By Galina Angarova, Russia Program Associate for Community-based Initiatives

Hearing news every day about forest fires in central Russia and the casts of smog choking Russian cities, villages, even more so– the city of Moscow, I could not ignore this subject.  I wanted to look at the reasons behind this natural disaster and discuss ways such disasters could be prevented, and if not, at least made more manageable.  Recent reports say that the mortality rate in Moscow has risen to 700 per day, which is double the normal rate. It has been reported that 22 out of the country’s 83 regions are now affected by the wildfires, and that there is no end in sight to the extreme heat wave that hit Russia this summer.

Over the past two years my family and friends in Russia all complained about unusually cold winters and hot summers. When I traveled to Altai in January I experienced the abnormally cold winter myself – temperatures there dropped down as low as -57 degrees Celsius, which is -70.6 degrees Fahrenheit. On my recent trip in June, when I stopped for a day in Moscow, temperatures were up to +41 C, the equivalent to + 105.8 F. My conversations with Russian scientists and environmentalists have all pointed to the scientific phenomenon called extreme temperature oscillations, which are believed to be caused by climate change. The notion of climate change has always been scorned by the Russian government and thought of as a hoax invented by the West. But recently, it seems to be that Russia is finally changing its stance. On July 30, Russian President Dmitri Medvedev said the following: “What’s happening with the planet’s climate right now needs to be a wake-up call to all of us, meaning [including] all heads of state, all heads of social organizations, in order to take a more energetic approach to countering the global changes to the climate.”

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Posted by Wen Bo

The place where fishermen returned the collected crude oil has a nice name, Golden Bay Bridge. To 35 year old fisherman Cui Zhanyou, it has become a bridge of no return.

On the evening of July 27^th, when Cui was transporting barrels of oil to the collection center, his boat was overturned by rough waves. After days of searching, Cui’s family still could not find a trace of him. (more…)

Posted by Wen Bo

Photo: Greenpeace

In the very recent memory of Tom Beeke, a passionate Canadian birder, Dalian’s Jinshitan resort was still his land of discovery. Tom got a job as English teacher at Dalian Maple Leaf International School several years ago. Besides living close to the sandy beach, it was also a great treat being able to venture around Jishintan coast, bushes and wetlands to watch birds.  This summer, Tom’s new book, Birds of Dalian, hit the local book market.

Dalian, located on the East Asia-Pacific Flyway of migratory birds, is an important stopover site for birds migrating between Siberia and Australia. For those birds, who are now in Siberia, their journeys south will soon start.  For this year’s new chicks, their first ever encounter with the coasts, islands and the sea around Dalian will begin one month later. (more…)

Posted by Wen Bo

Zhong Yu of Greenpeace bears witness to the Dalian oil spill (Photo: Greenpeace)

Twenty-two years ago, when my high school classmates unfolded a banner with the words “Save Our Seas!”, we put the Greenpeace logo on the banner.  At that time, we were protesting marine debris littering the coasts of Dalian.

Now, twenty-two years since that unofficial Greenpeace banner hung in 1988, Dalian received its first official support from Greenpeace with the deployment of several Greenpeace teams to respond to the massive oil spill in Dalian.

Zhong Yu, senior action coordinator with Greenpeace China, was not prepared for what she saw nor for what she would encounter.  Like many clean up workers and local fishermen, Zhong did not wear protective gear when she walked into thick crude oil along the beach. The photo of her wearing a red Greenpeace T-shirt and blue jeans was the first telling image from Greenpeace bearing witness to the Dalian disaster. (more…)

Posted by Wen Bo

Firefighters responding to the scene of the Oil spill in Dalian, China (Photo from Netease)

To Chinese firefighter Jiang Hui, his Darley fire truck was his darling. Jiang had been a driver with a $1 million fire truck since his unit purchased it three years ago, and he liked this American brand.

Jiang was among the earliest squads to reach the burning and smoky scene in Dalian. While shooting water and foam to the fire, the blazing crude oil quickly rushed near their feet. The tires of the fire truck caught fire.  Jiang jumped into the truck and tried to move it, but the flame started to engulf the fire truck.  Another firefighter ran to the truck’s front side, pulled Jiang out of the cabin and dragged him away.

The heat was too hot to bear. While some firefighters shot water canons towards the burning oil tanker, others had to shoot water towards the front line of firefighters to cool them down.

“Water, Water!”, “Foam!” were the shouts of the firefighters mixed with the sounds of continuous explosions and blazing noise of fireballs.

A Dalian TV cameraman, Lu Jianwei, captured a short conversation of a firefighter, later identified as Xu Zhiyou, talking to his wife over the cell phone. “Dear, I might not be back, treat mom well, treat our child well!”  On the other side of the line, his wife must have asked why. “Don’t ask, no time, I will stop here.” Then he turned off the phone and rushed towards the fire. (more…)

By Wen Bo

Site of explosion - Dalian New Port

When firefighter Sang Wu got the assignment from his director, Sang could see the tears welling in the director’s eyes. His assignment was to turn off the valves of the oil tanks, each containing 100,000 cube meters of crude oil, which were fueling the flaming pipelines.  This was the scene on the night of July 16^th, 2010, in Dalian New Port where the oil pipeline exploded. Sang Wu and his two other fellow fire fighters might have just accepted a suicide mission.

Because of the explosion and the fire, the electricity to the port was cut off. Turning off the valve was a tiresome endeavor. What would normally take just a few seconds, would take Sang and his teammates 80,000 turns manually. After turning the wheels 320,000 rounds in total, Sang and his teammates sealed off the valves of four of the closest oil tanks after eight hours of labor.

Throughout the night of July 16^th, over 2,000 firefighters from 14 major cities of Liaoning province raced to the scene of explosion. The site is a base for storage of crude oil and chemicals. Fifty-one toxic chemical tankers were linked up in the area near the explosion.  The closest tanker was less than 100 meters away from the burning old tanker.  If it had not been for the courageous actions of the firefighters, the tankers could have exploded and the city of Dalian may have simply turned into another Bhopal.

Posted by Xiu Min Li

Dalian oil pipeline explosion and spill

On July 16, an oil pipeline in Dalian, owned and operated by ChinaPetrol Group exploded while loading oil off a Libyan tanker.

The Financial Times reported today, “The disaster began last Friday, when two pipelines exploded as high-sulphur crude was being unloaded from a Libyan tanker. State media said firefighters were on the scene within three minutes and more than 2,000 firefighters were deployed to battle the blaze, which raged through Saturday morning.”

According to Chinese media report, the explosion has caused 1500 tons of oil to spill, reaching an ocean area of 50km with pollution likely to spread to 100km.  John Amos from SkyTruth made the above satellite image of the Dalian Spill. (more…)

Posted by Andrea Barnetche

Four years ago, California passed the state’s landmark greenhouse gas reduction law –AB 32– mandating a 25 percent reduction in industrial greenhouse gases by 2020. This law made California a leader in clean air and energy policy, and a leader in clean tech businesses in the nation. The law, which has earned support from businesses, labor, environmental and health organizations, demands polluter accountability by requiring polluting industries to reduce toxic emissions that will threaten our health and contribute to global climate change.

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Posted by Galina Angarova

It’s this time of the year when the entire Russia Program team is heading out to Russia’s regions for site visits and program related activities. On June 15-28 my colleague Jon Spaulding and I are conducting a follow-up professional exchange on alternative energy and energy efficiency in Russia. This is a sister visit to our April alternative energy exchange whereby we hosted a delegation of  Russian renewable energy professionals and NGO leaders in northern California to learn about California’s latest technologies and regulatory policies for renewable energy and energy efficiency development.

Next week, we will be bringing a group of five U.S. renewable energy experts to Russia to share their knowledge about contemporary technology and legislative policies on renewable energy sources and energy efficiency in the United States.  One of the trip’s highlights will be meeting with Andrey Yalbakov, a Russian participant who was part of the Russian exchange that we hosted here in April and who recently was awarded the 2010 Young Entrepreneur of Russia Award for his work in solar, wind and mini hydro-generation in the Altai Republic.

Andrey Yalbakov, recipient of the 2010 Young Entrepreneur of Russia Award for his work in solar, wind and mini hydro-generation in the Altai Republic.

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Posted by Carrie Thompson, Associate Director of Trust for Mutual Understanding and a long-term supporter of Pacific Environment.

Since the explosion on the Deepwater Horizon oil rig of April 20^th, we have all been watching in horror as the disaster and its gravity slowly unfold.  An industrial accident that brings the loss of eleven lives is heartbreaking in and of itself.  That followed by the realization two days later that an untold amount of oil was spewing from a broken pipe is almost too much to bear.  And even though I now live over 1500 miles away, the tragedy strikes a deeply personal note, as I grew up on the Gulf Coast.  I have a hard time thinking about the spill without crying.

I have a complicated relationship with oil.  Growing up in Houston, both of my parents, in one way or another, worked for oil companies.  But if we are being honest, we all have a complicated relationship with oil since we live in a country where we expect to be able to walk into a room, flip a switch, and have light.  We depend on oil for our transportation, our system of distribution, for our modern conveniences, for every aspect of modern life—we are all dependent on oil, and while the ever present threat of climate change looms for our future, the oil spill in the Gulf reminds us of the immediate danger of this dependence. (more…)