Just one day before Prime Minister Harper’s first official visit with President Obama, three concerned citizens released a vivid 70-foot banner above the Niagara Falls; the banner is intended to call attention to Harper’s efforts to lock up the U.S. market for tar sands oil, and the threat tar sands holds for the climate. Against the dramatic Niagara Falls background, the most well recognized border between the U.S. and Canada, the banner is intended to send the message that Canadian tar sands oil threatens North America’s clean energy future.

Watch this page for updates.

UPDATE 6:14 am PDT: Here’s another photo, and a phone interview with one of the climbers (who is still hanging under the banner).

Live video from the historic protest in Washington, DC.

To see all of the GOTW’s, click here.

Click here to watch all the GOTW’s.

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 Queen’s Park. It’s really something to see three tepees and big tents on the lawns of Queen’s Park. Drop by and join in

The highlights today were a Chief’s press conference led off by AFN Chief Phil Fontaine. The chief of Grassy Narrows flew down for it and Donny Morris, Sam McKay and Jack Lapointe all spoke. Later in a moving moment 3 chiefs from Northern Manitoba who had flown in said how inspired they were by the KI 6 and presented a substantial contribution from their communities.

Then the leader of the amazing Grassy Walk, Chrissy Swain spoke about their walk and several youth including one from Six Nations who had been on the walk spoke. There were workshops too including one on Tyendinaga and Barriere Lake.

Tomorrow the highlight is the Ardoch KI appeal. There will be a march from Queen’s Park to Osgoode Hall at 10 am. Hope to see you there

The experience, along with a few posts on Stuff White People Like, has me thinking about how environmentalism and environmentalists play in the popular consciousness. In the series, the character in question goes off to Brown and becomes what most people would refer to as a hippy, although the word isn’t used. She leaves off personal hygiene, takes up the didgeridoo, and does a tree sit with an overprivileged new-ager in a Che shirt (who later makes her take the rap for some monkeywrenching that includes breaking into the Bio lab and liberating research bunnies).

At first the change is presented as a botched attempt at self-discovery, and in direct opposition to the character’s past associations with designer clothing and celebrity gossip; her transformation is as much fashion (un-)makeover as political awakening. And this is exactly how anyone would expect it to be depicted; in the United States, radical political consciousness and environmental activism often seem to occupy roughly the same discursive position as, say, “emo” — a moderately deviant consumer lifestyle choice, not a vital concern to our future as a species (no offense to any emos out there). So it’s available to TV writers as an unexpected personal quirk to add to a character to provide fresh material for a waning series (season four also included the second coma episode, an earthquake, and a cheap pregnancy scare).

Surprisingly, however, there’s some more to the story. Later, much to the writers’ credit, the character goes on to discover that her commitment to the movement is real; the end of the series sees her signing up for a tour as a student organizer with a fictional green NGO. Maybe after the alternate universe episode they were out of any other ideas, but the show actually managed transcend — ever so slightly — the easy caricature of the environmental movement as a pot-fueled patchoulifest, as much fashion identity as political commitment.

Let’s hope there’s a lot more where that came from.

As our friend Al has pointed out, we are now entering the age of environmental consequences. Environmental activism is about acting now, in a time of dire threat, to materially improve outcomes for people and ecosystems while addressing the root causes of their destruction. It is uniquely inclusive in its constituency — all lives on Earth, but especially those at the margins of the status quo. If the movement to save ourselves as human beings is limited in its scope to an aesthetic option for the gourmet-sandwich set, we don’t deserve to make it. The environmental movement is not a lifestyle choice, and it’s not compatible with consumerism. Nor should it be characterized by white culture and socioeconomic privilege, however much that criticism is a valid one.

When we’ve got it right, they won’t know us by our race, or our clothing, or our music, or even our green consumption choices. They will know us by our actions — and our strength.

And yes I know I’m a huge dork.

We’re about a week behind on this one, but there’s more to come.

Check out our new page at theproblemwithpalmoil.org. Demand for palm oil is on the rise, and pristine rainforests are being clear-cut and burned to make way for palm oil plantations. You can help us find out which supermarket products contain rainforest destruction by writing down their UPC codes and submitting them online. Click here to start adding UPC codes! See some more videos after the jump.

[UPDATE: For a complete listing of all the products found so far, click here.]

A supporter from Texas created this video about why you should care about Bank of America (and Citi’s) investment in coal. If you want to get involved, start by signing RAN’s petition telling BofA and Citi to end their coal investments.

As Joseph Romm points out over at Salon, the Earth itself would probably get along just fine without us. At a geological timescale, human effects on the planet’s homeostatic systems may well turn out to be just a small blip. But it’s in that blip that we and hundreds of future generations (might) live. We’re running up against the fact that we’re an ever-expanding, all-consuming colony of creatures that will, sooner or later, reach the limit of the Earth’s ability to support us. Actually, we’ve already passed it. We rely on non-renewable fossil-fuel energy to feed, move, and shelter pretty much everyone. And when you consume finite, non-renewable resources at an ever-increasing (or any) rate, eventually you run out. This simple fact is somehow ignored in mainstream discourse almost all of the time, with Earth Day being one of the exceptions.

New York Times columnist Paul Krugman addressed this yesterday in his column: Running Out of Planet to Exploit:

It’s not just oil that has defied the complacency of a few years back. Food prices have also soared, as have the prices of basic metals. And the global surge in commodity prices is reviving a question we haven’t heard much since the 1970s: Will limited supplies of natural resources pose an obstacle to future world economic growth?

His answer is yes, with an explanation of some of the economic thinking about the current high price of oil / global food shortage.

Another interesting article appeared in the English-language Japan Times today: Is growth driving us to oblivion?

The answer here, unfortunately, is also yes. A sustainable economy means an economy that can survive without constant growth. The world may be wide, but it’s not wide enough for us to expand forever. That is the simple fact. But it is so far from how we currently think about economic policy that it’s practically unponderable. Except maybe on Earth Day.

RAN’s Robin Beck attempts to present Ken Lewis, CEO of Bank of America, with an award for the global financial institution’s massive support for dirty coal. Bank of America is the leading financial backer of mountaintop removal coal mining in the United States and a top funder of new coal-fired power plants.

This sort of online marketing is a real priority for them. From the Detroit News:

Two dozen company executives conducted chats on the site last month, including GM Chairman and CEO Rick Wagoner. “We give a lot of importance to Web sites,” Wagoner wrote. “In fact, we have shifted a significant amount of our marketing spend to digital marketing. We’re also devoting a lot of our communications resources to social media.”

GM has also routinely invited bloggers to company press events and to meet with top executives.

Clay Voorhes, an assistant professor of marketing at Michigan State University, said the effort by GM is “part of a new push for authenticity by companies.”

A recent article in the Globe and Mail (not online) seemed to buy into the idea that GM was really trying for “authenticity.” The reality, however, is that these companies are making a push for the appearance and aesthetic of authenticity, not for authenticity itself. When the latter rears its sometimes-ugly head, they back off. In another article from the Financial Times, a spokesman states that their goal is “credibility:”

GM set up the website www.gmnext.com only last month as a springboard for ideas on future automotive technologies. The site was immediately bombarded by the carmaker’s critics. Posts included pictures of protestors at the Detroit motor show calling on the industry to combat climate change and to create more environmentally friendly jobs.

…

“We want to get as many voices in this debate as possible,” a company spokesman said. He added that: “We can’t just pick the friendly questions if we want this to be a credible conversation.”

So here’s the question for GM’s greenwashing crew: can they allow enough public feedback to appear “credible” while still avoiding uncomfortable criticism from knowledgeable, organized environmentalists? Here’s a hint: it might require making real, substantive changes outside of the PR department.