News Feeds | ecology.iww.org (2024)

Green Energy Times - Wed, 06/05/2024 - 22:17

Headline News:

• “Climate Officials At World Environment Day Announce Twelve Months Of Record High Temperatures” • New climate warnings have been announced by the World Meteorological Organization. One of them says the planet has experienced its warmest May ever, making it the twelfth month in a row to set such a record, the WMO report says. [ABC News]

Crystal ball for prognostications on a hot day (Melvin, Unsplash)

• “US Solar Installations Hit Quarterly Record, Making Up 75% Of New Power Added, Report Says” • Solar accounted for 75% of electricity generation capacity added to the US power grid early this year as installations of panels rose to a quarterly record, according to a report published by Wood Mackenzie and the Solar Energy Industries Association. [Reuters]
• “Volvo Cars Starts Production of Fully Electric EX90 SUV in Charleston, South Carolina” • Volvo Car Group said, “We are in a celebratory mood this week, as our factory outside Charleston, South Carolina has now started building our new electric flagship SUV, and the first customer deliveries are scheduled for the second half of this year.” [CleanTechnica]
• “The US Is Putting Enough Solar To Power 70,000 Homes On Old Nuclear Weapons Sites” • The US DOE hopes to repurpose sites previously used in the nuclear weapons program into solar farms. DOE is negotiating leases with two developers for a total of 400 MW of solar farms within the 890-square-mile Idaho National Laboratory site. [Electrek]

Former nuclear site at Idaho National Laboratory (US DOE image)

• “EV Sales Boom In Nepal, Helping To Save On Oil Imports, Alleviate Smog” • Nepal’s abundant hydroelectric power is helping the Himalayan nation cut its oil imports and clean up its air, thanks to a boom in sales of EVs. The country is quickly expanding charging networks and imports of EVs have doubled in each of the past two years. [ABC News]

For more news, please visit geoharvey – Daily News about Energy and Climate Change.

Categories:

Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives (GAIA) - Wed, 06/05/2024 - 20:09

MANILA, June 6, 2024 — A hundred activists gathered in front of the Asian Development Bank (ADB) headquarters here urging the bank to “flip the switch to renewables”, towards a fast and equitable clean energy transition that prioritizes people and the environment.

The creative action was staged by civil society groups and affected communities to challenge the ADB to not only fast-track the shift to renewable energy but also ensure transparent and equitable investments, prioritize community consultation, provide grants over loans in financing energy transition projects, and reject harmful energy solutions as the bank is holding its annual Asia Clean Energy Forum (ACEF) this week.

Activists from 350 Pilipinas, NGO Forum on ADB, GAIA Asia Pacific, Legal Rights and Natural Resources Center, and Freedom from Debt Coalition carried a globe effigy that showed dirty energy projects and climate impacts on one side and renewable energy and its benefits on the other. A switch in the middle made the globe spin, highlighting the role of ADB in the global switch to renewable energy.

The ACEF plays a crucial role towards transitioning from fossil fuels to renewables in the Asia-Pacific to combat climate change and ensure energy security. It convenes policymakers, industry leaders, and civil society to devise sustainable energy strategies and advocate for the shift to renewables.

However, affected communities and civil society groups have stressed that prioritizing corporate interests and technological fixes exacerbates environmental and social crises. Meanwhile, existing mechanisms promoted by the ADB at ACEF often fail to provide real energy solutions, including what many experts consider false solutions, such as carbon capture and storage, waste-to-energy, hydropower, and fossil fuel mixes.

“Real energy solutions must prioritize community needs, uphold environmental and human rights, and ensure a just transition from fossil fuels. The Asian Development Bank must uphold not only the Paris climate agreement but also the long-term development plans of ADB member countries.

Yet the current agenda of its Asia Clean Energy Forum falls short, which is why we call on the bank to reevaluate its strategies and commit to sustainable energy practices,” said the activists.

###

“As climate change impacts intensify, ADB and other global financial institutions must be held accountable for past and ongoing environmental and social harms. Forum networks and allies demand a complete overhaul of key policy initiatives at ACEF 2024. With the upcoming ADB Mid Term Energy Policy Review, the NGO Forum on ADB and its allies call for an end to ADB’s false solutions for a Just Transition and demand a full phase-out of fossil fuels, especially gas, and all forms of coal financing.”- Rayyan Hassan, Executive Director, NGO Forum on ADB

“As 2030 approaches, balancing equity, urgency, and ambition in energy transformation is crucial. We must exclude harmful energy solutions, prioritize equitable renewable energy investment, and ensure transparency, accountability, and community consultation. Climate action isn’t just about hitting Paris Agreement targets—it’s about transforming our development pathway to thrive amid climate change. This journey demands that climate and development progress be mutually reinforcing, with robust community ownership at its core.” – Chuck Baclagon, Finance Campaigner, 350.org Asia

“Addressing the climate crisis requires reimagining energy production and distribution to prioritize people and the environment. We need a rapid and fair shift to a clean energy economy that empowers communities and curbs profit-driven decisions that harm the planet. The Asian Development Bank’s commitment to sustainable development and renewable energy is crucial for reshaping Asia and the Pacific’s energy landscape and driving us towards a fossil-free future.” – Fread De Mesa, Coordinator, 350 Pilipinas

“We are urging ADB to stop supporting the institutionalization in regional and national climate policies and financing of the same dirty industries including waste-to-energy incineration which communities around the world have averted from entering and operating because of their environmental and social consequences. At the same light, we reject the use of new technologies such as carbon capture utilization storage and failed mechanisms such as carbon credits which merely delay and derail real climate action..We urge ADB to funnel much needed resources to proven and empowering community solutions to ensure that scarce resources work for people and the environment and not climate perpetrators” – Mayang Azurin, Deputy Director for Campaigns, GAIA Asia Pacific

“ADB must urgently strengthen its community consultation and consent mechanisms in regulating its growing clean energy transition portfolio. With an anticipated 500% increase in global renewable energy and energy transition mineral production by 2050, communities facing these projects bear immense risks of resource grabbing, displacement, and violence if no sufficient guardrails are implemented.

The right to free, prior, and informed consent (FPIC) of Indigenous peoples must especially be guaranteed, as an estimated 42% of global spatial conflicts with Indigenous territories involve renewable energy, and 60%of global mineral deposits are situated within Indigenous territories.”- Leon Dulce, Campaigns Support and Linkages Coordinator, Legal Rights and Natural Resources Center (LRC)

“We from the Freedom from Debt Coalition (FDC) believe that it is completely unacceptable that the organizers of the ACEF 2024 led by the Asian Development Bank (ADB) continue to promote financing mechanisms that not only distract us from our goal of transitioning to fully renewable energy but also add to the country’s already mounting debt burden. Schemes like the Energy Transition Mechanism (ETM) can leverage blended finance, including public funds, to allow coal investments to “re-purpose” operations, shifting from one fossil fuel to another. This will, in effect, delay, rather than accelerate the shift to RE systems and lead us away from the pathway to keeping global temperature changes within the goal of 1.5 C.” – Rovik Obanil, Secretary General, Freedom From Debt Coalition

The post Flip the switch to renewables, civil society groups urge ADB first appeared on GAIA.

Categories: E2. Front Line Community Green

Tempest Magazine - Wed, 06/05/2024 - 20:07

There’s a crisis at FedEx. As our Houston contact Malli Nath put it a few days ago: “The heart of FedEx just got liquidated for parts.” The company is merging FedEx Ground with FedEx Express—and “consolidating” FedEx Freight—but that really entails mass layoffs of drivers, and the conversion of company jobs with benefits to poorly compensated “independent contractor” positions. As Nath puts it, the affected people are “freaking out.”

“Fedex Express drivers are talking about losing their jobs like they are losing family, because the Express part was the heart of Federal Express…. This was the way they met their neighbors. It is heartbreaking to see people who have worked more than thirty years providing for their communities, who did meaningful work yesterday, and who are now suddenly superfluous. The people behind the counter are also devastated. … It never felt like this before.”

Nath themself works in a FedEx warehouse, and sent us the following report about the work situation inside.

This article is the first in an occasional series that Tempest is calling “Scenes from the social crisis.” See the end of the article for more information.

I just survived the tornado, the power outage, and the aftermath that others in Houston, TX, are going through. But in addition to that, I worked tirelessly in a FedEx sortation facility that was operating on generators alone. And every time something happened, or a light went out, or the conveyor belt sputtered, I was pretty sure that this was going to be the end of me. I don’t say this lightly. I am good at my job and I like most of my coworkers and almost none of my managers. But FedEx’s central role in the logistics operations of retail and residential deliveries means that when the machines don’t work because the weather is bad or a pandemic happens—the humans in the building are forced to make up for it.

Every time a crisis happens, humans need to make up for the failures of the machines to deal with the crisis.

What that realistically means, in case you don’t know, is that boxes have to be moved no matter what if FedEx is to turn a profit. So heavy objects that would routinely be carried by conveyor belt are manually moved down rollers or more likely carried by human beings or ill-designed Powered Industrial Transport or, dear God, those awful carts. FedEx is efficient and fast when everything works. But when the power goes down, everyone’s anxiety goes up because things are not just inefficient, they are downright deadly.

See, FedEx prides itself on speed and efficiency. Every package handler is shown the way to move boxes in and out of vehicles at the pace required by the machines. We use machines to scan packages and print labels that all work on networked servers. Profit depends on the speed of the electronic devices, the workings of the printer, the utility of the walkie-talkie, the working of the lights and fans. In ideal conditions FedEx tells you that the job is dangerous and requires vigilance.

The chaos of the sort.

There are safety protocols that you are supposed to follow, but here is the kicker: You are occasionally written up if you have too many injuries on the job because that was a result of you not paying attention to your surroundings. Injuries are so under-reported at FedEx that it is not even funny. Everyone who works there will tell you that there is rarely a day when something doesn’t fall on you, cut you, scratch you, trip you, bump you, etc. We don’t report those. We sometimes report the bleeding but even then we are encouraged to triage ourselves at first aid stations (rarely well stocked or useful when your hands are already filthy) unless a medic is needed. At the local stations, there are rarely medics on call.

Just imagine the dangerous job (that pays just under $17 an hour part-time where I am) in which the average worker is expected to be able to move 50 lbs by themselves (but is actually goaded into lifting well above that weight and being docked for being slow), in slippery when NOT WET trailers or trucks (which are rarely maintained or cleaned) or working on those grated platforms which make you dizzy the first time you step on to them, or dealing with hazardous materials, or dealing with the dozens of various chutes and belts that are constantly getting jammed and requiring human intervention in almost always unsafe ways in the service of efficiency.

Climate change will kill me one way or the other it seems, but the job at FedEx will actually kill me faster … because they expect us to do it in increasingly dangerous conditions.

Then imagine doing it with the lights out. Or with the power only partially up. Or without the Internet. Without scanners that can make sense of the barcodes over which FedEx has some kind of proprietary lock and printers that can print those labels. Without being able to verify from HQ whether to proceed or not, through rain or sleet or snow or not. Or without the fans. In the heat. In Texas. Where construction workers routinely die of heatstroke outdoors, while the temperature inside the FedEx sortation facility is almost always ten degrees warmer (I am not allowed to carry my cell phone in so I have no way of fact checking this.)

Climate change will kill me one way or the other it seems, but the job at FedEx will actually kill me faster and not because I can’t do the job, but because they expect us to do it in increasingly dangerous conditions. We did it through COVID when mandatory masking was a fiction inside any FedEx facility (because you couldn’t breathe through them and move boxes and suffer the heat or cold, too). Some people wore them at the start. But almost no one wore them most of the time. Unsurprisingly, FedEx had a large number of COVID deniers among its workforce and lower management, not that anyone bothered to check what that would mean for us on the inside. We were shipping PPE and other necessary materials across the country and called “heroes” even though I had way too many conversations with 20-year-old co-workers who were convinced that COVID was a hoax (because they didn’t get it).

I hope you see the pattern. Every time a crisis happens, humans need to make up for the failures of the machines to deal with the crisis. And when the job is already hard and dangerous, the consequences are deadly. No one has died where I work that I know of. But I will be working this summer in the heat and through hurricane season. And I am no longer sure that this is a wise choice for many of us. More so than ever, we need a union at FedEx. I’m asking for a coworker.

And if the Amazon workers are joining the Teamsters, should we get in the fight, too?

To our readers: Tempest wants to run pieces like this one, where readers describe the signs of social crisis at work, in your community, in your daily life—and how you or other people are dealing with it. Please submit articles through this form.

Featured image credit: Dandy John; modified by Tempest.

The post Pretty sure this FedEx job will kill me appeared first on Tempest.

Categories: D2. Socialism

Common Dreams - Wed, 06/05/2024 - 18:43

CODEPINK Inland Empire and CODEPINK Southeast LA joined a coalition of peace activists at last night's live taping of Vice President Kamala Harris' appearance on Jimmy Kimmel Live. The activists, representing groups such as Chino Valley for Palestinian Liberation, Palestinian Christians for Justice, Pasadena for Palestine, Claremont Graduate Students for a Free Palestine, and autonomous residents of Los Angeles, were there to remind people that there is no business as usual during a genocide.

Security approached a few of the audience's peace activists, pulled them aside before Vice President Harris arrived onstage, and forced them to leave. After Harris was introduced and seated, the activists set off a chain of disruptions that led to the illegal detainment and physical assault of some of the activists by security. The activists were told they were under arrest, despite no one having Miranda rights read or anyone showing badges or authority to make an arrest. Activists were being illegally detained and were told to turn over their IDs. When activists asserted their First Amendment rights and attempted to leave the premises, some were physically restrained with excessive force, and the gates of the building were locked by security, illegally imprisoning the peaceful demonstrators.

CLICK HERE FOR FOOTAGE OF DISRUPTIONS AND ASSAULTS AND ASSAULTS

At one point, a security guard put one of the activists in chokehold until others were able to get him to release him. As clearly shown in the video, this act of violence was unprovoked and completely unnecessary.

The coalition of organizations demand The Jimmy Kimmel Show address and apologize for the unnecessary use of brutal force that left the man bruised and swollen.

CODEPINK Inland Empire member Rachael O'Neill explained, "We reject business as usual as the Israeli government carries out a genocide against Palestinians in Gaza, all with the unconditional support of the Biden/Harris administration. We took this action today to put pressure on the administration to back up their words with actions: stop arming Israel and support a permanent ceasefire resolution at the UN."

After being detained in the building's atrium, security finally unlocked the gates and released the activists without further incident. They joined the other previously removed activists outside for a Free Palestine rally.

The protest comes as the genocide in Gaza enters its ninth month, with reports of nearly 40,000 Palestinian lives lost. Activists criticize the Biden administration for its continued support of Israeli military actions. Organizers note that Harris has taken to the campaign trail to talk about the need to protect women's rights while signing off on sending bombs that have killed and maimed over 20,000 women and children in Gaza.

The demands for immediate action - an arms embargo and cessation of aid to Israel, alongside a call for a permanent ceasefire to end the ongoing violence and humanitarian crisis in Gaza and the West Bank - are echoed across the country as the movement for a Free Palestine grows and Israel's apparent intent to cleanse Palestinians ethnically becomes more evident.

Images, videos and interviews with the activists are available upon request.

Categories: F. Left News

FracTracker - Wed, 06/05/2024 - 16:52

As part of FracTracker’s staff spotlight series, learn more about Dominique Washington, one of the newest member of the FracTracker team, and what they will be working on with us.

The post Staff Spotlight: Dominique “Dom” Washington appeared first on FracTracker Alliance.

Categories: J2. Fossil Fuel Industry

Indigenous Environmental Network - Wed, 06/05/2024 - 16:15

City of Alameda puts a stop to the University of Washington’s Marine Cloud Brightening experiment IEN Reprint: Guest article by California residents Gary Hughes, Biofuelwatch/Geoengineering Monitor, and Eesha Rangani, HOME! Alliance Marine Geoengineering Working Group coordinator In the early hours of this morning, City of Alameda City Council members voted unanimously to call off the […]

The post City of Alameda puts a stop to geoengineering experiment first appeared on Indigenous Environmental Network.

La Jicarita - Wed, 06/05/2024 - 15:49

Categories: G2. Local Greens

North American Windpower - Wed, 06/05/2024 - 15:14

Ampelmann has signed a contract with Seaway7 to supply an E5000 gangway for use in construction of a wind project off the U.S. coast.

The company says it marks the first tour of duty of the E5000 outside of Europe, adding that the gangway has a lifting capacity of 4,600 kilograms and can enable both personnel transfers as well as cargo operations in variable sea states.

“Over the past year the company has invested in hiring and training local operators as well as other operational support personnel,” says Ampelmann’s Joseph Gabriel.

“We are particularly honored to be able to provide support to this important US wind farm project together with a global leader in offshore wind like Seaway7. We are excited to see this system operating in the U.S. for the first time and we are particularly thankful to be working with Seaway7 on this project.”

The post Ampelmann to Supply Seaway7 with Gangway for U.S. Offshore Project appeared first on North American Windpower.

Categories:

North American Windpower - Wed, 06/05/2024 - 15:05

Avangrid has donated 300 pounds of decommissioned wind turbine blades to WindLoop, a startup composed of Yale University students, to test a blade recycling process.

The donated turbine blades came from the company’s Baffin wind farm in Kenedy County, Texas.

“Avangrid is one of America’s most innovative leaders in renewable energy, and this is yet another example of our forward-thinking approach to accelerating a clean energy transition across the United States,” says Avangrid CEO Pedro Azagra.

“We recognize the great challenges in front of us, and we are helping lay the groundwork to find new and efficient methods to recycle blades that will improve the circularity of our industry.”

WindLoop says its recycling strategy incorporates an on-site blade shredder as well as a process the company developed, using green chemistry principles, to separate the fibers and resin in blades.

WindLoop’s team of four students at Yale School of the Environment is located in Connecticut, near Avangrid’s company headquarters.

The post Avangrid Partners with Yale Student Startup on Turbine Blade Recycling appeared first on North American Windpower.

Categories:

FracTracker - Wed, 06/05/2024 - 14:41

The U.S. Department of Energy's ARCH2 hydrogen hub project presents substantial risks to the environment and human health and safety.

The post A Closer Look at Risks of the Appalachian Hydrogen Hub appeared first on FracTracker Alliance.

Categories: J2. Fossil Fuel Industry

At an economic summit in Ireland last month, New York Governor Kathy Hochul bragged about her state’s decades-long quest to implement so-called congestion pricing in New York City. Within mere months, the extensive toll system was poised to take effect, charging cars and trucks a once-per-day fee between $15 and $36 to enter lower Manhattan — a move that, in addition to the quality-of-life benefits touted by Hochul, promised to both drastically reduce carbon emissions in one of the country’s most congested regions and also provide badly needed funding for its most extensive mass transit system.

“It took a long time because people feared backlash from drivers set in their ways,” she said in her speech. “We must get over that.”

Ultimately, however, Hochul herself couldn’t seem to get over this fear. On Wednesday, the governor announced an “indefinite” halt to the soon-to-debut program. In doing so, she jeopardized not only a road-ready policy to improve quality of life in New York City but also the “nation-leading climate plan” that is one of the governor’s signature initiatives.

In reality, New York’s ambitious climate goals — cutting greenhouse gas emissions 40 percent by 2030 and 85 percent by 2050 — predate the current governor. The state passed its landmark climate law back in 2019, but ever since then its success has been far from certain. This is in large part because the effort depends on a lot of factors that are outside of the state government’s control: the completion of major wind farms in the waters off of Long Island, the building of an electricity transmission line to bring carbon-free hydropower into the state, and the retrofitting of thousands of old and inefficient buildings in New York City, among others.

One thing the government could control, however, was congestion pricing, a plan that had undergone years of consultation, modeling, and study that demonstrated with confidence that it would dramatically slash car traffic in New York City, easing gridlock and reducing air pollution from vehicle tailpipes. Modeled on successful programs in London and other European cities, the toll policy traveled a long road to approval since then-mayor Michael Bloomberg started to push for it in earnest around 2007. It was finally set to become a reality this month, following years of stringent environmental review and political squabbling. Then, on Wednesday, Hochul ordered the Metropolitan Transit Authority to “indefinitely pause” the program, saying it would have placed an “undue strain” on drivers and added “another burden to middle class New Yorkers.”

The abrupt decision, reportedly an attempt to court voters in contested congressional districts in suburbs outside the city, has all but doomed what had been a landmark climate policy more than a decade in the making. (The governor’s office did not immediately respond to Grist’s request for comment on Wednesday afternoon.) It has also left many transit and climate advocates rudderless, and clouded the state’s path to meeting its already tenuous climate goals.

“We cannot take on climate change without addressing transportation,” said Sara Lind, the co-executive director of Open Plans, an urbanist advocacy group based in New York City. “Canceling it is a huge mistake in terms of our approach to climate change. We need our Democratic governor to be a leader on climate change, but she’s just caving.”

Indeed, transportation is the largest source of greenhouse gas emissions in New York state and the second-largest emissions source in New York City, just behind the city’s buildings. It’s also the largest source of air pollution from harmful tailpipe chemicals like nitrogen oxide and carbon monoxide, which cause asthma and a bevy of other lung and heart diseases.

The MTA’s analysis of the program found that congestion pricing would reduce traffic into lower Manhattan by around 17 percent, cutting the city’s overall carbon emissions by around 1 percent as drivers opted to take public transportation instead of driving, burning less gasoline in the process. These effects would have been most significant in downtown Manhattan, where the policy would have reduced greenhouse gas pollution by more than 11 percent.

The policy was also projected to promote a virtuous cycle in the city: The MTA estimated it would collect around $1 billion per year in tolls, and it planned to use that money to anchor a $15 billion bond issuance for capital work on New York’s aging but heavily-used public transit system. Upgrades and expansions in the subway and bus system would likely have incentivized more residents to take mass transit rather than driving.

Similar congestion pricing systems have achieved air quality benefits in places such as London, Singapore, and Stockholm, which saw carbon emissions decline by around 10 percent when it rolled out a tolling program. A recent analysis of 16 such systems found that they “provide local governments with a relatively cost-effective tool to implement consistent reductions in greenhouse gas emissions.”

Despite the data, the congestion pricing plan had many opponents, from New Jersey’s Democratic governor Phil Murphy to Republican state representatives on Long Island. Many of these opponents cast the $15-per-day congestion fee as a regressive tax on low-income drivers in the outer boroughs and suburbs. The MTA’s analysis found that these concerns were overblown. According to the agency, there are only 5,200 residents in New York City who commute to Manhattan by car and live more than a half-mile away from some form of public transit. The agency also promised to create a toll waiver for low-income drivers, though that category was estimated to include only 18,000 drivers in the entire New York metropolitan area, which is home to more than 20 million people.

The plan also drew criticism from some community advocates in outer boroughs such as the Bronx and Staten Island, who argued that discouraging traffic into Manhattan would increase pollution burdens in their neighborhoods. The MTA found that these increases would be minuscule, but it also pledged to mitigate them by taking steps like electrifying diesel trucks in pollution hotspots like the Bronx’s Hunts Point Food Market.

But this year, as the policy inched closer to becoming a reality, most politicians and interest groups in New York came around to supporting it. Even the Real Estate Board of New York, or REBNY, a powerful lobby that has supported Hochul, expressed disappointment with her decision to scrap the toll program.

“Congestion pricing will provide environmental and transportation benefits that will make New York City more competitive on the national and international stage,” said REBNY president James Whelan in a statement. “Any delay in its implementation should be of a limited duration.”

In the pre-recorded video that announced her decision, Hochul said that “there never is only one path forward.” Indeed, says Lind, there are other measures that New York could take to reduce transportation emissions: The city could restrict freight traffic deliveries to certain periods of the day, as other cities such as Barcelona and Rome have done, or it could limit driving in residential neighborhoods. But the state’s best weapon to discourage driving is the MTA itself, and it’s hard to imagine the beleaguered agency upgrading its subway and bus systems without the billion-dollar boost that would have come from the congestion tolls.

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline Caving on climate: Kathy Hochul axes congestion pricing in New York on Jun 5, 2024.

Categories: H. Green News

Biofuel Watch - Wed, 06/05/2024 - 13:51

Candidate briefing ahead of the UK 2024 General Election

General Election Candidate Briefing

Categories: G1. Progressive Green

DRILL OR DROP? - Wed, 06/05/2024 - 13:00

Angus Energy has announced oil is flowing at its Brockham field in Surrey.

Brockham oil site in 2022. Photo: Used with the owner’s consent

In a statement, the company said one of the wells, the Brockham 2Y, was producing about 120 barrels of liquid per day. Of this, about 40 per cent was oil.

This is the first time since late 2022 there has been oil production from Brockham, near Dorking.

Angus said fluid from the well, would be reinjected into the rock reservoir at the site for pressure support.

Brockham’s environmental permit allows the reinjection of up to 150 barrels of produced water in any 24 hour period.

Angus said it finished a workover of the Brockham 2Y well in late May. It also installed a new pump and carried out repairs and upgrades to surface equipment.

The company announced in 2022 that oil production had resumed from the BRX3 well, at a rate of 50 barrels of oil per day.

But official data to the industry regulator suggests the site produced between June and October 2022has not produced oil since November 2022.

Angus Energy’s chief executive, Richard Herbert, said:

“The workover was completed safely and on schedule and budget, with the new pump starting up on the 28th May. The well is now producing oil in excess of management’s predicted flowrates and with the present surface configuration is expected to sustain 30-40 bbls/day of oil, with potential to increase further with operational improvements.”

DrillOrDrop has closed the comments section on this and future articles. We are doing this because of the risk of liability for copyright infringement in comments.We still want to hear about your reaction to DrillOrDrop articles. You can contact us byclicking here.

Categories: G2. Local Greens

Climate Change News - Wed, 06/05/2024 - 12:40

Hannah Mowat is Campaigns Coordinator at Fern, an international NGO created in 1995 to keep track of the EU’s involvement in forests.

As this European Parliament term began, Fridays for Future school strikes, inspired by Greta Thunberg, were sweeping Europe, with young people demanding that political leaders act decisively against climate change’s mortal threat.

Five years on, as the parliament entered its final chapter, very different protests erupted in Brussels and across Europe – this time led by farmers, who clashed with police and brought the city to gridlock. The farmers’ grievances were many, from rising energy and fertiliser costs, to cheap imports and environmental rules.

#mc_embed_signup{background:#fff; clear:left; font:14px Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif; }

/* Add your own Mailchimp form style overrides in your site stylesheet or in this style block.

We recommend moving this block and the preceding CSS link to the HEAD of your HTML file. */

Want climate news in your inbox? Sign up for free to get our weekly newsletter and occasional extra bulletins

Just as Fridays for Future signified growing pressure on politicians to tackle the climate and biodiversity crises, the farmers’ protests have been seen as a stark warning of the rural backlash against doing so.

In reality, the reasons for the farmers’ anger are more diffuse.

Climate and forests centre-stage

In the early days of the current parliament, the school strikers’ message appeared to be getting through. Tackling climate change was “this generation’s defining task”, the European Commission declared. Within 100 days of taking office, the new Commission President Ursula von der Leyen met her manifesto promise of launching the European Green Deal.

The following few years saw climate and forests take centre-stage in EU policymaking to an unprecedented degree: from the Climate Law, which wrote into the statutes the EU’s goal to be climate neutral by 2050, to the Nature Restoration Law (NRL), setting binding targets to bring back nature across Europe, and the EU Regulation on deforestation-free products (EUDR), the first legislation of its kind in the world, which aims to stop EU consumption from devastating forests around the world.

Then came the backlash.

Despite exit, EU seeks to save green reforms to energy investment treaty

Over the past year, vested industry interests and EU member states have tried to sabotage key pieces of the European Green Deal, including the NRL and the EUDR.

This pushback against laws to protect the natural world is now a battleground in EU parliamentary elections, with populist, far-right and centre-right parties seeing it as fertile vote-winning territory.

The centre-right European People’s Party, the largest group in the European Parliament, has been campaigning against key planks of the Green Deal, including the NRL, while promoting itself as the defender of rural interests.

But the views of the rural constituencies whose votes they covet are not as simplistic or polarised as widely depicted.

Deep listening

At Fern, we’ve increasingly worked with people who share the same forest policy goals but are bitterly opposed to one another.

This is why we commissioned the insight firm GlobeScan to run focus groups among rural communities in four highly forested countries: Czechia, France, Germany and Poland. We wanted to find out what those whose concerns have been used to justify the backlash against green laws really think. The results contradict the prevailing narrative.

All participants – selected with a balance of genders, occupations, political views and socio-economic statuses – felt that forests should be protected by law, and unanimously rejected the idea that such protection measures are a threat to rural economic development or an assault on property rights.

They felt deeply attached to their forests, saw them as public goods, were concerned about the state of them, and had a strong sense of responsibility and ownership towards them. They also wanted to see action to improve industrial forest management practices and mitigate climate change.

Climate, development and nature: three urgent priorities for next UK government

While there was some sympathy for concerns around too much bureaucracy, even those who expressed this view felt forests should be protected by laws. Moreover, they saw the EU as having a primary role in providing support and incentives, and developing initiatives to fight the climate and biodiversity crises.

Given how much EU politicians have put rural concerns at the heart of their arguments for rolling back the Green Deal – and are now using them in their election campaigns – it’s telling that their narratives on this do not resonate widely. Even foresters with right-leaning political views saw most of them as extreme and oversimplified.

The lesson here is that the simplistic, divisive arguments that dominate the public debate over rural people and laws to protect nature do not reflect the complex reality of peoples’ lives or their attitudes. Where a divide exists between those pushing for strong laws to protect nature and the rural communities supposedly resisting them, it’s far from irreconcilable.

Bridging any such gaps by listening and understanding each other’s perspectives is vital for all our futures. Those elected to the next EU Parliament would be wise to heed this.

For further information, see: Rural Perspectives on Forest Protection

The post Right-wing pushback on EU’s green laws misjudges rural views appeared first on Climate Home News.

Categories: H. Green News

La Jicarita - Wed, 06/05/2024 - 12:33

Open Letter to Senators Heinrich and Lujan on the “Countering Antisemitism Awareness Act”

Dear Senators Heinrich and Lujan:

I am writing as your constituent to respectfully request that you oppose S. 3141: “The Antisemitism Awareness Act of 2023,” introduced by Republicans on October 26, 2023, and S. 4091: “Countering Antisemitism Awareness Act,” introduced by a Democrat on April 9, 2024.

S. 4091 is particularly threatening to free speech. It would mandate that even grade school children be indoctrinated in Holocaust history through specific subjective curricula, as per the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s (IHRA) definition of antisemitism, without mention of Palestinian history, Islamophobia, or the genocide of the Indigenous population on the North American continent. These bills would undermine the free speech of students and faculty on college campuses by falsely equating criticism of the Israeli state government ideology of Zionism with antisemitism.

We have been witnessing the unprecedented and brutal suppression of our constitutional right to free speech at the peaceful student uprisings that began on April 17, demanding divestment and a halt to military shipments to Israel. The militarized assaults, arrests without charges, and other abuses being conducted, are sanctioned and supported by powerful pro-Zionist interests such as the American Israeli Public Relations Committee (AIPAC), the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), and the Biden State Department. The anti-genocide peace protesters are exposing and amplifying the Biden administration’s complicity in enabling Israel’s genocide and pose a threat to the weapons manufacturers who are making huge profits off the killing.

The Israeli government has killed at least 35,000 Palestinians since October 7 and is deliberately trying to starve the population of Gaza that they don’t kill with US supplied bombs and other weapons. It is critical that college students, faculty, and all citizens are free to speak out and organize against Israel’s actions, in which their own US government is complicit. S. 3141 and S. 4091 seek to make direct and unconstitutional attacks on free speech legal, and to silence political dissent.

Back in October, you signed on to S. Res. 417: “A resolution standing with Israel against terrorism.” This resolution, along with three other non-binding resolutions passed in the House, paved the way to codify the weaponization of antisemitism and also demonize the sovereign nation of Iran in order to distract attention from the ongoing genocide and ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people in Gaza and the West Bank. Neither the Senate nor the House passed any kind of Ceasefire resolution or other resolution calling on the Biden administration to halt the weapons shipments that allow Israel to continue to bomb and kill civilians.

To be clear, the genocide and ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians—and it is a genocide—is authorized by you, as per your votes for the massive $2.1-trillion-dollar FY2024 budget and the $88 billion Supplemental “Defense” spending package that gifts Israel another $14 billion in weapons, along with the insane amount of $61 billion more taxpayer dollars for the US proxy war in Ukraine. Senator Lindsay Graham is on record saying, “When we said we wanted to fight Russia down to the last Ukrainian, we meant it.” The latest provocative escalation made by President Biden gives overt permission to the Zelensky regime to use US/NATO weaponry and technical assistance to strike targets inside Russia, bringing the world ever closer to the lunacy of global thermonuclear war. The Biden administration’s policies with regard to Israel and Ukraine and nuclear weapons are intrinsically linked. Nuclear war will end life on earth as we know it and none of our “other issues” will matter.

Meanwhile, to their credit, two of our three congressional representatives, Melanie Stansbury and Teresa Leger Fernandez, were among just 70 Democrats in the House to vote against the bi-partisan bill HR 6090: “The Antisemitism Awareness Act of 2023,” after voting in favor of two of the three pro-Zionist resolutions. Gabe Vasquez, to his discredit, voted in favor. HR 6090 was received in the Senate on May 2, 2024.

All of these bills including the bi-partisan HR 6090, S. 3141, and S. 4091 are based on and invoke the definition of the IHRA’s definition of antisemitism. The definition, although legally recognized, is controversial in that, if codified (made into law), the definition can be used to silence criticism of Israel, all pro-Palestinian, and also other viewpoints.

Here are the pro-Zionist resolutions. I urge readers to open the links; read and understand the incendiary language contained within:

HR 771: “Standing with Israel as it defends itself against the barbaric war launched by Hamas and other terrorists.”

HR 888: “Reaffirming the State of Israel’s right to exist.”

HR 894: “Clearly and firmly states that anti-Zionism is antisemitism.”

S. 3141 and S. 4091 will enable further attacks on, and threaten our rights to free speech under the First Amendment of the United States Constitution, which, as you know, states:

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press;or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”

As a Jewish person descended from both Russian and German Jews, and on behalf of Taoseños for Peaceful and Livable Futures, I urge you to oppose these reprehensible bills that endanger the rights of all Americans,

Your actions with regard to the US/Israel 21st century Holocaust, which, so far you are supporting, will be the defining moment of your political and moral careers. This is what you will be remembered for. Your constituents are waiting for you to get on the right side of history.

Urgently,
Suzanne Schwartz
Taoseños for Peaceful and Livable Futures

Notes:

More information on HR 6090 and the IHRA definition of antisemitism:

• The IHRA’s definition of antisemitism is a legal definition only. The Antisemitism Awareness Acts basically codify the definition.

• Jewish Voice for Peace Action slammed what it called IHRA’s “controversial and dangerous mis-definition that does not help fight real antisemitism and is only a tool for silencing the movement for Palestinian rights.”

“Today the House votes on the gag legislation they’re calling the Antisemitism Awareness Act. Antisemitism is a serious problem, but codifying a legal definition could have dangerous implications for free speech. “

HR 6090: https://www.commondreams.org/news/antisemitism-awareness-act

IHRA: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9092927/

Categories: G2. Local Greens

Oil Change International - Wed, 06/05/2024 - 12:17

In response to Biden’s executive order restricting the number of immigrants at the US-Mexico border, Allie Rosenbluth, Oil Change International US Program Manager, said:

“With deadly heat waves, and other disasters escalated by the climate crisis, President Biden’s decision to shut down the southern border to people seeking refuge is cruel, unnecessary, and not a solution to displacement. We must adopt policies that transition our energy system away from fossil fuels, as well as create compassionate, orderly, and safe migration pathways for those who are displaced. President Biden is failing on both counts. We urge President Biden to reverse this harmful order, honor his 2020 promise of a dignified asylum system, and address the root causes of displacement.

The post Response to Biden’s executive order restricting the number of immigrants at the US-Mexico border appeared first on Oil Change International.

Categories: J2. Fossil Fuel Industry

It's Going Down - Wed, 06/05/2024 - 12:14

What follows is a transcription of a recent talk given in Tucson, Arizona by a participant in the George Floyd Uprising in Minneapolis in 2020.

The speaker recalls the events of the rebellion before offering analysis on how, through a counter-insurgent leveraging of race politics, it was eventually put down. For those currently in the throes of yet another cycle of struggle in which questions of race are again central, the recent history of the George Floyd Uprising offers key lessons. A selection of readings on Race Treason are available here.

By Nevada

It is not without nostalgia that I want to talk about the 2020 uprising in Minneapolis. It feels like yesterday, but it was almost four years ago. I have already met so many young people who have no direct experience of the George Floyd uprising—maybe even some of you. Those few days totally changed my life, and I don’t think I will ever stop thinking about them. It wasn’t the first rebellion of which I was a part, and wouldn’t be the last, yet the magnitude of it remains truly unparalleled.

Today, life has shifted so dramatically from that time, telling these stories helps those memories feel more vibrant just as they simultaneously make them feel more fantastic. Driving down Lake Street in Minneapolis today, it’s hard to imagine all these buildings on fire, their contents free for the taking. The campaign of forgetting, described best by Idris Robinson, has been unimaginably successful, despite the burnt remains of the third precinct sitting there for all to see.

So to fight this campaign, even just a little, I will indulge this nostalgia and walk you all through a brief overview of the four or five days Minneapolis rose up against the police and the world they maintain. Its starts on May 25, 2020 when four Minneapolis police officers murdered George Floyd. A video of the murder goes viral within hours of it happening. On social media, a call is put out to gather and protest the next day at the site of the murder—the intersection of 38th Street and Chicago Avenue, which would go on to be called George Floyd Square. This is early on in the Covid pandemic, there hadn’t been any sort of gatherings really for months, which is important to keep in mind. There were even those voices chastising people for holding a protest at all, due to the supposed “danger” it posed.

Thankfully, it doesn’t seem like anyone heeded such warnings. Instead, the protest location was overflowing with people. Many masked, and more still valuing their personal six feet, ensuring the crowd of several thousand was dispersed over an even larger area than they would normally take up. So much so that entire marches could leave from the site without others even noticing. There ended up being two main marches, both heading towards the 3rd Precinct (which is the police station that covers South Minneapolis, where George Floyd was killed) but taking opposite routes. Both of these marches would, independently of each other, encounter a handful of squad cars monitoring the protests along their respective routes, and immediately attack them. The police, aiming to avoid as much conflict as possible, quickly retreat. The marches then continue on to the precinct, eventually re-merging.

Once there, the usual protest speeches gave way to the percussive music of shattered glass as the front door was smashed, followed by the windows of every cruiser in the parking lot. The police, realizing that their usual strategy of conflict avoidance would not prevent this from escalating into a significant riot, began to move in with less-lethal munitions. Flash bangs and tear gas exploded up and down Lake Street. Yet between the massive crowd size, the arrival of rain, and the sprawling, open space, the police simply could not shut anything down. The liquor store across from the precinct is looted after nightfall, and then the police retake it, retreat, and the looting resumes, etc. It’s actually always been unclear to me if there even is a point at

which everyone clears out, before things pick up the next day—I remember being out there around 1 or 2am and there was still a few hundred or so people hanging out in the rain.

Just to make this as explicit as possible: street fighting with the police, vandalism of police infrastructure, and the looting of private property—all of this occurred on the first night of the uprising. I don’t know how many times I have heard claims to the contrary, all in service of a narrative where a peaceful protest was ruined by the arrival of outsiders. This is simply not true.

Wednesday, May 27 is the second day of the uprising. People encircle the precinct all day, with police positioned on the roof. Small scuffles break out here and there, with people throwing things and the police shooting rubber bullets into the crowd. After some hours of this, the cops make a concerted effort to retake some ground in front of the precinct. They push into the intersection, again using tear gas to clear out the crowds. With no rain to dull its sting, it does a better job of dispersing everyone. Except instead of going home, people retreat into the surrounding shopping centers, and further down Lake Street. Now even more stores start to get looted—Target, Aldi, Cub Foods, AutoZone, a smoke shop. The same liquor store as last night gets run through yet again. People are pushing shopping carts home full of groceries or car batteries, while others bring out boxes of goods to share with the crowd. As sun sets, the fires start. Some places, like the AutoZone, Wendy’s, and an under-construction condo building go up in flames rather easily, while the bigger stores have sprinkler systems that end up doing nearly as much damage as the fire by flooding the store for days.

Looting spreads further and further away from the epicenter of the precinct, crowds stretch for perhaps a mile or more in either direction on Lake Street. There are also a few reports of smash-and-grabs in the more upscale neighborhoods like Uptown. Any police not trapped by the precinct siege are either impotently responding to the mobile looting long after the vandals have gone, or attempting to escort firetrucks towards the flames. As with the night before, it’s unclear whether things ever fully petered out overnight before picking up again in the morning.

The next morning, May 28, looters descend on a large Target store across the river in Saint Paul. When police arrive to deal with the situation, battles begin in the parking lot. By the middle of the day, looting has likewise spread up and down this major commercial corridor of Saint Paul. Just to be clear, this is happening simultaneously, in broad daylight, in another whole city.

Back in Minneapolis, the police can only watch as the area around the precinct is now a free zone. Stores continue to be looted throughout the day, everyone admiring the destruction and smoke still rising off of the previous night’s wreckage. Surely, we all know that by the end of the night, the police are forced to surrender their precinct and it too is set on fire. Some speculate that part of the reason for this is that the cops inside actually ran out of tear gas, since they used so little in the moments before their retreat. The gate to their parking lot was chained shut by protesters, so they pile into as many cruisers as they have—which is not enough to fit all the officers and many are forced to run on foot—and smash into the gate hard enough to break it down, and then flee into the night under a barrage of rocks and fireworks.

After that, even more fires are set, destroying a number of buildings in the area of the precinct. Looting by car has also continued to increase and spread further and further beyond the epicenter, even beyond the city itself, to the entire metro area.

I always have to point out that this was not the climax. It’s the part we all heard about, the part people make T-shirts out of and reference in their communiques, but it’s not the crescendo. The National Guard arrive in Minneapolis sometime overnight, and retake the area around the third precinct by sunrise on May 29. But this doesn’t stop another crowd from forming, and this crowd does what any crowd should do after successfully overrunning a police station: they head to the next closest police station to do it again.

The fifth precinct is a few miles down Lake Street, which sees further looting as people make their way there. The fifth precinct covers Uptown, a more heavily gentrified area which has already seen significant looting over the past few days. Yet tonight it escalates dramatically—a large Wells Fargo office is broken into and quickly set aflame. A K-Mart already going out of business is ransacked for the last of its merchandise before it is set alight. A temp agency is shown no mercy and burns to the ground before morning. All the while, police are again trapped on their own roof, shooting rubber bullets at their assailants. While the National Guard reinforcements free up police resources enough to gain the upper hand in reclaiming the street in front of the precinct, they are still unable to intervene in the chaos enveloping the rest of the neighborhood.

Unfortunately, this is where things get complicated. It’s hard to know how to summarize it all. Try to imagine a scenario where law and order is in total disarray, and what kind of information sharing might be happening in those moments—how many rumors might spread wildly over social media, what conspiracy theories might be concocted in group chats that then spill over into public discourse. The turning point was obviously when the governor went on TV to claim the uprising was the work of white supremacists, but I would be wrong to say that it started there. It wouldn’t have made any sense. What I want to talk about is how the groundwork for understanding this claim was laid well in advance.

In claiming that the offensive acts of the uprising—specifically, the looting and arson—were being carried out by white supremacists, the entire foundation of the uprising is upended. It was now necessary, in the minds of many participants and sympathizers, to crush the uprising in its own name. By this I mean, “participating in the uprising” came to mean protecting stores from looting, forming ID checkpoints, enforcing the curfew, cleaning up broken glass, or painting over graffiti at Target. In the face of this wave of popular counter-insurgency, the uprising is unable to sustain itself beyond the fifth night.

Hopefully it goes without saying that these rumors were entirely false. The posts about how fascists are rallying in one park or another would spread like wildfire—the posts of concerned neighbors pointing out that this park is totally empty did not gain such traction. Or claims that someone had set a house on fire, only for it to come out later someone was merely seeing the smoke from a backyard fire pit. Despite all of the commotion a handful of “Boogaloo Boys” stirred up, it’s well documented they actually took up arms in defense of property, not to destroy it.

Yet if this idea was so absurd, why did people believe it? Why did they fall for the bizarre claims of politicians intent on stopping them? I believe that it’s because these claims managed to find traction not only with other conspiracy theories that were spiraling out of control on social media, but more fundamentally, with our contemporary understandings of identity and political action.

Let me use an example: during the night of May 27, a stretch of restaurants are being broken into by looters a couple miles away from the third precinct. Some, if not all, of these restaurants are immigrant-owned. A message goes out that “white supremacists are looting BIPOC restaurants.” When asked how they know the looters are white supremacists, their only evidence is that the targets are minority-owned and thus, the looters must be racist. This is only one of many anecdotes that I think helps illustrate how poorly we perceive these dynamics in the real world. I want to say it’s obvious that there are many reasons to loot a business that have absolutely nothing to do with the identity of its ownership, but my point is rather that it’s not.

On the one hand, in an effort to rebuke the more conservative condemnations of looting as “mindless crime,” activists assert the political implications of looting, and thus insist the act be understood in a grammar of protest. In this grammar, looting a store is understood as a form of expressing a grievance with this store in some way. On the other hand, even some of the most radical anti-racist activism has yet to shake its attachments to representation, in which “bipoc”-owned businesses are part of the path to liberation, not an obstacle upon it.

The extent to which such “anti-racism” has become a dominant social discourse today is not a victory of the 2020 uprising, but a consequence of its defeat. It is an operation intended to bury its memory. There is no end to the racial order without the burning of many, many more precincts, and every diversity initiative—no matter how radical it sounds—is designed to make us forget that.

And I must make myself clear that saying this is very different from saying that race isn’t important. I am not lamenting how class is being left behind by today’s activists or any such nonsense, despite how easy it might be to paint me with that brush. Rather, fighting these dynamics comes from a steadfast commitment to black liberation, which does not find adequate expression in so many of the acts that claim it today. Idris Robinson has already clarified that “much of [the] academic debate about race, which has now become everyday parlance, is actually beside the point. It is neither biological nor social: whiteness is to be measured by the degree to which a person clings to the last vestiges of this dying and doomed country… It is worthwhile to note that, according to this standard of evaluation, it follows that many of the people who are called ‘black’ must instead be judged as white.”

If this latter point from Idris is controversial, it should suffice to explain how some of the armed groups that came together in late May 2020 to protect businesses would go on to receive city contracts to outsource policing officially, during both future moments of unrest and dayto-day life. For example, the Minnesota Freedom Fighters, a black armed group that emerged in 2020 to protect businesses in north Minneapolis, would get paid to attack protesters outside the Brooklyn Center police station in 2021 after Daunte Wright was killed. Or the Agape Movement, who made a name for themselves at George Floyd Square—the barricaded memorial/autonomous zone formed at the site of Floyd’s death—would just a year later be paid to bully activists protesting against the police murder of Winston Smith just a couple miles away, not to mention helping the city in dismantling the very barricades that protected the Square too. Meanwhile AIM, the American Indian Movement, would go from rounding up teenage looters in 2020 to assisting the city evict its majority-Native homeless encampments in more recent years. The bottom line is that the racial order has a very material basis, and anyone who acts to preserve this basis—through policing, the protection of property, etc.—is an agent of white supremacy, no matter their own personal status in it.

Now, importantly for us, the flip side of this framework illuminates the possibility of race treason. That is, the possibility for those who are white or non-black people of color to take real action against the racial order, not simply accepting the deference politics so common today. Race treason was on clear display during the 2020 uprising, in Minneapolis certainly but also all around the country, as the crowds were significantly more diverse than the sixties uprisings they get compared to. And those of us for whom our activist and anarchist social scenes have always been overwhelmingly white, this is a framework in which we can think about what we can do and how we can do it. Otherwise, we will remain stuck in endless debates on legitimacy and representation that have handcuffed militants for years.

The standard described by Robinson is that “whiteness is to be measured by the degree to which a person clings to the last vestiges of this dying and doomed country.” This is a pretty high bar to clear. Back in 2020, there was an obvious answer: to join the revolt. Yet now that the fires have been reduced to mere memories, how can we still hope to take action against this order in our day to day lives? An all-too-literal reading of Robinson’s standard quickly brings us to moralism, martyrdom, and suicide. Yet it doesn’t have to.

Both this false conclusion and the anti-racism I described earlier are limited to the realm of the individual. Whether it’s communiques or Venmo payments, these two paths are really two expressions of the same ambition for moral purity. We must find a path that is truly collective, a path that can adequately grapple with the structural basis of the challenge we are facing. Otherwise, not only will we fail the revolts of our time, we may end up crushing them instead.

Categories: D1. Anarchism

Migrant Workers Alliance for Change - Wed, 06/05/2024 - 12:06

If you’re a migrant farmworker on the Seasonal Agricultural Worker Program (8 months contract or less), your contract has changed this year and you have NEW rights!

Sign up below to join us online on Wednesday, June 12 starting at 8pm to learn about how these changes affect you. In this free and confidential information session, we’ll also talk about what you can do if your contract is being breached and what support is available.

The post Seasonal Farmworkers: Do You Know About Changes to Your Contract? appeared first on Migrant Workers Alliance for Change.

Categories: C4. Radical Labor

Wild Idaho Rising Tide - Wed, 06/05/2024 - 12:00

The Wednesday, June 5, 2024, Climate Justice Forum radio program, produced by regional, climate activists collective Wild Idaho Rising Tide (WIRT), features indigenous and allied activists protecting Thacker Pass biodiversity from northern Nevada lithium mine construction through non-violent actions and necessity defense lawsuits. We also share news, speeches, and reflections on unusually numerous Northwest military equipment transports, longer trains risking more derailments, tests of spent nuclear fuel train cars, opposition to Congressional approval of federal energy agency nominees, and British Columbia protests of the expanded Trans Mountain tar sands pipeline. Broadcast for twelve years on progressive, volunteer, community station KRFP Radio Free Moscow, every Wednesday between 1:30 and 3 pm Pacific time, on-air at 90.3 FM and online, the show describes continent-wide, grassroots, frontline resistance to fossil fuels projects, the root causes of climate change, thanks to generous, anonymous listeners who adopted program host Helen Yost as their KRFP DJ.

“Leave fossil fuels in the ground…”, June 2, 2024 George Monbiot/Mike Hudema

Unusual Northwest Military Train Numbers, May 28, 2024 Wild Idaho Rising Tide (WIRT facebook post forthcoming)

Data Confirm Long Trains Pose Higher Risks, May 31, 2024 Rail Passengers Association

New Railcar Designed to Transport Spent Nuclear Fuel Cleared for Operation, June 4, 2024 U.S. Department of Energy Office of Nuclear Energy

Please Vote “No” on Panel of FERC Nominees, June 3, 2024 Columbia Riverkeeper

Hey Trudeau, Cancel the TMX Pipeline! Banner Drop, May 30, 2024 Climate Convergence Metro Vancouver

Local Banner Drop Critiques TMX Pipeline, May 30, 2024 The Peak

Protect Our Water Protectors — Lawsuit Update and Fundraiser for Thacker Pass Defenders, May 29, 2024 Protect Thacker Pass

Categories: B4. Radical Ecology

DRILL OR DROP? - Wed, 06/05/2024 - 12:00

The decision to approve oil production in the Lincolnshire Wolds area of outstanding natural beauty (AONB) was unlawful, the High Court heard today.

Campaigners outside the High Court in London, 5 June 2024. Photo: AC

Lawyers for a local campaign group argued that the decision misinterpreted planning policy, used out-of-date law and relied on unevidenced assertions.

SOS Biscathorpe, has been fighting the plans by Egdon Resources for more than 10 years.

It brought a legal challenge against the department of levelling up, housing and communities, over the decision by a government-appointed inspector to allow long-term production at Biscathorpe.

The group’s barrister, Estelle Dehon KC, told the court in London that planning guidance permitted major development in AONBs only in exceptional circ*mstances and when it was in the public interest.

She said the inspector had misinterpreted the guidance and had failed to consider both these issues together.

The inspector had acknowledged that the Biscathorpe oil resource was uncertain. It would make no contribution to national security if exported and would “make only a miniscule contribution if used domestically”.

Despite this, the inspector said Biscathorpe oil may “reduce output from other countries” and this made the development in the public interest.

Ms Dehon said this conclusion was “supported by no evidence whatsoever”.

She said it was “irrational” for the inspector and the secretary of state to contend that the “miniscule annual amount of oil which may be extracted … could be capable of impacting the international oil market and causing other countries to reduce their output”.

SOS Biscathorpe at the High Court, 5 June 2024. Photo: Extinction Rebellion

The campaigners also argued that the inspector had not acknowledged a change in the law on how carbon emissions from the use of oil should be considered.

Ms Dehon said the inspector accepted Egdon Resources’ claim that there was no need to consider the greenhouse gas emissions from the use of any oil produced by Biscathorpe, known as downstream emissions.

But at the time of the inspector’s decision, this was out of date, Ms Dehon said.

The issue of downstream emissions has been challenged in the courts in a separate case brought by campaigner, Sarah Finch. The Supreme Court has yet to make its judgement. But the Court of Appeal has ruled that downstream emissions were “legally capable” of being considered as part of the EIA process.

The court also heard that the inspector had not considered the development of renewable energy schemes as a method of contributing to domestic energy production and security that did not involve oil production in an AONB.

The department for levelling up, housing and communities is defending the challenge. In a written submission it told the court that the decision, issued in November 2023, was lawful.

Richard Moules KC, for the department, said the inspector had considered the area’s AONB status but concluded that oil production was in the public interest:

“He recognised the strong policy protection for the AONB and the policy expectation in favour of conserving and enhancing the AONB.”

Mr Moules also said “in the circ*mstances of this application, development for renewable energy is not an alternative to oil production.”

DrillOrDrop has closed the comments section on this and future articles. We are doing this because of the risk of liability for copyright infringement in comments.We still want to hear about your reaction to DrillOrDrop articles. You can contact us byclicking here.

Categories: G2. Local Greens