Greenpeace's icebreaker-class research ship, the Arctic Sunrise, is currently on an expedition to document the impacts of global warming on Greenland's glaciers, polar bears, and native peoples.

But, as California burns and another major hurricane barrels toward the West coast, we can say with some certainty that we are already witnessing the effects of global warming in our very own backyard.

Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has declared states of emergency in several counties as eight separate wildfires continue to ravage The Golden State.  One of the fires in the mountains north of Los Angeles has exploded to more than triple its size since Sunday, scorching over 121,000 acres of forest and putting at least 12,500 homes at risk.

The governor has ordered mandatory evacuations in all of the affected areas as thousands of firefighters work to contain the wildfires.  Many have been injured and, over the weekend, the inferno claimed the lives of two men who were bravely battling the flames.

 

 

While the causes of the California wildfires remain unknown, their unrelenting ferocity is being blamed on recent temperatures, which have been in the triple-digits in some inland Los Angeles areas. Hundreds of thousands of acres have already burned this summer, the worst damage in years, and researchers expect that figure to rise well above average before the season is over.

California is also in the middle of one of its most active hurricane seasons in decades.  There have already been ten named storms this summer, seven of which have occurred during the month of August.  As thousands flee the wildfires, Hurricane Jimena is spinning its way toward the Baja California coastline.  The storm is currently listed as a Category 4, with powerful winds over 155 miles per hour, but some are predicting that Jimena will reach Category 5 before it hits land.

Scientists have been telling us that, as the planet continues to get warmer, we can expect an increased frequency and intensity of both summer forest fires and hurricanes.  It is now painfully clear that global warming is upon us, whether we like it or not. 

We have been warned that the only way to stop runaway climate change and prevent the worst impacts of global warming is with a new international climate treaty that would reduce global warming pollution 25-40% below 1990 levels by 2020.

But, despite his inaugural pledge to “return science to its rightful place,” President Obama has put the full support of his administration behind a climate bill that gives billions to the coal industry – the number one source of global warming pollution in the U.S. – and only calls for a 4% reduction in emissions by 2020.

We now have less than 100 days until the U.N. Climate Convention in Copenhagen, where the new international climate treaty must be agreed upon.  Please TAKE ACTION now, and tell the President to become a leader in the battle against global warming.

The opportunity to speak directly to the CEO, top executives and the board of a corporation usually comes but once a year, at the annual stockholder meeting. Other times, communication to them is made through layers of bureaucracy that trickle up like water evaporating. One never knows what has been distilled, dissipated and even tainted before it reaches the real decision-makers.

The shareholder meeting presents an opportunity to communicate clearly and directly to the top brass. Today, we did just that. Richard Brooks, Forest Campaigner, Greenpeace Canada, Susan Casey-Lefkowitz, Senior Attorney, Natural Resources Defense Council and myself confronted Thomas Falk, K-C CEO, their full board and all the executives who steer the company and can make a decision not to use fiber from ancient forests like the Boreal.

As far as shareholder’s meetings go, K-C’s is relatively small for a multinational company of its size, with about 80 people and held for a second year at the fortified and exclusive Four Seasons Resort smack dab in Dallas suburbia. A relatively recent occurrence, their change in meeting venue took place last year due to the Kleercut campaign and the company’s uncertainty of what to expect from Greenpeace. Whereas in 2005 we were warmly greeted by the company’s executives (that is, if you pretended not to notice the sharpshooters on the hotel roof or the myriad of non-uniformed security), this year’s meeting was much less congenial. This change in meeting’s timbre was due in large part to unexpected visitors who courageously and peacefully blockaded tissue production at K-C’s Huntsville, Ontario factory and effectively shut it down.

These 19 activists from the U.S., Canada and Belgium, like many of us, had had enough of the company’s rhetoric and lack of real movement towards ending their contribution to ancient forest destruction. While the activists hung banners, dangled from metal tri-pods and chained themselves to railroad tracks, we were able to convey their brave acts to executives, who were clearly miffed.

We also announced the late breaking news that the Director of Facility Management (the purchaser of tissue paper products) at American University sent a letter to the K-C saying that they will not use their products. We then informed them of a recent poll where over 80% of U.S. and Canadian citizens said that they would buy recycled paper tissue products even at a higher price, if no harm was done to the forest. This poll starkly contrasts the company’s insistence that Americans only want softer and whiter tissues. K-C has yet to account for the fact that once people know the manufacture of tissue paper products contributes to ancient forest ruin, their knowledge of how vital forests are to the health of planet kicks into gear.

And, lastly but certainly not least, we spoke in favor of our support for a shareholder proposal, submitted by a coalition of social responsible investment firms and religious groups holding $21,000,000 in stock, that requested the company to investigate the feasibility of producing environmentally friendly tissue paper products.  Surely, a company that purports to be the ‘greenest’ tissue maker in the world should not have a problem with a report of this nature, but they did, encouraging shareholders to vote against the proposal.

The proposal received 7.4% of the vote. Although a seemingly small percentage, for a first time proposal, this is quite good, and guarantees that the proposal can be submitted again in 2007.

At the end of the meeting, it was clear that the CEO, the VPs, and the board’s levees were breached allowing the flood of pleas to save our last remaining ancient forests to pour in. The collective voices of the many, combined with the peaceful civil disobedience of a few, spoke truth to power.

To see photos and video from the Huntsville action, please visit: www.kleercut.net and TV news coverage: www.achannel.ca/home/news_28467.aspx

Greetings from South Beach where I am attending Tissue World Americas, ok, ok, LoL. It might not be the most glamorous conference, but it sure is a good venue to tell Kimberly-Clark to stop wiping away ancient forests. It is here that Kimberly-Clark, other tissue making giants like Proctor & Gamble and Georgia Pacific, along with anybody whose anybody in the tissue making industry, are showing their wares and discussing the intricacies of making toilet paper, etc. One thing not on their agenda, however, is how to protect the ancient forests from which much of their raw material originates. This is where we come in.

Awesome Miami activists and Greenpeace volunteers, Julie, Andy, Susan, Eric, Carson, Yuri (you all rock), helped James Brady and myself in greeting the delegates with a 6’ x 10’ banner floating mid-air from a 10’ in diameter red helium balloon reading: Kimberly-Clark: Wiping Away Ancient Forests. As the delegates approached the entrance, Susan and I asked if they would take a tissue test, AKA the Kleercut Challenge, many of them said yes. With our tissue boxes covered in wrapping paper, we asked if they could tell which tissue comes from destroyed ancient forest and which is made from recycled paper? Not surprisingly, these experts could tell the difference, but much to my surprise when we said that Kleenex is made from old-growth trees clearcut from the Boreal forest, many were dumbfounded. When asked if they would use a recycled tissue paper brand instead of Kleenex, many said yes, and many answered that they already do. Music to our ears. And, it begs the question, why aren’t all tissue paper products made from recycled paper? One of the delegates tells me the tissue giants could do that, and even it make it as soft as tissue made from 100% virgin fiber. So K-C, what’s the deal?

After 4 ½ hours in the hot sun, we took the banner down, packed up our tissue boxes and left the world of tissues, knowing that Kimberly-Clark clearly saw and heard our message. But we are not stopping there, we will continue to show up where they least expect it, and urge people to not buy their products until they stop destroying ancient forests for Kleenex, Scott, Cottonelle and Viva.

We also stopped by the hotel rooms of the tissue delegates and slid some mock USA Today newspapers under their doors.  You can check it out here.

For our latest project on how businesses can participate in the Kleercut campaign, check out www.forestfriendly500.com

--Pam Wellner, Greenpeace Forests Campaigner

Greenpeace produced a provocative new ad spot to highlight the music industry's role in forest destruction.  Check it out here.

Last February, Sister Dorothy Stang was assassinated in the Amazon. She was an advocate of land rights for rural peasants and spoke out repeatedly against the ecological cost and social injustices involved in Amazonian deforestation. Today the two men accused of killing her are on trial.

Read more about the life and death of Sister Dorothy.