Activism

Andrea Vidaurre, Making Good Trouble in California

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Take five minutes to celebrate Andrea’s activism and its accomplishments:

2024 GOLDMAN PRIZE WINNER

Andrea Vidaurre

Andrea Vidaurre’s grassroots leadership persuaded the California Air Resources Board to adopt, in the spring of 2023, two historic transportation regulations that significantly limit trucking and rail emissions. The new regulations—the In-Use Locomotive Rule and the California Advanced Clean Fleets Rule—include the nation’s first emission rule for trains and a path to 100% zero emissions for freight truck sales by 2036. The groundbreaking regulations—a product of Andrea’s policy work and community organizing—will substantially improve air quality for millions of Californians while accelerating the country’s transition to zero-emission vehicles.

Marshes Matter, And This One More Than Many

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The outer edge of the Nartë lagoon in Vlorë, Albania. YURIY BRYKAYLO / ALAMY STOCK PHOTO

I have worked in some of Albania’s most important coastal and inland bird habitats, though not this one. My time working there is not my only reason for caring about this particular location. Read on–thanks as always to Fred Pearce–to understand why it matters so much. No offense intended to Jared Kushner, but this is not one of his better ideas. The destruction is not worth whatever it is he is hoping to accomplish:

Jared Kushner Has Big Plans for Delta of Europe’s Last Wild River

Albania’s Vjosë River is known as Europe’s last wild river, and its pristine delta is a haven for migratory birds. As plans for luxury developments there — spearheaded by Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner — move ahead, conservationists are sounding the alarm.

It is the jewel of the Adriatic. Its shimmering waters feed a rare colony of Dalmatian pelicans, the world’s largest freshwater birds, sustain the endangered Albanian water frog, and host loggerhead turtles on its encircling dunes. Continue reading →

Illegal Miners Face The Fire

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The G.E.F. burns mining camps as part of a long-running counteroffensive against environmental depredation. “Wherever they go, the miners destroy everything,” Felipe Finger, the unit’s leader, says. Photographs by Tommaso Protti for The New Yorker

Thanks to Jon Lee Anderson, as always, for his reporting from the danger zone that Brazil’s Amazon forest too often is:

The Brazilian Special-Forces Unit Fighting to Save the Amazon

As miners ravage Yanomami lands, combat-trained environmentalists work to root them out.

Roberto Cabral, a founder of the G.E.F., attends to a puppy discovered in a camp after miners fled.

In a clearing in the Brazilian Amazon, I stood with a group of armed men, discussing a viral TikTok video. The video, shot from a helicopter full of illegal miners, showed a vast stretch of rain forest, with dense foliage extending in all directions. The only sign of human habitation was below: a dirt circle surrounded by fanlike lean-tos made of wooden poles and palm fronds. It was a maloca, a traditional compound of the Yanomami, an Indigenous group that inhabits a remote territory in the rain forest of northern Brazil. Continue reading →

Responding To A Red Alert

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Another reason to subscribe to Bill McKibben’s newsletter:

How Not to Act in an Emergency

Forget AI–we need some human intelligence

We’re getting right to the nub now.

Yesterday the World Meteorological Organization officially certified 2023 as the hottest year in human history. Just to put on the record here what should have been the lead story in every journal and website on our home planet:

Andrea Celeste Saulo, secretary general of the WMO, said the organisation was now “sounding the red alert to the world”.

The report found temperatures near the surface of the earth were 1.45C higher last year than they were in the late 1800s, when people began to destroy nature at an industrial scale and burn large amounts of coal, oil and gas.

Last year’s spike was so scary that NASA’s Gavin Schmidt—Jim Hansen’s heir as keeper of NASA’s climate record—wrote in Nature this week that it raised the most profound possible implications. Please read his words slowly and carefully: Continue reading →

McKibben On Responsibility & Accountability

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Vermont’s capitol city, underwater in epic July flooding that wrecked most of Montpelier’s retail district

Holding the responsible accountable is part of Bill McKibben’s objective; he also provides sunshine. Subscribe to this newsletter if you can:

You flood it, you pay for it.

States are considering ‘climate superfund’ laws to hold Big Oil accountable

One prong of the climate fight involves installing so much renewable energy that fossil fuel use actually declines dramatically—a few places are finally showing that’s possible, like sunny Germany which last week said emissions in 2023 dropped more than ten percent. Continue reading →

Pause On Terminals for LNG Export

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Activists protest against fossil fuels and in particular fracking and liquefied natural gas, or LNG, on day eight of the UNFCCC COP28 Climate Conference at Expo City Dubai on December 8, 2023, in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. (Photo by Sean Gallup/Getty Images)

The news was hailed weeks ago as a big deal. Yale Climate Connections takes the proclomation a step further:

Why Biden’s pause on new LNG export terminals is a BFD

The administration’s move puts a spotlight on a potent climate-warming gas: methane, the main ingredient in natural gas.

Natural gas has long been touted as a “bridge fuel” to a clean energy future that gets all its power from renewable sources like wind, solar, and geothermal power. Continue reading →

Investing Patagonia’s Proceeds In Conservation

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Greg Curtis, the former deputy general counsel of Patagonia, is responsible for giving away huge sums of money to causes that are aligned with Patagonia’s history of environmental activism. Adam Amengual for The New York Times

When news broke about the company’s future, we were in awe; since then we heard little so this is a welcome update:

Patagonia’s Profits Are Funding Conservation — and Politics

$71 million of the clothing company’s earnings have been used since September 2022 to fund wildlife restoration, dam removal and Democratic groups.

A little more than $3 million to block a proposed mine in Alaska. Another $3 million to conserve land in Chile and Argentina. And $1 million to help elect Democrats around the country, including $200,000 to a super PAC this month.

The site of the Kalivac Dam on the Vjosa River in Albania, where Holdfast has funded a major conservation project. Andrew Burr/Patagonia

Patagonia, the outdoor apparel brand, is funneling its profits to an array of groups working on everything from dam removal to voter registration.

In total, a network of nonprofit organizations linked to the company has distributed more than $71 million since September 2022, according to publicly available tax filings and internal documents reviewed by The Times. Continue reading →

Scotland’s Farmed Salmon Deserves Attention

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Salmon farms certified as organic have to adhere to certain standards. Photograph: Murdo MacLeod/The Guardian

Scotland has been moving in the right direction in other ways, so this call for action in an area where they have not been leading with best practices is worthy of attention. Thanks to the Guardian’s Karen McVeigh for providing it:

‘Unacceptable greenwashing’: Scottish farmed salmon should not be labelled organic, say charities

Open letter calls for Soil Association certification to be removed from industry, amid concerns of negative environmental impact

The British body that certifies food in the UK as organic has been accused of misleading consumers over its labelling of Scottish farmed salmon.

Thirty charities, conservation and community organisations, including WildFish, the Pesticide Action Network and Blue Marine Foundation, say the negative environmental impacts of the industry in Scotland “run completely counter” to the principles of the Soil Association’s promotion of healthy, humane and sustainable food. Continue reading →

Activism & The Potential For Change

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Costco is being urged to cut ties with Citi, the bank that acts as its credit card issuer.

We knew about dirty banking, and now this story from Bill McKibben’s newsletter got us reading about change activism in Progressive Grocer:

Costco Becomes Target of Climate Action Petition

Wholesaler’s credit card issuer Citi is said to have a poor climate record

Costco Wholesale CEO Ron Vachris will receive a petition signed by 40,000 of its shoppers, shareholders and many climate activists on Jan. 17 urging the retailer to drop Citi as its credit card issuer due to the bank’s problematic climate record. Continue reading →

Rishi’s Wrong, Skidmore’s Right

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Chris Skidmore said he could ‘no longer condone nor continue to support a government that is committed to a course of action that I know is wrong’. Photograph: Chris McAndrew/UK Parliament/PA

We rarely applaud those on the right side of the political spectrum when it comes to environmental issues. Most have been on the wrong side of history with regard to climate change. When one stands up and challenges the status quo, applause applause:

Chris Skidmore resigns Conservative whip over Sunak’s oil and gas licence plan

Former minister also resigns as an MP, which will trigger byelection in his Kingswood constituency

A former Conservative minister has announced he is resigning as an MP in protest at the party’s dash for oil and gas, setting up an awkward vote for the prime minister on the issue on Monday and an even more difficult byelection within weeks. Continue reading →

Give Earth A Chance, & Other EcoPosters

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A poster from 1970 by Milton Glaser. via Poster House

If you happen to be in New York City and enjoy graphic design related to conservation you might enjoy this:

Told Ya So: The Prescient Posters of the Environmental Movement

Graphic artists have been helping call attention to climate change for decades, and a new exhibition charts the evolution of their pleas.

Last year was the warmest in recorded history. The graphic artists of the environmental movement tried to warn us. Their posters aimed to scare people straight with pictures of ecological ruin, or glorified nature, clean air and water, sunshine and verdure. Some offered earworm-y slogans and haunting visuals. Whatever their approach — bright, witty, somber, blunt, even sexy — they sought an image, a phrase, that could change enough minds to literally save the world. Continue reading →

Avocados & Michoacán

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An avocado farm in Yoricostio, Michoacán. All photographs from Mexico, August 2023, by Balazs Gardi for Harper’s Magazine © The artist

A decade ago we thought we should source from Harper’s more, but its blog no longer exists to read the whole story that prompted that idea. Still going strong after 173 years of publication, this recent article in the magazine helps us understand what is wrong with one of our favorite farm products:

Forbidden Fruit
by Alexander Sammon

The anti-avocado militias of Michoacán

Phone service was down—a fuse had blown in the cell tower during a recent storm—and even though my arrival had been cleared with the government of Cherán in advance, the armed guard manning the highway checkpoint, decked out in full fatigues, the wrong shade to pass for Mexican military, refused to wave me through. My guide, Uli Escamilla, assured him that we had an appointment, and that we could prove it if only we could call or text our envoy. The officer gripped his rifle with both hands and peered into the windows of our rental car. We tried to explain ourselves: we were journalists writing about the town’s war with the avocado, and had plans to meet with the local council. We finally managed to recall the first name of our point person on the council—Marcos—and after repeating it a number of times, we were let through. Continue reading →

New York Noise

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A particularly loud intersection on Manhattan’s Upper West Side. The neighborhood is home to at least one of the noise cameras the city is testing. Sara Naomi Lewkowicz for The New York Times

When we lived in India we used to post frequently on this topic, but it has been a while. Happy to see (thanks to Erin Nolan and the New York Times) that another onetime hometown of ours is taking up the issue:

New York City, not exactly known for its peace and quiet, is expanding its use of technology to fine the drivers of loud cars and motorcycles.

New York City is known for its noise. A cacophony of sounds bombards residents every time they step outside — screeching subway cars, jackhammers drilling away, late-night revelers leaving bars and clubs. Continue reading →

Rubber-Induced Destruction

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Satellite images of Cambodian forest in 2000 (left) and, after being cleared, in 2015 (right). Forests were replaced by a grid of rubber plantations, as well as croplands. Source: NASA

If you have never seen ecosystem destruction firsthand, count yourself lucky. I witnessed, during visits over several years, as 1,000 acres of primary forest ecosystem was destroyed to make way for a rubber plantation. It was horrifying. And I am further horrified to read how what I witnessed was only a small part of a much bigger rubber-induced destruction (thanks as always to Fred Pearce):

Rubber resin collected from a tree near Lubuk Beringin, Indonesia. TRI SAPUTRO / CIFOR

How Mounting Demand for Rubber Is Driving Tropical Forest Loss

The growing market for rubber is a major, but largely overlooked, cause of tropical deforestation, new analysis shows. Most of the rubber goes to produce tires, more than 2 billion a year, and experts warn the transition to electric vehicles could accelerate rubber use.

The elephants are gone. The trees are logged out. The Beng Per Wildlife Sanctuary in central Cambodia is largely destroyed, after being handed over by the government to a politically well-connected local plantation company to grow rubber. Continue reading →

Corrupt Cop

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Illustration by Isabel Seliger

Ever wondered what the Cop in Cop1-28 means? The answer is not nearly as interesting as how it came to be that a country whose lifeblood is oil is hosting Cop28. Petrostates have been biding their time, gaining momentum, and now have corrupted the Cop system from within. Weekend reading, Thanksgiving edition, from Elizabeth Kolbert, explains the stakes:

The Road to Dubai

The latest round of international climate negotiations is being held in a petrostate. What could go wrong?

Cop1 was held in 1995 in Berlin’s International Congress Center, a massive, metal-clad complex that looks like the set for a dystopian movie. Around nine hundred government delegates attended the weeklong negotiating session, along with about a thousand observers from non-governmental organizations. Daimler-Benz brought some electric cars to show off, while young activists brought a steamroller, to convey their opposition to cars. Delegates were invited to take a trip along the River Spree in a solar-powered boat. Continue reading →

Carlos Manuel Rodriguez, Leading The Conversation, Again

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We are grateful to the GEF for sharing this, and to Carlos Manuel Rodriguez for leading the conversation, as he has always done:

Creating space for young people to affect climate policy

In a recent conversation at his home, GEF CEO and Chairperson Carlos Manuel Rodríguez heard from members of the Youth and Climate Change Network of Costa Rica about how the climate emergency is impacting young people. Continue reading →