Today, Monday May 13th, New Yorkers from Occupy the Pipeline, Occupy Sandy, and over twenty partner groups will march and rally to greet President Obama when he attends a fundraiser with members of the 1% at the Waldorf Astoria on Park Avenue.

Carbon dioxide levels have now surpassed 400 parts per million, a long-feared milestone. We must act now.

Join us if you stand against fossil fuel pipelines, against fracking, against tar sands, and FOR a country powered by wind, water and solar.

Gather in Bryant Park starting at 5 (meet near the fountain off 6th avenue at 41st Street). Reverend Billy and his choir will lead us off with a rousing blessing and song. We'll begin to march at 5:30, then rally in front of the Waldorf Astoria at 6:30. Please wear yellow and orange to demonstrate your support for a clean energy future.

RSVP and Share on Facebook!

Event Partners: 350 NYC, 350 NJ, 350.org, 99Rise, Brooklyn For Peace, Coalition Against the Rockaway Pipeline (CARP), CREDO, CUNY Divest, Food & Water Watch, Global Kids Inc., Green Party of NY, Human Impacts Institute, NYC Friends of Clearwater, NYU Divest, Occupy the Pipeline, Occupy Sandy, Restore the Rock, Sane Energy Project, Sierra Club Atlantic Chapter, Sierra Club National, United for Action, World Can't Wait, WESPAC, YANA (You Are Never Alone).

-- from the ‘Your Inbox: Occupied’ team

The day before she left her family to go to jail, biologist, mother and activist Sandra Steingraber joined Bill Moyers to talk about the need to build awareness about toxins that contaminate our air, water and food — and threaten our children’s health. With government captured by the very industries it’s supposed to regulate, Steingraber said she’s lost patience with politicians and corporations, and the time for direct action is now.

Steingraber also talks to Bill about her arrest for illegally blocking the driveway of a natural gas company as part of a protest against the controversial energy extraction process known as fracking. Steingraber went to jail on April 17, and is currently serving a 15-day sentence.

“I believe, as do many of my colleagues in the sciences, that it’s not safe to compress explosive gases and store them underneath and beside a lake that serves as the drinking water for a hundred thousand people,” she tells Bill. “From my point of view as a biologist and a mother, this out-of-state company… is trespassing in our community.”

Steingraber returns often to the concept of “toxic trespass” — which “means that chemicals without our consent enter our body sometimes because we inhale them,” she explains to Bill. “You know, each of us breathes a pint of atmosphere with every breath. And so that’s one way in which toxic air pollutants then enter us, into our bloodstream.”

An ExxonMobile underground pipeline ruptured in a Mayflower, Arkansas subdivision on Friday, forcing the evacuation of 40 homes.

Mayflower Police Chief Robert Satkowski said that the evacuations will remain in effect over-night. The chief also stated that it's too early to say how much oil spilled, but crews have prevented it from getting into Lake Conway. That was a big concern all day; the work ahead will focus on clean-up around the affected areas in town.

KATV News:

Chief of Police Bob Satkowski. He confirmed to Channel 7 News that the Northwoods subdivision on Highway 89 was evacuated because of health risks from the crude oil fumes and possible fires should any sparks reach the oil.

Faulkner County Judge Alan Dodson said in a LIVE interview on Channel 7 News at 6:00 that the oil flowed into the storm drain system, a drainage ditch, under Highway 365 and under Interstate 40. Emergency responders managed to stop the flow at all locations.

They are now working to strengthen the earthen dams they have set up to ensure the oil does not begin moving again. Once that is done, they will create an underflow culvert that will allow water to drain through without releasing the oil into Lake Conway and then they will begin the cleanup process.

A Hazmat team from the Office of Emergency Management is on site. They said that a lot of residual oil flowed down Starlight Road - one of two main streets in the subdivision.

The spill prompted evacuations as clean-up crews tackled some drainage areas in town where the oil flowed to. Along Highway 89 across from Lake Conway, crews sealed off two pipes under the road to keep oil from flowing from a city drainage pond into the lake.

An apparent breach in the Pegasus pipeline occurred late Friday afternoon. The pipeline has been shut off and crews are working to contain the spill.

Exxon Mobil said it's investigating the cause and working with local authorities in clean-up efforts. The company added that the breach was in a pipeline that originates in Illinois and carries tar sands oil to the Texas Gulf Coast.

In 2009, Exxon modified the capacity of the Pegasus pipeline, increasing the capacity to transport Canadian tar sands oil by 50 percent, or about 30,000 barrels per day. In a 2012 report, Bloomberg News reported the pipeline daily capacity to be 96,000 barrels of oil per day.

Tar sands oil is the most toxic fossil fuel on the planet, that leaves in its wake scarred landscapes, a web of pipelines, and polluting refineries.

Operational enhancements, such as new leak detection technology, were also reported to be "incorporated to support ExxonMobil Pipeline Company’s primary focus on operating its pipelines in a safe and environmentally responsible manner."

"The expansion of the Pegasus Pipeline is another example of how ExxonMobil Pipeline Company is continuing to develop new projects that provide valued services and enhance supply security," said Gary Pruessing, president, ExxonMobil Pipeline Company.

The Pegasus Pipeline was down for a week of maintenance in mid-December of 2012, possibly a starting point for determining what caused Friday's spill.

By Abrahm Lustgarten, ProPublica

When Uranium Energy Corp. sought permission to launch a large-scale mining project in Goliad County, Texas, it seemed as if the Environmental Protection Agency would stand in its way.

To get the ore out of the ground, the company needed a permit to pollute a pristine supply of underground drinking water in an area already parched by drought.

Further, EPA scientists feared that radioactive contaminants would flow from the mining site into water wells used by nearby homes. Uranium Energy said the pollution would remain contained, but resisted doing the advanced scientific testing and modeling the government asked for to prove it.

The plan appeared to be dead on arrival until late 2011, when Uranium Energy hired Heather Podesta, a lobbyist and prolific Democratic fundraiser whose pull with the Obama administration prompted The Washington Post to name her the Capitol's latest "It girl."

Podesta -- the sister-in-law of John Podesta, who co-chaired President Obama's transition team -- appealed directly to the EPA's second in command, Bob Perciasepe, pressing the agency's highest-level administrators to get directly involved and bring the agency's local staff in Texas back to the table to reconsider their position, according to emails obtained by ProPublica through the Freedom of Information Act.

By the end of 2012, the EPA reversed its position in Goliad, approving an exemption allowing Uranium Energy to pollute the aquifer, though in a somewhat smaller area than was originally proposed.

Continue reading »

[Language NSFW]

This is your Moment of Clarity #214: There is a chemical pumped into 70% of our drinking water that is scientifically proven to decrease IQ. Watch the video. Then check out these articles: http://huff.to/14phJ6g and http://1.usa.gov/JApaOe and http://bit.ly/PrrExo and http://www.nap.edu/openbook.php?recor... and finally an article on how to get it out of your water: http://bit.ly/19NVAX

Keep fighting,

Lee

Artists Against Fracking have released a mini-documentary by filmmaker Josh Fox (Gastown) of the group’s recent tour of fracking sites in Pennsylvania. The group will air a winning TV ad from its #DontFrackNY video contest next week.

Below, Yoko Ono’s new television spot in response to NY Governor Cuomo’s silence and his upcoming Feb. 27th deadline for a decision on fracking. The ad features Ono addressing the Governor, with a response to her unmet requests for meetings.

“Governor Cuomo, since you haven’t met with me about the dangers of fracking, I will show you. PS: Nice to meet you, Governor,” Ono says in the ad.

"After visiting with families in Pennsylvania whose water, homes and lives have been hurt by the gas industry, I wanted to show Governor Cuomo and the public what I saw," she says. "He must know what could happen to New Yorkers -- our air, our water, our climate -- if he allows fracking."

Speaking last week at a press conference for "Artists Against Fracking" in New York City, Sean Lennon responds to the question "What would your father have said about Fracking if he were with us today?"

Yoko Ono and Sean Lennon launched Artists Against Fracking -- an initiative of musicians, actors, and other artists -- to build awareness, and to stop fracking. The initiative came together quickly as a response after it was leaked to the New York Times in June of last year that New York Governor Cuomo is considering lifting the state moratorium on fracking.

Over 130 artists came together in a matter of weeks to form the initiative, including Alec Baldwin, The Beastie Boys, Beck, Bonnie Raitt, Carrie Fisher, David Byrne, Julianne Moore, Lady Gaga, and Leonardo DiCaprio.The goal of Artists Against Fracking is to ban fracking and “For the world to embrace sustainable living and develop renewable energies through economically-viable alternatives to fossil fuel.”

This is a non-commercial attempt from http://www.sanctuaryasia.com/ and https://www.facebook.com/sanctuaryasiapage, to highlight the fact that world leaders, irresponsible corporates and mindless 'consumers' are combining to destroy life on earth. It is dedicated to all who died fighting for the planet and those whose lives are on the line today. The cut was put together by Vivek Chauhan, a young film maker, together with naturalists working with the Sanctuary Asia network.

Content credit: The principal source for the footage was Yann Arthus-Bertrand's incredible film HOME . The music was by Armand Amar. Thank you, too, Greenpeace and http://timescapes.org/

Elizabeth Royte, The Nation Magazine, Author of "Garbage Land: On the Secret Trail of Trash" joins Thom Hartmann. Sticking to environmental horrors...Is fracking responsible for killing off an alarming number of livestock around the nation? Authors of a new report looked into 24 different case studies in six different states where hydraulic fracking is taking place, to find out why livestock is getting sick and dying. Their conclusion: it's the fracking chemicals. For example in Louisiana, the study found 17 cows that died after being exposed to spilled fracking chemicals for only one hour. In central Pennsylvania, after 140 cattle were exposed to fracking chemicals, half died. And in western Pennsylvania, after a nearby pond used by pregnant cows was contaminated with fracking chemicals, half the calves born were dead. And if this is what fracking is doing to animals, what might it be doing to people?

[Via RT.com]

Every year power plants generate 140 million tons of coal ash, enough to fill a train stretching from the North Pole to the South Pole.

It contains chemicals like arsenic, mercury and lead. It can cause cancer and developmental problems. It poisons fish and wildlife in rivers and lakes.

In some places the ash is dumped into uncovered pits. In others it sits behind leaky dams. It poisons the air. It destroys the water. And the corporate polluters responsible, they claim that cleaning up this toxic mess would hurt their profits

But in 2008, when that dam broke, something changed.

Nearly half a million people asked the EPA for stronger protections. Thousands of citizens attended public meetings. Local and national environmental and public health groups got involved. We brought the coal industry face to face with the people they were hurting. Those people are America, and America spoke with one voice.

"Clean Up Coal Ash!"

But that was then and this is now. Four years later there are still no federal protections. Right now some senators want to pass a bill that will prevent the EPA from ever regulating coal ash. They want to ignore the disaster in Tennessee and avoid deadlines to clean up this toxic waste all across America. But we can't let polluter profits triumph over public health. We have to do something to clean up this mess.

So call your senators. Send this email. And share this video with your friends right now. Together we can clean up this toxic mess. But we have to take action now.

Take Action Now - http://earthjustice.org/coalashaction