Texans opposed to an oil pipeline?
October 18th, 2012
Readers of this website already know that there’s a major standoff over the Keystone XL pipeline in unlikely East Texas.
Tags: · civil disobedience, East Texas, Keystone pipeline, standoff in the trees, Tar Sands Blockade, tar sands oil, TransCanada
Tree-sitting is catching on in Texas
October 11th, 2012
Another protestor of Keystone XL pipeline has taken to the trees in East Texas.
Inspired by a handful of kindred spirits who’ve been expressing their opposition to the pipeline via a tree blockade a few miles away, Kevin Redding, 22, of Austin, climbed into the timber at the West End Nature Preserve just outside Mt. Vernon, Texas.
Tags: · civil disobedience, Keystone Tar Sands, Tar Sands Blockade, tree sitting, tree village
Pilot plans plastic fuel-powered flight from Sydney to London
October 11th, 2012
Move over Flight of the Bumblebee. Hello Flight of the Butter Tubs.
That’s what you could call the daring 12,000 mile journey that Australian pilot Jeremy Rowsell is planning for early next year, when he will fly a single engine plane from Sydney to London on fuel that’s neither gasoline, kerosene nor any other traditional aircraft propellant.
Tags: · Cynar plc, fuel from plastics, green aviation, Jeremy Rowsell, London, plastic waste, pyrolysis, Sydney
Work on Keystone pipeline comes perilously close to activists’ ‘tree village’
September 28th, 2012
Keystone XL pipeline protesters braced for a showdown with construction crews today in East Texas, where at least 8 protesters have been encamped since Monday in a ‘tree village’ built to block the path of the pipeline.
The Tar Sands Blockade protesters have been thwarting the progress of the pipeline through East Texas by locking themselves to equipment or sitting in front of tree-clearing machinery. They’ve slowed work crews at various points along the southern segment of Keystone XL, between Cushing, Okla., and Port Arthur, Texas.
Tags: · Keystone Pipeline XL, protesters, Tar Sands Blockade, tree village
Tar sands pipeline protesters take to the trees in Texas
September 25th, 2012
Tree sitters have brought West Coast-style civil disobedience to the heart of the Lone Star state.
Starting bright and early Monday, and continuing today, eight people have perched in tree houses in a so far successful attempt to thwart the progress of the Keystone XL pipeline through Texas.
Tags: · Keystone protests, Tar Sands Blockade, Texas, TransCanada, Winnsboro
Majority of undecided voters call global warming important in U.S. election, poll says
September 24th, 2012
The majority of undecided voters in the U.S. presidential race say that the candidates’ views on global warming will be an important factor in determining how they vote, according to a new poll. While very few participants called global warming their…
Tags: · 2012 race, global warming, issues, Obama, poll of voters, Romney
Tar Sands Blockade members force another work stoppage in Texas
September 5th, 2012
Landowners and activists have again forced a temporary work stoppage on the Keystone XL pipeline in Texas.
This morning three members of the Tar Sands Blockade group latched themselves to tree-clearing machinery, stopping work crews from creating the path for the transcontinental pipeline.
It was not immediately known if police had been called to the scene, as they were to a similar scene of civil disobedience by the group in late August.
Tags: · Carbon Emissions, carbon pollution, protesters in Texas, Tar Sands Blockade, tar sands pipeline
Brazil’s developing, and getting greener
August 31st, 2012

GE turbines in Brazil (Photo:
Fast-growing Brazil has been criticized for chopping down rainforests to make way for beef cattle, soy and sugar farms.
But those days may be behind us. Brazil is fast becoming an industrial leader with a growing green conscience, as two reports out this week show.
Tags: · Brazil, clean energy, deforestation, GE, Wind Turbines
Seven protesters of the Keystone XL pipeline arrested in Texas
August 29th, 2012
Texas residents who oppose the Keystone XL pipeline were arrested after they chained themselves to pipeline construction equipment in Polk County on Tuesday.
The seven protesters, five men and two women, were trying to thwart the progress of the pipeline through Texas, the last leg of the 1,700 mile project that would bring tar sands oil from Alberta to refineries near Houston. They oppose the pipeline because they believe it will be unsafe and could leak harming aquifers and farm land. Many of the protesters, part of the Tar Sands Blockade, also oppose the tar sands project because it will add to the greenhouse gas emissions that are fueling climate change.
Tags: · Keystone Pipeline XL, protesters arrested, Tar Sands Blockade
Greenpeace activists board Arctic oil platform in Save the Arctic campaign
August 24th, 2012
Greenpeace International activists boarded the Russian oil drilling platform operated by Gazprom today to demonstrate the group’s opposition to drilling in the arctic.
Tags: · arctic oil drilling, Climate Change, global warming, Greenpeace International, oil exploration, protests
Tar sands blockade in Texas and Oklahoma unites land rights and environmental activists
August 22nd, 2012
It’s often assumed that Texans, like the majority of their lawmakers, favor oil drilling and the expansion of the oil industry.
And it’s often true. But a small, scrappy group of protesters that has risen up against the construction of the southern leg of the Keystone XL pipeline in Texas and Oklahoma are showing that such stereotypes are just that.
Their protests began last week, with small groups brandishing protest signs at work sites, where pipeline operator TransCanada has begun laying the Southern portion of the 1,700 mile transcontinental pipeline from Alberta to the Houston area.
Tags: · Canadian tar sands, Carbon Emissions, Fossil Fuels, Keystone XL pipeline, oil extraction, Oklahoma, Tar Sands Blockade, tar sands oil, Texas, TransCanada
Hong Kong Starbucks plans to turn food waste and grounds into bio-plastic
August 20th, 2012
A team of scientists is working with the Starbucks coffee chain to develop a bio-refinery process that would convert the company’s discarded coffee grounds and day-old bakery goods into a key ingredient for making plastics and other products. The pro…
Tags: · City University, food waste, Hong Kong, plastics from biowaste, Starbucks


Barbara Kessler
Andrew Winston
Danielle Nierenberg
Anthony Swift