Environment

Dear Friends,
As we write, our friends with the Tar Sands Blockade are blocking construction of TransCanada’s Keystone XL pipeline in the woods of Texas. For the past six months they have built a movement of climate activists, rural landowners, Texans, Oklahomans and people from all over the country to fiercely resist it. For two weeks, they have captured the imagination of the world with a daring tree-sit and bold ground actions near Winnsboro, TX that have delayed TransCanada’s operations.

"I GUESS it is easy being green," said Kermit the Frog as he bounced around a Ford Escape Hybrid in a 2006 television ad campaign.
During the ad, Kermit displayed his innate talent for not blinking which, it has to be said, is due essentially to his congenital lack of eyelids....

The news of Royal-Dutch Shell's recent decision to hold off on Arctic drilling until next season offers some relief to those keeping track of the company's

Tonight's presidential debate will be held in Colorado, where wildfires recently burned 202,425 acres of land (316.3 square miles). Those wildfires killed five people, forced the evacuation of 34,500 people, and destroyed over 600 homes.
It's part of a pattern: Scientists say global warming is making large wildfires more frequent and more intense. America's next president will have to address the problem in both the short-term (more federal money going to disaster response & relief) and in the long-term (cutting carbon pollution and/or dealing with our constantly-rising cost of inaction).

Yesterday the Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation (ACFN) announced their plans to constitutionally challenge Shell Oil Canada's expansion of the Jackpine Mine tar sands project. The project expansion would threaten the resources needed to sustain rights protected under Treaty 8, which the ACFN signed in 1899 at Fort Chipewyan on Lake Athabasca. A joint federal-provincial review panel will hear the challenge - the first of its kind to appear before such a group - on October 23rd, 6 days before the Jackpine Mine expansion application will make its own appearance before the panel on October 29.
The Jackpine Mine expansion would disturb 12,719 hectares of land and destroy 21 kilometers of the culturally significant Muskeg River, according to ACFN's press release issued yesterday.

Last night, Governor Brown signed into law two bills which will authorize hundreds of millions of dollars in investments in California's most disadvantaged and polluted communities. This win comes after four years of organizing by the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights and our allies in Sacramento and beyond.
Communities throughout California will benefit from SB 535 by Senator Kevin de León an...

As the Nigerian protesters' case against Shell[1] and the brutal treatment of peaceful protesters in Texas via TransCanada's encouragement[2] highlight all too well, the planet's biggest energy providers are more than willing to work outside of the law to meet their interests. In Nigeria, peaceful protesters were subjected to violence by the Nigerian government with the alleged encouragement of Royal Dutch Shell PLC. With the eyes of the free world watchin...

When one first thinks about it, one would think the politics of not destroying civilization should be simple. It seems that "Not destroy civilization, Yes/No" would get a very high "Yes" vote.
In the immediate future in US political, however, its far more complicated than that, given that one party's position is "No", and the other party's position is "Maybe, a little bit of not destroying civilization, if its not too inconvenient".

This week, 47 House Republicans sent a letter to House Speaker John Boehner asking him to let key federal incentives for wind energy expire. The list of sign-ons range from swing seat Republicans desperate to fire up the Tea Party base (Maryland's Andy Harris) to genuine wackos (Texas' Louie Gohmert). But what's most notable is how many Republicans refused to sign the letter - 194 House Republicans refused to sign on. Not one Virginia Republican joined the clean energy attack