From British daily The Guardian:
Shell will no longer invest in renewable technologies such as wind, solar and hydro power because they are not economic, the Anglo-Dutch oil company said today. It plans to invest more in biofuels which environmental groups blame for driving up food prices and deforestation.
See also here.
BP axes 620 jobs from solar business: here.
BP faces two civil cases over Alaskan oil spills: here.
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Dear Kitty. Some blog 
ACTION ALERT PLEASE FORWARD WIDELY!
Call on U.S. Government to Halt Ecologically Misguided
Support for Large Scale Biofuel
By Rainforest Rescue (Rettet den Regenwald)
http://www.regenwald.org/international/englisch/index.php
In partnership with Ecological Internet’s Climate Ark
http://www.climateark.org/
March 23, 2009
TAKE ACTION HERE NOW:
http://www.climateark.org/shared/alerts/send.aspx?id=corn_biofuel
Fuel from food and already overstressed terrestrial
ecosystems is immoral and unsustainable. The Obama
administration must start by rejecting the proposal to
increase the corn ethanol fuel blend limit from 10-15%.
BRIEF BACKGROUND:
Please support US environmental and social justice groups
calling upon the new Obama administration to halt financial
and policy support for large scale biofuel production. In
particular, the Obama government’s potential support for
agrofuel expansion — making of transportation fuels from
food — runs counter to their aim to urgently address
climate change and threatens to cause more hunger, human
rights abuses, and degradation of soil and water.
The Obama administration promised to reduce greenhouse gas
emissions and to boost renewable energy. Unfortunately, a
large part of their solution involves further boosting
agrofuel production, both in the US and abroad. The new
administration must heed the overwhelming evidence that
agrofuels worsen climate change through further
deforestation and the destruction of other ecosystems; drive
food prices up, forcing more and more people worldwide into
hunger and malnutrition; and decimate biodiversity and
ecosystems.
Rainforest Rescue and Ecological Internet are concerned with
America’s growing ethanol industry, and the implications it
has in setting a precedent for massive agricultural
industrialisation of the world’s remaining rainforests and
other natural wildlands. We concur with the growing
ecological consensus that large-scale industrial production
of transport fuels and other energy from plants such as
corn, sugar cane, oil palm, soya, trees, grasses, or so-
called agricultural and woodland waste threatens forests,
biodiversity, food sovereignty, community-based land rights
and will worsen climate change.
TAKE ACTION NOW:
http://www.climateark.org/shared/alerts/send.aspx?id=corn_biofuel
DISCUSS THIS ALERT:
http://www.climateark.org/blog/2009/03/alert-call-on-us-government-to.asp
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Green groups want Shell oil sands permits rescinded
Wed Apr 8, 2009 2:31pm EDT
By Scott Haggett
CALGARY, Alberta (Reuters) – Canadian environmental groups asked regulators on Wednesday to rescind approvals for part of a $13.7 billion expansion of Royal Dutch Shell Plc’s oil sands project, alleging the company backed off promises to cut greenhouse gas emissions.
The Oil Sands Environmental Coalition — which includes the Pembina Institute, the Toxics Watch Society of Alberta and the Fort McMurray Environmental Association — say Shell has broken a negotiated agreement to significantly cut the output of greenhouse gases (GHG) such as carbon dioxide from an expansion of its Muskeg River and Jackpine oil sands mines in northern Alberta.
The coalition is asking the Canadian government and Alberta’s Energy Resources Conservation Board, who jointly approved the project, to reconsider their ruling through a new public hearing because Shell’s promise was a factor in the decision.
“Shell has broken a binding agreement,” said Simon Dyer, oil sands program director at the Pembina Institute. Regulators “can reopen those approvals given that Shell has clearly reneged on its commitment.”
The groups claim Shell agreed to come up with specific targets for cuts to greenhouse gas emissions at the mine sites. Instead, they say the company told them it will not quantify its GHG cuts, deciding instead to wait for the federal government to come up with regulations on emissions.
Canada’s oil sands have the largest reserves outside the Middle East. However separating the tar-like bitumen from sand and soil and upgrading it into refinery-ready synthetic crude is more energy intensive and emits more carbon dioxide than conventional oil production.
In a release, Shell said it would work with stakeholders to strengthen carbon dioxide emissions policies and was looking to the government to establish its rules.
“The need to reduce emissions is too important to rely on voluntary commitments, and along with the rest of the industry we are now focused on meeting these new regulatory targets,” the company said.
Bob Curran, a spokesman for Alberta’s Energy Resources Conservation Board, said it is reviewing the coalition’s application. He did not say when a decision would be made.
Shell has a 60 percent stake in the Athabasca Oil Sands Project, which includes an oil sands mine near Fort McMurray and an upgrader near Edmonton. Its partners, each controlling 20 percent, are Chevron Corp and Marathon Oil Corp.
The 100,000 barrel per day expansion would boost output from the project to 255,000 barrels a day, and includes a new mining project and additional capacity at the Scotford upgrader. The project is expected to be complete late next year.
(Editing by Rob Wilson)
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PRESS/SOCIAL MEDIA RELEASE
Major Victory for Ivory Coast’s Rainforests as Oil Palm Successfully Resisted
– Finally the oil palm scourge threatening primary rainforests and life giving ecosystems worldwide faces a setback as local protests are again successfully supported internationally by Ecological Internet, Rainforest Rescue and others.
April 25, 2009
By Earth’s Newsdesk, a project of Ecological Internet (EI)
http://www.ecoearth.info/newsdesk/
CONTACT: Dr. Glen Barry, glenbarry@ecologicalinternet.org
Côte d’Ivoire’s (Ivory Coast) main palm oil company, Palmci, on Friday announced it was abandoning a major plantation scheme in the south of the country after opposition by environmentalists to destruction of 12,000 hectares (29,700 acres) of primary rainforests. Tanoé Swamps Forest is one of the last remaining old growth forests in the country and the last refuge for three highly endangered primates — the Miss Waldron’s Red Colobus, the Geoffroy’s colobus and the Diana roloway — as well as home to many endangered plant species.
In June of 2008, Ecological Internet and Rainforest Rescue of Germany initiated the first major international campaign against the Tanoé Swamps Forest oil palm project and in support of local opposition. Leading global consumer products company Unilever was then poised to destroy Ivory Coast’s rainforests as both investor and customer, after having just made a supposed commitment — falsely heralded by some — to rainforest protection and certified oil palm, but starting in 2015.
EI President Dr. Glen Barry explains, “6,257 people from 92 countries sent 407,131 protest emails, resisting Unilever’s greenwash, and making this a global rainforest controversy. Again, together we have proven the power of global citizens working within loose transnational coalitions, connected by the Internet, to confront ecocide wherever it is occurring. Never doubt that ecological protest, online and in person, can make a real difference for Earth. As with all rainforest ‘victories’, this bears continued watching as Palmci is scouting other areas.”
### MORE ###
This recent victory highlights the growing effectiveness of Ecological Internet’s “Earth Action Network” [1], particularly working with Rainforest Rescue on U.S. biomass energy issues. In the past few months, EI’s global network of tens of thousands of ecological sustainability citizen activists have significantly contributed to victories to begin ending the use of corn ethanol biofuels (while highlighting the dangers of 2nd generation biomass based biofuel), exposed the charlatan nature of proposed climate geo-engineering schemes, stopped the midnight raid upon Oregon’s wild forests, and fearlessly and at great expense confronted those greenwashing FSC’s approval for industrial first time logging of primary forests.
Dr. Barry continues, “oil palm development, logging and other industrial development of ancient primary and old growth forests — certified or not — is a crime against Earth and humanity. Earth, and all her creatures including humans, cannot exist without old forests. Their full protection and restoration is a global ecological imperative or all life may end. If you care about you and your family’s water, air, food and shelter in the future, you will commit now to continued, escalating ecological protest on rainforests and climate, and thus to save being.”
### ENDS ###
[1] Current Earth Action Network alerts: http://www.ecoearth.info/shared/alerts/
Discuss this release at:
http://www.rainforestportal.org/issues/2009/04/release_major_victory_for_ivor.asp
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