This is a guest post contributed by Zach Kitamura, an inspiring Pacific University freshman I’ve had the honor of working with this year.  I wholeheartedly agree with Zach that we must channel the frustration and disillusionment of this moment into action makes our movement even more effective.  As a start (and only a start!) please consider contacting the White House at http://www.whitehouse.gov/contact and letting the Obama administration know what you think of the “deal” in Copenhagen.

In the past two weeks, world leaders were presented an incredible opportunity to draft a crucial climate deal that would curb the effects of CO2 and greenhouse gases on the environment. Millions of people around the world voiced their support for a treaty, with people from countries in the Pacific such as Fiji and Vanuatu even pleading to see their countries saved from disappearing in the face of rising sea levels. But, despite their cries and overwhelming scientific evidence that says we need change now, world leaders could not come together and draft a treaty good enough to fulfill what we need to have significant change.

Sadly, I’m not surprised by this outcome. Despite words from heads of state and other foreign ministers saying they would provide needed support—pledges from Europe, China, and the U.S.—no one actually stepped up and led the conference. These “leaders” just fit the classic mold of a politician: all words and no actions.

Unfortunately, the biggest disappointment has come from none other than President Obama. Despite such capabilities of being a leader, Obama just didn’t show what it takes to be a force for change. He has perhaps the toughest job in the world, no doubt about that, and faces vocal opposition from skeptics and the like; but Obama promised to be a leader for change and, well, he’s broken his promise.

Instead of bringing all countries together—rich and poor—he met with only a few countries, came up with a shoddy deal, and promptly left, calling it “meaningful.” This could be the biggest satirical catch phrase since “mission accomplished.” Not only were the actions and words of Obama a failure to provide necessary goals for stopping climate change, it was a callous rejection of democratic values, leaving most countries in the dark and out of the negotiations.

I think this exemplifies the fact that we can’t just trust the few people in power to do the job—there’s just too much political inertia too create any real change. But this is no time to say oh well or hang our heads; this is only incentive for us to fight harder. We are facing truly monumental tasks, not only to halt climate change, but also to change the way we go about our lives. This is our generation’s struggle, and it is for all generations yet to come.

So what shall we do? Our votes don’t seem to be enough anymore. What we must do is really take a stand for change. We must build support and extend our networks so that more people become involved and caring about the task at hand. Most people don’t know what is at stake or are skeptical of the imminence of climate change’s threat. So, we must show them “what’s up” and get people involved, because we are all in this together.

Let’s be the ones to decide what we need, let us be the ones in power. History has shown that when the people stand up together to make things right, the people will ultimately be victorious; from the Civil Rights movement to the Cochabamba Water Wars, where citizens from the Bolivian city of Cochabamba protested for months against the privatization of their water supply, ultimately winning and gaining control of their water back. Speaking of the protests, leader Oscar Olivera had this to say about demonstrating:

“I believe we live in a world of fear. People are afraid of everything; they’re afraid of the dark, they’re afraid of losing their jobs, afraid to speak, afraid to give their opinion, afraid to act. I think that it’s important for us to lose our fear. We’re going to lose that fear once we have the capacity to be united, to be organized; once we regain the confidence in ourselves and in other people, then we can open our hearts to those feelings of solidarity of brotherhood to all, thinking that globalization is uniting everyone. We all have the same problems, but we all have the same dreams; it’s important to lose the fear.”

What do we have to lose from coming together and fighting for what we believe in? It is imperative that we bond together, bring in more people, and hit the streets to enact change.

When the Bolivian government finally relented after the months of protesting, people from the city gathered in the town’s center to celebrate their victory. And out of the cheers one cry stood out among the others, a phrase that gives me hope that things will be able to change for the better, one that truly speaks to the power of solidarity and the will of the people:

EL PUEBLO UNIDO JAMAS SERA VENCIDO!

THE PEOPLE UNITED WILL NEVER BE DEFEATED!

I am proud to announce the arrival of the mini-documentary, Rising Tides: Sunderbands, India. This documentary is the work of the India, Asia team of Project Survival Media. I asked team leader Ekta Kothari to tell me about her experience making the film, and she did!

“The story was incredibly powerful to film. I could never put the experience into words, but let me try to paint you a picture:

The Sunderbans is a place with many riches – An archipelago of mangrove ecosystems, and home to the Royal Bengal Tigers, boasting a biodiversity extremely rich in flora and fauna – right next door to my city, Kolkata.

And yet, the first time I visited these islands, all I could find was devastation. The region had just been hit by the biggest cyclone on the last 40 years – The Aila.

I went there as part of a medical team that was going to provide them with basic medicines and amenities till the Government supplies arrived. As we visited more and more villages, I realized that it was the same story everywhere: People suffering from Diarrhea, skin diseases, food poisoning, blood pressure. They had no food for themselves or for their children. And it had been 5 days since the cyclone!

Everywhere I saw, there were broken houses, uprooted trees, flooded fields and dead animals. Every house had a story to tell of a loved one they had lost. Death was looming heavy.

And yet, I could see the smiles on the faces of children, upon seeing us. Women blushed when I noted their blood pressure, and men would fein strength as we would tend to their wounds. That is the Sunderban, that is India.

Life goes on. There is so much more to worry about today, that the yesterdays are washed away with the tide.

I invite you to watch this film, and reflect a bit on the ways in which our lives are all connected, even on the other side of the globe – knowingly, and unknowingly.”

- Ekta

Ekta Kotari is the Asia Team co-Leader with Project Survival Media. We are eleven teams of youth new media journalists on all seven continents, reporting on communities already impacted by climate change, and covering survival stories from the UN climate negotiations in Copehnagen.

Written by Jennifer Krill and Adrian Wilson.

Whispers in the hallways at the COP-15 Copenhagen climate negotiations emerged as a full blown controversy yesterday, when the UK Guardian published leaked text that was written by a secret group of negotiators, the so-called ‘Circle of Commitment’.  The U.S., UK, Denmark and other rich countries are apparently responsible for the text, which was written in secrecy in a dirty backroom deal. The Danish Text, as it’s being called here in Copenhagen, utterly excludes the U.N. process, especially cutting out the developing countries that are pushing for a strong, legally binding deal, with targets of 40-45% emissions reductions below 1990 levels in order to avert the risk of catastrophic climate change.

Photo Credit: Mat McDermott

By contrast, the leaked text effectively kills the Kyoto Protocol and its emphasis on compliance and binding targets, while gutting much of the negotiations that have been underway over the last two years. Here’s a short summary of a few of the problems with the leaked text:

• The Danish Text repeatedly refers to “the shared vision limiting global average temperature rise to a maximum of 2 degrees [Celsius] above pre-industrial levels.” This vision is certainly not shared - as the Pan-African Climate Justice Alliance stated yesterday, “according to the IPCC a two degree increase in the global mean temperature will mean a three or more degree increase for temperatures in Africa, [causing] 50% reduction in crop yields in some areas.”
• The text also specifies that “developed country parties commit to deliver upfront public financing for 2010-201[2] corresponding on average to [10] billion USD annually for early action, capacity building, technology and strengthening adaptation and mitigation readiness in developing countries.” While this figure is still bracketed, the idea that the Global North is considering initially giving only $10 billion per year in mitigation funding to the Global South is viewed by many G-77 nations as a slap in the face – especially given that the governments of the Global North have spent over $4 trillion in the past two years on economic stimulus and bailouts of the banking and auto industries. (NOTE: In negotiating text, the brackets refer to sections that are still in negotiation.)
• In one of the most controversial sections, the draft specifies that ”a Climate Fund be established as an operating entity of the Financial Mechanism of the Convention. … Support from the Fund may be channeled through multilateral institutions.” This is a key point that has been denounced by much of the Global South: this plan would take trillions of dollars in climate funding out of the hands of the U.N., and put it in the hands of multilateral institutions like the World Bank – which are effectively controlled by the U.S. and Europe.
• The REDD (Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation) outline in the text allows intact, natural forests to be replaced by tree plantations and includes poor provisions for monitoring, reporting and no verification at all.
• Indigenous peoples – whose rights the U.S. is famously reluctant to respect, as one of four countries in the world to refuse to sign the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples – are not even mentioned in the Danish Text. The unique rights of Indigenous peoples, and indeed human rights or climate justice in general, are not  part of this backroom deal.

After the draft was publicized yesterday, African delegates led a super high-energy protest through the halls of COP-15, chanting “One Africa, One Degree” and “Two degrees is suicide!” The Indigenous Environmental Network, Friends of the Earth, 350.org and many, many others led protests today in the main hall. The island nation of Tuvalu, after its call for legally binding targets in the plenary was opposed by the US and China, suspended the talks until just a few hours ago – a sentiment that is likely to continue, considering the atmosphere of protest and frustration in the halls in Copenhagen.

But the Global North just doesn’t seem to get it. Some delegates here in Copenhagen, especially those from rich countries, were even dismissive of the situation, or were curious about which version of the text was leaked. US negotiator Jonathan Pershing, when asked about this text during his briefing yesterday, said: “There is no single text, there are many.” Pershing went on to defend Denmark for working behind the scenes and excluding so much of the world, claiming that as the president of the negotiations, Denmark is justified in developing secret text that is only available to inner-circle countries.

Which would be understandable if the leaked text weren’t so obviously exclusionary, and weren’t so clearly against the position of the developing countries. Which is all the more interesting because the text sugar-coats this poison pill for the Global South with justice-based rhetoric: the text recognizes ”the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities,” states that “gender equality is essential in achieving sustainable development,” and notes that “the largest share of historical global emissions of greenhouse gases originates in developed countries.” But the substance of this text – rather than its precise wording – is what’s really important: it shows that, in the end, the countries of the Global North are willing to make pitifully few concessions to the very real needs of the Global South.

And, most importantly, it shows that the Danish government – and the unknown delegates that they collaborated with in drafting this text – have a callous disregard for any kind of duly consultative process, preferring instead to draft a deal that satisfies the U.S. (at the expense of the G-77, which represents 80% of the world’s population).

And so, it’s understandable that the G-77 delegates aren’t swallowing this poison pill. “It is literally a matter of life and death for the friends and families of those that are here. A bad deal is a crime against humanity and we won’t sign a deal if it means signing a death warrant,” said Mithika Mwenda of the Pan African Climate Justice Alliance yesterday.

This post is provided on behalf of Project Survival Media – a grassroots, student-run media project designed to highlight the true costs of fossil fuels in the lead up to Copenhagen. 

On the eve of the Copenhagen climate talks, communities and individuals around the planet are thinking about survival.  In a world of rapidly destabilizing climates, this word means different things to different people.  To the citizens of the Maldive Islands survival may mean a keeping global temperatures low enough to prevent the permanent flooding of their homeland, while to the inhabitants of African nations that repeatedly have expressed frustration with the unwillingness of industrialized countries to listen to what our own climate scientists are telling us, the main threat to survival may be catastrophic drought threatening to engulf huge regions. 

One key to survival for human beings everywhere, though, is food.  A couple of weeks ago for Project Survival Media, I wrote about the struggles of farmers to build communities based on sustainable food in my own home state of Oregon.  In the Northwestern United States we’re lucky that most people have relatively easy access to healthy, locally grown food; meanwhile, in West Oakland, Project Survival Media team members have been documenting the difficulties of maintaining a healthy diet in the “food deserts” of the inner city.  In the end, our reliance on processed, packaged and fast food produced through industrial agriculture is hurting human health as much as an input-heavy oil-based agricultural system is hurting the Earth and the climate.

As the world seeks to stabilize the global climate and provide for the food needs of a growing population, it would be a mistake to assume the only or best way to feed the starving is through the same model of industrial agriculture that’s helped bring us to the point of environmental disaster.  Recent research indicates that sustainable farming practices and a shift in industrialized countries to more sustainable diets hold the potential to feed the world without wrecking the climate.  Indeed, a healthy planet and a healthy human population may each hinge on a diet less dependent on meat and oil-intensive agriculture, and more reliant on locally based food production systems.

One of the most environmentally resilient food productions systems I’ve ever observed exists in the forest villages that line the Amazon River outside of Iquitos, Peru.  In these small, traditional villages, farmers grow an astonishing variety of crops using methods that have sustained them for hundreds of years, and virtually no fossil fuel inputs.  Walking along a path through a village banana plantation, it’s occurred to me that there is no place I’d rather be during a global petroleum shortage or climate catastrophe that wreaks havoc with our import-oriented food supply chain.  Agricultural systems grounded in small-scale local food production not only contribute less to global warming, but may prove to be more resilient to a changing climate as well.

A continent away from the villages outside Iquitos, I have watched what seems to be a genuine trend, at least amongst Oregon farmers; the owners of small farming establishments are growing increasingly conscious of the unique role their industry will play in sculpting a world resistant to global warming.  For decades, the number of farms in the US has shrunk as family farms died out and industrial establishments gobbled up what was left over.  Yet today, small farmers have a new reason to take pride in their work, and society has renewed incentive to value its farmers.  Home gardens and local farms can bring relief to the food deserts of our large cities, while breaking the oil industry’s grip on our food production system.

In a time of global danger, nothing says “survival” like the ability to purchase healthy food that’s independent of a fossil fuel-based import system, and contributes to creating sustainable economies.  As the world’s most powerful people gather in Copenhagen this month, let’s hope they take note.

Tuesday and Wednesday of this week, staffers from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) were in Oregon to assess the environmental impact that proposed liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminals will have on our region.  When they got here, the youth climate movement of my home state was waiting and ready to let them know that LNG compromises our future.

The two-day visit with FERC began Tuesday morning when fifteen students from Linfield College in McMinnville, Oregon, headed out to meet the FERC staff in a chilly hotel parking lot.  Also present was a good-sized group of impacted landowners and community activists, who like us youth were there to ask FERC some hard questions about the approval process for LNG facilities.  FERC has a years-long history of ignoring many of the most serious impacts LNG pipelines and import terminals will have on Oregon’s communities and environment; as community organizers have fought to protect Oregon residents from wasteful and destructive LNG projects, FERC has been uncooperative throughout.  As just a couple of examples, the commission has granted their approval to the hideously flawed Bradwood Landing LNG Terminal, and environmental groups had to sue FERC just to get the commission to publicly release the names of landowners who would be affected by a proposed LNG pipeline.

The FERC staff who visited Oregon this week had come to gather information for the Environmental Impact Statement on a major LNG pipeline proposed by the company Oregon LNG.  To their credit, the staff stood in the hotel parking lot Tuesday morning taking questions for nearly an hour before they and some of the concerned citizens left for the McMinnville site visits.  Issues that came up during this initial questions period ranged from the impact construction of LNG pipelines will have on Oregon forests, to the carbon footprint of LNG (which is up to 30% larger than that of North American gas).  There’s no doubt in my mind that the large contingent of students complete with signs calling for a clean energy future for Oregon made a big impact on the FERC staff.  The only people present at the gathering in favor of the LNG pipeline were three representatives from Oregon LNG and CH2M Hill – the contractor that the company has hired to do much of the engineering work for this project.  The three industry reps, including Oregon LNG CEO Peter Hansen, eyed our banners rather suspiciously.

 After the parking lot gathering, most of the students from Linfield who’d already taken time out of a school day to meet with FERC had to head back to campus for classes.  The rest of us gathered, including two Linfield students ready to report back to the rest of their campus group, piled into cars to follow FERC to four site visits.  We drove through the semi-rural land surrounding McMinnville, Oregon, and I couldn’t help but reflect on the impact Oregon LNG’s project would have on this country landscape.  The Oregon LNG pipeline would cut through miles of forest, streams, wetlands, and fertile farmland throughout this area; and as local residents understand all too well, there’s no way to install a miles-long 3-foot wide pipeline through delicate local ecosystems and carefully tended crop fields without damage that will take years or decades to heal.

Peter Hansen listens attentively to landowners impacted by his project

Despite the fact that his pipeline project threatens the livelihoods of literally hundreds of Oregon farmers, Peter Hansen and the other industry reps seemed remarkably uninterested in the concerns of affected landowners.  At each site we visited, owners of the affected property described in detail the effects LNG development would have on their ability to continue using their land.  All through the morning, however, I saw Hansen make almost no visible attempt to address a landowner’s concern when a question was not directed specifically at him.  He spent most of the first few site visits standing off to one side looking bored, making no eye contact with the landowners addressing the group, and giving no appearance of paying much attention to the conversations unfolding a few yards away. 

One of the remarkable things about the coalition of Oregon activists dedicated to confronting the LNG industry is that it is not a movement confined by the boundaries of traditional environmentalism.  Conservative landowners with farms slated to be plowed under for LNG pipelines have joined forces with liberal-leaning environmentalists concerned about the impact of LNG on our climate.  Nowhere was the diversity of this coalition more evident than during Tuesday’s last site visit, when the FERC staff inspected an alternative pipeline route for Oregon LNG that cuts through Stimson Lumber forestland in the community of Gales Creek.  Now when it comes to some issues, Stimson Lumber and local environmentalists are, well….not exactly on the same page.  Yet faced with the common threat of an LNG pipeline that would require a clearcut through Stimson’s forestland, the lumber growers and environmentalists have joined hands to fight a greater enemy.  From the forested ridgetop overlooking Gales Creek, I could see miles of forest, fields, and rural farmland.  Western Washington County, where Gales Creek is located, is a major farming region and one of the area’s greatest economic assets.  Yet not one but two LNG pipelines – Oregon LNG’s and the Palomar Pipeline – would cut right through it, devastating tens of miles. 

It was while tramping through Stimson’s forest that Peter Hansen finally seemed to perk up.  At this point he began joking about how his coming with FERC for these site visits proved Oregon LNG wants to “do the job right” and look closely at the needs of local communities.  Aside from the fact that he could have done a more impressive job appearing to engage with landowners that morning, I at least found his joking a bit insulting, and possibly even offensive.  Oregon LNG hopes to seize private lands without the owners’ permission through eminent domain, and forcibly overturn several hundred livelihoods.  Maybe it’s just me, but I don’t consider that a laughing matter.

 On Wednesday, the FERC staff set out to visit additional sites in Gales Creek.  That morning, the student group which came to greet them was from Pacific University in the nearby town of Forest Grove.  Eight students from Pacific – a campus that’s been working on LNG issues for at least a couple of years – arrived to meet them that morning with a new set of signs and questions.  Our group of students, landowners, and environmental activists again set out with FERC and the industry reps to look at another set of impacted properties.

It was during one of the Gales Creek site visits that things got, well, rather interesting for Oregon LNG’s public image.  We arrived at a certified organic farm where the owners have for years had trouble with LNG company staff attempting trespass on their land to gather information about the site.  On our arrival, the owners made clear that FERC staff and Oregon LNG representatives were being granted permission to come onto their land only once, purely to gather visual information.  On the tour site that followed, one of our landowner guides described the years-long process of building up a sustainable home business that now supplies organic food to nearby communities while fostering the type of localized economies needed to radically decrease the carbon footprint of our society. 

Then, near the end of this particular site visit, someone noticed Peter Hansen and one of the other LNG reps taking GPS readings on the property in direct violation of the limited permission they’d been given on arrival.  They of course were required to delete any information saved on the device, while two members of our group watched to make sure the readings were erased.  Neither Hansen nor the other industry rep offered an apology for this behavior, and none of the FERC staff spoke out to criticize the violation.

After two days of following FERC around my state, I can say this at least about the flawed process through which FERC considers LNG infrastructure projects in Oregon:

1) The large carbon footprint of LNG and this project’s impact on the climate are not in any way considered in FERC’s Environmental Impact Statement.  When asked about LNG’s contribution to global warming, FERC staff repeatedly denied that FERC could consider the impact on climate in an EIS.  By the admission of FERC’s staff, the commission does not consider global warming in a quantitative way when approving a project.

2) The process FERC currently uses to collect information about a project forces local communities to pay huge costs before the need for the project has even been considered.  As of now, the need for a project is one of the last things the commission looks at when making a final decision.  This means that landowners, environmental groups, and local governments are potentially forced to waste huge amounts of time and money negotiating with (and sometimes suing) FERC and the LNG companies – all before the need or demand for a proposed project has even been looked at.  By considering need BEFORE anything else, FERC could save local communities thousands of dollars. 

3) FERC has not done an adequate job engaging with impacted communities.  I’m grateful to the FERC staffers who came out to Oregon for this week’s in-person site visit – even though I have some hard questions about their process.  Yet it became apparent during FERC’s visit that the staffers here to work on the EIS were not qualified to answer all the questions students and community members have.  Many issues with this project may only be addressable by the FERC Commissioners themselves.  However only one, Commissioner Jon Wellinghoff, has visited Oregon in person to look at LNG sites. 

4) LNG hurts students.  The decision to build a LNG pipeline or import terminal in Oregon would impact the energy future of the Northwest for years or decades.  The youth of today are the ones who will have to live with any decision FERC makes – and the current decision-making process is clearly and fundamentally flawed.  At the very least, FERC should set a moratorium on approving LNG projects until guidelines are in place to address the impact on our climate in a quantifiable manner.

 Fortunately, this fight is far from over.  As clearly demonstrated by the students who turned out in force to this week’s site visits, the youth of Oregon continue to engage in this struggle that could define the economic and environmental future of our region.  The decision-makers who would grant our generation insufficient consideration haven’t heard the last from us – not by a long shot.

Reporting for Project Survival Media in Romania.
By Andrada Farcău with images by Mihai Giurgiu.

©Mihai Giurgiu

Romania was a land of diversity. We used to have four seasons: spring, summer, autumn and winter. Now we are having two seasons. So, what can be the reason of changing? It could be a natural transformation, just a temporary phenomena or the global warming. All Romanian people are affected by this change: their lands are not that good as before, their fruit production has problems and people have to fight more against the floods. The Romanian scientists say that we can’t prove yet if one of the causes is global warming or not and if the human race is responsible of it.

©Mihai Giurgiu

Săcel Mountain is a little village in Romania. Here, farmers used to have more than 600 sheep, 300 cows, lots of pigs and other animals. Now, they don’t have sheep anymore, and a family has maybe a cow and no more than two pigs.

The agriculture was strongly based on potatoes, corn and tomatoes. The altitude (771- 1125 m) of the village didn’t give people the possibility of having something else. But now, they are concerned because of the harder conditions to grow their vegetables and fruits compared with 20 years ago.

Asking people if they noticed possible changes regarding the four seasons, their answers are simple and complex at the same time. However, they are not surprised about the question, because those facts affect every corner of their life. Why? Their food and their entire activity are limited on agriculture and farming. Therefore agriculture means land, weather, rain, snow, ice, sun and a good connection between all these natural phenomena.

“Nothing good is happening anymore”

Older people (their ages are between 60 and 80 years) are concerned. They have lived enough to have an experience of appreciation about good or bad results of “their agriculture”. The Oneţ family has lived in Săcel Mountain for almost 55 years. They had a little farm in the past with sheep and cows. Now they have one cow, two pigs and ten chickens, and they practice agriculture for their own use.

©Mihai Giurgiu

“I remember when I was younger and the snow was so big that I could hardly go out just in the neighborhood. Since a few years ago, winters are warmer and it’s rarely snowing hard. I saw on T.V. that in places where it has never snowed, last years they had snow. As I can see, the snow left us and moved to other places, which is bad, because the land is freezing and it’s losing its good properties. When spring should be here and have good rain, it is freezing again and after few weeks of warming we lose our fruits. We have less and less vegetables and fruits. All the time when it should be raining is drought. When it should be warm is raining too much. Nothing good is happening anymore”, Ms. Oneţ.

Last ten years, people lost their crops because of ice rain: “This ice rain was rare when I was young and I never heard my parents complaining about it, but now… a big part of our cultivation is destroyed. We don’t know what to do about it. We are old anyway and our children live in the city” says Ms. Oneţ.

Missis Oneţ showed us some corn from the past year and gave us a gift: a pocket of walnuts.

Changes produced by man, still a supposition

Florin Moldovan, scientist and teacher at Geography University from Cluj Napoca, has a balanced opinion about the weather changes in Romania: “It is too soon to say something that big like climate changes are caused by human behavior. Until now we just can say that dangerous phenomena are more frequent and intense. You have to understand that we don’t have enough proof in this way and we don’t have relevant statistics about it”.

The floods made them change the road trough the forest

©Mihai Giurgiu

In summer of 2005 Săcel Mountain was affected by floods, created by unusual powerful storm and rain. The weather devastated some lands, a bridge and a few houses. About that time, people have bad memories: they were isolated and helped with provisions by Romanian Government.

The oldest people from the village remember that floods like these began in last 20 years, but the worst was four years ago: “We couldn’t use our cars to get aliments to the village and we had access to the other communities only through the forest”.

©Mihai Giurgiu

Virgil and his parents are saying that things are changing: “The summer is dry now, but in the same time we have floods. The rain is not enough to naturally irrigate our lands, and we have a big storm during the year that makes bad things happen. And that’s it. It rains often in autumn and spring, but this will never help the land. It will destroy it. Those situations are totally different than 20 or 50 years ago”.

People from Săcel Mountain feel some changes about their weather and scientists approve those opinions. A tendency of increase in average temperatures is clearly visible and demonstrated. Romanian scientists are declaring that the stats are clearly showing an increase in frequency and intensity of meteorological risk phenomena during past years. They are reserved in saying for sure if this is human fault or if Mother Nature is doing its circuit, but anyway a change in human mentality concerning climate change is a must.

]]> http://itsgettinghotinhere.org/2009/11/17/delay-kills/ Tue, 17 Nov 2009 17:49:41 +0000 Nick Magel http://itsgettinghotinhere.org/2009/11/17/delay-kills/

Today over 40 environmental ministers from countries around the world, including the biggest emitters US and China, wrapped up their final hours of talks before the United Nations climate negotiations in Copenhagen on Dec 7th. The meetings conclude two days after the Obama administration seemed to suggest strong support for Danish Prime Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen’s (who made this guy the mouthpiece of the climate plan anyway? It’s kind of like Gov Schwarzenegger wanting to manage Disneyland because it’s California.) delay proposal to push aside a treaty in Copenhagen.

As the final hours ticked town in the Pre-COP meeting the world is left to make sense of comments that a global climate treaty this December is out of reach. Yet, it seems now more than ever, that ‘impossible’ is not an option for leaders. DELAY KILLS!

Any further delay of a global climate treaty will only diminish the possibility of curbing climate change before it is too late. Every year over 300,000 people die due to climate change related events. Simply put – every day there is no treaty over 800 people die because of climate inaction. This is a grave problem and the solution is apparent, we only wait for the ambitious leadership to achieve it.

As the international press rolled out “the sky is falling” headlines about the potential failure in Copenhagen, the Avaaz Action Factory went on a full-on blitz on Yvo De Boer and the Environmental Ministers in Copenhagen. They are making it crystal clear that they are accountable for delaying a treaty, and DELAY KILLS.

Over 40 people joined together to stage a “die-in” (photos) to remind the Ministers what is at stake in Copenhagen – human lives. As the “die-in” developed people collapsed to represent deaths attributed to extreme drought, sea level rise and floods, spreading of diseases, and extensive heat waves. As dozens of people lay dead at the entrance of the press conference excerpts from the “Suicide Pact or Survival Pact” speech given by President Nasheed of the Maldives at the Climate Vulnerable Forum was read aloud. The die-in then turned into a resurrection as the victims arose chanting President Nasheed’s cry of “We will not die quietly” (video). President Nasheed’s calls strike to the core of why a climate treaty is needed, and reinvigorates the commitment that we will not stand quietly as ambition is lowered and climate commitments are avoided.

This week world leaders again dropped the bar of ambition for Copenhagen even lower. Nations like the US and China continue to work on a mandate of delay rather than a mandate of possibility, with half measures and political gamesmanship. Delay kills, but possibility allows for greatness.

We will not go quietly. With t-minus 21 days, anything is possible.

You can follow actions at the COP meeting at www.twitter.com/copactions

Additional Photos and Videos

This post is provided on behalf of Project Survival Media – a grassroots, student-run media project designed to highlight the true costs of fossil fuels in the lead up to Copenhagen.  As part of this initiative, Project Survival Media team members in California and Oregon are documenting industrial agribusiness’ contributions to global warming and displacement of communities, as well as the role which small, sustainable farms can play in creating a more viable and just food-production system.

When Anne Berblinger delved into the world of small-scale organic farming in 1991, the concept of global warming had not yet entered mainstream consciousness in the US.  “It wasn’t at the top of everyone’s mind,” says Berblinger while slicing freshly harvested peppers in the kitchen at Gales Meadow farm – a site she and her husband Rene’ have been farming since 1999.  Yet though climate concerns had yet to penetrate mainstream thought in the early ’90s, Berblinger says she was inspired to take up small farming in part out of her feeling that “the earth was in peril.”  Motivated by concerns about soil, wildlife, and the other casualties of industrial agribusiness she says, “Having a small piece of land to care for and be the steward of seemed important.”

Today, Anne and Rene’ Berblinger and a team of youthful helpers, many of them recent graduates of Pacific University, cultivate more than 200 varieties of certified-organic herbs and vegetables on the nine flat acres of Gales Meadow Farm. Many crops at Gales Meadow are heirloom varieties not found in the industrial farm zones that have given way to endless high-yield monocultures.  Each plant variety has a history, dating back to its origins in the traditional farming communities of Europe, North America, or elsewhere.  Every carefully cultivated strain represents a reservoir of genetic diversity – a diversity that’s become all the more important to bolster our agriculture’s resilience in a world where modern high-yield crops may turn suddenly vulnerable to changing climates.

Today, Berblinger cites global warming and the dangers of fossil fuel dependence as a major reason to reduce the scale of agriculture.  Small-scale farms cultivating a diversity of traditional plant varieties are not only more resilient to climate destabilization, but have the potential to replace industrial agriculture operations – today among the leading contributors of greenhouse gases to the atmosphere.  The fertile farmland of Oregon’s western Washington County, where Gales Meadow Farm is located, is home to both types of operations.  And the monotonous stretches of monoculture fields, propped up by heavy inputs of pesticides and synthetic fertilizers, could hardly be more different from sustainable, organic operations like Gales Meadow.  In addition to vegetable fields, greenhouses, and a large chicken pen, Berblinger’s property also supports a forested hillside and a stretch of riparian zone where cottonwood trees thrive beside the waters of Gales Creek.  According to one rough estimate, Berblinger reports, the farm is actually carbon negative, with its trees and other vegetation absorbing more carbon from the air than is produced by machinery and other sources of emissions.

Asked if government policies need to be reformed to smooth a transition to sustainable farming, Berblinger replies, “Absolutely.”  Like renewable electricity start-ups attempting to compete with coal and gas providers, sustainable farms face an uneven playing field.  Just as the US government has handed out subsidy after subsidy to make electricity from coal appear cheap, so industrial agriculture has benefited time and time again from policies favoring energy intensive, oil dependant, large-scale agriculture.  If the world’s international powers are serious about addressing the threat of global warming, they cannot afford to ignore the contribution of Big Agribusiness.  Re-scaling agriculture to feed a growing population with sustainable food will mean eliminating unfair subsidies, and doing away with international trade pacts that favor giant corporations over small home businesses like the Berblingers’.  Were the barriers to localized farming removed, Berblinger believes that many more young people would flock to a way of life that carries with it a certain self-sufficiency and the ability to contribute to a community’s needs.

Walking the rows of heirloom peppers in the Gales Meadow front garden, or watching a red-tailed hawk circle above the forested ridge behind the farm, it becomes momentarily difficult to remember that like small, sustainable farms across North America, this place is the scene of a frontline battle against the forces of corporate globalisation and industrial climate insanity.  Yet the truth is, Gales Meadow is even more directly impacted by government policies favoring the fossil fuel industries than are most small farming operations.  If giant energy companies get their way, Gales Meadow could be sacrificed through eminent domain to the right-of-way for a Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) pipeline, proposed by Oregon LNG to shunt imported gas through Oregon to the California market.  This fossil fuel infrastructure development project threatens to destroy years of hard work at Gales Meadow, making it impossible for the Berblingers’ home business to survive.  Right now Oregon LNG and other LNG developers are seeking eminent domain status for their projects, which would allow them to lay pipelines through landowners’ property without receiving permission from the landowner first.

Perhaps there is no more apt symbol of the current political system’s skewed priorities than a pipeline built directly through some of the Northwest’s most fertile farmland, to deliver a foreign fossil fuel to an increasingly globalised gas market.  Yet beside the rows of giant yellow, green, and red peppers at Gales Meadow, it’s impossible not to feel a certain faith in the future – the same faith that the traditional farmers who cultivated so many plants now grown on Berblinger’s property must have felt as they passed on the seeds of their crop to the next generation.

In attempting to follow the complex ins and outs of the international climate negotiations in the lead-up to Copenhagen, and the intricacies of the Kerry-Boxer climate bill’s slow progress through the US Senate, it’s easy to get bogged down in a feeling that such high-profile discussions sometimes devolve into mere political bickering.  However for communities which are already making ready to deal with the impacts of a changing climate, and for which struggles against the globalised fossil-industrial complex are a daily fight, there can be no compromise on sealing a global deal that works for the planet.  With the Copenhagen climate talks less than a month away, the peaceful scenery of Gales Meadow Farm is a poignant reminder of what we stand to lose with a failed global treaty – and of what we can gain with a return to local, climate-sane policies for all.

This morning a group of youth climate activists attending the UNFCCC negotiations in Barcelona stood in solitary with actions in over 18 developing countries including Bangladesh, Benin, Congo, Ethiopia, Gabon, Mexico, India, Nepal, and Nigeria to name just a few. Community groups from these regions converged on local Saudi Arabian embassy’s delivering letters and holding protests to call for Saudi Arabia to stop obstructing progress and support the position of developing nations in the negotiations, rather than stymie them.

In just the last few days in Barcelona, Saudi Arabia has managed to undermine and block consensus several key issues that are important for developing countries. They tried to remove language that would specifically support poor and vulnerable countries; they delayed progress on adaptation discussions; they were the only country to block consensus on having an additional negotiations session; and they even were the only country that said that there is no need to agree on a numerical global goal for emission reduction.

Indyact the coordinator of the embassy actions, has had pictures coming in from around the world. We wanted to get those pictures into the hands of Saudi Arabia decision makers hear in Barcelona, as well as support the delivery of a letter from Middle East climate activists. In order to deliver the photos and present the letter, a group of youth climate activists birddogged the lead Saudi Negotiator Mohammad Al Sabban (take a look at who he works for, no surprise) on his way to a morning meeting of G77 countries (short video). Unfurling a banner behind him reading “Saudi Arabia, Stop harming Poor Nations” the letter was presented and concerns voiced. Just as Sabben realized what happened he rushed away to the security gates. Unfortunately for him he had to wait in the line of negotiators that had formed outside and we were happy to keep him company with the banner highlighting his oil driven negotiations, in front of his colleagues,

Concern has been running high as many of Saudi Arabia’s actions at these negotiations make it clear that the intention is to weaken the positions of G77 countries, a group they are a part of. If Saudi Arabia continues to undermine the collective will of the G77 and block consensus on several key issues voiced by the poorest and most vulnerable countries of the G77 these negotiations will continue to get difficult, and actions will get bigger.

You can learn more on Saudi Arabia actions at indyact.org

This video is of and by my friend and co-worker Matt Kazinka. He’s making the case why you should join the Summer of Solutions. The youth-led grassroots program is already growing rapidly – we had 1 program in St. Paul, Minnesota – last year it blossomed to nine nationwide. Dozens of grassroots activists have jumped on board the process of “making it happen“, and are generating climate and energy solutions that also build economic opportunity and social justice all across the country. As one of our grassroots leaders wrote last spring as the 2009 wave of solutions was ramping up – this is just the beginning. Its a grassroots movement led by young people who are creating solutions with their communities while building careers growing the green economy. We know you have the solutions, so please join in!

APPLY HERE to design and lead a Summer of Solutions program in a community you know and love!

Priority deadline is Wednesday, November 11th, so please act fast.

Seeking solutions? We’ll meet you there.  Let’s make it happen.

An update from Coal River Mountain Watch and Appalachian Voices. You can take emergency action here.

Mountaintop Removal Mining to Destroy 6,600 Acres-and Wind Potential

Appalachian community advocates and environmentalists across the nation are expressing outrage that mountaintop removal coal mining operations have begun on Coal River Mountain in West Virginia, a mountain that has become symbolic in the nationwide campaign to end mountaintop removal mining. The West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection told the Charleston Gazette on Monday that blasting had begun last week, confirming local reports of blasts and smoke that were witnessed on Friday near the Brushy Fork coal slurry impoundment, the largest slurry dam in Appalachia with the capacity to hold 8.2 billion gallons. Slurry is the by-product of coal washing and processing operations and contains high levels of toxic heavy metals like mercury, selenium and lead.

For the last two years, local residents have campaigned for the opportunity to place a commercial-scale wind farm on Coal River Mountain instead of the mountaintop removal mining that has been permitted by the state. The Coal River Wind campaign has focused on asking West Virginia Governor Joe Manchin to rescind the mining permits for Coal River Mountain. So far, Governor Manchin has denied the group’s request.

“The Coal River Wind Campaign has been a symbol of hope for the people of the Coal River Valley,” said Lorelei Scarbro, organizer for Coal River Mountain Watch. “My neighbors are excited about the idea of jobs that allow them to produce energy in a way that is sustainable. Coal River Mountain, the last standing mountain in the valley, should remain intact as a symbol for a new day in the Appalachian coalfields.”

With no response from Governor Manchin’s office, residents and environmental groups are now looking to the Obama administration to intervene.

A wind resources assessment and economic study commissioned by Coal River Mountain Watch in 2008 revealed that Coal River Mountain-which has the highest peaks ever slated for mining in the state-has enough wind potential to provide electricity for over 85,000 homes and would create more jobs over the expected life of the turbines than the proposed mountaintop removal mine. The study also stated that the proposed wind farm would help diversify the local economy in an area historically dependent upon temporary coal mining jobs, and would pump $20 million per year in direct local spending during construction and $2 million per year thereafter.

Current plans for mountaintop removal operations would eventually impact 6,600 acres on Coal River Mountain and fill in 18 valleys with the resulting waste and debris. Over 10 square miles of what environmentalists call the most bio-diverse ecosystem in the United States would be affected. Bo Webb, a resident of town of Peach Tree-a community directly downhill from an existing mountaintop removal operation near Coal River Mountain-said, “My community is already being forced to endure silica blasting dust, boulders, mudslides and floods from a mountaintop removal operation on Cherry Pond Mountain. The annihilation of Coal River Mountain will leave us trapped in the middle beneath both mountains of destruction.”

In addition to the economic and environmental concerns, residents are worried about the stability of blasting less than two hundred yards from a coal sludge impoundment. According to coalimpoundment.org-maintained by Wheeling Jesuit University-the Brushy Fork impoundment is a Class C dam, in which “failure would cause possible loss of human life.” If the Brushy Fork impoundment were to fail, the first communities in danger would be the towns of Pettus and Whitesville, where residents would have 12-18 minutes to evacuate before they were overtaken by floodwaters and slurry. The emergency evacuation plan, should the dam be breached, calls for notifying residents “personally,” or “by loudspeaker or bullhorn, or other means deemed necessary.”

In 2000, a coal slurry impoundment owned by a Massey subsidiary failed and spilled over 300 million gallons of slurry into the Big Sandy River in Martin County, KY. The EPA called the dam failure the “worst environmental disaster east of the Mississippi.” According to EPA testing, the spill-more than 30 times larger than the Exxon Valdez disaster-destroyed destroyed nearly all aquatic life for more than 50 miles downstream of the spill. And in 1972, a 132-million gallon impoundment in Logan County, W.Va., failed, killing 125 people and leaving over 4,000 more homeless.

The permits for mining on Coal River Mountains are owned by Massey Energy, one the largest coal mining companies in central Appalachia. In 2008, Massey paid $20 million to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in the largest settlement to date for violating the Clean Water Act more than 4,500 times in seven years.

According to a recent story by Associated Press reporter Vicki Smith, Google Earth has taken interest in the plight of Coal River Mountain and created a video about the Coal River Wind Project to present at the climate talks to be held in Copenhagen in December.

“What kind of message will it send to the international community if this priceless mountain with so much renewable energy potential is currently being destroyed for a decade’s worth of coal?” asked Matt Wasson, Program Director for Appalachian Voices, a regional environmental organization. “It would look a lot more like a continuation of the last administration’s policies, rather than a commitment to a new energy future.”

For more information, please visit www.coalriverwind.org and www.iLoveMountains.org/coalriver.

- – - – - -
Contact:
Lorelei Scarbro, Coal River Mountain Watch, (304) 854-2182
Matt Wasson, Appalachian Voices, (828) 262-1500
- – - – - -

In the midst of an annual utility conference today in eastern Cleveland, Representative Dennis Kucinich joined students from across the state and their allies to urge the utility not to build a proposed dirty coal-fired power plant in Southern Ohio. Kucinich said the issue is “important enough to come here this morning to let you know that I’m not just concerned but that I’m lending my voice to support these efforts.” He added, “this is something worth organizing over and fighting for.”

American Municipal Power (AMP) is hosting the 4-day conference, where its power plant committee may decide whether or not to start construction of the plant. The Ohio Student Environmental Coalition (OSEC) brought attention to the gathering by holding a press conference at the Intercontinental Hotel, where AMP’s conference is being held all this week.

If built, Cleveland Public Power would be one of the largest customers of the 1,000 Megawatt, $3.9 billion dirty coal-fired power plant. Nachy Kanfer from the Sierra Club’s Beyond Coal campaign in Ohio, said “AMP’s members need to get together and cancel this project before their ratepayers pay the price. Trends in the energy market mean that AMP’s coal proposal is a bad financial deal for its customers.” Rep. Kucinich added, “if we don’t address this on the local level then all over the world we’re sending a message that Ohio is going backwards”.

Clay Graham, a junior at Hiram College and member of OSEC, spoke about health impacts in the area near the coal plant, saying “it’s ironic that AMP is meeting in the Cleveland Clinic when Meigs County has few hospitals, the lowest life expectancy in the state, and where 18.6% of children don’t have health insurance”.

Kristen Arnold, an OSU sophomore and OSEC member, said “This is the latest action in an ongoing campaign by young people across the state to oppose the proposed coal plant, in favor of a clean energy economy.” OSEC is hosting a statewide conference for several hundred students called Power Shift Ohio, which will take place November 6-8 at Oberlin College, just west of Cleveland.

Coal River Valley Residents Declare State of Emergency, Meet with Governor Joe Manchin; Seven Sit-In at Governor’s Office

Coal River Valley residents and supporters associated with Mountain Justice and Climate Ground Zero delivered a letter to Governor’s Manchin’s office in the State Capitol building at 12:15 p.m. today. The statement from Coal River Valley residents calls on Manchin to use his executive powers to halt mountaintop removal mining operations on Coal River Mountain, one of the last intact mountains remaining in the Coal River Valley area.

Governor Manchin met the letter deliverers in the antechamber of his office and spoke with Lorelei Scarbro of Rock Creek and Chuck Nelson of Glen Daniel. As of 2:30 p.m. seven young people are sitting in the antechamber, refusing to leave until Manchin moves to halt MTR on Coal River Mountain or they are forcibly removed. Security guards conveyed to them that they have permission to remain until the close of normal business hours at 5 p.m..

“We are delivering this letter to our governor with residents of the Coal River Valley,” said Miranda Miller and Angela Wiley of Morgantown, W.Va., two of the seven sitters, “We are West Virginia citizens standing in solidarity with the people who submitted comments for this letter, voicing their concerns on the dangers of blasting on Coal River Mountain.

For years, local residents have expressed their concerns over the long-term health effects of their proximity to coal mining and processing operations, while scientists have stated that it devastates local ecosystems and contaminates groundwater with carcinogens and heavy metals. One of the most imminent dangers associated with the proposed Coal River Mountain operation is its proximity to the Brushy Fork sludge impoundment dam, which holds seven to nine billion gallons of toxic coal slurry.

Many Coal River Valley residents have put forth the idea of constructing of an industrial-scale wind farm on the mountain instead of MTR. The ridges on Coal River Mountain are rated as Class 7 wind sources, the highest and most productive rating. Research by the Coal River Community Wind Project has shown that a wind farm on top of the mountain could generate approximately 1.2% of West Virginia’s total energy needs and would create at least 300 jobs in the area. A wind farm will produce energy for as long as the wind blows, unlike coal – reserves of which, according to the U.S. Geologic Survey, will last only another 14 years.

“By blasting away our wind potential, we risk losing the opportunity to have jobs that would last forever,” Chuck Nelson, a retired coal miner, said, “As we face the climate crisis, we need to set an example in creating renewable energy.”

This will be the sixteenth action in a series of non-violent civil disobedience actions that have resulted in over one hundred arrests on mountaintop removal sites and at government and corporate offices across West Virginia. Coal River Valley residents have touted wind energy development as a viable alternative to the industry-projected 17 years of strip mining on Coal River Mountain.

The document can be viewed and downloaded here.

Editor’s Note: Photos, Video, and updates here.

It’s just a short 9 days until the International Day of Climate Action on October 24th, where hundreds of thousands people will raise the issue of climate  change urgency to a new level.

Here at Project Survival Media, we wanted to mark the event visually.  So we created a video, featuring Jon Warnow, 350.org’s Internet Director and Organizer of Pacific & Polar regions, to get a better sense of how this wonky policy target of 350 parts per million  relates to the survival of people.

I mean thousands of people aren’t heading to the streets because they’re all secretly wonky scientists.  It’s about what 350 represents to people all over the world in a time of crisis.  It’s stability, safety, and above all 350 means survival.

The footage we pieced together was from youtube — a few different sources that were urging people/journalists to spread the word about these crazy environmental disasters.

Please leave comments to let us know what you think

Cross-posted from the Understory.

October 12-18 is World Rainforest Week. Every year, we take this opportunity to highlight rainforest destruction around the world – and what we are doing to stop it.

But I’d like to use this year’s World Rainforest Week to talk about a little-known threat that tar sands development poses to temperate (i.e. cold, not hot & sweaty) rainforests in British Columbia.

“Rainforests – in British Columbia??” you might say. That’s right: BC is home to the Great Bear Rainforest, an area of spectacular natural beauty and biodiversity, home to many species – like the “spirit” bear – that exist nowhere else in the world.

But this spectacular rainforest is facing an urgent threat: the proposed construction of an oil pipeline that would run from the tar sands of Alberta to Kitimat, a town at the end of a long, narrow sea inlet that passes through some of the most spectacular parts of the Great Bear Rainforest.

This pipeline, the Northern Gateway, is proposed by Enbridge – the same company that is building the Alberta Clipper pipeline from the tar sands to the Midwest that was recently approved by the U.S. State Department (and opposed by a coalition of environmentalists and First Nations communities). Apparently, the Alberta Clipper – with its capacity of 800,000 barrels per day – won’t be big enough to pump out all the oil from rapidly-expanding tar sands strip mining in Alberta. So, Enbridge is proposing to build this new 720-mile pipeline, which would carry 525,000 barrels of tar sands oil per day to the sleepy little town of Kitimat, nestled at the end of an inlet that is surrounded by beautiful mountains and pristine temperate rainforests.

Spills along the pipeline route are certainly a concern: the pipeline will run across several fault lines, and Enbridge hardly has a great safety record – its existing pipelines had 65 “reportable spills” of a total of 13,777 barrels in 2007 alone. But the really scary threat to BC’s rainforests is the shipping route that will carry tar sands oil by tanker, through 70 miles of narrow inlets, on its way to ports on the U.S. West Coast and in East Asia.

In March 2006, the Queen of the North ferry ran aground and sank, killing two people, along the shipping route that these oil tankers would be taking (see the green arrow on the map below; Kitimat is in the upper right corner). In fact, just over a week ago, on Sept. 25, a pulp freighter ran aground near Kitimat and needed to be towed to Vancouver for repairs. And under Enbridge’s Northern Gateway proposal, 225 oil tankers would need to make the trip through these challenging channels to Kitimat and back each year. Four or five of these ships each month would be supertankers – which are over 1,000 feet long and carry 2 million barrels of oil, eight times the amount spilled by Exxon Valdez.

Enbridge reassures us that “all vessels using the Kitimat terminal will be required to be double-hulled.” But a section of the Exxon Valdez that ran aground was double-hulled – and that didn’t prevent hundreds of thousands of barrels of oil from spilling. In fact, a detailed 2006 study by an industry expert at tanker construction argued that double hulls do almost nothing to prevent major oil spills – due to the fact that any grounding or impact large enough to cause a major spill is easily large enough to rip through two hulls.

And as the 1989 Exxon Valdez spill in Alaska and the 2002 Prestige spill in Spain have shown, all it takes is one screw-up to cause unimaginable damage to a coastal ecosystem. After Exxon Valdez spilled 265,000 barrels of oil into the Prince William Sound in Alaska, 1,200 miles of coastline were polluted; within days of the spill, 250,000 seabirds, 1.9 million salmon, and 2,000 otters died. A 2003 study found that sequestered oil was still causing animal deaths, and that some shoreline habitats would likely not recover fully until after 2030.

And one of the things that is so amazing about the Great Bear Rainforest also makes it incredibly susceptible to oil spills: the forest and marine ecosystems are incredibly interdependent. Bears live off of the salmon and other fish runs; rainforest wolves, which swim from island to island, eat fish and barnacles; and animals carry salmon carcasses into the forest, where they provide vital nutrients to plants. If the marine ecosystem was devastated by a massive oil spill, the entire ecosystem of the Great Bear Rainforest would be tremendously affected. And these salmon of BC aren’t just vital to the ecosystem of the Great Bear Rainforest – they’re also vital to the local economy.

The people of British Columbia – among the most progressive in Canada – recognize the dangers posed by the Kitimat pipeline: a July 2008 poll found that 72% of BC residents favored banning oil tanker traffic in BC’s Inside Passage, while only 19% supported allowing it. Furthermore, 77% agreed that the communities most affected by a potential oil spill should have first say in whether tankers should be allowed on BC’s North Coast.

And those First Nations communities that would be most affected by such a spill have made it very clear where they stand. In Dec. 2008, the Haida Nation stated that they “will certainly not accept tanker traffic where we would run the burden of risk an oil spills in our waters.” In March 2009, the Gitga’at First Nation stated that “there is nothing but risk in this whole process for the Gitga’at people.” And at a First Nations energy summit in June, the Chief of the Wet’suwet’en First Nation said bluntly of the pipeline: “We don’t want it.”

So why is this dangerous idea being pursued? Well, any RAN supporter could probably tell you the answer: because Big Oil supports it.

Freaked out by the potential for tar-sands-oil-killing climate legislation in the U.S., the tar sands industry is hedging their bets by planning the Northern Gateway pipeline, which would allow them to export oil to East Asia – especially to China, which has recently taken a much stronger interest in the tar sands. While the California Low Carbon Fuel Standard (which would limit the use of tar sands oil in California) was being considered in March 2009, the head of the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers stated that “the only realistic… alternative to the U.S. in the near term would be exports off the West Coast to the Far East.”

And to make it clear that it isn’t just Enbridge that stands to benefit from the Northern Gateway pipeline, Enbridge announced in July that outside oil companies (they wouldn’t say which) are contributing $100 million to the effort to win regulatory approval for the pipeline. (This could be part of the reason why Enbridge’s CEO, when asked about how he’s going to deal with environmentalists’ concerns about the potential damage to the Great Bear Rainforest, simply said, “I think those can be addressed.”)

Plus, the government of Alberta – the Saudi Arabia of Canada – is taking the cue from their oil industry buddies, and throwing down for Northern Gateway. In May 2008, Alberta Premier Ed Stelmach stated that “we will not only depend on the American market, we will expand markets. And if that means building a pipeline to the coast and selling oil to another country, we will.” (Note the use of the word “we” when describing the actions of oil companies – that says a lot.)

And, to top it all off: what bank do you think loaned Enbridge $1.1 billion in 2008 (and thus presumably stands to gain from the pipeline’s success)? None other than the biggest corporation in the country, Royal Bank of Canada.

So who’s going to win? Big Oil, or the Great Bear Rainforest? An alliance of the Alberta government, RBC, and the biggest oil companies in the world – or an alliance of environmentalists and First Nations, backed by the public opinion of the people of BC?

You can help the fight against Enbridge’s Northern Gateway pipeline by signing this petition by the Dogwood Initiative, by sending a letter to Prime Minister Harper, or by joining the Dogwood Facebook group. (Or, if you’d like to do something a bit more interesting, click here for the office numbers and email addresses of top Enbridge executives.)

I always thought it was a little overly dramatic when people used to say, with that gleam of fire in their eyes and intense certainty in their voices, “The next world war will be fought over water.” I didn’t notice their resigned sadness after saying that and seeing the response of the audience, of my response.

Water wars, we imagined, were decades away. Climate refugees fleeing drought and devastation would be seen in generations, not in ours. People would recognize when resources were becoming so scarce and develop cooperative strategies for conservation long before it came to the point of fighting over them. Right?

The sad climate “joke” five years ago was that we’d need to bring melting icebergs to sub-Saharan Africa to support life. But in Kenya today, aid workers are already flying water in from other countries. Today, thousands of men and women are already dying from lack of the most basic human need — water.

Today, when I repeat the phrase – “Wars will be fought over water” – with the same confidence and intensity, the same fire, and the same resigned sadness, I know that fights over water are not generations – or even years – away. We may not have another world war, but I have no question that we will see more devastation and violence, if we need to see any more than the lives being lost every day in Kenya.

There is no water to drink, let alone have water to wash hands to prevent the spread of diarrheal diseases. There is no water to drink, let alone have water to farm. Lakes have been retreating for years as water is used for farming, for geothermal energy, and for survival, and the lakes’ disappearances are threatening not only water animals like flamingos and hippos, but all of the biodiversity for which Kenya is famous.

At the same time, in India, thousands of farmers commit suicide annually due to desperation caused by cycles of debt, but also cycles of increasing drought and irregular rain. Farmers who would rather die than face the shame and sadness of watching their families die of starvation, have killed not only themselves but their families as well. This year has been one of India’s worst monsoons in recent history, with too little rains coming too late, and often all at once.

On the brink of death, is there a question of anything but desperation?

Read more on what we can expect – and what we can do.

In India and Kenya, failing to provide for your family is shameful, but killing others would mean the death of your family as well. This is the explanation I’ve found for why many are killing themselves, but when driven to such sadness, death by dehyrdation, I have no question that in other cultures or in similar situations, many would be driven to kill others, to use the last of their strength to attempt to provide water for their families.

Many are blaming corruption in Kenya for not responding more quickly to the needs of the Kenyan people, for selling off reserves of grain that *had* been saved for times of intense drought. Others blame developed countries for not sending more aid money. Seeing failures on all sides, few are asking the hard question — how will we respond when it is not hundreds of thousands but hundreds of millions that are suffering in the same situation?

When I used to think of climate refugees, I thought of residents of low-lying coasts or small island nations as floods increase and sea levels rise. It is time to think of the millions who will move due to water in the other extreme – those who will not have water to survive AND those who will be caught in the crossfire of water-based conflict.

My family and friends, who have seen me passionate about many things, have never seen me this angry or this deeply sad. I still have hope for the Maldives and other islands, but I’m losing my hope for survival of our world’s desert peoples. Things are becoming so bad so quickly that I’m not sure that there is time. And, I don’t know *what* the solution is. Of course, more water brought by more aid money and more food equitably distributed by the government would help in Kenya. Can this happen fast enough to save lives now?

In the long term, friends ask about technology transfer? More efficient use of water? Drip irrigation and drought resistant crops? Rainwater harvesting? Low-flush toilets sending sewage to wastewater treatment plants like those in Singapore whose effluent you can drink? Desalination plants? In internal Kenya, there is no rain to harvest, no water to use more efficiently, virtually no sewage systems to treat to a point of potability. In the long term, we’ll need all of these things — all over the world.

The water crisis makes me feel so desperate because I’m not sure what I can do here to help. I find myself angry when seeing a few sips of water left in a glass, furious as the quantities of potable water flushed down the drains in New England, livid at the lawns in Los Angeles. There are so many ways Americans (among others) waste water, and so much that could be improved if things change here. But if we save this water, it still won’t save lives in Kenya or  in India.

What’s to do? We must demand from our Northern political leaders stronger action – commitment to aid in drought areas NOW, commitment to climate mitigation and energy policy in US and Europe, and massive contributions to Disaster Risk Reduction and adaptation funds to prevent these catastrophes. We must demand global cooperation in the lead up to Copenhagen and global commitment to 350 ppm by organizing in communities around the world on October 24. And we must remember what is at stake.

Survival.

IndyACT Slams Arab Heads of State for Lack of Action on  Climate Change

Last night  in Beirut, Lebanon more than 100 environmental activists sounded the alarm in Ein El-Mreiseh square.  This is where activists will also erect a Climate Change Countdown Clock to mark the short time line we have to reach a strong equitable global agreement at the UN Climate Negotiations (COP15). Most Arab Heads of State missed the  climate summit today in New York, so the action made sure to call on them to’wake up’ and engage in the negotiations.

Members, supporters and partners from the global league of independent Activists, IndyACT, sounded the alarms of their clocks and mobile phones, honked their horns and banged their musical instruments, making a tremendous noise in a symbolic action, part of a global ‘Wake-Up call’. The activists also held up a banner saying “it is time for climate action”, and another sign that says “Wake UP 12:18” to mark the 18th of December when a new global climate agreement is supposed to be reached.

This global call  took place simultaneously with over 2000 similar events in more than 120 countries, is a joint effort of the “TckTckTck” Campaign; an international alliance including IndyACT, 350.org, Greenpeace, Oxfam, WWF, and many others.  The action comes amid expert warnings that the UN climate pact in Copenhagen in December risks failure unless world leaders revive bogged-down negotiations at today’s UN Heads of State climate summit, ahead of the UN General Assembly.

“Again Arab leaders missed yet another opportunity to defend the survival needs of the region from climate change impacts.” said Wael Hmaidan, Executive Director of IndyACT. “While today’s climate summit is attended by Presidents of the US, France, China and many others, only Algeria participated at the Presidential level from the Arab region”, added Hmaidan.

At the summit today, heads of state will be discussing how the effort to fight climate change should be shared between the developed and developing countries, and how much financial and technological assistance will be transferred from the industrialized to the poor and most vulnerable countries to help them achieve a low-carbon growth.

IndyACT has been a tremendous leader in all the negotiations, pushing forth a binding equitable agreement in Copenhagen. In all of these sessions the Lebanese and many other Arab delegations have never taken the floor to speak even once.

Wael also said that, the main Arab countries engaging the negotiations are Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, who only defend their oil trade. “The Arab region is more than oil, and it must be known that if climate change is not addressed properly, we will lose our agriculture, water, economy and livelihood of our people in the Lebanon, in the Middle-East, and Globally.”

IndyAct is calling on all the Arab governments to have an active and positive role in reducing global CO2 concentration in the atmosphere to 350 ppm, the safe level of fossil fuel particulates in the atmosphere.

cross-posted on SustainUS’s Agents of Change blog

As reported by the BBC last week, the President of the Maldives, Mohamed Nasheed, will have to skip the United Nations climate negotiations in Copenhagen because, well, they just can’t afford it.

The low-lying island nation is at serious risk of disappearing under rising oceans caused by global warming, but can’t afford to fight for its own survival at the negotiations, citing the financial crisis. The Maldivian economy ranked 186th in 2008, and more than 20% of Maldivians are below the poverty line, with average income per person at $4,400.

It’s an extreme example of a common problem – those with the most to lose from global warming often have the least representation in the UN climate debate. All of those flights and hotels add up, and poorer countries can’t bear the costs. Many developing nations only have one or two government delegates, and the UN has a fund that only covers at most one delegate per country.

With multiple parallel meetings expected each day of the two weeks in Copenhagen, sometimes lasting late into the night, one or two delegates just aren’t enough to represent their country’s needs.

The U.S. and other big polluters  send dozens of negotiators and specialists to each meeting.

The situation for youth from most countries is even worse. Some have literally never had a young person from their nation attend the climate talks. For youth from many more countries, especially in the Global South, one or two youth at most might be able to afford to come. Even for countries like the U.S. that will send a large youth presence to Copenhagen, the poorest among us – those least able to afford a hotter future – still face the biggest obstacles to participating.

This year, youth from the UK, India, Australia, and the U.S. are working raise money for their peers to speak for their future in Copenhagen, but the problem for cash-strapped countries and youth remains.

No word yet on whether Maldivian youth will have a voice…

Cross-posted from the Understory.

Over the past decade, as oil prices have risen ever higher, oil companies have begun a massive – and massively destructive – project of tearing Canada’s boreal forest to pieces, in order to get at a layer of sand that contains 10% oil. To get the oil out, they need three barrels of natural gas for every barrel of oil produced. The process creates vast lakes of polluted water – which already cover 50 square miles – that areseeping into the groundwater and rivers, poisoning Indigenous communities; already, thousands of ducks have died after landing in these wastewater lakes. The wreckage from this horribly destructive process already covers 500 square miles – but the area earmarked for future destruction is the size of Florida. Protests of Indigenous peoples are being ignored. Politicians are redirecting money from clean energy projects to finance tar sands research. And all this is happening in our friendly neighbor to the north, Canada – and U.S. oil companies are raking in huge profits from tar sands oil, and are pumping the world’s dirtiest oil from Alberta straight to your gas tank.

Sounds like a pretty important news story, right?

The Canadians obviously think so. When RAN hung a banner outside Royal Bank of Canada’s headquarters six weeks ago – only one of countless protests against the tar sands that have taken place in Canada in recent years – the protest was covered by Bloomberg, the National Post, the Toronto Sun, theCalgary Herald, and the Vancouver Sun. Search for “oil sands” on the Toronto Globe and Mail’s website, and you’ll find over 4,000 articles.

The British also think so. In London recently, five Indigenous Canadian activists joined the UK Climate Camp, to protest British corporations’ involvement in the Alberta tar sands. The protests that these activists organized against British companies that fund the tar sands made news across the country, with reports by the Guardian, the BBC, the Daily Telegraph, and the Times. But this was by no means the first time the tar sands were reported on in the UK: the Guardian did a detailed investigative report on the tar sands over a year ago.

And even… the Norwegians think so. In Norway, the tar sands have become a prime election issue: the opposition Liberal Party is attacking the government for allowing the state-owned oil company, Statoil, to invest in Canada’s tar sands. All you Norwegian-speaking readers out there can check out an editorial by Aftenposten, Norway’s biggest newspaper, denouncing Statoil’s investments in Canadian “oljesandprosjekter” (that’s “oil sands projects”). Skandaløs!

But in the U.S. corporate media? Radio silence.

This is especially ridiculous, given that U.S. corporations are far more involved in the tar sands than their British (or Norwegian) counterparts. Chevron and ExxonMobil have invested a total of over $10 billion in Alberta tar sands projects - Chevron is the majority owner of the 85,000-acre Ells River tar sands project, while Exxon’s subsidiary, Imperial Oil, owns 465,000 acres of “quality oil sands leases.” Citigroup is the biggest tar sands investor outside Canada, with $5.9 billion invested in Canadian tar sands companies since 2007 alone. And oil companies across the U.S. are building pipelines and retooling refineries to be able to process oil from Canada’s tar sands: a new pipeline from Alberta to Wisconsin, capable of pumping 450,000 barrels per day of Canadian tar sands oil to refineries in the Midwest, was recently approved by the Obama administration. And Chevron has been fighting against community activists for years to be able to “upgrade” its refinery in Richmond, California, so that it can process tar sands oil.

The Canadian tar sands aren’t a Canadian problem. They’re a massive project in which U.S. corporations are intimately involved, and hugely implicated.

And yet – with a few notable exceptions, like a recent article in the New York Times – the U.S. news media has ignored the issue. And thus, most Americans know nothing about the fact that the world’s dirtiest oil is being put into their gas tanks.

Next week, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper is visiting Washington to meet with President Obama. Harper is as conservative as they come – a lot of Canadians call him “Bush Light” – and is a strong supporter of the tar sands. One of his biggest priorities in coming to the U.S. is to ensure that new climate legislation being written in Washington doesn’t prevent the tar sands oil from continuing to flow to his southern neighbor.

And the Obama administration has signalled that it’s willing to play ball: in June, Energy Secretary Steven Chu told oil industry executives at the Reuters Global Energy Summit that he believes that the “environmental issues” facing the tar sands would be overcome through technological advancements, stating that “I’m a big believer in technology.”

As Harper tries next week to sneak the world’s dirtiest oil into the U.S., will the U.S. news media report on it? Or will they look the other way, like they have until now?

A moment of truth has arrived for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and President Barack Obama, who has promised “unprecedented steps” to rein in the devastating practice of mountaintop removal coal mining that is wrecking havoc across wide swaths of Appalachian mountains, valleys and communities.

EPA is expected to announce decisions this week on over 100 pending permits for new or expanded coal mining projects utilizing mountaintop removal (MTR), which uses huge amounts of explosives to decapitate mountains and access the coal beneath, dumping the remains of these once-verdant Appalachian peaks directly on top of neighboring valleys and streams.

Mountaintop removal mining has already buried more than 800 miles of Appalachian streams and destroyed hundreds of square miles of woodlands in one of America’s biodiversity hotspots, all while both the U.S. EPA and state environmental agencies have done little to curtail the practice. That’s left it to activists to slow these projects down and prevent their irreversible damages.

But if recent news that the EPA is seeking to revoke the permit for the largest mountaintop removal mining project in West Virginia history is any indicator, the agency may finally be earning the “Protection” part of their name.

With a self-imposed, September 8th deadline now expired, the EPA is expected to issue an “initial list” this week identifying pending mountaintop removal projects that pose potential environmental concerns.

The projects under EPA review have already been approved by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (the Corps), which has primary responsibility for approving surface mining projects. Any projects that EPA decides will have no “significant” environmental impact will sail forward “without further coordination with EPA,” according to agency procedures (kindly explained by Coal Tattoo’s Ken Ward Jr. here).

Projects posing an environmental risk – and any sane person is hard pressed to explain how blowing up a mountain has no environmental impact – will instead show up on a list sent to the Corps, triggering a process of further review and ultimately – if EPA does it’s job right – the rejection of some if not all of these proposed mountaintop removal projects under the Clean Water Act.

For better or worse, the forthcoming EPA list of environmentally risky projects will mark an important step closer to the establishment of clear, public standards for what level of environmental impact the agency will allow or prohibit at MTR sites proposed throughout Appalachia. The EPA has so far avoided establishing any such clear public standard.

With hundreds of mountaintop removal sites now in the balance, this is the moment of truth for the EPA, Administrator Lisa Jackson, and President Obama to make good on promises to reign in this clearly environmentally devastating practice.

As EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson explained on National Public Radio last week:

EPA has committed to reviewing [mountaintop removal mining] projects. It’s been a contentious issue from the start, certainly in Appalachia. We are in the process of reviewing about 84 permits right now that were put on hold by litigation. And in the next few weeks we’re going to have to make a determination under the Clean Water Act as to whether those permits can meet the Clean Water Act standards or whether they should be held up and potentially ultimately vetoed. EPA has the authority to veto the permits. The permits themselves are issued by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. So EPA plays sort of an oversight role there.

As we wait for the EPA’s decision on the dozens of pending MTR permits, the Agency moved forward on a seperate front to block the largest proposed mountaintop removal site in West Virginia history in letter sent to the U.S. Army Corp of Engineers late last week.

Read the full story at www.WattHead.org, the new home of WattHead – Energy News and Commentary

A few minutes ago I received an action alert from my co-worker and friend Wahleah Johns from the Black Mesa Water Coalition.  She and I  used to work together on the Environmental Justice Climate Change Initiative Youth Committee.  Wahleah wasn’t the loudest person in the room or the most talkative, but when she did choose to offer up her truth her words were beautiful and poignant. So when she sent out a call for help and action, of course I wanted to send her words far and wide.

Her Words Follow:

We are hoping that you join the effort to oppose Joseph Pizarchik’s nomination for Office of Surface Mining (OSM) Director.  Apparently, Pizarchik has a track record of favoring coal companies and ignoring community environmental concerns.

Here in the southwest we are frightened by his nomination because this means more desecration of our natural landscapes for coal mining and testing grounds for future CCS (carbon capture sequestration) projects.   OSM is in charge of approving coal mining permits across the country.  And OSM’s structure for approving mining permit needs to undergo serious change, the standards and code books for OSM are so outdated.  In addition, their process for approval does not have to inform commmunity folks or ask for permission to bomb lands in our backyards.

When I heard Ken Salazar speak at Powershift 2009 I thought:  “Yes, maybe things can change and look upward for communities who are fighting these industries on the front line.”  But I think its going to take a lot more voices for that change to occur.

I ask you know to please contact your Senator, and Dept of Interior, and Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee to voice your concern!

In solidarity,
Wahleah Johns
Black Mesa Water Coalition

Take a couple minutes to watch this video.  It’s a bit long but worth all seven minutes.  Be sure to stick it out to the 3:00 minute mark where it shows compelling and harrowing photos before and after Pizarchik’s Destruction.

Step 1: Send the email below to these two addresses: Secretary of Interior Ken Salazar (via his aide: Thomas_Strickland@ios.doi.gov) and Senator Jeff Bingaman, Chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee (via his aide: sam_fowler@energy.senate.gov).

Step 2: Send the email to your Senator using this link: http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm

Step 3: Send this email on to your friends and family.

UPDATE: The four blockaders and one journalist were arrested at Massey’s headquarters. The protesters are charged with trespass, destruction of property, failure to obey a lawful command, conspiracy and resisting arrest. The journalist is charged by trespass, failure to obey a lawful command, and conspiracy. All Climate Ground Zero protesters abide by a non-violence and no property destruction policy. “All four have pledged to not participate in property destruction — these are likely just trumped up charges,” Charles Suggs of Climate Ground Zero said. All activists are being held on $5,000 bail and the journalist is being held at $3,000 bail. As of 5:00 p.m., one blockade member, Roland Micklem, featured in this video, was being bailed out.

Donations to the legal fund can be made here.

The campaign of non-violent civil disobedience against mountaintop removal coal mining in West Virginia continues. Today’s action is an inter-generation endeavor with one West Virginian youth locked down beside three movement elders ages 53 to 81. Here is the initial press release from www.climategroundzero.org:

JULIAN, W.Va.—Four concerned citizens are locked arm-to-arm across the road to Massey Energy’s regional headquarters off of Corridor-G in Boone County, W.Va. The four men, ranging in age from 22 to 81 years, are halting all traffic coming into the corporate office in an act of protest against Massey Energy and their use of mountaintop removal (MTR) coal mining.

The signs read “Stop MTR,” “Stop Blowing up America,” “Protect God’s Creation,” and “People Over Profit.” The protesters insist that Massey pay damages and  health care costs to people who live within a one-mile radius of Massey MTR sites, that the federal government ban MTR immediately, and that a full investigation is conducted into Massey’s business, labor, and environmental practices.

“I am exercising a spiritual obligation as a steward of Creation. It was not God’s intent that these mountains be destroyed to enhance the wealth of a few individuals,” said Roland Micklem, 81.  “This should not be solely a young person’s campaign. Now that they have provided the example and inspiration, we seniors need to make a statement with our own actions and share the risks that are part of this ongoing effort to stop the obliteration of West Virginia’s mountains.”

Alongside Micklem are James McGuinness, 53, Joseph Hamsher, 22, and Fred Williamson, 75.

This protest follows on the heels of the week-long tree occupation that stopped blasting above Pettry Bottom for a week and the Massey-sponsored Friends of America event, at which Massey Energy Chief Executive Officer Don Blankenship, conservative celebrities Ted Nugent, Sean Hannity and others, painted climate change as conspiracy, pointed the finger at “environmental extremists,” and called for a new conservative extremist movement.

“There were many true ‘friends of America’ at their Labor Day rally, but not a single one could be found on stage,” said Andrew Munn of Climate Ground Zero. “’Friends of America’ are people who strive to make our land and lives better through their work, including those who commit acts of non-violent civil disobedience for the common good. Don Blankenship and men of his ilk are the fiends of America who profit from the violation of our rights of organized labor, clean air, clean water, health and the pursuit of happiness. Mountaintop removal and Massey Energy violate all of those rights, and we intend to take them back,” Munn said.

Massey Energy has paid the largest fines for environmental and worker safety violations of any coal company in the United States. In 2008, the Environmental Protection Agency fined Massey $20 million for 4,500 violations of the Clean Water Act. In the same year, the Mine Safety and Health Administration fined Massey $2.5 million for the death of two workers and 1,300 safety violations in two of their underground mines. In the first quarter of 2009, Massey revenue increased 25 percent.  Yet, Blankenship announced an average six percent cut in worker’s wages and benefits to investors in the same quarter.

Micklem, a military veteran, is organizing a 25-mile senior citizen’s march against mountaintop removal for early October. For more information on the march call Climate Ground Zero at 304-854-7372.

Rising Tide is proud to announce the release of Deal or No Deal, a 16 page newspaper exploring issues surrounding the upcoming UN climate talks in Copenhagen from an anti-capitalist, climate justice perspective.

Deal or no Deal is an in-depth and highly accessible read that covers the history of international climate negotiations and what’s going on with them in the present. Deal or No Deal delivers a scathing critique of carbon trading, the corporate takeover of the UN climate talks, and the obstructionist role that rich nations play in the talks; while providing insight and inspiration for what we can do to fight back. And of course, it comes complete with pithy cartoons and a slick design.

Download a copy here: http://alturl.com/yvpm

(A re-sized printable version is here)

Or better yet get the real thing by emailing distro-AT-RisingTideNorthAmerica-DOT-org!

Please include how many copies you want and an address to send them to. We are happy to provide Deal or No Deal free of charge.

As an all volunteer, and rather poor collective we would greatly appreciate donations large and small to help cover printing and shipping costs, especially for larger requests! DONATE HERE

-Rising Tide North America

Mountaintop Removal Blasting Sends Boulder Into Local Home:  EPA Considers More Permits for Mountaintop Removal in the Region

Last week Frasure Creek Mining Company set off a mining blast that dislodged a massive boulder sending it cascading down the mountain into a nearby home.

The dislodged boulder rolled directly into the bedroom of two local Floyd County residents, who were away from the home at the time of incident.  According to state mining officials, the company has been assessed charges of around $10,000.  For the coal industry, this equals about 2 coal train car loads of coal in profit.

The incident comes at a time when the EPA is reviewing dozens of proposed Mountaintop Removal permits, including more for Floyd County where the boulder rolled into a home.  The EPA is anticipated to release their decisions on the pending permits as soon as mid-September.

To see the full list of pending Mountaintop Removal permits under consideration by the EPA, see: http://action.sierraclub.org/site/PageServer?pagename=Coal_Mining_Tracker&autologin=true

Take urge the EPA to deny any further Mountaintop Removal permits, you can take action, here: https://secure2.convio.net/sierra/site/Advocacy?cmd=display&page=UserAction&id=2313

I came home to the rolling green hills of the Mohawk Valley, to my laughing cousins, and to the beginning of a new upstate new york.

It seems the new green economy has inspired the homeless, community organizers, faith leaders, and local officials alike. On my first day home I attended the launch of a new green low-income housing block in the poorest crime ridden area of Utica, NY—Corn Hill. Corn Hill is one of those area’s that never received enough public assistance and therefore remained a hot spot for drugs, murder, and racial disparity.

But things started to change with the initiative of two women, Reverend Skates and Reverend Meier. Their  commitment to the area and their beautiful vision for a transformed community brought all the right people together. We heard from speakers from the NYS Governor’s office, they mayor of Utica, and local homeless women that were moving into these new green homes.

I haven’t been so moved than when I heard Reverend Skates lead us in a visualization of the buildings around us. We yelled out words together like “Green!” or “Community Garden” pointing to broken down buildings and empty lots. With all of the right people in the room you could almost feel the space around you changing, especially when so much already had.

Copyright Shadia Fayne Wood

I think as young people we sometimes see ourselves bearing the entire burden of changing everything starting with policy and then our local communities. This reminded me of a couple things: 1) Positive change can flourish everywhere– without my involvement 2) Building up our local economies and communities deserves as much attention as our national work.

There is something to be said about the tangible gratification of this kind of work. It can be a hard thing to balance when climate policy seems to be the most important, yet elusive thing.

Passing a strong climate bill that protects communities like these, is the key to actually tangibly building a green future and more green communities.

As I get more in tune with my surroundings that balance becomes more critical. Let us integrate more hands-on creation in the movement and really shape the present for our local communities!