DAMOCRACY The Movie (English) - YouTube

DAMOCRACY The Movie (English) - YouTube:
DAMOCRACY: A documentary that debunks the myth of large-scale dams as clean energy and a solution to climate change. It records the priceless cultural and natural heritage the world would lose in the Amazon and Mesopotamia if two planned large-scale dams are built, Belo Monte dam in Brazil, and Ilisu dam in Turkey. DAMOCRACY is a story of resistance by the thousands of people who will be displaced, and a call to world to support their struggle. More info at http://www.damocracy.org

Josh Fox’s ‘Gasland’ Sequel Opens « Beaver County Blue

Josh Fox’s ‘Gasland’ Sequel Opens « Beaver County Blue: Gasland Part II continues Fox’s exploration by offering textured, in-depth profiles of half a dozen or so families in geographically diverse locations, from Australia, to Wyoming to Pennsylvania. Fox’s camera takes us into the homes of straight-talking folks who worked hard to secure their corner of the heartland.

Over the course of the film, we watch them move from disbelief to indignation to disillusionment, as they learn that no one’s willing to make industries accountable, even when a town loses its water. Texas homeowner Steve Lipsky built a million dollar plus dream home for his wife and family. With ample square footage, the Lipsky home was surrounded by sky-high picture windows, stunning views, and cascading pools. The customized bathroom came complete with an oversized whirlpool tub that now stands empty. Test results showed water so contaminated by nearby fracking activities that EPA officials privately advised the family never to drink it. But in a theme of civilian betrayal that recurs throughout the film, Lipsky claims that mid-level government regulators retracted their findings, rejected key opportunities to rein in the offending companies, and kept revelatory test results locked away from public access.

Shell Has No Case To Answer On Nigeria | newmatilda.com

Shell Has No Case To Answer On Nigeria | newmatilda.com:
On Thursday last week, the United States Supreme Court delivered a judgment that rewrites the rules on international human rights litigation.

In Kiobel v Royal Dutch Petroleum the Court decided that an idiosyncratic US law dating from 1789, the Alien Tort Statute (ATS), does not apply to events that occur in the territories of other states. The ATS has been used by victims of human rights abuses around the globe to seek a remedy for their harms in US courts.

This is a significant blow not only to the plaintiffs in this case. It is a blow to human rights enforcement more broadly. Human rights advocates are now left asking, "Where next?"

The Kiobel case addressed the right of a group of Nigerian nationals to sue Dutch, UK and Nigerian companies (known collectively as Shell) in US courts for aiding and abetting human rights violations — including torture, extrajudicial executions, and crimes against humanity. The plaintiffs were victims of violence directed against them by the Nigerian military in the 1990s for protesting the operations of the foreign companies in their communities.

On Wednesday, December 21, SkyTruth obtained a radar satellite image showing a major oil spill in the waters off the coast of Nigeria. The image, taken at approximately 9:30am local time on December 21, 2011 by the ASAR instrument aboard the Envisat satellite operated by the European Space Agency, reveals a slick covering 923 square kilometers (356 square miles). The image may be viewed and downloaded from the SkyTruth blog.

Celebrating the end of James Price Point but floating a future for Browse - Business - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

Celebrating the end of James Price Point but floating a future for Browse - Business - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation):
What a difference two weeks makes. After very publicly declaring Browse was dumped, Woodside's taken the mega project off the back burner. The company now says it is committed to the development of the Browse basin.

Greenpeace activists board ship carrying Australian coal | Environment | guardian.co.uk

Greenpeace activists board ship carrying Australian coal | Environment | guardian.co.uk:
Speaking to the Guardian from on board the ship, 34-year-old Greenpeace activist Emma Giles said: "We've taken the action today because Australia is on track to almost double its coal exports in the next decade. Both major political parties have no solutions on the table. It is time to slow down the coal boom.

"Our leaders are failing us so it's up to us to take civil disobedience and to slow down and stop these coal ships. We are set to stay here as long as it takes."

Gas industry has itself to thank for higher prices - The Drum Opinion (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

Gas industry has itself to thank for higher prices - The Drum Opinion (Australian Broadcasting Corporation):

It is completely understandable that gas companies want to export overseas. The much higher gas prices means bigger profit and in our market economy, we assume that firms will pursue these higher profits. It is also understandable that gas companies will want to develop new gas projects. With the higher prices a lot of new projects will now be profitable.

But what is not OK is for APPEA (a lobby group of the gas producers) to blame concerned Australians for the gas price increases - price increases that are being driven by the industry's desire to sell gas overseas.

APPEA should spend more time looking into safety concerns about CSG and how they can fix them, and less time demonising ordinary Australians.

   Gasbag 16 April 2013 by redhanded8937

We are destroying the joint

We are destroying the joint:

 And the price we pay for despoiling our environment and trashing our heritage is high. Whether we are aware of it or not, we are connected to and influenced by our social and physical environments, our cultural landscape. People typically have strong emotional bonds to places and the communities in them. There is a now a great deal of evidence that our wellbeing depends in large measure on our relationship with our environment – broadly conceived, the relationships we have with the people around us and the natural and built environment we inhabit; if this cultural environment is destroyed or degraded or if people are prevented from enjoying it, their health and wellbeing deteriorate.

This is an edited extract from “We Are Destroying the Joint” by Carmen Lawrence in Destroying the Joint: Why Women Have to Change the World, edited by Jane Caro, published by UQP.

Munduruku People of Brazil Celebrate Land Victory, Brazilian Indians Storm Congress - | Intellihub.com

Munduruku People of Brazil Celebrate Land Victory, Brazilian Indians Storm Congress - | Intellihub.com:
 In October 2012 the Munduruku village known of Teles Pires, located on a river of the same name, ordered researchers inspecting the site of the São Luíz do Tapajós dam out. A month later, on November 7th 2012 a helicopter and dozens of men, armed with machine guns and assault rifles, attacked Teles Pires.

Men, women, children and elder villagers were teargassed, wrestled to the ground and made to lie on the ground. The village radio and phone were destroyed as well as memory cards, phones, and cameras. The people of the community were told they could not speak to each other in their own language.

The Jirau hydroelectric dam will feature more giant turbines than any other dam in the world. The power lines are estimated to cross 2,550 km of forest. The dam, said to be completed by 2015, is one of many dams being planned in the world’s largest and most biodiverse forest.

Munduruku People of Brazil Celebrate Land Victory, Brazilian Indians Storm Congress - | Intellihub.com

Munduruku People of Brazil Celebrate Land Victory, Brazilian Indians Storm Congress - | Intellihub.com:

In October 2012 the Munduruku village known of Teles Pires, located on a river of the same name, ordered researchers inspecting the site of the São Luíz do Tapajós dam out. A month later, on November 7th 2012 a helicopter and dozens of men, armed with machine guns and assault rifles, attacked Teles Pires.

Men, women, children and elder villagers were teargassed, wrestled to the ground and made to lie on the ground. The village radio and phone were destroyed as well as memory cards, phones, and cameras. The people of the community were told they could not speak to each other in their own language.

The Jirau hydroelectric dam will feature more giant turbines than any other dam in the world. The power lines are estimated to cross 2,550 km of forest. The dam, said to be completed by 2015, is one of many dams being planned in the world’s largest and most biodiverse forest.

Woodside still committed to Browse

Woodside still committed to Browse:

Chief executive Peter Coleman said Woodside would now propose a work program with its joint venture partners for the remaining 20 months of the retention leases.

"While our announcement signals the closing of a chapter, it is by no means the end of Woodside's plans to develop the world-class Browse resource," Mr Coleman told the company's annual general meeting in Perth.
Advertisement

"I am confident that we can begin basis design work on new concepts in the near future."

Shareholders overwhelmingly approved the company's 2012 remuneration report, which included Mr Coleman's total annual pay of $7.3 million, including almost $5 million in bonuses.

Chairman Michael Chaney said the environmental protest against the Browse gas plant had had "zero" influence on the board's decision on Browse.

He said there were "some dollar costs" involved in dealing with the protest as part of $1.5 billion spent on the project.

Check it out - the Kimberley was projected on to the Sydney Opera House last night as part of the Samsung Opera House Projections competition!

Thanks to Glenn Walker for the gorgeous picture.

DO THE MATH

Do the Math: A Movie to Spark a Movement

The fossil fuel industry is killing us.

They have five times the amount of coal, gas and oil that is safe to burn -- and they are planning on burning it all. Left to their own devices, they'll push us past the brink of cataclysmic disaster -- life as we know it will be irrevocably altered forever. Unless we rise up and fight back.

Do The Math chronicles follows the climate crusader Bill McKibben as he works with a rising global movement in a David-vs-Goliath fight to change the terrifying math of the climate crisis.

This growing groundswell of climate activists is going after the fossil fuel industry directly, energizing a movement like the ones that overturned the great immoral institutions of the past century, such as Apartheid in South Africa. The film follows people who are putting their bodies on the line the Keystone XL Pipeline and leading universities and institutions to divest in the corporate polluters hellbent on burning fossil fuels no matter the cost.

The film also features a veritable who's who of the climate movement including Dr. James Hansen (Director, NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies), Naomi Klein (Author, The Shock Doctrine), Lester Brown (President, Earth Policy Institute), Michael Brune (Executive Director, Sierra Club), Majora Carter (Founder, Sustainable South Bronx), Jessy Tolkan (Co-Executive Director of Citizen Engagement Laboratory), Phil Radford (Executive Director of Greenpeace), James Gustave Speth (Co-Founder of Natural Resources Defense Council), Mike Tidwell (Executive Director, CCAN), Van Jones (CNN Correspondent & Author, The Green Collar Economy), Bobby Kennedy Jr. (President, Waterkeeper Alliance ), among others.

Nowhere to Run To: A Global Resistance to Toxic Extraction Industry? | The Dreamer Propulsion Project

Nowhere to Run To: A Global Resistance to Toxic Extraction Industry? | The Dreamer Propulsion Project: On April 12, 2013, the province of British Columbia announced four new proposals for LNG export terminals on the north coast. One of the four companies involved, Australian based Woodside Petroleum, announced on the very same day that they were shelving plans for a $47 billion dollar LNG terminal in Australia.

The reason Woodside gave for cancelling this project, which was the largest proposed construction project on the horizon for that country, was that the economics were no longer feasible. Nothing I’ve come across in the media references these two projects together, and so the company has not publically stated whether the Canadian proposal had anything to do with this decision.

Broome airport first casualty of Browse - The West Australian

This is such good news, given the fact that the Broome Airport should of been moved out of town years ago as part of the original sale obligations. At a recent 2040 Visions of Broome Workshop, conducted by the Broome Shire,  the airport was identified as needing to be moved because it takes up enormous amount of land that could be used for residential, that it literately cuts the town in half and the increase air traffic noise with the helicopter onshore base has chased our budding film industry away.  

The number one outcome as outlined the the Broome Shire Strategic Plan clearly states 
that the relocation of the airport is a major priority of the Shire. A new site for the relocation
 of the airport has been identified, 13.5 kms out of town for some years now. 
The private owners have made no move to relocate instead they were seeking a massive extension.

In October 1990, the Australian Property Group (APG), an Australian Federal Government enterprise, sought expressions of interest for the purchase of the Broome Airport. Airport Engineering Services (AES) on behalf of Wallace Emery & Associates (WEA), the operating company, submitted a final tender in February 1991. 

AES were the successful tenderer and final purchase arrangements were completed

for freehold title of the Broome Airport in April 1991 from the Australian Commonwealth Government, the Shire of Broome and AES by a Heads of Agreement which agreed to 

certain matters relating to the relocation of the Airport outside of the existing Broome townsite which was mutually agreed by the Shire, AES and the Minister for Lands, subject to the State granting to AES freehold title to land on which the new airport is to

 be constructed.

The Shire and AES also agreed that it is necessary for AES to sub divide and sell or develop parts of the airport land. AES were to raise the monies required for the design and construction of the new airport location.

In 2000,  Broome International Airport Holdings (BIAH) were proposing to relocate the Broome Airport from its existing location in the town to a new site approximately 12km north-east, to enable development of the Broome township to the north. 

 

 

Well AES have sold considerable lands for residential and developed a huge commercial precinct over 20 years and still this company has failed to fulfill its obligations to relocate the airport. So pleased that the Woodside's decision has stopped these greedy people in their tracks. 

Also, given the fact that the airport in its current location has serious issues relating to raising sea levels, salt water intrusion  and erosion issues I would like to suggest they relocate as soon as possible because in all reality the airport is sinking.

Broome airport first casualty of Browse - The West Australian:

Plans for a new $10-$20 million international airport terminal in Broome have been shelved in the wake of Woodside's shock decision to abandon the Kimberley gas hub.

The facility, which was just months away from being built, would have seen a significant increase in commercial flights servicing the Kimberley and was designed to open up the region to the international market.

Airport chief executive Nick Belyea said yesterday that the project was no longer viable.

"It will be shelved now because it just won't work," he said. "We need James Price Point to make it work."

Like it or not, our miners' blades cut both ways | thetelegraph.com.au

Like it or not, our miners' blades cut both ways | thetelegraph.com.au: This week's court decision to overturn the approval of the Warkworth coal mine in the Hunter Valley highlighted how big mining companies rely on misleading and exaggerated claims about the economic benefits they will deliver to local communities.

Chief Justice Preston accepted the testimony presented by myself and other economists which disputed the claims made by the mining industry. The judge said he was "not satisfied that the economic analyses provided on behalf of Warkworth support the conclusion urged by both Warkworth and the Minister, namely that the economic benefits of the project outweigh the environmental, social and other costs". He was particularly scathing about the industry's economic modelling, describing it as "deficient".

PetroChina reviews Browse LNG project stake

PetroChina reviews Browse LNG project stake: PetroChina says it is assessing the feasibility of Woodside Petroleum?s Browse liquefied natural gas project after Woodside Petroleum?s decision on Friday to scrap its $45 billion-plus development at James Price Point in Western Australia.

Friday 12th April; the pristine Kimberley coast is saved from the development of the worlds 2nd largest LNG processing precinct. After Woodside and JVPs announce the development of the Premirers prefered site is too expensive. The battle is far from over as the Premiere tries to push ahead but nothing will dampen the spirit of the Goolarabooloo family and the Broome community

Government urged to abandon gas land acquisition - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

Government urged to abandon gas land acquisition - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation): The State Government is being urged to abandon its plan to take over land north of Broome that was set aside for the Kimberley gas hub.

The land agreement between Aboriginal families and the Government means the state retains control of the land at James Price Point for at least ten years despite Woodside pulling the pin on the gas precinct last week.

The Premier's office has confirmed its persevering with plans to compulsorily acquire the site in case another proponent steps forward.

Greens MP Robin Chapple says the Government should relinquish the land.

"I think there would be immense value in doing that; the problem and ego and testosterone get involved in this and Governments are always reluctant to admit defeat," he said.

Barnet threat to Browse lease - The West Australian

Barnet threat to Browse lease - The West Australian:

Again, Red Broome captures the moment. 

The Premier said yesterday that the $1.5 billion benefits package negotiated with traditional owners would not go ahead if the Browse joint venture partners did not bring gas onshore for processing at James Price Point.

"There won't be the benefits package and I hate to say that, but it's the reality," Mr Barnett said.


Meanwhile, Woodside made over one billion dollars on the day they announced they were withdrawing from the James Price Point fiasco.