March 27th, 2012

March came in like a lion. A fire-breathing, saliva-dripping, panting lion. A lion whom certainly sought shade if she lived in the continental US where temperatures blasted through records faster than you can say Happy St. Pat’s.
The heat, according to the news reports, was “unprecedented,” (Where have we heard this before? Oh yeah, last summer) with some 7,000 heat records being set or tied in the US, according to the US National Climatic Weather Center.

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March 26th, 2012

Leading US environmentalist Bill McKibben has announced the latest action by 350.org to try to show the public that climate change is rapidly destabilizing the planet, and threatening the future of humanity.
The new worldwide action, called Connect the Dots, will take place on May 5, across the planet, with local groups expressing the urgency of climate change with demonstrations specific to their region.

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November 10th, 2011

Environmentalists cheered the surprise announcement today that the U.S. State Department will re-evaluate the route of the proposed controversial Keystone XL pipeline project, and praised President Obama for ordering the reconsideration.

“The president didn’t outright reject the pipeline permit…But a few minutes ago the president sent the pipeline back to the State Department for a thorough re-review, which most analysts are saying will effectively kill the project. The president explicitly noted climate change, along with the pipeline route, as one of the factors that a new review would need to assess,” wrote environmental activist Bill McKibben on the TarSandsAction.org blog.

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August 30th, 2011

By now you’ve probably heard about the two-week long tar sands protest at the White House, where people have been lining up to voice grave doubts about the proposed 1,700 mile pipeline that would carry dirty bitumen oil from Canada to the Gulf Coast.

Picketers are sending a message to President Obama that stopping the Keystone XL pipeline would help America kick its oil addiction and protect its natural water sources.

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August 29th, 2011

Environmentalist Bill McKibben makes an appeal to join the protest against the Keystone XL pipeline that’s continuing this week in front of the White House.

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August 22nd, 2011

It’s difficult to tell how much protesters at the tar sands action in Washington D.C. are accomplishing — at this point.

A group of 70 , gathered to oppose the proposed Keystone XL pipeline that would carry tar sands oil across the midsection of the US, was arrested on Saturday, the first day of the planned civil disobedience action. The group included environmentalist Bill McKibben, former White House official and Yale dean Gus Speth and gay rights activist Lt. Dan Choi and dozens of lesser known, but no less concerned, citizens. Forty-five of those arrested were held until Monday, after sleeping on cold jail floors. That was far longer than they’d anticipated based on earlier US Park Police statements that protesters would be quickly released after processing.

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April 18th, 2011

Power Shift, the annual training and rally that brings out thousands of college students to push for clean energy and climate action, winds up today in Washington, following rousing weekend speeches by environmentalists Van Jones, former Vice President Al Gore and Bill McKibben.

Van Jones, the former Obama Administration green jobs ‘czar’ and veteran Power Shift speaker, excited the students with a speech that tore to the bones of the debate, telling them that their generation has been “powered by death.” That death comes from the fossil fuels, the remnants of lives lived millions of years ago, which are pulled from the ground and burned, putting “death into the sky” in the form of global warming and into the oceans and into the lungs of people, causing asthma and illness.

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December 23rd, 2010

Climate change seems to have fallen off the political map lately. But it remains the urgent issue of our time. Indeed, it is the issue that will determine “our time.”

Several books released this year reflect this reality. And yes, reading them can be grim going. There are no requisite Hollywood endings, only monumental problems, from the highest melting mountain glacier to the deepest toxic dung lagoon (the proverbial pile of poo) of the animal factories. There are rising oceans, onerous heat, desertification, walloping storms, vanishing forests and depleted soil — enough pestilence and disaster for a Bible update.

But weighted as they are with mind-boggling issues, and warnings that we must attend to our planet or veer into disaster by 2020 or 2030, they do offer hope, opening up new ways of thinking and illuminating pathways forward.

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October 6th, 2010

Thousands are expected to take actions to fight, mitigate or prepare for climate change at this weekend’s 10-10-10 Work Party organized by 350.org.
More than 7,000 events are planned in countries around the globe. They include both the highly symbolic — President Nasheed of Maldives, which stands to be annihilated by rising oceans, will kick off the weekend by helping install solar panels on his official residence — to small, meaningful neighborhood actions. Some will install gardens; others will weatherize houses, plant trees at schools or clean up natural areas. There will be work events followed by play such as concerts and picnics.

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September 30th, 2010

Climate action group 350.org announced today that it has logged more than 5,200 events that are planned for this year’s work party on Oct. 10, 2010.

That means the 10-10-10 work party will likely surpass participation in last year’s worldwide demonstration in which people in 181 countries turned out for 5248 events aimed at raising consciousness about climate change. CNN called that 350.org event the “most widespread day of political action in the planet’s history,” noted 350.org founder Bill McKibben.

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September 10th, 2010

A group of environmentalists who wanted solar panels installed on the White House were able to meet with administration staffers today, but they did not get a commitment for a solar array at the first family’s residence.
The team representing people who’d signed a “Put Solar On The White House” petition included students from Unity College in Maine which has been using a solar array installed on the White House during the Carter Administration. The panels Jimmy Carter had installed were dismantled, and ultimately relocated to Unity College, during the Reagan Administration. The Put Solar On It group carried a remnant of that array to the White House to help make their point that President Obama could again light the way.

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June 17th, 2010

The Post Carbon Institute wants Congress to get tougher about a new energy policy and push forward on a bill that would embrace renewable energy, increase green jobs and improve the nation’s energy security.

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