Environement

Women-Led Movements Redefine Power, From California To Nepal

March 20, 2016 Rucha Chitnis, www.yesmagazine.org Resist! Domestic Workers, Environement, Human Rights, Indigenous People, Racism, Women

By Rucha Chitnis for YES! Magazine. In the face of growing corporate power, land grabs, economic injustice, and climate change, women’s movements offer a paradigm shift. They have redefined leadership and development models, connected the dots between issues and oppression, prioritized collective power and movement-building, and critically examined how issues of gender, race, caste, class, sexuality, and ability disproportionately exclude and marginalize. Women of color have unleashed powerful media campaigns and actions by connecting identity and its relationship with structural racism and institutional power. Whether it is indigenous women in the Amazon fighting corporate polluters and climate change or undocumented Latina domestic workers advocating for worker rights and dignity in California, women’s groups and networks are making links between unbridled capitalism, violence, and the erosion of human rights and destruction of the Earth.

Disbelief In Environmentalism; Dark Mountain Project

March 5, 2016 Paul Kingsnorth, www.theguardian.com Strategize! Environement

By Paul Kingsnorth for The Ecologist - It started last year with two men in a pub. It spiraled from there, and gathered in thousands of people from across the world who shared its vision. It is still expanding; so much so that the two men now have rather less time to spend in the pub, because much of their day is spent just trying to keep up with a minor global movement which they have accidentally brought into being. This is the story of the Dark Mountain Project, a new cultural movement for an age of global disruption, of which I was one of the co-founders less than a year ago.

Cops Called On Reporter Asking About Climate At Oil & Gas Convention

October 13, 2015 Steve Horn, www.counterpunch.org Educate! Environement, Oklahoma

By Steve Horn for Counter Punch - On October 1, I arrived at the Oklahoma City headquarters of the Interstate Oil and Gas Compact Commission (IOGCC) — a congressionally-chartered collective of oil and gas producing states — hoping for an interview. There to ask IOGCC if it believed human activity (and specifically oil and gas drilling) causes climate change and greenhouse gas emissions, my plans that day came to a screeching halt when cops from the Oklahoma City Police Department rolled up and said that they had received a 9-1-1 call reporting me and my activity as “suspicious” (listen to the audio here). What IOGCC apparently didn’t tell the cops, though, was that I had already told them via email that I would be in the area that day and would like to do an interview.

Flotilla Inspires Protest Of Deadbeat Dams On Lower Snake River

October 5, 2015 Greg Stahl, www.idahorivers.org Resist! Environement

Greg Stahl for Idaho Rivers United - About 300 paddlers cheered Saturday morning as the words, “FREE THE SNAKE,” were unfurled in 10-foot-tall block letters across the stagnant waters held back by lower Granite Dam. The paddlers, including a number of IRU members and staff, converged on the lower Snake to protest four do-nothing dams that consume taxpayer dollars while inflicting an extreme toll on Idaho’s endangered salmon. The so-called Free the Snake Flotilla was designed to help draw attention to one of the country’s biggest ongoing environmental boondoggles. “It’s amazing to see citizens from throughout the Northwest and across America come together and give a voice to the lower Snake River, which has been silenced for nearly a generation,” said IRU Conservation Director Kevin Lewis.

FERC Gets An Earful From Sabal Trail Pipeline Opponents

October 5, 2015 Carlton Fletcher, www.albanyherald.com Resist! Environement, New York (NY), Pipelines

By Carlton Fletcher for The Albany Herald - ALBANY — The complaints offered by 34 opponents of the Sabal Trail pipeline — plus the one comment in support of the project — were duly noted Monday evening by representatives of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. They listened patiently, a stenographer taking down comments to make them part of the official record of the event, as citizen after citizen made one point resoundingly clear: None wanted the pipeline or its accompanying compressor station. “I am here tonight because I am my brother’s keeper,” Gladys Joyce Jordan Jones told the FERC representatives. “I am here because of the school children of this community. I’m here because the people of Indian Creek, the people of Willow Wood, the people of Countryside Village are afraid.

Car Free Paris Results In Less Air & Noise Pollution

October 5, 2015 Kim Willsher, www.theguardian.com Create! Environement, France, pollution

Kim Willsher for The Guardian - Paris’s “day without cars” last week led to such a dramatic drop in both air and noise pollution that the mayor’s office is now planning more vehicle-free days in the French capital. Airparif, which measures city pollution levels, said levels of nitrogen dioxide dropped by up to 40% in parts of the city on Sunday 27 September. There was almost one-third less nitrogen dioxide pollution on the busy Champs Elyées than on a similar Sunday. Along the Seine in the city centre, levels were down by about 40%. At the busy Place de l’Opera, levels were 20% lower. Bruitparif, which measures noise, said sound levels dropped by half in the city centre.

Fracking Chemicals Won’t Stay Secret Much Longer

March 14, 2014 Jacob Chamberlain, www.commondreams.org Educate! Energy, Environement, Fracking, Government

The Wyoming Supreme Court held that the Oil and Gas Commission has to justify its use of a trade secrets exemption rule, which it has used to hid the fracking chemicals ingredients. “We’re pleased the Court recognized that the Oil and Gas Commission has to fully and rationally justify its use of trade secrets exemptions before it can hide fracking chemical information from public review,” stated Marilyn Ham, Resource Council Board Member from Laramie County, Wyoming. “We’re looking forward to the next stage of the case and hopefully to getting better information out to the public on what chemicals are used in fracking operations.

Victory: Ohio Governor Backs Down On Fracking

February 19, 2014 Darrel Rowland & Will Drabold www.dispatch.com Educate! Energy, Environement, Fracking, Government

“At this point, the governor doesn’t support fracking in state parks,” Kasich spokesman Rob Nichols told The Dispatch. “We reserve the right to revisit that, but it’s not what he wants to do right now, and that’s been his position for the past year and a half.” Word of Kasich’s reversal came the same day Democratic lawmakers called for an investigation of a marketing plan to promote fracking on state lands that was put together a year and a half ago by the Ohio Department of Natural Resources, which regulates oil and gas drilling. “Ohio doesn’t permit this kind of oil and gas production in state parks because the governor doesn’t think we have the policies in place yet to properly do it. If and when that changes, then perhaps this hypothetical discussion has relevance. But until then, it’s a political sideshow conjured up by people who want to kill fracking and the jobs it creates.”

Environmental Groups React to Royal Dutch Shell Reporting 48% Decline

January 20, 2014 Aaron Pickus, Steve Kretzman, Keiller MacDuff, commondreams.org Educate! Environement, Profit motive, shell

"Given Shell's appalling profit warning, how we can we expect to trust Shell with the fragile Arctic environment? They can barely make money in the most profitable business the world has ever known," said Gustavo Ampugnani, a Greenpeace Arctic Campaigner in Washington D.C. “Shell’s announcement today is just one example of the mounting body of evidence that fossil fuel investments are not only bad for the planet, but bad for bottom lines,” said Jay Carmona, National Divestment Campaign Manager of 350.org in Oakland, CA. “Pension funds, university endowments and future retirees should take note.”

Statement From Tar Sands Activist Facing ‘Terrorism Hoax’ Charges

January 7, 2014 Moriah Stephenson, www.gptarsandsresistance.org Resist! Energy, Environement, Freedom of Speech and Assembly, Tar Sands

Activism that is attempting to protect land and lives in Oklahoma is not terrorism. Charging us with “terrorism hoax” for hanging up a glittery banner is insulting, inconsiderate, and disrespectful to all of those who have actually experienced terrorist violence. TransCanada Corporation has been encouraging the police to charge environmental activists with varying charges that contain the word “terrorism” in order to scare and silence dissent. My hometown is older than Oklahoma statehood and is now being destroyed by the oil and gas industry. In rural Oklahoma, where people go to see stars at night, I have seen the brightness of fracking flares dim out the stars. It is heartbreaking to think that we have reached a point in which I could face ten years in prison for peacefully hanging up a banner. Ultimately, this is an issue of free speech. A corporation is using scare tactics to try to silence my story and my voice. If nothing else, it is unfair for TransCanada and Devon to engage the government in silencing free speech through the threat of “terrorism” charges.

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