People coming to the aid of the Wet’suwet’en nation to stop a pipeline are using direct action that is prompting terror charges
The night of 28 November, Samantha Brooks, 24, hunched over the railway tracks near Bellingham, Washington, about 32km (20 miles) south of the Canada-US border and installed a “shunt,” according to trial documents obtained by the Guardian.
Related: Dakota access pipeline: court strikes down permits in victory for Standing Rock Sioux
Continue reading...Conviction of businessman who conspired in murder of indigenous rights activist Berta Cáceres raises hopes of end to impunity
When Bertha Zuñiga heard that a former Honduran army intelligence officer and businessman had been found guilty of collaborating in the murder of her mother, Berta Cáceres, she breathed a big sigh of relief. Five years after the environmental campaigner was assassinated by hired hitmen, this was the verdict her family and friends had been waiting for.
“I know there is still a long road, maybe very long and very hard, but to have achieved a guilty verdict against the [former] president of a corporation, [who is] connected to the armed forces: it is unprecedented in our country,” says Zuñiga, 30.
Continue reading...A roundup of the coverage on struggles for human rights and freedoms, from Chile to Cambodia
Continue reading...Alberto Curamil, an award-winning environmental activist, was seriously injured during a protest against the burning of a Mapuche home
Former recipients of a prestigious environmental award, together with Amnesty International and the lawyer of indigenous land rights defender Alberto Curamil, have launched an appeal for Curamil’s safety after he was seriously injured in a shooting by police.
Curamil, an indigenous Mapuche leader who in 2019 won the Goldman Environmental Prize (GEP), also known as the “green Nobel”, was left with 18 riot shotgun pellets embedded in his body after police chased his truck and opened fire after a protest against an arson attack on a Mapuche home on contested land in southern Chile.
Continue reading...Bavarian minister says activist could have ‘paid with life’ for stunt before Germany v France game in Munich
A Greenpeace protester who parachuted into the stadium before Germany’s Euro 2020 match against France in Munich was lucky not to have been shot down by anti-terror marksmen enforcing a no-fly zone, a state minister has said.
Two people were injured when the activist lost control of his powered paraglider, which had a motor attached to his back, and hit overhead camera wires attached to the stadium roof. Fans ducked as he careered towards the spectator area, narrowly missing the stands and demolishing technical equipment before crashing in front of the German penalty area.
Continue reading...A roundup of the coverage on struggles for human rights and freedoms, from Colombia to China
Continue reading...Court and investor defeats over carbon emissions a historic turning point, say campaigners and lawyers
A “cataclysmic day” for three major oil companies in which investors rebelled over climate fears and a court ordered fossil fuel emissions to be slashed has sparked hope among campaigners, investors, lawyers and academics who said the historic decisions marked a turning point in efforts to tackle the climate crisis.
A Dutch court on Wednesday ordered Shell to cut carbon emissions from its oil and gas by 45% by 2030. A tiny activist investor group simultaneously won two places on ExxonMobil’s board and Chevron’s management was defeated when investors voted in favour of forcing the group to cut its carbon emissions.
Continue reading...Investigators examining letter from group claiming to be behind fire at Grünheide ‘Gigafactory’ site
German police are investigating whether a fire that broke out overnight at the construction site of Tesla’s first European Gigafactory had a political motive, after far-left activists claimed responsibility.
The fire at the site in Grünheide in the eastern state of Brandenburg early on Wednesday morning damaged several power cables, said a spokesperson for the LKA state criminal investigation office.
Continue reading...More than 400 climate scientists sign letter that says activists are being targeted at pivotal time in fight against global heating
Peaceful environmental protesters are being threatened, silenced and criminalised in countries around the world including the UK and the US, according to some of the world’s leading climate scientists and academics.
More than 400 leading experts – including 14 authors from the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) – say that non-violent civil disobedience from groups like the school strikers, Extinction Rebellion and the Sunrise Movement have transformed the debate around the climate crisis in recent years.
Continue reading...Chí’chil Biłdagoteel - otherwise known as Oak Flat, Arizona – is regarded as sacred ancestral land by the Apache people. With the territory at risk of being sold for copper mining to a subsidiary of Rio Tinto, resident Wendsler Nosie has set up a protest movement from his tipi, alongside his daughter and granddaughter. With no support from the courts, Wendsler and the community are anxiously hoping the Biden administration will pause the land transfer. With religious freedom and environmental protection at risk, they await the call with further news
The author of the bestselling Southern Reach trilogy talks about taking notes on leaves, the adaptation of Annihilation and his new ecological thriller
In Jeff VanderMeer’s new novel, Hummingbird Salamander, the unnamed protagonist is presented in the opening pages with the key to a safety deposit box. Inside, she finds a taxidermied hummingbird and a note with just three words (and six dots) on it:
Hummingbird
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Continue reading...Economies are gearing up for return to fossil fuel use instead of forging green recovery, warns Fatih Birol
New energy policies are urgently needed to put countries on the path to net zero greenhouse gas emissions, the world’s leading energy economist has warned, as economies are rapidly gearing up for a return to fossil fuel use instead of forging a green recovery from the Covid-19 pandemic.
Most of the world’s biggest economies now have long-term goals of reaching net zero by mid-century, but few have the policies required to meet those goals, said Fatih Birol, the executive director of the International Energy Agency (IEA).
Continue reading...With France under nationwide curfew from 6pm to 6am, the usually crowded Champs-Élysées in the centre of Paris is all but empty these days. But that has not stopped businesses along the avenue continuing to keep their signs and advertisements turned on. Now a group of parkour climate activists have begun climbing buildings to turn off the signs as part of the Lights Off movement, which seeks to take a stand against light pollution. Since going viral on TikTok, similar actions have started taking place in other French cities
Continue reading...Swedish environmental groups warn test flight could be first step towards the adoption of a potentially “dangerous, unpredictable, and unmanageable” technology
A proposed scientific balloon flight in northern Sweden has attracted opposition from environmental groups over fears it could lead to the use of solar geoengineering to cool the Earth and combat the climate crisis by mimicking the effect of a large volcanic eruption.
In June, a team of Harvard scientists is planning to launch a high-altitude balloon from Kiruna in Lapland to test whether it can carry equipment for a future small-scale experiment on radiation-reflecting particles in the Earth’s atmosphere.
Continue reading...State found guilty of ‘non-respect of its engagements’ aimed at fighting global warming
A Paris court has convicted the French state of failing to address the climate crisis and not keeping its promises to tackle greenhouse gas emissions.
In what has been hailed as a historic ruling, the court found the state guilty of “non-respect of its engagements” aimed at combating global warming.
Continue reading...HS2 protesters describe how they built tunnel, as officials warn of danger from gas and water pipes
Environmental activists have held out for their second night in the Euston tunnel, but eviction officers have said the tunnel is close to gas and water pipes and that the activists are putting their own lives at risk.
The tunnellers described how they constructed what is thought to be one of the largest tunnel networks to be occupied by protesters in one of the busiest parts of London without being detected.
Continue reading...With unique access to remote communities in the snow-capped landscape of Norway, this film follows characters on either side of a fierce debate on whether to cull the wolf population. For decades the topic has split political parties, families and communities across the country, with environmentalists world-wide criticising Norway for how it handles its tiny population of critically endangered wolves. Here, a group of hunters await news from the government on whether their yearly hunt will be permitted, while the environmentalists anticipate the worst. With angry threats on both sides, the film takes a deep dive into what’s at stake for both groups, as well as the wider world
Continue reading...Greenpeace report warns against granting licences to ‘deeply destructive’ industry with opaque oversight, and calls for global ocean treaty
Private mining firms and arms companies are exerting a hidden and unhealthy influence on the fate of the deep-sea bed, according to a new report highlighting the threats facing the world’s biggest intact ecosystem.
An investigation by Greenpeace found a handful of corporations in Europe and North America are increasingly dominating exploration contracts, and have at times taken the place of government representatives at meetings of the oversight body, the UN’s International Seabed Authority (ISA).
Continue reading...The New York congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez was among members of the 'Squad', a group of progressive Democrats, who spoke at a Sunrise Movement rally in Washington to push Joe Biden on tackling the climate emergency.
AOC said they would urge Biden to 'keep his promises' to working families, women, minorities and climate activists as he fills his cabinet.
In July, Biden outlined an ambitious climate plan that would spend $2tn over four years investing in clean-energy infrastructure while vowing to cut carbon emissions from electrical power to zero in 15 years
Leaded petrol, acid rain, CFCs … the last 50 years of environmental action have shown how civil society can force governments and business to change
Leaflets printed on “rather grotty” blue paper. That is how Janet Alty will always remember one of the most successful environment campaigns of modern times: the movement to ban lead in petrol.
There were the leaflets she wrote to warn parents at school gates of the dangers, leaflets to persuade voters and politicians, leaflets to drown out the industry voices saying – falsely – there was nothing to worry about.
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