Is the Alaska Pipeline corroded? You bet it is. Has been for more than a decade. Did British Petroleum shut the pipe yesterday to turn a quick buck on its negligence, to profit off the disaster it created? Just ask the “smart pig.”

Years ago, I had the unhappy job of leading an investigation of British Petroleum’s management of the Alaska pipeline system. I was working for the Chugach villages, the Alaskan Natives who own the shoreline slimed by the 1989 Exxon Valdez tanker grounding.

VANCOUVER -- There are few places in the world more beautiful than the
wilderness area that British Columbia's Tahltan people call home. There
are great sweeping mountains, volcanic cones, surging rivers and lakes
so clear that you can look down from a float plane and see fish
swimming. On dark cliffs, white mountain goats shine like flecks of mica
and driving the Stewart Cassiar Highway north from Kitwanga, it is not
unusual to round a curve and find a pair of black bears sitting on the
centre line.

by Stephen Lendman

No one writes with more passion, commitment and knowledge about the immense dangers of nuclear technology in all its forms than Australian physician and nuclear expert Helen Caldicott. Since writing her first book in 1978, Dr. Caldicott has worked tirelessly to expose the real threat this technology from hell poses to human survival.

In her first book she wrote: "As a physician, I contend that nuclear technology threatens life on our planet with extinction. If present trends continue, the air we breathe, the food we eat, and the water we drink will soon be contaminated with enough radioactive pollutants to pose a potential health hazard far greater than any plague humanity has ever experienced."

About 80 protesters, upset about logging in the boreal forest near Grassy Narrows, blocked a stretch of the Trans-Canada Highway near Kenora, Ont., on Thursday.

Ontario Provincial Police are at the blockade, but are not commenting on the situation. Drivers trying to cross east-west from Manitoba to Ontario are being rerouted by police through the city.

"Recently, officials of Canada's newly elected Conservative government signaled their unwillingness to let the Dehcho stand in the way of the project, which proponents want to start building in 2008 and finish a few years later. Jim Prentice, minister of Indian affairs, declared that the pipeline, which still needs regulatory approval, would be built along the Mackenzie Valley with or without the tribe's blessing."

[...]

"Grand Chief Herb Norwegian said that if the government tried to expropriate Dehcho land for pipeline construction, the tribe would retaliate with litigation and possibly blockades."

Increase in oil prices translates into higher prices of all commodities. As Hindustan Times reported oil price hike turns cereal killer (Hindustan Times, Wednesday, June 14, 2006, page 2 table). Yet the increase in oil prices in world markets is inevitable because the resource is dwindling and supplies have peaked, peak oil means the end of cheap oil, and an end to economies organized around the increasing availability of cheap oil.

Coincidence ? I think not.

Total sees 2020 oil output peak, urges less demand

- France's Total estimates global oil production will peak around 2020 if output growth continues at current levels and has advised governments to cool demand to avoid a supply crunch, its chief executive said. "The capacity of raising (oil) production is a real challenge ... if we stay with this type of production growth our impression is that peak production could be reached around 2020," Thierry Desmarest told the World Gas Conference in Amsterdam on Wednesday.

[img_assist|fid=186|thumb=1|alt=ANWR|caption=ANWR]
House Votes to Allow Drilling in Alaska Refuge

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Citing the public outcry over $3-a-gallon gasoline and
America's heavy reliance on foreign oil, the House on Thursday voted to open
an Alaska wildlife refuge to oil drilling, knowing the prospects for Senate
approval were slim.

[img_assist|fid=183|thumb=1|alt=Tar Sands mine|caption=Tar sands mining operation]

Fort Chipewyan, Alta. - For century upon century, Lake Athabasca has been a source of water, fish and fur for the aboriginal people who live on its sprawling shores in the far north of Alberta.

Now, it has become a source of fear.

Recently a discussion on M.K.Hubbert arose on the marxism discussion list. This in itself was rather surprizing since Hubbert is a technocrat, and Technocracy Inc. is usually dismissed by the left as being some utopian scheme, or some kind of strange sect or cult. They were the original scientists and engineers for social responsibility, and being ahead of their time their theories appear to read like science fiction.

Yep, peak oil will begin in Alberta in 2020, about the time that Hubbert predicted. "Production from conventional oil wells will decline by half by 2020, to only 550,000 barrels a day, CAPP predicts."

[img_assist|fid=178|thumb=0|alt=iwo jima- bolivia]

SAO PAULO - Move over the "axis of evil". The time is ripe for the "axis of gas". Meet the Gran Gasoduto del Sur (the Great Gas Pipeline of the South) - the South American entry into Pipelineistan, soon to join networks from Siberia to both Europe and Asia as well as the American-inspired Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline. In terms of political will applied by the new axis of Caracas, Brasilia and Buenos Aires, the pipeline is already a done deal.

La Paz, May 2, 2006 (Prensa Latina)

Oil Ministry Advisor Manuel Morales said the [oil] nationalization decree President Evo Morales signed Monday sends out a message of sovereignty.

The state will bring in annually additional income of 300 million dollars as holder of 82 percent of shares from large fields operated by transnationals and 60-70 percent shareholder of smaller fields.

Inuvialuit want a voice

Monday, April 17, 2006

How do we explain destroyed lands and waters to our children? Who's willing to take the responsibility of compensating the Inuvialuit harvesters and their families suffering from the loss of traditional harvesting of the land?

Bolivia demands back taxes from oil corporations

Bolivia is claiming 40 million US dollars in back taxes from oil corporations, a sum which could jump to 200 million US dollars if fines and administrative costs are included, said Wednesday an official source from the Bolivian government.