‘venting’ with her training and expertise in OGI (Optical Gas Imaging), so she
can show us six years of photographic evidence, while, otherwise, these emissions
would be invisible. She has ample evidence, as do others of her colleague
activists across the US. This is not confined to just one of the many fracking
fields in Texas with tens of thousands of wells, but is true of every fracking
field in every State, wherever there is fracking. Satellites have also been
able to detect high concentrations of Methane over fracking well fields in
various areas of the US.
Millions
of tons of Natural Gas are being vented or flared, meaning, if you put any
credence in a dollar value for Natural Gas, this equates to millions of dollars
wasted every day. And it’s not just the waste or the toxic emissions we’re
worried about, but Methane (95% of Natural Gas) is a Greenhouse Gas, that is
100 times worse over a ten-year period, ton for ton, as far as warming
potential, than CO2. Releasing Methane in those vast quantities (from the
thousands of wells in each shale play, as much as the Aliso Canyon L.A. Gas
Leak per hour), is criminal, as far as its effect on the Climate. This has been
happening day after day, year after year.
Again,
if you do not want to see our cities, our ports, our airports, our highways,
our railways, the economy, literally underwater, from sea level rise, this is
not a good plan. Just as CO2 has reached record after record high, now at 417.93
ppm, Methane levels are already at 1,875ppb, and continue to rise at the rate
of about 10ppb each year since 2005. (Many other factors contribute to Methane
levels, including landfills, livestock, rice, dams, etc., and increasingly the
feedback effects of melting permafrost, on and offshore.)
The
price of Natural Gas in the US over the last five years has been near a floor
of $2.50 per MMBTU. The measure of MMBTU means ‘Million British Thermal Units’,
but to make it simpler for our understanding, 1 MMBTU takes up the volume of
approximately 1,000 cubic feet (Mcf), so when we say
the
price is $2.50/MMBTU, that means the price is close to $2.50/Mcf. Recently in
April, Natural Gas pricing reached a shocking low of $1.44/MMBTU, the lowest
price since 1997, and it is now hovering well below $2.00 at $1.78/MMBTU, with
forecasts of going back up to the $2.50 range with occasional spikes as high as
$2.80/MMSF, but with no hope of it reaching $3.00 during the next 3 years.
The
problem with the selling price being so low is that 75% (now, and the percentage
is growing) of US gas production is from high cost fracking, where the costs
are said to be in the neighborhood of $2.80 to $3.60/MMBTU, and we’ve even
heard cost estimates as high as $9.00/MMBTU from certain shale regions. Maybe
selling Natural Gas at below cost for the past decade, with no hope of selling
it above costs for at least the next few years, is a reason the Ponzi scheme of
fracking more and more wells is
collapsing, and big Frackers, like Whiting and Chesapeake are already operating
in bankruptcy.
(Another
factor, affecting the price, is the downturn in the international market, where
Russia is the main supplier to the EU, and a major supplier to Asia, and wants
to keep it that way. US LNG exports this year,
at
a time they’re building more export terminals, are way down.)
But
the problem with Natural Gas is not simply that they are selling it at below
costs, but that they also have such an overwhelming oversupply, with their
irrational exuberance to keep fracking and drilling, they have nowhere left to
put the gas. There are new salt caverns being hollowed out several places in
the country to store more gas, but another way they are storing it is by “line
packing”, using the miles of pipelines, (30-42 inches in diameter), as horizontal
storage tanks, pressurized to as much as 1,500 psi (pounds/square inch). Every
new pipeline they build will double as a new storage tank. You can store a hell
of a lot of gas at high pressure in miles and miles of large diameter pipelines
in this manner, going by people’s homes, through urban sections, etc., but if
there is an explosion with the pipelines packed at 1,500 psi, and there are gas
explosions that happen in the United States every year, it could be one hell of
an explosion, and would take out lots of homes, and lives. If it’s a pipeline
going through a city, it could take out thousands.
But
line packing and more salt caverns are still not enough to relieve the pressure
of the accumulating oversupply, so the US Department of Energy, hand-in-hand
with the Big Energy and Big Gas corporations, has devised a plan to allow the
US to keep fracking and extracting more and more natural gas, in a time when
demand for natural gas is waning, not because of Coronavirus shutdowns, but
because of everything we’re doing to warm the Climate, including the burning of
Natural Gas, causing shorter Winters. We are still getting the cold spells,
having upset the Jet Stream to give us Arctic blasts like never before, but,
overall, we are using less Gas for Heating, and less Heating Oil, and that
trend will no doubt continue.
So,
what are they going to do to sell, to relieve the pressure of all that excess
Natural Gas? The Energy Department and Big Energy corporations have big plans
to create new markets for Natural Gas, and urgently, since they’re running out
of places to store it, and, heaven forbid the thought of any curtailment.
A.
They have been building billions of dollars of Pipelines and Compressor Stations
and LNG Export Terminals to supply the world with boatloads of cheap US LNG,
Liquid Natural Gas, which they hope to be able to export.in massive quantities,
despite the fact that LNG exports have been way down this year, and so has the
price of LNG.
B
They are ramping up plans to expand the
production and export of boatloads of Liquid Natural
Gas Condensate, to feed Plastics plants in Europe, Asia, and Africa..
C.
The government has developed a plan to have 334 new Petrochemical Plants built
by 2025 (each one will turn the American community surrounding it into a
brand-new Cancer Alley) to provide the world with more Plastic, just what the
world, whose oceans and waterways are filling up with Plastic, doesn’t need.
Single use plastics being marketed in every developing country, in Asia and
Africa, is one of the ‘new markets’ for our Natural Gas oversupply.
There
is so much Plastic in the world already, where we’ve been producing 300 million
tons of Plastic every year for the last 50 years, that our oceans and waterways
are accumulating, and filling up with Plastic. Fishermen are reporting 40% of
their catch in weight of plastic, soon predicted to be 50%. 85% of all tap water
and 95% of all bottled water contains Microplastics. Microbeads in toothpaste
and cleaning products, though now outlawed, are covering the floors
of the Great Lakes, and will be there forever, for one example. So, we are
consuming plastic just drinking water, besides eating seafood, and within the
last few weeks, we’ve learned of crops being able to draw up Microplastics. The
world is drowning in plastic, and now, in order to sell our oversupply of natural
gas, the US government, with its colonialist attitude, has come up with an
urgent plan to shove more plastic down the developing world’s throats, by
promoting single use packaging.
This
plan is ecocidal, and unethical, and must be stopped. Each of the planned 334 new Petrochemical Plants, Ethene Cracker
Plants, etc. will require a ‘Hub’ of hundreds of miles of Pipelines to connect
and feed the Natural Gas in, directly from the wells, and to transport the
Liquid Gas Condensate for Plastic production and the LNG out to the Export Terminals.
Every Pipeline means, millions of Trees will have to be cut down, in ‘right-of-ways’
for these Pipelines, and every one of these new plants will require land and
trees to be cleared.
It
is well known, per numerous academic studies, that higher cancer rates, low
birth weights, higher miscarriage rates, nosebleeds, rashes, asthma, and a
range of other maladies, are concentrated around oil and gas wells, facilities,
refineries, compressor stations, and petrochemical plants. causing sickness and
death. And though Americans will pay the price in lost health, this plan is not
for the benefit of Americans, but for export, benefiting mainly only a very few
large corporations. And they seem to expect us to be OK with that, to go along
with it,
Now,
I’m going to tell you, as briefly as I can, a story, relevant to our
discussion, that you’re going to find hard to believe. But let me assure you, I
(or you) can easily confirm every part of it, and Rachel Maddow reported on
some of it, specifically relating to Tillerson and Putin, in her new book,
‘Blowout: Corrupted Democracy, Rogue State Russia, and The Richest, Most Destructive Industry On Earth’, a book I highly recommend. Let me make this
clear, I am using her book only as a fact witness, and not representing her conclusions.
Read the book.
In
2012, Rex Tillerson, then CEO of Exxon Mobil, visited Putin’s home to sign a
letter of intent, to jointly, with Putin’s national oil company, Rosneft,
exploit their discovery of an area of Shale rock in Northwest Siberia, that had
been recently found to contain 80 times the amount of Oil and Gas as the Bakken
Shale of North Dakota, one of the most productive fracking fields in the US. And
in 2013, Putin awarded Tillerson the ‘Order of Friendship’, one of the highest
honors bestowed by Russia. Then, in early 2014, Putin invaded Ukraine and
annexed Crimea, causing the US and the EU to impose Sanctions, preventing this Exxon/Rosneft
oil deal from proceeding, and Russia, with their financial problems, didn’t
have the resources to do it without Exxon. In 2017, before Trump’s
inauguration, Flynn advised the Russian ambassador in a recorded conversation,
implying, not to worry, Trump would soon, upon taking office, ease the Sanctions.
After the inauguration, both Republicans and Democrats were so worried that
Trump would unilaterally lift those Sanctions, that they actually legislated a
veto-proof (97-2 in the Senate) edict to prevent Trump from doing that. In July,
2017, after CEO Tillerson had resigned from Exxon, and now had assumed the post
of Secretary of State of the United States, Exxon was fined $2 million (chump
change for Exxon) by the Trump Treasury Department for violations of those same
Russian Sanctions, for violations that took place while Tillerson was still CEO.
Trump continues to this day to do everything he can to please Putin, including
turning his back on bounties paid by Russia for American heads, without even a
verbal rebuke. Trump has been single-mindedly concentrating on helping Putin
lift those Sanctions for all four years of his Presidency, and surely, he will
find a way to lift them if we allow Trump four more years. It is well-known
that Trump never does anything for nothing, and we present the Bazhenov Shale
as a possible quid pro quo, with 80 times more Oil and Gas as the Bakken Shale
in the US. Do you realize how much money we’re talking about here? Perhaps Trump
has some assurance he could get in on that action. Draw your own conclusions.
We
told you that story in order to use the Bazhenov Shale as an example of what we
have to guard against. When Dr. James Hansen, one of the foremost climate
scientists and a former director of the NASA Institute studying the Climate,
got himself arrested protesting the building of the KXL Pipeline to transport
Canadian Tarsands Oil to US Koch Refineries for export, (which, by the way,
Trump may still be an owner of TransCanada, the corporation building the KXL Pipeline)
he warned it would be, GAME OVER for the Climate. Likewise, exploiting the Bazhenov
shale would be GAME OVER for the Climate. And the oil companies are continuing
to explore for new, on and offshore, deposits all over the world. And who knows
where, when, or how big the next discovery of deposits of oil Gas and Coal will
be?
Unless
much of each nation’s reserves, those already counted, and those yet to be
discovered, are sidelined, and we “keep it in the ground”, we will be in grave
danger. If we allow every gallon of oil, every cubic foot of gas, and every
pound of coal, to be mined, it will all eventually be burned, and we will roast, and will be devastated by storms and droughts, and the sea levels will drown our
cities. It’s that simple.
As
Greta Thunberg reminds us, the “Carbon Budget” for keeping the warming under
1.5° Celsius, will be used up so fast, already by 2028, that if we continue to
emit 42GT (gigatons) of CO2 per year, we will soon be looking at catastrophic temperatures,
weather extremes, and commensurate feedback loops, that will serve to
accelerate the warming.
If
the Wet Bulb temperature exceeds 95°F, at 100% humidity, humans can no longer
survive. In other words, we can survive 120°F at 35% humidity, but if it goes
up to 40% humidity, at that high of a temperature, the Wet Bulb temperature
will be above 95 Fahrenheit, and thousands will die. Also, please note that the
temperature inside a city building can be much higher, than the temperature
outside, and the humidity, particularly if they are cooking or bathing to stay
cool inside, could be significantly higher inside the apartment. A Wet Bulb Calculator
is available. Check it out. At the current 1.1 to 1.2°C above pre-industrial
levels, even before we reach a 1.5°C or 2°C level, (or with current Paris Agreement
commitments, if every nation actually achieved them, the warming is projected
to be a disastrous 3 to 4°C), we are already dangerously close to the Wet Bulb
survival limits in the Middle East, India and Australia. This is for real. People
will be dying, just from the heat and humidity, because they won’t be able to
cool themselves sufficiently through sweat, under those conditions, to keep
their body temperature from rising too far above normal. This is all profoundly
serious, and presents a real emergency, that the world had better face, and start
acting with the urgency of a real emergency in mind. (Another factor of
survival in high heat and humidity is the need for abundant clean, safe,
drinking water. Many of the poor in drought-stricken areas are forced to choose
between dying of dehydration or getting sick or dying from dysentery. The higher
the heat and humidity, the more water a person needs, just to cool the body
through sweat to survive. Meanwhile, even in drought-stricken areas, they’re
wasting 2 Million gallons of precious Water in one shot each time they Frack a
well.)
On
November 28, 2019, while Greta Thunberg was still sailing across the Atlantic,
almost to Lisbon, Portugal, on her way to Madrid, Spain, for the COP25, the twice
relocated UN Climate Talks, the European Parliament declared a Global Climate
and Environmental Disaster”, and warned that the world may have already reached “a series of climate tipping points”
resulting in a “state of planetary emergency” and vowed to take “concrete
action”.
We
were excited to see this Climate Emergency Declaration, hoping, maybe the EU Parliament
had finally listened to the 7.5 million Youth Climate Strikers, inspired by
Greta, many of whom were future EU voters,
that took to the streets in every city and village on five continents.. In September 2019, at the Battery in NYC,we witnessed 250,000 protesters, there to hear Greta speak, and to support her at the UN, among millions of strikers worldwide. Maybe the world
would actually start treating the Climate Crisis and the Biodiversity Crisis as
the real Emergencies they are. We realized it was only the EU, and not the rest
of the world, but perhaps, if the EU really started to take the leadership
role, others would follow.
But
when Greta attended the European Parliament on March 4 2020, on the day they
adopted, with grand flourish, their ‘European Climate Plan’, which includes
their goal of ‘Net Zero by 2050’, and when she was given an opportunity to
respond, her speech labeled their plan, nothing less than complete “surrender”.
We urge you to view the video, and read the transcript of her speech, Her words
are so much more eloquent than mine. And, also, read the letter, issued the day
before, written by 34 youth climate strikers, including Greta, explaining why
the European Climate Plan is insufficient and useless, and would prove to be as
ineffectual as the Paris Climate Agreement, where the goals are aspirational
and voluntary, with no oversight, and without even the reporting being uniform
from one nation to the next. Clever accounting tricks, like ”Emissions Offsets”
and “Carbon Trading’ and other loopholes, would allow them to adopt False Solutions to the Climate Crisis, allowing polluters to continue to pollute, and to harm
our prospects for a future, while, with creative accounting and public relations, make it look like they’re really taking Climate Action.
One
of the most absurd examples of this fakery is the burning of “Biomass” for
Electricity. At the huge DRAX Biomass Power Plant in the UK, they’re burning boatloads
of wood chips from freshly cut US Southeast Forests, without counting the emissions,
as if they were “carbon-free” and “renewable”, when, actually, burning wood
chips is no more carbon-free, than the increasing raging Wildfires around the
world each summer. Their twisted reasoning, on how burning wood creates no CO2
emissions, is that trees are derived from photosynthesis, pulling CO2 from the
air to grow trees, so the burning of wood is just putting it back in the air, and they
conclude, there is no ‘net’ gain. Each of the 10 False Solutions to the Climate
Crisis have lobbyists and corporations behind them, that stand to gain, so each
of them is being promoted endlessly. Knowing this, when the media parrots a
Press Release on the great strides the UK is making in “Renewables”, realize
that part of what they’re counting as “renewables” is the burning of “Biomass’,
without counting the emissions, as if there were none. The UK is also priding
itself with their post-Paris Agreement deemphasis on Coal, and with the quadrupling
of their use of Natural Gas, as if burning Natural Gas were a real solution.
Not
inconsistent with the European Climate Plan and their goal of Net Zero by 2050,
Germany is actually planning to build a new Coal plant, now, starting in 2020,
however, to ease the shock value, they claim that they will only operate it for
25 years, once built. Their plan allows new Pipelines, new Gas-powered Power Plants,
major destructive Hydroelectric plants, new Fossil Fuel Infrastructure to be
built, and new Wells to be drilled, and essentially proceed with business as
usual. Somehow, they think that they have the time to expand, before they start
to contract. And their idea of ever eventually reaching Net Zero Carbon Emissions
by 2050 relies heavily on Negative Emissions Technologies at grand scale, to
suck massive tonnage of CO2 out of the air, technologies that haven’t yet been
invented, and if ever they are invented, and become available, might not be
affordable.
Greta,
who has always been committed to following the science, contends that we don’t
need Net Zero emissions, we need Real Zero emissions, and if we really want to
“limit emissions” enough to make a real impact, we need to start immediately,
by making goals to actually cut emissions at the source, by keeping it in the
ground, knowing every bit extracted will eventually be burned, and that we have
a Carbon Budget to consider, with very little left in the account, if we want
to limit the warming, so we have to start now, not 30 years from now. If you
read the Science, and acknowledge the fact the Climate Emergency is actually happening,
then you’ve got to start acting with the urgency of an Emergency. Every nation
must come up with concrete goals for 2020, for 2021, 2022, and for each year
forward to actually, not just theoretically, limit fossil fuels and their
emissions. That is the only way that we can have any possibility of slowing the
progression of the Climate Crisis.
If
we really want to “limit emissions”, we can’t now, today, in the year 2020, be
building more Pipelines, Compressor Stations, Export Terminals, Drilling and
Fracking New Wells, or be building New Refineries and Petrochemical Plants, all
of these billions of dollars in investments locking us into at least 30 more years
of future emissions, with some distant plans to eventually curtail emissions.
That is nonsense! Nothing but “greenwashing” and corporate double-speak.
Just
think of what we could do, if the billions they had planned to invest in that
foolish ramp up of fossil fuel infrastructure, were to be diverted into Wind
and Solar. It’s hard to believe that we could be so inconsiderate to be wasting
our children’s inheritance, and not using it to invest in their futures,
despite our children telling us, that to them, the Climate Crisis is a matter
of life or death. Greta will be only 47 years old in 2050, so those projections
of 1.5C, or 2C, or 4C, of warming by 2050, and the consequences of us taking
action, or not, and how soon we start, is very real to her generation. Instead
of locking us into harming their future, investing those billions in
Wind and Solar would benefit them for many years into the future.
On
February 4, 2020, Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez introduced HR5857,
the Fracking Ban Act, into the US House of Representatives, with Senators Bernie
Sanders and Ed Markey and others’ support, to start the phase out of Fracking, to be
completed on-shore and offshore by 2025, to ban the expansion of Fracking and
related infrastructure, and to ban all fracking operations within 2500’ of
homes and schools by February 2021,
There
may be few who are really taking seriously the passage of this act, but let me
tell you another reason why this new law is so urgent. If the US is the biggest producer in
the world of Fracking for Gas and Oil, that means that we are also the biggest
producer of toxic, saltier than seawater, radioactive Frack Waste in the world,
trillions of gallons of it, every year, year after year., Nobody will take this
waste, we can’t export it, no one wants it, The injection wells, that take lake-sized
injections of waste, supposedly injecting it under high pressure below the Groundwater
line, are being used over and over again, in many areas that never had them
before, causing Earthquakes. The unlined or poorly lined ponds of waste, that
overflow with the rains of the Climate Crisis, are full, threatening the
toxicity and the radioactivity of the Groundwater. 95% of all Americans in
rural areas rely on well water, groundwater, for their drinking water supplies.
With nowhere to put all this accumulating and backing up wastewater, whether
permitted to do so, or not, gas and oil wastewater is being delivered to
wastewater treatment plants, which do absolutely nothing to remove many of the chemicals
and toxins, and certainly, nothing to reduce the radioactivity, and is being
discharged in the effluent into our rivers and streams. Also, many dumps don’t
want to take the solid waste that is highly radioactive. If we keep fracking,
we will surely poison this country, that we supposedly love, not to mention her
citizens, and children. #WaterIsLife
We
urge you to read our post, Living in a Toxic World, where the effects on the
health of our citizens from Fracking is covered: part 5-Radioactivity, part 6-Toxic
and Endocrine Disrupting Chemicals, part 7-Toxic Gases and Particulates, and
part 9-Respirable Silica Sand. Fracking, per numerous studies, is most
definitely harming the health of Americans working onsite, and living, working,
and going to school or church nearby. 17 million Americans live within one mile
of Fracking. Setbacks from Fracking wells in some communities are as small as
600’. That means, they can drill a well 600 feet from a pre-school, or from your
home, and do so with impunity. AOC’s Fracking Ban Act would change the
setback to 2500’.
American
citizens, who in many cases are homeowners or renters, and who lived, and their
parents lived, in those neighborhoods long before fracking moved in, are having
their rights trampled, and having their peaceful properties, they worked so
hard to own or rent ,being turned into industrial sites, where you can’t even
sit on your porch without the roar and stench of gas flares and hundreds of
tractor-trailers rumbling by your home 24/7.
Corporations
and Government are colluding to seize property by Eminent Domain, to build
pipelines, as if there was some sort of Emergency Shortage of Gas and Oil. The US
Department of Transportation treats drilling and fracking and building
pipelines and fossil fuel infrastructure, as Essential Businesses, allowing the
workers, during a Pandemic, to freely travel into indigenous and local
communities, and that designation and practice is also insane, and it is immoral,
since, there is no reason this industry should be given such priority. There is
no shortage, no emergency of not enough oil and gas, just the opposite. There’s
too much.
Americans
are waking up with nosebleeds and headaches. Their kids are getting cancer.
Anecdotally we’ve heard of whole neighborhoods with multiple cases in clusters
near Gas and Oil and Petrochemical facilities. And they expect us to go along
with them ruining people’s lives, and just be gratified by the US being the King
of Gas and Oil.
We
need a Green New Deal, as bad as we needed the New Deal to get us through the
first Great Depression. There are so many changes we need to make in this
transformation. If we are going to limit Fracking and the Extraction of Fossil
Fuels, we have a lot of work to do to urgently build enough alternative Wind
and Solar to make up the difference, in order not to have to limit our use of
Electricity. To accomplish this, we will need to create lots of jobs, and hire lots
of people, and to start that work as soon possible, to.
There
cannot be a Green New Deal without addressing the way we grow our Food, the
need for us to grow food without dozens of AgroPoisons, and the need for us to regenerate our Soil, one of any nation’s most precious assets. With Conventional Chemical Agriculture,
our Soil is degrading, and tons of Soil are literally washing away with the massive torrential
rains of the Climate Crisis. Ponds and. lakes are getting green toxic algae blooms from all the synthetic fertilizers flowing into them. Regenerative Organic
Agriculture can actually eliminate the greenhouse gases (including N2O, a GHG ,
400 times worse than CO2 80% of which is emitted by Synthetic Fertilizers, that
are not necessary, if we switch to using Compost). The average age of an
American farmer is now well into their 60's. We need a whole new generation of
farmers to come up and grow us healthy food. All this
transformation needed in the Agriculture, Energy, and Industry sectors, means
the Green New Deal will create lots of jobs.
But
we’re up against an awful lot, the most powerful industry and lobby in the
world, the fossil fuel industry. And their supporters will do everything they
can to malign and stop the Green New Deal.
People
will characterize the Green New Deal with every pejorative name in the book,
calling it “radical”, “left-wing”, “socialist”, “unrealistic”, “crazy”, ‘the Mark
of the Devil, you name it. They will label us as “terrorists” and “insurgents”,
and in many States, have imposed unconstitutional laws, that make it illegal for
us to protest. Bots and Trolls will endlessly trash the Green New Deal on
social media. They shudder at even the thought of banning Fracking, or of the Green New Deal, or, heaven forbid,
actually reducing emissions.
They
look at us, for demanding a Green New Deal, like we are crazy, but we contend
that their current strategy of expanding the drilling and fracking for gas and
oil,regardless of market conditions, in
order to sell their oil and gas at below costs, which they been doing for at
least the last five years, and projected to do at least three years into the
future, at Americans’ expense, health-wise and quality-of-life-wise, while threatening
our drinking water supplies, with their overuse and their spills of oil and
radioactive toxic wastewater, is totally insane, and totally unethical.
While
we have been dealing with Coronavirus, everybody has been talking about getting
“back to normal”.
We
don’t want to get back to normal:
–
if normal means, continuing to subsidize, and not to divest from an insane
system of the losing scam of Gas and Oil.
–
if normal means, going back to supporting Systemic Racism and Eco-Racism.
–
if normal means, Living in a Toxic World, and normalizing and supporting the
poisoning of our children and fellow human beings.
–
if normal means, not doing everything we can to slow the Climate Crisis and
Biodiversity Loss Crisis.
–
If normal means, Trump’s neutering of OSHA, the EPA, the FDA, the Department of
Agriculture, the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act, the Endangered Species Act,
NEPA, and of every institution and regulation designed to protect workers and citizens.
We
want better than that for ourselves, for our brothers and sisters, here and all
over the world, and especially for our children, and for their children, and
for the seven generations. To do any less would be unethical.
In maybe five years, hopefully less, the Coronavirus will be history. The Climate Emergency and the Biodiversity Loss Emergency will still be raging, having progressed that much further along. These crises haven’t been put ‘on hold’, while we had to deal with Coronavirus. But the Coronavirus has taught us, that, as Greta says, in an emergency, you change your behavior., And we have seen that we have the power to drastically change our behavior, if it means staying alive. The same goes for the Climate Crisis.
The Coronavirus has also taught us, that if we don’t change our behavior, we will never get ourselves out of the Emergency, and regarding Climate, I’m not just talking about personal behavior, but the behavior of our society, our society that seems to want to extract, and to burn every bit of fossil fuels we can get our hands on, and under the power of the oil lobby, seems to want to resist, by all means possible, the switch to cleaner, safer and less expensive Wind and Solar. With Coronavirus, if we don’t wear masks and distance, we will swamp the hospitals and health care workers, to a point where people will be dying on the sidewalks, without ever getting into a hospital bed. The same is true of the Climate Crisis, where, if our society doesn’t change its behavior, and continues to resist the changes needed and to ignore the clear problems, massive Deaths are predicted, and we will soon find ourselves irretrievably Beyond The Tipping Points, if we don’t #FaceTheClimateEmergency.
But it’s not going to be easy. We’re up against the most powerful corporations
in the world and the governments that support them. But if we want to do something
about it, we’ve got to make people aware, of how the Gas and Oil Corporations
and our Government, in their support, are taking advantage of us, and harming
our health and ruining people’s lives.
Just like with Black Lives Matter movement, what it takes is people being made aware, and being as outraged as many of us are, at what they see, not just some people, but most people. The same goes for Climate, it’s not enough that we, you and me, are aware of what’s going on, but all of the young people of the world, all colors, all religions, all gender identifications, all economic strata, whether or not educated, have got to be made aware, to a point, where they become as outraged as we are.
It’s not so complicated. This is not something you can’t explain, and not something that most people can’t understand. Just let them know, if we burn, we fry. It’s that simple. And the point is, just like in the Black Lives Matter movement, we’ve got to get together and demand change relentlessly, and never give up.
If the people of the world, some in the crosshairs of the Climate Crisis right now, suffering Drought, Wildfires, Record Heat, Floods, or Storms, (and the way the Jet Stream is acting up, it could happen to any of us, wherever we live, at any moment), could be made aware and unite behind the youth of the world, and hopefully with their parents and grandparents, along with them, trans-nationally, without borders, maybe we can make something happen, despite the massive powers we’re up against.
It’s all about education, not just in schools, but out in the streets, person to person, friend to friend. That’s a much deeper kind of learning, and that’s what it’s going to take. The People of the world, led by the Youth of every nation, have got to be made aware, in order to get them to know what’s at stake, and to get them to unrelentingly get out and VOTE, because, facing the specter of Fascism, even that won’t be easy, and do it with the same energy and persistence we’ve witnessed with Black Lives Matter, and, in the spirit of Congressman John R Lewis, we take it to the streets.
#FaceTheClimateEmergency
Part 2: Natural Gas and
Plastic
The
US Energy Department and the Energy Industry have developed a plan to ramp up
production of boatloads of Natural Gas Condensate for export to Plastic
manufacturers worldwide, but the most scandalous part, of their plan to sell
the oversupply of Natural Gas, is the building of hundreds of Petrochemical Plants
in the US to produce Plastic. Most Americans are not aware of this, other than locally,
as it has not been extensively reported in mass media as a national story.
Without having been made aware, the American people has not had the opportunity
of giving their consent to lock in 30 years of increased Fracking, in order to
feed the Plastics industry. They promote it to the investors, 68% foreign owned,
as the ‘Shale-Advantaged Chemical Industry’, as though the American people were
in on it.
The
plan is to have 334 new Petrochemical Plants built by 2025 (each one will turn
the American community surrounding it into a brand-new Cancer Alley) to provide
the world with more Plastic, just what the world, whose oceans and waterways
are filling up with Plastic, don’t need. Single use packaging being marketed in
every developing country, in Asia and Africa, is one of the ‘new markets’
they’re developing for our Natural Gas oversupply.
There
is so much Plastic in the world already, where the world has been producing 300
million tons of Plastic every year for the last 50 years, with less than 10%
ever recycled, so that our oceans and waterways are accumulating and filling up
with Plastic. Fishermen are reporting 40% of their catch in weight of plastic, soon
predicted to be 50%. 85% of all tap water and 95% of all bottled water contains
Microplastics. Microbeads in toothpaste and cleaning products, though now outlawed
in some areas, are covering the floors of the Great Lakes, and will be there
forever, for one example. So, we are consuming plastic just drinking water,
besides the eating of seafood, and within the last few weeks, we’ve learned of
crops being able to draw up Microplastics. The world is drowning in plastic,
and now, in order to sell our oversupply of natural gas, the US government,
with its colonialist attitude, has come up with an urgent plan to shove more
plastic down the developing world’s throats, by promoting single use packaging.
This
plan is ecocidal, and unethical, and must be stopped. Each of the planned 334
new Petrochemical Plants, Ethene Cracker Plants, etc. will require a ‘Hub’ of
hundreds of miles of Pipelines to connect and feed the Natural Gas in, directly
from the wells, and to transport the Liquid Gas Condensate for Plastic production
and the LNG out to the Export Terminals. Every Pipeline means, thousands of
Trees will have to be cut down, in ‘right-of-ways’ for these Pipelines, and
every one of these new petrochemical plants will require land and trees to be
cleared.
It
is well known, per anecdotal evidence and numerous academic studies, that
higher cancer rates, low birth weights, higher miscarriage rates, nosebleeds,
rashes, asthma, and a range of other maladies, are concentrated around oil and
gas wells, facilities, refineries, compressor stations, and petrochemical
plants. causing sickness and death. And though Americans will pay the price in
lost health, this plan is not for the benefit of Americans, but for export, benefiting 68% direct foreign investors in
those new petrochemical plants and only a very few large US corporations.
As
I mentioned in the first paragraph of this section, we Americans, that were not
even made aware of this plan to lock in 30 more years of fracking for gas,
never gave our consent to this. That’s why I’m begging you to get this story
out, to make more people aware, so that they can, hopefully, take action, on a
local level, or on a national level, to fight this evil plan to spread more
Plastic across the world, in order for the US to sell a continuous oversupply
of fracked Natural Gas.
For
a more in-depth discussion on, and history of, Plastic, we refer you to our
post about the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, and four more garbage patches around
the globe in huge Gyres (circular currents), where millions of tons of Plastic
accumulate in our Oceans. And, not only the ocean surface and floor, but in
some nations, the rivers and streams are so full of plastic, that you can’t
even see the water, but just the flow of plastic garbage. We’ve got to put a
stop to the ecocidal insanity of wrapping the whole world in Plastic.
Part 3: Russian Oil,
Sanctions, Tillerson, Putin, & Trump
Now,
I’m going to tell you, as briefly as I can, a story, relevant to our
discussion, that you’re going to find hard to believe. But let me assure you, I
(or you) can easily confirm every part of it, and Rachel Maddow reported on
some of it, specifically relating to Tillerson and Putin, in her new book,
‘Blowout: Corrupted Democracy, Rogue State Russia, and The Richest, Most
Destructive Industry On Earth’, (speaking of the Oil industry), a book I highly
recommend. Let me make this clear, I am using her book only as a fact witness,
and not representing her conclusions. Read the book.
In
2012, Rex Tillerson, then CEO of Exxon Mobil, visited Putin’s home to sign a
letter of intent, to jointly, with Putin’s national oil company, Rosneft,
exploit their discovery of the Bazhenov Shale in Northwest Siberia, that had
been recently found to contain 80 times the amount of Oil and Gas as the Bakken
Shale of North Dakota, one of the most productive fracking fields in the US.
And in 2013, Putin awarded Tillerson the ‘Order of Friendship’, one of the
highest honors bestowed by Russia. Then, in early 2014, Putin invaded Ukraine
and annexed Crimea, causing the US and the EU to impose Sanctions, preventing
this Exxon/Rosneft oil deal from proceeding, and Russia, with their financial
problems, didn’t have the resources to do thi extensive project without Exxon.
In 2017, before Trump’s inauguration, Flynn advised the Russian ambassador in a
recorded conversation, implying, not to worry, Trump would soon, upon taking
office, ease the Sanctions.
After
the inauguration, both Republicans and Democrats were so worried that Trump
would unilaterally lift those Sanctions, that they actually legislated a
vetoproof (97-2 in the Senate) edict to prevent Trump from doing that. In July,
2017, after CEO Tillerson had resigned from Exxon, and now had assumed the post
of Secretary of State of the United States, Exxon was fined $2 million (chump
change for Exxon) by the Trump Treasury Department for violations of those same
Russian Sanctions, for violations that took place while Tillerson was still
CEO.
Trump
continues to this day to do everything he can to please Putin, including
turning his back on bounties paid by Russia for American heads, without even a
verbal rebuke. Trump has been single-mindedly concentrating on helping Putin
lift those Sanctions before and for all four years of his Presidency, and
surely, he will find a way to lift them, if we allow Trump four more years. It
is well-known that Trump never does anything for nothing, and we present the
Bazhenov Shale as a possible quid pro quo, with 80 times more Oil and Gas as
the Bakken Shale in the US. Do you realize how much money we’re talking about
here? Perhaps Trump has some assurance, if he were able to lift those
sanctions, he could get in on that action. Draw your own conclusions.
In
2018, Trump, with Mitch McConnell’s help, was successful in having the new Sanctions,
for interfering in the 2016 elections, lifted from billionaire Russian oligarch,
Oleg Deripaska, known as the King of Aluminum in Russia, with close ties to Vladimir
Putin. Shortly after Mitch McConnell shepherded through Congress the lifting of
those Sanctions for Deripaska, and for all of his Russian based businesses, Deripaska
invested $200 million in an aluminum mill in McConnell’s Kentucky, and now owns
a 40% share of that business. Deripaska is now also an owner of the Russian
state-owned oil company, Rosneft. but the US Sanctions for taking Crimea from
Ukraine, as far as whether they could allow an Exxon to help Rosneft exploit
the Bazhenov Shale. are still on, at least, for now.
In
2019, Rosneft announced that it still had plans to drill (which means frack)
the Bazhenov in 2022. This would be disastrous for the warming of the planet,
but how do you get a leader like Putin to sideline a potential huge asset like
that? Russia, which has the area of 170% of the US, and about half the
population, has a GDP of less than that of California, New York, or Florida,
and that economy is very dependent on revenues from fossil fuels, the largest
supplier of Natural Gas and Oil to the EU.
The
only way to get Putin to shelve any of Russia’s fossil fuel assets would be to
kill the demand. Russia is still actively exploring and seeking to expand
Arctic drilling, both on and offshore, and the western Siberian Arctic was home
of one of the biggest oil spills ever, just in recent months, threatening to
spill into the North Sea Their record of environmental destruction is long.
Part 4: Sword Dancing with
the Saudis
When
Trump first took office, one of his first international trips was to Saudi
Arabia, where MBS, along with the sheikhs of Saudi Arabia famously did their Sword
Dance, with Trump joining in, and took a photo with everyone touching a glowing
Crystal Orb. Trump may have considered it a huge diplomatic accomplishment, but
the Saudis, playing to his ego, were the real winners. It even enabled them to
kill a Washington Post reporter and carve up his body with no repercussions
from Trump, and in fact, Trump engaging in the cover-up, and has enabled them
to continue their genocidal war against Yemen, (one of the most tragic
genocidal stories in the world that the US and the EU are enabling, by not
demanding they stop the genocide). Even so, the Saudis have not been won over
by Trump to the extent of allowing the price of oil to be high enough for the
US to make a profit, considering their high fracking costs.
The
Saudi Arabian cost of extracting a barrel of oil from the largest conventional
reserve in the world is said to be less than $10 per barrel, and the Russians,
whose economy depends on oil even more than ours, and most of the other
oil-producing nations, with the high costs of fracking and “enhanced” drilling,
are at a severe competitive disadvantage to Saudi Arabia. Despite Trump’s Sword
Dance with the Sheikhs of Saudi Arabia, the Saudis are not going to allow the
price to be profitable for us, and allow us to keep taking what they consider
their market share, and it would be naive to think that they would,
The
Saudis aren’t dumb. They are avid readers of all the ins and outs of the future
of the oil business. They, and many Gulf Nations, have even read the Woodstock
Earth Blog, with the UAE, being among our top 10 readers lately, so we can
attest to that. The Saudis are continuing to construct multiple large Solar
arrays. They see the handwriting on the wall, in what’s happening to the
Climate in the Middle East, with the increasingly intolerable Heat and the Extreme
Weather events taking place, and they realize and see what’s happening with the
divestment movement, and with the youth climate movement, all over the world.
They realize their market for oil will not last forever, so they’ve got to sell
all the oil they can, now, or, certainly, before the world starts to divest, and
stops buying it.
And
it’s not as if the Saudis’ costs of extraction are going to go up anytime soon,
causing them to have a need to raise their prices, thus allowing US producers enough room
to compete and still make a profit. With our high costs of fracking and of
offshore drilling in the US, not only are we losing money on every barrel we
sell, but the Saudis, the Russians, dozens of other oil-producing nations, and
we keep trying to outdo each other in production, causing a perpetual
oversupply, as if that will somehow raise prices, or will ramp up the
‘economy’.
Part 5: Tarsands Oil,
Canadian Crude
In
the 1970's, when the oil executives were concerned that they were going to run
out of oil, huge deposits of oil were found in the ground in Alberta Canada,
but this oil was in the form of a solid, so they had to develop ‘unconventional’
technologies to mine this slab of ‘Tarsands’, otherwise known as ‘Oilsands’ or
‘Canadian Crude’, and to liquefy it enough to get it into pipelines, so that
they can move it to refineries, and to export terminals. In order to get to the Tarsands, they had to employ open pit mining, with heat and steam to extract it,
and then they had to add a diluent, in order to dilute it, to get it to be
liquid enough to be able to flow through pipelines.
They
employ natural gas condensate as the diluent for Tarsands, much of which is
being delivered in new pipelines North from the US, in order to get this very
low-grade oil, that is highly sulfurous, and full of heavy metals, lead and mercury,
to be able to flow South to Koch Refineries in the US, and through more pipelines
to export terminals. The end product is so inferior, and so polluting when
burned, that, as long as Light, Sweet Crude is available, nobody would burn it
in the US, so it is for export only.
And
who cares about the rest of the world? (Sarcasm.)
Another
problem with Tarsands is, if the pipeline breaks, and there is a spill, this
oil is so heavy, that it will go down to the bottom of a body of water, so that traditional booms on the
surface of water are totally ineffective. We’ve already seen Tarsands oil spills
in the United States, and they are environmentally even more damaging than
light sweet crude oil spills, and though right-wing supporting Koch Industries
might benefit, it only harms Americans.
A
byproduct of Tarsands refining is a black powdery residue, called petroleum
coke, or Petcoke, (just coincidence that it rhymes with Koch), that they sell
cheap, and export to be used to generate electricity as if it were coal. The
problem is that the burning of Petcoke yields upwards of 10% more CO2 than
normal coal.
The
biggest problem for profitability is that the technology and logistics of this ‘unconventional’
mining technique is very expensive. Just 10 years ago it was estimated that the
cost of a barrel of Tarsands oil was close to $100. Within the last 10 years
they’ve supposedly come up with technologies that allow them to bring the cost
all the way down to $40 a barrel, but if the selling price is $40 a barrel,
which it happens to be now, and this oil is so problematic, that nobody would
buy it, if it were even cheaper than light sweet crude, getting their costs
down, won’t help them make a profit.
Wildlife
in Alberta, an essential part of the food supply of indigenous Canadians, is
being contaminated with dangerous levels of heavy metals by Tarsands mining.
In
every way, this product is damaging. After years of selling this product at
below cost, and with the whole Tarsands industry in danger of collapse, the
Canadian government stepped in, and decided to nationalize part of this industry.
While this whole project should be shelved, rather than spending good money
after bad, the Koch billionaires are heavily invested in the Tarsands in
Canada, and in Tarsands refineries in the United States, and as long as the
Canadian government props it up, this insanity will continue.
As
long as there is light sweet crude in this world, there is no need for this
godforsaken black tar, and the project should be abandoned, and it should be
left in the ground, and the world would be a lot better off.
Part 6: Drilling and
Destruction in the Amazon & the Congo Rainforests
The
Amazon and the Congo Rainforests are under attack, and Western Banks are
financing the destruction through their financing of the oil industry and meat
industry, to the tune of billions of dollars a year. The Banks are financing
pipelines and drilling, and the building of large fossil fuel infrastructure
projects, and the clearing of huge tracts of land for agriculture.
In
order to clear land in the Rainforest, which is essentially a very thick jungle,
they utilize intentionally set fires, that often get out of control. In doing
so, they are destroying our Rainforests, and all of their inhabitants,
including indigenous peoples and the wildlife.
The
Rainforests are the lungs of this earth, and the cradle of Biodiversity. Not just the residents, but all people
of this world need the Rainforests to survive. to produce Oxygen, and to
provide a Carbon Sink for all the excess carbon dioxide, that we’re still continuously
pumping into the atmosphere, and that is warming the planet.
With
leaders like Bolsonaro, who, bolstered by Trump, is encouraging the ecocide in
the Brazilian Amazon, in the hopes of pumping up his economy, the only way that
we can stop this destruction is to stop this endless flow of financing.
In
April 2020,.in the Ecuador Amazon, an ill-planned hydroelectric dam failed,
causing a landslide, that ruptured 3 pipelines from oil drilling nearby, spilling
15,800 barrels of oil, plus toxic, radioactive produced water, poisoning the
food and drinking water and bathing water for indigenous inhabitants, with
hardly any industry or governmental effort to clean it up, or to feed or provide
water to or help the tribal people. And this is all happening during the
Pandemic, while the tribes have been trying to self-isolate, and, hopefully
survive. Some of the oil has flowed down the Coca River, and into a tributary
to the Amazon River, and has already found its way to Peru. This is Genocide
and Ecocide, and not just the leaders and executives, but the Banks, are guilty.
Part 7: Offshore Drilling
Before
we start this discussion, let me remind you that next to every fracking field
on land, you’ll find ponds of toxic, salty, radioactive wastewater. So, if
that’s the case, where do they put the wastewater when they’re drilling and
fracking offshore? Well that’s easy. They just spill it into the Ocean or Gulf,
where our seafood lives, and our children swim. The more offshore drilling we
do, the more trillions of gallons of toxic, hydrocarbon and heavy metal filled,
radioactive, tainted wastewater we pour into our oceans.
Our
oceans are vast, but we have seen more, and growing, huge dead zones from toxic
pollution, where the water is deoxygenated, and nothing can live.
Offshore
drilling and extraction has been going on in the Gulf for many years in shallow
areas, however over the years, again spurred on by their fear of running out of
oil, they have developed new ‘unconventional’ technologies, which allow them to
drill in an area where the ocean floor is more than a mile deep. The wellhead
is a mile below the surface of the ocean, and they can drill further down below
that ocean floor as much as a mile or more, and then drill horizontally. and
Frack underwater.
We
explored what happens when that ‘unconventional’ technology goes wrong, in an
article called, ‘Clean-Up or Cover-Up?’, about the Gulf Oil Spill of 2010, when
the Deepwater Horizon oil rig spilled 200,000,000 gallons of crude oil into the
Gulf, over 87 days, before they finally were able to stop the flow, after many
attempts. After that oil spill, Obama declared a moratorium on deep ocean
offshore drilling, which was relaxed later in his administration, and has been
further relaxed, as far safety and equipment standards. by the Trump
administration.
It’s
not a matter of if we’re going to have another oil spill of that magnitude, it’s
just a matter of when. In fact, we have found out about an oil spill in the
Gulf, that has been ongoing for the last 20 years, that they have not been able
to stop to this day, as well as other slow, but over time, very
substantial spills. Also, please note that Dispersants, like the one used in
the Gulf Oil Spill, don’t make any of the oil go away, they just make it disappear
on the surface. Also, they are toxic EDC, hormone disrupting, chemicals, that, in combination with
toxic oil, harm the long-term health of clean-up workers, not to mention their
effects on marine life.
In
order to explore for additional deposits of oil under our oceans, they use
explosions and sonar techniques, which, due to the amplification of sound
traveling through water, are very loud, and may deafen animals, like whales and
porpoises, which depend on their hearing for navigation.
2.6
billion people depend on seafood as their principal source of protein, and
billions more eat seafood as a portion of their food supply.
For
all these reasons, exploration for new deposits of offshore oil must be
stopped. All offshore drilling must be stopped as soon as possible, but, certainly,
there is no way that we should be allowing new drilling, which would increase
the amount of toxic, radioactive wastewater we’re pouring into our oceans.
Part 8: Arctic Drilling
The
strongest new reason to stop all Arctic drilling, is, now that the Arctic is
warming more than twice as fast as the rest of the world, the permafrost is
melting, or has melted, on land, and underwater on the Arctic shelf, leaving
the ground and the ocean floor very spongy. No pipeline or structure once
anchored into solid permafrost, now that it’s melted, is safe. And there’s no
way that an oil spill can be cleaned up in the remote Arctic, whether on land
or at sea. Offshore drilling platforms have got to be connected to land through
pipelines, and those underwater pipelines are no longer safe.
Just
within the last few months the largest ever Arctic oil spill took place in
Western Siberia, along the North Sea, where a tank holding a massive amount of
diesel fuel completely collapsed, perhaps related to the melted permafrost that
it was sitting on.
It’s
bad enough that the Arctic ice and glaciers are turning gray from all the soot,
the black carbon, in the air from the burning of fossil fuels. This gray cast
on the ice cap and glaciers makes them absorb heat, more than if they were white,
(the albedo effect), but now we’re talking about turning the ice and glaciers
black, from globules of spilled oil.
Trump
has huge plans to drill for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR),
and it looks like his administration is rushing to organize a sale of oil
leases on a staggering 1.5 million acres, before the end of 2020, to avoid the
possibility of having this plan stopped. All you have to do is look next-door
at the destruction of Prudhoe Bay, and see what will happen to our nation’s
beautiful treasure.
The
indigenous people in the Arctic, and the wildlife that they hunt and fish and
rely on for food, are already being severely impacted by the severe warming and
melting of the ice. An oil spill in that fragile ecosystem could be the last
straw for them.
All
Arctic drilling should be banned immediately, if we are to preserve this
planet.
Part 9: Pipelines, Spills and Fossil Fuel Infrastructure
In
every state in the US where there is fracking, there are hundreds of reported
spills annually, large and small, of oil, or produced water, or toxic drilling
mud. And that’s not to mention the unreported spills, which we know are
happening, while nobody is really watching.
The
overwhelming majority of the nation’s pipelines are old and corroded, in many
cases, close to, or above, a pipeline’s projected lifespan of 50 years. If a
pipeline was built before 1970, it is already older than 50 years, and on that
basis could be more subject to failure.
We
can’t count on the regulators to keep us safe from pipeline spills and
explosions. There are 2.8 million miles of interstate Gas and Oil Pipelines in
the US, that are being “regulated” and “inspected” by the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety
Administration, part of the DOT, with only 209 federal inspectors, who, in 2019
performed 1,395 inspections. All it takes is one bad weld, and a Gas Pipeline,
even a new one, pressurized up to 1500 psi, can result in quite a big explosion,
and if it is a pipeline going through a big city, like, for an example, the new
Spectra Pipeline going into and through New York City, going by playgrounds and
residential apartment buildings, you could see a mini - Beirut.
Every
year, there are small gas service line explosions in communities across the
United States, but they usually only flatten one or two homes at a time.
But
sooner or later these old rusty corroded pipelines, both the gas service lines,
and the large diameter transmission pipelines must be replaced, but doing so
would be folly, and nobody has the money. The expense would be untenable, and
replacing pipelines would lock us into another 50 years of fossil fuels, 50
years, that we do not have.
Why
waste billions on building new pipelines and fossil fuel infrastructure, where
it’s clear, to our children, at least, or to any educated person that doesn’t
have blinders on, based on the science of the impending Climate Crisis, that in
a very short time, our children will not want to use these pipelines and this infrastructure?
Why invest billions in 20th century Fossil Fuel Infrastructure,
when, if we really wanted to leave our children something beneficial for them, for
their interests, we would invest that money in Wind and Solar and in Electrical
Storage and Transmission?
Part 10: Deregulation,
Self-regulation, or Protecting the Public
For
decades, the Republican leadership has been all about Deregulation. Many
Democrats, especially those that take financial support, as do the Republicans,
from the Gas and Oil and extractive industry lobbies, have also, perhaps less
openly, but as robustly, supported Deregulation. One of the sure applause lines
at every Trump rally, and at his party members’ rallies, has been the promise
to end all “Regs”, as though Regulations were the ‘mark of the devil’, as they tout their removal as a great accomplishment of the Trump Administration.. And the
American people cheer, as if the loss of their own protections for health,
welfare, and safety is something to celebrate.
As
ineffective as Trump’s amateur, unqualified, sycophantic, no experience
government has been in many areas, like on the Coronavirus, as a glaring
example, his administration has been very effective at tearing down, not just
the rules put into effect during the Obama administration, but 40 years of
environmental law. Laws like the Clean Water Act and the Clean Air Act are
difficult to change without an act of the Congress and the Senate, and without
being signed into law by the President, but it is relatively easy for an agency
of the government, like the EPA, the FDA, or the USDA, to change the
regulations by which the law is enforced. All they’ve got to do to change a
regulation is for the agency to unilaterally propose the change, provide a
comment period, and then issue the new regulation. And there is no democracy
here when it comes to the comments received. 90% of the comments in response to
the proposed change could be strongly against making the change, and the agency
can announce whatever they want in their new rule, and publish it in the new Federal
Register, (with all the rules from every federal agency), as long as they have
followed the proper procedures.
Organizations,
like Earthjustice, NRDC, Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth, and other environmental
organizations, can sue, and sometimes delay, or win an injunction against the
change, that is, if they don’t run up against a Trump appointed judge, so many
unqualified, but approved by McConnell.
The
New York Times has listed 100 regulations, that have already been changed to
benefit Gas and Oil and other polluters. Every one of these changes risks
American’s health and safety, and the environment.
And
laws and regulations don’t matter, whether changed or not, if they’re not being
enforced. The agencies designed to protect our health and welfare, the EPA, the
FDA, every agency and institution have been so corrupted, to a point where they
have reduced inspections, and reduced violations. And this can be borne out through
statistics, by comparing the number of violations and inspections performed by
each agency year after year.
In
a world without regulations and enforcement, a polluter’s “dream come true”,
when asked, the politicians and corporate stooge regulators propose “Self-regulation”.
Our answer to that myth is, that even reputable companies, will only self-regulate,
as long as it doesn’t start cutting into their profits, especially if they have
no fear of an occasional pop-up inspection, putting them subject to fines and
penalties for their indiscretions.
Especially
now, with the excuse of the Coronavirus Pandemic, the agencies have ceased
practically all inspections, and have announced that they’re doing so. The
executives and managers of the polluters realize this, and are taking full
advantage of the “free-for-all”, that this provides.
Every
Agency, every Institution, of our Federal Government has been perverted by the
Deregulation and Non-enforcement policies of the Trump administration. Even
OSHA, the Agency designed to protect workers’ health and welfare, has curtailed
inspections and violations, and again this can be borne out by their own
statistics.
Even
if we are successful in having Trump removed from the equation, it will take
years to undo the damage that he and his destructive government has already committed.
Part 11: Fracking harming
Health
17
million Americans live within one mile of Fracking. Americans are waking up
with nosebleeds and headaches from breathing in the toxic fumes. They and their
kids are getting cancer with greater frequency, perhaps due to the breathing in
of Air Pollution, as well as drinking from wells tainted by Water Pollution, all
as a direct result of Fracking.
It
is well known, per numerous academic studies, that higher cancer rates, low
birth weights, higher miscarriage rates, nosebleeds, rashes, asthma, and a
range of other maladies, are concentrated around oil and gas wells, facilities,
refineries, compressor stations, and petrochemical plants. causing sickness and
death. In studies geographically pinpointing cases, we’ve learned of whole
neighborhoods with multiple cases of cancer in clusters near Gas and Oil wells
and facilities. And though Americans will pay the price in lost health, this
plan of unlimited expansion of fracking is not for the benefit of Americans,
but for export.
We
urge you to read our post, Living in a Toxic World, where the effects on health
from Fracking is covered: part4-Heavy Metals,
part 5-Radioactivity, part 6-Toxic and Endocrine Disrupting Chemicals, part 7-Toxic Gases and Particulates, and part
9-Respirable Silica Sand. Fracking, per numerous studies, is most definitely
harming the health of Americans working onsite, and living, working, and going
to school or church nearby. And we’re not just talking about the 17 million who
live within a mile of fracking. Contaminated groundwater flows, and air
pollution in the wind, move well beyond a mile from the source. ‘We are all
downstream.'
Before
we leave the subject of health, let’s remind ourselves that we’re not just
talking about the health of humans. All vertebrates, all animals with a backbone,
even fish and birds, have endocrine (hormone) systems much like ours, and can
be equally affected by EDC’s, Endocrine Disrupting Chemicals, used in fracking.
And the toxins and the radioactivity can also promote sickness and cancer in
animals. Pet owners know of the more frequent risk of cancer in pets, and
though we’re not aware of any studies on this specifically, we have heard much
anecdotal evidence of animals accidentally drinking puddles of toxic fracking
wastewater and losing patches of hair and dying from these exposures. We are
certain that wildlife and livestock are equally subject to the many health
risks posed by Fracking.
Part 12: Fracking harming
Environment
The
Environment is a big subject, the Air Pollution, Soil Pollution, the Loss of
Biodiversity, but, for the purpose of this article, let’s focus on Water.
#WaterILife
In the Lakota language: #MniWiconi. That was the call to action and assembly at
Standing Rock in South Dakota in 2016 to protest the Dakota Access pipeline (DAPL) being built to go under the Missouri River at their land, without the
indigenous people’s consent. This was a moment of unity for all indigenous
tribes and sovereign First Nations, and
for the environmental movement, in solidarity with them.
Four
days after Trump’s inauguration, his first Executive Order was to have the DAPL pipeline and the KXL pipeline completed, and 30 days later, Trump launched his
first militarized assault against unarmed Americans, both indigenous and
non-indigenous protesters, we called, Water Protectors, at the Standing
Rock encampment, to ruthlessly and violently remove us, not dissimilar to the
way the Trump's new secret police has been operating lately. This assault on unarmed
protesters was a sign of things to come.
Although the DAPL was recently ruled in federal court to have been constructed
illegally, and the operator was ordered to halt operations and empty the pipeline, it
has, so far, been allowed to continue to operate, at the risk that a breach in
the pipeline could devastate the tribe, and pollute the Missouri River, and the
Mississippi River, that it flows into.
ETP, the owner the pipeline, has since taunted us with the promise to increase
the flow in that pipeline of fracked oil from the Bakken Shale, from 1 Million
to 1.2 million barrels per day. Trump was a former owner of stock, if not a
current owner, ETP, Energy Transfer Partner, the builder and operator of
this pipeline. It should also be noted that Trump also was a former owner of
stock, if not still an owner, of TransCanada, the company that is building the
Keystone XL Pipeline (KXL).
We
urge you to read “Fracking the Holy Land with the Holy Water”, where we
explored the subject of Water, and how essential and sacred it is, both
factually and spiritually (the major religions on Water in one of the final
sections, Spiritual Notes For Geeks). And many aspects in the nexus of Water and Fracking.
The
fact is, that we are robbing the hydrological cycle of trillions of gallons of
fresh water, 2 million gallons at a shot, to frack wells, in areas of the
country that have a scarcity of fresh water, like in New Mexico and California.
Even where records show sufficient precipitation, like perhaps areas of Texas,
these days it all comes down at once, in months’ worth of rain in hours, with
much of it flowing away in runoff, and not recharging aquifers sufficiently. And
so, where it might look like water is plentiful, it doesn’t rain for weeks or
months at a time. This is criminal to rob 2 million gallons at a time, when
it’s clear that, Water is Life.
But
the biggest problem to the Environment, that Fracking presents, is the poisoning
of our precious Water with toxins, EDC’s, radioactivity, hydrocarbons and salt
(brinier than sea water), as they dream up ways to dispose, safely or not, of
this ever-accumulating waste stream. If the US wants to continue to be the biggest
producer in the world of fracked Gas and Oil, that means that we will also have
to be the biggest producerin the world of toxic, saltier than seawater, radioactive Frack
Waste, trillions of gallons of it, every year, year after year.
Nobody
will take this waste, we can’t export it, no one wants it, The injection wells,
that take lake-sized injections of waste, injecting it under high pressure,
supposedly below the Groundwater line, are being used over and over again, as
if these injection wells were ‘bottomless pits’, that will never fill and back
up, and these injections are causing Earthquakes, in many places, that had never experienced them before. Most Americans are not aware Oklahoma has become the State with
the most Seismic activity in the US, And
that is a direct result of the increase in fracking. There have already been
Earthquakes measured as high as 5.2 on the Richter scale, causing cracks in
walls and foundations.
The vast unlined or poorly lined ponds of waste next to every group of fracking well, that overflow
with the torrential rains of the Climate Crisis, are full, threatening the
toxicity and the radioactivity of the Groundwater. 95% of all Americans in
rural areas rely on well water, groundwater, for their drinking water supplies.
With
nowhere to put all these trillions of gallons of accumulating and backing up toxic wastewater, whether legally
permitted to do so, or not, gas and oil wastewater has been known to having been
delivered, without regard to regulations, to wastewater treatment plants, which
do absolutely nothing to remove many of the chemicals and toxins, and
certainly, nothing to reduce the radioactivity, and is being discharged in the
effluent into our rivers and streams. Also, many dumps don’t want to take the
solid waste, that is highly radioactive. And the liquid waste, as they dream up
ways to dispose of it, safely or not, is accumulating, a liquid cocktail of
water, toxins, EDCs (chemicals that disrupt hormones), hydrocarbons, and
radioactivity in this never-ending toxic liquid waste stream.
If
we keep fracking, we will surely poison this country, that we supposedly love,
not to mention her citizens, and children, and pets, livestock and wildlife. #WaterIsLife #WeAreAllDownstream
Part 13: Fracking harming
Quality of Life
When
Fracking moves in, quality of life suffers. Since the Fracking boom began in
2005, and has been ramping up in more and more States ever since, the country
way of life has changed. I call it the “citification” of the country,
bringing the problems of the city into the country. We’re not just talking
about the Water Pollution, the risk to people's well water (95% of Americans
in rural communities depend solely on well water.), and not just the Air Pollution (the high
levels of Benzene and Radon both carcinogenic, the smoke from gas flares from
every fracked oil well, and the dust and diesel fumes from hundreds of
tractor-trailers going by people’s homes every day.), we are also talking about
the Noise Pollution, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, from all that truck traffic,
and from the Gas Flares, (that sound like locomotives), and the Light
Pollution, (the lights around fracking compounds, and the light from the gas
flares burning.).
Some
people don’t want to live in the city, much less the suburbs. They want to live
out in the "woods". They want to be able to sit on their porch, and enjoy
the fresh air and the solitude, or maybe play some bluegrass with folks. For a
lot of people, whether they grew up and own their home, or rent, life after
fracking is not at all the same.
Before
I leave the subject of Quality of Life, another part of the “citification” of
the country is the Vice, the Rapes, the Prostitution, the Abductions (mostly of
indigenous women), the unrestrained Humiliation of Women, and by the Crime,
that is being perpetrated by the overwhelmingly male fracking and pipeline
workers, who are brought in, and housed in “Man-Camps”, set up by these
companies to support their labor needs. These man-camps and the lack of
restrictions on travel for these workers, who have special authorization, as
Essential Workers, in this time of Coronavirus, present a constant danger to
the local and indigenous communities, that are trying to self-isolate.
Part 14: Psy Ops,
Intimidation, Preemptive Laws, & Murders of Activists
Fracking
and Pipeline companies are hiring mercenary paramilitary private security
forces, employing strong arm techniques, like vicious dogs, as we saw in
Standing Rock, where Taxpayer-paid Federal, State, and County law enforcement officers
and the National Guard military troops cooperate, actively exchange information,
and coordinate with the mercenary corporate Security forces. The Police are
more and more being militarized, with tanks, pepper ball guns, and teargas,
chemical weapons and irritants, that are illegal to use against enemy
combatants under the Geneva Convention, but used freely on unarmed American
citizens. In the military and paramilitary security force manuals, they characterize
protesters, as we call them, ‘water protectors, as ‘insurgents’ and ‘terrorists’,
making the abuse of protesters seem all the more acceptable. Federal, State,
County Police, instead of protecting our rights as citizens, are working
directly for the benefit of the Corporations.
Fracking
and Pipeline companies are also hiring military trained psychological
operations personnel to “soften the terrain”, to infiltrate into and make the
communities more malleable to Fracking and Pipeline interests. With ‘psy ops’,
techniques, their job is to mold the community, through whatever means
necessary, including direct, and more subtle, intimidation, ranging from having
pro-fracking neighbors not sit with you
in church, to direct intimidation at school against the children of
anti-fracking parents.
States
and Counties across America are legislating and instituting ‘preemptive laws’
making protest against projects, like pipelines and fossil fuel infrastructure,
an illegal act, despite the fact that this is totally unconstitutional, flying
in the face of the first and fourth amendments, (Freedom of Speech and Freedom
of Assembly). However, until these unconstitutional laws are challenged, they
are the law, and will result in heavy fines and potential long imprisonment for
non-violent protesters. Some of the many new, mostly unqualified, Trump
appointed, McConnell approved, Federal Judges may uphold these laws, but
ultimately, we hope, the Constitution will prevail. We refer you to Thumbing Their Noses At Society, where we explore the depths of the anti-environmental
attitude being exhibited, unfortunately, in many parts of the world today.
More
and more, brave indigenous environmental activists, in various parts of the
world, but mostly in South America, are being murdered, relating to their
activism. Much of the time, they are activists for Biodiversity for the
Rainforest, for their Land, and for their Water, and not just for the Climate,
but they are also fighting, not just for their own people, but for all of us,
and for all of our children and their futures.
Part 15: Subsidies,
Financing, Divestiture, & Sidelining of Reserves
In
Subsidies to Fossil Fuels, the US spends more than the $60 billion we spend on
Education.. I got this from an article in Forbes magazine, a publication that
is not known to be anti-business. If this is true, it reveals a deep perversion
in our prioritization, by spending more to benefit the fossil fuel industry,
one of the richest, most powerful, industries in the world, than for our own
children’s Education. One of the reasons for this lopsidedness is that this
industry also has the largest lobby, with the greatest amount of donations to
politicians, of any other industry. This is true, not just in the United
States, but in nations all over the world.
Despite
Obama’s, and the rest of the G 20’s, pledge in 2009 to end fossil fuels and
transition to renewables, the G 20 nations are still spending $444 billion
annually on Fossil Fuel Subsidies, between direct national subsidies, domestic
and international finance, and state owned enterprise investment. And the G 20 still
spend 4 times more on subsidies to fossil fuels, than it does for renewables.
Instead
of ending fossil fuels, the US, Russia, and Saudi Arabia, and all the G 20 oil
producing nations have been ramping up production, and ramping up the payment
of subsidies. The G 20's hypocrisy of spending $78 billion of the full $444 billion in subsidizing exploration, while
they are fully aware that they can’t possibly burn all of their current
reserves without breaking the Carbon Budget, as they boast of their Paris Agreement
commitments to act to limit climate change, is the height of irresponsibility.
If we can agree that the science says, that, if we burn all we’ve got, we will
go over the limit, why should we subsidize exploring for more? Why should taxpayers
around the world be expected to continue to prop up this currently unprofitable,
polluting, health cost multiplying, climate killing industry, by direct
subsidies and handouts?
And, besides the subsidies and handouts, the world’s Big Banks are financing the
major expansion of fossil fuels, through their funding of pipelines and fossil
fuel infrastructure. They are funding the destruction of the Amazon Rainforest
and the Congo Rainforest, and the genocide of indigenous tribal people, who are
being negatively impacted, (especially with Coronavirus), by huge investments
in Gas and Oil and Agriculture. To the extent of their lending, the Banks are
responsible for the dire consequences of their actions, and the only way to
curtail this destruction is by cutting off capital investment.
Thanks
to the efforts of activists like Bill McKibben, of 350.org, and many other
activist organizations forming the Divestment Movement, we have seen some major
successes in convincing large universities, municipal governments, unions, and
funds to divest of fossil fuel stocks in their profiles. Divestment sends a
strong message to the Banks, and to these Funds, that further investment is
simply not in their own best interest, as far as public relations is concerned,
or otherwise.
Finally,
unless the world sidelines an estimated 75% of current Oil, Gas, and Coal
reserves, not including additional reserves that might be found through
exploration, temperature rise and sea level rise will be exponential, and
commensurate to the amount of our reserves that are allowed to be burned
With
current voluntary commitments to reduce emissions, pursuant to the Paris
Agreement, we are looking at a catastrophic 3 - 4° Celsius of temperature rise,
but if we allow every gallon of Oil, every cubic foot of Natural Gas, and every
ton of Coal, in the world’s current reserves, to be burned, we are looking at an apocalyptic 7 to 8° C, or even higher rise in temperatures, and at sea
levels beyond what you could imagine. (Conservatively, according to Sea Level Rise predictions of US Government scientists, 2' by 2050, 4' by 2070, 8' by 2100, 18' by 2150, and 31' by 2200.)
But
how do we get irresponsible leaders like, Trump, Putin, or Bolsonaro of Brazil
to sideline their reserves, which they consider their assets, turning them into
“stranded assets”? To that question, our reply is, that they won’t strand their
assets, unless we are able to cut off the funding by banks, directly, and
through the repercussions of divestment. But the only way to give any hope that
they might actually curtail extraction is to kill demand, through a massive
transformation to less expensive Wind and Solar. If nobody wants to buy their
Gas and Oil and Coal, and the resulting drop in prices makes it financially
untenable to continue, that’s the only way that these they might actually leave it in
the ground.
Part 16: Environmental Racism
& Environmental Justice
Environmental
Racism is one aspect of Systemic Racism, making it more likely that a Black,
Hispanic, Indigenous, or Immigrant person lives near the worst polluters, oil
refineries, chemical and petrochemical plants, coal and natural gas power
plants, CAFO factory farms, slaughterhouses, bus depots, etc. Besides the stink
of having to live near these polluters, there are documented health risks, with
studies mapping out the sicknesses and cancers in these neighborhoods with
proximity to polluters. Industrial developers, even if they could find
affordable real estate, wouldn’t even consider putting a fracking well, or a
refinery, or a factory farm, in a wealthy white neighborhood, and the zoning
board would probably never allow it.
Environmental
Racism springs out of a historical context in the US, with real estate rated in
the 1930s , A, B, C, or D, and with the more recent development
of “redlining” of real estate, determining where people live. I use the word, “determining”, because it’s
not a matter of choice. It’s where people end up, where they can afford, and
where they are not restricted, by whatever means, overt and illegal, or not,
from renting and buying. Residential segregation has always been a feature in
America, and it is only increasing.
Recently,
Total Oil, a French multinational corporation, that is currently drilling new
wells near Dallas Texas, tried to get a waiver from the 600’ set-off from homes
or schools, in order to drill a fracked well 400’ from an existing preschool, with
mostly non-white preschoolers. Thanks to the activism of Earthworks and many
others, Total Oil was turned down on that request, but if it were white
preschoolers, they would not have even considered asking for that waiver. However, they
don’t even give it a thought, when they’re looking at non-white, poor (and that includes white), or
immigrant neighborhoods.
A
recent study, in NYU Langone Medical Center, on Racial Disparity and Coronavirus,
found that both Coronavirus infections and Coronavirus deaths were least likely
in people that were, according to Census information, from ‘predominantly white’ neighborhoods (82%
to 97% white), and patients from ‘predominantly non-white’ neighborhoods (more than 45% non-white) were the most
likely to be infected and to die. In fact, whether the patients were from more
affluent or less affluent areas made less of a difference, but the racial
disparity was as much as eight or nine times more of a factor. This is the
result of a lifetime, subjected from birth, to more Air Pollution, more Water
Pollution, more Lead Paint, etc., a lifetime of being poisoned more freely, and
the scarcity of healthy unprocessed food in their diets, and the scarcity of preventative healthcare , and
not just emergency healthcare, for our citizens. Environmental Racism is as
urgent an issue as are Gun Control and Policing.
There is no doubt that the poor of the world, most of them people of color, will bear the brunt of the Climate Crisis and Sea Level Rise.
Internationally,
environmental racism can also refer to the bad effects of the Global Waste
Trade, E-Waste, Plastic Waste, Garbage, and Industrial Waste. Developed nations
want to continue to use Africa and Asia as their dumping grounds.
Internationally,
when we talk about Environmental Justice, we are often talking about the
inequity the people in the “Global South” are facing, where many times, they
are bearing the brunt of sea level rise and extreme weather events, which
wasn’t caused by them, but by the Developed Nations (the US, with 4% of the
world’s population, has contributed 25% of all carbon emissions). Over the
years, many of the less developed nations have expressed that they should have
the right to develop, even if that means raising their emissions for another
period of time, and that it would be inequitable otherwise.
Unfortunately,
the world doesn’t have 20 or 30 years to play with, by condoning their
investment of billions into old 20th century fossil fuel
infrastructure. Even the less-developed nations will have to cooperate in
cutting emissions, and it will be to their advantage, to invest money as soon as
possible into 21st century Wind and Solar, in order to build renewed
resilience, rather than waste any of the money they have for investment on antiquated fossil fuel technology.
#BlackLivesMatter
Part 17: Youth Climate
Movement, SchoolStrike4Climate & YouthvGov Lawsuit
We
ran into Jamie Margolin, and the first-ever Youth Climate March, while we were
researching Beyond The Tipping Points, about Climate Change and Biodiversity
Loss, with part 10 of that article on the Our Children’s Trust (21 kids suing
the US Government) Climate Lawsuit, that we will cover later in this section,
and part 11 about the This Is Zero Hour Youth Climate March, planned for 7/21/2018,
so, in order to support the march, with lots of evidence of the impending
Climate and Biodiversity Loss Crises, we rushed the publication of our article,
to get it out by 6/15/2018, a full month before the March.
The 'This Is Zero Hour' Youth Climate March was a world-class, 3-day event, with 20
sister marches in US cities and internationally. The main event was in Washington,
DC, and included a Youth Climate Lobby Day, where the kids met at the Capitol
Building with Congressman and Senators, who were asked for their pledge to
protect the youth, an Art Build Day, to prepare banners and signs and artwork (and
decorated parachutes) for the March,. They had even prepared a 'Platform' with 'Demands'.
The
day of the March, there was a massive rainstorm in DC, classic to the deluges
of Climate Change, but that did nothing to damper their spirits. It was an
awesome event, and a huge success, planned and executed by This Is Zero Hour,
an organization formed by a 16-year-old, Jamie Margolin, with the help of her associates, Nadia Nazar, Iris Gillingham, and numerous others.
At
the time of that March, 7/21/2018, we had never heard of Greta Thunberg. Her one-person
School Strike for Climate in front of the Swedish Parliament had not begun until 8/20/2018. Just a little over 1 year later on 9/20/2019, with Greta in New York
City, having sailed there, because she won’t fly, on an Invitation from the
Secretary General of the UN, Greta addressed 250,000 people in New York City, in
Battery Park, with 7.5 Million participating in the strike, on every continent,
in the biggest School Strike for Climate ever.
Starting just 3 months after her School Strike began, with the first ever Extinction Rebellion event in London on 11/2/2018 (see
video – extraordinary speech, done with Occupy Wall Street’s Mic-Check technique
to amplify her voice), during the 13 months before this biggest global school
strike on 9/20/2019, from the day she began her school strike in front of the
Swedish Parliament, Greta had spoken at numerous events, had addressed numerous
governments, world trade conferences, and UN Climate Talks, a whirlwind of
events. (I was going to put together a timeline of all her major speeches, and
events, but suffice it to say, there were too many entries, and I’m sure, I
would miss some.) Her itinerary and what she and her associates have been able
to accomplish in a union of organizations, many with Fridays for the Future or School Strike for Climate in their names, that span every continent, is extraordinary and
very powerful..
In
the 11 months since her trip to NYC on 9/20/2019, Greta has addressed the UN Climate
Talks in Madrid, and the EU Parliament, among numerous other speeches and appearances,
in an effort to try to foment action, that might save her generation from
certain catastrophe, if governments and industries don’t wake up, if the world
does not wake up, and take real, not pretend, action.
Recently
in an open letter, written by a group, including
her, they kicked off the #FaceTheClimateEmergency campaign, with the
recognition, that all of their success, all of their efforts so far, have
accomplished nothing substantially, as far as reduction of carbon emissions.
The Carbon Budget is rapidly being used up, and the policies of the governments
continue to support, not the reduction, but the expansion of the extraction and burning of Gas and Oil.
More meetings, more Climate Talks, will do nothing, until the world comes to an
understanding that NetZero2050, or even NetZero2040, allowing them to continue
to expand gas and oil, while pretending to some distant reduction of emissions, using all sorts of accounting tricks, like offsets, while making the politicians and executives pleased with themselves for 'responding', is really no response at all. This is not the first group letter Greta has published, where the kids get together on-line from around the
world, and collaborate on a letter. Greta insists, this is not about her, and
even when she recently won €1 million award for her activism, with a smile on
her face, she donated all of that money to various climate and environmental
organizations, and she did this within the first 24 hours.
From
my perspective, by creating a platform on social media to reach millions of
kids, millions of people, Greta and her friends have set up what it takes to
mobilize millions around the world, as prescribed in this article, and in Greta
and her associates’ new campaign, #FaceTheClimateEmergency.
One
of the first events Greta participated in after she arrived by sailboat in New
York City, was an event on 9/9/19, sponsored by the Intercept, where Greta was
interviewed on stage extensively by Naomi A Klein, distinguished author and
climate activist. That inspirational event took place, aptly located at the
Ethical Cultural Society on Central Park West, and besides the screening of the
Sunrise Movement’s animated video, with an animated AOC presenting the Green
New Deal, it also featured an indigenous activist from the Ecuadorian Amazon, another indigenous activist, Xia Bastida, and also Vic Barrett and Xiuhtezcatl, (youth director of Earth Guardians), 2 of the 21 kids involved with the
historic Our Children’s Trust lawsuit against the US government for violating
their generation’s right to a habitable planet.
Just
8 months previous to that night, I was sitting, on 1/31/2019, in that same
antique auditorium, and in an event, again located aptly at the Ethical Culture
Society, called Changing Tactics in the Face of Climate Emergency. There I was
able to see, in person, all 21 kids suing the US Government, many of whom I
felt I already knew for 4 years, since the lawsuit began, through the wonderful social media of @youthvgov, Our Children’s Trust, and, especially, I got to hear Julia Olson’s
update, the lead attorney and the major force behind Our Children’s Trust.
We
first wrote and included a video about Our Children’s Trust, in an article
called, Weather Extremes and the Jet Stream, in 2014, before Julia had filed
the suit in 2015 against Obama, President at that time, and against the US government. And we
included part 10 of our 2018 article, Beyond The Tipping Points, dedicated to
the Our Children’s Trust Climate Trial. Please read that update, and check out the videos in part 22, and don't miss their website, OurChildrensTrust.org, for detailed updates, since June of 2018.
The
remedy the plaintiffs have been seeking all along has not been money for damages, but
simply a change in policy away from supporting fossil fuels.
The
US government, both Obama and the Trump administrations, did everything they
could to have the trial thrown out of court, including the Trump government
complaining that a trial would be too big a hardship on the government, and
including, close to the trial date, striking Trump’s name from the lawsuit, which
the plaintiffs went along with, in order to hopefully get it finally to trial.
All
21 kids in this case, Juliana v USA, the lead plaintiff being Kelsey Juliana,
have remained plaintiffs throughout all 5 years, during which they’ve had to endure
a roller coaster of dozens of ups and downs, each time the government sought to
have the trial thrown out, through the many disappointing stays, and through
all the minor victories, where a Judge or multiple Judges, decided to rule
against the Government, and to continue the trial.
Unbelievably
enough, the full trial actually got to within 10 days of the final scheduled start
date, 10/29/2018, and the District judge presiding over the trial warned the
Government, that this date could not be extended. In order to prepare for that
major trial, having come so close, thousands of pages of testimony were
presented and dozens of depositions from expert witnesses on
climate change, economics, and of many disciplines, among others, Nobel prize winner, Dr.
Joseph Stiglitz, Economist, and Dr.
James Hansen, renown Climate Scientist, much of whose testimony was deposed by
his granddaughter, Sophie Kivlehan, 1 of the 21 plaintiffs in that trial. In preparing, to
that degree, to get ready, for what really would have been the Trial of the
Century (the 21st century, but as consequential as the Darwin 'Scopes' Evolution Trial), Our Children’s Trust, and in many cases, the witnesses themselves, spent
thousands of dollars on airfare and hotel rooms, in order to offer these
depositions, not to mention all the hours that were volunteered.
So,
just 10 days before this Kids’ Climate Trial was scheduled to begin, with all
the preparations made, the
Supreme Court stayed the trial, in response to the Justice Department complaint,
that a full trial would be a hardship in running the government.
Days
later, on 11/2/2018, the Supreme Court lifted their stay, but after a series of
legal events, the District Court, instead of allowing the case to go on to
trial, decided to rule on whether the case could proceed, by a three-judge
panel of the Court of Appeals, that would hear the arguments of the Plaintiffs,
and those of the Justice Department, and rule on whether it could proceed to
trial. The arguments were delivered to the Court in 2/2019 and then, finally,
on 1/17/2020, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, in a 2-1 decision, decided
not to allow the trial to proceed. Since then, the plaintiffs have requested an
‘en banc’, full court, review of this decision. But, whether or not it
ever goes on to trial, this case, Juliana v USA, has already made history, and
will continue to be studied and referenced in law schools and courts across
America, and beyond.
Twice,
it went all the way up to the Supreme Court, and twice, they decided to allow
the case to continue to trial, first time, unanimously, on 7/30/2018, with
Trump appointee, Gorsuch, already on the Court, and on 11/2/2018, a 7-2
decision, with new Trump appointee, Kavanaugh, remarkably ruling with the majority,
and only Gorsuch and Thomas dissenting. This alone, the fact that it stood up
to Supreme Court scrutiny twice, shows the kids’ case to have been
constitutionally sound.
And
this is the best part, that I feel I must share with you. I am including a link
to the full Decision in the Documents section of this report, but in case you
don’t get to push through it. I've got to include two sections of it here, that
highlight how important this Constitutional Rights trial has been, and will
continue to be in subsequent trials in the US, and internationally, for the
rights of generations of youth to have a future.
Despite
the fact that the trial did not yet proceed, though the 21 kids and Julia are
still fighting the fight, and have not given up, it is remarkable, and heroic,
that this trial actually got so close, with the federal court acknowledging the
Science of Climate Change and that these quotes, and this entire case, are now
in the permanent record of US Jurisprudence, thanks to Julia Olson, Dr. James
Hansen, and these 21 young heroes.
Before
we end this section with those quotes from the Court’s Decision, let me
congratulate the Sunrise Movement for their great victory in helping Ed Markey,
a champion of the Green New Deal, win another term in the Senate, and for all
their powerful actions to raise awareness and mobilize. Also, a shout out to Extinction
Rebellion, for putting your asses on the line in our defense. Also, we are pleased to hear of many new youth
organizations for Climate and for Biodiversity sprouting up. And we've got to report an exciting piece of news, that 16 children from around the world, including Greta, are petitioning The UN Committee on the Rights of the Child to hold 5 nations accountable for inaction on the Climate Crisis. And finally, more equally exciting news, we just heard of a lawsuit, filed in the European Court of Human
Rights, by Portuguese children, against the US and 32 other big polluting nations,
for violating their human rights to a future. The good news is, that all the
expert witness testimony, all the evidence, presented in the Our Children’s
Trust's Juliana v USA trial, is open-sourced, and available to be used by attorneys around the world.
These quotes are from the Decision on 1/17/2020, by all 3 Federal Judges on the panel,
for the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals on Juliana v USA, with the proviso, that
this is not necessarily the opinion of the Court. Nonetheless, these were printed
in the Decision. The 2 judges, of the majority decision not to allow the trial
to proceed, would have objected to the assertion that they had all agreed that Climate Change was happening, and that the plaintiffs had already incurred damages, and would be subject to future damages, if that were not the case. You’ll note that in
Judge Staton’s dissenting opinion, in her second paragraph, she again states
that all 3 Judges have accepted the Science of Climate Change, and that the
Trump Justice Department also does not contest. This is all quite remarkable.
The full PDF of this Decision is linked in the Documents section of this
report.
Full
3 Federal Judge Panel: Mary H. Murguia and Andrew D. Hurwitz, and Josephine L. Staton
“The panel held that: the record left little basis for denying
that climate change was occurring at an increasingly rapid pace, copious expert
evidence established that the unprecedented rise in atmospheric carbon dioxide
levels stemmed from fossil fuel combustion and will wreak havoc on the Earth’s
climate if unchecked; the record conclusively established that the federal
government has long understood the risks of fossil fuel use and increasing
carbon dioxide emissions; and the record established that the government’s
contribution to climate change was not simply a result of inaction.”
Judge Josephine L. Staton’s
Dissent:
“In these proceedings, the government accepts as fact that the
United States has reached a tipping point crying out for a concerted
response—yet presses ahead toward calamity. It is as if an asteroid were
barreling toward Earth and the government decided to shut down our only
defenses.
“As the majority recognizes, and the government does not
contest, carbon dioxide (“CO2”) and other greenhouse gas (“GHG”) emissions
created by burning fossil fuels are devastating the planet. Maj. Op. at 14–15.
According to one of plaintiffs’ experts, the inevitable result, absent
immediate action, is “an inhospitable future . . . marked by rising seas,
coastal city functionality loss, mass migrations, resource wars, food
shortages, heat waves, mega-storms, soil depletion and desiccation, freshwater
shortage, public health system collapse, and the extinction of increasing
numbers of species.” Even government scientists project that, given current
warming trends, sea levels will rise two feet by 2050, nearly four feet by 2070,
over eight feet by 2100, 18 feet by 2150, and over 31 feet by 2200. To put that
in perspective, a three-foot sea level rise will make two million American
homes uninhabitable; a rise of approximately 20 feet will result in the total
loss of Miami, New Orleans, and other coastal cities. So, as described by
plaintiffs’ experts, the injuries experienced by plaintiffs are the first small
wave in an oncoming tsunami—now visible on the horizon of the not-so-distant
future—that will destroy the United States as we currently know it.
“What sets this harm apart from all others is not just its
magnitude, but its irreversibility. The devastation might look and feel
somewhat different if future generations could simply pick up the pieces and
restore the Nation. But plaintiffs’ experts speak of a certain level of global
warming as “locking in” this catastrophic damage. Put more starkly by
plaintiffs’ expert, Dr. Harold R. Wanless, “[a]tmospheric warming will continue
for some 30 years after we stop putting more greenhouse gasses into the
atmosphere. But that warmed atmosphere will continue warming the ocean for
centuries, and the accumulating heat in the oceans will persist for millennia”
(emphasis added). Indeed, another of plaintiffs’ experts echoes, “[t]he fact
that GHGs dissipate very slowly from the atmosphere . . . and that the costs of
taking CO2 out of the atmosphere through non-biological carbon capture and
storage are very high means that the consequences of GHG emissions should be
viewed as effectively irreversible” (emphasis added). In other words, “[g]iven
the self-reinforcing nature of climate change,” the tipping point may well have
arrived, and we may be rapidly approaching the point of no return.
“Despite countless studies over the last half century warning of
the catastrophic consequences of anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions, many
of which the government conducted, the government not only failed to act but
also “affirmatively promote[d] fossil fuel use in a host of ways.” Maj. Op. at
15. According to plaintiffs’ evidence, our nation is crumbling—at our
government’s own hand—into a wasteland. In short, the government has directly
facilitated an existential crisis to the country’s perpetuity.”
Part 18: Green New Deal,
Transformation and Jobs
We
need a Green New Deal, as bad as we needed the New Deal to get us through the
first Great Depression. There are so many changes we need to make in this
transformation. If we are going to limit Fracking and the Extraction of Fossil
Fuels, we have a lot of work to do to urgently build enough alternative Wind
and Solar to make up the difference, in order not to have to limit our use of
Electricity. To accomplish this, we will need to create lots of jobs, and hire
lots of people, and to start that work as soon possible.
There
cannot be a Green New Deal without addressing the way we grow our Food, the
need for us to grow food without dozens of Agro-Poisons, and the need for us to
regenerate our Soil, one of any nation’s most precious assets. With
Conventional Chemical Agriculture, our Soil is degrading, and literally washing
away tons of Soil, with the massive torrential rains of the Climate Crisis.
Ponds and. lakes are getting green toxic algae blooms from all the synthetic fertilizers flowing into them. Regenerative Organic Agriculture, without toxic pesticides and herbicides and synthetic fertilizers, can actually eliminate the
greenhouse gases (including N2O, a GHG , 400 times worse than CO2, 80% of which
is emitted by Synthetic Fertilizers, that are not necessary, if we switch to
using Compost). The average age of an American farmer is now well into their
60's. We need a whole new generation of farmers to come up and grow us healthy
food. All this transformation needed in the Agriculture, Energy, and Industry
sectors, means the Green New Deal will create lots of jobs.
But
we’re up against an awful lot, the most powerful industry and lobby in the
world, the fossil fuel industry. And their supporters will do everything they
can to malign and stop the Green New Deal.
People
will characterize the Green New Deal with every pejorative name in the book,
calling it “radical”, “left-wing”, “socialist”, “unrealistic”, “crazy”, ‘the
Mark of the Devil, you name it. They will label us as “terrorists” and
“insurgents”, and in many States, have imposed unconstitutional laws, that make
it illegal for us to protest. Bots and Trolls will endlessly trash the Green
New Deal on social media. They shudder at even the thought of banning
Fracking, or of the Green New Deal, or, heaven forbid,
actually reducing emissions.
They
look at us, for demanding a Green New Deal, like we are crazy. but we contend
that their current strategy of expanding the drilling and fracking for gas and
oil, regardless of market conditions, in
order to sell their oil and gas at below costs, which they been doing for at
least the last five years, and projected to do at least three years into the
future, at Americans’ expense, health-wise and quality-of-life-wise, while
threatening our drinking water supplies, with their overuse of water, and with their
spills of oil and radioactive toxic wastewater, is totally insane, and is
totally unethical.
Part 19: Fracking Our Way To
Oblivion – Final Thoughts
In
maybe five years, hopefully less, the Coronavirus will be history. The Climate
Emergency and the Biodiversity Loss Emergency will still be raging, having
progressed that much further along. These crises haven’t been put ‘on hold’,
while we had to deal with Coronavirus. But the Coronavirus has taught us, that,
as Greta says, in an emergency, you change your behavior., And we have seen that
we have the power to drastically change our behavior, if it means staying alive.
The same goes for the Climate Crisis. The Coronavirus has also taught us, that
if we don’t change our behavior, we will never get ourselves out of the Emergency, and regarding Climate, I’m not just talking
about personal behavior, but the behavior of our society, our society that
seems to want to extract, and to burn every bit of fossil fuels we can get our hands on, and under the power of the oil lobby, seems to want to resist,
by all means possible, the switch to cleaner, safer and less expensive Wind and
Solar. With Coronavirus, if we don’t wear masks and distance, we will swamp the
hospitals and health care workers, to a point where people will be dying on the
sidewalks, without ever getting into a hospital bed.The same is true of the Climate Crisis, where, if our society doesn’t change its behavior, and continues to resist the changes needed and to ignore the clear problems, massive Deaths are
predicted, and we will soon find ourselves irretrievably Beyond The Tipping
Points, if we don’t #FaceTheClimateEmergency.
While
we have been dealing with Coronavirus, everybody has been talking about getting
“back to normal”.
We
don’t want to get back to normal:
–
if normal means, continuing to subsidize, and not to divest from an insane
system of the losing scam of Gas and Oil.
–
if normal means, going back to supporting Systemic Racism and Environmental
Racism.
–
if normal means, Living in a Toxic World, and normalizing and supporting the
poisoning of our children and fellow human beings.
–
if normal means, not doing everything possible to slow the progression of the
Climate Crisis and Biodiversity Loss Crisis.
–
If normal means, Trump’s neutering of OSHA, the EPA, the FDA, the Department of
Agriculture, the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act, the Endangered Species
Act, NEPA, and of every institution and regulation designed to protect workers and citizens.
We
want better than that for ourselves, for our brothers and sisters, here, and
all over the world, and especially for our children, and for their children,
and for the seven generations. To do any less would be unethical.
But
it’s not going to be easy. We’re up against the most powerful corporations in
the world and the governments that support them. But if we want to do something
about it, we’ve got to make people aware, of how the Gas and Oil Corporations
and our Government, in their support, are taking advantage of us, and harming
our health and ruining people’s lives.
Just
like with Black Lives Matter movement, what it takes is people being made
aware, and being as outraged as many of us are, at what they see, not just some
people, but most people. The same goes for Climate, it’s not enough that we,
you and me, are aware of what’s going on, but all of the young people of the
world, all colors, all religions, all gender identifications, all economic
strata, whether or not educated, have got to be made aware, to a point, where
they become as outraged as we are.
It’s
not so complicated. This is not something you can’t explain, and not something
that most people can’t understand. Just let them know, if we burn, we fry. It’s
that simple. And the point is, just like in the Black Lives Matter movement,
we’ve got to get enough people 'awoke' to the catastrophic path we're on, in order to have them mobilize, and demand change relentlessly, and never give up.
If
the people of the world, some in the crosshairs of the Climate Crisis right
now, suffering Drought, Wildfires, Record Heat, Floods, or Storms, (and the way
the Jet Stream is acting up, it could happen to any of us, wherever we live, at
any moment), could be made aware and unite behind the youth of the world, and
hopefully with their parents and grandparents, along with them, trans-nationally,
without borders, maybe we can make something happen, despite the massive powers
we’re up against.
It’s
all about education, not just in schools, but out in the streets, person to
person, friend to friend. That’s a much deeper kind of learning, and that’s
what it’s going to take. The People of the world, led by the Youth of every
nation, have got to be made aware, in order to get them to know what’s at
stake, and to get them to unrelentingly get out and VOTE, because, facing the
specter of Fascism, even that won’t be easy, and to do it with the same energy and persistence we’ve witnessed with Black Lives Matter, and, in the spirit of
Congressman John R Lewis, we take it to the streets.
#FaceTheClimateEmergency
Part 20: Message to our
Readers
This
story has never before been told to the public. There are plenty of articles
about Fracking, and about Oil, and about Gas, and about each of the aspects of
this story, and these articles may be more eloquently written and more
complete, but many of them are academic, and are written with language
unintelligible to the common person, nonfiction that most people find boring,
and even if you slog through them, you only learn that aspect, and not the
whole story. That’s what I trying to tell, the whole story, and an important
one at that, and, hopefully, it’ll be easier to absorb, when told as a complete story.
And,
since I doubt that most people will read beyond part 1, we put the whole
story in that first part. We don’t hold back any of the punchlines for later,
to keep you reading. We tried to put it all into part 1, as little as we need,
to tell the whole story as quick as we can, including our conclusions. The
other 19 parts, before the Documents and Video sections, we had to include, in
order to tell the whole, whole story, but here, too, each of these subjects we
have just touched on, with information we felt must be included to cover this story. Each of these parts, like for an example, Offshore Drilling, is such a
huge subject, that it could be a whole book, but that’s not what we're up to here.
We just want to try to tell that story, so we apologize about how incomplete
each part is, and for all the omissions.
The
most important thing for all of us to do is to vote, and to get all our friends
and family to vote. In 2015, before anyone thought Trump would win the
Republican nomination, we wrote Thumbing Their Noses at Society, and though we
tried to keep Trump’s name out of it, (I think I only spelled it out twice in
the whole report), all the quotes in the first section, like not wanting to be
“nice” people or to be “losers”, etc., are direct quotes from Trump. That was
the year Pope Francis, whose message was so antithetical to Trump’s, came to
the UN in NYC to deliver his Encyclical, that took him a year to research and
write, to warn all the nations of the world about the need for us to take
action on the Climate, previous to the Climate Talks in Paris that resulted in
the Paris Agreement.
Pope
Francis reminded us what it means to be a Society, including loving our
neighbor, even if that neighbor is poor, or is an immigrant. In that article, we
characterized it, just that as they did at the Democratic Convention in 2020,
as the fight of Goodness, Light, against Evil, Darkness, and warned about the
“God of Money, the God of Greed”.
In
2016, previous to the election that year, we wrote, Revolution from the Toxic Status Quo, with Bernie Sanders’ picture on the cover, begging people to vote
for Clinton in the general election, even though she was decidedly not our
first choice,. I included predictions of what would happen if we let Trump win,
and, sadly, we’ve seen all these predictions, our worst nightmares, all come
true, and then some. Even if he loses this time, and we are able to get him out
of office, it will take years to undo all the damage he has done.
If
Trump wins another four years, like I said in 2016, and please read that
article, the Supreme Court, with just one more right-wing Supreme Court Judge, now
that he has already put two on the bench, would be disastrous for so many issues. And, he and his
government will continue trashing of all of our laws, including, to me, most
importantly, Environmental Laws, and all of our institutions, and Democracy
itself.
I’m
not sure that Biden will deliver all we need him to (he has already asserted, more than once, that he is against a fracking ban), but I assure you, that none
of what we need done will get done with another four years of Trump. Please
vote for Joe Biden, and get all your friends and family out to vote. So much is at
stake. Unless we win in an absolute landslide, he will not leave the White House
voluntarily.
The
youth from every country in the world, who take Climate Change as a real
‘existential threat’, are our best hope for change. They’re done accepting the
‘BullShit’, and as soon as they can, you can bet, they will join us in voting
for Climate Action.
We thank all of our US
and international readers (from over 150 nations).We really do
appreciate you taking the time to read our articles. And we extra-appreciate
when you refer them to friends. That’s where our readers can really
make a difference. If we can make people aware of the scandal of
supporting and subsidizing Growth in Big Oil and Big Gas, when we know that the
consequences are catastrophic for our children, and for so many species, and people
gain an understanding, and share that understanding with enough of their friends,
we’ll have more of a chance of taking real #ClimateAction, and actually doing
something about it.
We love getting feedback. Our email address
is: woodstockearthblog@gmail.com, or if you prefer Twitter, you can use:
@Mikethemikeman1. For the sake of our people, our families, and Mother Earth,
we encourage all of you, as charter members of Woodstock Earth, to spread the
word and help get these stories out.
4, Dr. Joseph Stiglitz, Nobel Prize Economist, testimony on why
transitioning from fossil fuels is good for the Economy, presented in support of youth
climate plaintiffs
9. Standing Rock
is Everywhere(wherever they are building pipelines, and wherever the
people stand in the way) by Chief Orval Lookinghorse #WaterIs Life
