In Illinois, Flames and Clouds of Smoke Signal Yet Another 'Bomb Train' Disaster

Published on Friday, March 06, 2015

 

by Common Dreams

In Illinois, Flames and Clouds of Smoke Signal Yet Another 'Bomb Train' Disaster

Derailment in Illinois near the Mississippi River affirms predictions that continued addiction to fossil fuels will be accompanied by dangers at every turn

by Jon Queally, staff writer

 

 

 

 

 

Smoke and flames erupt from the scene of a train derailment Thursday, March 5, 2015, near Galena, Ill. A BNSF Railway freight train loaded with crude oil derailed around 1:20 p.m. in a rural area where the Galena River meets the Mississippi, said Jo Daviess County Sheriff's Sgt. Mike Moser.  (Photo: Associated Press)

 

In yet the latest fiery example of a crude-by-rail disaster, a derailment on Thursday of a train carrying crude oil near the Mississippi River in Galena, Illinois (not far from the Iowa border) saw several cars burst into flames as thick black smoke billowed into the air.

Operated by the rail company BNSF, the company said the train originated in North Dakota and was carrying more than a hundred cars of Bakken crude.
"The only thing more mind-boggling than three such accidents in three weeks is the continued lack of action by the Obama administration to protect us from these dangerous oil trains." —Mollie Matteson, Center for Biological DiversityAccording to Reuters:

Dark smoke was seen for miles around the crash site, and the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency told local WREX.com that two of the cars were potentially on fire. Images posted online by Dubuque Scanner showed flames several hundred feet high, while aerial footage showed the wreck spread across two sets of track.

The train with 105 loaded cars - 103 of them carrying crude oil - derailed around 1:20 p.m. CST (1920 GMT), according to a BNSF statement. The incident occurred on what appears to be a major rail line alongside the Mississippi River that handles as many as 50 oil-trains a week, one official said.

"The sky is pretty dark down there, the smoke is pretty black," said Kevin Doyle, whose property borders the tracks. "If you're standing on the tracks you can throw a rock in the water."

The Associated Press added:

Firefighters could only access the derailment site by a bike path, said Galena Assistant Fire Chief Bob Conley. They attempted to fight a small fire at the scene but were unable to stop the flames.

Firefighters had to pull back for safety reasons and were allowing the fire to burn itself out, Conley said. In addition to Galena firefighters, emergency and hazardous material responders from Iowa and Wisconsin were at the scene.

Noting that this is third such derailment in the United States in as many weeks, environmental campaigners voiced immediate concern that government officials have proven ineffective when it comes to curbing the dangers posed by the large increase in crude-by-rail traffic in recent years.

"The only thing more mind-boggling than three such accidents in three weeks is the continued lack of action by the Obama administration to protect us from these dangerous oil trains," declared Mollie Matteson, a senior scientist at the Center for Biological Diversity, in a statement on Friday morning. "The government has the authority to take immediate action to address this crisis – which puts homes, waters and wildlife at risk – and yet it has sat back and watched."

On Thursday, an exclusive investigative report by Reuters explained how last year, as a string of crude derailments had increased public outcry and concern, the Obama contemplated—but ultimately decided against—tightening federal regulations on the oil-by-rail industry. Instead of having the federal government impose tougher restrictions, Reuters reported, the Obama administration decided to allow state regulators, in this case North Dakota, to set the rules.
According to Matteson, "There are simply no excuses left for the Obama administration. The fact that these trains are still moving on the rails is a national travesty. The next explosive wreck — and there will be more, so long as nothing changes — may take lives, burn up a town or level a city business district, and pollute the drinking water of thousands of people. Enough is enough."

In its response to the latest derailment by a BNSF train carrying crude oil, the public interest group U.S. PIRG on Friday noted that the company spent upwards of $5 million lobbying congressional lawmakers against tougher oversight in 2014.


  Smoke and flames erupt from the scene of a train derailment Thursday, March 5, 2015, near Galena, Ill. A BNSF Railway freight train loaded with crude oil derailed around 1:20 p.m. in a rural area where the Galena River meets the Mississippi, said Jo Daviess County Sheriff's Sgt. Mike Moser. (Photo: AP/Telegraph Herald, Mike Burley) 
Just as in a similar derailment that occured in West Virginia last month, the rail cars in Illinois that caught fire were newer-model CPC 1232, touted by the industry as safer than older models still widely used.

According to the BNSF statement, all the tanker cars involved in Thursday's derailment were the "unjacketed CPC-1232 model with half-height head shields."
Last month, citing internal data by the U.S. Department of Transportation, the Associated Press revealed predictions by the government agency, given current trends, that train derailments such as this will continue to be commonplace in the years ahead, occurring at an average of 10 times a year, costing billions of dollars in damage, and putting a large number of lives at risk..

Following Thursday's disaster, Mother Jones was among the many news outlets making note of the growing and troubling trend of what have euphemistically become known as "bomb trains":

The image of smoldering oil train cars is now a familiar sight: Incidences of exploding oil trains have been rapidly rising in North America thanks to the fracking boom in North Dakota's Bakken oil fields (Bakken oil is potentially more flammable than normal crude) and the slow transition away from old, unsafe rail cars. Oil-by-rail carloads are up 4000 percent from 2008 in the United States and this is the the third derailment in North America in the last three weeks, including a massive explosion in West Virginia on February 16 that injured one person and spilled oil into the nearby Kanawha River. In fact, a Department of Transportation report predicted trains carrying crude and ethanol would derail an average of 10 times per year in the next two decades. This is bad news for people who live near railways and the ecosystems in which they reside.

In an op-ed for Common Dreams last month, Jared Margolis, a staff attorney for the Center for Biological Diversity and the author of a recent report on the crude-by-rail crisis, echoed this point by writing:

The unprecedented increase in U.S. oil train traffic from fewer than 10,000 rail cars per year in 2008 to more than 400,000 in 2014 has spurred virtually no corresponding increase in safety preparedness plans, not only putting towns and cities across America in routine danger, but leaving some of the nation’s most imperiled wildlife and natural areas at increased risk from a catastrophic spill.
Even as the overall number of train accidents in the country has declined in recent years, the number of dangerous oil train derailments has increased — in part because the longer, heavier trains, often carrying more than 1 million gallons of oil, are more difficult to control and stop, according to rail safety accounts included in today’s report.

In reality, Margolis concluded, there is "no way to safely transport the highly volatile crude from the Bakken oil field in North Dakota or the heavy crudes from the Alberta tar sands. Instead these extreme fossil fuels should be left in the ground for our safety and to avoid the impending climate catastrophe."

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Taking Pictures in Cold Weather 

 Weldon Lee

 

Not everyone experiences the same winter we do here in the Northeast, but for those of you who do, and those who may be visiting a region where winter 
means frigid temperatures and snowy landscapes, we asked photographer Weldon Lee, who regularly leads wildlife and adventure workshops and expeditions in Alaska, Canada and other chilly climes, to submit his A-list of tips for cold weather shooting. 


• I know you're going to say that my first tip is way too basic to even mention, but a lot of people who come to my workshops seem to overlook it: check your batteries to make sure they're fully charged. A weak or dead battery will put a stop to your photography pretty fast. Carry backup batteries—they're insurance. Keep them inside your parka, close to your body. (When you buy those backups, I recommend that you stick with the manufacturer's recommendation; if you're shooting Nikon, shoot with Nikon batteries.)

• Also basic, but extremely important: protect your camera and lens. If it's raining or snowing, use rain gear; there are commercially available, ready-made camera covers, but you can choose something as basic as a plastic bag rubber-banded around the camera. Leave an opening for the lens, of course. I keep a warm bias filter, like the Nikon A2, on my lens at all times. Carry a terrycloth towel in your camera bag; if your gear gets rained on, it'll soak up moisture better than anything else.

• When you're changing batteries or flash cords out in the open, make sure your camera is shielded. Try to avoid changing lenses because you can get moisture inside the camera body, and it can freeze and damage the camera (99 percent of the time I shoot with an 80-400mm [AF VR Zoom-NIKKOR 80-400mm f/4.5-5.6D ED] on my D2XS).

• I mostly use the cloudy setting for my white balance—it's my built-in warming filter. But if I want the images to look cold and have a blue cast, then I'll change the white balance to daylight and remove the A2 filter.

• I was asked recently if I had to use exposure compensation because the camera's meter sees snow as too bright and underexposes it. I don't find that to be a problem with digital photography. I use Matrix metering and check the histogram regularly. I also make sure that the overexposure indicators—the blinkies—are functioning. They let me see right away that I might have an overexposure. I also recommend frequently checking the LCD to see what you're getting. It's especially important when you're shooting in the cold to see how temperature and light might be affecting the images. So keep the LCD on; it can be your best friend. If you're afraid of the battery going down, well, you've got your extra battery inside your parka, right?

• I frequently use a Speedlight for fill-flash; in fact, I always keep a flash on my camera—usually turned off, but when I need it, I turn it on. The problem I can run into when it's snowing is snowflakes close to the camera. The flash illuminates the flakes, and I can get hot spots. Because I know that will happen, I do a lot of shooting so I'll get some images where it's not a problem. Sometimes it's just one or two spots that I can tone down in the editing process.

• When the shooting's done, or you're going to take a break indoors, don't bring your camera into a warm place too quickly. It will fog up, and it will take a while to dry out so you can shoot again. I recommend putting the camera in your backpack or camera bag while you're still outside. Zip up the bag or pack, then bring it in. Keep the camera in there for 45 minutes or an hour before taking it out. That way the camera warms up gradually inside the cold bag or pack.

• As far as your comfort is concerned, it's most important to keep your hands and feet warm. I'm pretty resistant to the cold, so for temperatures down to 15 or 20 degrees I wear a pair of fingerless gloves that I put on over a pair of nylon glove liners. That combination gives me a good feel for making adjustments and pushing buttons. When it gets really cold, I'll put a pair of Thinsulate-lined wool mittens on top of the liners and the fingerless gloves. When I'm ready to shoot, I pull the mitten off, drop it, shoot, then put it back on. If you're thinking of wearing full gloves rather than the liners and fingerless gloves, I agree with the advice that you should take your camera with you when you go to buy the gloves. For my feet, I rely on Sorels Snow Pack boots. For the rest of my clothing, it's really just regular cotton clothing worn over polypropylene thermal underwear.

• Finally, realize that one of the best things about photographing in snow is that pristine snow on the ground covers up a lot of clutter, giving not only beauty but graphic simplicity to your images. I do workshops frequently and talk about going "in search of the winning image," and to my way of thinking, graphic simplicity is a common thread that runs through 98 percent of winning images.
We'd add that you might want to think about a nice warm hat...but we're not as rugged as Weldon. Bundle up and grab your camera. 

To view a collection of Weldon Lee's wildlife images, and to learn about his workshops and seminars, visit his website.

On Climate, Humanity Must Rise Up Against 'Collective Shrug of Fatalism'

Published on Friday, March 06, 2015

 

 

by Common Dreams

On Climate, Humanity Must Rise Up Against 'Collective Shrug of Fatalism'

As top newspaper editor expresses regret for lack of climate coverage, a sneak-peak at the documentary film which explores the destruction, and potential hope, spawned by planetary crisis

by Jon Queally, staff writer

 

  'All we have to do is not react as if this is a full-blown crisis,' warns author Naomi Klein. 'All we have to do is keep on denying how frightened we actually are.' (Image: US EPA with overlay) 
Alongside an announcement by The Guardian's editor-in-chief Alan Rusbridger on Friday in which he said climate change stands out as perhaps the single most important issue now facing humanity—one he says his outlet could have done a more aggressive job of covering in recent years—the newspaper has kicked off a new series of special coverage on global warming by publishing an excerpt from author and activist Naomi Klein's latest book, This Changes Everything, alongside a sneak-peek of the documentary film by the same name directed by Klein's husband, Avi Lewis.

According to sentiments shared by Rusbridger and expressed in both the film and the book, Klein and Lewis argue climate change, if properly understood, "could become a galvanising force for humanity" if a more appropriate response can overcome the pervasive denial, fear, and helplessness associated with the issue.

Watch the ten-minute excerpt from Lewis' film—the final version remains in-progress—which explores the destructive path on which modern civilization's treads while also connecting the dots between the various movements which constitute humanity's best hope for continued survival and future prosperity:
In his missive to readers—titled Climate change: Why The Guardian is putting threat to Earth front and centre—Rusbridger announced his pending retirement and explained that after 20 years as editor he had few lasting regrets save this one: "that we had not done justice to this huge, overshadowing, overwhelming issue of how climate change will probably, within the lifetime of our children, cause untold havoc and stress to our species."

For many years, environmentalists, the scientific community, and critics of the corporate and mainstream media have pointed out that newspapers and news television programs have done far too little in providing quality coverage and explanation of the slow-moving yet existential crisis posed by the warming of the Earth's atmosphere and oceans caused by the steady accumulation of greenhouse gases and carbon emissions. Exploring at least the partial explanation for that shortcoming, Rusbridger writes:

There may be other extraordinary and significant things happening – but they may be occurring too slowly or invisibly for the impatient tick-tock of the newsroom or to snatch the attention of a harassed reader on the way to work. [...]

There may be untold catastrophes, famines, floods, droughts, wars, migrations and sufferings just around the corner. But that is futurology, not news, so it is not going to force itself on any front page any time soon.

Even when the overwhelming majority of scientists wave a big red flag in the air, they tend to be ignored. Is this new warning too similar to the last? Is it all too frightening to contemplate? Is a collective shrug of fatalism the only rational response?

The climate threat features very prominently on the home page of the Guardian on Friday even though nothing exceptional happened on this day. It will be there again next week and the week after. You will, I hope, be reading a lot about our climate over the coming weeks.

Crediting his team of environmental and science writers, Rusbridge made clear it is "not that the Guardian has not ploughed considerable time, effort, knowledge, talent and money into reporting this story over many years," but said a deeper look in the coming weeks will attempt to focus on two underlying and vital aspects of the climate debate. First off, the coverage will look at "what governments can do to attempt to regulate, or otherwise stave off, the now predictably terrifying consequences of global warming beyond 2C by the end of the century." And secondly—taking as a confirmed truism that the majority of the planet's unexploited fossil fuels must stay in the ground—the reporting will explore how humanity "can prevent the states and corporations which own the planet’s remaining reserves of coal, gas and oil from ever being allowed to dig most of it up."

Alongside the nearly ten-minute sneak-preview of the documentary film, The Guardian also published this extended excerpt from Klein's award-winning and best-selling work, This Changes Everything, which discusses her own struggle with climate denialism and reads in part:

We know that if we continue on our current path of allowing emissions to rise year after year, climate change will change everything about our world. Major cities will very likely drown, ancient cultures will be swallowed by the seas, and there is a very high chance that our children will spend a great deal of their lives fleeing and recovering from vicious storms and extreme droughts. And we don’t have to do anything to bring about this future. All we have to do is nothing. Just continue to do what we are doing now, whether it’s counting on a techno-fix or tending to our gardens or telling ourselves we’re unfortunately too busy to deal with it.

All we have to do is not react as if this is a full-blown crisis. All we have to do is keep on denying how frightened we actually are. And then, bit by bit, we will have arrived at the place we most fear, the thing from which we have been averting our eyes. No additional effort required.

There are ways of preventing this grim future, or at least making it a lot less dire. But the catch is that these also involve changing everything. For us high consumers, it involves changing how we live, how our economies function, even the stories we tell about our place on earth. The good news is that many of these changes are distinctly uncatastrophic. Many are downright exciting. But I didn’t discover this for a long while.

Operating as narrator in the new film—which expands, visualizes, and in many ways personalizes, the many themes of her book—Klein speaks amid footage of recent climate protests and other popular uprisings from across the globe as she posits key questions and offers a thesis of hope to the viewer.

"What if," she asks, "we realized that real disaster response means fighting inequality and building a just economy – that everyone working for a healthy food system is already a climate warrior? So too, are people fighting for public transit in Brazil; housing and immigrant rights in the United States; battling austerity in Europe; extraction in Australia; pollution in China and India; environmental crime in Africa; and the bad trade deals that lock in all these ills everywhere."

And concludes, "I believe the movement we need is already in the streets; in the courts; in the classrooms; even in the halls of power – we just need to find each other. One way or another, everything is going to change. And for a brief time, the nature of that change, is still up to us."

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