“There’s no reason in the world why trade agreements can’t be written that create a more just and sustainable world.” -- Jerry Greenfield, co-founder of Ben & Jerry’s, TPP Labor Day Rally, Chicago, September 5, 2011. Friends of the Earth is a leading advocate calling attention to international trade and investment agreements, such as the proposed Trans Pacific Partnership trade agreement now under negotiation, that undermine environmental protection. For the…
I met with Mr. Grant Kesler, the owner of Metalclad. I talked very clearly with him, saying that it was, from my point of view, virtually impossible to open the [hazardous waste disposal] site due to the opposition of the local community and the local authorities. And he said, no, no, no… --Hon. Horacio Sanchez Unzueta Governor of San Luis Potosi, Mexico, 1993-9 From July 2 through…
Greetings from Providence, Rhode Island! I’m here today with Friends of the Earth communications manager Kelly Trout for Netroots Nation, an annual national conference of progressive bloggers, media, grassroots organizations and individual activists from across the spectrum of political issues and social justice work.
I worked with allies in the fight to stop the Keystone XL tar sands oil pipeline to organize a panel for this morning’s session called “Handcuffs, Conventional Wisdom…
Either Press Secretary Jay Carney was confused at yesterday’s daily White House briefing and misspoke, or the Obama administration has abandoned any semblance of adhering to a legal review process for the southern segment of the Keystone XL tar sands oil pipeline, stretching from Cushing, Oklahoma to the Gulf Coast of Texas.
As part of a response to a question about President Obama’s approach to the Keystone XL pipeline, Carney answered:
“The…
In June 2012, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil will play host to heads of state, UN agencies, and global stakeholders as they convene for the UN Conference on Sustainable Development (UNCSD), commonly known as “Rio+20.” There’s a lot at stake.
Right now, the Rio+20 “green economy” agenda is being driven by interests that seek to privatize nature by further deregulating industry and handing our common resources over to companies for profit through deeply flawed market mechanisms like cap & trade, offsets schemes, and the development…
Friends of the Earth U.S. has today united with the many organizations that form our Friends of the Earth International Federation in order to send a strong message to the United Nations (UN) Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. We ask that you join us in urging him to end corporate capture of the United Nations. The UN is the only forum we have to address global problems, in which all of the world's 192 countries have an equal voice.…
There’s been a lot of news lately about risky genetically engineered animals in the queue for federal review. British biotechnology firm Oxitec continues to pursue permission to release its genetically engineered mosquitoes into the Florida Keys in what would be the first release of these engineered bugs into the wild in the U.S. Meanwhile, AquaBounty is assuring its shareholders that it is “confident that the FDA is advancing towards approval” on its…
Absent the success of an eleventh hour legal challenge by environmental groups, Shell will begin exploratory drilling off the coast of northern Alaska this summer. Up to five wells could be drilled in the area -- the first time the company has attempted drilling exploratory wells since the 1980s. A spike in oil prices in the early 2000s enticed Shell back to the region, and in 2005 it bid $44 million for Beaufort Sea…
“Cost-benefit calculation is the highest art form in the realm of persuasion by information — and the most deceitful…In essence, property rights (and profit) are being assigned a higher value than human rights. Human lives are discounted, quite literally, by government economists…” William Greider, Who Will Tell the People? The Trans Pacific Partnership trade agreement Ron Kirk, the U.S. Trade Representative, is seeking to negotiate a Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement…
Yesterday National Public Radio ran a story asserting that cesium-137 from the Fukushima nuclear accident found in Bluefish tuna on the west coast of the U.S. is harmless.
The Fukushima nuclear accident released the rough equivalent of the amount of Cs-137 from a 11 megaton thermonuclear weapon. In the spring of 1954, after the U.S. exploded nuclear weapons in the Marshall Islands, the Japanese government had to confiscate about 4 million pounds of…