The Midnight Flame

The Midnight Flame
by Gabriel Constans

Guaranteed to give you an adrenaline rush and keep you awake to finish those last-minute projects or term papers due first thing in the morning. To live dangerously, substitute double espresso for the coffee, and prepare to stay up all night watching the late movies with a friend.

Yield: 4 cups

1/2 cup chocolate syrup
3 frozen bananas*
1 tablespoon protein powder
2 cups strong brewed coffee
1 tablespoon mint syrup
1 small brownie
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

Place all the ingredients in a blender, and mix on medium speed for 1 minute.

Pour into coffee or tea cups and swig away.

*To freeze frozen bananas, peel and chop the bananas, seal in plastic bags and place in the freezer until frozen.

Nowhere Else in the World

Nowhere Else in the World

The Arctic Ocean is like nowhere else in the world. Home to walruses, beluga whales, and polar bears, this frozen landscape is teeming with life. But soon this fragile habitat could be swarming with oil rigs instead.

Oil companies may soon be able to start buying up new leases in the Chukchi Sea, the first step to oil drilling and, eventually, oil spills.

Act now to oppose new oil and gas leases in the Chukchi Sea »

The Pacific walrus dives deep down to the seafloor to hunt for shellfish. It needs a stable, healthy environment to survive. If an oil spill were to hit the Chukchi Sea, walruses could be forced to swim through oil. Even worse, the effects of a spill could kill food on which walruses, whales, and other animals depend, leaving these incredible animals hungry.

The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) is preparing to sell oil and gas leases in the Chukchi Sea. Drilling in the Arctic is very risky due to icy waters, bad weather, and the complete lack of proven spill response technologies. Shell’s efforts to drill exploration wells have been met with failure after failure, culminating in the grounding of a drilling rig near Kodiak, Alaska. If oil drilling is allowed in the Chukchi Sea, it will only be a matter of time until a disaster strikes.

Walruses and whales need a safe home. Submit a public comment telling BOEM that oil drills don’t belong in the Chukchi Sea »

If enough of us speak up, we can convince BOEM to keep unsafe oil drills out of the U.S. Chukchi Sea entirely.

This important sea needs to be kept safe for the walruses, whales and polar bears who live, hunt, and migrate within its waters.

For the Arctic,
Rachael Prokop
Oceana

The Heart of America

Through the Heart of America

I admit it. When I hear news about the Keystone XL oil pipeline, I know it’s a massive threat to our environment, but I don’t often think of it as a threat to our own country.

The truth is, while it’s often Canadian and other foreign oil companies pushing for the pipeline, it would run right through the heart of America.

That means potential environmental and health devastation right in our backyards.

Keystone XL is our fight too.

We can’t let the oil companies win and put our environment, our families and our world in danger!

Send a message to TransCanada CEO Russ Girling today: Stop the Keystone XL project before it damages the very fabric of our heartland!

Thank you for taking action,

Ellen B.
Care2 and ThePetitionSite Team

Don’t Frack California

Dear Gabriel,

California still has zero regulation to protect our health and water from dangerous fracking — but that’s not stopping the Bureau of Land Management from auctioning off almost 18,000 acres of land for oil drilling and fracking next week.

Fracking contaminates precious water with toxic chemicals, generates cancer-causing air emissions, and in California could pollute crucial agricultural water and lands in the Central Valley, as parts of Monterey, San Benito and Fresno counties are being auctioned off.

California’s environmental regulators are still drafting fracking regulations and fracking is exempt from many critical environmental laws like the Clean Water Act and the Safe Drinking Water Act, so the BLM’s rush to auction off federal mineral rights puts Californians totally at the mercy of the fracking industry and should not move forward.

Tell Bureau of Land Management California State Director James Kenna: Don’t frack California. Click here to automatically sign the petition.

Each fracked oil well permanently contaminates millions of gallons of water with toxic chemicals that can leak into nearby water sources and wells. That puts California’s farming communities, many of which sit on top of oil that would be extracted with fracking, at risk in cases of fracking spills, accidents or leaks. Worse, because many of the oil leases being sold by the BLM are underneath private land, farmers may not even have a right to say no to oil development on their land!

We know what the result of California’s rush to frack will be if we don’t stop it now. In states like Pennsylvania, Texas and Colorado, fracking is making landowners sick, killing livestock, poisoning water, devastating rural land values, and even possibly introducing toxic chemicals into our food supply, all while making us more reliant on planet-warming fossil fuels.

Many of these devastating effects are irreversible. That’s why it’s so important for the BLM to put its foot on the brake now, before selling off rights to oil companies to move ahead with totally unregulated fracking in California.

Tell Bureau of Land Management California State Director James Kenna: Don’t frack California. Click here to automatically sign the petition.

Thank you for standing up to the fracking industry.

Zack Malitz, Campaign Manager
CREDO Action from Working Assets

Clean Offshore Wind Energy

Dear Gabriel,

No more oil spills.

Clean offshore wind energy is safer for the oceans and the planet than offshore oil rigs. Tell your Representative to extend the Investment Tax Credit on offshore wind.

It’s time to go in a new direction. After the Gulf of Mexico oil spill nearly three years ago, we dared to hope that offshore drilling might stop, or at least that it would become much, much safer.

That hasn’t happened. Dolphins and other wildlife are still at risk from oil disasters, and the threat is as big as ever.

We can keep fighting oil, and we will. But we can also fight for a safer, cleaner energy source: offshore wind. Offshore wind can harness a clean and infinite source of energy, while eliminating deadly drilling disasters and helping to create many more sustainable jobs than traditional fuel industries.

Act now to tell your Representative to support clean and safe offshore wind energy TODAY»

The biggest barrier to wind is financing. As with other emerging technologies, offshore wind needs a boost to get started. H.R.3238, the Incentivizing Offshore Wind Power Act, will help with some of that cost by extending the Investment Tax Credit (ITC) for the first 3,000 MW of offshore wind installed.

But we’ll need your help to get it passed. Contact your Representative today and tell them to cosponsor the Incentivizing Offshore Wind Power Act»

We can prevent another Deepwater Horizon disaster. Support clean offshore wind energy today!

We can do this,
Emily Fisher
Oceana

Let the Wind Blow

Dear Gabriel,

It couldn’t be clearer that we need more jobs and sources of energy that don’t bring doom and gloom to the planet.

Yet we are we are weeks away from losing one of the most successful programs to promote wind energy in the U.S., and tens of thousands of the jobs that have come with it.

The Wind Production Tax Credit (PTC), which expires at the end of the year, has been an unequivocal success since it was enacted in 1992. In addition to helping lower the cost of wind energy by 90% and power the equivalent of 12 million homes, the PTC supports 75,000 wind jobs and helps raise $20 billion in private investment in wind energy each year.

Tell Congress: Renew the Wind Production Tax Credit. Click here to automatically sign the petition.

The PTC should be a no-brainer. But the Koch brothers-linked American Energy Alliance and Americans for Prosperity are waging a major campaign to sink it, and many Republicans are going along.

These Republicans are cynically claiming that we can’t afford the $1 billion-a-year program, even as the very same Republicans vote repeatedly to protect billions more per year in tax cuts and giveaways for the oil industry.

Their obstruction could cost an estimated 37,000 wind jobs over the next year, and already wind companies facing the changing economics without the PTC have laid off thousands of workers.

Tell Congress: Renew the Wind Production Tax Credit. Click here to automatically sign the petition.

The PTC is a bipartisan policy originally authored by Republican Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley. Even the rabidly anti-climate U.S. Chamber of Commerce and National Association of Manufacturers support the program because it has been and continues to be a terrific investment. So any elected leader who votes against the PTC is doing so for one reason only: to protect polluters, even at the expense of American jobs.

The potential for wind energy in this country is massive — 20% of all our energy could come from wind by 2030, supporting half a million jobs. But the industry can’t grow without predictable policies. The PTC has been allowed to expire three times since 2000, and each time, new installed wind capacity, and jobs in the wind industry, have plummeted.

It should come as no surprise that it is extremely difficult for emerging sources of energy to compete, as the oil, gas and coal industries continue to benefit from nearly a century of government investment, subsidies, giveaways, tax breaks and now even a political system that has been shaped by their influence and money.

But for the sake of our future, clean sources of energy must not just compete, they must surpass fossil fuels. The PTC keeps us moving in the right direction and Congress should renew it right away.

Thank you for working for better energy policies.

Elijah Zarlin, Campaign Manager
CREDO Action from Working Assets

Hurricanes & Global Warming

We Are Not Powerless to Confront Climate Change
by Amy Goodman
From Nation of Change
1 November 2012

Millions of victims of Superstorm Sandy remain without power, but they are not powerless to do something about climate change. The media consistently fail to make the link between extreme weather and global warming. Through this catastrophe, people are increasingly realizing that our climate has changed, and the consequences are dire.

One meteorologist who defies the norm is Dr. Jeff Masters, who founded the weather blog Weather Underground. As Sandy bore down on the East Coast, I asked Masters what impact climate change was having on hurricanes. He said: “Whenever you add more heat to the oceans, you’ve got more energy for destruction. Hurricanes … pull heat out of the ocean, convert it to the kinetic energy of their winds.”

Masters’ blog became so popular, it was purchased by The Weather Channel. As Sandy moved up the coast, Masters continued with our interview: “When you do heat the oceans up more, you extend the length of hurricane season. And there’s been ample evidence over the last decade or so that hurricane season is getting longer—starts earlier, ends later. You’re more likely to have this sort of situation where a late-October storm meets up with a regular winter low-pressure system and gives us this ridiculous combination of a nor’easter and a hurricane that comes ashore, bringing all kinds of destructive effects.”

Mitt Romney must rue that line in his Republican National Convention speech, days after Hurricane Isaac narrowly missed hitting Tampa, Fla., and the convention, when he quipped: “President Obama promised to slow the rise of the oceans and to heal the planet. My promise is to help you and your family.” Romney drew a big laugh from those gathered to nominate him. No one is laughing now. Sandy’s U.S. death toll has reached 50, with 8 million without power. Initial estimates put the cost of the damage at tens of billions of dollars.

Romney’s latest position on climate change is no surprise, since it conforms with his consistent pivot to the right, away from his previously held views. As recently as 2007, he told CNBC’s “Kudlow and Company,” “But no question about one thing—it’s getting warmer, and [there are] a lot of good reasons for us to use less energy, to use it more efficiently and to develop sources here in this country that could allow us to be more independent of foreign sources.”

We also should not let President Barack Obama off the hook. Recall the presidential debates, where he continually boasted of his fossil-fuel credentials. “Oil production is up, natural gas production is up,” he said at Hofstra, during the second debate. “I’m all for pipelines. I’m all for oil production.” In none of the three presidential debates was climate change mentioned, even once, not by the major-party presidential candidates and not by the moderators.

Masters partially attributes the lack of discussion to the power of the fossil-fuel lobby: “You’re talking about the oil and gas industry … about the entire basis of the industrialized economy. With these sorts of storms, people are going to wise up at some point and say: ‘Hey, what’s going on? Maybe we shouldn’t mess with the very forces that enable us to live on the planet Earth.’ … We’ve got to get self-preservation in our minds pretty soon, or this is just the start of things, Here we are in the year 2012; what’s going to be happening in 2030 if we’re already seeing storms like this?”

Read entire Op-Ed at Nation of Change

Arms Around Antarctic

Dear Friends,

Antarctic waters are home to almost 10,000 species including many of the world’s great whales. But industrial fishing fleets, roaming ever further, threaten their survival. Amazingly we now have a chance to save them by getting governments to create the world’s largest network of marine protected areas there.

In days, 25 countries will meet behind closed doors to decide the fate of Antarctica’s Southern Ocean. Most of them want to save it, but Korea and Russia are leading an effort to scupper the deal for the sake of their own fishing interests. If enough of us raise our voices now, we can break open this meeting, isolate the wreckers, get behind the champions and help create a vital refuge before it’s too late.

The whales and penguins can’t speak for themselves, so the outcome is up to us. Once 750,000 people have signed, Avaaz will flood the talks with hard-hitting billboard ads to cause a stir and convey our message to key delegates. Sign the petition to save the Antarctic Ocean:

http://www.avaaz.org/en/save_the_southern_ocean_1/?bMPbqab&v=18723

An incredible myriad of animals live in these remote waters, many found nowhere else on Earth. Orcas, blue whales, leopard seals, Emperor and Adelie penguins, Antarctic petrels — they are threatened like never before by a cruel mix of rapidly advancing fishing technology and climate change. Massive protected zones in the Southern Ocean is the only way to guarantee their survival.

For the last 20 years mining and oil drilling have been banned in the Antarctic. And CCAMLR, the 25 member governing body that regulates the ocean in this region, has already committed in principle to creating these marine protected areas. But the two plans being negotiated — one to protect part of the fragile Ross Sea and one for East Antarctica — are at risk of dilution or delay. Let’s make sure that disagreement doesn’t destroy our dream of saving Antarctica’s ocean… and our planet.

A small group of negotiators now holds the future of this ocean in their hands. They won’t put the planet before profits – unless they know we’re paying attention! Let’s unleash a massive surge of global pressure right now. Click the link below to sign and then share the petition with everyone!

http://www.avaaz.org/en/save_the_southern_ocean_1/?bMPbqab&v=18723

We know we can win on oceans. Our community has already helped establish the two largest marine reserves in the world. Let’s throw our arms around the Antarctic Ocean now and save it before it’s too late.

With hope,

Alex, Luis, Lisa, Ricken, Laura, Emma, Jooyea and the whole Avaaz team

375 Million in Daily Profits!

From Nation of Change and Think Progress.

What Five Oil Companies did With Their $375 Million in Daily Profits
by Rebecca Leber
25 July 2012

The Big Five oil companies – BP, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, ExxonMobil and Shell – are slated to announce their 2012 second-quarter profits later this week.

We can expect these companies, all of which rank in the top 10 of the “Fortune 500 Global Ranking,” to reveal billions of dollars more in profits, after earning $375 million in profits per day in 2011 ($261,000 per minute), and $368 million per day in the first three-months of 2012 — bringing their combined profits to $1 trillion from 2001 through 2011.

Below is a quick look at just how much these Big Oil companies are making, and where they are spending their billions in profits.

Big Oil’s Big Profits, In 24 Hours

The five biggest oil companies earned a combined profit of $375 million per day, or a record $137 billion profit for the year, in 2011, despite reducing their oil production.

In 60 seconds, these five companies earned $261,000 — more than 96 percent of American households make in one year.

These five oil companies received $6.6 million in federal tax breaks every day.

In 2011, the three largest domestic public oil companies spent $100 million of their profits each day, or over 50 percent, buying back their own stock to enrich their board, senior managers, and largest share holders.

The entire oil and gas industry spent on average $400,000 each day lobbying senators and representatives to weaken public health safeguards and keep big oil tax breaks, totaling nearly $150 million.

Each CEO of the Big Five companies received an average of $60,110 in compensation per day last year. On average, their pay jumped 55 percent in 2011. Exxon CEO Rex Tillerson’s compensation came close to $100,000 per day last year.

Millions in Political Contributions and Lobbying

Despite ranking as some of the most successful companies in the world, big oil and gas companies continue to receive $4 billion in tax breaks each year.

The oil and gas industry has already given over $30.5 million in federal campaign contributions this year, with a whopping 88 percent going to Republicans.

Big Oil has spent an additional $37 million on lobbying Congress this year, with the top spenders being Exxon, Shell, Chevron, Koch Industries and BP.

Their efforts are paying off. This is the most anti-environment Congress in history, with the House of Representatives averaging one anti-environment vote per day, or a total 247 votes through mid-June. The biggest beneficiary of these votes has been Big Oil. The House voted to enrich the oil and gas industry 109 times, a total 44 percent of its anti-environment votes.

The House is on track to collect a record amount of oil industry contributions this cycle, having already reached 2008 and 2010 levels. And these are direct donations only — it does not include Super PAC spending or other campaign assistance.

Outside Interests and Big Oil Allies Spending Tens of Millions More to Influence the Energy Debate

Fueled by Koch Industries and other Big Oil interests, the industry is spending hundreds of millions to fund false ads in this year’s elections. According to the Annenberg Public Policy Center, 85 percent of the dollars have funded false ad, during a season where most advertising have focused on energy.

Pro-Romney outside interest groups spent $24.6 million on energy ads through June 24, according to Kantar Media CMAG data. This is more than ten-times the amount spent by pro-Obama groups, which spent $2.3 million on energy spots.

Read entire story at Nation of Change.

Spill Baby Spill – Arctic Oil

Dear Gabriel,

Weeks away from starting the first major offshore oil drilling operations in the Arctic, Shell is pulling a major bait and switch — telling the EPA it can’t meet the air pollution rules the company had already agreed to in order to get a drilling permit.

Shell has known since 2010 it would have problems meeting the rules for nitrogen oxide and ammonia emissions. But officials still told the EPA they could. Now Shell wants the EPA to weaken the rules at the last minute?

It’s clear that Shell simply cannot be trusted. The company’s request gives the EPA the option to cancel Shell’s permit. That’s exactly what EPA must do.

This is our last, best opportunity to block Shell from drilling in the Arctic this summer.

Tell EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson: Reject Shell’s permit to drill in the Arctic. Click here to automatically sign the petition.

This bait and switch is the latest in a long list of broken promises, walk-backs and mishaps which should serve as clear signs to the Obama Administration that allowing Shell to drill in the Arctic is a recipe for disaster.

Just this weekend, Shell literally lost control of its Discoverer drilling rig, which either ran aground or very nearly did so, when its anchor broke while harbored a thousand miles south of the Arctic. Moderate winds are being blamed — yet these winds are mild compared to what it will encounter in the Arctic. The rig, one of the oldest in the world, had a similar anchor malfunction just last year, while it was stationed in New Zealand.

Shell is also having problems with its nearly forty-year-old oil spill recovery barge. While Shell promised the Coast Guard it would upgrade it substantially to withstand stronger weather, Shell now says those upgrades aren’t necessary. The Coast Guard hasn’t yet decided if it will weaken these standards for Shell.

And of course — while we’ve known for some time that the Obama Administration was being hoodwinked by Shell’s hopelessly inadequate oil spill response plan — now Shell has come out and admitted its initial spill response claims were overstated. Shell initially said it could “recover” 95% of oil in the case of a major spill. Now Shell is saying that what it actually meant is “encounter” 95% of the oil — whatever that means.5

Tell EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson: Reject Shell’s permit to drill in the Arctic. Click here to automatically sign the petition.

Shockingly, the Department of Interior has put the probability of an oil spill in the Arctic at 40%.

That is simply unacceptable. With Shell in the driver’s seat, it’s clear that it would be unwise to even bank on those unacceptably high odds.

Shell’s request to EPA is a major opportunity for President Obama and the EPA to revisit the undeserved trust they have put in Shell thus far. It’s time for EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson to be a hero, and draw a line to stop the next major drilling disaster in the Arctic.

With Shell hoping to start drilling as soon as the Arctic sea ice clears in the coming weeks, EPA’s response could come any day. Click here to automatically add your name to the petition now.

Thank you for defending the Arctic from reckless offshore drilling.

Elijah Zarlin, Campaign Manager
CREDO Action from Working Assets