With the increasing awareness and hype about climate chaos in the past 2 years, people are trying to cash in. Rising Tide North America has initiated a new campaign against some of the “False Solutions” to climate change currently on the market.

The false solutions we are working to expose include carbon trading, offsets, and sequestration schemes and “alternative” fuels like nuclear power, “clean” coal, agrofuels (like ethanol), and liquefied natural gas that aren’t really any better than our current energy sources.

Our need to believe that something can save us from climate change, our fear of change and the unknown make these purely technological and market-based solutions extremely seductive. Yet upon closer examination they are dangerous detours on the road to a just climate future, and take us farther away from addressing the root causes of climate change.

To address these root causes, Rising Tide believes we must look honestly at how terribly tangled up we are in systems of social and environmental devastation, rather than buy into the scams of disaster profiteers. For us this means making our communities more just and sustainable, dismantling the many systems of oppression within our society that separate us from each other and the earth, challenging the power of corporations and governments tied to the expansion of the fossil fuel empire, and keeping coal, oil and natural gas in the ground.

In the coming months check back here for more resources on these topics, as well as for news about and ideas for taking ACTION against false solutions and for climate justice.

Contact falsesolutions[-at-]risingtidenorthamerica[-dot-]org if you want to join us!

Hoodwinked in the Hothouse was the first-ever short and accessible, yet close-to-comprehensive guide to bogus climate solutions like clean coal and industrial agrofuels. (You can download the booklet’s 1st edition here).

Last year’s 5,000 print run of Hoodwinked was exhausted within a few short months; demand for them was far higher than we could have imagined. The booklet has been downloaded thousands of times and is now available in three languages with additional translations in the works. The booklet’s release clearly filled a void in the educational materials of the global climate justice movement.

We are now seeking community and individual support for a much larger 2nd print run, to be released at the US Social Forum in Detroit this summer, simultaneously in both English and Spanish.

We hope you’ll agree that it is extremely important – considering growing support for nuclear power and clean coal within the Obama administration – that a booklet providing a comprehensive critique of “false solutions” remains in print. With the incredible pace of the climate policy debate, the booklet is already out of date in several areas, particularly on crucial topics like REDD (a major new forest offset scheme), which was just emerging at the time of initial publication last year.

Equally important, we received great feedback from allies that the booklet needs to be expanded to include other technologies that are unfortunately being branded as “green” despite the grave dangers associated with them, such as waste incineration, biochar, and genetically engineered “carbon sucking” trees. We also want to include much more information on real solutions, positive steps we can take to stop the climate crisis.

During these past 2 years, many small donors and a tiny handful of larger ones who recognize the critical importance of deep grassroots climate organizing in the United States have helped make Rising Tide’s work possible. We have grown to have contacts and chapter in more than 50 cities across North America. Yet we remain as committed as ever to our organizing model, a 100% volunteer run network with virtually no overhead, working to create a grassroots climate movement that empowers organizers over organizations.

We have budgeted this project at $10,000 (including shipping and printing). We have a goal to distribute 20,000 copies Hoodwinked this year but – simply put – we will not reach this goal without your help and donations.

We are asking supporters of hoodwinked to donate whatever they can manage – $25, $100, or $500 – today in order to make this printing possible!

We are also initiating a “print-run collaboration” – by pre-purchasing a bulk package of booklets “at cost”, it helps reduce the cost of printing for everyone getting the booklet. For major co-sponsors of the booklet we would (if you’d like) add your groups name and logo and website to the printing (please reply to this email for more details!).

Unlike the vast majority of Rising Tide’s work – community organizing, non-violent civil disobedience, and educational presentations – printing projects like the reprinting of Hoodwinked in the Hothouse requires thousands of dollars to make a reality. Rising Tide pinches pennies in a way most progressive organizations would find almost inconceivable and does more on a zero-to-low budget than many groups with orders of magnitude more funding. While it represents only a portion of our overall work, because of the money involved, getting this project off the ground is a challenge for us. People power we have, but dollars we can not do without your help.

For information on donating please visit http://www.risingtidenorthamerica.org/wordpress/donate/ – please be sure to indicate on your pay pal or check that you want your donation to support the 2nd edition of Hoodwinked in the Hothouse.

Sincerely,
Rising Tide North America

www.risingtidenorthamerica.org
Confronting the root causes of climate change

Fred Krupp, president of Environment Defense Fund, defends EDF’s cozy corporate partnerships

Rising Tide North America has launched an online campaign, demanding an end to financial and political relationships between big NGOs and Corporate America. The response (posted below) from Fred Krupp, the President of Environmental Defense Fund (EDF), one of the targetted NGOs, arrogantly shrugs off the accusations.

In his response, Krupp does precisely what the petition writers demand must stop. Instead of “putting these corporation’s feet to the fire”, Krupp praises MacDonalds and FedEx for small changes they have made. Hardly surprising when this is official EDF policy. “Our partnerships with corporations are designed to create new market demand for improved products,” Krupp explains.

“Corporate partnerships” are one of EDF’s four core strategies. These partnerships are so close that EDF sees little or no difference between its own aims and those of its corporate friends. “The environment is our only client,” EDF writes, ever so slightly smugly, on its website, “while businesses are our allies in pursuit of common aims.”

What EDF means by “common aims” is revealed by some of EDF’s alliances. In 2007, for example, EDF was a co-founder of the United States Climate Action Partnership (USCAP). This brings NGOs like EDF together with such corporate stewards of the environment as Shell, Weyerhaeuser, Rio Tinto, Exelon, General Electric, Siemens, General Motors, Ford, AES, Alcoa, Chrysler, Dow Chemicals, Duke Energy, Du Pont and others in a push for corporate-friendly climate legislation.

As Krupp knows, EDF is a major promoter of trading forest carbon. EDF signed on to Avoided Deforestation Partners’ deal between NGOs and polluting industry. In December 2008, to coincide with the UN climate negotiations took place in Poznan, climate activists occupied EDF’s office in protest against its support of carbon trading.

Another of EDF’s four core strategies is “Economic incentives”, otherwise known as a blind faith in the market, regardless of the problem caused by (and faced by) this miraculous market. On its website, EDF explains its REDD policy as follows:

“Our plan would award countries that reduce deforestation with credits to be sold on the international carbon market. This would make the forests worth more alive than dead and keep the 300 billion tons of carbon they store out of the atmosphere.”

Except that it wouldn’t keep any carbon out of the atmosphere. It would convert forest carbon to carbon credits, which would allow fossil fuel burning to continue, effectively guaranteeing runaway climate change. Bad for billions of people and the planet, perhaps, but great for EDF’s corporate chums.

Petition Text

Stop Taking Cash From Corporate Polluters!

Greetings,

As a person who values our environment and believes in conservation, I am writing to demand that your organization stops taking money from corporate polluters or engaging in partnerships with major corporate polluters.

As highlighted in Johann Hari’s article, “The Wrong Kind of Green” (The Nation, 3/4/10), taking money directly from corporate polluters and/or forming corporate partnerships with corporate polluters makes it impossible to trust that you are holding these companies to the highest standards. We need to be putting these corporation’s feet to the fire, and demanding that they stop polluting our air and water, not lauding them for small changes they may or may not make.

We are in the midst of an urgent ecological crisis. This is the time to be strong and stand up to the corporate polluters- not to take their cash and congratulate them. Please be a leader and help re-inspire the environmental movement: stop taking cash from or forming partnerships with corporate polluters.

[Your name]

From: Fred Krupp

To:

Sent: Thu, April 1, 2010 7:00:17 PM

Subject: RE: Stop Taking Cash From Corporate Polluters!

Thank you for your email referring to the recent Nation article on corporate funding of environmental advocacy groups. I appreciate your concerns and that you care enough to write me about them.

As you may have noticed, EDF was not mentioned in the article. Our giving restrictions on corporate donations are designed to avoid conflicts of interest. We do not take contributions from manufacturers, extractive industries or any company that would be impacted positively or negatively by our advocacy. We also do not take money from anyone with whom we are partnering.

Our partnerships with corporations are designed to create new market demand for improved products. We require that our name not be used in any way without our explicit approval, and the outcomes of those efforts must be broadly available to the public and to competitors of our partners. A partnership with McDonald’s yielded new specifications for chickens that reduced the use of routine antibiotics in chicken feed by an estimated 90%. A partnership with FedEx opened demand for a hybrid electric delivery truck – a truck not previously on the market – that cut greenhouse gases by a third and conventional pollutants by a range of 65-95%. The partnership with FedEx also helped demonstrate the viability of national clean air standards for diesel trucks. In both cases we praised the action of the two companies but were careful not to imply an endorsement of the companies themselves, and the companies provided no funding for these efforts.

I hope this information is helpful to your understanding of our efforts.

Yours truly,

Fred Krupp

President, Environmental Defense Fund

Photo essay of the 12 December March in Copenhagen continues after this blog post:

Copenhagen Day of Action on Climate Change:

Energy in the Streets; Disappointment in the Negotiations

Late last night a draft text on the Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD) scheme was released.  It was strongly condemned by NGOs from around the world.  The text of this agreement gave mere lip service to Indigenous Peoples’ Rights and to safeguards against conversion of native forests to timber plantations, not including them in the legally binding body, but rather referring to them in a preamble.

This was no surprise to those of us who have been following REDD since it was formally announced at the UN Climate Conference in Bali, Indonesia in 2007.  It was clear then that this was a bunch of greenwash aimed at enriching the world’s most notorious deforesters, while providing the impetus for a massive global land grab directed at the world’s remaining forested lands—most of which are in the territories of Indigenous Peoples.

Thus we were not shocked when, at the Climate Conference last year in Poznan, all references to Indigenous Rights and the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples were struck from the text by the gang of four: the U.S., Canada, Australia and New Zealand—who always seem to be the bad guys in these UN negotiations.

Nonetheless, for those of us who have been fighting to stop the rampant destruction of native forests for so many years, the total corruption of an agreement to ostensibly curb deforestation is a major kick in the gut.

So it was with REDD in mind that we joined the massive show of people rallying for real and effective action on climate change at Parliament Square in Copenhagen earlier this afternoon.

March organizers estimated the swarming crowd at 100,000.  The police said 50,000.  The reality being somewhere in the middle, it was certainly the largest protest against climate change ever to have taken place.  And when coupled with the marches and protests in more than 100 other countries around the world, it was massive indeed.

Orin and I can attest to the impressive crowd as we crossed through it en route to find our allies in the “system change not climate change” bloc, on the exact opposite side of the square.  After 15 or so minutes of squeezing through the crush of the crowd, we managed to find our way to the coffee cart where several of our friends were waiting in an impossible queue for something warm to drink.  After waiting for what seemed like forever, with coffees finally in hand, we and our friends made our way in the direction of the “system change not climate change” sound trucks, which were to lead the bloc, but not before one of our German comrades warmed everyone’s coffee with a dollop of whiskey.  “To help warm you up on the inside,” he explained.

Another U.S.-based colleague and I remarked that we had certainly never experienced THAT before at a U.S. protest!

We found the Climate Justice Now! bloc with our allies, and ran into Melissa, a woman we had met fifteen years before during the struggle to save the ancient redwoods in California.  She had worked with Judi Bari, our friend and colleague who had been blown up by a pipe bomb in 1990 for trying to stop the rampant logging of some of the oldest and most majestic trees on the planet—the 100 meter tall, 2,000 year old redwoods, being felled for hot tubs and outdoor furniture.  Melissa was passing out stickers that elicited naughty giggles in nearly everyone who read them. They read “fck, fck, fck the system,”—a direct response to the very mainstream “tck, tck tck” campaign initiated by some of the larger NGOs.

The march consisted of numerous blocs, spread out over several kilometers.  Orin and I made our way to the very beginning of the march, where the Indigenous Peoples’ delegation was leading the way.  Orin photographed their delegation and we then gravitated to the side where we documented each bloc as it passed, waiting for our allies with the System Change bloc.  The images he captured during the hour or more that the march flowed by are captured in the photo essay included here.

After an interminably long time, toward the end of the march we finally spied the sound trucks with the green banners that signified the beginning of the System Change bloc.  We connected with some of our allies and photographed them moving by.  After they had passed we walked toward the back of the bloc to see what else we could find, and just as we did, a mass of police vans moved in and blocked the street, cutting off a section of the march.  Another cluster of police vans cut them off from the back.  We tried to move in to take photos of the situation and document the preemptive roundup, but were roughly shoved back by police who quickly taped off the area. We watched the stand off for 40 minutes or so, alerting some of our allies to the alarming situation.

Hundreds of march participants flooded back to the scene of the round up, and we could here pounding drums along with the chant, “Let them go! Let them go!” echoing through the corridor of tall brick Danish buildings.  They were not let go, and at last report, an estimated 700 had been arrested.

We unfortunately had to leave before the conclusion of the standoff because Orin had lost his official UN press credentials somewhere in the crush of people.  Without them he would be unable to participate in the protests and other events planned inside the Bella Centre in the coming week.  So we needed to get them replaced before the registration desk closed for the night.  We found a running metro that delivered us to the Bella Centre.  We managed to avoid the incredibly long line of unaccredited people shivering in the frigid Danish air through some evasive action that took us inside to the press accreditation line and resulted in Orin procuring a new badge in record time.

In the security line for the metal detectors, we bumped into another colleague who recounted to us her experience with nearly getting nabbed in the roundup.  She told us she sensed something was up and literally ran ahead, just missing the advance of the police vans.  She continued with the march, she told us, to the very end at the Bella Centre, but was prevented from entering the UN premises, even with her accreditation badge, because she was with the march.  “So I climbed the fence,” she told us.  “I was just too cold to wait any longer.”

So much for their security…

The metro ride back toward the hotel was hellish.  The metro arrived at the Bella Center stop already crowded.  We and about four others managed to smash ourselves on, thinking not one more person could possibly fit.  We were proved wrong about 2 stops down where another half dozen people forced their way into our end of the car.  By the time we got to the Christianshavn stop, we couldn’t stand it anymore and retreated to the street to find a bus.  This stop was only a few blocks from where we had stood when the black bloc had been surrounded, and the police lights were still blazing.  Realizing quickly that this meant no buses were to come, we waved down a cab and zoomed back to the hotel to sit down, finally, warm up and to complete our computer work for the day.

This is not the last, but the first big action this week.  Tomorrow there is an action planned which intends to shut down the Copenhagen port, to call attention to the massive greenhouse gas emissions caused by the shipping industry.  Nearly every day next week some action is planned and will reach a crescendo with the “Reclaim Power” action on Wednesday—the day that the high level ministers arrive—which is intended to occur both on the inside of the Bella Centre, as well as on the outside, with both sides to meet for a “Peoples’ Assembly” to discuss real and just solutions to the climate crisis.

The big challenge of that day is the fact that the UN Climate Secretariat has announced that they are severely restricting the access of NGOs to the Bella Centre—only allowing access to a privileged handful of “observers.”

Some of us believe that this signals the end of the UN Climate process.  It has truly become the World Carbon Trade Organization and is behaving as such through meetings behind closed doors and absolute restriction of participation to only those chosen few, and their complicit, bleating, sheep-like media.

Now it is time for the people of the world who want to stop the oncoming train of climate catastrophe to stand up and “Reclaim Power.”  We will be reporting from the Reclaim Power protests in Copenhagen this coming Wednesday.

Wish us luck.

Reporting from the streets of Copenhagen,

Anne Petermann, Executive Director, Global Justice Ecology Project

Confront Copenhagen at Home

www.ACTFORCLIMATEJUSTICE.org

read and pass on the Mobilization’s
Open Letter to the Grassroots

The facts are clear. Global climate change, caused by human activities, is happening, threatening the lives and livelihoods of billions of people and the existence of millions of species. Social movements, environmental groups, and scientists from all over the world are calling for urgent and radical action on climate change.

On the 6 December, 2009 the governments of the world will come to Copenhagen for the fifteenth UN Climate Conference (COP-15). This will be the biggest summit on climate change ever to have taken place. Yet, previous meetings have produced nothing more than business as usual.

There are alternatives to the current course that is emphasizing false solutions such as market-based approaches and agrofuels. If we put humanity before profit and solidarity above competition we can live amazing lives without destroying our planet.

For a just transition to a low carbon future we must invest in community-controlled renewable energy and leave fossil fuels in the ground. We must stop over-production for over-consumption. All should have equal access to the global commons through community control and local sovereignty over energy, forests, land and water. We must acknowledge the historical responsibility of the global elite and rich Global North for causing this crisis. Equity between all peoples in the North and South through reparations of this ecological debt is essential to climate justice.

Climate change is already impacting people, particularly, indigenous and forest-dependent peoples, women, small farmers, workers, marginalized communities and impoverished neighbourhoods who are all calling for action on climate- and social-justice.

We call on all peoples around the planet to mobilize and take action against the root causes of climate change and the key agents responsible, both in Copenhagen and around the world.

This mobilization has already begun but is still in the planning stages. We have time to collectively decide what these mobilizations will look like, and to begin to visualize what our future can be. It is now time to take the power back!

We encourage everyone to start mobilizing today in your own neighbourhoods and communities.

Please get involved and take action for climate justice.

Hope is not just a feeling, it is also about taking action.

To read the Mobilization’s Open Letter to the Grassroots

Mobilization for Climate Justice Open Letter to the Grassroots

Help Organize for Urgent Action on Climate Change

The Mobilization for Climate Justice is a North America-based network of organizations and activists who have joined together to build a North American climate justice movement that emphasizes non-violent direct action and public education to mobilize for effective and just solutions to the climate crisis.

The Mobilization for Climate Justice invites communities, organizations and activists across North America to join us in organizing mass action on climate change on November 30, 2009 (N30). N30 is significant because it both immediately precedes the upcoming UN Climate Conference in Copenhagen (COP-15) and is the ten-year anniversary of the successful shut down of the WTO in Seattle, when activists worldwide came together to demonstrate the power of collective action.

o    Keeping fossil fuels in the ground;
o    Re-localization of production and consumption, prioritizing local markets and cooperative economies;
o    Decentralized utility systems and community controlled clean renewable energy;
o    Rights based resource conservation that enforces indigenous land rights and ends corporate control over energy, forests, seeds, land and water;
o    Ending deforestation and its underlying causes, imposing international sanctions and wood tariffs, coupled with a massive forest restoration effort, managed primarily by indigenous forest-dwelling peoples;
o    Ending excessive consumption in the North and by elites in the South;
o    Repayment of ecological debts owed by northern governments and resource extracting corporations to peoples in the Global South

]]> http://www.risingtidenorthamerica.org/wordpress/2009/05/07/a-call-to-action-the-mobilization-for-climate-justice/feed/ 0 http://www.risingtidenorthamerica.org/wordpress/2009/03/18/1874/ http://www.risingtidenorthamerica.org/wordpress/2009/03/18/1874/#comments Thu, 19 Mar 2009 00:57:05 +0000 brian http://www.risingtidenorthamerica.org/wordpress/?p=1874 Only a few years ago, some companies were saying climate change wasn’t a problem. Now, as its impacts become apparent, many of the same corporations are suddenly scrambling to claim leadership on the issue. Desperate to avoid regulation that may hit their profits, they present a dizzying array of “false solutions,” quick fixes that perpetuate inequalities in our society while they can cash in on the crisis. Upon closer examination, many of these technologies and policies are merely dangerous detours on the road to a just, livable planet, distracting us from the root causes of the crisis.

Rising Tide North America is pleased to announce the release of the first short yet comprehensive survey of these bogus climate change solutions.

The 20 page pamphlet — “Hoodwinked in the Hothouse” — covers topics as diverse as Clean Coal, Agrofuels, Geoengineering, Carbon Offsets and over a dozen other non-solutions to the climate crisis, all in concise, colorfully illustrated and information packed essays. Download it now ( PDF)!

You can order these booklets *FREE* from Rising Tide by contacting FalseSolutions-AT-RisingTideNorthAmerica-DOT-org. (If you cover shipping costs that’s great, and of course donations to our 100% volunteer run organization are greatly appreciated!).

You can also download the booklet in it’s entirety at http://www.risingtidenorthamerica.org/special/fsbooklet.pdf

The book includes contributions from the World Development Movement, Corporate Watch, the World Rainforest Movement, Rachel Smolker, Rory Cox, the Transnational Institute, Oscar Reyes, and Alter Eco, as well as photography and artwork from Ben Powless, Tamra Gilbertson, Mike Wells, Appalachian Voices, Jorge Alcoreza, Andy Singer and the Beehive Design Collective.

We are currently seeking funding for an expanded version of the booklet for release during the 2009 UN climate meetings in Copenhagen that would include information on several additional false solutions including waste incineration and hydrogen fuel cells as well as an expanded section on genuine climate solutions and much more.

If you are interested in supporting this endeavor, want to order copies of the book, or have other questions please contact FalseSolutions-AT-RisingTideNorthAmerica-DOT-org.

Boston, MA – Seven activists from Rising Tide Boston disrupted a lecture at Harvard University being delivered by Arch Coal CEO Steve Leer, who was speaking on the future of “clean coal” technology. The activists attempted to enlighten the coal baron and the lecture attendees on the true cost of coal extraction.


“Arch coal is participating in the destructive practice of mountaintop removal,” says Tyler Kinser, a member of Rising Tide Boston. “How can coal ever be clean when entire communities are being poisoned and displaced by coal extraction?”

“This Harvard lecture series is funded by Bank of America, the single largest financial sponsor of mountaintop removal,” said Kinser, “so it’s no surprise that Harvard is hosting this lecture of disinformation on coal. We decided to balance out the lies.” Bank of America has invested billions of dollars in Arch Coal, according to the website dirtymoney.org.

The guest lecture was received with criticism by the some of those in the packed lecture hall. In the end, every question asked sounded more like a critical comment. Activists from Rising Tide Boston ended up delivering the final word on the matter, with the question “What gives you the right to gamble the future of civilization on a magic technology that doesn’t exist?” As the Arch Coal CEO attempted to avoid the question, two members of Rising Tide walked on stage and unfurled a banner which read “The coal bubble is bursting – Clean Coal is a Dirty Lie,” before interrupting Leer’s mumbling and shouting a list of statements regarding Arch Coal’s “investments in every dirty energy practice in the country.” Activists also distributed literature to attendees as they entered the lecture hall.

Today’s action comes on the heels of an act of civil disobedience carried out this morning at Coal River Mountain, West Virginia, where five activists were arrested after locking down to a bulldozer and backhoe, and more were arrested later that day for delivering a letter to CEO of Massey Energy. Coal River Mountain is slated for a 6,600-acre mountaintop removal site, but local residents have developed plans for a wind farm there instead.
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“People across the country are raising their voices and putting their bodies on the line,” said Kinser. “We know that coal is over, and that truly clean and renewable energy is possible, if only those in power would wake up and stop destroying the planet for profit.”
Although the activists made the final argument, words spoken by Leer, of Arch Coal, seem to stand out. “Absolute power corrupts, but we need electricity.”

For updates, photos and video footage, visit http://risingtideboston.org

As she read her emotional and thought-provoking letter, we could see ED’s staffers disconnecting, tuning out, reading email on their Blackberries, and muttering to each other under their breath. Bit by bit they started walking out, fancy gadgets in hand, and one employee said to our photographer “I don’t work on this issue, and frankly I don’t care about this.” By the time Rachel was finished, there were only a handful of them left in the room who could bear to hear criticism and be self-reflective about what was said. Such symptoms of denial and arrogance are clear signals of highly toxic levels of complicity with carbon crimes, and our last resort was to call in the experts for a consultancy.

Mr. Green and Mr. Wash, the well dressed executives of Green & Wash LLC addressed the group, warning them that complicity with aiding and abetting carbon crimes is a toxic pollutant, with known side effects including inability to listen, denial, sleep loss, and arrogant outright self-exultation. In addition, complicity can be a risk to image and reputation in the green marketplace. However, with the guidance of Green & Wash LLC we assured Environmental Defense that they could transform their complicity into a great asset and turn this risk into opportunity. And so the work began.

Green & Wash workers began scrubbing the office down with “Go Green” all purpose cleanser, while Mr. Green and Mr. Wash used their high-tech state of the art complicity detector to measure exact amounts of complicity throughout the office. Chairs with high complicity readings (my goodness, how many CEOs have sat in here?) were assembled in a corner and quarantined with Global Warming Crime Scene tape. One of Green & Wash’s employees quit, stating that shuffling chairs was no better than rearranging desk chairs on the Titanic, but we had no use for such naive idealism anyway, being the realistic pragmatists that we are. The computational cost-benefit analysis of Green & Wash showed that a well financed PR campaign can cover for lack of structural change, so we lined up top-notch sponsors for the clients, through the “Just US Complicity Alliance Partnership”. We pinned the logos of these sponsors next to our client’s name, with such industry greats as Dow Chemical, Duke Energy, BP, and Shell. At one point, an ED employee got upset and asked us to leave, but we notified them that we have purchased a sufficient number of office occupation credits, from all those offices out there that aren’t been invaded but should be.

The last step of our cleaning and greening was to offset their complicity with something green – like trees! To mask the stinking smell of their lingering complicity in the board room, we planted air freshener trees, specially engineered to grow fast and soak up all their excess complicity, exuding clean green fresh scent throughout the office. (We made sure to clear out any local populations before planting our green plantations).

The final step was to remove all complicity from their books, by investing it in our new financial instrument – Credit/YourFault swaps.  Once the deal was done, their complicity risk had been managed they fresh new complicity credits in place of TheirFault holdings, and was backed and insured by our investment partners, EcoGreenSecurities ™. To close the deal, we presented them with their award, a giant green paintbrush to signify their renewed images. And most importantly, they received ownership of a CRAP Credit – “Certified Realists for Atmospheric Privatization”.

It was such a great deal for them, we just couldn’t understand why some of them seemed upset. Not only did they trade away all their toxic complicity, but they received commodity ownership in return! Their lingering fears and denial must be signs that there is still lingering complicity hidden in back boardrooms that we haven’t yet detected.  Hopefully they’ll invite us back to do a full inventory consulting job.

Until then, we can be happy of a job well done.

See the full statement from Rachel Smolker, daught of Environmental Defense founder Robert E. Smolker

Washington, DC – As the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change opened today in Poznan, Poland, grassroots climate activists took over the Washington DC office of Environmental Defense. The activists stated that they had targeted ED, one of the largest environmental organizations in the world, because of the organization’s key role in promoting the discredited approach of carbon trading as a solution to climate change.

Dr. Rachel Smolker of Global Justice Ecology Project and Global Forest Coalition read a statement, which said in part, “My father was one of the founders of this organization, which sadly I am now ashamed of. The Kyoto Protocol, the European Emissions Trading Scheme and virtually every other initiative for reducing emissions have adopted their market approaches. So far they have utterly failed, serving only to provide huge profits to the world’s most polluting industries. Instead of protecting the environment, ED now seems primarily concerned with protecting corporate bottom lines. I can hear my father rolling over in his grave.”

Note: The Washington, DC Environmental Defense (sic) should not be confused with Canada’s Environmental Defence.

The activists rearranged furniture in the office, illustrating how marketing carbon is “like rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.”  Others held signs reading “Keep the cap, ditch the trade” and “Carbon trading is an environmental offense.”

Leo Cerda, an indigenous activist with Rising Tide Ecuador said, “ED wants to turn the atmosphere and forests into private property, and then give it away to the most polluting industries in the form of pollution allowances that can be bought and sold. Not only is this an ineffective way to control emissions, it is also a disaster for the poor and indigenous peoples who are not party to these markets and are most impacted by climate change.”

ED has been key in establishing the U.S. Climate Action Partnership, a business consortium advocating for a cap and trade system with extremely weak emissions reductions. US CAP allows polluters like Duke Energy, Shell, BP, DuPont, and Dow Chemical to claim they are green while continuing with business as usual. In recognition, activists awarded ED the “Corporate Greenwash Award,” a three foot tall green paintbrush. “We think this award is appropriate since Environmental Defense spends more time painting polluters green than actually defending the environment,” said Matt Wallace of Rising Tide North America.

Opposition to carbon trading is growing as it becomes apparent that market based schemes do little to fight climate change while helping corporations rake in profits. Earlier this year, over 50 groups came together in the US to denounce carbon trading in a Declaration Against the Use of Carbon Trading Schemes to Address Climate Change. Globally, hundreds of environmental, social justice, and indigenous groups have come together to oppose such market based initiatives as inherently unsustainable and ineffective in creating a just transition away from fossil fuels.

more photos at flickr

For more information about why to oppose carbon trading:

• Durban Declaration
• Indigenous declare opposition to carbon trading
• California Environmental Justice position on Climate Change
• Carbon Trade Watch
• Whats Wrong with REDD?
• Carbon Trading: Capitalism of the Air Conflicts with Indigenous Knowledge
• Protecting the World’s Forests Needs More Than Just Money

My name is Rachel Smolker. When I was a child, growing up on Long Island, my father, Robert E Smolker, along with Charlie Wurster, Dennis Puleston and Art Cooley, used to sit around in the living room sipping their beers and discuss environmental issues. My father, an ornithologist, was observing the thinning of predatory bird eggshells caused by DDT, Rachel Carson’s seminal work on the impacts of pesticides was still relatively warm off the presses, and their were already many, many indications that virtually all ecosystems were in decline: the beautiful wetlands surrounding our island were contaminated and littered with garbage, fisheries were declining, and from afar, the drumbeat of deforestation, pollution, and…climate change.  Yes, way back then. Climate change was an issue very few knew anything about, but I would say it came as no surprise to those who spent time in the natural world and understood the delicate intricacies of ecological systems on a tiny blue speck of a planet, more or less accidentally blanketed in a thin and accommodating atmosphere.

I watched these men as they talked, sometimes seriously, sometimes with tremendous humor, and almost always with a deep sense of commitment and comeraderie. I was 10-12 years old, on the brink of puberty and frankly not all that much interested, but I respected them and as I grew up recognized the importance of this phenomenon, called EDF, which germinated out of the couches of my home.

My father and his friends celebrated their capacity to act together when EDF achieved bans on DDT in the early 70’s. They brought lawyers and scientists and fundraisers and administrators and many others onboard and expanded the organization, experienced and overcame some growing pains and enjoyed a number of further victories.

My father passed away in 1985. By that time, EDF had at least a few offices dotted around the country, and sizeable resources. The organization was, already, under the leadership of Fredd Krupp. Before his death, he complained to me that he “did not approve of the direction in which the organization was headed”.

Why? What was he foreseeing? I think I understand now…

EDF has swelled and mushroomed into the darling of the corporate world: advocating for “market incentives” to “encourage” corporations to stop their destructive practices, provided they do not cause “economic hardship”. Like the corporations you have befriended, you too have become entirely beholden to the gods of endless economic growth. The goal of protecting the environment has been relegated to the back seat.

EDF’s corporate partnership approach sounded friendly and sort of “new” back in the 80’s. Sure, perhaps there was some potential in trying to reform polluting practices “from the inside”. EDF proudly designed the market trading system for sulphur emissions causing acid rain, among numerous other accomplishments. That emissions trading model, hailed as a breakthrough in “harnessing market forces in service of environmental goals”, has now been carried over to the international arena and become the central approach to addressing global warming emissions.

Carbon emissions trading is now formally enshrined within the Kyoto Protocol, and within almost every state, federal and international initiative for reducing greenhouse gas emissions. It has in fact become pretty much the only game in town.

You argue that it is the “least expensive” means of lowering emissions, allowing companies to avoid costly abatement by purchasing credits from others who could more easily reduce their emissions. A sort of “kinder gentler” approach to lowering carbon emissions.

But let me ask you. Is it working? Has it worked? Will it work fast enough? Is it in our best interests at this point to make things kind and gentle and inexpensive for these polluters? Is that our priority?

I would ask that you take a trip outside of Washington, put on your boots and jeans and anoraks and such: travel to the Arctic community of Kivalina and talk with the folks there who are filing suit against your bedfellows in the fossil fuel industry over the extermination of their community and their entire lifestyle. I say, you are guilty by association. EDF has become the mistress of murderers. While James Hansen and others suggest they should be put on trial for their crimes against humanity, you would have us reward them!

You would have us reward them by turning the atmosphere into private property, dividing it into pieces and generously bequeathing the pieces as gifts to these corporate criminals. And in doing so, you provide them with a license to carry on with their dirty business and pretend to be doing something other than advancing their own profits. While they drill and mine and pump and plunder with one hand, the other is busy shaking hands with Fred Krupp. EDF has been the primary architects and advocates of “market approaches” which do nothing but pad the coffers of climate criminals while doing nothing to avert global warming.

EDF has done nothing short of turn itself into a corporate makeover facility. The most polluting companies on earth walk in here seeking advice on how to better paint themselves green. EDF does the paint job and then hands out free samples and an eternity’s worth of coupons for future cash-in. What comes out the other end is business as usual, and a few added digits on the organization’s salary balance sheets.

I have two young children. I am not going to launch into a teary-eyed appeal to you about their future, don’t worry.

No: I am going to tell you something about being a parent that I think is relevant: When my children do something naughty, do I yell at them and take away some privileges? Or do I offer them a candy in exchange for halting their naughtiness?  Welllll…some would advocate the candy approach, but what happens when they realize that the outcome of their naughtiness is to receive candy? Of course they can’t wait to be naughty again!  That is your approach to dealing with polluting corporations; reward them with permits to pollute.

That is why they are knocking down your doors. Your Climate Action Partnership? Well, no shit Sherlock…the dirtiest most polluting industries made windfall profits off  the European Emissions Trading Scheme, which has been deemed completely ineffective if not counterproductive as a means of reducing emissions of greenhouse gases.

No wonder these corporations are eager to sign on to the CAP and have you championing such an approach! They know the climate change grim reaper is on his way. They see the writing on the walls. Would they prefer to be regulated and fined and forced to behave like proper citizens of the global community? Or would they prefer to hide behind some smoke and mirrors, receive permits to pollute, pass along the cost of purchasing those permits to their ratepayers if possible, and then rake in rewards for sort of maybe doing what they should absolutely for the sake of us all should be doing in any case? You provide them the means to enhance profits and paint themselves green at the same time! WoW! No wonder they are flocking to you….

We cannot pretend that handing out permits to pollute and then trading them around like baseball cards is even remotely related to seriously reducing emissions. It is a great get-rich-quick scheme for the brokers, marketers and financiers who enjoy playing games with my childrens’ future, and it is a huge gift to the polluting criminals.

Offsetting emissions is a similar deceit, nothing but another fine arrangement of smoke and mirrors that allow some people to “feel good” while continuing to carry on business as usual. They provide a convenient way to sidestep and avoid real and necessary change. It is, without question, a lovely idea to provide funding to really good “quality” projects that hold promise of reducing emissions, but there are more straightforward ways to get there that do not require unfounded and unreliable measures of carbon flow, additionality, verifiability or permanence, and do not confuse fossil and biological carbon. We clearly need to halt, not offset emissions, even where it is a hard thing, a very hard thing to do.

We are here today because we have simply had enough. In fact we reached that point quite a while ago, and since then have been gathering our courage and building the solidarity that is required to stand up for the very future of life on earth in the most effective, meaningful manner possible. It is a mightily sad state of affairs, when a group of dedicated activists, who are keenly aware of the dire crisis we are facing, must come to the offices of one of the world’s biggest and most influential  “environmental organizations” to protest. People you see before you have chained themselves to the gates of coal fired power plants and to the doors of the World Bank. They have stood up to corporate thugs and threats, they have put themselves in harms way to stand up for what is right and what MUST be done to protect the future of life.

We cannot afford to wait, or to fail, or to only half succeed at this point.

EDF: It is time to admit to the failure of the market based policies you are advocating: The Kyoto Protocol, the European Trading Scheme….these have failed us, and in the process have blinded and bedazzled so many that the real solutions to the crisis have fallen into the shadows where they are languishing. Now it is time to face the facts and turn every ounce of your substantial weight towards DEMANDING that your corporate bedfellows strip off their phony green veneer, halt the pillaging of our futures, and give REAL solutions to climate change their due opportunity. Yes it will be hard, yes it will force change upon the polluters. But the cost of inaction, or ineffective action, will be much, much greater.

The incoming administration has made it clear that they intend to adopt a cap and trade legislation, along with a suite of other questionable steps intended to address the crisis of climate change, including “clean coal”, nuclear energy and agrofuels. EDF as a massively influential organization will undoubtedly play a role in shaping this legislation. It is time to stop pandering to the corporate criminals. We can no longer make corporate profits a priority over swift and severe measures to avoid catastrophe. We can no longer concern ourselves with making it easy or less costly or any other such warm and fuzzy goodwill towards the corporations that are responsible for the destruction. We can no longer count on the magic of markets to achieve the deep, real, meaningful and essential changes that are needed.

EDF: I wish I could say I am proud of my own father’s legacy!  But it is, sadly, the case that I have to apologize, offer disclaimers, make explanations….when pronouncing my relationship to this organization. I can hear my father rolling over in his grave! EDF has strayed so far from his vision, from the mission of protecting and advocating for the environment, that it would now be completely unrecognizeable to him. Were he to rise up from the dead, I can only hope that these plush digs and six figure salaries would convince him there is no relationship between the current manifestation of this organization and himself.

For me, it is deeply ironic that I find myself here today, taking action against this organization which so shaped my early world view, and which I have now come to see as a primary obstacle to averting planetary crisis: the architects and powerful advocates of extraordinarily dangerous and distracting policy advice.

I HOPE that the people working here will take a very deep look in the mirror and ask yourselves” are we REALLY doing the right thing? Are we true to our mission? To ourselves? To our children and to the future of life on this little blue speck?

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