Over the past 12 years, RAN has supported through our Protect-an-Acre small grants both Defense and Ecological Conservation of Intag (DECOIN) and Community Defense Council in the Intag region in the western Andes of Ecuador, a cloud forest ecosystem that is a globally significant biological hot spot. For 2 decades now, communities there have successfully led the struggle to halt all mining in the region, keeping out major Japanese and Canadian corporations.

Copper Mesa, until last year, was the owner of a two mining concessions in the Intag. But the company ran into a strong, organized opposition from communities, local government and, eventually even the national government, which eventually stripped Copper Mesa of its concessions in the country.

Now the Toronto Stock Exchange, which had been sued by 3 Intag activists, has delisted Copper Mesa from the exchange.

DECOIN organizer Carlos Zorrilla wrote in an email to Intag community supporters:

“This is a key victory in Intag’s very long and exhausting battle against mining interests. So big in fact, that I still find it difficult to believe. After all, this has been a dream of ours and something we’ve been working on for almost six years.”

Copper Mesa’s shares lost about 60% of their value in the 48 hours after the TSX delisting.

As negotiations wrapped up in Barcelona at the UN Climate Talks, the opportunity for a robust agreement to reduce emissions from deforestation and degradation in developing countries (REDD) is dangling from a wire. The latest negotiating text, which parties will be working on at the opening of the Copenhagen UNFCCC COP15, contains no provisions to monitor vital safeguards in developing countries which will receive funding to implement REDD, nor language that will ensure the protection of intact natural forests in those countries.

REDD is intended to help developing countries protect their remaining rainforests and reduce the 15-20 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions caused by deforestation, forest degradation and peatland destruction.
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Wednesday, September 30^th, the Environmental Protection Agency released a list of 79 pending mountaintop removal permits that  will be held for further review. While the decision signals a strong first step, there are still many more pending permits, not to mention all of the active mining occurring throughout Appalachia, that was not impacted by this decision. To read more about this decision, read my earlier post.

In response to this announcement, concerned DC residents went to the EPA headquarters to show their support for this decision, but to also remind the EPA that much more needs to be done to abolish mountaintop removal. Many passersby stopped to learn more about the issue and many of whom work within the Agency noticed our presence. Employees were even opening their windows to lean out and ask what we were up to.

While this decision was an important one, many coalfield residents and organizers like myself, question whether this announcement will hold its course. In a post by Jeff Biggers in the Nation entitled “Coalfield Uprising“, he explains how this decision has only strengthened activists resolve.

 “While we appreciate the EPA making this step to bring back enforcement of the Clean Water Act,” says Lorelei Scarbro, an organizer with Coal River Mountain Watch and a coal miner’s widow whose garden and hillside orchards border a proposed mountaintop removal site in West Virginia, “we will continue to come to Washington, DC, until mountaintop removal’s irreversible devastation to our communities and waterways is halted.”

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Before dawn this morning, a small team of climate activists is rapelling from the US observation deck at Niagara Falls. Dangling hundreds of feet above the ground, they’re sending a special welcome message to Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper ahead of his first official visit to the White House.

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The first photos are coming back from a RAN banner drop at Niagra Falls. From our press statement:

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).

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 materials they would consider suing us.

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In Toronto today, RAN appealed directly to Janet Nixon – the wife of Royal Bank of Canada’s CEO, Gordon Nixon – to help us end her husband’s company’s massive bankrolling of the Alberta tar sands.

During rush-hour commute this morning, two Indigenous Canadian women – RAN’s own Eriel Tchekwie Deranger, and Heather Milton-Lightening – scaled flagpoles in front of the main entrance of Royal Bank of Canada’s (RBC’s) headquarters in Toronto, dropping a banner reading “Please Help Us Mrs. Nixon.com”. On the streets below, they were joined by dozens of Toronto RAN supporters, spreading the same message to every RBC employee they could talk to: an appeal to Mrs. Janet Nixon, the wife of RBC CEO Gordon Nixon, to lend her strong and influential voice to those fighting to protect Canada’s clean water and respect Indigenous rights by pushing RBC to phase out its investments in Alberta tar sands projects. They handed out flyers, held banners, and even circled the building on bikes with “Please Help Us Mrs. Nixon.com” flags.

And at the same time as the banner was being unfurled, RAN supporters and allies began emailing a video to key RBC executives – in which RAN’s Michael Brune appeals to Mrs. Nixon to help RBC regain its environmental leadership by withdrawing its funding for the tar sands. Over 3,000 people sent over 12,000 emails to these top RBC execs. (If you haven’t participated in this online action yet, it’s not too late! Click here to view the video and email it to RBC executives.)

You can also view the video on YouTube (be sure to go to PleaseHelpUsMrsNixon.com and take action when you’re done watching):

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Dr. James Hansen calls for Civil Disobedience at the Capitol March 2nd « It’s Getting Hot In Here. (Thanks to Josh for posting this at IGHIH!)

Today Climate Scientist Dr. James Hansen released a public service announcement calling on all of us to join the Capitol Climate Action (CCA) on March 2nd. If you haven’t heard, it will be the largest protest on Global Warming in U.S. history.

“It’s time to take a stand on global warming,” Dr. Hansen says in the video. “We want to send a message to Congress and the President that we want them to take the actions that are needed to preserve climate for young people and future generations and all life on earth.”

VIDEO: A Call to Action on Global Warming from Dr. James Hansen

Dr. Hansen is a world renowned-scientist more accustomed to the lab and the library than the picket line. When he sees a problem so urgent that he is willing to take to the streets in protest, we can be sure it means that the government must act.

Some 2,000 people from across the country are expected to join Dr. Hansen at Congress’s own coal-fired power plant in Southeast Washington, D.C. Over 70 public health, faith-based, labor, racial and environmental justice, and climate groups has endorsed the action along with such leaders and figures as Vandana Shiva, Tom Goldtooth, Daryl Hannah, Michael Franti, Bill McKibben, Gus Speth, Reverend Lennox Yearwood, Noam Chomsky, Rabbi Michael Lerner, Paul Hawken, Adrienne Maree Brown, and Wendell Berry. Grammy Award-winning country singer Kathy Mattea will also join the protest and perform.

Coal-fired power plants are largest source of global warming pollution in the country, and the Capitol plant is widely regarded as a symbol of the country’s dangerous reliance on the fossil fuel. Burning coal also cuts short at least 24,000 lives in the U.S. annually, inflicts catastrophic damage to the landscape and water supplies and jeopardizes the lives of coal miners. Furthermore, coal leads to approximately $167 billion in healthcare costs annually and diverts scarce resources away from energy efficiency and clean energy, which create more than twice as many jobs per dollar as money for coal.

RSVP to be a part of CCA and make history now!

Youth action frames the conversation at the UNFCCC in Poznan, Poland

Young people from around the world made their voice heard today at the UN Framework Convention on Climate change in Poznan, Poland. After an inspiring speech from Al Gore, over 200 young people from India to the U.S. to the Congo held a spontaneous action inside, with banners that read “SURVIVAL IS NON-NEGOTIABLE.”

The demonstration was the next step in our “project survival” – inspired by a speech earlier this week by a representative from the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS), stating that current emissions targets set by powerful countries condemn their nations to extinction. In the last two days youth have mobilized to get over 80 country delegations to sign a pledge to “safeguard the survival of all peoples and nations.” Youth organized actions, tracked down delegates in the halls, lined the entrance to the plenaries, and knocked on meeting room doors to push their countries to sign the Survival Pledge. This morning our text has been adopted in the official UN Ministerial declaration document emerging from COP14, the COP President’s text on long-term vision. Heads of state referenced our call in major speeches. “It’s been an amazing success,” said Amanda McKenzie, of the Australian Youth Climate Network. “Hearing Australia’s Climate Minister Penny Wong commit to ’survival’ yesterday had me cheering in the halls. Now, it’s time to make sure she delivers.”

Actions like the one that happened 15 minutes ago aim to create the pressure to do just that. At the end of our action (after engaging with some angry UN people) several delegates and dignitaries came to thank the Youth for their action. A woman said “I am in a very high position in my government in Norway. Youth doing actions like this makes my work easier. Thank you.”

We’ve had an exciting victory, but we know we must continue to organize to make the implications of that statement meaningful – we know that any targets less than 350ppm will not insure the survival of all peoples and nations, and we know that any solution that is not equitable and just, is no solution at all.

Click below for many more photos and reflections.
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At noon today, activists affiliated with the New York Action Network convened in midtown dressed in their finest business wear to apologize to the public on behalf of Citi for the bank’s role in the funding of coal, the climate crisis and the financial turmoil worldwide.  Citi recently received 25 billion dollars of US taxpayer money; we thought it was an appropriate moment to thank taxpayers and to apologize for not taking their future into consideration while we were carelessly making all those dirty investments.

Donning laminated name-tags signaling our official status as Citi representatives – Veronica Huffinpuff, Sally Smokestack, Nomar Mountains, Anita Inhaler, Ivanna Bailout, Seymour Solar, Vin Turbine and others- one team of activists entered through the building’s side door looking for Mr. Vikram Pandit to sign a pledge which read: Dear Taxpayer, Thanks for the 700 billion dollars. We apologize for our history of irresponsible investment and promise to do better. We pledge to immediately cease all investment in coal and declare a moratorium on home foreclosures. It’s time to change, the buck stops here!”

Unfortunately, Mr. Pandit was unavailable so we gathered at the front of the building where we apologized  for “the mess we made!” to as many pedestrians as we could engage, handing them an open letter from the Citi family that outlined in detail the company’s new commitments to a more sustainable and just future.  We also had placards that read, “Sorry About Climate Change – Our Bad”, “Sorry about those foreclosures”, “We promise – no more dirty investments”.

It was certainly a lighthearted and humorous approach to protest, with the public and the media reactions being incredibly positive; people were laughing and listening – not something one encounters every day on the sidewalks of New York City.

But here’s the thing; the reason we were there in the first place, why twenty five of us committed our Friday afternoon to standing in the drizzle in suits, are incredibly serious.  Our country is experiencing an economic crisis that is being compared to the 1920’s; thousands of families are losing their homes while taxpayer money is being poured into financial institutions that refuse to acknowledge the error of their ways.  The only thing this does is to avoid the more salient issue – a climate crisis whose risk involves the lives and communities of a billion displaced peoples. We have yet to see significant action that begins to remedy these issues in any real way. We are burning more coal than ever.

The irony of this gap between the facts and the reality was made all the more evident to me by the police presence we experienced today. Both the police and Citi’s private security were out in full force (we locked down at the same site on Fossils Fools Day and discovered they were expecting a repeat ) and not looking to make friends with us.  One security guard aggressively asked me to step back from the side walk and told me diminutively, “I know you think this is silly”.

Actually, I don’t think anything about this is silly. At all.

What I would like to say to him is – we know the system doesn’t care about us, but the real question is, do we care about each other? He’s is in no better shape than the rest of us who make up the majority of the population. Not amongst the upper echelon trying to buy their way out of this mess.  We are out there for his future as well as our own, for his children as well as our own, and I live for the day when, instead of apologizing for standing six inches too far into their “zone”, we can interact as human beings and treat each other with the respect that we both deserve in our united struggle for justice and future.

Lauren Valle