It’s Getting Hot In Here

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.  Over 200 rallied and marched, while police eventually arrested at least 22.

Some locked themselves within the revolving doors to disrupt Bank of America’s business for the day.  Bank of America is one of the largest funders of coal plants, oil and gas in the country.  They also play a leading role within trade associations pushing for cap and trade.

“The world’s largest corporations are blocking an agreement to address the climate crisis that is endangering our common future,” stated organizer David Solnit. “Meanwhile, Bank of America profits from financing dirty energy and carbon trading schemes that subsidize pollution and poverty.” According to Bloomberg, Bank of America is the third largest financier of oil, gas, and coal in the world, and is heavily involved in financing mountaintop removal coal mining. Continue reading ‘San Francisco Climate Justice Action at Bank of America; 200 Rally with at least 22 Arrested’

The Avaaz aliens are baa-acck!

Since the aliens first arrived on Planet Earth to make an intergalatic intervention at the Barcelona climate meeting earlier this month, they have been roaming the Earth searching for real climate leaders.

When the Avaaz aliens heard that the Danish Prime Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen and the new European Union (EU) President Herman Van Rompuy were meeting today to prepare for the Copenhagen climate summit they knew they knew they must attend!

“Someone’s got to hold them accountable. Doesn’t always have to be a human,” says one very green alien in this hot video.

The aliens have become very alarmed that in the midst of a planetary emergency the EU has started to propose some very bad, un-climate leadership-ish, texts for the UN climate negotiations that start next week. Leaked draft proposals by PM Rasmussen and the EU have indicated that they want a totally unambitious and dangerous global peak year of 2020 and NO ADDITIONAL fair climate financing.

The aliens stood at the entrance of Danish Prime Minister’s Marienborg residence- just outside of Copenhagen- and in perfect alien accents asked in unison, “Where are the EU climate leaders? Are there any EU climate leaders?”

The aliens made it clear that real climate leaders will commit to a global emissions peak year of 2015 (what science and survival necessitate) and additional, fair financing.

Because many world leaders – like the EU and US – do not seem to be listening to their people, the aliens also attempted to deliver a petition signed by 9,837,794 global citizens who want a fair, ambitious, and legally binding climate treaty.

When the Prime Minister and EU President heard that aliens were after them, they quickly drove by and pointed from their motorcade. Not very climate leader-y.

The aliens will continue their search for climate leaders, have no fear!

Follow actions throughout the climate negotiations on Twitter @COPactions

See our pretty pictures on Flickr!

*More details and photos coming soon!*

Chicago climate activists returned to the streets today – this time in the financial district in downtown  Chicago – in a colorful demonstration against cap and trade, carbon offsets and other “false solutions” to climate change.  Building on the long-term campaign to shut down the Crawford and Fisk coal-fired power plants in the city, community and environmental groups from across Chicago and beyond have come together to demand just, equitable, and effective solutions to the climate crisis.

The main target of today’s action is the Chicago Climate Exchange, the first and largest carbon market in North America.  Several other “climate criminals” were visited during a march, including JP Morgan Chase, one of the leading funders of mountain top removal coal mining; Midwest Generation, the owner of Chicago’s two coal-fired power plants; and the Board of Trade, which trades in palm oil, one of the leading drivers of rainforest destruction. Continue reading ‘Chicago Climate Activists target Carbon Trading for anniversary of Seattle WTO shut down – 12 arrested’

Local Citizens ‘Die-in’ at Department of Public Health and Environment in Protest over Coal

Group calls on the Air Quality Control Commission to deny the Cherokee coal plant’s ‘permit to pollute’

Denver, CO – This morning, approximately fifteen local citizens,
representing a diverse coalition of groups, demonstrated at the Colorado
Department of Public Health and Environment (DPHE) to demand the denial of the Cherokee coal plant’s permit to pollute.  The early morning protest
greeted DPHE employees as they arrived for work and called on the
department to close down Cherokee.  Protestors did a ‘die-in’ in front of
the building’s main entrance to highlight the grim consequences that coal
has on our lives and those of future generations.  At the same time, other
activists in hazmat suits roped off the area with “Global Warming Crime
Scene’ tape and chanted against coal plants.

“The Department of Public Health and Environment needs to stand up for
public health and the environment.  They can do this by beginning to phase
out coal-fired power plants,” said Kate Clark, a graduate student in
Environmental Studies at CU-Boulder.

The DPHE’s Air Quality Control Commission (AQCC) recently held a public
hearing on the Cherokee coal plant, in which citizens overwhelming called
for denial of the plant’s air pollution permit.  In addition, over 200
citizens turned out to express their opposition to the Valmont coal plant
in Boulder this past July and over 300 participated in a protest of the
plant on October 24th.  Beyond that, activists, dressed in Gov. Ritter
masks and clown suits, demonstrated in Denver calling on the governor to
not be a ‘climate clown.’ Today’s action was meant to amplify public
opposition to the Cherokee coal plant as the AQCC prepares to make a
decision on the future of Cherokee in the coming weeks or months. Continue reading ‘Denver N30:Local Citizens ‘Die-in’ at Dept. of Public Health and Environment in Protest over Coal’

UPDATE at Cliffside Generator: police have cut out both of the folks who were locked down. 4 have been arrested total

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 their way.

Concerned citizens have blocked the shipment of a massive generator to Cliffside Coal Plant.

Keep track at http://twitter.com/RisingTideNA

Pictures here

Greenville, SC Two protestors have locked themselves to the 1.5 million pound generator destined for Duke Energy’s Cliffside coal plant in Rutherford County, North Carolina. Protestors are vowing to prevent the generator, which has been traveling across South Carolina on a 300 foot trailer, from reaching the coal plant. “Our nation has no choice, we must stop burning coal. The only choice that we can make is whether we do that in time to still have breathable air, drinkable water, a livable climate, and standing mountains,” said, Catherine Anne. Protestors also draped a large banner from the top of the generator reading, “Stop Cliffside.”

The controversial Cliffside coal plant would emit over 6 million tons of carbon dioxide ever year in addition to toxic levels of heavy metals such as mercury, greatly exacerbating global warming and our abysmal air quality. Duke Energy is seeking to raise electricity rates in order to pay for the construction of Cliffside at a time when record numbers of families are struggling to put food on the table due to the recession.

This act of civil disobedience comes a week before world leaders meet in Copenhagen to hash out a global climate agreement. “Any agreement made in Copenhagen will be meaningless if the US continues to build coal plants such as Cliffside. It is time to tear down coal plants, not construct new ones,” said Rachel Scarano. There are currently 43 coal plants proposed or under construction in the US, though over 100 others have been canceled due to widespread protests. Continue reading ‘Lockdown on the Cliffside Coal Plant Generator; 4 Arrested’

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, and on the 10^th anniversary of the World Trade Organization (WTO) protest in Seattle in 1999.  The Mobilization for Climate Justice, a broad and diverse coalition of organizations working for social, environmental, economic and racial justice is calling for urgent action on the global climate crisis, based on equitable, democratic and science-based solutions.

As world leaders gather in Copenhagen, the people hit hardest by this crisis and the least responsible for its cause—working class, Indigenous and people of color communities around the world—have been systematically excluded and are demanding a voice at the table. Meanwhile, the world’s major corporations have been dominating international and domestic climate policy – as they did in the international trade policy arena. Carbon-trading and carbon offset projects have already allowed these polluters to avoid cutting emissions and expand their markets into poor countries, accelerating corporate take-over of the world’s resources at the expense of local and Indigenous communities.

“We cannot allow the world’s largest corporate polluters to continue robbing our children’s future,” stated Carla Perez of Movement Generation Justice and Ecology Project, who will be marching with her daughter in a parade of children and the Raging Grannies. “US corporations have been holding real climate solutions hostage, while burdening our communities with ongoing attacks on our health and livelihoods.” Continue reading ‘November 30:Global Day of Action on Climate Crisis’

Oregon Senator Jeff Merkley has a great idea to make the jobs bill green

 In the wake of news this month that US unemployment has hit 10.2 percent, the Senate leadership appears to be looking very hard at throwing together a comprehensive “jobs bill,” with the intent of passing a jobs-creation policy early in 2010.  Great, you might say – this is the perfect chance for the Senate to really get focused on jobs-creating, deficit-neutral climate legislation that can re-power our economy while making the US a leader in renewable energy investment, and curbing global warming.  Unfortunately the Senate leadership, particularly Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nevada) apparently doesn’t see things this way.  It looks likely that rather than focus on passing the Clean Energy Jobs and American Power Act first thing in 2010, climate legislation may be delayed yet again by a bill focused purely on jobs creation.

Now, it may be tempting to throw up your hands and scream at the Senate’s inability to get truly focused on a comprehensive climate bill.  I’d suggest, however, that it would be more effective to start thinking about how the jobs bill can in fact be used as an interim opportunity to get some solid green jobs legislation passed, while we simultaneously remain focused on the goal of passing climate-specific legislation by the end of this spring.  And I’m pleased to say that one of the most promising opportunities for injecting a flair of green into the jobs bill may originate in my home state of Oregon, and is already being promoted by Oregon’s Senator Jeff Merkley. Continue reading ‘Oregon Green Jobs Bill to Inspire National Policy?’

I like numbers, and I also like telling people when they’ve done a good job. So, I’m going to continue what should be a monthly series about this blog itself. This is a big community, and we do amazing work, so it makes sense that we’d want to check in on how we do an even better job of sharing those stories with the world. ItsGettingHotInHere.org is a powerful tool to do that.

In these posts, I’ll do a snapshot of how the blog’s doing overall, and then have a few helpful tips, and finish with the top posts of the month, and other regular stats.

Stats: In the month of November (well, almost, I’ll try and update this when its actually over) the blog was viewed 52,000 times.  That puts us up there with our best months, although no stand-out crises or scandals drove an obscene amount of traffic. I expect December to be the biggest month ever, with all the amazing reporting coming out of Copenhagen.

Read on for more stats, and also how to link IGHIH to your Facebook account and how to read this blog by topic (such as how to read all news about Copenhagen!) Continue reading ‘How’s the Blog Doing? (monthly update)’

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 the U.S. has the deepest carbon footprint on the planet and the world WILL see that there is a vibrant growing resistance to the fossil fuel empire in the belly of the beast.  Groups affilited with the Mobilization for Climate Justice (MCJ) and the Climate Pledge of Resistance (CPR) have targeted a variety of financial, extractive and combustive industries that are profiting from the climate crisis and false solutons to it.  JP Morgan Chase, Bank of America, Chevron, Morgan Stanley, British Petroleum (BP) and American Electric Power (AEP) are all designated targets, many more corporations will be called out as well.

In recent years, direct action movements fighting for climate justice in North America have manifested around coal plants, coal mining, tar sands extraction projects, oil refineries, natural gas and other fossil fuels.  In southern West Virginia, over 120 people have been arrested this year fighting mountaintop removal coal mining (last week, a group locked down to mining equipment on Coal River Mountain.)  In California, community groups have worked with environmental and climate groups in challenging Chevron’s Richmond oil refinery.  In Alberta Canada, environmentalists along with native groups have been facing off against the provincial government and oil companies over tar sands extraction projects. Continue reading ‘Challenging the Corporate Climate Crisis’

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 already the site of many coal plants. Nov. 25, 2009 was the day construction on the plant was set to begin, but instead it was the day that AMP announced the cancellation.

In the past few years, many groups had taken action to stop this proposed plant.

American Municipal Power will not build coal-fired power plant
November 25, 2009, 11:54AM
American Municipal Power, the largest supplier of power to Cleveland, will announce at noon today that it has canceled its coal-fired 1,000-megawatt power plant on the Ohio River in Meigs County.

The main reason: escalating prices that have put the cost of the plant close to $4 billion. Two years ago, the estimated cost was $2.5 billion. Continue reading ‘AMP Coal-Fired Power Plant in Meigs OH Stopped’