[from the Indigenous Environmental Network and others]

New York City, NY - Indigenous Peoples attending the Permanent Forum are outraged that their rejection of the carbon market has been ignored in the final report of the 7th Session of the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues (PFII). The final report of the PFII hails World Bank funded carbon trading, like the Clean Development Mechanism, as “good examples” of partnership despite the human rights violations and environmental destruction they have caused.

“Indigenous Peoples attending the 7th session of the Permanent Forum are profoundly concerned that our key recommendations on climate change are not being taken into account by the Permanent Forum. This Permanent Forum was created precisely to recognize, promote, and support the rights of Indigenous Peoples,” says Florina Lopez, Coordinator of the Indigenous Women’s Biodiversity Network of Abya Yala. Continue Reading »

April 23 Charlotte, NC Today activists with Asheville Rising Tide, Rainforest Action Network, and Croatan Earth First! hit the streets of Charlotte, NC to protest Bank of America’s annual shareholders meeting. Bank of America has seen an escalating level of protest in the past year for its funding of the coal industry. Bank of America has provided billions of dollars in loans to companies including Massey Energy, Arch Coal, and Alpha Natural Resources which are responsible for the practice of mountaintop removal coal mining in southern Appalachia. In addition Bank of America is funding a number of new coal plants including Duke Energy’s Cliffside power plant in Western North Carolina. Continue Reading »

Thomas Friedman, the author and NY Times columnist, was invited to Brown University to give a keynote speech on Earth Day, before a packed auditorium. His talk, titled “Green is the new Red White and Blue” was about how corporate environmentalism (based on putting a price on the atmosphere, and investing in biofuels and techno-fixes) can restore America to its “natural place in the global order.” Luckily, this outrageous neoliberal capitalist propaganda was interrupted with a surprise visit from the Greenwash Guerrillas. After splattering him with two green cream pies, leaflets were thrown to the crowd, stating:

Thomas Friedman deserves a pie in the face…

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The photos are ordered from east to west around the world (New Zealand is 1st, U$A last)…
60 actions are featured here: if you have a photo from an action that is missing email it to fossilfools–AT–RisingTideNorthAmerica–DOT–org

Boston, MA – Copley Square, April 1, 2008. April Fools! As of 9:00AM, in conjunction with a downtown rally, four activists have locked themselves to the front entrance of the Bank of America branch in Copley Square. They are protesting the bank’s funding of coal and energy companies who are among the worst contributors to climate change, and directly responsible for innumerable human rights abuses in communities where coal is extracted and burned.

More photos and updates available at the Fossil Fools Day website

Please support legal costs for this action!

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At 6:30 this morning, North Carolina residents locked themselves to bulldozers to stop the construction of Duke Energy’s massive Cliffside coal-fired power plant being built 50 miles west of Charlotte, NC. “In the face of catastrophic climate change, building a new coal plant is tantamount to signing a death sentence for our generation,” said local farmer Matt Wallace, while locked to a bulldozer. The concerned citizens also roped off the construction site with “Global Warming Crime Scene” tape and held banners that read “Coal Fuels Climate Change” and “Social Change, not Climate Change.”

We’re actively looking for donations to get people out of jail!

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Early Monday morning dozens of concerned community members from Palm Beach County and all over the nation put their bodies on the line to halt construction of FPL’s West County Energy Center (WCEC), demanding energy efficiency, truly clean, renewable energy and a moratorium on development in south Florida. Everglades Earth First! blocked the main entrance to the WCEC site, a proposed massive 3800 MW gas-fired power plant that would emit 12 million tons of CO2, a leading greenhouse gas, every year. The plant is currently under construction despite ongoing legal challenges to the plant’s needed permits and certification, which have been spearheaded by the local Palm Beach County Environmental Coalition.

A dozen activists locked themselves together through metal pipes as 200 supporters rallied around them. The blockade stopped work on the construction site for six hours before a total of 27 people were arrested.

UPDATE: Financial support for arrestees desperately needed.
Visit http://pbcec.blogspot.com/ to donate.

High Resolution Photo Page - will take time to load!
Low Resolution (same photos)

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[The Beehive Collective is a political art and design collective and a local Rising Tide contact - they are preparing to launch a major new “graphic campaign” focused on Mountain Top Removal coal mining in collaboration with others in Rising Tide.]

In anticipation of our most exciting and busy year to date, featuring the launch of two new graphics campaigns, our swarm of eleven is in need of five more workers. We are currently seeking a few passionate and committed organizers, educators, and artists to join us full-time in Maine, at satellite Hive locations, and on the road, beginning as soon as possible.

Please pass this note on to others who might be interested! Continue Reading »

This Spring, two womyn from the Portland Animal Defense League, Rising Tide North America and Stumptown Earth First! will be on tour up and down the west coast with an interactive and engaging presentation. We’ll be offering a two hour presentation on radical eco-feminism and environmental ethics. Eco-feminism is the social movement that regards the oppression of women and nature as interconnected. It is one of the few movements and analyses that actually connects two movements. Radical ecofeminist theorists have extended their analyses to consider the interconnections between sexism, the domination of nature (including animals), and also racism and social inequalities. Consequently it is now better understood as a movement working against the interconnected oppressions of gender, race, class and nature. Continue Reading »

Cascadia Rising Tide joined forces with Stumptown Earth First! to hold an action and rally at the downtown Portland office of NW Natural (local gas utility), for their involvement in Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) related pipelines, which threaten to clear-cut strips of forest throughout Oregon for new fossil fuel infrastructure.

Piling dozens of trees on NW Natural’s downtown office entryway, activists with Stumptown Earth First! and Cascadia Rising Tide, sent a message to the LNG-invested gas company: “There’s nothing Green about Clear-cuts, No new pipelines”. Continue Reading »

Rising Tide has just finished work on its new “false solutions” reading room, a collection of factsheets and reports examining solutions to climate change that are often popular with businesses and politicians, but which do little to help the climate and often have devastating impacts on communities and the environment. This is the 2nd installment of the new “publications and multimedia” section on our website.

First have a look at the reading room, and contact our false solutions campaign to get more involved!

Climate activists with the international Rising Tide network embarrassed the U.S. Climate Action Partnership (USCAP), a lobby group composed of 33 prominent businesses and organizations, by distributing a spoof press release declaring that the consortium’s members had committed to a 90 percent reduction in their greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. In addition, the spoof release called for an immediate moratorium on the construction of all new coal-fired power plants.

“To stabilize our climate, reductions need to be based on science, not on creating windfall profits for the world’s largest polluters,” said Matt Leonard. “Leading scientists say decisive action must happen now to reduce our emissions. However, corporate interests have stymied substantive action and are derailing genuine efforts of civil society to adequately address climate change.”

The fake press release was picked up by several media outlets, including the Dallas Morning News, UK Hemscott and several blogs before journalists realized that USCAP members would never agree to such progressive reductions in carbon emissions or a moratorium on coal plants. Furthermore, Rising Tide activists have done dozens of interviews with media and even received calls from real USCAP member companies about the website and press release. Continue Reading »

Brad Will Presente! Oaxaca Resiste! Fuera PFP de Oaxaca! Presos Politicos Libertad!
Days of Action for our Dead, for our Imprisoned, for our Media!

*Author’s note: Brad Will was a beloved friend to many within the Rising Tide North America collective. He participated in the RTNA founding meetings within the Earth First! Climate Caucus in February of 2006. He was Rising Tide’s main NYC contact for the one-year anniversary critical-mass actions to commemorate the victims and survivors of Hurricane Katrina. And he was also active in Mexico and Venezuela during Rising Tide initiatives carried out under the banner of Marea Creciente Mexico - Rising Tide Mexico.

After a week long campaign of events in Mexico City, the Day of the Dead Caravan was able to raise sufficient funds to travel to Oaxaca City to commemorate the November 2nd anniversary of the All Saint’s Day victory when the people of Oaxaca succeed last year in repelling Federal Police from taking Radio Universidad, in the heart of the Benito Juarez Autonomous University. Continue Reading »

Nov. 15 Charlotte, NC In what appears to be a recurring phenomenon in North Carolina, angry polar bears have once again descended on a notorious climate criminal to disrupt their business. On Nov. 15th members of Asheville Rising Tide and local college students descended on Duke Energy headquarters in Charlotte, NC with signs reading “Coal fuels climate change” and “Got Mercury?” to demand they cancel their plans for the 800mw Cliffside coal plant.

Despite police and security guards already on the scene two students dressed as polar bears locked the main entrance to the headquarters shut with a bike lock. Unfortunately a police officer managed to intervene before the pair were able to lock themselves to the door. Once the cop managed to wrestle the locks from the polar bears, the two proceeded to plan B and commenced in a sit-in in front of the doors. Eventually more police arrived and the students were arrested, but the lock remained, blocking the return of hundreds of Duke employees from their lunch break. Continue Reading »

Rising Tide North America’s “Greenwash Guerrillas” paid a surprise Halloween visit to the Carbon Market Insights conference in New York City today. Posing as delegates, two protesters took the stage at the exclusive event and presented the 700 attendees with a “Deed to the Sky,” denouncing Carbon Trading as a sham approach to the fossil fuels crisis. The action was the first in the US to target the growing Carbon Trading industry.

“Carbon trading puts the most crucial decisions about the future of life on this planet in the hands of fossil fuel industry,” said protester Jessica Starr “the very industry that got us into this mess in the first place.”

Though heavily criticized by environmental and human rights organizations world-wide, Carbon Trading is the primary mechanism for reducing greenhouse gas emissions under the Kyoto Protocol, as well as in Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) and John Warner’s (R-Va.) “America’s Climate Security Act of 2007.” The Carbon Market Insights conference brings together the leaders of the US financial, non-profit, and “eco securities” industries backing a domestic US Carbon Trading market.

READ ON FOR MORE INFORMATION, VIDEOS, AND PHOTOS

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Between August 8th-14th, 400+ people gathered for the West Coast Convergence for Climate Action. Participants took part in nearly 100 workshops, as well as lots of games and performances.

The event took place in Skamokawa, Washington in close proximity to a proposed liquefied natural gas (LNG) import terminal at Bradwood, Oregon. The Columbia River divides Oregon and Washington, and participants in the Convergence learned about attempts to sustain the local economy of the Lower Columbia River while resisting massive fossil fuel developments in the area.

On Monday, August 13th, Convergence participants were joined by dozens of local activists opposing the Bradwood LNG terminal. The group gathered on the Washington shore of the Columbia River, where hundreds of people live in close proximity to the Bradwood LNG proposal. Using fishing boats, sailboats, kayaks, and an umiak, participants in the action crossed the Columbia River and occupied the beach at Bradwood where NorthernStar Natural Gas intends to construct a large LNG terminal.

On Tuesday, August 14th activists locked down in front of the PacifiCorp (aka Pacific Power) building in Portland, Oregon to demand that the company shut down the four dams it operates on the Klamath river and stop developing coal fire power plants. The protesters were joined by a rally of several dozen supporters, many of whom wore hazmat suits painted with fake blood to draw attention to the poisonous conditions on the Klamath River.

No one was arrested at either action; it was generally concluded that the companies targeted wanted to avoid drawing the additional media attention that arrests would bring.

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August 13, 2007

More photos available at Asheville Indymedia

***5 arrested protesting Bank of America’s investments in coal and climate change***

As a culmination of the Southeast Convergence for Climate Action, activists took a bold direct action against Bank of America over concerns regarding their investment throughout the coal cycle and their promotion of climate injustice. Although there was much speculation regarding a protest action at the Progress Energy Skyland coal-fired power plant, protestors surprised the downtown office of Bank of America.

Two activists locked down inside the main lobby and other activists blockaded the entrance to the downtown branch of Bank of America. The protest included a large, lively group of concerned citizens dressed as canaries and polar bears. Activists carried signs and banners that read: “Bank of America Stop Funding Climate Change,” “Bank of America Stop Mountaintop Removal,” “No Coal, No Nukes, No Kidding” “Bank of America Climate Criminal.” Continue Reading »

Today dozens of cyclists paid a surprise visit to Bank of America to protest their financial backing of coal companies as a part of the International Day of Action Against Climate Change and G8 (read the worldwide roundup of actions here). After tying up downtown traffic, the 30-strong bike ride descended on the downtown Asheville headquarters of Bank of America. Once there, a number of people dumped coal in front of the main entrance, while another person spontaneously sacrificed their bike lock and locked the front doors shut.

With police still not in sight, the bike ride continued on to another Bank of America branch, where participants plastered the bank in stickers, handed out flyers to customers, and held banners reading, “Stop Banking on Climate Change” and “Climate Chaos: Brought to you by Bank of America.”

The protest was held in solidarity with the massive anti-G8 protests in Germany, where leaders of the 8 richest countries continue to drag their feet on making any meaningful reductions in greenhouse gas emissions. The bike ride was organized by Asheville Rising Tide, a group dedicated to confronting the root causes of climate change.

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Read about Rising Tide North America’s older actions, activities, and reports…