Environment Archives - Page 46 of 107

Millions March Against Monsanto Calling For Boycott Of GMOs

On May 24, millions of people from around the world participated in the March Against Monsanto, calling for the permanent boycott of genetically engineered foods and other harmful agro-chemicals.

By Eco Watch

On May 24, millions of people from around the world participated in the March Against Monsanto, calling for the permanent boycott of genetically engineered foods and other harmful agro-chemicals. Marches occurred on six continents, in 52 countries, with events in more than 400 cities, including 47 U.S. states.

Daniel Bissonnette, a very articulate 9-year-old, mesmerized listeners in this must-see video at a Vancouver, Canada, March Against Monsanto event, asking key questions on why children—the most vulnerable age group to ravages of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) and pesticide—are subjected to the worst food possible.

“Monsanto’s predatory business and corporate agricultural practices threatens their generation’s health, fertility and longevity,” said Tami Monroe Canal, founder of March Against Monsanto (MAM) who was inspired to start the movement to protect her two daughters. “MAM supports a sustainable food production system. We must act now to stop GMOs and harmful pesticides.”

GMOs have been partially banned by Austria, Bulgaria, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Japan, Luxembourg, Madeira, New Zealand, Peru, South America, Russia, France, Switzerland and Costa Rico, and are currently labelled in 62 countries. In India, more than 250,000 farmers have committed suicide after Monsanto’s Bt cotton seeds did not perform as promised. Farmers, left in desperate poverty, are opting to free their families of debt by drinking Monsanto pesticide, thereby ending their lives. Many farmers in other countries are also stripped of their livelihood as a result of false promises, seed patenting and meticulous legal action on the part of Monsanto and other big-ag interests. In many parts of Africa, farmers are left to choose between starving or eating GMOs.

“If we fail to realize that March Against Monsanto is not about GMOs alone, then we have already lost the battle,” said Kelly L. Derricks, founder of March Against Monsanto’s Agent Orange awareness program, which educates supporters on this deadly chemical weapon that Monsanto was the largest manufacturer of during the Vietnam War era.

An Open Letter from World Scientists to All Governments Concerning Genetically Modified Organisms is signed by 828 scientists from 84 countries and details concerns regarding GMOs coupled with a call for an immediate 5-year suspension of GMO crops in order to conduct “a comprehensive public enquiry of agriculture and food security for all.”

Nisqually Tribe looking for connections between zooplankton and salmon

May 27th, 2014 Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission

The Nisqually Indian Tribe is trying to find a way to predict future salmon runs by measuring what juvenile salmon eat on their way out to the ocean.

The tribe is expanding their research on local salmon to take a look at zooplankton in deep South Sound, which young salmon eat after leaving the Nisqually River. “Eventually, we might be able to connect the availability of food in Puget Sound with chinook runs three or four years down the line,” said David Troutt, natural resources director for the tribe.

As they migrate to the open ocean, juvenile salmon consume small animals like zooplankton. Nisqually tribal researchers want to find out if there’s less food in Puget Sound when salmon are migrating out, meaning fewer may be coming back.

Jed Moore and Emiliano Perez, Nisqually natural resources staff, deploy a plankton net in deep South Sound.

The study will examine the entire community structure of competitors and predators, including plankton and other fish species. A smolt trap operated by the state Department of Fish and Wildlife on the Nisqually River will determine the timing, size and number of out-migrating salmon.

The tribe will sample juvenile fish from the Nisqually estuary and adjacent marine areas using a beach seine and lampara net. At the same time, the tribe will sample the water for zooplankton and other small animals. “If we find that in years when a lot of food is available, salmon survive to return at higher rates, we could more easily predict future salmon runs,” Troutt said.

In an earlier study of chinook leaving the Nisqually River, the tribe found a direct connection between fish that were able to find food in the river’s estuary and those able to make it back as adults. “We typically find two groups of juvenile chinook leaving the watershed,” Troutt said. “The fish that stayed and fed in the estuary survived to return as adults while those with other life history strategies did not.”

The tribe’s research is part of the region-wide Salish Sea Marine Survival Project. The project brings together researchers in both the United States and Canada to better understand the relationship between salmon and the marine environment.

Treaty Indian tribes are locally based and use cutting edge management techniques, making them uniquely qualified to conduct close to the ground research. “Being able to understand the salmon life cycle is important if we want to preserve our treaty protected right to harvest salmon,” said Georgiana Kautz, natural resources manager for the tribe. “Our treaty rights depend on there being fish actually available to harvest.”

TransCanada looks to ship oil to U.S. by rail amid Keystone XL delays

Train cars carrying crude oil burn after derailing in Lac Megantic, Quebec, July 2013.

Calgary-based company has waited more than 5 years for the Obama administration to make a decision

CBC News, May 22, 2014

TransCanada is in talks with customers about shipping Canadian crude to the United States by rail as an alternative to its Keystone XL pipeline project that has been mired in political delays, according to company president and CEO Russ Girling.

“We are absolutely considering a rail option,” Girling told Reuters on the sidelines of a conference in New York Wednesday. “Our customers have needed to wait for several years, so we’re in discussions now with them over the rail option.”

The comments are the first to confirm growing speculation that TransCanada might use more costly and controversial railway shipments as a stopgap alternative to the Keystone XL pipeline, whose approval has been delayed by the U.S. government.

Girling said the firm was exploring shipping crude by rail from Hardisty in Canada, the main storage and pipeline hub, to Steele City, Neb., where it would flow into an existing pipeline to the Gulf refining hub.

5-year wait

TransCanada has waited more than five years for the Obama administration to make a decision on the $5.4-billion project, which would carry up to 830,000 barrels per day of crude from the oilsands of northern Alberta to the U.S. Gulf Coast.

While the project has received a mostly favourable environmental report, the State Department last month delayed a decision beyond the mid-term elections in November while a legal dispute over the line’s route in Nebraska is settled.

The pipeline has drawn sharp criticism from environmental groups who say it will fuel more production of Canada’s energy-intensive oilsands.

But the oil-by-rail movement has also come under scrutiny after a series of explosive derailments, including the one in Lac-Megantic, Que., last summer that killed 47.

Opposition fuelling opportunity

“It’s an irony that the adamant opposition of environmental organizations and others against oilsands-derived crude have actually created a phenomenal opportunity for rail to pick up the slack,” said David McColl, an analyst at Morningstar, Inc.

The line has the backing of the Canadian government and conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper called the project “a no-brainer.” Canada is counting on new export lines to boost discounted oil prices in the country and accommodate rising production from the oilsands.

Demand to ship crude by rail has gathered pace in Canada as producers scramble for alternatives to congested export pipelines.

Canadian crude-by-rail exports jumped to 146,047 bpd in the last quarter of 2013, an 83-per cent year-on-year surge, according to the National Energy Board.

Crude-by-rail boom

With Keystone XL and a number of other new pipelines projects mired in regulatory delay and environmental opposition, the crude-by-rail boom shows little sign of slowing.

Jarrett Zielinski, chief executive officer of TORQ Transloading — which is building Canada’s largest unit train terminal in Kerrobert, Sask., said TransCanada would need to load at least roughly nine unit trains per day to rival the takeaway capacity of Keystone XL, if they were to load raw bitumen.

Zielinski said that much extra crude travelling on Canada’s rails, in addition to the new rail loading projects already underway, could strain the system.

“The rail network would need more infrastructure and people,” he said. “It’s my fear that the current rail infrastructure would be insufficient, although it could be scaled up quickly.”

CAPP reaction

The president of the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers (CAPP) says using rail is a good stopgap measure until the Keystone XL pipeline is approved.

“We expect to see pipeline growth, but rail is important in the near term,” said Dave Collyer.

He says CAPP will release its production and transportation outlook for the year next month.

“What it will show is rail is an important interim transportation solution to accommodate the growth and production we foresee,” Collyer said.

He says pipelines are still the best in the long term, but until that happens he says rail is a choice that must be considered.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/transcanada-looks-to-ship-oil-to-u-s-by-rail-amid-keystone-xl-delays-1.2651054

Residents Upstream Of Wanapum Dam Make Do With Low Columbia River

Eugene and Karen Penix live in the Sunland vacation community near Vantage, Washington, above Wanapum Dam.Credit Anna King / Northwest News Network — Eugene and Karen Penix live in the Sunland vacation community near Vantage, Washington, above Wanapum Dam.
Credit Anna King / Northwest News Network

May 23, 2014 Anna King

NWNewsNetwork.org

Dramatically lowered water behind the damaged Wanapum Dam in eastern Washington means boaters are out of luck this Memorial Day on that stretch of the Columbia River.

But people who own vacation homes upstream from Wanapum, at Sunland Estates, say they are getting creative for the long weekend.

The drop in the Columbia River has produced a moonscape of vast sandy islands and miles of mudflats.

It’s all clearly visible from Eugene and Karen Penix’s second-story deck — and all that sand has been blowing into their yard. Penix said he and his neighbors have been fighting back that silt with troops of leaf blowers.

For the long weekend the Penix family has stocked up on a lot of chips, burgers and hot dogs.

They have also stocked up on patience. “You know Americans, they just won’t give up. People are buying these kind of almost portable swimming pools made of vinyl,” Penix said with a laugh. “And that’s kind of a new thing.”

Plus, Penix said wineries, the Gorge concerts and the eastern Washington sun are all good distractions.

This Memorial Day, Honor the Water, Remember the Fallen, and Protect the Mounds

FishHabitat.orgThe Ohio River Water Walk is the third Nibi walk — FishHabitat.org
The Ohio River Water Walk is the third Nibi walk

Mary Annette Pember, Indian Country Today

Officially, Memorial Day is a day on which war dead are honored. Unofficially, it’s a universal day of remembrance for all who have passed on. Many Americans will visit cemeteries over this holiday weekend in order to offer prayers, respect and honor to the graves of warriors and non-warriors alike.

Americans take great care in honoring their dead with fine monuments marking their lives and impact they have made on the world. To express anything other than respect for these sites would be considered downright un-American. The ancestors of Native peoples, however, are frequently not afforded this most basic level of humanity. Our dead often rest in mounds or sites that are marked with far more subtle methods than stone markers.

“There are cemeteries in Europe that are as old as our Native burial mounds here in the U.S. The only difference is that they have headstones with last names that can still be found in the immediate community,” said Kim Wesler, former director of the Wickliffe Mounds site in Kentucky.

The Ohio River Water Walk is the third Nibi walk lead by a group of Anishinabe grandmothers who pray for the water and raise awareness about the pollution that plagues this element that is essential to life. They began the walk in Pittsburgh on April 22, Earth Day, and are concluding their journey on Memorial Day near Wickliffe Mounds, a gesture that sends a poignant, potent message in both time and place.

Once a notorious example of racial disregard for Native burial sites, Wickliffe Mounds now stands as a tribute to what can be accomplished by tribal and mainstream collaboration in reclaiming the sacred.

The Nibi Walkers traveled 981 miles from the source to the mouth of the Ohio River, the most polluted river in America in efforts to reconnect people with the sacred element essential to life. Completing the journey at Wickliffe Mounds has an added bonus of underscoring the treasured graves of Native ancestors that have too often been disrespected and desecrated by mainstream America.

On this Memorial Day in Kentucky, commemorations will include ceremony not only for the war dead of the U.S., but for the many warrior and non-warrior Native ancestors, perhaps killed in defense of their homelands.

Sharon Day, Ojibwe, leader of the walk noted that the Ohio River valley is home to many sacred sites and burial mounds. “It is sad to see such a sacred area treated so badly by pollution and disregard for the ancestors who lie here,” she said.

Sharon Day, Ojibwe, begins the first leg of the day of Nibi Walk along the Ohio River in Cincinnati. (Mary Annette Pember)

Looting of Native graves by amateur and professional collectors in search of artifacts was not an uncommon practice in this region. According to historians with the Ancient Trail of Ohio, hundreds of mounds in Ohio alone have also been destroyed by farming and development.

For generations, Wickliffe Mounds exemplified disrespect for Native sacred places and burial sites.

The modern story of Wickliffe Mounds began in 1932 when Fain King, the owner of the site opened a number of burial mounds on his property, unearthing the bones of hundreds of men, women and children from the Mississippian culture. According to the Kentucky Parks Service, they were likely buried around 1200 A.D. in the large settlement located on a bluff overlooking the confluence of the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers. King created a roadside tourist attraction from his find. He dubbed it “The Ancient Buried City,” where he offered paying customers a close up view of the remains. After removing the tops of the mounds, he built walkways over the graves where ancestors lay interred with pottery and other items. One of the opened mounds offered for public view contained the remains of many infants. The operation continued until 1983 when it was given to the Murray State University of Kentucky. Murray State operated the site until 2004 when Kentucky State Parks took over, making Wickliffe Mounds the 11th Kentucky state historical site.

Wesler, archaeologist and current director of the Remote Sensing Center at Murray State, was charged by the university with taking over the site in 1983. Although he had little knowledge at the time of the cultural concerns of Native peoples regarding treatment of remains, he knew immediately that the bones needed to be taken off display. “I got a crash course in Native American cultural awareness,” he recalled.

“I soon learned that when you define the past as family, you take it personally,” he remarked about those early conversations with tribal peoples whose ancestors are interred in the mounds.

The road to reburial was not easy in those early days for a traditionally trained archaeologist like Wesler. “The archaeological establishment was strictly anti-reburial in those days,” he recalls. One of his colleagues threatened to sue him if he went through with reburial efforts. He was threatened with legal action from a tribe upset about not being involved in consultations. Many community members also expressed anger over the reburial efforts and the decision to remove remains from public display. “The bones were on display for over 60 years. People grew up seeing them and wanted their children to see them. It was sort of a tradition here,” he said.

Chickasaw Nation Lieutenant Governor Jefferson Keel, with Kylo Prince, who is Lakota/Ojibwe from Long Plain First Nation in Manitoba, and Thomas Pearce, of the American Indian Movement of Indiana and Kentucky at an honoring ceremony to rebury ancestral remains at Wickliffe Mounds.

As he worked to make contacts and build relationships with the Native community, Wesler took the bones off display and replaced them with plastic replicas. The plastic bones served as placeholders, he said, as he struggled to strike a compromise among stakeholders.

The plastic replicas and walkways over the gravesites remained until 2011 when the Chickasaw Nation assisted in reburying the remains. The Oklahoma Intertribal Council of the Five Civilized Tribes determined that since the Chickasaw were the closest living descendants of the Wickliffe ancestors they should lead reburial efforts.

During the 2012 ceremony celebrating the reburial of over 400 ancestors from the mounds, Jefferson Keel, Lt. Governor of the Chickasaw Nation noted in his speech that in the past, Wickliffe was a place of desecration. Certainly no Native person would have wanted to visit such a place. Carla Hildebrand, manager of the site that is now owned and operated by the Kentucky State Parks Service, recalled Keel’s words.

“He spoke positively about the growing cooperative relationship between tribes and mainstream officials that allowed the reburial to happen. He said, ‘Now we can move forward,’” she recalled.

The story of Wickliffe Mounds is profound according to Hildebrand. She reports that numbers of Native groups such as the Nibi Walkers now stop in to pay their respects. “I’m happy that the mounds are getting the respect and attention due them,” she said.

“I’m grateful I got to keep those promises made to Native people along the way,” Wesler said.

The history of Wickliffe Mounds reflects a slowly maturing societal opinion regarding Native burial sites, noted Wesler.

Hildebrand noted that in recent years many people expressed discomfort about having the plastic bone replicas on display. “People’s sensibilities are maturing, we are seeing a change in attitudes. People from differing backgrounds would tell us they thought even the plastic replicas were disrespectful,” she said.

Unfortunately, however, modern farming, graveling and urban sprawl continue to take a toll on sacred sites, according to the Ancient Trail of Ohio website. Following are three examples in a long list of ongoing battles between developers and preservationists over protecting sacred sites.

Wal-Mart has a history of destroying sacred sites. They have built or attempted to build stores on burial mounds in Missouri, Tennessee, Georgia, California, and Hawaii. In 2004, Wal-Mart opened a store in Mexico City within view of the 2000-year-old pyramids of Teotihuacan despite protests by local residents.

The owner of Wingra Redi-Mix in Wisconsin wants to destroy a bird effigy mound on his property in order to get at copy million worth of gravel buried beneath. The mound, part of the Ward Mounds, have been called the “Heart of the homelands of the Ho-Chunk Nation.” Effigy mounds in Wisconsin were built as long ago as 700 BC.

The Wingra Redi-Mix Quarry has been bulldozed as close to the bird effigy mound as possible. Wingra Redi-Mix seeks to destroy the mound to reap the copy0 million of sand and gravel. The mounds on the property are protected by a burial site protection act. (WisconsinMounds.com)

Recently preservationists narrowly succeeded in saving the most important surviving Adena earthworks in the Ohio Valley from developers.

A magnetic survey done in 2005 revealed the Junction Group below the surface.

Sharon Day is pondering the significance of finishing her 981-mile journey along the Ohio River near Wickliffe Mounds. Seeing the destruction of the water, earth and sacred sites along the way brings home a message from a long ago Shawnee leader, Tecumseh, who called on people to unite and take action to protect the earth.

“….soon the trees will be cut down to fence in the land. Soon their broad roads will pass over the graves of your fathers and, the place of their rest will be blotted out forever. The annihilation of our race is at hand unless we unite in common cause.”

Sea Star Wasting Syndrome Perplexes Scientists

George Stearns, shellfish biologist for the Puyallup Tribe, inspects a sick sea star caught during the tribe’s crab monitoring study.

Puyallup Tribe Observes Disease Affecting Sea Stars

E. O’Connell, Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission

As part of its regular crab population monitoring, the Puyallup Tribe of Indians is tracking the impact of a myste-rious ailment that is killing sea stars.

An outbreak of sea star wasting syndrome was first noticed last fall in British Columbia. The syndrome starts as small lesions and eventually the infected sea stars disintegrate. Since symptoms were first noticed, the syndrome has quickly spread throughout the Salish Sea and along the Pacific coast.

While there have been previously documented outbreaks, nothing on this scale has ever been recorded. There is no known cause.

“After we started conducting crab surveys in April last year, we started seeing a lot of sea star by catch,” said George Stearns, the tribe’s shellfish bi-ologist. “One pot near the north

point of Vashon Island was full of sea stars.”

The tribe regularly monitors eight stations between the north end of Vashon Island and the Tacoma Narrows. Each station includes nine crab pots.

During the tribe’s early surveys, the sea star population seemed healthy. But Puyallup tribal scientists recorded a sharp die-off in October.

“We saw one monitoring site go from four sea stars per pot in April to 12 in September to zero in October,” Stearns said.

When a diseased sea star catches a ride on a tribal crab pot, it deflates quickly. Within a few minutes, a normally rigid sea star will be hanging on the pot like a wet rag.

“Some of the sea stars we are finding are literally melting in front of us,” Stearns said.

Tribe Narrowing Locations Where Crabs Molt

The Puyallup Tribe monitors crab to pinpoint exactly when the shellfish in the tribe’s harvest area molt, or shed their shells.

“Crabbing during the middle of molting, which makes them soft and vulnerable, can increase the handling mortality,” said George Stearns, the tribe’s shellfish biologist. “It’s a common practice to shut down harvest during the molt. But we’ve

only had a general idea of when that occurs down here.” The data collected will also

help the fisheries managers put together a more complete picture of crab populations in South Sound.

“We GPS the locations so we’re at the same spots and put the pots in for the same length of time,” Stearns said. “So we know we’re comparing apples to apples each month.”

Tribes expand efforts to monitor Nooksack elk

Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission

Point Elliott Treaty tribes are expanding efforts to monitor the Nooksack elk herd in hopes of resolving ongoing damage and safety problems in Skagit and Whatcom counties.

The Upper Skagit, Sauk-Suiattle, Swinomish, Stillaguamish, Suquamish, and Tulalip tribes are trapping elk using collapsible traps baited with apples and monitored with wildlife cameras. Since 2012, tribal and state wildlife co-managers have collared at least 10 cow elk with very high frequency (VHF) collars. These collars help estimate the population during annual aerial surveys of the North Cascade elk herd.

To get more precise information about the herd’s movements, the Stillaguamish Tribe’s Natural Resources Department acquired global positioning system (GPS) collars that transmit point location data every 85 minutes. This is a cost-shared project with the Tulalip Tribes. So far, with support from Suquamish, Sauk-Suiattle and Upper Skagit, they have collared five animals and plan to collar four more.

“The main focus of the project is tracking the movement and seasonal habitat use of the lowland elk that frequent the Skagit River Valley and Acme areas,” said Jennifer Sevigny, wildlife biologist for the Stillaguamish Tribe. “These data are important for our future elk management decisions.”

Because of an increasing number of collisions between elk and vehicles, the state Department of Transportation (DOT) is partnering with the tribes to deploy three GPS collars to determine where and when elk are crossing Highway 20. These GPS collars will be programmed differently so they can record location points at closer time intervals to detect more precise crossing locations along Highway 20.

“The GPS collars are more expensive, but they give exact information on where the elk have been,” said Chris Madsen, wildlife biologist for the Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission.

“Up to 50 elk a year may get hit by vehicles along Highway 20,” said Scott Schuyler, natural resources director for the Upper Skagit Tribe. “We’ve suggested creating wildlife underpasses and increasing lighting around the highway to reduce these impacts.”

DOT recently set up flashing elk crossing signs along Highway 20 in response to the increased elk mortality.

The Nooksack elk herd had dwindled to about 300 animals by 2003, prompting state and tribal co-managers to boost the herd by relocating animals from the Mount St. Helens area, and improve forage habitat through restoration projects. The herd has now rebounded to approximately 1,400 elk.

Some property owners and farmers complain that elk from the recovering Nooksack herd destroy fences and devour crops, and have called for removing the lowland population

“All of this work will help give us a better picture of the population dynamics while helping to address the damage issue,” Madsen said. “If we’re going to consider removing elk, we need to put some science behind it.”

Tribes Recovering from Geoduck Ban

Suquamish Seafoods employee James Banda packs geoduck for international shipping. T Royal — Suquamish Seafoods employee James Banda packs geoduck for international shipping.
T Royal

T. Royal, Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission

Western Washington tribes are quickly recovering from a sudden ban in December 2013 on selling geoduck to China.

The Asian country claimed it received a shipment of geoduck from Ketchikan, Alaska, that had high levels of paralytic shellfish poisoning, and a shipment from Poverty Bay in Puyallup, Wash., that had high levels of arsenic.

As a result, China announced it was ban- ning all imports of bivalve shellfish from Washington, Oregon, Alaska and North- ern California. This was just before the Chinese New Year, a lucrative time for harvesters and buyers, when geoducks are traditionally served.

“It was bad at the beginning because we didn’t know what was going on,” said Tony Forsman, general manager of the Suqua- mish Tribe’s Suquamish Seafoods, which regularly ships shellfish internationally. “China didn’t tell us for two weeks they were doing this.”

Officials from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration have been working with Chinese officials to deter- mine how they came to their conclusions and have been in close communication with Washington Department of Health and western Washington tribal officials about the progress.

The shellfish in question from Poverty Bay passed all the rigorous tests needed to be exported to China, said David Fyfe, shellfish biologist for Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission.

“We’re working with China to figure out why we suddenly don’t meet their stan- dards,” he said.

In the meantime, harvesters and buyers are continuing to send their catches to oth- er Asian countries, including Vietnam. U.S. officials are asking China to reduce the ban area from the West Coast to just the two original areas of concern.

More oil spills ahead for Puget Sound?

By John Upton, Grist

The Puget Sound — prettier without an oily sheen.

It looks like Puget Sound – which isn’t actually a noise but a sprawling and ecologically rich estuary in Washington state – is about to get a whole lot oilier.

An ugly trifecta of fossil fuel export projects proposed around the sound would substantially boost shipping traffic, and a new report funded by the EPA and produced by academic scientists for a state agency warns that can be expected to bring oil spills with it.

If the Gateway Pacific coal export terminal is built at Cherry Point, Wash., and Kinder Morgan’s Trans Mountain pipeline into Vancouver is expanded, and Vancouver’s Deltaport is expanded, the report warns that the frequency of ship groundings and collisions could rise by 18 percent. Regionally, the risks of a large oil spill could rise by about two-thirds, the researchers found. Here’s more from the AP:

“The problem area is the Haro Strait area and the approach to the Strait of Juan de Fuca, where spill volumes could more than triple due to the potential new mix and volume of traffic,” said Todd Hass with the Puget Sound Partnership, the agency is charged with protecting the waterway.

Under a proposal by Kinder Morgan Canada, up to 34 tankers a month would be loaded with oil at a Vancouver-area terminal, up from about five tankers a month now. Those tankers would generally travel through the Haro Strait west of San Juan Island and the Strait of Juan de Fuca.

The report concludes that the risks could be reduced through improved vessel traffic management, more vessel inspections, reduced speed limits for ships, and more tug escorts. And the report points out that those measures could help reduce oil spill dangers regardless of whether the dangerous fossil fuel projects move forward.

Meet me in New York, says Bill McKibben — it’s time to get arrested

By Heather Smith, Grist

It’s not every day that Rolling Stone publishes a call for its readers to engage in a massive act of civil disobedience, but that’s exactly what happened Wednesday. “This is an invitation,” the call read. “An invitation to come to New York City. An invitation to anyone who’d like to prove to themselves, and to their children, that they give a damn about the biggest crisis our civilization has ever faced.”

The call’s author, Bill McKibben (who is – full disclosure — on the board of this publication) and 350.org, the organization he co-founded, are planning a protest in New York this September 21 and 22, which is, not coincidentally, at the exact same time and place as the next UN Climate Summit. “You’ll tell your grandchildren, assuming we win,” writes McKibben — though some might argue that this discounts the very real possibility that, even in the event of a loss, enough marchers might survive through the floods, plagues, famines, and civil unrest of unchecked climate change to pass on the story, in post-apocalyptic Cormac McCarthy style.

Rolling Stone might seem like an atypical venue for this kind of thing. The call (or, as McKibben put it “invitation to demand action”) appears next to articles about hologram Michael Jackson, breaking news regarding the official title of the new Batman vs. Superman movie (Batman vs. Superman: Dawn of Justice — which is, in this reporter’s opinion, a terrible title), and how the magazine has finally “penetrated the secret world” of Jack White.

But two years ago, McKibben published a very long article in Rolling Stone about the risk that carbon reserves pose to both the global economy and the globe, and it was one of the most read articles in the website’s history, even though it entirely failed to penetrate the secret life of Jack White. It went on to spark a student movement to divest college endowments from industries that are contributing to climate change.

The two-day event, as planned, will be a big, big one. Like, March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom big. Among the groups name-checked: health care, transit, education, and construction unions, plus clergy, scientists, students, “plain old middle-class Americans” and executive types. The Seattle Post-Intelligencer reported that, at an “upper-crust” meetup in a Seattle office tower, McKibben told attendees that it was time to start getting arrested, preferably in full business regalia.

“I hope college students are not the cannon fodder,” he told the crowd, adding that it would be particularly nice to see some older people get arrested for a change.

How gracefully this event will coexist with New York’s police force, which has become increasingly militarized in the wake of 9/11 and has a history of dubious behavior in public protest situations, remains to be seen. There’s a new mayor in town, but unless something major happens over the summer, this will be the first large protest under DeBlasio’s administration. That should be interesting.