Riki Ott for Reuters “Penalties that British Petroleum will pay are based on spill volume — Exxon saved billions by scuttling the true amount.” I remember the words, “We’ve had the Big One,” with chilling clarity, spoken just over 21 years ago when a fellow fisherman arrived at my door in the early morning and announced that the Exxon Valdez had run aground in Alaska’s Prince William Sound and was gushing oil. For the small fishing community of Cordova, Alaska, where I lived and worked as a commercial fisherma’am, it was our worst nightmare. That nightmare is …
[Read more...]

Antonia Juhasz in The Observor “The oil major BP spends aggressively to influence US regulatory insight, and many would argue this has bought it leniency” While the explosion of BP/Transocean’s Deepwater Horizon drilling rig was a horrific event, it was neither surprising nor unexpected. BP is one of the most powerful corporations operating in the United States. Its 2009 revenues of $327bn are enough to rank BP as the third-largest corporation in the country. It spends aggressively to influence US policy and regulatory oversight. In 2009, the company spent nearly $16m on …
[Read more...]

Maryam Adrangi on It’s Getting Hot in Here Today environmental activists brought the environmental justice/climate justice bloc to one of the largest marches in Toronto: No One Is Illegal Toronto’s annual May Day march for status for all. Rainforest Action Network Toronto and Community Solidarity Response Toronto were asked to bring EJ/CJ activists together to highlight how environmental degradation and runaway climate change are causing migration and displacement, and preventing people from access to health care, water, food, air, and land, among other basic human rights and needs. …
[Read more...]

A press release from a campaign coalition DELTA, BC – GatewaySucks.org and the Council of Canadians (Delta/Richmond chapter) unfurled a massive banner today that reads “CLIMATE ACTION NOW” on land slated for freeway construction. Historic homes are being demolished, and ancient indigenous sites are under threat from the South Fraser Perimeter Road (SFPR) project here on the Fraser River bank. The est. $2 billion SFPR is part of the controversial Gateway program, which would greatly increase greenhouse gas emissions in BC. … [See more] …
[Read more...]

Andy Rowell on the Oil Change blog If you have never been to an oil company AGM it is worth going to watch two parallel words colliding for a few hours. On the one side are the protestors arguing passionately for the company to listen to how their activities are destroying someone’s homeland or are polluting the earth. Up on the top table sit the company’s top brass, who go through the motions of this annual public inconvenience. They bat the questions away like an experienced cricketer annoyed to be outside in the mid day sun. In the middle are the shareholders who shuffle in, listen and …
[Read more...]

Writing and links on the Indymedia UK web site “This time last year, few people in the UK had even heard of the Alberta Tar Sands. Now they are moving rapidly up the public agenda, thanks largely to a growing grassroots campaign of resistance and international solidarity. The latest example of this has been the national “Fortnight of Shame” (April 1st- 15th 2010) to oppose BP’s planned involvement in the tar sands, which came to a head on Saturday 10th with protests in London, Oxford, Brighton and Cambridge, including a Party at the Pumps in Sheperds Bush and which culminates …
[Read more...]

A video and a write-up on the Tar Sands in Focus site BP’s award-winning ‘beyond petroleum’ brand took a hit today when its PR agency attempted to deliver 22,000 revamped BP logos to the company’s headquarters in St. James’ Square. In a costly case of mistaken brand identity, the ad agency misinterpreted the brief they were given to come up with a new logo that took account of BP’s decision to invest in the Canadian tar sands (1), and launched the multi-million pound ‘Back to Black’ campaign.Hang on a second. What day is it? April Fools Day, a day for pranks both silly and …
[Read more...]

From Rising Tide North America - SAN FRANCISCO- Rising Tide North America released the following statement on the influence of corporate polluters on Big “Greens” groups: “For far too long Big Green groups like the National Wildlife Federation (NWF), Conservation International (CI), Environmental Defense Fund (EDF), Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) and many others have allowed their financial and political relationships with Corporate America to compromise their positions on the biggest ecological crises in history. These groups, ostensibly fighting on our behalf, have chosen to …
[Read more...]

Sparki on the It’s Getting Hot in Here blog Spoofs, hoaxes, Insurgent clown armies, impersonations, media hijacking, theatrics, and even Bigfoot formed just part of the arsenal that climate activists used in calling out the worst climate criminals commenced worldwide on Fossil Fools Day yesterday. Yesterday, here in North America alone, more than 30 cities organized demonstrations against the fossil fuel industry, corporate banks and big environmental organizations for the festivities. Demonstrations were coordinated in part by Rising Tide North America, which has also launched an online …
[Read more...]

Simon Butler on Green Left “We hear a lot from mainstream journalists, politicians and even some environmental groups about forming partnerships with the “business community” to fight climate change. Many assume a carbon trading scheme or carbon tax alone will be enough to give business an incentive to shift to clean energy.” The idea that today’s vested interests could lead tomorrow’s energy revolution was always a dubious one. But recent market trends reveal that big business has little interest in forging any real partnership for the planet. Investment in profitable …
[Read more...]

An action report on a Climate IMC International web site Newcastle, Sun Mar 28, 2010: Climate activists from Rising Tide blocked entry to the world’s largest coal port on Newcastle Harbour, north of Sydney. The ‘People’s Blockade of the World’s Biggest Coal Port’ put together a motley protest fleet of 60 rafts, kayaks and boats including a 70 foot yacht. Over 350 people attended the protest according to Greens MLC Lee Rhiannon. Carbon dioxide emissions from coal is a major contributor of climate change. Photos on Flickr | More photos Protest spokesperson Naomi …
[Read more...]

Jess Worth in the New Internationalist “The tar sands are the most destructive project on earth – and the campaign to shut them down is gathering momentum” ‘If local indigenous communities tell us they don’t want the Sunrise Project, then of course we won’t do it,’ Peter Mather, boss of BP UK, said to me earnestly. I could barely believe my ears. Was the oil giant, poised to enter the tar sands for the first time, really claiming it would be prepared to back down in the face of local opposition? My strange evening had just got stranger. I was in Oxford’s swanky Randolph …
[Read more...]

A media release from the Indigenous Environmental Network Ottawa / March 26, 2010 – The Indigenous Environmental Network, the Council of Canadians, and the Alaska based REDOIL Network have issued an open letter calling for an international moratorium on all new exploration for fossil fuel resources in the Arctic region. The letter is directed at the Foreign Ministers of Canada, Norway, Denmark, Russia and the United States who will be present at the Arctic Summit in Chelsea, Québec, March 29, 2010. The discovery of 90 billion barrels of oil and 1,670 trillion cubic feet of natural gas in …
[Read more...]

Dawn Paley in The Dominion “BC gov’t aims to win hearts and minds, and open province to extractives” VANCOUVER—Beyond rhetoric about establishing British Columbia as a centre for innovation, among the most concrete strategies suggested in the Ministry of Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources 2010/11-2012/13 Service Plan are government-sponsored marketing campaigns to promote the benefits of the extractive industries. The Service Plan, released in early March, outlines the BC government’s primary strategies for the energy, mining, and oil and gas industries up to 2013. …
[Read more...]

Photos and a press release from a tar sands campaign coalition A high-level delegation from Canada were greeted this morning by protesters with banners that read: “Canadian Tar Sands – Climate Crime”, outside Canada House in Trafalgar Square. The protest, on Thursday 18 March, is part of a growing campaign by UK groups against the tremendous human and ecological devastation caused by extracting oil from Canada’s tar sands – and is taking place in solidarity with First Nations and Canadian environmental justice organizations. The Canadian delegation is being hosted by UK Trade and …
[Read more...]

Photos, a video, and a press release about and from a protest action in Edmonton — Here’s part of the press release - “RBC CEO Receives Canadian Climate Criminal Award: Citizens respond to Nixon receiving Business Leadership Award with their own people’s choice award” With Gordon Nixon receiving the Canadian Business Leader Award (CBLA) today in Edmonton, concerned Albertans are giving Nixon their own people’s choice award: the Canadian Climate Criminal Award. Nixon, CEO of Royal Bank of Canada, will be receiving the CBLA Award Tuesday evening at the Shaw Conference …
[Read more...]

Terry Macalister in The Guardian “• Production from tar sands will rise to 4m barrels a day by 2025 • Shareholders seek review of environmental impact of tar sands” The £250bn cost of developing Canada’s controversial tar sands between now and 2025 could be used to decarbonise the western economy by funding ambitious solar power schemes in the Sahara or a European wide shift to electric vehicles, according to a new report released today. The same amount of investment would also help the world to hit half of the Millenium Development Goals in the 50 least-developed …
[Read more...]

A Green Left editorial ““Earth Hour” will be held around the world on March 27. The event is organised by the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) and involves participants switching off their lights for the hour as a symbolic declaration of support for environmental action. “ The Earth Hour website is sponsored by, among others, Woolworths Limited, the giant supermarket and retail corporation. With the amount of waste and pollution associated with the retail industry in frivolous consumption, built-in obsolescence and so on, this would seem an odd choice for sponsor. WWF has a shocking …
[Read more...]

Walter Ewing on AlterNet “‘Blaming immigrants for pollution, dependence on fossil fuels, or the emissions systems on automobiles won’t fix the environment or the dysfunctional immigration system.” In a new report, Progressives for Immigration Reform (PFIR)—a front group for the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR)—regurgitates an argument as tired as it is flawed: that immigration hastens the destruction of the environment in the United States. Specifically, the report claims that immigration-driven population growth is increasing the nation’s …
[Read more...]