‘Trading to Extinction’
Photographer Patrick Brown has been on a mission for close to 10 years to photograph the shocking trade in animals in Asia. This trade is depicted in his book, Trading to Extinction.
Now you can be part of that mission - by supporting his project and buying his book.
"For years, I have traveled across Asia to document the devastating impact of wildlife trafficking," Brown says. "Now I'd like to bring my work to a worldwide audience, by producing a campaigning photographic book called 'Trading to Extinction.'
"It is a shocking tale of cruelty, crime and human greed. As with drug ...
Why Not Frack?
[caption id="attachment_1954" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="Bill McKibben. Photo: Nancie Battaglia"][/caption]Environmentalist and author Bill McKibben raises the question of whether fracking is a suitable way to obtain energy resources in an article in New York Books.
This is a "good read" and an important read.
“In one sense, the analysts who forecast that “peak oil”—i.e., the point at which the rate of global petroleum extraction will begin to decline—would be reached over the last few years were correct,” he says. “The planet is running short of the easy stuff, where you stick a drill in the ground and crude comes bubbling to the ...
Amazon loggers ‘burn Indian girl alive’
[caption id="attachment_1332" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="Mother and baby from the Awa-Guaja tribe, Brazil - Photo: Domenico Pugliese-Survival"][/caption]Disturbing evidence of the reported burning alive of an eight-year-old girl has been reported by Survival International.
Loggers are alleged to have grabbed the girl belonging to the Awa tribe, tied her to a tree, and burnt her alive, to force the tribal people out of the Amazon forest.
According to Survival, Brazilian NGO CIMI, The Order of Attorneys of Brazil and the Maranhão Human Rights Society, who jointly carried out the investigation, also found, “many indications that the Awá had been in the place of ...
‘The Warriors of Qiugang’ – Documentary
[caption id="attachment_1420" align="alignleft" width="200" caption="The Warriors of Qiugang - Photo: from the documentary."][/caption]Zhang Gongli appears an unlikely hero. But when the 60-year-old farmer in the village of Qiugang in Anhui province, China found his fellow villagers dying of cancer and suffering other health problems due to pollution from nearby factories, he felt he had to act.
In a documentary by Ruby Yang and Thomas Lennon, co-produced by Yale Environment 360, “The Warriors of Qiugang,” we see local villagers, with the help of NGO Green Anhui, attempt to stop the pollution caused by recently built factories that are poisoning the water and ...
On Ye’r Bike
How Bicycles are Going to Come into Their Own
The Danish government is proud of its capital. Copenhagen is world famous for its biking culture and now officially the first Bike City in the World. Last year, it was also voted the ‘Best city for cyclists’ and the ‘World’s most liveable city’. The Danes are well known for their love of cycling and cities all around the world are now looking at ways to copy this phenomenon. It really is biking heaven for the cyclist in Copenhagen with over 390 kilometres of designated bike lanes.
Thousand of Danes go to work ...
Kids sue U.S. government over climate change
You are never too young to fight for what is right. That appears to be the message conveyed by 17-year-old Alec Loorz and a bunch of kids in the United States who are taking their government to task over inaction over climate change.
There is little surprise that Washington has been slow to sign up to any meaningful change at the climate talks in Durban, South Africa. But back home, a group of young people led by Loorz, founder of Kids vs. Global Warming, is suing for change.
In all, 10 lawsuits, one against the federal government and the others ...
The Big Carbon Credits Con
An Ecologist investigation reveals how the largest coal power plant to be awarded UN carbon credit funds is causing chaos by displacing poor communities and destroying forest in India.
As world leaders met in Durban for critical climate talks campaigners are calling for an urgent overhaul of the way the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) is governed after an Ecologist investigation revealed allegations a CDM approved power plant in India has displaced poors familes and is destroying their forests.
The Sasan thermal power plant in Madhya Pradesh, owned by Indian energy behemoth Reliance Power, is set to become the largest coal power ...
On the Road to an Agreement
Why the climate change talks have yet to bring change
The Durban climate change talks that concluded on December 11 were billed as a success. In an eleventh-hour agreement, countries agreed to a commitment to accept binding CO2 emission cuts by 2020. As part of a package of measures agreed, a new climate fund will be set up, carbon markets will be expanded and countries will be able to earn money by protecting forests. The talks were “saved,” much to the surprise of some skeptics who were dismayed by the lack of progress shown at the 2009 Copenhagen Summit.
The agreement ...
Infiltration of environmental and left-wing movements
[caption id="attachment_1301" align="alignleft" width="200" caption="Mark Kennedy, leading a double life - Photo: Confessions of an Undercover Cop"][/caption]Mark Kennedy, a British undercover police officer who went rogue after burying himself deep in the environmental movement, is just one of several police officers whose actions and conduct are coming under scrutiny.
The Guardian newspaper in Britain has just reported that two undercover police officers had children with activists, a disclosure likely to intensify the controversy over police operations to infiltrate and sabotage environmental and other protest groups.
In the story entitled, Undercover police had children with activists, two undercover police fathered children with activists ...
‘Radicals,’ ‘terrorists,’ ‘extremists’ and ‘treehuggers’
Labelling Environmentalists
The Canadian Natural Resources minister has a word for them – “radicals.” Minister Joe Oliver claims radical groups are trying to sabotage Canada’s economy and block trade by opposing the mining of Alberta’s tar or oil sands.
Speaking in early January, the minister in charge of Canada’s massive natural resource base spoke out against environmentalists trying to block a pipeline that would traverse the country from tar sands mining area to the Pacific Ocean coast to deliver oil shipments to Asia. The argument that has gained some traction is that mining the tar sands pumps money into the economy ...
TAKE ACTION
Taking action to save the planet is no longer an optional activity. It’s a must. The fact that you have found this website indicates you care for the environment, whether your local neighborhood or forest, your country, or the situation on a global scale.
The big myth is that one person cannot make a difference. Check out our profiles of activists who are taking action and bringing about change. You don’t have to be Al Gore to make a difference on a local or even possibly a global level if you set your mind to it. In fact, individuals are changing ...
Radical Change
Man can't continue his environmentally-destructive behavior forever, say environmentalists. For some, a radical rework of the system has to be undertaken.
Tim DeChristopher has shot to prominence in the United States after he sought in December 2008 to protect 22,500 acres of wilderness from oil and gas mining by placing a false bid. Dressed in a suit, the activist entered a Bureau of and Management oil- and gas-lease auction in Utah and placed a bid on the land worth $1.8 million. The bid disrupted the bidding--and ended with him being charged and facing up to 10 years in jail and a ...
What A Way To Go: Life at the end of empire – Documentary
Here is a shameless promo of a documentary that everybody should watch.
Warning: It is two hours long.
Tim Bennett, middle-class white guy, started waking up to the global environmental nightmare in the mid-1980s. But life was so busy with raising kids and pursuing the American dream that he never got around to acting on his concerns. Until now…
Bennett journeys from complacency to consciousness in his feature-length documentary, What a Way To Go: Life at the End of Empire. He reviews his Midwestern roots, ruthlessly examines the stories he was raised with, and then details the grim realities humans now face: ...
Victory over the Keystone XL pipeline
November 10, 2011 will go down in the history books as a day when the environmental movement won what they claimed was a victory when US President Barack Obama’s administration put off the building of an oil pipeline until after the 2012 US elections.
The controversial Keystone XL pipeline from Canada had been stopped.
Robert Redford, the actor, was happy with the announcement. In a statement released by the Natural Resources Defense Council today Redford said, “This is American democracy at its best: a President who listens to the voice of the people and shows the courage to do what’s right for ...
CAMPAIGNS – Food Democracy Now supports small farmers
Around the world, small farmers are finding themselves facing the onslaught of agro-giant Monsanto that appears to be seeking to monopolize the agricultural seed market.
In the United States, family farmers will take part in the first phase of a court case on January 31 filed to protect farmers from genetic trespass by Monsanto’s GMO seed, which is said to contaminate organic and non-GMO farmer’s crops and opens them up to abusive lawsuits, according to Food Democracy Now. In the past two decades, Monsanto’s seed monopoly has grown so powerful that they control the genetics of nearly 90 percent of five ...
Jailed activist – Tim DeChristopher
[caption id="attachment_800" align="alignleft" width="420" caption="Peaceful Uprising's support poster for Tim DeChristopher"][/caption]Environmentalist Tim DeChristopher is currently serving a two-year jail sentence for disrupting an oil and gas mining auction in United States.
One the eve of Obama’s inauguration in 2008, DeChristopher, a 27-year old economics student from Utah, entered an auction set up for oil and gas companies, became the top bidder, and won the lease rights. As he collected afterwards, he had come with protestors to demonstrate at the auction but stepping in to bid was a spur of the moment action – and as he began to bid, felt comfortable ...
‘If a Tree Falls’ – The Documentary
The authorities in the United States call it “eco terrorism.” A new documentary called If a Tree Falls: A Story of the Earth Liberation Front tells the story of the rise and fall of a radical activist group in the United States, by focusing on the transformation and radicalization of one of its members.
According to the film makers, in December 2005, Daniel McGowan was arrested by Federal agents in a nationwide sweep of radical environmentalists involved with the Earth Liberation Front -a group the FBI has called America's "number one domestic terrorism threat."
For years, the ELF - operating in separate ...
2011 – Activism Comes to the Fore
Time Magazine made "the protester” their person of the year, 2011, rather than any one individual. The focus was two main waves of protest – the Arab Spring uprisings and the Occupy Wall Street movement. But there was a third movement that was making change – the environmental movement.
2011 was the “year of the protester,” a dramatic display of what can be done by what Malaysian author Alvin Ung calls “barefoot leadership.” Such leadership involves ordinary people achieving extraordinary results. Examples were seen in Cairo and many other capitals in the Middle East against dictatorship. And a fledgling movement has ...
‘Swimming’ to the North Pole
Briton Pen Hadow voiced a warning. On his epic journey solo in 2003 from Canada to the North Pole, he should have been walking and pulling his sled for most of the journey. He ended up having to swim sections of the route, pulling his heavy, buoyant sled behind him.
Hadow has warned that the Arctic ice cap is melting and shrinking fast. He’s experienced this first hand and fears that one day it might be possible to paddle a boat to the North Pole in summer.
Hadow founded Geo Mission, a pioneering environmental sponsorship organization, which engages global businesses with scientists ...
END:CIV – A Documentary Maker’s Vision
[caption id="attachment_956" align="alignleft" width="200" caption="Derrick Jensen - Photo: Dawn Paley - END:CIV"][/caption]If you are too lazy or don’t want to buy Derrick Jensen’s best-selling book Endgame, try at least to watch the documentary END:CIV. Made by film maker Franklin Lopez, END:CIV reminds us that every civilization ends – whether the Roman Empire or that of the ancient Mayans (whose modern-day descendants are reportedly saying 2012 is "game over").
Jensen tries to wake us up to the fact that we are rapidly heading for an endgame. The documentary, based on his book, tries to shake us out of our comfort zone to ...
Forests Finished
Little Time to Save the Trees
Forests are essential for life on Earth as they provide us clean air, shade, shelter, refuge, refreshment and water. Yet they are disappearing to the chainsaw and encroachment at an alarming rate around the world.
According to the Nature Conservancy group, nearly half of the planet’s original forest cover is gone. Much of what remains is in trouble. Diseases and insects are slowly killing entire species of trees. Illegal and legal logging is destroying the natural habitat, which has a knock-on effect in threatening wildlife. And forest fires are proving more destructive, as the natural ...
Occupy Our Food Supply
Check out the campaign here
With agro-giants taking over control of the world's food supply and turning agriculture black with GM crops and dangerous pesticides and herbicides, activists are calling for people to "occupy your food supply" - put food back under the control of the people and pursue more sustainable and eco-friendly farming and food production practices.
HERE ARE SOME STORIES OUTLINING THE STRUGGLE
Occupy Our Food Supply – Day of Action
Organizers call today’s Occupy our Food Supply day of action a resounding success. The day included more than 100 events across the globe, united an unprecedented alliance of more than 60 ...
Canadians protest tar sands mining
The mining of tar sands to extract oil and other byproducts offers hundreds of thousands of jobs and a multi-billion income the companies and the government of Canada. That’s the good news. The bad news is that it is the most destructive and polluting method of feeding man’s addiction to oil.
‘Hell on earth’
As Greenpeace says, the tar sands of Northern Alberta, Canada – also called oil sands – are one of the largest remaining deposits of oil in the world. Developing the tar sands has created the biggest industrial development project, the biggest capital investment project, and the biggest energy ...
Killing the Mekong
[caption id="attachment_2239" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="Protestors fighting against the building of dams on the Mekong, here at a rally in Bangkok. Photo: Eureka Films"][/caption]The Mekong - one of world’s great rivers. Flowing through six countries and sustaining the lives of 65 million people, this great waterway is under dire threat from a cascade of hydro-electric dams.
Four dams have already been built along the Chinese stretch of the Mekong .11 more dams have been mapped out downstream in Laos and Cambodia.
The mighty Mekong, the lifeblood of countless generations of Cambodian, Lao, Thai and Vietnamese, is in great danger from ...
How ‘Green’ is the Occupy Movement?
[caption id="attachment_466" align="alignright" width="492" caption="Occupy protestors being sprayed with pepper spray, University of California"][/caption]The "Occupy Wall Street" movement has begun to spread around the world. The United States is in dire financial straits and the demonstrators claim this is due to the mismanagement by companies and government of a system that favors 1% of the population over the other 99%. It is a movement that was bound to come and it has found resonance around the world, in London, Tokyo, Seoul, Cairo and elsewhere.
But just how 'green' is the movement? Many demonstrators have sought to minimize their energy consumption and ...
The Last Mountain – A Documentary
[caption id="attachment_1026" align="alignleft" width="200" caption="Maria Gunnoe at the mining site - Photo: Vivian Stockman, The Last Mountain"][/caption]Local Community Takes on Big Coal
It’s a battle between a community and Big Coal. In the valleys of Appalachia, a community, with the help of outsiders, including Robert Kennedy, Jr., have been taking on the coal industry that has been blowing up and ripping down the mountains in search of coal. Ordinary people like Maria Gunnoe have taken up the cause.
This destructive form of mining is not only changing the landscape, destroying the mountains, it is also taking people’s lives and wrecking people’s health.
In ...
‘Tree Sitter’ Miranda Gibson and her battle to save Tasmania’s forests
[caption id="attachment_1720" align="alignleft" width="212" caption="Miranda Gibson, teacher and conservationist. Photo: Byalan Lesheimj, ObserverTree.org"][/caption]Miranda Gibson has been on a platform 60 meters about the ground for over two months and will remain there to highlight the destruction of Tasmania's forests.
The ObserverTree is a platform situated 60m above the ground in an old-growth Eucalyptus Delegatensis tree, in the heart of Tasmania’s southern forests, according to ObserverTree.org, Miranda's website. On the 14th of December 2011 conservationist Miranda Gibson climbed a rope to the top of the tree and vowed to stay untill the forest is protected. Miranda’s upper canopy home is a tree ...
Dutch astronaut Andre Kuipers is a privileged person. He spends months at a time circling the Earth at an altitude of 400 kilometers. It takes his spacecraft one and half hours to circle the Earth and he goes round 16 times a day.
Kuipers is an ambassador for the environment and he is a worried man. There are only 10 kilometers of atmosphere and at most 10 kilometers depth of ocean. That’s our living space.
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