It’s difficult for me to express how excited I was when I read several minutes ago that earlier today, 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).

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A fun video put together by youth producer John Cooney to start off the holiday weekend -

A little effort can go a long way towards reversing global warming.

Check out episode 6 of the 10 day adventure of RAN and Substance educating and mobilizing people to stop the Tar Sands, with rock bands Propagandhi and Strike Anywhere

Our latest series of a dozen Protect-an-Acre grants over the last few months supported frontline community efforts to defend their land in forests from the Amazon and Cerrado in South America to the Canadian Boreal to the largest rainforest area remaining in the Asia-Pacific region in Papua New Guinea.

Amazon Rainforest & Brazilian Cerrado

Mobilization of Indigenous People of the Cerrado (MOPIC)
$5,000 to support the production of a documentary focusing on Bunge and Cargill’s operations in the heart of the Brazilian Cerrado in Mato Grosso to raise awareness and be used as an organizing tool to engage and empower communities on the frontlines of soy expansion, some of whom have fields coming right up to the border of their titled land.

Associação Indígena Kïsêdjê
$4,000 to support a gathering of members of the four Kisedje communities to organize and education all Kisedje people about agribusiness, its threats, and the Indigenous movement in the Brazilian Cerrado currently challenging the expansion of soy production.

Asociación Interétnica de Desarrollo de la Selva Peruana (AIDESEP)
$3,000 to provide emergency support to the Indigenous movement in the Peruvian Amazon carrying out blockades to demand a suspension of oil, gas and mining concessions in the Amazon, and the repeal of several new laws drafted to comply with a free trade agreement with the United States, which take away community land rights and allow companies to enter Indigenous land with no prior consultation or even warning.

Note: RAN channeled an additional $5,000 to AIDESEP in emergency support through Global Greengrants Fund. Here is an update on the situation from a previous Understory post.

Shinai
$3,000 to support Amo Amazonia, a week of artistic and cultural events to bring the color and life of the Amazon to the streets of Lima and the hearts of the Peruvian people to help educate the general public and shift attitudes in the wake of the recent blockades and conflict between the government and Indigenous peoples defending their rights and land.

Comision Intereclesial de Justicia y Paz
$3,000 to support work on behalf of Emberá communities living in the lower Atrato, Colombia, an area rich in minerals and expanding palm oil plantations, by a legal case in the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights and pressuring the government to enforce its denouncement of paramilitary violence and the illegal expansion of plantations onto community land without consent.

Canadian Boreal Forest

Nishnawbe Aski Nation (NAN)
$4,000 to support community organizing to push for free, prior and informed consent and other land reform in Ontario building from the government’s commitment to protect 225,000 square kilometers of the Far North Boreal region.

Boreal Action Project
$3,000 to support a cross-cultural action camp in Manitoba, Canada between urban activists and youth and Elders from Indigenous communities to discuss methods of furthering mutual goals and build campaign, media, and direct action skills.

Grassy Narrows Women’s Drum Group (on behalf of Grassy Narrows youth)
$5,000 to support a three day gathering of youth from Grassy Narrows (who were the catalysts and initiators of the community’s blockade of their traditional territory) and other First Nations communities, including workshops on traditional skills and leadership building, sweat lodges and traditional feasts and discussions led by Indigenous leaders on tribal and treaty history and Indigenous land rights in a broader context.

Mushkegowuk Environmental Research Centre
$3,000 to support a First Nations youth conference, with participation from all 7 communities throughout Ontario that belong to the Mushkegowuk Council, focused on raising awareness around the topic of climate change and providing a forum for the youth to share their concerns and vision for the future of their territory.

Other Regions

Oro Community Environmental Action Network (OCEAN)
$4,000 to support community outreach, education, and organizing in the Musa Pongani area of Oro Province, Papua New Guinea, to resist new logging permit applications covering 250,000 hectares approved by the government without consultation as 99 year leases for Musa Century Landowners Company, a syndicate of Asian companies.

The Maya Leaders Alliance
$4,000 to support a Supreme Court lawsuit that seeks to force the government to comply with its commitment to abstain from carrying out activities that might affect the value and use of Maya lands in the rainforests of southern Belize without informed consent and the development of a mechanism through which communities can apply to have their lands demarcated. This will also support a mobilization of over 200 community members to attend the trial and speak with national media.

European Environmental Paper Network (EEPN)
$3,000 to provide bridge funding to maintain a part-time coordinator for 5 months to allow EEPN to continue networking on the Shrink Project (which recently secured a commitment from the French government to reduce paper consumption by 50%), the Indonesia Paper Campaign, and the Virtual Global Summit on the paper industry.

(Posted by Branden for Daryl who joined RAN’s Michael Brune and others to protest MTR in West Virginia last week.)

Why would I fly across the country on my own dime knowing I would most likely end up in jail in one of the poorest parts of America?

Well, have you ever heard of MTR?

Don’t feel bad, my friends are intelligent well-read and informed people, but most of them had never heard of MTR (Mountain Top Removal) either.

So, I went to Coal River to help bring much needed attention to this hidden, criminal (but somehow legal) form of mining. I was honored to be joining an inspiringly brave group of concerned Americans, which included – NASA climate scientist James Hansen who was among the first to sound the alarm on the climate crisis. The sharp, charismatic, 94 year old, former West Virginia U.S. Representative and Secretary of State Ken Hechler, who was the first congressman to introduce a Federal bill to abolish strip mining in 1971. (If passed the bill could have prevented this mess we find ourselves in). And Michael Brune, executive director of Rainforests Action Network who is committed to ending to this terrible, destructive practice. I was deeply moved to be arrested with those affected by MTR in Kentucky, and the many local residents fighting for their very lives, including a half dozen senior citizens, canes, walkers and all.

Me with Dr. James Hansen at Marsh Fork Elementary School

Mountain Top Removal is a devastatingly destructive form of mining and has already destroyed 2,000,000 acres in the Appalachian Mountains.

Coal companies have literally blown up over 500 mountain tops to access the coal seams and then dumped the refuse into the valleys below, killing over 3000 miles of HEADWATER streams. The EPA just gave the go ahead for an additional 42 mountaintops to be blown off with another 6 permits pending.

Mountain Top Removal leaves behind a virtual hideous moonscape of devastated earth, billions of gallons of poisonous toxic sludge, and boarded up towns with dramatically high rates of cancer. More »

JP Morgan Chase bank, based in New York City, is living in the past. While they have a fancy new advertising campaign, that most of us have undoubtedly seen in the past few months, JP Morgan Chase still invests hundreds of millions of dollars into coal each year – reflecting an antiquated and highly destructive energy portfolio that is contributing to global warming, affecting the health of people living near coal plants and mine sites, and destroying mountains in Appalachia.

JP Morgan Chase has survived the past year of turmoil in the financial sector and is now one of the strongest and largest financial institutions in the United States. But while JP Morgan Chase is a leader in the financial sector, they are no leader for the environment. JP Morgan Chase is one of the largest financiers of new coal fired power plants as well as mountaintop removal coal mining. In fact, JP Morgan Chase is one of a very few banks who are willing to finance Massey Energy – one of the most destructive and devastating MTR companies in Appalachia. Its time for JP Morgan Chase to show leadership and to stop their investments in MTR and new coal plants – now!

RAN activists in New York are working with the Sierra Club, the New York Action Network, New York PIRG, and the Waterkeeper Alliance to tell JP Morgan Chase to stop financing dirty coal – join us! If you live near New York City, contact Jeremy to get involved with weekly actions targeting JP Morgan Chase in their home city.

See you in the streets!

-Annie

The Yes Men – the same folks who have posed as corporate and government hacks to announce Dow’s apology for the Bhopal chemical spill and to admit the failure of HUD’s reconstruction efforts in New Orleans – have just launched a new website as part of a national climate justice nonviolent civil disobedience pledge campaign.

The goal of the website is to create an international network of people willing to commit civil disobedience to prevent climate change. And given that the Mobilization for Climate Justice – which will coincide with the UN Climate Conference in Copenhagen – is happening five months from today, now is the time to get involved in taking direct action to stop climate change.

Sign up today! (And if civil disobedience isn’t really your thing, you can always help out by buying an action offset to help other people get trained, or pay bail.)

Boston, Ma–Activists with Rising Tide draped a 25-foot banner reading, “*Mountain Top Removal Kills Communities: EPA No New Permits. MountainJustice.org” on 1 North Congress St., at the intersection of New Chardon Activists with Rising Tide draped a 25-foot banner reading, “Mountain Top Removal Kills Communities: EPA No New Permits. MountainJustice.org” on 1 North Congress St., at the intersection of New Chardon Street and Congress Street, at the downtown offices of the Environmental Protection Agency this morning. The group is urging the agency to block over 150 pending permits for mountaintop removal coal mining in West Virginia, Kentucky, and Virginia.

“Mountaintop removal is destroying our nation’s most diverse forests and historic communities,” said Alex Johnston, a Rising Tide activist. “President Obama and the EPA need to take immediate action to stop the bulldozers from destroying America’s oldest mountains and Appalachians homes.” More »

Check out episode 5 of the 10 day adventure of RAN and Substance educating and mobilizing people to stop the Tar Sands, with rock bands Propagandhi and Strike Anywhere

In the past 10 days almost 50 people have been arrested protesting mountaintop removal sites.

On Thursday, June 18, 14 people were arrested as they daringly took over and scaled a coal-scooping 20-story dragline in Twilight, WV.

On Tuesday, June 23, 31 people (including climatologist James Hansen, actress Darryl Hannah, Goldman prize winner Judy Bonds, RAN Executive Director Michael Brune and many other West Virginia and Appalachian residents) crossed onto mining site (despite a large number of angry miners and their families) to commit a non-violent civil disobedience.

Now, the blogosphere is getting in on the act. Popular political blog the Daily Kos is calling for President Obama to visit mountaintop removal sites in the Appalachian Mountains.

In a very pointed post, the Daily Kossaks say:

However there are those in your own administration who are telling you that you should not insert yourself more powerfully into the issue of mountaintop removal. That you should step back, wait for Congress, and use the power of your office to constrain, rather than end, this practice. Mr. President, those people are wrong. You cannot bargain with mountaintop removal, any more than you can make a deal with a disease. Mountaintop removal mining is unsupportable — and unconscionable. It’s not needed to meet America’s energy needs. It’s not needed to provide jobs in Appalachia. It’s simply not needed.

Come and see for yourself, Mr. President. When you’ve seen it, you’ll know what to do.

They also have an online action asking people to go to Twitter and send this message:

President Obama. Go to West Virginia. See for yourself what Mountaintop Removal is doing to the land, water, and people. #mtr

Blogger Jeff Biggers has now posted the call on Huffington Post, and West Virginia Blue is also putting it out.

WE NEED YOU TO POST AND REPOST THIS MESSAGE. Activists are risking life, limb and liberty to expose and stop this horrible practice, please do everything you can to support them. More »