Tarsand pipeline Or potable water's worst nightmare?

The Congressional Republicans are not letting the tarsand pipeline to die.
Only two weeks after President Obama stood his ground and killed the permit for this environmental nightmare, Republicans on Capitol Hill are now threatening to hold key legislation hostage unless Big Oil gets to run a river of the world’s dirtiest oil through our nation’s heartland. Source NRDC
What these politicians fail to see is that all Americans deserve clean water.
It’s so disappointing to see People magazine covering one of the leading threats to our rivers and clean water supplies – fracking.

Living with Fracking | People Magazine

The natural gas drilling technique known as fracking is a hot topic, highlighted by President Obama in the State of the Union address.
This write up reminded me of the article I read in the Reader's Digest last year "How Safe is Our Water Really?" The water that we consider to be the purest and cleanest was actually found to contain traits of  dissolved organic components and even rocket fuel?!?!?At the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) researchers were alarmed by the threat to the river water quality, so they came up with the 'World's 10 top rivers at risk report'. What's worthwhile to note here is that none of the American Rivers were listed in this report.
Unfortunately, in the wake of recent developments regarding the fracking, the same list will have to be populated once again.
Seeing this the researchers at the American River noted the threats that fracking poses to our drinking water supplies and the health of our rivers and streams.
For the past two years, they've highlighted natural gas drilling as the leading threat to America’s Most Endangered Rivers®.
The February 6 issue of People introduces us to a family in Pennsylvania whose tap water catches on fire, drawing links to fracking and exploring the controversy.
We used to have rivers of fire: Its True
“Back in the 1970s, contamination came out of the end of a pipe. You could see it—we actually had the Cuyahoga River on fire. We’ve made progress on that, but now we have to worry about what happens when it rains. Water runs over city streets, suburban lawns treated with fertilizer and pesticides, and agricultural lands that may also have been treated or have animal feeding operations, and into our rivers and streams. Runoff is now thought by most folks to be the biggest source of water pollution.” — Lisa Jackson
My only thought right now is that if we do not act fast  to prevent all these projects from execution without a conscious, then the fracking shall prove to be a timebomb for not only to the most vulnerable ecosystems in Alaska but also to our potable water supply in the near future.

SOPA and PIPA=Killing of Tarsand Pipeline?

As soon as I logged onto the home page of my blogging sites yesterday, all I was able to see was censored, censored and censored. The google's logo was eclipsed and so was the wikipedia's home page which was blacked out for yesterday.
It was frustrating until I started receiving the news about the historical decision of our President to have rejected a permit for the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline -- a project that promised riches for the oil giants and an environmental disaster for the rest of us.
His decision represents a victory of historic proportions for the environmental groups and hundreds of thousands of committed activists like you and me who have waged an uphill, years-long fight against one of the most nightmarish fossil fuel projects of our time. To read more on the project please click here.
Getting ahead of my story, how could the news have been conveyed to us had the SOPA and PIPA been in place?
I could not have log on to the websites for information and historical background of the project and the repercussion that it’s going to have on us and our environment as a whole.
The battle is still not over as the Tar Oil companies won't let it die. There shall be further debate in the congress and elsewhere for the continuation of the project so as to reap the benefits of exploiting the natural resource and damaging the environment in the worst possible manner.
I am sure there are states in this country which receive sunlight on an average of more than 250 days a year. Why can't the federal agencies and private player look into that prospect so as to tap the only non polluting energy source in the world i.e. sunlight?
I just hope the government sees the light sooner than later and become pragmatic in both deciding about imposing the SOPA and PIPA as well as the energy resources’ choices.

Sagacity is a virtue

The flip side of the "Aidscape" (Public Private Partnership (PPP), USAID) (applications in a developing country):

What can a PPP model in a developed country like the US have common with the same model in a developing nation like India? Plenty! In fact if observed closely, they make two sides of the same coin.
After having created a stir by his announcement in Oct last year Mr. Raj Shah, Administrator USAID has revealed two sea change insights; first involves a surge of new actors over the past 30 years pouring resources into developing countries. Non-governmental organizations (NGOs), Private Voluntary Organizations (PVOs), cooperatives, faith-based organizations, foundations, corporations, and financial institutions now transfer an enormous chunk of resources to developing countries. Official U.S. development assistance today is dwarfed by these private sector investments in emerging and developing market economies.
The second sea change is a much more recent development: a tightening fiscal environment. The ongoing budget battle looks like it may end in serious cuts to foreign assistance spending that could gravely undermine U.S. global engagement.
What repercussion will this have on the developing countries?
Consider these two scenarios:
More Cooperative Aid:
If the US government decides to involve the private players from the conceptualization to the final evaluation of the project this would result in more flexibity in terms of the aid provided to the developing countries. This shall also result in tapping the interest of the private players which is often left out otherwise in the planning process. The interests and priorities of the private players might result in more avenues for the developing countries in terms of knowledge and resources exchange.
More Flexible Aid:
The opportunities in the private sector are random and spontaneous moving swiftly as opposed to the bureaucratic arrangements in the government. The government functioning is far too rigid and complicated which in turns elongates the implementation of the policies and aid that has been planned. To incorporate on-the-fly provision for the budget shall make it appropriate for the aid to reach the targeted countries early and in a comprehensive manner.
Having said this  in order to fully capitalize on the new “aidscape”, U.S. development agencies must update their partnering mentality. This shall mean adapting to their new role as conveners of partnerships, not as leaders, and reworking the partnering process so it’s able to quickly adapt to a rapidly changing 21st century development landscape.
This shall definitely lead to the inroads of more comprehensive development in this century and for a win-win situation for the aidscape and the benefiting countries. 

 This post has been adopted from the original article by Will McKitterick in Rethinking U.S. Foreign Assistance, USAID Tags: Public-Private Partnerships, USAID.

To read the original article please click here.