Bomb Trains

ALL ARTICLES, Bomb Trains, Climate Change July 16, 2020

You Pay For Abandoned Fracking Wells Left Spewing Climate-Killing Methane Nationwide: ‘Privatize the profit, socialize the mess’:

“Are we going to be responsible for the mess that these companies leave behind?” By Eoin Higgins Common Dreams (7/13/20) A devastating new report from the New York Times details how as fracking companies are going out of business they are leaving behind unsecured wells spewing methane and other gases into the atmosphere and paying out the same executives that drove them into bankruptcy huge bonuses—drawing condemnation from activists and climate advocates. “Frackers don’t clean up after themselves,” tweeted 350.org founder Bill McKibben. Even before the coronavirus outbreak, the U.S. fracking industry was struggling amid debt obligations, the rise of renewable energy sources, and…

ALL ARTICLES, Bomb Trains, CIA, Climate Change, Resist! June 22, 2020

Pipeline Protests Used As Excuse For Cynical Sneak Attack Attack On Our First Amendment Rights

By Alan Neuhauser U.S. News & World Report (6/6/20) LAWMAKERS IN TEXAS passed a bill last month that they say will speed the construction of some 11,000 miles of pipeline by 2050 that is needed to keep the state’s oil boom going: Any protester who blocks or otherwise “interferes” with the construction of an oil and gas pipeline, transmission line or other “critical infrastructure” project will face up to 10 years in prison – the same sentence given to some sex offenders, triggermen in driveby shootings and other felonies. The bill is expected to be signed by Republican Gov. Greg Abbott. If he does,…

ALL ARTICLES, Bomb Trains, Climate Change September 23, 2019

Update From The ‘Frac Sand Sentinel’ — Danger: Heed Fracking Air Pollution Warnings

How is deregulated natural gas flaring impacting Texas? According to a professional photographer who visited the Bakken in North Dakota, flaring is also occurring there in abundance and pouring pollutants into the air. Watch the video from Texas. “Texas Sharon” Wilson readily uses her Flir Camera to demonstrate the pollution affecting those who live near a hydraulic fracturing area. These pollutants are causing illness among the residents. Link to 4-Minute Video Since the fossil fuel industry is involved in “slowly poisoning west Texas” there is no doubt that pollutants from the Bakken are also polluting North Dakota and nearby mid-western…

ALL ARTICLES, Bomb Trains September 23, 2019

LNG ‘bomb trains’ Ignite Nightmare Scenario For South Florida

There is no way to put out the fires or prevent the explosions should a rail car carrying LNG derail and rupture. By Ann Henson Feltgen FloridaBulldog.org (9/18/19) “If I lived in South Florida near the Florida East Coast Railway corridor, I would move now.” That statement came from Ron Kaminkow, of Reno, Nev., who is an Amtrak engineer and general secretary for Railroad Workers United. “If a train derailed and there was an explosion and fire, you’re dead!” he added. Kaminkow was talking about a nightmare scenario here where so-called “bomb trains” towing liquified natural gas tank cars now run…

ALL ARTICLES, Bomb Trains, Climate Change, Democrats September 9, 2019

Exxon Mobil Is Funding Corporate Dem Think Tank Operation By Way Of Rep. Ron Kind’s Third Way

[Editor’s Note: Keep in mind Rep. Ron Kind is a founding and ongoing member of the Wall Street funded corporate front group Third Way. — Mark L. Taylor] By Kate Aranoff The Intercept (9/6/19) THE PROGRESSIVE POLICY Institute, a centrist Democratic think tank that grew out of the party’s pro-business wing in the 1980s and ’90s, received $50,000 from Exxon Mobil in 2018 via its parent organization, the Third Way Foundation, according to the oil giant’s 2018 Worldwide Giving Report. Exxon Mobil did not return The Intercept’s multiple requests for comment. In an email, PPI Executive Director Lindsay Lewis…

ALL ARTICLES, Bomb Trains, Climate Change April 11, 2019

‘Losing Earth’ Explores How Oil Industry Played Politics With The Planet’s Fate

‘Losing Earth’ Explores How Oil Industry Played Politics With The Planet’s Fate. By Terry Gross Fresh Air / WHYY (4/8/19) Climate change is often thought of as a partisan issue in the United States, but New York Times journalist Nathaniel Rich says that wasn’t always the case. Rich says that from 1979 until 1989, climate change was viewed as a bipartisan problem — then the the oil industry “descended and bared its fangs” and everything changed. In his new book, Losing Earth, Rich writes that in the late 1980s, the American Petroleum Institute began paying scientists to write op-eds questioning climate science. He describes the…

ALL ARTICLES, Bomb Trains, Climate Change March 28, 2019

As Climate Chaos Worsens: Recording Reveals Oil industry Execs Chortling Over Their Direct Access To Trump

The oil lobby has had ready access to top administration officials, both inside the Interior Department and out. By Lance Willims Center for Investigative Reporting / Reveal (3/22/19) Gathered for a private meeting at a beachside Ritz–Carlton in Southern California, the oil executives were celebrating a colleague’s sudden rise. David Bernhardt, their former lawyer, had been appointed by President Donald Trump to the powerful No. 2 spot at the Department of the Interior. Just five months into the Trump era, the energy developers who make up the Independent Petroleum Association of America, or IPAA, already had watched the new president…

ALL ARTICLES, Bomb Trains, Climate Change, Worker Notes by Tom Crofton February 25, 2019

Climate Crisis & Environmental Risk Is The Externalized Cost Of A Rigged Energy Industry

We need a new politics that creates a new economy. By Tom Crofton The Commoner Call (2/25/19) Now that the Green New Deal has been widely discussed the naysayers are lining up to trash the idea. This has been expected. Outside of the climate crisis deniers — fortunately an increasingly small group — the largest push is coming from the “free market” advocates who do not want to lose their gravy train of “return on investment” on fossil fuels and its related industry. When modern capitalists bring out the old saw about markets being the best way to regulate business…

ALL ARTICLES, Bomb Trains December 27, 2018

Growing Divestment Movement Is Beginning To Hit The Fossil Fuel Industry Where It Hurts The Most

By Bill McKibben The Guardian (12/16/18) I remember well the first institution to announce it was divesting from fossil fuel. It was 2012 and I was on the second week of a gruelling tour across the US trying to spark a movement. Our roadshow had been playing to packed houses down the west coast, and we’d crossed the continent to Portland, Maine. As a raucous crowd jammed the biggest theatre in town, a physicist named Stephen Mulkey took the mic. He was at the time president of the tiny Unity College in the state’s rural interior, and he announced…

ALL ARTICLES, Bomb Trains November 1, 2018

Could This Become Your Neighbor? Living On The Front Lines Of Wisconsin’s Silica Sand Mines

Frac Sand mine, Eau Claire County, Wisconsin. By Christine Yellowthunder Fractracker Alliance (10/29/18) Most people living in Wisconsin, Minnesota and Iowa have increased their knowledge over the past six years regarding the fracking destruction occurring across the country. The horror of fracking damages to life and land remain in the minds of most people who live near the massive land destruction from silica sand mining for what the unconventional oil and gas industry lovingly calls “proppant”. Very often, we in the Midwest wonder if the rest of the country knows that this specialized form of silica sand mining destroys…

ALL ARTICLES, Bomb Trains September 27, 2018

‘Shameless’: Trump Repeals Rule Crafted To Prevent Oil-Carrying ‘Bomb Trains’ From Derailing & Exploding

By Jessica Corbett Common Dreams (9/25/18) n a move that outraged environmentalists and increased the chances of deadly and destructive accidents, the Trump administration’s Department of Transportation (DOT) has repealed an Obama-era rule that mandated safety upgrades for “dangerous” oil tanker trains to reduce the possibility of derailments, explosions, and spills. “This commonsense rule was put in place in response to a series of deadly accidents, and this shameless decision to repeal it will mean more workers and communities are put at risk,” declared Sierra Club Beyond Dirty Fuels campaign director Kelly Martin. The rule required trains carrying…

ALL ARTICLES, Bomb Trains, Climate Change August 2, 2018

The Empire Files: The History Of Worldwide Tyranny Of Big Oil

“The oil industry is our government. There is no difference.” — Greg Palast, Investigative reporter. By Abby Martin The Empire Files / teleSur (1/15/16) The oil industry is a powerhouse with control over land, resources, politics and more. In this episode of The Empire Files, Abby Martin uncovers big oil’s strong-arm reach–its growth, its crimes, its power and its impunity. Featuring interviews with two investigative journalists who have covered oil disasters on-the-ground–Antonia Juhasz, author of “Black Tide: The Devastating Impact of the Gulf Oil Spill”, and Greg Palast, author of “Vulture’s Picnic: In Pursuit of Petroleum Pig, Power Pirates, and…

ALL ARTICLES, Bomb Trains, Climate Change June 18, 2018

TransCanada’s New ‘Best-In-Class’ Gas Pipeline Blows Up In Fiery Blast Mere Six Months After Completion

By Sharon Kellly DeSmog.blog (6/7/18) This morning [6/7/18], residents of Marshall County, West Virginia, awoke at 4:15 a.m. to a major natural gas rupture and explosion on TransCanada’s Leach XPress pipeline on Nixon Ridge — a quickly built pipeline only half a year old. The fire was visible for miles, local TV news reported. Police warned anyone who could see the flames to evacuate — and the Emergency Management Agency director of neighboring Ohio County said officials had received dozens of 911 calls from locals able to see the fire, which was extinguished roughly four hours later. The blast was so powerful that…

ALL ARTICLES, Bomb Trains, Climate Change, Good News February 5, 2018

Here’s How To Battle Climate Change Without Washington DC.

Frack oil train running alongside the vulnerable Mississippi River. By Bill McKibben The Guardian (2/1/18) he most telling item in Donald Trump’s State of the Union address may have been what wasn’t there: any mention of climate change, the greatest problem the world faces. And just as telling was the fact that official Washington seemed barely to notice. Understandably preoccupied with his vile attacks on immigrants (or cheering his ability to actually stay with one task for one hour), press, pundits, and other politicians treated the omission as not even worthy of note. The Democratic response from Representative Joe Kennedy didn’t touch on…

ALL ARTICLES, Bomb Trains February 8, 2017

Fire Chief Recalls Fiery Oil Train Derailment: ‘I have never seen anything more terrifying’

(The Commoner Call photo by Mark L. Taylor, 2017. Open source and free to use with link to www.the commonercall.org ) (Editor’s Note: Keep in mind the oil train in this story is the same kind of trains we have rolling through the heart of many cities – like La Crosse, WI – and thousands of small towns and villages across the nation. Really, it is time to move to non-fossil fuel energy energy. From wellhead to car gas tank, oil is a growing disaster. – Mark L. Taylor) By Jeff Klasen Bay Today (2/4/17) It’s been…