Wednesday, October 29, 2014
Necessary Science for The Colorado Fracking Boom:
Will it be used in time to protect our scarce water resources?
American Chemical Society: New Tracers Identify Hydraulic Fracturing Fluids and Accidental Releases from Oil and Gas Operations
"Identifying the geochemical fingerprints of fluids that return to the surface after high volume hydraulic fracturing of unconventional oil and gas reservoirs has important applications for assessing hydrocarbon resource recovery, environmental impacts, and wastewater treatment and disposal. Here, we report for the first time, novel diagnostic elemental and isotopic signatures (B/Cl, Li/Cl, δ11B, and δ7Li) useful for characterizing hydraulic fracturing flowback fluids (HFFF) and distinguishing sources of HFFF in the environment. Data from 39 HFFFs and produced water samples show that B/Cl (>0.001), Li/Cl (>0.002), δ11B (25–31‰) and δ7Li (6–10‰) compositions of HFFF from the Marcellus and Fayetteville black shale formations were distinct in most cases from produced waters sampled from conventional oil and gas wells. We posit that boron isotope geochemistry can be used to quantify small fractions (∼0.1%) of HFFF in contaminated fresh water and likely be applied universally to trace HFFF in other basins. The novel environmental application of this diagnostic isotopic tool is validated by examining the composition of effluent discharge from an oil and gas brine treatment facility in Pennsylvania and an accidental spill site in West Virginia..."
Lapdog Corporate Media:
Chris Hedges: The Myth of the Free Press
"There is more truth about American journalism in the film 'Kill the Messenger,' which chronicles the mainstream media’s discrediting of the work of the investigative journalist Gary Webb, than there is in the movie 'All the President’s Men,' which celebrates the exploits of the reporters who uncovered the Watergate scandal. The mass media blindly support the ideology of corporate capitalism. They laud and promote the myth of American democracy—even as we are stripped of civil liberties and money replaces the vote. They pay deference to the leaders on Wall Street and in Washington, no matter how perfidious their crimes. They slavishly venerate the military and law enforcement in the name of patriotism. They select the specialists and experts, almost always drawn from the centers of power, to interpret reality and explain policy. They usually rely on press releases, written by corporations, for their news. And they fill most of their news holes with celebrity gossip, lifestyle stories, sports and trivia. The role of the mass media is to entertain or to parrot official propaganda to the masses. The corporations, which own the press, hire journalists willing to be courtiers to the elites, and they promote them as celebrities. These journalistic courtiers, who can earn millions of dollars, are invited into the inner circles of power. They are, as John Ralston Saul writes, hedonists of power... ...The mass media, as C. Wright Mills pointed out, are essential tools for conformity. They impart to readers and viewers their sense of themselves. They tell them who they are. They tell them what their aspirations should be. They promise to help them achieve these aspirations. They offer a variety of techniques, advice and schemes that promise personal and professional success. The mass media, as Wright wrote, exist primarily to help citizens feel they are successful and that they have met their aspirations even if they have not. They use language and images to manipulate and form opinions, not to foster genuine democratic debate and conversation or to open up public space for free political action and public deliberation. We are transformed into passive spectators of power by the mass media, which decide for us what is true and what is untrue, what is legitimate and what is not. Truth is not something we discover. It is decreed by the organs of mass communication..."
Energy vs The Environment:
Sarah Lazare: BP Spill Left Oil Ring Size of Rhode Island on Ocean Floor, Scientists Find
"Over four years after BP's Deepwater Horizon explosion spilled millions of gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico, scientists say they have discovered a ring of oil pollution on the sea floor the size of Rhode Island. Researchers from the University of California at Santa Barbara, University of California at Irvine, and Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution published a paper Monday in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Science (PNAS), estimating that approximately 10 million gallons of oil have congealed on the ocean bottom around the Deepwater Horizon rig. The researchers referred to the over 1,200-square-miles of pollution as a 'bathtub ring.' 'There's this sort of ring where you see around the Macondo well where the concentrations are elevated,' UC-Irvine geochemistry professor Dave Valentine, lead author of the study, told the Associated Press. Within the ring, the level of oil is up to 10,000 times greater than outside, Valentine explained to the publication. The findings come a week after Geoff Morrell, senior vice president of U.S. communications and external affairs for BP, wrote an op-ed in Politico entitled, 'No, BP Didn't Ruin the Gulf,' in which he claims 'the environmental impact was of short duration and in a limited geographic area.' Raleigh Hoke of the Gulf Restoration Network told Common Dreams that the new study 'confirms what many have been saying for long time: that BP oil is still in the Gulf and is impacting coastal communities and marine life.' 'BP spilled 210 million gallons of oil into the gulf. Much of that is not accounted for,' Hoke continued. 'This study points to where some of that oil went, but we are still seeing tar balls wash up on our shore,'..."
Poorly Regulating The Banksters
Sarah Anderson: The London Whale-Sized Loopholes in Wall Street Pay Reform
"...U.S. regulators could learn a few things from their European counterparts. While not loophole-free, the EU’s new banker pay standards are tougher. Europe’s new rules limit bonuses to no more than 100% of base salary, or up to 200% if shareholders approve. And, with some exceptions, these limits would hit everyone who makes more than 500,000 euros per year or whose pay ranks them in the top 0.3% of staff. Another fresh idea for cracking down on the reckless Wall Street bonus culture has come from New York Federal Reserve Bank President William Dudley. He has just proposed that part of senior banker pay be sequestered in a 'performance bond,' subject to forfeiture if the bank is fined for breaking the law. The International Monetary Fund, meanwhile, is promoting a 'financial activities tax' on profits and executive compensation at the largest banks. These higher tax bills could prompt boards to reduce the overall size of the outrageous paychecks that have encouraged outrageous behavior..."
Will it be used in time to protect our scarce water resources?
American Chemical Society: New Tracers Identify Hydraulic Fracturing Fluids and Accidental Releases from Oil and Gas Operations
"Identifying the geochemical fingerprints of fluids that return to the surface after high volume hydraulic fracturing of unconventional oil and gas reservoirs has important applications for assessing hydrocarbon resource recovery, environmental impacts, and wastewater treatment and disposal. Here, we report for the first time, novel diagnostic elemental and isotopic signatures (B/Cl, Li/Cl, δ11B, and δ7Li) useful for characterizing hydraulic fracturing flowback fluids (HFFF) and distinguishing sources of HFFF in the environment. Data from 39 HFFFs and produced water samples show that B/Cl (>0.001), Li/Cl (>0.002), δ11B (25–31‰) and δ7Li (6–10‰) compositions of HFFF from the Marcellus and Fayetteville black shale formations were distinct in most cases from produced waters sampled from conventional oil and gas wells. We posit that boron isotope geochemistry can be used to quantify small fractions (∼0.1%) of HFFF in contaminated fresh water and likely be applied universally to trace HFFF in other basins. The novel environmental application of this diagnostic isotopic tool is validated by examining the composition of effluent discharge from an oil and gas brine treatment facility in Pennsylvania and an accidental spill site in West Virginia..."
Lapdog Corporate Media:
Chris Hedges: The Myth of the Free Press
"There is more truth about American journalism in the film 'Kill the Messenger,' which chronicles the mainstream media’s discrediting of the work of the investigative journalist Gary Webb, than there is in the movie 'All the President’s Men,' which celebrates the exploits of the reporters who uncovered the Watergate scandal. The mass media blindly support the ideology of corporate capitalism. They laud and promote the myth of American democracy—even as we are stripped of civil liberties and money replaces the vote. They pay deference to the leaders on Wall Street and in Washington, no matter how perfidious their crimes. They slavishly venerate the military and law enforcement in the name of patriotism. They select the specialists and experts, almost always drawn from the centers of power, to interpret reality and explain policy. They usually rely on press releases, written by corporations, for their news. And they fill most of their news holes with celebrity gossip, lifestyle stories, sports and trivia. The role of the mass media is to entertain or to parrot official propaganda to the masses. The corporations, which own the press, hire journalists willing to be courtiers to the elites, and they promote them as celebrities. These journalistic courtiers, who can earn millions of dollars, are invited into the inner circles of power. They are, as John Ralston Saul writes, hedonists of power... ...The mass media, as C. Wright Mills pointed out, are essential tools for conformity. They impart to readers and viewers their sense of themselves. They tell them who they are. They tell them what their aspirations should be. They promise to help them achieve these aspirations. They offer a variety of techniques, advice and schemes that promise personal and professional success. The mass media, as Wright wrote, exist primarily to help citizens feel they are successful and that they have met their aspirations even if they have not. They use language and images to manipulate and form opinions, not to foster genuine democratic debate and conversation or to open up public space for free political action and public deliberation. We are transformed into passive spectators of power by the mass media, which decide for us what is true and what is untrue, what is legitimate and what is not. Truth is not something we discover. It is decreed by the organs of mass communication..."
Energy vs The Environment:
Sarah Lazare: BP Spill Left Oil Ring Size of Rhode Island on Ocean Floor, Scientists Find
"Over four years after BP's Deepwater Horizon explosion spilled millions of gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico, scientists say they have discovered a ring of oil pollution on the sea floor the size of Rhode Island. Researchers from the University of California at Santa Barbara, University of California at Irvine, and Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution published a paper Monday in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Science (PNAS), estimating that approximately 10 million gallons of oil have congealed on the ocean bottom around the Deepwater Horizon rig. The researchers referred to the over 1,200-square-miles of pollution as a 'bathtub ring.' 'There's this sort of ring where you see around the Macondo well where the concentrations are elevated,' UC-Irvine geochemistry professor Dave Valentine, lead author of the study, told the Associated Press. Within the ring, the level of oil is up to 10,000 times greater than outside, Valentine explained to the publication. The findings come a week after Geoff Morrell, senior vice president of U.S. communications and external affairs for BP, wrote an op-ed in Politico entitled, 'No, BP Didn't Ruin the Gulf,' in which he claims 'the environmental impact was of short duration and in a limited geographic area.' Raleigh Hoke of the Gulf Restoration Network told Common Dreams that the new study 'confirms what many have been saying for long time: that BP oil is still in the Gulf and is impacting coastal communities and marine life.' 'BP spilled 210 million gallons of oil into the gulf. Much of that is not accounted for,' Hoke continued. 'This study points to where some of that oil went, but we are still seeing tar balls wash up on our shore,'..."
Poorly Regulating The Banksters
Sarah Anderson: The London Whale-Sized Loopholes in Wall Street Pay Reform
"...U.S. regulators could learn a few things from their European counterparts. While not loophole-free, the EU’s new banker pay standards are tougher. Europe’s new rules limit bonuses to no more than 100% of base salary, or up to 200% if shareholders approve. And, with some exceptions, these limits would hit everyone who makes more than 500,000 euros per year or whose pay ranks them in the top 0.3% of staff. Another fresh idea for cracking down on the reckless Wall Street bonus culture has come from New York Federal Reserve Bank President William Dudley. He has just proposed that part of senior banker pay be sequestered in a 'performance bond,' subject to forfeiture if the bank is fined for breaking the law. The International Monetary Fund, meanwhile, is promoting a 'financial activities tax' on profits and executive compensation at the largest banks. These higher tax bills could prompt boards to reduce the overall size of the outrageous paychecks that have encouraged outrageous behavior..."
Friday, October 10, 2014
Right Wing Agenda:
Terrell Jermaine Starr: 7 Disturbing Facts About the Koch Brothers' Relationship with Race and Civil Rights
"Charles and David Koch are notorious for amassing a business empire well-known for destroying the environment and hijacking the political process to ram their privatization and business agenda on the country. But what is equally egregious about their political activities are their efforts to dismantle years of civil rights progress. The Bridge Project, a non-profit organization devoted to 'opposing the conservative movement's extreme ideology and exposing its dishonest tactics,' recently released a 16-page report on the Koch brothers' funding of groups that have been accused of suppressing minority voter turnout, destroying unions (particularly in Wisconsin) and attempting to get rid of Social Security..."
Big Pharma & Why Drugs Cost More:
Robert Reich: Why We Allow Big Pharma to Rip Us Off
"According to a new federal database put online last week, pharmaceutical companies and device makers paid doctors some $380 million in speaking and consulting fees over a five-month period in 2013. Some doctors received over half a million dollars each, and others got millions of dollars in royalties from products they helped develop. Doctors claim these payments have no effect on what they prescribe. But why would drug companies shell out all this money if it didn’t provide them a healthy return on their investment? America spends a fortune on drugs, more per person than any other nation on earth, even though Americans are no healthier than the citizens of other advanced nations. Of the estimated $2.7 trillion America spends annually on health care, drugs account for 10 percent of the total. Government pays some of this tab through Medicare, Medicaid, and subsidies under the Affordable Care Act. But we pick up the tab indirectly through our taxes. We pay the rest of it directly, through higher co-payments, deductibles, and premiums. Drug company payments to doctors are a small part of a much larger strategy by Big Pharma to clean our pockets..."
Terrell Jermaine Starr: 7 Disturbing Facts About the Koch Brothers' Relationship with Race and Civil Rights
"Charles and David Koch are notorious for amassing a business empire well-known for destroying the environment and hijacking the political process to ram their privatization and business agenda on the country. But what is equally egregious about their political activities are their efforts to dismantle years of civil rights progress. The Bridge Project, a non-profit organization devoted to 'opposing the conservative movement's extreme ideology and exposing its dishonest tactics,' recently released a 16-page report on the Koch brothers' funding of groups that have been accused of suppressing minority voter turnout, destroying unions (particularly in Wisconsin) and attempting to get rid of Social Security..."
Big Pharma & Why Drugs Cost More:
Robert Reich: Why We Allow Big Pharma to Rip Us Off
"According to a new federal database put online last week, pharmaceutical companies and device makers paid doctors some $380 million in speaking and consulting fees over a five-month period in 2013. Some doctors received over half a million dollars each, and others got millions of dollars in royalties from products they helped develop. Doctors claim these payments have no effect on what they prescribe. But why would drug companies shell out all this money if it didn’t provide them a healthy return on their investment? America spends a fortune on drugs, more per person than any other nation on earth, even though Americans are no healthier than the citizens of other advanced nations. Of the estimated $2.7 trillion America spends annually on health care, drugs account for 10 percent of the total. Government pays some of this tab through Medicare, Medicaid, and subsidies under the Affordable Care Act. But we pick up the tab indirectly through our taxes. We pay the rest of it directly, through higher co-payments, deductibles, and premiums. Drug company payments to doctors are a small part of a much larger strategy by Big Pharma to clean our pockets..."
