WINTER OF OUR CONTENT - SOUTH-CENTRAL ALASKA 2011-12

Greetings all. Now that spring is here, in South-Central Alaska, time to examine this past winter in some detail, as it has been a very interesting and turbulent one. And to put it in perspective with what has been going on elsewhere in North America, which has been quite alarming, in the central and eastern U.S. and Southern Canada.                            

http://climate.gi.alaska.edu/Climate/SixCities/Anchorage/index.html

The Alaska Climate Research Centre, which is part of the Geophysical Institute at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, developed and maintains the informative graphics located at the link above. We'll use these to illustrate just how interesting, and chaotic a winter it has been here in South-Central (and most of Alaska, really), along with a few pictures of ours with some ground truth for you, around the Anchorage/South-Central area. .

This is a graph of all the daily high and low temperatures from the official Anchorage climate station, at the NOAA/National Weather Service office, near the Anchorage/Ted Stevens International Airport. We'll keep these mainly in degrees F since that is how they are presented on this graph. You can see how variable/turbulent the monthly departures from mean temperatures were, which was certainly reflected by the weather we experienced. The monthly departure of temperature averages from the means are as follows:

Nov:  -8.2

Dec:  +4.0

Jan:  -14.6

Feb:  +4.9

Mar:  -5.2               For the winter as a whole (Nov-Mar): -3.8F (-2.3C)

For the rest of Alaska, roughly, these are the monthly mean departures:

                        NOV     DEC     JAN     FEB    MAR

Barrow            -0.9       -1.8       -7.2      +2.0    -8.9
Nome              -9.5       -3.0     -22.5      +3.7    -9.1   

Bethel            -10.2      +4.0     -14.6     +5.0    -5.2    

Fairbanks      -10.8       +8.1    -19.0      +7.2   -6 .9

Juneau            -3.7       +3.9      -1.4      +3.6   -0.7 

For Alaska as a whole then, roughly speaking (since we're using just these 5 stations from around the state), the mean temperature departure for the NOV-MAR period was -3.8F (-2.1C), slightly below average. In the broadest sense, the jet stream stayed further north most of the winter heading mostly into SE Alaska and Canada (but not the lower 48 often enough, as we'll see!). When the jet stream was in that pattern, there were more low pressure systems in the Gulf of Alaska, which were able to move over or near South-Central Alaska, giving us this, the graph below, above average precipitation for most of the winter. Along with the coolest temperatures, in NOV, JAN, and MAR. In DEC and to a lesser extent FEB, the strongest portion of the jet stream directed lows directly over or just to the west of South-Central Alaska, bringing our warmest weather, but also the strong, sometimes damaging windstorms. 

As you may already know, Anchorage recorded it's snowiest recorded winter this season, since 1953, beginning which snowfall has been measured at/near the current location adjacent to the Ted Stevens International Airport, in the SW part of the Anchorage "Bowl". 134.5" (343.9cm) was recorded this season, as of 07 APR, beating the old record of 132.6" (336.8cm), set in 1954-55.

With the generally favourable jet stream configuration, keeping so many more lows further north, moving over or not too far to the east of South-Central Alaska, the snow just kept coming. Even in December, as warm as it was, after a couple strong windstorms with abrupt warming to temperatures as high as 42-48F (7-9C), heavy snowfalls still occurred on the back-sides of them, as cold air swept in behind, after they moved inland. March proved quieter, in this respect, it is usually one of the driest months in most of the state. The extensive seasonal ice cover in the Bering and Chukchi sea keeps weather systems from being able to pick up much moisture if they move over them, heading east or northeast and inland.

As you can see from Anchorage's snow depth plot this winter, we got off to a great start in November, with 10" on the ground by 6th. After the very warm windstorms of 04-08 DEC, heavy snowfalls still continued, so depths increased greatly during that month. We reached our plateau, 36" (91.4cm) the first week in March, then gradually began losing it, as expected, with the longer days of stronger sun, and occasional warm spells. The depth of 23" (58.4cm) as of 07 APR is the greatest for this date in the last 20 years.  

Kluane's travel on the ice was easy and safe, here on the North Fork of Campbell Creek, not too far from the CFRC. Even by 11/10, the ice was building up fast, as temperatures fell below 0F at night occasionally. Here at the base of the Chugach mountains.

Kluane came to us on the last day in October, from Alaska Dog and Puppy Rescue.

http://www.akdogandpuppyrescue.com/  He had been turned into the Anchorage Animal Shelter by a family when he was a year old for being too hyperactive, nipping (but not biting aggresively) and jumping. On his last day before his allotted time was up, AK Dog and Puppy Rescue took him in and found foster homes for him, until we found him, and brought him home. We think he is Bernese Mountain Dog and Husky mix, and will be two years old in mid-May. He is a very smart and happy youngster, still learning the ways of the wilderness, and how to relate to the other species there. Mattie is trying to teach him, but he is still very young and full of energy. He loves to get into water, which is unusual for huskies, and has a very unfortunate drive to try and herd moose, possibly from his Bernese side, which are sheepdogs in Switzerland. 

Sometimes on our cross-country ski or running outings, he thrashed around in the icy streams, then plowed through the already deep powder in mid-November. Becoming the Yeti of the Chugach, or a Dr. Seuss nightmare of a creature.

By the third week in November, we already had over a foot snowdepth near the airport, and almost twice that here on the trails near the CFRC, at the base of the Chugach. We were in cross-country ski heaven, both classic and skate skiing were fantastic all month. And because the rest of North America had warmer than normal conditions and much less snow, Anchorage had the greatest depth of any large city on the continent, and was Snow City N.A.!

December was a stressful month for everyone living in the Anchorage Bowl. The six windstorms, two of which had gusts over 100 mph (the strongest - 118 mph!) along the hillsides, brought abrupt warming, strong winds, periods of rain, then followed by sometimes heavy snow. Air travel was disrupted into Anchorage by periods of severe turbulence and wind shear (the ANC bowl is highly vulnerable to these because of it's unique topography), with some pilots reporting the worst conditions they'd ever experienced in decades-long careers.  

 

 The unprecedented SIX consecutive windstorms from 04-21 DEC were beyond the memory of even the oldest residents of Anchorage. Typically there are just one or two storms of this type per year! There were alot of trees blown down throughout the ANC Bowl, including our bridge across the N. Fk of Campbell Creek, which we use daily on our runs/skis along the base of the Chugach. We had to drag out the trusty APR Stihl chainsaw and do some bridge and trail clearing. Many homes had roof and fence damage, including throughout the neighbourhood that the CFRC is located in. We spent a few sleepless nights worrying about roof and structural damage at the CFRC, as the whole building shook in the stronger gusts and windows rattled. On at least two occasions at the CFRC, gusts of 80 mph (128 kph) occurred.

There was even a grizzly bear still active in early Dec, we saw it's prints occasionally on our runs. A man living on the hillside saw him nosing around their backyard during the strongest storm, a large older male! Quite something to think about. It's possible he was sick or injured, preventing him from being able to hibernate. By the middle of the month, his signs stopped appearing.

Running during the strong windstorms (forget about skiing) was stressful at times, having to worry about the possibility of flying tree limbs, falling trees, and icy conditions. As it was, I fell and broke my hand on 12/20 at the start of this run, during our last DEC windstorm. Slipped on solid slanted ice hiding beneath a small accumulation of wet slush and went down hard onto my right arm/hand running full speed. It was quite painful, and I had to break for a few minutes before resuming, whilst Mattie and Kluane tended to your lead editor.

This polar-orbiting satellite (POES) image shows our strongest DEC windstorm and the pattern causing it very nicely. Strong south jet stream flow caused by a large high pressure ridge over the eastern Pacific is forcing a low pressure system with a deep "atmospheric river" of moisture northward from the subtropics, into Alaska. This storm brought strong winds, and heavy rain, followed by heavy snow, to all of mainland Alaska south of the Alaska Range, from Kodiak east to Yakutat. Whilst all of the SW of Canada and the west of the U.S. stayed mild and dry, underneath that very strong high pressure ridge. A pattern that is occurring more frequently now over western North America, as the globe continues it's rapid warming from our industrial/transportation inputs of CO2 and Methane from fossil-fuel combustion.

After the stress of the first three weeks of DEC, colder, and continued snowy weather brought quieter, more tranquil conditions to South-Central Alaska. Assistant editor Mattie was having to work quite hard on our snowshoe outings up the lower slopes of the Chugach in the deep powder here in early January.

January ended up having a -14.6F departure from average for the monthly mean temperature in Anchorage. This translated to many days at the CFRC and our adjacent trails where after low temperatures of -20 to -25F, highs would only be -15F or so. On this day, we had our coldest skate-ski outing of the winter. It was about -15F at the time of this picture, on the multi-use trail in Hillside Park. Skate skiing becomes very slow below 0F as the glide of the skis decrease. Waxing helps, but still not enough to cause great slowing. It took almost twice as long to do our normal 15K short route this day.

By the middle of the month, up in the higher country of the Chugach, snow depths were over twice what they were down lower in the city. Here near the Williwaw Lakes, which we skied into in early JAN, the tops of the 8-15' mountain hemlocks are barely visible. Whilst the frozen lakes are buried.

Contrast that to how the area looked just over three months previously, in late September. On a calm, cool, exceedingly rare, windless day! Allowing the crystal clear cold lakes to become perfect mirrors.

February brought much warmer temperatures after the sometimes bitter cold of January. Caused by more southerly flow bringing lows on a track to the west of South-Central Alaska. Bringing mild maritime air northward from the Pacific. Here Mattie is investigating some other people out in one of the two other, weaker windstorms we had in February. On this day, temperatures were near 37F (+3C) with winds of 35-50 mph.   

The warmer conditions, longer days, and continued heavy snowfalls, made back-country travel in different areas of the Chugach mountains increasingly enjoyable. We made our first trip on classic cross country skis up the Eagle River, upriver from the Nature Centre, late in the month. Temperatures were a relatively balmy 15-20F, allowing for a very pleasant day in this incredibly beautiful 5000-7000 ft. deep canyon, just 20 miles NE of Anchorage. Moody lighting from lower clouds and snow flurries highlighted parts of these incredibly steep, rocky/icy slopes. The highest of which receive snow even through the summer.

The ice on the Eagle River was already at least 2-3 feet thick, then with at least that much more snow on top of it. On this fast-flowing river in the steep canyon, some sections never freeze, but there are always ways to ski around those. This canyon is one our favourite, and treasured areas to hike/run/ski in, throughout the year. We are so fortunate to have it this close at hand.

March returned colder than average conditions to South-Central Alaska, but with less snowfall. This was great for our daily runs/skis and back-country outings. Keeping the snowpack in good condition, and not allowing the rivers/streams to begin thawing/opening up. On our second ski up the Eagle River in mid-March, on a cloudy, slightly snowy day with temperatures of 15-20F (about 10-15F below average for high temps.), the now stronger, higher sun was filtered by the clouds and flurries. And the river ice was in great shape.

Kluane was having a great time by late in March, plowing through the 4-6 ft deep snowpack around the trails/roads on our daily runs and skis. With his larger, webbed feet, he can move much faster than many other dogs through deep snow. And his thick fur keeps him very warm.

All in all, although there were some very stressful times in December, this winter we will long remember for it's interesting, and enjoyable weather, most of the time. The colder, snowier conditions made for excellent skiing and kept the rivers/lakes stable for safe travel. We are uneasy though about the potential for stronger and more frequent windstorms through the winter months, as with more warming, there will be more energy to fuel them from the contrast of cold arctic air over the mainland with the warmer, moister maritime airmasses coming up from the Pacific.

This was all in very great contrast though to what has happened this past winter/early spring in much of the U.S. and southern Canada!

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2012/04/09-5

Record Warm March Temperatures Continue Record-Breaking Periods

More than 15,000 warm temperature records broken during March

- Common Dreams staff

The contiguous United States experienced the warmest March ever in the warmest start of the year ever in the warmest 12-month period ever, according to new data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

The record warm March temperatures hit the entire nation with each state having experienced at least one record warm daily temperature. The NOAA reports that there were over 15,000 warm temperature records broken during the month.

The NOAA also connected the record breaking March temperatures to the slew of tornadoes saying that "warmer-than-average conditions across the eastern U.S. also created an environment favorable for severe thunderstorms and tornadoes."

The first three months of the year were record warm for the contiguous United States with an average temperature of 42.0°F, 6.0°F above the long-term average.

The April 2011 to March 2012 period, which included the second hottest summer and fourth warmest winter, was the warmest such period in the contiguous U.S..

Looking at whether human-caused global warming was a factor, NOAA analysts wrote in a draft assessment on "Meteorological March Madness 2012": "Our current estimate of the impact of GHG (greenhouse gases) forcing is that it likely contributed on the order of 5% to 10% of the magnitude of the heat wave during 12-23 March. And the probability of heatwaves is growing as GHG-induced warming continues to progress."

And Jerry Meehl, a climate scientist with the National Center for Atmospheric Research, told the Associated Press, “Everybody has this uneasy feeling. This is weird. This is not good.”

A report issued last month from the Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) linked the increase in extreme weather with human-caused global warming. “The information is all on the table,” Thomas Stocker, one of the report’s lead authors, told EurActiv. “If you have high emissions of anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions, then you will increase the incidence of ‘hottest days’ by a factor of 10.”

* * *
NOAA: This animation shows the locations of each of the 7,793 daytime and 7,493 nighttime records (or tied records) in sequence over the 31 days in March.

* * *

From the NOAA report:

The first three months of 2012 were also record warm for the contiguous United States with an average temperature of 42.0°F, 6.0°F above the long-term average.

• Numerous cities had a record warm January-March, including Chicago, Boston, and Washington, D.C. No state in the contiguous U.S. had below-average January-March temperatures.
• "The previous 12-month period (April-March), which includes the second hottest summer (June-August) and fourth warmest winter (December-February), was the warmest such period for the contiguous United States. The 12-month running average temperature was 55.4°F, which is 2.6°F above the 20th century average." * * *

MSNBC: US shatters record for warmest March -- and first three months of a year

Stu Ostro, a senior Weather Channel meteorologist, told msnbc.com that the bigger picture isn't promising.

"It's not only what happened in March in North America," he said, "it's the context: the extremity of this extraordinary early-season heat in the U.S. and southern Canada, plus Norway and Scotland breaking their March high temperature records; Texas and Oklahoma in 2011 having their hottest summer on record, even hotter than during the Dust Bowl; the off-the-charts 2010 Russia heat wave along with approximately 20 countries setting high temperature records that summer; and Canada having its warmest winter and year on record in 2010."

"All of this happening with such frequency," he added, "provides overwhelmingly convincing evidence that the overall increased warmth is making the atmosphere more conducive to these sorts of heat extremes."

For us, here at the Alaska Progressive Review, we feel this to be as significant, and alarming of an occurrence, as the Australian wildfires of Feb. 2009, and the Russian heatwave/wildfire outbreak of summer 2010 (in which at least 60,000 deaths occurred due to the dangerous air quality).

http://akprogressive.blogspot.com/2010/08/how-close-are-we-now.html

http://akprogressive.blogspot.com/2009/03/warning-lights-are-flashing-australia.html

Cheers.

TROUBLING WATERS - NORTH SEA EMERGENCY

This is a real planetary emergency folks, as bad or worse, than the Deepwater Horizon blowout in the Gulf of Mexico. Because uncontrolled methane releases are now occurring from a deposit in the North Sea, off of Scotland, that has an unknown extent. Give this a read:

Growing Gas Cloud Forces Evacuation of Oil Rig in North Sea

French-owned platform is abandoned with no answers yet on how to avert further calamity

- Common Dreams staff

An oil and gas platform owned by French oil giant Total has been evacuated and an 'exclusion zone' has been set up around it, as a cloud of natural gas hovers over the site and a six-mile long 'sheen' has formed in the ocean around the rig.

Oil platforms in the North Sea - Total said the cause of the gas leak at the Elgin rig remains unclear. (Photograph: Getty)

Ships have been ordered by Maritime and Coastguard Agency in the UK to stay at least two miles from the Elgin PUQ platform, which sits about 150 miles off Aberdeen on Scotland's east coast, and aircraft must stay at least three miles away. 

Technical teams from the oil company were investigating the cause of the gas leak but declined to give further details, according to a Total spokesman today. The company contends that although the situation is 'stable' though they admit they do not yet know the source of the leak. 

Environmentalists have warned about the inherent risks of drilling in the North Sea, and Bellona, a Norwegian environmental NGO, has been monitoring this well closely.“This is a gas blowout that is out of control and is going to be so for a long time," Bellona President Frederic Hauge said. “The information we have right now indicates that it will be very challenging to prevent a blowout. This is a critical situation that is out of control.”

* * *

Total's Elgin platform in 2009. An exclusion zone has been placed around the platform in the North Sea following a gas leak which forced it to be evacuated, coastguards said on Tuesday. (AFP)BBC reports:

Jake Molloy, of the RMT union which represents offshore workers, was asked if the incident was the most serious in the North Sea since the 1988 Piper Alpha oil platform tragedy which saw 167 men die.
He told BBC Scotland: "Fortunately we have dealt with the human side of it, but the potential exists for catastrophic devastation.
"If it somehow finds an ignition source we could be looking at complete destruction." [...]

Dr Simon Boxall, an oceanographer at Southampton University, told BBC Scotland that this was not a deepwater drilling rig and platform but it was unusual in that they were drilling down 5km (3.1 miles) into the sea bed.

He said: "It is a very deep well. The gas they are bringing up is what we call sour gas.
"That gas has a high proportion of hydrogen sulfide and carbon dioxide and that makes it very flammable and quite poisonous.

"So the big problem they have got is dealing with a very combustible gas - unlike Deepwater Horizon where we were dealing with crude oil which ironically is very difficult to light sometimes."

Bellona, an international environmental NGO based in Norway reports:

Total Gas Leak in North Sea Out of Control for Foreseeable Future

As the news started to pour into the Bellona offices on Monday night, the information became more and more alarming.

“The information we have right now indicates that it will be very challenging to prevent a blowout. This is a critical situation that is out of control,” Hauge said.

Jake Molloy, the head of the section of the UK union that represents offshore oil and gas workers, agreed telling Reuters that A separate relief well may need to be drilled to ease pressure and allow emergency teams to regain entry to the rig and try to fix the problem.

"The well in question had caused Total some problems for some considerable time ... a decision was taken weeks ago to try to kill the well, but then an incident began to develop over the weekend," said Malloy.

"Engineers have told me that it is almost certain that gas is leaking directly from the reservoir through the pipe casing," he said – something Hauge had pointed out might be the case early Monday morning.

So far, three oil platforms – the Elgin, Shell’s Shearwater and nearby Rowan Viking drilling rig have evacuated a total of 323 workers – 238 from Elgin alone.

Extreme reservoirs
The Elgin/Franklin reservoirs are located off the coast of Aberdeen, Scotland in an area of ​​high petroleum activity. The fields are linked. The area contains a large field with wells up to 6000 meters deep and that hold extreme pressure and temperature.
During the drilling of Elgin/Franklin in 2003, world records for pressure and temperature were broken as engineers found reservoir pressures between 600 and 1100 bar and temperatures reaching 200 degree Celsius. By comparison, the Deepwater Horizon blowout occurred at 896 bar. The field on which the platform is located was discovered in 1991.

Bellona has learned that there have been incidents at the well that have veered dangerously close to accidents, including a serious incident in 2005. Other grave safety shortcomings have also been revealed in this field.

Total was, in fact, considering killing the well when the problems began over the weekend.

“The well in question had caused Total some problems for some considerable time [...] a decision was taken weeks ago to try to kill the well, but then an incident began to develop,” Malloy was quoted by the BBC as saying.

Elgin identified as a problem well
According to Hauge, the Elgin/Franklin is “the well from hell.”
The incident leading up to the bubbling disaster started early on Sunday morning at Elgin platform when workers discovered a well control problem.
They noted a blue sheen on the water’s surface and bubbles from boiling water beneath the platform. The leak was already so large Sunday by 12:15 that 219 non-critical personnel were evacuated to Aberdeen, leaving a skeleton crew of 19 aboard the platform.

Crews from Elgin, other platforms evacuated
Those left behind tried to gain control of the leak. Over 114 hours, they attempted to jam the well with drilling mud with no success. At 6:14 am, they abandoned their attempts and were evacuated, which raises the chances of a major blowout significantly.
After the evacuation, a no-fly zone of three nautical miles around the well was established. Coastguards said shipping was also being ordered to keep at least two nautical miles away.

During the evening on Monday the gas cloud is became so large that workers aboard Shell’s Shearwater platform 6 kilometers away reported they could smell it.
Shell also evacuated 52 of the 90 workers aboard Shearwater platform, leaving 38 onboard. Thirty three of these have now been evacuated to the nearby Noble Hans Deul platform

Petroleum company Total E & P United Kingdom (TEP United Kingdom) operates the Elgin/Franklin platform and Rowan Viking rig, which was connected to Elgin. Total E & P told Bellona that both the platform and the rig are intact and confirmed that all crew have been evacuated to the mainland.

Impossible to stop
In Bellona's analysis, the discharge at the Elgin field is going to be very difficult to stop. When the gas escapes it becomes impossible to get back on board the platform to deal with it. Gas in the water affects the buoyancy of possible rescue rigs, and the water is flammable. [...]
When gas and condensate coming from such great depths as great as 5000 meters at high pressures rise, they will expand exponentially on their way to the surface. Sand and debris will dig holes in metal near the bore hole. If the gas is moving outside of the well, it will dig further and further into the bore’s rise. 

Problematic relief wells

Bellona believes that when a platform is evacuated, the only remaining measure to bring the situation under control is drilling a relief well – as was done at Deepwater Horizon.

But Bellona fears this may difficult if not impossible. Such a well must be drilled very deep depending on how deep the leak in the Elgin well is. To dig the relief well, workers must somehow drill in under the leak and put in a new plug. Doing this depends on using highly advanced platforms in a nearly surgical procedure that can take months.
High gas concentrations in the area along with the fact that gas is in the air as far as 6 kilometers away is telling as it shows how far from any platform a relief well must be drilled to avoid aerial gas pollution.

But with buoyancy and flammability issues to consider, any rig drilling a relief well would have to do it from a great distance. To get a rig any closer than 10 kilometers, said Hauge, rescue workers would have to set the gas in the sea on fire.

But if there are platforms available to drill from such distance and this deep, the question that remains is will they do it? This, thinks Bellona, will be very difficult to arrange. Platforms of this nature would first have to be released from their current contracts, which will take time as such highly specialized rigs are used for drilling other complex wells. Drilling for the relief well alone could then take as long as three months if not far longer.

So task number one at the moment, says Bellona, is to immediately secure a drilling platform that is capable of drilling the relief well. If such equipment is available, it must immediately be requisitioned.

If drilling a relief well is not possible, the only solution is the worst-case scenario of letting the reservoir blow out until all of its pressure is tamped down. As the quantity of gas in the reservoir is unknown, fears that large amounts remain are founded. This gas would then be released into the water and air for a long time to come.

Environmental impact
The environmental consequences of this accident could be substantial. Having large amounts of hydrocarbons in water and on the surface is not desirable. It will not look like an oil spill, but the hydrocarbons released will have many of the same dramatic effects. Bacteria, for instance, ingest hydrocarbons and hence consume enormous amounts of oxygen in the water. Condensate blue sheen on the surface of the water will destroy the plumage of sea foul.

Should the situation develop to the point where all the gas from the reservoir is released, it will lead to major emissions of greenhouse gasses: When unburned natural gas enters the atmosphere, its detrimental effect on the atmosphere is 22 times worse than CO2.

Difficult choices ahead
The coming days will lead to difficult choices as Total struggles to bring the lead under control. If the worst case scenario does indeed occur, it must be considered whether setting fire to the spill is not the best course of action. This too will have environmental consequences, putting Total and the government between the devil and the deep blue sea.

The Elgin/Franklin accident bears similarities to the Deepwater Horizon blowout, the only real difference being that Elgin is pumping gas condensate and not crude oil into the sea. The Rowan Viking rig is a brand new platform launched in 2010 and considered – like the Deepwater Horizon rig – to be state of the art for the drilling industry.
Rough conditions in the North Sea

The drilling was taking place under difficult conditions, with extreme pressure, high temperatures and great depths of the reservoir. Drilling in such circumstances involves enormous gambles: In situations like this, there are no ready-made solutions for dealing with the worst-case scenario, as Deepwater Horizon showed.

Needless to say, the Alaska Progressive Review is going to stay on top of this very serious and important situation. Worst case scenarios in this kind of uncontrolled methane release include huge explosions creating Tsunamis (which would much impact much of Northern Europe) and/or massive methane emissions into the atmosphere, accelerating planetary warming even more than that which is already occuring. It's more dangerous than the Deepwater Horizon, because now, no one, or nothing, can get close to it. Think about that.

How much longer are we as national and global societies going to keep allowing such destructive scenarios to continue to occur? Could something like this be a "game-changer", such a serious situation, that the entire World could be impacted in many ways, forcing massive changes in everyone's lives? Cheers.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/capital-weather-gang/post/epic-march-heat-wave-to-conclude-in-midwest-great-lakes-link-to-global-warming/2012/03/22/gIQA6hj3TS_blog.html?tid=pm_local_pop

UPDATE: 3/28/12 A new dedicated page has been set up about this unfolding tragedy. It will always have the latest news and analysis about it. This Oil Drum site also had a very informative and extensive site during the Deepwater Horizon incident. The comments on these are often just as useful/informative, as professionals in the energy industry use this site, and often write in with more information/opinions. You can find it here:
http://www.theoildrum.com/node/9072

What is quite alarming now, about this situation, is that there is still a burning gas flare atop the platform, about 100 metres above the water surface (which you can see in this image, above). Because the platform had to be hurriedly abandoned, it wasn't shut off. So far, the escaping gasses have remained below this level. At some point, they will rise to or above this, and then an explosion would be likely. It's also very interesting how little play this is getting in the US corporate media, considering how serious a situation it is. Any guesses as to the reasons why? Cheers.

UPDATE: 3/30/12  This link, http://www.theoildrum.com/node/9072 which we provided you two days ago, from theoildrum.com website has completely disappeared! And, there are no further stories in any of the U.K. media sources we just checked, BBC, The Independent, etc..  It looks highly likely that a concerted media blackout about this event is underway. Why would that be? We will do our best here at the Alaska Progressive Review, to provide you with more information on this troubling turn of events, as well as what is unfolding in the North Sea, if possible. It will be impossible to hide any very large explosions, should any occur.

UPDATE: 4/08/12  This is the latest news I could find about the Elgin North Sea methane leak.
http://truth-out.org/news/item/8387-north-sea-gas-leak-experts-assess-climate-impact-of-ongoing-accident
In this article, they are just using the leakage amount given by Total, the French energy company. However, take that with a huge grain of salt, because we think there is a very high probability that they would vastly underplay this event. Much like BP tried to in the initial stages of the Deepwater Horizon tragedy. However this article does link in the unfortunate facts that huge increases in fracking all over the World, will bring increasingly more methane leaks like this. Which is so un-necessary, because there are alternatives available that are clean, renewable, and completely ready to develop, globally, if the energy companies weren't so influential in most World governments. We'll describe some of these in future articles.

Meanwhile, here are two more links to very informative articles describing how dirty and dangerous the fracking process is, in a number of ways.
http://truth-out.org/news/item/8396-shale-shocked-remarkable-increase-in-us-earthquakes-almost-certainly-manmade
http://truth-out.org/news/item/8389-son-of-frackenstein
Cheers.

FREE MARKET TRAIN - JAKARTA IS COMING?

We first saw the following article on the Counterpunch website over a month ago, and were quite moved by it. By the descriptions of how desperate and dirty life is in the city of Jakarta, Indonesia, and how much of the dire poverty and suffering there is perpetuated by that country's fascist, US/Multinational corporation-supported government.

http://www.lonelyplanet.com/indonesia/jakarta

We think everyone needs to give it a read, because this is what completely unregulated capitalism looks like, which must be maintained by force, to keep desperate people from rebelling.

http://www.counterpunch.org/2012/02/17/take-a-train-in-jakarta/

The Perfect Fascist City

Take a Train in Jakarta

by ANDRE VLTCHEK

If you take a train in Jakarta, be warned: the images that would unwind behind your windows could be too disturbing to bear for someone who is not a war correspondent or a medical doctor. It would often feel as if hundreds of thousands of the wretched of the earth decided to camp along the tracks, as if the garbage from the entire East Asia had been dumped along the rails, as if hell really materialized here on earth, instead of threatening us from some imaginary religious realm.

From the unwashed windows of the train you would see people suffering from all imaginable diseases. You would probably spot exposed wounds, faces burned by fires, terrible hernias, untreated tumors and omnipresent swollen bellies of children suffering from malnutrition. And there would also be some ailments and deformities that are simply too terrible to describe or to photograph.

Jakarta, the capital city of the country hailed by the Western mainstream media as ‘democratic’, ‘tolerant’ and ‘the largest economy in Southeast Asia’ is actually a place where majority of the population has absolutely no control over its future. At closer look it becomes evident that the city is stuck with the social indicators that are more common in the Sub-Saharan Africa than in East Asia. And the place is increasingly violent and intolerant towards religious and national minorities as well as those who are demanding social justice. It takes great discipline not to notice.
Slavoj Zizek, Slovenian philosopher, once wrote in his book The Violence:

“Here we encounter the Lacanian difference between reality and the Real: ‘reality’ is the social reality of the actual people involved in interaction and in the productive processes, while the Real is the inexorable ‘abstract’, spectral logic of capital that determines what goes on in social reality. One can experience this gap in a palpable way when one visits a country where life is obviously in shambles. We see a lot of ecological decay and human misery. However, the economist’s report that one reads afterwards informs us that the country’s economic situation is ‘financially sound’ – reality doesn’t matter, what matters is the situation of capital…”

Indonesian capital and its elites are doing well, although exactly at the price of the country being in shambles. But let’s go back to the trains.

I decided to take commuter rail, from Manggarai Station to the suburban city of Tangerang (the same place which, just a few years ago, unconstitutionally but with absolute impunity imposed sharia law on its population), for one simple reason: to see whether there was any real progress in ‘fighting’ against what many describe as the imminent collapse of Jakarta’s infrastructure, alas final gridlock.

The gridlock, like everything in Indonesia, has its colorful history:

Since 1965 (the year of the brutal US-backed military coup which brought general Suharto to power and took between 800.000 and 3 million lives. Murdered were the leftists, intellectuals, people of Chinese minority, unionists and atheists) the government worked hard to make sure that Indonesian cities would have no public transportation, no sizeable parks and no sidewalks. Public places in general were considered very dangerous, as that is where the people used to gather discussing ‘subversive’ issues like their plans for the country.

Public parks were taken away from the people by ‘developers’ whom built their private golf courses for the elites. Sidewalks had to go, too, as they were not profitable and ‘too social’. And the public transportation became private and eventually got reduced to polluting minivans and appalling second hand Indian Bajaj rickshaws that haven't run for decades even in India.

And that was in Jakarta. Other cities with 1 to 2 million inhabitants like Palembang, Surabaya, Medan and Bandung have had no public transportation whatsoever, apart from dirty and tiny minivans and dozens of dilapidated, rusty and smelly buses.

That was of course the plan: car manufacturers were regurgitating old Japanese car models selling them at inflated prices (cars in Indonesia sell for 50 to 120 percent higher prices than in the United States), forcing the people of Indonesia – some of the poorest in East Asia – to buy their own private vehicles. Cars were the first to be injected, followed by dangerous, environmentally fatal and inefficient scooters that are actually banned in all major Chinese cities and in many other Asian ones.
Government officials and People’s Representatives (DPR) have been having their palms greased by the car industry, quietly but consistently. The car lobby became extremely powerful, blocking all attempts to improve the rail and maritime travel between various ports in Java, the most overpopulated major island in the world.

On 14 August 2011, Jakarta Post reported:

Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle member Nusyirwan Soedjono, a deputy chairman of House of Representatives’ Commission V overseeing transportation affairs, has long questioned the government’s reluctance to allocate more state funding for the improvement of the country’s railway network, blaming its submission to “high-level” political lobbying arranged by the automotive industry, which has received direct advantages from the rapid development of the country’s road infrastructure.
There has been no story of us [the Commission V] rejecting the government’s budget proposal for developing railway infrastructure,” Nusyirwan told The Jakarta Post. “But it seems like there have been certain ‘powerful groups’ which always oppose every attempt to advance the services of our mass transportation, especially trains.

As they would in any extreme fascist or feudal society, ‘elites’ have been enjoying their chauffeured limousines, while the poor have been breaking their legs when falling to the open sewers, getting raped and air-poisoned in private, dreadful and unregulated minivans or risking to have their brains spilled on uneven pavement after frustrating maneuvers on their scooters between aggressively-driven cars and trucks.

With impunity and impressive consistency, Jakarta has been stripped of almost all public spaces, while it became clear that the government was becoming increasingly unmotivated, incompetent, overfed and lazy, determined to block all long-term solutions.

Length of the rail tracks actually shrank since the Dutch colonial power; Jakarta became the only city of its size (over 10 million inhabitants, more during the weekdays) in the world without any type of mass transit system.

A few years ago there was some feeble attempt to build two lines of urban monorail, not the most efficient mass public system to begin with. Streets were blocked, dust and dirt everywhere, citizens were asked to be patient as this was ‘being built for them,’ although not really, as this was going to be pro-profit transportation system.
The project was given to a private consortium and then, predictably, the public money had been embezzled. Construction stopped without any warning, leaving ugly concrete piles sticking in the middle of the avenues. No heads were seen rolling as a result of that scandalous fraud and the press remained predictably disciplined, reporting only what was officially declared, which is always the case when too much money gets robbed by those who are ‘too important to be disturbed’ by an investigation.

To be fair, there were other attempts to save Jakarta: for instance the introduction of so-called water taxis to hopelessly polluted canals. But floating objects easily broke the engines of these primitive and unattractive open dinghies plus the stench from the surface of the canals that are permanently covered by thick and consistent layer of garbage and toxic substances was so repulsive that the ‘project’ was scrambled after only several weeks.
East Flood Canal was supposed to change everything, to revolutionize entire approach to public works and to bring development of the city to at least some basic Asian standards of the 21^st century. For decades, Jakarta has been suffering from epic floods; sometimes two thirds of the city would find itself under the water, result of clogged canals, annihilated green areas and unbridled over-development. A decision was finally made to acquire the land and to dig the canal that could bring excessive water to the sea. It was promised that there would be public parks or at least some pathways along the shores. Romantics even dreamed about the bicycle lanes and promenades, and there were calls for water transport and, how daring (!) the tramlines.

Those who were still harboring some hopes for Jakarta have experienced an extremely hard landing. In 2010 and 2011, as the work on canal was still far from completion, the reality began to surface.
Construction quality was truly appalling and even before the work was near finishing stages the garbage was already covering entire length of the project. And then came the shock: the government had obviously no plan to place any public transportation on the banks of the canal. In fact it made sure (as always) to stir away from building any evil public areas. Stripes of land were recently (beginning of 2012) converted to yet another set of roads that were immediately reclaimed by polluting and noisy scooters. Not yet finished (although officially it is already operational), the entire canal looks as just too familiar hybrid of spontaneously created garbage dump and the wet dream of the scooter/car lobby.

Along all those wasted square kilometers of urban space (although officially the administration calls is a true success) there is not even a tiny path for people to walk on, not one single playground for children.

How do the officials manage to survive after such evident fiascos and after betraying and robbing their own people? After all, what the city administration allows to be happening, in what it is involved, would be considered ’treason’ in several other countries in Asia.

The answer is: in ‘democratic Indonesia’ there is no accountability. There is none; zero, zip! Corruption is endemic and the citizens have no mechanism to organize protest (obsession with the social networks like Facebook is mainly for status reasons only, as well as for empty chat: even the murder of people of different believes by hard-line religious cadres does not bring ‘educated and middle class’ people to the streets).

It feels that the entire nation, including its capital, gave up long time ago. People are living their lives in this monstrous megacity, not even bothering to demand, to protest or to complain.

Of course in Indonesia complaining leads nowhere, letters addressed to DPR go unanswered, even unopened, while letters to the press get published only if they stay in undefined but intuitively understood limits. ‘Projects’ are not open for debate (too much money is often involved and the government and private companies divide the loot among themselves in accordance with the well established rules and formulas) and would never risk allowing the system to be endangered by interference of the citizens): the people are simply informed (once in a while) about what is going to be built; when and where. If money disappears, as it does with predictable consistency, there are no repercussions. If plans ‘change’ or if schedules are not kept, nobody is held responsible.

Indonesia is a perfect dictatorship with periodically held elections (electorate can freely choose between one set of corrupt candidates with business interests and another set of corrupt candidates with business interests): a leader in the new breed of countries controlled and sponsored by Western interests with absolutely no power given to the people.

Passengers who would fall through the rusty floors of trains to their deaths or those who fall through unmarked holes that could be found all over the city get no apology, let alone compensation.

Asked to compare Indonesia and China, professor Dadang M. Maksoem, a former lecturer at UPM (University Putra Malaysia), who now works for the government of West Java, gets furious: “Very simple: they [the Chinese] are committed to do their best for their nation. There is no dedication like that here. How come, in this part of the world, governments can’t even provide decent public transportation? People are forced to buy their own motorcycles to transport themselves – forced to risk their lives, having terrible accidents. Now there are traffic gridlocks everywhere. You can say that our system is stupid, idiotic, brain-dead, or greedy. Just go on and fill the gap!”

But that’s not what one could read in the Western mainstream media. Officially the West admires Indonesia. How could it not: Indonesian rulers and its servile elites sacrificed their own people, their own islands, even their own capital city for the good and profits of Western multi-national companies and imperial geopolitical interests. Which foreign corporation or government would not appreciate such a generosity?

But once again, back to the public transportation.

Around the time when the administration and private sector were flirting with the construction of a monorail (or at least they told the people that they were), the city began to build so called ‘busways’; projects based on an absolutely misunderstood concept of public transportation project of the city of Bogota in far away Colombia, South America.

Instead of building a heavy-duty train system, Jakarta slashed off two lanes from some major thoroughfares and supplied locally and very badly made narrow busses where passengers sit along the walls facing each other. Each bus had only one door. Monstrous stations were made of metal sheets that were rusting and full of holes. Most of the automatic platform doors have broken down and many people ended up being pushed to the road and to death from serious injuries.

As with anything else in Jakarta, the system is not designed to improve the life of the ordinary citizens; in this case to ease traffic congestion and to move millions of people in safety and comfort. It is designed as a ‘project’ designed to enriching private companies that share their profits with corrupt officials.

The busway system is inefficient, aesthetically unacceptable and it is actually not helping to connect the city – it is fragmenting it further. There are hardly any sidewalks adjacent to the stations. People arriving at the stop have to risk their lives reaching their homes walking through the streets congested with traffic, or by other means of transportation.

Even if the busway stops are near the train stations, planners make sure that there could be no direct connectivity. For decades, Jakarta’s rulers made sure to disconnect all transportation structures, including Dutch-era train stations from the rest of the city. The city has almost no sidewalks, almost no underpasses (there is just one in the whole city, near ‘Kota’, that took several years to build and which already began resembling a hellhole long before the completion) linking the stations to the avenues. Not that Jakarta actually has many avenues – most of them were converted to terrible poor replicas of Houstonian suburban throughways: with elevated and surface highways, almost no walkways and services fenced and separated from one another.

The stupidity of the city planning can be only matched by the idiocy of the development of the country as a whole – Jakarta is a microcosm. To make a U-turn, one has to often drive for one kilometer or more, adding to traffic jams, fuel consumption and pollution. But the city is designed that way so that one has to often drive even in order to cross the street, as there are hardly any passable sidewalks or street crossings. Nothing is connected here and no matter what, one has to use a car or increasingly ‘popular’ cheap polluting scooter (locals call them wishfully ‘motorbikes’) and then rot in macet – the legendary traffic jam – as the car lobby managed to buy and corrupt several layers of the government, as a result forming resistance to construction of any efficient public transportation network.

There are clearly many financial interests involved. To analyze Indonesia, it is necessary to remember that ‘normal’ considerations and moral principles disappeared from the lexicon of the rulers.

Small group of business people and politicians here had already plundered most of the country’s natural resources; they destroyed rainforests and turned this vast archipelago into the environmental disaster. The majority of Indonesians never came close to sharing profits from destruction of their country.

Jakartans are no exception. The city is being developed ‘against its people’, as was noted by significant Australian artist George Burchett who had visited more than two years ago.


The population is uninformed and phlegmatic after decades of pro-business brainwashing campaigns and after the destruction of inquisitive thought in this city that at this point has no art cinemas, permanent theatres, socially oriented press or art galleries specializing in unveiling Indonesian tragedy through art.

Instead, billions of bits of social rubbish are flying from one Blackberry to another: elites are chatting and listening to outdated pop music, stuffing themselves on Western and Japanese junk food. There is not much else to do. In the meantime, the city is collapsing, covered in poisonous fumes, with enormous slums filling the space between giant but repetitive malls and office buildings. There is no water in its once glorious canals – just toxics.

The most horrifying thing is that there seems to be no space for people. People became irrelevant. Even children: no playgrounds, no parks. Even poor Port Moresby, the capital of Papua New Guinea does incomparably more for its citizens.

“To hell with your aid!” shouted President Sukarno publicly at the US ambassador, more than half a century ago. A terrible vendetta came promptly. After the US-sponsored coup and fascist regime holding the reigns of power until this very day, Jakarta was changed to a “To hell with the people!” kind of place.

“When I come to Jakarta, I don’t want to leave the house”, explains Nabila Wibowo, daughter of an Indonesian diplomat. She decided to stay in Portugal after her mother’s post ended. “There is no culture here, no concerts, no good music. And I can’t even walk or move around the city. There are no sidewalks. I just stay for some time, locked in my room, and read my books”.

Now the city is ‘threatening’ to build MRT, a subway system that is expected to have two lines upon completion. The project had been postponed for decades, but if it would finally go ahead, many analysts including some ITB (Bandung Institute of Technology) professors are terrified to even imagine what the results could be, considering the track record of the city authorities and the quality of other transportation projects all over the country.

It is most likely that the money would be allocated and then embezzled again. In Indonesia there is absolutely no mechanism to guarantee transparency and impartial supervision. That's a striking contrast to other complex countries like India where the New Delhi subway system was actually built on time and below original estimated cost.

It appears that embezzlement of public funds is the profession staffed by the most talenented people of Indonesia. This is where the city and the country hold the world prime.

There is no serious pressure from the public to stop this madness. By now the public is used to choking, dying prematurely from pollution, living in slums without clean water and basic sanitation, and sitting in endless traffic jams. The majority of the people of Jakarta never leave the country and therefore do not know that a ‘different world is possible’, that there are actually cities built for the people, not against them. Elites that travel know the reality very well, but would not tell.

The vicious cycle is omnipresent: new projects are announced, then launched, and finally scrambled after enough pockets get filled. People are left with nothing and don’t even demand anything. It had been like that, to a greater or lesser extent, during the feudal days and during the Dutch colonial administration. Although before passing away, the greatest Indonesian writer Pramoedya Ananta Toer told me “the situation was never as bad as now.”

Those who know or should know what is behind the scenes are either complicit or simply refuse to face the reality.

In February 2012 I asked Ms Ririn Soedarsono, professor at prestigious ITB, whether the MRT project has any chance to be completed.

“We will start building MRT this year”, she replied. “By the end of 2013 the first phase would be completed. Technically there should be no problem. But I don’t know what would be the political climate…”

2013? Even in technologically developed countries like Japan, China or Chile, one subway line could easily take between 4 and 10 years to construct, depending on the terrain. But maybe I misunderstood the ‘first phase’ definition.

Trains are still better in Jakarta than in Nairobi, some are even air-conditioned, as they come imported used from Japan, but they tend to deteriorate rapidly due to the lack of maintenance: one year in Jakarta and 30 year old Japanese trains that have arrived in perfect condition would end up having its doors broken, seats slashed and air-conditioning system clogged with dirt.

“We go by train twice a week”, explain Ms Enny and Ms Susie from Bogor. “It’s unbearable during the weekdays, especially peak hours. It is almost impossible to find a space to stand. It is quite scary and traumatic especially for us women, especially when passengers run in hordes, fighting to enter the car.”

Superiority of Jakarta’s trains over those in Nairobi, the capital of one of the poorest nations on earth (Kenya) and another ‘capitalist and democratic miracle’ may not last for long. By the beginning of 2013 Nairobi is poised to finish renovating its rail tracks and to put in service the first modern line, followed by the second one in 2014. The stations will come with parking lots; shops and modern facilities, connecting neighborhoods inhabited by the middle class and the poor.

Chinese construction firms that are involved in building highways, overpasses and other infrastructural projects in East Africa are also constructing sidewalks, rail tracks and within two years are planning to connect Jomo Kenyatta International Airport with the Nairobi rail network.

Collapsing Sukarno Hatta Airport at the outskirts of Jakarta has been waiting for rapid rail service for decades but so far only got extra lanes of highway.

One question that comes logically to one’s mind is: could Indonesia be so far behind the places like Cairo, Nairobi, Johannesburg and Lagos or is something else going on? Could it be possible that the Indonesian elites are actually sacrificing tens of millions of people for their own profits? They did it before: could they be doing it again?

Along the tracks, half naked dirty children and infants play in garbage and open sewers. Rubbish is burned here in open, as Jakarta doesn’t have comprehensive rubbish management system. Garbage collection and management is by definition a public service, therefore nothing that would make profits and excite the officials. Only fraction of Jakarta resident’s has access to truly clean water, only 30 percent to basic sanitation.

It is a living hell all around the train cars that are slowly making their way from one monstrous station to another.

Reading Indonesian press perfecting its art of deception and you would think that there is at least some basic rail system already in place, in need of serious improvement but in place nevertheless.

You could even find some maps of the ‘system’ on the Internet. But try to reach the station, try to use the network, and you would be forced to have many second thoughts about its existence as a dignified transportation option.

There are no schedules and no information. Unreceptive, slow and inefficient employees sell tickets manually. To get to the platform is dangerous. But despite everything, it is mainly the Indonesian middle class that rides the trains.

However, it is the middle class locally defined, using brackets of the World Bank and Indonesian government: according to them, the members of the middle class here are those who live on more than US$2.00 a day. And that applies even to this city, which is by many standards one of the most expensive in East Asia.

According to that calculus, the ‘middle class’ forms the majority of the city in Jakarta. A great part of it lives in what would be considered elsewhere as ‘slums’. Some of its members don’t have access to clean water; most of them live in inacceptable hygienic conditions.

Some members of Jakarta’s ‘middle class’ ride on the roofs of the trains because they can’t afford the train fare; several people get electrocuted each year, others fall to their death. To keep them off the roofs, the compassionate government began hanging concrete balls above the tracks to break their skulls, as well as spraying them with colors, even with excrement. Several stations including Manggarai, attached razor wires to the roofs of the platform, so the people who would try to jump from the roof would get shredded.

Herry Suheri – a cigarette seller at Manggarai Station does not think people will be deterred by all those drastic measures: “There are still people riding on the roofs of economy trains, especially during the peak hours. And it is not only about the free ride. There are simply not enough trains to accommodate people who have to get home or to work.”

The train system, the ‘green areas’, the ‘plan to improve the city’ – everything is fake, an imaginary world of deceptions. The reality is brutal but clear: Jakarta does not fall under any definition of the city. It is a laboratory, an experiment of market fundamentalism. The guinea pigs are people. They are being studied: how much discomfort could they take, how much of an unhealthy environment, and what doses of depressing vistas would make them finally run away?

For now, all hopes for Jakarta should be abandoned. ‘The most unlivable major city in Asia-Pacific’ will not improve, not anytime soon, not in the foreseeable future, not under this administration and this regime.

In South America the right-wingers used to shout: “Jakarta is Coming!” to frighten left-wing governments in Chile and elsewhere in the world. Jakarta is now here, in its full glory; a monument to unbridled capitalism; the monster, the warning, and the case study for those who want to understand how low the elites could sink in their overwhelming greed and selfishness.
All photos by Andre Vltchek.
Andre Vltchek is a novelist, filmmaker and investigative journalist. He lives and works in East Asia and Africa. His latest non-fiction book “Oceania” exposes Western neo-colonialism in Polynesia, Melanesia and Micronesia. Pluto in UK will publish his critical book on Indonesia – (Archipelago of Fear) – in August 2012. He can be reached through his website.

We realise, here at the A.P.R., that there are significant cultural and historical differences between Indonesia, and the US, which also partially help explain why the bulk of the populace in that country are locked in such dire poverty. But at the same time, in all seriousness, if current trends in the US continue, with the oligarchy/corporatocracy continuing it's concerted push to roll back labour rights, food/drug safety, environmental protection, accelerate financial deregulation, and shifting of the tax base onto the middle and lower classes, the conditions you just read about in Jakarta, will be coming to the US. In the current sociopathic crop of US republican, and most democratic party politicians, there are no plans whatsoever for any significant jobs programmes, to make up for all the offshored manufacturing, and now even white-collar jobs lost over the past 20 years to low-wage countries. Combine that with the increasing attacks on organised labour, the demonisation of public sector employees (especially in the teaching profession) and continuing efforts to privatise more and more governmental functions (which will lower wages for whatever jobs are left), and you can see the writing on the wall.

An excellent example of the sociopathic greed driving the US and now other "developed" nations toward the hell of unregulated, predatory capitalism, can be found in the "fracking" debate. In which energy companies are pushing many state governments, and the federal, to allow very destructive, polluting practices in their push to maximise profits.

http://www.truth-out.org/frackings-health-environmental-impacts-greater-claimed/1332180336

The above article mentions just how hazardous, and destructive these processes are that are used to obtain natural gas from areas in which it was previously too difficult/expensive. The energy companies know that what they are doing is hazardous to the environment, resulting in groundwater contamination, and human health hazards. Which is why they wrote the following legislation in republican dominated Pennsylvania, which was signed into law by their republican governor, Tom Corbett. This heinous legislation, unprecedented really, actually can force doctors from telling their patients that the fracking process/chemicals are what is responsible for their health problems!

http://www.truth-out.org/fracking-pennsylvania-gags-physicians/1332078396

"The law, an amendment to Title 52 (Oil and Gas) of the Pennsylvania Consolidated Statutes, requires that companies provide to a state-maintained registry the names of chemicals and gases used in fracking. Physicians and others who work with citizen health issues may request specific information, but the company doesn’t have to provide that information if it claims it is a trade secret or proprietary information, nor does it have to reveal how the chemicals and gases used in fracking interact with natural compounds. If a company does release information about what is used, health care professionals are bound by a non-disclosure agreement that not only forbids them from warning the community of water and air pollution that may be caused by fracking, but which also forbids them from telling their own patients what the physician believes may have led to their health problems. A strict interpretation of the law would also forbid general practitioners and family practice physicians who sign the non-disclosure agreement and learn the contents of the “trade secrets” from notifying a specialist about the chemicals or compounds, thus delaying medical treatment.

The clauses are buried on pages 98 and 99 of the 174-page bill, which was initiated and passed by the Republican-controlled General Assembly and signed into law in February by Republican Gov. Tom Corbett.

“I have never seen anything like this in my 37 years of practice,” says Dr. Helen Podgainy, a pediatrician from Coraopolis, Pa. She says it’s common for physicians, epidemiologists, and others in the health care field to discuss and consult with each other about the possible problems that can affect various populations. Her first priority, she says, “is to diagnose and treat, and to be proactive in preventing harm to others.” The new law, she says, not only “hinders preventative measures for our patients, it slows the treatment process by gagging free discussion.”

Not only is fracking destructive to groundwater systems and overall ecosystem and human health, new research is now estimating that 8-10 % of whatever amount of natural gas is liberated from the underground rock strata escapes through cracks in the ground, and leaks in piping, into the atmosphere. Methane, CH4, is 25 times more powerful a greenhouse gas than CO2. Thus the fracking process used to liberate/produce more natural gas (methane), will now be just as bad, or worse, for global warming, than the use of coal for energy generation!  Cheers.