By Ecological Internet, http://www.climateark.org/
Contact: Dr. Glen Barry, glenbarry@ecologicalinternet.org

Last week the Northern Gateway tar sands pipeline [search] approval process - meant to transfer filthy tar sand oil from Alberta, Canada to Asia – was delayed one year until at least the end of 2013. The $5.5-billion, 1,200-kilometre double pipeline would transport up to 525,000 barrels per day of crude from Alberta’s environmentally devastating tar sands oilfields – traversing innumerable waterways, temperate rainforests, and sensitive coastal ecosystems – to ocean-going tankers for transport to Asia. The Enbridge Northern Gateway joint review panel announced the decision by email, noting “significant public interest in the Northern Gateway project.”

The pipelines would go through B.C.'s sensitive Pacific North Coast ecosystem, and threatens First Nations’ land and salmon economy. One mishap – such as project developer Enbridge’s recent broken pipeline fouling the Yellowstone River – will bring disastrous results and long-term loss of marine life, pristine waterways, and sensitive coastal ecosystems. First Nation opposition is strong and united, making clear the pipeline will never be allowed over their land, and with suggestions of massive civil disobedience if approved. The pipelines could not be constructed without breaking First Nation unity through financial inducements, or simply taking their land.

Ecological Internet has been and remains the only global action network campaigning against the Canada Northern Gateway tar sands pipelines. Over the past year, and peaking over the past few weeks, Ecological Internet’s massive and diverse network has sent nearly a quarter of a million protest emails – and rising – to the Northern Gateway joint review panel. The review panel’s decision to delay the pipeline was undoubtedly made in response to this massive opposition from First Nations supported by Ecological Internet’s global network. Our campaign continues to permanently cancel the Northern Gateway and all tar sands pipelines [1].

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There continues to be good and bad news in stopping the tar sands ecocide. On the same day of the Gateway pipeline delay announcement, a new tar sands production field by Total energy was approved in Ottawa. Earlier in the year, protests against the Keystone XL oil pipeline outside of the White House were successful in delaying that pipeline for an unknown period. Given that important victory, it is critical for tar sands’ continued growth that the Northern pipelines commence as soon as possible.

“Ecological Internet is thrilled to play a small part amongst such massive anti-tar sands opposition. These delays make it possible for us together to continue highlighting how clearcut mining boreal forests, fouling water and land, to transport haphazardly through important ecosystems, to be burned causing abrupt climate change is simply not acceptable. We believe that given the momentum from delaying two pipelines, the movement must reject tinkering greenwash responses, and continue to take biocentric positions that tar sand production and its transport must end. Further, the anti-tar sands movement will benefit from a variety of mutually reinforcing actors and tactics,” says Dr. Barry.

[1] Action Alert: Tar Sands Not Over Yet: Enbridge Northern Gateway Tar Sands Pipelines Heading West to Asia Must Be Stopped Too

The New York State government is set to end its fracking ban [search] – a dangerous natural gas drilling method – placing its citizens, water and ecology at great risk. Fracking blasts water mixed with toxics at high pressure into the ground to shatter deep bedrock – releasing toxic methane, chemicals and other contamination – while destroying crucial water resources and destabilizing the land. Tell Democratic Governor Andrew Cuomo that fracking will never be environmentally acceptable, much less sustainable, and that it needs to be permanently banned. Failure to do so makes him personally responsible for vast water contamination that will forever poison New York citizens he has sworn to serve and protect.

The proposed Canadian Enbridge Northern Gateway tar sands pipelines [search] seek to export filthy oil to Asia. The delay of the Keystone pipeline – largely due to people power protest – makes this route all the more vital to Canada, if tar sands production and transport to the international marketplace are to grow. Ecosystems will be placed at risk from Alberta's massive clearcut mining of boreal forest, Western Canada's intricate waterways, to British Columbia’s precious and fragile temperate rainforests and coastal waters, endangering the First Nations' salmon economy. To keep the anti-tar sand campaign momentum, this pipeline must be delayed and eventually stopped too! With stalwart indigenous opposition, and the magnitude of vital and sensitive ecosystems to be traversed, our chances are good. This alert was first launched and hundreds of thousands of protest emails sent a year ago, and has now been updated.

TAKE ACTION HERE NOW!

It is simply wrong to blow up the Earth destroying scarce water for limited energy with no climate benefits as purported. New science shows shale gas fracking [search] equally damaging to climate as other fossil fuels including coal, and last week there was a major toxic fracking water release into Pennsylvania’s waterways; yet fracking remains largely unregulated by the EPA in the United States. Meanwhile the rest of the world is following America’s lead, with fracking spreading to China, South Africa, Europe and elsewhere. However protest is spreading too. The human family must not allow every last ecosystem to be destroyed, destroying our shared biosphere, before we transition from wasteful unsustainable energy to 100% truly renewable energy. Tell the Obama administration to set a good example and heavily regulate fracking, or outlaw this newest ecocidal energy source before it spreads.

NAGOYA, Japan – Ecological Internet welcomes reports that the 193-member UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) will close its tenth biennial meeting with a de facto moratorium on geoengineering [search] projects and experiments. This is a tremendous victory for the ETC Group’s “Hands Off Mother Earth” campaign [1], which has carefully researched and presented the case for such a moratorium on “planet hacking”, and with whom Ecological Internet is affiliated. “Any private or public experimentation or adventurism intended to manipulate the planetary thermostat will be in violation of this carefully crafted UN consensus,” stated Silvia Ribeiro, Latin American Director of ETC Group.

In announcing the outcome, the ETC Group publicly thanked Ecological Internet “for help winning a moratorium on Geoengineering” and particularly those that had “written to CBD delegates and spread the word… Many many thanks for your active campaigning. Your letters… really had an impact.” This is in reference to Ecological Internet’s Earth Action Network’s largest online email protest ever, where people from 83 countries sent 1,806,339 protest emails to CBD delegates just before the conference commenced [2]. Each delegate received just over 2,000 letters – just enough to make a critical ecological point, while being minimally disruptive – letting those in positions of power to do something know that global citizens are opposed to geoengineering. It appears to have made a huge difference in the outcome.

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Geoengineering is the proposed large scale manipulation of Earth’s oceans, soils and atmosphere with the intent of combating climate change. Geoengineering advocates have put forward a wide range of proposals to artificially modify these ecosystems to address climate change including: blasting sulfate particles into the upper atmosphere to reflect the sun; dumping iron particles in the oceans to grow CO2-absorbing plankton; firing silver iodide into clouds to produce rain; genetically engineering crops to have reflective leaves; spraying seawater into clouds to make clouds whiter; dumping large quantities of plant matter into the ocean, and burning plants from a huge land area to produce charcoal for burying in soils. Geopiracy: The Case Against Geoengineering [3] is a new publication by ETC Group that provides an overview of the issues involved.

Ecological Internet holds that modifying Earth at a planetary scale is so complex, and ecological and other side effects potentially so severe, that clearly humanity is incapable of safely engineering a biosphere. EI advocates for this and other ecologically sufficient positions necessary to achieve global ecological sustainability. This is the eighth major conservation victory for EI in 2010, though EI’s massive global network operates under the radar of most media, NGOs and the public. Sadly, Ecological Internet is chronically under-funded, depending upon network members for funding, and may have to close or significantly cutback operations - after all funds are expended - if the current 11th annual year-end fund-raiser does not pick up [4]. EI urges participation in its current alert to halt the Tar Sands pipeline through B.C., Canada’s temperate rainforests [5].

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[1] Hands Off Mother Earth (H.O.M.E) | Stop Geoengineering

[2] Action Alert: Demand Upcoming Global Biodiversity Meeting Bans Geoengineering

[3] Geopiracy: The Case Against Geoengineering

[4] EI 2010 Year-End Fund-Raiser: Raising the Roof on Global Ecological Sustainability

Please donate now to celebrate this victory!

[5] ALERT! Canada Risks Pacific Coastal and Temperate Rainforest Ecosystems for Tar Sands Pipelines and Further Oil Addiction

TAKE ACTION HERE NOW!

Geoengineering [search] is the proposed large scale manipulation of Earth’s oceans, soils and atmosphere with the intent of combating climate change. Modifying Earth at a planetary scale is so complex, and ecological and other side effects potentially so severe, that clearly humanity is incapable of safely engineering a biosphere [search]. Will a "Frankensphere" be constructed with dramatic unknown consequences to biodiversity and ecosystems, or will we choose to equitably reduce emissions, consumption and population? Next week’s Convention on Biological Diversity (COP 10) meeting in Japan must pass a moratorium on live geoengineering testing. Failure will mean continued implementation of ecosystem destroying technologies – precisely what has gotten us into our current climate dilemma.

TAKE ACTION HERE NOW!

Securing world food security while maintaining operable forests, global climate, water, ocean and terrestrial ecosystems – and human rights, justice and equity – is the biggest challenge facing humanity. Water and food are the next bubbles to burst -- expect severe shortages of both in the 2010s. It is long past time to get back to the land through protecting and restoring old forests and organic permaculture farming. Our survival depends upon being with land, collecting water, letting forests age and growing food.

Large scale biofuel/biomass production – particularly promoting monoculture tree plantations within the context of Copenhagen “solutions” – runs counter to urgently addressing climate change and threatens to cause more deforestation, human rights abuses, and degradation of soil, water and biodiversity. All biofuels based upon industrial agricultural practices worsen climate change and ecologically diminish soils and ecosystems, drive food prices up, and force more people worldwide into hunger and malnutrition.

It is time to transform agriculture into an ecologically sustainable enterprise, based on systems which can be employed for centuries. To reduce the pressures upon the land and allow forests to undergo succession, we must promote organic, permaculture, low impact agriculture, agro-forest and other agro-ecological systems to meet human food needs, including major reduction in meat consumption. And protecting and restoring old forests where they historically occurred is vital as well. TAKE ACTION HERE NOW!