PLANET IN PERIL

07/27/11 - 350 or bust The Harper Government is sending out a clear message at home and abroad that if your politics are not correct your art shouldn’t be shown, and if your findings are inconvenient your science doesn’t matter. Details here.                                                                                              Harper rendering by PLT PLT: I wrote the following after reading the "comments" section following the newspaper article.  "The Sun story is excellent. I'd suggest that those who'd like to discredit the paper and its reporters are Harperites who'd rather defend his misguided efforts to stifle science than hear the truth. The "commenter" who actually believes that the journal Science is "activist" would feel right at home with conspiracy theorists everywhere. The only thing the paper missed in this story was Harper's shameful record at muzzling the science of climate change itself, so Canada can pros

NEW YORK, New York, March 7, 2011 (Environment News Service)   Crude oil in a Chevron oil waste pit in the Amazon rainforest in Ecuador.  (Rainforest Action Network photo)    In a New York courtroom today, oil giant Chevron Corp. won a halt to enforcement of an $18 billion judgment for oil pollution of the Ecuadorian Amazon imposed by a court in Ecuador. Full story here. PUBLISHER'S COMMENT: To the US judge who made this ruling - "do da word 'sovereignty' ring a bell to ya?" l.p.

DESMOGBLOG - 14 February '11   EDITOR'S NOTE: Once again, a despicable, soulless corporation. made possible through despicable, soulless investors, pits itself against ordinary people. WILL WE LET IT WIN? l.p.   Read full story here.

Alternet - Feb. 19'11 An Ecuadorian judge ordered Chevron this week to pay $8.6 billion in damages for polluting the Amazon rainforest from 1964 until 1990. Incredibly, Chevron is known to refuse to pay such damages, even when a court orders it to do so! Read story here. 

Below is my submission to the Canadian Radio, Television & Telecommunications Commission. That powerful body seems poised to grant the wishes of a parliamentary committee by loosening the rules governing truth and accuracy in broadcasting. (Anyone detect the heavy hand of Stephen Harper in all of this? Naaaaa!) l.p.  ====    1.    Dear CRTC - I am a journalist specializing in stories about the environment, especially global warming. Your proposed changes concern me deeply because, among other things:     2.    I fear they will provide yet another channel for climate skeptics/opportunists and fraudsters to peddle their lies and deception over a phenomenon which is real, which is happening now and which is posing a clear and present threat to this planet, not only for us but future generations, as well.     3.    I also fear these changes would shamefully cheapen the noble profession of Canadian journalism with its long-accepted high standard of checks and balances on the truth a

COMMENT: Patti wrote: "This is just one in a long list of abuses and audacities that this PM and his government have perpetrated. How long are we going to stand for it? No credible opposition to challenge the abuses and no populace knowledgeable enough to vote this criminal and his party out."  Dear friends across Canada, Public protections against false and misleading news coverage could be destroyed by the CRTC -- paving the way for "Fox News North" to spread false information to the Canadian public that supports their political agenda. We have just two days to raise a national outcry and urge the CRTC to protect Canadian journalism!

Chevron is guilty.  Tell CEO John Watson:  Clean up Ecuador NOW! Dear friend, Yesterday marked a historic day for corporate accountability. A judge in Ecuador found Chevron guilty of massive oil contamination in the Amazon rainforest and ordered the company to pay over $8 billion to clean it up. The verdict is the culmination of an 18-year struggle by the Indigenous and rural Ecuadoreans — the real heroes of this epic fight — who first sued Chevron to force the company to clean up its oily mess back in 1993. The battle is won, but the war for corporate accountability is far from over. Chevron has vowed to appeal the decision , and it’s all too clear that the company intends to never pay for its oil pollution in the Ama

Survival - the Movement for Tribal People Botswana’s government has green-lighted a massive $3bn mine in the Central Kalahari Game Reserve – in the middle of the Kalahari Bushmen’s appeal against the Botswana authorities’ refusal to allow them access to water there. Survival International Activist Boycotting Botswana Diamonds  at De Beers in London Courtesy PlanetSave

Washington Independent Apr 8 -2010 Some 41 other Appalachian mines have racked up .....

Grain - Apr - 2010 Editor's comment: A US Government corporation greases the wheels to allow this abhorrent practice to proceed. Yay Barak! l.p. Farmer photo by Grain

Climate Action Network Canada - March 15, 2010 New report details government actions that undermine... A machine breaks up ice on the Red River to prevent flooding. Climate change is bringing more severe weather events, including ice-jams & flooding. As these events increase, news coverage of the link between the two, sadly, decreases! (CBC photo.)

Wed Jul 1, 2009 11:55am EDT - By Daniel Flynn ROME (Reuters): With only five months to go until a new global pact on climate change, none of the Group of Eight nations is doing enough to curb global warming. Shamefully, Canada and the US are at the bottom. Click headline for more.

Ottawa - June 4, 2009 "Friends of the Earth Canada" releases First Annual Score Card on Environmental Rights. (Alberta fails, Manitoba gets a dubious "C.") Click headline for full report. Alberta's tar sands http://www.beautifuldestruction.ca/index.html

Johann Hari: The Independent - UK - The uprising In the Amazon is more urgent than Iran's - it will determine the future of the planet. Click on headline for more.

Polly Cook - the Ecologist - 19th June, 2009 In the Brazilian town of Santarem, one brave priest is the only thing standing between multi-national grain trader Cargill and the rest of the Amazon. Click headline for full story.

By Milagros Salazar - Interpress Service LIMA, Jun 8 (IPS) - There are conflicting reports on a violent incident in Peru’s Amazon jungle region in which both police officers and indigenous protesters were killed. Click headline for details. Natives set up a road block at the entrance of the Amazonian town of Yurimaguas, northern Peru. Peruvian lawmakers have voted not to ease restrictions on lumber harvesting in the Amazon rain forest, days after it sparked clashes between police and indigenous protesters, killing dozens of people. (AFP/Ernesto Benavides)