7 septembre 2017

Changement climatique : un tueur en série

Des sinistres hors de proportion. J’aimerais croire à la prière. Il n’y a pas de mots pour qualifier le film d’horreur qui joue en boucle à l’échelle planétaire. Restaurer des lieux, relocaliser des gens, limiter la propagation des épidémies, soigner, fournir de l’eau potable, de la nourriture, des vêtements, rétablir l’électricité... est un casse-tête colossal. Une femme des Caraïbes rapportait avoir vu des voitures soulevées par les vents et planer dans les airs.  
   Pensons à Haïti : à chacune des catastrophes, l’aide internationale met des pansements sur un bobo qui grossit toujours. L’île est constamment dans la mire des ouragans, et ses fondations tremblent sur la faille d’Enriquillo. Comment sortir de pareil bourbier? Où fuir? Il n’y a pas de refuges. C'est infiniment triste et l'on se sent impuissant devant l'ampleur de la tâche, même avec la quantité de bonnes âmes qui ne lâchent pas.

«Si nous voulons que nos enfants et petits-enfants vivent et héritent d’une vie meilleure, cela ne sera possible que si chacun de nous change sa façon de penser et de se comporter envers la terre.» ~ Lee Durrell

Incendies du côté de l’océan Pacifique : Californie, Oregon, Washington, Montana, Idaho, Utah. La Colombie Britannique a eu son lot.

En carte :


Tornades et inondations du côté de l’océan Atlantique. La circonférence d’Irma est si énorme qu’elle pourrait affecter simultanément la côte est et ouest de la Floride. Comme si Harvey et Irma ne suffisaient pas, José et Katia tourbillonnent. À donner le vertige! 


Catégories et dommages selon l'intensité des ouragans. À faire circuler.


Le lanceur d’alertes Victor Hugo disait :
«Chaque système doit disparaître avec ses démolitions. Le grand péril et le grand problème de la situation actuelle, c’est la vieillesse des choses aux prises avec la nouveauté des idées.» (1885; Fragments sans date; HUGO Choses vues)

Rien n’arrête les pitbulls industriels : ni les incendies ni les inondations ni les fuites de pétrole polluant les ressources d’eau potable. Ils continuent à creuser la tombe de l’humanité avec détermination. 

#$@&%*! 

Trump se réjouissait que le gouvernement soit enfin débarrassé des réglementations «tueuses de jobs», aux applaudissements des employés d’une raffinerie de pétrole : “Dakota Access Pipeline is finally open for business.”

#$@&%*! 

J’ai cru à un canular en lisant ce qui suit, mais c’est vrai. L’appât doit être gros :  

Des groupes autochtones appuient un projet de mine à Fort McMurray

Cinq groupes autochtones dans la région de Fort McMurray, en Alberta, appuient la construction d'une mine d'extraction de sables bitumineux, un mégaprojet de 20,6 milliards de dollars qui pourrait voir le jour au nord de la ville.
   Le président de McMurray Métis, Gail Gallupe, a défendu Teck Resources, affirmant que la compagnie a consulté pendant un an les chasseurs métis, les trappeurs et les cueilleurs de baies.
   «Notre plus grand souci, en raison de notre adhésion, est de nous assurer que notre air ne va pas donner le cancer, que notre eau ne va pas mutiler nos poissons», a déclaré M. Gallupe. «[Teck Resources] a réalisé un sondage sur l'utilisation des sols qui était très efficace».

Source : Radio-Canada avec CBC, Affaires autochtones  06/09/2017

#$@&%*! 

À faire dresser les chevaux (oui, le sort des chevaux me préoccupe...) cheveux sur la tête, en effet. On comprend pourquoi les pétrolières élargissent leur champ d'exploration en Alberta.

Five things that will blow your mind about Alberta’s oil and gas wells 

Article intégral : https://theleap.org/

Photo: Inactive wells in Alberta, August 2017. Source: Fuzeium Data.

1. There’s one well for every 10 people living in Alberta.
   Alberta is absolutely covered with oil and gas wells. More than 450,000 wells have been drilled in the province, reaching from rural and Indigenous communities right into the heart of its biggest cities.
   Once oil and gas companies are finished actively producing from a well, they are legally required to clean, cap, and “reclaim” them. The problem is, they’re not doing that.  As these wells degrade, they leak toxins into the land, air and water.

2. The cleanup bill for these wells is greater than the value of the entire oil and gas industry.
   How is that possible? Let’s break it down. Over 330,000 wells in Alberta either need to be cleaned up right now or in the coming years. “Full cycle” reclamation cost can range from $100,000, up to millions of dollars for a really difficult well. When you do the math, cleaning up Alberta’s oil and gas wells could cost up to a hundred billion dollars.
   Those numbers don’t even include the cleanup costs of all the wells’ related infrastructure, including 23,000 oil and gas facilities, and over 430,000 kilometres of pipelines. Once you add those in, we’re talking about hundreds of billions of dollars of industry cleanup costs. You read that right: hundreds of billions.
   And here’s where things get really scary. When you put the full cost cleanup liabilities onto the books, the vast majority of Alberta’s oil and gas companies are already insolvent — and have been for some time.
   In other words: if Alberta’s oil and gas industry had to account for its cleanup costs, it would already be out of business.
   And if oil and gas companies aren’t setting aside the money to clean up their own mess, just who is going to pay for it? 
   You guessed it: the rest of us.
[...] 

Cinq étoiles à ces courageux Albertains! 

Brent Nimeck and Regan Boychuk are Albertans who have been working in and researching the province’s oil and gas industries for decades. They’ve come up with an innovative way to fix the problem of reclaiming these old wells before the industry walks away from them. The plan is called RAFT: Reclaiming Alberta’s Future Today.
   The idea is simple: hold the oil companies to their legal obligation, and make them pay to clean up their mess. In Alberta, there are tens of thousands of unemployed oilfield workers and vast arrays of equipment ready to be put to work to clean up those wells.
   Implementing RAFT would shift Alberta away from its reliance on fossil fuel production and launch a new reclamation boom in Alberta a model that could be exported to energy jurisdictions around the world.
   Healing the land through reclamation can also begin to rebalance the scales of justice with Indigenous communities in the province. One hundred years of oil and gas exploration in Alberta have poisoned the land, water and air, undermined the treaties, and now threaten to leave all of us with this toxic mess and the cleanup costs. 
   But getting oil and gas companies to clean up their mess could be the start of a green jobs boom, and a new future for Alberta.
   So let’s get to work.  Share this post to get the word out.

#$@&%*!  

Si vous le voyez explorer en catimini dans votre patelin, fuyez...! 

Natural Resources Minister Jim Carr speaks to reporters as he arrives at a Liberal caucus retreat in Kelowna, B.C., on Wednesday. (Darryl Dyck/Canadian Press)

First Nations will protest, but Trans Mountain pipeline a done deal, Liberals say
'Nothing that's happened has changed our mind that this is a good decision,' resources minister says
   
While some Indigenous activists gear up to fight expansion of the Kinder Morgan Trans Mountain pipeline on the streets and in court, federal Liberal cabinet ministers say there's no going back on their decision to approve the $7.4-billion project.
   Inspired by some of the tactics used by protesters at Standing Rock in North Dakota, the Secwepemc Nation, situated along the Trans Mountain route, said Wednesday it was preparing to build "10 tiny houses" in the path of the project's construction as a protest and with the hope of forcing a delay.
Speaking to reporters at the national Liberal caucus meeting in Kelowna, B.C., Indigenous Services Minister Jane Philpott said such groups are free to stand in opposition, but the decision to approve is final.
   "We know there are a variety of different views on this," Philpott said. "But this is something we've already done a tremendous [amount] of work on, recognizing the principles of consent, recognizing the rights of First Nations."
   Trans Mountain announced Wednesday it has finalized agreements with six contractors to build portions of the 1,150-kilometre expansion project that will carry crude oil from a terminal near Edmonton to Burnaby, B.C., something the company calls a "major milestone." Construction is set to begin later this month.
   Federal cabinet approved the project last November. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said the infrastructure is needed because of a dearth of pipeline capacity for Alberta producers. At the time, Trudeau said the government expects Kinder Morgan to "meet and exceed" the 157 conditions the National Energy Board imposed on the project, including spill-mitigation plans.

John Paul Tasker, CBC News Posted: Sep 07, 2017 5:20 AM ET

Cinq étoiles à Ghislain Picard :

Des Autochtones font pression sur Desjardins pour qu'elle sorte des oléoducs

Des leaders autochtones rencontreront jeudi la direction de Desjardins pour convaincre l'institution financière québécoise de rendre son moratoire sur les investissements dans les nouveaux oléoducs canadiens permanents.
   Selon Ghislain Picard, chef de l'Assemblée des Premières Nations pour le Québec et le Labrador, cette rencontre constitue une étape importante pour le vaste mouvement d'opposition aux projets d'oléoducs Énergie Est et Trans Mountain.

Source : Radio-Canada avec CBC, Affaires autochtones  06/09/2017

#$@&%*! 

Trump Nominates Climate Change Denier to Head NASA

President Trump's intention to nominate Rep. Jim Bridenstine of Oklahoma as the next administrator of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) has drawn controversy as the Republican congressman denies the human causes of climate change.
   “I would say that the climate is changing. It has always changed. There were periods of time long before the internal combustion engine when the Earth was much warmer than it is today," Bridenstine told Aerospace America in a 2016 interview. "Going back to the 1600s, we have had mini Ice Ages from then to now.”
   Bridenstine a veteran Navy combat pilot and member of the House Science, Space, and Technology Committee is a proponent of space commercialization and introduced the Space Renaissance Act earlier this year. He also wants to send Americans back to the moon.
   But NASA is not just a space exploration program it also plays a major role in global climate science, including “research on solar activity, sea level rise, the temperature of the atmosphere and the oceans, the state of the ozone layer, air pollution, and changes in sea ice and land ice. NASA scientists regularly appear in the mainstream press as climate experts,” the agency states.

Collage: Down The Drain by Joe Webb http://www.joewebbart.com/

Cinq étoiles à Naomi Klein : 

Look Around: The Costs of Not Acting on Climate Are Adding Up Fast

From major hurricanes and flooding to droughts and fires, the refusal to accept the science of global warming is getting very expensive
   Trump and his cabinet remain reluctant to discuss the causes of disasters like Harvey as they strike. Environmental Protection Agency head Scott Pruitt declared it was "misplaced" to discuss the storm's link to climate change last week.
   But that view was specifically countered by journalist Naomi Klein who said that it is in the midst of these climate-related disasters when the conversation about global warming and its impacts is most important.
   "Talking honestly about what is fueling this era of serial disasters even while they’re playing out in real time isn’t disrespectful to the people on the front lines," argued Klein at The Intercept. "In fact, it is the only way to truly honor their losses, and our last hope for preventing a future littered with countless more victims."

Source:

Harvey Didn’t Come Out of the Blue. Now is the Time to Talk About Climate Change.
Naomi Klein | August 28 2017, 4:25 p.m.

Now is exactly the time to talk about climate change, and all the other systemic injustices — from racial profiling to economic austerity — that turn disasters like Harvey into human catastrophes.
   Turn on the coverage of the Hurricane Harvey and the Houston flooding and you’ll hear lots of talk about how unprecedented this kind of rainfall is. How no one saw it coming, so no one could adequately prepare.
   What you will hear very little about is why these kind of unprecedented, record-breaking weather events are happening with such regularity that “record-breaking” has become a meteorological cliche. In other words, you won’t hear much, if any, talk about climate change. [...]  
   It’s a decision to spare feelings and avoid controversy at the expense of telling the truth, however difficult. Because the truth is that these events have long been predicted by climate scientists. Warmer oceans throw up more powerful storms. Higher sea levels mean those storms surge into places they never reached before. Hotter weather leads to extremes of precipitation: long dry periods interrupted by massive snow or rain dumps, rather than the steadier predictable patterns most of us grew up with.
   The records being broken year after year whether for drought, storm surges, wildfires, or just heat are happening because the planet is markedly warmer than it has been since record-keeping began. Covering events like Harvey while ignoring those facts, failing to provide a platform to climate scientists who can make them plain, all while never mentioning President Donald Trump’s decision to withdraw from the Paris climate accords, fails in the most basic duty of journalism: to provide important facts and relevant context. It leaves the public with the false impression that these are disasters without root causes, which also means that nothing could have been done to prevent them (and that nothing can be done now to prevent them from getting much worse in the future). ...

Source:

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