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UK: Over the last few weeks, the Oxford Union debating society has invited two far-right speakers. Weidel had to pull out under pressure, and Bannon was met by massive protests. Oxford organisers report on what happened and how anti-fascists mobilised.

Originally published by RS 21.

Note: Enough is Enough is not organizing any of these events, we are publishing this text for people across the US and Europe to be able to see what is going on and for documentation only.

This month, the Oxford Union debating society* has invited both Alice Weidel (the leader of the far-right AfD party in the German Bundestag) and Steve Bannon (Donald Trump’s former Chief Strategist, the architect of the Muslim ban and a figurehead of the international far right). These events mark the latest instances of the Union’s long-standing strategy of inviting powerful figures on the international far right to speak in order to attract publicity. The Union’s continual active complicity in the normalisation of the far right demonstrates the myopia and entitlement of the small clique of Oxford students who run it – but they are far from being unopposed.

Weidel

In the end, Weidel never came to the Union. She pulled out due to “security concerns” as it became clear that students and residents in Oxford had been organising against her visit. Ultimately the police and private security hired by the Union were acutely aware that they would be facing a serious demonstration if they went ahead. There were two demonstrations planned to take place, which would have coincided had they gone ahead. One was called by Stand Up to Racism (SUTR) and Unite Against Fascism (UAF), and one by rs21, Oxford Migrant Solidarity and Oxford Left Network (both student groups), working alongside Oxford Anti-Fascists (the local branch of the Anti-Fascist Network). In the coalition-building process, we had support from several student societies, and other activists organised an open letter signed by dozens of societies. Local opposition to Weidel was also registered through public statements from local politicians, and the university’s Student Union passed a motion condemning her invitation.

Weidel cancelling her talk marks a first in demonstrating against far-right speakers at the Oxford Union. While there have been some cases of mass opposition in the past, the Union usually ploughs ahead with the help of police and private security. In 2015, a mobilisation rs21 helped to organise attracted about 500 people and delayed a speech by Marine Le Pen for two hours. During the last year, smaller numbers of protesters have opposed talks by Anthony Scaramucci, Ann Coulter and Corey Lewandowski. After some ambivalent experiences, the complete success of the planned mobilisation against Weidel was a reminder that mass direct action is an effective tool against the far right.

The opposition to Weidel set the agenda in the media; national media in the UK, Germany and the US reported on the opposition to Weidel and how she was obliged to cancel under pressure. The navel-gazing student newspapers ran the typical and tedious pontificating on whether “[a]nti-fascism, while a noble goal, threatens to become anti-liberalism when it is pursued via the wrong means” (Heaven forbid). Even though the demonstration ultimately did not have to go ahead as planned, one concrete outcome was that the coalition-building in the run up to the event created a network of people ready to work together again. An ‘Oxford Anti-Fascist Assembly’ meeting organised by rs21, OMS and Free Education Oxford was held on the evening that the demonstration would have taken place and drew around 40 people.

Bannon

Only days after Weidel had been scheduled to speak, the Union announced that they had invited Bannon. The announcement was made two days before the talk was planned to take place, despite having been organised in September. The Union President, Stephen Horvath, hadn’t even communicated the decision to the bulk of the Union’s Standing Committee, who only found out when they saw the event page on Facebook. Horvath admitted that he only talked to the committee members who had to be involved in order to hire private security. There was a minor crisis within the standing committee as a last-minute vote was called on whether to cancel the event. They agreed not to rescind the invitation.

Because of the work that had gone into mobilising to oppose Weidel, organisers were well-situated to build a demonstration against Bannon quickly and effectively. Within just two days, tens of thousands of people were reached on social media and hundreds decided to come to the demonstration. There were three event pages: SUTR/UAF, who mostly mobilised residents; a coalition of Oxford University student societies (including the Labour club) who attracted large numbers of students; and Oxford Anti-Fascists and Oxford rs21, who communicated closely with several of the student organisers. We were also joined by comrades from the Feminist Anti-Fascist Assembly.

Image: Protesters and police in the street by the back entrance

On the day, there was no clear distinction between the different groups. The Oxford Mail and the Mirror estimated of the size of the demonstration at 1000, while the BBC put forward the laughable figure “more than 100”. With Bannon scheduled to speak at 4pm, protesters gathered outside the Union from 1pm and successfully blocked the back entrance down a narrow alleyway. The main protest outside the front entrance continued to grow, succeeding in preventing people from entering the Union through the main entrance, and was also able to hold a third entrance to the Union via a college accommodation building down the road. The Union’s private security did not hesitate to shove students around and intimidate them. Meanwhile, there were confrontations in which Union members threatened to punch protesters in the face, and a small number of neo-Nazi thugs who had come down for the day tried to punch a young Black protester. They were later spotted throwing Nazi salutes in the street.

Protestors did not only have to deal with private security, confrontational Union members and neo-Nazi thugs: the demonstration was also very heavily policed. Thames Valley Police sent in multiple riot vans, used force against protesters several times and stood by as the Union’s private security assaulted protesters in broad daylight. One of the main chants throughout the demonstration was “Who protects the fascists? Police protect the fascists!” Shortly after 4pm, around two-dozen police officers came to the back entrance and cleared the protesters there by physical force.

Image: Placard reading ‘Oxford police support white supremacy’

At that stage, it seemed as if the cops would let in more Union members through the back entrance, but at 16:30, with the chamber still more than half empty, police announced that they would not be allowing any more Union members into the building. This was a major victory for the protesters and the announcement was met by cheers and chants of ‘¡No Pasaran!’ The reason they had bothered to clear the alleyway leading to the back entrance quickly became clear: Bannon was not yet inside the building. Shortly before 5pm, an hour after the talk was scheduled to begin, several riot vans came up the main street. A line of protesters was shoved out of the way to clear a route for the vans. Bannon was smuggled out of one of the riot vans and hurried in through the back entrance.

For the bulk of Bannon’s talk, those inside the chamber would have been able to hear chants of ‘No Trump, no KKK, no fascist USA!’, ‘Oxford Union – shame on you!’ and ‘From Palestine to Mexico – all these walls have got to go!’ Just before 6pm, a group of organisers made the decision to disperse the demo, as there was a rumour that the police were threatening to kettle. The police around the back entrance seemed to be planning Bannon’s escape route, keeping a line of police and vans around the top of the alleyway in the face of a continued presence from protesters. In the end, at half 6, Bannon left via the main entrance and was driven away in a van with blacked-out windows as a handful of protesters shouting ‘Scum!’ were held back and fiercely manhandled by private security.

Weidel’s cancellation and the protest against Bannon are considerable victories for anti-fascist organising in Oxford. With just two days’ notice, hundreds of people were mobilised, the event was massively disrupted and Bannon’s triumphant appointment was reduced to a hurried and severely delayed presentation to a mainly empty chamber. The swift and effective mobilisation was made possible in part by the organisational foundations laid during the earlier anti-fascist mobilisation against the Weidel visit. A resounding message will have been sent to the Union’s leadership that continued flirtations with fascism will be sternly resisted by students and residents of Oxford. Through coordination, coalitions and militancy, we can keep winning.

* The Oxford Union is an old debating society and the self-styled “last bastion of free speech”. It is nominally independent from both the University and the Student Union and charges a membership fee of £278.

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London, UK: More than 6000 people blocked 5 bridges during Rebellion Day on November 17. On November 24, RebellionDay 2 people will take the streets again.

Originally published by Extinction Rebellion Facebook event page.

Note: Enough is Enough is not organizing any of these events, we are publishing this text for people across the US and Europe to be able to see what is going on and for documentation only.

Extinction Rebellion London UK: Rebellion Day 2

November 24, 2018, 10:00am UTC

Parliament Square, London, UK

Action demanding the government’s urgent response on the Climate Crisis and Ecological Emergency continues…

The Extinction Rebellion is bringing thousands of us out onto the street to demand that life continues on this planet. It is spreading around the world, setting up in 15 countries in the past two weeks. So let’s make the rebellion huge and powerful and inspire other countries to do the same! 

We have all seen that one day events don’t create the vast changes that now have to happen immediately.

Assemble at 10am in Parliament Square, London on Saturday 24th of November, for Rebellion Day 2. We will continue sitting down in city streets. Only through daily economic disruption will the government recognise the gravity of the crisis we all face and agree to meet with us to address our demand for radical action. 

We are in a dire emergency. This is the most important thing in the world right now. Get on the phone. Start sharing on social media. Speak to your family, to your kids and grandparents. Tell everyone to come along. This is it: the best chance in a generation to throw off fear, despair and detachment and stand up for what we love most of all – life itself! 

We are all amazed by the overwhelming response to this call to action. Now let’s go out and make some real change. 

You can hear future generations cheering us on! 

Declaration of Rebellion

“To love truth for truth’s sake is the principal part of human perfection in this world, and the seed-plot of all other virtues” 
John Locke

We hold the following to be true:

This is our darkest hour.

Humanity finds itself embroiled in an event unprecedented in its history. One which, unless immediately addressed, will catapult us further into the destruction of all we hold dear: this nation, its peoples, our ecosystems and the future of generations to come. 
The science is clear:- we are in the sixth mass extinction event and we will face catastrophe if we do not act swiftly and robustly. 
Biodiversity is being annihilated around the world. Our seas are poisoned, acidic and rising. Flooding and desertification will render vast tracts of land uninhabitable and lead to mass migration. 

Our air is so toxic that the United Kingdom is breaking the law. It harms the unborn whilst causing tens of thousands to die. The breakdown of our climate has begun. There will be more wildfires, unpredictable super storms, increasing famine and untold drought as food supplies and fresh water disappear.

The ecological crises that are impacting upon this nation, and indeed this planet and its wildlife can no longer be ignored, denied nor go unanswered by any beings of sound rational thought, ethical conscience, moral concern, or spiritual belief.
In accordance with these values, the virtues of truth and the weight of scientific evidence, we declare it our duty to act on behalf of the security and well-being of our children, our communities and the future of the planet itself.

We, in alignment with our consciences and our reasoning, declare ourselves in rebellion against our Government and the corrupted, inept institutions that threaten our future.

The wilful complicity displayed by our government has shattered meaningful democracy and cast aside the common interest in favour of short-term gain and private profits.
When Government and the law fail to provide any assurance of adequate protection, as well as security for its people’s well-being and the nation’s future, it becomes the right of its citizens to seek redress in order to restore dutiful democracy and to secure the solutions needed to avert catastrophe and protect the future. It becomes not only our right, it becomes our sacred duty to rebel.
We hereby declare the bonds of the social contract to be null and void, which the government has rendered invalid by its continuing failure to act appropriately. We call upon every principled and peaceful citizen to rise with us.

We demand to be heard, to apply informed solutions to these ecological crises and to create a national assembly by which to initiate those solutions needed to change our present cataclysmic course. 
We refuse to bequeath a dying planet to future generations by failing to act now.

We act in peace, with ferocious love of these lands in our hearts. We act on behalf of life.

We (Enough is Enough) need your support: You can support our work by ordering a hoodie or t-shirt in our shop: here or donate. Crowdfunding campaign for the Enough is Enough Info-Café: here.

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The dream of flying while recharging wirelessly from afar, or that of bringing electricity down from the stratosphere, has long been cherished. Now, a US company with a big leg in Russia is working on charging an aircraft while in flight

The German minister for Economic Affairs,  Peter Altmaier, has delivered a hardcore smackdown to local auto giants, asking them when they will build EVs that are "half as sexy as a Tesla."

Source: USDAW

Traffic-choked roads may vex Houstonians traveling for the Thanksgiving holiday, but at least they might find bargains at the gas pump.

Read time: 9 mins

The first known oil well in Oklahoma happened by accident. It was 1859 and Lewis Ross was actually drilling for saltwater (brine), not oil. Brine was highly valued at the time for the salt that could be used to preserve meat. As Ross drilled deeper for brine, he hit oil. And people have been drilling for oil in Oklahoma ever since. 

Lewis Ross might find today's drilling landscape in the Sooner State somewhat ironic. The oil and gas industry, which has surging production due to horizontal drilling and fracking, is pumping out huge volumes of oil but even more brine. So much brine, in fact, that the fracking industry needs a way to dispose of the brine, or “produced water,” that comes out of oil and gas wells because it isn't suitable for curing meats. In addition to salts, these wastewaters can contain naturally occurring radioactive elements and heavy metals. 

But the industry's preferred approaches for disposing of fracking wastewater — pumping it underground in either deep or shallow injection wells for long-term storage — both come with serious risks for nearby communities.  

Tags: frackingInjection WellsAquiferFracking Brine EarthquakesOklahoma Corporation Commissionearthquakesinduced earthquakes

by Alia Armistead


Blue carbon is increasingly being championed by organisations and governments as a tool for climate change mitigation and adaptation, as well as addressing multiple Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

What is blue carbon, how much potential does it actually have, and how could we use it?

Blue carbon: ecosystem degradation impacts on carbon storage and sinks

The term "blue carbon" encompasses vegetated coastal ecosystems of seagrasses, tidal marshes and mangroves, which are highly efficient at carbon drawdown or biosequestration - capturing atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) using biological processes - and which store huge amounts of carbon in their plants and soils (Macreadie et al. 2017a). They may have a very large potential for further storing carbon, and are also are significant biodiversity hotspots.

Terrestrial ecosystems have attracted much attention for their capacity to mitigate climate change as a carbon store (or “sink”) for sequestering carbon from the atmosphere, but water-based ecosystems have received comparatively little attention until recently.

Globally, blue carbon ecosystems are smaller in extent than terrestrial ecosystems, but they have the potential to sequester ten times more carbon per area unit than land systems, and are twice as effective at storing carbon in soil and biomass (McLeod et al. 2011; Wylie et al. 2016). Blue carbon ecosystems, in the form of seagrasses, salt marshes and mangroves, cover 0.2% of the world’s ocean surface, yet contain 50% of total carbon buried in marine sediments (Duarte et al. 2013).

Blue carbon ecosystems are being lost at an alarming rate, with 67% of mangroves, 35% of tidal marshes and 29% of seagrasses lost to date comparative to "full" historical coverage (Herr et al. 2016). These ecosystems are currently being lost at a rate of 340,000-980,000 hectares annually (Herr et al. 2016; Greiner et al. 2013). Loss of blue carbon ecosystems is largely anthropogenic, with major causes being coastal development for aquaculture, urban or industrial use, upstream dams and dredging (Pendleton et al. 2012). Climate change impacts such as rising sea levels and ocean warming are also threatening blue carbon ecosystems (Pendleton et al. 2012; Macreadie et al. 2017a).

As with terrestrial ecosystems, degraded blue carbon ecosystems can shift from being a carbon sink to a carbon source, that is, changing from storing additional atmospheric carbon to  releasing carbon (Pendleton et al. 2012). Studies show that the continued degradation of seagrass ecosystems globally is comparable to annual rates of fossil fuel CO2 emissions in many small countries (Greiner et al. 2013). Maintaining the health of blue carbon stores is vital to climate change efforts, as continued ecosystem degradation will detract significantly from mitigation strategies and contribute to further warming. Instead of being an emissions source, these ecosystems have the potential to store vast amounts of carbon.  Ecosystem restoration can draw down increased amounts of carbon from the atmosphere.

The amount of carbon stored in blue carbon ecosystems’ plants and soils is now estimated to be significantly larger than previously thought, highlighting their importance in the carbon cycle and the need for policies to protect them, and to prevent degradation (Pendleton et al. 2012). By restoring degraded seagrass ecosystems, the carbon sequestration capacity of these ecosystems can increase by up to four times (Greiner et al. 2013).

Werribee-Avalon area, Port Phillip Bay, Victoria

Blue carbon for adaptation

Climate change projections show an expected increase in extreme weather events, which will increase pressures on coastal areas and ecosystems (Steffen et al. 2018). Natural infrastructure in the form of healthy ecosystems can be vital for increasing the security of coastal communities, by acting as a physical barrier to reduce risks associated with some extreme weather events such as storm surges. Wave heights associated with Hurricane Wilma in 2005 on the USA’s east coast were reduced by 72- 86% in an area of 7-8 kilometres of mangrove habitat (Sutton-Grier et al. 2015).

In addition to reducing the risk of coastal flooding, erosion and storm surge and the associated damage costs, blue carbon ecosystems can provide other social and economic benefits, including increased opportunities for tourism, recreation, education and research (Sutton-Grier et al. 2015).

Blue carbon in Australia

Australia’s coastlines are global hotspots for blue carbon ecosystems, and include 33% of global tidal marshes and some of the largest seagrass areas in the world (Macreadie et al. 2017b). Human development, climate change and extreme weather events have already caused significant losses of blue carbon in Australia. 1-3% of of blue carbon ecosystems in Australia are being lost each year (Macreadie 2017).

An extreme marine heatwave event in Western Australia in summer 2010/11 resulted in the loss of 22% of seagrasses in a 4,300 square kilometre area, with an estimated two-to-nine billion tonnes of CO2in the following three years (Arias-Ortiz et al. 2018).

Above-average temperatures and reduced moisture levels also contributed to dieback of mangroves in the Gulf of Carpenteria in Queensland and the Northern Territory in the summer of 2015/16, with approximately 6% of mangroves lost in the region (Duke et al. 2018).

More than 13,000 square kilometres of tidal marshes have also been lost since European settlement due to agricultural, urban and industrial development, building of levees and extreme weather events (Macreadie et al. 2017b). Although many tidal marsh areas are now classified as endangered and receive better protection, regenerating large areas of these degraded ecosystems could restore their carbon storage capacity (Macreadie et al. 2017b).  

Where to now for blue carbon?

Research has highlighted the importance of blue carbon ecosystems as a carbon store, and the capacity to increase carbon storage in these ecosystems through restoration, despite having a smaller extent than terrestrial ecosystems. Protecting and restoring blue carbon ecosystems can play an important role, and should be more widely recognised, and  added to existing strategies for addressing climate change.

The Australian Government launched the International Partnership for Blue Carbon (IPBC) at COP21 in Paris in 2015 (Australian Government n.d.). The IPBC aims to build awareness, share knowledge and accelerate practical action for protecting and restoring blue carbon ecosystems as a climate change mitigation and adaptation strategy (International Partnership for Blue Carbon n.d.). This initiative provides the Australian Government with a range of opportunities to establish innovative and effective national policy and programmes to protect and restore blue carbon ecosystems as a climate change mitigation and adaptation strategy. This would not only help establish it as a method of sequestering atmosphereic CO2, but would also help  achieve other objectives such as biodiversity protection.

Since the founding of the IPBC in 2015, some progress has been made in Australia on research and reporting on blue carbon. Seagrasses were included in Australia’s greenhouse gases National Inventory Report 2016 to the UNFCCC (International Partnership for Blue Carbon n.d), and the IPBC has partnered with Deakin University’s Blue Carbon Lab for research into blue carbon ecosystems distribution, feasibility assessments for carbon offset initiatives, identifying threats to ecosystems and management techniques (Blue Carbon Lab n.d.).

To date, national policies have not been implemented for blue carbon ecosystems specifically for climate change mitigation and adaptation purposes. The IPBC identifies “testing and developing optimal management approaches” as a key objective, with potential for local management on behalf of funding partners such as NGOs, researchers, government and the private sector (International Partnership for Blue Carbon n.d, p. 11). Major challenges lie in forming a cohesive set of policies for a range of blue carbon management policies, and securing adequate and accessible funding for blue carbon projects (Herr et al. 2016; Macreadie 2017).

Australia must now take the next step in protecting and restoring blue carbon ecosystems beyond the research phase. It is well placed to do so, with a breadth of international studies and literature to support new projects and policies.
Alia Armistead is Coordinator for Melbourne's Breakthrough National Centre for Climate Restoration, a small, independent think tank that undertakes climate change research and advocacy, with the goal of restoring a safe climate. She is also a Research Assistant at RMIT, looking at biochar technology to develop new circular economies in connecting urban and agricultural wastes and emissions. Alia will be attending COP24 in Poland as a delegate for Global Voices.  References

Arias-Ortiz, A, Serrano, O, Masqué, P, Lavery, P., Mueller, U, Kendrick, G., Rozaimi, M, Esteban, A, Fourqurean, J., Marbà, N, Mateo, M., Murray, K, Rule, M., & Duarte, C. 2018, ‘A marine heatwave drives massive losses from the world’s largest seagrass carbon stocks’, Nature Climate Change, vol. 8, pp. 338–344.

Australian Government n.d., ‘International Partnership for Blue Carbon’, Australian Government - Department of the Environment and Energy, viewed 10 September 2018, <http://www.environment.gov.au/climate-change/government/international/blue-carbon>.

Blue Carbon Lab n.d., ‘Blue Carbon Lab’, Blue Carbon Lab, viewed 19 October 2018, <http://www.bluecarbonlab.org/

Duarte, C, Losada, I, & Hendriks, I 2013, ‘The role of coastal plant communities for climate change mitigation and adaptation’, Nature Climate Change, vol. 3, pp. 961–968.

Duke, N, Kovacs, J, Griffiths, A, Preece, L, Hill, D, van Oosterzee, P, Mackenzie, J, Morning, H, & Burrows, D 2017, ‘Large-scale dieback of mangroves in Australia’s Gulf of Carpentaria: a severe ecosystem response, coincidental with an unusually extreme weather event’, Marine and Freshwater Research, vol. 68, pp. 1816–1829.

Greiner, J, McGlathery, K, Gunnell, J, & McKee, B 2013, ‘Seagrass Restoration Enhances “Blue Carbon” Sequestration in Coastal Waters’, PLOS ONE, vol. 8, no. 8, pp. 1–8.

Herr, D, Himes-Cornell, A, & Laffoley, D 2016, National Blue Carbon Policy Assessment Framework, pp. 1–36, International Union for Conservation of Nature.
International Partnership for Blue Carbon n.d., Coastal blue carbon: an introduction for policy makers, International Partnership for Blue Carbon, Retrieved from <https://bluecarbonpartnership.org/resources/introduction-policy-makers/

Macreadie, P 2017, ‘Australia’s Blue Carbon Future: Oceans fighting back against climate change’, Australian Quarterly, vol. Jan-Mar, pp. 14–20.

Macreadie, P, Nielsen, D, Kelleway, J, Atwood, T, Seymour, J, Petrou, K, Connolly, R, Thomson, A, Trevathan-Tackett, S, & Ralph, P 2017a, ‘Can we manage coastal ecosystems to sequester more blue carbon?’, Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment, vol. 15, no. 4, pp. 206–213.

Macreadie, P, Ollivier, Q, Kelleway, J, & Serrano, O 2017b, ‘Carbon sequestration by Australian tidal marshes’, Nature Scientific Reports, vol. 7, pp. 1–1.

McLeod, E, Chmura, G, Bouillon, S, Salm, R, Björk, M, Duarte, C, Lovelock, C, Schlesinger, W, & Silliman, B 2011, ‘A blueprint for blue carbon: toward an improved understanding of the role of vegetated coastal habitats in sequestering CO2’, Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment, vol. 9, no. 10, pp. 552–560.

Pendleton, L, Donato, DC, Murray, BC, Crooks, S, Jenkins, WA, Sifleet, S, Craft, C, Fourqurean, JW, Kauffman, JB, Marba, N, Megonigal, P, Pidgeon, E, Herr, D, Gordon, D, & Baldera, A 2012, ‘Estimating Global “‘Blue Carbon’” Emissions from Conversion and Degradation of Vegetated Coastal Ecosystems’, PLOS ONE, vol. 7, no. 9, pp. 1–7

Steffen, W, Rockström, J, Richardson, K, Lenton, TM, Folke, C, Liverman, D, Summerhayes, CP, Barnosky, AD, Cornell, SE, Crucifix, M, Donges, JF, Fetzer, I, Lade, SJ, Scheffer, M, Winkelmann, R, & Schellnhuber, HJ 2018, ‘Trajectories of the Earth System in the Anthropocene’, PNAS, pp. 1–8, DOI: 10.107.

Sutton-Grier, A, Wowk, K, & Bamford, H 2015, ‘Future of our coasts: The potential for natural and hybrid infrastructure to enhance the resilience of our coastal communities, economies and ecosystems’, Environmental Science & Policy, vol. 51, pp. 137–148.

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Nine months ago, when California wasn’t in flames, government investigators warned Governor Jerry Brown that an inferno loomed.

“California’s forests are reaching a breaking point,” the report said.

The report got about little media attention at the time, but it’s still worth taking seriously even now. It came from an independent oversight commission set up by the California government to sniff out ways the state was going bad, then make recommendations to Brown and the legislature. The commission spent a year interviewing experts and holding hearings.

If California doesn’t want a future wreathed in wildfire smoke, the report suggests, it will need to permit more tree thinning, more prescribed fires, and more burning of wood for electricity.

Wait a sec, you say. Does that mean President Donald Trump is right to blame the fires on California’s forest management? Hardly. Trump’s suggestion that California needed to spend more time “raking” the forest is comically wrong. The Paradise Camp Fire started on National Forest Land, which is managed by Trump’s own Department of Agriculture, not by California. The severity of the recent fires, burning areas surrounded by brushy chaparral rather than forest, can be blamed more accurately on climate change and also the sprawling development that puts houses in the wilderness.

That said, it’s also true that California — and the rest of the West — needs to change how it manages forests. Ever since the United States took control of the West, people have been putting out fires. Before 1800, California was a pretty smoky place — an estimated 7,000 acres burned every year (1,000 have burned so far this year. This history of fire suppression has left us with a massive backlog of fuels that we will have to deal with … somehow.

California’s fire report, recommended big changes. For starters, the state should flip from its traditional mode of focusing on suppressing fires and shift to using fire as a tool, it said. That would mean burning in a controlled manner, lighting prescribed fires and firing up biomass electricity generation plants. All that would let the government control the air pollution from blazes, allowing someone to plan and space out fires, instead of having raging wildfires bathe the state in smoke all at once.

The commission also suggested that California supply a greater percentage of the wood it uses for everything from paper to houses. The state has strict sustainability rules for logging but ends up importing 80 to 90 percent of its wood from other places that may have “weaker or nonexistent regulations,” the report said.

In short, California has a lot of hard, dirty work to do in its forests to avoid choking Californians with smoke every year. But here’s the rub: The federal government owns nearly 60 percent of the forest in California. And that, as the authors of the report delicately put it, “complicates a state response.” California has already instituted a suite of programs to restore forests, but Trump has yet to take a rake to the land under federal authority.

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline Here’s how California could avoid wildfires (hint: It’s not raking) on Nov 19, 2018.

Wind and solar now beat coal in China and India, and nearly all major economies, while solar and batteries beat new coal and gas plants in Australia, according to BloombergNEF.

The post Unsubsidised wind and solar now cheapest form of bulk energy appeared first on RenewEconomy.

ILLINOIS – Komatsu America announced on Nov. 15 that the FrontRunner autonomous haulage system (AHS) has achieved the unprecedented milestone of more than 2.0 billion tonnes of material moved autonomously.

Since its first commercial deployment in 2008 at Codelco’s Gabriela Mistral (Gaby) copper mine in Chile, the FrontRunner AHS has experienced exponential growth in cumulative production, breaking the 1.0 billion tonnes mark in 2016 and the 1.5 billion tonnes mark in late 2017. This has been accomplished with more than 130 trucks in operation to date. An additional 150 trucks will deploy to the Canadian oil sands over the next seven years.

Working closely with customers, the system’s 10-year zero-harm and productivity record, and unmatched ability to accommodate an array of mining environments has enabled Komatsu to accelerate the pace of AHS deployment. Today’s FrontRunner system operates around the clock – hauling copper, iron and oil sands, at seven sites, across three continents. The FrontRunner system has now hauled more than all other commercial mining autonomous haulage systems combined.

“The ongoing investment in technology and equipment by major mining companies in Chile, Australia and Canada underscores their belief in the value of autonomous haulage,” said Anthony Cook, VP autonomous and communications solutions at Modular Mining Systems, a subsidiary of Komatsu.

Komatsu’s best-in-class approach for FrontRunner AHS brings together the world’s best-selling, ultra-class dump trucks with Modular Mining Systems’ industry leading Dispatch fleet management system, the preferred management system in nine of the 10 largest mining operations in the world. The system enables 100% compliance to its proven optimization methodology, delivering unrivalled performance.

“AHS continues to play an increasingly crucial role in effective mine management as more and more operations transition from manned to unmanned fleets,” said Dan Funcannon, VP/GM, large mining truck division, Komatsu America. “As the demand for autonomous systems grows, Komatsu will continue raising the bar in an effort to help mines provide safer working environments, maximize production, and reduce operating costs.”

Just prior to achieving the autonomous haulage milestone, Komatsu hosted a well received, autonomous haulage demonstration day last month in Tucson, Ariz., showcasing the company’s autonomous haulage and assisted operations solutions. Close to 100 mining professionals, industry journalists, and students from the University of Arizona’s mining engineering program met at Komatsu’s Arizona proving grounds for a series of presentations, tours, and demonstrations, all supporting the event theme: Automating Progress.

To underscore the company’s commitment to progress, Komatsu plans to enhance the AHS’ mixed operation functions, enabling manned trucks of any make to interoperate with Komatsu AHS trucks in a blended operation. Komatsu is also working with industry stakeholders towards standardization of interoperability between Komatsu and non-Komatsu autonomous vehicles, to improve safety and efficiency at customer operations.

Please visit www.KomatsuAmerica.com to view all of Komatsu’s heavy machines.

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Amidst the transition, there is an opportunity to manage the sales of combustion vehicles as they start to give way to electric vehicles in an intentional way to minimize the amount of wasted resources go into the millions of assets produced over the next ten years

NORTHWEST TERRITORIES – Toronto-based Nighthawk Gold completed almost 16,000 metres of drilling this summer at its Colomac gold project 220 km northwest of Yellowknife in the Indin Lake greenstone belt. The company says it continues to intersect broad zones of mineralization with higher grade centres.

This year rather than focus on the northern half of the sill, Nighthawk tested several prospective targets between zones 2.0 and 3.5. The best hole from zone 3.0 was 2.98 g/t gold over 20.1 metres, including 4.30 g/t over 13.3 metres and 9.54 g/t over 5.0 metres.

Zone 2.5 where three holes were drilled returned 51.0 metres of 1.68 g/t gold, including 8.3 metres of 3.17 g/t and 1.8 metres of 9.81 g/t; 26.0 metres of 2.04 g/t gold, including 11.4 metres of 3.00 g/t and 3.3 metres of 6.61 g/t; and 53.0 metres of 1.48 g/t gold, including 20.8 metres of 2.59 g/t and 1.5 metres of 12.03 g/t.

At zone 2.0 three holes assayed as follows: 25.3 metres of 3.42 g/t gold, including 12.8 metres of 5.05 g/t and 7.25 metres of 7.10 g/t; 39.5 metres of 1.54 g/t gold, including 10.5 metres of 3.07 g/t and 2.5 metres of 6.76 g/t; and 15.6 metres of 2.48 g/t gold, including 9.0 metres of 4.00 g/t and 3.75 metres of 8.34 g/t.

Nighthawk concludes that the Colomac property has the potential for more steeply plunging gold zones developing at depth and laterally extensive, shallow high grade mineralization open at depth.

Details of the recent drilling is available in the news release dated Nov. 19, 2018 and posted at www.NighthawkGold.com.

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Community group Lock the Gate Alliance has today called for the NSW Government to refer mining corruption allegations from a whistleblower with the NSW Department of Planning to the Independent Commission Against Corruption.

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Colder weather trends over the weekend and midday helped rally a natural gas futures market attempting to find fair value after last week’s explosive volatility. In the spot market, more cold temperatures in the forecast accompanied big gains in the Northeast, while Northwest Sumas moderated further on signs of constraints easing in British Columbia (BC); the NGI Spot Gas National Avg. picked up 59.0 cents to $4.940/MMBtu.

YUKON – ATAC Resources of Vancouver continues to drill on that part of the Rackla gold project not optioned to Barrick, and has made high grade gold discovery at surface at the Osiris property.

Two rotary air blast (RAB) holes 1,000 metres southwest of the Conrad zone and 800 metres east of the Ibis zone returned 1.5 metres of 3.05 g/t gold and 6.1 metres of 3.39 g/t.

Step-out drilling at the Osiris zone returned 8.6 metres grading 11.72 g/t gold from hole OS-18-275. This is one of the highest grades it has drilled at Osiris, said ATAC. This was the first time gold mineralization was encountered at the contact with crystalline limestone.

Step-out drilling 60 metres along the 650-850 fault corridor at the Conrad zone returned 7.29 metres of 8.90 g/t gold where hole OS-18-278 cut the faulted contact of limestone and siliciclastic units.

The best assay from the five drill holes at the Sunrise zone was 26.7 metres of 12.95 g/t gold.

The Orion project, the central part of the Rackla gold property 55 km northeast of Keno City, is optioned to Barrick Gold. ATAC is active at the Rau project to the west and the Osiris project to the east.

The Rackla property hosts the only known Carlin-style gold deposit in Canada.

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