Chávez's Mausoleum Will Become a Place of Pilgrimage for the World's Revolutionaries

Hugo Chávez taught us all that one dedicated revolutionary can change the world.

During his life, and now in our memories, Hugo Chávez has inspired us, given us hope and taught us that one dedicated revolutionary can change the world. As Bolivian president Evo Morales said, "Brother Hugo has left us a great task, a great mission, a marked path…the goal is the liberation of our peoples...you will continue being a source of inspiration as you have been up to now.”

Chávez was laid to rest after final farewell in Caracas yesterday at the end of the Venezuela's official 10 day mourning period. Late on Friday Venezuelan officials ruled out embalming Chávez and leaving his body on permanent public display in a similar fashion as Lenin. The museum now housing Chávez's body will open to the public on Saturday [today] and the government expects the mausoleum to become a "place of pilgrimage for the world's revolutionaries." Many Venezuelans would like Chávez s body to eventually be interred in the National Pantheon, reserved for national heroes such as the country’s founder, Simon Bolivar.

The United Nations General Assembly paid tribute to late Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez during a special ceremony on Wednesday, hailing his commitment to social justice and advocacy for society’s most vulnerable groups. The United Nations Human Rights Council also held one minute’s silence for Chávez the day after his death at the request of the Cuban ambassador, Anayansi Rodriguez. She also read a declaration made by the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) that expressed its “profound solidarity with the people and government of the sister Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, and particularly with the family and friends of comandante Chávez”.

The CELAC, which is made up of all countries of the Americas except the US and Canada, is one of Chavez's revolutionary international accomplishments and there are many. In 2010, Chávez played a major role in the creation of the CELAC, made up of hemispheric partners, excluding the United States and Canada [purposefully]. In 2005, Chávez helped scuttle the U.S. goal of a Free Trade Area of the Americas. Later he spearheaded the formation of the Union of South American Nations (Unasur) in 2008. As a Latin American alternative to the U.S.-dominated Organization of American States, the 12-member Unasur proved its value by successfully mediating the Colombia-Ecuador conflict and the Bolivian separatist crisis in 2008.

There's an old saying that you can take the true measure of a person by their enemies. The list Chávez's enemies included every corporate capitalist, every imperialist, every ally of Zionism, every...well everyone that supports the tyranny of the rich. They hated Hugo because he gave us all hope that there might be a bright equitable future for mankind. He used Venezuela's oil revenues to lift the impoverished at home and abroad.

One of the propaganda tactics his enemies are now using to discredit him is there use of the corporate media whores to spread misinformation about Chávez. They attempt to slur Hugo's memory by saying that his popularity in Latin America, and beyond, was the result of him using oil revenues to subsidize Cuba, Nicaragua, Bolivia, Ecuador and others. It's imperialist bullshit. Chávez bartered oil with Cuba in exchange for the building, equipping and staffing of free medical clinics throughout Venezuela's previously un-served barrios. He bartered oil with Nicaragua in exchange for food that he sold at cost in co-op stores throughout those same barrios. He financed Bolivia and Ecuador's nationalizing [buying them out independently accessed values] at of the international corporate oligarchs, loans which those countries are now repaying with interest. Chávez bailed out Argentina and made money doing it, he financed Brazil's economic turn around which they are repaying in a combination of food and money. His accomplishments at home and abroad are to many to list here, but they, like him will live on in our memories and in our dreams of a fairer world for.our children and their children and their children...

Hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans flocked to the streets of Venezuela's capital for a final farewell to Hugo Chávez. The leader's body was laid to rest at the Historic Military Museum on a hillside. 

The TPP Would Force Canada to Continue LNG Exports Regardless of Environmental Consequences

If/when Harpo and his energy industry hacks sign the proposed free trade agreement is called the TPP (Trans-Pacific Partnership) it means that Canada would be forever ceding its ability to manage its own natural gas resources. It also means that even if Canadian exports are found to harm the economy and the environment - and there is every indication they would - Canada will still be forced to send natural gas overseas to their TPP partners without any review or delay.

The TPP stipulates that instead of going through Canadian courts, foreign investors who believe they haven’t been treated “fairly” can sue the Canadian government under the auspices of an international arbitration panel. This type of clause isn't novel, NAFTA has a similar clause that's right now being invoked by Lone Pine Resources, a Delaware-incorporated oil and gas firm with operations in Canada, who have filed notice of its intent to sue Canada for $250 million under NAFTA's clause over Quebec’s moratorium on fracking.

The US government is facing a backlash from many states that are also worried that the TPP would override their legal rights. For instance Wyoming, hardly a left-wing bastion, is in court demanding that the now secret formulas of the fracking fluids being used by the gas industry be revealed before fracking can continue in the state. Wyoming's concerns are based on the results of contaminated groundwater in and around fracking facitities saying, in part, that liability can't be proven if the fracking fluid's components can't be shown to be the source of the contamination. So upon the US adopting the TPP Wyoming, and other states, would have their rights over-ridden without recourse.

All across the US health concerns are coming to light now that fracking has been going on long enough for them to be seen. As Sandra Steingraber, a distinguished scholar in residence at Ithaca College and founder of Concerned Health Professionals of NY says, “What they’re finding in Pennsylvania are people with rashes, nosebleeds, people with serious abdominal pain and so on. In general, we need better data on all this, and the problem is that fracking got rolled out across the landscape without any advanced health studies being done.” If/when the US adopts the TPP no health or environmental restrictions of any kind will be allowed to stand in the way of energy exports.

Adding this abdication of sovereignty to the long list of problems BC's LNG export fantasy faces in shipping, transporting, fugitive methane leaks [which recent studies have shown that burning fracked gas up to 30 times more environmentally damaging than burning coal], water contamination, long term liability costs and Site C construction makes a person wonder why both of BC's main political parties support this bogus boondoggle.

Why the Real Cost of BC's Dirty Coal Exports Will be Paid by Everyone Sooner or Later

How much will China's chunky air cost in the long run?

The government plans to grow BC's dirty coal exports in the coming years have been trumpeted by the corporate media as a boon for BC's current budget woes. The most important word being 'current'. Short term accounting, short term thinking, is one of the big differences between the capitalist paradigm and an environmentalist's. This clash of worldviews about coal exports is growing hotter in the US and Canada because the extractive industries in both countries are attempting to expand exports to Asia, especially China. As the corporate/government plans to ramp up exports from Washington, Oregon and BC come to light opposition on both sides of the border are joining forces.

Coal has two main uses in Asia and beyond - steel production and electricity generation. Both of these are growing exponentially in Asia because their export industries are too. These Asian exporters are primarily producing needless crap for the western consumer culture. Industrialists in the Far East know they are currently the free trade era's producer of choice but that status won't last for ever because wages and living standards there are rising in concert with the pollution and that one day soon India's youthful lower cost demographics will take over so they must exploit their current advantage quickly. That's how free trade works. Borders are invisible to capital but contain labour thus creating a rush to the bottom. India too will have a short horizon as Africa has an even younger population and once India's working conditions improve the capitalists will move on again.

Consequently the Asians will end up paying a bill for the the externalities, the pollution, who's total will far exceed the current short term profits in the long term just as Mexicans already know full well. Coal's externalities happen at both the extraction and the consumption ends. Here in BC as in Wyoming, Australia, Russia, Mongolia and everywhere else vying for a slice of Asia 'market' the extraction industries don't want to talk about all the costs, they want us to see current cash flows but don't want to talk about coal extraction's huge pollution footprint.

As a result of the geologic formation of coal deposits they always contain pockets of methane that are released during mining [remember the canary in the coal mine?] and other volatile organic chemicals that end up in the groundwater. In addition coal is crushed to facilitate shipping which creates huge amounts of dust both near the mine and all along the route it's shipped on. Coal dust contains many health concerns, some merely dangerous, some deadly. Coal may be a lot easier to cleanup in case of a spill but that's about its only redeeming feature. Coal not only creates far more CO2 pollution when burned but it also creates just as big on a pollution footprint as fracked gas or heavy crude where it's extracted.

China alone plans to build 1000 large coal-powered plants in the coming 2 decades each producing 1000 megawatts of electricity each of which will also discharge about 6 million tons of carbon per year, equivalent to the emissions from 2 million cars. Demand for coal in 2010 resulted in a traffic jam 75 miles long caused by more than 10,000 trucks carrying supplies from Inner Mongolia. Coal is everywhere and everybody is racing to build their extraction capacity. Supply has already overtaken demand, BC's current coal export fantasy will end in another boondoggle when the bills for all the long term costs get delivered.

BC's Politicians are Convinced that Fracked Gas and Coal Exports Will Defy History

British Columbia's budget deficit stems from the same type of short-term mismanagement as Alberta's. About 150 years ago BC's aboriginal population enjoyed real wealth. They lived within vast tracts of virgin forest that were drained by countless crystal clear waterways teeming with life which were all surrounded by massive glaciers along with massive mineral and energy deposits...then came the settlers -us. At first the settlers settled in a few small pockets and traded with the First Nations, then they found the golden rocks that drove settlers crazy and led to the frenzy of exploitation, extraction and exhaustion of natural resources that continues to this day.

Of course those first settlers never considered the long term, they saw themselves specially anointed by their imaginary being with dominion over the 'endless' bounty they'd 'discovered' in this vast land inhabited by heathens. The settlers were drawn into BC's interior by their dreams of fortune, fame and gold but once they arrived they found lumber and salmon far easier to harvest than gold and set about selling every damned bit they could.

With BC being the vast resource rich land that it is no one, especially those raking in the money, thought about the mathematical certainty that on planet earth 'endless' always has an end. Sustainability wasn't in the settler lexicon, but MORE was, so on they went extracting and exhausting area after area, mile after mile, building their fortunes on nature's sequestered wealth. The settlers built roads then railroads to carry their plunder to the ocean for export. The decades rolled by, the settler's numbers ballooned, the once 'endless' forestry and fishery resources dwindled but still no one dared see what the future held.

Today the fisheries are plundered and we export farmed fish, the forests are leveled and we export most of what little is left as raw logs to the US and Asia where wages for processing are much lower, and we've found new resources to plunder, but we haven't learned a damned thing.

Today BC's main political parties agree, much as their predecessors did, that we can and should finance our lives by extracting nature's sequestered wealth as fast as possible. Today we see coal and fracked gas as the 'endless' resources, just as those 1st settlers saw the forests and fish. Today we don't care about the future anymore than the settlers did. Today we care about shopping, about the latest electronic gizmo, about a shiny new car to drive to work, about lottsa new clothes, we care about our wants not about the future.

Today BC's government has a deficit despite it having recently sold off the people's forests and railroad to provide the illusion of book balancing. Instead of wisely using the real wealth they found here just 150 years ago as a good farmer does his field they took everything and turned it into mansions and money. Now, just as then, BC's politicians are convinced that the mirage of fracked gas and the folly of exporting coal will allow the shoppers to keep shopping long enough for them to get rich on the corporate largess.

At least those first settlers had the excuse of worrying about having enough, about their children having enough, but it's really all about shopping now. We no longer export our natural resources to assure our survival, we export them to pay for the plastic crap we lineup for at the mall. Most of us are no longer driven crazy by dreams of yellow rocks, now we are driven crazy by credit card debt, by mortgages and rents on inflated real estate, by the new car the neighbor just leased, by...by our imaginary need for MORE.

So here we are, just like with Alberta's Tar Sands crud, the 'markets' are awash in fracked gas and coal and the plummeting of poorly planned government revenues. Just like Alberta, BC's solution is MORE. Round and round we go on history's resource extraction carnival wheel, when we stop nobody knows, but stop we will one way or another.

Alberta's Budget Woes Began When Free Trade Forced MORE Resource Exports

Alberta's finances have been in the headlines lately in part because it's hard to believe that a place so rich in natural resources could be unable to balance their books. Of course some of Alberta's problems are homegrown but not all of them. Back in the days before Mulroney, before Free Trade, Alberta had a much broader based economy, just like the rest of Canada. Back then Albertans didn't just export stuff they made stuff and most of the stuff they didn't make they bought from other places in Canada that made that stuff. In exchange the other folks in Canada bought stuff from Alberta.

For sure mosta that stuff could be made cheaper in Mexico or China or India, and for sure the industrialists would make lots more money by eliminating the duties that protected Canada's jobs. In rode Mulroney's Conservatives on approximately the same 40% mandate Harpo has now. Despite losing the election by 60%-40%, despite the howls of protest from 'the people', the industrialists who backed Mulroney got what they'd paid for - Free Trade.

Almost immediately factories starting closing, good paying manufacturing jobs started going south and jobs at Mickey D's and Starbucks started replacing them. As government revenues from both employers and employees headed south along with the jobs governments, even Alberta's were feeling the pinch so they turned to Canada's embedded wealth - its resources - which had always provided a portion of their revenues. Now the revenue pressure was on and the only solution offered by governments, the extraction industries and capitalism itself was, and still is, MORE.

Along came the cash cow called the Tar Sands, surely if the extractors could just extract MORE of it fast enough [with the help of government subsidies of course] and export MORE of it fast enough all would be well. As the manufacturing jobs turned into 'service' jobs the price of oil climbed and the Tar Sands expended as fast as possible because everybody knew MORE was better. Alberta dumped Peter Lougheed's Norway like long term resource revenue fund and started living off the immediate proceeds of resource exports.

MORE once again turned out to be worth-less when instead of the dwindling supply predicted by Peak Oil instead became new types of energy  being found in new places. Alberta was trapped, it was addicted to MORE, its only solution was MORE MORE. Now Alberta has developed and exported so much MORE that it has flooded the US market with its sickly, expensive to refine, crud and the price for it is so low that the Alberta government is in financial trouble. Of course some might suggest raising royalties which are among the world's lowest, or raising taxes on the assets of the already rich, but no, Alberta's solution is...you guessed it...MORE.

To summarize, in the good old days Canada had a relatively strong and stable economy then it adopted 'Free Trade' which cut thousands of manufacturing jobs which in turn cut governments revenues. In response Canada opted for all out natural resource exploitation and export which caused their currency value to jump which meant even larger job loses and lower government revenue. In response Canada, and especially Alberta, doubled down and exported even more resources resulting in a flooded market and has sent the price of their Tar Sands crud into the toilet and their budget into a deficit. Those conservatives and Conservatives sure know how to handle the economy eh!

Canada's Dutch Disease inflated currency makes it easier for those who still have a middle class lifestyle to buy needless imported crap but overall the quality of life in Canada has gone south along with the manufacturing base that used to provide decent jobs, that used to make the vast majority of Canada's people secure. Now Canadians have more folks lined up at Starbuck's for a job, more poverty, more stress, more, more, MORE of everything, except common sense.

Rand Paul's Filibuster Exposes the Democrats as Hypocrites and Obama as the More Effective Evil

Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky

Glenn Greenwald tweeted: "Fascinating day: Tea Party Senator filibusters torture-supporting CIA nominee over civil liberties, while Dem establishment mocks & fumes."  Having vowed to keep speaking till he could no longer speak in the name of civil liberties, Sen. Rand Paul won the support of odd bedfellows: Code Pink, Ted Cruz, Glenn Greenwald, Marco Rubio and mr. mud along with others everywhere.

Everybody who follows American poly-ticks knows that yesterday Rand Paul, a Libertarian, the son of Ron Paul and one of the seven people who voted against the NDAA, shamed the whole Democratic party. Sure there was one Dem, Ron Wyden of Oregon, who joined Paul to allow him bathroom breaks [but said he'd vote for Brennan's confirmation nonetheless]. Where was Elizabeth Warren, Al Franken, Sherrod Brown, Pat Leahy, Jeff Merkley? And where the fuck is Bernie Sanders?

Rand Paul, like his father Ron, opposes war all wars. Like Jon Queally of Common dreams said, "Rand Paul's attempt to defend our civil liberties - our very lives, maybe - was not based on partisanship. He criticized Bush for a good while yesterday, as well as speaking out against the wars - ALL of them".

The Pauls are different. They are ideologues, not politicians... screwy, but not bought. There are MANY issues where the Paul's viewpoints are considered somewhere between disgusting and indefensible by the majority of Americans, but on this issue - domestic drone assassinations and a few others like ending all the wars, legalizing drugs and hemp cultivation the Pauls are to be praised for both their heartfelt positions and their bravery in the face of the Empire' potential wrath.


This was brought about by Attorney General Holder's legal opinion delivered in a letter to Rand Paul the other day saying that, "Obama can target US citizens on US soil for killing without any judicial or other review." It's the most 'chilling' example yet of the 'imperial presidency' that has greatly expanded under Obama. During last fall's election Obama was re-elected in large part because folks saw him as the lesser of two evils. But instead, as many feared, Obama is really the most effective 'Evil'. If Romney or any other Republican declared themselves legally able to carry out extra-judicial assassinations of US citizens anywhere the uproar from Democrats would have been deafening. But when Obama does it they are silent and silence is complicity.

Hugo Chávez’, the Simon Bolivar of Our Times, Will Live On In the Hearts and Memories of 'The People'

Venezuelans mourn the death of Hugo Chávez outside the hospital in Caracas where he died on Tuesday.

Last night, like millions of people around the world, we had a little wake. We toasted the life of a great man with few cervesas and some mota. It wasn't sad, after all Hugo Chávez’ lived his dream like we all should. He gave every moment of his life to what he believed in. Chavez life is an inspiration to us all.

This morning reading so many moving tributes by so many talented writers over a mas-grande cafe negro it was obvious that Hugo Chávez’ was a giant who cast a shadow far beyond Venezuela. Among those world leaders and supporters sharing their condolences and commenting on the legacy left on his country, Latin America, and the world was Oliver Stone, who said, "I mourn a great hero to the majority of his people and those who struggle throughout the world ... Hated by the entrenched classes, Hugo Chavez will live forever in history. My friend, rest finally in a peace long earned."

Derrick O'Keefe's piece 'Hugo Chávez’, Undefeated' said, "The rich and powerful of the world did not hate Chavez because he was a dictator... They hated him because he was symbolic of a threat to the dictatorship of Capital, a figurehead of a continent alive with social movements and millions of people conscious of their political power."
Greg Grandin wrote a great biography at 'The Nation' titled On the Legacy of Hugo Chávez
And Oscar Guardiola-Rivera quoted Chávez’  in his article titled 'Hugo Chávez Kept His Promise to the People of Venezuela', saying that Chávez "had discovered himself not by looking within, but by looking outside into the shameful conditions of Latin Americans and their past. He discovered himself in the promise of liberation made by Bolívar. 'On August 1805,' wrote Chávez, Bolívar 'climbed the Monte Sacro near Rome and made a solemn oath.' Like Bolívar, Chávez swore to break the chains binding Latin Americans to the will of the mighty. Within his lifetime, the ties of dependency and indirect empire have loosened. From the river Plate to the mouths of the Orinoco river, Latin America is no longer somebody else's backyard."

As The Mud Report said some weeks ago, "Though Hugo Chávez’ character and politics have been often spun by the empire's propaganda machine, the facts on the ground of what he has accomplished can't. The facts are that Hugo Chávez and his party recently won so many fair and free elections mainly because they greatly improved the living standards of the majority of voters in Venezuela. Since 2004 poverty has been cut by half and extreme poverty by more than 70 percent. Venezuelans get free education to the highest levels and free quality health care, the poor get subsidized food and housing, land reform, respect for indigenous rights, job training, micro credit, affordable electricity and cooking gas and gasoline at 7 cents a gallon. Eligibility for public pensions tripled, most of the poverty reduction coming from increased employment, not 'government handouts', and during most of Chávez’ tenure the private sector has grown faster than the public sector. If you haven’t heard any of this, it’s because the news media in the US and the rest of the 'free' world is giving you the equivalent of a “tea party” view of Chávez' accomplishments."

"Beyond his domestic accomplishments Hugo Chávez will long a hero to anti-imperialists around the globe because he used Venezuela's oil revenue to help his neighbors, not enrich himself and his cronies. The empire hates and fears Chávez because of the example he sets out for others to follow. And follow they do, all over Latin America and far beyond. We all have to die sooner or later, yesterday was Hugo's turn, but his legacy will live on in the hearts and memories of 'the people' both living and those yet unborn."

Transporting, Processing and Shipping BC's Natural Gas Almost as Dangerous as Alberta's Tar Sands

Coastal First Nations members blockading pipeline surveyors

In addition to all the other problems surrounding BC's LNG boondoggle there's the reality that transporting the unprocessed gas as as well as processing it and shipping the processed LNG associated BC's proposed LNG projects would have significant impacts on both land and water. The Dogwood Initiative report on the dangers of LNG transport outlines many of the serious dangers involved that are being overlooked at the moment perhaps because there are so many other huge gaping wounds in the logic of BC's LNG proposals.

For example, no matter how carefully they construct the Pacific Trail Pipeline the building of a 500km pipeline through virgin forest and over hundreds of waterways guarantees the destruction of a huge tract of wilderness which will result in habitat loss, species extinctions and groundwater pollution. A natural gas pipeline rupture wouldn't spill toxic tar sands crud but it would be highly flammable and accordingly would require a wide right-of-way to ensure that an explosion wouldn't start a forest fire disaster. Add to that the accompanying right of way for the power lines from the Site C dam necessary and you have one hell of a huge scar across BC.

A huge scar and a huge logging/clearing operation providing some temporary jobs and requiring lots of costly equipment to be financed. A win for the IWA, the truckers, the log exporters, the equipment manufactures, and the bankers, all of whom are cheerleaders for the project. The flora and fauna from microbes to fish to bears to birds to...are the losers and, as always, the silent victims.

Then there's the processing into LNG which itself has a huge footprint both in area destroyed for construction and the pollution caused by it's operation. Here too there are winners and losers. The Haisla First Nation who would see Shell's Kitimat LNG Terminal  built on Haisla reserve land would receive lease money and jobs both in construction and ongoing operation which is why the Haisla First Nation has parted ways with an aboriginal advocacy group, saying its interests no longer align with Coastal First Nations. The Haisla have been bought off but as the Coastal First Nations website clearly says the other members haven't. The Haisla, who still oppose the Northern Gateway Pipeline, might be well advised to remember that their concerns about the Tar Sands crud have been supported by other First Nations across BC and remember that similar ecological concerns are now being faced by First Nations in Northeast BC due to the groundwater and methane pollution there.

Finally there's all the LNG tankers who are just as subject to running aground in the world's 4th most dangerous waterway between Kitimat and the open ocean. Those tankers wouldn't spill Tar Sands crud but the LNG itself is so explosive, so dangerous, that international shipping regulations require all other vessels out of the area which would cripple the FN fisheries, the BC Ferries and the shipping of all goods and people in/out of Kitimat. Scientists have also documented the considerable deleterious effects on marine life that just sailing these huge tankers and their fleet of tugs would have even if there was no disaster. These tankers wouldn't be shipping crud but they would still have thousands of gallons of dirty fuel and so would the tugs and every ship everywhere has 'small' fugitive leakage. An LNG tanker wouldn't have to explode or sink to cause an environmental catastrophe just their everyday presence would, over time, do the trick.

Winners and losers, the few, the industrialists, the bankers, the unions and the political parties they support win, but in every case the many, our cousins the flora and fauna, the microbes and the faeries lose.

Scientists Say Methane Leakage In North Dakota Alone Equals CO2 Pollution From 2.5 Million Cars

Because of fracking you can see North Dakota's gas flares from space at night.

Research conducted at Cornell University proved that methane, the second most important gas contributing to global climate change, is 33 times more potent than CO2 over a 100 year period or 105 times more powerful over a 20 year period. In other words, short term releases of methane can do more damage than CO2 emissions. The researchers found that between 3.6% and 7.9% of methane from shale gas production escapes to the atmosphere in venting and leaks over the lifetime of a well.

Though widespread testing is only now getting underway, where it has been done the scientists conducting the tests are reporting alarmingly high methane emissions underscoring questions about the environmental benefits of the boom in natural-gas production. One set of results from a field study in the Uinta Basin of Utah show an eye-popping 9% of the total production. Why is 9% important? Because electricity generated from natural gas from a field with 9% leak has a carbon footprint nearly five times that of coal-generated electricity. It is now estimated that methane emissions from shale gas are nearly 30 times more than those of conventional gas over the lifetime of a well.

Obviously methane leakage is a huge problem for the fracking fraternity. Leakage occur during normal operations, such as drilling, processing, transmission, and distribution of shale gas. As the fuel is transported through normal procedures, emissions occur both through intentionally made vents and non-intentional leakages. Venting is a necessary procedure involving the "continuous bleed" of gas from devices that control gas flows, levels, temperatures, and the exertion of pressure on equipment. Unintentional leakage occurs in all parts of the infrastructure, from connections between pipes and vessels to valves and other equipment. Then there's fugitive leakage - the unknown unknown.

Just how much fugitive methane bubbles up through the fractured rock into our aquifers, into our wells, into our air trough surface cracks isn't systematically tested, but the results so far are frightening. The MSM's focus is on the 'investment' aspect surrounding BC's LNG boondoggle but in reality the biggest losses won't be to the investor class they'll be to everybody else. Not only will BC's LNG nightmare not be profitable, not only will it poison Canada's water, but it already is releasing millions of tons of heat trapping gasses that will, over time, contribute heavily to our rising sea levels, to compromising our food supply and causing massive species extinction [including perhaps our own] through ocean acidification.

Why? Why would they do it? Why would our government and business leaders continue this march into this quagmire? Many jaded skeptics, like mr.mud, conclude one of the oldest known political/economic metrics - the KBF [kick back factor] - is at work in BC's boondoggle and most others like it around the world.

Limited Liability Laws Mean BC Taxpayers Will Pay for Fracking's Environmental Contamination

As the Pembina Study titled 'How Albertans Could End Up Paying for Oil Sands Mine Reclamation' shows, "Limits on liability protect potential polluters at the expense of the environment and taxpayers. They are bad for the environment because they reduce incentives to improve safety practices, making accidents more likely. They are bad for taxpayers because, should an accident occur, they provide inadequate compensation for damages, leaving taxpayers (or uncompensated victims) holding the bag."

Corporations, and their government stooges, argue that without protection from the liability created by unpredictable catastrophic black swan type effects , no one will develop, participate in, or invest in risky projects or industries. These concerns, however, fail to fully account for the harmful consequences of limits, including that they encourage risky behaviour, and that they subsidize harmful activities at the expense of taxpayers and victims of pollution, contradicting the polluter pays principle and rights-based approaches to these problems. Environmental lawyer Dianne Saxe has written that “One of the biggest ways that our legal system contributes to enormous, high-risk accidents is to allow those responsible to limit their financial liability. Liability limits remove a massive financial incentive to take precautionary measures and avoid risk-taking, decreasing the level of care."

As Pembina's report shows Albertan's could end up being on the hook for between $100-$150 billion dollars just in reclamation costs that the Environmental Protection Security Fund can't cover let alone the unknown significant environmental impacts,including emissions of greenhouse gases another pollutants, surface water withdrawals, contamination and disruption of groundwater, toxic seepage from tailings lakes into groundwater, habitat fragmentation and impacts on wildlife that 50 years of operations will create.

This isn't a new issue, governments have long been warned about this as well as having direst experiences. For instance there's Sydney’s Tar Ponds on the eastern coast of Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia where one hundred years of steel and coke production left more than a million tonnes of contaminated soil and sediment which has cost Canadian taxpayers over $4billion so far. And the Faro Mine in the Yukon Territory where 25 years worth of zinc and lead extraction has led to over $450 million in environmental liabilities. Then there's the Giant Mine outside Yellowknife where 50 years of gold mining has created an estimated $400 million in environmental liabilities. In each of these cases the corporations didn't even pay the first $40million they just, after first paying themselves and their shareholders profits and bonuses, just declared bankruptcy and walked away which is why Alberta setup the Environmental Protection Security Fund, as underfunded as it is, to begin with.

Before the corporations invested in Alberta's Tar Sands or BC's LNG nightmare, they had their accountants do the math. They invested their capital based on the fact that limited liability meant limited costs for buying insurance and thereby increased profits. So if governments try to change the rules now those corporation's lawyers would just sue. If they tried to change the rules for new operations or expanded existing operations the newcomers would sue because of the uneven playing field created.

Consider the case of Jessica Ernst who's lawsuit asks for $33 million Canadian in damages to her land along Rosebud River in Alberta. Her suit claims gas drillers ruined groundwater, violating her rights. Her water well, originally drilled in 1986, showed no methane at the time. New test results showed high levels of methane, a hydrocarbon called F2 and two other chemicals. As a result, Ernst has sued Encana, Alberta Environment and Water, and the Alberta Energy Resources Conservation Board.

Enbridge and the governments have tried to 'delay and exhaust' Ernst but have failed. Ernst owns one ranch, how many others in fracking country are waiting to see the results? Many would be a good guess. How many others will experience contamination of their water as time goes on and the toxic chemicals being blasted under the sub-surface water they have legal rights to percolate upwards and laterally through the smashed shale? Many more would be a good bet. With a limited liability cap of $40million it's easy to see that BC's taxpayers are in jeopardy.

Imagine now how much jeopardy Alberta and BC taxpayers could face if a huge unpredictable catastrophe struck like the BP disaster in the Gulf a couple of years ago who's cleanup is now expected to eventually cost $50billion. Imagine how much it would cost to cleanup the MacKenzie River or delta where half the year 2 lbs mosquitoes patrol, the other half it's covered in ice and 2000lb polar bears reign.

As Donald Rumsfeld once famously said, "There are known knowns. These are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns. That is to say, there are things that we know we don't know. But there are also unknown unknowns. There are things we don't know we don't know." Those guys, the unknown unknowns, are the reason for liability insurance, yet Canada and most other countries refuse to acknowledge them and instead of requiring real insurance put their citizens in jeopardy.

BC's Lust for Fracking Revenue Threatens the Water Quality and Safety of One of the World's Last Great Watersheds

Map of BC's fracking fiasco

The Pembina Institute report on the BC's gas industry's water use explores the known and potential impacts to water resources from shale gas extraction in BC. Pembina calculates that a single operator in the Horn Basin could use eight billion litres of water per year and there are many already operating in the Horn, Laird, Montery and Cordova Basins. Most of the drilling activity has been concentrated in two main deposits: the Montney Basin near Dawson Creek, and the Horn River Basin near Fort Nelson so far. Already though as Ben Parfitt, an analyst with the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, says, "We are seeing some of the largest fracking operations anywhere on earth."

Fracking is the practice of hydraulic fracturing or the blasting of deep rock formations with high-pressured slurry or water, sand and a mysterious mixture of toxic chemicals. Drilling rigs inject millions of gallons of water into well bores two miles deep that then angle or deviate horizontally another kilometre underground, then break up the rock with up to 40,000 units of horsepower. The Pembina Institute report says, "The British Columbia government has no way to fully appraise the risks that shale gas development may create for water resources in the province."

Considering the potential contamination of well water and subsequently profound human health concerns there definitely is concern on the part of people living in northeast B.C. “The introduction of shale gas extraction and hydraulic fracking methods in British Columbia could present the largest and most destructive industrial force that our waters have ever known,” warns a petition by the Fort Nelson First Nation with over 24,000 signatures. The series of articles titled 'Shale Gas: Myth and Realities' by Andrew Nikiforuk that tackles the spurious claims of the fracking industry is great primer for everyone. There's also lots more great in-depth info about the fracking issue and the worldwide environmental opposition to it here at ReEdit.

The Pembina Institute report [and others it sites] talk about surface and sub-surface water contamination in the geographic areas of northeast BC, about the dangers to potable water rights on farms, ranches, and municipal systems in that broad area and they mention the threat to the area's rivers. The Horn, Laird, Montery and Cordova Basins are the head waters of the Peace, Laird, Fort Nelson and Hay rivers all of which are part of the Mackenzie River's 1,805,200 square kilometre watershed The Mackenzie River is the largest and longest river system in Canada and is considered one of the largest and most intact ecosystems in North America encompassing nearly 20% of the country.

BC's  politicians, both Liberal and NDP, seem willing to allow the pollution of one of the world's last remaining intact ecospheres for what? As yesterday's report, and so many others, clearly show this boondoggle will never make money and as science shows it's only a matter of when, not if, a catastrophic seepage of toxic chemicals gets into the MacKenzie River watershed. Once the toxic chemical genie gets out it can't be put back that's why Quebec, Vermont and Maryland in the US as well as South Africa, France and Bulgaria have banned fracking and why Germany on the verge of doing the same despite discoveries of shale gas under all of their territories.

Money to buy the necessities of life is one thing, but taking the lives of countless innocent creatures so a few greedy bastards can get temporarily richer is disgusting. More tomorrow when The Mud Report will outline how Canada's ridiculous limited liability laws mean that not only won't the LNG fiasco turn a 'profit' in the short term but that inevitably in the long term BC's taxpayers will be on the hook for hundreds of $billions. .

BC's LNG Fantasy Smells Like Bullshit Perfumed With Lies Because It Is

The Terrace Daily is an excellent, no holds barred, website that has recently been all over BC's LNG boondoggle. The article titled  'BC's LNG Corporate Welfare Scheme' is a must read for every BC resident because it exposes so clearly the financial lies being told by Christy Clark's government about the LNG 'windfall' that is in reality another stinky pile of capitalist bullshit being perfumed by lies so that, like the sale of BC Rail, IPP, raw log exports and so many other piles of capitalist crap, it passes the smell test temporarily. Unfortunately the BC NDP seems suffer from anosmia as they too support the fracking-LNG-pipeline-Site C boondoggle.

As the Terrace Daily says, "BC's LNG scheme is a welfare industry on steroids". The LNG industry in Australia has taken the industry bait that has resulted a huge LNG cost blowout with estimated costs to build the facilities needed at $150 billion now expected to double. The Aussie boondoggle reeks of an investment binge based on massive over-investment, hugely inflated asset prices, cheap finance on faulty ROI assumptions, labour market distortions on irrational expectations. The Australian Government will probably never get back their investment of public tax dollars let alone see the 'windfall' they promised their citizens.

In reality, as another Terrace Daily article says, "Natural Gas deposits are everywhere, China itself has a 300 year domestic supply, Russia is awash in natural gas in Siberia, a new pipeline from Kazakhstan directly into eastern China has just been completed, this gas line is advertised to supply natural gas to 600 million Chinese people alone, that is almost half of China`s population, the natural gas supplier for that pipeline is Kazakhstan and Russia, Canadian gas will never flow through that pipeline(s) system and spur lines......Why is that point important? It`s important because 50% of the Chinese market for our gas is already gone."

At the same time BC's MSM is awash in bullshit claims of streets paved with the $trillions of LNG dollars and jobs-jobs-jobs. Behind the scenes it's tax breaks, subsidies, capital write-offs and bribery going on. If the LNG industry is so damned profitable why won’t they build it on their own dime? Why do corporations like Apache, Chevron, Shell, EnCana and Nexen want to be re-classified as a manufacturing industry so they can write off all provincial taxes plus a 30%?.

The reason that BC's wildly 'profitable' LNG industry isn't actually going for it is because the world is awash in Natural Gas and finding countries to sign long-term energy buying contracts is impossible, there are no buyers. One corporation, Cheniere energy in the USA, has signed long-term energy buying contracts with Asia, at about 1/3 of BC's proposed selling price. At $6 dollars per unit, the price BC must get to be viable, BC won't be able to sell its LNG to Asia or anywhere. The project will never make money or even pay back all the initial subsidies, let alone supply BC Governments substantial revenues.

Finally, for today, there's the issue of a cheap supply electrical energy, LNG exporters require massive amounts of electricity to freeze natural gas, BC's LNG producers won't, like others already do, use their own gas to generate electricity, they want Site-C dam built and they want IPP's expensive power, they want this expensive power for virtually free because they say it's the only way they can compete with other countries. Sure smells like bullshit to me!

Beppe Grillo's Success Could Cripple the Auterians and Rattle the Bankster Empire

Beppe Grillo's Five Star Movement reveals that The Banksters' Empire Wears No Clothes

All over this world 'the people' are uniting against the banksters' agenda. They demand decent jobs for decent pay, they demand that the rich to pay for the greed and stupidity that created the trillion-dollar bailouts that caused all this austerity bullshit. Italy, England, Spain, Portugal and Greece have tried to fix their sovereign debt problems on the backs of the poor, and 'the people' know it, they reject it, they know the rich see the tsunami on the horizon, they know the Banksters' Empire Wears No Clothes

Beppe Grillo, the charismatic 64-year-old comedian from Genoa whose anti-political non-party, the Five-Star Movement, has led his mostly young, untried and unknown candidates to a position of kingmaker in the Italian elections. Beppe Grillo, who's 5 Star Movement got over 25% of the vote, vows to bring a referendum on Italy's continuing involvement in the eurozone currency among other things. And Grillo has promised his populist following that he won't join forces with any established political parties.  Instead he scatters ripe insults over rival leaders like confetti: Mr Berlusconi is the "psycho dwarf", Nichi Vendola, leader of Left, Liberty and Ecology, is "a hole without a doughnut", Mr Monti is "Rigor Montis".

The Italian election results are seen as a clear rebuff to the austerity approach that was forced upon the Italians by the previous technocratic government led by German diktat Mario Monti. Yesterday world 'markets' tumbled at prospect that the sanity demonstrated Italy's citizens could lead to a domino effect whereby first the rest of southern Europe, then the rest of the world would wiggle out from under the banksters' boot heel and regain their freedom.

The Empire wants us all to forget what caused this disaster they call the Sovereign Debt Crisis. So perhaps a quick review is in order. The banks - who are actually a corporate mask their shareholders wear - mostly in America but lottsa other places too, lent huge sums of money they didn't actually have to bogus developers, scam artists and on mortgages the borrowers couldn't afford. Then, knowing full well these 'investments' were worthless, they bundled them up and sold them as 'securities' to other banks around the world who gobbled them up because they thought they were a free lunch. But instead of a free lunch the world's greedy banksters had bought hot air.

So instead of losing their shirts, like good little capitalists should, they went whining to their previously bought and paid for politicians to bail them out of the greed and stupidity built quicksand they were sinking into. Few governments, certainly not those of southern Europe, had enough money to bail out their local banksters so they, the sovereign governments, sold worthless bonds for trillions of dollars to fund managers, central banks the IMF and Whirled Bank who convinced themselves that surely these bonds were the long promised free lunch that would bail them out and cover their bad bets. As soon as those bonds starting coming due it became apparent these sovereign governments had no way to pay back those debts either.

At that point there were few options left. One was to let the banks collapse [remember Leyman Brothers?] and watch the 'markets' do the dominoes fall which meant that the savings and pensions of almost every voter in the world would be vaporized, which in turn meant the end of the kick back gravy train for the politicians-an obvious non-starter. Or, like the Americans, they could just print more money and give it to the banks so they wouldn't start the dominoes falling. Or, like the Germans, Dutch, Austrians, the IMF and Whirled Bank, they could demand that the capitalist owned debtor governments cut back their spending and use any revenue they collected for pay back the make believe money that started all this fiasco - the plan we know as austerity.

So here we are, the lifeblood of 'the people' of the world is being sucked dry to pay the interest on the debts of the banksters. The banksters meanwhile were making huge 'profits' and using them to pay huge bonuses to the shareholders and themselves [because they so obviously deserve it]. Then, when all seemed to be going well, the peons were quietly bleeding, when along comes, as Peter Popham calls him, "the ranting, foul-mouthed, tousle-haired figure of Beppe Grillo, an accountant before he became a cult comedian," who's mercurial ascent has shown 'the people' everywhere there is a route out from under the banksters' boot heel. Now the 'markets' are worried, now the austerians are trembling. Whadda shame, hopefully there'll be no turning back now that Beppe Grillo has shown 'the people' that the Banksters' Empire Wears No Clothes.

Tipping Points, Black Swan Events, Punctuated Equilibrium and the Paleo-Temperature Record

The paleo-temperature record of the last 700,000,000

The paleo-temperature record of the last 700,000,000 looks a lot like looks like the graph of a maniac depressive's life. A life filled with small straws breaking the backs of already heavily laden camels, a life that finds equilibrium for a little while then plunges or skyrockets when some unforeseen tipping point gets crossed, a predictably unpredictable life where black swans appear willy-nilly, the kind of life that theoretical scientists would find impossible to model.

The Earth's climate is at least as complex as a manic depressive's mind. Both have billions of interconnections - hardware - that are subject to a type of self correcting feedback akin to software. James Lovelock's Gaia principle, which proposes that organisms interact with their inorganic surroundings on Earth to form a self-regulating, complex system that contributes to maintaining the conditions for life on the planet is an excellent example of one intricate feedback software the Earth seems to be 'running'. Acculturation and personal expectation are examples of the types feedback software maniac depressive's 'run' that allow them to continue getting out of bed some mornings and down off the ceiling on others.

The trouble is that even if our Gaian Earth's self-regulating daisy world is real it'll take so long to work in human terms that all of us maniac depressives, and everybody else, will be reduced to a sedimentary line in the geologic record before our Mother returns to the live able range for our type of bio-hardware. Consequently, during those times of emotional stasis between the ceiling and bed, it's probably a good idea to try to learn a lesson or two from that paleo-temperature record pictured above.

Theoretical sciences like climate change predictions don't totally float around ungrounded. There is hard, re-producible, evidence that CO2 and other gases gas trap energy of certain wavelengths from escaping into outer space - the greenhouse effect - that the theoretical scientists base their predictive models on. Modeling though is as much an art as a science in that models are built by combining some bits of hard science with rear view mirror testing. The art, in climate science modeling, is in finding the set of variables that best fits with that past maniac depressive type of paleo-temperature record.

As any member of a maniac depressive's family can tell you anticipating what will happen next is far more of a gamble than a prediction. There's wind blown straw and black swans gliding everywhere both between our ears and in our atmosphere. So, just as it happens that a maniac depressive's family often tries to find a safe psycho-pharmaceutical intervention to help keep their loved-one floating midway between ceiling and bed, we too would be well advised to find an intervention before our much loved Mother Earth meets its next black swan or crosses an environmental tipping point.

Just as a psycho-pharmaceutical intervention isn't a cure for manic depression neither is The Precautionary Principle a cure for our consumption induced environmental nightmare, but...Taking an easy crash course in the hard science part of climate change [while one's hovering between ceiling and bed] might be a good place to start. Next might be to learn a bit about the growing part methane is playing in our Gaian drama.

Scientists are convinced that a major methane release is an almost inevitable part of the feedback software. Methane is a powerful greenhouse gas, 25 times as powerful as CO2. Recently scientists studying the geological history inside ancient Siberian caves say that evidence suggests a global temperature increase of just 1.5ºC could trigger massive melting of the northern hemisphere's permafrost, unleashing gigatonnes of carbon and methane into the already warming atmosphere.

Personally, mr. mud wouldn't trade any of my life's punctuated equilibrium for a minute.Feeling really high and really powerful while up on the ceiling has more than made up for the down time,. i can't imagine a life in the middle, especially one pharmacologically prescribed, no ups no downs, life on the plains, no thanks. But others in my family might have a different opinion. Mother Earth too cares not one iota if the temperature soars or plummets, she's in it for the long haul. But we mere mortals are all connected to our families near and far now and in the future so we care what happens to them and owe it to them to be cautious with their futures. After all, they too deserve a chance to choose to live their lives however they choose, be it fluctuating between the ceiling and the bed or on the plains, just like crazy old mr. mud has had.

17 Year Surface Temp. Pause Meaningless As 90% of Planetary Warming Happens in the Oceans

Over 90% of all Global Warming happens in its oceans.

Two days ago the headline saying that climate change chief, Rajendra Pachauri had acknowledged a 17-year pause in global temperature rises caught my attention. Dr Pachauri said "The climate is changing because of natural factors and the impact of human actions. If you look at temperatures going back 150 years, there are clearly fluctuations which have occurred largely as a result of natural factors: solar activity, volcanic activity and so on."

Next i searched the topic a bit and found lottsa sensational headlines and news articles in the MSM confirming that a report released recently by Britain's Met Office was the source of all these stories. But what i didn't find was any critique with a clear analysis. So yesterday morning i sent off a provocative email to a long time climate change campaigner friend who, with any luck, would rise to the bait and send me the answers and story links i was looking for. It, a combination of lazy-ness and stupidity [my long suit], worked.

Soon a semi-scathing reply arrived with two great links in it. One from The New Scientist is a question and answer setup that outlines a growing awareness among climate scientists of the importance of natural variability in predicting climate change, especially in the short term, where it can completely obscure the global warming signal. The other from Skeptic Science titled 'Resolving Confusion Over the Met Office Statement and Continued Global Warming' and is even better IMO as it explains in graphic detail why global surface temperatures are not an adequate measure of global warming.because more than 90% of the overall warming of the planet goes into heating the oceans.

As Professor Judith Curry, chair of the School of Earth and Atmospheric Science at America’s Georgia Tech university, and others, have been pointing out for a long time natural influences can and do act to dampen global surface warming saying, "Climate models are very complex, but they are imperfect and incomplete. Natural variability  [the impact of factors such as long-term temperature cycles in the oceans and the output of the sun] has been shown over the past two decades to have a magnitude that dominates the greenhouse warming effect."

But, as my friend pointed out, the Greenhouse Gas Effect isn't based on models and error bars, it's long established, reproducible hard science and natural variability can mask short term effects in both directions. Other studies that considered the warming of the oceans (both shallow and deep), land, atmosphere, and ice, and showed that global warming has not slowed in recent years despite the dampened surface warming trend. Many others point to the recent spate of El Nino events and unusual number of La Nina's as proof of the fact that out current 'pause' is just that, a pause, and that sooner or later the built up potential energy in the oceans will cause another rapid acceleration of surface temperatures.

Distrust of climate models is widespread. They are by their nature only useful as guides toward further scientific research. Any regulations or theories based solely on the results of models are, like Icarus, bound to fall because of they're underlying simplified assumptions about systems that are far more complex than can be modeled. Black Swan events, tipping points and punctuated equilibrium bedevil the linear relationships that models produce. But that's another topic for another day. Right now it's time for my best friend and i to go visit the Blue Herons and the punctuated equilibrium of the waves and wind followed by the serial study of the tipping point of a six pack into a one ended cylinder of hard, brittle, transparent material [glass]

Why the Disastrous Effects of a Tar Sands Pipeline Spill are the Real Problem Not CO2 Pollution

Canadian Tar Sands crud it is much heavier than any conventional crude oil. It must be diluted with a chemical cocktail [that itself is deadly when it evaporates upon hitting the atmosphere in the case of a spill] in order to allow it to be pumped through the pipelines. Once the chemicals evaporate the heavier than water tar sands crud just sinks. In July 2010 the first major spill of tar sands crud spilled out of a burst pipeline in Marshall, Michigan and polluted over 40 miles of the Kalamazoo River. NPR.org sent a reporter to that part of the Kalamazoo River two years later, here's a synopsis. In it Professor Steve Hamilton of Michigan State University explains explains why two years and $900 million later it still wasn't cleaned up.

Last week 50,000 well meaning environmental activists led by 350.org and the Sierra Club marched in Washington D.C. to attract attention to the issue of building the Keystone XL pipeline. Sierra Club director Michael Brune, Bill McKibbon of 350 and others spoke eloquently about the CO2 and Climate Change effects that Keystone would cause. On the other hand a few days earlier members of Bold Nebraska were being arrested there while protesting the real issue - the destruction of the Ogallala Aquifer - that a spill would cause.

The Keystone pipeline would carry tar sands oil from Alberta to refineries in Texas that are already running at capacity refining almost exactly the same type of tar sands crap from Venezuela. The refineries are Saudi owned and their profits go back to Saudi Arabia. The products refined there now are sold and shipped to the highest global bidder, the product refined from the Alberta crap would be too. So the only logical argument CO2 wise is that by keeping the Alberta crap in the ground and never burning it the atmosphere would benefit because Venezuela's crap would just get refined somewhere else.

But it's a spurious argument because world demand for energy won't go down so this small portion from Alberta will just be replaced by some other source and that source could well be coal which is far worse. Coal creates 1 1/2 times as much CO2 per unit of energy generated as tar sands crud. Or by fracked gas which because of the methane leakage in the field and at the boreholes of up to 9% is worse than tar sands crud too.

Yesterday's widely read article titled '5 Reasons Why the Keystone XL Pipeline is Bad for the Economy' is an example of why economic values are so often in the eye of the beholder. Not once does it mention the long term costs that a tar ands crud pipeline spill would create. The Ogallala Aquifer isn't the only huge body of water, what about the Missouri and Yellowstone rivers? What about all the other smaller aquifers and ground water. TransCanada itself predicts that a big spill will only occur once every 10 years along the entire length of its pipe, from Canada to the Gulf of Mexico, an area that right now feeds millions or maybe billions of people. Where will the water to grow that food on the America's central plains come from once the Keystone spills?

Exactly the same argument is true up here in BC where once again the disastrous effects of a tar sands pipeline spill are the real problem not the CO2 pollution that would be created by burning the crap. The difference is that up here we're faced with two pipeline proposals - the Northern Gateway Project and the Kinder Morgan Expansion - both of which threaten our groundwater and our aquifers. Both of which also threaten BC's dangerous and unspoiled coastline's entire ecosystem. A spill of tar sands crap on land would endanger BC's fish and fisheries, forests and forestry industries, tourism and the reputation it relies on, plus it would carve a huge scar through the Great Bear Rainforest and other forests doing untold damage to BC's prized bio-diversity. A spill transporting the crap along the pristine coastline would be akin to a crime against nature.

"Individuals have international duties which transcend the national

obligations of obedience. Therefore [individual citizens] have the duty

to violate domestic laws to prevent crimes against peace and humanity

from occurring" -- Nuremberg War Crime Tribunal, 1950

Environmentally and Economically BC's Natural Gas Export Fantasy is About to 'GO BOOM'

Today's article at The Tyee by Andrew Nikiforuk 'The Making of a Natural Gas Glut' is an excellent summary of how and why the LNG, Fracking, Pacific Trails Pipeline and the Site C Dam add up to an economic disaster for BC. It references Deborah Rogers' report for the Post-Carbon Institute which shows "how the financial investment con-artists have manipulated the industry for their own benefit [what's new eh] and that rapid decline rates and poor recovery levels means limited revenue for resource owners such as the people of British Columbia and recommends that governments such as British Columbia that have actively served as cheerleaders for shale gas development with public subsidies need to urgently revisit their public policy." Instead though the government of BC is doubling down.

BC's, and many other jurisdictions', fantasy scenarios center on the huge China and other Asian markets buying LNG from them. Even before all these fantasies started it became obvious that fracked shale gas was everywhere. Before places like BC got much past the exploration stage world gas prices started to plummet. From Texas, to Australia, to Russia, to the Bakken, and lots in between, fracked shale gas is everywhere and the smart money is selling fast. The big users like China will have their own fracking operations or will import it from Russia which has the biggest reserves in the world and can supply China much more cheaply than we can. Australia will also be able to deliver LNG to Asia much cheaper than BC can.

Then there's the far greater issue of the long term environmental costs that every living thing in BC would end up paying if the government and investors are allowed to once again hoodwink its present citizens into another resource boondoggle. Leaving aside the CO2 pollution caused by the leakage of methane [between 4% and 9% where testing has been done] and the envioronmental cost of the resources embedded in this fantasy there's still the obvious...

Fracking requires huge amounts of water to extract the natural gas from the shale. The gas export fantasy starts with taking hundreds of millions of litres from the Williston reservoir every few weeks [which would cut it's eclectic generating capacity] and injecting it along with a mysterious mix of chemicals under thousands of square miles of healthy watershed resulting in the destruction of huge amounts of drinkable water in an increasingly thirsty world. Why? Not for jobs as these capital intensive fantasies create very few jobs and even less spin off jobs, but for short term profits for the investment crooks.

Turning natural gas into liquid requires huge amounts of electricity. BC plans to build three liquid natural gas plants near Kitimat but the electricity needed for just one LNG plant is equivalent to that needed by three Catalyst Paper mills -- B.C.'s largest electricity user. The Kitimat LNG plants would use about 1,600 megawatts of power to liquefy its billions of cubic feet of gas for export, that's equivalent to one and a half Site C dams. BC's government has said that the ecologically disastrous Site C Dam would be built at a cost of at least $8 billion borrowed dollars to power the Kitimat LNG fantasy.

Then there's the Pacific Trails Pipeline which would First Nations and environmentalists are protesting because it too will end up costing big bucks and destroy a huge swath of virgin forest. All this 'lost' in the name of short term financial 'gain'  for a few already rich greedy investors before the bubble bursts. As Ed Deak say, "Anybody who proposes and supports this fantasy is either a crook, or a goddamn fool."

Canada's Coal Follies Featuring Baird's Deceptive Claims and BCs Huge Export Footprint

BC currently exports more CO2 emitting fossil fuels than Alberta and if all of BC's plans and all of Alberta's pipelines both to get built, BC would be even further ahead.

John Baird said yesterday, "We're the only country in the world that's committed to getting out of the dirty coal electricity generation business." Of course he didn't mention that Canada, especially BC, exports most of its coal to Asia so it can be turned into atmospheric CO2 over there.

As The Dogwood Initiative's article 'Coal, BC's Dirty Secret' says, "Canada's justification that this coal is being burned elsewhere is disingenuous, the accounting rules veil which jurisdictions are truly responsible for producing and exporting toxic products that warm the planet and threaten the future of our children and grandchildren. It’s similar to Colombian cocaine cartels or Asian heroin growers claiming they have no responsibility, because most of their addictive products are consumed in other countries. Imagine if they said, 'We don’t use it, we just sell it.'”

He didn't mention that coal is by far the dirtiest fossil fuel, and gives off by far the most carbon dioxide per unit of energy generated thereby making coal the worst of the worst of greenhouse gas emitters. British Columbians are proud of their province's green image. For the most part, B.C.’s rapidly growing, multi-billion-dollar coal industry has gotten a free pass probably because it conflicts with Lotus Land's carefully cultivated green brand.

Some of that cultured ignorance is unraveling now with the recent Port of Vancouver's controversial passing of regulations that would double its current coal exports. The coal now planned to be exported from Port Metro Vancouver would release approximately 110 Mt of heat trapping pollution into the atmosphere making Metro Vancouver the single largest exporter of global warming pollution in North America. By way of comparison, if the Northern Gateway pipeline were built, the exported oil would pump 7O Mt CO2/yr into to the atmosphere. In short, Port Metro Vancouver's coal export proposals are just as serious a threat to the climate as pipeline plans.

As Dr. Erica Frank, a professor of public health at the University of British Columbia, points out, "The trouble with coal includes the fact that at one end of the supply chain, it causes invisible water pollution. At the other end, it vanishes in smoke, adding to our climate-change woes." Then there's the health risk and respiratory health concerns along the entire rail journey of increased diesel fumes and of coal dust from trains and stockpiles near homes in North Vancouver.

There's plenty of deceivers performing in Canada's Coal Follies. There's plenty more in the rest of Canada's fossil fuel industry too. Plenty of well intentioned but mis-informed environmentalists too. In the coming days Christy Clark's crackpot budget, financed by bogus fracked gas and Site C dam deceptions, will be the focus along with why the it's the water destroying spills that are the tar sands biggest nemesis and more on how King Coal is BC's Dirty Secret.

'Bold Nebraska' Opposes the 'New' KXL Pipeline Route Because it Still Crosses and Endangers the Ogallala Aquifer

The comments made by farmers and ranchers from 'Bold Nebraska' who were arrested Wednesday after joining the Nebraska Sierra Club, Nebraska Farmers Union and many others outside the White House in protest against the Keystone XL pipeline are very informative. They show clearly that the farmers and ranchers of Nebraska have not been hoodwinked by the meaningless re-routing of the damned Keystone XL pipeline or the approval of the new route for the pipeline by Nebraska's Republican Governor.

As one letter from a Kearney, Nebraska rancher, Amy Schaffer, to the Kearney Hub newspaper titled 'Why I oppose pipeline' says in part," I stand with my dad and the many other Nebraskans who have become guardians of the Ogallala Aquifer for the next generation of Nebraskans. I stand with all of the Nebraskans who have been misled, misrepresented, misinformed, taken advantage of, and used by TransCanada. My heart goes out to each and every one of these people and I will continue to be their voice and stand with them until the bitter end. The people will prevail. We will win and we will defend the future of Nebraska, the Ogallala Aquifer."

The 'new route' will still cross the Ogallala Aquifer and will still cross the environmentally sensitive sandy soil around the Sandhills. The 'new' route avoids the Sandhills of southwest Holt County but it still crosses through northern Holt County, where the soil is often sandy and permeable. In some parts of the new corridor, the groundwater lies so close to the surface that the pipeline would run through the aquifer instead of over it. The 'new' route is a public relations gambit by the oil and pipeline industries designed to re-frame the issue long enough to give Obama the political space to approve it. But the bullshit gambit hasn't worked, at least in Nebraska.

Nebraskans, and many others, understand that the entire purpose of shipping the oil down to the Gulf is to refine it down there, and to export it - not to supply the US with oil, but rather to increase the profits of the oil companies. They understand that the Keystone XL will carry tar sands oil, which is far more corrosive and difficult to clean up than regular crude oil. Nebraskans know that the biggest objection to all these tar sands pipeline proposals, including the Northern Gateway Project up here in BC, is that the tar sands crap and the condensate needed to make it pump-able are a huge danger to both the surface and underground water supplies that all life, including yours and mine, depend on.