On 16 January, between 4.30am and 5am, Chevron’s KS Endeavour drilling rig exploded six miles off the coast of Nigeria after the company lost control of the gas well. Two workers were reported killed. Ten days on, the fire continues to burn.
Photos courtesy of Morris Alagoa at ERA/FoE Nigeria. Continue reading
Shell sponsorship: there's something unsettling about the Shell branded baby blankets in this hospital in Port Harcourt, Nigeria. Nevertheless, corporate sponsorship and community projects cannot absolve oil companies like Shell for creating a health crisis and human rights tragedy in the Niger Delta.
EU oil companies including Shell and Total will be banned from importing and purchasing Iranian oil by new sanctions, reported Reuters. As Iran threatens to retaliate by blocking the Strait of Hormuz, a major artery of global oil shipments, the UK foreign minister William Hague downplayed the likelihood of war.
Below is a blog cross-posted from Request Initiative, who support charities and non-profit organisations to use freedom of information laws. This Friday, the group will ask the Information Rights Tribunal to expose the seed funder to a climate sceptic think-tank (GWPF) with suspected links to BP, Shell and other energy companies. For the original blog post, see here. Words by Brendan Montague.
Climate scientists will call on a British judge to disclose the identity of the seed funder to Lord Lawson’s climate sceptic think tank the Global Warming Policy Foundation, the Guardian reports today.
Professor James Hansen, adjunct professor at the Columbia University Earth Institute and one of the first scientists to warn of catastrophic climate change, is supporting a Freedom of Information request, saying the public interest will be served by ending the secrecy around the financing of Lord Lawson’s London based charity. Continue reading
On Monday 16 January at 4.30 to 5am, Chevron’s KS Endeavour drilling rig burst into flames, approximately 6 miles off the coast of Nigeria. Two workers are reported missing. The gas rig is still said to be burning for the second day running and is reported to have partially collapsed into the ocean. The cause is as yet unconfirmed, but early reports indicate that the explosion was partly the result of a failed blow out preventer (BOP), with parallels being drawn to the Deepwater Horizon disaster. The Nigerian state oil company, NNPC, speculated that Chevron’s drillers lost control of gas pressure when equipment failure led to a “gas-kick”. Continue reading
I’m in the Members’ Room at Tate Modern, it’s 10.30am on a spectacularly sunny winter’s day. The room overlooks the Square Mile – London’s financial district – and the view symbolises the growing pressures on artists and arts organisations to seek funding from the private sector, specifically from business.
Looking once again at the panel which honours a long list of Tate’s private supporters, I ponder the different ways of reading it: you could feel pride in the civic engagement of all those individuals and companies; or be struck by the generosity of the givers; or be amazed at the successful brand that Tate has made itself into; or feel moved to become a contributor yourself.
Or you could be mournful for the shift to the private sector of a public institution; feel angry at the dramatic shift in ideology from welfare state to the marketisation of the public arena that has underpinned all this. You could reflect that over the 30 years since Thatcher’s first assaults, our state arts policy has been increasingly pursuing a survival-of-the-fittest model favoured by the USA’s Republicans. Witness Arts Council England’s latest ￡100 million strategic fund to promote assist arts organisations in accessing private philanthropy. Continue reading
Yesterday on Canadian national news channel CBC a spokesperson for EthicalOil.org floundered as she unconvincingly avoided the interviewer’s repeated question “Does Ethical Oil take money from Enbridge Pipeline?” The repetition of the question makes the whole interview very watchable – especially around 4:40 into the video. If EthicalOil.org do take financial support from Enbridge, it would completely tear apart their front as a “grass roots Canadian group” and show them up as actually being ‘oil-funded astroturf’. Enbridge are fighting tooth and nail against massive community-led resistance to their tar sands pipeline plans. Continue reading
To see what Platform’s youth, arts and activism project Shake! has to say at this significant moment, and also going back over the months to when we started the project at the Stephen Lawrence Centre in Deptford in August 2010, start here.
Shake’s young people make change happen through poetry, music, comment, actions, discussion, and performances, supported by a team of dedicated artists-facilitators.
Now more than ever we need people to come together and support this kind of work. Work with us: platformshake@gmail.com
The Corporate Occupation of the Arts. -OccupyLSX / The Bank of Ideas
Earl St. EC2A 2AL – Sat 14th Jan 2012. 2- 6pm
We’re taking part in this afternoon of presentations and discussions at the Bank of Ideas, an abandoned office block purchased several years ago by the bank UBS and squatted by Occupy LSX. More info about it all below
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Click on the image to view the full video from NTD
Shell’s major oil spill at the offshore Bonga facility in Nigeria is threatening the livelihoods of at least 13 different coastal communities, reports Reuters. As thick crude oil continues washing up on Nigeria’s shoreline, Shell is denying responsibility and claims that “non-Bonga oil” from a third party spill is to blame. A local resident from Bisangbene told the Vanguard newspaper that Shell’s Bonga spill had ruined livelihoods in the fishing village. Mr. Goodnews Gereghewei said:
our occupation is predominantly fishing and our fishermen have withdrawn from the sea because of the massive oil spill due to fear of being roasted alive since they fish mostly at night with local lamps.
Despite serious environmental concerns, the heightened risk of major accidents and inadequate regulatory oversight, the UK’s Department for Energy and Climate Change has awarded 46 new licences for oil and gas drilling in the North Sea, including in the ecologically sensitive West of Shetlands area. Speaking to BBC News, Adam Ma’anit of Platform condemned the move:
“There is insufficient data with regards to the complexity of the marine environment in these areas…It is highly irresponsible for [the Department of Energy and Climate Change] to sign off on any concomitant oil and gas expansion in the region.” Continue reading