Indigenous people from Sami Nation have played a major role in supporting the Sioux Nation in its battle with the Dakota Access pipeline by convincing Norwegian investors to divest themselves of their financial interests in the pipeline.
Cognitive dissonance is what happens when someone tries to convince you something is true that you know to be false. Wearing a tin foil hat will not protect you from alien body snatchers and clicking your heels three times will not teleport you from the Land of Oz back to Kansas. Cognitive dissonance is perhaps
Another fossil fuel pipeline project — the Dakota Access pipeline — is being held to a considerable level of environmental scrutiny. Leading national and local environmental, tribal, and landowners’ rights organizations have submitted a letter on to President Obama voicing concern about the Army Corps of Engineers’ approval of some of the permits for the
Voters in an Alberta election have handed conservatives a resounding defeat and elected more women to serve than ever before in Canadian history.
Laying a pipeline across agricultural land (photo: eponline.com). Friday afternoon, and officials at the State Department are probably breathing a huge sigh of relief. The official public comment period on the northern extension of the $5.4 billion Keystone XL pipeline expired today. And the unofficial public comment that’s making the news is today’s release of
Citing significant safety concerns, the government of British Columbia, Canada, has announced its formal rejection of the proposed ‘Northern Gateway’ tar sands pipeline which would, if approved and built, bring 500,000 barrels of (diluted bitumen) oil straight through the pristine rainforest along the ‘Spirit Bear Coast’, en route to points east and south (mostly, China,
22 families had to evacuate a suburban neighborhood in Mayflower, Arkansas due to Exxon’s recent oil spill. It is not yet a week since Mayflower began to suffer from the Exxon oil spill, which is estimated at 12,000 barrels of oil and chemicals. The smelly mess is horrific, with risks to nearby bodies of water
“We can see oil running down the road like a river,” explains a Mayflower resident. Crude oil has leaked and this is extremely unfortunate to Mayflower, Arkansas; damaging neighborhoods, and possibly endangering Lake Conrad. The size of the spill remains unclear. Faulkner County Judge Allen Dodson said the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has estimated the spill
Protests against the Keystone Pipeline — and other new fossil fuel pipelines (i.e., Enbridge) — continue across North America and are increasing in scope. From Canada to the southern United States, people are organizing a variety of protests, locally and on a nationwide basis. Among the more dramatic of these is the ongoing “Tar
The Canadian fossil fuel giant Transcanada (net earnings 2011: $1.5 billion) is encountering increased resistance from the “Tar Sands Blockade” in eastern Texas — now in its 18th day of an extensively constructed “tree sit-in.” And it is employing increasingly draconian police measures to prevent any public awareness of the protests and confrontations. Today, two
President Obama, speaking at the annual “Chevron remembers Nagasaki” memorial service, today praised the US oil giant for its role “in helping all of us learn from history.” Speaking in San Fransisco moments before the crowd-pleasing pyrotechnic recreation of the 1944 blasts in Japan, Obama cited the role of the oil industry in working
OK, we all love top 10 lists, right? Obama’s decision to shut down the permitting process for the Keystone XL oil pipeline was a good one… I’m sorry, a great one! Here are 10 top reasons why: 10. The pipeline has received extremely little actual government oversight. “[T]he Department of State allowed a contractor with
Editor’s Note: yes, I just posted a victory story on the Keystone XL oil pipeline, following Obama’s announcement rejecting it. However, as Bill McKibben of 350.org points out below (and we could all expect), some in Congress thing they can force the pipeline down America’s neck still. Here’s more from Bill, and some key action
Here’s an email Bill McKibben sent to US 350.org supporters who have been working on Keystone XL last night: Just in case you thought there was anything subtle about the Keystone battle, you need to hear what the president of the American Petroleum Institute — the oil industry’s #1 front group — said yesterday:
2011 was a big year for the environment, in some good ways and some bad ways. Here’s a quick run-down of the top 10 stories of the year, in my opinion: 1. Tremendously high levels of carbon emissions continue to warm Earth. Despite efforts to switch to clean energy, increase energy efficiency, and use more
by May Boeve You know that activism has struck a chord with the public when TIME magazine picks it up. The TIME year-end feature story is always a strong conversation piece, and what a delight to learn that Bill McKibben has been named on the list of “People who mattered” in 2011, and that “the
Studies NOT conducted by TransCanada, the company wanting to build the Keystone XL oil pipeline Republicans in Congress have pushed through for expedited review with a payroll tax cut bill, show that the climate-change-disaster-of-a-project would create between 5000 and 6000 temporary jobs (State Department Study) or only 500 to 1,400 temporary jobs but that the long-term result
Below is an important email and action opportunity I just received earlier today from Bill McKibben and Tar Sands Action. First, though, a quick note from Dr Joe Romm of Climate Progress: Obama and the Dems caved to the GOP, agreeing to a decision in 60 days on Keystone in return for a 2-month
The House GOP, despite saying last year that “riders” were an underhanded way of pushing political issues, and saying it wouldn’t use them, is sticking very unpopular anti-environment riders into a highly-wanted, bi-partisan tax cut bill. Scott Slesinger, legislative director of the Natural Resources Defense Council, issued the following statement in response: “Leaders of both parties
One of the big arguments for the Keystone XL pipeline, which will now be approved no earlier than 2013, if at all, is that it will create a lot of U.S. jobs. Well, to put the matter bluntly, that is horse s***. The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) recently compiled a handful of points
Well, I don’t think there’s much doubt about this: the Keystone XL Tar Sands Pipeline that would be “the fuse to the biggest carbon bomb on the planet” or “game over” for the climate according to some climate scientists who spoke out against it was squashed (temporarily) by a groundswell of citizen action. After
The White House, and the U.S., and the world, saw the largest Keystone XL Tar Sands pipeline protest to date yesterday. Over 10,000 people (over 12,000 by some estimates) came out in opposition to the pipeline. The protesters were largely Obama supporters and came out decked in Obama gear to show him that they
The battle of domestic energy production verses the protection of natural resources and wildlife “treasures” has many fronts. With attention largely focused on the environmental and climate change impacts of the Keystone XL pipeline, passing almost under the radar is another proposed pipeline — the Northern Gateway pipeline (proposed by energy giant Enbridge*) — that
7 more good activism stories of the week we haven’t covered yet:
Ending only September the 3rd, a group is planned to protest every day for two weeks, and more than 2100 people have signed up. Already, an estimated 222 people have been arrested, 65 on Saturday, 45 on Sunday, 52 on Monday and 60 on Tuesday, including Canadian actors Margot Kidder (best known as Lois Lane in four of the original Superman movies) and Tantoo Cardinal (indigenous actor best known for her roles in Legends of the Fall, Dances with Wolves, and Smoke Signals).
Fossil fuel companies are using the same tactics as the tobacco industry once used to keep from losing their massive, incomprehensible profits — lies, lies, and more lies. Their lying is even going beyond words and statistics and are whole processes. This is known as astroturfing. For example, what seems to be an oil industry employee and Republican, as the title says, is creating tons of fake twitter accounts (something too easy to do) to make it look like there’s broad citizen support for the horrible tar sands oil pipeline project, the Keystone XL pipeline, that is on the line right now.
Tar sand oil extraction — already a growing environmental issue in Canada — has now made it to America. Considered the most polluting of energy extraction industries, tar sand processing is becoming a more appealing option in this current “energy at all costs” zeitgeist — fueled by a major domestic energy push by the Obama administration. The primary focus of concern in the US is the proposed Keystone XL pipeline which is currently under review. Critics charge that the US State department is not doing enough to assess possible harmful environmental impacts of the 13 billion dollar pipeline.
