On Tuesday, Feb. 14, 2012, environmental and progressive groups flooded the Senate with more than 800,000 messages opposing the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline. The surge in online activism came as Senate Republicans tried to saddle the transportation bill with an amendment that would reverse President Obama’s decision to block the controversial project.
The petition drive was organized by a group of over 30 organizations and businesses with the goal of sending the Senate half a million messages in under 24 hours. The online drive quickly went viral, powered in part by blogs and online advertising, tweets from celebrities (including the founder of Twitter, Evan Williams), and a shout-out from Stephen Colbert, who interviewed 350.org founder Bill McKibben on Monday night.
Across the country on Saturday, Feb. 4, thousands of people took to the streets to oppose a new war on Iran.
Demonstrators converged before the White House at 12 noon in Washington, D.C., to denounce the campaign of sanctions, assassinations and war threats being waged against Iran by the United States and its allies.
More than 60% of ships involved in reported cases of sanctions-busting or illicit transfers of arms, drugs, other military equipment and sensitive dual-use goods that could be used in the development of missiles and weapons of mass destruction (WMD) are owned by companies based in the EU, NATO or other OECD states, according to the first comprehensive study on maritime trafficking released today by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI).
Praising the boom in domestic oil and gas drilling, Obama announced that he is “directing my Administration to open more than 75 percent of our potential offshore oil and gas resources.” He called for “every possible action” to develop “a supply of natural gas that can last America nearly one hundred years.”
The “one hundred years” supply of gas is questionable. More importantly, burning that supply would emit about 100 billion tons of carbon dioxide.
According to NOAA scientists, 2011 was a record-breaking year for climate extremes, as much of the United States faced historic levels of heat, precipitation, flooding and severe weather, while La Niña events at both ends of the year impacted weather patterns at home and around the world.
On Jan. 11, 2002, the United States brought the first 20 prisoners to the Guantanamo Bay detention facility, marking the beginning of a program of indefinite detention without charge or trial of terrorism suspects that has lasted 10 years. Since then, a total of 779 prisoners have been held at the facility. Provisions in the NDAA for 2012 codify the practice of indefinite detention without trial into US law.
Yemen’s revolutionaries are not deterred nor did they give up on their demands despite the signing of the strongly rejected Gulf Cooperation Council’s initiative proposed in April and finally signed by Saleh on November 23rd, providing a so called mechanism for him to “relinquish” power. They went out on a 264km march on foot from [...]
EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson has unveiled new Mercury and Air Toxics Standards, which will place our country’s first-ever national limits on mercury and other toxic air pollution from coal- and oil-fired power plants. Today’s Mercury and Air Toxics Standards, 21 years in the making, are a new giant step forward.
Kim Jong-il, the “dear leader” still venerated by many in North Korea but reviled abroad, has died aged 69, state media announced on Monday morning. The official KCNA news agency described his young son and heir apparent as “the great successor,” urging the nation, people and military to rally behind and “faithfully revere” Kim Jong-un. The Guardian and other sources report.
The world is on track for a comprehensive global treaty on climate change for the first time after agreement was reached at talks in Durban, South Africa in the early hours of Sunday morning.
