Man Up: Music Video Call-To-Action To Oppose The Keystone XL Pipeline Nov. 6th

Obama: Man Up! No to the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline! 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 [...]

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Peat Fires Greet Governors’ Climate and Forests Task Force Assembly

Thick smoke from burning peatlands hangs over the capital of Central Kalimantan in Indonesian Borneo every morning. The smell from the smoke is pervasive, a constant reminder of how Indonesia has become the third largest greenhouse gas emitter in the world. Driven by relentless and ill advised palm oil expansion, Kalimantan’s carbon rich but relatively [...]

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35,000 People Call For Massey’s Corporate Charter to be Revoked

Last Friday, 35,000 signatures were delivered to the office of Delaware Attorney General Beau Biden by West Virginia residents who have directly experienced Massey’s disregard for worker safety, community health, and the environment. The petition called for General Biden to revoke Massey’s Coporate Charter. The delegation included West Virginia community members Lorelei Scarbro and Betty [...]

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PHOTOS: RAN on the Frontlines of Indonesia’s Endangered Rainforests

RAN Forest Campaigner Lafcadio Cortesi and I traveled to Sumatra, Indonesia last month to meet with and interview an extensive network of allies involved in the movement to resist the rampant deforestation and human rights abuses occurring there. We witnessed firsthand the ecological devastation, tense social conflicts and choking haze of carbon emissions resulting from [...]

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Paper Tiger: RAN Featured in Must-See Expose on Indonesian Logging

The Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) has just aired a damning exposé called “Paper Tiger” about the devastating deforestation caused by the pulp and paper industry in Indonesia. The program is called Foreign Correspondent and it is a sort of Aussie 60 Minutes. The piece features compelling footage of logging giant APRIL mowing down vast expanses [...]

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Old Coal Plants Like Chicago’s Fisk and Crawford Are Stopping The American Renewal

The US is facing an incredible amount of challenges: rising health care costs, crumbling infrastructure from coast to coast, and a stumbling economy, leaving millions out of work. In Chicago, the Crawford plant in Little Village, and the Fisk plant in Pilsen, both owned by Midwest Generation, bring the problems of public health, the economy, [...]

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A Rainforest Apocalypse? People, Peat And Promises For A New Direction

If you think this title sounds hyperbolic, you probably have not visited Sumatra lately. Before traveling here, I had heard stories about the oceans of oil palm that have been planted where rainforest once stood. But I was not prepared for this. The first sign that something is terribly wrong came before our plane even [...]

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From The Field: A Customary Elder of the Malayu Addresses Asia Pulp and Paper

It’s a good thing RAN’s forest campaigner, Lafcadio Cortesi, speaks Bahasa Indonesian so well. Otherwise I almost certainly would have gotten in the car with the undercover intelligence agent who told me to come with him because he “wanted to practice his English.” We had just arrived in the small village of Siabu, in the [...]

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From The Field: RAN’s Work Pays Off In Indonesia

I’ve only been in Indonesia for a few days and already I’ve heard multiple accounts of intimidation, corruption, kidnapping, torture and even murder suffered by our allies here who have been bold enough to speak out and resist the destruction of their forests and villages by palm oil and pulp and paper companies. But I [...]

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The Struggle For Justice In The Amazon Spans Generations

Over the past few weeks we’ve told you a lot about the courageous Ecuadoreans who traveled to America to take their calls for justice directly to Chevron’s management and board at the company’s annual shareholder meeting. But it’s important to note that the members of the Ecuadorean delegation were only the latest generation battling the [...]

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