Friends of the Earth and its allies are protesting the Trans-Pacific Partnership: a colossal, job destroying free trade agreement being negotiated in secret among nations bordering the Pacific that will result in rollbacks of environmental, public health, food safety and other public interest protections. Unless we raise our voices in protest, Big Oil, coal mining multi-nationals, bio-tech giants and other global corporations will ram the TPP through Congress using Fast Track trade promotion…
Illegal and destructive production of palm oil in Indonesia is continuing, with a chain of culpability that spreads worldwide, from Southeast Asian rain forests to supermarket shelves and Wall Street board rooms. Our new report, Commodity Crimes: Illicit Land Grabs, Illegal Palm Oil and Endangered Orangutans, offers yet more evidence of the vast harms the palm oil industry is causing to forests, endangered species and the Earth's climate. Critically, the report uses the case…
Coinciding with the UN climate conference in Warsaw, 75 African groups from 18 countries sent a letter to President Obama concerning his Power Africa initiative. The letter was released as the world commemorated the anniversary of the murder of Nigerian playwright and activist Ken Saro-Wiwa, who was sentenced to death on November 10, 1995 by the ruling military junta for speaking out against Shell's devastating dirty energy exploits in Nigeria’s Niger Delta.
I’ll let…
New York Governor Andrew Cuomo's approval of A.8031/S.5824, a bill to subsidize building in the lower Hudson River off Manhattan, was called a "disastrous move to put more people in harm's way in the riskiest possible location -- a #1 Hurricane Evacuation Zone in the lower Hudson River," Marcy Benstock, Clean Air Campaign's executive director, said today.
"Cuomo ignores the Sandy storm lesson by signing a terrible bill that encourages building in…
As president of Friends of the Earth U.S., I am proud to support, on behalf of our more than 250,000 members and activists and in solidarity with our friends from numerous activist organizations, a Robin Hood Tax. Friends, if it isn't all ready clear, we are in this together. The global economic crisis, largely created by the various entities we want to tax, has forced austerity measures in both the European governments and the United…
As much as we adults love the natural world and work to protect it for our own enjoyment, it’s our children and grandchildren who have the most to gain from the choices we each make to protect the Earth. And it’s our children and grandchildren who have the most to lose if we fail.
So we’re putting the call out to children, inviting them to participate in the Art for the Earth project -- an…
Even as policies guiding timber exports fail to curtail deforestation, the world’s energy economy is demanding increased burning of biomass -- meaning forests.
When the Green Climate Fund Board met in Paris earlier this month, they postponed making a decision on the “no-objection procedure.” This procedure would require active endorsement of any GCF activity -- conveyed through a “no-objection letter” -- by a country’s national designated authority (i.e., the basic in-country unit of the GCF that is supposed to “recommend to the Board funding proposals in the context of national climate strategies and plans.” Though it may deceptively seem…
The Grocery Manufacturers Association, the trade association representing Big Food in the U.S., is the top contributor to the campaign opposing GMO labeling in Washington State. However, four of its member organizations have been supportive of a consumer’s right to know in countries overseas, while opposing transparency in the U.S.
Example 1: Kellogg’s
RHETORIC: Kellogg’s Opposes A Consumer’s Right To Know In The U.S.
• Grocery Manufacturers Association CEO: Stopping GE Labeling Is “Single Highest…
In collaboration with Republicans in Congress, the Obama administration is expected to soon seek so-called Fast Track or Trade Promotion Authority legislation in order to facilitate ratification in 2014 of a Trans Pacific Partnership trade deal that would gut environmental and climate protections. If you have a chance to talk to your member of Congress, consider asking for a “NO” vote on the Fast Track bill and drive home two points: (1)