Two weeks ago, the Japanese government was set back in its attempt to cover up a whale meat embezzlement scandal while prosecuting two brave Greenpeace activists. The court has agreed to hear key evidence the prosecution has fought to keep out of the trial of  Junichi Sato and Toru Suzuki. Also, additional evidence held by the prosecutor's office may be forced to be made public.

On June 20th, it will be one year since the arrest of Junichi and Toru.  In this time they have faced detention, police pressure, and a series of closed pre-trial proceedings. See the Timeline of the T2  story.  We are glad that the full story will now be heard in court.  Without pressure from activists around the globe, Junichi and Toru would not have this fighting chance.  Please continue to take action and spread the word about the T2.  I will be blogging from Japan in the coming weeks as I help the effort to free the Tokyo Two, an effort that has been galvanized by supporters and partners worldwide.    Sign the petition: Free Junichi and Toru or Arrest Me Too!

 

See the video: Whaling on Trial

 

 

 

Yesterday we released a new report, “America’s Share of the Climate Crisis: A State-By-State Carbon Footprint,” to highlight the United States’ responsibility for taking the lead to solve global warming given our disproportionately large role in creating the problem. Using data from the World Resources Institute's Carbon Analysis Indicators Tool, the report examines each state's carbon dioxide emissions produced by fossil fuel combustion from 1960 to 2005 and compares those emissions to 184 other countries.

It's a pretty staggering report. For instance, my home state, Texas, would rank as the 6th biggest polluter in the world if it were its own country. There's also this fact: "The combined historic emissions of just seven states—Texas, California, Illinois, New York, Indiana, Pennsylvania, and Ohio—totalled 96,517 MtCO2, more than any other country in the world, including China (92,950)."

Read more and download the report so you can check your state's emissions numbers. Congress may be blowing it with the climate legislation, but the EPA's endangerment finding gives it the ability to regulate greenhouse gas emissions. Write the EPA now and tell them you want them to issue strong new rules to control global warming pollution.

Today we launched the “Cool IT Challenge”, a campaign to turn IT industry head honchos like Microsoft’s Steve Ballmer, Intel’s Paul Otellini, and Michael Dell into advocates for strong global warming policies and providers of effective global warming solutions. (The video at the bottom of this post does a good job of explaining the campaign.) There are two main reasons why this campaign is so cool:

1. A peak in global emissions by 2015 followed by a rapid decline to as close to zero emissions as possible by 2050 is crucial to protecting the climate, and the IT industry has claimed to have the potential to cut 15 percent of total emissions via tech solutions like a smart grid. Many tech leaders have already established initiatives to green their own companies, but if they then turn around and help society as a whole implement solutions to get more energy efficient while still using all the fancy new technologies we’ve come to rely on (and some new ones we haven’t even heard of yet, hopefully!), who knows how big of a contribution the IT inudustry could make to stopping global warming.
2. This campaign was just made for the web. Check out the website, it’s got lots of cool features to play with. For example, you can place bets on which IT industry leader will be leading the pack at the end of the summer when we re-evaluate them all. And more games are coming soon! Plus there’s plenty of ways to invite your friends to play with you (yeah multiplayer action!), dig into our assesment scores for each industry leader (currently in first: IBM’s Samuel Palmisano, with a paltry 29 out of 100 — come on IT big wigs, you can do better!), email these IT leaders and urge them to be climate leaders, and, if you’re a blogger, get your blog added to our featured links list by linking to our page with the most creative content!

We’ve ranked the IT leaders that are part of the challenge based on five criteria: Public Climate Speech; Political Advocacy; Climate Solutions; Own Emissions Targets; and Renewable Energy Use. Check out the site now, find out how the IT leaders are measuring up, and place your bets!

Finally.   After years of denying its role in the campaign of climate denial, Exxon has revealed a dirty secret, that it has and likely still is DIRECTLY funding junk scientists.

 

The ExxonMobil 2008 Corporate Citizenship Report and Worldwide Giving Report were just released by the company ahead of their Annual General Meeting in Dallas tomorrow (May 27th) where the company is once again under significant pressure from Shareholder Activists.

The Worldwide Giving Reports are a key part of the data from which we have derived the ExxonSecrets funding linkages for the past decade.  Through the years, most ExxonMobil Foundation and corporate grants (the ones they report to the IRS anyway) have gone to think-tanks, organizations who have in turn propped up the small army of denial scientists, amplified their voices and injected them into the media and policy arenas. 

Thanks to Exxon's revealing this little secret, we now have a direct link between the Exxon black bag o' cash and two scientists who have made their careers as global warming deniers.

The new Exxon Giving report shows straight pipe funding, in the odd but specific sum of $76,106 to the  Smithsonian Astrophysics Observatory, home of Dr. Willie Soon and Dr. Sallie Baliunas.  Or we assume the cash went to these two, until Exxon explains itself. 

The Observatory is the research arm of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA) which has little to do with either the Smithsonian or Harvard at this point, other than in name (founded as a joint venture in 1973).  In past episodes, Smithsonian has distanced itself from Baliunas, who discredits their name.

Wait!!? Is that Ben Stiller starring as Willie and Amy Adams portraying a young spry Sally? Maybe they should spend a Night at the Museum...they might learn a few things.

The Observatory has produced some pretty useful publications over time like the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory Star Catalog, originally published in 1966 by Fred L. Whipple.  But somewhere along the line they let in the riff raff...

Sally Baliunas built her denial career downplaying the significance of the destruction of the ozone layer, publishing a report entitled "The Ozone Crisis" in 1994 for the George Marshall Institute.  Baliunas was, at the time, the chair of the Marshall Institute's Science Advisory Board and Fred Seitz was the Chairman of the Board...a full throttle denial team if ever there was one.

Remember the Marshall Institute?  Oh yeah, Exxon announced that they had dropped their funding last year...who needs Marshall when you have their scientists on a leash. 

Here is an excerpt from SallyBali's Ozone junk science:

Sound familiar?  Talk about lies and misinformation, check out the projected cost estimates of getting rid of CFCs!  Wow, was Sally wrong...its a wonder she wasn't so ashamed as to never publish again...but wait, there is no shame for a denier!

During the early Bush years, Soon and Baliunas were back in action, joint authors of a denial classic attacking mainstream climate conclusions. 

"Lessons & Limits of Climate History: Was the 20th Century Climate Unusual?" was published by the George Marshall Institute.  Jeff Nesmith of Cox News Service,  revealed that the study was funded by the American Petroleum Institute. Senator Inhofe of course loved the report!

Soon went on to coauthor another denial classic,  Polar Bears Are Doing Just Fine, reviewed by ExxonSecrets back in 2007.

This polar bear paper is key because, old Willie proudly admits both Exxon and American Petroleum Institute funding to support the research.  However, Exxon didn't report this funding in its Worldwide Giving Report or to the IRS...they never said a word about it...

After an October 17th 2007 House Science Committee hearing entitled, Disappearing Polar Bears and Permafrost: Is a Global Warming Tipping Point Embedded in the Ice?, Representative Brad Miller of North Carolina penned a letter to Exxon demanding answers.  He wrote, “Exxon has the right to fund any research or publications it wishes.  However, the Congress and the public have the right to know why ExxonMobil is funding a scientist whose writing is outside his area of expertise to create the impression that expert scientists have conducted rigorous, peer-reviewed work that says the problems with polar bears are unproven or unserious.”

As far as we know Rep. Miller never got answers.

By now, Willie Nilly has emerged from Sally Bali's shadow to become one of the go-to skeptics, appearing as a key speaker at the two recent Heartland Institute's Denial-Paloozas in New York.  Soon is again a featured panelist at next week's 3rd Heartland Institute Denial-Palooza (wait, didnt they just have the 2nd one about 2 months ago?) Senator Inhofe and Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Calif.) will join the shrinking but noisy denial crew in DC on June 2nd.

The Exxon AGM season is like Christmas for us at ExxonSecrets and this year Santa treated us right.  Now, Rex Tillerson,  what exactly have you been paying Soon and Baliunas to do and for how long?  Clearly it didn't start in 2008.  Answers please.....we're waiting...

The head of our global warming campaign, Damon Moglen, sent the following update out to our supporters yesterday stating our reasons for withdrawing our support from the Waxman-Markey climate legislation, America's Clean Energy and Security Act.

Here's Damon's statement:

In these last weeks, the first piece of legislation attempting to seriously address global warming was introduced in Congress. The bill - authored and introduced by Representatives Waxman and Markey - started off as a good first step toward solving the climate crisis.

But following pressure from an all-out $45 million lobbying push by the coal, gas and oil industries, the bill looks very different today than it did two weeks ago. That's why I want to let you know where Greenpeace stands on the bill.

Unfortunately, we simply can't support this bill in its current state. Here are a few of the reasons why:

• The bill calls for reducing U.S. greenhouse gas emissions by less than 4-7 percent below 1990 levels by 2020. Even with supplemental reductions elsewhere in the bill, that's way short of the 25-40 percent cuts that leading scientists call for.
• The biggest polluters would receive hundreds of billions of dollars in subsidies. This is unacceptable. Taxpayers should not foot the bill for dirty industries hoping to continue business as usual.
• Given all of the carbon "offsets" that the bill offers to dirty industries, they could avoid reducing their greenhouse gas emissions for more than a decade. By that time, it could be too late to stop the worst impacts of global warming.
• A new generation of dirty coal-fired power plants will be supported through some $10 billion in ratepayer subsidies for carbon capture and sequestration (or CCS) - an unproven technology that doesn't even exist yet.
• The bill sets a renewable electricity standard that would achieve less than states are likely to accomplish on their own.

All together, this bill simply does not do what the science says is necessary to avoid the worst effects of global warming and to rescue the climate. And for us here at Greenpeace, that has always been the bottom line.

This moment requires bold leadership from President Obama and Congress, and Greenpeace fully intends to demand just that. We'll be in touch over the coming weeks and months to let you know exactly what's needed to rescue the climate. In the meantime, I want to personally thank you for your activism and commitment to this important issue. I'm looking forward to working with you.

Sincerely,
Damon Moglen
Greenpeace Global Warming Campaign Director

Yesterday Greenpeace held a rally in Virginia outside of the first of two EPA Endangerment Hearings that will take place this week. These hearings come about a month after the EPA announced its conclusion that greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuels endanger human health and welfare –  which by law gives the EPA the right to regulate those emissions under the Clean Air Act. The EPA's endangerment finding is a good sign that the Obama Administration might be willing to regulate greenhouse gases should Congress fail to act. The Administration is holding these public hearings through June as part of the public input process.

We showed up to yesterday’s hearing with banners reading, "The Science is Clear,” “Rescue the Climate,” and stood outside the hearing facility for all to see. From blocks away volunteers could be heard chanting: "EPA: today is the date. Rescue the Climate before it's too late!" We got honks from cars passing by and waves and shouts from supporters on foot. It was clear we didn't go unnoticed.  

With the same industry lobbyists inside the hearing as have been inside Congressional offices this spring, it's more important than ever that we are representing the movement and always reminding the media, the public, and elected officials that there is a human face to the impacts of climate change.

The next hearing is in Seattle on Thursday. We’ll be there too. Check back for an update!

May 15 - Bike to Work Day...

 

 
Some of the Greenpeacers who participated in Bike To Work Day along with some who always ride....

I join the flow of bikers on the Washington & Old Dominion bike path a few miles west of the Vienna Town Green rally points where extra bike bike racks are all full and a scrum of nearly 100 bikers in their finest gear mill about the sponsor tables.

There's tee shirts, baby blue this year, bananas, apples, fruit bars and water for all. It's a festive morning. Cool, damp with the overnight storm and the lush spring growth of Virginia. People are talking about their rides to work, making new friends in the greater bike community.

I break away with a group when the light gives us a chance to cross the four lanes of Hwy 123 flush with single drivers in individual cars as far as the eye can see.  There's some joggers and a box turtle to share the trail with. A mother with a baby in a trailer holding her shoe. She was hoping to stock up on water bottles at this year's event and was disappointed.

From the bridge over I-495, the Capitol Beltway, i have a balconly level view of miles of trucks and cars crawling along side by side nose to tail. The now bare sides of the highway lanes raw and muddy with the old oak forest that bordered the road recently removed to make way for new HOT lanes. That once robust buffer now bald in the face of homes built to the edge of the former woodlands. If we get to carbon Cap & Trade I wonder if I could get money from all those drivers to ride my bike and offset their exhaust. That would be nice. What if the car drivers had to pay the cost of building these new big roads. Would they woke up and switch to bicycles?  Imagine what a great bike path the highways would make. How fast I could ride downtown without stopping and waiting to cross roads.

Through Falls Church, dog walkers, joggers, school kids and walkers on their way to Metrorail stations. Onto the bankside path along Four Mile Run rushing in its rocky bed toward the tidal Potomac River. Bird song is overwhelmed by wheelsounds along I-66 on the Custis Trail as the trail climbs and falls under road bridges hugging the highway side. Fantasize that the stop signs switch from the bike path to the streets.

Down the final stretch to the river, a knarly descent crossing six roads along the busy highway, bus stops, walkers, hotel entrance and then face down the gauntlet of two lanes of right turn traffic before descending to the river, muddy with last night's rain but glossy in the low tide calm.

Across fast George Washington Parkway traffic onto Memorial Bridge and into the District of Columbia through a convoy of tour buses. Kids in color coded tour shirts crowd the steps for group photos. A high school orchestra tunes up to play accompanied by the flights out of National Airport and the chainsaw/grinder duo courtesy of the park service tree trimming by the Vietnam War Memorial.

Lincoln's statue is up there in his big chair. I bet he'd of been a big bike rider. Big lanky legs fit for pedaling a touring bike. He did ride a horse in from the Soldiers & Sailors home to the White House in summer ruminating, so maybe he'd like the pace of the bike ride and the chance to clear his head. The horse was the private car of its day, though. Like humans, methane producer, but fueled by renewable resource, grass, but hay transported by wagons and other horses had an environmental impact too. As building bikes does as well - steel and component materials but no fuel over it's useful life, a bit of citrus cleanser to keep the chain clean and lubricants to keep moving. Tires and tubes wear out almost every year. Which is more eco friendly over a life span: horse or bike? Note: question for the research department.

More tour groups at the Washington Monument.  Misty clouds over the White House. Obama plays basketball, not heard he rides a bike. Bush did but only after the motorcades got him where he could ride. The Capitol dome looms large ahead framed by trees, the Museum of the American Indian and the National Art Gallery. I turn up 7th Street an ambulance and Capitol Police car with sirens and lights blast over Pennsylvania Avenue, Six blocks, eight traffic lights into Chinatown and arrive at the Greenpeace office.

Another ride, one of many in my 12 years of commuting to work in Washington, D.C., and the 11 years in London, England. A bit of a fair weather biker now I'll bike or even drive my car to Metrorail when the temperature is below 40 degrees Fahrenheit or a day of rain is forecast and looks likely. I enjoy the pace of the bicycle, the chance to see the parade of blossoms the year provides, now featuring azalea, rhododendron and dogwood. My head is always clearer when I ride to work. There is no better way to see, hear and smell the world while rolling along.

Bike to Work Day is great. Biking every day is priceless. Just seeing that many less cars  on the road is a great start. Something everyone, even those stuck in their cars, should feel good about.

I dreamed I saw the drivers, sitting all alone in their cars, turning into bike riders to save our nation. (thanks Joni!) We are star dust, we are golden, billion year old carbon, and we got to get ourselves, back to the garden.

For the month of April, I toured around Vermont with Greenpeace’s solar truck, the Rolling Sunlight, to talk to Vermonters about nuclear power (view a slideshow). Our tour was specifically targeting Vermont Yankee, the ever-aging nuclear power plant in Vernon.

One thing was very clear during this tour: Vermonters know their stuff. They know about the cooling tower collapse on the nuclear facility. They know that the plant is operating at 120% of its designed capacity. They know that the plant has had three radioactive leaks in just this year alone.

Basically, they know that the plant is dirty, dangerous, and expensive.

Since everyone already seems know these scary details, I’m not going to go into more depth about them. Instead, I’m going to talk about how informed and passionate the people of Vermont are with regards to this issue.

I had the opportunity to travel to several different towns throughout the state to hear what people had to say about Vermont Yankee and nuclear power. I spoke with hundreds of people about this issue and I was extremely impressed by how knowledgeable the general public of Vermont is about VT Yankee and how up to date they are on the political climate of the state. Many people signed petitions and wrote letters to the state legislature about this issue and when I asked them if they had been following VT Yankee in the news recently, they would often respond, “Well, of course – I live here.”

I am not from Vermont. I cannot pretend to know what it is like for the people in Vernon or Brattleboro to hear the monthly test sirens at the nuclear plant that will go off in the event of a nuclear accident.

But I do know this: Vermonters want their state to be nuclear free. I know this because of the hundreds of conversations I had, from the hundreds of people that signed petitions – and even from the hundreds of people that honked and waved while I drove the Rolling Sunlight down I-89.

Vermonters get it: This nuclear power plant needs to retire.

It is time to invest in clean, renewable energies like wind, solar and biomass, which will help solve our energy problems and create tons of new jobs. Vermont has an amazing opportunity right now to set the precedent in our country for how we deal with old, dangerous nuclear power plants. It’s time for the Vermont legislature to get out there and listen to their constituents as I have – and once they do, they’ll too realize that Vermonters are ready for Vermont Yankee to shut down.

We all remember BP's many attempts to look like a green company - for example changing its name from "British Petroleum" to "Beyond Petroleum", and running numerous greenwash ads like the one to the right. But it looks like BP may finally be officially moving away from its "green" pledge.

The company's new CEO recently announced that its new first priority will be safety.

As the BBC reports:

Greenpeace said the oil giant had a lot to gain by dropping its promise to be green.

Charlie Kronick, Greenpeace's senior climate change adviser, suggested that the pledge was the only thing holding it back from making further cuts to its green credentials.

"Now that BP is blissfully released from its pledge to invest in clean energy, it has a carte blanche to sell off its unprofitable green energy arm," he told the BBC.

"It can get back to doing what it does best: being a 100% fossil fuels train wreck," Mr Kronick added.

"This is classic smoke and mirrors."

It's no surprise really, BP has been investing in dirty tar sands and cutting investments in renewables for a long time. Let's just hope that with the new CEO comes a new advertising policy, one that doesn't include spending a fortune on greenwash.

In response to the 60 Minutes report about contamination of the Amazon rain forest in Ecuador, Chevron apparently hired its own reporter to create its own version of the report.  According to the New York Times:

Both videos start with a correspondent appearing on camera and calling it a “bitter” dispute. But from there, they diverge. The “60 Minutes” report visits the rain forest, talks to the Ecuadorean judge and interviews a Chevron manager. The Chevron video interviews the same Chevron manager, as well as five professors who are consultants to the oil company, but none of the plaintiffs.

The Chevron video never directly claims to be journalism. But a casual viewer could be swayed by the description — “Gene Randall reporting” — and the journalistic devices used, including file footage of the rain forest and over-the-shoulder interviews with experts. Chevron declined to answer questions about the video.

Chevron also bought Google ads so that its own website about the lawsuit, which includes the video, appear as the top link when anyone googles "Chevron in Ecuador".

It's unclear how much Chevron spent on the video and website, but it seems that money would have been better spent actually cleaning up oil wells in Ecuador. Surely that would have done more to improve Chevron's image than this bit of greenwash.

Mr Peabody Coal and Mr. Massey Ferguson were walking down a winding country road in the Mountains of Appalachia. The kind of road John Denver sang about in "Country Road, Take Me Home." They were talking about which of the surrounding mountaintops they would remove next, when one of them kicked at what looked like a can in the tall lush grass of the roadside. It was heavier than he thought it would be and hurt his toe a little bit and scuffed his Gucci boot.

They both bent over and discovered it was an antique lantern with a spout. Mr. Peabody rubbed at the surface to see if there was a logo or anything to identify it when a genie appeared out of it in a puff of smoke. They were astonished to see such a thing in the middle of a forest in the middle of the day, but before they could recover enough to accuse the genie of trespass on their land, which was everything as far as the eye could see and a bird can fly, the genie offered to grant them three wishes.

They could hardly believe their luck. First they asked for CCS technology, the here-to-for holy grail of the industry. The genie promised that all the CO2 from now on would disappear underground. Rubbing their hands with glee, the coaligarchs carefully considered their second wish, after some minutes in animated conference they turned to the genie and asked that the trillions of acres of toxic fly ash accumulating around their coal power plants could disappear removing the threat of devastating flooding from thousands of miles of watersheds.

The genie nodded his head with some gravity and assented to their wish that this threat to water and land vanish immediately and poof, the ponds were gone. The two megabillionaires thumped each other on the back and lit big cigars in celebration. They thought long and hard and threw out ideas about they could ask for next, maybe get the means to turn coal into gasoline, or to burn in streetlights or right in the engines of automobiles, but then they both focused on what was most on their minds, what they had spent so many millions to advertise and together they turned to the genie and asked them with one voice,  "make coal clean."

The genie looked at them intently for many minutes with a look that shook the exuberance off their bravado and slowly he shook his head. As he did so they were effortlessly transported into the future they had planned for this very part of the lush eastern forest. Their eyes stung in the heat and the dust as giant excavators devastated the dense old growth forest and ripped into the ancient stone of the million year old landscape. Around them the cries of millions of creatures obliterated in the waste of the mountainsides and spoil of the mining operation filling the lush dark valley below. After the quick glimpse of the change from life sustaining forest to toxic desert the genie said "alas, you have wasted your last wish, for not even magic can produce such a thing as "clean coal."

Greenpeace, along with Friends of the Earth and Public Citizen, today released a joint statement expressing deep concern with the direction the Waxman-Markey draft bill, the American Clean Energy and Security Act (ACES), has taken. Here is the statement in full:

We are extremely troubled by the reports coming out of the Energy and Commerce Committee last night on additional compromises to the already flawed American Clean Energy & Security Act. The world needs real leadership from Congress and the Administration to address global warming – action that will enable us to transform our economy with clean, renewable energy technology, new green jobs and show leadership internationally. If reports are true, the compromises being struck on the bill undermine these goals.

For more info, you can also read Greenpeace’s original statement on the Waxman-Markey draft bill, and read Friends of the Earth’s assessment.

One of our main criticisms from the outset was that the draft bill was largely silent on how it would allocate revenues from the sale of pollution permits within the cap and trade scheme proposed by the bill. This money should be used to build clean energy generation capacity and new infrastructure such as a smart grid. Instead the discussion draft contained giveaways and loopholes for the coal industry and its mythical “Clean Coal.”

The bill has, according to reports, become significantly worse in this respect over the past week or so. Bloomberg recently reported that Henry Waxman (D-CA), chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, is offering as much as an estimated $40 billion in free pollution permits to “utilities, refiners and manufacturers.”

President Obama initially called for 100% of pollution permits to be auctioned off, and his budget calls for as much as 83% of the revenues to be given back to middle class taxpayers to help pay for higher energy costs. If we give as much as 55% of the permits away for free – as is apparently being discussed – it’s unclear how Obama could afford to pay for such a middle class tax break. Such a giveaway is especially appalling given the example we have to learn from: The EU’s Emissions Trading Scheme originally gave away so many permits that pollution permits were trading for as little as 1 euro cent, providing no incentive for polluting industries to clean up their act. Now apparently the fossil fuels industries – who have spent some $45 million lobbying against the bill – are succeeding in convincing House Democrats to make the same mistake.

(UPDATE: Joe Romm over on ClimateProgress.org argues that it was not the giveaway of permits that caused the price to crash: "The EU’s emissions trading scheme (ETS) had too many total permits. That was why the price crashed, not because those permits were given away for free.  If the EU had auctioned all the tons, the price still would have crashed as soon as everybody realized there were too many in the market." I apologize for missing this nuance. It was an oversight, not an attempt to mislead. But the simple fact (and the overall point I was trying to make) still remains: Waxman-Markey was already flawed when it was first introduced as a discussion draft, and the industries creating all the pollution that will be regulated by the bill have had an inordinate amount of influence in shaping it since then.)

There are also reports that the giveaway to companies researching Carbon Capture and Sequestration, a totally unproven technology still decades away from large-scale implementation (if it even proves viable at all) and therefore a dangerous distraction from real global warming solutions, could be as much as $10 billion. And the emissions targets contained in the bill get worse and worse. The bill originally called for roughly the equivalent of what science says is necessary to avert the worst effects of global warming: 25 to 40% below 1990 levels by 2020. But the baseline being used now is 2005, and the bill is said to only aim for reaching 17% by 2020.

Even worse, the conservative Democrats who have been most instrumental in watering down the bill are apparently attempting to get that target reduced even further, to 6% of 2005 levels by 2020.

Right now, these roughly 10 or 12 conservative Democrats on the House Energy and Commerce Committee, all of whom have received substantial campaign contributions from the fossil fuels industries, are standing in the way of real progress in combatting global warming. It’s absolutely inconscionable. If America doesn’t have a strong plan in place by December, the rest of the world is unlikely to be willing to commit to any kind of bold action in Copenhagen during the UN climate talks.

Who are these Dems, you ask? Check out this Guardian roundup, it has all the dirt on the Dems in bed with the dirty industries who are more worried about protecting their profits than the wellbeing of the entire planet.

Waxman expects to bring the bill before the full House Energy and Commerce Committee for markup by next Monday. There will be more info on what you can do to stand up with Greenpeace and the movement to stop global warming very soon, I promise…

Today, only one country in the world continues to conduct whaling in the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary: Japan.

There was a time in Japan during the food shortage hardships of the postwar period when whale meat was taken as a valuable source of protein. We are alive today thanks in a very real sense to this gift, so should we not reach out in gratitude to whales now and seek a path of peaceful coexistence? This is the message behind a beautiful new animated work by director Yamamura Koji. I hope you enjoy the video...

--Michelle

 

I wanted to share some recent activities of my Greenpeace colleagues in Colombia. Recently, they "invaded" the Colombian Senate with an inflatable giant.

Senators and Representatives to the Chamber were greeted at their office building with the Greenpeace whale, lots and lots of them went out to the hall and looked over the balconies, some of them took pictures with Greenpeace banners, and most importantly asked a LOT of questions of what they were doing there.

Greenpeace visited the Colombian government to ask them to join the International Whaling Commission and vote for whale conservation. And, it looks like they may have succeeded.

At the end of the day, the Senate had voted unanimously to approve the project. Three senators publicly THANKED Greenpeace for being there, for having "awakened" Colombia to the importance of whale conservation. At the end the vote was taken and every senator raised their card and shouted "APPROVED!"

The project now moves to the Chamber of Representatives in hopes that they will approve it as well. Looks like they are off to a good start. I hope the momentum for the project continues.

--Michelle

 

 

We’ve launched a new iPhone app version of our Recycled Tissue and Toilet Paper Guide. The app, created for us by 3rd Whale, makes it easy to find the paper products that are easiest on the Earth. Our experts evaluated over 100 brands and only recommended those that: contain 100% overall recycled content; contain at least 50% post-consumer recycled content; and are bleached without toxic chlorine compounds. We also rank so-so products that “could do better” and warn you off products that “should be avoided.”

The app has functions that allow you to browse by product category or search by brand name, as you can see from this screen-grab to the right.

If you download the app, please be so kind as to rate it!

And I swear, recycled TP is not as bad as some companies would have us think. I’ve been using it for years, and my bum is no less sensitive than the average joe’s. No need to be harsh on your rear to be kind to the ancient forests of the world! Don’t believe me? Just check out this video where a FOX news anchor – yes, FOX – couldn’t tell the difference between recycled and regular toilet paper.

Just thought I'd share this video from our action outside the Dept. of the Interior last Friday following Sec. Salazar's announcement that he's going to just let global warming doom all polar bears.

As always, we'd greatly appreciate it if you could favorite our video on YouTube!

 

Sec. Salazar has announced he won't rescind the "polar bear special rule," which exempts global warming from protections afforded polar bears by the Endangered Species Act. If we're going to save the polar bears and stop global warming, we can't let Salazar off the hook for this travesty. Please call Sec. Salazar today and tell him how disappointed you are.

Making a call is easy, fast, and extremely effective. Simply follow the steps below:

1) Call (202) 208-7351 between the hours of 9am and 5pm ET. If you can't call then and don't speak to a person, skip step #2 and leave the message below.

2) The phone will be answered by a staff person in Secretary Salazar's office. Tell them your name and city and state you are calling from, and then tell the staffer you are calling to leave a message with Secretary Salazar about the Endangered Species Act and polar bears. You will then be asked if you would like to use the Interior Department's comment line, politely say no, and say that you would prefer leaving your comment with the staff person you are speaking with so that he/she can give that message to the secretary directly.

3) Leave your message. Here's a sample:

"Hi, My name is ______ and I am calling from ______. I am extremely disappointed that the Secretary did not take action to strike the polar bear special rule from the Endangered Species Act. This means that polar bears are not protected from global warming, which is the primary threat to their long term survival. Please give the Secretary the message that I am calling to express my disappointment that he did not take action to protect the polar bear from global warming."

4) Let us know that you made the call by clicking the button below.

We can't let Salazar continue to bend to industry pressure. Please call his office today.

Ignoring the pleas to save the polar bear made by the 150,000 Americans who signed a petition asking that the "polar bear special rule" be rescinded, Sec. of the Interior Ken Salazar today announced that he would leave the rule in place. Sadly, it appears the Obama Administration is willing to ignore the science that says global warming is the biggest threat to polar bears' survival, just as the Bush Admin did in passing the special rule when listing polar bears as protected under the Endangered Species Act.

Yesterday, local students had the opportunity to join Greenpeace at the Department of Interior to make a stand for the polar bear. Though young, these students understand the value of all life forms and the importance of our government taking action to protect endangered species.

These brave youngsters presented over 150,000 petitions and shared their personal feelings on the threatened polar bear with an employee of the Department of the Interior. They stood up for what they know is right and asked Secretary Salazar to do the same:

May 9th is the last day that the Secretary has to rescind an especially detrimental regulation inserted at the last minute by the Bush administration’s into the Endangered Species Act (ESA), known as the "polar bear special rule." Secretary Salazar recently repealed an industry-friendly regulation — meaning, thankfully, that the consultation process, which allows federal biologists a role in decision-making on potential impacts to endangered species, was reinstated. However, the second regulation, the polar bear rule, remained to be eliminated. It was a regulation that exempted global warming from the list of threats that the federal government must consider in its efforts to protect the polar bear under the ESA.

Regrettably, Salazar's announcement seems to reflect an emerging willingness by the Obama administration to ignore clear scientific imperatives on global warming in the face of industry pressure.

To show our extreme disappointment in the Secretary and symbolize the damage that his inaction will do, Greenpeace conducted a direct communication outside of the DOI after the terrible announcement. Two activists despairingly walked a mock polar bear into the pool outside of the DOI building, said farewell to their long-time friend, and let the soaking animal drown.

The dead bear floated in the pool until police officers came to recover the sad animal and drag the lifeless body out of the water. It was a creepy reminder of what the actual fate of real-life polar bears will be given Sec. Salazar's announcement.

Today’s action at the Department of the Interior symbolizes the deadly obstacles that Polar Bears face because of global warming. All it would have taken was the stroke of Salazar's pen, but instead the planet is left with another disastrous Bush regulation that will contribute to the extinction of a noble species. Secretary Salazar had a chance to make good on the new Obama Administration’s promise to restore science to its rightful place in government, and he squandered that chance.

If we are going to save the polar bears and stop global warming, we cannot let Secretary Salazar off the hook for this travesty. Please call Sec. Salazar today and tell him how disappointed you are.

Making a call is easy, fast, and effective. Simply follow the steps below:

1) Call (202) 208-7351 between the hours of 9am and 5pm ET. If you can't call then and don't speak to a person, skip step #2 and leave the message below.

2) The phone will be answered by a staff person in Secretary Salazar's office. Tell them your name and city and state you are calling from, and then tell the staffer you are calling to leave a message with Secretary Salazar about the Endangered Species Act and polar bears. You will then be asked if you would like to use the Interior Department's comment line, politely say no, and say that you would prefer leaving your comment with the staff person you are speaking with so that he/she can give that message to the secretary directly.

3) Leave your message. Here's a sample:

"Hi, My name is ______ and I am calling from ______. I am extremely disappointed that the Secretary did not take action to strike the polar bear special rule from the Endangered Species Act. This means that polar bears are not protected from global warming, which is the primary threat to their long term survival. Please give the Secretary the message that I am calling to express my disappointment that he did not take action to protect the polar bear from global warming."

4) Let us know that you made the call by clicking the button below.

We cannot let Salazar continue to bend to industry pressure. Please call his office today.

Coal is dirty. There is no getting around it. The hype in recent years around "clean coal" amounts to little more than a greenwash campaign from an industry responsible for climate change, mercury poisoning, asthma and a number of other health and environmental effects.

This month, I am embarking on a trek to document the damage caused by this dirty energy source. I will be taking you along on my journey so that you can see for yourself how coal is harming people and the planet.

My trip will take me to Australia, China, Indonesia and Thailand. The cost of coal in these countries was revealed last year with the release of Greenpeace's report, True Cost of Coal. My visits are intended as a follow up to that report as I will be visiting the very same areas to see how the struggle against coal continues.

So stay tuned! You'll hear more from me in a minute.

This past Tuesday, May 5th, the Washington Times published an editorial about Greenpeace in their print edition as well as online. The editorial referenced arson and Nazi brownshirts, then tried to assert connections to Greenpeace. It went on to suggest that we had somehow capitalized on the tragic death of one of our photographers — Fernando Pereira, who was murdered when French operatives sunk our ship, the Rainbow Warrior, by bombing it in a New Zealand harbor in 1985.

These are completely baseless and offensive accusations. So I wrote my own editorial, which the Washington Times has published, to set the record straight.

I wrote earlier in the week about the Waxman-Markey draft bill, the American Clean Energy and Security Act (ACES), which is stalled in sub-committee. Well, there has already been a lot of activity on that bill, and on global warming legislation in general, in the past couple days. So an update is definitely in order.

ACES, of course, would create a cap-and-trade scheme to lower our emissions and spur investment in renewable energy. Cap-and-trade means capping emissions and selling, or trading, emissions permits, forcing industry to pay for their pollution. The revenue from the sale of these pollution permits could then be used to invest in renewable energy generation and infrastructure, like a new “smart” electricity grid, as well as help developing nations bypass the dirty energy economy altogether in favor of a clean energy economy. One of the main problems with the ACES bill, which I didn’t actually point out in my last post, was that the bill did not have much to say about where revenue from the cap-and-trade scheme would go.

But Rep. Van Hollen, a Democrat from Maryland, has introduced a new bill based on a different idea that addresses the problem of where the revenues would go. His approach is being called “cap-and-dividend,” because he wants to give all of the proceeds from the sale of pollution permits directly back to tax-paying Americans, essentially as a dividend on the investment of tax-payer money into America’s energy infrastructure.

A cap-and-trade scheme would require us to ratchet down the number of pollution permits available – the point being to eliminate emissions as much as possible as quickly as possible – so it will inevitably drive up the cost of energy. These increased costs will of course be passed on to consumers. President Obama’s budget proposes to use as much as 83% of the revenues from cap-and-trade to pay for a middle class tax cut to help offset the higher energy costs. Hollen’s proposal to pay Americans back directly through dividends on the investment of tax money is an intriguing notion, perhaps easier to sell to the American people than a tax cut because of its simplicity.

Not surprisingly, there are many industries trying to get a piece of the pie as well. Even less surprisingly, there is already a shady, deliberately non-transparent industry group running radio ads in opposition to ACES in the districts of several moderates on the House Energy and Commerce Committee. (Least surprising of all? This group is affiliated with another group that gets funding from ExxonMobil.) Check out Climate Progress for all the details, insofar as they have emerged, about the American Energy Alliance, the front group running the ads and repeating the same debunked lies about the likely costs to taxpayers of a cap-and-trade scheme.

Whether or not cap-and-dividend ends up catching on as the solution, it’s important to consider all options. We need all honest, thoughtful ideas to be on the table for debate. And then we need to push our lawmakers to consider all of these proposals and decide what’s right for the world. Because our opponents are not interested in honest, thoughtful debate. The fossil fuels industries will be funding tons of PR efforts like these deliberately misleading radio ads in the coming months, and their aim is not to debate but to stop any bill aimed at reducing pollution and ushering in a new era of clean renewable energy, period. We need to step it up, speak out, and let our Reps know that we demand strong global warming legislation now, or they’re going to listen to the fossil fools and their shady front groups instead.

According to E&E Daily (subscription required, sorry), there is still some deep-seated unease among Democrats about implementing solutions to global warming:

So far, the [House Energy and Commerce] committee's Democrats have struggled to reach consensus as about a dozen moderate and conservative lawmakers from the South, Rust Belt and Intermountain West resist the aggressive path that Waxman and Rep. Ed Markey (D-Mass.), the chairman of the Energy and Environment Subcommittee, set out in a 648-page draft proposal.

The Democrats on the House Energy and Commerce Committee met with Obama this week, but of course not many details have been released publicly about the meeeting. It is being reported that Obama asked them to reach consensus and bring the bill out of committee by Memorial Day, so that they could turn their attention to health care.

This debate happening right now is quite possibly the most important debate we have ever had. Right now, a handful of moderate Democrats on the House Energy and Commerce Committee are all that stand between us and a full House debate on the strongest global warming bill yet. You can bet those moderates are hearing from the fossil fuels industries. We need to make sure they hear from us. Get involved and tell Congress why you care about the environment and want them to pass legislation to stop global warming.

From where I’m sitting – my desk in San Francisco – global warming is by far the biggest threat posed by our continued reliance on fossil fuels. But for many communities around the world, global warming would probably not be listed as the most pressing concern. Grave as the climate crisis may be, the pollution caused by the mining, transporting, refining, and/or burning of fossil fuels is by far the dominant concern in these communities, which skew heavily to poor, disadvantaged, and minority communities – those who will be hit hardest by global warming all the same.

For instance, tribal people in the Ecuadorian Amazon have been dealing with the fallout from what’s been described as “the largest environmental disaster of this new century” for over 4 decades now. Between 1964 and 1990, oil and gas giant Texaco dumped more than 18 billion gallons of toxic waste into Amazon waterways and 916 waste pits, many of which overflow into streams. Hundreds of square miles of the Amazon rainforest have been polluted.

Texaco was bought by Chevron in 2001. Thus Chevron has inherited the mess Texaco made in the Amazon. Several of the tribes who rely on the Amazon for their livelihood brought a suit against Chevron in 1993, seeking redress for their polluted watercourses and the abnormally high cancer rates they’ve experienced, in addition to other health problems.

Chevron has tried everything to quash this suit. In 2003 they asked that the trial be moved to Ecuador, where they no doubt figured they could buy their way out of a guilty verdict. They lobbied the Bush Administration to threaten Ecuador with cutting off trade relations if the trial proceeded unfavorably for the American corporation. Amazon Watch recently caught Chevron paying off bloggers to attack the Ecuadorian courts on the company’s behalf. Chevron even went so far as to produce a fake online newscast, complete with a former CNN news correspondent, as part of a coordinated disinformation campaign.

But some times facts have a habit of being irrepressible and immutable, no matter how much PR money a company spends to bury or rewrite them. 60 Minutes did an exposé last Sunday, May 3rd about the fact that "Powering American cars with Amazon crude has left a toxic legacy”:


Watch CBS Videos Online

The Ecuadorian tribes are seeking $27 billion in damages. Of course Chevron will appeal endlessly and delay paying this money as long as they can, taking a page from Exxon’s playbook in dealing with the Valdez spill (which, by the way, was around 10.8 million gallons, far smaller than the 18 billion gallons alleged to have been spilled in Ecuador’s rainforest). But still, a ruling against the company would set a powerful precedent for fossil fuels companies being held accountable for their actions. It would be a huge victory not just for the tribal people of the Ecuadorian Amazon, but for the communites around the globe that are being poisoned and oppressed by the inordinate amount of money and power we’ve handed to unscrupled companies like Chevron because of our dependence on fossil fuels.

It’s not just developing countries where this type of thing happens. Right here in the Bay Area there are environmental justice groups battling a Chevron oil refinery expansion, which will result in more pollution in their community. And it’s not just oil companies. People in West Virginia and other Appalacian communities have seen their homes and local ecosystems destroyed by mountaintop removal, the supremely destructive coal-mining practice. New Mexicans in the Four Corners region of the state recently got some good news when the EPA canceled the permit for a new coal plant that was to be built there, but they still have to deal with the pollution from two others.

Of course there are countless other examples all over the world of people fighting for their lives and livelihoods against environmental injustice. Whether you live in one of these exploited communities or not, you have a stake in the outcome of this trial in Ecuador. We need to break our addiction to fossil fuels and build a sustainable energy economy to avert the worst affects of global warming. But unless everyone benefits from the clean energy future, there is no true sustainability. And for everyone to benefit from clean energy, we have to clean up the mess leftover from all these years of using dirty energy.

60 minutes recently ran an interview with Duke Energy CEO, Jim Rogers talking about the future of our climate and coal's role in that debate. Jim Rogers has been one of the key spokespeople for the future of coal - but has also been noted for sending conflicting messages.

While the coal industry clings to the hope of carbon capture and storage, CCS, as a lifeline to continue the construction of new coal plants, it turns out they have made very little investment in it to date.

When asked by 60 Mintues coorespondent Scott Pelley how much Duke Energy has invested in carbon sequestration technology so far, Rogers said, "We have not invested any dollars in the technology, per say. We have spent a lot of time and money reviewing and analyzing the various technologies."

The news coorespondents response to Rogers was spot on:
And Rogers response:

Dan Weiss of the Center for American Progress looked into this and reported that:

" Duke Energy is not alone. It is a member of the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity—a front group of 48 big coal, utility, and other companies—which has already spent gobs of money on advertising, but invested little in the development of CCS technology. Like Duke, ACCCE’s other member companies are much more committed to the idea of clean coal than investing to make it a reality—as their research budgets demonstrate. An analysis of their investments found that they spent less than two cents in research on “clean coal” for every $1 of profit. And even though new legislation would fund technology to make clean coal a reality, ACCCE has yet to show any support for it."


Weiss' analysis of current CCS projects does list Duke as a participant in three CCS research projects, however Rogers comments would lead us to believe that this participation is minimal.

The legislation referenced by Wiess is the "America Clean Energy and Security Act" sponsored by Reps Henry Waxman Ed Markey which offers huge subsidies to CCS research and development. Sounds to me like Rogers and ACCCE are waiting on the government to invest taxpayer dollars before they will shell out any green.

So what are Duke and other ACCCE members willing to spend their money on? ACCCE has a communications budget for 2009 of $40 million. Right, and lets not forget the $9.9 million spent last year on lobbyists. Oh- and the combined $15.6 million spent by ACCCE member firms to federal campaigns.

So the question that remains unanswered is, if Jim Rogers won't invest in CCS why should the US taxpayers?

View the 60 Minutes interview

The American Clean Energy and Security Act (ACES), a draft bill released by Henry Waxman and Ed Markey that is currently being debated in the House Energy and Environment Subcommittee (full text here as PDF), is not perfect. But as a comprehensive piece of climate and energy legislation, it is a cause for some hope. The bill would set science-based emissions reduction targets, ramp up renewable energy standards, and provide money to stop international deforestation, to name a few of its highlights.

However, the bill's shortcomings include some two billion tons of pollution offsets, enough that we wouldn’t have to reduce our consumption of fossil fuels whatsoever in order to meet the emissions reductions the bill calls for. And there are billions of dollars included for the coal industry, purveyors of the dirtiest fossil fuel around, whose only “green” cred is so-called Carbon Capture and Sequestration — a totally unproven technology that is really just a false hope and a dangerous distraction.

Read our full analysis of the bill here.

Of course, the fossil fuels industries are fighting tooth and nail to get even more handouts and to weaken emissions targets as much as possible so that they can coninue business as usual. Not surprisingly, they’ve got some members of Congress nervous. President Obama has made global warming a signature cause, and is reportedly headed down to Congress tomorrow to try and move things along:

President Obama puts his political chips on the line tomorrow when he meets with House Democrats wrestling with legislation to overhaul U.S. energy and global warming policy.

The bill is stuck in subcommittee because of concerns from about a dozen Democrats with strong ties to the coal and gas-and-oil industries, and many predict a push from the popular new president may shove the measure along in the legislative process.

This entire NYT piece, "Risks, rewards abound as Obama enters House climate debate," is well worth the read, as it examines the many political considerations at play in this debate.

Obama’s involvement is a good sign, but it doesn’t necessarily mean a stronger ACES is a sure thing. The only thing that will guarantee Congress does the right thing for the planet rather than for their large donors in the fossil fuels industries is you and me. We have to hold our elected representatives accountable. If you want to help, tell your Rep right now why you’re part of the movement to stop global warming.

We’ve gotten a lot of inspiring stories submitted so far. Who knows, maybe your story could be the one that inspires a member of the House Energy and Environment Subcommittee to do the right thing and support a really strong bill that will kickstart the energy revolution and stop global warming.