Program to Relocate and Assist Environmental Refugees

Concerned citizens gathered outside an EPA hearing in Denver to demand a change in the EPA's 'Haliburton' loophole. Testifying with them, was former EPA official Wes Wilson who filed a Whistleblower lawsuit against the EPA. Mr. Wilson was there specifically to testify about the EPA allowing Oil and Gas companies to inject toxic chemicals into the ground for the purpose of Hydraulic Fracturing, without disclosing those chemicals for public review as required by the Safe Drinking Water Act. This is known as the 'Haliburton loophole' passed in 2005. Wes Wilson, who was featured in Josh Fox's 'Gasland', had a lot of community groups with him including What the Frack and Food and Watch as well as families - many of whom have suffered directly from fracking fluid contamination on their land.

Dozens of communities from around the United States, from Colorado, New Mexico, Texas, and Pennsylvania are complaining that they are near these (fracking) activities and they are getting ill. We have no rigorous investigation of how these air pollutants are harming people...

In many states landowners have sold leases to Oil and Gas companies to frack, only to find out later that their water has been contaminated. What's worse than that? Well, Colorado is a 'mineral rights' state, which means landowners do not own the mineral rights under their land. So to add insult to injury, they don't even get offered compensation from the Oil companies when they set up and extract oil and gas under their property. And many times, the Oil companies are drilling without the community even getting a public hearing. And families have begun to notice increasing and unusual sicknesses among occurring near the gas well sites. Exposure just to the air near the open pits causes eye problems, headaches, and bloody noses, and that's not even considering the effects of drinking contaminated water. One resident summed what was happening to families in Colorado.

Basically it boils down to our government has given the right of Imminent Domain to corporations for their private gain. I don't own mineral rights where I am... they can just come in and take what they want... This is the reason we had a revolution during Colonial times, its the same thing!'

And this is not just about remote rural communities - (Mary Ladou of SouthPark Coalition)

The oil and gas companies want to drill up to 300 wells and we are at 10,000 feet, and the water that flows through there is the water that supplies the Front Range.

This could be coming soon to the Front Range - including cities of Colorado Springs, Boulder, Fort Collins, and Denver... Keep going strong Occupy - you are our best hope...

by Suzanne Goldenberg, US environment correspondent guardian.co.uk

It was seen as one of the most distressing effects of climate change ever recorded: polar bears dying of exhaustion after being stranded between melting patches of Arctic sea ice.
But now the government scientist who first warned of the threat to polar bears in a warming Arctic has been suspended and his work put under official investigation for possible scientific misconduct.
Charles Monnett, a wildlife biologist, oversaw much of the scientific work for the government agency that has been examining drilling in the Arctic. He managed about $50m (£30.5m) in research projects.
Some question why Monnett, employed by the US Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement, has been suspended at this moment. The Obama administration has been accused of hounding the scientist so it can open up the fragile region to drilling by Shell and other big oil companies.
"You have to wonder: this is the guy in charge of all the science in the Arctic and he is being suspended just now as an arm of the interior department is getting ready to make its decision on offshore drilling in the Arctic seas," said Jeff Ruch, president of the group Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility. "This is a cautionary tale with a deeply chilling message for any federal scientist who dares to publish groundbreaking research on conditions in the Arctic." The group filed an official complaint on Monnett's behalf on Thursday, accusing the government of persecuting the (PDF) scientist and interfering with his work. It seeks his reinstatement and a public apology.
Monnett was on a research flight tracking bowhead whales, in 2004, when he and his colleagues spotted four dead polar bears floating in the water after a storm. The scientists concluded the bears, though typically strong swimmers, had grown exhausted and drowned due to the long distances between patches of solid sea ice. It was the first time scientists had drawn a link between melting Arctic sea ice and a threat to the bears' survival. Two years later, Monnett and a colleague published an article in the science journal Polar Biology, writing: "Drowning-related deaths of polar bears may increase in the future if the observed trend of regression of pack ice and/or longer open water periods continues."
The paper quickly heightened public concern for the polar bear. Al Gore, citing the paper, used polar bear footage in his film Inconvenient Truth. Campaigners focused on the bears to push George Bush to act on climate change, and in 2008, the government designated the animal a threatened species.
It was the first animal to be classed as a victim of climate change.
In 2010 the Obama administration began an investigation into his work. The scientist was suspended with pay on 18 July. He is said to be under a gagging order and forbidden from communicating with his colleagues. The employee group's complaint alleges that the investigation is a thinly veiled attempt to disrupt scientific work on the Arctic.
Oil firms, which want to drill in the pristine environment of the Chukchi and Beaufort seas, have been complaining of delays caused by environmental reviews. This month Obama issued an order to speed up Arctic drilling permits. Read more at: The Guardian UK

From the University of Arizona and thanks to Rolph Payet:


A 1-meter increase in sea level doesn't sound like much. But the 3.3-foot rise would be enough to flood 90 percent of New Orleans, 33 percent of Virginia Beach, Va., and 18 percent of Miami, according to scientists. With the release of a University of Arizona-led study earlier this week, evidence continues to mount that the polar ice sheets are melting at a rate that could profoundly affect coastal regions unless greenhouse gases are reduced worldwide, scientists say. "Sometime before the end of this century, we will cross that critical threshold where the Earth will be committed to 4, possibly more, meters (13.2 feet) of sea-level rise that could occur at a rate as high as a meter per century," said Jonathan Overpeck, a UA professor and atmospheric scientist. He and other scientists aren't certain when that point will be reached, but he believes it could be in the middle of this century.

OSLO, Norway -- About 42 million people were forced to flee their homes because of natural disasters around the world in 2010, more than double the number during the previous year, experts said Monday.

One reason for the increase in the figure could be climate change, and the international community should be doing more to contain it, the experts said.

The Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre said the increase from 17 million displaced people in 2009 was mainly due to the impact of "mega-disasters" such as the massive floods in China and Pakistan and the earthquakes in Chile and Haiti.

It said more than 90 percent of the disaster displacements were caused by weather-related hazards such as floods and storms that were probably impacted by global warming, but it couldn't say to what extent...

Speaking at the Oslo conference, U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees Antonio Guterres called the issue of climate-related displacement "the defining challenge of our times" and criticized the international community for lacking the political will to reduce to pace of climate change.

"There is increasing evidence to suggest that natural disasters are growing in frequency and intensity and that this is linked to the longer-term process of climate change," Guterres said.

Courtesy of Huffington Post

On September 21, 2009, the Second Circuit made an important decision on a case known as Connecticut vs American Electric Power. Without going into too much detail, this was a case where several groups like the Audubon society were trying to stop coal plant emissions because it was harming the value of their land trusts. The lower court ruled as other courts have, that Climate Change was part of the political realm, not the courts. However, the appellate court overturned this decision on the grounds that the Energy company were causing a public nuisance, and nuisance cases have been heard by courts for decades.

"Nowhere in their complaints do plaintiffs ask the court to fashion a comprehensive and far-reaching solution to global climate change, a task that arguably falls within the purview of the political branches. Instead, they seek to limit emissions from six domestic coal-fired electricity plants on the ground that such emissions constitute a public nuisance that they allege has caused, is causing and will continue to cause them injury."

Unfortunately, as of April 20th, 2011, it seems that even the 'liberal' judges on the Supreme court are going to side with the Utilities :

Justice Elena Kagan also questioned the scope of the case, refuting Underwood's argument that public nuisance pollution suit was like any other pollution suit. "All those other pollution suits that you've been talking about are much more localized affairs. One factory emitting discharge into one stream--they don't involve these kinds of national/international policy issues ... I mean, there's a huge gap, a chasm between the precedents you have and this case, isn't there?" Justice Ruth Ginsburg, meanwhile, questioned the court's jurisdiction in setting standards for emissions. "Asking a court to set standards for emissions sounds like the kind of thing that EPA does," she said. "The relief you're seeking seems to me to set up a district judge, who does not have the resources, the expertise, as a kind of super-EPA."

This case has been watched particularly closely by lawyers representing groups of people who are likely to become Environmental Refugees. Even though there are hundreds to thousands of people currently being displaced by Climate Change, they do not have a defined status as a group, hence they are not really 'refugees.' According to the definition by UN High Commissioner on Refugees, (UNHCR) a Refugee is someone either inside or outside their national borders fleeing persecution due to their affiliation with their social group - for instance ethic, religious, political etc. But a person whose island is swallowed up by rising sea level has no rights under Refugee law, in fact, they are considered 'Migrants' meaning they are 'voluntarily' leaving their country. Professors Andy Pittman, Pr. Jane McAdam and Anna Samson of the University of New South Wales explain this issue in this video. (an hour video) Right now there are already staggering numbers of Refugees that need help. 10 million traditional refugees, 13 million refugees displaced within their own borders, 6 million refugees who were considered 'stateless' 1 million 'people of concern' Add to that the costs associated with Climate Change. The U.N. Development Program estimated that industrialized nations must provide $86 billion a year by 2015 for people most vulnerable to catastrophic floods, droughts and other disasters that scientists fear will accompany warming. At some point, the Governments of the world are going to have to get involved. What is the hold up for giving people displaced by Climate Change 'refugee' status? It is simple. If you establish that people displaced by climate change are refugees, then the governments of the world are compelled to aid them and/or to stop them from becoming refugees. Right now, it is a big leap to say that a wave washing over your island is a form of persecution, but the practices of the Industrialized countries through pollution, are in fact, the source of this persecution. If this was established as international law, then Governments would have to cease and desist from engaging in this persecution, namely by no longer using contributing to the problem of Greenhouse gases. This is a place where fossil fuel companies like Coal and Big Oil do not want to go. If Environmental Refugees were given status, then that type of tax subsidy could make the US a participant in state sponsored persecution The other main issue is cost. Governments around the world are dealing with a recession, so who is willing to step up and pay for humanitarian aid such as water purification, food, and the most costly, relocation? And where will the people be relocated to? Immigration is already a touchy subject in this country as well as many other Industrialized nations. My argument is one that is based on the Civil Rights movement. Industrialized nations are causing the problem, therefore they should pay the costs and lead the way to reform. But that is just one idea. There is a pending case centered on Environmental Refugees off of the coast of Alaska. This is the Kivalina Islanders lawsuit - which was reported in this article in the Atlantic. This legal argument in this case on behalf of the U.S. Citizens living on Kivalina, is that much like the Tobacco companies conspired to hide documents proving they knew Tobacco was bad for a person's health, the Fossil Fuel industries and energy companies also have conspired to deny climate change even though the have evidence otherwise. In September 2009, I had the opportunity to be part of a panel on Environmental Refugees at an Environmental Justice conference at the University of Oregon Law School. While I was there, I had the privilege of meeting Brent Newell of the Center on Race, Poverty, and the Environment, who is a legal counsel for the Kivalina people - he had been hoping the Nuisance case brought by Connecticut vs American Electric would be the turning of the tide vs. Coal Companies. In addition to meeting the legal counsel for the Kivalina, I also got to meet Professor Maxine Burkett, of the University of Hawaii Law school. I would say that she and I had the most similar view on this issue. Her view on a remedy for the Environmental Refugees was to address this issue based on the model of reparations. This model has 3 basic requirements. 1) An apology from the offending party for the action or harm. 2) Monetary compensation for losses caused by the action or harm. 3) A guarantee that this action or harm will not happen again. This last requirement is the essential point. If, for instance, you were to win lawsuits against polluters, then you would probably only get monetary compensation, but the pollution would probably still continue in other parts of the world. With the reparations model, the pollution, which is the harmful action, would need to cease. And since pollution is worldwide, this would be the end of the fossil fuel industry as we know it. To date, this solution remains the best hope to reverse the discrimination and persecution against Environmental refugees by the fossil fuel industry, since our Supreme Court doesn't seem to have the guts to do the right thing.

In September of 2009, just after back to back earthquakes in Samoa and Indonesia, I wrote an article entitled "Climate Change, A whole lot of shaking going on" where scientists have theorized that Earthquakes are increasing due to an unlikely cause - Climate Change. The theory is that while Earthquakes on different Tectonic plates do not cause others to occur, for instance the Samoan and Indonesian quakes happened within one day of each other, they can be correlated to other quakes and seismic activity - specifically to 'glacial quakes' caused by fast melting and moving multi-ton glaciers on Greenland. It's been nearly 2 years since then, let's reconsider this theory, and remember, 2 years is not even a blink of an eye in Geologic time. Consider since September of 2009 the following events: Haiti suffers the worst Earthquake in 200 years January 12th of 2010. Next,While not covered widely by the news, an unexplained Earthquake swarm begins and continues in Yellowstone Park just 7 days later. A month and a half later Chile is hit by an 8.8 quake that displaced 1.5 million residents. Earthquake swarms have also been recorded in the Mt. Saint Helens region - setting off renewed fears of an eruption. Increasing earthquake swarms in California are puzzling scientists but seem explainable due to its tectonic location, however, tectonic location can not explain the Earthquake swarms occurring now in Arkansas. February 2011 - Christchurch, New Zealand has its worst quake in 80 years. Finally, April of 2010 Iceland's long dormant Eyjafjallajökull Volcano erupted closing British Airports for months. It appears that the same area began experiencing an Earthquake swarm on March 10th, 2011 - the day before Japan was hit by the 8.8 Earthquake - the worst in Japan's recorded history. While the number of quakes has remained constant, the number of high intensity quakes has increased. Already, in the decade of the 2000 to 2010 we have had more 8.5 Earthquakes than the 1970's, 80's and 90's combined - 4 total, with none in the 3 previous decades. Without dismissing other theories for these quakes - ranging from gas drilling to the prophecy of the Mayan calendar - consider the Climate Change theory again. From the original article: ...the Earth's tectonic plates have sensitive fault lines, which when triggered to move, cause earthquakes and volcanoes. As a sphere, the Earth 'reflects' vibration internally, so that an earthquake in the South Pacific is picked up by seismologists across the world -- say in Alaska. The Indonesian quake resonated so strongly that it set off quakes in Alaska. (Samoa also had a 7.9 earthquake in March.) Now, add in this to the equation. In Greenland, and to a lesser extent, Antarctica, ice sheets and glaciers are melting and more importantly, sliding in rapid bursts. This is caused by moulins, which are holes that melting water form from the top of a glacier to the bottom. The water then lubricates and melts the underside of the glacier, causing them to detach from the bedrock -- and creating a 'slip-n-slide' for glaciers that weigh in the megatons -- some the size of Manhattan.

Robert Corell, chairman of the Arctic Climate Impact Assessment, said in Ilulissat [Greenland] yesterday: "We have seen a massive acceleration of the speed with which these glaciers are moving into the sea. The ice is moving at 2 meters an hour on a front 5km [3 miles] long and 1,500 meters deep. That means that this one glacier puts enough fresh water into the sea in one year to provide drinking water for a city the size of London for a year." The glacier is now moving at 15km a year into the sea although in surges it moves even faster. He measured one surge at 5km in 90 minutes - an extraordinary event.

The result, each 'slide' of these multi-ton glaciers sets off an 'ice quake' that register an average of 3 to 5 on the Richter scale. This might sound minor, but these are occurring multiple times a year. This means that the Earth is being jolted repeatedly by these ice quakes, destabilizing faults lines which has many, many consequences. http://www.heatisonline.org/contentserver/objecthandlers/index.cfm?id=5966&method=full

The latest scientific discipline to enter the fray over global warming is geology. And the forecasts from some quarters are dramatic - not only will the earth shake, it will spit fire. A number of geologists say glacial melting due to climate change will unleash pent-up pressures in the Earth's crust, causing extreme geological events such as earthquakes, tsunamis and volcanic eruptions. A cubic metre of ice weighs nearly a tonne and some glaciers are more than a kilometre thick. When the weight is removed through melting, the suppressed strains and stresses of the underlying rock come to life. University of Alberta geologist Patrick Wu compares the effect to that of a thumb pressed on a soccer ball - when the pressure of the thumb is removed, the ball springs back to its original shape. Because the earth is so viscous the rebound happens slowly, and the quakes that occasionally shake Eastern Canada are attributed to ongoing rebound from the last ice age more than 10,000 years ago. Melting of the ice that covers Antarctica or Greenland would have a similar impact, but the process would be accelerated due to the human-induced greenhouse effect. "What happens is the weight of this thick ice puts a lot of stress on the earth," says Wu. "The weight sort of suppresses the earthquakes but when you melt the ice the earthquakes get triggered." The Earth's crust is more sensitive than some might think. There are well-documented cases of dams causing earthquakes when the weight of the water behind a dam fills a reservoir. Alan Glazner, a volcano specialist at the University of North Carolina, said he was initially incredulous when he found a link between climate and volcanic activity off the coast of California. "But then I went to the library and did some research and found that in many places around the world especially around the Mediterranean they see similar sorts of correlations." "When you melt glacial ice, several hundred metres to a kilometre thick . . . you've decreased the load on the crust and so you've decreased the pressure holding the volcanic conduits closed. "They're cracks, that's how magmas gets to the surface . . . and where they hit the surface, that's where you get a volcano."

(written over 2 years before the historical eruption in Iceland) And it is not likely to slow down, but may instead speed up:

...quakes ranged from six to 15 per year from 1993 to 2002, then jumped to 20 in 2003, 23 in 2004, and 32 in the first 10 months of 2005 - matching an increase in Greenland temperatures.

That is tripling of earthquakes in a 15 year period and more importantly an exponential change in the activity. This trend is causing changes exponentially. For instance, since the Arctic has opened an ice free passage, the Arctic is no longer a stationary sea -- currents from the Pacific and the Atlantic are encroaching into the Arctic circle and creating an additional heating feedback loop -- which is as equally dangerous as a heating feedback loop as the loss of reflective ice. This video reports the feedback loop that Greenpeace scientists are seeing in Greenland - as reported by Al Jazeera - and curiously missed by the US media.

"Greenland's ice sheet has more than doubled its contribution to sea level increases in the past 7 years due to rapid and unpredicted loss of ice....There are large volumes of warm subtropical waters flowing through these fjords very quickly (causing melting)...One glacier is traveling 38 meters every day."

This report indicates that glaciers have tripled in their speed of movement towards the ocean since 2004. There are many consequences to this activity. First, Glaciers entering the ocean immediately cause sea level rise - threatening life for millions of people and animals of low lying islands.. Second, each time a glacier moves, another quake occurs - sending a jolt throughout the Earth - destabilizing numerous fault lines. While the debate about the danger of Climate Change has been discussed in gradual changes throughout the next century, it seems that Climate Change is much more direct and destructive resulting in exponentially stronger Earthquakes, Volcanoes, and Tsunamis. It's time for our politicians to stop make concessions to Fossil Fuel industries in the name of 'Energy concerns' and start making decisions based on limiting just how dangerous Climate Change is going to be.

(Crossposted from Fishoutofwater's diary)


"Rapid irreversible melting of one third to two thirds of earth's permafrost, will add huge amounts of greenhouse gases to the atmosphere, accelerating warming,  reports the National Ice and Snow Data Center (NSIDC).  Permafrost melt lakes portend the destabilization of the Arctic's landscapes and ecosystems and emissions of greenhouse gases CO2 and CH4.


The NSIDC model study makes "conservative" assumptions, such as no methane production and no temperature feed backs that accelerate melting. These assumptions make the models tend to underestimate the actual rate of change. The model predicts a peak in melting and CO2 emissions in 100 years, but methane and feedback loops could cause the peak to come sooner. The total quantity of carbon is calculated out to the year 2200.

    "The amount of carbon released is equivalent to half the amount of carbon that has been released into the atmosphere since the dawn of the industrial age," said NSIDC scientist Kevin Schaefer. "That is a lot of carbon.""


Irreversible melting of permafrost is a feedback loop that can be avoided only by rapid reduction in greenhouse gas emissions. Once the melting accelerates the feedback loops may make permanent melting impossible to stop. Moreover, much of the carbon is likely to be released as methane which is produced in wet ground and lakes by bacterial degradation of carbon. Methane is 25 times as strong a greenhouse gas as CO2 over 100 years.

NORFOLK, Va. -- In this section of the Larchmont neighborhood, built in a sharp "u" around a bay off the Lafayette River, residents pay close attention to the lunar calendar, much as other suburbanites might attend to the daily flow of commuter traffic. Green A blog about energy and the environment. Go to Blog » Enlarge This Image Matthew Eich for The New York Times William Stiles, executive director of Wetlands Watch, believes such projects are futile in the face of rising sea levels. Readers' Comments Readers shared their thoughts on this article. * Read All Comments (162) » If the moon is going to be full the night before Hazel Peck needs her car, for example, she parks it on a parallel block, away from the river. The next morning, she walks through a neighbor's backyard to avoid the two-to-three-foot-deep puddle that routinely accumulates on her street after high tides. For Ms. Peck and her neighbors, it is the only way to live with the encroaching sea. As sea levels rise, tidal flooding is increasingly disrupting life here and all along the East Coast, a development many climate scientists link to global warming. But Norfolk is worse off. Situated just west of the mouth of Chesapeake Bay, it is bordered on three sides by water, including several rivers, like the Lafayette, that are actually long tidal streams that feed into the bay and eventually the ocean. Like many other cities, Norfolk was built on filled-in marsh. Now that fill is settling and compacting. In addition, the city is in an area where significant natural sinking of land is occurring. The result is that Norfolk has experienced the highest relative increase in sea level on the East Coast -- 14.5 inches since 1930, according to readings by the Sewells Point naval station here. Climate change is a subject of friction in Virginia. The state's attorney general, Ken T. Cuccinelli II, is trying to prove that a prominent climate scientist engaged in fraud when he was a researcher at the University of Virginia. But the residents of coastal neighborhoods here are less interested in the debate than in the real-time consequences of a rise in sea level. When Ms. Peck, now 75 and a caretaker to her husband, moved here 40 years ago, tidal flooding was an occasional hazard. "Last month," she said recently, "there were eight or nine days the tide was so doggone high it was difficult to drive."
Read the entire post in the New York Times