Thursday, 06 Apr 2006

Executives from leading U.S. energy companies -- including Exelon, Duke Energy, and General Electric -- joined giga-retailer Wal-Mart this week in calling on Congress to regulate their greenhouse-gas emissions. Go ahead, check your calendar -- nope, it's not April 1. These high-powered execs, who spoke at a Senate Energy Committee conference on climate change Tuesday, see the writing on the wall: global warming is happening, and business as usual can't go on. Will Congress give them what they want? Muckraker digs around to find out.

Hungry for Justice

Police arrest peaceful Indian anti-dam activist for hunger striking

Demonstrations against dams in India's Narmada Valley yesterday brought the heavy hand of police, who roughed up protestors and arrested India's most famous environmentalist eight days into a hunger strike on charges of -- get this -- attempting suicide. Medha Patkar's fast started when officials began raising the height of the biggest Narmada dam last month. After refusing government exhortations to end her hunger strike, Patkar was forcibly taken to a state hospital, where she's said to be under heavy guard and receiving a saline drip. For 21 years, Patkar, founder of the nonviolent Save the Narmada Movement, has sought environmental justice for tens of thousands of mostly poor villagers whose homes and farmlands have been submerged or are threatened by the huge dam project. Detaining her "is a strategy by the government to isolate a leader from her followers to break up this protest," said fellow activist Vimal Bhai.


If the closest your urban existence gets you to nature is marveling at the mold growing on your low-fat sour cream, it might be time for a change. But how can you get in touch with the earth through all that concrete? Two new books aim to connect city-dwellers to the ways of the natural world, from sunrise to sunset. Emily Gertz reviews them.

How Not to Prove Your Innocence

BP under criminal investigation for oil pipeline problems in Alaska

When your massively profitable oil company is under criminal investigation by the U.S. government for possible violations of the Clean Water Act, it's not a good idea to spill tens of thousands of gallons of crude onto the Alaskan tundra. So oopsie at BP. Turns out that federal regulators have for several months been investigating the company's oil-pipeline management on Alaska's North Slope, and that probe has now been expanded to include the early March rupture of a BP-operated pipeline. Caused by internal pipe corrosion, the spill dumped anywhere from 134,000 to 267,000 gallons of oil, and may rank as the largest North Slope spill ever. The company may also face criminal charges over an explosion at a Texas City plant last year that killed 15. Current and former workers say the company skimped on staffing and maintenance, which if true could pose some awkward PR problems -- BP posted a record net profit of $22.63 billion last year.

Good Mennonite, and Good Luck

Discovery of oil in Belize leads to craziness all around

A few years ago, a Mennonite farmer in Belize dug a well looking for water and found something else entirely: Black gold. Texas tea. Oil, that is, in a country where it had never before been discovered. This brought on a private firm, which hit the jackpot: three wells of petroleum so sweet and light that tractors could run on the unprocessed crude. The government's share from production of 60,000 barrels a day could cover the debt-strapped country's national budget. How much oil is in them thar hills? Nobody knows yet, but greens are disconcerted by the economy's turn from eco-tourism to petro-biz. They fear spills and land degradation. Meanwhile, the 1,700-strong Mennonite community, which owns the oil-rich land, fears its way of life may be disrupted -- you think? -- and has hired as an adviser an American who once served time in the slammer for bankruptcy fraud. Let the downward spiral begin.