It\’s Getting Hot In Here

Why on earth has Verizon Wireless decided to sponsor a climate-denying, mountain-destroying, union-busting, PRO-MOUNTAINTOP REMOVAL labor day rally (that they are ironically calling the “Friends of America” rally) being organized by Massey Energy, featuring noted right-wing radio nutjobs Ted Nugent and Sean Hannity?

Massey Energy is the poster-child of mountaintop removal and has been under fire for many years from everything to political corruption to destroying the Appalachian Mountains with it’s ruthless strip mining operations. Now as the intensity and anti-coal movement has escalated, Massey is sponsoring a “Friends of America” rally on Labor Day in response. The day’s keynote speaker will be Lord Christopher Monckton, a science adviser to former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and one of the world’s most infamous global warming-deniers.

Verizon often promotes itself as a trendy green company with various eco-initiatives that include pushing energy efficiency to it’s suppliers and solar panels. How is sponsoring one of the most anti-environmental companies in the U.S. adhere to those values. Big props to Jeff Biggers for letting us all know about this and sparking a campaign. Continue reading ‘Verizon Wireless: Sponsoring Mountaintop Removal’

Do you want to report on the most compelling stories of the climate crisis?  Are you an amateur photographer wanting to learn the skills of your trade while doing your part to save the climate? Or maybe you are a videographer wanting to change the outcome of the UN Climate Negotiations (COP 15).

We are calling all passionate youth journalists who want to use their skills to launch “Survival,” to the forefront of the international political debate, amplify voices underrepresented by traditional media, and report on the most compelling climate stories from around the world.

Project Survival Media is a global youth journalism network that aims to influence the outcome of the COP 15 by broadcasting the most critical message of our time: As world leaders negotiate a new climate treaty, “Survival is Not Negotiable.”

We are seven media teams, one for each continent.  We build stories together that will focus on those roles in society that are most impacted by climate change: factory workers, farmers, mothers, organizers, and health care providers.

Who is eligible?
-    Any young person between the ages of 15-30.
-    Have some experience in any of the following: blogging, reporting, photography, or videography.
-    Has either a background in: climate change, human rights issues, global and local environmental justice struggles.
-    Living anywhere on one of the seven continents

Click Here to complete an application to be on the Project Survival Regional Media Teams.  ALL applications must be submitted by: September 11th, 2009.

UPDATE: At approximately 3:00 p.m. state police confirmed that both Nick and Laura had been arrested. They are now in Magistrate’s court in Beckley. A later post will detail the event.

This morning at 10 a.m. tree-sitter Nick Stocks plans to turn himself into state police after one week of sitting atop an 80 foot tulip poplar tree at the edge of the Edwight Mountaintop Removal site above Pettry Bottom, just down the road from Marsh Fork Elementary School. For one week, he and Laura Steepleton have halted blasting on that part of the site, and brought national attention to the knob above Pettry Bottom. After having the two ground support arrested last week, and Nick’s arrest today, Laura is continuing her mountaintop vigilance on her own.

Nick stated, “To this day the DEP has acted as a thin, weak delegate for big coal in West Virginia. They have circumvented, sidestepped, dismissed and lied to communities and individuals who look to them for protections that ought to assure healthy children, safe drinking water and a continued existence in the valley. To this day they have not done their job to even the slightest degree. When the government fails in its obligation to protect its people and communities are made unsafe and unlivable, it is the responsibility of all concerned people to turn attention to that failure and do all in their capacity to ensure the safety of the community. If the DEP doesn’t do it, we must do it ourselves, and we will go beyond. We will stop the devastation of this mountain and protect the communities below. We will end mountaintop removal.”

More update will be coming to you throughout the day at www.climategroundzero.org

Cross posted from DC.ActionFactories.org – Today’s lead article in the Washington Post sucks, even though its a great photo – this is our response.

The Washington Post claims Big Oil and Coal are the flashy players in the climate debate, easily outmaneuvering the stuffy, boring environmentalists. link

Hey WaPo: there are some glaring contradictions here.  You used this photo precisely  because it looks flashy.  I mean, it certainly doesn’t relate very closely to the article’s content.  Oh, and look at the flashy and hard-hitting RePower America ad at the top of the online post.

Big Coal hands out T-shirts while climate activists stop coal blasting using their bodies like at the ongoing tree sit.  Big Oil has company management instruct employees to attend ‘rallies’ (company picnics) while 12,000 young people scrape together funds to attend the largest climate conference ever in the US. Continue reading ‘Washington Post: Snark Posing as News’

Cross-posted from: here

The Japanese elections just took place, and I’m excited to say the challengers have won in a landslide. Continue reading ‘Japan has new Pro-Climate Leadership’

Under certain circumstances, fasting is the one weapon God has given us for use in times of utter helplessness.

- Ghandi

Martin Luther King said that

A man who won’t die for something is not fit to live.

Our grandparents went to battle as soldiers in the second world war ready to lay down their lives for the freedom of their nations. We have a comparable if not bigger threat in climate change.

Who am I to say that I’m not going to make that sort of sacrifice?
Even if there is damage to myself, it’s nothing compared to the global catastrophe that we are heading for if we fail to solve this crisis.

Check out Deepa Gupta’s earlier post here

In a recent editorial article for the academic journal Climatic Change, Jon Barnett argues that the current debate about climate change and security is missing the point.  Everyone following the news knows the story by now – global warming leads to resource scarcity, and resource scarcity leads to war.  Barnett, one of the world’s foremost researchers on climate and security, cautions scholars and activists against making such simplistic assumptions.

A major problem with the popular discourse on climate wars is that it is excessively general, and poorly if at all informed by evidence…. what is passing as research on climate conflicts is not good social science either: it eschews evidence, most of it ignores the large body of research on the causes of conflict generally and on so-called ‘environmental conflicts’ in particular, and very little of it is peer-reviewed.

Continue reading ‘Keeping an eye on climate insecurity’

I came home to the rolling green hills of the Mohawk Valley, to my laughing cousins, and to the beginning of a new upstate new york.

It seems the new green economy has inspired the homeless, community organizers, faith leaders, and local officials alike. On my first day home I attended the launch of a new green low-income housing block in the poorest crime ridden area of Utica, NY—Corn Hill. Corn Hill is one of those area’s that never received enough public assistance and therefore remained a hot spot for drugs, murder, and racial disparity.

But things started to change with the initiative of two women, Reverend Skates and Reverend Meier. Their  commitment to the area and their beautiful vision for a transformed community brought all the right people together. We heard from speakers from the NYS Governor’s office, they mayor of Utica, and local homeless women that were moving into these new green homes.

I haven’t been so moved than when I heard Reverend Skates lead us in a visualization of the buildings around us. We yelled out words together like “Green!” or “Community Garden” pointing to broken down buildings and empty lots. With all of the right people in the room you could almost feel the space around you changing, especially when so much already had.

Copyright Shadia Fayne Wood

Continue reading ‘Green Low-Income Housing: Upstate New York’

One would think that with a name like It’s Hot In Here, the hosts of the University of Michigan based environmental news/grooves radio show would have been in touch with It’sGettingHotInHere for years. And that maybe the two were even closely related.

Surprisingly, this is not the case, and I was overjoyed to be introduced yesterday to Jennifer, aka “Gina Gettum”, co-conceiver and host of the environmental news/music show on WCBN-88.3-FM-Ann Arbor since March 2008.

I asked Gina to tell me a bit about her show, and she said that the main goal of It’s Hot in Here is just to have a good time. “We hear so much doom and gloom with regards to environmental issues in the media, but the fact is that most of the people in this movement, the people working on these issues, and the people we want to engage with aren’t. We’re fun, sexy people. We like to stay positive, informed and rock out to great music. So, our show is quirky, fun, and full of laughter and sound effects. But it’s still smart and informative.”

Each show is built around a compelling environmental issue. Gina says “we’re lucky to be based in Ann Arbor, where we regularly draw upon the University’s and city’s wealth of academic and professional green-spertise!” Former guests of It’s Hot In Here have included fellow students, professionals and activists, as well as climate guru Joseph Romm, New York Times Bestselling Author John Perkins, former New York Times International Reporter Howard French, UM Professors Rebecca Hardin, Tom Princen, Andrew Hoffman, and Mark Wilson.

Continue reading ‘It’sGettingHotInHere.org Meets It’s Hot in Here Campus Radio’

Cross-Posted from: here

UMD(University of Maryland) for Clean Energy is the student group I’m campaign director of. I recently made a post about our position statement we delivered to Senator Ben Cardin’s office, which showed up in the Washington Post Maryland blog(scroll to bottom). Beyond weighing in on Federal legislation, we’re taking advantage of an incredible opportunity to influence College Park policy in the upcoming elections this November, the city our school resides in. We think the transition to a clean energy economy and more sustainable society needs to come from not just from the top down, but the bottom up starting in our communities. We’re going to do our best to make that a reality in ours. Continue reading ‘UMD for Clean Energy Pushes Green Platform for City Council Elections’