Category Archives: Natural gas

Sabal Trail interrogated in Gilchrist County, Florida @ GCC 2014-02-20

Here’s a video playlist of the real questions asked at the Gilchrist County Commission where everybody could see Sabal Trail and Spectra Energy answering about their proposed 36-inch fracked methane pipeline in a 100-foot right of way: or not answering. This is 1 hour and 27 minutes worth of video. I didn’t get all of it because both camera batteries ran down and it took a bit to find a plug. This interrogation went on for more than two hours total. Well done, Gilchrist County, staff, citizens, and everybody who asked questions.

Update 28 Sep 2014: A couple of notable questions:

As mentioned in this PR, Gilchrist County put this in the “Time Certain” part of their agenda:

5:00 p.m. Sabal Trail Workshop

As mentioned in local government pipeline responsibilities, other local governments could do this, and more. For example, Lowndes County, Georgia with 114,552 population compared to 16,815 for Gilchrist County (2012 est.) could do more.

Here’s the video playlist:

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Small town in Michigan votes to oppose nuclear waste dump across the lake in Canada

It’s unlikely a U.S. town has any direct power over a siting decision in Canada, but a small Michigan town made its views known anyway, because it would be affected. Local governments affected by the Sabal Trail methane pipeline could do the same.

Lori Maranville wrote for the Milan News-Leader 22 February 2014, MILAN: Council approves resolution opposing nuclear waste site in Canada,

In October, U.S. Senators Debbie Stabenow and Carl Levin sent a letter to U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry showing their concern for the proposed nuclear waste site.

“The placement of this nuclear waste storage facility is of great concern given its location near Lake Huron and the importance of the Great Lakes to tens of millions of U.S. and Canadian citizens for drinking water, fisheries, tourism, recreation, and other industrial and economic uses,” they wrote in the letter.

In passing a resolution opposing the site, Milan elected officials brought the issue to light for the city’s residents.

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Humans are the cause, and it’s time for people to become the solution –Danielle Jordan for SAVE

LTE in the VSU newspaper, The Spectator, today. -jsq

To the Editor,

Climate change is the defining issue of our time. Ninety-seven percent of scientists agree that humans are the cause. S.A.V.E. believes that it’s time for people to become the solution. Globally, we are feeling the impacts of record-setting temperatures, most notably in the extreme weather patterns and rising sea levels. Recent chemical (W.VA) and coal ash spills (N.C.) add to the urgency of moving beyond fossil fuel. Yet here on our campus there’s a remarkable disconnect between the classroom and the board room. Shockingly, the VSU Board of Trustees includes science deniers, oblivious to the threat of climate change—and to the academic integrity of this institution of higher learning.

Recently, the Board dismissed S.A.V.E.’s request that VSU rid its portfolio of fossil fuel holdings. Board Chairman, Wayne Edwards, a financial analyst, cast doubt on the study that accompanied our request. But we ask you, who knows more about climate, a team of 2,000 scientists from 154 countries who have compiled data from more than 9,000 studies, or a stock broker? Our point is that serious decisions at this institution are being taken by people who lack the proper credentials.

Chairman Edwards dismissed socially responsible investing as Continue reading →

Lowndes County attorney has been discussing the pipeline with other county attorneys

As usual, the citizens of Lowndes County are the last to know.

Alan Mauldin wrote for The Moultrie Observer 8 February 2014, County commission meetings to focus on Sabal Trail pipeline,

County Attorney Lester Castellow, who reently met with his counterparts from Brooks, Doughterty and Lowndes counties, is scheduled to address commissioners about the project during a Monday afternoon commission work session.

That would be the alleged Lowndes County attorney Walter G. Elliott.

Meanwhile, Colquitt County attorney Castellow is on the agenda for today’s noon Work Session in Moultrie, and again at 7PM Tuesday in the Colquitt County Commission Regular Session, with Sabal Trail pipeline reps in attendance. More here.

Which is something the Lowndes County Commission has never done. Sure, the Lowndes County Commissioners asked four questions and forwarded citizen questions in writing, which got cut-and-paste PR answers from Spectra. From one of the same Spectra reps who was “not familiar” with Spectra’s sorry rap sheet of corrosion, leaks, and fines.

-jsq

Maybe VSU should join this band of Fossil-Free Foundations

Maybe that’s what the VSU Foundation wants to tell SAVE when they dine Monday: VSU gets it (even if Harvard doesn’t) that fossil fuels are a bad investment and solar is where the profits, students, and investors are.

Diane Cardwell wrote for DealBook 30 January 2014, Foundations Band Together to Get Rid of Fossil-Fuel Investments,

Seventeen foundations controlling nearly $1.8 billion in investments have united to commit to pulling their money out of companies that do business in fossil fuels, the group announced on Thursday.

The move is a victory for a developing divestiture campaign that has found success largely among small colleges and environmentally conscious cities, but has not yet won over the wealthiest institutions like Harvard, Brown and Swarthmore.

But the participation of the foundations, including the Russell Family Foundation, the Educational Foundation of America and the John Merck Fund, is the largest commitment to the effort, and stems in part from a push among philanthropies to bring their investing in line with their missions.

“At a minimum, our grants should not be undercut by our investments,” Continue reading →

SAVE to dine with VSU Foundation Monday

The VSU Foundation has invited SAVE to dinner Monday. No agenda is known, but the Foundation gets four attendees and SAVE gets two.

Foundation attendees are to be:

The two attendees from Students Against Violating the Environment (S.A.V.E.), each apparently twice as heavyweight as a Foundation Trustee, will be: Continue reading →

America’s Dangerous Pipelines –Center for Biological Diversity

7,978 fatalities by in 2013 – 4,199 by 2001 = 3,779, which is more than the 2,977 killed by the hijackers on 9/11. If the fossil fuel industry was a foreign country, we would have invaded it by now. Why should we let that industry invade our lands for their profit? Let’s not permit a fossil fuel disaster here.

Center for Biological Diversity wrote on YouTube 31 July 2013 America’s Dangerous Pipelines: Continue reading →

EU could cut 40% emissions with little cost: and we can, too

If Europe can do it, the U.S. can do it. And we know Georgia can get a third of its power from wind, and even Spain is north of Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, and Florida, which have a lot more sun for solar power than anywhere in Europe. Solar power is already winning, even in Georgia. Let’s help it win even faster, plus wind.

PR from Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) 16 January 2014, EU could cut emissions by 40 percent at moderate cost,

The costs of achieving a more ambitious EU climate target are estimated to be moderate. Upscaling greenhouse-gas emissions reduction from the current 20 percent by 2020 to 40 percent by 2030 would be likely to cost less than an additional 0.7 percent of economic activity.

And that apparently doesn’t count the additional economic activity that would be produced by all those wind and solar deployments, not to mention related activities like electric cars. This is actually a pessimistic study, because it doesn’t account for such likely positive corollaries.

Many options to choose from—wind power could expand sevenfold

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Deep divisions between U.S. and Asian nations in TPP –Wikileaks

Do you want foreign corporations to be able to sue the U.S. because your county has implemented restrictions of pipelines feeding liquid natural gas exports? Or because your country hasn’t locked up enough people for unintentional infringement of copyright? Or because your state has implemented a GMO-labeling law? Then you oppose the TPP.

After the November release of the Intellectual Property Rights Chapter, in December Wikileaks released two documents from the secret closed Salt Lake City TPP chief negotiators’ meeting of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, showing deep divisions between the negotiating countries that have already caused a U.S.-imposed TPP deadline to be missed. These documents add potential international treaty enforcement of “mandates” against restrictions on trade to protect national products or environment or labor to all the reasons EFF gives for opposing this corporate-power-grab treaty and the LNG export pressures for TPP that would drive up the price of fracked “natural” gas and push pipelines through numerous states for the profit of a few fossil fuel and utility executives and investors.

The deep divisions among the negotiating countries exposed Continue reading →