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How Corporate Greed Caused the Massive CA Methane Leak
Thom plus logo  If you don't live on the West Coast of the United States, you might not have heard about the massive natural gas well leak that's been venting natural gas into the atmosphere at a rate of more than 100,000 pounds per hour for over two months.

Infrared video that the Environmental Defense Fund captured in December shows that the natural gas is billowing like a volcano just above Burbank, California, on a hilltop in the Aliso Canyon area.

That video was taken over a month after the leak started on October 23, after the well had already ejected an estimated 80,000 tons of methane into the atmosphere.

For perspective, 80,000 tons of methane is equal to about a quarter of what the entire state of California - which is the 8th largest economy in the entire world - emitted between October 23 and November 20 in 2015.

And methane, which is what's mostly in "Natural Gas," is actually a much stronger greenhouse gas than CO2 in the short term, during the first 20 years it's in the atmosphere it can be up to 80 times more potent than CO2.

According to the Washington Post, the impact of the gases that have already been released from this one volcanic leak are equivalent to the impact, over 20 years, of six coal-fired power plants - or 7 million automobiles.

But this leak isn't just a crisis for the climate, it has also forced the evacuation of 1700 homes in nearby neighborhoods, the closing of two schools, and countless residents have reported that the stench has made them ill.

So how did all this happen?

Engineers are speculating that a 7-inch pipe ruptured about 500 feet below the surface, but they won't know for sure until they are able to seal the well off completely, something which the Southern California Gas Company says may not happen until March.

But according to a recent report from the LA Times and a lawsuit from local residents, the initial leak isn't what made this an environmental disaster for the history books.

No, the real problem here goes way back to 1979, when the Southern California Gas Company had the original safety valve removed from the gas well, and then simply didn't bother to replace it.

Mind you, it's not like the well was new in 1979 - it was already a quarter of a century old in 1979 - and 36 years after the company cut that corner, the well finally ruptured at 61 years old.

A spokeswoman told the LA Times that they didn't replace the safety valve simply because the company wasn't required to by law.

So the company simply didn't replace the safety valve, because the profit motive of a corporation means that it has no incentive - no motivation - to protect anyone or anything that it isn't required to protect by law.
Read more here.

-Thom
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- Ari Rabin-Havt, -The Agenda/SiriusXM Progress/The Benghazi Hoax  Twitter  Twitter
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Best of the Rest: Would Bundy Be Dead If He Were Black?
- Chauncey DeVega, Salon/Alternet  Twitter  Twitter

Screwed: It's Not Easy Being Adelson Pimp
- Steve Collins, The Bristol Press (formerly)/Youth Journalism International  Twitter  Twitter

Daily Take: How Corporate Greed Is Trashing the Commons & Harming Us
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Tuesday's Daily Stack Daily Stack
Hour One: Burns, OR to Bundy Militia: "Go Home"
- Sheriff Richard Mack, Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association/Oathkeepers  Twitter
Article: "Your chance to officially tell the USTR what you think about the TPP" by Flush the TPP! (deadline January 13, 2016)
Article: "Quantitative easing" by Wikipedia.
Article: "Fescue toxicity" by David Price.
Article: "MOVE 1985 bombing" by Wikipedia.
Article: "Authorities plan to cut off power to militia at occupied Oregon refuge" by John M Glionna and Jason Wilson.

Hour Two: The Bogus ISIS New Year's Eve Plot
- Adam Johnson, Alternet  Twitter  Twitter
Article: "Liberty City Seven" by Wikipedia.
Quote: "The Nixon campaign in 1968, and the Nixon White House after that, had two enemies: the anti-war left and black people. We knew we couldn't make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting people to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin, and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities. We could arrest their leaders, break up their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news. Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did." - John Ehrlichman.
 
Article: "Constitution of the United States" Article 4 section 3. "The Congress shall have Power to dispose of and make all needful Rules and Regulations respecting the Territory or other Property belonging to the United States; and nothing in this Constitution shall be so construed as to Prejudice any Claims of the United States, or of any particular State."
Law: "Patriot Act", 2001.
 
Talk Media News Segment:
- Ellen Ratner, Bureau Chief Twitter
Site: Governor Free Don Siegelman.
Article: "Obama unveils steps to curb gun violence" by Justin Duckham.
Article: "2nd Amendment". A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
Article: "Presidential Signing Statements" by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley.

Hour Three: Wall Street...Not Too Big To Feel the Bern!
Book: Escape from Freedom by Erich Fromm.
Article: "It Can't Happen Here" by Sinclair Lewis.
Book: Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor E. Frankl.
Article: "Eminent domain" by Wikipedia.
Article: "5th Amendment" (double jeopardy, witness against self, due process, taking clause, due compensation).
Article: "Sedition" by Wikipedia.
Article: "Shooting of Tamir Rice" by Wikipedia.
Article: "Shooting of Michael Brown" by Wikipedia.
Article: "Shooting of Trayvon Martin" by Wikipedia.
Article: "Death of Sandra Bland" by Wikipedia.
Article: "A year of reckoning: Police fatally shoot nearly 1,000" by Kimberly Kindy, Marc Fisher, Julie Tate, Jennifer Jenkins.
Article: "Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting", December 14, 2012 by Wikipedia.
Article: "A Crisis Worse than ISIS? Bail-Ins Begin" by Ellen Brown.
Book, site: "Web of Debt", Ellen Brown.
 
Science and green news
Article: "Wind Energy Reaches Record Production" by Alejandro Davila Fragoso.
Article: "Stress Is Lowered When You Help Others" by Kathleen Lees.
 
Do you have all the info you need to vote for @BernieSanders? Find it here.
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