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Top five Friends of the Earth moments in 2011

At the end of every year, we tend to pause and reflect about the past 12 months, stopping to examine trends and to remember important events — usually in list form. And with all the year in, worst of, best of, top five and top ten… Read More

Shell’s floating monster spill

Nigerians wait, helpless, for the massive spill from Shell’s Bonga offshore oil field to hit the coastal waters, shorelines and swamps. Telephone links to some of the coastal communities are tenuous at best and most people will not know what has hit them until they are down and out. Nigerian regulatory agencies, ill equipped to handle independent monitoring of spills of this nature, tell the world they are on top of the situation. That is the officialspeak. We are on top of everything. And yet we are swamped and barely keep our heads above water all the time. Read More

The silver lining to a terribly dark cloud — the Green Climate Fund and Durban

There have been lots of “d” words used to describe the Durban climate talks that recently ended in South Africa -- disaster, debacle, delusion, devastation. Read More

Floridians face genetically engineered mosquito threat

A private firm is planning to release potentially harmful genetically engineered mosquitoes in the Florida Keys as early as January, endangering human health and the environment in what would become the first-ever U.S. release of these engineered bugs. The genetically engineered mosquitoes, Aedes aegypti, are produced by UK-based biotechnology company… Read More

Murkiness in Congress over tax relief bill forces Keystone XL back into debate

The first rule of Keystone XL: don’t underestimate the vice grip of Big Oil on our democracy, especially when it comes to its marquee project. A month ago, we were celebrating—skeptically. We had gotten the welcome news that the Obama administration hit the reset button on the Keystone XL… Read More

Corn ethanol infrastructure: A bad Christmas gift from Congress

The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) announced it's final round of funding earlier this week, and once again put the interest of corporate polluters before the environment or taxpayers. In 2011 alone, $4.28 dollars of taxpayer money has been spent on almost 400 "blender pumps" for corn ethanol under the guise of clean energy subsidies. Read More

Genetically engineered salmon grilled at Senate Commerce hearing

Yesterday morning, the Senate Commerce’s Subcommittee on Oceans, Atmosphere, Fisheries, and Coast Guard held a hearing on the environmental risks posed by genetically engineered salmon (archived webcast of the hearing available). As you may remember, the Food and Drug Administration announced in August 2010 that it was close… Read More

Pac Rim case exposes trade pacts’ danger to democracy

“¡El pueblo unido, jamás será vencido!,” or “the people united, will never be defeated,” resounded outside World Bank headquarters yesterday in downtown Washington, D.C. Friends of the Earth staff joined about 75 people to protest a lawsuit that provides one of the most egregious examples of how our current… Read More

The Durban Deal – An initial analysis of the outcomes

If I looked up the accepted UN policies and procedure, I am pretty sure I wouldn’t find a “huddle” anywhere in there as a usual means to craft international law, but sure enough, in the wee hours of the Durban climate talks that had run late by nearly 36 hours,… Read More

Locked out, but not giving up

Doing anything at the climate talks that could create even a miniscule stir is quickly silenced by UNFCCC security. In some ways, it feels like an authoritarian state. Civil society is locked out of most meetings. We scramble to get “leaked” copies of papers that should be openly available. Our… Read More