An update on the Gathering of Mother Earth Protectors at Queens Park in Toronto by Judy Rebick (via their blog): Today was the second day of the Gathering of Mother Earth Protectors. After a successful rally of more than 1,000 people yesterday, today settled down to constant presence of the three communities and supporters camping at [...]

Yesterday, two NC institutions stepped up for Appalachia. The North Carolina legislature introduced a bill to ban the burning of mountaintop removal coal in the state. NC is the 2nd largest non-coal producing consumer of MTR coal in the country. And then the Charlotte Observer published an article critical of hometown bank’s, Bank of America, [...]

Big oil is responsible for a lot of heinous crimes. They fund death squads cloaked as “private security” and help install brutal dictatorships that are friendly to their business. Being from Texas, I’ve had my share of run-ins with nasty members of the oilagarchy like Exxonmobil and Halliburton. But living in the [...]

Nissan recently announced plans to produce electric vehicles for the U.S. market by 2010. This upstages announcements from both GM and Toyota, which have also announced plans for plug-in production. Nissan’s commitment will make it the first automaker to sell zero emission vehicles in the U.S. Well, the first in the second wave anyway. (See [...]

Rising Tide pranksters at it again. From the Rising Tide website: “May 25, 2008 - Charlotte, NC Today, activists with Asheville Rising Tide broke ground on a new 800 Mw clean energy power plant in Duke Energy CEO Jim Rogers front yard. The power plant will tap into a previously unexplored energy source known as hot air [...]

Lately, for (ahem) strictly professional reasons, I’ve been watching the recently-concluded teen drama The O.C.. I’d heard a rumor that RAN — or at least our logo — makes a cameo in the series, and I set about trying to find it. (Season four, episode five at 20:17, in case you’re wondering; see image). The experience, [...]

Pretty exciting week for clean energy. Here’s a snippet of news I’ve been reading about in the past few days. Rockport, MO town goes 100% wind! This rural town installed wind turbine to generate its entire annual electricity usage from clean energy. This also means that as the costs of coal/gas/nuclear skyrocket - they will have [...]

Update: Photos can be found here and here. RAN joined with more than a dozen other groups to sponsor a week-long occupation of the Ontario Legislature in Ontario. Pictures and news reports are below. Event details can be found here. Independent News Coverage Paul Terefenko, “Natives Stake Their Claim.” Now Magazine. May 29, 2008 Judy Rebick and Judy [...]

After spending 4 days at the “Encontro Xingu”, I had the opportunity to fly over the entire Xingu river basin beginning in Altamira, Para and ending in Canarana, Mato Grosso…soy and cattle country. Since I didn’t have time to travel the entire length of the Xingu, like the Heart of Brazil Expedition did in [...]

***NOTE: This is essentially a report on the historic gathering, from my perspective. I meant to post daily blogs, but internet access in Altamira was non-existent in the hotel I stayed in. Enjoy!*** Thousands of people gathered in Altamira, Para-Brazil last week for the “Encontro Xingu: Vivo Para Sempre” or “Xingu Encounter: Alive Forever” [...]