In Western Shoshone Nation Opposes Yucca Mountain Nuclear Repository, Matthew Neisius reviews the proposal for an underground repository for high-level radioactive waste from the nuclear power program. The planned waste dump would be dug in southern Nevada, on the treaty lands of the Western Shoshone Nation, which has untied with environmentalists and ranchers to oppose the plan.
In Public Power: Distribution of Electricity in North America, Laurel Trammell studies the history of electrical generation in the U.S., and the existing and potential role of Publicly Owned Utilities to produce and distribute the power. The article concludes that “electric cooperatives are the future of global warming prevention and reversal.”
In Carbon Trading, Colin Edwards exposes the negative global and local repercussions from carbon trading mechanisms and carbon offsets, as allowing corporations to continue to pollute. The artcile concludes that “after seeing the flaws and corruption within the system that lead to a production of emissions instead of a reduction, we must look towards more sustainable alternatives to deal with climate change.”
In Resistance to Privatization of Oil in Mexico, Franz Carroll examines the government’s proposed privatization of Mexico’s publicly owned oil company, and how it has led to large price hikes for fuel, resulting in major protests known as the Gasolinazo, and new social movements such as Vibra México that are shaking up the country’s political direction.
In The Nationalization of Iranian Oil, Christina Cravens recounts the dramatic events leading up to the British and CIA-backed coup against the elected government Mohammed Mossadegh government, which had nationalized the previously British-controlled oil industry. The successful coup installed Shah Reza Pahlavi, who ruled as a pro-Westren dictator until toppled in the 1979 Iranian Revolution.
In The Rojava Revolution: Oil, Water, and Liberation, Chris Colella dissects the civil war raging in northern Syria, and how the tumult has become an opportunity for Kurdish-led rebels to establish a new mini-state of Rojava, under the libertarian socialist-feminist ideology of “Democratic Confederalism.” But the territorial enclave needs access to water and oil in order to survive economically and fend off ISIS and the Al Assad government military.
See also the section on Oil Pipelines.