fracking

By Cole Stangler - Vice, August 29, 2014

Disclaimer: The views expressed here are not the official position of the IWW (or even the IWW’s EUC) and do not necessarily represent the views of anyone but the author’s.

It has become increasingly fashionable in liberal circles to credit President Barack Obama for doing all he possibly can to combat climate change. Praise reached especially dizzying levels in the aftermath of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)’s proposal of new rules to reduce carbon pollution from power plants this June.

The EPA plan is hard proof that our nation’s “environmental president” has “done everything within his power to fight the most urgent crisis of our time,” gushed New York magazine’s Jonathan Chait. Obama’s actions are “about as much as a president could do on climate change without Congress,” declared Slate’s Will Oremus. Even former President Jimmy Carter, never shy about launching the occasional barb at the White House, said as much at a recent energy conference in that most elite of hangouts, Aspen, Colorado.

One is free to bemoan the painfully slow rate of progress, the logic goes, but the blame lies squarely with Republican obstructionism.

The problem is that this is an awfully shortsighted (if not outright deceptive) way to measure Obama’s environmental legacy. It is no secret that major climate legislation—like a carbon tax—is dead on arrival in Congress, thanks to the pack of troglodytes controlling the House of Representatives. But as the president’s detractors and champions know all too well, some pretty significant environmental policy can be made directly by federal agencies. And on that front, the administration’s weak record speaks for itself.

Under Obama’s watch, coal exports have risen more than 50 percent. Federal officials have paved the way for oil and gas exports, too, rubberstamping massive liquefied natural gas export plant proposals and loosening the four-decades-old ban on crude oil exports. Meanwhile, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), which is in charge of administering public land, continues to lease millions of acres to coal companies at below-market rates.

But of the administration’s many climate sins—and there are many—one stands out in particular: ongoing tolerance, and even support, for hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, on public land. No other energy policy seems to so brashly defy climate science, popular will, and rudimentary political wisdom at the same time.

By Ethan Buckner - Forest Ethics, September 12, 2014

Disclaimer: The views expressed here are not the official position of the IWW (or even the IWW’s EUC) and do not necessarily represent the views of anyone but the author’s.

“This would not be something that would be a significant concern to us,” responded Jim Karas, a senior officer at the Bay Area Air Quality Management District (BAAQMD), when asked by a CBS reporter why his agency issued an under-the-table permit allowing   oil trains to roll into a Kinder Morgan railyard in Richmond, CA. . The Kinder Morgan facility receives volatile, dangerous Bakken crude oil on 100-car long trains, offloads that oil onto tanker trucks, and ships the oil to local refineries. Neither BAAQMD nor Kinder Morgan notified any stakeholders or community groups, including the BAAQMD’s board of elected officials - of the permit.

Exploding oil trains are certainly of concern to residents living in Atchison Village, Richmond, CA, a beautiful community just across the street from Kinder Morgan railyard, which did not receive notice about the permit. Teachers and parents at Peres Elementary School, where oil trains now careen next to the playground, weren’t told. And even local organizations like our allies at Communities for a Better Environment and Asian Pacific Environmental Network, were not notified. When a local news station revealed the secret permit, a coalition of community and environmental groups promptly sued the BAAQMD and Kinder Morgan.  The lawsuit was   dismissed by the San Francisco Superior Court Friday, September 5, for being filed too late.

BAAQMD is a public agency thats mission is “to protect and improve public health, air quality, and the global climate” in 9 San Francisco Bay Area counties. The agency’s board has taken extraordinary steps toward following through on its mission, including passing a bold Climate Action Plan that calls for 80% reductions in greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. But BAAQMD’s senior staff seem to have different interests in mind.

By granting the under-the-table permit to Kinder Morgan, BAAQMD’s senior staff is protecting big oil instead of our communities.

By Héctor Agredano Rivera - Socialist Worker, September 9, 2014

Disclaimer: The views expressed here are not the official position of the IWW (or even the IWW’s EUC) and do not necessarily represent the views of anyone but the author’s.

IN MID-August, Mexico's Senate approved several amendments to the country's Constitution that opened the door to the privatization of Mexico's vast energy sector.

The U.S. business and political elite has been pressuring Mexico for energy privatization for years. Building on efforts by Mexico's rulers for decades, President Enrique Peña Nieto and ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) prepared the way for the "reform" with two years of attacks on teachers, social movements and unions.

The new law represents a nail in the coffin for one of the most important social gains of the Mexican Revolution of 1910-17--a constitution that enshrined state ownership of mineral rights. This is a complete surrender of Mexico's energy sovereignty, secured in 1938, when President Lázaro Cárdenas nationalized the oil industry.

The privatization will give way to a speculative frenzy that will only benefit the U.S. government's geostrategic interests, while lining the pockets of global energy corporations and Mexican capitalists alike. Meanwhile, workers will pay the price--both the country's poor and working class as a whole when the energy sector is increasingly opened up to international and domestic private capital, and workers at currently state-run companies.

These fears were the backdrop to last fall's militant strike movement by Mexico teachers. Over a period of 20 years, dozens of unions have been smashed and their members' jobs liquidated due to privatization schemes--including some 40,000 workers in the Mexican Electrical Workers Union (SME) who lost a fight to save the public electrical utility in Mexico City.

By Daniel Simmons Ritchie - Rapid City Journal, September 8, 2014

Disclaimer: The views expressed here are not the official position of the IWW (or even the IWW’s EUC) and do not necessarily represent the views of anyone but the author’s.

By Zig Zag - Warrior Publications, June 22, 2014

Disclaimer: The views expressed here are not the official position of the IWW (or even the IWW’s EUC) and do not necessarily represent the views of anyone but the author’s.

With the federal government’s approval of the Enbridge Northern Gateway pipeline on June 17, 2014, there arose a chorus of angry disapproval from many people in BC. Some talked about waging a “war against Enbridge,” while others proclaimed the beginning of the “battle.” Predictably, the political parties opposed to the Conservative government promised to put a stop to Enbridge, if elected. Those who have worked to oppose Enbridge over the past 5 years renewed their pledges to carry out court cases, referendums, voting campaigns, as well as civil disobedience.

In fact, the “Hold the Wall” campaign initiated by the Yinka Dene Alliance claims that over 22,000 people have pledged to do just that, “using all lawful means.” But what if a court decides its unlawful to “hold the wall”? Those with perhaps the most realistic grasp of the situation have renewed their calls for direct action, if and when necessary, to physically stop the construction of the pipelines.

Clearly there are mixed messages being transmitted.Direct Action

Many people are talking about the necessity for direct action. Direct action is one of those terms used by so many different groups, in so many different ways, that its real meaning has become blurred.

Direct action means taking action to directly stop, delay or disrupt an activity. Here are some basic examples:

• A road block against logging trucks, and which effectively stops logging from occurring, is a form of direct action.
• A protest in a city street against logging is not a form of direct action, unless that protest manages to disrupt the offices of the logging corporation, for example.
• A banner drop is not a form of direct action, unless the banner disrupts or delays some type of activity.
• Standing on the side of a road with picket signs is not direct action, but standing in the road and blocking industrial machinery from reaching its destination is.

By Sydney Baldwin, Ryanne Waters and Katherine Cirullo - Food and Water Watch, August 28, 2014

Disclaimer: The views expressed here are not the official position of the IWW (or even the IWW’s EUC) and do not necessarily represent the views of anyone but the author’s.

Is there a salary worth risking your health or even your life? Big Oil and Gas might think so, but the ex-industry workers with whom we spoke aren’t so convinced.

Today, Food & Water Watch released Toxic Workplace: Fracking Hazards on the Job, a research brief that exposes the dangers of working in the fracking industry. Subject to long hours on the job, sloppy safety regulations and reporting, lack of injury compensation and close contact with hazardous chemicals, former industry laborers agree that the fracking workplace is a toxic one. As we reflect on the social and economic successes of the labor movement over this holiday weekend, it becomes more evident that the fracking industry may have missed the memo.

The practice of hydraulic fracturing involves drilling down to a targeted rock formation and injecting large volumes of water, sand and toxic chemicals at extreme pressure to create fractures in the rock and release tightly held oil and gas. The chemicals used in the fracking process can cause cancer and damage the nervous system, immune and cardiovascular systems and upset the endocrine system.

At the site, workers can be exposed to volatile organic compounds, including benzene and toluene, as well as fugitive methane, which are often released during fracking and can mix with nitrogen oxide emissions from diesel-fueled vehicles and stationary equipment to form ground-level ozone. Workers can also be exposed to silica sand, which is often used in the fracking process, and is a known human carcinogen. Long term exposure to silica, a component that makes up as much as 99 percent of frac sand, increases the likelihood of developing silicosis, which damages lung tissue and inhibits lungs function. Breathing it can make a person more susceptible to tuberculosis and is also associated with autoimmune disorders and kidney disease.

By staff - Food and Water Watch, September 2014

The term “fracking” has come to mean far more than just the specific process of hydraulic fracturing, when companies inject large volumes of fracking fluid composed of water, sand and chemicals deep underground, at extreme pressure, to create fractures in targeted rock formations to bring oil and gas to the surface.

Today, the term “fracking” represents the host of problems that this dangerous process entails. This report details evidence on the many reasons why fracking is unsafe and should be banned, including:

• Fracking water contamination destroys families’ drinking water. Pollution from fracking chemicals contaminates drinking water and puts peoples’ health at risk.
• Fracking produces massive volumes of toxic and radioactive waste. The disposal of this waste is causing earthquakes and putting drinking water resources at risk.
• Fracking pumps hazardous pollutants into the air. Fracking uses over 100 dangerous chemicals known to cause life-threatening illnesses, including cancer.
• Fracking destabilizes the climate. Fracking wells release large amounts of methane gas, which is known to trap 87 times more heat than carbon dioxide in the atmosphere in the decades after it is emitted, contributing greatly to climate change.
• Fracking disrupts local communities. Fracking presents a broad number of consequences for people living in areas where it is occurring, including damage to public roads, declines in property value, increased crime and an increased demand on emergency services.
• Fracking causes thousands of accidents, leaks and spills. More than 7,500 accidents related to fracking occurred in 2013, negatively impacting water quality in rivers, streams and shallow aquifers.

Read the report (PDF).