Greenpeace activists shut down 74 UK Shell petrol stations Activists protesting against the company’s plans to drill for oil in the Arctic have targeted London and Edinburgh
If the pictures of those towering wildfires in Colorado haven’t convinced you, or the size of your AC bill this summer, here are some hard numbers about climate change: June broke or tied 3,215 high-temperature records across the United States. That followed the warmest May on record for the Northern Hemisphere – the 327th consecutive month in which the temperature of the entire globe exceeded the 20th-century average, the odds of which occurring by simple chance were 3.7 x 10-99, a number considerably larger than the number of stars in the universe. Continue reading “Global Warming’s Terrifying New Math”
1000’s trapped, road rail cut, as deadly fire rages out of control
Lorries at La Jonquera, the main Spanish/French border crossing this evening
Chaos in the Alt Empordà. A fire virulent, with much flame and fed by very strong gusts from the north, left yesterday from La Jonquera and moved through the region at a rate unheard of, so much so that at midnight the flames were roaming “uncontrolled” in the words of the Minister for Interior, Felip Puig. Besides the acres burned, more than 13,000 at midnight, the consequences of fire in La Jonquera and other focus, small but deadly, that erupted in Portbou were fatal: 3 deaths and about twenty wounded, 2 of them seriously ; evict farms and towns; recommendation of home confinement of all the inhabitants of the Alt Empordà (about 140,000) and trapped thousands of motorists on highways and roads, cutting early in the afternoon, the AP-7 and N- 2.
Climate Chaos comes to Catalonia
What apparently began as a simple brush fire shortly after the one p.m. soon resulted in disaster. Paradoxically, not the virulent deadly fire, but a smaller loosed in the N-260, in Portbou. Cornered by flames, a man of 60 years and daughter of 15 left the car and jumped into the sea from a cliff. A French citizen was also killed in Llers a result of a heart attack.
From the control center was established in Figueres, Puig reported that more than 80 fire crews, Catalan and French, and one hundred members of Civil Protection in last night working out the fire. They also planned to join a military unit (EMU), while air assets remained on the ground because the wind prevented them from performing their work. There were fears that the fire reached the Garrotxa. At midnight, Artur Mas moved to the area.
North/South highway, rail and train links cut
According to some reports, the fire began at Fort Bellagarde, a seventeenth-century fortress located in the municipality of Le Pertús, in France. Several neighborhoods of La Jonquera were evacuated and about 150 residents took shelter on a temporary basis in the sports of the border population. Among the first evicted by the Mossos there were 74 children and 17 adults who were in the house Estanys colonies and were transferred to the military camp Sescebes Sant Climent.
The train traffic was interrupted between Girona and Portbou, like the high-speed connection between Figueres and Perpignan. As a result of fire also cut the electricity supply of 3,500 subscribers and about 1,725 were affected phone lines.
The intense smoke that darkened the sky and in less than an hour could be seen from almost all the region forced to cut the AP-7 and the N-2 in both directions. The closure of these two main routes between Girona and Barcelona, but also between Spain and France, led to major delays. In Girona, queues formed over 25 kilometers and the same happened in the French part due to the closure of the A9 highway D900 and, linking Perpignan to Figueres.
One of those deductions in the N-260 is most likely started the fire deadly Portbou. Many motorists, retained by the monumental traffic jam, abandoned vehicles to escape the flames.
Firefighters advised the farmers to undertake fire to hinder the passage of the front devastating. The Catalan Traffic advised motorists not to travel to Girona and recommended to go south and use the Cadi tunnel to traveling to France. This payment method your barriers up from seven in the evening.
Almost from the first hours of the fire, Civil Protection advised that neighbors remain confined Agullana, Capmany, Biure, Vilarnadal, Sant Climent and Masarac Sescebes. Later, the recommendation was extended to the whole region. “We have decreed compulsory confinement in all villages of the region,” the minister said Puig.
Tonight’s fire is one of many already devastating parts of Spain, with August yet to come. The patterns of extreme weather can be linked to worldwide climate change disasters due to excessive and rapidly increasing CO2 release.
Residents Blockade Injection Well One Week After 1,000 Gallon Fracking Waste Spill Meanwhile Well-blowout Kills 1 in Bolivar.
Vienna, OH – Concerned residents blocked access to an injection well in Trumbull County this morning, protesting the failure of Ohio regulators to adequately test and monitor dumping of toxic fracking waste. One supporter locked himself to the gate to prevent all trucks carrying fracking waste from entering the site. Two activists were detained by police, and the supporter locked to the gate was eventually and safely removed by authorities and placed under arrest. The supporter and detained activists were all released by police without bail a few hours later…………..
……A 2011 New York Times report revealed a widespread, massive presence of radioactive materials in fracking wastewater, including levels over 1,000 times federal drinking water standards. A recent independently tested sample of frack waste from Athens County revealed elevated levels of barium, arsenic, toluene, alpha particles, and diesel particles nearly 300,000 times the federal standard for drinking water. State Representative Bob Hagan contacted ODNR with a copy of these results on June 27 and requested that ODNR begin testing frack waste, citing his “serious concern that the safety and health of Ohio citizens is in jeopardy from the chemical contents of fracking waste-water.” As of July 16, he has received no reply.
This blockade comes just weeks after Madeline Fitch of Athens County chained herself to two barrels, blocking access to an injection well in her community. A statewide call-in day to demand that ODNR initiate a statewide brine-testing program is scheduled for Tuesday.
“How can the ODNR possibly allow fracking companies to dump untold volumes of fracking waste in our communities if they won’t even test it? How can they reassure us that a 1,000 gallon spill of waste is safe if they don’t even know what was in the fluid that was spilled?” asks Reverend Monica Beasley-Martin, who led fellow Trumbull County residents in prayer at the site. “We have been asking too long, and we have had enough. We need safe water, and clean air. Ohio is not a sacrifice zone, and Ohio is not a dumping ground. ODNR: test the fracking waste now!”
Get off this damn computer and get out to the frontlines. Summer 2012 is packed with opportunities to play your part in the eco-wars… ‘Tis the season for resistance! The following upcoming events—starting today in Ohio—are selected from the EF! Newswire’s Event Calendar. If you know of other happenings, please keep us in the loop by emailing us at collective[at]earthfirstjournal.org. If you attend an action camp, please be sure to send us reports from your actions. Continue reading “Join summer Earth 1st Actions: US and Canada”
The Movement to Ban McDonald’s, Coca-Cola From the London Olympics
Junk food giants McDonald’s and Coca-Cola could find themselves left at the starting blocks after the London Assembly voted to call for a ban on Olympic sponsors that produce high calorie food and beverages.
Just over a month before London hosts the 2012 Olympics, the powerful elected body passed a motion urging the International Olympic Committee to adopt strict sponsorship criteria in a bid to outlaw advertising of products linked to child obesity.
The political statement comes on the back of vociferous protests from health organizations that the celebration of athletic excellence is not the place to be tempting youngsters with Big Macs.
“London won the right to host the 2012 Games with the promise to deliver a legacy of more active, healthier children across the world,” the Green Party’s Jenny Jones, who proposed the motion, told the assembly. ”Yet the same International Olympic Committee that awarded the games to London persists in maintaining sponsorship deals with the purveyors of high calorie junk that contributes to the threat of an obesity epidemic.”
McDonald’s spends over $2 billion a year broadcasting their glossy image to the world. This is a small space for alternatives to be heard……..
our health
Many nutritionists argue that the type of high fat, low fibre diet promoted by McDonald’s is linked to serious diseases such as cancer, heart disease, obesity and diabetes.
our fellow earthlings
Vegetarians and animal welfare campaigners aren’t too keen on McDonald’s – for obvious reasons. As the world’s largest user of beef they are responsible for the slaughter of hundreds of thousands of cows per year. In Europe alone they use half a million chickens every week, all from windowless factory farms. All such animals suffer great cruelty during their unnatural, painful and short lives, many being kept inside with no access to fresh air and sunshine, and no freedom of movement – how can such cruelty be measured?…….
I’m destroying it
One of the most well-known and sensitive questions about McDonald’s is: are they responsible for the destruction of tropical forests to make way for cattle ranching? McDonald’s say no. Many people say yes. So McDonald’s sue them. Not so many people say yes anymore, but does this mean McDonald’s aren’t responsible?
They annually produce over a million tons of packaging, used for just a few minutes before being discarded……
slave labour
Complaints from employees range from discrimination and lack of rights, to understaffing, few breaks and illegal hours, to poor safety conditions and kitchens flooded with sewage, and the sale of food that has been dropped on the floor. This type of low-paid work has even been termed ‘McJobs‘…….
revolution
There is a much more fundamental problem than Big Macs and French Fries: capitalism. But what about anti-capitalist beliefs like socialism and anarchism? Is it possible to create a world run by ordinary people themselves, without multinationals and governments – a world based on sharing, freedom and respect for all life?…..
Boots and training shoes are not the first things that spring to mind when you think about the causes of rainforest destruction and climate change, but just because the connection isn’t obvious doesn’t mean it isn’t realm, says Greenpeace in a new report, “Slaughtering the Amazon” Brazilian beef industry blamed for Amazon deforestation — MercoPress.
George Monbiot laments the craven sellout to rampant consumer capitalism as climate change and a host of environmental emergencies destroy conditions for life on the planet. His answer is not workers revolution nor assassinating billionaires, but local ‘rewilding’ to at least delay the biosphere’s collapse.
After Rio, we know. Governments have given up on the planet
The post-summit pledge was an admission of defeat against consumer capitalism. But we can still salvage the natural world It is, perhaps, the greatest failure of collective leadership since the first world war. The Earth’s living systems are collapsing, and the leaders of some of the most powerful nations – the United States, the UK, Germany, Russia – could not even be bothered to turn up and discuss it. Those who did attend the Earth summit in Rio last week solemnly agreed to keep stoking the destructive fires: sixteen times in their text they pledged to pursue “sustained growth“, the primary cause of the biosphere’s losses. Continue reading “After Rio, we know.. Governments have given up on the planet.”
The Free 