Tag Archives: Gulf of Mexico

200,000+ Urge DOE to ‘Do the Right Thing’ and Block LNG Buildout

One project in particular, the CP2 export terminal, “would be the most harmful facility built in the United States,” one frontline activist said as campaigners delivered petition signatures.

By Olivia Rosane. Published 11-30-2023 by Common Dreams

Roishetta Ozane, founder and director of the Louisiana-based mutual aid organization Vessel Project, speaks as activists deliver 200,000 signatures opposing the LNG buildout to the U.S. Department of Energy in Washington, D.C., on November 30, 2023. (Photo: Jamie Henn/X)

Climate and environmental justice campaigners on Thursday delivered more than 200,000 petition signatures calling on the Biden administration to reject the Calcasieu Pass 2, or CP2, liquefied natural gas export facility as well as all other planned LNG infrastructure.

Environmental advocates and progressive lawmakers have been increasingly raising the alarm about CP2 and the broader expansion in LNG exports, pointing out that they put both the U.S. climate goals and frontline Gulf Coast communities at risk. CP2, for example, would emit 20 times as many greenhouse gases as the controversial Willow oil drilling project in Alaska.

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Gulf Oil Spill Shows ‘Danger of Banks Owning Energy Companies’

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“The Federal Reserve must enforce the Bank Holding Company Act and disallow Wall Street banks from controlling energy infrastructure, as it poses systemic risks,” said a Public Citizen campaigner.

By Jessica Corbett. Published 11-23-2023 by Common Dreams

*An aircrew detected oil in the Gulf of Mexico on November 16, 2023. (Photo: USCG Heartland/X)*

Banking giant JPMorgan Chase has financial ties to a company that owns the pipeline suspected of leaking up to 1.1 million gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico—a situation that watchdogs say demonstrates the danger of such business relationships.

“JPMorgan’s control over a company involved in a massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico clearly illustrates the danger of banks owning energy companies,” Tyson Slocum, director of consumer watchdog Public Citizen’s Energy Program, declared Wednesday.

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‘Could Be a World Record’: South Florida Ocean Temperature Hits 101.1°F

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“I have no doubt a dip in Manatee Bay today would have been a hot tub-like experience,” said one meteorologist earlier this week.

By Jake Johnson. Published 7-26-2023 by Common Dreams

Hawksbill Turtle swimming underwater in Florida Keys. Photo: Matt Kieffer/flickr/CC

A buoy positioned roughly 40 miles south of Miami recorded a sea surface temperature of 101.1°F earlier this week, stunning scientists who say the reading could mark the latest in a string of global records as fossil fuel-driven extreme weather around the world brings unprecedented heat.

Meteorologist Jeff Masters wrote that the temperature in Florida’s Manatee Bay reached hot tub levels on Monday and “could be a world record.”

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In ‘Stern Warning Sign,’ Ocean and Air Temps Break May and June Records

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Some scientists predict that 2023 could be the warmest year on record, as a developing El Niño exacerbates the impacts of the climate crisis.

By Olivia Rosane. Published 6-16-2023 by Common Dreams

A large cluster of wildfires burns in Alberta, Canada, as seen from NOAA’s GOES-18 satellite on May 5, 2023; May 2023 was North America’s warmest May in NOAA’s 174-year climate record. (Photo: NOAA)

Following a May of record ocean temperatures and a June of record air temperatures, scientists are warning that 2023 could be the hottest year on record.

For a brief period in June, average global air temperatures even topped 1.5°C above preindustrial levels, the temperature goal enshrined by the Paris climate agreement.

“The world has just experienced its warmest early June on record, following a month of May that was less than 0.1°C cooler than the warmest May on record,” the European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) Deputy Director Samantha Burgess said in a statement. “Monitoring our climate is more important than ever to determine how often and for how long global temperatures are exceeding 1.5°C. Every single fraction of a degree matters to avoid even more severe consequences of the climate crisis.”

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Indigenous Leaders Hail Biden’s Proposed Chaco Canyon Drilling Ban as ‘Important First Step’

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“We are most hopeful that this action is a turning point where the United States natural resource management planning philosophy focuses on the protection of all living beings.”

By Brett Wilkins. Published 11-15-2021 by Common Dreams

Deb Haaland—then a Democratic congresswoman representing New Mexico’s First District but now U.S. interior secretary—visits Chaco Canyon in 2019. (Photo: Monica Sanchez/Natural Resources Democrats/Flickr/cc)

A coalition of Southwestern Indigenous leaders on Monday applauded President Joe Biden and Interior Secretary Deb Haaland following the announcement of a proposed 20-year fossil fuel drilling ban around the sacred Chaco Canyon in northwestern New Mexico—even as the administration prepares to auction off tens of millions of acres in the Gulf of Mexico for oil and gas extraction later this week.

“Chaco Canyon is a sacred place that holds deep meaning for the Indigenous peoples whose ancestors lived, worked, and thrived in that high desert community,” Haaland—the first Native American Cabinet secretary in U.S. history—said in a statement Monday. Continue reading →

Climate Coalition Demands Biden Halt ‘Outrageous’ Offshore Drilling Auction—Largest in US History

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The proposed lease sale, said over 250 groups in a joint letter, “shockingly offers more area than the Trump administration initially proposed.”

By Brett Wilkins. Published 11-10-2021 by Common Dreams.

Offshore oil rig off Catalina Island. Ohoto: arbyreed/flickr/CC

As the Biden administration prepares to auction off more than 80 million acres in the Gulf of Mexico for fossil fuel extraction, over 250 advocacy groups published an open letter on Wednesday imploring U.S. President Joe Biden to cancel the sale and fulfill his promises of bold climate action.

At least 267 organizations, including 36 representing Gulf of Mexico communities, sent the letter to Biden, who just last week promised the world at the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Scotland—also known as COP26—that the United States will be “leading by the power of our example” in the fight against the planetary emergency. Continue reading →

‘When We Drill, We Spill’: Climate-Fueled Ida Behind Suspected Oil Spill in Gulf of Mexico

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“This is yet another reminder of the major risks posed by offshore drilling for dirty, dangerous fossil fuels we increasingly don’t need.”

By Jessica Corbett, staff writer for Common Dreams. Published 9-2-2021

Photos captured by National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration aircraft August 31, 2021 and reviewed by the Associated Press show a miles-long black slick floating in the Gulf of Mexico near a large rig. (Photo: NOAA via AP)

As Louisiana residents and officials begin the recovery process in the wake of Hurricane Ida, environmental campaigners responded Thursday to reporting of a suspected oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico by saying such scenes “are reminders that when we drill, we spill.”

“On top of the devastation that people are still experiencing onshore, we are now learning about an oil slick in the Gulf, not far from the Louisiana coast,” said Kelsey Lamp, Protect our Oceans campaign director with Environment America, in a statement. Continue reading →

Sea level rise is killing trees along the Atlantic coast, creating ‘ghost forests’ that are visible from space

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Emily Ury, Duke University

Trekking out to my research sites near North Carolina’s Alligator River National Wildlife Refuge, I slog through knee-deep water on a section of trail that is completely submerged. Permanent flooding has become commonplace on this low-lying peninsula, nestled behind North Carolina’s Outer Banks. The trees growing in the water are small and stunted. Many are dead.

Throughout coastal North Carolina, evidence of forest die-off is everywhere. Nearly every roadside ditch I pass while driving around the region is lined with dead or dying trees. Continue reading →

Lawmakers Urge Biden to Block Massive Petrochemical Complex in Cancer Alley

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“This disastrous project is an affront to environmental justice and contrary to your goals to reduce pollution in frontline communities.”

By Jessica Corbett, staff writer for Common Dreams. Published 3-18-2021

Environmental justice campaigners across the country have spoken out against the proposed Formosa Plastics Complex in Louisiana. (Photo: Louisiana Bucket Brigade/Twitter)

A pair of lawmakers known for fighting for environmental justice in Congress sent a letter to the White House on Wednesday urging President Joe Biden to deliver on his campaign promises to curb pollution in frontline communities by permanently blocking a large petrochemical complex in an area of Louisiana called “Cancer Alley.”

Residents of St. James Parish, Louisiana and environmental justice advocates nationwide have come out against the Taiwan-based Formosa Plastics Group’s plans for a $9.4 billion complex that would release cancer-causing chemicals and, according to one watchdog’s estimate, produce 13.6 million tons of planet-heating emissions per year. Continue reading →

Retired oil rigs off the California coast could find new lives as artificial reefs

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Ann Scarborough Bull, University of California, Santa Barbara and Milton Love, University of California, Santa Barbara

Offshore oil and gas drilling has been a contentious issue in California for 50 years, ever since a rig ruptured and spilled 80,000 to 100,000 barrels of crude oil off Santa Barbara in 1969. Today it’s spurring a new debate: whether to completely dismantle 27 oil and gas platforms scattered along the southern California coast as they end their working lives, or convert the underwater sections into permanent artificial reefs for marine life.

We know that here and elsewhere, many thousands of fishes and millions of invertebrates use offshore rigs as marine habitat. Working with state fisheries agencies, energy companies have converted decommissioned oil and gas platforms into manmade reefs in the U.S. Gulf of Mexico, Brunei and Malaysia. Continue reading →

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The Movement Continues – Globally

Tag Archives: Gulf of Mexico

Gulf Oil Spill Shows ‘Danger of Banks Owning Energy Companies’

“The Federal Reserve must enforce the Bank Holding Company Act and disallow Wall Street banks from controlling energy infrastructure, as it poses systemic risks,” said a Public Citizen campaigner.

‘Could Be a World Record’: South Florida Ocean Temperature Hits 101.1°F

“I have no doubt a dip in Manatee Bay today would have been a hot tub-like experience,” said one meteorologist earlier this week.

In ‘Stern Warning Sign,’ Ocean and Air Temps Break May and June Records

Some scientists predict that 2023 could be the warmest year on record, as a developing El Niño exacerbates the impacts of the climate crisis.

Climate Coalition Demands Biden Halt ‘Outrageous’ Offshore Drilling Auction—Largest in US History

The proposed lease sale, said over 250 groups in a joint letter, “shockingly offers more area than the Trump administration initially proposed.”

Sea level rise is killing trees along the Atlantic coast, creating ‘ghost forests’ that are visible from space

Retired oil rigs off the California coast could find new lives as artificial reefs