Rising Tide folks with a lot of support from others have set up a new website with information from the grassroots, for the grassroots radical and progressive response to Hurricane Gustav. We are currently receiving or collecting information from a dozen or so groups in the area.

Please spread the word: http://gustavsolidarity.org

The site features:

• Information on how to support community organized relief efforts and grassroots organizations doing social justice work in hurricane affected areas.
• Needs lists from affected communities and organization that need support.
• (soon) Sample flyers, announcements, etc. for organizing fundraisers, movie showings, and solidarity vigils in your community.

Keep in mind:

1. Even if there is no flooding in New Orleans and surrounding parish’s there is going to be major disruptions to social justice organizing in the area.
2. We have yet to receive updates from the poor, highly vulnerable, not to mention highly oil-industry impacted communities along the coast

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Wednesday, August 13 NOON
Land Use Regulatory Commission (LURC) 18 Elkins Lane - Harlow Building  22 State
House Station Augusta, Maine 04333-0022

For More Information Contact: Logan Perkins - 207-615-5158

Hoopla for the North Woods
Maine Earth First! says No More Games
Bold Protest Urges LURC to Reject Massive Plum Creek Development Plan

Augusta, ME - In a bold stunt today, a dozen people affiliated with  Maine Earth First!, protested at the LURC office in Augusta. One woman  suspended herself 35 feet in the air from a giant tripod made of wooden  poles, while others hula-hooped on the ground below her. Under the  banner “LURC: Do the right thing! No Development! Plum Creek can’t buy  ME” the concerned citizens gathered to make it clear that the only  responsible decision is for LURC to reject Plum Creek’s entire plan.  Maine Earth First! is an all-volunteer group of Maine citizens working toward the protection of all remaining wild places in Maine as sources  of biodiversity, climate stability and cultural heritage.

Continue Reading »

First International Climate Gathering
13 September, 2008 to 14 September, 2008

Towards climate action in Copenhagen 2009
First international planning meeting Continue Reading »

From July 28 - Aug. 4th over 400 people gathered on a pesticide-free farm in Coburg, Oregon to learn, share, organize and network. Workshops and keynotes covered issues from the I-5 bridge expansion (Columbia River Crossing) to growing vegtables year-around. The week highlighted fossil fuel development projects throughout the West, and then created a space for people to learn the skills needed to fight them.

The phrase direct action has been invoked in many ways for many movements. Often, in the climate movement it is used to describe non-violent civil disobedience that directly confront and seek to physically halt fossil fuel development projects, such as lock-downs to equipment and road blockades. At this year’s West Coast Convergence for Climate Action, we spoke of direct action as not only taking action against dirty fossil fuel projects, but also taking action for community solutions and sustainability!

The week led up to a day of civil disobedience on Monday, which consisted of two major acts of disruption, street theater and rallies. It was awesome to learn about the details of proposed dirty energy projects, then hear the personal stories from impacted communities fighting them, and then finally organize and take action in the efforts to stop them. Continue Reading »

August 11 Richmond, VA Despite a massive police presence throughout the city and our major action plan derailed by law enforcement harassment, 50 activists snaked their way through Richmond today in an un-permitted march, paying visits to several climate criminals. Carrying banners reading, “No Nukes, No Coal, No Kidding” and “Social Change not Climate Change,” people marched to the headquarters of Massey Energy, Dominion, Virginia Department of Environmental Quality, and Bank of America.

At Massey Energy, a notorious coal company involved in mountaintop removal coal mining, activists surrounded the entrance and yelled, “Hands off our mountains!.” The group then moved on to the Department of Environmental Quality which recently rubber stamped Dominion’s dirty coal plant in Wise County, VA. Next the group brought the party to Dominion, who is building the aforementioned coal plant as well as proposing a new nuke plant in Louisa County, VA. Chanting “No coal, no nukes, we won’t stop until you do!” the activists attempted to take over Dominion’s plaza but were repelled by police on horses. In a show of interspecies solidarity one horse bucked a cop off its back.

To wrap things up for the day, the crowd moved on to the the towering Bank of America building, one of the largest funders of the coal industry. Continue Reading »

August 7 Louisa, VA Activists from the Southeast Convergence for Climate Action occupied the welcome center for Dominion’s North Anna nuclear power plant today. The action was taken to protest Dominion’s plans to build two new nuclear reactors and to call out nuclear power for the false solution that it is to the climate crisis. “We are here to serve notice on the so-called ‘nuclear renaissance’ that the anti-nuclear movement is alive and well,” said Glenn Carroll, coordinator of Nuclear Watch South.

In all 25 people occupied the visitors center for 2 hours until police came in to remove them. The protestors wore shirts that read “Nukes not Welcome” and chanted and sang. “We chose to take non-violent direct action because Dominion and the federal government have completely failed to address the climate crisis,” said Paxus Calta who lives twenty miles from the plant. The protesters also gave their own version of a tour for visitors revealing the true nature of the nuclear industry. In all 6 people were arrested for refusing to leave the building and were escorted out in handcuffs to the cheers of their friends. Continue Reading »

Asheville, NC Today Asheville Rising Tide’s billionaire bloc descended on Bank of America’s regional headquarters to demand that BoA continue to invest their money in coal. The Billionaires for Coal carried signs reading “More Profit, Less Mountains” and sipped on dirty (coal) martinis to applaud BoA for its funding of mountaintop removal coal mining as well as the new generation of dirty coal plants. The Asheville Police Department did an excellent job of blocking access to the bank entrance and the ATM surely scaring off a number of bank customers.

Two days before, activists with Croatan Earth First! visited three Bank of America branches in Raleigh and Chapel Hill. The activist entered the banks raising a ruckus and handing out fliers to customers until being forced to leave. The motley crew of billionaires then proceeded to demonstrate outside and informing the public of BoA’s dirty deeds. A few weeks before several activists were detained by police in Charlotte, NC (BoA’s hometown) for hanging anti-coal poster’s in the neighborhoods of several BoA executives homes. After intensive interrogation, they were let go without charge (remember kids, never talk to cops).

Continue Reading »

Please help offset bail costs by donating! Money will be collected care of the Earth First! Journal.

COLUMBUS, Ohio - Several people were arrested late Monday morning (July 7 while protesting plans for a proposed coal-fired plant in southeast Ohio.

Police were forced to subdue protestors after they entered the headquarters of American Municipal Power, located on Airport Drive in east Columbus, 10TV News reported.

Dozens of members with the group, Earth First, were at the headquarters protesting plans to build a new power plant in Meigs County.

According to police, five demonstrators entered the building and chained themselves up. Officers used Mace when the demonstrators refused to leave, 10TV News reported.

Eight people were arrested during the demonstration, police said.

More info:
http://cbusimc.org/node/13900

Channel 10 News

The controversy over the I-5 expansion project known as the Columbia River Crossing took a theatrical turn on Wednesday, as politically charged street performance took center stage outside a packed city hall. Meeting attendees were greeted with a fake check point just past an area marked off by “Global Warming Crime Scene” tape.

Decked out in a Men-in-Black style uniform marked with the insignia of the “Oil Enforcement Agency”, an actress known as Agent Burns was busily preparing a ticket for a bemused member of the Portland Business Alliance on his way to the meeting. “This is your final warning sir, if you’re intent on testifying in favor of the bridge, we’re going to have to write you up for abuse of a foreign fossil fuel,” chided the agent.

[Hi-resolution images after the jump!]

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On the surface, broad-based solutions to global warming appear to be emerging in Congress. But with even a meager scrubbing of the surface, Senators Lieberman and Warner’s “Climate Security Act” (S. 2191) - which is scheduled to be debated on the Senate floor in June - turns out to be perhaps the greatest greenwash of our generation.

Everyone who cares about the climate and a just energy future would do well to take a good, hard look at the Lieberman-Warner (L-W) bill. It could frame the climate debate in the US for a generation. Continue Reading »

May 25, 2008 - Charlotte, NC Today, activists with Asheville Rising Tide broke ground on a new 800 Mw clean energy power plant in Duke Energy CEO Jim Rogers front yard. The power plant will tap into a previously unexplored energy source known as hot air which has been found in large concentrations at Roger’s residence, 330 Eastover Rd, Charlotte, NC. “The hot air emitting from Jim Rogers mouth has been around for quite some time, but the last couple of years has seen an exponential growth of this untapped energy source as Rogers parades around the country calling for greenhouse gas reductions while building the dirty Cliffside coal plant. This was simply an opportunity we couldn’t pass up,” said Jill Rockingham, chief engineer for the project.

Asheville Rising Tide believes that the construction of the power plant is a win-win situation for the economy and the environment. “We are taking a very dangerous and volatile gas and turning it into a source for clean, carbon free electricity. The great thing about tapping into Roger’s hot air is that it is a truly renewable resource. At this point there appears to be an endless supply,” said, Rockingham. “Why build another dirty, expensive coal plant, when there are millions of BTU’s of clean, cheap, energy seeping out of their CEO’s mouth every day,” said Jake Tillerman, Asheville Rising Tide’s investment relations manager.

The plant has come under fire from some environmental groups over concern of a little studied element known as BS, a byproduct of burning hot air. The hot air at the Roger’s residence has an unusually high concentration of BS and environmentalist are concerned over potential health effects to nearby residents. “We are currently looking into ways in which to capture and sequester the BS but the technology just isn’t available at this moment,” said Rockingham. “We assure the environmental community that this is the last plant we build that does not have the capability of sequestering Roger’s BS. Besides, we painted the plant green. That seems to be all that corporations like Duke have to do to call a project sustainable.”

During the Fall and Winter of 2007-08, RTNA worked extensively with Native Forest Network-Gulf of Maine (NFN) and other groups in Maine to stop Plum Creek Timber and Real Estate’s proposed massive development of the Moosehead Lake Region in northern Maine’s North Woods. Part of the Great North Woods of eastern North America-this particular region is the largest undeveloped wildland in the U.S. east of the Mississippi River; this region is home to such species such as the Canada lynx, black bear, wolves, moose, loon, and many other native species. This region has also for many generations supported a traditional local economy that included subsistence hunting & fishing, primitive recreation, and eco-tourism. Plum Creek plans to impose luxury vacation resorts, golf courses, gated communities, marinas, and more-along with significant introduction and expansion of roads and other invasive infrastructure.

Continue Reading »

[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…

Continue Reading »

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. Continue Reading »

[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.

Continue Reading »

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 »

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