Brazil’s Petrobas raises $70b
Brazil’s oil company, Petrobas, raised $70 billion in a sale of it’s stock.
According to a report on the Economist website, “The share issue is an important element in Brazil’s plan to exploit the sizeable oilfields it discovered off its coasts in 2007. These ‘pre-salt’ fields (so called because they are under a thick layer of salt, deep below the seabed) are thought to contain enough oil to make
Brazil a significant energy exporter, albeit not quite on the scale of
Saudi Arabia.”
According to the South Atlantic News Agency, MercoPress, “Petrobras forecasts that by 2014 it will produce the energy equivalent of 3.9 billion barrels of oil per day when natural gas output is included. That’s equal to what Exxon Mobil Corp., the world’s largest publicly traded oil and gas company produces today.”
California’s Prop 23 AGW initiative in dead heat
The Los Angeles Times’ Greenspace blog says, opinion polls on Proposition 23 “shows a dead heat among California voters.”
Ugandan national parks see surge in animal populations
(H/T GNN)
The number of animals in Uganda’s national parks and game reserves has soared over the past decade, the Uganda Wildlife Authority (UWA) says.
The latest figures show that the population of some species has doubled since 1999, spokeswoman Lillian Nsubuga said.
Wildlife had benefited from improved monitoring and the expulsion of rebels from the country, she added.
The animals on the rise include buffalos, giraffes and elephants.
New statistics show that the population with the biggest increase is that of the Impala, a grazing antelope.
The number of Impala in Uganda has surged to more than 35,000, from around 1,600 at the time of the last census in 1999.
Hippopotamuses, waterbucks, and zebras are also on the increase.
James Hansen arrested at White House over mountain top mining
According to treehugger.com (a Discovery Company) among the number of mountaintop removal protesters arrested was Dr. James Hansen.He believes the practice of strip-mining is destroying a historic mountain range and poison water systems.
“The science is clear,” said the handcuffed Dr Hansen, “mountaintop removal destroys historic mountain ranges, poisons water supplies and pollutes the air with coal and rock dust. Mountaintop removal, providing only a small fraction of our energy, can and should be abolished. The time for half measures and caving in to polluting industries must end.”
Dr. Hansen (whose degrees include a BA in Physics and mathematics, an MS in Astronomy, and a PD in Physics) is known to be an outspoken critic of the country’s use of fossil fuels, contends there is a conspiracy of special interests preventing the transition to renewable energy.
Special interests have blocked transition to our renewable energy future. Instead of moving heavily into renewable energies, fossil companies choose to spread doubt about global warming, as tobacco companies discredited the smoking-cancer link. Methods are sophisticated, including disguised funding to shape school textbook discussions.
CEOs of fossil energy companies know what they are doing and are aware of long-term consequences of continued business as usual. In my opinion, these CEOs should be tried for high crimes against humanity and nature. [emphasis mine]
Nullius in Verba 