Tag: climate change

BREAKING NEWS: Activists Risk Arrest, Ascend Dragline to Stop Mountaintop Removal

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE (Thursday June 18th, 2009):

Big John Dragline

Hi-Res Photos, B-roll and Video will be available, www.mountainaction.org.

Activists Risk Arrest to Stop Mountaintop Removal

Activists scaled 20-storey tall mining machinery this morning to call attention to nation’s worst form of coal mining; This is the first time a dragline has been scaled on a mountaintop removal site

COAL RIVER VALLEY, W. VA.—Moments ago, four concerned citizens entered onto Massey Energy’s mountaintop removal mine site near Twilight WV and have begun to scale a150-foot dragline machine to drop a banner that says, ‘stop mountaintop removal mining.’ The climbers plan to stay on the enormous dragline, a massive piece of equipment that removes house-sized chunks of blasted rock and earth to expose coal, until police arrest them. Equipped with satellites phones and a web camera, the climbers will be available for interviews.

This is the first time a dragline has been scaled on a mountaintop removal site, and marks the latest in a string of increasingly dramatic protests in West Virginia by residents and allies from across the country. This act of protest against mountaintop removal comes just days after the Obama Administration announced a plan to reform, but not abolish, the aggressive strip mining practice. Continue reading

A Call to Action: THE MOBILIZATION FOR CLIMATE JUSTICE

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WE STAND AT A CROSSROADS.

Emissions

Confront Copenhagen at Home

www.ACTFORCLIMATEJUSTICE.org

read and pass on the Mobilization’s
Open Letter to the Grassroots

The facts are clear. Global climate change, caused by human activities, is happening, threatening the lives and livelihoods of billions of people and the existence of millions of species. Social movements, environmental groups, and scientists from all over the world are calling for urgent and radical action on climate change.

On the 6 December, 2009 the governments of the world will come to Copenhagen for the fifteenth UN Climate Conference (COP-15). This will be the biggest summit on climate change ever to have taken place. Yet, previous meetings have produced nothing more than business as usual.

There are alternatives to the current course that is emphasizing false solutions such as market-based approaches and agrofuels. If we put humanity before profit and solidarity above competition we can live amazing lives without destroying our planet.

For a just transition to a low carbon future we must invest in community-controlled renewable energy and leave fossil fuels in the ground. We must stop over-production for over-consumption. All should have equal access to the global commons through community control and local sovereignty over energy, forests, land and water. We must acknowledge the historical responsibility of the global elite and rich Global North for causing this crisis. Equity between all peoples in the North and South through reparations of this ecological debt is essential to climate justice.

Climate change is already impacting people, particularly, indigenous and forest-dependent peoples, women, small farmers, workers, marginalized communities and impoverished neighbourhoods who are all calling for action on climate- and social-justice.

We call on all peoples around the planet to mobilize and take action against the root causes of climate change and the key agents responsible, both in Copenhagen and around the world.

This mobilization has already begun but is still in the planning stages. We have time to collectively decide what these mobilizations will look like, and to begin to visualize what our future can be. It is now time to take the power back!

We encourage everyone to start mobilizing today in your own neighbourhoods and communities.

Please get involved and take action for climate justice.

Hope is not just a feeling, it is also about taking action.

To read the Mobilization’s Open Letter to the Grassroots Continue reading

New York Times declares the end of the Iraq War

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A Sign of the Times

..among other long-awaited happenings! The anonymous action conducted this morning was profound and  far-reaching.  From six printing locations located across the United States, 1.2 million copies of a faux edition of the New York Times made their way from the printing presses into the streets of the nation.

Not only, declares the Times, is the Iraq War over, but Thomas Friedman submits his resignation, Exxon-Mobil advocates alternative energy, a nationalized oil fund proposal passes Congress to fight Climate Change, and Monsanto defends the usage of ladybugs as more effective than pesticides.

The perpetrators of the long-planned and meticulous hoax worked long and in secret.  They are an amalgam of advocacy groups, climate change activists, and professional pranksters that routinely challenge the status quo through a broad range of activism, education, and downright foolery.

Download a PDF version [10 MB] HERE to read “All the News We Hope to Post”

available: http://www.risingtidenorthamerica.org/special/NYtimes_YesMenSpoof.pdf [~9.6 MB]

VIDEO COVERAGE

New York Times Special Edition Video News Release – Nov. 12, 2008 from H Schweppes on Vimeo.