February, 27 2015, 03:30pm EDT
River Protection, Conservation, and Neighborhood Groups Take Stand Against Proposed Tesoro-Savage Oil Train Terminal
Eight river protection, conservation, and neighborhood groups today moved to become parties in proceedings that will decide the future of the proposed Tesoro-Savage crude-by-rail terminal in Vancouver, Washington.
Columbia Riverkeeper, Climate Solutions, ForestEthics, Friends of the Columbia Gorge, Fruit Valley Neighborhood Association, Sierra Club, Spokane Riverkeeper, and Washington Environmental Council--groups across the state and right next door to the proposed terminal--asked the Energy Facility Site Evaluation Council (EFSEC) to allow them to participate as intervenors.
OLYMPIA, WA
Eight river protection, conservation, and neighborhood groups today moved to become parties in proceedings that will decide the future of the proposed Tesoro-Savage crude-by-rail terminal in Vancouver, Washington.
Columbia Riverkeeper, Climate Solutions, ForestEthics, Friends of the Columbia Gorge, Fruit Valley Neighborhood Association, Sierra Club, Spokane Riverkeeper, and Washington Environmental Council--groups across the state and right next door to the proposed terminal--asked the Energy Facility Site Evaluation Council (EFSEC) to allow them to participate as intervenors.
Tesoro-Savage has proposed to build and operate a crude oil shipping terminal on the banks of the Columbia River that would handle an estimated 360,000 barrels of oil per day coming into the project by rail and leaving by tanker down the river to other ports around the Pacific, making it the largest oil terminal on the West Coast. These tremendous volumes of crude oil would bring risks to communities across the state of catastrophic river, marine, and terrestrial oil spills and explosions. Yet even in the absence of a catastrophe, the everyday operation of this project would result in significant and continuous environmental and public health degradation through a daily parade of rail and river traffic, harmful air and water emissions, harm to fish and wildlife species, and increased greenhouse gas emissions.
"Tesoro's project faces unprecedented opposition. Every day the terminal operates, the threat of a massive train explosion or devastating oil spill would loom large," said Dan Serres of Columbia Riverkeeper. "For people that fish on the Columbia and live along the rail lines, the risks are not worth handing over prime industrial property to the boom and bust oil industry."
"The Columbia River, the Gorge, our salmon--all will be harmed if this oil shipping terminal goes forward," said Michael Lang from Friends of the Columbia Gorge.
"We've seen what the oil business has done to other communities. Fruit Valley can't afford that kind of damage," said Eric LaBrant of the Fruit Valley Neighborhood Association, whose boundaries include the proposed site. "We're not ready to change our name to 'Ground Zero.'"
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Climate Crisis to Cost Global Economy $38 Trillion a Year by 2050
"This clearly shows that protecting our climate is much cheaper than not doing so, and that is without even considering noneconomic impacts such as loss of life or biodiversity," a new study's lead author said.
Apr 18, 2024
The climate crisis will shrink the average global income 19% in the next 26 years compared to what it would have been without global heating caused primarily by the burning of fossil fuels, a study published in Nature Wednesday has found.
The researchers, from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK), said that economic shrinkage was largely locked in by mid-century by existing climate change, but that actions taken to reduce emissions now could determine whether income losses hold steady at around 20% or triple through the second half of the century.
"These near-term damages are a result of our past emissions," study lead author and PIK scientist Leonie Wenz said in a statement. "We will need more adaptation efforts if we want to avoid at least some of them. And we have to cut down our emissions drastically and immediately—if not, economic losses will become even bigger in the second half of the century, amounting to up to 60% on global average by 2100."
"I am used to my work not having a nice societal outcome, but I was surprised by how big the damages were."
Put in dollar terms, the climate crisis will take a yearly $38 trillion chunk out of the global economy in damages by 2050, the study authors found.
"That seems like… a lot," writer and climate advocate Bill McKibben wrote in response to the findings. "The entire world economy at the moment is about $100 trillion a year; the federal budget is about $6 trillion a year."
This means that the costs of inaction have already exceeded the costs of limiting global heating to 2°C by six times, the study authors said. However, limiting warming to 2°C can still significantly reduce economic losses through 2100.
"This clearly shows that protecting our climate is much cheaper than not doing so, and that is without even considering noneconomic impacts such as loss of life or biodiversity," Wenz said.
The damages predicted by the study were more than twice those of similar analyses because the researchers looked beyond national temperature data to also incorporate the impacts of extreme weather and rainfall on more than 1,600 subnational regions over a 40-year period, The Guardian explained.
"Strong income reductions are projected for the majority of regions, including North America and Europe, with South Asia and Africa being most strongly affected," PIK scientist and first author Maximilian Kotz said in a statement. "These are caused by the impact of climate change on various aspects that are relevant for economic growth such as agricultural yields, labor productivity, or infrastructure."
However, Wenz told the paper that the paper's projected reduction was likely a "lower bound" because the study still doesn't include climate impacts such as heatwaves, tropical storms, sea-level rise, and harms to human health.
Unlike previous studies, the research predicted economic losses for most wealthier countries in the Global North, with the U.S. and German economies shrinking by 11% by mid-century, France's by 13%, and the U.K.'s by 7%. However, the countries set to suffer the most are countries closer to the equator that have lower incomes already and have historically done much less to contribute to the climate crisis. Iraq, for example, could see incomes drop by 30%, Botswana 25%, and Brazil 21%.
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Wenz told The Guardian that the results were "devastating."
"I am used to my work not having a nice societal outcome, but I was surprised by how big the damages were. The inequality dimension was really shocking," Wenz said.
Levermann said the paper presented society with a clear choice:
It is on us to decide: Structural change towards a renewable energy system is needed for our security and will save us money. Staying on the path we are currently on, will lead to catastrophic consequences. The temperature of the planet can only be stabilized if we stop burning oil, gas, and coal.
McKibben, meanwhile, argued that the findings should persuade major companies to embrace climate action for self-interested reasons. He noted that most corporate emissions come from how company money is invested by banks, particularly in the continued exploitation of fossil fuel resources.
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Critics noted the conspicuous absence of Medicare for All—once a top progressive agenda item—and foreign policy issues including ending Israel's genocide, apartheid, occupation, settler colonization, and ethnic cleansing in Palestine.
Jayapal toldNBC News that the CPC is focusing its blueprint exclusively on domestic goals—especially ones it feels can be achieved.
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"These mass, illegal firings will not stop us," said organizers. "Make no mistake, we will continue organizing until the company drops Project Nimbus and stops powering this genocide."
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The peace coalition No Tech for Apartheid accused Google of a "flagrant act of retaliation" late Wednesday night as the Silicon Valley giant announced it had fired 28 workers over protests against its cloud services contract with the Israeli government.
The firings came after Google organizers held two 10-hour sit-ins at the company's offices in Sunnyvale, California and New York City, demanding the termination of Project Nimbus, a $1.2 billion contract under which Google and Amazon provide cloud infrastructure and data services for Israel—without any oversight regarding whether the Israel Defense Forces uses the services in its occupation of Palestinian territories and bombardment of Gaza.
Workers have denounced Project Nimbus since it was announced in 2021, but Israel's killing of at least 33,970 Palestinians in Gaza since October and its intentional starvation of civilians led employees to escalate their protests.
No Tech for Apartheid said in a statement that Google officials called the police to both offices to arrest nine protesters—dubbed the Nimbus Nine—on Tuesday morning, before utilizing "a dragnet of in-office surveillance" to fire nearly two dozen other employees on Wednesday.
"They punished all of the workers they could associate with this action in wholesale firings," said the coalition, which includes Jewish Voice for Peace and MPower Change, a Muslim-led anti-war group.
Google accused the workers of "bullying," "harassment," defacing property, and physically impeding other employees—allegations No Tech for Apartheid rejected as it noted organizers "have yet to hear from a single executive about" their concerns over Google's collaboration with Israel.
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