It’s Getting Hot In Here

This breaking from the coalfields of West Virginia on the eve of Massey Energy’s annual shareholders meeting!

Contact: Dea Goblirsh 914-960-2197

Julian, W.Va. — Two Climate Ground Zero protestors are blocking the driveway to Massey Energy’s Regional Headquarters in Boone County, W.Va.. EmmaKate Martin, 18, is suspended on a platform between three interlocking poles, 30 feet above the road. Ben Bryant, 23, is locked to the base of one pole. A banner hanging from the platform reads “Massey: Profit over People & Mountains: Fight Back!”

Read the full press release on www.climategroundzero.org

UPDATE: By 9 am, both Bryant and Martin had been removed from the tripod and arrested. They are awaiting charges in Madison, W.Va.

Martin and Bryant wrote this open letter to the shareholders of Massey Energy and the American public.

I, EmmaKate Martin and I, Benjamin Bryant, are blocking the road to Massey Energy’s regional headquarters in Boone County, West Virginia in order to spotlight and oppose Massey’s egregious safety, environmental and human rights violations. It is our responsibility to stand in firm opposition to Massey’s corporate behavior. We willingly face the legal consequences of our non-violent action, for we know we are not alone; millions in Appalachia and across the nation are coming to see Massey for what it is. Whether it is the mountains of Appalachia, the lives of underground miners deep inside them, or the wellbeing of communities living below, Massey continually prioritizes profits over people. It is time for the people of Appalachia and America – be you shareholder or worker, young or old – to reject Massey and work together to create something better in its place.

Continue reading ‘Climate Ground Zero Blockades Massey Regional HQ in Boone County, W.Va.’

This week, Senators Kerry and Leiberman unveiled The American Power Act – 987 pages of draft climate and energy legislation.

Our country desperately needs bold clean energy and climate legislation that transitions America to 100% real clean energy, creates good green jobs, and immediately and drastically reduces greenhouse gas emissions.

Unfortunately, dirty energy corporations (notably Big Oil and King Coal) have spent obscene amounts of money on lobbying and campaign contributions to influence climate and energy policy and keep us dangerously addicted to dirty energy like coal, oil, and nuclear.

All sorts of dirty energy corporations (like Duke, Shell Oil and Florida Power and Light) have endorsed this bill because of all the polluter giveways and subsidizes.

Which is why we at Greenwash of the Week invited Darth Vader himself to weigh in on the bill.

If you enjoy the video, please share with your friends on Twitter and Facebook!

Activists in cities and towns around the country express outrage, solidarity and grief about the catastrophic Gulf Oil spill during a “Day of Action, Night of Mourning” on Friday, May 14. Coastal ecosystems and species, and ocean-based economies face the grim reality of unfolding disastrous impacts as the ruptured deep sea well in the Gulf of Mexico spews oil at an every-increasing rate.

Initiated by Rising Tide North America, the Call To Action is endorsed by Earth First!, BiofuelWatch, Sierra Club, Backbone Campaign, Institute for Social Ecology, Rainforest Action Network, the Yes Men and other organizations. Actions are planned in Boston, Rancho Mirage, Calif.; Berkeley, Calif.; Savanna, Georgia; the Gulf Coast region, and other areas, as reports pour in. The protest activities across the country are targeting British Petroleum (BP) and the federal government with these demands:

• An immediate ban on all offshore drilling
• A rapid and just transition away from fossil fuels
• -All recovery costs paid by BP, Halliburton, Transocean and other implicated companies.
• The federal government must remove any caps on liability for oil companies.
• BP provides full compensation for impacted communities and small businesses.
• BP provides full funding for long-term ecosystem restoration for impacted areas.

Estimates are now that up to 210,000 gallons of oil per day are pouring out from BP’s “oil volcano” into the ocean. But many believe the real figures could ultimately be much higher. The spill, getting worse by the day as attempts to cap the well fail, is threatening to be the worst spill in memory, and eclipse the Exxon Valdez spill over 20 years ago. It was revealed in recent Congressional hearings that the well failed a pressure test that could have predicted the explosion disaster hours before the explosion, but the company failed to suspend the operation.

“This spill was an accident waiting to happen,” said Kim Marks, an activist with Rising Tide North America. “Pursuing only profit with reckless disregard for the ecosystem and the workers, BP, Halliburton and Transocean have been racking up violations, operating without sufficient environmental review, and ignored warning signs of such a disaster, with the result being one of the most difficult ecological disasters to fix in that wake. If ever there were a crude wake-up call for a halt to all offshore drilling, this is it. We need a permanent ban, and we need it now.” Continue reading ‘Act Against Oil: Activists Hold National “Day of Action, Night of Mourning”’

Yesterday, Senators John Kerry and Joe Lieberman, joined by a strong coalition of business groups and NGOs, unveiled “comprehensive” climate change and clean energy legislation and emphasized their confidence in getting it passed during the current Congress. Immediately afterwards, President Obama applauded the Senators for introducing legislation that would spur clean energy innovation and ensure the U.S. meets its climate change pledge to the international community under the Copenhagen Accord. Regardless of how anybody may feel about this (i.e. too late, too weak), it is a major milestone. We’ve marked off the checklist for everything that needs to be done to pass a climate bill, except getting the Senate to pass one. Now, it is up to President Obama to fight hard to get climate change and clean energy legislation passed. Can he do it?

Ever since he signed health care legislation over a month ago, President Obama has been wavering among a host of issues ranging from climate change legislation to wall street reform to nuclear proliferation. Unfortunately, he hasn’t decided to choose or two of these priorities and go with them as aggressively as he did with health care reform. What’s worse, he’s failing to live up to one of his core principles he repeatedly mentioned throughout his campaign for health care reform, and that is that his choice to act wouldn’t be influenced by “politics or the polls,” but instead by what “is the right thing to do.” With the upcoming Congressional elections, it seems that President Obama is being influenced more by the polls than “the right thing to do” as he has chosen not to fight aggressively for anything. A great example is his rather short period of campaigning for wall street reform, which lasted a couple of weeks to be left to Congress again.

If President Obama wants to succeed on climate change and clean energy legislation, he will have to push it as hard as he pushed health care reform. So far, President Obama hasn’t dedicated any town hall meetings or domestic visits to climate change and clean energy legislation. He’s only spoken about it during a few times during his weekly addresses and when he announced lifting the ban on offshore drilling in many areas. A quick search through the White House website for health care yields 616 entries as of today, while for energy and the environment there are 64 (that’s roughly 10%). Clearly, if President Obama wants to succeed on climate change and clean energy legislation, he’ll have to campaign more aggressively for it to tip the political balance towards getting the necessary votes in the Senate to pass the strongest bill possible. Continue reading ‘Can Obama Succeed On Clean Energy?’

Brinkley Hutchings, Greenpeace Student Network activist, at home on the Alabama coast -- directly in the path of the fast-approaching spill.

From Brinkley Hutching’s blog, a post entitled A Local’s Account of the Deepwater Disaster. Watch an astonishing aerial video of the slick shot by John Wathen as they flew from Brinkley’s home to the source of the spill and back. (Below.) She is also the Greenpeace Campus Coordinator at University of North Carolina-Wilmington.

I grew up in one of the most beautiful places. Montrose, Alabama. My family lives on Mobile Bay, and I spent my childhood exploring the many bays, rivers, streams and creeks near my home. Starting at age 7, I would spend whole days exploring the local waters and shorelines with my little 13 foot boat. What existed naturally in my own backyard was truly utopian. Now, all the beautiful trees, wildlife and pristine waters, all will see the thick black and red oil within these next days. It brings a deeper ache than I can express.

As I flew out to the spill last Friday with my father (he’s a pilot), I wasn’t prepared for what I was going to witness. Here are some notes I took during the flight as we approached the source of this disaster:

“We are starting to smell oil…the pungent smell burns my nostrils and I feel nauseated to the core of my being….oh my God…red streaks of oil are everywhere…thick black near the well…it is crude oil and it stretches as far as I can see…I am sick…I can’t feel my own body or distinguish any of my feelings right now… this is the worst and most saddening situation I have ever seen in my life…The boats are randomly skewn about, and they are so disorganized! The cleanup efforts look completely haphazard and ineffective. It is utter chaos down there! Boats randomly placed, pulling booms that are simply swirling the oil around in circles! I really don’t feel alive right now…this is a horrible dream…why the heck didn’t BP have to have a plan in place for a disaster like this?!” Continue reading ‘“The oil is creeping towards my home in Alabama as I write this, and it is breaking my heart.”’

Cross-posted from blog.wwf.ca

“We also have an opportunity to address a second existential threat to human kind – a threat posed by climate change. The science is sobering. And climate change is happening much, much faster than you may realize,” Ban Ki Moon, United Nations Secretary General said as he began is speech in Ottawa, Canada this morning.

“We must be ready and we must be committed to leave this planet Earth to our succeeding generations to be more hospitable and more environmentally sustainable. That is our political and historical responsibility.

That’s what I’m doing as the Secretary General – I’m going to discuss with Prime Minister Harper, as the leader of the G8, and as a chair of the G20 this year, and as one of the most developed countries in the world, Canada has a special role and special responsibility to play. That is what I want to emphasize here.” Continue reading ‘I want to hug Ban Ki Moon’

Our friends in NYC are on the move as the Church of Life After Shopping is hitting the Chase branches and talking to Chase employees about mountaintop removal…. with hidden video.

From Rev. Billy’s folks in NYC: Hidden-cam, an inspirational video showing a Chase bank customer closing her account, and explaining mountaintop removal to several Chase reps.

The Chase employees in this video are clearly troubled by the news that their “conscious” and “sustainability minded” company blows up mountains to pay their salary. We imagine their are many more like them inside Chase.

More than a dozen more members of the flock will be closing their accounts this week.

Photo: Shrimp Boats Futilely Gather Oil from the BP Spill - Credit: Eric Gay from AP

The cleanup of the April 20th BP oil spill is getting desperate. Shrimp boats are collecting as much oil as they can, but 5,000 barrels a day is overwhelming. The national guard is setting up a plastic fence along the entire coast. Some individuals are even sacrificing their fashion: they’re stuffing pantyhose with human hair in an effort to absorb oil approaching the shore.

The residents sacrificing their hair may be elated to hear that technology exists to spare their hair.

Continue reading ‘Why isn’t BP using these?’

Bombardier's experimental Jet Train

I am obsessed with trains.  There, I’ve said it.  I would even go so far as to argue that I love trains more than Joe Biden does. When I was young, my father used to take me to the train station to watch trains.  This is while I was growing up in Baroda, India.  While I cannot recall the specific memories of those visits, I do know that at one point in time I would be able to rattle off all the parts of a train, including the different types of engines, rolling stock, their purposes, and the roles of the different employees involved in the industry.  I would even spend countless hours drawing scenes of vibrant train stations and would eventually go through several different model train sets until about the age of 13.  There is a magic to a journey aboard trains that is unsurpassed by any other form of transit.  It inspires.  And a study of its history reveals the powerful impact the technology has had on the growth of nations around the world.  On April 16, 1853, the departure of the first passenger train from Mumbai (previously Bombay) to Thane traveling just 34 kilometers signaled the arrival of industrial revolution in India.  Today, India boasts the second largest passenger rail network in the world and the Indian Railways is the largest employer with approximately 1.6 million employees.

When my family left India, I did not realize that I would be leaving behind a country with a rich legacy of railways

America's Streamliners

to come to a country which has all but forgotten its own similar legacy, which served as the very foundations on which it was built.  In 1869 the last spike in the transcontinental railroad, the first link between the east and west coasts of the United States, was driven into the ground.  With it, a Morse code message was sent across the United States simply stating, “done.”  Railways allowed the United States to become truly unified, they allowed for the expansion of cities, for the distribution of resources and information.  Without railways, this country would not have been the same.  Railway transportation of both freight and passengers was a very lucrative business.  Furthermore, America led the world in railway technology innovation through the creation of “streamliners” noted for their speed and comfort.  In 1956 President Eisenhower’s signing the Highways Defense Act signaled the slow and steady decline of a once powerful industry.  It was also the beginning of a long and painful journey America would undertake to becoming addicted to oil fostered by the growth of a car culture and the rise of a suburban way of life.  Rail, a fixed form of transit, ties communities together.  Once upon a time, vibrant downtowns were anchored with a central station, surrounded by shops, business, and not far from residences.  With the decline of rail, America has witnessed a decline in community.  What’s more, our concern for individuality supported by the car culture has jeopardized the safety of the nation through our addiction to fuel sourced from foreign lands.  We are prisoners to this curse.   Continue reading ‘Rails of Freedom’