TARGETING THE FALSE SOLUTIONS TO CLIMATE CHANGE
With the increasing awareness and hype about climate chaos in the past 2 years, people are trying to cash in. Rising Tide North America has initiated a new campaign against some of the “False Solutions” to climate change currently on the market.
The false solutions we are working to expose include carbon trading, offsets, and sequestration schemes and “alternative” fuels like nuclear power, “clean” coal, agrofuels (like ethanol), and liquefied natural gas that aren’t really any better than our current energy sources. (more…)
[from the Indigenous Environmental Network and others]
New York City, NY - Indigenous Peoples attending the Permanent Forum are outraged that their rejection of the carbon market has been ignored in the final report of the 7th Session of the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues (PFII). The final report of the PFII hails World Bank funded carbon trading, like the Clean Development Mechanism, as “good examples” of partnership despite the human rights violations and environmental destruction they have caused.
“Indigenous Peoples attending the 7th session of the Permanent Forum are profoundly concerned that our key recommendations on climate change are not being taken into account by the Permanent Forum. This Permanent Forum was created precisely to recognize, promote, and support the rights of Indigenous Peoples,” says Florina Lopez, Coordinator of the Indigenous Women’s Biodiversity Network of Abya Yala. Continue Reading »
Posted in False Solutions Campaign, Front Page, Indigenous Solidarity
Thomas Friedman, the author and NY Times columnist, was invited to Brown University to give a keynote speech on Earth Day, before a packed auditorium. His talk, titled “Green is the new Red White and Blue” was about how corporate environmentalism (based on putting a price on the atmosphere, and investing in biofuels and techno-fixes) can restore America to its “natural place in the global order.” Luckily, this outrageous neoliberal capitalist propaganda was interrupted with a surprise visit from the Greenwash Guerrillas. After splattering him with two green cream pies, leaflets were thrown to the crowd, stating:
Thomas Friedman deserves a pie in the face…
Continue Reading »
Posted in False Solutions Campaign, Front Page
Pranksters market “infidelity offsets” to downtown Portlanders
Portland, OR – With a bouquet of heart shaped balloons, a group of Portland-area climate activists calling themselves the “Greenwash Guerrillas” presented a highly experimental new business model to passersby in downtown Portland on Tuesday. Drawing their inspiration from so-called carbon neutral companies like Portland’s Climate Trust, the activists claim to be launching a new company called “Cheat Neutral.”
Continue Reading »
Posted in False Solutions Campaign, Newswire, Rising Tide Cascadia
PLANKTOS: The Solution to Climate Change?
By Maya Face
A for-profit company named Planktos Inc. claims to
“erase carbon footprints†by offsetting carbon emissions. Their promotional materials say, “Global Warming: Solved!†–offering a quick fix to the largest challenge of our times. While they are primarily concerned with “restoring†plankton in the oceans, they have a subsidiary that plants trees in the European Union. The carbon dioxide taken up by the plankton is sold as carbon credits to consumers, businesses and governments. Ocean fertilization is a quickly emerging threat to the oceans and better ways of dealing with climate change; the estimated future value of the market for ocean fertilization is $100 billion. Planktos is likely to make huge profits from the Kyoto Protocol, the market for carbon offsets, the huge carbon footprints of Western consumers, and industrial greenhouse gas emissions. Meanwhile, the world’s oceans and climate are paying the price, with widespread scientific uncertainty as to how they will be affected by iron fertilization. Continue Reading »
Posted in False Solutions Campaign, Newswire, geoengineering
Rising Tide has just finished work on its new “false solutions” reading room, a collection of factsheets and reports examining solutions to climate change that are often popular with businesses and politicians, but which do little to help the climate and often have devastating impacts on communities and the environment. This is the 2nd installment of the new “publications and multimedia” section on our website.
First have a look at the reading room, and contact our false solutions campaign to get more involved!
Posted in False Solutions Campaign, Front Page
Climate activists with the international Rising Tide network embarrassed the U.S. Climate Action Partnership (USCAP), a lobby group composed of 33 prominent businesses and organizations, by distributing a spoof press release declaring that the consortium’s members had committed to a 90 percent reduction in their greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. In addition, the spoof release called for an immediate moratorium on the construction of all new coal-fired power plants.
“To stabilize our climate, reductions need to be based on science, not on creating windfall profits for the world’s largest polluters,” said Matt Leonard. “Leading scientists say decisive action must happen now to reduce our emissions. However, corporate interests have stymied substantive action and are derailing genuine efforts of civil society to adequately address climate change.”
The fake press release was picked up by several media outlets, including the Dallas Morning News, UK Hemscott and several blogs before journalists realized that USCAP members would never agree to such progressive reductions in carbon emissions or a moratorium on coal plants. Furthermore, Rising Tide activists have done dozens of interviews with media and even received calls from real USCAP member companies about the website and press release. Continue Reading »
Posted in False Solutions Campaign, Front Page
Rising Tide North America’s “Greenwash Guerrillas” paid a surprise Halloween visit to the Carbon Market Insights conference in New York City today. Posing as delegates, two protesters took the stage at the exclusive event and presented the 700 attendees with a “Deed to the Sky,” denouncing Carbon Trading as a sham approach to the fossil fuels crisis. The action was the first in the US to target the growing Carbon Trading industry.
“Carbon trading puts the most crucial decisions about the future of life on this planet in the hands of fossil fuel industry,” said protester Jessica Starr “the very industry that got us into this mess in the first place.”
Though heavily criticized by environmental and human rights organizations world-wide, Carbon Trading is the primary mechanism for reducing greenhouse gas emissions under the Kyoto Protocol, as well as in Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) and John Warner’s (R-Va.) “America’s Climate Security Act of 2007.” The Carbon Market Insights conference brings together the leaders of the US financial, non-profit, and “eco securities” industries backing a domestic US Carbon Trading market.
READ ON FOR MORE INFORMATION, VIDEOS, AND PHOTOS
Continue Reading »
Posted in False Solutions Campaign, Front Page
Rising Tide Opposes Carbon Trading
Carbon Trading is a scam. A disastrous distraction from real efforts to stop a climate meltdown.
Carbon Trading is the largest privatization scheme in modern history. It places our most precious shared global resource — the carbon cycling capacity of the planet - in the hands of two groups noteworthy for their lack of concern for the public good: financial brokers and the energy industry. Continue Reading »
Posted in False Solutions Campaign
