Oil Giant BP's Role in 'Biggest Environmental Crisis' In 1997, after British Petroleum publicly acknowledged the harmful effects of global warming, it quickly became known as the oil company with environmental virtue. While other oil corporations argued that climate change didn't exist -- most notably Exxon Mobil, which funded around 40 public policy groups that disputed the scientific grounds for global warming -- BP was investing in emission reductions, going so far as to support the Kyoto Protocol, the international agreement established to curb greenhouse gases, which took effect in 2005. In 2005, BP Alternative Energies announced it would manage an investment program in solar and wind technologies, one that could amount to $8 billion over seven years. The company also marketed itself as an environmentally friendly oil corporation dedicated to moving "beyond petroleum." But a recent change in corporate policy threatens that green-friendly image. It's a policy that Greenpeace calls "the biggest environmental crime in history." The policy involves BP breaking its long-standing, self-imposed ban on the production of crude oil from tar sands -- which are a combination of clay, sand, various minerals and bitumen -- found in the Canadian wilderness. The process of extracting and refining tar sands -- also known as Canadian crude -- involves strip-mining a 50,000-square-mile span of forest (approximately the size of Florida) located in the western Canadian province of Alberta. The region contains an estimated 175 billion barrels of recoverable oil....
Georgia Lawmakers Approve Request to Redraw Borders, Hoping to Alleviate a Drought Lawmakers in drought-parched Georgia voted Friday to ask mapmakers to redraw their state's northern boundary in hopes of tapping the Tennessee River, in a vote that potentially escalates a conflict with their neighbor. If negotiations fail, the bill would authorize Georgia's top attorney to file a lawsuit to try forcing a boundary change. The House and Senate both approved the measure on the legislative session's final day. It now goes to Gov. Sonny Perdue, who has not said whether he supports it. Congress in 1796 designated that Tennessee's southern borders stretch along the 35th parallel, but surveyors in 1818 were a bit off the mark. They now know that the border was placed about 1.1 miles south of where it should be. The resolution asserts that the flawed survey mistakenly placed Georgia's northern line just short of the Tennessee River, which has about 15 times greater flow than the one burgeoning Atlanta depends on for water. Tennessee hasn't taken kindly to Georgia's drought-inspired bid; lawmakers there have reacted with a mix of scorn and humor....
Ranching for sage grouse The Scott family has been ranching for more than 50 years on the Eagle Ridge Ranch near the North Platte River at Bessemer Bend and since the early 1970s on the Two-Bar Ranch at Bate's Hole. The Two-Bar is one of the greatest strongholds of the West for the sage grouse, a bird that's in peril throughout much of its historic range. The birds and their strutting areas, called leks, are plentiful on the ranch's open spaces. Year after year they mate, nest and raise their young undisturbed on the Two-Bar. Scott is an avid birdwatcher. Birding is in his blood. His father, Dr. Oliver Scott, founded the first Wyoming Audubon Society chapter in the 1950s. Like his father and brothers, Stacey Scott is a sage grouse enthusiast. "They are just fascinating birds. They really should be the state emblem, not the bucking cowboy," he says. "They're so unique. What other bird gains weight during winter just eating sagebrush? They're just fascinating. I like all birds, but the sage grouse is just very special to me. To some extent they're a symbol of the health of the range." As a rancher and bird expert he knows as well as anyone how the fates of the ranching industry and the sage grouse are linked. The failure of one could spell doom for the other....
Wolf hunters urged to use restraint If Wyoming wolf hunters don't throttle back their fervor, wolf advocates might succeed in convincing a federal judge to issue an injunction against removing the animals from the endangered-species list, say a rancher and an outfitter inside the state's wolf trophy game zone. An injunction would effectively put wolves back on the endangered-species list and could kick off a long legal struggle. At least six wolves have been killed in Wyoming since the animals were removed from the endangered-species list, a state Game and Fish Department spokesman said Friday. All six were shot in Sublette County in the state's new predator area for wolves, where it is legal to shoot the canines on sight. Four of the animals were killed the day they were delisted, and two in the ensuing week. But those who support Wyoming's wolf management plan say the public needs to understand that most of the wolves outside the trophy game zone have been killed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service on a routine basis in recent years. And the wolves in the new predator zone - currently about 30 animals - will chronically kill livestock and are not essential to the survival of the species, they say....
Corn pops to record $6 per bushel Corn prices jumped to a record $6 a bushel yesterday, driven by an expected supply shortfall that will only add to Americans' growing grocery bills and further squeeze struggling ethanol producers. Corn prices have shot up nearly 30 percent this year amid dwindling stockpiles and surging demand for the grain used to feed livestock and make alternative fuels. Prices are poised to go even higher after the US government this week predicted American farmers - the world's biggest corn producers - will plant sharply less of the crop in 2008 compared to last year. "It's a demand-driven market and we may not be planting enough acres to supply demand, so that adds to the bullishness of corn," said Elaine Kub, a grains analyst with DTN in Omaha. Corn for the most actively traded May contract rose 4.25 cents to settle at $6 a bushel on the Chicago Board of Trade, after earlier rising to $6.025 a bushel - a record high. Worldwide demand for corn to feed livestock and to make biofuel is putting enormous pressure on global supply. And with the United States expected to plant less corn, the supply shortage will only worsen. The Department of Agriculture projected that farmers will plant 86 million acres of corn in 2008, an 8 percent drop from last year....
Mexico opens border to all U.S. breeding stock USDA recently announced that after years of negotiation, an agreement has finally been reached to restore full access of U.S. breeding stock to Mexico. The country drew the ire of many U.S. cattle organizations after a declaration in March that it would lift the ban on live cattle imports from Canada and begin allowing beef and dairy heifers under 30 months of age. At the time, Mexico allowed only heifers under 24 months of age from the U.S., which raised questions about the fairness of the trade deal struck with Canada. In response, Texas Agriculture Commissioner Todd Staples closed the state-owned livestock export facilities to those cattle from Canada which met the new requirements issued by Mexico. Staples’ decision to close those facilities to the Canadian heifers and his call for all private export facilities to follow suit gained support quickly. Other border states soon joined in the effort to place pressure on Mexico for trade based on World Organization for Animal Health guidelines....
Work Every Bit as Wild as It Is Woolly It sounds like something a Zen master might ask: How does the wool come off a sheep? But when you have a squirming 100-pound yearling between your knees, a roaring set of power shears in one hand, and a completely blank mind because everything your instructor just told you about which stroke comes next has faded into a white noise of panic and muscle fatigue, getting the wool off is not an academic question. You stare down, bent over, and the universe contracts. It is only you, the sheep and the shears. Find the way, you think. Try to remember. Is the “long blow” next? Or up the brisket and under the neck? Or maybe the “top knot”? To shear a sheep is to touch a fading chord of Western culture. In the 1990s alone, 40,000 sheep ranches blinked out of existence, a 38 percent decline. And the number of people who know how to shear is falling even faster. Which brings us to a sheep-shearing class here: 10 men and 5 women — a few entrepreneurs, some back-to-the-land idealists, a psychiatrist from Butte who has made a bet with his wife, three high school buddies, a home builder looking for an economic sideline in tough times and a reporter trying to get inside the story. This is a fortunate year to become an American shearer. In a strange local backwash of global capitalism and the weak United States dollar, the Australian and New Zealand shearing companies on which Western ranchers have come to depend are staying home this spring, unable to justify the exchange-rate loss. The short-term shortage of shearers, which the sheep institute tries to address, has meant all but guaranteed work for domestic talent, notwithstanding the long-term decline in American sheep ranching, coincident with a growing foreign dominance....
Hogs wallowed in Muskogee’s meandering streets in early days One of the greatest complaints that early-day residents of Muskogee had about their town was the streets — or perhaps the lack of streets. With no city government, there was no authority and no work force to lay out streets or maintain them. Because land ownership also was questionable at the time, people built a home or business wherever they pleased with no regard for a “plan.” Consequently, what streets did exist tended to meander around with no clear direction. In a magazine article titled “An Indian Cattle Town,” published in 1884, Muskogee was described as being a roughly constructed town in a lovely, unspoiled setting. Still very much a western frontier town, Muskogee, like many others, sprang up overnight and took several years to get past its rough beginning. The Indian Journal newspaper in June 1883 ran a picture of Main Street and called it a “hogwallow.” Unpaved and poorly maintained, the street was full of potholes that filled with mud in wet weather. Wagons could easily get stuck in the mire of a wet street, and everything was sure to be splattered with mud by passing horses. The wild hogs that roamed the town, literally used the streets as wallows....
Father and son could break George Paul Memorial Bull Riding record Settling down on his final bull at the 14th George Paul Memorial Bull Riding had the rider’s full focus. No other thoughts crowded his mind as the event’s championship was within his grasp. Riding for more than 20 years, 14 as a professional, had taught him settling down on the back of an animal that could hurt, maim or kill him required his full attention. Nodding to the gateman to open the chute, Toya Bolton made the eight second ride of his life and when the dust had settled, he had become in 1991, the 14th George Paul Memorial Bull Riding Champion. The company he joined as a champion included former George Paul Memorial Bull Riding winners Denny Flynn, Lonnie Wyatt, Lane Foltyn, Bubba Monkres, Cody Lambert and world champions Charles Sampson, Cody Snyder, Lane Frost, Tuff Hedeman and Jim Sharp. His name permanently etched into the record books that hot, dusty Sunday, Toya Bolton did not envision what would or could take place seventeen years into the future, that year being 2008. Born June 1, 1987, Bonner Bolton was three years old when Toya’s memorable rides at the 1991 George Paul Memorial Bull Riding were making bull riding history. Bonner is the first to tell you his bull riding hero is his dad, Toya. He could not have picked a better mentor. The 31st George Paul Memorial Bull Riding to be held May 3-4, 2008, could produce another first in the annals of professional bull riding. If Bonner Bolton wins the event, it will be the first time in the history of the George Paul Memorial Bull Riding that a father and son have won the event....