China: Two coal miners sentenced to death for killing locals who protested pollution

A court in China's vast northern region of Inner Mongolia has sentenced to death a coal mine worker for killing a resident who had complained about pollution [...] Earlier this month, a court in the same part of Inner Mongolia ordered the execution of a man for murdering an ethnic Mongolian herder who had also protested against coal mine pollution, a killing that set off days of rare protests.

This past month five environmentalists have been murdered in Brazil. Police are - apparently - clueless.

Sources: Yahoo! / Chinese man gets death in pollution protest case, AP / Chinese sentenced to die for Mongol herder's death

More of the same. And then...

How better lose reader than with a headline like that? (I know: a going nowhere leading text like this one.) Well, while writing up this blog in report format a couple of links have piled up.

First: more of the two obvious ones

From Population growth, climate change raising odds of war over water, forum hears:

"Water resources in themselves have rarely been the sole source of conflict or war. Unfortunately, our global water situation is changing rapidly and may soon no longer resemble anything that has existed on earth before. The tensions and conflicts over water of the kind that have typically occurred in the past will soon represent only one of many emerging explosive hydro-climatic issues that are likely to bring sovereign nations into internal and external discord that could erupt in violence. Humanity's numbers appear to be the greatest threat to water security globally. We have created a hydroclimatic bomb, and that bomb has started to tick. But we don't know how big the bomb is or where or when it will go off."
- Bob Sandford, Canadian water-policy expert

Random fact from the article: 25% of water conflicts of the last five millennium occurred with the last decade.

Next: sweeping ones own doorstep, shipping off the dirt

Center for American Progress asks the hard question in Coal-Fired Conflict: Enabling Exports Clouds Environmental and Economic Goals:

if [a country] is serious about combating the perils of climate change through economic and environmental transformation, should [that country] really be encouraging the export of [home extracted] coal to [foreign] markets?

While it may improve carbon credit accounting exported coal will pollute the same atmosphere exactly as much and even more due to the transportation.

"Coal is a dead man walkin'. Banks won't finance them. Insurance companies won't insure them. The EPA is coming after them...and the economics to make it clean don't work."
- Kevin Parker, Deutsche Bank

If the United States is to assume a position of world leadership in the effort to reduce global warming pollution, and if it is to commit more fully to a clean energy future with its attendant economic, health, and environmental benefits, it makes little sense for policymakers to facilitate significant increases in coal exports.

Finally: Environmental laws to trigger trade wars

If you can stomach it, read Reuters / Canada warns EU of trade conflict over oil sands. Truly depressing testimony to the obstacles environmentalism and common sense is facing.

According to a leaked letter from the Canadian government to the EU, a proposed European tax on dirty energy is in their eyes an "unnecessary barrier". The fact that tar sand oils are one of the most polluting energy resources available is to the Canadians "not supported by the science".

The Canadians are already suing Europe at World Trade Organization level on issues like hormone-treated beef, genetically modified foods, seal products and more - their free trade "right" to spam the world with tar sand oil would simply add another to the list. Shame on Canada.

Extra, extra: The interesting one!

Check out this interesting discussion at reddit / The storms that hit the US this weekend killed more American civilians in a single day than terrorists have in the last 9 years.

Most comments are either simply about the tornadoes, about surviving a tornado, about possible lack of warning systems in the US... and then some are quite funny and on our topic:

Hair dryers have killed more American civilians than terrorists have in the last 9 years, what's your point?
- eeepc

His point is that we need to start a WAR ON TORNADOES!
- Xsophos

Tornados hate us for our freedoms!!!!
- javo93

They are a threat to national security!
- TheWhyGuy

They did target 3 military bases and yet no response yet???
- enthreeoh

US ecowar soundtrack by Woody Guthrie

The 1913 Italian Hall Massacre

a tragedy that occurred on December 24, 1913 in Calumet, Michigan. Seventy-three men, women, and children, mostly striking mine workers and their families, were crushed to death in a stampede when someone falsely yelled "fire" at a crowded Christmas party. [Wikipedia]

The Ludlow Massacre

the violent deaths of 19 people during an attack by the Colorado National Guard on a tent colony of 1,200 striking coal miners and their families at Ludlow, Colorado on April 20, 1914. The deaths occurred after a day-long fight between strikers and the Guard. Two women and eleven children were asphyxiated and burned to death. Three union leaders and two strikers were killed by gunfire, along with one child, one passer-by, and one National Guardsman. In response, the miners armed themselves and attacked dozens of mines, destroying property and engaging in several skirmishes with the Colorado National Guard. [Wikipedia]

The Dust Bowl

[aka] or the Dirty Thirties was a period of severe dust storms causing major ecological and agricultural damage to American and Canadian prairie lands from 1930 to 1936 (in some areas until 1940). The phenomenon was caused by severe drought coupled with decades of extensive farming without crop rotation, fallow fields, cover crops or other techniques to prevent erosion. Deep plowing of the virgin topsoil of the Great Plains had displaced the natural grasses that normally kept the soil in place and trapped moisture even during periods of drought and high winds. [...] Millions of acres of farmland became useless, and hundreds of thousands of people were forced to leave their homes; many of these families (often known as "Okies", since so many of them [though not all of them] came from Oklahoma) traveled to California and other states, where they found economic conditions little better than those they had left. Owning no land, many traveled from farm to farm picking fruit and other crops at starvation wages. [Wikipedia]

Woodrow Wilson "Woody" Guthrie (1912–1967) is best known as an American singer-songwriter and folk musician, whose musical legacy includes hundreds of political, traditional and children's songs, ballads and improvised works. He frequently performed with the slogan "This Machine Kills Fascists" displayed on his guitar. [...] Such songwriters as Bob Dylan, Phil Ochs, Tom Paxton, and Mike Ness have acknowledged their debt to Guthrie as an influence. Guthrie traveled with migrant workers from Oklahoma to California and learned traditional folk and blues songs. Many of his songs are about his experiences in the Dust Bowl era during the Great Depression, earning him the nickname the "Dust Bowl Troubadour". [Wikipedia]

Fighting for fossils: the al-Fakkah oil field and West Virginian mountain tops

The United Nations Climate Change Conference 2009 (COP15) has just ended at the Bella Center in Copenhagen, Denmark. Even while world leaders were discussing how to curb demand for fossil energy the fight for control of supply of them continued unabated.

On the Iran-Iraq border the two countries are moving troops around to impress each other. On Friday the 18th, when COP15 was scheduled to end, Iraq accused Iran of seizing the al-Fakkah oil well on disputed border territory. Saturday they sent troops. Early December Iraq signed contracts with Royal Dutch Shell and Petronas for the development of the 1.5 billion barrel oil field. (Iraq accuses Iran of seizing oil well near border, Iraq sends forces to oil well seized by Iran, Baghdad reclaims oil facility at al-Fakkah)

Although (technically) not in this conflict, the US army is worrying a great deal about it (Mullen: "Clock Now Running" on Iran).

At home the Americans are divided in the question about how far to go in the pursuit of their own fossil resources. Is removing mountain tops for coal going too far? Much too far, says environmentalists. A group called Climate Ground Zero has arranged more than 20 protests in which more than 100 activists have been arrested.

"Mountaintop-removal mining blasts away our souls, blasts away our communities, the souls of the workers who are doing the work and our cultural and natural heritage."
- Rev. Robin Blakeman, West Virginia minister and environmental activist.

"Treehuggers", says the miners. The mine operator, Massey Energy, equates being anti-coal with being anti-American. July 2009 I posted a YouTube video of miners harassing environmentalists (Workers of polluting and nature exploiting industries in violent attacks against environmentalists).

"Look out violence is coming your way. There is a group ready as we speak to eliminate the threat."
- "Superhippieslayer", anonymous online miner

"There's a possibility it might not be safe to live in the Coal River Valley"
- Chuck Nelson, activist and former underground miner

(Fear of violence grows in mountaintop mining fight, Religion shaping mountain-top removal debate in Appalachia coal country)


World Gas Prices by Don Hankins

(This article was cross-posted at TH!NK ABOUT IT.)

Workers of polluting and nature exploiting industries in violent attacks against environmentalists

Remember October 2008 when Old growth forest lumberjacks attack[ed] environmentalist protestors?

Now fishermen have assaulted Greenpeace activists who suspected foul play.

[As activst Emma boarded the vessel on sea] they punched her, pulled her hair, picked her up and threw her overboard [and later on the pier] She was viciously assaulted by a burly sailor twice her size, holding her down and punching her repeatedly in the face.

Read A black eye for Emma and another step forward for bluefin tuna at the Greenpeace Staff Blog.

An interestingly identical video appeared even before I managed to blog the above: Coal mine workers verbally abuse anti-coal protesters at what appears to be a quite cozy event. See Treehuggers Pro-Coal Thugs Crash Peaceful Anti-Coal Event in West Virginia - This is Getting Ugly (Video) or click play right away:


Both the big fat lumberjacks and the big, fat and half naked coal miner are just physically intimidating while intellectually challenged. But notice the female coal worker says:

"You may have another way of earning a living, but we don't."

That might as well be a quote by the equally bone headed oil industry. Rather than exploring new ways of "earning a living" they sponsor anti-environmentalist propaganda organizations (just a quick search immediately found a note about Exxon at SourceWatch.org and a website called "Follow the Oil Money".)

Indigenous Peruvians and police in deadly clashes at oil and mining protests

Sometimes researchers are blamed of being alarmists stirring up fears of a fictional dystopia by the business-as-usual crowd. But it seems a forewarning of conflict over oil in Peru is proceeding according to exactly such a warning. The news first...

40+ dead at protest

In extension of free trade agreements the Peruvian government has plans for 'developing' the Amazon homelands of many indigenous communities - opening it for oil, mineral, logging, and agricultural exploitation. Locals have been protesting some of these initiatives claiming they are unconstitutional and in violation of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. When police intervened fighting erupted. Body counts wary; one is as high as 81.

President Alan Garcia Perez is claimed to have been behind a massacre on suspects of being Maoist guerrillas in 1986. A former army colonel turned politician is siding with the protesters. An arrest warrant has been issued on protest leader Alberto Pizango who has gone into hiding.

Sources: Upside Down World / 50 Days of Protest and One Massacre in the Peruvian Amazon | Peruanista blog | The New York Times / 9 Hostage Officers Killed at Peruvian Oil Facility | AP / 9 more police killed in Amazon protests in Peru | AP / At least 31 killed in Peru Amazon clashes | Mongobay / Oil or Death in the Amazon

Peer reviewed prophesies

A 2008 paper on PLoS ONE discussed this ongoing and accelerating exploitation in "the most species-rich part of the Amazon". From the paper:

Without improved policies, the increasing scope and magnitude of planned extraction means that environmental and social impacts are likely to intensify. [... We] consider the conflicts where the blocks overlap indigenous peoples' territories.

Oil and gas development in the western Amazon has already caused major environmental and social impacts. Direct impacts include deforestation for access roads, drilling platforms, and pipelines, and contamination from oil spills and wastewater discharges.

In Peru, hydrocarbon blocks now overlap 20 protected areas. Thirteen of these protected areas preceded creation of the oil blocks and lack compatibility studies required by the Protected Areas Law.

the history of oil and gas extraction in the western Amazon is one of massive ecological and social disruption, the future need not repeat the past.

No, it need not. But it just did. Heed the warnings of those who reason with statistics and logic.


Finer, M., Jenkins, C., Pimm, S., Keane, B., & Ross, C. (2008). Oil and Gas Projects in the Western Amazon: Threats to Wilderness, Biodiversity, and Indigenous Peoples PLoS ONE, 3 (8) DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0002932



Vis stort kort
The lands of the Incas are endowed with copper, silver, gold, petroleum, timber, fish, iron ore, coal, phosphate, potash, hydropower and natural gas while troubled by deforestation, illegal logging, overgrazing, soil erosion, desertification, air and water pollution (including pollution from mining wastes). (Source: CIA Factbook)

Killing for Coal: The Ludlow Massacre and more

Coal's been generating controversy for about as long as it's been generating energy.

On April 20th 1914, coal was at the epicenter of the bloodiest battle in US labor history. It's called the Ludlow Massacre, after the mining town in Southern Colorado where coal miners went on strike demanding better conditions. The Colorado National Guard attacked a tent colony of striking miners and their families - 20 people were killed - most, women and children.

Interesting? Move right on to America's Deadliest Labor War which is an interview with the author of Killing for coal professor of history Thomas Andrews.

Also, I put it on the "curriculum". And the Ludlow massacre is on Wikipedia of course.

Tennessee, USA: Activists Detained For Taking Ash Spill Photographs

Two environmental activists were detained by the Tennessee Valley Authority police for photographing the site of last weeks ash spill. While it does not appear that they will be charged with crimes, they were unable to document the ash spill’s effects on the area and its water supply.

The fight against dirty energy

December 2008: Activists pledge 'all-out war' to block power plant

Environmentalists are vowing to block a proposed $6 billion coal-fired power plant in Surry County, saying it would increase air pollution, would contribute to global warming and is not needed.

Late September 2008: Gore urges civil disobedience to stop coal plants

Nobel Peace Prize winner and environmental crusader Al Gore urged young people on Wednesday to engage in civil disobedience to stop the construction of coal plants without the ability to store carbon.

Early September 2008: Climate Change a Viable Defense in British Court

A group of Greenpeace activists dubbed the “Kingsnorth Six” were found not guilty of criminal damage by a British jury earlier this month, despite fessing up to defacing a coal-fired power plant in an attempt to shut it down. Their creative legal team argued that the damage was justified under a law that excuses property damage inflicted to prevent greater property damage, which the defense said would occur as a result of climate change.