Biofools Day is rapidly approaching! We’re calling out some of the biggest promoters of harmful industrial biofuels. We’ve highlighted five major biofuels proponents, including corporate executives, industry lobbyists, and government representatives, and we’ve dubbed them Biofools. Now, we need your help to vote for number one. Vote below now! Take action and Vote Now! 2010 Biofool Nominees
Happily, at the end of 2009 several environmentally damaging tax credits expired. These subsidies went to a range of dirty energy sources, including fossil fuels and bioenergy, at the expense of taxpayers. The various tax credits went to a long list of environmentally damaging energy sources, including:
Hundreds of Friends of the Earth supporters joined a coalition of more than 200,000 NGOs, farmers, consumers, and organic producers in calling on the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) to prohibit genetically engineered (GE) alfalfa. We were also signatories of a letter with over 300 organizations asking USDA to deny approval of Monsanto’s GE alfalfa.
Did you know that around 20 percent of the human genome has been patented? That corporations and researchers own hundreds of animal genes and thousands of plant genes? That even some DNA sequences of viruses like AIDS and SARS are patented, and a researcher could be violating the law if he or she uses them to create a new life-saving vaccine?
By Ben Schreiber, Climate and Energy Tax Analyst for Friends of the Earth
A new report from Friends of the Earth International reveals that claims made by the biotech industry that genetically modified (GM) crops can combat climate change are both exaggerated and premature.
In early February 2010, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) released its final rules on the Renewable Fuels Standard. Friends of the Earth and allied groups had pushed the EPA to account for the indirect greenhouse gas emissions that biofuels production causes when calculating the global warming impact of biofuels.
Friends of the Earth recently released two TV ads in South Carolina and Georgia opposing the Obama administration's proposed bailout of the nuclear industry. For more information about the ads, see our release. They're called "Family" and "Risk," and you can see them below:
Family:
Below, are resources and information on Friends of the Earth's tar sands campaigns.
Fact sheets: General tar sands factsheet Keystone XL fact sheet Refinery tax credit fact sheet
The two-week climate conference in Copenhagen this past December produced the Copenhagen Accord. The Accord is a two-and-a-half page document that emerged in the final days of the summit, containing an inadequate goal of keeping global temperature increases below 2?C and no mechanism for achieving this goal. As of February 4, 2010, 56 countries had submitted individual pledges for greenhouse gas reductions to the secretariat of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). But in the…