It’s Getting Hot In Here

This article is cross-posted from adoptanegotiator.org.

Canada wins first, second, and third place Fossil of the Day Award in Cancun today. The award is given daily to the country who has done the most to disrupt and undermine negotiations.

As the most salient and recent climate offense, Canada’s first place award is granted for killing the Climate Change Accountability Act. Our second place award goes for Federal efforts to gut climate change programs, including:
- The only major federal support program for renewable energy program funding energy efficiency upgrades for homeowners
- Funding for Canada’s climate science foundation
- Clean fuels policies in other countries.

And our third place award goes for a general commitment to regain title of “colossal fossil“: the country making the least constructive contribution to the negotiations.

While the Fossil Award is intended to evoke drama in what can often be a dull process, there is a more somber underlying message. In only the first day of negotiations Canada has been viewed by the international environmental community as being sufficiently obstructive to receive all three prizes.

The Fossil prize is granted the same day the Montreal Gazette published e-mail excerpts from the Canadian Embassy in 2008. In one particularly forthright exchange, Canadian Embassy staff person Jason Tolland wrote to government trade lawyers “we hope that we can find a solution to ensure that the oil keeps a-flowing.”

Continue reading ‘Canada Wins 1st, 2nd, and 3rd Place Fossil Award’

Just in time for Cyber Monday and the beginning of the climate talks in Cancun, we’re releasing the world premiere of Green Cribs – holiday edition:

Santa is on a quest to green up the neighborhood before he needs to start using a rowboat instead of a sleigh.

Watch the video to learn two simple ways to help keep Santa’s northern habitat from turning into Cancun.

Will Santa green YOUR crib? If the answer is yes, share it on Facebook!

Happy holidays. – click below to see the video!

Continue reading ‘World premiere: green cribs – holiday edition’

Congratulations to Sam Rivers for getting his Op-Ed published in the Diamondback.  Sam is a new member of the University of Maryland Student group UMD for Clean Energy, and he stepped right in by writing a column to the student newspaper about the need for the massive East Campus redevelopment project to be an ambitious green development.  Back when I was Campaign Director of the group as a senior last spring, we organized a successful event that put pressure on the university to stipulate in its RFP (request for proposal) that sustainable development was a top priority, and had to be one for any prospective developer.  Some  members of  the group met with The Cordish Companies’(the selected developer) development director and their design team last month to discuss students demands for a cutting edge green development, and listen to what the design team was planning.

UMD for Clean Energy at the Cordish Companies Headquarters

Now with the developer’s first public forum set for tomorrow, the group is looking to generate student and community support for rebuilding downtown College Park into a sustainable community that others can look to.  Below is Sam’s column discussing East Campus and this forum. Continue reading ‘Column: Building a green campus’

Drafting the Decleration at Wesleyan

It is Sunday at approximately 4:15 pm, I waddle back to the bus, my eyes filled with sleep but my brain pounding with excitement. I just emerged from a basement classroom at Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut, where, squished among a hundred and seventy other student activists, I had been helping to draft a declaration calling on  international leadership to stop powering our world with dirty energy.

In the lead up to this year’s Conference of the Parties which is taking place in Cancun, Mexico over the coming weeks, members of Students for a Just and Stable Future (SJSF) came together from schools all across New England for the express purpose of building the climate movement and preparing a declaration which will be delivered to policymakers across New England and the US, particularly those representing the US climate team in Cancun.

The Student Conference of the Parties was organized by SJSF, and held in partnership with the Wesleyan Pricing Carbon Conference, a national assembly of politicians, industry insiders, scientists, and organizers, to discuss the potential of carbon pricing as a bold and effective policy measure to address global climate change. We had the privilege of hearing from some of the most influential decision-makers and activists in the field, including 350.org founder Bill McKibben and NASA climatologist James Hansen. Continue reading ‘No More Nonsense: New England Students Demand Clean Energy Future’

credit: Ellie Johnston

Survival is not negotiable. And yet the right to survival for millions of people who have had to leave their home due to the effects of climate change is given little recognition by the United Nations and most countries. These environmental and climate refugees face uncertain conditions as they seek new homes in areas that can be less than accommodating—to say the least. A new report out of the UK suggests that by the end of the century one billion people could lose their homes to climate change.

What happens to these people when they are forced beyond their country’s borders and into foreign lands?

Refugees, as defined by the 1951 UN Refugee Convention, can be granted asylum in other countries. The UN definition of ‘refugee,’ however, does not include those who are displaced by the impacts of climate change. The definition is exclusive to those who “have a well-founded fear of being persecuted” if they return to their country. Some have proposed that the definition could be expanded to include environmental disasters, though this is unpopular due to fears that it may undermine the already tenuous status of political refugees. What is needed is possibly an entirely new UN treaty or an amendment to an existing one that codifies the rights of those who are forcibly displaced by climatic and environmental disruptions and must leave their countries.

Continue reading ‘‘Climate refugees’ not recognized as ‘refugees’ by UN’

Tar Sands Mining Equipment by Anonymous

Resistance is fertile.

Last week, almost 100 people from Idaho, Montana, Washington, Utah, Oregon, California, Oklahoma and different parts of Canada converged outside of Missoula, MT  for the anti-tar sands resistance summit.

Oregon, Idaho and Montana’s transportation corridor for heavy hauls of mining equipment are fast becoming a hub of resistance to tar sands oil expansion. Companies like Exxon and Conoco Phillips have spent millions in hauling this equipment from South Korea, up the Columbia and Snake Rivers to Lewiston, ID where they are awaiting transport on big rigs to Alberta. Once in Alberta they will continue the expansion of tar sands to feed the Gateway and Keystone XL pipelines with oil to Asia and the United States.

Northern Rockies Rising Tide, Northern Rockies Earth First!, various community and environmental groups in Idaho and Montana, Cascadia Rising Tide and the Indigenous Environmental Network have created networks with plans to stop and slow down tar sands expansion in the transportation corridor.

Also represented were groups fighting tar sands in Utah (90% of U.S. tar sands are in Utah), the Keystone XL pipeline development through the U.S. mid-west and the Gateway pipeline expansion through British Columbia. Continue reading ‘All Against the Haul’

(posted on behalf of David Baghdadi of Rock Creek, WV.)

Participants in the Fall Summit tree planting action, Kayford Mountain

We at Climate Ground Zero would like to thank everyone that helped make the Mountain Justice Fall Summit on Kayford Mountain such a huge success.  In our largest action yet, forty-four activists walked on to the Samples Surface Mine planting over 30 trees, mostly the currently threatened hemlock, and marching a banner through some of the active area of the mine.  We sent a clear message about the ongoing catastrophe that is MTR, the inadequecy of currently reclamation, and the need to fund true reclamation and reclamation jobs.  Mine security called the police, but, for the first time in this campaign, they allowed all the activists to return to the Stanley Heirs Park. This shows the growing strength of our movement.  We hope this event emboldens others across Appalachia to take similar action.  We were honored by the prese.  We would also like to express our deep gratitude and admiration for Larry Gibson and the Keepers of the Mountains Foundation for hosting us and for his fearless and inspiration leadership.  We are all in your debt.

Things aren’t slowing down around here either.  We recently annouced our 2nd January action camp from 3rd to 24th. Just like last year, the camp will feature intensive training in all the skills needed to carry out and support nonviolent direct action.  The camp is a fulltime, three-week commitment.  Our first January camp culminated in a 9 day tree sit halting blasting on part of Coal River Mountain.  We hope multiple actions can emerge from this camp and strongly encourage anyone who wants to take a stand against MTR to apply now.

See below to see if our road-show is coming to a college near you from Nov 27th – Dec 8th to learn more. Continue reading ‘Climate Ground Zero January Action camp and Roadshow dates’

Everyone’s downstream is an annual conference that brings together community members, activists and others fighting the global infrastructure of the tar sands gigaproject.

Click here to watch live streaming video of the conference.

http://www.everyonesdownstream.org/

This year’s themes include:

The Tar Sands go Global: reports from Madagascar, Trinidad and more
Environmental NGOs, secret deals, and how to build a democratic, transparent environmental movement
Ongoing resistance to pipelines, refineries, and other tar sands infrastructure

Schedule for this weekend:

Saturday, November 27

Community Reports

Tar Sands Go Global and Local: Stories of Destruction and Resistance from Trinidad to Fort Chipewyan

Full Day: 9am to 5pm University of Alberta, ETLC 1-003

Speakers from across Turtle Island and beyond discuss how tar sands are or could be affecting their lives, health, cultures, and their relationships to the land. Indigenous communities from Alberta, BC and the rest of Turtle Island, along with other front line communities who live in the path of one or more of the many tar sands pipeline and refinery paths will report back about their communities’ resistance to tar sands developments.

Continue reading ‘Watch live: Everyone’s Downstream anti-tar sands conference in Alberta’

The following is a recent dispatch from the Climate Reality Tour, a movement-building cycling tour from the coalfields of West Virginia to the UN Climate Talks in Cancún.

15 yrs ago I was COVERED with snow

11/24/2010 - Popocatéptl and Iztaccíhuatl. We never knew how much we could learn about climate change from a pair of words that after many, many attempts we still can’t say 3 times fast. But these twin volcanic peaks speak straightforward volumes.

Everyone we ask recounts that these mighty mountains whose glaciers provide the water to the capital and various surrounding states, were once a like white knights of moisture, fighting off drought and thirst between the rainy seasons. The immaculate summits dominate more than the landscape, occupying central space in the cultural sphere as well. Today the volcanoes are still breathtaking, though the glaciers are all but gone. And if you live here, you can’t help but notice. It’s not lost on anyone, and perhaps that’s explains the unanimity of support for our mission since we arrived here. In we visited one of the volcanically filtered pools that bubble up from underneath Popocatéptl and run downhill to feed the valley with fresh water for irrigation and drinking. A taco vendor there recounted how when she was a little girl the water that now rose just enough above my ankles to require some extra pants rolling, once flowed up to her neck in the same riverbed. Incredible. In addition to seeing its source in the skyline, the water runs underfoot and in municipal canals that look like gutters, right there in the open. And it’s the most delicious drinking water you’ve EVER had. It’s got a hint of anise! Forget that adage about not drinking the water in Mexico. If you get to drink from Popocatéptl, do it! With water and its source so visible and central in the landscape and life of the surrounding populations, folks know something’s up when the glaciers melt away in only 15 years. That’s when NAFTA was enacted. Only partially a coincidence… Continue reading ‘Popo & Izta – Tough Names, Simple Facts – Climate Reality Tour’

From curbing acid rain to restoring the ozone layer, perhaps the most important tool for protecting environmental health in the US is the Environmental Protection Agency.  Since its creation in 1970, the EPA has been instrumental in safeguarding the health of US residents exposed to air and water pollution.  But for years under the George W. Bush administration the EPA languished without fulfilling its obligations to protect the public.  That’s why it’s so good to see EPA Administrator Lisa P. Jackson taking steps to crack down on smog, mercury, and even carbon pollution from burning coal and oil. 

It’s now important for the EPA to follow through on its commitment and establish the strictest pollution standards possible.  This month Oregon students at seven schools throughout the state sent a strong message to the EPA: We want this agency to once again become an enforcer of environmental health, and help our state and others clear the skies to protect vulnerable habitats and communities. 

As part of a lead-up to the Sierra Student Coalition’s National Action for a Clean Energy Future, students at colleges and universities across Oregon organized to educate their peers about the need for a transition to clean energy, and let the EPA know we need the agency’s help.  At Oregon State University, University of Oregon, Lane Community College, Pacific University, Linfield College, Reed College, and Lewis and Clark College, students sparked discussion about clean power by creating displays of paper pinwheels - aka mini wind turbines.  Students set up pinwheel displays on campus lawns and in busy cafeterias, giving their peers a glimpse of what the clean energy future looks like.  Now hundreds of pinwheels from across Oregon are in the mail headed for Washington, DC where they’ll be used for a national media event on December 1st. 

Continue reading ‘Students to EPA: Help Us Clear Oregon’s Skies’