By Damian Carrington (The Guardian)
Above: Massive thermo-solar plant in Beni Mathar MorroccoThe IEA said investment in oil exploration and production was set to fall by 20% in 2015, as high cost projects in the US, Canada, Russia and Brazil continue to be shelved.
“Renewable energy has become a mainstream fuel.”
Coral Davenport, New York Times
President Obama finally rejected the oil infrastructure project that would have dealt the final blow to the environment and (as per the State Department) would have offered only 35 permanent jobs after construction. Had it not been for scientists and climate activists in both Canada and America, it truly would have been “game over” for Mother Nature.
This will come as a great relief to those who live in the heartland of America. One only wonders what will happen to the farmers who had their land seized through eminent domain for the pipeline.
As for Alberta, oil extractors have turned water into poison and an arboreal forest the size of England into a surreal, Hell-on-earth.
By Jean Tepperman (East Bay Express)
Contra Costa County has over 40,000 acres of industrial brownfields and superfund sites which could be turned into solar and winds farms, a type of creative re-use supported by EPA’s program “Repowering America’s Lands.”
A renewable energy project of this size be would be a job creator and provide an economic stimulus to our area. Even better: installation of 40,000 acres of solar panels could power 1.27 million homes…and our county just has a little 400,000 households.
This could be a real money maker.
Photo credit: Paramount Pictures (“Ferris Bueller’s Day Off”)
Back in the day, teens counted the hours until they turned 15.5 years old. That was the magic age one had to reach to get a drivers permit …and to take one step closer to freedom. Not so today. Many millennials are pushing back that right of passage and are waiting until they are in their 20s for the big step.
They make 15 percent fewer trips by car, they take 16 percent more bike trips than their same-age predecessors did in 2001, and their public–transit passenger miles have increased by a whopping 40 percent. That’s 117 more miles annually biking, walking, or taking public transit than their same-age predecessors used in 2001.
Click the story below and find out why.
By Congresswoman Lois Capps (The Tribune)
In the Tribune, District 24 Congresswoman Lois Capps cites the need to “pivot away from our reliance on dirty fossil fuels and toward a more sustainable energy future.”
The Congresswoman puts her money where her mouth, to boot. This Friday, Capps is convening a panel of industry leaders and academic experts for a public forum at Cal Poly’s to discuss ways to expand the clean-energy economy on the Central Coast and across the country.
By Tom Lochner, Contra Costa Times and San Jose Mercury News
“…Many among the 50-strong audience at the Crockett Community Center were not buying official reassurances, complaining that residents, especially the handicapped and people with asthma and other respiratory issues, should have been notified by phone or other means, and that officials were downplaying the seriousness of the incident.”
Case in point: While Co Co County staff at the front of the room tried to assure the crowd that the County’s own website and twitter account was sufficient for a level 2 warning after the coker caught fire last month, a young woman in the 4th row, thumbs a flyin’, fact-checked those assertions on her iPhone.
Turns out the County’s web page didn’t issue a community warning for 1.5 hours. And the total number of people reached with CoCoCo’s twitter announcement was….2.
Nothing beats Ma Bell and an old-fashioned siren.
By Eric Kurhi
SAN JOSE — Santa Clara County will join scores of cities, counties and school districts opposing a plan that would bring mile-long trains laden with crude oil rumbling through their neighborhoods, a situation county officials claim would be a disaster waiting to happen.
If Phillips 66 gets its way, mile-long trains carrying 2 million gallons of crude will roll on aging tracks through Milpitas and San Jose five times a week. The trains will pass through Diridon Station, the heart of San Jose’s downtown, past schools and through populous neighborhoods until veering out toward Highway 101 to their destination, a refinery in San Luis Obispo.Fortunately, leaders throughout the Bay Area are rising in protest.
http://www.mercurynews.com/opinion/ci_28701342/mercury-news-editorial-crude-oil-trains-too-dangerous
By Tim Pugmire, Minnesota Public Radio
Some 300,000 Minnesotans live within a half mile of railroad tracks that carry crude oil. But almost none of them have been able to see emergency plans the railroads were required to submit by July 1. Rail executives say making the entire plans public would reveal sensitive security information and expose the rail lines to sabotage.
It begs the question: If 300,000 people in Minnesota live next the rail lines, how can the existence of oil train cars be kept secret?
Listen to the podcast here: http://www.mprnews.org/story/2015/08/25/railroads-disaster-plans
By Joshua S. Hill
California’s two public pension funds, California Public Employees’ Retirement System (CalPERS) and California State Teachers’ Retirement System (CalSTRS), suffered a loss of over $5 billion over the last financial year due to investments in the world’s 200 largest oil, gas, and coal companies (by carbon reserves).
Crockett-Rodeo United to Defend the Environment 