AlterNet.org: Water

Fracking Is Already Straining U.S. Water Supplies

Tom Kentworthy, Think Progress — Sat, 15 Jun 2013 20:38:00 -0700

Some of America's most intensive oil and gas development is occurring in drought-prone regions where water is scarce.

As the level of hydraulic fracturing of oil and gas wells in the United States has intensified in recent years, much of the mounting public concern has centered on fears that underground water supplies could be contaminated with the toxic chemicals used in the well-stimulation technique that cracks rock formations and releases trapped oil and gas. But in some parts of the country, worries are also growing about fracking’s effect on water supply, as the water-intensive process stirs competition for the resources already stretched thin by drought or other factors.

Every fracking job requires 2 million to 4 million gallons of water, according to the Groundwater Protection Council. The Environmental Protection Agency, or EPA, has estimated that the 35,000 oil and gas wells used for fracking consume between 70 billion and 140 billion gallons of water each year. That’s about equal, EPA says, to the water use in 40 to 80 cities with populations of 50,000 people, or one to two cities with a population of 2.5 million each.

Some of the most intensive oil and gas development in the nation is occurring in regions where water is already at a premium. A paper published last month by Ceres, a nonprofit that works on sustainability issues, looked at 25,000 shale oil and shale gas wells in operation and monitored by an industry-tied reporting website called FracFocus.

Ceres found that 47 percent of these wells were in areas “with high or extremely high water stress” because of large withdrawals for use by industry, agriculture, and municipalities. In Colorado, for example, 92 percent of the wells were in extremely high water-stress areas, and in Texas more than half were in high or extremely high water-stress areas.

“Given projected sharp increases in production in the coming years and the potentially intense nature of local water demands, competition and conflicts over water should be a growing concern for companies, policymakers and investors,” the Ceres report concluded. It goes on to say that:

Prolonged drought conditions in many parts of Texas and Colorado last summer created increased competition and conflict between farmers, communities and energy developers, which is only likely to continue. … Even in wetter regions of the northeast United States, dozens of water permits granted to operators had to be withdrawn last summer due to low levels in environmentally vulnerable headwater streams.

Another recent study by the University of Texas looked at past and projected water use for fracking in the Barnett, Eagle Ford, and Haynesville shale plays in Texas, and found that fracking in 2011 was using more than twice as much water in the state as it was three years earlier. In Dimmit County, home to the Eagle Ford shale development in South Texas, fracking accounted for nearly a quarter of overall water consumption in 2011 and is expected to grow to a third in a few years, according to the study.

Moreover, an April report by the Western Organization of Resource Councils found that fracking is using 7 billion gallons of water a year in four western states: Wyoming, Colorado, Montana, and North Dakota. “Fracking’s growing demand for water can threaten availability of water for agriculture and western rural communities,” said Bob Leresche, a Wyoming resident and board member of the group.

The national oil and gas trade association, American Petroleum Institute, correctly notes that the “industry’s water use is small when compared to other industrial and recreational activities.” But even though hydraulic fracturing usually accounts for just 1 percent or 2 percent of states’ overall water use, the Ceres study notes that “it can be much higher at the local level, increasing competition for scarce supplies.”

New ways to frack

Not surprisingly, the oil and gas industry, along with companies drawn by the opportunity to profit from a better way to frack, are all seeking ways to reduce and even eliminate fracking’s thirst.

A new company in Texas, Alpha Reclaim Technology, sees using treated wastewater from municipal sewage-treatment plants as part of the answer. Founded in 2011, the company has signed up cities to provide about 21 million gallons of treated wastewater a day and is negotiating with oil and gas exploration and production companies to make the switch in the Eagle Ford shale play.

With regard to water use and fracking, Jeremy Osborne, the company’s vice president and general counsel, says, “We are really in a collision course here in Texas”—a course he says is accelerated by drought and population growth.

But Jillian Ryan, Alpha Reclaim Technology’s vice president for government affairs, said changing longstanding practices in the oil and gas industry can be a challenge. While the industry talks a good game about conserving water, Ryan says, “We can have a hard time getting oil and gas companies to live up to what they are talking about. Nobody wants to change. It’s easier to drill a water well where they are drilling [for oil and gas].”

Another player in this oil and gas niche is GASFRAC Energy Services, a Canadian company that says it has successfully fracked about 2,000 wells using liquid propane gas in place of water. Most of these wells are in Canada, but about 100 of them are in Texas.

Environmentalists and fracking critics, however, are alarmed at the thought of fracking with propane. Prompted by the possibility that GASFRAC would be employed in New York state and could evade a state moratorium on fracking by using propane instead of water, environmental groups, including the Sierra Club and the Natural Resources Defense Council, protested to the commissioner of the state’s Department of Environmental Conservation. Similar to water-based fracking, the groups said, fracking with propane also requires “the addition of toxic chemicals.” Because GASFRAC’s method is proprietary, the groups said in their letter that “there is little publicly-available information on the process” and the exact chemicals it uses.

Propane is also very flammable, and in two cases in Alberta in 2011, fires broke out during GASFRAC fracking operations, injuring a total of 15 workers.

Cornell University engineering professor Anthony Ingraffea is among those who are very skeptical of fracking in shale formations with propane and other alternatives to water. Ingraffea has been studying fracturing since doing research for his doctorate in the 1970s. He finds that even modern fracking practices, using millions of gallons of water per well to yield what he says is just 10 percent to 15 percent of oil and gas out, are “very inefficient and inelegant.”

Using propane or a propane-butane combination, Ingraffea says, has a positive side in that it eliminates a key problem with water-based fracking: the disposal of vast quantities of flowback water that returns to the surface after fracking is completed and is often contaminated with things such as salts and radioactivity.

But, he added, no one has yet clearly demonstrated that fracking with propane or some of the other alternatives—such as using a nitrogen or carbon dioxide gel—can compete on economics with water. Propane, he said, “is expensive and nobody really knows how much it takes to develop a typical shale gas well with a lateral that is a mile or two long.”

Oil and gas service companies such as Halliburton and Schlumberger have thrown a lot of money and bright minds at seeking efficiencies over many years, said Ingraffea, and if there was a “silver bullet you would think those companies would have hit it very hard.”

As the Ceres report concludes:

Shale energy development highlights the fact that our water resources were already vulnerable before additional demands were introduced. Regulators, water managers and ultimately all significant economic players who rely on abundant supplies of water must double-down their efforts to better manage this limited and most precious resource.

Police Trained to Treat Keystone XL Protesters as 'Terrorists' (View TransCanada's PowerPoints)

Alyssa Figueroa, AlterNet — Thu, 13 Jun 2013 10:00:00 -0700

Peaceful environmental protesters framed as criminals? Guess who’s scared of people power…

It’s often difficult to gauge just how much fear activists instill in the powers that be. But on Wednesday, environmental activists protesting the Keystone XL pipeline saw firsthand how much TransCanada, the corporation in charge of the pipeline, is shaking in its boots.

Bold Nebraska, a grassroots landowner advocacy group, obtained TransCanada's presentation slides (below) via a Freedom of Information Act request to the Nebraska State Patrol. These slides revealed that TransCanada provided training to both federal and local police forces on how to crack down on environmental activists, even going so far as to train them to arrest the activists under anti-terrorism statutes.

Lauren Regan, legal coordinator for Tar Sands Blockade and executive director of the Civil Liberties Defense Center said, “This is clear evidence of the collusion between TransCanada and the federal government assisting local police to unlawfully monitor and harass political protestors.”

According to a 350.org press release the slides were presented last month in Nebraska, althought they date back to December, 2012. They specifically call out Occupy Pipe, Occupy Houston, STOP, Rainforest Action Network and Tar Sands Blockade in their presentations, which create an overall narrative that the activists are criminals and terrorists who need to be stopped.

One slide even has photos and descriptions of the “professional organizers” in a “most wanted” fashion:

Scott Parkin, an organizer at Rising Tide North America and campaigner at the Rainforest Action Network, who was listed on this slide, told AlterNet: “It’s pretty appalling. … They want to paint us as terrorists and make people scared of us.”

To the contrary, Parkin said, the activists—some of whom are grandparents— are not a bunch of crooks working underground. They are very upfront about their goals and work withlandowners.

The slides describe the movement as “lead by professionals and organized.” They report that Tar Sands Blockade “appears to be well-funded” by “Large and small donation from individuals.” Under a slide titled, “Protestor Tactics,” TransCanada states the activists “suddenly show up, driving to the entrance of site. Could be five or fifteen or more in several vehicles.”

Under a slide titled “Protestor Motivations,” TransCanada implies that these activists are just protesting because that’s what they do. One bullet point simply quotes an activist saying: “I have been an activist for fifty years. I am seventy,” obviously side-stepping the activist’s true motivations for wanting to stop the Keystone XL pipeline.

Further slides list the activists’ “criminal activity,” to which Tar Sands Blockade responded on their site:

Although TransCanada’s presentation to authorities contains information about property destruction, sabotage, and booby traps, police in Texas and Oklahoma have never alleged, accused, or charged Tar Sands Blockade activists of any such behaviors. Since August 2012, Tar Sands Blockade has carried out dozens of successful nonviolent direct actions to physically halt construction of the Keystone XL pipeline in Texas and Oklahoma. All of these acts, as well as every pipeline protest in Nebraska, have maintained strict commitments to nonviolence.

Another slide lists all of the laws the activists can supposedly be found violating, and a presentation suggests that the activists are planning “terrorist acts,” and can thus be charged via anti-terrorism statutes:

According to the presentation, there are eight signs of terrorism, including “surveillance,” “suspicious persons” and “terrorism funding.”

Ron Seifert, a spokesperson for Tar Sands Blockade who was pictured in the slideshow said: “Try as TransCanada might to slander Tar Sands Blockade and our growing grassroots movement, we know who the real criminals are. … The real criminals are those profiting from this deadly tar sands pipeline by endangering families living along the route and pumping illegal levels of air toxins into fence-line communities.”

In some ways, TransCanada’s presentations are a testament to the strength and significance of the activists' resistance. It’s evident that the corporate powers are frightened by the power of the people. After all, TransCanada saw these activists and their common, non-violent protest tactics as a threat. For instance, under slides titled “Incident History,” TransCanada lists “protest/demonstrations,” “photography,” “social media organization,” “banners, signs” and other tactics as threatening to their pipeline. And under a slide titled "Potential Security Concerns," TransCanada lists the various activism and media attention surrounding their projects:

“Most of the people I’ve talked to are very much like, ‘Right on!’ ‘This is a badge of honor’ or that sort of thing,” Parkin told AlterNet.

He added that he still feels troubled by the misinformation in TransCanada's presentations:

“I actually find it a little disturbing to know that if I went to Nebraska or around some of these sites or an activist camp or an event or something like that, that law enforcement can just come up and just grab me based on what they’ve seen in these slideshows.”

Fortunately, the grassroots resistance to the Keystone XL pipeline continues to grow. TransCanada is currently digging up defective segments of the new pipeline that failed inspections, and it has been reported that there are at least 40 “anomalies” along the 60-mile stretch of the line in East Texas.

Parkin said that ultimately the presentations reveal their grassroots movement is working.

“I think it shows that it’s really effective, and it’s only getting bigger,” he said.

The following are TransCanada's presentations:

TransCanada Presentation on Security to Local Law Enforcement (Part 1 of 3)

TransCanada Presentation on Security to Local Law Enforcement (Part 2 of 3)

TransCanada Presentation on Security to Local Law Enforcement (Part 3 of 3)

TransCanada Potential Penal Code Charges for Illegal Protest Action Presentation

Nebraska Information Analysis Center meeting on Keystone XL pipeline

TransCanada presentation to FBI on pipeline projects

Can Utah's Beautiful Wildlands Survive an Energy Grab?

Tara Lohan, AlterNet — Wed, 12 Jun 2013 07:11:00 -0700

A town known for its astounding natural beauty is in the cross hairs of energy developers.

Editor’s Note: Tara Lohan is traveling across North America documenting communities impacted by energy development for a new AlterNet project, Hitting Home. You can follow the trip on Facebook or follow Tara on Twitter.

Utah always blows my mind — the red rocks, the canyons, the rivers, the mountains and ... the love of industry, the dirtier the better.

The first stop on our Hitting Home tour was Moab, Utah — a town surrounded by the gorgeous Arches National Park, Canyonlands National Park, Fisher Towers, Dead Horse State Park, and tons of “undesignated” wildlands of astounding beauty.

In town we also saw a tailings pile of uranium mining waste; talked with local residents concerned about impacts from a new plan to fly helicopter tours over the area; we trekked up into the Book Cliffs outside of Moab and saw a test mine for what may be the first U.S. tar sands mine; we saw oil pumpers adjacent to national parks and gas being flared from towers along breathtaking ridges; and we met people who were fighting to protect their land, and the local watershed, from encroaching drilling operations.

In Nearby Dutch Flats, a company is accepting wastewater from fracking operations across the Colorado border, and neighboring Green River has plans for a nuclear power plant and perhaps also a refinery that could process the tar sands coming down from the Book Cliffs.

Utah has always been friendly to energy development — and it has also always been a haven for those who enjoy wild places and wildlife. It’s unclear how long those two value sets can coexist as energy development grows and natural resources like water and clean air grow scarcer.

Stay tuned for a story about tars sand and oil shale development in Utah.

Grand Canyon Threatened by Uranium Mining

Sierra Club — Fri, 07 Jun 2013 13:59:00 -0700

Here's what is at stake and what you can do to protect the Grand Canyon.

Editor's Note: View a slideshow from Post Carbon Institute with photos by Ecoflight to see the threatened land and take action.

The U.S. Forest Service has decided to allow Energy Fuels Resources, Inc. to begin operating a uranium mine near Grand Canyon National Park. The Canyon Mine, located on the Kaibab National Forest six miles south of the park, threatens cultural values, wildlife and endangered species, and increases the risk of soil pollution and pollution and depletion of groundwater feeding springs and wells in and near Grand Canyon.

The mine was originally approved in 1986 and was the subject of protests and lawsuits by the Havasupai tribe and others objecting to potential uranium mining impacts on regional groundwater, springs, creeks, ecosystems and cultural values associated with Red Butte, a Traditional Cultural Property.

Mines that were closed nearly three decades ago continue to pollute streams in the area. The Orphan Mine at the South Rim of Grand Canyon closed in 1969 but still contaminates Horn Creek with radioactive runoff. Recently, the National Park Service began a clean-up effort for that mine that will cost taxpayers millions.

The Canyon Mine falls within the one-million-acre “mineral withdrawal” approved by the Obama administration in January 2012 to protect Grand Canyon’s watershed from new uranium mining impacts. The withdrawal prohibits new mining claims and mine development on old claims lacking “valid existing rights” to mine. In April 2012, the Forest Service determined that there were “valid existing rights” for the Canyon mine, and in June it issued a report trying to explain its decision to allow the mine to open without updating the 27-year-old environmental review. The Havasupai tribe and three conservation groups are challenging this.

Please speak up against the mine and support protectionof Grand Canyon and its watershed.

Click the slideshow below to see what's at stake and take action to protect the Grand Canyon.

Click the thumbnails to see the slideshow and take action (photos by Ecoflight)

Pro-Fracking Greens Called Out in Ecologist Sandra Steingraber's New Manifesto

Jeff Biggers, YES! Magazine — Fri, 07 Jun 2013 08:05:00 -0700

In a statement, ecologist Sandra Steingraber denounced Illinois’ new fracking regulations and described the need for a movement dedicated to abolishing fracking nationwide.

A new salvo has been fired in the national battle against fracking.

Within hours of the Illinois General Assembly's vote on its controversial bill on hydraulic fracking last Friday night, the AP's headline rippled across nationwide newspapers: "Illinois lawmakers approve nation's toughest fracking regulations."

With New York readying to rescind or keep in place that state's temporary moratorium, and high stakes battles taking place across the nation about whether to regulate fracking or place moratoriums on it, Steingraber and a network of citizen groups have viewed Illinois as the staging ground for a fracking rush that will have an extraordinary ripple effect. Not so fast, says Dr. Sandra Steingraber, the renowned scientist whom Rolling Stone has called the " toxic avenger." She returned to her native Illinois last week to join a growing citizens uprising against gas drilling and sand mining operations she defines as "an accident-prone, inherently dangerous industrial process with risks that include catastrophic and irremediable damage to our health and environment."

Once hailed by the Sierra Club as the "new Rachel Carson," Steingraber denounced Illinois’ bill as "the result of closed-door negotiations between industry representatives and compromise-oriented environmental organizations." She testified in front of a last minute committee hearing of the Illinois House of Representatives, protested with sit-in activists, met with bill negotiators, and was even tossed out of the Illinois General Assembly for speaking out (see video at the bottom of this article).

With Gov. Pat Quinn's signature imminent, Business Insider gushed that Illinois “could become the epicenter of America's next oil boom."

Not under their watch, says Steingraber and the Illinois anti-fracking shock troops.

Issuing a "Fracking Manifesto," she has thrown down the gauntlet on Illinois' regulatory fallout as a cautionary tale for citizens groups, environmental organizations and frackers across the nation.

"We call for a mobilization that brings fracking realities to the rest of the nation," the manifesto declares. "If our elected officials refuse to visit the fracking fields, then we will bring the fracking fields to them—in the form of science, stories, photographs, film, lectures, hearings, and journalism. If elected officials refuse to defend our land, water, air, and health against those who would despoil them for their own profit, then we will do it ourselves, using peaceful, non-violent methods."

The full document is below.

A Fracking Manifesto

from Sandra Steingraber and the people of Illinois to the nation

We know that high-volume horizontal hydraulic fracking, or HVHF, is an accident-prone, inherently dangerous industrial process with risks that include catastrophic and irremediable damage to our health and environment.

We know that HVHF and its attendant technologies:

contribute to groundwater contamination, including 219 cases in Pennsylvania alone;
turn massive amounts of fresh, drinkable water into massive amounts of briny, poisonous flowback fluid for which there is no failsafe disposal solution;
vent hazardous air pollutants that are associated with cancer, asthma, heart attack, stroke, and preterm birth;
release radioactive substances—including radon, which is the number two cause of lung cancer—and benzene, which is a proven cause of leukemia—from deep geological strata;
fragment forests in ways that decimate birds and wildlife, sabotage natural flood control systems, and pour sediment into rivers and streams;
industrialize communities in ways that vastly increase truck traffic, noise pollution, light pollution, stress, crime, and the need for emergency services;
offer jobs that are dangerous, toxic, and temporary, with a fatality rate seven times that of other industries; and
leak prodigious amounts of methane, a potent heat-trapping gas.

We know these problems cannot be prevented by any set of rules or government office, let alone state agencies like those in Illinois, which have been cut to the bone by budget cuts and cannot be counted on for regulatory enforcement.

We have heard the warnings of our brothers and sisters living in the gas fields of Pennsylvania and Ohio, whose children, pets, and livestock are sick, whose property values are ruined, whose water is undrinkable.

We have heard the pleas of our neighbors in Wisconsin, Iowa, and Minnesota, where strip-mining for “ frac sand” has devastated communities, destroyed landscapes, and filled the air with carcinogenic silica dust. We are aware that our own beloved Starved Rock State Park is already threatened by industrial mining of silica sand used for fracking operations and that the pressure to strip-mine Illinois for sand will only increase with every well that is drilled and fracked.

We assert that fracking is a moral crisis. In a time of climate emergency, it is wrong to further deepen our dependency on fossil fuels. In a state such as Illinois, where chronic drought and water shortages are already forecast for our children’s future, it is wrong to destroy fresh water resources in order to bring new sources of climate-killing gas and oil out of the ground.

We reject the legitimacy of Illinois’ fracking regulatory bill, which was the result of closed-door negotiations between industry representatives and compromise-oriented environmental organizations. Responsible only to their funders and their members, these environmental groups do not represent us nor are they empowered to negotiate on our behalf. We consider the fracking regulatory bill to be a subversion of both science and democracy. Throughout its creation, no comprehensive health study or environmental impact study was ever commissioned. No public hearings or public comment periods ever took place. And yet it is the public that is being compelled to live with the risks sanctioned by this bill. It is an unjust law.

Knowing that our own government has abdicated its responsibility to protect the safety and well-being of the citizenry, knowing that no one is coming to save us, we declare our intent to save ourselves from the ravages of shale gas and oil extraction via HVHF. We declare our intent to join together in a fracking abolitionist movement.

As such, no longer shall national environmental organizations based far from impacted realities make decisions that will have life-changing impacts on the people living in impacted zones. We will call out organizations that betray core values and integrity. We will openly inform their membership and their funders and reveal the truth of where they stand and at whose expense.

We call for a mobilization that brings fracking realities to the rest of the nation. If our elected officials refuse to visit the fracking fields, then we will bring the fracking fields to them—in the form of science, stories, photographs, film, lectures, hearings, and journalism. If elected officials refuse to defend our land, water, air, and health against those who would despoil them for their own profit, then we will do it ourselves, using peaceful, nonviolent methods.

We hereby commit ourselves to building a powerful movement that will protect Illinois’ children—and safeguard the living ecosystem on which their lives depend—for generations to come. In short, we declare our intent to take the future into our hands. And that future is unfractured.

Sign on and join our movement.

Dr. Sandra Steingraber

Springfield, Illinois

Jeff Biggers wrote this article and shot these videos for YES! Magazine, a national, nonprofit media organization that fuses powerful ideas and practical actions. Winner of the David R. Brower Award for Environmental Reporting, Jeff is the author of Reckoning at Eagle Creek: The Secret Legacy of Coal in the Heartland, among other books. His website is www.jeffbiggers.com.

Beyond Protest: First Nations Community Seeks Alternatives to Tar Sands Destruction

Clayton Thomas-Muller, AlterNet — Thu, 06 Jun 2013 10:01:00 -0700

If the destruction isn't stopped in Alberta, we will be locked into a never-ending series of pipeline and refinery fights across the continent.

A couple years ago I was asked by theKeepers of the Athabasca to be the Master of Ceremonies for a very different kind of event. It took place in the region of the most controversial energy project on earth, the Canadian tar sands. The idea was not to have a protest, but instead to engage in a meaningful ceremonial action to pray for the healing of Mother Earth, which has been so damaged by the tar sands industry. Community members of the five First Nations of the Athabasca region and the town of Fort McMurray, tired of the consistent negativity and never ending fight with big oil and government, had made a conscientious choice to find another source of power in the struggle to protect their way of life. This was done by turning to ceremony and asking through prayer and the physical act of walking on the earth so that the hearts of those harming her (Mother Earth) through extreme energy extraction could be healed.

My journey started in to Fort McMurray, Alberta, also known as tar sands boom town. Many have described this place as the land of milk and honey, a place were you can trade five years of your life (and soul) and be financially “set up.” I met with a motley crew of activists, sovereigntists, elders and youth from Fort Chipewyan, Fort McKay, Anzac and the metro-areas of Calgary and Edmonton, as well as some allies who had traveled from as far as British Columbia, and beyond.

The plan was to take vehicles to the beginning of the infamous Highway 63 ring through the tar sands. This 60km stretch of road has gained a notorious reputation of being the highway of death, due to the tremendous amount of people who have died in horrific auto accidents inrecent years. It is always busy with peak traffic rivalling that of downtown New York, the traffic gets especially heavy during two daily shift changes. Then, our plan was to pray, make offerings to the four directions and walk through the heart of tar sands development as concerned Elders, parents, youth and grandchildren.

Healing Walk PSA: First Nations communities are being poisoned by the out of control growth of the tar sands. Please stand with these communities - ask Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver & Premier Alison Redford to accept the invitation to the tar sands Healing Walk. This video is made of scenes from the film "Occupy Love" directed by Velcrow Ripper. Music in these scenes by Christen Lien and Zoe Keating. Learn more at http://www.occupylove.org

Highway 63 is the only road to Fort McKay Cree Nation, one of Canada's most polluted, yet richest First Nations, where water needs to be trucked in daily to meet the communities needs. The 63 loops past vast human made deserts in the form of tailings ponds wet and dry, and then past an archaic Suncor/Petro-Canada facility with black carbon stained cracking towers, belching hellfire into the morning sky. The highway finally meets the junction to get to Fort McKay and continues onward past the industrial metropolis that is Syncrude, Canada's largest tar sands operator, operated laregly by Exxon Oil .The Syncrude site is like something straight out of a science fiction movie.

From the road, you can see glimmering stainless steel cracking towers, which separate bitumen into synthetic oil, a massive tank farm, lego-like worker sleeping facilities stacked upon one another, and half-built pyramids of sulfur (a waste by-product of the bitumen upgrading process) being built toward the sky like two biblical towers of Babel. Then comes the last major and probably most absurd element of insanity on the Highway 63 loop: the buffalo demonstration project and reclamation site.

Yeah, you heard right. Some executive from Syncrude got it into their head that having live buffalo, living under the stacks of their tar sands upgrader would be a good thing for the image of the tar sands industry. A herd of the most symbolic animals of our native heritage is subject to a slow poisonous death, its members grazing in toxic fields with an apocalyptic backdrop of tailings ponds and smoke stacks billowing white clouds of toxic death overhead.

But the absurdity doesn’t end there. The 15km loop end around this tarmageddon ends with the buffalo demonstration site, connected by a short access road to where our walk began. A few years back, some of these poor beasts were culled and distributed to elders in local First Nations. The communities were rightfully paranoid about the toxicity of the meat. Instead of eating it, they had it sent away and tested. The tests came back showing that the meat was poisoned with heavy metals and other toxic compounds, which was present in concentrations hundreds of times above what is deemed acceptable for human consumption.

During our preparations for the walk there were many fears discussed about the risks involved in exposing our community to the highly contaminated and dangerous environment. Walkers were also scared that police would arrest our small group for conducting the walk and the associated ceremony. Another fear was of the tar sands workers whizzing past us at 100 km an houror more , driving dozens of semis & pick-up trucks, as well as the infamous tar sands dump trucks, which are so large they look like a Canadian three story suburban home on wheels. Before we departed, we asked ourselves “are we were putting ourselves in danger?”

With these very real fears in our minds, we chose to listen instead to our hearts and to allow ourselves to be lead by local First Nations elders into the tar sands Highway 63 loop. What I saw on the walk generated a sick feeling in my heart that was so twisted I feel like I cannot articulate it. But I can try.

The landscape was unlike anything I had ever seen before. Taking the time to walk through what I have described was life changing. I walked past a tailings pond so big you that it covers the horizon for miles to see a 24 inch pipe coming from Syncrude spewing a meters high flow of liquid hydro-carbon waste so toxic thatwater fowl who land in it diewithin minutes. We saw from ground level and up close, the hellfires of the Suncor/Petro-Canada stacks with their 50 foot flames shooting up into the sky, day and night. Their proximity to the Athabasca river made me wonder what madness allowed Suncor to build them 500 meters away from the precious river that so many First Nations, Metis and Inuit communities depend on for water?

As we walked that first time, I pondered all of the battlefields that the emerging international movement to stop the tar sands its associated infrastructure of pipelines, refineries and shipping lanes is engaged with. I was overcome by the magnitude of our undertaking, picking a fight with the most inhumane and most richest richest corporations on the planet, big oil and their lobby. Over that day, as I put one foot in front of the other, I came to realize that if we did not focus our best efforts on stopping the emergence of the era of extreme energy that this wasteland represented here in Athabasca, we would be locked into a series of never ending pipelines shipping lane and refinery fights across the continent.

No, I thought, that cannot work. This beast must be smothered to death at the source.

At the beginning of the day, before the walk started, there was an argument about the right way to do the ceremony. What I know is that a bear showed itself to us at the start of our walk and that it carried with it the teachings of courage and protection. Later, an eagle flew over us and it represented the teaching of truth and unconditional love. While we walked, we made offerings of tobacco and water on four strategic points along Highway 63.

Those offerings were to pray to each of the four directions and to call upon spirit, creator, mother earth and all of the sacred elements to both heal the land and to touch the hearts, minds and spirits of those responsible for her desecration. This was done so that the people destroying her could truly understand what they were doing... and wake up.

After we finished that first walk, we did not get a huge global media sweep. As a matter of fact, many of us got sick with what would become known in subsequent healing walks as the tar sands healing walk flu. We also found that our biggest supporters during that first walk were the tar sands workers and Fort McKay community members honking their horns boosting our spirits with every honk. (It was a game of the children on the walk to get the drivers to honk.)

The tar sands healing walk was one of the most powerful ceremonies I have ever been to, comparable to our most sacred ceremony back home: the Sundance. Something happened when we all decided to take a break from the battle with big oil, national and provincial governments and the banks that finance them. When we decided to focus instead all of our intentions, all of our power and all of our love to heal our most sacred Mother and those that depend on her health through prayer, ceremony and the physical act of walking together, we lead with our hearts.

This year is the fourth Annual Healing Walk, which in many Native circles is a very significant number: four directions, four nations of the earth. This walk marks, the end of a cycle and perhaps the beginning of a new era in the battle against big oil.

The Walk will take place in Fort McMurray, Alberta from the 4th to the 6th of July, 2013. The former Chief of Smith’s Landing Treaty 8 First Nation and respected Dene Elder, Francios Paulette and Athabasca Chipewyan Dene Nation Chief, Allan Adam will be speaking at a pre-conference on July 5th in the Metis settlement of Anzac. They will be joined by author, activist and founder of 350.org, Bill Mckibben, author and 350.org board member Naomi Klein, former US Vice Presidential Candidate, author, and Native American activist Winona LaDuke, and First Nations Hip Hop artist and activist, Wabanakwut (Wab) Kinew.

The walk and ceremony for Mother Earth and her Peoples will take place on July 6th. We invite you to join us in this historic occasion by either traveling to Alberta's tar sands in person and walking side by side with us, or by holding an event or ceremony in your home territory in solidarity.

This story also appeared on Yes! Magazine.

Native American Communities From New York Launch Fight Against Fracking and For the Environment

Andrew Bard Epstein, AlterNet — Tue, 28 May 2013 13:10:00 -0700

Since New York was dubbed the "Empire State," Native American territory has been ransacked by ecological exploitation.

Five years ago, Hickory Edwards was called to the water. A citizen of the Onondaga Nation, whose territory just south of Syracuse is the heart of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy (also known as the Six Nations or Iroquois), Edwards had never explored the rivers and streams that traverse the league's traditional homeland in upstate New York.

And then, one day, everything changed.

"I went to my cousin's house and they had just gotten a two-person kayak, so I borrowed one and went with them down the Onondaga Creek," Edwards remembered. "I knew it was an old trading route from our peoples. I got out on the water and brought my cousin along and we just headed east into the rising sun."

Nine days later, he was in Mohawk Country, 150 miles away. Sometimes alone, often with friends or family, Edwards has been making the trip ever since. "It's something I think I was put here for," he said.

In July, Edwards' annual journey will change course -- and get a lot bigger.

A Broken Promise

This year marks the 400th anniversary of the first treaty between the Haudenosaunee Confederacy and European settlers. Consecrated with the Two Row Wampum -- a belt of purple and white beads still held by the Onondagas -- the agreement committed the parties to friendship, peace and sovereignty, each row representing the parallel paths of Indians and settlers. It was to hold force "as long as the grass is green, as long as the rivers flow downhill and as long as the sun rises in the east and sets in the west."

Successive settler governments -- first the Netherlands, followed by England, and eventually the United States -- renewed these basic principles, knowing their survival was linked to the good relations and guidance of their native neighbors. The U.S. Constitution's sixth article even enshrined such treaties as "supreme Law of the Land." In the 1790s, Congress explicitly prohibited the seizure of land without federal approval and Indian consent.

But laws made were not necessarily laws obeyed. As New York became the "Empire State," Six Nations territory was reduced by coercion, subterfuge and outright violence, their former lands ransacked by ecological exploitation. Onondaga, one of a half dozen Haudenosaunee sovereignties in upstate New York (there are more in Canada), now amounts to only 9.3 square miles.

Haudenosaunee leaders have long pushed to reverse these trends. This summer, their efforts will receive an historic boost. A yearlong educational effort to mark the four-century anniversary of the original treaty, the Two Row Wampum Renewal Campaign seeks to enact a three-part vision of "peace, friendship, and a sustainable future in parallel forever." The culmination in late July is a massive canoe trip down the Hudson River from Albany to New York Harbor. Coordinating the some 300 paddlers is Edwards, who's building a dugout canoe using the age-old methods of his ancestors.

Building a Movement

"We have the possibility to build a movement that shifts New York State's thinking," said Andy Mager, an organizer with Neighbors of the Onondaga Nation, one of the key coalition partners in the campaign.

Founded in 1999 by the Syracuse Peace Council, NOON has worked to build solidarity and understanding among the area's non-native residents, a task that became particularly vital in 2005. That year, the Onondagas filed a land rights action petitioning the federal court to declare that New York violated the law when it seized Onondaga land. They also challenged five corporations -- Honeywell International among others -- which turned Onondaga Lake, the birthplace of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy, into one of the most polluted bodies of water in North America.

"It is the duty of the Nation's leaders to work for a healing of this land, to protect it, and to pass it on to future generations," Sid Hill, Tadadaho (spiritual leader) of the Onondaga Nation, said at the time. He hoped it would "hasten the process of reconciliation and bring lasting justice, peace, and respect among all who inhabit this area."

Though the Onondagas explicitly stated that a victory in court would yield no evictions, NOON recognized a need to educate the community. "We saw how much controversy had erupted in other neighboring communities when the Cayugas or the Oneidas had filed their land claims, just based out of sheer ignorance and misunderstanding," said Lindsay Speer, another NOON organizer. "I think we were actually really successful."

The courts were less open-minded. Repeatedly rejecting the Onondagas' claim, they refused even to hear the evidence. Meanwhile, in 2005, the Supreme Court ruled against the Oneidas (another member of the confederacy), relying in part on the "Doctrine of Discovery," a 15th-century papal bull granting Christian explorers the right to seize "pagan" land and incorporated into U.S. jurisprudence by John Marshall in 1823.

Many in the community began realizing the need for a broader educational effort that reached beyond central New York.

When several hundred canoes arrive at Pier 96 at 57th street on Manhattan's west side on August 9, they'll at least be difficult to ignore. "Hopefully, we'll reach enough people that when it comes down to even the basic arguments inside of someone's house, we'll have more people defending us," said Lena Duby, who's helping to coordinate on-the-ground support for the paddlers.

Protecting the Land

The campaign reaches beyond issues that affect only indigenous people. With New York Governor Andrew Cuomo expected to announce whether he'll lift the state's moratorium on natural gas drilling in the next months, organizers have made opposition to fracking a key tenet of Two Row Renewal. The Marcellus Shale runs directly under both the Haudenosaunee's traditional homeland and the Onondaga's territory.

For many, the equation is simple. "You can't live without water. Water is life," Edwards said. The highly invasive fracturing process mixes millions of gallons of freshwater with numerous (and largely undisclosed) toxic chemicals, injecting the admixture deep underground to push natural gas above. Just over the Pennsylvania border, about 80 miles to the south of Onondaga, fracking has already scarred the land.

Pointing at a soft rise at the Onondaga Nation's southern border, Edwards explained, "Our water comes right from that hill over there. That's where we drink from." Some of their neighbors have already sold rights to natural gas companies. "Everything around here will get contaminated," he added.

Jake Edwards, chief of the Onondaga Nation and Edwards' uncle, believes the Two Row Wampum offers a different path. "In order to heal the environment, as the modern world calls it, then our people need a healing also," he said at the New York City launch of the campaign in March. "Treaties should've been honored 400 years ago and carried on. Our environment wouldn't be in the bad shape it is if we paid attention to the original agreements."

With threat of catastrophic climate change looming, it's a lesson the campaign's leaders believes people are ready to hear. "Nature's going to help our message," said Oren Lyons, faithkeeper of the Onondaga's Turtle Clan and a veteran of the Red Power movement, referring to the rise in extreme weather linked with global warming. "Nobody's exempt from this."

U.S. Groundwater Consumption Accelerating

Environment News Service — Mon, 27 May 2013 09:09:00 -0700

The depletion of aquifers has many negative consequences, including land subsidence, reduced well yields, and diminished spring and stream flows.

RESTON, Virginia, May 23, 2013 (ENS) – Aquifers across the United States are being drawn down at an increasing pace, finds a new study released today by the U.S. Geological Survey.

The report, “Groundwater Depletion in the United States (1900-2008),” evaluates long-term cumulative depletion volumes in 40 separate aquifers in the United States, bringing together information from previous studies and from new analyses of these distinct underground water storage areas.

Since 1950, the use of U.S. groundwater resources for agricultural, industrial, and municipal purposes has expanded. When groundwater is withdrawn from subsurface storage faster than it is recharged by precipitation or other water sources, the result is groundwater depletion.“Although groundwater depletion is rarely assessed and poorly documented, it is becoming recognized as an increasingly serious global problem that threatens sustainability of water supplies,” writes report author USGS hydrologist Leonard Konikow.

The depletion of aquifers has many negative consequences, including land subsidence, reduced well yields, and diminished spring and stream flows.

“Large cumulative long-term groundwater depletion also contributes directly to sea-level rise,” Konikow writes, “and may contribute indirectly to regional relative sea-level rise as a result of land subsidence.”

Groundwater depletion in the United States in the years 2000-2008 can explain more than two percent of the observed global sea-level rise during that period, Konikow found.

To demonstrate the scale of depletion across the country, data from the report show that from 1900 to 2008, the nation’s aquifers were drawn down by more than twice the volume of water found in Lake Erie.

“Groundwater is one of the nation’s most important natural resources. It provides drinking water in both rural and urban communities. It supports irrigation and industry, sustains the flow of streams and rivers, and maintains ecosystems,” said Suzette Kimball, acting USGS Director.

The maximum rates of depletion have occurred during the most recent period of the study from 2000 to 2008, when the depletion rate averaged almost 25 cubic kilometers per year.“Because groundwater systems typically respond slowly to human actions, a long-term perspective is vital to manage this valuable resource in sustainable ways,” Kimball said.

By comparison, 9.2 cubic kilometers per year is the historical average calculated over the entire 1900–2008 timespan of the study.

One of the best known and most investigated aquifers in the country is the High Plains aquifer, also called the Ogallala aquifer. It underlies more than 170,000 square miles of the Midwest and represents the principal source of water for irrigation and drinking in this agricultural area.

Substantial pumping of the High Plains aquifer for irrigation since the 1940s has resulted in large water table declines that exceed 160 feet in places.

The USGS study shows that, since 2000, depletion of the High Plains aquifer is continuing at a high rate.

The depletion from 2001 through 2008 is about 32 percent of the cumulative depletion in this aquifer during the entire 20th century.

The annual rate of depletion during this recent period averaged about 10.2 cubic kilometers, roughly two percent of the volume of water in Lake Erie.

The cumulative volume of groundwater depletion in the United States during the 20th century is large – totaling about 800 cubic kilometers and increasing by an additional 25 percent during 2001–2008 to a total volume of approximately 1,000 km3.

Cumulative total groundwater depletion in the United States accelerated in the late 1940s and continued at an almost steady linear rate through the end of the century.

In addition to the environmental consequences, depletion also adversely affects the long-term sustainability of groundwater supplies to help meet the nation’s water needs.

Keep the Arctic Cold: Why the Rush to Drill Alaska Must Be Stopped

Subhankar Banerjee, Seven Stories Press — Fri, 17 May 2013 14:23:00 -0700

A leading international voice on arctic conservation addresses President Obama’s strategy for tapping America’s northern frontier.

I wrote a letter to the editor as a follow up to the generous review “In the Beautiful,Threatened North” by Ian Frazier in The New York Review of Books of the anthology, Arctic Voices: Resistance at the Tipping Point that I edited. My letter, “Can Shell Be Stopped?” has just been published in the New York Review.

After the June 6 issue (with my letter) went to the printer a few significant things happened that relate to the letter that I’ll mention here briefly. On May 10, the White House published a 13-page document, “National Strategy for the Arctic Region.” It opens with a one-page introduction by President Obama. He begins with these words: “We in the lower forty-eight and Hawaii join Alaska’s residents in recognizing one simple truth that the Arctic is an amazing place.” All fifty-five contributors in Arctic Voices, I’m sure, will be very pleased with these words from the President. But before the tears of joy could flow down my cheeks, the droplets dried up as I began to read the second paragraph: “Our pioneering spirit is naturally drawn to this region, for the economic opportunities it presents…” President Obama hides his excitement for oil and gas drilling in the Arctic Ocean by carefully choosing the euphemism—“economic opportunities.” In page 7 the true intent of the report is finally revealed: “The region holds sizable proved and potential oil and natural gas resources that will likely continue to provide valuable supplies to meet U.S. energy needs.” Of course the report mentions protecting the environment but gives no specific details. This major report from the White House was released after we came to know that on midnight on May 7, the average global CO2 concentration had reached 400 parts per million (ppm). The pre-industrial average was 280 ppm. The Scientific American reported, “[T]he last time CO2 levels are thought to have been this high was more than 2.5 million years ago, an era known as the Pliocene.” This is so significant that Scientific American now plans to publish in the coming year a “400 ppm” series of articles, “to examine what this invisible line in the sky means for the global climate, the planet and all the living things on it, including human civilization.” And George Monbiot correctly pointed out in The Guardian, “The only way forward now is back: to retrace our steps and seek to return atmospheric concentrations to around 350 ppm, as the 350.org campaign demands.” We may have forgotten, or didn’t pay attention, that the Arctic had reached 400 ppm almost exactly a year ago. A May 31, 2012 press release from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) stated, “The concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere of Barrow, Alaska, reached 400 parts per million (ppm) this spring, according to NOAA measurements, the first time a monthly average measurement for the greenhouse gas attained the 400 ppm mark in a remote location. … Carbon dioxide at six other remote northern sites in NOAA’s international cooperative air sampling network also reached 400 ppm at least once this spring: at a second site in Alaska and others in Canada, Iceland, Finland, Norway, and an island in the North Pacific.” Arctic is the barometer of our planet. When it comes to climate change, if you want to know what will happen tomorrow, do not hire an astrologer, instead simply pay attention to what’s happening in the Arctic today. Dr. James Hansen and I are currently engaged in a conversation that will be published in the paperback edition of Arctic Voices in August. As Jim told me, “We must keep the Arctic cold, for us to have a stable planet.” Drilling in the Arctic Ocean is a wrong path for the planet. By asking “Can Shell Be Stopped?” in the NYR, I wasn’t interested in philosophical contemplation but rather to figure out a practical path that might stop oil and gas drilling in the Arctic Ocean–a small but significant step toward helping to “keep the Arctic cold.”

How Our National Parks Are Threatened by Fracking

Glenn Scherer, Blue Ridge Press — Tue, 14 May 2013 10:55:00 -0700

A booming and unregulated energy industry is quietly but quickly encroaching on some of our most cherished national parks with gas and oil drilling fields.

When I was a teenager, a friend and I cruised across the U.S., touring our national parks. What I remember most from that 1977 trip is rolling over vast, wild, unspoiled miles, heading toward the Grand Canyon, Yosemite, and Zion.

Three years later, I visited Great Smoky Mountains National Park with my fiancé. What I recall from that trip is Gatlinburg, the park’s garish gateway with its Ripley’s Believe It or Not Odditorium, Elvis Presley Hall of Fame, Hillbilly Village, and other weird attractions vying for the attention of corndog and cotton candy-eating visitors.

Gatlinburg became a tourist eyesore by accident—born out of random uncontrolled development. A more serious accident is now occurring in the great open spaces downwind and downstream of such natural wonders as Grand Tetons National Park, Glacier National Park, and the Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area.

The threat is fracking. A booming and unregulated energy industry is quietly but quickly encroaching on some of our most cherished national parks with gas and oil drilling fields.

“From Glacier National Park’s eastern boundary, visitors can throw a stone and hit any of 16 exploratory wells and their associated holding tanks, pump jacks, and machinery,” says a just released report by the National Parks Conservation Association Center for Park Research. “Visitors heading east from Glacier National Park encounter road signs urging caution against the poisonous gases that fracking operations emit.”

Theodore Roosevelt National Park, a lesser-known preserve in the North Dakota Badlands, once offered stargazers some of the nation’s darkest most pristine night skies. Now, fracking fields just outside the park create a scene right out of the science fiction movie Blade Runner, with gas flares spewing flames high into the sky and huge trucks roaring by. Ironically, a proposed bridge and road to service a newly planned fracking field will soon dominate the view from the park’s Elkhorn Ranch, where President Theodore Roosevelt first conceived his influential conservation ideas.

Of today’s 401 national park units, 131 lie either directly above or fewer than 25 surface miles from major underground oil and gas deposits. More than 33 percent of America’s national parks could be impacted by fracking.

The number of fracked wells encroaching on national parks is currently still small, but about to skyrocket. In 2010, for example, there were 1,000 frack well pads in Pennsylvania’s Marcellus shale region west of Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area. That number is projected to rise to as many as 15,000 well pads in twenty years.

Fracking doesn’t belong near our national parks. Hundred-foot tall derricks dominate the drilling fields. Each well consumes acres of land for its concrete well pad, plus more land for roaring, air-polluting compressor stations; wastewater tanks and pits; miles of potentially leaky pipeline; and new roads that require thousands of truck trips to transport the millions of gallons of freshwater needed to frack a well, and to haul away toxic wastewater containing volatile organic compounds like benzene, toluene and xylene.

Add to this a witches brew of air pollution—fumes burned off of wells or that rise from wastewater pits that can contain carbon disulfide and carbonyl sulfide (smelling like rotten eggs); the neurotoxins methyl pyridine and dimethyl pyridine; and lung-damaging ozone.

Fracking isn’t just a toxic eyesore. Its infrastructure is bad for local business, and already putting pressure on people who earn a living through tourism, hunting and fishing. Outfitters near national parks complain that they can’t take hunters back to prime hunting areas because elk and deer have been driven off by drilling. The Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership notes on its website that “increases in energy development… are threatening public-lands hunting and fishing opportunities across the country.”

Fracking needs to be managed responsibly. There’s no reason we can’t increase domestic energy production while also protecting our nation’s most inspiring natural wonders. Protection may not even require an act of Congress. All that is likely needed is conscientious oversight by the Department of the Interior and the Obama administration.

©Blue Ridge Press 2013

Blue Ridge Press senior editor Glenn Scherer lives in Hardwick, Vermont.

Climate Tipping Point? Concentration of Carbon Dioxide Tops 400 ppm for First Time in Human History

Amy Goodman, Democracy Now! — Mon, 13 May 2013 11:46:00 -0700

The 400 ppm threshold is widely recognized as a dangerous level that could drastically worsen human-caused global warming.

AMY GOODMAN: Scientists are warning the planet has now reached a grim climate milestone not seen for two or three million years. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration says the amount of heat-trapping carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has topped 400 parts per million. The 400 ppm threshold has been an important marker in U.N. climate change negotiations, widely recognized as a dangerous level that could drastically worsen human-caused global warming.

The environmentalist group 350.org takes its name after the 350 parts per million threshold that scientists say is the maximum atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide for a safe planet. In a statement on the parts per million number hitting 400, 350.org co-founder Bill McKibben said, quote, "The only question now is whether the relentless rise in carbon can be matched by a relentless rise in the activism necessary to stop it."

To find out more about the impacts of crossing the threshold, we’re joined now by leading climate scientist Michael Mann, distinguished professor of meteorology at Penn State University, author of the recent book, The Hockey Stick and the Climate Wars: Dispatches from the Front Lines.

We welcome you to Democracy Now! Thank you for joining us from the public television station in State College, WPSU. Thanks so much, Michael Mann. Talk about the significance of this threshold being passed.

MICHAEL MANN: Thanks. It’s great to be with you.

So, this number, 400 parts per million, what does it mean? It’s the number of molecules of CO2 for every million molecules of air; 400 of them are now CO2. Just two centuries ago, that number was only 280 parts per million. So if we continue to add carbon to the atmosphere at current rates, we’ll reach a doubling of the pre-industrial levels of CO2 within the next few decades.

Now, 400, what does that round number, 400, mean? Well, what it means is that, as you alluded to, we have to go several million years back in time to find a point in earth’s history where CO2 was as high as it is now. And, of course, we’re just blowing through this 400 ppm limit. If we continue to burn fossil fuels at accelerating rates, if we continue with business as usual, we will cross the 450 parts per million limit in a matter of maybe a couple decades. We believe that with that amount of CO2 in the atmosphere, we commit to what can truly be described as dangerous and irreversible changes in our climate.

AMY GOODMAN: Like what?

MICHAEL MANN: So, what we are already witnessing, in fact, the effects of climate change. If we look at the past year here in the U.S., last summer, the record heat, the record drought, the record wildfire that destroyed large forest areas in Colorado, New Mexico. We saw, you know, tremendous damage to our crops in the breadbasket of the country. We saw Arctic sea ice diminish to the lowest level we’ve ever seen, and it’s on a trajectory where there will be no ice in the Arctic at the end of the summer in perhaps a matter of 10 years or so. We also saw the devastation of Superstorm Sandy. Now, we can’t say that Hurricane Sandy was caused by climate change, but many of its characteristics are precisely the kinds of characteristics that we predict tropical storms and hurricanes will have if we continue to warm the planet. We will see more destructive tropical storms. We’ll see more flooding. We’ll see more drought. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg, because, remember, we’ve only just crossed 400 now. We will reach 450 ppm in a matter of a couple decades if we continue with business as usual.

AMY GOODMAN: How can this be stopped, Professor Mann?

MICHAEL MANN: Well, ultimately, you know, we have to find a way to move away from our addiction to fossil fuels. As former President George W. Bush once put it, we’re addicted to fossil fuels. We need to find a way to transition away from those means of obtaining energy, fossil fuel energy, that we know is degrading the climate and degrading the planet. We have to find a way to level the playing field so that the marketplace will allow renewable energy sources to compete with fossil fuel energy. We’re currently providing subsidies to fossil fuels, the very sources of energy that are degrading the climate, and not providing the appropriate incentives to developing alternative energy.

AMY GOODMAN: Professor Mann, I want to turn to the Keystone XL pipeline, the controversial pipeline which would deliver tar sands oil from Canada to refineries in Texas. Earlier this year, a State Department report concluded the Keystone XL pipeline does not threaten the global climate. A number of environmental groups opposed the conclusion in a report called "Cooking the Books." They said, quote, "In a world constrained by the realities of climate change, the proper measure of any project’s climate impact should not be based on the assumptions inherent in a business as usual scenario that guarantees climate disaster. ... There is a climate impact from burning 830,000 barrels per day of any crude that cannot be ignored," they wrote. Michael Mann, what do you think of the climatic effects of the Keystone XL pipeline, if it is approved by President Obama and the State Department?

MICHAEL MANN: Sure. And my understanding was that, in fact, that report was criticized by folks within the EPA, and so there was some question about the accuracy of that report.

But that aside, you know, the larger picture here, the Keystone XL pipeline, developing these tar sand oils in Canada, there have been some calculations that argue that, you know, even if we develop the full petroleum reserves from the tar sands, that we wouldn’t add to our global carbon emissions nearly as much as if we continue, for example, to burn coal. There’s a lot more coal available to burn than there is these tar sand oils.

On the other hand, I think it represents what’s wrong about our current prioritization. If we are to invest heavily in the infrastructure so we’re subsidizing efforts to get at this increasingly difficult reservoir of fossil fuel energy, if we are to incentivize that effort through certain government subsidies, then we’re going in exactly the opposite direction of where we need to be going. We’re actually simply developing more and more of the available fossil fuel reserves at a time when we have to be ramping them down. We need to be bringing our global carbon emissions to a peak within the next few years, and we need to ramp them down dramatically in the decades ahead, if we are going to avoid crossing that next sobering milestone, 450 parts per million in the atmosphere.

And so, it’s really not so much precisely how much carbon we’ll add to the atmosphere by building the Keystone XL pipeline as it is it’s an example of how we’re going the wrong direction. We need to follow what the rest of the world is doing. If you look to India and China, the developing world, they’re investing far more in renewable energy than we are here in the U.S. And this is in fact a matter of global competitiveness. We in the U.S. are falling behind because we’re letting the rest of the world move ahead and recognize that the future of our global economy is going to be in renewable energy.

AMY GOODMAN: You know, last week we reported that an environmental activist met Vice President Joe Biden in South Carolina. Her name was Elaine Cooper. And she wrote for the Sierra Club, saying, "I asked him" — she’s talking about Vice President Joe Biden— "about the administration’s commitment to making progress climate and whether the president would reject the pipeline." She said, "He looked at the Sierra Club hat on my head" — Biden did — "and [he] said, 'Yes, I do—I share your views—but I am in the minority.'" What does that suggest to you, Michael Mann? What message do you have for President Obama?

MICHAEL MANN: Yeah, I saw that. I read that interview, and it was a bit disturbing. You know, the president has talked a good game in the past few months since he won re-election. In his State of the Union address, I think he outlined very clearly the threat of continuing to worsen the climate change problem through our burning of fossil fuels. He acknowledged the threat that it represents to us, whether you’re talking about human health, food resources, water resources, national security. Across the board, if we continue to burn fossil fuels and elevate greenhouse gas concentrations, the cost to society is going to be far greater than any cost of action. And the president has talked a good game in recent months. On the other hand, there are some—to those who read the tea leaves, there appear to be some signals that suggest that he may approve the Keystone XL pipeline. And if he were to do that, in my view, that would be a big mistake. Like I said before, it would be moving us in exactly the opposite direction of where we need to be moving.

AMY GOODMAN: Very quickly, Professor Mann, you have been targeted by climate skeptics for—climate change deniers for years. What is your message to them? And can you talk about the title of your book?

MICHAEL MANN: Sure thing. So, the title of the book, The Hockey Stick and the Climate Wars: Dispatches from the Front Lines. And as a climate scientist who published an iconic graph called "the hockey stick," which shows how unusual recent warming is, I found myself in the crosshairs of the efforts to discredit the science of climate change, many of those efforts funded by vested interests who don’t want to see us move away from our addiction to fossil fuels. And so I recount my experiences in the book.

But I also talked about the larger issues involved. You know, for example, you alluded to the word "skeptic." Well, many of those who simply deny that climate change exists, we don’t call them skeptics, because that’s not skepticism. That’s just denial or contrarianism. Now, skepticism is a good thing in science, but it means looking at all sides of an issue. And so, when you talk about the uncertainties, there are uncertainties in, for example, the precise projections of how much sea-level rise we will see in the next century. But it turns out those uncertainties are not a reason for inaction, for the same reason that we purchase fire insurance—not because we think our houses are going to burn down, but because we need to hedge against that potentially catastrophic, low-probability outcome. Mitigating climate change is in fact a planetary insurance policy. And so, there’s room for discussion of uncertainty, and there’s room for a good-faith, worthy debate about what to do about this problem. There are valid points of view.

AMY GOODMAN: Michael Mann, we’re going to have to leave it there.

MICHAEL MANN: There are valid points of view across the spectrum. Thank you.

AMY GOODMAN: I thank you so much for being with us, leading climate scientist, distinguished professor of meteorology, speaking to us from Penn State University. His book, The Hockey Stick and the Climate Wars.

5 Critical Actions Obama Needs to Take Right Now to Avert Massive Climate Disruption

Michael Brune, AlterNet — Mon, 06 May 2013 08:58:00 -0700

Each of these actions is within President Obama's power right now. If he's serious about addressing climate disruption, not one of them is optional.

This article was published in partnership with GlobalPossibilities.org.

If all goes well, my parents will finally get to return home today. They live on the New Jersey Shore, on Chadwick Beach Island, next to Barnegat Bay. My brother, sisters, and I all grew up in the house, which my dad built with my uncle, almost fifty years ago.

Six months ago, Sandy took it apart.

By the time it hit the eastern seaboard, Sandy was an unusual hybrid of a post-tropical cyclone and an upper level low system. "Superstorms" like Sandy could develop without the influence of climate disruption, but warmer ocean temperatures and a shifting jet stream unquestionably have increased the odds. The scariest thing about Sandy is that such a freak of weather may no longer be so freakish.

A new norm of extreme weather is a daunting prospect. In Sandy's case, the damage to my childhood home was part of the worst U.S. natural disaster since hurricanes Katrina and Rita -- much more than $50 billion in damages and at least 72 deaths. But Sandy also destroyed something intangible -- our complacency. No longer can we assign the consequences of climate disruption to some distant future. When Sandy struck, the future rose with the sea and smashed into us head on. The question it left behind was this: What do we do about it?

For the past 100 days, Sierra Club members and supporters have answered that question loudly and clearly. We gathered in Washington, D.C., for the largest climate rally in history. We held town hall meetings and grassroots rallies across the country. And we helped send more than a million messages to Barack Obama -- telling him that we want bold action on climate disruption.

For his part, the president answered Sandy's challenge by talking about the climate crisis in his strongest words yet, both in the State of the Union and his inaugural address.

The president's words were welcome, but words will not be enough. Here are five critical actions we need him to take:

Reject the toxic Keystone XL pipeline.
Protect our water from coal plant pollution.
Close loopholes on fracking and protect our wildlands from oil and gas development.
Finalize strong standards for cleaner tailpipe emissions.
Move forward with standards against industrial pollution.

Each of these actions is within President Obama's power right now. If he's serious about addressing climate disruption, not one of them is optional.

Meanwhile, we have to keep our own voices raised. If you haven't added yours yet -- you can do it here. Together, we will move forward on climate -- and we need our president to lead the way.

James Hansen: The One Thing We Should Be Doing to Prevent Catastrophic Climate Change

Tara Lohan, AlterNet — Wed, 24 Apr 2013 10:17:00 -0700

The country's leading climatologist talks about what our future looks like if we continue along with business as usual -- and what we could do to prevent catastrophe.

This article was published in partnership with GlobalPossibilities.org.

It’s hard to imagine anyone who has done more to further our understanding of the impacts of climate change than Dr. James Hansen. After 46 years working a scientist and climatogolist for NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, Hansen wasn’t content to simply catalog the dangers facing humanity and our planet — he has been ringing the alarm bell. “On a blistering June day in 1988 he was called before a Congressional committee and testified that human-induced global warming had begun,” the New York Times wrote in a recent story about Hansen. “Speaking to reporters afterward in his flat Midwestern accent, he uttered a sentence that would appear in news reports across the land: ‘It is time to stop waffling so much and say that the evidence is pretty strong that the greenhouse effect is here.’”

Over the next several decades as scientific evidence poured in about the threats from climate change, and as governments — including the U.S. — failed to take any meaningful action, Hansen stepped out of the lab and into the media spotlight. He has participated in climate change protests, including being arrested several times, and has been outspoken about urging the Obama administration to kill the Keystone XL pipeline proposal. He warned that building the pipeline would mean “game over” for the climate.

This week Hansen was awarded the 2013 Ridenhour Prize for Courage from the Fertel Foundation and the Nation Institute. Ridenhour prizes are named in honor of the late Ron Ridenhour, who blew the whistle on the My Lai massacre in the Vietnam War and went on to become an award-winning investigative journalist.

“At a moment when a debate is raging about the treatment of whistleblowers, the Ridenhour Prizes recognize those who put their lives on the line to challenge the status quo,” said Randy Fertel, founder of the Fertel Foundation, which co-sponsors the prizes. “The 2013 winners represent voices who have come forward to speak truth on the most defining issues of our time.”

Hansen recently announced that he is stepping down from his post at NASA. He talked to AlterNet about what he plans to do next, what may be in store for our future, and the most important thing we can do to prevent catastrophic, runaway climate change.

Tara Lohan. First off, congratulations on your Ridenhour Prize for Courage. They selected you for your decades of hard work ringing the alarm bell about climate change. Does it get a little lonely out there for you?

James Hansen: Well, that is an interesting question I have never been asked before. I am a little surprised that the scientific community has allowed us to go so far down the line that it's almost too late to avoid the rather substantial climate change and practical impacts. It was not surprising at all that the scientific community or at least many people in it objected to my testimony in the late 1980s and was illustrated so well by the article that Dick Kerr wrote in Science Magazine that was called "Hansen vs. the World on the Greenhouse Threat."

It was interesting because in that article he interviews a lot of people at a meeting, which was described as a “get Hansen” meeting, but in any case, he got the comment from one of the scientists that said, “Well, if there was a secret ballot, a secret vote probably the majority of us would agree that this global warming was underway,” but they weren't ready to say so yet. And I can completely understand that, in the 1980s it was not yet statistically proven.

But what's a little disappointing is that we've reached a point where we should really be pounding on the desk of leaders and saying, “Hey, you've got to do something. You have to do something in a hurry or we're going to leave our children and grandchildren a situation that's out of their control. There will be large impacts, which they simply cannot do anything about.” And the basic physics for that is very well understood that the climate system has tremendous inertia, it does not respond quickly as humans or nature applies forces to the system. But now we know those forces, those human made forces — the CO2 amount and how it's changing is known very precisely. And we know the consequences on the century timescale are going to be enormous. So there's really no disagreement about that and the fact that we won't be able to control it.

So in that sense, the answer to your question is that I am disappointed that there aren’t more of my colleagues out there. On the other hand, it's not that most of them now disagree, I mean those who are in the category of knowing what you are talking about because of relevant expertise, actually say that they're glad I'm making noises because they think it's appropriate.

TL: A lot of people in the activist community like to point their fingers at government for a very good reason, but what do you think the scientific community should be doing?

JH: Well, I think the government should be asking the scientific community. We have a National Academy of Sciences that was formed at the request of Abraham Lincoln to advise the government on technical matters, which require scientific expertise. So if the government wants to do something it could ask the Academy to give it a report to provide some guidance and that's not really happening. Instead, we're allowing the politics to control the discussion and that then ends up leading to little if any action because politics is not going to allow it simply because there's such a preference among the fossil fuel industry and the people who are making a lot of money off of it to continue business as usual.

So the politics ends up in a stalemate. The scientific community has issued reports. The major scientific groups like the American Geophysical Union, the American Meteorological Society have pretty strong statements about the fact that humans are causing climate change and there will be consequences. So I'm not sure that it can do a lot more if it's not asked to provide specific guidance.

TL: Why do you think we are so incapable of taking action when we are presented with the overwhelming scientific evidence?

JH: Well, what I've learned in going to several different countries is that the money has a huge influence on national politics not only in the United States but in practically every country in the world. And the fossil fuel industry is the wealthiest industry in the world, so it becomes difficult to get government action without more pressure from the public. And that, in the case of this problem, is something that is really difficult because of the fact of this inertia and delayed response so the public doesn't see that much happening.

The difficulty is that because of this inertia of the system, we have only realized, the planet has only realized, about half of the effect of the gases that are already in the atmosphere — the rest is still in the pipeline and will occur over coming decades and this century. And that makes it very difficult. The public has many other issues on its mind like feeding their families and important practical issues. If they don't see a major effect then it's just not high enough on their priority list.

It's clear now to the scientific community that we should be doing something and yet we're not doing much. As I say, we're almost to the point where it's going to be unavoidable that we will have significant consequences this century, in the lifetime of today's young people.

TL: Based on that, where we stand right now, what does our future look like if we continue along the path we're on?

JH: Well, okay it still depends. If we continue on the path that we're on, which is continuing to actually increase CO2 emissions, then we're talking about a different planet by the end of the century in the sense that we could get warming of at least a few degrees celsius which would mean that, among other things, the two biggest effects that I'm concerned with are those that are irreversible. And if we continue on that business-as-usual pathway then the ice sheets are not going to be stable, they're going to begin to disintegrate rapidly, which will mean sea level rise of many meters. Scientists will argue about how much sea level rise will occur this century in the next 87 years, for some reason the year 2100 is picked as the year we're trying to estimate the change.

It's very hard to say when that collapse will occur. It's like the stock market, if the country has a stupid economic policy then eventually the stock market is going to reflect that with a collapse, but you can't predict exactly when it's going to occur. Anyway, in my opinion, we would get multi-meter sea level rise this century. Some other scientists argue that we'll only get about one meter this century and the multi-meter rise will be next century. But, in either case it means that all the coastal cities would have to be abandoned at some point whether it's this century or next century and that's thousands of cities around the world on coastlines. Cities develop from coastlines because commerce was by ships for much of history so that's one of the irreversible effects.

The other one is the extermination of species. If we begin to slow down emissions by the end of this decade, then we can keep the warming less than two degrees Celsius. In that case, I think most of the species can survive. But if we continue business as usual, the whole century, so that climate zones really shift a large amount so that species have to migrate to a different region in order to survive; then when that's combined with the other pressures we're putting on species, the other stresses that we're causing as humans basically take over the planet, it's going to mean that a large fraction of species get exterminated, which is another irreversible effect — one which is morally reprehensible.

But the practical thing, many people are not too concerned about sea level rise later this century or species extermination later this century. They are more concerned with climate events that are beginning to happen now. We can see that climate extremes are beginning to increase as expected with a globally warming because the distribution of anomalies from a normal climate is shifting such that the extreme events are more frequent. That's true both for temperature and for rainfall because the amount of rainfall depends upon the amount of moisture in the atmosphere, which increases as the planet gets warmer.

So you get more extreme rain events when you do get rain, but because of the increased temperature the droughts also increase in intensity and the fires that go with drought conditions become more intense and burn hotter. So we're beginning to see these more extreme paths. Also, storms that are driven by latent heat increase water vapor in the atmosphere also can be more powerful as the planet gets warmer. I think we're beginning to see that effect also. If we stay with business as usual, those effects will be larger and larger as we go decade by decade into the future.

TL: What kind of policy changes should we be advocating for immediately?

JH: Yes, that's a good question and it's actually quite clear what we should do. The fundamental fact is that as long as fossil fuels appear to be the cheapest energy to the consumer then we'll just keep burning that. That's what's happening so far. The truth is fossil fuels are not the cheapest. If we would eliminate the subsidies for them and if we would include in their price, the external costs of them — the human health effects of air pollution and water pollution from burning and mining of fossil fuels are presently worn by the public entirely without any of the health effects being charged to the fossil fuel industry. The public picks up their health costs and the effect of climate change. The increased climate extremes are already causing some very expensive events.

Either the public picks it up by just suffering the damage or the federal government may come in and provide relief of billions of dollars. But again, that comes out of the taxpayers’ pocket. So what we should do to solve the problem and get us to move to a clean energy future is to book a gradually rising price on carbon, which would be a fee that you collect from possible fuel companies at the domestic mine or the port of entry. So it's a very small number of sources and very accurately known. So you can just have a carbon fee which we suggest, for example, should be 10 dollars a ton to start with and increase year-by-year. The money that's collected should be distributed 100 percent back to the public, to all legal residents, in equal amount. That way people would have the resources needed to make changes over coming years.

When they buy a new vehicle, they buy one that's more efficient, they insulate their homes, they make choices. And it would provide the incentive for the business community, for entrepreneurs to develop low-carbon and no-carbon energy sources and products that are more energy efficient. And would stimulate our economy and make us much more competitive on international trading by making us leaders in clean energies. That is finally beginning to be recognized.

You may have noticed in the past two weeks, there was an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal, a conservative newspaper, by George Shultz and Gary Becker, which advocated exactly what I just described. The carbon fee with 100 percent of the money distributed to the public. So it does not make the government any bigger and it allows the market to determine what are the most efficient ways to move to a clean energy future. Yesterday, the Washington Post, which is a liberal newspaper, had an editorial saying essentially the same thing, they were pointing out that the European cap and trade system has collapsed and is completely ineffectual. That's what we've been saying for the last few years that cap and trade with offsets is a hokey system, which has no hopes of solving the climate problem. We need a simple honest approach, which makes fossil fuels pay their true cost to society and which stimulates the development of clean energy alternatives.

Unless you make fossil fuels pay their true costs, people will just keep burning them. The [Obama] administration's approach is, “Well, let's reduce coal use and make vehicles more efficient.” Those things will reduce U.S. carbon emissions, but they won't solve the problem because they reduce the demand for fossil fuels which makes them cheaper and somebody else will burn them.

The only way to solve the problem is to put an honest price on the fossil fuels. And it's going to need to be international. So the United States and China are going to have to get together and agree on the fact that they both will need to put a gradually rising price on carbon emissions. And I feel that's a doable thing because China knows that they will suffer from climate change more than most places. They have their 50 million people that are living near sea level. They have tremendous pollution, air and water pollution from fossil fuels. So they have a strong incentive for wanting to deal with this problem.

And to have a bilateral agreement between China and the U.S. is a practical solution. While trying to get 190 nations to agree with the Kyoto protocol type approach is hopeless as we've seen from the negotiations that have occurred over the last 20 years. That's kind of a truth telling, which we have to have. Otherwise, we just continue down this line where we pretend that the UN is going to solve the problem eventually and they're not doing anything to help.

TL: If governments can't move fast enough, and so far our government especially has not moved much at all, what's our plan B?

JH: It's interesting, I was at a meeting of some of the 20 top scientists in the country just a few weeks ago and they're already at the point of saying, “Well, we have to do geoengineering.” So they keep thinking of finding ways to suck the CO2 out of the atmosphere, well it will be incredibly expensive and we will be leaving that job for young people. It's not clear that it will work, it's not clear that it will be practical. It will be so expensive that it will make no sense.

We really need to have a plan A, plan B just is frightening. That's why I think it's really important that the U.S. and China start talking to each other about this. And you know, there actually was a meeting within the last two weeks between Secretary of State John Kerry and Chinese counterparts. One of the outcomes is that they will have some continuing talks between the two nations on the climate issue. And that is probably the most promising avenue for a plan A.

TL: I remember probably about five years or so ago everyone was talking about peak oil and then we had this resurgence of fossil fuels with the tar sands and fracking. Is the use of more unconventional sources more of a sign that we are in fact running out of the cheap and easy stuff and that we are running toward peak oil or does that mean the predictions of peak oil were actually off?

JH: Well, it's a sign that governments don't get it. That they think we just continue to go after every fossil fuel we can find including those that are very hard to get at, it takes a lot of energy to extract them and they're particularly dirty and cause other environmental problems as well as climate change. They don't get it, we can't exploit the unconventional fossil fuels without guaranteeing that our children and grandchildren will have problems that are out of their control. That's the message that has to get through.

I'm hoping that the Obama administration is beginning to understand this and that they will reject the Keystone Pipeline. That's becoming more likely than pundits have been suggesting because it is just crazy to approve that pipeline. It would guarantee that we do exploit a significant fraction of those tar sands. Whatever we extract out of there and put into the atmosphere we're going to have to take back out somehow and it's going to be very expensive and may be impossible. If it's impossible then our children will suffer the consequences.

So just by putting this moderate rising price on carbon you can be far more effective and more helpful for U.S. energy independence and economic development than you would be by approving that pipeline and producing a small number of jobs, temporary jobs associated with building a pipeline. You would get far more better jobs with this rising price on carbon because it would stimulate the development of clean energies and energy efficiency.

TL: I know that you have recently announced your retirement from your long-held post at NASA. What's next for you?

JH: I want to continue to do science so I have to generate non-government support for a couple of people to work with me on doing science. I will be able to hopefully spend more time on it because I won't have these administrative duties that I had with the government. But, it will also allow me to do things that I couldn't do as part of the government. For example, I'm working with Our Children's Trust on legal actions against the government for not protecting the rights of young people. I was not able to testify against the government when I was a government employee, but I can do that in the future.

And also, there are going to be some legal actions trying to stop the expansion of coal exports from the West Coast and legal actions to try to stop the pipelines, the tar sands pipelines both the east-west pipeline and the north-south one. And I will now have the time that I can contribute to the science aspect of those attempts to stop this senseless development of unconventional fossil fuels and continued reliance on coal. Because what the science tells us is we can't do that, we've got to leave most of the remaining coal in the ground and we've got to leave those unconventional fossil fuels in the ground.

TL: Given everything that you know and how much you understand about this, how is it that you stay hopeful?

JH: Well, that's fairly easy because if you look at our planet and nature it’s so incredible. With my grandchildren, we've been focusing on one particular species, the Monarch butterfly, which is just absolutely incredible. You have to preserve this incredible life on the planet. I believe as biologist Ed Wilson has argued that we can. It's possible that this present time in which we are putting so much pressure on other life on the planet, that this is a bottleneck and if we are smart we can win this battle and allow the other life on the planet to continue to exists, co-exist with us, and I think that's possible. But it's going to require that people understand the situation and put the pressure on governments to see that we have policies that will achieve that. I think it's still possible, but we're running out of time.

“Human Beings Have No Right to Water” and Other Words of Wisdom from Your Friendly Neighborhood Global Oligarch

Andrew Gavin Marshall, Andrewgavinmarshall.com — Tue, 23 Apr 2013 12:32:00 -0700

Privatization of our natural resources is leading to the inevitable extinction of our species, and possibly all life on earth.

In the 2005 documentary, We Feed the World, then-CEO of Nestlé, the world’s largest foodstuff corporation, Peter Brabeck-Letmathe, shared some of his own views and ‘wisdom’ about the world and humanity. Brabeck believes that nature is not “good,” that there is nothing to worry about with GMO foods, that profits matter above all else, that people should work more, and that human beings do not have a right to water.

Today, he explained, “people believe that everything that comes from Nature is good,” marking a large change in perception, as previously, “we always learnt that Nature could be pitiless.” Humanity, Brabeck stated, “is now in the position of being able to provide some balance to Nature, but in spite of this we have something approaching a shibboleth that everything that comes from Nature is good.” He then referenced the “organic movement” as an example of this thinking, premising that “organic is best.” But rest assured, he corrected, “organic is not best.” In 15 years of GMO food consumption in the United States, “not one single case of illness has occurred.” In spite of this, he noted, “we’re all so uneasy about it in Europe, that something might happen to us.” This view, according to Brabeck, is “hypocrisy more than anything else.”

Water, Brabeck correctly pointed out, “is of course the most important raw material we have today in the world,” but added: “It’s a question of whether we should privatize the normal water supply for the population. And there are two different opinions on the matter. The one opinion, which I think is extreme, is represented by the NGOs, who bang on about declaring water a public right.” Brabeck elaborated on this “extreme” view: “That means that as a human being you should have a right to water. That’s an extreme solution.” The other view, and thus, the “less extreme” view, he explained, “says that water is a foodstuff like any other, and like any other foodstuff it should have a market value. Personally I believe it’s better to give a foodstuff a value so that we’re all aware that it has its price, and then that one should take specific measures for the part of the population that has no access to this water, and there are many different possibilities there.” The biggest social responsibility of any CEO, Brabeck explained:

is to maintain and ensure the successful and profitable future of his enterprise. For only if we can ensure our continued, long term existence will we be in the position to actively participate in the solution of the problems that exist in the world. We’re in the position of being able to create jobs... If you want to create work, you have to work yourself, not as it was in the past where existing work was distributed. If you remember the main argument for the 35-hour week was that there was a certain amount of work and it would be better if we worked less and distributed the work amongst more people. That has proved quite clearly to be wrong. If you want to create more work you have to work more yourself. And with that we’ve got to create a positive image of the world for people, and I see absolutely no reason why we shouldn’t be positive about the future. We’ve never had it so good, we’ve never had so much money, we’ve never been so healthy, we’ve never lived as long as we do today. We have everything we want and we still go around as if we were in mourning for something.

While watching a promotional video of a Nestlé factory in Japan, Brabeck commented, “You can see how modern these factories are; highly robotized, almost no people.” And of course, for someone claiming to be interested in creating jobs, there appears to be no glaring hypocrisy in praising factories with “almost no people.”

It’s important to note that this is not simply the personal view of some random corporate executive, but rather, that it reflects an institutional reality of corporations: the primary objective of a corporation – above all else – is to maximize short-term profits for shareholders. By definition, then, workers should work more and be paid less, the environment is only a concern so much as corporations have unhindered access to control and exploit the resources of the environment, and ultimately, it’s ‘good’ to replace workers with automation and robotics so that you don’t have to pay fewer or any workers, and thus, maximize profits. With this institutional – and ideological – structure (which was legally constructed by the state), concern for the environment, for water, for the world and for humanity can only be promoted if it can be used to advance corporate profits, or if it can be used for public relations purposes. Ultimately, it has to be hypocritical. A corporate executive cannot take an earnest concern in promoting the general welfare of the world, the environment, or humanity, because that it not the institutional function of a corporation, and no CEO that did such would be allowed to remain as CEO.

This is why it matters what Peter Brabeck thinks: he represents the type of individual – and the type of thinking – that is a product of and a requirement for running a successful multinational corporation, of the corporate culture itself. To the average person viewing his interview, it might come across as some sort of absurd tirade you’d expect from aNightline interview with some infamous serial killer, if that killer had been put in charge of a multinational corporation:

People have a ‘right’ to water? What an absurd notion! Next thing you’ll say is that child labour is bad, polluting the environment is bad, or that people have some sort of ‘right’ to... life! Imagine the audacity! All that matters is ‘profits,’ and what a wonderful thing it would be to have less people and more profits! Water isn’t a right, it’s only a necessity, so naturally, it makes sense to privatize it so that large multinational corporations like Nestlé can own the world’s water and ensure that only those who can pay can drink. Problem solved!

Sadly, though intentionally satirical, this is the essential view of Brabeck and others like him. And disturbingly, Brabeck’s influence is not confined to the board of Nestlé. Brabeck became the CEO of Nestlé in 1997, a position he served until 2008, at which time he resigned as CEO but remained as chairman of the board of directors of Nestlé. Apart from Nestlé, Brabeck serves as vice chairman of the board of directors of L’Oréal, the world’s largest cosmetics and ‘beauty’ company; vice chairman of the board of Credit Suisse Group, one of the world’s largest banks; and is a member of the board of directors of Exxon Mobil, one of the world’s largest oil and energy conglomerates.

He was also a former board member of one of the world’s largest pharmaceutical conglomerates, Roche. Brabeck also serves as a member of the Foundation Board for the World Economic Forum (WEF), “the guardian of [the WEF’s] mission, values and brand... responsible for inspiring business and public confidence through an exemplary standard of governance.” Brabeck is also a member of the European Round Table of Industrialists (ERT), a group of European corporate CEOs which directly advise and help steer policy for the European Union and its member countries. He has also attended meetings of theBilderberg group, an annual forum of 130 corporate, banking, media, political and military elites from Western Europe and North America.

Thus, through his multiple board memberships on some of the largest corporations on earth, as well as his leadership and participation in some of the leading international think tanks, forums and business associations, Brabeck has unhindered access to political and other elites around the world. When he speaks, powerful people listen.

Brabeck’s Brain

Brabeck has become an influential voice on issues of food and water, and not surprisingly so, considering he is chairman of the largest food service corporation on earth. Brabeck’s career goes back to when he was working for Nestlé in Chile in the early 1970s, when the left-leaning democratically-elected president Salvador Allende was “threatening to nationalize milk production, and Nestlé’s Chilean operations along with it.” A 1973 Chilean military coup – with the support of the CIA – put an end to that “threat” by bringing in the military dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet, who murdered thousands of Chileans and established a ‘national security state’, imposing harsh economic measures to promote the interests of elite corporate and financial interests (what later became known as ‘neoliberalism’).

In a 2009 article for Foreign Policy magazine, Brabeck declared: “Water is the new gold, and a few savvy countries and companies are already banking on it.” In a 2010 article for the Guardian, Brabeck wrote that, “[w]hile our collective attention has been focused on depleting supplies of fossil fuels, we have been largely ignoring the simple fact that, unless radical changes are made, we will run out of water first, and soon.” What the world needs, according to Brabeck, is “to set a price that more accurately values our most precious commodity,” and that, [t]he era of water at throwaway prices is coming to an end.” In other words, water should become increasingly expensive, according to Brabeck. Countries, he wrote, should recognize “that not all water use should be regarded as equal.”

In a discussion with the Wall Street Journal in 2011, Brabeck spoke against the use of biofuels – converting food into fuel – and suggested that this was the primary cause of increased food prices (though in reality, food price increases are primarily the result of speculation by major banks like Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan Chase). Brabeck noted the relationship between his business – food – and major geopolitical issues, stating: “What we call today the Arab Spring... really started as a protest against ever-increasing food prices.” One “solution,” he suggested, was to provide a “market” for water as “the best guidance that you can have.” If water was a ‘market’ product, it wouldn’t be wasted on growing food for fuel, but focus on food for consumption – and preferably (in his view), genetically modified foods. After all, he said, “if the market forces are there the investments are going to be made.” Brabeck suggested that the world could “feed nine billion people,” providing them with water and fuel, but only on the condition that “welet the market do its thing.”

Brabeck co-authored a 2011 article for the Wall Street Journal in which he stated that in order to provide “universal access to clean water, there is simply no other choice but to price water at a reasonable rate,” and that roughly 1.8 billion people on earth lack access to clean drinking water “because of poor water management and governance practices, and the lack of political will.” Brabeck’s job then, as chairman of Nestlé, is to help create the “political will” to make water into a modern “market” product.

Now before praising Brabeck for his ‘enlightened’ activism on the issue of water scarcity and providing the world’s poor with access to clean drinking water (which are very real and urgent issues needing attention), Brabeck himself has stressed that his interest in the issue of water has nothing to do with actually addressing these issues in a meaningful way, or for the benefit of the earth and humanity. No, his motivation is much more simple than this.

In a 2010 interview for BigThink, Brabeck noted: “If Nestlé and myself have become very vocal in the area of water, it was not because of any philanthropic idea, it was very simple: by analyzing... what is the single most important factor for the sustainability of Nestlé, water came as [the] number one subject.” This is what led Brabeck and Nestlé into the issue of water “sustainability,” he explained. “I think this is part of a company’s responsibility,” and added: “Now, if I was in a different industry, I would have a different subject, certainly, that I would be focusing on.”

Brabeck was asked if industries should “have a role in finding solutions to environmental issues that affect their business,” to which he replied: “Yes, because it is in the interest of our shareholders... If I want to convince my shareholders that this industry is a long-term sustainable industry, I have to ensure that all aspects that are vital for this company are sustainable... When I see, like in our case, that one of the aspects – which is water, which is needed in order to produce the raw materials for our company – if this is not sustainable, then my enterprise is not sustainable. So therefore I have to do something about it. So shareholder interest and societal interest are common.”

Thus, when Brabeck and Nestlé promote “water sustainability,” what they are really promoting is the sustainability of Nestlé’s access to and control over water resources. How is that best achieved? Well, since Nestlé is a large multinational corporation, the natural solution is to promote ‘market’ control of water, which means privatization and monopolization of the world’s water supply into a few corporate hands.

In a 2011 conversation with the editor of Time Magazine at the Council on Foreign Relations, Brabeck referred to a recent World Economic Forum meeting where the issue of “corporate social responsibility” was the main subject of discussion, when corporate executives “started to talk about [how] we have to give back to society,” Brabeck spoke up and stated: “I don’t feel that we have to give back to society, because we have not been stealing from society.” Brabeck explained to the Council on Foreign Relations that he felt such a concept was the purview of philanthropy, and “this was a problem for the CEO of any public company, because I personally believe that no CEO of a public company should be allowed to make philanthropy... I think anybody who does philanthropy should do it with his own money and not the money of the shareholders.” Engaging in corporate social responsibility, Brabeck explained, “was an additional cost.”

At the 2008 World Economic Forum, a consortium of corporations and international organizations formed the 2030 Water Resources Group, chaired by Peter Brabeck. It was established in order to “shape the agenda” for the discussion of water resources, and to create “new models for collaboration” between public and private enterprises. The governing council of the 2030 WRG is chaired by Brabeck and includes the executive vice president and CEO of the International Finance Corporation (IFC), the investment arm of the World Bank, the administrator of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the chief business officer and managing director of the World Economic Forum, the president of the African Development Bank, the chairman and CEO of The Coca-Cola Company, the president of the Asian Development Bank, the director-general of the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), the president of the Inter-American Development Bank, and the chairman and CEO of PepsiCo, among others.

At the World Water Forum in 2012 – an event largely attended by the global proponents of water privatization, Nestlé among their most enthusiastic supporters – Brabeck suggested that the 2030 Water Resources Group represents a “global public-private initiative” which could help in “providing tools and information on best practice” as well as “guidance and new policy ideas on water resource scarcity.”

Brabeck and Nestlé had been in talks with the Canadian provincial government of Alberta in planning for a potential “water exchange,” to – in the words of Maclean’s magazine – “turn water into money.” In 2012, the University of Alberta bestowed an honorary degree upon Peter Brabeck “for his work as a responsible steward for water around the world.” Protests were organized at the university to oppose the ‘honor,’ with a representative from the public interest group, the Council of Canadians, noting: “I’m afraid that the university is positioning themselves on the side of the commodifiers, the people who want to say that water is not a human right that everyone has the right to, but is just a product that can be bought and sold.” A professor at the university stated: “I’m ashamed at this point, about what the university is doing and I’m also very concerned about the way the president of the university has been demonizing people who oppose this.” As another U of A professor stated: “What Nestlé does is take what clean water there is in which poor people are relying on, bottle it and then sell it to wealthier people at an exorbitant profit.”

The Global Water Privatization Agenda

Water privatization is an extremely vicious operation, where the quality of – and access to – water resources diminishes or even vanishes, while the costs explode. When it comes to the privatization of water, there is no such thing as “competition” in how the word is generally interpreted: there are only a handful of global corporations that undertake massive water privatizations. The two most prominent are the French-based Suez Environment and Veolia Environment, but also include Thames Water, Nestlé, PepsiCo and Coca-Cola, among others. For a world in which food has already been turned into a “market commodity” and has been “financialized,” leading to massive food price increases, hunger riots, and immense profits for a few corporations and banks, the prospect of water privatization is even more disturbing.

The agenda of water privatization is organized at the international level, largely promoted through the World Water Forum and the World Water Council. The World Water Council (WWC) was established in 1996 as a French-based non-profit organization with over 400 members from intergovernmental organizations, government agencies, corporations, corporate-dominated NGOs and environmental organizations, water companies, international organizations and academic institutions.

Every three years, the WWC hosts a World Water Forum, the first of which took place in 1997, and the 6th conference in 2012 was attended by thousands of participants from countries and institutions all over the world get together to decide the future of water, and of course, promote the privatization of this essential resource to human life. The 6th World Water Forum, hosted in Marseilles, France, was primarily sponsored by the French government and the World Water Council, but included a number of other contributors, including: the African Development Bank, African Union Commission, Arab Water Council, Asian Development Bank, the Council of Europe, the European Commission, the European Investment Bank, the European Parliament, the European Water Association, the Food and Agricultural Organization, the Global Environment Facility, Inter-American Development Bank, Nature Conservancy, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), Organization of American States (OAS), Oxfam, the World Bank, the World Business Council for Sustainable Development, the World Health Organization, the World Wildlife Fund; and a number of corporate sponsors, including: RioTinto Alcan, EDF, Suez Environment, Veolia, and HSBC. Clearly, they have human andenvironmental interests at heart.

The World Bank is a major promoter of water privatization, as much of its aid to ‘developing’ countries was earmarked for water privatization schemes which inevitably benefit major corporations, in co-operation with the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and the U.S. Treasury. One of the first major water privatization schemed funded by the World Bank was in Argentina, for which the Bank “advised” the government of Argentina in 1991 on the bidding and contracting of the water concession, setting a model for what would be promoted around the world. The World Bank’s investment arm, the International Finance Corporation (IFC), loaned roughly $1 billion to the Argentine government for three water and sewage projects in the country, and even bought a 5% stake in the concession, thus becoming a part owner. When the concession for Buenos Aires was opened up, the French sent representatives from Veolia and Suez, which formed the consortium Aguas Argentinas, and of course, the costs for water services went up. Between 1993, when the contract with the French companies was signed, and 1997, the Aguas Argentinas consortium gained more influence with Argentine President Carlos Menem and his Economy Minister Domingo Cavallo, who would hold meetings with the president of Suez as well as the President of France, Jacques Chirac. By 2002, the water rates (cost of water) in Buenos Aires had increased by 177%since the beginning of the concession.

In the 1990s, the amount of World Bank water privatization projects increased ten-fold, with 31% of World Bank water supply and sanitation projects between 1990 and 2001 including conditions of private-sector involvement, despite the fact that the projects consistently failed in terms of providing cheaper and better water to larger areas. But of course, they were highly profitable for large corporations, so naturally, they continued to be promoted and supported (and subsidized).

One of the most notable examples of water privatization schemes was in Bolivia, the poorest country in South America. In 1998, an IMF loan to Bolivia demanded conditions of “structural reform,” the selling off of “all remaining public enterprises,” including water. In 1999, the World Bank told the Bolivian government to end its subsidies for water services, and that same year, the government leased the Cochabamba Water System to a consortium of multinational corporations, Aguas del Tunari, which included the American corporation Bechtel. After granting the consortium a 40-year lease, the government passed a law which would make residents pay the full cost of water services. In January of 2000, protests in Cochabamba shut down the city for four days, striking and establishing roadblocks, mobilizing against the water price increases which doubled or tripled their water bills. Protests continued in February, met with riot police and tear gas, injuring 175 people.

By April, the protests began to spread to other Bolivian cities and rural communities, and during a “state of siege” (essentially martial law) declared by Bolivian president Hugo Banzer, a 17-year old boy, Victor Hugo Daza, was shot and killed by a Bolivian Army captain, who was trained as the U.S. military academy, the School of the Americas. As riot police continued to meet protesters with tear gas and live ammunition, more people were killed, and dozens more injured. On April 10, the government conceded to the people, ending the contract with the corporate consortium and granting the people to control their water system through a grassroots coalition led by the protest organizers.

Two days later, World Bank President James Wolfensohn stated that the people of Bolivia should pay for their water services. On August 6, 2001, the president of Bolivia resigned, and the Vice President Jorge Quiroga, a former IBM executive, was sworn in as the new president to serve the remainder of the term until August of 2002. Meanwhile, the water consortium, deeply offended at the prospect of people taking control of their own resources, attempted to take legal action against the government of Bolivia for violating the contract. Bechtel was seeking $25 million in compensation for its “losses,” while recording a yearly profit of $14 billion, whereas the national budget of Bolivia was a mere $2.7 billion. The situation ultimately led to a type of social revolution which brought to power the first indigenous Bolivian leader in the country’s history, Evo Morales.

This, of course, has not stopped the World Bank and IMF – and the imperial governments which finance them – from promoting water privatization around the world for the exclusive benefit of a handful of multinational corporations. The World Bank promotes water privatization across Africa in order to “ease the continent’s water crisis,” by making water more expensive and less accessible.

As the communications director of the World Bank in 2003, Paul Mitchell, explained, “Water is crucial to life – we have to get water to poor people,” adding: “There are a lot of myths about privatization.” I would agree. Though the myth that it ‘works’ is what I would propose, but Mitchell instead suggested that, “[p]rivate sector participation is simply to manage the asset to make it function for the people in the country.” Except that it doesn’t. But don’t worry, decreasing water standards, dismantling water distribution, and rapidly increasing the costs of water to the poorest regions on earth is good, according to Mitchell and the World Bank. He told the BBC that what the World Bank is most interested in is the “best way to get water to poor people.” Perhaps he misspoke and meant to say, “the best way to take water from poor people,” because that’s what actually happens.

In 2003, the World Bank funded a water privatization scheme in the country of Tanzania, supported by the British government, and granting the concession to a consortium called City Water, owned by the British company Biwater, which worked with a German engineering firm, Gauff, to provide water to the city of Dar es Salaam and the surrounding region. It was one of the most ambitious water privatization schemes in Africa, with $140 million in World Bank funding, and, wrote John Vidal in the Guardian, it “was intended to be a model for how the world’s poorest communities could be lifted out of poverty.”

The agreement included conditions for the consortium to install new pipelines for water distribution. The British government’s Department for International Development gave a 440,000-pound contract to the British neoliberal think tank, Adam Smith International, “to do public-relations work for the project.” Tanzania’s best-known gospel singer was hired to perform a pop song about the benefits of privatization, mentioning electricity, telephones, the ports, railways, and of course, water. Both the IMF and World Bank made the water scheme a condition for “aid” they gave to the country. Less than one year into the ten-year contract, the private consortium, City Water, stopped paying its monthly fee for leasing the government’s pipes and infrastructure provided by the public water company, Dawasa, while simultaneously insisting that its own fees be raised. An unpublished World Bank report even noted: “The primary assumption on the part of almost all involved, particularly on the donor side, was that it would be very hard, if not impossible, for the private operator [City Water] to perform worse than Dawasa. But that is what happened.” The World Bank as a whole, however, endorsed the program as “highly satisfactory,” and rightly so, because it was doing what it was intended to do: provide profits for private corporations at the expense of poor people.

By 2005, the company had not built any new pipes, it had not spent the meager investments it promised, and the water quality declined. As British government “aid” money was poured into privatization propaganda, a video was produced which included the phrase: “Our old industries are dry like crops and privatization brings the rain.” Actually, privatization attaches a price-tag to rain. Thus, in 2005, the government of Tanzania ended the contract with City Water, and arrested the three company executives, deporting them back to Britain. As is typical, the British company, Biwater, then began to file a lawsuit against the Tanzanian government for breach of contract, wanting to collect $20-25 million. A press release from Biwater at the time wrote: “We have been left with no choice... If a signal goes out that governments are free to expropriate foreign investments with impunity,” investors would flee, and this would, of course, “deal a massive blow to the development goals of Tanzania and other countries in Africa.”

The sixth World Water Forum in Marseilles in 2012 brought together some 19,000 participants, where the French Development Minister Henri de Raincourt proposed a “global water and environment management scheme,” adding: “The French government is not alone in its conviction that a global environment agency is needed more than ever.” A parallel conference was held – the Alternative World Water Forum – which featured critics of water privatization. Gustave Massiah, a representative of the anti-globalization group Attac, stated, “Should a global water fund be in control, giving concessions to multinational companies, then that’s not a solution for us. On the contrary, that would only add to the problems of the current system.”

Another member of Attac, Jacques Cambon, used to be the head of SAFEGE’s Africa branch, a subsidiary of the water conglomerate Suez. Cambon was critical of the idea of a global water fund, warning against centralization, and further explained that the World Bank “has almost always financed large-scale projects that were not in tune with local conditions.” Maria Theresa Lauron, a Philippine activist, shared the story of water privatization in the Philippines, saying, “Since 1997, prices went up by 450 to 800 percent... At the same time, the water quality has gone down. Many people get ill because of bad water; a year ago some 600 people died as a result of bacteria in the water because the private company didn’t do proper water checks.” But then, why would the company do such a thing? It’s not like it’s particularly profitable to be concerned with human welfare.

In Europe, the European Commission had been pushing water privatization as a condition for development funds between 2002 and 2010, specifically in several central and eastern European countries which were dependent upon EU grants. Since the European debt crisis, the European Commission had made water privatization a condition for Greece, Portugal, and Italy. Greece is privatizing its water companies, Portugal is being pressured to sell its national water company, Aguas do Portugal, and in Italy, the European Central Bank (ECB) and the Commission were pushing water privatization, even though a national referendum in July of 2011 saw the people of Italy reject such a scheme by 95%.

In this context, among the global institutions and corporations of power and influence, it is perhaps less surprising to imagine the chairman of Nestlé suggesting that human beings having a “right” to water is rather “extreme.” And for a very simple reason: that’s not profitable for Nestlé, even though it might be good for humanity and the earth. It’s about priorities, and in our world, priorities are set by multinational corporations, banks, and global oligarchs. As Nestlé would have us think, corporate and social interests are not opposed, as corporations – through their ‘enlightened’ self-interest and profit-seeking motives – will almost accidentally make the world a better place. Now, while neoliberal orthodoxy functions on the basis of people simply accepting this premise without investigation (like any religious belief), perhaps it would be worth looking at Nestlé as an example for corporate benefaction for the world and humanity.

Nestlé's Corporate Social Responsibility: Making the World Safe for Nestlé... and Incidentally Destroying the World

As a major multinational corporation, Nestlé has a proven track record of exploiting labour, destroying the environment, engaging in human rights violations, but of course – and most importantly – it makes big profits. In 2012, Nestlé was taking in major profits from ‘emerging markets’ in Asia, Africa, and Latin America. However, some emerging market profits began to slow down in 2013. This was partly the result ofa horsemeat scandal which required companies like Nestlé to intensify the screening of their food products.

Less than a year prior, Nestlé was complaining that “over-regulation” of the food industry was “undermining individual responsibility,” which is another way of saying that responsibility for products and their safety should be passed from the producer to the consumer. In other words, if you’re stupid enough to buy Nestlé products, it’s your fault if you get diabetes or eat horsemeat, and therefore, it’s your responsibility, not the responsibility of Nestlé. Fair enough! We’re stupid enough to accept corporations ruling over us, therefore, what right do we have to complain about all the horrendous crimes and destruction they cause? A cynic could perhaps argue such a point.

One of Nestlé’s most famous PR problems was that of marketing artificial baby milk, which sprung to headlines in the 1970s following the publication of “The Baby Killer,” accusing the company of getting Third World mothers hooked on formula. As research was proving that breastfeeding was healthier, Nestlé marketed its baby formula as a way for women to ‘Westernize’ and join the modern world, handing out pamphlets and promotional samples, with companies hiring “sales girls in nurses’ uniforms (sometimes qualified, sometimes not)” in order to drop by homes and sell formula. Women tried to save money on the formula by diluting it, often times with contaminated water. As the London-based organization War on Want noted: “The results can be seen in the clinics and hospitals, the slums and graveyards of the Third World... Children whose bodies have wasted away until all that is left is a big head on top of the shriveled body of an old man.” An official with the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) blamed baby formula for “a million infant deaths every year through malnutrition and diarrheal diseases.”

Mike Muller, the author of “The Baby Killer” back in 1974, wrote an article for the Guardian in 2013 in which he mentioned that he gave Peter Brabeck a “present” at the World Economic Forum, a signed copyof the report. The report had sparked a global boycott of Nestlé and the company responded with lawsuits.

Nestlé has also been implicated for its support of palm-oil plantations, which have led to increased deforestation and the destruction of orangutan habitats in Indonesia. A Greenpeace publication noted that, “at least 1500 orangutans died in 2006 as a result of deliberate attacks by plantation workers and loss of habitat due to the expansion of oil palm plantations.” A social media campaign was launched against Nestlé for its role in supporting palm oil plantations, deforestation, and the destruction of orangutan habitats and lives. The campaign pressured Nestlé to decrease its “deforestation footprint.”

As Nestlé has been expanding its presence in Africa, it has also aroused more controversy in its operations on the continent. Nestlé purchases one-tenth of the world’s cocoa, most of which comes from the Ivory Coast, where the company has been implicated in the use of child labour. In 2001, U.S. legislation required companies to engage in “self-regulation” which called for “slave free” labeling on all cocoa products. This “self regulation,” however, “failed to deliver” – imagine that! – as one study carried out by Tulane University with funding from the U.S. government revealed that roughly 2 million children were working on cocoa-related activities in both Ghana and the Ivory Coast. Even an internal audit carried out by the company found that Nestlé was guilty of “numerous” violations of child labour laws. Nestlé’s head of operations stated, “The use of child labor in our cocoa supply goes against everything we stand for.” So naturally, they will continue to use child labour.

Peter Brabeck stated that it’s “nearly impossible” to end the practice, and he compared the practice to that of farming in Switzerland: “You go to Switzerland... still today, in the month of September, schools have one week holiday so students can help in the wine harvesting... In those developing countries, this also happens,” he told the Council on Foreign Relations. While acknowledging that this “is basically child labor and slave labor in some African markets,” it is “a challenge which is not very easy to tackle,” noting that there is “a very fine edge” of what is acceptable regarding “child labor in [the] agricultural environment.” He added: “It’s almost natural.” Thus, Brabeck explained, “you have to look at it differently,” and that it was not the job of Nestlé to tell parents that their children can’t work on cocoa plantations/farms, “which is ridiculous,” he suggested: “But what we are saying is we will help you that your child has access for schooling.” So clearly there is no problem with using child slavery, just so long as the children get some schooling... presumably, in their ‘off-hours’ from slavery. Problem solved!

While Brabeck and Nestlé have made a big issue of water scarcity, which again, is an incredibly important issue, their solutions revolve around “pricing” water at a market value, and thus encouraging privatization. Indeed, a global water grab has been a defining feature of the past several years (coupled with a great global land grab), in which investors, countries, banks and corporations have been buying up vast tracts of land (primarily in sub-Saharan Africa) for virtually nothing, pushing off the populations which live off the land, taking all the resources, water, and clearing the land of towns and villages, to convert them into industrial agricultural plantations to develop food and other crops for export, while domestic populations are pushed deeper into poverty, hunger, and are deprived of access to water. Peter Brabeck has referred to the land grabs as really being about water: “For with the land comes the right to withdraw the water linked to it, in most countries essentially a freebie that increasingly could be seen as the most valuable part of the deal.” This, noted Brabeck, is “the great water grab.”

And of course, Nestlé would know something about water grabs, as it has become very good at implementing them. In past years, the company has been increasingly buying land where it is taking the fresh water resources, bottling them in plastic bottles and selling them to the public at exorbitant prices. In 2008, as Nestlé was planning to build a bottling water plant in McCloud, California, the Attorney General opposed the plan, noting: “It takes massive quantities of oil to produce plastic water bottles and to ship them in diesel trucks across the United States... Nestlé will face swift legal challenge if it does not fully evaluate the environmental impact of diverting millions of gallons of spring water from the McCloud River into billions of plastic water bottles.” Nestlé already operated roughly 50 springs across the country, and was acquiring more, such as a plan to draw roughly 65 million gallons of water from a spring in Colorado, despite fierce opposition to the deal.

Years of opposition to the plans of Nestlé in McCloud finally resulted in the company giving up on its efforts there. However, the company quickly moved on to finding new locations to take water and make a profit while destroying the environment (just an added bonus, of course). The corporation controls one-third of the U.S. market in bottled water, selling it as 70 different brand names, including Perrier, Arrowhead, Deer Park and Poland Spring. The two other large bottled water companies are Coca-Cola and PepsiCo, though Nestlé had earned a reputation “in targeting rural communities for spring water, a move that has earned it fierce opposition across the U.S. from towns worried about losing their precious water resources.” And water grabs by Nestlé as well as opposition continue to engulf towns and states and cities across the country, with one more recent case in Oregon.

Nestlé has aroused controversy for its relations with labour, exploiting farmers, pollution, and human rights violations, among many other things. Nestlé has been implicated in the kidnapping and murder of a union activist and employee of the company’s subsidiary in Colombia, with a judge demanding the prosecutor to “investigate leading managers of Nestle-Cicolac to clarify their likely involvement and/or planning of the murder of union leader Luciano Enrique Romero Molina.” In 2012, a Colombian trade union and a human rights group filed charges against Nestlé for negligence over the murder of their former employee Romero.

More recently, Nestlé has been found liable over spying on NGOs, with the company hiring a private security company to infiltrate an anti-globalization group, and while a judge ordered the company to pay compensation, a Nestlé spokesperson stated that, “incitement to infiltration is against Nestlé’s corporate business principles.” Just like child slavery, presumably. But not to worry, the spokesman said, “we will take appropriate action.”

Peter Brabeck, who it should be noted, also sits on the boards of Exxon, L’Oréal, and the banking giant Credit Suisse, warned in 2009 that the global economic crisis would be “very deep” and that, “this crisis will go on for a long period.” On top of that, the food crisis would be “getting worse” over time, hitting poor people the hardest. However, propping up the financial sector through massive bailouts was, in his view,“absolutely essential.” But not to worry, as banks are bailed out by governments, who hand the bill to the population, which pays for the crisis through reduced standards of living and exploitation (which we call “austerity” and “structural reform” measures), Nestlé has been ableto adapt to a new market of impoverished people, selling cheaper products to more people who now have less money. And better yet, it’s been making massive profits. And remember, according to Brabeck, isn’t that all that really matters?

This is the world according to corporations. Unfortunately, while it creates enormous wealth, it is also leading to the inevitable extinction of our species, and possibly all life on earth. But that’s not a concern of corporations, so it doesn’t concern those who run corporations, who make the important decisions, and pressure and purchase our politicians.

I wonder... what would the world be like if people were able to make decisions?

There’s only one way to know.

Get Ready for Higher Prices and Less Energy Security: Our Natural Gas Reserves Are Being Plundered For Export

Brad Jacobson, AlterNet — Tue, 23 Apr 2013 11:57:00 -0700

A deeply flawed study that ignores the harmful environmental and health impacts of gas drilling is being used to rally for exports.

This article was published in partnership with GlobalPossibilities.org.

Unlimited export of U.S. natural gas would have enormous implications on the future of the nation's economy, environment and domestic energy choices. Yet a burgeoning chorus in Congress, on both sides of the aisle, is calling for the swift approval of 19 liquid natural gas (LNG) export permits.

The acceptance of these permits would unleash an unprecedented frenzy of domestic high-volume hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, just to meet daily production rates under decades-long contractual obligations. If accepted, the total of the permits currently under review by the Department of Energy for LNG export would be equal to 28.54 billion cubic feet (Bcf) per day, approximately 45 percent of what the U.S. is projected to consume daily in 2013, according to the U.S. Energy Administration.

Congressional supporters of unlimited exports argue that turning the U.S. into a major net exporter of LNG would not only boost our economy and create jobs, but also -- seeming to defy the basic tenets of supply and demand -- sustain low domestic natural gas prices, increase our energy security and propel us to energy independence. Some have even contended that such exports would smooth out boom-and-bust cycles and stabilize the price of natural gas.

By law, the Natural Gas Act requires the Department of Energy to grant export permits of LNG to non-free trade agreement countries only if such exports are deemed in the public interest. LNG exports to countries the U.S. has free-trade agreements with, such as Canada and Mexico, do not require a public interest determination.

On the Senate floor last month, Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK) argued, "What could be inconsistent with this for the public interest? This is something that would be cheaper gas for us and give us total independence in a matter of weeks."

At an event last year sponsored by the trade group America's Natural Gas Alliance, Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski, the top Republican on the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, said, "Exports of natural gas ... are not expected to play a significant role in setting prices here at home."

In a statement released by his office, Sen. Mark Begich (D-AK), told AlterNet, "Concerns that natural gas exports will significantly drive up the price of natural gas for domestic use are overblown."

He added, "Additionally, even with dramatic growth in LNG markets abroad and use of natural gas at home, the U.S. has more than enough gas to satisfy both markets for a long time."

But many experts close to the issue -- backed by multiple studies, real-world numbers and historical trends -- say these elected leaders are either not leveling with the American public or are simply ill-informed.

"Members of Congress are not energy experts so they are easily confused," said Tad Patzek, chairman of the Department of Petroleum and Geosystems Engineering at the University of Texas. "And their religion is free market. It's got nothing to do with reality, especially energy markets."

Patzek, an expert in unconventional gas recovery who has extensively studied U.S. shale plays, called congressional boosters of unlimited exports "delusional" in an interview with AlterNet.

"This is the same argument over and over again," he added. "If we have a boom, then twice the boom is always better. Right? Well, not necessarily."

Domestically, natural gas remains cheap, hovering around $3.50 per thousand cubic feet (Mcf). But in Europe and Asia, respectively, prices are three to nearly five times that amount.

The current glut of natural gas in the U.S. has kept prices low for both consumers' electricity bills and for energy-intensive areas of the economy, such as the revitalized domestic manufacturing sector, which uses natural gas for feedstock. But over the last couple of years, gas companies have been losing money because supply has outpaced demand and returns on natural gas at its domestic price became too low to warrant the cost of production.

Exporting LNG to the highest bidder overseas would greatly benefit the profits of gas companies and also some companies involved in its export. But many experts agree, and multiple studies reveal, that it would have the dual effect of raising prices domestically to levels that would both hurt consumers and all other energy-intensive sectors of the economy.

"If we are forced to pay $12 to $16 per Mcf, well, then our economy's going bust," Patzek said.

"I don't know of anybody who's studied this who doesn't acknowledge that prices will go up," said Art Berman, an oil and gas geologist who heads the Houston-based geological consulting firm Labyrinth Consulting. "So if we lock ourselves into 20-year contracts to export X number of billions of cubic feet a day, well, that's going to increase the price. And that's really what it's all about."

Berman's research on actual U.S. shale well production, as opposed to mere projections, has led him and others to question industry and government mantras boasting of America's ever-abundant supply of natural gas reserves. With industry and government projections upward of 100 years of untapped domestic natural gas, Berman, based on the rate of returns from drilled shale plays across the nation, estimates that a more realistic number would be around 20-25 years of supply.

That's without factoring in the impact on supply if the U.S. becomes a major exporter. Patzek said industry and government projections of natural gas reserves are merely "speculation," which is why the use of this resource demands "moderation." Using these reserves in moderation, he said it's probable that several decades of untapped domestic natural gas remains. But what's undeniable, he added, was that opening our supply to limitless exports would force the U.S. to deplete these finite reserves faster, needlessly squandering them.

"How does exporting a strategic natural resource make you more energy independent?" Berman said in an interview with AlterNet. "If you're selling it to somebody else, then by definition you're decreasing your own supply."

He continued, "Signing long-term contracts that require you to export natural gas, if anything, only decreases your energy independence."

Eben Burnham-Snyder, a spokesman for House Natural Resources Committee Ranking Member Rep. Edward Markey (D-Mass.), agreed.

"Every single analysis of natural gas exporting has concluded that domestic prices will increase," Burnham-Snyder said in an email to AlterNet. "That's based on basic economic theory."

He continued, "Sending more of our natural gas resources abroad, instead of keeping more of it here for consumers and manufacturers and providing a diverse energy supply, is not a policy to make us more energy secure...[it] makes us less independent, not more."

Berman added, "These companies have stupidly, imprudently overproduced their own product to the point they can't make money at the price they've created themselves. So now they're looking for a solution to that problem, and they've managed to convince a number of idiots in Congress that this is a good idea."

No congressional supporters contacted by AlterNet would explain how exporting natural gas would, in turn, increase the country's energy security and energy independence.

Supporters Rally Around "Seriously Flawed" Study

Congressional supporters of unfettered natural gas exports were buoyed by last year's economic impact study commissioned by the Department of Energy. The report, conducted by the outside firm NERA Economic Consulting, concluded that although domestic natural gas prices would rise moderately and some sectors of the economy, such as manufacturing, would be adversely affected, the "U.S. would experience net economic benefits from increased LNG exports."

Following its release, 110 bipartisan members of the House of Representatives fired off a letter urging Energy Secretary Steven Chu to hasten approval of all LNG export permits.

When criticisms of the NERA study began pouring in, a bipartisan group of senators, including James Inhofe (R-OK), Mary Landrieu (D-LA), David Vitter (R-LA) and Mark Begich (D-AK), followed up with a letter of their own to Secretary Chu, insisting he listen to "the sound science and economic theory that comprises" the study's conclusions.

But the NERA study was not only assailed for questionable modeling and omitting economic impacts on the environment, health and local jobs -- such as farms and the businesses they support -- but also for NERA's troubling history of conducting favorable studies for both the tobacco and coal industries.

In a January 2013 letter to the Energy Department, Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR), chairman of the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, ripped the NERA report, calling it "seriously flawed" to the point of rendering "this study insufficient for the Department to use in any export determination."

Shortcomings Wyden highlighted include NERA using two-year-old energy figures to project the domestic consumption of natural gas, failing to fully assess the effect of rising prices on households and businesses, inadequately accounting for production impacts on various regional markets, and omitting the result of higher prices on different socioeconomic groups. All of which, Wyden noted, the Energy Department is tasked to assess in order to meet public interest determinations under the Natural Gas Act.

After its release, Rep. Edward Markey (D-MA), the top Democrat on the House Natural Resources Committee, said the study reveals, though downplays, that such exports would "constitute a massive transfer of wealth from working Americans to natural gas production and export companies."

"Most Americans don't own stock in natural gas companies, but nearly all Americans use natural gas and buy goods created using low-cost natural gas," Markey spokesman Burnham-Snyder told AlterNet. "Unlimited exports of natural gas will benefit only a very few, while leaving the rest of America to pay the increased costs from higher natural gas prices."

The Energy Department first commissioned a companion study conducted by the Energy Information Administration (EIA), an independent branch of the Department. The study, published in January 2012, focused on how increased natural gas exports would impact domestic consumption, production and prices.

The report concludes:

Increased natural gas exports lead to higher domestic natural gas prices, increased domestic natural gas production, reduced domestic natural gas consumption, and increased natural gas imports from Canada via pipeline.

Yet even this EIA assessment, as Wyden noted to the Energy Department, made its calculations based on estimated export volumes far lower than the total of the permits now under review. The EIA projected between a low volume of 6 billion cubic feet per day and a high volume of 12 billion cubic feet per day. So even its high range is dwarfed by the roughly 29 billion cubic feet per day now being proposed.

But the findings of an independent Purdue University study, released after the NERA analysis, were even more stark and directly challenged NERA's conclusions.

"The major conclusion of this research is that permitting natural gas exports causes a small reduction in US GDP and also increases GHG emissions and other environmental emissions such as particulates. There is a loss of labor and capital income in all energy intensive sectors, and electricity prices increase."

The authors continue, "The major differences between our results and the other major study (NERA) are that we get considerably higher natural gas price impacts, and we do not get export revenue as large. The higher natural gas prices cause pervasive losses throughout the commercial, industrial, and residential sectors."

In a final note, the authors caution, "Given all the results of this analysis, it is clear that policy makers need to be very careful in approving US natural gas exports. While we are normally disciples of the free trade orthodoxy, one must examine the evidence in each case. We have done that, and the analysis shows that this case is different. Using the natural gas in the US is more advantageous than exports, both economically and environmentally."

Environmental and Health Impacts Left Out of the Mix

Environmental groups, including the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) and the Sierra Club, also slammed the study for failing to assess environmental impacts of increased domestic fracking on both the economy and health of local communities in which drilling would occur and on the overall global climate.

The Sierra Club revealed that the NERA study's main supporting point for a net economic benefit from exports was built on ignoring negative environmental impacts.

Applying federal government estimates, the group calculatedthat the increase in natural gas exports would pump an additional 689,000 tons of methane into the atmosphere each year at a staggering social cost of $430,625,000. This additional cost would nullify more than 20 percent of the GDP increase projected in the NERA study, which would shift the slight net gain from exports to a net loss.

Jeff Deyette, a senior energy analyst at the Union of Concerned Scientists, said that methane leakage issues, both in the act of fracking and extraction and in the transport of natural gas, demand greater evaluation.

"Given how potent methane is, even modest amounts could make natural gas as bad or worse than coal from a total greenhouse gas emissions standpoint," said Deyette.

The NRDC noted the NERA report "ignores environmental externalities, including global warming, air pollution, water pollution and other pollution impacts" and "wholly neglects to estimate public health and environmental damages that are routinely estimated in regulatory impact analyses."

Henry Henderson, director of the Midwest Program at the Natural Resources Defense Council, noted that the negative drilling impacts on communities don't show up in GDP estimates or corporate annual reports.

"There are long-term impacts on property values and the economies of rural communities that are not properly measured by simply the cost of selling natural gas on the market," said Henderson in a recent interview with AlterNet.

"They are jobs that come and go as opposed to impacts that remain in perpetuity," he said.

This impact has already been seen in states that were home to the early fracking boom, such as Pennsylvania. As a January report by the Center for Public Integrity detailed, the prospect of exporting natural gas was not part of the bargain when Pennsylvanians agreed to open their state to fracking.

So now, adding insult to injury, people in towns who've already suffered environmental, health and economic degradation from this extractive process are "surprised, stunned, angry and upset" to discover these same companies not only want to drill in higher volumes but also seek to export the gas without regard for the increased price or the continued negative drilling effects in their communities.

Patzek, of the University of Texas, noted that in later stages of exploitation of a resource such as hydrocarbons, we tend to go from using faraway places with very concentrated hydrocarbons, such as West Texas or the Middle East, to lesser quality, more difficult and dilute resources, which are close to where people live.

"We are at that stage right now and it's only going to get worse," he said. "We will be encroaching more and more on where people live."

Patzek added, "We don't seem to be able to go beyond the next boom-or-bust cycle and ask for a little bit longer planning. This thought that there is a common good and a common future that we all have has vanished."

AlterNet.org: Water

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