It’s Getting Hot In Here

“Solving Climate Change Saves Billions.” That’s the sub-title for Architecture 2030’s new blueprint for how to tackle the climate crisis here in the United States. Not bad, huh? The report is worth a read, both for the innovative solutions that are offered, but also for the tone and approach.

The graph above should be in the board room of every investment firm in the country - certainly all the banks, like Bank of America and Citi, who are still dumping money into the coal industry. Here’s a sample from the report that drives the point home:

Many times, complex problems require the simplest of solutions. One of the most important questions facing those attempting to solve the climate change crisis is, “How do we reduce CO2 emissions dramatically and immediately?” The simplest answer is, “Turn off the coal plants.”

Click here to download the complete report (pdf).

First, a bit of history:

Standard Oil, the company John D. Rockefeller founded and turned into an economic superpower, was forced to break up into roughly 34 different companies around 1911. Two of these pieces eventually became Exxon and Mobile respectively. As you all know, these two companies are now combined, which has created the worlds largest integrated oil company. Since this new economic superpower was born from the Standard Oil breakup, the Rockefeller family still has significant power within ExxonMobile - through stock ownership, trusts, and personal clout.

This is a very good thing. They are on the offensive.

A statement issued yesterday by the Rockefeller family was a warning shot, saying that Exxon’s leadership is “failing to address the future of energy and related industry hurdles,” and that “a majority of the family is now so concerned about the direction of ExxonMobil Corporation that it is urging a major change.”

Continue reading ‘Rockefellers Want Change!’

For the past year, thousands of activists across the country and organizations including Rainforest Action Network, Rising Tide North America, Coal River Mountain Watch, Appalachian Voices, Mountain Justice Summer, SEAC , Energy Justice Network, Blue Ridge Earth First!, and many more have joined together to pressure Bank of America to stop funding coal. From financing mountain-top removal minining, to investing in new coal-fired power plants, Bank of America is financing the destruction of our climate and communities - and no amount of green PR and marketing will change this fact.

From hundreds of rallies and protests at bank branches; guerilla theater closing ATM’s; shareholder resolutions, confronting bank executives, and direct action at their offices, Bank of America is feeling the pressure to rethink their investment policies! Come join us at Bank of America’s annual shareholder meeting this month - and make sure every one of their executives, board members, and shareholders hear our demands for a just, sustainable future!

Please help promote this call to action, and organize your community to join us in Charlotte April 23rd!

Fore more info, visit www.dirtymoney.org or contact mleonard@ran.org Continue reading ‘CALL TO ACTION – Protest Bank of America’s Shareholders meeting!’

On Fossil Fools Day congressional lawmakers confronted the five largest publicly traded oil companies on their record-high profits and sky-high prices. Youth climate activists seized the opportunity to remind the oil executives and Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming that we too have a stake in creating an oil-independent future.

Students from University of Maryland-College Park, American University, and organizations in the Energy Action Coalition held a “Billionaires for Big Oil” rally outside of Congress’s Cannon Office Building. Full press release and pictures can be found here.

After the hearing we attempted to give a “Fossil Foolie” award to Exxon-Mobil Senior VP, Stephen Simon. He didn’t seem amused:

Video credit to Claire Roby, Senior at American University

Continue reading ‘Let’s flip Capitalism.’

Cross posted from The Understory, official blog of Rainforest Action Network.

How often do you get to witness a band of activists deploy a direct action and successfully pressure the CEO of a corporation into agreeing to their demands - before the police even arrive on the scene?

On Friday afternoon, student activists with Ohio Student Environmental Coalition and members of Mountain Justice Spring Break occupied the lobby of American Municipal Power and forced an impromptu meeting with CEO Mark Gerken – who was not a happy camper.

AMP is planning to build a 1000 MW pulverized coal power plant in Meigs County, Ohio – one of the most impoverished counties in the state, with some of the highest lung cancer and premature death rates due industrial pollution in the country. There are already 4 coal power plants within 10 miles of Meigs and the coal barons of the Midwest are planning on building five more – the largest and dirtiest being the AMP project.

Determined to put an end to this economic and social injustice, concerned Meigs residents have been working with student and youth activists to organize and empower communities to break out of the socio-economic slavery of king coal. Mountain Justice Spring Break - an event where many students, rather than spending their holidays in Florida or Cancun, have opted instead for more meaningful pursuits in building solidarity, developing consensus, discovering affinity and exploring nonviolent direct action - showcased this collaboration over this last week.

Continue reading ‘Mountain Justice Takes on King Coal in Columbus’

Chevron is having a really tough week of reality. Following Saturday’s blockade at their Richmond CA Refinery, activists rallied outside Chevron’s offices in San Francisco yesterday. During the rally a group of activists blockaded the Chevron offices further highlighing Chevron’s war, and climate crimes, by disrupting business as usual. At 7:30am activists blockaded the main entrance and parking garage entrance of the downtown Chevron offices with barrels and bodies. 4 other activists got inside the offices where they found Chevron was closing the offices until further notice; those folks in turn, passed out information fliers throughout the building and when they ran out of fliers…well, they started their own blockade from the inside! Soon there after a snake march with 200-300 folks came by the action and rallied around the activists as they shut down Chevron. The action was successful in not just stopping Chevron’s business as usual but, stopping business entirely! Continue reading ‘Tough week for Chevron. No business…period!’

With the science of climate change pretty solidly unimpeachable at this point, the rag tag camp of climate change deniers, detractors, doomsayers and other flat-earthers have a new tactic these days: talk up the supposedly disastrous economic consequences of regulating carbon.

The Flat Earth camp pulled out all the stops at the Wall Street Journal’s ECO:nomics conference held last week in California.

Hosted by “climate change experts” from the WSJ’s notoriously ideological, knuckle-dragging, anti-climate editorial board, the WSJ assembled the full cast-of-characters of the Flat Earth Society of America: Fred Smith and Myron Ebell of CEI (makers of the hilariously funny “CO2: some call it pollution, we call it life” ad), Steve Milloy of JunkScience, and the WSJ’s own ideologues came into the conference to put America’s leading “green-minded” CEO’s to the test, show them they were simply tools for liberal, socialist hippies, and expose carbon regulation as the sure-fire end of the treasured American way of life.

“Instead, they ended up looking small, shrill, and utterly marginalized,” David Roberts, who covered the Eco:nomics conference for Grist.org writes. “Despite their claims to be pro-business, the business community disdains them.”
Continue reading ‘The Last Gasp of the Climate Deniers, Detractors and Doomsayers?’

“We All Live at Climate Ground Zero”

It is time for American citizens to take leadership & direct action and make our politicians accountable to us. To this end we announce a Citizens Direct Action Training Camp in June 2008 in Montana to oppose and confront the massive fossil fuel development of the Rocky Mountain Corridor from Fort MacMurry, Alberta all the way to New Mexico. We oppose:

• Alberta Tar Sands and Coal Development
• Development of Coal in Montana and Wyoming feeding America’s electricity appetite
• Montana Governor Schweitzer’s plan to import Alberta dirty fossils into the USA through transmission lines from coal plants in Alberta, and 7 proposed Tar Sand refineries in Montana
• Proposed massive oil shale developments in Utah and Colorado
• Transmission lines off of coal fired power plants proposed all over US
• Mountain Top Removal coal mining

The Action Training will be five day training and include skills needed to do effective Direct Action Campaigning against dirty fossil projects and for a clean energy future. Sessions will include History and Practice Non Violent Direct Action, Campaign Strategy, Direct Actions Skills, Media Skills, Community Organizing

Where: Montana - site to be announced
When: June 1st – June 6th 2008

This camp sponsored by ClimateGroundZero.org and GlobalWarmingSolution.org and is being hosted and organized by:

Mike Roselle- Founder - Earth First!, RAN, and The Ruckus Society
JR Roof - Former Director of Greenpeace International Ships and Direct Action Division, Co-founder The Ruckus Society, ClimateGroundZero.org

For further information or to apply to attend - contact: JR Roof at jr@globalwarmingsolution.org Continue reading ‘ClimateGroundZero.org - Citizens Direct Action Camp June 1st - 6th’

Unroll the green carpet, strap on an eco-gown, and get voting! The first annual “Foolies”- the official awards of Fossil Fools Day- have begun.

Vote in the online poll and this year’s winners will get a “special” delivery of their awards on April 1st, Fossil Fools Day . Vote today!

Nominees for this year’s top prize include the CEOs of General Motors, Bank of America, ExxonMobil and Dynegy, as well as the premier of Alberta, Canada.

Organized by the Energy Action Coalition, Co-op America and Rainforest Action Network, the “Foolies” recognize the world’s biggest contributors to our devastating global addiction to fossil fuels. The awards feature five different categories: Fossil Fool of the Year, Outstanding Performance in Corporate Greenwashing, Most Inauspicious Newcomer, Lifetime Achievement and Biggest Human Toll.

Check out the full listing of the nominees and VOTE TODAY!

Continue reading ‘Announcing the Foolies’