Blog :: Earth Protect - Earth Protect Blog

Will high petrol prices help the environment?

Posted by plantitfilm on Friday, 23 July 2010 in Fossil Fuels

High gas prices mean less demand and less pollution at least in theory, right? Not necessarily, finds Mark Jansen. Our relationship with our cars is far more complex... High petrol prices are bad news for drivers, which means almost all of us, but those who care about carbon emissions...

Jordan River To Polluted For Baptism

Posted by plantitfilm on Thursday, 22 July 2010 in Lakes/Rivers/Wetlands

An environmental group on Wednesday called for a halt to baptisms in the Jordan River where tradition holds that Jesus was baptised, saying the waters there were dangerously polluted. "Friends of the Earth Middle East call on regional authorities to halt baptism in the lower Jordan River unti...

Countries pledge global support for clean energy

Posted by plantitfilm on Wednesday, 21 July 2010 in Sustainable Development

By Jasmin Melvin and Alina Selyukh (Reuters) - The United States and dozens of other countries have pledged hundreds of millions of dollars toward clean energy initiatives to help battle climate change, U.S. Energy Secretary Stephen Chu said on Tuesday. Meeting in Washington, D....

After Oil Spills, Hidden Damage Can Last for Years

Posted by plantitfilm on Wednesday, 21 July 2010 in Oil Spill

On the rocky beaches of Alaska, scientists plunged shovels and picks into the ground and dug 6,775 holes, repeatedly striking oil — still pungent and dangerous a dozen years after the Exxon Valdez infamously spilled its cargo. More than an ocean away, on the Breton coast of France, scientists surve...

BP well tests look good so far

Posted by plantitfilm on Monday, 19 July 2010 in Oil Spill

BP Plc extended for another 24 hours a critical test of its blown-out Gulf of Mexico well that so far has shut off the huge oil leak, the top U.S. official overseeing the spill response said on Saturday. The British energy giant, which cut off the flow of oil from the deep-sea well on Thursday when...

It's official: Syncrude is a tar sands criminal

Posted by plantitfilm on Monday, 05 July 2010 in Earth Violators

After a two-and-a-half-month trial, tar sands oil giant Syncrude has been found guilty of the criminal charges laid in connection with the deaths of 1,606 ducks that in one of its mining tailings lakes in April 2008. Syncrude was charged under the Alberta Environmental Protection and Enhancement Act...

The Gulf Spill and The Question of Accountability and Sustainability

Posted by plantitfilm on Saturday, 03 July 2010 in Oil Spill

At last the British Petroleum corporation did finally make a fine, pretty mess of the large marine ecosystem of the American Gulf stream, a nice present from the union Jack to her beloved uncle Sam. That it could happen or that it did eventually happen were no longer in the per-mutative realms of pr...

Frances Beinecke's Appointed to Watch BP Oil Clean Up

Posted by plantitfilm on Thursday, 24 June 2010 in Oil Spill

The following statement is by Frances Beinecke about her appointment to the commission. I am writing to share some bignews: I have been appointed by President Obama to serve on the commission he has created to examine the oil spill disaster in the Gulf of Mexico. The panel, formal...

http://www.onearth.org/files/onearth/images/frances_beinecke_headshot_168x168_0.jpg

Cannon Power receives stimulus grant

Posted by plantitfilm on Sunday, 20 June 2010 in Wind

Renewable energy pioneer Cannon Power Group, based in Del Mar Heights, announced Wednesday it was awarded a cash grant from the Department of Treasury through the American Recovery and Reimbursement Act to enable the further build-out of the Windy Point/Windy Flats project in rural Klickitat County,...

IWC faces total collapse

Posted by plantitfilm on Saturday, 19 June 2010 in Wildlife Conservation

On the eve of an international meeting to decide the fate of thousands of whales, New Zealand's foreign minister is warning that the International Whaling Commission (IWC) is facing total collapse. Murray McCully told TVNZ's Q and A programme that could result in anarchy on the high seas and ...

Greening America's Capitals

Posted by plantitfilm on Thursday, 17 June 2010 in Green Design

Greening America's Capitals is a project of the Partnership for Sustainable Communities between EPA, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), and the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) to help state capitals develop an implementable vision of distinctive, environmentally frie...

Tell your senators to pass energy legislation that will prevent future oil spills

Posted by plantitfilm on Wednesday, 16 June 2010 in Oil Spill

The recent oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico is an environmental disaster that also threatens profound social and economic damage. NRDC has sent a team of experts to the gulf to document the environmental and health impacts of the spill and to advocate for every possible action to limit the damage to ...

Bearing witness to the tar sands

Posted by plantitfilm on Monday, 14 June 2010 in Fossil Fuels

We arrived in Calgary, Alberta today on the first leg of a trip to see firsthand the strip mining and drilling for oil in the tar sands region of Canada’s Boreal forest. NRDC’s Executive Director, Peter Lehner, and others in leadership positions with the organization will be touring the region...

What is Biodiversity?

Posted by plantitfilm on Monday, 14 June 2010 in Climate Change

Biodiversity is starting to be become another buzz word like green products and carbon footprints. Biodiversity is the variation of life forms within a given ecosystem or on the entire Earth. Biodiversity is often used as a measure of the health of biological systems. The biodiversity found on Earth...

Jacques Cousteau's 100th birthday launches year long celebration

Posted by plantitfilm on Friday, 11 June 2010 in Environmental Heroes

Today marks the 100th birthday of Jacques-Yves Cousteau. The Cousteau Society will commemorate the centennial of his birth with a year-long celebration in Paris, as well as various events planned around the world. The Society is currently accepting proposals for other officially sanctioned ...

Kevin Costner sells 32 oil spill machines to BP to recycle 6 million gallons of water a day

Posted by plantitfilm on Thursday, 10 June 2010 in Oil Spill

Kevin Costner presented his oil spill solution to Congress and demonstrated his machine that recycles and separates oil from water with a 99.9% success rate. Actor, Kevin Costner said that he was inspired by the Exxon-Valdez oil spill in 1989 to come up with an idea that would safely separate oil fr...

Make Us Proud - A Letter from Obama to the people affected by the Oil Spill

Posted by plantitfilm on Monday, 07 June 2010 in Oil Spill

Yesterday, I visited Caminada Bay in Grand Isle, Louisiana -- one of the first places to feel the devastation wrought by the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. While I was here, at Camerdelle's Live Bait shop, I met with a group of local residents and small business owners. Folks like Floyd Lasseigne...

Where is the oil going?

Posted by plantitfilm on Monday, 07 June 2010 in Oil Spill

The oil crisis in the Gulf of Mexico has steadily taken its toll on the waters of the gulf and surrounding coastlines. However, the prevailing currents will not allow the oil to be stationary. The Loop Current, which is a clockwise current in the Gulf that originates from Caribbean waters that flow ...

Don Young: Gulf Oil Spill 'Not An Environmental Disaster'

Posted by plantitfilm on Saturday, 05 June 2010 in Oil Spill

Don't worry about the oil spilling into the Gulf, Rep. Don Young (R-Alaska) says, because the worst spill in U.S. history is "not an environmental disaster," just nature taking its course. "This is not an environmental disaster, and I will say that again and again because it is a natural phenomenon...

Gulf oil spill's threat to wildlife turns real

Posted by plantitfilm on Saturday, 05 June 2010 in Oil Spill

ON BARATARIA BAY, La. – The wildlife apocalypse along the Gulf Coast that everyone has feared for weeks is fast becoming a terrible reality. Pelicans struggled to free themselves from oil thick as tar that gathers in hip-deep pools, while others stretch out useless wings, feathers dripping with crud...