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For Immediate Release, June 19, 2008

Contacts: 

Amy Atwood, Center for Biological Diversity, cell: (541) 914-8372; atwood@biologicaldiversity.org
Melissa Thrailkill, Center for Biological Diversity, (415) 436-9682, ext. 313; mthrailkill@biologicaldiversity.org

Statement of the Center for Biological Diversity on
Bush Administration's Call for Oil Shale Development on Public Lands

 Conservation Group Announces Opposition to One of the
World's Most Environmentally Destructive Energy Sources

TUCSON, Ariz. On the heels of President Bush’s press conference yesterday calling for oil shale development on the nation’s public lands, the Center for Biological Diversity is announcing its categorical opposition to any development of this unconventional fossil fuel.

“As the planet warms and stands on the precipice of devastating climate change, development of oil shale — which will require vast energy outputs many times greater than conventional oil production — is the worst of the Bush-Cheney failed energy policies,” said Amy Atwood of the Center for Biological Diversity. “Oil shale development is also the wrong use of the nation’s public lands, which belong to all citizens and must provide refuge for species struggling to cling to disappearing habitat and avoid extinction as the impacts of global warming intensify.”

In March, the Center for Biological Diversity and Center for Native Ecosystems submitted comments to the Bureau of Land Management opposing any commercial leasing of oil shale and tar sands in Colorado, Utah, and Wyoming.

The Center for Biological Diversity is dedicated to ensuring that atmospheric carbon dioxide pollutant levels are reduced to below 350 parts per million (ppm), which leading climate scientists warn is necessary to prevent devastating climate change. Further development of greenhouse-intensive energy sources including oil shale, tar sands, and coal-fired power plants is fundamentally incompatible with achieving this goal. If greenhouse emissions are not immediately reduced, the current atmospheric carbon dioxide level of 385 ppm will rise to approximately 500 ppm by mid-century, triggering mass wildlife extinctions, catastrophic global weather and ecosystem changes, and tragic human suffering.

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The Center for Biological Diversity is a nonprofit conservation organization with more than 180,000 members and online activists dedicated to the protection of endangered species and wild places. www.biologicaldiversity.org


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