UPDATE: Navajo & Hopi Protest OSM in DENVER!!

Navajo and Hopi tell Office of Surface Mining in Denver "NO!" to coal mining

Navajo and Hopi tell Office of Surface Mining in Denver

THANKS to everyone who helped us make our point to the Office of Surface Mining yesterday! OSM disconnected their phone line because so many people flooded them with calls!

This is just the begining of this battle, we are more determined than ever to not allow our homelands to be turned into “minor” decisions for coal interests! I hope you will continue to stand in solidarity with Indigenous Peoples and the “front line” communities that are taking a stand against these major entities!

Please help us get this update out and again thank you!!

-Enei

Enei Begaye
Co-Director, Black Mesa Water Coalition
PO Box 613 Flagstaff, AZ 86002-613
phone: (928) 213-5909
fax #: (928) 213-5905
www.blackmesawatercoalition.org

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Climate Activists Invade DC Offices of Environmental Defense, Daughter of ED Founder Accuses NGO of Pushing False Solutions to Climate Change

Washington, DC – As the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change opened today in Poznan, Poland, grassroots climate activists took over the Washington DC office of Environmental Defense. The activists stated that they had targeted ED, one of the largest environmental organizations in the world, because of the organization’s key role in promoting the discredited approach of carbon trading as a solution to climate change.

Dr. Rachel Smolker of Global Justice Ecology Project and Global Forest Coalition read a statement, which said in part, “My father was one of the founders of this organization, which sadly I am now ashamed of. The Kyoto Protocol, the European Emissions Trading Scheme and virtually every other initiative for reducing emissions have adopted their market approaches. So far they have utterly failed, serving only to provide huge profits to the world’s most polluting industries. Instead of protecting the environment, ED now seems primarily concerned with protecting corporate bottom lines. I can hear my father rolling over in his grave.”

Note: The Washington, DC Environmental Defense (sic) should not be confused with Canada’s Environmental Defence.

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Maine Activists Target Portland Law Firm for Role in Commodifying Maine’s Groundwater

 

Maine Youth Give Pierce-Atwood something to think about...

Maine Youth Give Pierce-Atwood something to think about...

Maine Activists Target Portland Law Firm for Role in Commodifying Maine’s Groundwater

 

People from across Maine brought trash bags full of empty plastic water bottles to Pierce Atwood Law Firm’s office in Portland, ME on the morning of Friday, November 14 to demonstrate the physical ramifications of the corporate bottling industry for Maine’s landfills. The law firm represents both Nestle’ Waters North America and the Nature Conservancy in their water acquisition projects throughout Maine. Nestle’, the Nature Conservancy, and Pierce Atwood share both financial resources and leadership in order to pursue an agenda of commodifying Maine’s groundwater. Young Maine residents and their allies gathered in Portland to protest against Pierce Atwood’s role as the legal liaison in the corporate theft of Maine’s water. In particular, those gathered were concerned about Nestle’s continued legal action against the people of Fryeburg as well as the Nature Conservancy’s refusal to remove commercial water extraction from the development easements attached to the Plum Creek development plan for the North Woods.

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Ecuadorian human rights / environmental Rising Tide activist Leonardo Cerda on tour in Oregon and Washington

Leonardo Cerda is an Ecuadorian youth climate, energy and sustainability activist studying International Relations and Political Sciences at the Universidad San Francisco de Quito in Ecuador.  He’s also starting up organizing Marea Creciente / Rising Tide and a Climate Camp there!

Leo’s been involved in resistance movements against the oil industry in Ecuador since he was fourteen years old. He and others in his community starting doing workshops around the Amazon at that time, in different indigenous villages, discussing the causes and the future consequences of the oil industry, it’s relationship to climate change and the many other devastating consequences to people and the environment. Continue reading