Some pretty crazy goings on in Pettry Bottom, WV. Massey’s security guards were cutting at the trees where Climate Ground Zero’s tree-sitter were sitting. They threatened them with physical assault and verbal abuse. And as one climber, Nick, descended they began to cut his tree which was attached to the other tree-sitters [...]

Why on earth has Verizon Wireless decided to sponsor a climate-denying, mountain-destroying, union-busting, PRO-MOUNTAINTOP REMOVAL labor day rally being organized by Massey Energy, featuring noted right-wing nutjobs Ted Nugent and Sean Hannity? Massey Energy is the poster-child of mountaintop removal and has been under fire for many years from everything to political corruption to destroying the [...]

Environmental advocates, especially those of us who grew up in the dam ridden West, would never imagine that a dam can actually be a tool to protect a critically threatened ecosystem. But that is exactly what is happening in the Kampar Peninsula of Sumatra, Indonesia. The Kampar Peninsula is under attack from the pulp and paper [...]

After a week of defending people in the Coal River Valley and enduring sleep deprivation tactics at the hands of Massey security, tree-sitter Nick Stocks is descending and turning himself in to the WV State Police. Tree-sitter Laura Steepleton plans to stay put with no immediate plans to leave. The tree-sit above the Coal River [...]

As organizing director at RAN, I’ve worked to support our campaign to break our addiction to fossil fuels, stop financing for the coal industry and put an end to mountaintop removal coal mining. Now I’m going to see it first-hand. I’ve read a lot about how devastating mountaintop removal mining is for communities in Appalachia. [...]

Day 5 of the Climate Ground Zero Tree Sit. In Kentucky, a MTR blast sent a boulder into a house, in WV they’ve stopped blasting for 5 days straight. Here’s a video with aerial footage of the tree sit and some voice over by Massey CEO Don Blankenship. Blast in KY Sends Boulder into Home; Sitters [...]

Several weeks ago – while we were busy organizing a banner hang at the headquarters of Royal Bank of Canada, the world’s biggest funder of the tar sands – a senior lawyer from RBC faxed us a very polite letter, letting us know that if we didn’t stop using their corporate logo in our campaign [...]

The Kampar peninsula in Riau, Sumatra has become a center of expansion of the pulp and paper industry. Once entirely peat forest and peat swamp habitats, the most carbon rich forests in the world, the Kampar is being rapidly converted to Acacia tree plantations. This month, Asia Pacific Resources International Holdings Limited (APRIL), one of the [...]

Yesterday, a colleague asked me if I had one of those t-shirts with the little fish ganging up on the big fish. That inspired me to dig it out of my drawer and wear it today. Putting on the t-shirt reminded me of when I bought it – 20 years ago this summer, during [...]

The sun is up and so are the tree sitters. Day two of standing in the way of the destruction of Appalachian mountains and communities begins! See Climate Ground Zero’s Update Feed Here. TREE SIT DETERS BLASTING, ENTERS SECOND DAY AT MASSEY EDWIGHT MINE PETTRY BOTTOM, W.Va. —The two tree sitters forced Massey Energy to cancel blasts [...]