It’s Getting Hot In Here

The tree sit about Pettry Bottom, WV continues.

Today’s updates:

• Today,  the tree sitters let us know that they have befriended a chipmunk, a momma bear and her two cubs.
• Late today, the police have escorted ground support, Kim Ellis and Zoe Beavers away again, possibly to be arrested again.
• They are being held on $1000 bail each in the Southern Regional Jail.  To donate, go to www.climategroundzero.org
• Massey security had been trying to talk to Nick and Laura down.
• Now they are blasting noise and flashing strobe lights to irritate them into coming down.
• 3rd straight day that Massey can’t blast in the area.

Here’s a video:

Continue reading ‘Coal River Valley Tree Sit:Day 3′

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact:  Christine Irvine, 704-813-3361, ChristineM.Irvine@gmail.com

Sarah Murphy, 603-562-8211, allaspiaggia@gmail.com

Photos available at: http://www.flickr.com/photos/dc_climate_action/

Katrina Survivor, Esquizito Perez, available for interviews.

Youth Climate Activists & Katrina Survivors Pressure Obama to Stop the Next Katrina, Rebuild the Gulf and Stop Global Warming

Climate Advocates Call on the President to Reflect and Take Action on the Fourth Anniversary of Katrina

International climate activists floated two roof tops in the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool early Thursday afternoon in anticipation of the fourth anniversary of Hurricane Katrina. One of the roofs read, “HELP,” the other, “The Water Is Rising.” The 30 ft. banner behind the roofs declared, “Prevent the Next Katrina, Restore the Gulf, Stop Global Warming.”

Saturday’s anniversary of Katrina’s landfall coincides with the 100-day countdown to the much anticipated Copenhagen climate negotiations.

“Needless to say, many New Orleanians have placed their hopes in Barack Obama. We see the effects of man-made disaster every day. Climate change is the number one long-term threat to life facing New Orleans.” said Esquizito Perez, a New Orleans jazz performer and Katrina survivor working with the climate advocates. “We’re all waiting for President Obama’s leadership,” he said.

Katrina made landfall in southeast Louisiana on August 29^th, 2005. 80 percent of New Orleans was under water and at least 1,836 people lost their lives, making it one of the deadliest natural disasters in the history of the United States.

The group of concerned youth called attention to the anniversary of Katrina and the necessity of bold US leadership at the UN climate negotiations in Copenhagen this December to pass a fair, ambitious, and binding global treaty that will prevent environmental disasters of the catastrophic magnitude of Katrina in the future. According to the climate advocates, a fair, ambitious, and binding treaty includes full funding for international adaptation, so that vulnerable areas can adapt to climate threats.

A statement by the Pew Center for Global Climate Change further expresses the link between Katrina and global warming: “It would be scientifically unsound to conclude that Katrina was not intensified by global warming. A reasonable assessment of the science suggests that we will face similar events again and that powerful storms are likely to happen more often than we have been accustomed to in the past.”

This is an excerpt from a podcast and interview I just posted with Oregon State Representative Jules Kopel-Bailey. A young, passionate and pretty brilliant legislator, Representative Bailey is a clean energy and climate champion and recently completed his first full legislative session in Oregon.

This excerpt seemed particularly relevant to our young readers here…

[Jesse Jenkins]: Jules, you hold what I continue to be a distinguished position, as one of the youngest members of the Oregon House of Representatives, is that right?

[Oregon State Representative, Jules Kopel-Bailey]: Second youngest, yes.

Do you have any particular advice for young Oregonians – or others in other states – who are looking to have an impact on the state political process, really engaging at the grassroots level, or are even thinking about running for office themselves someday?

Well, I’ll support the old Nike slogan and say, Just do it!
Continue reading ‘Thinking About Running for Office? “Just Do It!” Says One of Oregon’s Youngest Legislators’

Who knows what it feels like to go hungry for a meal, a day, or a few days? Probably most of us. But who knows what it feels like to go hungry for a week, two weeks, three weeks, four weeks?

Very few of us.

When I think of people going hungry for weeks on end, I think of the people on this planet who are living in drought ridden land which won’t yield the crops they have been waiting for. I think of those people who are thwarted by the changing monsoon patterns who can’t predict when to plant their seeds. I think of people who have been victims to a hurricane or flood and have loss access to food and water. I think of the victims of climate change: past, present and future.

But that’s not all.

When I think of people going hungry for weeks on end I also think of determination, dedication, vision and sacrifice. I think of the hunger strikes lead by Gandhi in India’s fight for independence from a British oppression. I think of civil society rising up and reclaiming their power and asking for what is just, what is right. I think of non-violence, of peace and of love.

And now, I think of the Climate Justice Fast.

Continue reading ‘Fasting for Justice on Climate Change’

The sun is up and so are the tree sitters. Day two of standing in the way of the destruction of Appalachian mountains and communities begins!

See Climate Ground Zero’s Update Feed Here.

Don Blankenship is surprising quiet about the whole thing

TREE SIT DETERS BLASTING, ENTERS SECOND DAY AT MASSEY EDWIGHT MINE

PETTRY BOTTOM, W.Va. —The two tree sitters forced Massey Energy to cancel blasts on the the Edwight mountaintop removal mine above Pettry Bottom. According to a confidential source, Massey Energy had planned to use explosives to blast off a knob near the tree sitters at approximately four p.m., yesterday. This directly conflicts with statements made by the Edwight site supervisor. Continue reading ‘Coal River Valley Tree Sit: Day 2′

Last week, Sierra Magazine released its third annual Cool Schools issue, which ranks the Top 20 greenest schools in the country. The survey looks at all different components of a green campus (Academics, Administration, Efficiency, Energy, Food, Purchasing, Waste Management, plus a “Bonus” category) and rates them on a scale of 0 – 100.

Here’s a quick look at some of the top schools:

1. University of Colorado at Boulder

2. University of Washington at Seattle

3. Middlebury College

4. University of Vermont

5. College of the Atlantic

… and three that failed:

1. Texas Tech

2. DePaul University

3. Southern Illinois University, Carbondale
(home to a massive “clean coal” research center)

Continue reading ‘Top 20 Most Sustainable Campuses’

Cross posted from the NEW DC Action Factory blog: dc.actionfactories.org

Four years ago this Saturday, Hurricane Katrina slammed into the United States, killing at least 1836 people and shaking the foundations of our country. Dr. Kerry Emanuel reports that if Katrina had occurred in 1980, the levees would have held. But global warming increases ocean temperature, increases storm intensity, and threatens America with more super-storms.

There’s a lot of talk in the news this week about national security and the risks posed by global warming, both domestically and abroad. In light of a recent typhoon, Taiwan’s military has ranked climate change as its biggest national threat and is re-organizing some military operations accordingly.

Pacific island states have upped their call for industrialized nations to act on cutting carbon emissions, saying that the nations least responsible for causing climate change shouldn’t be the first to pay the price. Continue reading ‘Hurricane Katrina: Pushing Us to Act Faster on Climate Change’

If there is anything I’ve learnt is if you want to achieve anything one day, then you are going to have to make that day today.

Many people talk about one day when we’ve stopped dangerous climate change, however again I’m not sure if people realise what it will take politically, technologically, infrastructure wise, values wise. It will require a whole new type of thinking, a whole new heart, a whole new world.

That one day needs to start today.

We will only make these changes if we start living our day to day lives in the way we want to change the world. Through our physical actions, our values, our choices as active consumers, citizens and community members. If we start this today, then one day our children and grandchildren will look to us with gratitude. Just as young Indians today honour the generation that struggled for our independence, and Westerners pay their respects to the enormous sacrifices made during the great wars, one day we too will be thanked, for doing whatever it took to ensure that our descendants on this earth could have dreams of their own.

However I know that to achieve extraordinary results, we must be willing to do extraordinary things. To inspire a generation, we ourselves must be inspirational. We cannot afford to wait around for miracles. We must be the change we need to see. Continue reading ‘If we want to stop climate change one day…’

Written as a collaboration by RAN Toronto members

Feigned Collapses Represent Real Impacts of Tar Sands Destruction and Water Pollution on First Nations Throughout Canada

Toronto

Customers visiting the Royal Bank of Canada (RBC)’s newly opened downtown banking centre today were met with the sight of motionless bodies strewn along the pavement in front of the bank entrance.  The bodies were those of Rainforest Action Network (RAN) activists who, in protest against RBC’s continued financing of Alberta tar sands production, feigned death after symbolically drinking contaminated tar sands water. Continue reading ‘Die-In Held at New Royal Bank of Canada Branch to Protest the Bank’s Involvement in Dirty Oil’

This is the first post in a multi-part series on youth climate heroes from around the country.

Our youth climate movement is connected like no other movement in our world’s history. Thanks to the internet, we can instantly communicate with people around the country and globe – like I am doing right now – and spread awareness, organize, and make change!!

It sounds almost like it should be easy by now! Like polar bears should be getting bigger, not smaller. And yet, “making change” — and especially knowing when we are making change and what that even means– can be really hard.

Over here at ACE, we have been lucky enough to work with over 40 high school students from around the country this summer. Many of them shared their stories with us.

And now, each week, we will share a youth climate hero story. The students we are profiling are taking one of the boldest steps, getting involved in the first place. Their projects really span the gap of what is possible and have the power to show others what it can mean to get involved.

Check out Kristine Cabugao’s story:

Hailing from Angelo Rodriguez High School in Fairfield, CA, Kristine woke up to the dangers of climate disaster when she saw an Inconvenient Truth. With climate change as her new passion, she is sparking an Eco-magazine at her school next year: The Remedy. Plus she scored an ACE Action Scholarship for her efforts.

Everyone here at this website is already tapped in, but I encourage you to share these videos to show others what it can mean to get involved, and how this movement spans the country, on so many levels!