by at Al Jazeera America February 13, 2014
Federal authorities have launched a criminal investigation into the massive coal ash spill into North Carolina’s Dan River, targeting both the energy company responsible for the ash pond that leaked and the state’s environmental regulator. Continue reading
by Ishan Raval / TechnicianOnline
The Edward Snowden affair has become the event of our moment in history. I do not remember living through a single political saga that was so much of a spectacle — in terms of diplomatic sparring and the comedy of errors from governments, publics and media in the “Where is he?” wild goose chase — that it could well have come out of a Hollywood movie. I’ve seen people from normally politically apathetic youth in India to ordinary people in Austria talking about Snowden, and I, too, have contributed to this hullabaloo.
Some have pointed out that with the focus on Snowden, his asylum-seeking from the shadows, the U.S.’s search and the waltz of the international community around all of this, nothing substantial will happen in regard to the actual information he brought us about the National Security Agency and the PRISM surveillance program. That is a valid concern.
“A gathering of wild hearts”The Round River Rendezvous is the annual gathering of the Earth First! Movement.
Each Summer, this week-long camp-out attracts several hundred Earth First!ers from around the world. The gathering is coordinated by a volunteer committee and includes workshops, campaign discussions, campfire music and a rally with performers and speakers. Perhaps the most important part of the Round River Rendezvous is the informal networking that goes on.
In addition, many international, national and bioregional rendezvous are held throughout the year. Announced in the Earth First! Journal, these gatherings are particularly important for developing a cohesive activist network and planning actions on a local level.
We are thrilled to announce that Croatan Earth First! will be hosting next summer’s rendezvous in North Carolina.
Resist the Tree Biotechnology 2013 Conference
May 26 – June 1 Asheville, NC
Join Earth First!, Global Justice Ecology Project and the STOP GE Trees Campaign for a week of resistance to genetically engineered trees. At the end of May the International Tree Biotechnology 2013 Conference is taking place in Asheville, NC. This conference is a gathering of many of the major players in the genetically engineered tree business and we intend to greet them with spirited protest.
Timber and utility corporations want to plant millions of acres of genetically engineered trees throughout the South to burn for electricity, as well as to continue supplying the unsustainable lumber and paper industries. These trees would be engineered to produce their own pesticides, grow straighter and faster, tolerate manufactured pesticides, produce sterile seeds, and reduce lignin content (this is what makes the wood in a tree strong enough to stand up). If these traits escaped into native tree populations, the effects would be devastating and irreversible. Continue reading
Posted from Green is the New Red
North Carolina is the latest state to consider a new law targeting whistleblowers, undercover investigators, and journalists who expose factory farms. The legislation was introduced on the same day that a fifth Butterball employee pled guilty to criminal cruelty to animals — charges that wouldn’t be possible without the undercover investigations that bills like this aim to criminalize.
The wave of legislation called “ag-gag” bills has been met with increasingly mainstream media exposure and outrage, such as the excellent front page story in the New York Times this week.
North Carolina’s SB 648, the “Commerce Protection Act,” is a good example of how corporations and industry groups are responding to the media backlash. Continue reading
A banner posted to the fence at the disputed CVS building that was squatted/occupied last year as a campaign of resisting corporate development; at the corner of Weaver St. and Greensboro St in Carrboro, NC on Sunday January 27th. This banner was posted the day after a local eco-prisoner letter writing night in celebration of Marie Mason’s birthday. reposted from croatanearthfirst
Everglades Earth First! and friends sing happy birthday to Marie at the Monkeywrench Cafe in Lake Worth, Jan 27, 2013
Adapted from her support page: “January 26, 2013, is Marie Mason’s 51st birthday, which she is celebrating locked in a special control unit in the federal prison in Carswell, Texas. Marie is three years into her almost twenty-two year sentence.
Following a December call-out, events for Marie’s birthday have been held in countries around the world. They include Wellington, New Zealand; Haifa, Israel; Nijmegen, Netherlands; Vancouver, Canada; and Oakland, Baltimore, Chapel Hill, Bloomington, Minneapolis, New York City, Lake Worth, Philadelphia, and Troy, New York in the United States. Supporters have sent birthday cards, held yoga classes, had afternoon tea, shown movies, and had cake to celebrate with her and let her know that she is neither alone nor forgotten.
Corporate polluters are taking aim this year at states with renewable energy laws, starting with an attack on North Carolina’s clean energy economy by a corporate front group known as ALEC with support from Duke Energy, ExxonMobil, and Koch Industries.
EF! DAM
Ecodefense