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"Oil and Gas"
Leaks and spills of Canadian oil are happening now at a critical time-
Back in 1989, all the political gears and levers were greased with money and Astroturf public opinion to approve leasing the National Arctic Wildlilfe Refuge for Oil Drilling. Today we seem to be at a similar juncture.
In 1989 the political players [...]
Continue Reading →After years of talk, action-
The Wildlife News, like other local and even national media, has reported frequently about the beauty and the threat to the lengthy biannual pronghorn migration route from Jackson Hole to the Wyoming high desert and back.
It’s not like nothing was done to conserve this threatened spectacle, it’s that nothing [...]
Continue Reading →Did non-violent protest work here?
The news is that Tim de Christopher is getting out of a California federal prison a bit early, after 18 months instead of 2 years. He will serve out the last 6 months in a Salt Lake City halfway house. Presumably there in work release they will try to have [...]
Continue Reading →Talk about the need for a presidential candidate science debate leads somewhere-
Back in 2008 there was mounting concern that science had always been left out of the presidential debates. This concern led to efforts to demand presidential candidates discuss these issues. Soon there was the formation of Science Debate 2008. This group, small at [...]
Continue Reading →Oh, the many effects of extracting the world’s dirtiest oil!
Despite the huge PR offensive by big oil, Alberta, and Canada’s right wing government, it is hard to overwhelm the public into thinking digging big holes to get out the bitumen is a great idea. Scientists, bloggers, conservation groups, and even segments of the Democratic [...]
Continue Reading →Slogan might sway elections, has no effect on gasoline prices-
Whenever the price of gasoline rises, we hear what is by now a coordinated shout that there needs to be more domestic oil drilling and “damn, the damn bunnies” and the rest of the wildlife too. Thirty seconds thought tells a person that a short [...]
Continue Reading →Earthquakes, water pollution, political pollution, and now toxic chemicals in the air near fracking wells-
It seems every day the news about the negative side effects of fracking gets worse (and the TV ads run by the American Petroleum Institute and others more manipulative). Aside from the methane in the natural gas, a number of [...]
Continue Reading →Hundreds of thousands of faults, most poorly mapped, just waiting for a bit of lubrication-
We all know what causes earthquakes — preexisting long cracks in rock layers (faults) and enough pressure to make them slip. Most don’t slip very often though. Some will never slip because the pressure is just not, or ever will [...]
Continue Reading →Resources chair pushes through oil and gas legislation that may make his oil and gas leases valuable-
Part of Idaho is like so many other places in America where a tsunami of fracking is about to hit. Five years ago this seemed very unlikely. Idaho has always been regarded as an unlikely place for oil [...]
Continue Reading →Democratic critics say pipeline will not increase U.S. oil supplies-
Right now the U.S. Senate is considering a Republican effort to fast-track the Keystone XL crude oil pipeline. Democrats will filibuster. Republicans are not likely to get the 60 votes to beat the filibuster.
The pipeline is becoming a defining issue between the two parties, [...]
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