Becky White and the Secret Mission have just released this catchy and hilarious protest anthem/call to action track and music video — featuring RAN’s own Executive Director Rebecca Tarbotton on violin — called “Man Up!” The song calls on people to gather at the White House on November 6 to persuade President Obama to make the right decision and oppose the disastrous Keystone XL Pipeline project, the fate of which is being decided by his Administration right now.

The movement to stop this massively destructive pipeline has brought together a wide array of unlikely allies and has exploded into a national political force to be reckoned with in a very short amount of time. Please check this out and share it widely to spread the word on this crucial and time-sensitive issue!

The White House. Nov 6. Be There.

These are the final moments before President Obama makes a decision to approve or reject the construction of the dirty and dangerous Keystone XL tar sands pipeline. On November 6, exactly one year before the election, thousands will come together to completely encircle the White House in an act of solidarity to convince President Obama to make the right decision to reject the Keystone XL.

More than 4000 have already signed up to participate. This is fantastic, but we need thousands more!

Please don’t stay at home this Sunday wondering whether your presence would have made a difference. Come stand with us for clean energy, for human rights, for all of our futures. Sign up now!

“So many lives are on the line right now. The system is crashing. It’s crashing economically and it’s crashing ecologically. The stakes are too high right now for us not to make the most of this moment.” — Naomi Klein at Occupy Wall Street

“The U.S. Chamber of Commerce is the Everest of dirty money.”

Have you heard of the Partnership to Fuel America? It sounds innocent enough, but it’s actually a campaign launched by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce to promote the Keystone XL oil pipeline.

The U.S. Chamber would like you to imagine it as the voice of all American businesses, but it has more in common with the American Petroleum Institute than with your local chamber of commerce. In fact, according to 350.org, some 55% of the Chamber’s funding comes from just 16 companies. Who are these donors? We don’t know (yes, it’s actually a secret). We can make a good guess, though, by looking at where the money goes.

The Chamber spent $132 million on lobbying in 2010 — $32 million on the midterm elections alone,  with 94 percent going to candidates that deny climate change. And almost all the politicians the Chamber helped elect made dismantling environmental regulations a top priority. This, in addition to a long history of science denial, makes the Chamber’s position on global warming clear. Such staunch opposition to climate action has led corporations like Nike, Apple, Microsoft, and PG&E to distance themselves from the Chamber.

However, for some reason the Chamber sees a need to cast itself as a moderate on climate and energy. On its web site, for example, it claims to support a “comprehensive legislative solution” for climate change. That’s easy to say now that every legislative solution has been killed, largely thanks to the Chamber’s lobbying. And the Chamber fiercely opposes EPA carbon regulations — the only federal option left on the table.

Click to view larger infographic

In comments sent to the EPA, the Chamber insisted that global warming really isn’t a problem:

Overall, there is strong evidence that populations can acclimatize to warmer climates via a range of behavioral, physiological, and technological adaptations.

I’m sure the folks in Texas suffering from the historic drought will be happy to hear that.

If you need further evidence of whom the Chamber works for, consider this: It sided with Chevron in the Amazon pollution lawsuit. While international law experts criticized a U.S. federal judge for barring the enforcement of the $18 billion verdict against Chevron, the Chamber had this to say about the oil giant’s appeal:

At bottom, this appeal involves a carefully tailored solution in a case containing extraordinary, unrebutted evidence of a plan to shake down a United States corporation.

More recently, the Chamber has taken a stand in favor of smog, aka ground level ozone, by opposing tighter pollution standards. Having beaten down climate and clean energy bills, the Chamber is now working with its friends in Congress to blanket-bomb decades of green achievements, from the Clean Air Act to the EPA itself. The Partnership to Fuel Pollute America is just the latest step in the Chamber’s plan.

The Keystone XL pipeline could be disastrous for the regions it crosses, and the accompanying tar sands expansion would be disastrous for the climate, according to top scientists. In an open letter, they warned that energy sources like the tar sands will “leave our children and grandchildren a climate system with consequences that are out of their control.”

I guess they haven’t heard that we can just change our physiology.

If the quote about “physiological adaptations” sounds familiar, that’s because Bill McKibben mentioned it in his Powershift speech:

I don’t even really know what that means, alter your physiology. Grow gills? I don’t know. But I can tell you this. I am too old to change my physiology and you all are too good looking. But I will adapt my behavior. Every day now I will roll out of bed and go to work fighting [the Chamber's agenda]….

We’re going to adapt our behavior all right. We’re going to adapt our behavior now to fight on every front. I’m sorry if that sounds aggressive, but there we are.

Do you want to join the fight against the Chamber’s agenda? If so, here are some ways to take action:

• Sign the petition asking President Obama to block the Keystone XL pipeline expansion. Although the State Department is ready to give the project a green light, the President has the final word; he can approve or stop the pipeline with a signature.
• Support and spread the word about the Tar Sands Action. For two weeks (until September 2), over 2,000 activists will gather in Washington, D.C. to protest the Keystone XL. The event began on August 20 with 70 arrests in front of the White House (but you don’t have to get arrested to participate).
• Own a business, or know someone who does? Tell America that the U.S. Chamber doesn’t speak for you. We can’t take away the Chamber’s money, but we can undermine its credibility. So far, over 6,000 businesses have signed 350.org’s statement opposing the Chamber.

This blog was orginally posted on the Daily Kos on August 19th as part of the Stop Tar Sands Blogathon.

On Sunday, Aug 28th, the Martin Luther King Jr. National Memorial in Washington, D.C. will open. The dedication — now long overdue — will serve as a reminder of Dr. King’s enduring legacy of justice, love, compassion — and activism.

The dedication falls right in the middle of a two-week period when, in the spirit of King, over 2,000 activists will meet at the White House to voice their opposition to the proposed Keystone XL pipeline. The 1,700-mile oil pipeline, if built, would carry tar sands oil from my home country of Canada down along the spine of the U.S. all the way to the Gulf Coast.

It’s an ambitious proposal to build an immensely long pipeline, and if President Obama approves the Keystone XL, the distance between his rhetoric and reality will grow proportionally. Upon his election, the president told us that this was the moment “when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal.” But full exploitation of the tar sands would put the climate at extreme risk, which is why scientists such as Michael Mann and James Hansen oppose the pipeline.

The arguments for the pipeline have included energy independence, pipeline safety, and cheaper fuel prices. One by one each has been knocked down as people come to grips with the reality that increasing oil supply is no way to deal with oil addiction or climate change — our twin challenges when it comes to our energy choices. Consider these facts:

• According to government body in charge of pipeline safety, between 2000 and 2009, pipeline accidents were responsible for 2,794 significant incidents and 161 fatalities in the United States.

• According to NRDC projections, scaling up our use of renewables and increasing our energy efficiency can go a long way to offsetting the use of tar sands oil, if not meet them completely.

• The physics that control our climate are not waiting around for politicians to parse through the arguments for the Keystone XL and figure out how to message yet another step in the wrong direction. We are experiencing climate change now, and no amount of wishing it away or political posturing is going to change that reality.

Of course, the company behind the pipeline, TransCanada, and its other supporters have done everything they can to manipulate the process (including creating fake Twitter personas). It hired Secretary of State Clinton’s former deputy campaign director as their chief lobbyist, and recently released Wikileaks documents show U.S. envoys working with Canadian energy bosses to insure “favorable media coverage.”

We can’t have business as usual anymore. This is the message that the sit-in will send loud and clear to TransCanada and the president, a former community organizer himself who has a bust of King in the Oval Office. The president knows what a people powered movement can accomplish.

King challenged the conscience of the nation, and he was shot down in Memphis as he was putting together the Poor People’s Campaign, a new effort to tackle economic justice and housing for the poor in the U.S. Today’s climate activists are channeling King’s courage by taking their message straight to the doorstep of the president. The eyes of the world are watching.

Take Action

1 Sign & Share the Petition to Obama

Only the President of the United States has the authority to block the Keystone XL pipeline. Tell President Obama to keep the Keystone XL oil pipeline out of our backyards. Everyone in North America needs to be aware of this dangerous pipeline proposal, so please share this petition with your friends and family. Make sure they know that the opportunity to stop Keystone XL is right now.

2 Join the Tar Sands Action in D.C.

From August 20-September 3, concerned people from across the continent—students, celebrities, scientists, Indigenous peoples, church groups, environmentalists, parents, and more—are gathering in Washington for a mass act of civil disobedience at the White House. Over 1500 individuals are already registered to join this wave of sustained sit-ins and send a clear message to the President: The People are saying NO to the 2000-mile climate-destroying Keystone XL pipeline.

If you’re ready to do whatever it takes to stop climate change, you can register to join the action at tarsandsaction.org.

Clayton Thomas-Muller, James Cameron, Melina Laboucan-Massimo, Eriel Deranger <3 <3 <3

Check out this great shot of RAN Freedom From Oil Campaigner Eriel Deranger (that’s her on the right) with James Cameron and friends from Greenpeace and IEN.

Cameron  was in town for a tour of the tar sands.  More details on his trip can be found here on the Understory and at Huffington Post.

Spoiler: he wants an end to the toxic tailings that are fouling Canada’s rivers and contaminating communities downstream.

Why did we get to work to clean up Chevron stations today as part of the 10/10/10 Global Work Party? The answer is pretty simple: Chevron refuses to clean up its own messes, so we wanted to set a good example for the company to follow.

According to a new scientific analysis released last month, the 18 billion gallons of toxic oil waste polluting Ecuador’s rainforest could lead to as many as 10,000 Ecuadoreans dying of cancer by 2080 — and that’s even if Chevron cleans up its mess in Ecuador immediately. That number could rise exponentially if Chevron doesn’t take action. But so far the company has refused to get to work.

That’s why we sent teams to temporarily shut down all 10 San Francisco Chevron gas stations for “cleaning” of oil spills. Check out the pics:

Our activists were at the Chevron stations to confront the company on its pollution in Ecuador, and on its pollution in communities around the world, from California to Ecuador to Nigeria. While Chevron refuses to take responsibility for this pollution, the company is actively working to stall climate and clean energy policies that would get us off of dirty fossil fuels once and for all. Chevron needs to clean up its own mess, and to stop standing in the way of those of us who are getting to work to make the clean energy future a reality.

After shutting down the stations in San Francisco, we headed to Lafayette, CA — home of Chevron CEO John Watson. If ever there were a guy who needs to get to work, John Watson is that guy. Unfortunately, he recently told an interviewer that he thinks it will take “generations” for us to make the switch from fossil fuels to renewable energy. This is clearly not acceptable: There are 30,000 Ecuadoreans living amongst Chevron’s toxic pollution, and the entire world is threatened by global warming. Lives are at stake.

So we stopped by Watson’s house at the end of the day and dropped off our cleaning supplies, as a not-terribly-subtle suggestion that the CEO get to work. Check out the video.

There were, of course, more 7,000 work parties in about 180 countries today. Around 1,200 of those work parties were in the U.S., which easily dwarfs the number of astroturf events organized by the American Petroleum Institute this summer, and is nearly double the 642 Tax Day Tea Parties organized this spring with the support of Fox News. Check out the highlights from around the world on 350.org.

PNC prides itself on being the “greenest bank in the business” and last week further contributed to that delusion by opening a new “green” certified building as their regional HQ in Washington D.C.

Containing a “15,000 square-foot Eco-Skygarden covering half of the 12-story building’s roof” and “a three-story ‘climate wall’ of constantly falling water, which controls temperature and humidity in the lobby” the building is PNC’s latest big greenwash.

Why is this an exercise in greenwashing? Because, PNC is the largest funder of mountaintop removal in the U.S. They gave over $130 million to six of the eight largest mountaintop removal coal companies.

EQAT Member George Lakey, arrested at PNC in Washington D.C.

Early last week, Rainforest Action Network, Rev. Billy, the Earth Quaker Action Team and many others did a sit-in at PNC’s flagship branch in Washington D.C. during Appalachia Rising.

Look for more as we amp up our campaign against them and be sure to tell the CEO James Rohr what you think about his bank’s policies.

Kampar Peninsula: Photo Via Treehugger

Sinar Mas Group’s Asia Pulp and Paper (APP), Indonesia’s largest and most controversial logger, made another promise this week.

APP announced that one of the rainforest logging and conversion permits it controls (located in the globally significant peatland forests of the Sumatra’s Kampar Peninsula) will be re-licensed as a carbon conservation project.

However, given the lack local community or government involvement, the fact that the Industrial Timber Plantation license has yet to be reclassified as restoration or protected forest by government, and given the long timelines and lack of details associated with the deal, it remains to be seen if this is just another empty promise and public relations ploy by APP.

APP has a long history of broken commitments with communities, government, certification bodies, civil society and its customers.

Here’s my official statement:

The Kampar is among the deepest and most valuable peat forest ecosystems in the world. Not only does it provide carbon storage, it is customary land that supports the livelihoods of local communities and it serves as critical habitat for endangered Sumatran tigers and many other species. Although RAN hasn’t seen the details behind this announcement, it’s likely that the area in question should be illegal to clear in the first place. Any further development in this or other parts of the Kampar and neighboring peatlands and natural forests should certainly be subject to the moratorium on new licenses due to be adopted in January as part of the agreement on reducing deforestation and forest degradation between the Governments of Indonesia and Norway.
While we support the conservation of the Kampar, this project in no way makes up for the tremendous amount of damage that APP and its affiliates are having on communities rainforests and peatlands across Indonesia. This area represents a small proportion of the remaining natural forests and peatlands in their land bank and without action to protect other threatened areas in the Kampar and elsewhere, the area’s values could be lost and any emissions reductions rendered meaningless due to leakage.

APP’s conservation efforts are a drop in the bucket compared to the destruction that their standard business practices are causing across Indonesia. Under no circumstances should APP be praised or compensated for doing something that they should have been doing in the first place.

A critical question that needs to be answered in this situation, is whether or not local communities and governments know that this is happening and have a meaningful role in decision-making. If we don’t know that, it’s unclear where benefits will flow from this deal and how durable it will be. RAN maintains that if these types of conservation projects are to be successful, they must have the free, prior and informed consent of local communities and these communities must participate and receive an equitable share of the benefits.

What’s really good here is that the Ministry of Forests is stepping up to change the designation of this land use from “clear and convert” to “restore and protect.” If it’s done in the right way, involving communities and avoiding leakage, it could be an important precedent for Indonesia’s government.

If Indonesia is going to live up to their agreement with Norway, the government must re-designate licenses somehow and APP holds a lot of concessions with peat and natural forests. We urge the government to involve local communities, settle land claims and, as they appear to be doing with this agreement, and to reallocate all remaining undeveloped peatlands and natural forests to restoration/conservation areas.

Finally, this project is a great example of why, before they package carbon as a commodity, private carbon traders should adopt fundamental social and environmental safeguards and require their clients to verify that they’re not involved in the destruction of peatlands and natural forests across all their land holdings.

Thought the jury’s still out on how this project will land- given APP’s track record of deception, corruption and destruction- don’t hold your breath.

Greenpeace, RAN & Sierra Club Make Statement On Toxic Tar Sands

Today I joined allies from Sierra Club Prairie and Greenpeace to transform the steps of the Provincial legislature in an attempt to give Albertans an idea of the amount of tailings, French tar sands giant Total, will create in Alberta if Total’s new mine site is approved. We woke up bright and early to set-up 60, 200 litre rain barrels which is what Total will dump into Alberta’s ecosystem every 30 seconds with this project.

Total recently applied for a permit to create another massive open pit mining project in Alberta along with a wet tailing permit. Even though Stelmach, our Premier, announced an end to wet tailings this year, we have seen 9 permits for wet tailings and 7 have already been approved. Our land and eco-systems can no longer handle the toxic contaminant.

The visual was set-up on the final day of the hearing process for French tar sands giant Total new tar sands mine. If approved Total’s Joslyn Mine would spew 1.5 million tonnes of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, release 12.5 billion litres of toxic tailings waste, and remove and pollute up to 22 billion litres of fresh water from the Athabasca River each year, in addition to destroying 7,000 hectares of boreal forest — equivalent to 13,000 football fields. We obviously couldn’t possibly gather enough rain barrels to represent such an unfathomable number, we would have needed somewhere in the ball park of 60 MILLION barrels. 

It’s glaringly apparent that Total is not concerns with the compounding impacts tar sands development is having on the eco-system and the people that rely on them.  I can’t imagine anyone considering Total a company with strong corporate social responsiblity given the era of climate choas that we are currently living in at present.  This project is set to be place within one of the world’s last remaining watershed.

Just yesterday one of NASA’s top scientists, James Hansen told a panel reviewing the proposed tar sands mine in northern Alberta that the resource should simply be left in the ground.

In addition, yesterday in Hungary a reservoir containing toxic mining waste breached releasing 600,000-700,000 cubic metres of sludge creating a tidal wave riping through seven towns and villages. Such a spill is only a fraction of what is held in the massive tailings lakes we have here in Alberta. A major breach of any of the tailings would be catastrosphic. TOTAL doesn’t even have a contingency plan is such a thing were to happen.

Expert after expert, report after report, has detailed the impacts the tar sands are having on downstream communities and Alberta’s ecosystem. People are already getting sick we can’t approve another massive mine in this region. We need to deal with the toxic mess we have already created before we even consider adding to it. How can the Alberta government continue to grant permit after permit?  How can we continue to ignore the science, reports and evidence piling up?

It’s time we tell our banks, leaders, and fellow citizen to stop financing these dirty companies and support a moratorium on no new approval in the tar sands.

What Cargill's Illegal Palm Operations Look Like in West Kalimantan. Photo: David Gilbert/RAN

Cargill just released their 2010 Corporate Responsibility Report, which provides an overview of Cargill’s amazing lackluster efforts to address supply chain issues including sourcing palm oil associated with rainforest destruction and social conflict. Titled “Growing Together,” the report is a seriously misleading account of the environmental and human rights achievements of the world’s largest privately owned corporation.

What’s most perplexing is that in this new report, Cargill highlights their PT Hindoli palm plantation in South Sumatra as “such a strong model for sustainability that the Indonesian government uses it as a prime example of sustainable palm oil production,” while just days before an article in the Jakarta Post came out reporting strong evidence that PT Hindoli (a unit of the Cargill Group) had conducted land clearing in a large swathe of forest outside the company’s conession area- a serious violation which carries hefty penalties.

The article noted that Hindoli’s offence has been confirmed by an audit by the Indonesian Supreme Audit Agency (BPK); at the end of this Jakarta Post piece Cargill claims they’re working with the Foresty Ministry to pay their fines and settle the matter.

In this new CSR report Cargill claims it is is “committed to advancing the sustainability of oil palm production around the world” yet even after three years of RAN campaigning and calling on Cargill to do so they have yet to release and adopt a responsible palm oil sourcing policy after years of RAN campaigning for them to do so.

Can Cargill Meet the Growing Demands for Responsible Palm in the U.S.?

Cargill claims to have their “own policies for responsible palm production,” but what they’re calling “policies” are actually just a couple of minimal criteria such as not planting on high conservation value forests (HCVF), not developing new plantations on deep peat land or land that would threaten biodiversity, and enforcing a strict no-burn policy for land preparation. Interestingly, we found Cargill to be violating even these most basic commitments as documented in RAN’s investigative report released this spring.

Equally as disappointing, although Cargill is the largest importer of palm oil into the U.S. and supplies palm oil to most major food company in America, it still has unacceptably weak goals for sourcing sustainable palm oil even as it controls 20-25% of the world palm oil trade. Cargill has, for example, the relatively meaningless goal of buying 60 percent of its total crude palm oil from RSPO members by the end of 2010.  However, many RSPO Members are currently in gross violation of RSPO standards. PT SMART, a subsidiary of Sinar Mas Group, was just recently censured by the RSPO for its destructive palm oil practices.  But Cargill refuses to drop Sinar Mas as a source of palm oil in its supply chains.  This despite major global customers like General Mills, Unilever and others insisting that they do not want to purchase any palm oil at all that comes from Sinar Mas.

General Mills has recently announced its goal of sourcing 100% certified responsible palm oil by 2015 with a purchasing preference for RSPO certified palm. They join a growing number of major food companies around the world demanding 100% segregated RSPO-certified palm oil from their suppliers.

Cargill needs to move quickly beyond the greenwash if it is going to be able to meet the growing demand for responsible palm oil in time.

While the 19th century era coal barons tried to fit themselves into the 21st century, a mysterious entity known as the “Black Cross Alliance” planted black crosses at the HQs of Peabody Energy and Ameren UE, as well as a PNC Bank, calling out the growing death toll related to coal mining and coal burning policies.

With a spirit as old and as rebellious as Edward Abbey, the Black Cross Alliance has been leaving black crosses and messages reading “We Shall Not Be Crucified Upon A Cross of Coal” onto workers’ helmets and mining equipment in southern Illinois.

Back at the conference, Peabody CEO Greg Boyce attempted to give a speech at Washington U. until students and environmentalists with Climate Action St. Louis took a stand, literally, with messages like “Coal does not solve poverty, it causes it,” “Clean Coal is a dirty lie,” and “Get off my board.” The last message referencing Boyce as a board member at Washington U. Boyce ignored them, the other conference participants didn’t.

Last week’s actions in Washington DC, Louisville Ky and, now, St. Louis show that resistance to King Coal is fertile.

Corporate Coal Criminals Warned Again by the Black Cross Alliance
Black Crosses Continue to Emerge Throughout America

You shall not press upon the brow of labor this crown of thorns.
You shall not crucify us any longer upon a cross of coal.

Three mysterious black crosses, signifying the infinite human lives and sacred lands sacrificed for coal-powered electricity, were spotted early this morning at the headquarter offices of Peabody Energy and Ameren UE, as well as a PNC Bank ATM. All of these companies continue to prioritize profits over people. This act is considered to be a continuance of the similar incidents of spontaneous cross construction throughout Southern Illinois last week.

St. Louis, Missouri is ground zero in the Obama administration’s plan to dangerously experiment with carbon capture and storage (CCS) technologies for coal-fired plants, and a predominant CCS research facility has recently begun construction at Washington University. It is clear why the Black Cross Alliance wants to spread awareness in St. Louis. Three of the world’s largest coal corporations are headquartered in St. Louis: Peabody Energy, Ameren UE, and Arch Coal. In the last year, Peabody Energy received $61 million in tax abatements and rebates from the city of Saint Louis; Arch Coal applied for yet another permit for a fifteenth Mountaintop Removal (MTR) coal mine in Central Appalachia; Ameren UE increased local consumers’ energy bills by almost 12%, and currently operates one of the nation’s largest coal plants, emitting hazardous levels of mercury and other carcinogens and toxins. PNC Bank is notorious for its financing of destructive mountaintop removal coal mining practices.

The Black Cross Alliance plans to construct symbolic black crosses at coal mining and coal-burning landmarks in the state and across the nation to serve as a public warning: It is no longer acceptable for the Obama administration–and state and regional government officials—to refuse renewable energies such as wind and solar technologies, and remain negligent in the protection of entire human populations threatened by coal mining.

In a line: The death-toll from coal mining and coal-burning plants has become a national disaster.

Invoking southern Illinois-born populist William Jennings Bryan’s famous “Cross of Gold” speech, the Black Cross Alliance calls on the Obama administration and the state of Missouri to halt billions of dollars in taxpayer subsidies for multinational coal corporations, and bring an end to scandalous coal wars throughout the country by re-investing in a sustainable and just energy policy.

The Black Cross Alliance declares: We shall not be crucified upon a cross of coal.

It’s time to reveal the hidden costs of coal: Coal is not clean (and can never be, regardless of new technologies), and coal is not cheap. Coal is deadly, destructive, and running out. Coal is over.

A coal slurry spill from Murray Energy’s American Century Mine is threatening Belmont County Creek.

This is the fourth coal slurry spill into the creek in recent years – and yet Murray Energy wants to put another impoundment right on the creek.

Murray is the largest privately owned coal company in the US, and the second largest producer of longwall coal.

You can read the full story about the spill here in the Columbus Dispatch.

For a big company like Chevron, image is everything. And when a company as big as Chevron dumps over 18 billion gallons of toxic oil waste into a pristine rainforest, leading to the deaths of over 1,400 people and imperiling the health and wellbeing of tens of thousands more, that company’s reputation justifiably suffers.

The obvious way to repair your damaged image is to clean up your mess. We’re all expected to clean up after ourselves, and behemoth corporations are no exception. Chevron, however, seems never to have learned that life lesson. Instead of cleaning up after itself, the company just invests in PR to clean up its image.

For instance, the company is sponsoring numerous professional sports teams to try and associate the Chevron name with good ol’ American pursuits such as baseball and basketball instead of the toxic mess the company is more widely known for. Now that’s what I call a swing and a miss…

Our own hometown heroes the San Francisco Giants are one of the teams Chevron sponsors to protect the way its brand is perceived by everyday Americans even as it refuses to protect the lives of Ecuadorians. Chevron doesn’t just stop with the Giants, other teams whose good reputation the company is seeking to piggyback off of are the LA Dodgers and the New Orleans Hornets.

With the Giants making a bid for the playoffs (yeah we’re fans), and AT&T Park being right down the street, we decided to take ourselves out to the ballgame and send Chevron a message. It was a warm, sunny day out today, which was good news for everyone who came out to the daytime ball game. It also wasn’t terribly windy, which was good news for our banner.

Chevron has a huge advertisement with happy, smiling cars on the left field wall of AT&T Park. So we made ourselves a banner — hewing a bit closer to reality than Chevron’s ad, it read “Clean Up Ecuador Oil Spill” — and hung it on the left field wall, right next to Chevron’s ad.

The crowd loved it. Some folks even took up a chant of “Let them hang it” when security came and took our banner down.

Chevron can’t use PR as a pinch-hitter to get out of its mess. It’s time for Chevron to step up to the plate and clean up Ecuador.

General Mills Joins Race to Protect Rainforests!

Yesterday marked a huge shift in the U.S. food industry – it’s now official that the world’s sixth largest food company is taking concrete action to address their controversial sourcing of palm oil from Cargill.

I attended General Mills’ annual shareholder meeting on Monday in Minneapolis, MN, and listened intently as CEO Ken Powell addressed several hundred of his company shareholders. After the usual 20 min. financial reports and marketing strategies overview, he addressed two two issues in his presentation that were of particular importance to the company: Palm Oil and Water Conservation.

CEO Ken Powell made it very clear that his company would work hard to push their palm oil suppliers (Cargill is their key palm oil supplier) to make real changes on the ground in Indonesia to prevent any further rainforest destruction, Indigenous community displacement or species extinction for palm oil expansion.

As I went inside the shareholder meeting with local community member and mother Sharon Sund to make a statement, 40 RAN activists and coalition partners rallied in front of the meeting, holding a big banner reading “General Mills Joins Race to Protect Rainforests” with matching yellow and black balloons and T-Shirts with backs that read “Can Cargill Catch Up?”

Sharon and I met Tom Forsythe, the General Mills rep we’ve been working with over the past 8 months, and he escorted us inside, introduced us to high level staff, and gave us seats at the front of the house.  Sharon and I together made a 4 minute statement inside the meeting and were thanked by two huge rounds of applause from shareholders.

After the meeting CEO Ken Powell came out and shook hands with us and thanked us for our work. Sharon read him a statement from her 11 year old daughter and it was very powerful.

After jointly releasing General Mills’ palm oil policy last Wednesday with a big media splash, marking an end to our public campaign targeting General Mills, we dropped a banner on the Grain Exchange skyway outside of Cargill’s downtown office last Thursday to let Cargill know that now the pressure is really on. Cargill’s palm oil customers are demanding responsible palm oil in the U.S. – will Cargill provide it?

You can watch our statements:

These are the statements we made inside the meeting:

ASHLEY SCHAEFFER, Rainforest Agribusiness Campaigner, Rainforest Action Network:

“My name is Ashley Schaeffer and I am here today on behalf of Rainforest Action Network. As an individual responsible for RAN’s General Mills-focused palm oil campaign, I have been in communication with Tom Forsythe of General Mills since February of this year. I’m here today both to congratulate General Mills on the recent adoption of their benchmark palm oil policy and to express my enthusiasm about working together in the future on the implementation of this policy. But first I’d like to say a few words about why this policy is so important.

Palm oil is found in thousands of consumer products, from soap to cosmetics to breakfast cereal.  Its use is widespread and increasing around the world, but particularly in the U.S., where its consumption has tripled in the last five years. Unfortunately, palm oil is also tightly linked to the destruction of some of the world’s most valuable remaining rainforests, primarily in Indonesia and Malaysia. Increasing consumption has triggered expanded production, replacing once biodiverse rainforests with mono-cropped palm oil plantations.

This unsustainable agriculture model is causing extreme devastation in Indonesia, both socially and environmentally. It’s one of the primary reasons that unique species like Sumatran orangutans, tigers and elephants are almost extinct, why many waterways are heavily polluted, and why thousands of Indigenous peoples are displaced from their traditional lands every year.

With such reluctance from large suppliers like Sinar Mas and Cargill to address this issue properly, it’s really up to U.S. food companies who buy palm oil for their products to take leadership on this issue to push their supplier companies to make real changes on the ground in Indonesia.

The recent leadership that General Mills has demonstrated on this issue is a testament to the company’s values. The palm policy is important for General Mills as a company, and for the impact General Mills can have in moving suppliers forward.  There is a long way to go on the issue, and to completely stop the destruction fo the world’s rainforests will require companies like General Mills continuing to demand better standards from suppliers.  We are very much looking forward to working with General Mills on the implementation of this policy, and applaud the goal of 100 percent certified responsible palm oil by 2015.

SHARON SUND, Rainforest Action Network Twin Cities Member and Minneapolis resident:

As a local community member and a mother, I want to thank General Mills for their new policy on palm oil.  This issue is important to me because it is important to my daughter, Jade.  If all of our children knew that we were feeding them breakfast cereal at the expense of rainforests, they would never forgive us.

That is why I am so glad to see that General Mills is making these changes – so we don’t have to suffer the wrath of our children for letting rainforest destruction happen.

I would also like to encourage General Mills to go as deeply into this issue and your commitment as you can, to ensure that your suppliers follow through with the policies that you have endorsed.

I have hope that in one year, we will have seen big changes on how palm oil is being produced in Indonesia, and that here in Minnesota we can feed our children while still sustaining the earth.”

In case you missed all the action last week, check out some of our best media hits below:

FAST COMPANY MAGAZINE:
General Mills Ditches Dirty Palm Oil
http://www.fastcompany.com/1690894/general-mills-ditches-dirty-palm-oil

MINNEAPOLIS STAR TRIBUNE
Demonstrators dangle from skyway in protest against Cargill
http://www.startribune.com/local/103624319.html?elr=KArks:DCiUo3PD:3D_V_qD3L:c7cQKUiD3aPc:_Yyc:aUUl

USA TODAY:
General Mills boycotts palm oil that destroys rain forestsl
http://content.usatoday.com/communities/greenhouse/post/2010/09/general-mills-palm-oil-rainforest-destruction/1-oil

ASSOCIATED PRESS:
General Mills changes palm oil policy
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5idaKBimL0u6hYVfIPrxPltIPSm1gD9IE7AIG0<http://content.usatoday.com/communities/greenhouse/post/2010/09/general-mills-palm-oil-rainforest-destruction/1-oil>

The original post is here

“Pop-pop?”

I tunnelled up from sleep, realizing that my six-year-old great grandson was at the foot of my bed, all dressed for his school day and wanting to touch base with me before he left. ”Hi, Yasin,” I said groggily.  ”Come into bed if you want.” He jumped in and crawled into my arms while I woke myself up a bit more.  ”Good morning,” I said as I gave him a squeeze.

“Why did you go to jail yesterday?” he asked, alert with curiosity. I could feel his worry about me ebbing as he felt the familiar strength of my arms around him. ”I didn’t think President Obama knew how strongly your Pop-pop and lots of other people felt about his letting coal companies blow up mountains,” I said.  ”We thought if we let ourselves be arrested it would get his attention.”

“Yasin, time to go to school.”  It was Yasin’s mom Crystal at the door of my bedroom.  She came further in to take a look at me; she too worried sometimes about her seventy-two year old grandfather. ”Have a good day at school,” I said as he wriggled out of bed.

I was one of more than a hundred people from many walks of life, from famed NASA scientist Dr. James Hansen to the son of many generations of coal miners, from West Virginia’s Larry Gibson who has spoken to the United Nations about the pillage of his mountains to a multiply-pierced young anarchist woman from Chicago.  We were there with thousands of of supporters on September 27 to participate in Appalachia Rising, the first mass nonviolent direct action in Washington, D.C. to oppose mountain top removal.

I dislike arrest and jail, personally.  Been there, done that, as long ago as the civil rights movement in the ‘sixties.  I dislike the loss of freedom, being put under the custody of someone with a gun. Most of what I dislike are the reminders of that seizure of my body and my destiny:  the tight pressure of cold metal handcuffs on my skin, the awkward angles my body  takes getting into police vehicles (I’m not as limber as I once was), the temperature in the cells (always, it seems, too hot or too cold), the uncertainty about whether I’ll be able to stay with my comrades or be isolated, the awful clang of metal against metal when the cell doors close.  I’m lucky in that I’m rarely beaten and in those situations I have some protection from my white skin and my peaceful disposition.

But this mountain top removal thing has to stop.  And I have yet to meet the political scientist who can argue convincingly that Big Coal and the financiers behind it can be stopped without the countervailing pressure of people power through nonviolent direct action.

I know plenty of people who believe that the President “ought to” stop mountain top removal (and the wars and poverty and the looting of our treasury by giant corporations) but their “Obama ought to” complaints imply, as complaints do, the powerlessness of the speaker.

The powerful way to handle an ally in the White House is to act in such a way as to “force him” to do what he wants to do already.  The powerful way for a citizen to act in our country is to acknowledge the reality of its corrupted politics, as black students and Dr. King did years ago, and participate in campaigns that force change. That’s part of the legacy of power that moves Earth Quaker Action Team, the group I’m part of.  Why hold back from taking nonviolent direct action?

I’m remembering the aboriginal woman who asked me a burning question during our break during a labor union training in Canada.  Taking the stance of a warrior, fixing me with her brown eyes, she asked: “Why, George, have your people abandoned your president?”

I had no answer in the moment.  It was a year ago, and indeed so many people had walked away after casting their vote, leaving Obama the job of cleaning up the mess.  In reflecting on her question I realize that some people really do maintain the image of U.S. politics given by seventh grade civics textbooks, and keep their innocence despite everything they’ve experienced since.  Others just want someone “on top” to blame: it used to be mom or dad or the teacher, and now it’s the president.  Others cherish their comfort zone and continue to talk and sign petitions and lobby and talk some more, keeping themselves almost-convinced that spending their hours in meetings away from their families is the sacrifice that will bring social change.  If only they let themselves consider a different paradigm.

Luckily, I was around when Dr. King reminded us that ‘the truth shall make us free.”  The truth about how politics works in the U.S.  The truth about climate change and the radical change it requires of us — of all of us.  And the promise of freedom to re-join our planet, to have a decent future for our six-year olds.

Yesterday’s action for me had a curious blend of power and sweetness. We walked into PNC’s ornate and historic bank near the White House. Reverend Billy set down on the middle of the marble floor a tarp and the rest of us poured dirt on it, creating a kind of mountain complete with twigs and leaves and a little red sign saying “Stop.” Eleven of us made an arc around the dirt mound, sitting as we did so, while behind us the Gospel choir of the Church of Life After Shopping began to sing.  A banner was held aloft: “PNC Bank: The Mountaintop Removal Bank.”

Supporters dialogued with the bank manager while photographers did their thing.  Police checked us out and went away to deal with more pressing matters.  Those of us sitting in — from Earth Quaker Action Team, Swarthmore College students, Rainforest Action Network — held a meditative silence while the choir sang and Reverend Billy preached and the bank locked its doors.

When it was clear that the authorities would “wait us out,” we alternated the singing with reflections, spontaneously as in Quaker Meeting, and personal stories of meaningful times with Nature.  The closeness grew; communion happened.

The police returned and four of us were handcuffed and walked out of the bank to the waiting police cars and the cheers of our comrades.

This time the jail cells were cold.  Our hearts, however, were warm.

Avatar vs. tar sands. See the resemblence?

James Cameron, “the most powerful man in Hollywood,” is in Alberta. Canadian TV cut into regular broadcasts this morning to show footage of him climbing into a helicopter for an areal tour of the tar sands. He’s touring with industry reps this morning, then will visit with Indigenous leaders later this afternoon in Ft. Chipewyan. He’s expected to do a formal press briefing on Wednesday.

Cameron is visiting on the invitation of George Poitras on behalf of the Indigenous Environmental Network issued last year at the Permanent Forum on Indigenous Rights at the UN. Kevin Libin at the (conservative) National Post is providing live coverage during the industry tour. CTV is also getting good footage, including Cameron’s comparison of the tar sands to destruction of the Amazon and his movie Avatar.

Meanwhile, tar sands development is beginning to encroach on US soil. Utah’s Division of Oil, Gas & Mining just approved the first ever commercial lease for tar sands development adjacent to Canyonlands National Park. Transcanada is also pushing for approval of a $12 billion pipeline to bring 1 million barrels per day of tar sands crude oil to the Gulf Coast.

Both projects show an industry pushing our economy deeper into oil addiction–scraping bottom to extract the last, dirtiest drops of a fundamentally a non renewable resource.

Take action to demand a stop to tar sands production in the US and watch this space for updates on Cameron’s “Avatarsands” visit.

RAN Chicago Rallies at Canadian Consulate

Following three significant spills of tar sands oil from aging pipelines in the Midwest, RAN Chicago took action. An afternoon protest was themed around pushing back on Canada’s tar sands and kicking our addiction to oil. Of the various placards on display (stop the serial spiller!), the hypodermic needle filled with oil was my personal favorite.

If oil is like a drug, then the Canadian Consulate in Chicago has become the kingpin of US tar sands trafficking. The Consulate has teamed up with oil companies to push through new tar sands pipelines, and strong-arm companies into keeping tar sands crude flowing into Midwestern refineries.

Meanwhile on the other coast in British Columbia, RAN’s Eriel Deranger joined over 300 at a march in support of First Nations opposed to the Enbridge Gateway Pipeline in Prince George British Columbia.  The proposed pipeline would move up to 525,000 barrels of oil a day from the tar sands in northern Alberta to tanker port in Kitimat, BC.  The project would cross unceded territories claimed by over 20 First Nations.  It would also cross 785 watercourses, fragment wildlife habitat and impact fragile salmon fisheries.  Enbridge has a long history of pipeline spills and other accidents, including the one million gallon spill of crude oil into the Kalamazoo River in Michigan in July—one of the largest spills in U.S. history.

The pipeline protests come just one week after a new study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences showed that the tar sands industry is poisoning the Athabasca River. The study confirmed worries about elevated rates of cancers by communities downstream.

This week, as campers emerged from their tent village to lay non-violent siege to RBS facilities throughout Edinburgh, the bank released “new figures” to re-assert its green credentials. Yesterday, an RBS Spokesperson told the Guardian:

“Since January 2006, we have lent more money directly to wind power projects than to any other type of energy project and have been the leading UK financier of this sector over the last 10 years… We are one of the biggest lenders in the UK to renewable projects. Between 2004 and 2008 RBS lent more to renewable power projects than any other commercial bank globally.” [emphasis added]

The bank’s carefully crafted statement is technically accurate but intentionally misleading.  First RBS relies on outdated pre-recession figures. Second, RBS’s new figures isolate “project finance,” a relatively small segment of its overall business.*

A careful look at financial transactions compiled by Bloomberg shows the inconvenient truth that RBS is trying to hide: Since UK taxpayers took over the bank in 2008, the bank’s alternative energy lending has declined by nearly 86% ($640 million since the bailout vs. $4.5 billion in the same period prior). The graph below shows the trend in alternative vs. conventional energy lending (project finance and general lending) underwritten by RBS since 2007.

RBS Energy Lending

Globally, RBS’ rank in terms of lending to alternative energy projects fell from 1^st place in 2004-2008 as cited in yesterday’s “new figures” to 39^th in the period since.

The point here is not to split hairs over language and data points. The point is that RBS needs to walk the talk. The bank says that “Just as society as a whole has to make a transition to renewable energy sources so will banks like RBS,” so let’s either see more of that (our preference) or hear less of it.

*Project Finance refers to a specific type of loan secured by large industrial projects (like wind farms and pipelines). By contrast, general “corporate lending” is essentially a cash transaction secured by a borrower’s assets and generally not tied to a specific project.   Project Finance comprises only a fraction of RBS’ overall lending. General corporate lending is the bank’s bread and butter.

A light at the end of the tunnel?Photo:  . SantiMB . via Flickr

The tar sands tide may finally be turning at Canada’s biggest bank. RBC is among the largest financiers of Canada’s Tar Sands but so far lacks policies adopted by other banks that seek to limit harm to Indigenous rights, water quality and climate.

That may be changing. Last week, representatives from RBC showed us a summary of the new draft Environmental Risk policy that it hopes will fill the gap. It’s too early to draw conclusions– the early draft has yet to be ratified by the bank’s Senior Management–but here’s our initial take on where we see progress relative to other banks, and where we still see distance.

Bottom line, we think bank is moving in the right direction on Indigenous rights and the environment but falls well short of establishing a significantly new standard for responsible banking. On a scale of 1 (worthless) to 10 (perfect), we gave the draft a 5. Here’s why:

On Indigenous rights, the policy acknowledges “free, prior and informed consent” (FPIC) as an international standard established by the UN, but requires it from clients only where FPIC is national law.  Elsewhere (including in Canada’s tar sands), the bank relies on the weaker World Bank standard of “free, prior, informed consultation” and meaningful accommodation. Essentially, RBC is proposing the same “recognize” language on FPIC that TD adopted in 2007, though RBC claims its application will be more robust.

We’ve been asking RBC’s to require evidence of consent from its clients no matter where they operate, especially in Canada’s tar sands where recent studies show that Indigneous communities are facing elevated rates of cancer. RBC maintains that demonstrating consent is impractical given the inconsistent interpretation of “consent”, the lack of a legal framework for establishing “consent” in Canada and overlapping and unresolved land claims and interests. We disagree. Our view is that consent is really just the product of consultation that takes “no” for an answer. It’s a hard pill for industry to swallow, but it’s the right thing to do.

On land and water, the bank singles out clients operating in “environmentally sensitive areas” which it defines as tropical forests, UNESCO world heritage sites, critical habitat for species at risk and High Conservation Value Forests. The policy would require an assessment of whether clients “prevent or mitigate” irreversible adverse impacts to these areas, but stops short of imposing clear penalties if they don’t.

We’ve been asking RBC to phase out financing to companies that can’t do business without wrecking the environment. Despite the bank’s assurances that these new guidelines will help weed out bad apples, we remain unconvinced. We like to see the bank defining “environmentally sensitive areas” but the policy lacks the teeth to avoid doing them harm.

Finally, we’ve been asking RBC to meet Unicredit’s commitment to measure and reduce its “financed emissions” of CO2 by reigning in financing to tar sands operators and other large CO2 emitters. They offered to encourage clients to disclose emissions under the Carbon Disclosure Project, but won’t cut clients that don’t. Again, good sentiment, but ultimately lacking teeth.

We want to see the policy improve but really it’s the practice that counts. And there’s no shortage of test cases in the queue. Analysts expect more than $100 billion to flow into tar sands developments within the next decade. We’re keeping an eye on two: the Enbridge Northern Gateway Pipeline strongly opposed by a number of well organized First Nations, and the Total Joslyn North Mine which threatens the Athabasca watershed with yet another toxic tailings pond. Both companies will likely come knocking at RBC for financial backing for these projects. How will RBC respond?

But enough pontificating from us. Let’s hear from you! One way or another, this policy will impact how the banks relate to the growing controversy over tar sands. How should we respond? Please give us your questions and ideas in the comments.