Eye to Eye with Brian Moynihan

VIDEO: To watch more of what happened yesterday at the Bank of America shareholder meeting in Charlotte, watch the clip at the bottom of this blog post. As I stood eye-to-eye with Bank of America (BofA) CEO, Brian Moynihan, a large stop-watch projected onto the wall of the conference room started to count down. I [...]

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Charlotte Teach-In: “We can no longer afford to stand still like we’re not a part of this planet.”

Last night, Saint Matthew’s Catholic Church in Charlotte graciously hosted a panel discussion on “Communities and Coal.” We were lucky to hear from panelists from communities impacted by coal in Appalachia and the Pacific Northwest, as well as from experts on the health consequences of climate change and the growing impacts of coal on communities [...]

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It’s Bank of America’s Annual Shareholder Meeting: Time to Voice Discontent

I know you care—in the past couple months, you’ve already taken multiple online actions to urge Bank of America to stop funding the coal industry. And as you are reading this, I am outside the Bank of America shareholder meeting in Charlotte, North Carolina, with a group of 30 people who have been negatively impacted by [...]

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Gearing Up for Bank of America’s Shareholder Meeting

I’m in Charlotte this week to talk to Bank of America’s annual shareholder meeting. For the past two years, RAN has been calling on the bank to get serious about addressing climate change.This is a bank that declares a “commitment to positive environmental change” proudly on its website and a bank that has fanfared multi-billion [...]

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The “Revolt of the Golden Toads” Bay Area Tour!

A guest blog post by Reverend Billy, leader of the Church of Stop Shopping, an activist performance group based in New York City The Church of Stop Shopping returns to New York now, after a week in the Bay Area.  A highlight:  we launched the “Extinction Resurrection” campaign at the front doors and inside the big banks that finance climate disruption. [...]

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Extreme Investments: 2013 Coal Finance Report Card

Today, RAN, Sierra Club, and BankTrack launched our 2013 Coal Finance Report Card. This year’s report, entitled “Extreme Investments: U.S. Banks and the Coal Industry” evaluates the largest U.S. banks in terms of their financing of companies engaged in coal extraction, transport, and combustion. As our title indicates, coal has become an extreme investment. Long [...]

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Divestistas: From Opposition to Resistance

I had the great privilege of representing Rainforest Action Network at the student-led Power Up! Divest Fossil Fuels Convergence. Hosted by Swarthmore Mountain Justice, students from around the country gathered for conversations about movement culture and strategy. I was thrilled to find myself amidst a dynamic and emergent group that asked all the right questions: [...]

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“It’s Easier to Mine Coal Without People Around.”

RAN’s latest Coal Risk Update highlights the potential human rights impacts of a planned mountaintop removal mine in Blair, West Virginia. Blair Mountain is a national treasure: The mountain is the site of arguably the most important post-Civil War battlefield in the US. Currently, Arch Coal plans to build a mine that would destroy the [...]

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Bob Kincaid: Self-Determination, Appalachian Style

Guest post by Bob Kincaid - Board Chair of Coal River Mountain Watch It is a historic day for Appalachia. Long one of America’s most neglected regions, Appalachia has suffered for years from abuses by the coal industry. Among the latest affronts are horrible health consequences outlined in a series of scientific papers detailing the diseases [...]

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Selenium Trouble at Alpha Natural Resources: Estimating Risk to Investors from Mine Emissions

Alpha Natural Resources’s lawyers have had their hands full with environmental litigation lately, as we detail in a RAN Coal Risk Update released today. During 2012, environmental groups filed multiple lawsuits against Alpha over alleged water contamination from selenium at the company’s mountaintop removal mines. The company’s 2011 sustainability report advertised that it had a “99.7% [...]

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