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oil spills
What’s Really Behind the GOP Drive to ‘Save the Whales’ From Offshore Wind?
Think tanks funded by ultra-conservative donors and fossil fuel companies coopted a coalition of “grassroots” opposition organizations to stop the development of clean energy, despite the fact that oil and gas are the true threats to ocean life.
Jun 29, 2024
As a communications director for an environmental nonprofit, much of my job boils down to separating fact from fiction and disseminating the former to the public. That’s why in June, National Ocean Month, at the top of my to-do list has been disentangling a convoluted narrative touted by Republican party officials. They claim offshore wind energy is threatening marine wildlife, begging the question, “Have Trump and his allies turned into unlikely environmental champions sporting ‘Save the Whales’ placards? Or is something more suspect lurking beneath the surface?”
Republicans have run with the myth that offshore wind energy development endangers whales drawing from vague theories about noise and electrical generation and the construction of turbines. This myth has stopped multiple wind projects in their tracks in New York and New Jersey. It has been the fodder of countless viral media moments. And most recently, it has propelled a lawsuit against a Biden administration wind project off the coast of Virginia. Despite the fact that scientists and experts say there is absolutely no evidence linking wind development to whale endangerment, this messaging spin has proliferated.
So how—and why—did the GOP successfully promulgate this false narrative without any scientific backing? Like all successful propagandists, they didn’t act alone. Think tanks funded by ultra-conservative donors and fossil fuel companies coopted a coalition of “grassroots” opposition organizations to stop the development of clean energy. The fossil fuel industry has weaponized its cronies in Congress and “the third sector” to maintain the status quo of oil and gas energy dominance. Where there was blatant climate denial years ago, there were industry-funded politicians parroting Big Oil talking points. And where there is clean energy policy obstruction and interference now, there are the same industry-bought politicians and community “environmentalist” allies with newly outfitted sloganeering.
The fossil fuel industry and its allies will continue to fight to the bloody end for the last drops of oil and the last scraps of profit, and we do not have time to entertain their deceit.
The fact is that investment in renewable energy would actually help whales and other marine species whose habitats are threatened by the effects of the climate crisis. But the richest layer in this ocean of conspiracy is that offshore oil and gas drilling, a major piece of the very industry backing this faux-ecological crusade to save the whales, is a direct threat to a seriously endangered species called Rice’s whale.
With estimates of fewer than 100 individuals in the wild, Rice’s whale is one of the most endangered species in the world and the only baleen whale resident year-round in the Gulf of Mexico. Since its reclassification three years ago, the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) has scrambled to protect its habitat and mitigate its declining numbers. In the NMFS’ list of primary threats to the species, the four most severe are “range curtailment from energy exploration and development, exposure to oil spills and spill response, vessel collisions, [and] anthropogenic noise during seismic survey.” For self-identified champions of marine species welfare, the organizations and think tanks behind the right-wing spin campaign about offshore wind’s endangerment of whales have been curiously silent about Big Oil’s offshore drilling operations that comprise every single one of those threats.
It is understandable that fossil fuel industry mythmaking would obfuscate the real ecological stakes in offshore energy development. Rice’s whale is but one environmental victim of the prolific and extensive fossil fuel industry’s oceanic damage.
When Big Oil drills, Big Oil spills. Since the turn of the century, there have been hundreds of oil tanker spills—spills that have released hundreds of thousands of gallons of oil into the ocean. When Big Oil spills, wildlife populations and communities along the coast suffer. Seabirds, marine mammals, fish, and vegetation can be displaced, injured, or killed at each stage of the drilling process. They are also poisoned by crude oil and hydraulic fluids introduced by the drilling operations, which, once bioaccumulated up the food chain, sicken the people who consume them. Coastal communities also rely on the Gulf, in which offshore oil production accounts for 15% of total U.S. crude oil production, for fishing, boating, recreation, and tourism—to say nothing of the cultural connection they have to the ocean. Big Oil threatens these central facets of coastal life with spills and pollution. Offshore wind does not.
In the narrative battle over energy in the seas, the stakes are high. The fossil fuel industry and its allies will continue to fight to the bloody end for the last drops of oil and the last scraps of profit, and we do not have time to entertain their deceit. As National Ocean Month comes to an end, for the sake of our future, our ocean, and all who rely upon it, the importance of discerning fact from fiction cannot be lost on us.
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After Years of Indigenous-Led Campaigning, Court Grants Rights to Peru's Marañón River
The decision "establishes a groundbreaking legal framework that acknowledges the inherent rights of natural entities," said one campaigner.
Mar 19, 2024
After years of campaigning, an organization of Indigenous women in Peru's Loreto province celebrated "a landmark decision" on Tuesday by a court in Nauta, which found that the Marañón River has "intrinsic value" and that its "inherent rights" must be recognized by the government.
The Mixed Court of Nauta ruled that specific rights of the river must be codified, including the right to exist, the right to ecological flow, the right of restoration, the right to be free of pollution, the right to exercise its essential functions with the ecosystem, and the right of representation.
Led by Kukama women, the Huaynakana Kamatahuara Kana Federation in the Parinari district of Loreto began its legal fight on behalf of the Marañón River in 2021, demanding that the state and federal governments protect the waterway from "constant oil spills."
Petroperu's Oleoducto Norperuano, or Norperuvian oil pipeline, caused more than 60 oil spills between 1997-2019, and the 28 communities represented by the federation are still recovering from a 2010 oil spill that sent 350 barrels of oil into the river near Saramuro port.
Indigenous groups blocked the river in protest in September 2022 after another spill sent 2,500 barrels of crude oil into the Amazon, of which the Marañón is a main tributary.
The Marañón supplies drinking water directly to communities in Loreto, and is a vital habitat for fish that help sustain Indigenous communities.
"We do not live on money. We live from what we grow on our land and our fishing. We cannot live without fish," Isabel Murayari, a board member of the federation, told the Earth Law Center, when the group filed its lawsuit in 2021.
The Kukama women also aimed to halt infrastructure projects including hydroelectric dams and the Amazon Waterway—recognized as environmental risks by the International Union for Conservation of Nature—and warned that illegal gold mining has left the Marañón with mercury contamination that must be remedied.
Martiza Quispe Mamani, an attorney representing the Huaynakana Kamatahuara Kana Federation, said the "historic ruling is an important achievement of the Kukama women."
"The fact that the judge of the Nauta Court has declared the Marañón River as a subject of rights represents a significant and transcendental milestone for the protection not only of the Marañón River but also of all rivers contaminated by extractive activities," said Mamani.
In addition to granting the river inherent rights, the court named the Indigenous group and the Peruvian government as "guardians, defenders, and representatives of the Marañón River and its tributaries."
Loreto's regional government was ordered to take necessary steps with the National Water Authority to establish a water resource basin organization for the river. The court also required Petroperu to present an updated environmental management plan within six months.
Mariluz Canaquiri Murayari, president of the federation, said the group's fight to protect the environment in the region "will continue."
"It encourages us to fight to defend our territories and rivers, which is fundamental," Murayari said of the ruling. "The recognition made in this decision has critical value. It is one more opportunity to keep fighting and claiming our rights. Our work is fundamental for Peru and the world: to protect our rivers, territories, our own lives, and all of humanity, and the living beings of Mother Nature."
The women who led the legal action noted that courts in recent years have recognized rights for other waterways, including Colombia's Atrato River, New Zealand's Whanganui River, and Canada's Magpie River.
Monti Aguirre, Latin America director of International Rivers, which supported the federation in its lawsuit, said the ruling "underscores the vital impact of community-led advocacy in safeguarding river ecosystems and sets a crucial precedent for river conservation efforts globally."
"By recognizing the Marañón River as a subject of rights, this decision is significant not only in terms of environmental protection but also in advancing the rights of nature and the rights of rivers," said Aguirre. "It establishes a groundbreaking legal framework that acknowledges the inherent rights of natural entities, paving the way for similar legal recognition and protection of rivers worldwide."
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California Oil Spill Leaves 'Gooey Mess'--And a Reminder of Big Oil's Dangers
'It is distressing to once again see this kind of devastation visited upon a sensitive location'
Jun 23, 2016
An oil spill has reportedly leaked thousands of gallons of crude from a pipeline into a canyon in Ventura County, California; fire officials said Thursday--in what environmentalists say is a reminder of the dangers of coastal fossil fuel operations.
The leak spilled at least 29,000 gallons, or 700 barrels, as emergency crews used hoses to suck up the "gooey mess" that was created when the oil formed a small lake in a gorge known as Prince Barranca, the Los Angeles Timesreported.
The operating line has been shut down. The LA Times notes that this is the 10th time in 10 years that the pipeline company Crimson Pipeline has had its pipes break or fail.
Meanwhile, the oil company Aera Energy, jointly owned by Shell and ExxonMobil, is responsible for 25 percent of California's output, making it one of the state's biggest oil producers.
"It is distressing to once again see this kind of devastation visited upon a sensitive location," said Brian Segee, senior attorney with the Santa Barbara-based Environmental Defense Center.
The figures on the oil spill have been difficult to verify. Earlier in the day, fire officials estimated the spill at 5,000 barrels—or 210,000 gallons—before amending it to a much smaller number.
Segee noted that the response to last year's Plains All-American oil spill on Santa Barbara's Refugio Beach was similar.
"So far, estimates for the size of this spill have been all over the map. It is important to remember that with last year's Plains All American Oil Spill at Refugio Beach, the initial industry estimates were orders of magnitude below reality," Segee said. "But we are still very early in understanding the scope of this spill and the challenges that yet another major oil spill will deliver to our region. Regardless of the size, any amount of spilled oil is inexcusable and destructive."
The Center for Biological Diversity (CBD) told the LAT the spill should serve as another warning of Big Oil's risks.
CBD attorney Kristen Monsell said, "This major spill is another grim example of why we must get pipelines and oil drilling out of California's vulnerable coastal environment. The spill's already causing environmental damage. We've got to stop thinking about these oil spills as accidents and start regarding them as completely predictable ecological tragedies that we can prevent with strong action."
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