They Knew, They Lied: ExxonMobil and Climate Change
By William Rivers Pitt, 16 July 2015 00:00
Los Angeles Smog – Shutterstock
Between 1956 and 1964, Bell Laboratories produced a number of television specials titled “The Bell Laboratories Science Series.” The topics ranged from an examination of the Sun, to human blood, deep space, the mind, the nature of time and life itself. The programs were produced by Frank Capra, whose films include It’s a Wonderful Life and Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, so the production value of the series was notably superior. Even 30 years later, schools all across the US were still showing these Bell Labs films to students.
In 1958, a chapter in this series titled “The Unchained Goddess” was broadcast. The topic was the weather, and it starred Richard Carlson and a USC professor named Dr. Frank C. Baxter. At one point in the program, Carlson asked Dr. Baxter, “What would happen if we could change the course of the Gulf Stream, or the other great ocean currents, or warm up Hudson Bay with atomic furnaces?” The “atomic furnaces” bit is a quaint throwback to the atom-crazy 1950s, but the response given by Dr. Baxter is what makes this particular film notable.
“Extremely dangerous questions,” replied Dr. Baxter, “because with our present knowledge we have no idea what would happen. Even now, Man may be unwittingly changing the world’s climate through the waste products of his civilization. Due to our release, through factories and automobiles every year, of more than 6 billion tons of carbon dioxide – which helps air absorb heat from the Sun – our atmosphere seems to be getting warmer. It’s been calculated that a few degrees rise in the Earth’s temperature would melt the polar ice caps, and if this happens, an inland sea would fill a good portion of the Mississippi Valley. Tourists in glass-bottomed boats would be viewing the drowned towers of Miami through 150 feet of tropical water.”
Again, this was broadcast in 1958. The fact that climate concerns were being voiced almost 60 years ago is likely surprising to many, but the history and beginnings of the environmental movement in the US date even earlier. Ten years before, in 1948, the first piece of federal legislation to regulate water quality – the Federal Water Pollution Control Act – was passed. President Eisenhower spoke to the issue of air pollution, which had killed nearly 300 people in New York City two years earlier, in his 1955 State of the Union Address. That same year, the Air Pollution Control Act was passed.
Repost from Bay Area Indymedia [This belated report has nothing new on the arrests on our bridge, but it shows some good pics of the Stop Oil Trains protest in San Jose. – RS]
Arrests in Martinez as Californians demonstrate against oil trains
By R. Robertson , Jul 14th, 2015 6:22 PM
Police arrested four Bay Area protesters after they suspended themselves from the Benicia-Martinez railroad bridge to hang a banner protesting oil trains. Photos here are of the protest in San Jose, California. Both protests were part of a week of action against oil trains.
Police arrested four Bay Area protesters after they suspended themselves from the Benicia-Martinez railroad bridge to hang a banner protesting oil trains last week.
Raging Grannies – NO MORE EXPLODING OIL TRAINS!
Elsewhere in California, Raging Grannies in Davis and San Jose enlivened protests there singing out, ”No more exploding trains”.
Oil trains go through almost every US state, disproportionately over poorer American communities. The crude oil moving by train is more toxic, explosive, and carbon intensive than conventional oil. It puts millions of Americans and Canadians at risk. Last week there were more than 80 protests and educational events in North America about this danger.
The Lac-Mégantic rail disaster happened July 6, 2013, when a freight train carrying Bakken formation crude oil rolled downhill and derailed, resulting in the fire and explosion of multiple tank cars. Forty-seven people died and many others injured. Last week’s events were timed to coincide with the anniversary of that catastrophe.
By Lynne Nittler, July 08, 2015
Protesters in Portland carry placards bearing the names of 47 people who died two years ago when an oil train derailed in Lac-Mégantic, Quebec, Canada. Courtesy photo
There is no safe way to transport extreme tar sands and Bakken crude oil. Two years after Lac-Mégantic, oil trains keep exploding and carbon pollution keeps rising. Oil trains are a disaster for our health, our safety and our climate.
On Saturday, July 11, Davis residents will remember the 2013 oil derailment that took 47 lives in Lac-Mégantic, Quebec, Canada. Davis faces the threat of a similar accident. Currently, at least one oil train per week passes through Davis headed to the Bay Area.
Two more 100-car trains per day are planned for the near future for the Valero Refinery in Benicia and the Phillips 66 refinery in San Luis Obispo … unless citizens stop them.
The ForestEthics map at www.Blast-Zone.org shows endangered homes and businesses along Second Street in Davis, including the police station, Carlton Plaza senior community and Rancho Yolo. The entire Davis downtown is vulnerable, along with parts of UC Davis campus and apartments complexes along Olive Drive.
Saturday’s vigil and rally highlight public opposition to oil trains passing through Davis. Too many residents live in the oil train blast zone, the 1-mile evacuation zone recommended by safety officials in the case of an oil train derailment and fire. ForestEthics calculates that nationwide, 25 million Americans live in the blast zone.
“My home is in the oil train blast zone,” says Frances Burke, a downtown resident and oil train activist. “I have to breathe the extra particulates in the air from each additional daily train. Meanwhile, the new federal regulations do little to protect me.
“In the event of an accident, first responders can only evacuate people from fireballs that happen despite trains moving at slower speeds in the supposedly safer tank cars. Oil trains are too dangerous for communities.”
Wearing fiery red, yellow and orange shirts, Davisites are invited to meet at the train station and walk through the Davis blast zone downtown to the Rotary Stage in Central Park.
“Five times in the first five months of 2015 we’ve watched oil trains derail and explode into toxic fireballs,” said Elizabeth Lasensky of Yolo MoveOn, as she made her sign for Saturday’s event. “The Department of Transportation reported in July 2014 that we can expect 10 to 12 derailments a year! It’s only a matter of time before an oil train derails in a major urban area, and the railroads don’t carry sufficient liability for such a disaster!”
At the state level, Sen. Lois Wolk will share the legislative response to the sudden surge of crude-by-rail transport into California, which is aimed at protecting the public as well as sensitive habitat and waterways.
“With well over 100 pledges signed on and 500 visitors online, this fracking pledge of resistance is starting to take off,” Luzzo says of his plan to make California fracking-free. “My article explaining the origins of the pledge has attracted over 1,000 people. The word is definitely getting out there.”
Information on oil trains and the proposed ban on fracking in Yolo County will be available at the Cool Davis booth at the Farmers Market in Central Park.
“The truth is, we don’t need any of the extreme oil,” says Reeda Palmer of the Unitarian Universalist Church of Davis. “The explosive Bakken and the toxic tar sands crude that moves by rail is a small percent of total U.S. oil consumption.
“As we move our economy to clean energy, we can’t allow oil companies to bring Bakken, tar sands and other fracked oil — the dirtiest, most dangerous sources of oil — onto the market to pollute the atmosphere when we have clean alternatives.”
Given the unresolved dangers of crude oil transport by rail and the overload of carbon emissions already in the atmosphere, a more prudent path is to leave all extreme crude in the ground, transition to clean, renewable energy and practice energy conservation in an effort to live sustainably on a finite planet.
— Lynne Nittler is a Davis resident, the founder of Yolano Climate Action Central and an active member of Cool Davis.
Communities Fight to Prevent ‘Bomb Trains’ from Passing by the L.A. River
By Carren Jao, July 9, 2015
A train on the Union Pacific tracks a long the L.A. River | Photo: ATOMIC Hot Links/Flickr/Creative Commons
Church bells rang 47 times last Monday in Lac-Mégantic as locals came together to remember each of the victims of a horrific rail disaster in the Quebec town two years ago. Aside from the cost to human life, all but three of the buildings in downtown had to be demolished due to petroleum contamination when an unmanned 72-car train rolled downhill and derailed, spilling and igniting six million liters of carrying volatile fracked shale oil from the Bakken region of North Dakota.
These trains have become known as “bomb trains” due to their destructive track record. At any given time about 9 million barrels of crude oil are moving over the rail lines of North America. In less than a decade, there has also been 43 times more oil moved through U.S. railways, increasing the likelihood of tragic explosions and spills.
SoCal environmentalists are trying to prevent the same type of tragedy from happening in Los Angeles and by the Los Angeles River, an area slated for a $1-billion facelift in the coming years.
“We don’t need to put our water sources and communities at risk from bomb trains when we can invest further in public transit, more efficient cars that would run from solar power or advanced biofuels, heating and cooling using renewable energy sources,” says Jack Eidt, urban planner and environmental designer. He is also the publisher of Wilder Utopia and directs Wild Heritage Planners.
He, along with about thirty organizations such as Burbank Green Alliance, Center for Biological Diversity, ForestEthics, Sierra Club, SoCal 350 Climate Action, and Tar Sands Action Southern California, are working hard to oppose the Phillips 66 Santa Maria Refinery crude expansion, which would extend the existing rail track by 6,915-foot east on the Union Pacific rail mainline and install equipment needed to enable rail delivery of North American crude oil. It would up the volume of oil transported via rail through major cities on its way to Philips’ Santa Maria Refinery, a 1,780-acre property adjacent to State Highway 1 on the Nipomo Mesa.
They are holding a Stop Oil Trains Day of Action at Union Station this July 11, as part of the National Week of Action to Stop Oil Trains. Environmentalists, community organizers, people from the indigenous community, as well as poets and musicians, will be present to educate the public about this looming issue.
They’re hoping that the Los Angeles City Council will join in the chorus of over 30 city and county governments to stop this project expansion. “We would love to see Councilmember Huizar sponsor the measure, because his district encompasses many neighborhoods that could be affected by a rail accident,” says Eidt. Resolutions have already been introduced and approved Mar Vista Community Council, as well as the Echo Park and Silver Lake Neighborhood Councils the City to take action.
With the extension, the company to plans to move 20,800 crude tankers to and from their Nipomo facility every year. These can be 80-car trains that stretch a mile-long.
Environmentalists worry this would jack up the risks for communities that exist along the Union Pacific Rail lines. “Maps in the EIR show these trains proposed to pass back and forth between Colton and the Central Coast, passing right through downtown, along the L.A. River and out toward Chatsworth in the San Fernando Valley,” says Eidt, “In the future, we are sure that the trains would also be running south toward the Port of Los Angeles.”
Mainline Rail UPRR Routes to the Santa Maria Refinery | Image: SLO County
The project’s required environmental review offered no reassurance either. A document released last November garnered 20,000 comments from organizations and individuals across the state opposing the project. The review showed that more than 20 significant and unavoidable adverse impacts to the environment, including rail accident risks along the main line that could result in oil spills, and fires and explosions near populated areas.
There have already been six major accidents across North America in this year alone, including one last week in Tennessee when a train carrying hazardous material derailed and caught fire. Five thousand people living within a mile and a half of the site had to be evacuated.
Atwater Village residents will remember the oil spill last year, when above-ground pipeline burst in the 5100 block of West San Fernando Road. It sent a geyser 20 to 50 feet into the air. Quick action prevented the oil from spilling into the Los Angeles River, but we might not be so fortunate the next time.
“The project is part of a wider expansion to bring tar sands crude from Alberta, Canada, into West Coast ports for processing and export,” says Eidt. “Because activists, like our coalition, have fought hard to stop projects like the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline across the middle of the U.S., the oil industry has turned to shipping crude by barge and rail.”
Though the project isn’t in the city, “this is a health and safety issue for the City of Los Angeles,” says Eidt. “The P66 Santa Maria EIR stated that emergency responders would not be equipped to deal with a derailment or explosion of a 100-car train carrying toxic crude. We need to focus on optimizing our rail transportation network with high-speed rail and Metrolink/Amtrak, which will use the same right-of-way/rails respectively. Metrolink has had a difficult history of accidents that have caused a significant toll on communities. Factor in volatile crude oil into the mix and we are looking at trouble.”
Rather than invest in these projects, Eidt says we should find more sustainable methods of transportation, heating, cooling, and manufacturing. Eidt recommends looking at Mark Z. Jacobsen’s Solutions Project and Amory Lovins’ Rocky Mountain Institute, both of which say we can transition to an economy that doesn’t degrade the environment, but uplifts it. For example, if cars were made out of fiber composites as opposed to 19th century steel, it would keep them moving faster and longer.
“Crude oil, natural gas, and coal need to be phased out today, and the workforce must be retrained, our consumer choices must be more informed and in most cases curtailed,” says Eidt. “We should consider eating lower on the food chain, we must pass a carbon tax to get the fossil fuel companies to pay for their pollution, and that dividend should be given back to households to meet the cost of a just transition off fossil fuels.”
