September 10th, 2010

A pair of Greenpeace activists have been sentenced to suspended one-year jail terms after the two were found guilty of stealing a box of whale meat the group claimed provided proof of embezzlement in state-run research whaling.

The Aomori district court convicted Junichi Sato, 33, and Toru Suzuki, 43, of theft and trespass charges. The one-year jail terms were suspended for three years.

Sato and Suzuki admitted they stole a box of salted whale meat in 2008, but claimed they acted in the public interest to highlight embezzlement in Japan’s whaling program. Greenpeace executive director Kumi Naidoo, who was in Japan for the reading of the verdict, said, “Activists are not criminals and to treat them as such has a chilling effect in society, undermining the quality of democracy.”

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August 13th, 2010

The Petermann Glacier in northwest Greenland shed its largest chunk of ice in nearly half a century last week when a break-up sent a 100 squrae-mile chunk of ice drifting into the North Strait. Scientists say Greenland is losing ice mass at an increasing rate as the debate over what it means for global warming heats up:

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August 11th, 2010

Environmental groups come up with a lot of inspired campaigns. Some, like Greenpeace and the Rainforest Action Network, are masters of eco-guerilla warfare, turning up at national icons or even in grocery stores with campaigns that make us think about deforestation, oil dependence and climate change.

Defenders of Wildlife is not such a showy group, but they work in their own way to connect the dots, trying to find solutions to wildlife issues. They’ve been instrumental in working toward peaceful solutions between ranchers and wolf advocates in the Rocky Mountains.

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June 30th, 2010

Citing the company’s lack of a transparent and meaningful sustainable seafood policy, Greenpeace launched the next phase of its sustainable seafood campaign today targeting Costco. Greenpeace said that even though Costco tells its shareholders and customers that it supports sustainable seafood, it sells 15 of the 22 “red-listed” seafoods including two of the world’s most critically imperiled species: orange roughy and Chilean sea bass.

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May 26th, 2010

The environmental protection group Greenpeace hung a large banner at Dell’s Round Rock headquarters Wednesday morning, saying the company hadn’t kept its promise of eliminating certain chemicals from its products. Greenpeace claims that Dell promised to eliminate chemical byproducts such as PVC plastic and brominated flame retardants. The company has pushed that deadline back to 2011.

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February 11th, 2010

By Barbara Kessler
Green Right Now

You’ve got to feel for the dirty fuel lobbyist, adrift in a world where suddenly oil and coal energy has competition, where emerging clean tech companies are peddling cheap energy solutions like wind and solar power (cheap because they’re renewable and non-polluting) and environmentalists keep jabbering about how carbon in the atmosphere is ruining the planet. Sheesh!

Such a lobbyist needs respite from the tilting political landscape, someone with whom to cuddle up, share their story, bestow with lots of money — like a U.S. Senator or Representative!

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December 17th, 2009

Green Right Now Reports

Greenpeace doesn’t want American citizens to forget who’s stalling progress on climate action, namely, entrenched industrial polluters.

Greenpeace at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Building (Photo: Robert Meyers)

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October 30th, 2009

By Ashley Phillips
Green Right Now

In June, Greenpeace released “Slaughtering the Amazon,” a three-year investigation into deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon. Greenpeace found that people were taking over protected lands in order to expand their cattle ranches. This was not only illegal, but large quantities of greenhouse gases were being released into the atmosphere as a result of the rapidly depleting forests.

Adidas, Nike and Timberland have committed to cancel supplier contracts unless their products were guaranteed to be free from Amazon destruction.

Deforestation accounts for around one fifth of global greenhouse gas emissions, more than all the world’s trains, planes and cars combined, and Greenpeace estimates that the cattle industry is responsible for 80 percent of all deforestation.

Now, just four months after the release of “Slaughtering the Amazon,” positive steps are being taken by some of the big companies implicated.

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August 5th, 2009

strong> By Barbara Kessler
Green Right Now

Kimberly-Clark, the world’s largest personal paper products company, announced new policies today in which the paper maker will greatly increase the use of recycled and sustainably grown wood fibers in its products, which include the Kleenex, Scott and Cottonelle brands.

The move will help save forests around the globe and make the Dallas-based company a leader in producing sustainable paper products, said Greenpeace media officer Daniel Kessler. “We worked with Kimberly-Clark on this policy and it’s a landmark for forest protection; 100 percent of Kimberly-Clark’s fiber will come from sustainable sources.”

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July 8th, 2009

By Barbara Kessler
Green Right Now

You gotta love it when people show they care. Greenpeace activists made their passion for the environment manifest in yet another creative way today, posting a sign urging Obama to show strong leadership on global warming.

On Mount Rushmore.

Next to Lincoln, our president’s favorite president.

They were arrested, which for Greenpeacers is not a negative. Though the group noted in the news release that the sign posters were all trained rock climbers, so no lives were endangered. The “heads” were unharmed and the activists took care to use established climbing anchors used for routine cleanings.

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July 3rd, 2009

From Green Right Now Reports:

Greenpeace followed up the release this week of its latest Carting Away the Oceans scorecard with a friendly and fishy demonstration outside Trader Joe’s stores in San Francisco.

Greenpeace members, two of whom dressed as orange roughy and others who parodied Trader’s by wearing Hawaiian shirts mimicking the store’s trademark uniform, handed out information on why its important to select and buy seafood that can be replenished and also asked prospective customers to sign petition postcards to privately held grocery company.

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July 2nd, 2009

By Melissa Segrest
Green Right Now

In 1986, the International Whaling Commission banned the catching and killing of whales for commercial purposes worldwide. Whale populations – such as the North Pacific gray and the North Atlantic right whale – were threatened because of centuries of unrestricted hunting.

That ban is still in effect, with two exceptions: aboriginal peoples whose survival depends on whaling (Alaska, St. Vincent, the Grenadines, Denmark and the Russian Federation) and whaling for scientific purposes.

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