http://www.commondreams.org/view/2012/07/17-0

I couldn’t agree more!!! Great to see this in print. Wish all teachers could read it. DV

Published on Tuesday, July 17, 2012 by Rethinking Schools Blog

by Bill Bigelow

Here in the Pacific Northwest, we’ve been spared most of the brutal weather experienced in the rest of the country. Throughout the United States, in the month of June alone, 3,200 daytime high temperature records were broken or tied. In Washington, D.C., an 11-day stretch of temperatures above 95 degrees is the longest since records have been kept. The weird and deadly mid-Atlantic storm—the “land hurricane”—took the lives of 23 people and left 4 million without electricity. Colorado has suffered through the worst forest fires in the state’s history. And the fire still burning in southeastern Oregon is the biggest one the state has seen in 150 years.Illustration: Erik Ruin

As climate scientists will tell you, there is no way to link any single weather event to global warming. But as Jeff Masters, director of meteorology at the Weather Underground website, said recently on Democracy Now!, “What we’re seeing now is the future. We’re going to be seeing a lot more weather like this, a lot more impacts like we’re seeing from this series of heat waves, fires, and storms. . . . This is just the beginning.”

And yet, the fossil fuel industry continues to lead the climate change denial parade. On June 27, a day when almost 200 high temperature records were broken, Rex W. Tillerson, CEO of Exxon Mobil, gave a speech to the Council on Foreign Relations, pooh-poohing climate change, saying that the problem was activist organizations that “manufacture fear.” Tillerson said that the problem was an “illiterate public,” which needed to be taught that all environmental risks were “entirely manageable.”

And conservative pundits proudly wave the same flat-earth flag. Arguing with E. J. Dionne on ABC’s This Week, George Will said, “You asked us—how do we explain the heat? One word: summer. . . . We’re having some hot weather. Get over it.”

In our editorial, “Our Climate Crisis Is an Education Crisis,” in the spring 2011 issue of Rethinking Schools, we wrote that the climate crisis is “arguably the most significant threat to life on earth,” and urged educators to respond with the urgency that the crisis deserves. The events of this summer have added an exclamation point to our editorial.

A new article by Bill McKibben in the July/August 2012 issue of Orion Magazine, “A Matter of Degrees: The Arithmetic of a Warming Climate,” holds profound implications for educators. McKibben begins with the reminder that there is a global consensus that if the planet warms more than 2 degrees Celsius, we enter the “guaranteed-catastrophe zone.” (And McKibben acknowledges that even 2 degrees may be too generous of a climate allowance.)

So McKibben does the arithmetic. To remain under the 2-degree threshold, we need to emit no more than 565 gigatons of carbon dioxide over the next 40 years. As he puts it, “It’s like saying if you want to keep your blood alcohol level legal for driving, you can’t drink more than eight beers in the next six hours.” But here is the problem. Analysts have calculated that all the claimed reserves from fossil fuel—coal, oil, and natural gas—companies add up to 2,795 gigatons, five times more than the maximum allowable, even in a scenario that itself is fraught with climate danger.

“Here’s another way of saying it: We need to leave at least 80 percent of that coal and gas and oil underground,” McKibben writes. “The problem is, extracting and burning that coal and oil and gas is already factored into the share prices of the companies involved—the value of that carbon is already counted as part of the economy.” This would be the equivalent of these companies writing off $20 trillion.

For those of us who take climate science seriously, I think that we’re left with an inescapable conclusion: It’s not enough to teach about fossil fuels, we have to teach against fossil fuels. Any curriculum discussion that fails to address the threat posed by fossil fuel consumption to humanity and the future of all life on earth is profoundly irresponsible.

To illustrate the criminal full-speed-ahead approach of the fossil fuel industry, here in the Northwest, coal companies are pushing plans to export between 150 and 170 million tons of coal a year from the Powder River Basin in Wyoming and Montana through six different Oregon and Washington ports to Asia.

Put aside for a moment the horrible toll that coal mining takes on the land and water and people in Montana and Wyoming.

Put aside the coal dust pollution that destroys lungs and kills people.

Put aside the violation of Native fishing rights along the Columbia River, where all the coal would travel by train and barge.

Put aside the noise pollution and disruption from as many as 60 mile-long, diesel exhaust-spewing trains a day.

And instead think only about the climate implications of the hundreds of millions of tons of coal that will be burned if these export routes are opened—a yearly figure, by my calculations, of between 240 and 270 million tons of carbon dioxide pumped into the atmosphere. That’s the equivalent of 65 coal-fired power plants. (Of course, anti-coal export activists are busy making sure this doesn’t come to pass.)

Educators need to do our part. We have to continue to create—and teach—curriculum that through role play, simulation, experiment, projects, art, story, media, and activism helps students explore the causes and consequences of climate change—and imagine economic arrangements that can stop hurtling us toward the “catastrophe zone.” This work is already under way.

See articles in our special issue on “Teaching for Environmental Justice:”
“‘Don’t Take Our Voices Away’: A Role Play on the Indigenous People’s Summit on Climate Change”
“Dirty Oil and Shovel-Ready Jobs: A Role Play on Tar Sands and the Keystone XL Pipeline”
“Got Coal? Teaching About the Most Dangerous Rock in America”
And in the latest issue of Rethinking Schools, “Fracking: In the End, We’re All Downstream.”

We concluded our climate crisis editorial: “The fight for a climate-relevant education is part of the broader fight for a critical, humane, challenging, and socially responsive curriculum. It’s work that belongs to us all.”

It’s also work that has never been more urgent.
© 2012 Rethinking Schools
Bill Bigelow

Bill Bigelow is curriculum editor of Rethinking Schools magazine and author or co-editor of several Rethinking Schools books: A People’s History for the Classroom, The Line Between Us: Teaching About the Border and Mexican Immigration, Rethinking Columbus, Rethinking Globalization: Teaching for Justice in an Unjust World, and Rethinking Our Classrooms–Volumes 1 and 2. Bigelow lives in Portland, Oregon, and has taught high school social studies since 1978.

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2012/07/17-2

Published on Tuesday, July 17, 2012 by Common Dreams
Greenpeace Activists Shut Down 77 Shell Gas Stations in Day of Action
– Common Dreams staff

Environmental activists shut down dozens of Shell gas stations across the UK, Denmark and Germany on Monday. The action was part of environmental group Greenpeace’s Save the Arctic Campaign — a bid to prevent oil drilling in the Arctic slated to begin within the next three weeks. Greenpeace has ramped up its efforts against oil company Shell as its drilling vessels drift closer to its targets in the Arctic.

Greenpeace polar bears scale a Shell gas station (Photo: Greenpeace via twitter) Earlier this week Shell’s first drill rig to near the Arctic, Noble Discoverer, lost control during high winds and ran aground near Dutch Harbor, Alaska.

“Shell can’t keep it’s drill rig under control in a protected harbor, so what will happen when it faces 20 foot swells and sea ice while drilling in the Arctic? Shell’s whole drilling program seems to be running aground…Shell cannot be trusted, and President Obama should not let its Arctic drilling program move forward,” stated Greenpeace Lead Arctic Campaigner Jackie Dragon.

On Monday the activists scaled the roof of a Shell gas station, many in sickly polar bear costumes, used barriers to block off access to pumps, and covered a Shell sign with a Save the Arctic banner. In one instance they placed a life-sized polar bear model on a station’s roof. Other campaigners chained themselves to pumps, a Greenpeace spokesman told the Independent.

Activists shut down pumps by switching emergency shut-off levers, which stop gas flow.

24 were arrested over the course of the planned actions.

All together the organization protested at over 100 gas stations and shut down up to 77, most of them in London and Edinburgh.

“Obviously, we need to ratchet up the pressure, we need to let Shell know that this isn’t just a publicity campaign, we’re going to put pressure on them until they agree to stop what they’re doing,” Greenpeace activist Graham Thompson told the Guardian.

Greenpeace’s video of the day’s actions:

http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/FR-2012-07-13/pdf/2012-17048.pdf

http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/FR-2012-07-13/html/2012-17048.htm

Special thanks to Richard Charter

By ANDREW E. KRAMER
Published: July 11, 2012

MOSCOW – A Russian oil company will delay drilling its first exploratory well off the northern coast of Cuba, about 180 miles from Florida, after apparently struggling to find a drilling rig that would not violate a United States embargo.

The Russian company, Zarubezhneft, said in a statement on Wednesday that it had planned to drill in August but now planned to start in November.

Finding rigs can be a challenge for oil companies operating in Cuba. To avoid violating the trade embargo the United States imposed on Cuba 50 years ago, rigs can have only a small portion of their parts manufactured in the United States.

Zarubezhneft, a small state-owned company, obtained the exploration rights to potential oil fields in the waters off Cuba three years ago. Last month, it obtained a rig from the Cyprus-based drilling operator, Songa Offshore.

Cuba produces little oil now, but petroleum experts say the country’s northern coastal waters could hold reserves, which may help revive the island’s economy and ease its dependence on oil imported from Venezuela.

Half a dozen companies have signed deals to work in Cuban waters on projects that concern United States authorities. Many of the projects would be close to the United States but beyond the reach of its safety regulators. Cuba’s maritime border is in some places 50 miles from the coast of the United States.

Zarubezhneft updated its plans during a visit from Raúl Castro, Cuba’s leader and the brother of Fidel Castro, who is on a tour of former Communist allies. Seeking money for Cuba, Castro met with President Vladimir V. Putin after visiting China and Vietnam.

Songa Offshore once operated from offices in Houston, but has since moved to Singapore and Cyprus, according to its Web site.

After it contracted for the Songa rig, Zarubezhneft hired a third-party auditing company to confirm that the machine had fewer than 10 percent United States-made parts, the Russian company said in a statement. The rig is on its way from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, to Cuba. The company plans to drill at a site called Block L near the Cuban coastal town of Cayo Santa Maria.

A version of this article appeared in print on July 12, 2012, on page B6 of the New York edition with the headline: Russian Oil Drilling Off Cuba Is Delayed by Old Embargo.

Special thanks to Richard Charter

wwltv.com: New study finds microorganisms along Gulf Coast impacted by BP oil spill

Posted on July 10, 2012 at 6:27 PM / Updated yesterday at 6:42 PM
Maya Rodriguez / Eyewitness News

Email: mrodriguez@wwltv.com | Twitter: @mrodriguezwwl
GRAND ISLE, La.– To the casual observer, the beaches along the Gulf Coast look back to normal, more than two years after oil marred the shoreline. In a new study, though, scientists sampled the sand and sediment, taking a closer look at the microorganisms there.

“You can think of them as forming the basis of any eco-system,” said Holly Bik of the University of California, Davis, one of the study’s lead researchers. “So, they really underpin all the food webs in ecosystems.”

Bik personally collected samples from Grand Isle, looking for microbial life: tiny worms, crustaceans, amoebas and fungi, which are not visible to the naked eye, but crucial to the food chain. What she and other scientists discovered was a major shift.

“It was very low diversity, there were very few things living there,” Bik said. “It looked like they represented a disturbed habitat.”

Loyola University biology professor Dr. Jim Wee did not participate in the study, but looked at its findings. He said microorganisms are often overlooked because they can be harder to relate to.

“There was a the shift in the composition or the diversity,” Dr. Wee said. “Because we don’t ordinarily see them, we often don’t take the microbial organisms as seriously as we should, in terms of how they affect our environment.”

However, a change in microorganisms can have a huge effect. After the Exxon-Valdez spill in Alaska, a similar change in microorganisms came before a collapse in the herring fisheries there. Whether something similar could happen here is still not clear. UNO Biological Sciences Department Chair Dr. Wendy Schluchter did not take part in the study, but said this latest one shows more research is needed.
“Many people want to know– what’s the immediate effect? And obviously, we don’t know,” Dr. Schluchter said. “It’s going to take a long time to study this– to really understand what the effects are.”

The scientists focused mainly on Grand Isle and Dauphin Island, Alabama in these results. They collected more samples from Louisiana to Florida, though, and additional research is ongoing at Auburn University. To see the current study, click here

——————————————-
http://msbusiness.com
Mississippi Business Journal: Study: Oil spill’s impact could take years to become apparent

by Associated Press
Published: July 10th, 2012

GULF OF MEXICO — New research by an Auburn University professor and other scientists suggests that the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill could have significant impacts on microscopic life that might not become apparent for years.

Auburn professor Ken Halanych and scientists from the University of New Hampshire, the University of California Davis Genome Center, and the University of Texas at San Antonio, published their work last month in the scientific journal PLoS ONE.

The Press-Register of Mobile (Ala.) reports researchers collected soil samples from five spots around Alabama’s Dauphin Island and Mobile Bay, as well as a persistently oiled beach in Grand Isle, La.

What they found, according to their report, was that diverse communities of microscopic animals had given way to fungi, some of which are associated with oil spills.

Complete URL: http://msbusiness.com/2012/07/study-oil-spills-impact-could-take-years-to-become-apparent/

————————————
Press-Register: Gulf oil spill had dramatic impact on microscopic life, study suggests
Published: Tuesday, July 10, 2012, 6:00 AM Updated: Tuesday, July 10, 2012, 3:04 PM
By Brendan Kirby, Press-Register

MOBILE, Alabama — Months after BP PLC capped the gushing well in the Gulf of Mexico and crews had cleared oil from coast, Alabama’s beaches looked like they had returned to normal.

New research by an Auburn University professor and other scientists, though, suggests that significant changes had taken place in creatures too small to be seen by the naked eye. Those changes, professor Ken Halanych said, bear further study and could have big impacts that might not become apparent for years.

“When the samples were taken, there wasn’t any obvious oil on the beaches, wasn’t anything obvious to indicate that the oil spill had happened,” he said. “When you went outside and looked at it, it looked rather normal. There was clearly (microscopic) community change and hidden effects.”

Halanych and scientists from the University of New Hampshire, the University of California Davis Genome Center, and the University of Texas at San Antonio, published their work last month in the scientific journal PLoS ONE. The researches collected soil samples from 5 spots around Dauphin Island and Mobile Bay, as well as a persistently oiled beach in Grand Isle, Louisiana.

The researchers collected the first set of samples after the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig had exploded in April 2010 but before oil reached the coast. They then compared those samples with soil collected at the same locations in September of that year.

What they found, according to the academic paper, was that diverse communities of microscopic animals had given way to fungi, some of which are associated with oil spills.

“Based on this community analysis, our data suggest considerable (hidden) initial impacts across Gulf beaches may be ongoing, despite the disappearance of visible surface oil in the region,” they wrote.

Potential Ripple Effect
Halanych said the long-term effects are unknown but potentially dramatic, since the organisms that lost ground after the spill form the base of the food chain. He pointed to the collapse of the herring population in Prince William Sound after the Exxon Valdez oil spill in Alaska. That collapse, which did not occur until several years after the 1989 spill, has been traced to changes at the microscopic level.

“When you change the ecosystem, all these things have a ripple effect,” he said. “Some of these effects can take years to develop.”

Patricia Sobecky, the chairwoman of the Biological Sciences Department at the University of Alabama, said the study sheds new light on a Gulf environment that many scientists contend has received too little attention.

“What they reported is completely in line with what you would expect,” said Sobecky, who was not part of the research. “How to interpret that is going to the tricky part.”

Sobecky was part of a team that expects to publish its own paper in PLoS ONE in the coming weeks. She said her work focused on the impact of the oil spill on microscopic life in salt marshes near Bayou La Batre.

Sobecky said the work of Halanych and others is important for establishing a baseline to track changes over time.

“I think it will ready us for future events,” she said.

One the one hand, Sobecky said, the presence of microorganisms attracted to hydrocarbons may have helped break down the oil faster. Whether those organisms remain and what the effect will be is harder to tell, she said, adding that other large-scale oil spills — like the Valdez — do not offer a conclusive explanation because the environments are so different from the Gulf.

“What does that mean? Is it more resilient? Less resilient?” she said.

John Valentine, the director of the Dauphin Island Sea Lab, said other research he has reviewed indicates that microbes harmed by the oil spill had rebounded by the end of the year.

“It was pretty clear in the microbial community that there was a pretty dramatic effect immediately after the oil spill,” he said. “It would be interesting to know if (Halanych and his partners) persisted beyond September 2010.”

More research needed
Halanych said he did, in fact, collect samples a full year after the oil spill. But he said he has not yet analyzed the results. He said other research suggests that changes in bacteria reverted to normal conditions fairly quickly after the spill. But he said that does not necessarily mean that microscopic animals will behave the same way.
He agreed that more research is needed. He said funding for his project from a National Science Foundation grant has run out, but he or others might be able to get renewed support if a follow-up paper shows interesting results.

“What this research shows is we have to keep watching,” he said.

Halanych said he and his team used hand-held tools to scoop up soil at the same depth in different locations. They sent those samples to a lab in New Hampshire, where researchers performed a genetic sequencing. Scientists also made observations with microscopes.

He said large animals and fish either moved or died when the massive oil slick reached them. His team focused on the tiny creatures that live between the sand grains.

“They’re not going to be able to get up and swim and move,” he said.

After the spill, fungi and organisms associated with hydrocarbons were dominant, Halanych said.

“A lot of these things might have been there (before) but in very low numbers, and the conditions didn’t favor them” he said.

The question that cannot be answered without more research, Halanych said, is whether the new species will remain without the oil.

“I would hope they would shift back, but we need the data to tell us for sure or not,” he said.

Special thanks to Richard Charter