It’s Getting Hot In Here

Cross-posted at The Leadership Campaign Blog

Today, An Act to Create a Repower Massachusetts Emergency Task Force — written by Students for a Just and Stable Future (SJSF) and others in The Leadership Campaign — was released from the Senate Ethics and Rules Committee during the 6th Day of Climate Court Hearings for the Boston Common Sleep-out.

Each day last week, citizen-activists marched from the Court House after paying their court fees to the State House to show legislators the depth and breadth of support for the bill.  Well over 100 people faced the courts last week for sleeping out on the Boston Common after the park had formally closed (a misdemeanor trespassing offense).

After scores of people visited his and other key legislator’s offices indicating their support, Senator Frederick Berry, Chair of the Senate Ethics & Rules Committee (and Senate Majority Leader) released the bill from his committee and moved it along to the Joint Committee on Telecommunications, Utilities, and Energy.

“We are extremely thankful to Senator Berry for releasing our bill from committee, opening debate to legislators across the state and allowing us to focus our energy on gathering the votes needed to pass it this spring,” said Martha Pskowski, Hampshire student and Western Massachusetts Legislative Coordinator for SJSF. Continue reading ‘MA Bill Leaves Committee as Climate Court Hearings Continue’

Chevron has a new boss man, and in an ironic kick in the pants Chevron’s new CEO John Watson is the very man that orchestrated Chevron’s takeover of Texaco, and with it the 18 billion gallons of toxic waste water and 17 million gallons of crude oil deliberately dumped in Ecuadorian rainforest communities. Given Watson’s intimate understanding of Chevron’s toxic legacy there is no question he knows what is necessary to clean up their mess and compensate the communities that have been living with the effects of Chevron’s contamination for decades.

The Clean Up Ecuador Campaign has launched a global petition to Mr. Watson, with an accompanying video-message (below) from the affected communities of the Ecuadorian Amazon.

Watson is stepping into a mess that former CEO Dave O’Reilly left behind when he skipped out on the reeling company on 12/31. Unfortunately, judging the reaction by Chevron today in Houston where marathon runners had their free speech silenced, and comments attacking Amazon Watch’s global petition in yesterday’s Sphere article it seems that Watson is committed to enabling the same negligence towards human rights as his predecessor. Watson may choose to define his tenure by continuing down the O’Reilly path that just last year had Chevron publicly aligning themselves with known felons, losing precedent setting refinery battles, being wholly rejected by the US Trade Representative, and being a lightning rod for a thriving climate justice movement at their front door.

However, dealt such a rotten hand Mr. Watson stands at the most opportune time for an oil giant’s CEO to actually step it up…or just step in it. RAN’s newest campaign Change Chevron see that Watson holds an unmatched opportunity to right past wrongs and transform an industry from criminal to catalyst. Yet, there is a long way to go. Prior to this moment Chevron has not only ignored the communities they impact, they blatantly insult them. Chevron relies on lobbying and a brutal PR campaign to evade responsibility of, what experts call, the “Amazon Chernobyl”. As a recent Independent article points out Chevron seems to be standing firm in it’s refusal to pay any damages, even if ordered in a court.  In fact a Chevron spokesman has promised a “lifetime of litigation.”

Will Watson build a tenure on human rights or legal fights?

Continue reading ‘Chevron CEO John Watson: Is the New Boss Same as the Old Boss?’

You heard it here first. A Department of Interior Administrative Law Judge withdrew Peabody Coal Company’s Life of Mine permit for operations on Black Mesa, AZ, handing a major victory to tribal and environmental organizations who appealed the permit decision in January. The permit had been granted on December 22nd 2008 by the Department of Interior’s Office of Surface Mining (OSM) in one of several fossil-fuel friendly 11th hour decisions by the Bush Administration.

According Judge Robert G. Holt, “OSM violated NEPA [National Environmental Protection Act] by not preparing a supplemental draft EIS [Environmental Impact Statement] when Peabody changed the proposed action. As a result, the Final EIS did not consider a reasonable range of alternatives to the new proposed action, described the wrong environmental baseline, and did not achieve the informed decision-making and meaningful public comment required by NEPA.  Because of the defective Final EIS, OSM’s decision to issue a revised permit to Peabody must be vacated and remanded to OSM for further action.”

As a community member of Black Mesa I am grateful for Judge Holt’s decision. For 40 years our sacred homelands and people have borne the brunt of coal mining impacts, from relocation to depletion of our only drinking water source. This ruling is an important step towards restorative justice for Indigenous communities who have suffered at the hands of multinational companies like Peabody Energy. This decision is also precedent-setting for all other communities who struggle with the complexities of NEPA laws and OSM procedures in regards to environmental protection. However, we also cannot ignore the irreversible damage of coal mining industries continues on the land, water, air, people and all living things.

Yesterday the Danish Parliament in Copenhagen passed a hotly disputed “anti-riot law”, less than two weeks before what is shaping up to be the largest single convergence around climate change ever. The law, passed to stymie public protest around the UN climate negotiations in Copenhagen, strips people of civil liberties, freedoms, and sanctions (if not encourages) preemptive arrests for any of the 10,000’s of people expected to arrive in Copenhagen to voice concern, march, take direct action, and participate in the UN climate talks.

The new laws layout is fairly straightforward, and inevitably draws a comparison to unlawful US and UK preemptive arrest actions from the last year.

• Preventive arresting: Under the new law, police can detail people for up to 12 hours without any charges, just because they decide you look like a troublemaker.

• Hindrance of authorities performing their duties: Normally the penalty is a fine. Now, they can hold you for 40 days.

• Breach of the peace, or disorderly behavior while staying around after the police have broken up a demo: They have more than quadrupled fines for staying in a demo that the police have broken up is 403 euro and up to 671 euro if you are showing disorderly behavior.

Additionally (yes there’s more), Danish police said “open-air meetings may be prohibited when it is feared that they may constitute a danger to the public order”.

Continue reading ‘Denmark Passes “Anti-Riot” Law 12 days before UN Climate Negotiations.’

Aliens at UN. Credit: Robert vanWaarden - vanwaardenphoto.com

On the final day of the UNFCCC negotiations in Barcelona, the last meetings before the world turns it’s eyes to Copenhagen, the Avaaz Action Factory formed a coalition with the aliens from Planet B (you read that right). The aliens were on a dire mission to find climate leaders who are willing to do what it takes to achieve a fair, ambitious and legally binding climate treaty in Copenhagen. Unfortunately it looked like there were very few climate leaders at the Barcelona negotiations. The 10 aliens searched high and low outside the conference center, greeting negotiators as they arrived. To the aliens dismay most negotiators identified themselves as NOT being climate leaders. In fact, ONLY negotiators from Bangladesh told the aliens they were here in fact  because they were climate leaders.

As the talks in Copenhagen wrap up, nations like the US, Australia, most of the EU refuse to take the steps science deems necessary to avert a climate crisis. The main strategy coming from negotiators seems to now be to dramatically downplay any possibility of achieving a just treaty in Copenhagen. Now that’s ambitious leadership. Golf clap.

Confused as ever by the lack of evidence of any ambitious leadership the two aliens decided to sneak up to the delegation offices and ask the inert negotiators why no ambition, why no binding treaty, why just no no no. It was time for an intergalactic intervention! The aliens swung by the EU offices, they weren’t interested in ambition. Next they swung by the UK negotiation offices (video), no ambition there either. However, the UK sound like big fans of they new idea of “politically binding” (oxymoron, um hmm) instead of legally binding, a concept the aliens, or I, care to entertain. Finally the aliens spotted the US offices , surely the ambitious nation that brought us the Mars rover and shooting a missile at the moon would be willing to lead the world in achieving a treaty to curb climate change. Oh, funny naive aliens. They were dealt a strong dose of US reality when the delegate didn’t even want to talk to the extraterrestrials .

Continue reading ‘Looking for Climate Leaders? None here…yet’

A group of 20 senior citizens, aged 50 to 88, concluded a 25 mile march to protest mountain top removal coal mining today. Read Coal Tattoo for the full story of this heroic journey.

What’s outrageous is the accusations made by Steve Walker, president of Walker Machinery, against two young activists who hung a banner from his building in solidarity with the senior marchers.

Start at 5 minutes in if you don’t want to watch it all.

The building’s huge sign reads, “CAT: Coal, yes coal – Clean, Carbon Neutral Coal”. It is an affront to the people of West Virginia and to reality. The climate activists took it upon themselves to correct the sign, by hanging a more truthful one on top of it, reading: “Yes Coal: Killing West Viginia Communities.”

Gabe and David were released “3:00 p.m on $100 personal recognizance” according to the Climate Ground Zero press release.

This gets outrageous when Steve Walker starts talking to a reporter from the WV Metro News. He says, “it’s very dangerous, what they did” and then goes on to compare them to suicide bombers.

I’m sorry Mr. Walker, but these kids hung a sheet off a roof. Mountain top removal is a dangerous practice of bombing our communities.

Continue reading ‘Steve Walker compares Climate Activists to Suicide Bombers’

I can’t stand either. (Read: Major gaps existing in otherwise quite good material and design.)

Said tights.

Among the most important memos of the 21st century (aside from ‘It’s highly respected to still know all the words to New Kids on the Block’s ‘Step by Step’” and ‘No, it’s not okay to wear tights as pants, especially the slitted ones from American Apparel.’) is: ‘All other governments in the developed world are doing way more on climate change than Canada’.

Memos are what they are. Pop culture stands strong, fads fade (or are imagined), and the ambition of government tends to fall out of their pocket unnoticeably as they run down the halls of Parliament to their next meeting.

Continue reading Slit-leggings at American Apparel and Current Climate Policy in Canada

Originally posted at WattHead – Energy News and Commentary

An update on the story that just keeps on giving: the unfolding saga of the forged letters fraudulently sent by DC lobby firm Bonner and Associates on behalf of dirty coal interests in a deceitful attempt to kill Congressional clean energy and climate legislation.

In June, employees at Bonner and Associates, on a contract for the dirty coal front group, the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity (subcontracted via the Hawthorne Group), sent letters to several Congressional offices fraudulently posing as black, Hispanic, women’s and senior citizen’s groups urging votes against the American Clean Energy and Security Act (the Waxman-Markey bill).

Now, Brad Johnson at the WonkRoom reports:

The American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity (ACCCE) is dumping Bonner & Associates, the Astroturf firm that forged letters to Congress attacking clean energy legislation on its behalf. … ACCCE spokesman Joe Lucas told National Journal that his organization “did nothing wrong”:

“We will not be working with Mr. Bonner again. ACCCE did nothing wrong. Looking back, there would be many things we would do differently.“

In fact, ACCCE covered up the fraud and is now throwing Bonner under the bus. The coal coalition had been informed by the Hawthorn Group, its primary contractor, days before the pivotal House vote on the energy legislation. But ACCCE kept silent, failing to notify lawmakers or the defrauded organizations. ACCCE continues to employ the Hawthorn Group and the notorious voter-fraud company Lincoln Strategy Group.

Makes you wonder, what else is the dirty energy lobby up to…

Cross-posted from Adopt a Negotiator campaign.

Governments have before them (in the aforementioned LCA session) anegotiating text: a framework of what the next step after, or within, the Kyoto Protocol will be. This document is public and available for download here.

(Note: this text appears to only currently be available in English. Don’t worry though – I hear that English is becoming the universal language anyway. The United Nations is probably testing the waters for a United Language – and where better than to test it then in practice!)

The chair who is running the LCA session has also written a personal note to set the tone for the talks. (Note: Also only in English, in true United Language fashion).

You may also… Wait for it…  Watch the web-cast LIVE of the UN negotiations. (!!!)

(Warning: This may bring feelings of over-stimulation. Who needs Wii when you have Yvo de Boer?)

Inspirational banners, music, drums and polar bears welcomed delegates to the thirtieth sessions of the UNFCCC Convention subsidiary bodies – SBSTA and SBI, sixth session of the AWG-LCA and the eighth session of the AWG-KP this morning at the Maritim Hotel in Bonn. Delegates in Bonn will be hammering out the draft text for the Conference of Parties (COP 15) in Copenhagen in December, 2009.

This important meeting will see an unprecedented level of youth engagement for an intercessional. Following on the successful participation at Bonn I, the international youth have descended on Bonn. Action factories, negotiator trackers, 350.org, a day of action and regular actions throughout the conference will remind the delegates that we are watching.

See more images from the first day in Bonn here. (©Robert van Waarden)