Understory: the Official Blog of RAN

Archive for July, 2007

Rolling Stone on the “ethanol scam”

My father and I carry on a regular exchange of periodicals. For some reason my housemate has an unwanted subscription to Rolling Stone. I don’t read it, but my dad is a huge fan (it’s a generational thing). So I mail him every issue of Rolling Stone in exchange for his old issues of The [...]

Coal. Cheap. Abundant. Cheap.

Check out this great video, courtesy of our friends at Gristmill. Who got is courtesy of their friend Jeremy Beiler. Who I wish was RAN’s friend too. Jeremy - are you out there? Want to make more videos about coal? We promise to put them to good use….

Elaho Protected - Finally

The upper Elaho is a spectacular old-growth valley, only two hours north of Vancouver. While camped on a gravel bar next to an ice cold turquoise river you are surrounded by impressive mountain peaks - capped by glaciers and flanked by old growth temperate rainforests, including the world’s oldest Douglas Firs at 1300 years.. [...]

Mitzvah Corps Organize to Clean Up Citi

Check out this Jewish Weekly article about the awesome youth who took downtown San Francisco by storm with their “Clean Up Citi” carnival last week. These inspiring and creative youth activists brought so much to RAN while they were here. It was really exciting to see young people from around the country learning about global [...]

Is your couch a carbon offset?

So - people are familiar with carbon offsets right? Basically - the rough idea is that all carbon dioxide emissions are equal - and it doesn’t matter if emissions come from New York or in Russia. While there are arguments to be made how that is a horrible way to view it - [...]

Coal Doubters Block New Wave of Coal Plants

Today’s article in the Wall Street Journal “Coal Doubters Block New Wave of Coal Plants” paints a pretty grim picture of the fate coal — even (gasp) so-called ‘clean coal’ - pointing to a recent recommendation by a Minnesota public utilities commission hearing judge to reject buying electricity from a proposed coal gasification plant capable [...]

Toyota plugs in: Online petition works!

Today is my third day as RAN’s new online organizer. My job is to figure out how we can all use the internet to organize and push for crucial environmental change. Luckily, looks like we’re already doing something right. Toyota unveiled a plug-in Prius today and they’re going to start public road testing soon. While I’m excited [...]

Farm Bill Alert: Last Chance to Make a Difference in the House!

The Farm Bill is expected to go to a vote on the House floor this Thursday. If you’ve already contacted Pelosi and other government representatives, great! Either way, please inform yourself of what (or what more) you can do to help with the Farm Bill by reading below.

Los Angeles Times deconstructs nuclear power

A comprehensive editorial in today’s Los Angeles Times provides a timely deconstruction of existing arguments in favor of nuclear power. Aside from outlining the numerous risks and uncertainties associated with our atomic future, The Times cites efficiency and expansion of renewables such as wind and solar as a much better alternative in reducing emissions as [...]

RAN gets warm welcome at Animal Rights 2007

This past weekend, I had the pleasure of representing RAN at the Animal Rights 2007 conference in Los Angeles. RAN was the only non-AR environmental organization represented at the conference, which is a real shame, because there’s so much overlap between our movements in terms of our goals, strategies, and the issues we deal with.

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