GreenWatch

By B. McPherson Around the world, the ordinary people are starting to realize the huge potential for environmental damage that our addiction to fossil fuels has created. A group in Ireland under the banner of Shell to Sea is using peaceful civil disobedience to protest the Royal Dutch Shell natural gas pipeline route. They have three stated aims in this regard: to ensure the safety of the people and environment, to renegotiate the terms of royalties for the offshore gas deposits, and to address what they claim are human rights abuses. The protesters have been interfering in the movement of materials used to build the pipeline. Two of the latest actions involved occupying a quarry that was supplying stone for the project and a woman locked herself to a tree cutting piece of machinery in an attempt to prevent cutting through a local forest. “Protests last Thursday led to a stand-off at a local quarry where the owner ultimately used a high-powered water hose in an ...

By B. McPherson The Costa Concordia holed and resting precariously on a submerged shelf in shallow water may slip off and sink. The fuel tanks of the doomed vessel are full of bunker fuel, a thick form of petroleum that needs to be heated to make it flow. 2 300 metric tonnes(2 530 US tons) will leak into the Mediterranean Sea if measures to pump the oil out fail. Unidentified liquid has been seen leaking from the ship and booms are being placed around it. Floating booms and skimmers are less effective in rough waters which hit the area today forcing a suspension of the search for those still missing from the disaster. The area where the ship rests is featured in tourist literature exhorting people to “travel Tuscany”. The island of Giglio is surrounded by healthy, clean water. The following is from a tourist blurb about the island. “The Isola del Giglio is one of the most "beautiful children in Tuscany", as they are called in the popular language. Giglio...