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THE WITNESSA Frontliner’s pavement perspective on protecting the North Pole
By Thomas McConville, Frontline San Jose
“The Arctic – that’s the one on top, right?”
“Exactly.”, I replied.
“And you guys are going to turn it into a park?”
“Well, a world park – like a global sanctuary; no rides or popcorn stands.”
Skipjack tuna and bycatch caught in the net of a purse seiner using fish aggregation devices (FADs)
Monday, June 10th – 9am: Nine Greenpeace Semester student activists and three staff loaded their bags for a week long trip to Pittsburgh. Our goal was to focus an international campaign at tuna company StarKist and its Korea-based parent company Dongwon to highlight their unsustainable fishing practices that are depleting tuna populations, killing off other marine wildlife including sharks, turtles, and sea birds, and have involved actual pirating.
While climbing into the van, I’ll admit that I felt very uncertain about how our trip would go, despite the hard work my classmates and I had put in to plan for the week. As part of the visuals team, my job was to be photographer and videographer of the whole experience and to compile photo petitions to StarKist headquarters in Pittsburgh and send them to our colleagues at Greenpeace in Korea who would use them against Dongwon. My realist side doubted the efficacy of such a short trip; coupled with the weather forecasts predicting 70% chance of thunderstorms, my reservations were justified.
Then came our results: 578 photo petitions and 650 signatures on our physical petition from the public, smashing our original goal of 400 of each!
Hundreds of photo petitions from the public get assembled to deliver to Pittsburgh-based tuna company StarKist to protest their destructive fishing methods.
Needless to say, my attitude took a drastic turn throughout the week. It’s been a long time since I felt such a strong sense of accomplishment, and knowing that our photos would reach a continent 7900 miles away was both mind-boggling and immensely empowering. I won’t say much else here, as I feel that the numbers speak for themselves. What I do want to add is this: from my experience going on the Pittsburgh campaign trip, I’ve learned that nothing will change unless we all actively choose to make ourselves heard. It’s okay to doubt, stumble, fail, reassess, and reassemble, as long as we’re not complacent—for that makes us complicit in the wrongs done against our environment today.
In the words of Oceans Campaigner Phil Kline, “Just go do it.”
Imagine you’re sitting at a table, playing a game of Russian roulette. Across from you is a five-chambered revolver, loaded with a single steel bullet. If you live, you win a stack of cash. Losing means your life. Would you play?
Big oil companies, like Shell and Exxon, want to play a similar game, with the same chance of losing everything. They’re not wagering their lives, though—they’re betting on the safety of our precious and finite environment. The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement (formerly the Minerals Management Service) estimates a one-in-five chance of a major spill occurring over the lifetime of activity in just one block of leases in the Arctic Ocean near Alaska. Risky, right? It’s common sense; why risk ruining a beautiful and crucial habitat for something as trivial as the three years’ worth of oil it would provide?
The effects of such a spill could be grave—possibly even worse than the BP Gulf Coast spill. Gushing oil would tarnish the lives of the people and animals who call the Arctic their home. If the well was not sealed fast enough (and with winter sea ice, it could take as much as six months for clean up crews to arrive on the scene), the oil could become trapped underneath winter ice, and flow in the waters below for up to two years.
Even worse, the big oil companies have yet to compose a rational plan for dealing with spilled oil. Part of Shell’s current response would be to burn leaking oil—seriously? A wise woodshop teacher once told me to measure twice and cut once. Shell is going in with no real plan– let’s hope they’re better at drilling than I am at cutting two-by-fours.
What’s most upsetting to me is the fact that oil companies like Shell are making dangerous decisions that will affect not only our generation, but those of the future. Children are so excited about animals like polar bears and foxes, and are so eager to learn about them.
I met a young boy while canvassing for Greenpeace who was so enthusiastic about tigers that he dragged his mother and sister over to talk to me.Telling him that human greed is endangering these creatures broke my heart. He smiled at me and tugged on his mother’s shirt. “We help them?” he asked her with wide eyes, before looking at me and asserting “We help them!” By the time that boy is an adult, we need to make sure there will still be tigers and polar bears for him to help.
The decision on drilling in the Arctic is simple: The risk factor is high, and the consequences are devastating. Is the US willing to risk the safety of the Arctic for three years’ worth of oil? Do you think that burning oil is a viable disaster plan?
Would you play Russian roulette with a five chambered revolver?
Shenanigans at the front door of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce yesterday reveal that the Chamber has dropped its lawsuit against the Yes Men, the activist duo famous for their elaborate prime-time pranks against Dow Chemical, Chevron, the World Trade Organization, and other giant entities known for putting their profit margins before people and the planet.
The Yes Men went to the Chamber yesterday morning in attempts to convince the business front group not to drop the lawsuit. Here’s some footage of the announcement and confusion over who does and doesn’t work for the Chamber:
That’s right. The Yes Men want to be sued by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. According to their press release:
“Just as their case against us was finally heating up again, the Chamber decided to drop it,” said former defendant Andy Bichlbaum of the Yes Men. “The Chamber knew this was our chance to challenge their silly claims and, since they claimed we had ‘damaged’ them, investigate the details of their finances through the discovery process. It’s the height of rudeness to deprive us of this great opportunity.”
“The Chamber’s lawsuit represented the only time in 17 years that anyone has been stupid enough to sue us,” said former defendant Mike Bonanno. Continue reading
10 out of 11 Tea Party spokespeople quoted in major news outlets regarding the IRS scandal have ties to the Koch funded Americans for Prosperity.
The Internal Revenue Service, not the most popular government agency to begin with, has been in the midst of a scatological squall for the past 3 weeks over their treatment of tea party groups. According to an agency spokesperson, organizations garnered additional scrutiny of their applications for non-profit status for having “Tea Party, Patriot, or 9/12” in the application materials. Non-profit status is granted by the IRS for “social welfare organizations” and federal law puts legal limits to the amount of overtly political things you can do if you are applying to be a non-profit, and thus tax-exempt. Continue reading
Amid concerns that Koch Industries could buy several major U.S. newspapers from Tribune Company, industrial billionaire David Koch was forced to step down as trustee of WNET, New York City’s largest public TV station, after the New Yorker revealed how WNET gave Koch inappropriate influence over its programming. Mr. Koch was floating a seven-figure donation over WNET’s leadership as the station aired a movie that portrayed him as a particularly greedy Manhattan resident.
Sure enough, WNET didn’t wind up receiving David Koch’s hefty donation.
Click to read New Yorker’s article on David Koch’s influence over WNET. Image: The New Yorker.
Last Thursday, David Koch submitted his resignation at a WNET Board of Trustees meeting, and Brad Johnson at Forecast the Facts* reports that Koch’s name was scrubbed from WNET’s website several days prior to the resignation. Koch Industries’ public relations website, KochFacts, released a preemptive response to the New Yorker article (which it has now urgently elaborated on), attempting to stifle New Yorker reporter Jane Mayer and the details of her newest piece. David Koch’s resignation as a WNET Trustee, coupled with telling quotes from WNET president Neal Shapiro and other sources, makes it clear that Koch had too much influence at the decreasingly-public TV station in New York.
The article is a fascinating culmination of two portions of the ongoing legacy of the Koch brothers: their desire to influence media, which is playing out with their company’s bid for the Tribune Company’s eight national daily newspapers, and their attempts to intimidate journalists and silence reporting they consider unfavorable. Continue reading
On March 29 ExxonMobil, the most profitable company in the world, spilled at least 210,000 gallons of tar sands crude oil from an underground pipeline in Mayflower, Arkansas. The pipeline was carrying tar sands oil from Canada, which flooded family residences in Mayflower in thick tarry crude. Exxon’s tar sands crude also ran into Lake Conway, which sits about an eighth of a mile from where Exxon’s pipeline ruptured.
The cove of Lake Conway which Exxon claimed was “oil-free”
A new batch of documents received by Greenpeace in response to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request to the Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) has revealed that Exxon downplayed the extent of the contamination caused by the ruptured pipeline. Records of emails between Arkansas’ DEQ and Exxon depict attempts by Exxon to pass off press releases with factually false information. In a draft press release dated April 8, Exxon claims “Tests on water samples show Lake Conway and the cove are oil-free.” However, internal emails from April 6 show Exxon knew of significant contamination across Lake Conway and the cove resulting from the oil spill.
When the chief of Arkansas Hazardous Waste division called Exxon out on this falsehood, Exxon amended the press release. However, they did not amend it to say that oil was in Lake Conway and contaminant levels in the lake were rising to dangerous levels, as they knew to be the case. Instead, they continue to claim that Lake Conway is “oil-free.” For the record, Exxon maintains that the “cove,” a section of Lake Conway that experienced heavy oiling from the spill, is not part of the actual lake. Exxon maintains this distinction in spite of Arkansas Attorney General Dustin McDaniel saying unequivocally “The cove is part of Lake Conway…The water is all part of one body of water.” Furthermore, Exxon water tests confirmed that levels of Benzene and other contaminants rose throughout the lake, not just in the cove area.
Though Exxon was eventually forced to redact their claim that the cove specifically was “oil-free,” the oil and gas giant has yet to publicly address the dangerous levels of Benzene and other contaminants their own tests have found in the body of Lake Conway. The Environmental Protection Agency and the American Petroleum Institute don’t agree on everything, but they do agree that the only safe level of Benzene, a cancer causing chemical found in oil, is zero. Benzene is added to tar sands oil to make it less viscous and flow more easily through pipelines. Local people have reported fish kills, chemical smells, nausea and headaches. Independent water tests have found a host of contaminants present in the lake.
Dead fish in Palarm creek, which Lake Conway drains into. Palarm creek is a tributary of the Arkansas River.
According to Exxon’s data, 126,000 gallons of tar sands crude oil from the pipeline spill is still unaccounted for.
Exxon’s spill emanated from the Pegasus Pipeline, which like the proposed Keystone XL pipeline, connects the Canadian Tar Sands with refineries in the Gulf of Mexico.
I’m wearing my new blue t-shirt from Bike to Work Day. It was a beautiful morning on the W.O. & D. trail. I hope you had a good ride yourself or at least wished you had when you saw bikes rolling by.
I was at a meet up stop In Vienna, Virginia, when a man rolled up and asked what was going on. When he heard that this was a distribution point for riders who had registered to get a free t-shirt, he asked “What do you get if you ride to work everyday?”
I didn’t hear a good answer to that from the group, although they offered him a t-shirt, but the obvious one is health, and the other is wealth. Compared to purchasing, insuring, maintaining and fueling a car, bicycling is a good deal with great side effects.
Here’s a cool new toy. A popular article on Forbes today details a new smart phone app called “Buycott,” which is catching the attention of shoppers who want to make sure their money spent on groceries and other basic products isn’t enriching corporations with bad records on social and environmental responsibility.
Take Koch Industries. Greenpeace has written extensively about the Koch brothers’ $67 million in support for groups that deny climate change science and promote industries that pollute our air and water, our politics, and our health. The millions of dollars going to groups like ALEC and the State Policy Network also serves to break unions, privatize education, and water down healthcare reform.
Those are good reasons not to give a dime to the multi-billionaire Koch brothers, who own the vast majority of Koch Industries’ private stock. Yet many consumers may not realize that buying products like Quilted Northern toilet paper or Brawny paper towels contributes to Koch profits through their giant pulp and paper subsidiary, Georgia-Pacific. Nor perhaps did the incoming Obama Administration realize that the 2009 inaugural carpet was made by a Koch subsidiary called INVISTA. What a crummy business deal–the President buys your carpet, then you coordinate hundreds of millions of dollars from billionaires determined to defeat his re-election bid…if only there had been an app!
“I have a question–who bought this Koch Industries carpet? Are you serious?!”
The President’s staff aren’t alone. You may well have Koch products in your house. Continue reading
Not quite the photo op you’d expect from this location, but Christian Åslund’s shot from the North Pole is the April 2013 Greenpeace USA Photo of the Month.
Team Aurora lowers a titanium time capsule with the names of 2.7 million people who want to save the Arctic from the impacts of climate change and pollution of oil production.
Here Team Aurora prepares to lower a titanium time capsule through a hole in the ice and down to a permanent resting place on the seabed. On top is the “flag for the future” a design selected in a global competition. The orb holds the names of 2.7 million people from around the world who signed on to support protecting the Arctic. Continue reading
