Big Oil and Gas

Rex Tillerson: An Unlikely Climate Hero?

by

Doug  Grandt, climate warrior and friend of 350orbust, is inviting Rex Tillerson, CEO of Exxon and Eagle Scout, to become a climate hero. The world is desperately in need of visionary leadership from business leaders as well as political leaders, as we stand on the cusp of catastrophic climate change. Here is Doug’s recent video letter to Mr. Tillerson, Challenge of a Lifetime:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oeEsyjdfGBw&feature=youtu.be]

*

Please join me in encouraging Eagle Scout — and Boy Scouts national President and Exxon Mobil CEO — Rex Tillerson to play a prominent role.

I have asked him to change the course of human history with true climate solutions leadership this year.

Eagle Scouts should live by “We leave our campsites cleaner than we found them” as well as the Scout Law and Scout Oath. We share reverence for God; our family, neighbors and society; and our environment, which supports life for all species. Read more on Think Progress: My Word: Who Better Than an Eagle Scout To Show Bold Initiative On Carbon Pollution.

More Links:

Who Is Charles Grant?

The Trillion Dollar Question Is: Who Will Lead The Climate Battle?

Begin Anew

#NOKXL! Score One For Our Children’s Future (For A Change)

by

It’s official – break out the champagne!! The U.S. State Department just announced that it would delay making a decision on the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline until after it had undergone extensive further review, including a search for an alternate routing. Yes, this is the same decision that PM Harper called a “no-brainer”. Tar Sands Action just posted this reflection:

Take a moment today to walk outside and enjoy the beautiful, threatened earth that is a little safer a little longer thanks to you.

Savor it. Remember what it’s like to achieve unlikely wins. We’ll need this feeling when we embark on what’s next.

photo: Tar Sands Action

Read more at the New York Times, “U.S. Delays Decision on Pipeline Until After Election”

Tar Sands Action: Big News: We Won. You Won

Just Say No – It’s Time For Canada To Wean Itself Off Its Addiction to Tar Sands Crude

by

This hour protestors are gathering on Parliament Hill in Ottawa, to show their opposition to the Alberta tar sands, and specifically the proposed Keystone XL Pipeline that could be built from Alberta across the U.S. to carry tar sands bitumen to Texas refineries.

I would dearly love to be there, but by the time this event was organized I was committed to helping with all-day events for Moving Planet day this past Saturday, and a sustainability workshop on Sunday. As I live a 5 1/2 hour drive from a direct Ottawa flight, and am a 24 hour drive away from Ottawa, I struggled with the decision about giving up my local commitment to building sustainability or traveling (and burning carbon) to make a very important national statement to our government and to other Canadians. In the end, a friend suggesting a low-carbon alternative. She couldn’t attend, either, but recruited a friend in Ottawa to go. As it turns out, a friend and fellow Citizens Climate Lobby member was in Ottawa visiting her daughter this weekend, and so we were able to negotiate extending her ticket so that she could attend today’s event, and represent both of us. It’s a creative and low-carbon solution, so thanks Kaaren for the idea, and thanks, Val for standing up for all of our children’s future on Parliament Hill today!

The event is being livestreamed here.

Meanwhile, here’s Robert Redford “Punching Back at Big Oil”

When you challenge Big Oil in Houston, you can bet the industry is going to punch back. So when I wrote in the Houston Chronicle earlier this month that we should say no to the Keystone XL pipeline, I wasn’t surprised when the project’s chief executive weighed in with a different view.

The corporate rejoinder, written by Alex Pourbaix, president for energy and oil pipelines for the TransCanada Corp., purported to cite “errors” in my oped. Let’s set the record straight, point by point.

First, the Keystone XL, as proposed, would run from Canada across the width of our country to Texas oil refineries and ports. It would carry diluted bitumen, a kind of crude oil, produced from the Alberta tar sands. On those points, we all agree.

I say this is a bad idea. It would put farmers, ranchers and croplands at risk across much of the Great Plains. It would feed our costly addiction to oil. And it would wed our future to the destructive production of tar sands crude. Click here to read the full article on RSN.org

University of Calgary Prostitutes Itself To Big Oil & Gas

by

Canadian journalist Mike DeSousa first wrote three years ago about the anti-science group with the Orwellian name “Friends of Science” funding a PR blitz meant to cast doubt on the science of climate change. Friends of Science paid for their ad campaign out of a University of Calgary research account controlled by Professor Barry Cooper, but the university and the Calgary Foundation (who also received donations and transferred them to the research account) refused to release details at the time that DeSousa broke the original story. DeSousa appealed that censorship, and won.

DeSousa wrote last week in the Ottawa Citizen:

A pair of “research” accounts at the University of Calgary, funded mainly by the oil and gas industry, were used for a sophisticated international political campaign that involved high-priced consultants, lobbying, wining, dining, and travel with the goal of casting doubt on climate change science, newly-released records have revealed.

The records showed that the strategy was crafted by professional firms, in collaboration with well-known climate change skeptics in Canada and abroad, allowing donors to earn tax receipts by channelling their money through the university.

All of the activities and $507,975 in spending were organized by the Friends of Science, an anti-Kyoto Protocol group founded by retired oil industry workers and academics who are skeptical about peer-reviewed research linking human activity to global warming observed in recent decades.

DeSousa has also revealed that an Alberta-based oil and gas company, Talisman Energy, helped to kick-start the elaborate public relations campaign with a donation of nearly $200,000.

The donation from Talisman Energy was the largest single contribution to a pair of trust accounts at the university that received $507,975 in donations to produce a video and engage in public relations, advertising and lobbying activities against the Kyoto Protocol and government measures to restrict fossil fuel consumption and greenhouse gas emissions.

“Talisman is pleased to be a part of this exciting project and wish you success in the production of the video,” said the letter, dated Nov. 4, 2004, to university account administrator Chantal-Lee Watt, that accompanied a $175,000 cheque.

Something smells fishy around here, and it’s not just the leftover pickerel chowder in my fridge. Aren’t universities supposed to be bastions of learning and scientific inquiry? When did it become okay for a public university to accept private corporate funds to spread misinformation and lies? And then try to suppress the truth, only revealing it when forced to by access to information laws?

If you, like me, think something stinks about this, contact University of Calgary President Elizabeth Cannon by email at: president@ucalgary.ca.

In the meantime, Friends of Science is at it again, bringing in journalist (and now climate expert??) Rex Murphy to the University of Calgary on September 29th. Murphy has been spouting his uninformed  views on climate change for a while now, and I’m sure the FoS is happy to have him spread more doubt on the science. Like the tobacco lobby, who for years delayed action on tobacco regulation by confusing the general public about the science linking tobacco and health effects, the Petroleum Lobby is busily repositioning global warming as theory rather than fact. Want to learn more? Head over to DeSmogBlog.com – they do a great job of separating climate fact from climate fiction.

[vimeo http://vimeo.com/29107248]

More links:

University Funds Used in PR War, Files Show

Oil Money Funnelled To Climate Denier Group

Talisman Energy Kick-Started U of C Climate Skeptic Fund

What Can Change In A Day?

by

In the Climate Reality Project, Al Gore answers the question, “What Can Change In a Day?”. A whole lot, it turns out – just ask the people living on the Susquehanna River last week when Tropical Storm Lee hit then and displaced them, or the folks in New Orleans about Hurricane Katrina, or the people along the Gulf Coast still recovering from the BP disaster.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PY-mboZkhD0&feature=results_main&playnext=1&list=PLBDFB84FC637BF088]

If you haven’t yet signed up to host a Climate Reality event tomorrow, it isn’t too late. Just go to Climate Reality Project.org, and join their project to reveal the complete truth about the climate crisis and watch the live stream starting at 7pm CT on September 14.

First Nations Women Arrested For Protesting Hydraulic Fracking On Their Land, Charged with “Intimidation”

by

lle-Máijá Apiniskim Tailfeathers, one of the women arrested this weekend for peacefully protesting the plan to “frack” on Blood Reserve land, released this statement yesterday:

On September 9, 2011, we gathered peacefully on the road leading to a newly built Murphy Oil well on the Blood Reserve.  After nearly a year of doing everything in our power to stop hydraulic fracturing from occurring on our land, we felt that time was no longer on our side.  With the imminent threat of hydraulic fracturing about to begin on Blood Tribe land, we decided that we had to act immediately. Over the last year, we have written letters and created petitions, we have tried to raise awareness both within our community and beyond including founding Kainai Earth Watch and the Protect Blood Land website, we have repeatedly contacted the Blood Tribe Chief and Council, Kainai Resources Incorporated, the gas and oil companies, the media, the Energy Resources Conservation Board, and various levels of government including Indian and Northern Affairs Canada but still our rights were violated. Countless times, we were told that this was a matter between members of the Blood Tribe and the Blood Tribe Chief and Council. But as members of the Blood Tribe, we were never asked whether or not we wanted these wells built in the first place.

…I do not feel as though what we did was heroic.  We were a handful of people, including a couple of children, who gathered for a common purpose; to prevent any further desecration of the land.  For us, this place is more than just land; it is the place that has given life to our people since time immemorial. Our culture, our language, our identity comes from the land and it is to the land that we owe our very existence…How can we look our children and grandchildren in the eye and say that we have let such a thing happen? We are nothing without this place

…I want to believe, more than anything, that those behind our arrest knew in their hearts that treating the earth this way is wrong.  And I want to believe, more than anything, that their actions were motivated by fear; which may explain our criminal charges of “intimidation”.  I look back on the last year and am still in disbelief that it came to this point.  From the actual signing of the gas and oil agreement on the Blood Reserve to the arrest and imprisonment of three unarmed Blood Tribe women.  It feels much like a bad dream but somehow this is our current reality.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OM2D2PDKORI]

To read the full press release, click here.

Their court date has been set for September 19, 2011 at 10 am at the Provincial Court Building in Cardston, Alberta.

For donations, please contact:

Ingrid Hess, Barrister
ingrid.hess@shaw.ca
More links: