Around 7347 events in 188 countries rallied to change causes of climate change with 350.org yesterday during a day of Work Parties. Work parties organized for the sake of clean energy, community and mutual aid took place from Afghanistan to Aukland, New Zealand, to Iceland, Argentina and more. Work parties ranged from installing solar panels to fixing bikes for free to mobalizing against corporations. In San Francisco, Rainforest Action Network (RAN) took over Chevron stations, and delivered cleaning supplies to Chevron CEO John Watson’s home in Lafayette, CA (youtube). Check out some photos.
In other direct action news, Sierra Club Prairie, RAN and Greenpeace set up sixty 200 litre rain barrels outside of Alberta’s congress, showing how much oil Total will dump into Alberta’s ecosystem every 30 seconds if they are given permits to create another massive open pit mining project in Alberta along with a wet tailing permit. See more info at RAN’s Understory Blog.
In other news, the head of the company that caused the toxic sludge spill last week has been arrested in Hungary. According to the New York Times he is being charged with criminal negligence.
Speaking of the New York Times, they recently released a front page article claiming that scientists had solved the mystery behind the mass die-off of bees in the US. It turns out that the Times article didn’t mention Bayer’s toxic pesticides (especially neonicotinoids, a class of neurotoxins that kills insects). It totally accepted the report’s claims that viral fungus is to blame for killing bees, while totally glossing over the fact that the author of the report is none other than Dr. Jerry Bromenshenk, who has received huge financial grants from Bayer in recent years. More on this at Commondreams.org.
We have progressed slowly so far. We know what will happen if we do nothing, yet change seems slow. Governments and large corporations need to take action, and do it now.
Pingback: Iceland Clean Energy | Thai-Iceland