Google Gaggle! OH F@!$

I really made a mistake by trying to change my email address - if anyone has been through the hops of "conflicting accounts" you know what I mean!

BP refuses award, ejects the messengers

Diane Wilson got fished out of the Blog at Democracy now after an attempt to present the "Black Planet" award at a British Petroleum shareholders meeting. Since this was in London, she didn't get teargassed or beaten as is the custom stateside, but after 30 minutes of persistence, she did get arrested. She reports:

When I saw they absolutely were going to do everything they could to block me out, I had a baggy of molasses I had stuck in my bra, believe it or not, and I ripped it out, and I put it on my face, and I put it on my hands. And I said, "This is why they do not want us in here. They want us to go away. They want us to be quiet. They do not want any attention brought on this oil." And so, I probably stood there for, oh, 20 or 30 minutes, and eventually they arrested me. They hauled me off and arrested me.

I was charged with disrupting the peace. And I kept laughing about that, and I said, "Disrupting the peace for BP?" That was pretty outrageous. You know, they had disrupted our lives down there. But just appearing at the door of a BP general assembly, and we’re disrupting the peace. And they took me down to the Forest Gate Metropolitan Police. And I must say, the police in London are extremely, extremely nice. They kept wanting to get me coffee.

The is the same Diane who went on the lam 6 years ago after her famous protest at Dow Chemical. She comes from a long line of fishermen, who have seen a bountiful resource completely destroyed by toxic industries who have absolutely no concern for human life or the need to make a living and have safe food. The picture links back to its source at Democracy Now, and here's the historic banner-drop at Dow Chemical.

Klimaforum 10 in Cancun: current program

Terminator takes on the dinosaurs and fossil fools

"A new executive order requires the Golden State’s utilities to get a third of their electricity from renewable energy sources by 2020. This is in addition to robust energy efficiency programs that make California consistently one of the leaders, worldwide, in creating negawatts.

Whats a negawatt?
Get the pdf

Further evidence that the smart money is on clean tech, is that Pacific Gas and Electric and Exelon have quit the US Chamber of Commerce and Duke Energy has left the National Association of Manufacturers." From Bill Hewitt, earlier this month

Myanmar snuffs news of deaths in oil pipeline blaze

According to independent sources, more than 100 people have died as of Wednesday in Myanmar's oil pipeline blaze

On Monday, AFP reported the death of at least 14 workers at an oil fire in central Myanmar. That is the only report we had until yesterday, and casualties continue to mount. According to AFP "Authorities were battling to put out the blaze, which broke out on Sunday near Pakokku town in the Magway region." The official who passed the information to AFP did not want to be named.

The vast majority of industry in tightly controlled Mynmar is in the hands of the French company Total, and California based Chevron. Chevron took over the operations of UNOCAL after UNOCAL was sucessfully sued for sponsoring the rape and torture of villagers along their pipeline in Myanmar.

UNOCAL had long been one of the brands sold by the oil giant Chevron, but until the recent settlement, UNOCAL operated as an independent corporation.

The source for this article was a Malaysian publication Mysinchew.com, by way of AFP. Since then, the democratic resistance has leaked eyewitness accounts of villagers nearby:
Death toll exceeds 100, Democratic Voice of Burma

reported Wednesday - DOGSPOT

Tsunami Hits Indonesian Islands

UPDATE 10-29-2010:

Rescuers need boats - 343 dead, 404 injured, 338 missing,

- Jakarta Post

On Tuesday a tsunami smashed into a remote Indonesian island chain while in central Java a volcanic eruption left 13 people dead.

An intial 7.7 magnitude underwater quake triggered the tsunami 15 minutes later. After 5 hours, the islands were rocked by a 6.1 magnitude aftershock, and a series of smaller quakes in the range of 5.1 to 6.2 magnitude. The apocolyptic scenario was completed by 3 eruptions of the Merapi volcano, which erupted yet again on Friday.

Details, along with seismic reports, have been moved to DOGSPOT

Chevron expert judged incredible in federal court

Not once in 2 decades of work for Texaco and Chevron has John Connor found his clients to be responsible for harm to even a single person. The jury in Jefferson County, Mississippi found otherwise.

Crap and Trade is a Republican Idea

Two in a row for GRIST - they released a great issue yesterday. In "The GOP changes its tune on cap-and-trade", Dan Weiss explains how and why the Republicans are:

"...repudiating Reagan's legacy of cap-and-trade for cheap political gain to curry favor with polluting industries".

"Cap-and-trade is a cost-effective alternative that allows the firms that can more cheaply reduce their emissions below their required limit to sell any additional reductions to companies that are not able to make reductions as easily. This creates a system that guarantees a set level of overall reductions while rewarding the most efficient companies and ensuring that the cap can be met at the lowest possible cost to the economy.

The Reagan White House conceived the first cap-and-trade program to reduce pollution. It was used in the 1980s to phase out lead in gasoline at a lower cost."

Dan Weiss also sites Cap and Trade proposals by Newt Gingrich, George W. Bush, and Sarah Palin as recently as 2008. What a short memory we are supposed to have! Republicans bank on contributions from major polluters in exchange for their flip-flop on this issue dear to companies like Peabody and Chevron. Even before the court ruling that opened the floodgates of money for the upcoming election, Chevron has recently laundered millions through the Chamber of Commerce, an effort that is being scaled up this year. But not for candidates who support even the mildest attempts to mitigate the real cost of dirty industry.

Daniel J. Weiss originally posted his article at The Center for American Progress.

The World Bank - funding decades of climate injustice

The world bank has gotten in many affairs beyond their original agenda, but their carbon trading portifolio has become a significant threat to climate progress. Daphne Wysham reveals their gambit at GRIST.ORG:
Her article- Critics question World Bank’s role as carbon trader, fossil-fuel funder was published 5 years ago. It should not be too much of a surprise that the World Bank envisions itself as banker for the UN climate process, which they also seek to shape. Negotiations unraveled when their hidden role in Copenhagen was revealed. As we head toward Cancun, their cards are on the table, but they are playing the wrong game.
It is time for them to fold. MORE at DOGSPOT

Handy Guide for Chevron Protests 2.0

Here is a handy little guide for environmental activists who need to know more about the corporate giant that owns the largest toxic oil spill in history. Included are timely tidbits in 5 major categories:

• Chevron corporate profile,
• Chevron goes to Ecuador,
• Chevron websurfing,
• Who sells Chevron?, and last but not least
• Chevron drills into the future.

The latest pdf is here and here.
The online version -
Who is Chevron, who promotes their greenwash ?
- contains useful links to information that might be included in a "long version".

Green cheers for new Chevron drilling?

Is this a green blog?

The blog that calls itself "Green" at the New York Times announces with uncritical acceptance new drilling by Chevron in the Gulf of Mexico. If you want to talk to their executives, you have to be a cheerleader, and Clifford Kraus certainly is. Here's a quote from his blog, for which Green is clearly a misnomer:

"I caught up with Bobby Ryan, Chevron’s vice president for global exploration, to get his take on the announcement so soon after the lifting of the moratorium, which came in the aftermath of the blowout on a BP well that killed 11 rig workers and flooded the gulf with millions of barrel(sic) of oil. He said that despite the accident, the gulf continues to be one of the crucial areas of focus for Chevron, the second largest American oil company after Exxon. “We are going to continue to explore,” he said."

Unfortunately, there is more. Read it and you'll agree. Fresh Green Blog is a green blog -:)

Chevron websurfing

example of a "websurfer" from Chevron:
canonical name chvpkproxy3.chevron.com.
address 146.23.4.23
Chevron provides access to the web by proxy from a network that includes these addresses:
146.44.0.0/15, 146.24.0.0/13, 146.40.0.0/14, 146.32.0.0/13, 146.22.0.0/15, 146.46.0.0/16
Their domain is registered with Network Solutions:
Chevron Corp.
Domain Coordinator
6001 Bollinger Canyon Rd.
San Ramon, CA 94583-2324
US

more about Chevron Corporation

Spoof preempts Chevron ad campaign

Even as I type this, several news outlets continue to distribute a spoof from environmentalists that preceded a genuine effort from Chevron. The fake press releases include a link to chevron-weagree.com where a slick slide show presents a message that would be a complete turn-around for the oil giant. Chevron has launched an effort to take it down...
Full story has been updated and moved
The original spoof site has been archived, and can easily be mirrored. http://dogspot.us/chevron/
You can download the entire site as an archive

.

Chevron - Oil companies should clean up their messes

Clean Up Their Messes chevron-weagree.com

This is only one slide from the spoofed Chevron website. The latest update is here: Masks come off in Chevron charade

Oil companies should fix the problems they create

Fix The Problems They Create chevron-weagree.com

This is only one slide from the spoofed Chevron website. The latest update is here: Masks come off in Chevron charade