Fossil fuels Archives - Page 2 of 2 - Kit O'Connell: Approximately 8,000 Words

What’s Behind The Surge In US Pipeline Construction?

A Dakota Access Pipeline construction site in Campbell, South Dakota. (Flickr / Lars Plougmann)

September 20, 2016

What’s Behind The Surge In US Pipeline Construction?

Posted in Journalism, and MintPress News

The Dakota Access pipeline is just one of several major fossil fuel projects underway as part of U.S. efforts to dominate the global energy market and crash the oil-dependent economies of American nemeses like Venezuela and Russia.

On Monday, a federal charge officially halted construction around Lake Oahe, the site of a massive protest against the Dakota Access pipeline led by the Standing Rock Sioux, who have been joined by hundreds of other Native American tribes and indigenous groups.

Elsewhere, however, expansion of U.S. fossil fuel infrastructure continues.

Winona LaDuke, a respected Native American activist and executive director of Honor The Earth, put the Dakota Access pipeline and others like it into international perspective during a July 12 interview with Democracy Now!. LaDuke explained:

Vision 2030: Saudi Arabia Takes Desperate Measures To Break Its ‘Oil Addiction’

Employees of Saudi Arabia's ARAMCO and Bechtel International drill for oil in Kuwait in 1950. (Flickr / David Foster)

May 2, 2016

Kit

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Vision 2030: Saudi Arabia Takes Desperate Measures To Break Its ‘Oil Addiction’

Posted in Journalism, and MintPress News

As oil prices grow more unstable, Saudi Arabia is facing a future of upheaval and economic collapse.

In October, the International Monetary Fund published a report in October, forecasting the collapse of the Saudi economy by 2020. Last week, Prince Mohammed Bin Salman unveiled the “Vision 2030” plan, a desperate attempt to break what he called the country’s “oil addiction,” according to Reuters.

“The Saudi government is reeling from the plunge in crude oil prices, which left it with a nearly $100 billion shortfall last year. Petroleum accounts for roughly 80 percent of the kingdom’s annual budget,” Maria Gallucci noted in an April 25 analysis of the plan for International Business Times.

The plan calls for the country to sell a stake in Aramco, its publicly-owned oil company, in an international public offering some are predicting could top $2 trillion.

It also outlines other significant changes to the economy, including reforms to employment and immigration law and redirecting the nation’s resources toward new sources of income such as the tourism and the defense industries.

Myanmar’s Rohingya Genocide Is Aided By Friends In High Places

In this September 9, 2015 photograph, a Rohingya woman and child stand by a dilapidated structure under a gray sky in a refugee camp. (Flickr / EU / ECHO / Pierre Prakash)

January 28, 2016

Kit

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Myanmar’s Rohingya Genocide Is Aided By Friends In High Places

Posted in Journalism, and MintPress News

In 2012, after centuries of tension, Myanmar’s Buddhist majority began oppressing the nation’s Muslim minority, forcing them into concentration camps and carrying out widespread murder and genocidal acts.

But more than racism and bigotry have inflamed tensions in this South Asian country, as the United States and its allies like Saudi Arabia and Israel enable the atrocities through their foreign aid and military power.

In June, The Economist called the Rohingya “the most persecuted people on earth,” noting that their suffering has intensified since 2012. That year, “140,000 Rohingyas were forced into squalid refugee camps after the local Buddhists turned on them,” and since then, “their situation has been especially dire.”

Koch, Exxon And Other Big Oil Spend $141 Million Lobbying Washington For More War

November 29, 2015. Climate change protesters in Washington, D.C. march with a "Keep It In The Ground" banner. (Flickr / Stephen Melkisethian) (Flickr / Stephen Melkisethian)

June 15, 2015

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Koch, Exxon And Other Big Oil Spend $141 Million Lobbying Washington For More War

Posted in Journalism, and MintPress News

As of April, the oil and gas industry had already spent over $34 million to influence American politics this year. Fossil fuel companies are one of the top sources of funding for Washington lobbying firms, and their deep pockets allow them to far outspend those who seek to protect the environment and the earth’s resources from exploitation.

The figures come from the Center for Responsive Politics, a nonpartisan, nonprofit research organization working “to create a more educated voter, an involved citizenry and a more transparent and responsive government.” According to their data, lobbying from the energy sector topped $141 million last year. The top single corporate spender was Koch Industries, Inc., which spent $13.8 million in lobbying, followed by Exxon Mobil and Occidental Petroleum, one of the country’s top oil producers.

The center’s overview of oil and gas funding suggests that while both parties receive funding from the oil and gas industry, that money has increasingly flowed to the GOP for the last two decades, with 90 percent going toward Republicans during the 2012 election cycle.

Texas Bans Fracking Bans

Activists protest the Texas Legislature's decision to overturn a local ban on fracking in Denton, Texas on September 14, 2015. (Facebook / Frack Free Denton)

May 7, 2015

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Texas Bans Fracking Bans

Posted in Journalism, and MintPress News

The Texas Senate on Monday approved the so-called “Denton Fracking Bill,” a proposed new law that prevents cities from exerting any local control over the energy industry.

The law is a response to a successful referendum in Denton, Texas, which banned the fracking industry from operating inside the progressive college town, located about 40 miles northwest of Dallas. Denton’s fracking ban was inspired by concerns for air and water quality, but also the fear that the industry may have caused a recent, dramatic, increase in earthquakes — a link confirmed both by local Texas scientists and a federal study by the U.S. Geological Survey that suggested fracking can activate dormant fault lines.

House Bill 40 awaits Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s signature. A public supporter of the oil and gas industry, Abbott will almost certainly make the bill a law.

The bill’s sponsor, Sen. Troy Fraser, called the bill a “carefully crafted compromise” between the interests of energy and cities, but environmental advocates scoffed at the notion.

“The oil and gas industry got the better of everyone,” said Andrew Dobbs, program director for Texas Campaign for the Environment, in a telephone interview with MintPress News.

Fracking Pollutes California Water As Drought Crisis Worsens

Fracking waste pours into a open pool beside a California highway in this July 11, 2014 photograph. (Flickr / Faces of Fracking)

April 14, 2015

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Fracking Pollutes California Water As Drought Crisis Worsens

Posted in Journalism, and MintPress News

California is in the midst of a historic drought, with some estimates suggesting that as little as a year’s worth of water could remain available to the state. Gov. Jerry Brown announced a water reduction plan earlier this month that requires mandatory changes in how communities, households and some businesses use water.

Since the plan’s announcement, dozens of articles in the media have debated the role of agriculture in the California water crisis, especially water intensive crops like almonds, which take up as much as 10 percent of the state’s agricultural water use.

Some growers even report backlash from their communities.

Yet while farmers will face water restrictions, one major user — and polluter — of the state’s water is exempt: the oil and gas industry, which, according to RT, uses 2 million gallons of fresh water per day.