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This is the latest action alert from Avaaz.org.

Join the call for a strong climate treaty!
There are only months left to build a strong global climate treaty — but some G8 countries are putting its future in doubt.

The G8, meeting in Rome this week, is weighing a pledge to limit global warming below 2 degrees centigrade, the level at which scientists say a deadly climate chain reaction becomes dangerously likely. Canada, Japan, and Russia are trying to veto the 2-degree limit — and an immediate global outcry is needed to rescue it. Add your name to the petition, and Avaaz will deliver it with stunts and meetings in Rome this Wednesday and Thursday!

We call on our leaders to go to Copenhagen and sign a global climate deal that is:

AMBITIOUS: enough to leave a planet safe for us all.
FAIR: for the poorest countries that did not cause climate change but are suffering most from it.
BINDING: with real targets that can be legally monitored and enforced.
Start now. Harper, Medvedev, Aso, and other leaders gathered in Italy–agree a 2-degree target!
Sign the petition here, and stay tuned for updates of youth climate action throughout the week.

I´m currently sitting in a hot and humid Internet cafe in the city of Iquitos, located in the middle of the Peruvian Amazon.  I´m here partly to investigate the many fossil fuel-related environmental and human rights issues in this part of the world.  But what´s struck me again and again, while here, is how closely the future of the Peru´s Amazon is tied to another battle raging in my own home: the Pacific Northwest, USA.  In this post, I want to try to convey some of the urgency of confronting fossil fuel development in Oregon and Washington for the people and ecosystems of Peru.

Over the last few months, Peru has become a front line in the fight against the globally expanding fossil fuel empire.  Peru is also a shining example of how corporate globalization and ¨free trade¨ contributes inevitably to the strengthening of that empire.  As regular readers of this blog will already know, last month saw the massacre of an unknown number of indigenous activists protesting oil, gas, and timber development, and the seizure of indigenous lands in the Amazon.  Most of the killing occurred in the Bagua area of Peru, and the Peruvian government has attempted to cover up the actual number of activists killed (the highest number I heard in the US was about 80 deaths, but the actual number seems to have been much higher).  The protests were brought on in response to several decrees passed by the Peruvian government to facilitate a ¨free trade¨ agreement with the US.  From the beginning, it´s been clear: the environmental and human rights abuses which triggered the protests and the massacre in Bagua came about as a direct result of this trade agreement, and pressure from the US for Peru to open up its oil and gas reserves for exploration.

But the international implications of the massacre go even deeper, and center on several communities in Oregon and Washington currently working to keep infrastructure for a new and dirty fossil fuel out of the Northwest.  Here, energy companies are attempting to build at least three import terminals for natural gas extracted in distant parts of the world, and shipped to the US after a supercooling process to convert the gas to a more easily transported liquid: thus the name Liquefied Natural Gas, or LNG.  The Northwest is a focal point for an industry attempt to make LNG a much more important fuel in the United States.  And where would this imported gas come from?  Well, it could be the Middle East, or it could be Russia.  Or it could be the heart of the Peruvian Amazon.

If the energy giants get their way, importation terminals in my home region will grant LNG an open door to the US market.  Suddenly, the Peruvian government will have an even greater incentive than it does now to explore for gas in the Amazon.  I recently spoke with a local concerned citizen in Iquitos, whose name I will protect, who explained to me what increased oil and gas development will mean for the people of the Amazon.  My Spanish is not the greatest, but in a conversation consisting of mixed English, Spanish, and hand gestures, my friend conveyed this central message: the Peruvian government and President Alan Garcia are not particularly concerned with the well being of Peru´s indigenous people, and will not hesitate to use force to obtain land for fossil fuel exploration.  The Bagua massacre could be only the beginning, and importing LNG in the Northwest will only exacerbate the pressure on indigenous communities. 

In Iquitos – a town that grew up around rubber extraction and where the extractive industries continue to be important – graffiti art criticizing Garcia and the exploitation of the Amazon is a common sight.  This is the opposite of the old, misguided stereotype that rainforests are being destroyed because the local people don´t know how to take care of their own resources.  In Peru, there can be no doubt as to the real force behind deforestation.  Over half of Peru´s forest is already under concession to oil and gas developers, and the disillusioned local people I have spoken with are well aware of the health and environmental effects of fossil fuel development.  To save Peru´s carbon-sequestering Amazon and the people who live there, we must reverse or substantially alter the US-Peru Free Trade Agreement.  We must get US corporations out of the Amazon.  And we must stop LNG from becoming an important source of fuel in the US.

Peru´s Bagua massacre may be the worst case of violence in Latin America that can be traced directly to a trade agreement with the US.  The horror of the police crackdown and subsequent cover-up here is not something I can even attempt to convey.  But there are some signs of hope on the horizon.  The two most controversial government decrees have been, at least for the moment, suspended in response to the Bagua crisis.  In Oregon, the legislative session just ended with the defeat of a bill that would have smoothed the way for LNG companies attempting to begin work on projects there.  This fight that extends from the heart of the Amazon to rural areas in Oregon and Washington will be a long one, but it´s one I believe we can win.

My friend from Iquitos and I agreed that both our country´s governments have ignored the effects of fossil fuel extraction for far too long.  I tried to convey that we are making some progress in the US, though my optimism was far from unqualified.  ¨Your president,¨ said my friend, ¨he has an honest face.¨ I replied cautiously that I believe Obama truly wants to make change, but there are many other individuals in our government who will make it difficult for him.  My eyes lingered on the No LNG button pinned to the backpack of my travelling companion from the US.  She, like me, has gone to protests against LNG back home, and worked to raise awareness of the issue at our school.

I have never felt the international implications of the struggle against LNG more tangibly than now.  It´s time to shut the door to new fossil fuels in the Northwest once and for all, and score a victory for a battle that extends to indigenous communities in the heart of the Peruvian Amazon.

On July 1st, New York Times published an op-ed by 2002 Pulitzer Prize winner and noted author Thomas Friedman. The article titled “Just Do It”, calls out the flaws of the ACES bill. Friedman, author of “The World is Flat: A Brief History of the World”, agrees with many scientists, economists and environmental journalist, Brentin Mockr, that the ACES bill is weak and cannot afford to get any weaker. Friedman goes off in this op-ed calling out Republicans, President Obama and the American public for making this bill weak. Here’s a piece of what he had to say:

“Attention all young Americans: your climate future is being decided right now in the cloakrooms of the Capitol, where the coal lobby holds huge sway. You want to make a difference? Then get out of Facebook and into somebody’s face.”

We hear you Friedman and we here at www.checktheweather.net
have been hitting the concrete talking to real people about this “ACES” Climate Bill. Last night we went out to Horace and Dickie’s Chicken and Fish Carry Out in Northeast, Washington, DC and asked Dennis “Chico” Jackson what he felt about Climate Change, Michael Jackson and most importantly what he knew about the Waxman Markey climate bill.

Visit Checktheweather.net to watch the video, download our mixtape for climate justice and get in the KNOW on real people talking real about the Green Movement. www.checktheweather.net

It’s difficult for me to express how excited I was when I read several minutes ago that on July 2nd, 2009, a county judge ordered Chevron to halt construction on the expansion of its Richmond oil refinery.

This is a huge step in a long and bitter battle fought between the world’s sixth-largest corporation, and a tough and dedicated coalition – including RAN – of environmental, anti-war, and public health groups.

When Chevron submitted permit applications in 2005 to “expand” its refinery in Richmond, many of us were already suspicious. After all, this refinery – built over 100 years ago – had a bad history of accidents, including an explosion that sent 1,200 people to the emergency room in 1999. Local activists had been fighting Chevron for years, charging that the refinery was a clear example of environmental injustice: the 69,000 people who live within three miles of the refinery have income levels 43% lower than the Bay Area average, and 43% are Latino and 31% African-American.

Plus, this is the same corporation that sued Nigerian villagers that had the gall to try to hold Chevron accountable for its involvement in killing community protestors in 1998, and that is refusing to acknowledge responsibility for dumping 18 billion gallons of toxic waste into the Ecuadorian Amazon.

Soon, researchers from Communities for a Better Environment discovered Chevron’s real purpose: the planned “expansion” of their Richmond refinery wouldn’t actual result in increased gasoline production at all. Rather, the goal was to convert the facility to be able to refine heavier, dirtier crude oil (resulting, of course, in more pollution for Richmond).

Where would this heavier, dirtier crude be coming from? Well, I’ll give you a hint: Chevron is planning to invest billions (but won’t admit how much) in two different projects in the Alberta Tar Sands. And Tar Sands oil is – you guessed it – much heavier and dirtier than conventional crude oil.

So we decided that we weren’t going to take Chevron’s one-two punch (environmental injustice in Richmond and Alberta) sitting down. In March 2008, a coalition of groups, including RAN, shut down the front entrance to Chevron’s Richmond refinery; 24 of them were arrested. And for the last three years – in 2007, 2008, and 2009 – we’ve organized protests at Chevron’s shareholder meeting at their headquarters in San Ramon; this year, seven people blockaded Chevron’s front entrance, while community activists from Richmond, Ecuador, Nigeria, and Burma went inside the shareholder meeting to confront Chevron’s executives, and hold them responsible for the injustices their company had committed in their communities.

And while taking to the streets, we also attended dozens of regulatory meetings and hearings, in order to stop the plant’s permits from being approved. We demanded that Chevron “cap the crude”: that they accept regulations preventing them from refining heavy, dirty crude. The Richmond planning commission at first agreed with the idea of a “crude cap” – and then mysteriously changed its mind several weeks later. The whole time, Chevron executives steadfastly denied that they planned on refining Tar Sands oil – but also refused to accept a crude cap (which wouldn’t have any effect on their operations if they weren’t planning on refining dirtier oil).

Finally, in July 2008, the permit went to the Richmond City Council. During 12 hours of hearings (which I sat through all 12 hours of), hundreds of community members stayed up until 2 am pleading for Chevron’s permit to be rejected – and Chevron employees, paid by their company to be at the hearings, defended the company and attacked (in one case, physically) the community members opposing the expansion. And in the end, the Richmond City Council voted 5-4 to approve the permit. One particularly awesome city council member then publicly accused Chevron of striking a backroom deal with three of the council’s members – and then stood up, applauded the community protesters, and walked out on the meeting.

But then, Chevron’s luck began to change – proving that while you can buy a city council, you can’t beat the people when they have justice on their side.

In November 2008, Richmond voters kicked out two pro-Chevron city council members, replacing them with solid progressives. They also passed Measure T, which forces Chevron to pay the city $26 million per year in taxes.

Then, several months later, three environmental groups sued Chevron and the City of Richmond, arguing that the city approved a highly flawed environmental impact report, and that Chevron should be sent back to the drawing board. And the judge saw right through Chevron’s shenanigans, and ruled on June 11 that the environmental impact report was in fact flawed.

But Chevron ignored the court’s ruling – saying that it was going to appeal – and just continued construction work. So the three environmental groups petitioned the judge to issue and injunction forcing Chevron to stop work.

And today, Judge Barbara Zuniga ordered Chevron to stop work on its refinery expansion within 60 days.

This is a huge victory for environmental justice. It’s a huge victory for the coalition of groups – Communities for a Better Environment, West County Toxics Coalition, Asian-Pacific Environmental Network, Amazon Watch, Direct Action to Stop the War, Global Exchange, and RAN, among many others – who have fought for years to halt this expansion.

This fight definitely isn’t over yet. Chevron is going to appeal the ruling. And if they lose the appeal, it still only means that they have to go back to the drawing board on this project; they can still redo the environmental impact report, and re-submit it to the city.

But this time, they’re going to face a city council in which two of Chevron’s cronies have since been voted out of office.

And they’re also going to be facing off against a people’s movement that isn’t going to stop fighting this plan until Chevron stops willfully trampling on the health of poor people of color in Richmond, and starts running a refinery that is clean enough that Chevron’s CEO would be willing to live next door to it.

CAP THE CRUDE! ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE FOR RICHMOND NOW!

This essay originally appeared in Orion Magazine Written by Derrick Jensen

A FEW MONTHS AGO at a gathering of activist friends someone asked, “If our world is really looking down the barrel of environmental catastrophe, how do I live my life right now?”

The question stuck with me for a few reasons. The first is that it’s the world, not our world. The notion that the world belongs to us—instead of us belonging to the world—is a good part of the problem.

The second is that this is pretty much the only question that’s asked in mainstream media (and even among some environmentalists) about the state of the world and our response to it. The phrase “green living” brings up 7,250,000 Google hits, or more than Mick Jagger and Keith Richards combined (or, to look at it another way, more than a thousand times more than the crucial environmental philosophers John A. Livingston and Neil Evernden combined). If you click on the websites that come up, you find just what you’d expect, stuff like “The Green Guide: Shop, Save, Conserve,” “Personal Solutions for All of Us,” and “Tissue Paper Guide for Consumers.”

The third and most important reason the question stuck with me is that it’s precisely the wrong question. By looking at how it’s the wrong question, we can start looking for some of the right questions. This is terribly important, because coming up with right answers to wrong questions isn’t particularly helpful.

So, part of the problem is that “looking down the barrel of environmental catastrophe” makes it seem as though environmental catastrophe is the problem. But it’s not. It’s a symptom—an effect, not a cause. Think about global warming and attempts to “solve” or “stop” or “mitigate” it. Global warming (or global climate catastrophe, as some rightly call it), as terrifying as it is, isn’t first and foremost a threat. It’s a consequence. I’m not saying pikas aren’t going extinct, or the ice caps aren’t melting, or weather patterns aren’t changing, but to blame global warming for those disasters is like blaming the lead projectile for the death of someone who got shot. I’m also not saying we shouldn’t work to solve, stop, or mitigate global climate catastrophe; I’m merely saying we’ll have a better chance of succeeding if we recognize it as a predictable (at this point) result of burning oil and gas, of deforestation, of dam construction, of industrial agriculture, and so on. The real threat is all of these.

The same is true of worldwide ecological collapse. Extractive forestry destroys forests. What’s the surprise when extractive forestry causes forest communities—plants and animals and mushrooms and rivers and soil and so on—to collapse? We’ve seen it once or twice before. When you think of Iraq, is the first image that comes to mind cedar forests so thick the sunlight never reaches the ground? That’s how it was prior to the beginnings of this extractive culture; one of the first written myths of this culture is of Gilgamesh deforesting the plains and hillsides of Iraq to build cities. Greece was also heavily forested; Plato complained that deforestation harmed water quality (and I’m sure Athenian water quality boards said the same thing those boards say today: we need to study the question more to make sure there’s really a correlation). It’s magical thinking to believe a culture can effectively deforest and yet expect forest communities to sustain.

It’s the same with rivers. There are 2 million dams just in the United States, with 70,000 dams over six feet tall and 60,000 dams over thirteen feet tall. And we wonder at the collapse of native fish communities? We can repeat this exercise for grasslands, even more hammered by agriculture than forests are by forestry; for oceans, where plastic outweighs phytoplankton ten to one (for forests to be equivalently plasticized, they’d be covered in Styrofoam ninety feet deep); for migratory songbirds, plagued by everything from pesticides to skyscrapers; and so on.

The point is that worldwide ecological collapse is not some external and unpredictable threat—or gun barrel—down which we face. That’s not to say we aren’t staring down the barrel of a gun; it would just be nice if we identified it properly. If we means the salmon, the sturgeon, the Columbia River, the migratory songbirds, the amphibians, then the gun is industrial civilization.

A second part of the problem is that the question presumes we’re facing a future threat—that the gun has yet to go off. But the Dreadful has already begun. Ask passenger pigeons. Ask Eskimo curlews. Ask great auks. Ask traditional indigenous peoples almost anywhere. This is not a potential threat, but rather one that long-since commenced.

The larger problem with the metaphor, and the reason for this new column in Orion, is the question at the end: “how shall I live my life right now?” Let’s take this step by step. We’ve figured out what the gun is: this entire extractive culture that has been deforesting, defishing, dewatering, desoiling, despoiling, destroying since its beginnings. We know this gun has been fired before and has killed many of those we love, from chestnut ermine moths to Carolina parakeets. It’s now aimed (and firing) at even more of those we love, from Siberian tigers to Indian gavials to entire oceans to, in fact, the entire world, which includes you and me. If we make this metaphor real, we might understand why the question—asked more often than almost any other—is so wrong. If someone were rampaging through your home, killing those you love one by one (and, for that matter, en masse), would the question burning a hole in your heart be: how should I live my life right now? I can’t speak for you, but the question I’d be asking is this: how do I disarm or dispatch these psychopaths? How do I stop them using any means necessary?

Finally we get to the point. Those who come after, who inherit whatever’s left of the world once this culture has been stopped—whether through peak oil, economic collapse, ecological collapse, or the efforts of brave women and men fighting in alliance with the natural world—are not going to care how you or I lived our lives. They’re not going to care how hard we tried. They’re not going to care whether we were nice people. They’re not going to care whether we were nonviolent or violent. They’re not going to care whether we grieved the murder of the planet. They’re not going to care whether we were enlightened or not enlightened. They’re not going to care what sorts of excuses we had to not act (e.g., “I’m too stressed to think about it” or “It’s too big and scary” or “I’m too busy” or any of the thousand other excuses we’ve all heard too many times). They’re not going to care how simply we lived. They’re not going to care how pure we were in thought or action. They’re not going to care if we became the change we wished to see.

They’re not going to care whether we voted Democrat, Republican, Green, Libertarian, or not at all. They’re not going to care if we wrote really big books about it. They’re not going to care whether we had “compassion” for the CEOs and politicians running this deathly economy. They’re going to care whether they can breathe the air and drink the water. They’re going to care whether the land is healthy enough to support them.

We can fantasize all we want about some great turning, and if the people (including the nonhuman people) can’t breathe, it doesn’t matter. Nothing matters but that we stop this culture from killing the planet. It’s embarrassing even to have to say this. The land is the source of everything. If you have no planet, you have no economic system, you have no spirituality, you can’t even ask this question. If you have no planet, nobody can ask questions.

What question would I ask instead? What if, instead of asking “How shall I live my life?” people were to ask the land where they live, the land that supports them, “What can and must I do to become your ally, to help protect you from this culture? What can we do together to stop this culture from killing you?” If you ask that question, and you listen, the land will tell you what it needs. And then the only real question is: are you willing to do it?

Jessy Tolkan rallies the crowd on Capitol Hill as the House votes on ACES inside

As a young person, you care about global warming. You know that a clean energy economy will create millions of jobs and pathways out of poverty, reduce pollution, and save the planet. And you are willing to do whatever it takes to make that happen. Right?

Well, Thomas L. Friedman, the popular New York Times columnist, isn’t convinced. In fact, Friedman concludes his latest column* by calling us out! He writes:

“Attention all young Americans: your climate future is being decided right now in the cloakrooms of the Capitol, where the coal lobby holds huge sway…. Play hardball or don’t play at all.”

Does Friedman have a point? Do we need to be bigger and louder?

I think the answer is yes.

We know that thousands of young people across this country are working tirelessly to usher in a clean and just energy future for us all. But if we want to truly achieve our goals, we need our elected officials to know that we are watching closely as they debate the climate policy that will shape the rest of our lives.

Take the first step. Let President Obama and your Senators know that you demand bold, just, and science-based climate solutions, and ask your friends and family to do the same.

Let’s send a strong message to our President and Senators that we are here, we’re watching, and we are ready for action. And let’s ask our friends and families to do the same. It’s going to take big numbers to fight back against the thousands of letters and calls generated by the dirty energy industry (not to mention their well-paid lobbyists).

Send a message to the President and your Senators, and forward this email to everyone you know.

But we know that sending email isn’t enough. In order to drown out the voice of the dirty energy industry, we’re going to need to mobilize in unprecedented numbers. Tom Friedman isn’t kidding when he suggests we should have a million people marching in the streets.

Ready to take a bigger step? Sign up to be a leader in your community, and to help get millions of feet in the streets for climate solutions.

We’ve gone big before, but now we need to go bigger. And the only way we will get there is if people like you do more. Ready to take a bigger step? Sign up today to get active in your community, to get in the faces of our elected officials, and to recruit the huge movement it will take to win.

In it to win it,

The Energy Action Team

* -Read Thomas L. Friedman’s Op-Ed

Join ACE this July 4 as we break up with oil! Declare your Independence from Fossil Fuels and Sign the Declaration:

www.climateeducation.org/petition

In his most recent blog post, Ken Ward highlights Rick Boucher’s love of the climate bill because of the amount of coal support in it:

…The EPA projects that by 2020, coal usage in America, under the terms of this bill, will actually grow.

As transportation electrifies and the demand for electricity increases, coal, our most abundant fuel, will still be the fuel of choice to meet that rising demand. The claims of opponents that the CO2 controls under the bill will force utilities to surrender coal use, causing an overreliance on natural gas with attendant broad economic harm to the Nation are also simply wrong.

~Rep. Rick Boucher, D-Va., on the climate bill

If you didn’t know already, Boucher is the man that has taken more money from the coal industry than any other representative — despite the fact that he has run unopposed! His dirtying up the climate bill inspired this awesome protest last month.

Ward also points out that

The United Mine Workers union concluded the bill ensured that “the future of coal will be intact” (but still withheld its endorsement, seeking more concessions for coal companies and coal-fired utilities).

The below article is an attempt to use a satirical historical comparison to demonstrate how we have drifted away from moral messages that convey our values and the seriousness of the situation in favor of treating a societal evil (emitting greenhouse gases) as a trade-able commodity that has a rightful place in our society.

“Cap and Trade Bill Passes House, Democrats Attack as Assault on Economy”

June 26th, 1859

The United States House of Representatives, in a victory for the nascent Republican Party, narrowly voted to substantially reduce the amount of slaves in the United States by the turn of the century.

“This is a great victory for freedom and equality” said Rep. Daniel Webster, Chairman of the Committee on Commerce of the House and lead author of the bill.  ”By the end of the century, about 80% of the slaves alive right now will be free.”  Webster worked closely with long-term ally Henry Clay to draft the legislation.

The two worked hard to negotiate in advance with representatives from slave states, to craft a compromise that would muster enough votes to pass, but still reduce the number of slaves in America.

Anti-slavery groups hailed Webster & Clay for their courageous vision: “Daniel Webster & Henry Clay took a bold and unequivocal stance that our current levels of slavery are unsustainable, and that we should gradually decrease the amount of slaves over the next fifty years,” said Andrew Smith, head of the Abolition Advocacy Program of the anti-slavery Former Slaves for Freedom (FSF).

The bill puts a “cap” on the total amount of slaves permitted in the United States, and gives each slave-owner a “credit” for each of the slaves they now own, with a few industries exempted.  As the years go on, there will be a gradually diminishing supply of “credits” for slaves, until the turn of the century, where permits will exist for only 17% of the current number of slaves.

Slave Tax?

Democrats voted almost universally against the bill, saying it was equal to a ’slave tax’ that would cost hard-working Americans their jobs.  “Our economy is dependent on slaves, plain and simple.  How many small farms will go bankrupt because of Lincoln’s Slave Tax?” asked Rep. Joe Barbarion (D-TX), the ranking Democrat on the Committee of Commerce.  “When we regain power, we will repeal this assault on American jobs.”

Most economists agree that a tax on slaves would be a more efficient way to reduce the number of slaves, but the ruling Republican Party did not want to be seen as raising taxes with mid-term elections only a year away.

Freedom-Industry Jobs

Instead of losing jobs as Democrats claim, Republicans argued that the cap and trade slavery program would actually create new  “freedom-industry” jobs.  “Think about it,” said Rep. John Smith (R-MD), “every slave that’s freed is a slave who is going to need someone to teach them everything from grammar to farming.  An entire new industry dedicated to the service of newly freed slaves will create far more jobs than will be lost.”

Yet this argument did not win over many recalcitrant swing-district Republicans, most of whom have substantial plantations in their districts.  “Now look, as a privileged white male in congress, I care as much about equality as the next guy,” said Rep. James Bartholomei (R-VA), “but you can’t expect me to vote my district and this great nation into bankruptcy.  We need slaves to power our economy.  And if we start freeing them, even gradually, then other countries that still have slaves will undercut our cotton prices, and our nation’s economy will crumble.  I just can’t vote for that.”

On to the Senate

The bill now waits an uncertain future in the Senate.  Senate leaders indicate that they want to try to pass the bill this summer, but the Republicans have a smaller lead in the upper house of congress.  While anti-slavery groups are publicly expressing optimism that they can increase slave reductions in the Senate version, they publicly admit that the opposite is more likely.  An anonymous senator confirmed this, stating: “We just don’t have the votes to free that many slaves.  But we’re hoping to pass a bill that will allow us to as many as half of the slaves by the end of the century.”

Anti-slavery groups hope that once people start seeing former slaves become free, autonomous individuals without destroying the economy, public support for slave reductions will continue to grow.

Abolition

A few fringe anti-slavery groups attacked the bill, claiming that it was too little, too late.  “Slavery is wrong, period.” said Josiah Bartlett, of Patriots for Freedom (PfF) Tthis bill will actually allow the number of slaves to increase until 1880, as slave owners here can buy new slaves, so long as other slaves abroad are ‘freed’.  This will create a perverse incentive for people to capture slaves abroad so that they can free them, and slavery will continue to reign in our nation.  This madness has to end now.”

Please note that this article is entirely satirical, and that the author is very much glad that slavery ended as early as it did, and indeed wishes that more citizens had been willing earlier to take a stand on this once-controversial issue in favor of liberty and justice for all.

Perplexed by the inter-related problems India faces as it develops at the cost of 2/3 rd of its population living outside the economy, two young activists from Switch ON, rode their cycles 1800 kilometers across India through the coal belt – to question India’s growth based on fossil fuel, and to seek and highlight alternatives for a sustainable and equitable development.

Why New Coal gives a new perspective to Coal in India – addressing India’s growing energy needs, problems of energy security and Climate Change Vulnerabilities – by interviewing experts across the nation, while also documenting Vinay and Hoob’s epic journey across the nation.

Speakers in the video include energy experts from across the country including S.P. Sethi (Planning commission), Dunu Roy (Hazard Centre), Vandana Shiva (Navdanya), Chandra Bhusan (CSE) Siddharth Pathak (Green Peace), S.K.Chand (TERI), Shirish Sinha (WWF) Ashok Agarwal (Jharia Bachao Sangharsh Samiti), Girish Sant (Prayas), Dr. Gonchowdhury (WBREDA), Sanjeev Ghotge (WISE), Nitin Desai (United Nations), Ambuj Sagar (IIT), Dr. M P Narayanan (Coal India)

If you like Vinay and Ekta’s trailer for Why New Coal, you’ll love his earlier video below, and the full-length feature film about the Climate Ride 2009.

He listened! Obama listened!

We chanted during PowerShift’s march on the Capital Coal Plant and even later that night outside of the While House calling for “Food, Not Bombs! Plant a Garden on the White House Lawn!” It sounded good, and I remember seeing the lights go on in an upstairs window as we sang late at night, but maybe that was just a twinkle in the White House’s eye.

Either way, I just learned that Obama did plant a nice big vegetable garden on the White House lawn in March, the first since Eleanor Roosevelt’s Victory Gardens, and things are coming up golden. They’ve 90 pounds of food,  enough produce for the White House kitchens and local soup kitchens as well.  Good and always with honor have released a detailed map of the White House Garden – let’s hope more people follow suit, eating as locally as physically possible, their own backyards!