Friday, August 14, 2015

‘Do no harm’: Medical professionals urge Wellcome Trust to end fossil fuel investments

Dear members of the Wellcome Trust executive board,
We write as concerned health professionals and academics in relation to the Guardian’s Keep it in the ground campaign calling on the Wellcome Trust and Gates Foundation to divest from the world’s 200 largest fossil fuel companies over the next five years.
The Wellcome Trust is an outstanding philanthropic institution whose work has a profound impact on the health and wellbeing of millions worldwide. We congratulate the Trust on its leadership in promoting and funding research into the impacts of climate change, and hope that this work will continue to grow in line with the urgent threat to human health and survival. However, we were disappointed to learn of the Trust’s decision to continue to invest in fossil fuel companies.
It is uncontested that the majority of carbon reserves listed on stock exchanges must remain underground if we are to avoid exceeding a 2C rise in global mean temperature and the catastrophic health impacts this would have. Our current business-as-usual trajectory commits us to over 2C warming – a point scientists have described as the threshold between “dangerous”and “extremely dangerous” – within decades.
As the Trust acknowledges, avoiding this scenario demands an urgent transition towards clean energy. Its view, as set forth by Professor Jeremy Farrar, is that engagement with fossil fuel companies’ boards is a more effective way to support such a transition than divestment. However, there is little or no evidence to suggest that this approach holds a realistic prospect of reducing global fossil fuel production sufficiently in the limited time available.
We believe a complete transformation of the energy sector is needed, driven by strong climate policies, and that divestment has greater potential to bring this about. The ethical and financial case for fossil fuel divestment is well founded and has been supported by the president of the World Bank and the director-general of the World Health Organisation (WHO), both public health physicians. Through the political change it has helped catalyse, the same strategy played a vital role in the movements against apartheid and tobacco. As such, we welcome the statement that the Trust would consider this step if engagement proves ineffective.
Our primary concern is that a decision not to divest will continue to bolster the social licence of an industry that has indicated no intention of taking meaningful action. Indeed, many of these companies continue to use their considerable influence to delay political action, as tobacco companies have done previously. Shell’s lobbying against binding EU renewables targets and its decision to drill for Arctic oil, which cannot safely be burned, give additional cause for alarm. Further, having a financial interest in the extraction of “unburnable” reserves may restrict organisations’ capacity to advocate effectively for the policy framework that is needed.
Lastly, divestment rests on the premise that it is wrong to profit from an industry whose core business threatens human and planetary health, bringing to mind one of the foundations of medical ethics – first, do no harm. We believe that, in aligning organisations’ investments with their aims and values, it goes beyond a “grand gesture”. The question is not only one of direct, short-term impacts, but of leadership. Health organisations such as the Wellcome Trust have considerable moral and scientific authority, and a decision to divest has the potential to influence policy-makers, other investors and the public, in the UK and internationally.
We thank the Trust for its openness to dialogue and its commitment to transparency, and request that you make public what, specifically, the Trust aims to achieve through shareholder engagement, and by when. We would particularly like to know at what point Trust will divest should these aims not be met, whether on a company-by-company or sector-wide basis.
Yours sincerely,
The undersigned: signed by almost 1,000 global health professionals. Full list here.

Thursday, August 13, 2015

Spokane sues Monsanto over Spokane River contamination

The city of Spokane is suing the international agrochemical giant Monsanto, which it blames for pollution in the Spokane River.

Read the story here.

Thursday, August 6, 2015

A little older - but still newsworthy: Tracks reopen after second Montana train derailment

 on Jul 18, 2015 
CULBERTSON, Mont. – Railroad tracks have reopened in northeast Montana as crews continue removing wreckage from a crude oil train derailment.


Watch a video of the accident site and read the entire story here.

This went down quite lucky but it shows how unsafe oil transports are. The track records of trucks are not much better - and pipelines have their own risks and issues.
Again this all just shows that is time to phase out fossil fuels and intensify the use of clean renewable energy from wind, sun and hydro...




Wednesday, August 5, 2015

The Big-Ag-Fueled Algae Bloom That Won't Leave Toledo's Water Supply Alone

The Big-Ag-Fueled Algae Bloom That Won't Leave Toledo's Water Supply Alone

| Wed Aug. 5, 2015 6:05 AM EDT

A vast Lake Erie algae bloom returns, captured by a NASA satelite on July 28. 

The citizens of Toledo, Ohio, have embarked upon their new summer ritual: stocking up on bottled water. For the second straight year, an enormous algae bloom has settled upon Lake Erie, generating nasty toxins right where the city of 400,000 draws its tap water. Read the entire story here.



Monday, August 3, 2015

Group starts process to sue US agency over pipeline plans

Group starts process to sue US agency over pipeline plans

Sunday, August 2, 2015

More Details about the Procedures Involved in EPA vs. Savoy

Natalie M. Topinka
Environmental Scientist
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Region 5 Air Enforcement and
Compliance Assurance Branch
77 West Jackson Boulevard (AE-17J)
Chicago, IL 60604
ph: (312) 886-3853
fax: (312) 692-2410
email: topinka.natalie@epa.gov

To clarify, enforcement settlements, including the full settlement documents which describe the terms of the settlement and amount of penalty assessed, are public records. There is not even a need to send a Freedom of Information Act request for these documents because they will be published on EPA's Region 5 enforcement website when they are finalized. However, it is the discussions which lead to the settlement that are confidential, as is the case with any legal dispute between two parties.

Regarding the penalty, EPA does not have the authority under the Clean Air Act to designate a recipient of the penalty dollars. However, in some cases, a company may voluntarily choose to mitigate a portion of the penalty by performing a Supplemental Environmental Project (SEP), which EPA encourages to be performed in the community of the violating facility. In this way, the settlement of a Clean Air Act violation may be able to achieve additional environmental benefits (above and beyond correction of the original violation). A SEP must meet specific criteria according to the SEP policy approved by Congress, and EPA cannot require a company to perform a SEP as part of a settlement. See this link for more information about SEPs:  http://www2.epa.gov/enforcement/supplemental-environmental-projects-seps

Protecting the environment is everyone's responsibility.  Help EPA
fight pollution by reporting possible harmful environmental activity.
To do so, visit EPA's website at
http://www.epa.gov/compliance/complaints/index.html

Friday, July 24, 2015

What's Killing the Babies of Vernal, Utah?

A fracking boomtown, a spike in stillborn deaths and a gusher of unanswered questions

BY  Rolling Stone
Every night, Donna Young goes to bed with her pistol, a .45 Taurus Judge with laser attachment. Last fall, she says, someone stole onto her ranch to poison her livestock, or tried to; happily, her son found the d-CON wrapper and dumped all the feed from the troughs. Strangers phoned the house to wish her dead or run out of town on a rail. Local nurses and doctors went them one better, she says, warning pregnant women that Young's incompetence had killed babies and would surely kill theirs too, if given the chance.
"Before they started spreading their cheer about me, I usually had 18 to 25 clients a year, and a spotless reputation in the state," says Young, the primary midwife to service Vernal, Utah, a boom-and-bust town of 10,000 people in the heart of the fracked-gas gold rush of the Uintah Basin. A hundred and fifty miles of sparse blacktop east of Salt Lake City, Vernal has the feel of a slapdash suburb dropped randomly from outer space. Half of it is new and garishly built, the paint barely dry after a decade-long run of fresh-drilled wells and full employment. "Now, I'm down to four or five ladies, and don't know how I'll be able to feed my animals if things don't turn around quick."
Read the whole story here.