Lovely picture on the front page of Le Devoir today: a little girl walking along the railway track in Lac Mégantic with a rainbow in the background.The symbolism is probably good for the folks there: they have to resume their lives as best they can. For the rest of us, it might give us the courage to find the way to less reliance on petroleum.
Because the question way, way, in the background in all the discussion of the explosion at Lac Mégantic and the weird weather is: how can we get over our dependance on petroleum?
There is no simple answer, but the first step will be to convince those in power/controlling industry to give us alternatives. That is why this story from The New York Times about student groups urging their universities to divest themselves of investments on petroleum concnerns is so important. "Divest" is a very interesting strategy.
4 comments:
Folks down here in Delaware have been following with keen interest the tragic events in Lac Megantic , Canada. The PBF-owned re-opened Delaware City Refinery have received a waiver from the Delaware Coastal Zone Act restriction on using transport facilities (rail or by barge) on public land or water to transport dangerous ,toxic substances like the bitumen dirty tar sands.
I hope to be at the July 16th Coastal Zone Act town meeting at the Delaware Tech Terry campus. There are important questions that need to be raised in a public forum about why the Jack Markell Administration waived certain requirements of the Coastal Zone Act in allowing the Delaware City Refinery access to rail transportation on public land outside of the urban/industrial boundary and use of rail and barge facilities to transport highly toxic, hazardous bitumen dirty tar sands to and from the plant. I'd like to know if this action was also a violation of the Federal Clean Water Act , Clean Water Action Network, and the Endangered Species Act ? Why wasn't there any request made to the Delaware Refinery owners to make up an Environmental impact assessment and a Habitat Conservation Plan for the area that was going to be effected by the transport of hazardous, toxic , dirty liquid energy fuel on tanker rail cars or river barge?
Very interesting points. Could I post it to my Facebook page, which gets viewed by a different group from the one that reads my blog?
You are very welcomed to post it to your Facebook page. I'd be happy if my comments were opened up to a wider conversation audience and receive a diversity of reactions and commentary on the subject. We need a good , informed public talk on our energy futures.
Will do.
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