Yesterday the New York Times featured the plight of Indonesian rainforests and the relevance of stemming deforestation in order to address global climate change on the front page. While the article correctly identifies the global importance of rainforests and peatlands for the climate, it leaves the reader inadequately [...]
Today on the Global Day of Climate Justice Action, a rowdy march in San Francisco made it’s way to Bank of America’s skyscraper (the tallest building in San Francisco), where dozens of activists blockaded the doors all around the building.
Some locked themselves within [...]
UPDATE: Both women now cut out of lockboxes. 4 arrested.
UPDATE @:at Cliffside generator: police are slowly working on cutting through lock boxes and are threatening 1 of 2 locked down women with a taser.
UPDATE: 2 People in handcuffs; Police up on generator with ladders and boltcutters for more folks. Pictures [...]
On November 30, major demonstrations, teach-ins and civil disobedience actions will take place in nine cities around the U.S.—in Chicago, New York, Boston, San Francisco, Seattle, Burlington, VT, two cities in Maine, and Washington DC, as well as several other countries—one week before the UN climate negotiations in Copenhagen open, [...]
It’s only a few days until November 30, an international day of climate action and solidarity with the upcoming protests in Copenhagen.
Nine cities are preparing mobilizations, mass actions, protests and civil disobedience targeting a variety of corporate entities complicit in the climate crisis. Right now [...]
This is a nice piece of news. Hopefully the folks in Meigs County, OH will have a good holiday this year in celebrating the cancellation of this proposed plant.
Meigs is ranked as one of the most polluted counties in the country as southeast Ohio is [...]
As negotiations wrapped up in Barcelona at the UN Climate Talks, the opportunity for a robust agreement to reduce emissions from deforestation and degradation in developing countries (REDD) is dangling from a wire. The latest negotiating text, which parties will be working on at the opening of the Copenhagen [...]
The world’s forests are a critical piece of the climate change puzzle. Covering over 30 percent of the Earth’s land surface, forests play a huge role in regulating weather patterns and absorbing the carbon that we release into the atmosphere. Not to mention, global deforestation is a huge contributor to [...]
Last week I was in Sumatra, Indonesia, traveling with representatives from the local NGO Warsi, investigating the impacts of Asia Pulp and Paper (APP), a wholly owned subsidiary of Sinar Mas, on forests and forests peoples.
Two days of 4×4 travel over dirt roads brought my team to PT Wirakarya Sakti [...]
November 23, 2009
Published in the Huffington Post
by Han Shan
Chevron is piling on the lobbyists and PR firms in an extraordinary effort to evade responsibility for its massive toxic contamination of the Ecuadorian Amazon.
But in a recent article for Politico, Kenneth Vogel, who tracks the confluence of money, politics and [...]
There has been a lot of grassroots pressure on the EPA in the last few weeks on the issue of Mountaintop Removal. Last Friday I was able to meet a new coalition of youth activists in Philly that has emerged when they were speaking out at the Region 3 [...]
Responding to Harmful Government Inaction, Protestors Stop Blasting on Coal River Mountain
PETTUS, W. Va. – Early this morning two concerned citizens, Dea Goblirsch and Nick Martin, locked down to a drill rig on Coal River Mountain’s Bee Tree mountaintop removal site, effectively stopping blasting. Two others, Grace Williams and [...]
November 20th, 2009
Published in the Huffington Post
By Trudie Styler Actress, director, producer, and humanitarian
The following post was originally delivered at the UN General Assembly’s meeting on climate change on Thursday, November 19th.
It has been 20 years since Sting and I first visited Brazil, [...]
From RAN’s Dana Clarke
We’ve just learned that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has sent a very legalistic letter to Marfork Coal Company, the Massey Energy subsidiary that is blasting on Coal River Mountain. The letter follows up on an EPA site visit to Coal River Mountain earlier this month, [...]
Here are a couple of great articles by lefty author Naomi Klein about the anti-corporate movement of movements which converged in Seattle in 1999 at the shutdown of the World Trade Organization are re-converging around climate change in Copenhagen.
In both, Klein talks about how anti-establishment direct [...]
Bill McKibben, Gloria Reuben, and RAN’s own Mike Brune have all sent letters to JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon asking him to stop JPMC’s financing of the coal industry and mountaintop removal coal mining. We got word today that Robert F. Kennedy Jr. just sent his letter [...]
Mr. Watson, how will you respond?
Yesterday Rainforest Action Network’s executive director Mike Brune sent a letter to Chevron’s incoming CEO John Watson and made him an offer. Come with us to Ecuador. To our knowledge no senior Chevron official has toured Texaco’s former oil installations in Ecuador’s rainforest. [Chevron [...]
Here in Riau, Indonesia, signs of the struggle to save the last of Sumatra’s forest is everywhere. Daily, the papers cover stories of timber and oil palm companies destroying forests, engaging in corruption, driving land conflicts, sponsoring violence, and marginalizing indigenous peoples.
Today, on the way to a meeting with the [...]
On the first day of the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) Pak Jamaluddin was quiet. He said the air conditioning of Kuala Lumpor gave him the flu. He seemed lost among the groups of palm producers, with their Blackberries and dark suits.
Exhausted from the canoe rides, bad roads, the [...]
Could it be that a tiny fly is the secret to saving Appalachia’s mountains and drinking water from the destructive mountaintop removal coal mining (MTR) practice?
According to Kevin Book, an analyst at ClearView Energy Partners LLC, in a Bloomberg piece this morning: “The future of mountaintop mining looks bleak.”
For [...]
Written by Dave Vasey from RAN Toronto.
On Tuesday, RAN activists disrupted a speech by Gordon Nixon, president of RBC at Ryerson University. Nixon was speaking as part of a business conference on Canadian Manufacturing. RAN activists interrupted the speech four times with banners and comments, as well as once during [...]
So we’re in the midst of a campaign to save Coal River Mountain and end mountaintop removal.
About two weeks ago, on a Nation Day of Action to End Mountaintop Removal, dozens of actions happened around the country targeting the EPA, coal financier JP [...]
All of you are AMAZING! At the end of last week, a number of organizations took online action to save Coal River Mountain.
350.org, Center for Biological Diversity,CREDO, Greenpeace, ilovemountains.org, Natural Resources Defense Council, Rainforest Action Network, Sierra Club and Waterkeeper Alliance all had their online membership [...]
Sunday, November 8th, 2009- Philly activists protested and flyered today outside the Opening Session of the American Public Health Association’s 137 Annual Meeting at the Pennsylvania Convention Center, where EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson was a keynote speaker.
The activists were demanding that Ms.Jackson end blasting on Coal River Mountain in Coal [...]
The Barcelona Climate Talks are wrapping up, and the world is disappointed. We have seen two vocal protests in the first hour inside the closing plenary and expressions of frustration and disappointment from one developing country after another. The Alliance of Small Island States says simply: ‘the level [...]
Last week, Massey Energy began dynamiting Coal River Mountain in West Virginia—the site of a proposed 328-megawatt wind farm—to prepare for a massive mountaintop removal coal mining operation.
Today, more than half a million people have received emails from organizations across the nation, including Rainforest Action Network, Appalachian Voices, [...]
Cross posted from Alternet
Last week, blasting began on Coal River Mountain in West Virginia. This is a part of the country where dynamite routinely goes off — turning the region’s historic mountain ranges into dust for the tiny coal seams that lie beneath their surface.
But Coal River Mountain [...]
The Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) was founded to create a path towards sustainability in the palm oil industry. A voluntary process, oil palm producers, traders, buyers, and NGO’s have joined up to find an alternative to the massive forest destruction, social conflict, and climate chaos the booming [...]
Execs from Arch Coal and Peabody recently joined the board of Washington University in St. Louis and then had a conf on campus called “America’s Energy Future”
Students and community activists had something to say about that (including folks from St. Louis Rising Tide).
[...]As I have written about on Understory before, Sumatra’s Bukit Tigapuluh is one of the last great forests of the world. It’s breathtaking biodiversity, high conservation importance, and value to three indigenous cultures withstanding, Sinar Mas -Indonesia’s largest producer of palm oil and owner of Asia Pulp and Paper- [...]
Contrary to a number of sensationalist media reports leading up to this year’s Round Table on Sustainable Palm Oil, the RSPO is not breaking up.
At the core of the controversy has been the effort to include a commitment by all members of the RSPO to reduce their Green House [...]
I never expected Indonesian rainforest protection to become “fashionable,” per se. Yet, with Gucci Group’s announcement that it will eliminate all paper made from Indonesian rainforests and plantations and by controversial suppliers like Asia Pulp and Paper, it has become just that.
Today Gucci Group, the prestigious conglomerate of fashion and [...]
Cross posted from Grist
African negotiators at the U.N. climate talks in Barcelona just refused to continue formal discussions about all other issues until wealthy countries live up to their legal and moral responsibility to commit to deep emissions reductions. Rich countries (also called “Annex 1 countries”) have ground negotiations [...]
The RSPO is the world’s largest annual meeting of oil palm industry, environmentalists, human rights advocates, and, most importantly, community members. Today, I watched as a community member from Borneo stood up in front of oil palm producers, NGOs, and technocrats, identified himself as a victim of oil palm expansion, [...]
RAN’s own Mike Brune sent a letter to JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon late last week asking that Chase show some leadership and stop their financing of the coal industry, mountaintop removal coal mining, and to demand that their client, Massey Energy, stop the destruction of Coal River Mountain [...]
On Friday, October 30th, seven Lawrence University students participated in a national day of protest to end mountaintop removal coal mining. Along with concerned citizens at more than two hundred demonstrations around the country, the students demanded an end to the explosion and leveling of mountains. This popular resistance to [...]
Garrrrrrrr....!
It was an unusual site at the EPA on Friday, as a group of mountain-loving zombies turned up to let EPA Administrator, Lisa Jackson, know that Mountaintop Removal coal mining must stop.
“Where’s your Brains?” One of the walking undead [...]
San Francisco’s preeminent green blogger (and RAN alum) Cameron Scott is running a cool contest over at the Thin Green Line to find the most outrageous greenwash, citing a bad palm oil ad that we blogged about a while ago. Winners will be featured in his blog….
Check it [...]
On Friday October 30th, twenty-five activists from Rainforest Action Network Chicago participated in actions at regional offices of JP Morgan Chase and the EPA.
At 11:30 AM in typical Chicago rain, activists dressed as the ghosts of mountains past “haunted” the Midwest Regional Offices of JPMorgan Chase. They [...]
From United Mountain Defense:
Nationwide Rally in Opposition of Mountaintop Removal
Memorials for the Mountains Held in front of EPA Region 4 Atlanta, GA
Atlanta, GA-October 31, 2009 – This past Friday concerned citizens nationwide rallied at regional Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) headquarters and other locations for a National Day [...]
Yesterday about 20 people showed up at the EPA in Philly (the regional office where they make decisions on permits in places like West Virginia) and fliered and did street theater.
Protesters celebrated Halloween a day early at the Philadelphia regional Environmental Protection Agency office on Friday. Chanting “Mountaintop removal is [...]
Yesterday, 13 people sat in while 50 rallied calling on the EPA to intervene at Coal River Mountain and end mountaintop removal.
Here’s the video.
[...]Seven conscious individuals were joined by five Boston police officers at the Region 1 office of the EPA in Boston. It was a simple demonstration of solidarity with activists across the country who are using a variety of tactics to demand the EPA use their power to immediately end mountaintop [...]
Early Thursday morning, local climate activists dropped a banner reading “Save Coal River Mtn.” from the 18th Street overpass above the Vine Street Expressway. The banner contrasted images of a wind farm and a bulldozer; the bottom read, “Coal Is Over.”
Massey Energy [...]
This morning RAN, the New York Action Network, the Waterkeeper Alliance and the Sierra Club organized a “Carnival of Destruction” outside JPMorgan Chase’s mid-town Manhattan headquarters. Scores of protesters gathered to demand that the bank stop financing the coal industry, including the devastating practice of mountaintop [...]
The coming trend in southern West Virginia as activists turn up the heat on mountaintop removal?
Joseph Hamsher, 22, Sentenced to 20 Days in South West Regional Jail for Lockdown at Massey Regional Headquarters
MADISON, W.Va.-Joseph Hamsher, 22, was sentenced to twenty days in South
West Regional Jail for his participation [...]
Written by Maryam Adrangi and Eriel Tchekwie Deranger.
A group of Canadian climate change activists – including RAN campaigner Eriel Deranger, and numerous members of RAN Toronto – caused a ruckus in Canada’s Parliament yesterday. In doing so, they brought their demands for bold action on climate change directly to the [...]
Coal River Mountain in West Virginia is being dynamited, and the Coal River Valley community needs your help.
Earlier this week, RAN staff heard from allies in the coalfields that a subsidiary of Massey Energy, the largest coal producer in Appalachia, has resumed mountaintop removal operations at Coal River Mountain.
The EPA [...]
Fall is glorious in the Twin Cities! Leaves of brilliant reds, oranges and yellows hang in the streets showing off the changing seasons like a painting depicting a powerful symbol of community change. As the cold of winter creeps in, local Twin Cities folks are both preparing to hibernate for [...]
Displaced primates, having lost much of their Indonsian rainforest habitat, relocate to Minneapolis to tell the company responsible for destroying their rainforests to adopt a Global Forest Policy NOW.
Orangutans asking Minnesotans for help on Nicolette Blvd [...]
We’ve heard and seen evidence that Massey Energy is now clearing and blasting for coal extraction on Coal River Mountain. We’ve had a lot of victories in the past few months, but this is ours and our allies line in the sand. Coal River Mountain is the symbol of our [...]
More and more people are demanding that JPMorgan Chase stop financing the coal industry and the destruction of Appalachia through mountaintop removal coal mining. Earlier this month, Bill McKibben sent a letter to JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon and this week, Gloria Reuben, actress, singer and social activist, sent [...]
Cross-posted from It’s Getting Hot in Here. Written by Maryam Adrangi from RAN Toronto.
This weekend in Ottawa, 100 concerned citizens staged mock deaths at the Royal Bank of Canada, accompanied by chanting and chalk outlines. Following a weekend of activity at Powershift Canada, the action called attention to RBC’s [...]
DC residents with the activist group DC Rising Tide today publicly presented their demands that Pepco stop sourcing electricity from coal, and particularly coal from Mountain Top Removal coal mining. The activists made their demands for renewable energy with a theatrical fight between “Pepcoal” and wind power in front [...]
New Yorkers and those nearby!
Join us this Thursday, October 29th to tell JP Morgan Chase to stop funding mountaintop removal coal mining! JP Morgan Chase is the biggest financier of the devastating practice of MTR – and even funds Massey Energy, the company that has started blasting Coal River [...]
Yesterday, millions marched and rallied around the world in the largest day of action ever on climate change.
In Chicago as thousands marched through the windy city, hundreds rallied and watched as eight climate activists blocked the entrance into the Fisk Coal Plant. Currently, Fisk is the [...]
A new, hard hitting, RAN case study on Cargill’s oil palm operations in PNG, ‘Commodity Colonialism’, is now available for download HERE.
Papua New Guinea (PNG) is a nation that does not easily fit with our society’s dominant ideas of development, property, and conservation. Many [...]
Yesterday’s global call-in day to Cargill’s CEO Gregory Page at his headquarters in Wayzata, MN was a huge success thanks to all of our wonderful supporters and activists! Great work! By 10am close to 2,000 people had already placed a call of concern into U.S. Agribusiness Giant Cargill and [...]
This morning, just before dawn, four individuals chained themselves across a haul road on a strip mining site in Kanawha County, West Virginia to protest mountaintop removal mining. Four more joined them on site in support roles, unfurling two banners, one reading simply “Stop” and the other reading “Stop [...]
We have heard from coalfield residents that Massey Energy has
resumed operations on Coal River Mountain in West Virginia, and
that blasting is imminent. The blasting will take place only a
few hundred feet away from the Brushy Fork impoundment dam,
which holds over 9 billion gallons of toxic [...]
Great action this morning by the Yes Men and Avaaz. They threw a faux press conference saying that the Chamber had reversed it’s position on global warming. During the press conference, an actual Chamber representative burst in and disrupted the press conference calling the Yes Men frauds.
Lots [...]
So I really like the Winter Olympics – they really put the Summer Olympics to shame. Hockey, luge, figure skating, bobsledding, downhill skiing… and even that sport that combines cross-country skiing and target shooting! (Whose idea was that??)
But this year, a wide variety of activists, in B.C. and beyond, [...]
Seven arrested at WV Gov. Manchin’s office today during a peaceful sit-in protesting the destruction of Coal River Mountain by Massey Energy.
[...]
Coal River Valley Residents Demand Prevention of Blasting Coal River Mountain
CHARLESTON, W.Va. – At noon seven people will deliver a letter of concerns and personal statements regarding Massey Energy’s imminent mountaintop removal coal mining on Coal River Mountain to Joe Manchin at the West Virginia [...]
Surrounded by larger-than life rainforest photos draped from the walls of the gorgeous Bentley Reserve the who’s who of the environmental movement gathered last night to pay tribute to two great environmental leader and two Indigenous activists from Ecuador at REVEL, Rainforest Action Network’s annual gala.
Two Ecuadoran heroes, Emergildo Criollo [...]
The controversy surrounding the US Chamber of Commerce continues. The labor coalition Change to Win recently issued a report on how the Chamber has been hijacked by right wing ideologues, whose opposition to regulation of greenhouse gas pollution has included calling for the EPA to conduct a ‘Scopes [...]
Back in the 1980’s and 1990’s forest wars of the Northwest, the false dichotomy that emerged out of that conflict was “jobs vs. the environment.” Loggers, mislead by industry, contended that they couldn’t make a living if environmentalists and government regulators restricted their ability to log old growth forest.
This [...]
Last week, a trio of West Virginia’s top politicians blasted Massey Energy’s arrogance and blatant disregard for human life after the company stubbornly refused to assist the Raleigh County School District move the school located next to a toxic coal prep plant, toxic waste pond and MTR site. Now [...]
RAN believes that indigenous peoples are the best stewards of rainforests.
Supporting this belief, a new study by researchers at U of Illinois and U of Michigan has added to the growing body of evidence that indigenous peoples are better protectors of their forests than governments or industry. In a [...]
Join Mountain Justice, Energy Justice Network and Rainforest Action Network as We Mobilize to End Mountaintop Removal.
SIGN UP:[ran.org]
WHAT: Actions at the EPA and across the country calling for an end to mountaintop removal
WHEN: Friday, Oct. 30
WHERE: Your Town, USA
CONTACT: dirtymoney@ran.org or fossilfuels@enerjustice.net; or Mountain Justice at [...]
A surprising turn of events in West Virginia politics this week.
Sen. Robert Byrd, Sen. Jay Rockefeller and Rep. Nick Rahall all publicly criticized Massey Energy after the company refused to fund the relocation of Marsh Fork Elementary. Marsh Fork is currently sitting next to the Goals Coal processing facility [...]
Last night, RAN’s Sam Corbin attended the premiere of The Yes Men’s new movie, “Yes Men Fix the World”. After the movie was over, she directed the riled-up crowd to a near-by Chase branch so that movie goers could vent their frustration with corporate greed at a corporation [...]
Jennifer Krill, Margaret, David Gilbert, Maria, Kate, Sparki, Nell, RobinAverbeck
