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Fossil ‘Fools Day Protests Set for 30 Cities; Target Coal, Oil, Natural Gas and Big Banks
SAN FRANCISCO—More than 30 cities throughout North America have organized demonstrations against the fossil fuel industry, corporate banks and big environmental organizations for April 1’st national Fossil ‘Fools’ Day. Demonstrations are being coordinated by Rising Tide North America , which has also launched an online campaign targeting “Big Green” groups that have taken money from the worst corporate polluters. Key targets of the campaign include Conservation International, National Wildlife Federation and Environmental Defense.
The National Day of Action – organized by Rising Tide North America, Mountain Justice, a coalition of Canadian climate activists and others – will feature clownish parades, flyering, subversive advertising, creative street theater, and non-violent direct actions targeting the coal, oil, natural gas and banking sectors. Cities where actions will take place include Asheville, Boulder, Chicago, Edmonton, New York, Philadelphia, Phoenix, Portland, Ottawa, Salt Lake City, San Francisco, Seattle, Toronto and Washington D.C. Corporations targeted will include Chevron, JPMorgan Chase, NW Natural Gas, Pepco and Shell. Read the rest of this entry »
November 22nd, 2009
The caravan is full. It is not fair to all the others organizing or to the families for people jump on at the last minute. Please consider coming out this winter or spring or for next year’s caravan. If you’ve already been in touch with us, ok. Thank you for your support!
Greetings from Black Mesa Indigenous Support,
We are excited to inform you that a caravan of work crews isl once again converging from across the country in support of residents of the Big Mountain regions of Black Mesa. On behalf of their peoples, their sacred ancestral lands and future generations, these communities continue to carry out a staunch resistance to the efforts of the US Government, which is acting in the interests of the Peabody Coal Company, to devastate whole communities and ecosystems and greatly de-stabilize our planet’s climate for the profit of an elite few.
By assisting with direct, on-land projects you are helping families stay on their ancestral homelands in resistance to an illegal occupation. These courageous communities serve as the very blockade to coal mining! More than 14,000 Dine’ people have been forcibly removed from their ancestral homelands due to spin created by the U.S government & Peabody Coal, under the guise of the so-called “Navajo-Hopi Land Dispute.†Families are now in their THIRD DECADE resisting this travesty and, as you can imagine, many residents are very elderly and winters can be rough. With their guidance, the aim of this caravan is to honor the elders and to generate support in the form of direct, on-land support: chopping and hauling firewood, doing minor repair work, offering holistic health care, and sheep-herding before the approaching cold winter months arrive.
November 16th, 2009
Here in Riau, Indonesia, signs of the struggle to save the last of Sumatra’s forest is everywhere. Daily, the papers cover stories of timber and oil palm companies destroying forests, engaging in corruption, driving land conflicts, sponsoring violence, and marginalizing indigenous peoples.
Today, on the way to a meeting with the local NGO Elang, I passed villagers from the Kampar Peninsula, a carbon-rich and biodiverse ecoystem that is under attack by Sinar Mas’ oil palm operations and their timber division Asia Pulp and Paper (APP), on a hunger strike.
October 16th, 2009
This week both The Washington Post and Greenpeace reported on the failure of the Noel Kempff Mercado Climate Action Project to reduce carbon dioxide emissions. This decade old “carbon offset” forest project in Bolivia demonstrates that “carbon trading” and other market mechanisms (CDM, REDD, cap and trade, so forth) will not effectively slow the burning of fossil fuels. These financial instruments are scams, frauds, and human rights violations.
October 15th, 2009
A good article from RAN that reinforces the message of the Minga (traditional indigenous collective communal organization) of the Global Mobilization in Defense of Mother Earth and Her Peoples against the commercialization of life.
from The Mama Quta Titijaja Declaration: IV Continental Indigenous Summit Abya Yala:
We shall reconstitute our ancestral territories as a source of our identity, our spirituality, history and our future. We the Indigenous Peoples and our territories are a single complementary entity. We reject all forms of land division, privatization, concession, predation and pollution from extractive industries. We demand the Free, Prior and Informed Consent, in public and in our own languages, conducted in good faith, and through representative organizations of our peoples, not only regarding specific projects but also development policy and plans. We demand the decriminalization of the coca leaf
The article:Indigenous peoples as the most effective protectors of rainforests
by David Gilbert
RAN believes that indigenous peoples are the best stewards of rainforests.
Supporting this belief, a new study by researchers at U of Illinois and U of Michigan has added to the growing body of evidence that indigenous peoples are better protectors of their forests than governments or industry. In a review of 80 forests in 10 tropical countries, the study showed that when indigenous and local communities own their forests, they effectively conserve their forest resources over the long term.
October 11th, 2009
Bangkok, 8 October 2009 – If parties agree on a new climate change deal in Copenhagen in December, indigenous people might be the main victim of it. Environmental and human rights groups call on policymakers to explicitly recognize indigenous peoples’ rights when designing a new climate change agreement.
“Millions of people worldwide depend on forests for their survivalâ€, says Simone Lovera, managing coordinator of the Global Forest Coalition. “Putting a monetary value on forests might lead to land-grabs in areas where property rights are poorly defined and not well protected.â€
Increased awareness that deforestation is a big contributor to global warming has prompted international focus on conserving the worlds’ tropical forests. A plan known as ‘reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation’ or REDD, wants to turn conservation into a profitable business. Carbon stored in forests would become a commodity on the global market. Polluters in rich countries would be able to offset their emissions by buying carbon credits. The money would go to developing countries that are undertaking efforts to protect their forests.
Indigenous Peoples fear that REDD will lead to loss of sovereignty over their territories and its natural elements. Their lives would be determined by global markets. A hardly reassuring idea after the financial crisis showed us how things can go wrong.
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September 22nd, 2009
Demanding Climate Justice at 64th UN General Assembly: Developed countries must compensate
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Tags: climate, COP15, environmental justice, government, indigenous issues, land grab, protest, UN, UNFCCC | 
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September 16th, 2009
By Thalif Deen / IPS
The 130 developing countries of the Group of 77 have expressed serious concerns over the lopsided logistical arrangements, and worse still, the possibility of several heads of state being left out in the cold.
According to current plans, only a limited number of world leaders will be speaking at the summit while a “working dinner” to be hosted by Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon is being confined to only 25 of the 192 world leaders who are expected to be present at the summit.
“While fully respecting the prerogative of the secretary-general in preparing this summit, we must ensure that the full membership of the United Nations is able to participate at the highest possible level for the summit to be a success,” Ambassador Abdalmahmood Abdalhaleem Mohamed of Sudan, the chair of the G77, said in a letter to the secretary-general.
At an ambassadorial meeting of the G77 last week, speaker after speaker criticised the format of the summit and hinted at the possibility of a hidden political agenda. Read the rest of this entry »
September 16th, 2009
BioTech company Novozymes offers promises of greener futures through the re-engineering of our world without reductions or changes in behavior are another unfortunate mark of how the Corporations-Will-Save-Us mentality is putting us into one hell of a handbasket… Â With biofuels/biomass – the math is bad, the solutions short-term, and the long-term impacts are abominable.
Below is the press release:
Franklinton, NC, USA – Heads of state, United Nations agency heads, and CEOs of the world’s top businesses will gather in New York on Tuesday, September 22, at the United Nations Summit on Climate Change to explore the role business and society can play in advancing global efforts to fight climate change. Read the rest of this entry »
September 3rd, 2009
The United Nations considers carbon markets as an efficient system to guide investments toward cutting greenhouse emissions. The clean development mechanism (CDM) under the Kyoto Protocol allows two types of forestry offsets: reforestation of previously forested areas and afforestation where trees are planted in areas where forests have not existed for over 50 years.
One such an investment in Uganda, by the Dutch organisation called Forests Absorbing Carbon-dioxide Emissions (FACE) Foundation, has generated controversy as indigenous people known as the Benet have been displaced to clear the way to tree-planting projects. Read the rest of this entry »
August 11th, 2009
by Jeff Biggers
The uprising in the Appalachian coalfields against failed state government action on mining policy is growing–today, coalfield residents took their protests directly to ground zero of the state’s regulatory failure.
Following 12 previous protests and civil disobedience actions in the Appalachian coalfields this spring and summer, a contingent of four protesters locked themselves to the WV DEP doorsin Charleston, WV in a nonviolent sit-in. Four protesters were reportedly arrested.
While the WVA Department of Environmental Protection carried out the “Blaster’s Exam” today, as part of its unfettered support for mountaintop removal mining and the daily detonation of 3.5 million pounds of ammonium nitrate/fuel oil explosives in historic mountain communities, scores of fed up coal miners and coalfield residents also rallied at the agency’s office this morning. The protesters presented an embarrassingly long list of the agency’s failure to hold up its mandate to protect and restore the environment, ensure water quality, and enforce strip mining, and demanded the resignation of WV DEP Secretary Randy Huffman. Read the rest of this entry »
August 6th, 2009
Here’s a great idea: Let’s bring into our country a genetically-engineered, non-native tree that is known to be wildly invasive, explosively flammable, and insatiably thirsty for ground water. Then let’s clone thousands of these living firecrackers and plant them in forested regions across seven Southern states, allowing them to grow, flower, produce seeds, and spread into native environments.
Yes, this would be irresponsible, dangerous, and stupid – but apparently “Irresponsible, Dangerous, and Stupid” is the unofficial slogan of the U.S. Department Agriculture. In May, with little consideration of the devastating consequences for our native environment, USDA cavalierly rubberstamped a proposal by a profiteering corporation named ArborGen to do all of the above.
Substantially owned by International Paper, ArborGen shipped tissue from Brazilian eucalyptus trees to its New Zealand laboratories, where it was genetically altered to have more cellulose. New Zealand, however, outlaws plantings of genetically-engineered crops, so ArborGen sought out a more corporate-compliant country: Ours. The engineered eucalyptus was waved right into the good ol’ USA to be cloned, and it’s now awaiting final approval for outdoor release in our land. Read the rest of this entry »
by Oscar Reyes
Tags: big business, cap-and-trade, COP15, government, greenwash, land grab, REDD, trees and forests |
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[caption id=”" align=”alignright” width=”300″ caption=”Participants from the Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues Protest Belgium for their recent planting of a genetically engineered test plot.
