Biblio
"Across vast regions of the country, gas companies are using a technology called hydraulic fracturing to produce natural gas from previously untapped beds of shale."
Environmental concern about hydraulic fracturing is creating political obstacles for gas drilling companies.
The most immediate hazard from the national drilling bonanza, it is clear, involves contamination of residential drinking water wells by natural gas. In Bainbridge, Ohio, an improperly drilled well contaminated groundwater in 2007, including the water source for the township’s police station, according to a complaint filed this year. After building to high pressures, gas migrated through underground faults, and blew up one house.
Here in Dimock, about 30 miles north of Scranton, Pa., 13 water wells, including that of Ms. Switzer, were contaminated by natural gas. One of the wells blew up.
The coining of the term eco-terrorism is credited by many to the Executive Director of the Center for the Defense of Free Enterprise, Ron Arnold.
In the aftermath of the September 11 terrorist attacks, the word 'terrorism' has become a potent political weapon. For years Arnold has blurred the boundaries between what constitutes civil disobedience and elevated vandalism to equal terrorism. The conflation of civil disobedience with terrorism is a calculated strategy.
Legislation using the cover of cracking down on 'eco-terrorism' - such as that currently being promoted by the American Legislative Exchange Council - is percolating its way through the legislatures of a number of U.S. states. While vandalism and criminal damage is already illegal, the attraction of such legislation is in defining "terrorism" so broadly as to ban civil disobedience.
One of the most potent tactics employed over the last twenty years in the environment movement has been through organising peaceful civil disobedience protests. Such protests often result in an issue gaining widespread media coverage prompting public discussion of important public issues and, in some cases, resulted in environmental victories.
Groups that have a high media profile also have the ability to successfully raise funds from appeals directly to millions of citizens. For the conservative movement, legislating against civil disobedience under the guise of cracking down on 'ecoterrorism' would dramatically reduce both the media profile and fundraising capacity of groups such as Greenpeace, the Rainforest Action Network and local grassroots groups.
Please note that information taken from Wikis should be verified using other, more reliable sources. It is a good place to start research, but because anyone can edit a Wiki, we do not recommend using it in research papers or to obtain highly reliable information.
At Chevron, our businesses work in concert to provide the energy that drives human progress. Explore Chevron’s companies to learn how we use our global resources, determination and ingenuity to meet today’s complex energy challenges.
According to the EPA's National Emission Inventory, Chevron was responsible for 4,030,422.95 pounds of green house gas emission pollution in Plaquemines Parish, Louisiana in 2002.
Chevron was the first international oil company to operate in Nigeria and has, for almost 40 years of operations there, practiced the wasteful process of burning off of gas associated with oil drilling. [1]
Exxon Mobil Corp., ConocoPhillips, Chevron Corp. and Royal Dutch Shell Plc are as ill-prepared as BP Plc to halt and clean up an offshore oil spill because they all use “carbon copy” disaster plans, lawmakers said.
“The oil company response plans are great for public relations but these plans are virtually worthless in the event of a spill,” said Representative Bart T. Stupak, a Michigan Democrat. “It could be said that BP is the one bad apple in the bunch, but unfortunately, they appear to have plenty of company.” [2]
[1] Friends of the Earth. “The Case of Chevron.” Friends of the Earth, 2011. http://action.foe.org/content.jsp?key=3493.
[2] Jim Efstathiou Jr. and Joe Carroll. Jun 15, 2010. "Exxon, Others Slammed for Carbon-Copy Oil-Spill Plans". Bloomberg News.
A Satirical Tale of Two Chevrons
The Power of Chevron (2009)
Chevron is working to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions while expanding its energy supply portfolio to meet the world's energy needs.
Chevron climate change advisor Arthur Lee is an expert in carbon capture and storage. He has participated in industry workshops and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's (IPCC) Report on Carbon Dioxide Capture and Storage.
The Power of Chevron's Human Energy (2008)
The Power of Chevron's Human Energy (2008)
Video mashup by Jonathan Mcintosh | rebelliouspixels.com.
This is an identity correction remix that turns Chevron's multi-million dollar Human Energy greenwashing PR blitz on its head.
Though the video targets Chevron Oil and their Orwellian "Human Energy" campaign, it also focuses more broadly on corporate control of global oil supplies and the connection to aggressive American foreign policy.
In this corrected commercial the company's true nature is exposed for what it is, a heartless profit-driven oil machine. The Chevron corporation is not only an ecological catastrophe around the world but still does business with the Burma dictatorship, has oil contracts in war-torn Iraq and is responsible for human rights atrocities in the Niger Delta, among other unpleasant and nasty things.
This Political Remix Video is a critical and transformative work that constitutes a Fair Use in accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107. Source footage from Chevron TV ads, US Army ad, BBC News, Future Weapons, CSI and several other short clips recorded off television.
See: About Jonathan McIntosh | Rebellious Pixels - Digital Home of Jonathan McIntosh
Update:
Date: Mon, 06 Jun 2011 21:52:53 -0400
From: neil zusman <zusman@earthlink.net>
To: ChevronBPS <ChevronBPS@melbourneitdbs.com>
Subject: Re: Unauthorized Chevron Logo usage in your site - (http://frack.mixplex.com/content/chevron-corporation-human-energy)
- 1st Notice
On 6/6/11 5:31 PM, ChevronBPS wrote:
> Melbourne IT DBS Inc.
A recent review of your web site
*(http://frack.mixplex.com/content/chevron-corporation-human-energy)* indicated
that you are using one of Chevron's registered trademarks.
Chevron does not allow such use of its trademarks without express
written permission. We are advised that Chevron has no record of
such permission being granted.
If permission was granted from Chevron, please forward a copy of the
permission letter to Chevronbps@melbourneitdbs.com for their files.
If you did not receive permission from Chevron to post the logo on
your web site above, please remove the logo from your web site and
from all other locations where it is being used.
Thank you for your interest in my website. The piece needed editing.
As Chevron has requested, I removed the logo you are inquiring about and
replaced it with a screen shot of Chevron's website to ensure my
readers the clarity of context. The analysis of media and corporate
responsibility by energy sector companies are important to me. If you
wish to consider this matter further, I look forward to discussing your
concerns about Chevron's trademark rights in my representation of
Chevron as well as my Fair Use rights under Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107.
I welcome a productive and healthy relationship with Chevron and its
subsidiaries in the consideration of environmental issues and prudent
government regulation and trust that our covenant with the Earth will be
of mutual benefit.
Sincerely,
Neil Zusman
Fracking Resource Guide
See: News Updates on Chevron. 2011-06-06.
See: The Case of Chevron
See: BP Deepwater Horizon Committee Hears From Oil Industry Executives. 9-26-2010.
See: Poison Fire
See: Rancho Los Malulos | A satirical view from the McGill Brothers Lease
See: Natural gas: the commodity world’s ugly duckling
See: Controversial gas 'fracking' extraction headed to Europe
See: As You Sow - Corporate Accountability, Shareholder Action, and ToxicsReduction
See: The Yes Men | Climate Pledge of Resistance
See: Heather Clancy. "Shareholder flack flies over fracking". SmartPlanet. June 3, 2011.
Chesapeake Energy breaks another promise. In meetings with Fort Worth, Texas residents, Chesapeake promised Fort they wouldn't flare the Barnett Shale gas wells in the Trinity Trees area.
See: Bluedaze by Sharon Wilson (TXSharon). December 6, 2010. "Chesapeake Energy uses fear to divide communities and pit neighbor against neighbor".
See: Poison Fire.
This video shows Texas Black Angus cattle drinking from drilling sludge pits at two different drilling sites in Denton County. I have witnessed cattle drinking from sludge pits regularly over the past few years.
Unlike most other states, Texas law does not require that sludge pits be lined or fenced, but it does require the pits be "cleaned up" within 120 days after completion of the well.
There are many sludge pits in Texas that never get cleaned up. These are a threat to wildlife, livestock, soil and our drinking water.
See Bluedaze by Sharon Wilson (TXSharon)
This is an expert's view of our worldwide water crisis. References to facts are found in the back of the book making for an uncluttered read in language everyone can understand. Follow some of the stories about the World Bank and many other reversals of corporate efforts to privatize what ought to be a basic human right: clean water.
Hydraulic fracturing uses five million gallons per well with tens of thousands of wells planned for the Marcellus Shale. Water resources in "shale plays" are already threatened by mining operations and weak environmental justice. These invaluable resources need public protection. Volunteer regulation does not work.
See: Maude Barlow. Feb. 25, 2008. Foreign Policy In Focus. "The Global Water Crisis and the Coming Battle for the Right to Water."
See: Amy Goodman and Juan Gonzalez. "From Melting Glaciers to Structural Adjustment: Maude Barlow on the Need for Water Justice." Democracy Now! April 22, 2010.
See: Flow - The War Between Public Health and Private Interests
See: WATER: Rulings Restrict Clean Water Act, Foiling E.P.A.
See the true cost of gas!
Natural gas is just another dirty fossil fuel. for more info see: Bluedaze
A [Barnett Shale] drilling rig operating for 3 months has the same impact as a city of 4,000 people—water use, solid waste generation, air emissions and traffic.
~David Burnett, Dir. Global Petroleum Research Institute
The Barnett Shale - the oldest producing well in the barnett shale is still producing from its primary pressure created by the frac job by Sanders and Son.
An archived Nancy Pelosi blog page.
Americans need Consumer Protection when it comes to Energy and Power.
See The CLEAR Act. (2010): In the wake of the BP disaster, Congress is acting on its commitment to protect America’s families and businesses, rebuild the Gulf Coast, hold BP and oil companies accountable, and work to ensure that a spill of this kind never happens again.
On July 30th, the House passed the CLEAR Act (H.R. 3534) by a vote of 209-193—legislation to effectively prevent and respond to oil spills and protect our coastal communities and waters:
Pelosi has been on it! The MMS has failed us. State monitoring of Horizontal Drilling will not protect consumers. Gas Drilling needs the same Federal scrutiny as Oil Drilling.
Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi's blog, includes statements by government representatives on 110th congress H.R.6899 Comprehensive American Energy Security and Consumer Protection Act.
The MMS (Minerals and Mining Service) was first brought to my attention through Pelosi's Blog.
Natural Resources Hearing on the Department of Interior Scandal
Thursday, September 18th, 2008 by Karina
Today, the House Natural Resources Committee, led by Chairman Nick J. Rahall, is holding a full Committee oversight hearing on “Recent Interior Department Inspector General Investigations on Federal Oil and Gas Royalty Collections.” Secretary of the U.S. Department of the Interior Dirk Kempthorne and Department of the Interior Inspector General Earl Devaney are testifying. Watch the live webcast.
HUGHESVILLE, Pa. — At first, Raymond Gregoire did not want to listen to the raspy voice on his answering machine offering him money for rights to drill on his land. They want to ruin my land, he thought. But he called back anyway a week later to hear more.
By the end of February, he had a contract in hand for $62,000, and he pulled together a group of 75 neighbors who signed $3 million in deals.
“It’s a modern-day gold rush in our own backyard,” Mr. Gregoire said.
Property owners at a seminar in Clarks Summit, Pa., on negotiating with gas lease companies.
Fracture drilling workers run machinery on a farm outside of Pittsburgh. Companies are risking big money on rural Pennsylvania, producing billions of dollars' worth of natural gas.
Student Disrupts Government Auction of 150,000 Acres Of Wilderness For Oil & Gas Drilling.
Democracy Now reports on student action by Tim DeChristopher.
In a national broadcast exclusive, University of Utah student Tim DeChristopher explains how he bought 22,000 acres of land in an attempt to save the property from drilling. The sale had been strongly opposed by many environmental groups. Stephen Bloch of the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance said: "This is the fire sale, the Bush administrations last great gift to the oil and gas industry. This is the first 10 minutes of the interview. For the rest go to DemocracyNow!
For full interview click here.
See: Judge says drilling lease lawsuit too late
See: Tim DeChristopher's blog and update on his legal battle.
See: As climate crime continues, who are we sending to jail? Tim DeChristopher?
A television commercial about global warming from Environmental Defense Fund. Public service announcement (PSAs) designed to urge Americans to take advantage of mass transit, carpooling and biking to combat global warming.
Read the Appendix if you are concerned about what you can do to protect your children's health from our toxic environment.
Philip Shabecoff is an environmental writer based in Massachusetts. He was a reporter for the New York Times for more than 30 years, and founded the online environmental news service Greenwire in 1991 and served as its publisher until 1996.
Alice Shabecoff served in the 1970s as executive director of the National Consumers League, the country’s oldest consumer organization, and in the 1980s as founder and executive director of the national nonprofit Community Information Exchange, an information service for the community development sector. As a freelance journalist focusing on family and consumer topics, her work has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Christian Science Monitor, among other publications. She currently serves as a member of the Board of Directors of the Birth Defects Research Center.
Review From Booklist:
There is a country in which nearly one in three children suffers from some type of chronic disease and whose childhood cancer rates have risen some 67 percent in the last 50 years. What is this country doing wrong to cause so many of its children such suffering?
The country is the U.S., and the Shabecoffs, nationally known journalists, believe they know exactly what is causing our children so much illness. Sure, they say, lifestyle choices (bad diet, secondhand smoke, etc.) can account for a certain amount of ill health.
The real malefactor, however, is greedy American industry, aided and abetted by a shortsighted economic system and a government that turns a blind eye when faced with damning scientific evidence of true crime—the crime of knowingly poisoning children, beginning when they are the most vulnerable: in utero.
See: What is the National Children's Study?
See: Fracking: Implications for Human and Environmental Health
See: The Case for a Truth and Reconciliation Commission on Toxic Hazards
Chesapeake Energy Flares Barnett Shale Gas Well in Trinity Trai, posted by TxSharon - Sharon Wilson - http://bluedaze.org
Poison Fire-The Movie below. Gas flares are visible from space.
"Whose woods these are I think I know"...
If you plan to stop by these woods on a snowy evening bring some marshmallows and expect an evening sunburn. There's a chance your treats will be toxic.
A recent study from Nigeria on mice associates flaring with respiratory and blood problems. Earlier studies from the Worldbank, the U.S., Canada, Climate Justice and a 2002 Schlumberger report note the importance of eliminating flaring to maintain fragile ecosystems and human health.
Why wait until there are deaths and illness to end industrial practices that waste money and human life? As long as the air or groundwater pollution doesn't clog their drill bits, gas industry engineers say these practices are safe.
Marcellus Protest posts an eyewitness account of gas flaring near a consumer shopping mall in Pittsburgh, where the noise and heat from a gas flare runs 24/7.
Can you see how Pennsylvania is starting to look more and more like Nigeria? (Neil Zusman, 2011-01-22.)
See: Anger grows across the world at the real price of 'frontier oil'
See: Fracking at the (Pittsburgh Mills Mall) | Marcellus Shale Protest 2011-01-10
Sharon Wilson of Bluedaze, Drilling Reform for Texase, recently had a "debate" on her YouTube posting, "Chesapeake Energy Flares Barnett Shale Gas Well in Trinity Trail," regarding flaring.
Sweet gas (natural gas that does not contain significant amounts of hydrogen sulfide) flaring has a longer history in Nigeria. According to the Daily Independent:
The Canadian Public Health Association (CPHA) has identified not less than 250 toxins from the gas flared from fossil fuels.
Film Synopsis
In 1956, Shell drilled the first oil well in the village of Olobiri, in the African Niger Delta. Since then, massive quantities of black gold have been pumped out of the ground there, and nobody seems to worry about a little spillage: lots of excess oil gets dumped or spilled, and gas flaring, or the burning of natural gas, takes place as well.
Poison Fire gives the floor to the inhabitants of the Niger Delta. No one sees anything positive in Shell's activities. Cancer, asthma, and miscarriages are all consequences of the pollution caused by the oil giant, and fish, slugs and snakes are dying out.
A group of environmental activists travel to Shell Headquarters in the Netherlands, where CEO Jeroen van der Veer politely addresses them at the entrance. He promises to launch a plan that will stop gas flaring, a practice that has been declared illegal by the Benin City Court. But how can the behaviour of a wealthy multinational realistically be corrected when Nigeria's own authorities are out-and-out corrupt?
Friends of the Earth International website.
Read the report:
Environmental Rights Action, Friends of the Earth Nigeria. "Gas Flaring in Nigeria". Climate Justice. June 2005. (PDF 36 pp.)
See: Bluedaze Video. Chesapeake Energy Flares Barnett Shale Gas Well in Trinity Trail.
See: Chevron articles on Mixplex.
Daily Independent. "Enforcing the gas flaring deadline." Daily Independent. Lagos, Nigeria. August 9, 2010. Also available from the Norwegian Council for Africa.
See: The Case of Chevron.
See: World Bank. Gas Flaring Around the World. (2009). (Is the World Bank forever tainted by Lawrence Summers?).
A view of global gas flaring based on satellite observations: a joint effort between the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the World Bank-led Global Gas Flaring Reduction partnership (GGFR)
See: Global Gas Flaring Identification in Google Earth
Download .kmz files for country of your choice. They will be addded to your Google Earth places. You can see the massive gas field with gas flaring adjacent to the Hobbs Public Schools and the Junior College in New Mexico.
See: Cooperative Institute for Research in the Environmental Sciences, University of Colorado. (CIRES)
Read these reports:
Elvidge, C.D. A Sixteen Year Record of Global Natural Gas Flaring Derived From Satellite Data. Earth Observation Group NOAA National Geophysical Data Center, May 18, 2010. (PDF)
Elvidge, C. D, D. Ziskin, K. E Baugh, B. T Tuttle, T. Ghosh, D. W Pack, E. H Erwin, and M. Zhizhin. “A Fifteen Year Record of Global Natural Gas Flaring Derived from Satellite Data.” Energies 2, no. 3 (2009): 595–622 (PDF).
Otitoloju, Adebayo, and Jemina Dan-Patrick. “Effects of gas flaring on blood parameters and respiratory system of laboratory mice, Mus musculus.” The Environmentalist 30, no. 4 (October 2010): 340-346. (free preview only)
"...And miles to go before I sleep"
Robert Frost. Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening (1923). New Hampshire
Learn how new drilling technology and rising fuel prices are driving the natural gas rush in Pennsylvania's Marcellus Shale—a 6,000 foot deep rock formation which has the potential to fuel the entire country for two full years.
This live, one-hour, call-in program on Thursday, May 22, 2008, offered viewers objective and reliable advice about:
- Natural gas exploration and drilling on leased land
- Lease negotiations and addenda
- Financial, environmental, and infrastructure impacts
WPSU: Gasrush
Landowner information on gas leasing in the Southern Tier. See: Tioga County Landowners Group.
