Blog • Climate Action & Environmental Protection

Blog

Tar Sands Blockade sends a message to President Obama: Stop Keystone XL

Yesterday, activists with Tar Sands Blockade met President Obama’s motorcade in Austin, Texas wielding banners and signs with one simple message: stop the Keystone XL pipeline, no more tar sands through Texas. Tar Sands Blockade is a local and national mobilization planning nonviolent direct action in Texas against Keystone… Read More

The death of dolphins: Will the U.S. comply with the World Trade Organization ruling?

“The beaks of Sam LaBudde’s first dolphins strained against the net that had formed a canopy over them. Their flukes churned the ocean white. They thronged at the surface, desperate to force slack in the net sufficient to free their blowholes for a breath. Their shrieks and squeals began… Read More

Powerful reminders to protect our planet on the anniversary of Kalamazoo

Coming off of the freakish extreme weather across the country the past several months, people are anxious for a break from the punishing weather and looking forward to a calmer July. Climate scientists, meanwhile, haven’t provided much solace on this front, amplifying warnings that the recent spate of… Read More

Freight train carrying ethanol derails, spewing flames

On Wednesday a freight train carrying ethanol derailed in Columbus, Ohio, putting hundreds of residents within range of blazing fires and facing the risk of water contamination. In response, the National Transportation and Safety Board evacuated over 30 homes and advised residents in the area to stay indoors. The train… Read More

Bloody REDD: The fight against forest carbon offsets in California

This week, Friends of Earth, along with 30 other organizations based in California, urged Governor Brown to prevent international REDD carbon credits from entering California’s carbon trading system. Read More

Skeletons in the closet

Leaked Edison document exposes San Onofre as worst in the nation The crippled steam generators in the San Onofre nuclear reactors have earned the Southern California Edison run plant the dubious distinction as having the most severely defective and damaged of all comparable equipment in the US nuclear industry, according… Read More

Opposition to GE mosquito release heating up

Activist opposition to the proposed plan to release genetically engineered mosquitoes in the Florida Keys is starting to heat up — and the media is increasingly taking notice. Last month, I sent an email encouraging Friends of the Earth activists to call on the Food and Drug Administration to… Read More

TPP trade negotiations in San Diego: a dagger through the heart

“The trade ministers get together to set the rules of trade. They don’t worry about the environment; that’s somebody else’s agenda. Trade above all — that’s the way they approach it. And as a result of that, we get a trade agenda that puts environmental and other concerns below.”–Joseph Stiglitz,… Read More

The Renewable Fuel Standard: the (un)holy grail of U.S. biofuel policy

Tomorrow morning the House Energy and Commerce Committee will hold what will likely be the only Congressional hearing on the Renewable Fuel Standard this year. The hearing, titled “The American Energy Initiative: A Focus on Alternative Fuels and Vehicles, Both the Challenges and the Opportunities,” will be… Read More

Record heat, freak storms and brutal drought: visions from our climate future

On Friday evening, my husband Patrick and I were putting our daughter to bed and preparing an emergency kit at the same time. Due to the heat wave that had struck the lower southeast, we had already sweltered through a day where the heat index pushed past 110 degrees. I… Read More