RAN board member Randy Hayes and actress Darryl Hannah at the White House protesting Keystone XL as part of the Tar Sands Action.

President Obama has just rejected the Keystone XL pipeline!

This puts a halt to current plans for a massive 1700-mile pipeline that would have allowed some of the world’s dirtiest oil to travel from Canada’s tar sands through America’s heartland — jeopardizing our water, our air and our climate.

Six months ago the pipeline project was considered a foregone conclusion. Today — against all odds — the project has been rejected. That is a heroic political shift, which is the result of massive grassroots opposition that spanned from First Nations in Alberta to farmers in Nebraska.

By sending letters, making calls, protesting in front of the White House and standing up at “Obama for America” offices, the movement against the Keystone XL pipeline has demonstrated what grassroots activism is all about — and what it really takes to make change in this country.

When organizing started against the Keystone pipeline there were two main goals: stop the pipeline, and reignite the climate movement, which had been deflated by disappointments from Copenhagen to Congress. I would say that in just a few months we are well on our way to achieving both goals.

As Bill McKibben, one of the lead visionaries behind the tar sands protests, said in November, when the pipeline was first delayed:

It’s important to understand how unlikely this victory is… A done deal has come spectacularly undone… The American people spoke loudly about climate change and the president responded. There have been few even partial victories about global warming in recent years so that makes this an important day.

McKibben’s words are truer today than they were in November. We have seen little from the administration on climate and energy that we can be enthusiastic about, and this is definitely something to be unanimously proud of.

It has been incredible to watch the movement against the Keystone pipeline come to life. In September, 1,253 people were arrested in a peaceful sit-in at the White House expressing resounding opposition to the pipeline project in one of the largest acts of civil disobedience the environmental movement has ever seen. Since then, droves of protesters, including high-end campaign donors, have confronted President Obama at one public speaking event after another. In November, the opposition grew when more than 12,000 people joined in peaceful protest back in DC, linking hands in several concentric circles around the White House.

At RAN, we believe that when corporations respond to our demands, it’s a best practice to thank them. The same is true here. Against loud and dubious threats from Big Oil, President Obama has stepped up to represent us and our future. Please take the time today to thank President Obama for rejecting the disastrous Keystone XL pipeline.

Many are wondering what the political realities are to the pipeline rejection. The State Department is allowing Transcanada, the company behind the pipeline, to pitch an alternative route for the pipeline through Nebraska. This re-application process would likely put the project back to the drawing board.

As Frances Beinecke, Executive Director of NRDC, put it in an email blast this afternoon:

[B]ecause Big Oil lost, this is not the end of the fight. This is the beginning of the real battle for America’s energy future…That battle will be fought in Congress, where Representatives who’ve collected $12 million from the oil & gas industry over the past two years are sure to try to raise Keystone from the dead . . . it will be fought in British Columbia, where the oil giants want to ram a tar sands pipeline and supertanker traffic through the heart of the Spirit Bear’s coastal rainforest home . . . it will be fought in the Polar Bear Seas, where the Interior Department has given tentative approval for Shell to begin drilling this summer…

If the last few months have shown us anything, it’s that we’ve stopped the project once and we’ll stop it again. Yes, we will need to continue to ensure that President Obama feels the full weight of our opposition and keeps the Keystone XL pipeline off the map forever. But make no mistake, today is a day to come together to celebrate in the exact same way we came together to fight Keystone over the past couple of months, because celebrating our success is a critical part of fueling our work. That should neither minimize nor obscure the reality that if we want a clean energy future, which stops extreme energy projects like the Keystone XL, we’re going to have to keep fighting together for the long haul.

What an incredible sign for the start of this New Year. Let’s make sure that this success begets even more success in our work to protect forests, their inhabitants and our climate.

We’ve received thousands of submissions for new excuses Chevron can use, but we’re sure there are plenty more where those came from. So we compiled some of the most ridiculous things Chevron spokespeople have said over the years in this video, to give you a little inspiration. These are truly some of the stupidest moments in Chevron PR:

As you can see, Chevron’s PR hacks are struggling to come up with a valid excuse for why their company refuses to do the right thing in Ecuador. Go to www.ran.org/chevron-excuses now and suggest a new excuse they can use.

Of course, sending their PR zombies out to spout their ludicrous talking points is not the only response Chevron has come up with. Many more of Chevron’s shameless tactics are detailed here.

Chevron’s immediate response to the decision in Ecuador was to have its lawyers file a motion requesting a court order that would stop the plaintiffs from being able to pursue the company’s assets around the world (Chevron no longer has any assets in Ecuador). US Federal Judge Lewis Kaplan denied Chevron’s motion. It was the first time he’s ever made a ruling against Chevron.

This was just one of the abusive legal maneuvers Chevron has attempted, engineered by the company’s outside law firm, Gibson Dunn Crutcher, and the partner at the firm leading the Chevron case, Randy Mastro. Gibson Dunn specializes in cases like Chevron’s:

Gibson Dunn has long advertised itself as the “dream team” for clients in serious trouble. It boasts that lawyers like Mastro, Andrea Neumann, Scott Edelman, and William Thomson are capable of mounting “rescue” operations for corporations facing major liability for environmental and other abuses committed against vulnerable peoples like the indigenous and farmer communities of Ecuador’s Amazon. If the law is in the way of a client’s interests, GDC claims it will work to either change the law or maneuver around it. …

What few know is that Gibson Dunn basically uses carbon copy lawsuits alleging “fraud” against almost any entity that has the temerity to challenge its powerful clients.

To get Chevron out of its mess, Gibson has targeted Ecuadorian lawyer, Pablo Fajardo, who was profiled with great sensitivity in Vanity Fair. Fajardo brilliantly has outmaneuvered Chevron’s high-priced lawyers at almost every turn.

Chevron has a long history of going after anyone who dares side with the Ecuadorean plaintiffs and against Chevron. Another target of Chevron and Gibson Dunn’s vicious retributive legal tactics was Crude director Joe Berlinger. Chevron’s lawyers at Gibson Dunn subpoenaed the outtakes from that film, which is about the Ecuadorean plaintiffs’ struggle to bring Chevron to justice. The New York Times recently wrote a lengthy piece on the financial and emotional toll Chevron’s abusive legal tactics took on Berlinger.

Given its deep pockets, Chevron no doubt assumed it would have worn down the Ecuadorean plaintiffs and simply outlasted their ability to continue fighting for justice. But just in case that didn’t pan out, Chevron has pretty much tried every other dirty trick it could conceive of as well:

• There was the failed attempt to entrap the Ecuadorean judge presiding over the case into taking a bribe, for instance. Even though no bribe ever took place, Chevron still went public with the allegations and claimed that the judge had taken a bribe.
• Evidence recently surfaced confirming that Chevron used a secret lab to hide contaminated soil samples from the Ecuadorean courts. But the evidence of Chevron’s deliberate dumping of 18 billion gallons of toxic oil waste into the Amazon rainforest was still so overwhelming that an Ecuadorean court ordered the company to pay $18 billion to clean it up, a judgment upheld by an appeals court on Jan 3, 2012.
• Chevron deployed at least a dozen lawyers in Ecuador’s capital of Quito this past weekend in a last-ditch effort to prevent the judgment from being taken to other countries where it could potentially be enforced and used to seize Chevron assets.
• In at least one other previous effort, Chevron offered $1 billion to Ecuador’s government in exchange for the case being killed off — an action that would clearly be illegal under Ecuadorean and international law, in addition to being a violation of the legal rights of the plaintiffs.

No attempt to evade its responsibility for cleaning up Ecuador has worked for Chevron. I’m sure the company would appreciate it if you could help suggest a new excuse or two to explain why it still refuses to take responsibility for its environmental and human rights crisis in Ecuador. Here’s a little inspiration:

Our friends at Greenpeace describe API’s new ad campaign: “Vote 4 Energy attempts to show ‘real Americans’ who are ‘energy voters,’ meaning they are committing to vote for whichever politicians support Big Oil’s dirty agenda in this election year.”

Most Americans plan to vote for politicians that will allow coal mining, fracking and drilling in their backyard. Right?

Okay, here’s your big test of the day. How fast can you tell which is the real ad and which is the spoof? (Because honestly, they’re both hilarious.)

Reuters reports:

Ecuador court upholds $18 bln ruling against Chevron

LAGO AGRIO, Ecuador Jan 3 (Reuters) – An Ecuadorean appeals court on Tuesday upheld a ruling that Chevron Corp should pay $18 billion in damages to plaintiffs who accused the U.S. oil giant of polluting the Amazon jungle and damaging their health.

A judge ordered Chevron to pay $8.6 billion in environmental damages last February, but the amount was more than doubled to about $18 billion because Chevron failed to make a public apology as required by the original ruling.

“We ratify the ruling of February 14 2011 in all its parts, including the sentence for moral reparation,” said the ruling issued on Tuesday, which was obtained by Reuters.

Plaintiffs accused Texaco, which was bought by Chevron in 2001, of dumping oil-drilling waste in unlined pits, polluting the forest and causing illness and deaths among indigenous people. They appealed the original court ruling, claiming that more money would be needed for the cleanup.

Chevron had argued that Texaco cleaned up all waste pits for which it was responsible, and said that the Ecuadorean judge in the original case had ignored evidence of fraud on the part of the plaintiffs. (Reporting by Victor Gomez; Writing by Eduardo Garcia; Editing by Daniel Wallis and Paul Simao)

About that cleanup Chevron claims it did:

Chevron Used Secret Lab to Hide Dirty Soil Samples from Ecuador Court, Say Company Documents

Oil Giant Also Duped Its Own Paid Experts To Give False Testimony About Deceptive Sampling

Chevron found no contamination in its testing at this well site in Ecuador.

NEW YORK, Dec. 20 /CSRwire/ – In an ever more stunning expose of Chevron’s fraud before the Ecuador court, a U.S. federal judge has ordered the disclosure of documents that demonstrate Chevron used a secret lab in the United States to hide the existence of dirty soil samples taken from the company’s contaminated former well sites in the Amazon.

The documents also show that Chevron’s scientific experts in the Ecuador trial — one of whom is a respected professor at the University of California — executed a scheme that guaranteed the company would find only “clean” soil samples from contaminated well sites while all “dirty” samples would be sent to a lab called NewFields, where they would not be disclosed to the court.

The existence of the NewFields lab, which is based in Atlanta, was not disclosed by Chevron to either the plaintiffs or the Ecuador trial court before it ruled in February that the company was liable for $18 billion in clean-up damages. Even though Chevron tried to present a false picture of the evidence to the court, the Ecuador judge found that scientific samples from the plaintiffs and other court-appointed experts clearly demonstrated extensive pollution at all of the 94 former Chevron well sites and production stations inspected during the trial.

Chevron executed its deceptive sampling plan by secretly and unilaterally pre-inspecting well sites in the days before court-supervised judicial inspections of the same sites, which were attended by both parties and the judge. Chevron used the pre-inspections to plot areas on ground higher than the contaminated waste pits where soil samples would come up “clean” during the official inspections process.  See here and here.

As a general matter, the documents show that only Chevron’s “clean” soil samples were submitted to the Ecuador court despite rampant pollution on the ground and in streams and rivers near all Chevron well sites that were inspected by the parties during the trial, which lasted from 2003 to 2011.  As an example, see this photo of Shushufindi 38, a former Chevron well site where Chevron in contrast to the plaintiffs reported that it found no contamination in its soil samples.

Other documents (here and here) show Chevron committed fraud by lying to some of its own technical experts so they would laud the company’s deceptive sampling practices even though they were designed to mislead the court.

At this point, Chevron’s attempts to justify why it won’t take responsibility for its environmental and human rights crisis in the Ecuadorean Amazon are just ridiculous. Given the especially poor job they’ve done in the past, Chevron’ PR folks definitely can’t handle this. So we’ve created this little tool to help you suggest a new ridiculous justification for Chevron’s callous disregard for the health and well-being of the Ecuadorean Amazon communities it has contaminated in its reckless pursuit of profits.

Vultures’ Picnic is basically a non-fiction book written in a hard-bitten detective novel style, which is pretty interesting. The Bukowski quote that serves as the book’s epigraph is fitting, since there’s something of Bukowski’s no-bullshit, uninhibited confessionalism to Palast’s voice. That’s definitely not the part that pisses me off.

I spend all day thinking about the excesses and abuses of Big Oil and trying to figure out how to turn the size and influence  of oil companies against them, jiu-jitsu style. I didn’t think there was much that could shock me about the ways Big Oil is screwing us all in the name of profits, but Palast manages to do so several times in this book.

I get into the field as often as possible to witness firsthand the impacts our corporate targets — companies with absolutely no scruples, like Chevron — are having on the planet. But I haven’t witnessed a damn thing compared to Palast. Vultures’ Picnic’s at times scattered narrative reflects his travels, from Kazakhstan to Alaska to Ecuador to the Gulf of Mexico, as he tries to track down the real story behind the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill disaster. This man is not only willing to travel to the belly of the beast, he’s rooting through the beast’s guts, too, searching for the real dirty shit no one else wants to touch. And for that, we should all thank him.

What Palast uncovers is the truly maddening thing about this book. Think BP and its corporate culture was the chief culprit of the Gulf oil spill? That’s not even half the story. Think Exxon and its drunk ship’s captain was solely responsible for the Valdez spill? Nope.

I’ve argued many times that Big Oil seems to have decided it was cheaper to pay the fines from oil spills than to try and prevent them in the first place. Throw in some lobbying, buy off a politician or two, and you can make sure those fines never get too excessive. It’s obvious to anyone observing Big Oil — there are systemic problems with the whole industry and regulatory structure that make oil spills an inevitability, and no oil company ever pays the full costs of its malfeasance. But Palast has actually assembled the evidence to prove a criminal conspiracy.

And don’t worry: Because the problems with the oil industry are systemic, Chevron does not get off lightly even though it’s not ostensibly the subject of Vultures’ Picnic. I learned all sorts of things about Chevron that I didn’t know. For instance, Chevron has removed 2.7 million acres of Gulf Coast wetlands in its pursuit of profits. Chevron also played a key role in helping cover up the root causes of the Deepwater Horizon disaster. And Palast has documents showing that the company deliberately destroyed internal records so they couldn’t be used by the Ecuadorean plaintiffs who have won an $18 billion judgment against the company — but I’m going to let Palast tell that story himself in an upcoming guest post on this blog.

So, believe me when I say: If you’re looking to really incense your loved ones this holiday season, look no further. You’ve just found the perfect gift.

A picture released by Brazil's National Petroleum Agency shows the oil leak on the ocean floor.

If the BP Deepwater Horizon disaster taught us anything, it’s that Big Oil has been doing very little over the last few decades to prevent oil spills despite their obscene record profits. Companies like Exxon, Chevron, and BP have all clearly decided that it’s more cost effective to use their profits to rig the system in their favor rather than prevent the next oil spill. By using their money to influence politicians and buy favorable public policies, Big Oil companies can limit their liability for the next disaster — which, if you don’t count impacts to the environment and human health, as Big Oil certainly does not, is way cheaper than actually taking adequate precautions.

Chevron’s recent oil spill off the coast of Brazil is another tragic example. Chevron reportedly pumped as much as $4 billion into its drilling operations in Brazil, yet had to be told by Petrobras, Brazil’s state-owned oil company, that its well was spewing oil into the Atlantic Ocean in the first place. Even more shocking, Chevron then had to borrow the sonar equipment to locate exactly where the leak was coming from.

Think about that for a second: Despite spending billions, Chevron didn’t even have the basic equipment to monitor its operations for spills and move quickly to stop oil from leaking into the ocean.

In her recent TED Talk, “Addicted to Risk,” Naomi Klein explains why BP’s oil spill in the Gulf last year and Chevron’s spill off the coast of Brazil are inevitable in the modern economic system, which “cannot survive without perpetual growth and an unending supply of new frontiers”:

BP is as lax about safety precautions as Chevron. Greg Palast’s new book, Vultures’ Picnic, is one of the most maddening things I’ve ever read, as it seeks to get to the bottom of who was responsible for the Deepwater Horizon disaster and uncovers all sorts of malfeasance along the way. In 2006, BP’s pipeline in Alaska dumped over 6,300 barrels of oil in a totally preventable spill. As Palast writes:

The BP/Alyeska pipeline was dripping and ripping. In five years, it had dumped a quarter-million gallons of crude into the tundra. BP’s pipeline is an Exxon Valdez in slow motion. …

Based on the cancers I’d seen in Ecuador, I knew what would happen if this oozing continued. But this is America, not Ecuador, and we don’t let these things happen. So how come it is happening? …

Why is the pipe going to hell? I asked [Inspector Dan Lawn] for just the facts.

“They haven’t pigged it.” That is, they didn’t run the Pipeline Inspection Gauge, the PIG, the robot that runs inside the pipe. If they had, the Smart PIG (one with sensor-feelers) would have squealed at every crack and rusty chunk of the tube.

Sure enough, the records show that 400 miles of the Pipe hadn’t seen a PIG in eight years. Why? It costs up to a million dollars a mile to operate. Four hundred miles, $400 million. BP must have realized it’s cheaper to pay a fine.

All of the recent oil disasters we’ve witnessed are not isolated events. Nor are they mere “accidents.” In their quest for profits, oil companies are eagerly exploiting any new reserve that gets discovered, and the emphasis is always on production, not preservation or even basic caution. The problems at BP’s Deepwater Horizon rig and Chevron’s Frade well off the coast of Rio de Janeiro, in other words, are systemic.

Brazilian officials have, thankfully, been very aggressive in holding Chevron accountable. They’ve already levied at least $28 million in fines against the company, and as the investigation into the causes of the spill and Chevron’s response continues, it’s likely that those fines could reach close to $200 million. That’s pocket change for a company that makes $100 million every day, but Brazilian officials have also been openly discussing jail time for the responsible parties at Chevron, and have even discussed kicking Chevron out of the country altogether. This would be a huge blow to Chevron. There’s a reason the company has sunk billions of dollars into its Brazil operations — the oil fields off Brazil’s coast are one of the most significant discoveries in decades, and are expected to drive growth for the oil industry for years to come.

Chevron’s Brazil spill doesn’t only show the dangers of allowing such a reckless company to expand its offshore drilling operations to new countries, however — it shows the danger of expanding offshore drilling operations at all. Companies like Chevron are focused entirely on production and profits, and are completely unequipped to deal with the inevitable disasters that occur. Indeed, Big Oil seems to accept that dumping toxic oil into fragile ecosystems and paying the resulting fines are a mere cost of doing their dirty business.

That’s why companies like Chevron spend millions on lobbying. Right now, Chevron is spending $1 million a day drilling in the Gulf of Mexico. So it’s no surprise that this past quarter, the company spent over $2 million lobbying every federal agency who might have anything to say about its permits or its response to a spill: “In the July-to-September period, Chevron lobbied Congress, the Executive Office of the President, the Environmental Protection Agency, the Office of Management & Budget, the National Security Council, the U.S. Trade Representative, the Securities & Exchange Commission, the White House, departments of treasury, interior, commerce, energy and state, according to the October report.”

This is as perverse a situation as I can imagine. Like Naomi says, “Life is too precious to be risked for any profit.” Yet Big Oil is not only doing just that, they’re buying their way into making it legal.

Send an email to Brazil’s environmental officials calling on them to throw the book at Chevron. For once, don’t let Chevron get away with its environmental crimes.

“It’s a bird!” Someone said. “It’s a plane!” Someone else corrected. “It’s a challenge to Chevron CEO John Watson to finally take responsibility for his company’s toxic mess in Ecuador!” The crowd suddenly realized.

Tiger Woods headed into day three of the Chevron-sponsored golf tournament with a three-shot lead. The tournament is an annual event that benefits the Tiger Woods Foundation, which provides access to educational opportunities for underserved youth. A worthy cause, to be sure — it’s just a shame they’re letting Chevron’s dirty name besmirch the event.

Chevron may ostensibly be supporting access to education for Southern Californians via this event, but the company’s real aim is to ensure itself access to stacks and stacks of cash. The company routinely sponsors these types of charitable events in an attempt to cover up the fact that its business operations are wreaking havoc on the environment and poisoning communities around the world. By greenwashing its dirty name with events like the Chevron World Challenge, the company is hoping to cover up its shameful past so it can continue business as usual and ensure future profits.

One of the most tragic impacts of Chevron’s business operations has been in Ecuador. Rather than take responsibility, however, the company has fought a decades-long legal battle to cleaning up the toxic mess it left in the Ecuadorean Amazon, triggering a human rights and environmental crisis that continues to this day.

A group of Ecuadorean Indigenous and farming communities have won important legal victories against Chevron in both U.S. and Ecuadorean courts in their efforts to bring the company to justice in Ecuador. But CEO Watson and other Chevron executives routinely defy court orders by stating publicly that they will never pay.

Chevron has spent the last 18 years waging unprecedented public relations and legal campaigns to avoid dealing with the environmental and public health catastrophe it left in the Amazon rainforest. That’s why we took action today to challenge Chevron to clean more than its public image and repair the toxic legacy it left in Ecuador.

Last year Chevron made over $19 billion, which you may notice is more than the $18 billion it has been ordered to pay by an Ecuadorean court that found Chevron guilty of deliberately dumping a massive amount of oil pollution in the Amazon. The company could pay for the cleanup out of last year’s profits alone, and still have a BILLION dollars left over.

And now Chevron has already made more than it did in all of last year in the first three quarters of 2011. The company just announced third quarter profits of $7.8 billion, more than twice what it made in the third quarter of 2010. In the first and second quarter of this year, Chevron made $6.2 billion and $7.7 billion, respectively. Given that in those three quarters alone Chevron has already made $21.7 billion – almost $3 billion more than it did in all of last year – I don’t need to tell you that profits have been up every quarter of 2011.

Where have these obscene profits been coming from? It’s not because Chevron is working harder. Production has actually been down all year.

Chevron and the other Big Oil companies are raking it in thanks to high oil and gas prices. Oil apologists will tell you that the companies don’t set gas prices – it just laughs all the way to the bank while we face increasing pain at the pump. Well, fine, even if we’re willing to let Chevron off the hook when it hides behind “the free market” to explain its exorbitant income, no one can dispute that the company chooses where to spend its extra money.

Chevron has spent millions lobbying the US and the Ecuadorean governments to get out of its obligation to clean up the Amazon. It has spent millions more on the ridiculous “We Agree” greenwash campaign in a failed attempt to convince the public that it actually cares about communities and the environment. It pays executives like CEO John Watson huge salaries. It spent nearly 20% of its profits on stock buybacks, which does little more than enrich shareholders.

While the company likes to argue that it re-invests its billions in the communities where it operates, the LA Times has deflated that bogus talking point pretty thoroughly. The bottom line is that if Chevron really cared about anything but money it would have cleaned up its mess in Ecuador – and countless other communities around the world that have also suffered from a Chevron “investment” – a long time ago.

Specifically, Gheit is saying that a recent decision by the US Supreme Court to hear a case over Shell’s alleged violations of human rights in Nigeria has clear implications for Chevron. “If you open the case for Shell, you have to open it for Ecuador,” Gheit told Platts. He also claimed that the trial over Chevron’s massive oil pollution in the Ecuadorean Amazon had become a “distraction” for the company’s management and that it’s time for Chevron’s legal team to “rethink their position.”

Another analyst, Mark Gilman of Benchmark Capital, adds that the unresolved Ecuador case puts a “3-5% ‘discount’” on Chevron’s stock. Gilman goes even further, saying that he believes “the shares are undervalued significantly more than that.”

But the absolute best quote of the Platts article was from Chevron spokesman Kent Robertson, who said: “I’m not sure I see how a ruling from the US Supreme Court, regardless of which way it goes, would have any influence over Ecuador’s courts.” This from a guy whose whole job has been to defend Chevron’s aggressive, endless litigation strategy with regards to its pollution in Ecuador, which has included seeking to get a court in New York to establish a “worldwide injunction” barring enforcement of the $18 billion judgment Chevron is facing in Ecuador.

US federal judge Lewis Kaplan did issue an injunction at Chevron’s behest, but the injunction was thrown out by an appeals court this past September, clearing the way for the Ecuadorean plaintiffs to seek enforcement of the judgment in countries where Chevron has assets should Chevron continue to refuse to pay to clean up its mess.

New York State Comptroller Thomas P. DiNapoli

Of course, it’s not just analysts expressing concerns over Chevron’s Ecuador liability: Shareholders are also requesting that the company reevaluate its endless litigation strategy. Many shareholders feel a more productive approach might be to reach a settlement that would provide proper remediation for past damages and allow Chevron to put this controversy behind it.

Thomas DiNapoli, the New York State Comptroller and trustee for the $146.9 billion New York State Common Retirement Fund, recently raised this issue in a Huffington Post op-ed entitled “What Chevron Owes the People of Lago Agrio,” in which he stated: “Chevron must do what’s right for its investors, and its future viability, by negotiating a fair settlement that restores the company’s reputation. Chevron, its shareholders and the general public have not and will not benefit from a never-ending courtroom drama.”

Time for the sun to set on the age of oil.

Say you live next door to a polluting factory that is poisoning you and your family, and you decide to stop buying whatever that factory makes, voting for alternatives with your dollar. How would you feel if the owners of that factory then went and bought off as many politicians as possible so that they could get policies in place that would keep alternatives to their product from ever making it to market?

You’d be outraged, right?

Now imagine if, on top of all that, you were forced to pay money to subsidize that factory’s business operations even though it was making record profits.

Intolerable, you say?

You’re damn right. Yet that’s exactly the scenario we’re in right now. Big Oil is making obscene profits and using them to pervert our democracy in the oil industry’s favor, in an attempt to keep renewable energy out of the game as long as possible. Even worse, we’re handing the Big Oil companies $4 billion every year (though other estimates have put the number at between $78 and 150 billion) to pad their bottom line and keep us all hooked on their dirty fuel.

That’s why RAN joined with over 50 other leading environmental organizations to call for an end to some $122 billion in handout to fossil fuels industries over the next 10 years. Congress’ Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction – a.k.a. the “Super Committee” tasked with eliminating $1.5 trillion in federal debt – has the power to end these unnecessary subsidies once and for all. Read the letter we sent to Rep. Jeb Hensarling & Senator Patty Murray, co‐chairs of the Super Committee, here.

More from Oil Change International:

Coalition Calls for End to $122 billion in Handouts to Fossil Fuels

(Washington, DC – October 5, 2011) Today leaders of 52 national and state organizations sent a letter to the members of the Super Congress (formally known as the Congressional Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction) demanding that the elimination of government handouts to the oil, coal and gas industries be a central part of the deficit reduction plan they are to present to the full Congress by November 23rd.

Eliminating subsidies to the fossil fuels industry could reduce the national debt by $122 billion over ten years while bettering the environment and public health for America’s families these leaders asserted. “Americans of all political orientations strongly favor ending these subsidies to the oil, gas and coal industries” they wrote, adding that “[M]ost Americans feel that Members of Congress are more responsive to their campaign donors than their constituents. Working to remove subsidies from the fossil fuel industry is one of the clearest ways you can help restore your constituents’ faith in the ability of Congress to represent them.”

Fossil fuel corporations do not need federal handouts in order to produce energy. Over the last decade, the top five oil and gas companies alone reported over $1 trillion in profits, and another $71 billion in profits in just the first two quarters of 2011. Coal companies, which have received government aid for nearly a century, have seen their profits skyrocket in 2011. Peabody Energy, the largest private sector coal company, earned has already posted $461.3 million in profits in 2011. Consol Energy first quarter profits nearly doubled from 2010 to reach $192 million.

Read the full post over at Oil Change International’s site.

The cables, written by U.S. officials, show that Chevron engaged in a covert lobbying campaign aimed at getting the Ecuadorean government to intervene in the lawsuit brought against the company by thousands of rural and Indigenous Ecuadoreans over massive oil contamination in the Amazon (see the cables here, here, here and here). Intervention in judicial matters by the government of Ecuador is, of course, forbidden by the country’s Constitution. Nonetheless, Chevron tried to barter with the administration of President Raphael Correa: If the administration would break the law and save Chevron from having to clean up its mess, the company would return the favor by funding “social projects” in Ecuador. (Which begs the question: Why not just fund clean up of your mess, Chevron?)

But that’s not even why these revelations are so embarrassing for the company. You might recall that Chevron filed racketeering charges against the Ecuadorean plaintiffs and their US lawyers earlier this year. Those charges were based in part on allegations that the plaintiffs were colluding with the government of Ecuador to improperly influence the judiciary to rule against Chevron. You see where I’m going with this: At the very same time that Chevron’s lawyers in the US were attempting to build a racketeering case, Chevron’s operatives in Ecuador were engaging in the very criminal conduct Chevron was accusing the plaintiffs of.

Those racketeering charges were part of Chevron’s aggressive “Blame The Victim” legal strategy, which all came toppling down on Monday. When the Second Circuit Court of Appeals in NYC threw out a preliminary injunction that barred enforcement of an $18 billion judgment finding Chevron guilty of polluting the Amazon, it also indefinitely postponed the trial over the racketeering charges.

No wonder Oppenheimer oil and gas analyst Fadel Gheit is speculating that Chevron CEO “John Watson is not a happy camper today.” Watson was a key player in Chevron’s purchase of Texaco in 2001, and the appeals court’s decision clears the way for seizure of Chevron assets to pay off the $18 billion judgment if the company continues to refuse to take responsibility for its environmental and human rights catastrophe in the Amazon.

Not a good week for Chevron at all. Which means the Ecuadoreans suffering from Chevron’s oil pollution are that much closer to seeing justice served at long last.

The decision comes after a hearing last Friday in which Chevron’s lawyers were all but laughed out of a New York courtroom while attempting to defend the “worldwide injunction” that barred enforcement of the judgment.

I had the pleasure of being in the courtroom that day, and needless to say, I left feeling some justice was finally served. After months of watching Chevron’s lawyers have their way in their attempts to shield the company from having to clean up its mess in Ecuador, it finally seems there is an American court willing to hear both sides.

The legal details: The Second Circuit Court of Appeals reversed the preliminary injunction ordered by US Federal Judge Lewis Kaplan, which would have prohibited the Ecuadorean plaintiffs from enforcing the $18 billion judgment outside of Ecuador. This is a major victory for the 30,000 Ecuadoreans affected by Chevron’s oil pollution in the Amazon. It’s unusual for a court of appeals to completely reverse a lower court’s decision, but in this case it was obvious that Chevron and their legal hacks have continued to abuse the law and that Judge Kaplan rushed to implement a judgment without considering the overwhelming evidence against Chevron.

Jim Tyrrell, the attorney who argued for the Ecuadoreans before the Second Circuit, said of the court’s ruling: “We are very excited that the court has reached this decision,” calling it “a triumph of the rule of law over the sensationalism created by Chevron’s PR department.”

The preliminary injunction was probably futile and potentially illegal anyway, according to several international law scholars who reviewed the case. Why Judge Kaplan issued an injunction so far outside of his jurisdiction is anyone’s guess. He continually refers to the plaintiffs as the “so-called Ecuadorean plaintiffs,” as if their existence or the horrifying conditions they live in is somehow in question. He even allegedly suggested to Chevron’s lawyers that they should file racketeering charges against the Ecuadoreans and their US lawyers – which Chevron did.

In its decision, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals also indefinitely stayed the trial over the racketeering charges, which was scheduled to begin later this month.

In the meantime, I wanted to say thank you to everyone who shared Servio Curipoma’s story last week to let Chevron and Judge Kaplan know that the Ecuadorean plaintiffs are very real and for over 20 years have continued to fight for justice.

It’s important that we celebrate this historic milestone, but just as important that we continue to push Chevron to redirect the hundreds of millions of dollars spent on litigation and PR into cleaning up its toxic legacy in the Ecuadorian Amazon.

via Tar Sands Action

tipping point  (tɪpɪŋ point) — n  the crisis stage in a process, when a significant change takes place

This last week, I went to Washington D.C. and joined the Tar Sands Action, the biggest environmental mass action in a generation. Over a thousand were arrested calling on Obama to deny the permits for the Keystone XL pipeline, which would cut down the middle of America’s heartland from Alberta to oil refineries on the Texas coast. The pipeline will carry billions of gallons of oil extracted from Indigenous land in northern Alberta.

The Tar Sands Action is a “tipping point” for the climate movement that I’ve been calling a “Camp Casey” moment. If you remember, Camp Casey in 2005 was when anti-war activist Cindy Sheehan, who’d lost a son in Iraq, began an encampment at Bush’s ranch in Crawford,TX. It was a “tipping point” in the war. It cracked Bush’s popular support for the war and led to political routes in 2006 and 2008, and the sacking of War Sec. Donald Rumsfeld. And it helped trigger a partial withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq (at least for now.)

The sit-ins at the White House seem to have caused a major shift for the climate movement.

via TargetOfOpportunity.com

My arrest day (August 29th, the 6th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina hitting New Orleans, no less) included going to jail with climatologist James Hansen, a large interfaith contingent (Christian, Jew, Muslim, Buddhist), leadership from non-profits like Greenpeace and 350.org, and lots of ordinary folks from many generations and many walks of life.

Through the two weeks of action, we saw youth, Appalachians, Indigenous leaders from all over North America, former Obama staffers and volunteers, anti-fracking activists, labor activists, Midwestern and Texan landowners, and environmental radicals sit-in on the White House sidewalk. Furthermore, it’s been organized by my close family of friends and comrades whom I always have a vested interest in seeing succeed.

Needless to say, it was a powerful two weeks.

In these situations, my mind often goes to the transformational power of direct action. And to be really honest, I was initially very skeptical about this action. But the tar sands action brought in many newcomers to the civil disobedience tactics (at least 2/3rds by the organizing group’s count.)

The arrest action itself was a short and sweet process, and not the harrowing experience I’ve gone through in harder actions. It didn’t entail climbing a dragline on a mine site or locking oneself to the gates of Exxonmobil, but it was still quite powerful for the first-time participants and mainstream environmentalists caught in a crisis of faith about Obama and climate change.

Some personal anecdotes on the power of this action:

• On Monday, I was arrested with some Canadian grandparents (from Alberta, to boot). As they took the grandmother away, her husband yelled “your grandchildren are proud of you today Mary!”
• Lots of staffers from the mainstream orgs like the 350.org, Energy Action and NRDC risked arrest. With some exceptions, traditional purveyors of breaking the law for a cause, like Earth First!, RAN and Greenpeace, did not play a central role, which I take as a good thing. Getting arrested is not always the goal, but this was an important experience for those folks and their organizations.
• And Keystone pipeline actions also spread organically all over the world. There were pickets and protests as far away as Cairo and Durban, South Africa. Activists followed Obama to Martha’s Vineyard and an Obama for America event in Minnesota. On September 26th, another sit-in is planned for the Canadian capital in Ottawa. The media exploded with news around this action, and social media continues to be even bigger. After over a year of organizing, our friends with Rising Tide chapters have been taking direct actions against Exxon’s tar sands megaloads in Idaho and Montana.

People from all over the continent have begun to not only experience direct action, but also a level of direct democracy. It’s not Seattle in 1999 or the IMF/World Bank protests in 2000 with affinity groups and spokes councils determining the course of the action or which intersections are to be held. But instead, its people voicing their outrage at this pipeline and Obama’s unwillingness to act for the good guys (us) on the climate issue. It’s beyond the ballot box or waiting for politicians to do something.

To me, people stepping out of their comfort zones and not doing what the police tell them until arrest is a radicalizing moment. People stepping out of the Tweedledumb and Tweedledumber two-party political system, organizing their dissent and taking care of each other while doing it, is a revolutionary act.

Those radicalizing and revolutionary moments are why I do this work.

All of this comes after a long spring and summer of fierce actions from the Dept. of the Interior in Washington D.C. to coal plants in Chicago to Tim DeChristopher’s trials and tribulations in Salt Lake City to the tar sands-loving Montana governor’s office to tree-sits on Coal River Mountain.

A wise friend of mine once said he prefers Democratic administrations in power not because he thinks the Democrats will do the right thing, but because it causes an upsurge in more radical, people-powered organizing in the U.S.

Well, dear friend, here we go. I can’t wait to see what happens next.

“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.

Ethical Oil?

Canadian Conservative acolyte Alykhan Velshi made headlines last month with a set of bombastic ads contrasting the virtues of Canada’s “ethical oil” with the evils of “conflict oil countries.” Leading political heavyweights — including Environment Minister Peter Kent — have also adopted the mantra. But a look behind the latest “ethical oil” campaign raises a number of ethical questions about Velshi himself.

First, he lied. The Globe and Mail reported (based on Velshi’s assertion, I suppose) that one of the most shocking photos in the set “is a woman being stoned in Iran in the late 1970s.” That’s not true. In fact, the woman shown is actress Smadar Monsinos, a resident of Amsterdam. The photo is a still from the short 1994 Dutch indy film “De Steen” by Mahnaz Tamizi. The blog Sadly No made this discovery in 2007 after the photo began appearing in posters promoting David Horowitz’s “Islamo-Faschism Awareness Week.”

Velshi also exploited. Adjacent to Ms. Monsinos is a photo of a beaming Melissa Blake, Mayor of Wood Buffalo, Alberta. Asked recently whether she was consulted about her portrayal in the ads, she replied “I was never even asked!!! I’m not at all pleased about it. I cringe when I see it.”

He also stole. At least three of the other photos in the set were taken by internationally recognized photographers and used without permission. The Nigeria photo was taken by Ed Kashi, an award-winning photojournalist. The Darfur photo was taken in 2004 by Lynsey Addario, one of the world’s leading photojournalists. A true hero, she was one of three journalists held captive for six days in Libya earlier this year. Agents for both photographers confirmed in a phone interview last week that they are considering taking legal action against the illegal use of the photographs. And while the the agent for Pulitzer Prize-winning photojournalist John Moore was unavailable, I’m betting his Saudi Arabia photo was also stolen.

The tar sands lobby is lying to us. I’m no ethicist, but representing fiction as fact, exploiting public figures, and stealing intellectual property seems pretty wrong to me. It’s wrong like setting up fake Twitter accounts is wrong. Like spreading misinformation on oil prices and mid-east oil imports is wrong. But that’s their game plan: label tar sands opponents as terrorists and strong-arm the President into locking the US and Canada into the dead-end energy strategy of boiling oil from sand.

Please join us this month as we demand action from President Obama to stop the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline.

One of many awesome Chevron spoof posters that are just waiting to inspire you at ChevronThinksWereStupid.org

Chevron’s attempts to greenwash its image while doing nothing to take responsibility for its environmental and human rights abuses around the globe continue unabated. So we decided to re-launch ChevronThinksWereStupid.org last week to provide concerned citizens like you with a fun and engaging platform to call out Chevron’s misleading PR campaigns.

At virtually the same time that the re-launch was happening, something quite unusual happened: An oil company admitted liability for an oil spill it had caused in a developing country. No, not Chevron in Ecuador. Shell in Nigeria. Shell will likely end up paying several hundred million dollars to clean up its oil spills in the Niger Delta.

It just so happens that Chevron operates in the Niger Delta as well, and has caused its share of environmental degradation and human suffering. Has Chevron taken responsibility for the damage it has done in the Niger Delta? No. But the company did give away a bunch of mosquito nets in Angola.

We’re not making this up – as part of its plan to prove what a fantastic corporate citizen it is, Chevron gave away a few thousand mosquito nets. To our knowledge, mosquito nets are capable of absorbing absolutely none of the oil Chevron has spilled — and the impacts of oil operations in some parts of Angola are so severe that most of the sand on the shores is black in color and the beaches cannot be used.

Chevron has promised funding to restore the damaged ecosystem, but has yet to act — except for donating those nets.

This is exactly the type of preposterous greenwash and misleading corporate PR that we wanted to call out when we teamed up with the Yes Men and Amazon Watch to spoof Chevron’s “We Agree” campaign. We launched ChevronThinksWereStupid.org so that you could join in on the spoofing fun, and we’ve decided to extend our call for submissions indefinitely.

We’ve assembled some resources to help you call out Chevron’s mosquito nets as the blatant corporate greenwash that they are. Have fun!

via Bridge the Gulf

There are all kinds of action camps planned this month that will be challenging the root causes of climate change— i.e. the fossil fuel industry—in the Midwest, Southeast and Pacific Northwest.

August is already sizzling with small groups of environmental and Indigenous rights minded people stepping up and putting their bodies on the line to protect those places most near and dear to their hearts.

Last Thursday, in New Orleans about 100 people rallied at BP’s Regional Command Center to protest the oil giant’s continued lack of accountability in cleaning up one of the worst corporate disasters in U.S. history- the Gulf Oil Spill. As the event’s call to action put it “The Oil is Still Here and so are We,” and Louisiana residents are mobilizing to fight back against the poisoning of the Gulf of Mexico by BP.

Three were arrested staging at sit-in at the front entrance of the office during the rally. Cherri Foytlin, a Louisiana resident, an oil worker’s wife, a mother of six and one of the arrested said “They’ve told us we can’t cross this line or we’ll be arrested. Well they crossed the line a long time ago when 11 men died and they sprayed poisons into our water and made cleanup workers sick. Now fishermen can’t put food on the table and people are still sick. We’ve had enough. It’s time for us to cross the line now.”

Last year, BP spilled billions of gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico and has created an environmental and public health crisis throughout the Gulf States. For their part, the BP Support Network (aka the complicit politicians in both parties) seem to have the company’s back as the tax payers are footing the bill for any cleanup efforts and British Petroleum continues to operate in the Gulf.

via Alex Soto/Censored Media

Meanwhile in Northern Arizona, Native Americans are struggling to defend San Francisco Peaks, sacred to 13 area Native American Nations, from the Snowbowl Ski Resort. The Snowbowl Ski Resort is already destroying the sacred mountain with the clear cutting of grandmother trees, as a pipeline is put in to bring sewage water to the ski resort for snowmaking. Native American medicine men gather healing plants and conduct ceremonies on San Francisco Peaks. The healing herbs would be contaminated by sewage water snow.

Yesterday, six were arrested in Flagstaff in a march protesting the desecration of the San Francisco Peaks sacred sites and today another eight were arrested today while locking down to cement-filled barrels to stop work crews driving up to the peaks.

“As long as Arizona Snowbowl, the Obama Administration’s Forest Service and the City of Flagstaff continue this ecocide and cultural genocide, we will not stop,” said Klee Benally (Dine’), one of the arrested marchers. “We will pray, march, protest, and take whatever action is necessary to ensure that our basic human rights, dignity and environment are safeguarded.”

As environmental and climate activists wake up to the fact that D.C.’s politics of compromise have failed us and are not going to stop one clear cut or the release of another ounce of carbon, we’re seeing the increased use of direct action tactics. We’re seeing increase of people putting their bodies and freedoms on the line to stop greater environmental devastation.

As Ed Abbey said “At some point we must draw a line across the ground of our home and our being, drive a spear into the land and say to the bulldozers, earth movers, government and corporations, “thus far and no further.” If we do not, we shall later feel, instead of pride, the regret of Thoreau, that good but overly-bookish man, who wrote, near the end of his life, “If I repent of anything it is likely to be my good behavior.“

Tar sands oil site

In a letter released today, twenty top scientists wrote to President Obama to ask him to oppose the Keystone XL pipeline, the 1,700 mile-long fuse that, if lit, could help ignite climate chaos.

If built, the pipeline would carry bitumen from Canada to the Gulf Coast, putting fresh water supplies at risk and further increasing our dependance on oil at a time when we should be investing in clean energy sources.

The letter, signed by Dr. James Hansen, Dr. Michael Mann and other prominent scientists, is a powerful reminder of the choices that now confront us: Will we continue to develop sources of energy from fossil fuels, essentially choosing to double down on the dirty and dangerous technologies that have led us to the brink of catastrophe? Do we have the resolve and the vision to build a better energy system fueled by clean sources of energy that don’t pollute our communities and damage our shared climate? And do we want to leave a legacy of pollution for the generations to come?

The 1,500 people who have registered for the Tar Sands Protest in August have collectively answered those questions by saying that they’re ready for a world powered by clean energy. You can find out more information here.

The full letter is available here.

President Obama:

We are researchers at work on the science of climate change and allied fields. We are writing to add our voices to the indigenous leaders, religious leaders, and environmentalists calling on you to block the proposed Keystone XL Pipeline from Canada’s tar sands.

The tar sands are a huge pool of carbon, but one that does not make sense to exploit. It takes a lot of energy to extract and refine this resource into useable fuel, and the mining is environmentally destructive. Adding this on top of conventional fossil fuels will leave our children and grandchildren a climate system with consequences that are out of their control. It makes no sense to build a pipeline system that would practically guarantee extensive exploitation of this resource.

When other huge oil fields or coal mines were opened in the past, we knew much less about the damage that the carbon they contained would do to the Earth’s climate system and to its oceans. Now that we do know, it’s imperative that we move quickly to alternate forms of energy — and that we leave the tar sands in the ground. We hope those so inclined will join protests scheduled for August and described at TarSandsAction.org.

If the pipeline is to be built, you as president have to declare that it is “in the national interest.” As scientists, speaking for ourselves and not for any of our institutions, we can say categorically that it’s not only not in the national interest, it’s also not in the planet’s best interest.

via Just Do It

This is better than Harry Potter.

Film maker Emily James has documented the emergence of a bold grassroots climate movement in the UK in her new film “Just Do It.” They are sick of waiting on politicians, lobbyists and international bodies to change the world and end climate change, so these folks are taking action themselves.

They have a simple message: Ordinary people can take action and fight these corporate and governmental behemoths that profit from mining and burning fossil fuels, and so can you. We need climate action (less talk, less clicktivism) now more than ever, and these British activists from Rising Tide, Plane Stupid, Climate Camp and elsewhere have led the way. They super-glue themselves to bank trading floors, blockade factories and attack coal power stations en-masse, all with “manners, courage and humor.”

“Just Do It” is trying to come to the US and has an online campaign to bring the film Stateside.

Check out what you can do to make it happen here.