can�t have it both ways
...significant risk to the Western Pacific Grey Whales, one of the world�s most critically endangered whale populations, that feed in the waters off of Sakhalin Island, Russia. There are only about 100 of these whales remaining, and only 23 of the females are capable of calving. The whales feed adjacent to where a consortium of companies, including Shell Oil and Mitsubishi, are drilling for oil. Natural gas that is extracted near the oil platforms is a part of the overall integrated project, and is intended for markets abroad.
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This Thursday, the California Public Utilities Commission, urged by the Governor, is considering approval of long-term contracts of electricity to the energy giant Sempra. It is likely that some of the new gas needed to meet these contracts would come from Sakhalin. Sempra and Shell are now working to gain approval to build a liquid natural gas (LNG) import terminal in Baja California, just north of Ensenada. One of the likely sources of the LNG is Sakhalin Island, from where the gas would be moved across the Pacific in huge LNG tankers. From the Baja terminal, pipelines would move the natural gas through Baja, across the U.S. border, and into the California gas grid. Another possible route from Sakhalin to the Southern California grid is through another controversial proposed LNG terminal in Long Beach harbor.
There are currently no LNG terminals on the U.S. West Coast, nor has any of the proposed terminals received final approval for construction. Awarding Sempra these electricity contracts will increase the pressure to further develop in Sakhalin, as well as other endangered ecosystems around the world. This plan will dramatically increase the state's dependence on foreign fossil fuels for years to come.
According to the Governor, the Sempra deal is necessary to avoid a future energy crisis in California. However, the rolling blackouts of 2000-2001 were caused not by a shortage of gas, but by energy manipulation, and by the shut-down of gas-fired power plants to comply with the Clean Air Act. Sempra is one of the companies who were responsible for manipulation of the state�s energy supply. Awarding these huge contracts to Sempra would make rolling blackouts more, not less, likely.
Pacific Environment/Common Dreams May.04.04
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It's like the whales are only on TV anyway. And they'll still be on TV. People stay inside more and more, being in a car is being inside, as the current crop of satanically-inspired car commercials evoke so elegantly. It's a karmic stripping away of the trappings of identity, no more connection to the seasons, no more to the land, to water, slowly no more connection to each other, as human creatures, as animals, now we're like boxes of cereal eyeing each other from shelves across the aisle. Consumer products consuming themselves.
