Tag Archives: Hydraulic Fracking

UN Human Rights Chief Calls for ‘End to All Forms of Violence’ After Troops Deployed Over Colombian Protests

Dozens of people have died during the past month of demonstrations, which have been met with deadly attacks by the nation’s law enforcement.

By Jessica Corbett, staff writer for Common Dreams. Published 5-30-2021

Photo: Joshua Collins/Twitter

United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet responded to the Colombian president’s decision to deploy thousands of troops after a month of protests by calling for an end to all violence and urging negotiations over key national policies, which had stalled but were set to resume Sunday.

Bachelet, in a statement Sunday, specifically expressed concern about reports that since Friday, at least 14 people have died and 98 people have been injured in the Colombian city of Cali—one of the primary protest sites over the past month—and that an off-duty judicial police officer and others have fired at demonstrators. Continue reading

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New Investigation Reveals How Fossil Fuel Giants Are Amplifying Militarized Police Forces

“This report sheds a harsh and needed light on the ways police violence and systemic racism intersect with the climate crisis.”

By Andrea Germanos, staff writer for Common Dreams. Published 7-27-2020

Saint Paul, Minnesota police officers covered in riot gear march and line up during the 2008 Republican National Convention (RNC) at the Xcel Energy Center.. Photo: Tony Webster/Wikimedia Commons/CC

The same industries fueling the climate crisis and disproportionately polluting Black and brown communities across the U.S are bankrolling police foundations, groups which can help militarize local police departments.

That’s according to a new investigation from transparency group Public Accountability Initiative and its LittleSis project. Continue reading

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As Trump Sows Discord, Chief of Staff Mulvaney Reportedly Focused on ‘Building Empire for the Right Wing’

“Cabinet members are pressed weekly on what regulations they can strip from the books and have been told their performance will be judged on how many they remove.”

By Jessica Corbett, staff writer for Common Dreams. Published 7-15-2019

Mick Mulvaney press conference about President Donald Trump’s budget plan. Screenshot: YouTube

While President Donald Trump dominates national media with racist tweets and lies, acting White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney is quietly “building an empire for the right wing” and pushing Cabinet members to impose a radical and rapid deregulation agenda across the federal government, according to a new Washington Post report.

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Imperiling People and Planet, Warnings Mount That Trump’s NAFTA 2.0 Just Another ‘Corporate Giveaway’

Critics warn the new agreement would make it harder “to hold Big Oil and Gas accountable” while also threatening “efforts to protect consumers, workers, and the environment.”

By Jessica Corbett, staff writer for Common Dreams. Published 10-1-2018

Screenshot: YouTube

Environmentalists on Monday slammed President Donald Trump’s replacement for the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), with Food & Water Watch executive director Wenonah Hauter warning that it “would enshrine and globalize Trump’s deregulatory zealotry into a trade pact that would outlast the administration and imperil future efforts to protect consumers, workers, and the environment.”

Presented as the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA), many have noted that Trump’s trade deal, as Bloomberg put it, “looks more like a rebranding than a revolution,” despite Trump’s vows when he was a presidential candidate that he would negotiate a new deal that’s dramatically better for American workers. As experts and campaigners comb through the details of the agreement, environmental activists are homing in on provisions they warn would endanger people and the planet. Continue reading

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Judge Drops Charges Against 13 Who Argued Pipeline Civil Disobedience Action Was “Necessary” to Save Planet

“We are part of the movement that’s standing up and saying, ‘We won’t let this go by on our watch.'”

By Andrea Germanos, staff writer for CommonDreams. Published 3-28-2018

Defendants and legal team pose for a photo after their March 27, 2018 trail on the steps of the West Roxbury, Mass. courthouse. (Photo: Peter Bowden/flickr/cc)

Climate activists are cheering after a district judge in Boston on Tuesday ruled that 13 fossil fuel pipeline protesters were not responsible for any infraction because of the necessity of their actions.

Bill McKibben, who was slated to be an expert witness in their case, tweeted a celebratory “Good golly!’ in response to the ruling, adding, “This may be a first in America. ” Continue reading

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In ‘Tremendous Victory for Taxpayers, Public Health, and Planet,’ Federal Court Rejects Trump Admin.’s Attempt to Suspend Methane Rule

The late Thursday ruling “once again sends a message to this administration that it will not get away with illegal handouts to industry”

By Andrea Germanos, staff writer for CommonDreams. Published 2-23-2018

A fracking well flare in Scott Township, Pennsylvania. (Photo: WCN 24/7/flickr/cc)

A court has once again rejected the Trump administration’s effort to suspend an Obama-era rule aimed at reducing releases of methane from oil and gas operations on federal and tribal land.

“The decision,” writes Meleah Geertsma, a senior attorney with NRDC, “once again sends a message to this administration that it will not get away with illegal handouts to industry, at the expense of Americans’ health and the environment.” Continue reading

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Leaked Trump Infrastructure Plan Ripped as Thinly-Veiled ‘Assault on the Environment’

“The memo reveals an infrastructure plan that is essentially a giveaway to corporations at the expense of the American people and our environment.”

By Jake Johnson, staff writer for CommonDreams. Published 1-27-2018

“The administration’s legislative outline for infrastructure sacrifices clean air, water, the expertise of career agency staff, and bedrock environmental laws,” concluded Theresa Pierno, president of the National Parks Conservation Association. (Photo: Mark Dixon/Flickr/cc)

Green groups reacted with alarm on Friday to a leaked Trump administration infrastructure draft that proposes a drastic rollback of environmental regulations in an attempt to expedite the construction of water-threatening oil pipelines, roads, bridges—and, of course, “the wall.”

The draft also includes a provision that would “expand the government’s ability to have private firms pay for the federal environmental reviews of their own projects” while also restricting the ability of federal agencies to “weigh in or block a project from going forward,” the Washington Post, which first obtained the leaked proposal, reports. Continue reading

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The most important person in America is not Trump

Our most admired, most important Person of the Year for 2017 goes to…

Written by Carol Benedict

Screenshot: Euronews

2017 is a year no one will miss much. We struggled through the year with the “deer in the headlights” syndrome across our populace; so much so that “not normal” became expected, and the expected became obscure.

But what did we find when we looked at the year to decide who was the biggest influence on us, who did we turn to for hope and inspiration in our darkest moments? Our collective minds turn to the voice of the resistance – every person, team, organization, group and crowd that forged a line and said “ENOUGH!” in one great shout. Continue reading

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Oil Giants Invest $180B in Plastics, Propelling Oceans Toward ‘Near-Permanent’ Pollution

“We could be locking in decades of expanded plastics production at precisely the time the world is realizing we should use far less of it.”

By Julia Conley, staff writer for CommonDreams. Published 12-26-2017

A seal trapped in plastic pollution. Environmental advocates are concerned that a rise in plastics production will bring the world’s oceans to a state of “near-permanent” pollution. (Photo: Nels Israelson/Flickr/cc)

Scientists and environmental protection advocates are warning that a coming plastics boom could lead to a permanent state of pollution on the planet—and denouncing the fossil fuel industry for driving an increase in plastics production amid all that’s known about the material polluting the world’s oceans.

“We could be locking in decades of expanded plastics production at precisely the time the world is realizing we should use far less of it,” Carroll Muffett, president of the Center for International Environmental Law (CEIL), told the Guardian. The CEIL has compiled several reports about the plastics industry since September. Continue reading

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Study Calls for Rapid “Negative Emissions” as Scientist Warns “Shit’s Hitting the Fan”

New study, led by James Hansen, is meant to bolster climate kids’ case against the federal government

By Andrea Germanos, staff writer for Common Dreams. Published 7-19-2017

If “large fossil fuel emissions are allowed to continue[…] the burden placed on young people and future generations may become too heavy to bear,” the researchers write. (Photo: Takver/flickr/cc)

The “shit is hitting is the fan,” said noted climate scientist James Hansen, countering “this narrative out there…that we have turned the corner on dealing with the climate problem.”

Hansen is lead author of a new study that warns that there “is no time to delay” on climate change efforts and argues that they must go beyond just slashing emissions of CO2—”the dominant control knob on global temperature”—to extracting CO2 from the air, or “negative emissions.”

The team of international researchers writes that “the world has overshot appropriate targets”—a conclusion that “is sufficiently grim to compel us to point out that pathways to rapid emission reductions are feasible.” Continue reading

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