via Gawker: It’s a bleak landscape for the mighty black rhinoceros. The WWF announced this week that 353 of the endangered mammals, whose horn is incorrectly thought to have cancer-curing powers, have been poached this year alone, already exceeding the number poached in 2010. Current estimates put the total population of the species at 4,240.

A vehicle leaves the area of an explosion of a Pemex pipeline in the village of San Martin Texmelucan near Puebla December 19, 2010. At least 10 people were killed early Sunday when the oil pipeline exploded in central Mexico, the state news agency Notimex said. The pipeline maintained by state oil monopoly Pemex exploded at around 5 a.m. in San Martin Texmelucan, a small community in the state of Puebla about 50 miles (75 kilometers) east of Mexico City.
REUTERS/Striger

From the Washington Post:

“One of the most controversial tactics used against this summer’s Gulf of Mexico oil spill – the construction of large sand islands off the Louisiana coast – managed to stop only a “minuscule” amount of oil, according to a draft report from a presidential commission.

The report, released Thursday, is the latest in a series of findings from the staff of the commission empaneled to investigate the response to the spill.

In this report, staffers found that the “sand berms” – which Louisiana officials had touted as an essential shield against the spill - trapped only about 1,000 barrels of oil out of the approximately 5 million barrels spilled.

For that, the report said, BP paid about $220 million. That, together with $140 million that BP has committed to provide, amounts to one-third of all the money the oil company paid to federal or state governments to help respond to the spill.”

This is devastating news for Republican Governor Bobby Jindal who ordered the Berms built over the rejections of scientists. In an open letter dated July 22, 2010, almost two dozen coastal scientists from Louisiana and around the country urged the federal government to halt the construction of sand berms in the gulf, calling the project “ineffective in the fight against the oil and a waste of resources that could have heavy environmental consequences”.

The opening paragraph of the letter reads as follows:

“As BP appears close to shutting off the flow of oil, we believe that it is also time to shut off the flow of funding and permitting for the large-scale re-engineering of the Gulf Coast,” the letter states. “If this is not done, environmental damage resulting from ill-conceived, poorly reviewed coastal engineering may become an additional and unnecessary byproduct of the spill.” You can see the rest of the letter here

In its report on the Sand Berms, the commission, appointed by President Barack Obama to investigate the spill, called the project “underwhelmingly effective, overwhelmingly expensive.” Proof positive that GOP leadership calls for “Washington spending” might be more effective if they took some of the advice of experts prior to making blunderous decisions that cost taxpayers $220 Million.

More bad news for Bill Sammon. From Media Matters:

“In the midst of global climate change talks last December, a top Fox News official sent an email questioning the “veracity of climate change data” and ordering the network’s journalists to “refrain from asserting that the planet has warmed (or cooled) in any given period without IMMEDIATELY pointing out that such theories are based upon data that critics have called into question.”

On the December 8 edition of Happening Now, one of Fox News’ daytime straight news shows, Fox White House correspondent Wendell Goler delivered a live report from Copenhagen and was asked by host Jon Scott about “U.N. scientists issuing a new report today saying this decade is on track to be the warmest on record.”

Goler accurately reported that, indeed, 2000-2009 was “expected to turn out to be the warmest decade on record,” following a “trend that has scientists concerned because 2000-2009 [was] warmer than the 1990s, which were warmer than the 1980s.” Goler went on to explain that “ironically 2009 was a cooler than average year in the U.S. and Canada,” which, he said, was “politically troubling because Americans are among the most skeptical about global warming.”

When Scott brought up the “Climategate” emails, Goler explained that although people had raised questions about the CRU data, “the data also comes from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and from NASA. And scientists say the data of course across all three sources is pretty consistent.”

Less than 15 minutes after a segment, Sammon sent the following email to the staffs of Special Report, Fox News Sunday, and FoxNews.com, as well as to other reporters, producers, and network executives, instructing them to “IMMEDIATELY” include objections of “critics” when reporting on climate data:

From: Sammon, Bill
To: 169 -SPECIAL REPORT; 036 -FOX.WHU; 054 -FNSunday; 030 -Root (FoxNews.Com); 050 -Senior Producers; 051 -Producers; 069 -Politics; 005 -Washington
Cc: Clemente, Michael; Stack, John; Wallace, Jay; Smith, Sean
Sent: Tue Dec 08 12:49:51 2009
Subject: Given the controversy over the veracity of climate change data…

…we should refrain from asserting that the planet has warmed (or cooled) in any given period without IMMEDIATELY pointing out that such theories are based upon data that critics have called into question. It is not our place as journalists to assert such notions as facts, especially as this debate intensifies.

The entries are amazing. See the submissions here…

Mount Merapi volcano spews smoke as it erupted again on Wednesday as seen from Sidorejo village in Klaten, near the ancient city of Yogyakarta, November 3, 2010. Mount Merapi has killed at least 39 people since it began erupting on October 26. Over 74 have been injured and more than 70,000 people have been evacuated, according to Indonesia’s National Disaster Management Board.« Read less
REUTERS/Beawiharta

Despite eyewitness accounts and photographs, and the complaining of local officials, BP decided to spend a full week in blatant denial that thousands of gallons of oil were washing up on the beach in Pensacola, FL.

This quote from The Upshot says it best:

“Remember how the “vast majority” of the oil in the Gulf is supposed to be gone, according to the White House and BP? Sure, you say — but what about those recent independent scientific reports that showed the opposite to be true? Heck, the government’s own chief scientist admitted that 75 percent of the oil remains in the Gulf just a few days ago. Oh, don’t worry about that, because, as White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs gleefully announced this week, oil-gobbling microbes have eaten up almost all of the undersea oil plumes. Confused yet? Yeah, so are we.” Read more here

A home is surround by flood waters near the Muzaffargarh district in Punjab, Pakistan on August 10, 2010. An estimated 13 million Pakistanis have been affected by the worst floods in the country’s history. UPI/Sajjad Ali Qureshi

According to the AP
A lead congressional committee investigating the Gulf of Mexico oil spill has broadened its inquiry, now checking if tens of thousands of abandoned oil and gas wells are leaking or even being monitored for leaks. Committee members wrote in a letter Thursday to Interior Secretary Ken Salazar that they were responding to an Associated Press investigation released last week on the 27,000 abandoned wells in the Gulf. The AP reported that the wells are not routinely inspected when plugged or subsequently monitored for leaks.

“These wells could pose an additional danger to the Gulf Coast environment and economy,” wrote U.S. Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, and Rep. Edward Markey, D-Mass., who heads the subcommittee on energy and environment. They asked for details on the number of wells as well as leaking and inspection requirements. They asked for an initial reply by Monday….read more
AP Oil Coverage here

“There aren’t any small people here,” the CNN anchor Anderson Cooper said from Louisiana on his prime-time program Wednesday night, emphatically rejecting the remarks by BP’s chairman that the oil company cares “about the small people.”

Mr. Cooper listed some of the local men and women who had been put out of work by BP’s gusher of oil under the Gulf of Mexico, and concluded, “This is a land of giants.” This is an interesting tidbit:
“Mr. Cooper has spent more time in Louisiana — about 20 days — than any other national television anchor since the leak began. Evincing his frustration and his perseverance, he keeps a daily on-air tally of the number of days BP has ignored his interview requests. “I think there’s a basic lack of transparency in their dealings,” he of BP, in an interview. Read more at the NY Times