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Showing posts sorted by relevance for query whales. Sort by date Show all posts
Showing posts sorted by relevance for query whales. Sort by date Show all posts

Thursday, October 09, 2008

Supreme Court hears case Wednesday on Navy sonar, whales

Wednesday, Oct. 8, 2008
Court hears case Wednesday on Navy sonar, whales
By MARK SHERMAN Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) - The Supreme Court is weighing whether presidential power in wartime can override environmental concerns in a case that pits the Navy's submarine-hunting training against protection for whales.

Why do I get the feeling that the whales are going to lose this one?

Maybe because they're up against the US Navy and if the Navy loses, then the oil companies will feel like they are threatened?

Tuesday, August 07, 2007

US navy barred from using sonar

From correspondents in Los Angeles
August 07, 2007 09:32am
THE US navy was today barred from using an ear-splitting sonar in upcoming wargames off the California coast alleged to be harmful to whales and other marine life.



alleged to be harmful to whales and other marine life. ?

Alleged?

Arrrrrgggggghhhh!


Good job, Captains of Industry.

Mmmm,m pr'haps I shouldn't be so hasty to blame Navy sonar for the demise of the whales, it could be a number of Navy pollutants, or it might be sound bombing . You know, for oil exploration.

Alrighty then.

Wednesday, August 02, 2006

halliburton.com landed here, wtf?




Can anyone tell me why someone from halliburton.com in Houston Texas would perform a search using these words:

australia seismic whale dead interview

and then wade through 15 effing pages of Google results to hit on this particular entry?

On this silly little blog?

hmmmm?
LEAD: More than 140 whales die after beachings in Australia, NZ
Asian Economic News Dec 13, 2004
SYDNEY, Nov. 30 Kyodo
...More than 140 whales have died in three separate mass strandings in Australia and New Zealand since Sunday, according to government officials and media reports Tuesday....Sen. Bob Brown of the Australian Greens party said in a statement released Tuesday that seismic tests carried out in oceans to search for gas and oil should be stopped until the whale migration season ends.

''The whale strandings of recent days come exactly a year after a similar stranding on Tasmania's west coast,'' Brown said. ''In both cases, seismic testing occurred in the preceding days.''

Seismic testing is sound bombing of the ocean bed to search for oil and gas. There is growing evidence that such activities may impact whales and dolphins but research data are inconclusive.

''However, the precautionary principle should apply, and the tests, until shown to be safe, should stop -- at least in whale migration seasons,'' Brown said...

or maybe halliburton was looking for this or this?


Greg has some info on the oil barons..

THE BEST THING IN THE WORLD FOR BIG OIL
Greg Palast Aug 03, 2006


Um, Greg? They hate sunlight.

In PA, Big-Time GOP Donors Show True Colors: Green
By Justin Rood - August 2, 2006, 5:51 PM
A Halliburton lobbyist giving money to the Green Party?


Santorum, the Green Party, and some very strange bedfellows

...James Holman (misidentified in FEC records as "Howmen"); California publisher, $5,000:Holman publishes a string of pro-life, Catholic newspapers across California (and, highly incongruously, an alternative paper, the San Diego Reader. According to this article, he pumped a whopping $1.1 million last year into Proposition 73, a parental notification measure that Holman called in ads "the first 'pro-life measure to be voted on in the state of California.'" ...

Oh yeah, good times here in the 50th. oily congresswhore Bilbray votes

He and other local congresswhores along for the slip n slide ride:

North County Reps vote to lift offshore drilling ban

Anybody who thinks San Diego doesn't have any serious problems is a moron, a tourist, or they've spent way too much time with their heads up their asses.

Friday, August 01, 2008

Dead whales and oil companies' seismic testing

Mmm, missed this last month.
Whales stranded off Madagascar
BBC News - news.bbc.co.uk
09 Jun 2008

Same old shit, different company.

Whatever.

Missed this one,


and this one

Shit. All of these articles go on and on about algae blooms and chasing fish, and eating sand and blah blah blah. Most of these mass beaching have one of two things in common:

Seismic testing (generally for oil or gas), or Navy Sonar testing in the area recently, both of which are so fucking loud that the bones in ceteceans' ears break.

I'm not a scientist, but I'm not a freaking idiot either. I became a liberal after taking business classes, how's that for defiant?

The militaries which depend upon oil probably don't want me connecting the dots, eh?

Fuck 'em. This planet is so fucked because of human activity
.

Saturday, January 26, 2008

Big oil's threat to whales and people

...our thousand spills--over one a day--recorded by the oil industry in its land operations in the last decade, and keeping in mind that offshore hazards are far greater, the inevitable accidents seem certain to accumulate into an ongoing and permanent calamity. A black effluvia of crude petroleum and drilling mud and chemical pollutants would spread inshore, suffocating plankton and invertebrates and bottom-dwelling fish and poisoning great stretches of Arctic coast with a viscous excrescence. The same toxic mixture will blacken the drifting ice, fouling the pristine habitat of Arctic birds, the Pacific walrus, four species of seals, and the beleaguered polar bear, while contaminating the migratory corridors of the white beluga and endangered bowhead whales—all this defilement made much worse by the grim fact that no technology has ever been developed for cleaning up spilled oil in icy waters. Even in spills in temperate waters, such as the Exxon Valdez disaster, only an average of less than 15 percent is ever removed.

An immediate threat to Inupiat culture is the disruption of animal habitats and whale migrations caused by seismic testing, in which arrays of powerful airguns shoot sound waves through the sea floor in search of deep rock formations that might hold gas or oil. "The underwater noise produced by seismic airguns...is among the most intense sounds ever generated by humankind.... The potential harm is enormous," according to Dr. Christopher W. Clark, a marine biologist and undersea acoustics specialist at Cornell.
(click on pic for more information)
Very short bursts of very high energy noise are exploded within the ocean and injected into the earth. Those explosions are repeated over and over again, twenty-four hours a day, for days on end...going off every 9–12 seconds. They represent the most severe acoustic insult to the marine environment I can imagine short of naval warfare.[3]

Seismic testing has been shown to cause significant mortality in fish eggs and larvae, and while permanent harm to adult animals has not been researched , it can scarcely be doubted that physical and neurological damage will result. Yet seismic prospecting (minimally monitored for the bowhead whale, an officially recognized endangered species) is still permitted before leases for ocean drilling are issued, and the leases stipulate no protection of wild creatures against loss of habitat or other harm that might impair their chances of survival.

Even without disruptions such as seismic testing, the rapid withdrawal of the ice is truly ominous for Arctic wildlife, since the melting edges of the ice pack are where life proliferates in the twenty-four-hour light of spring and summer. The profusion of phytoplankton and sea algae attracts fish and birds and also the bowhead, which consumes plankton; the beluga feeds along the ice edge on the small Arctic cod. Of the four seal species, the bearded and ringed seals are entirely ice-dependent, and the preferred habitat of the Pacific walrus, too, is drifting ice, which carries it over the rich mollusk beds from which it feeds. Warming has already set in motion an ecological chain reaction as the ice-edge cod, which feed the ringed seals, which feed the polar bears, follow the retreating sea ice farther and farther from the coast...

Wednesday, January 16, 2008

Bush Exempts Navy From Environmental Law


(click on pic for C&L "Die, Whales Die!!!" post.)
Bush Exempts Navy From Environmental Law
PAULINE JELINEK | January 16, 2008 01:50 PM EST | AP

WASHINGTON — President Bush exempted the Navy from an environmental law so it can continue using sonar in its anti-submarine warfare training off the California coast _ a practice critics say is harmful to whales and other marine mammals.

How many times have I posted on this?

How many more days do we have to deal with this asshole? I knew he would get his way in less than six months, and the spoiled rotten fucktard piece of shit did.

Yes, I did just call the president of the US a FUCKTARD PIECE OF SHIT. We will have to deal with the world-wide devastation of this administration, stemming from the absolute fanatical worship at the altar of the "free market," for the rest of our lives, our kids lives, and if the planet can still sustain lives, our great great grand children's lives.

You don't get the connection between allowing the military to train and the "free market" neocon fucktards?

Cubby Holes.

You think the federal dollars are heading to San Diego study the health of the ocean?

Or to the military-industrial-congressional-complex?

Which WILL protect the profits of the privatization warriors.

Fuckers are making money on both sides of the "war on terra."

Upper management seems to think that they are playing with toy soldiers.

Not human beings.

Wednesday, July 19, 2006

Indonesia

http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&ned=us&q=tsunami+death+toll

Muckraking in Java's gas fields
Southeast Asia Jul 14, 2006
By Chris Holm
JAKARTA - On May 27, a natural gas drilling operation in Indonesia's East Javaprovince got exceptionally messy. ...Indonesia's national environmental watchdog, Wahli, estimates the costs of theclean-up could reach more than US$200 million. Meanwhile, in the town of Sidoarjo,thousands of the displaced villagers hunker down as best they can in a large sectionof a market converted into a makeshift refugee center. With their crops in ruins andtheir workplaces shuttered, they have been promised a subsistence income ofUS$30-$70 a month by Lapindo and are subsisting largely on handouts.And still the mud continues to flow. Around the drilling site, the land has beentransformed from green paddy fields into inhospitable seas of asphalt-colored muck.Near its center, a black geyser roars, like an unearthly scene from a volcanic plateau. Mired at the center of the muck is the drilling company, Lapindo. To manyIndonesians, the lines between the cause and effect of the mud seemed clear: theypointed directly at the prospector - and down into the almost three-kilometer deephole it had dug.

acquisition Oilfield Glossary


Santos activity map
Exploration Program LNG and oil are the focus of Santos' 25-well high-impact exploration program for 2006. Total expenditure across the company’s Australian and overseas exploration areas is forecast at $225 million compared with $187 million spent on exploration in 2005. Reflecting the widening geographical nature of Santos’ exploration portfolio, 17 of the 25 wildcat wells will be drilled outside of Australia. This includes eight wells in the Company’s core Indonesian area, two in its emerging Timor-Bonaparte region, and seven wells to be drilled in new Santos areas of interest such as Egypt (three wells) and the shallow water Gulf of Mexico in the USA (four wells). In Australia, two wells will be drilled in the Carnarvon Basin offshore Western Australia, one well in Queensland’s Bowen Basin, two in the Otway Basin and three wells in the onshore Cooper Basin.
Materiality is weighted towards the third and fourth quarters of 2006 when the Lynedoch and Evans Shoal South prospects will be drilled in the Timor-Bonaparte along with exploration wells in the Kutei and East Java basins in offshore Indonesia...
Increase in profit before tax by 21% and net profit by 23% to..

Post-mortem to be done on south-east whale
Last Update: Wednesday, July 5, 2006. 11:43am (AEST)
A dead pilot whale found beached off the South Australian south-east coast will be transported to Adelaide for a post-mortem examination.
The four-and-a-half metre pilot whale found at Eight Mile Creek yesterday will be transported to Adelaide in the next couple of days. It is hoped a cause of death for the half-grown whale can be determined. The Environment Department says there have been five cases of whales beaching themselves in the south-east over the past four years. However, most of those whales had been smaller in size. District ranger Ross Anderson says most of the past whale beachings had occurred after seismic testing had been carried out in the area, but there was no proof of a connection to tests currently being carried out. The whale carcass will be examined by the South Australian Museum when it is transferred later this week. Santos, the company carrying out the seismic surveying, says it is impossible to say what caused the whale's death. A spokesman says the company follows strict guidelines to ensure the protection of marine mammals within its test areas. The company has only been able to complete limited days of seismic testing off the south-east coastline due to adverse weather conditions.

Chevron's Approach (to renewables)
Marine seismic vessel
This marine seismic vessel is towing multiple streamers that contain hydrophones. Air guns emit a signal like a sound wave that travels through the water into the Earth, passes through strata with different seismic responses and filtering effects, and returns to the hydrophones to be recorded as seismic data.


Think they'll need one of these off the coast of California?

Pacific Energy Resources Ltd. Announces Signing of Purchase and Sale Agreement for Majority Interest in Beta Oil Field Unit
JULY 10, 2006 - 08:30 ET
LONG BEACH, CALIFORNIA--(CCNMatthews - July 10, 2006) - Pacific Energy Resources Ltd. (TSX:PFE)(the "Corporation") wishes to announce that further to its news release of February 24, 2006, it has signed a definitive Purchase & Sale Agreement with Aera Energy LLC regarding the sale of its 71% interest in the Beta Unit, offshore California. Before the acquisition is completed, the Corporation is required to satisfy a number of financial and regulatory requirements, further particulars of which have been filed today on SEDAR as an additional News Release at http://www.sedar.com/.Netherland Sewell & Associates (NSA) estimated Proved Reserves of 19.78 Million barrels of 14 degree API oil and 3.23 Bcf of gas as of May 1, 2006 for the Unit. It also estimated 11.61 Million barrels of Probable oil reserves, 1.93 Bcf of Probable gas reserves, 31.26 Million barrels of Possible oil reserves and 4.84 Bcf of Possible gas reserves. These estimates are based on forecasted price scenario and have PV10% values of US$ 193.90 Million, US$ 89.29 Million and US$121.14 Million for Proved, Probable and Possible reserve categories respectively.The Beta Oil Field is located in San Pedro Area, in Federal waters nine miles offshore Long Beach, California. The leases in question are POCS 300, 301 and 306. A complex of two production platforms (Eureka and Ellen) and a facilities Platform (Elly) handle production from these leases. Platform Edith, also in the Beta Oil Field in lease POCS 296 is neither owned nor operated by Aera and is not included in this acquisition.The Beta Field was discovered in 1976 by Shell Oil Company...

Umm. that's like ONE day's worth of oil for the US.

Wednesday, June 25, 2008

Mixed feelings this AM.

First the funny stuff. Amita Sharma has a lovely voice with slight inflections that are interesting to try to figure out. This morning on the local NPR station I really don't know where she was emotionally, but I was laughing my ass off:

San Diego Wants Blackwater to Make Training Facility Wheelchair Accessible

I can't stand Bonfiglio, & I love Mike Aguirre AND his brother.

Still plugging along until the isp sends the right driver. Dayang I miss reading y'all, but this thing is just sooooo slow. Oy. Be back soon. Vista is a pain in the ass so far.

Not happy with the Supreme Court this morning either:


Court rejects death penalty for raping children

By MARK SHERMAN, Associated Press Writer 1 hour, 58 minutes ago
WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court has struck down a Louisiana law that allows the execution of people convicted of a raping a child...

and

The Supreme Court on Wednesday also cut the $2.5 billion punitive damages award in the 1989 Exxon Valdez disaster to $500 million.

and watch the Supreme Court be responsible for more dead cetaceans:


Supreme Court to decide Navy sonar appeal
Mon Jun 23, 2008 1:29pm

Seriously. Who does the Supreme Court protect in these cases? It ain't the whales.

Wednesday, February 11, 2009

Chu, energy, and weirdness I notice

Stephen Chu: "We're Looking at a Scenario Where There's No More Agriculture in California"
By Joseph Romm, Climate Progress. Posted February 11, 2009.
Eight years of disinformation and muzzling U.S. climate scientists has left the public largely unaware of the catastrophes ahead.

Alternet expands on an article I noticed a week ago,because climate change is doing weird things in this country. And other places.

Australia Fires a Climate Wake-up Call: Experts
Published on Wednesday, February 11, 2009 by Reuters
by David Fogarty

I wonder if Chu is keeping his eyes peeled for what the evil seeds of the Cheney Administration are doing outside the country?

Indonesia Lifts Tsunami Warning Issued After Massive 7.0-Magnitude Quake
Wednesday, February 11, 2009

Probe eyed on stranding of melon-headed whales
02/11/2009 05:33 AM

Earthquakes caused by underwater oil and gas exploration, shrinking magma, magnetic stripping and polar reversal
Staff Reporter
Mar. 29, 2005

Right.
Move along. Nothing to see here.
No coinkydinks what-so-ever.

Wednesday, April 02, 2008

Justices asked to hear Navy sonar, whales case

Bush administration asks Supreme Court to review ruling that limits use


Reed Saxon / AP
A gray whale dives off the Southern California coast near the Palos Verdes Peninsula on Jan. 16.

Something tells me that the Sooopreme court justices won't be using teh Google search terms that they need to. It'll be all Homeland Security All The Time.

I've heard from more than one sailor that one of the few joys when you're stuck out at sea for what seems like forever is watching the dolphins.

Monday, December 04, 2006

Have we had enough?

Runaway victory for Chavez
AP
4 December 2006 13:08
...Conflict and ambition have marked the rise of Chavez, from a boy selling homemade sweets in a dusty backwater to a failed coup commander in 1992 and now a leader who could set the tone of Latin American politics for years to come...

Bush Mulls Resumed Energy Drilling Off Alaska
Bristol Bay, Alaska, is home to endangered whales and sea lions and the world’s largest sockeye salmon run.
..."House Republicans scheduling a vote next week to expand offshore drilling off Florida’s coast, only underscores that G.O.P. stands for Gas and Oil Party.”...
By FELICITY BARRINGER
Published: December 4, 2006

Pelosi: Our Coasts Need Lasting Protection from Oil and Gas Drilling
By: Nancy PelosiPublished: Dec 4, 2006 at 07:41

Haven't the energy industries and the vehicle manufacturers run this country long enough?

Saturday, July 01, 2006

Good job, captains of industry


Heeeey, looks good....

Gray whale births rebounding on Pacific Coast
Thursday, June 29, 2006 Posted: 1456 GMT (2256 HKT)

Will it last?







A mystery of mass death
By Andrew Darby
December 1, 2004

Mystery my ass, pay attention, I predict more beachings


Navy allowed to use sonar in war games
HI Star Bulletin
Posted on: Friday, June 30, 2006 10:50 AM HST



Yeesh, between the gas and oil companies , the companies and people that pollute, the Navies that protect them and the ignorance of global warming, the whales and dolphins are fucked. The noise isn't just "pollution" to them it is survival, or death. They beach themselves, and sometimes the tympanic bones recovered from their corpses are broken. If they are deafened that means that they have no way to navigate.

In fact the oceans are fucked, but don't try to tell the captains of industry that, their useless offspring don't have enough in their trust funds yet. And the captains have help.

Just more of the same

And via Danny, some digging on what I suspected

Ok that was a bummer, now go laugh at Rush via Robin Williams on Leno Crooks & Liars

thanks C&L, I needed to laugh.



Tuesday, May 02, 2006

Blowholes and Blowback



400 Dead Dolphins Wash Up on African Beach
MSNBC News
Friday 28 April 2006

Underwater noise:Death knell of our oceans?
Linda Weilgart, Ph.D
Assistant Professor of Biology,
Dalhousie University 7 November 2005

U.S. Navy Sonar May Harm Killer Whales, Expert Says
John Pickrell for National Geographic News
March 31, 2004

Media Looks the Other Way: U.S. Military Largest Source of Toxic Waste
By Andrea Sutton Apr 1, 2004, 23:48


Blowback: The Cost and Consequences of American Foreign Policy
by Jon Baker

Update: Hmmmm, when I posted this morning, I had no idea that Chalmers Johnson would be writing for TomDispatch today. Weird, huh?