gold

Every week, Kate Lanier assembles the most important global energy and climate news, including:

New England: Off the coast of New England, sea surface temperatures “are flashing red, showing an extreme warm anomaly.” That’s a direct, immediate link to the recent record snowfall in Boston. Expect more.

California: Stunning state-wide fracking waste water test results: “concentrations of the human carcinogen benzene … [at] levels thousands of times greater than state and federal agencies consider safe.” ‘Significant’ benzene levels were in 98% of the water samples. Not only that, but CA “inadvertently” allowed frackers to inject their “flowback water into protected aquifers containing drinking water.” LA Times says “halt new operations.”

Peru: Oil contamination by Argentina’s Pluspetrol in the Peruvian Amazon so upset indigenous people that they “stormed a military base being used by Pluspetrol as a storage area.” Pluspetrol is packing up and leaving Peru—and the government “is investigating the illegal use of firearms by police during the demonstrations.”

Selections from the world’s energy news including:

Peru: “A lush expanse of Amazon rainforest known as the [Madre de Dios or] “Mother of God” is steadily being destroyed in Peru, as mercury-filled tailing ponds from gold extraction grow. Sounds nightmarish with “tens of thousands of desperate fortune-hunters” operating “improvised mines” 24/7. 125,000 acres of rainforest destroyed by the illegal gold miners already, 30 – 40 tons of mercury dumped into rivers.

Congo: “Loi Obama” or Obama’s Law requires US companies to ensure they don’t use “‘conflict minerals’—particularly gold, coltan, tin and tungsten … controlled by Congo’s murderous militias.” Disruption ensued as the government began a snail-paced effort to ensure the audits. Result: 11 of 900 mines in South Kivu certified so far. People unable to earn a living, increasingly miserable, thrown into the militias as a result of the well-intentioned Loi Obama.

USA: Did Walmart really pledge “to shift to 100 percent renewable energy … [and] to reduce its climate emissions as quickly as possible” almost 10 years ago? The Institute for Local Self-Reliance says so, but reports that, instead, “Walmart remains as deeply committed as ever to the dirtiest fuels, especially coal.” Only 3% of its US electricity consumption is from renewable energy sources.

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