One year ago President Obama was elected and my hopes for a clean energy future soared.  However, just two weeks ago, that hope began to be blown away in West Virginia when Massey Energy began dynamiting Coal River Mountain—the site of a proposed 328-megawatt wind farm—to prepare for a massive mountaintop removal coal mining operation.

 

But today, organizations from across the country are coming together to demand that President Obama’s Administration be a leader for both clean energy and communities and stop the blasting on Coal River Mountain. In fact, it’s the biggest online action to stop mountain top removal coal mining in history.

Can you take a moment right now to tell the Obama Administration to not blast away our clean energy future?

Here’s what’s at stake:

-The homes, healthy air, streams and ecosystems of the local residents of Coal River Mountain.

-A Coal River Mountain wind farm that would provide 85,000 households with electricity, 700 long-term green jobs, give back $1.7 million in annual county taxes and stand as a model for clean energy across the region.

-The health of the climate as when burning the coal pumps tons upon tons of carbon into the atmosphere of an already dangerously warming planet.

The EPA has the power to either protect the climate and the communities of Coal River Mountain, or it can allow the creation of a 6,000-acre dirty energy wasteland.

You can make a difference today by taking one minute right now to tell the Obama Administration to support clean energy and save Coal River Mountain.

With your help, we can make the clean energy revolution a reality. As my colleague from Rainforest Action Network, Scott Parkin, says

“Coal River Mountain must become our line in the sand. We can no longer allow fossil fuel interests to build more pipelines, belch out more pollution, and destroy more mountains that could become clean energy wind farms. If we can stop the blasting on Coal River Mountain we can stop talking about a clean energy future and start living in a clean energy present.”

 

Today Greenpeace is joining 350.org and a massive coalition of organizations and grassroots activists around the world to demand world leaders do what is necessary to stop global warming. I'll be updating this blog post throughout the October 24th International Day of Climate Action with news and photos from events around the country and around the world. You can also follow Greenpeace USA on Twitter.

Twitter Updates

Live Blog

October 24 9:19 PM EST It has been an amazing day of climate action with over 4,000 events all over the world. We have made it clear to world leaders that people everywhere demand a fair, ambitious and binding UN climate deal in Copenhagen this December. As I close shop for this one momentous day I urge folks to remember what dirty energy does to our world and our communities everyday. In the words of Greenpeace Executive Director, Phil Radford, who spoke today at Chicago's march on Fisk Coal-Fired Power station:

Dirty energy is giving asthma to kids in President Obama’s hometown and pushing our planet toward a global warming catastrophe.  It’s time for Obama to live up to his promises to return science to its rightful place and stop letting coal and oil industry lobbyists write our nation’s energy policy. The world can’t afford anything less.

 9:03 PM EST Photos from Boulder's Power Past Coal Bike Ride to Valmont Power Plant are in! You can find Greenpeace Flickr Photos like this one from Colorado here, here, and here.

6:10 EST West Coast events such as the San Francisco Bicylce Tide Line and a Manhattan Beach rally are ongoing. Photos from farther east are pooring in! Check out thes photos Chicago, Boston, St. Louis, and NYC:

Created with flickr slideshow.

This is one of my favorite photos from the Boston Under Water Festival where a coalition of organizations and activists called attention to threat of rising sea levels do to global warming:

And at a rally earlier in Tampa:

 

October 23 4:52 PM EST - October 24th, the International Day of Climate Action poses to be the largest, most coordinated day of action for the environment in history. And it has already begun in New Zealand!

As part of a large global alliance of organizations coming together on Oct. 24th, Greenpeace is  calling on the world's leaders to agree to a climate deal that is ambitious, fair and binding. Together, we are pushing for a strong climate treaty that will not only reverse the march of dangerous climate change but also help us tackle some of the world’s largest challenges like deforestation.

TAKE ACTION:  Demand a global climate deal that is ambitious, fair and binding.

Participating in the day of action? Leave a comment to this blog and tell us what you are doing!

It's finally here, a day when over 7,400 blogs with over 11,000,000 million readers will all be blogging about one thing on one day: climate. It couldn't come at a better moment, it is only 9 day before Greenpeace, 350.org and a host of coaltion partners and grassroots activists are calling for a Global Day of Action for the Climate!

What is today? It's Blog Action Day 2009, "an annual event that unites the world's bloggers in posting about the same issue on the same day on their own blogs with the aim of sparking discussion around an issue of global importance. Blog Action Day 2009 will be the largest-ever social change event on the web." This year, the organizers of blog action day chose climate as their issue and I couldn't explain why this is such an important move better myself:

Climate change affects us all and it threatens more than the environment. It threatens to cause famine, flooding, war, and millions of refugees.

Given the urgency of the issue of climate change and the upcoming international climate negotiations in Copenhagen this December, we think the blogosphere has the unique opportunity to mobilize millions of people around expressing support for finding a sustainable solution to the climate crisis.

 Blog Action Day is perfectly timed to mobilize folks all over the world to participate in the October 24th International Day of Climate Action, when thousands of people just like you will Gather in more than 150 countries worldwide with the same message to world leaders: stop playing politics and save the planet.

And while we write about climate almost everyday, if you're a blogger, here are two things you can do to pitch in on Blog Action Day:

1. Write about the one of more than 2,400 events around the world happening closest to you.

2. Call your readers to action by posting this video:

Then, from the internet and in the streets, we can take this planet back!

Did you get fooled on April Fool’s Day? Did you fool someone else? I did. In fact, I joined folks from all over the world to put one over on the fossil fuels industry. Every day the fossil fuels industry reaps huge profits from climate change-causing oil and coal. That’s why we made April 1st Fossil Fool’s Day.



In NYC, I joined about 20 other activists to stage a “Coal Going Out of Business Sale” at the headquarters of coal power plant developer and funder, Sithe Global. It was tons of fun pretending to put on a sale and spread the word that “All Coal Must Go!” Coal is responsible for a third of global warming C02 emissions in the U.S. And renewable energy produces more jobs per dollar invested. Doesn't take a fool to figure out that equation.



At the same time, Greenpeace activists in New Mexico were staging an event at a Navajo encampment close to where Sithe Global wants to build a new pollution-spewing coal plant. The Navajo activist group Dooda Desert Rock has been working for three years to stop construction of the plant.



But more than just having fun, we know we had a real impact on Sithe. Their CEO, Bruce J. Wrobe, came out and tried to defend himself. What happened next was pure comedy in the classic Fossil Fools Day tradition. Here's how Eva Erbskorn, Greenpeace field organizer, describes what went down:

Believe it or not, my new friend Bruce is an environmentalist and is also extremely concerned about poverty. Coal plants, like the one his company is going to build in New Mexico, are going to help the poor, he argues. Good thing Joe Smyth [Greenpeace field organizer in NM] was on call to get Elouise Brown, the President of Dooda Desert Rock, a woman who has dedicated her life to fighting Sithe's proposed Desert Rock Plant, on the phone to deliver a message straight from the people who live there. Seems they DON'T actually think the plant will help their life. Interesting.

I asked Bruce if he'd be willing to take a call from Elouise, he boasted and said heck golly, he'd even have lunch with her next time he was out there. I pulled a tabling move (you know, where you put the clipboard in their hands before they know what happened?) with my cellphone. He said, "Oh well I'm not going to call her RIGHT now." And I said, "No no, she's already on the line." So the CEO of Sithe disappears with my Blackberry for 30 minutes to get the same message we were sending, only now he was getting it straight from the source.

The event wrapped up just as the police were stopping by to tell us to disperse. Bruce rejoined our conversation claiming that CCS is obviously too expensive and impossible, and the Tennessee ash spill shouldn't be repeated — we agreed on that. Unfortunately he thinks coal can burn clean even without CCS and that global warming isn't real. Big surprise. The only time he looked embarrassed was when I shook his hand and said "Happy Fossil Fool's Day!" as he left.

While we were standing up to Sithe Global’s fossil foolery in New York and New Mexico, Greenpeace members and other activists across the world were raising awareness about breaking our addiction to fossil fuels. Check out some of their photos below.

In San Francisco, even cavemen know coal is bad:

And in Boston, activists staged a Clean Coal Circus. They even had a dunk tank were you could soak King Coal if you hit the target.





All in all, it was a fun day fooling around for the climate.

(photo credits for New York, San Fancisco and Boston go to Michael Nagle, Hanna Quevedo, and Daren Fiske respectively)

Hi Friends,

We can stop the climate crisis and rebuild our economy if we quit coal. But the Capitol Power Plant, sitting just blocks from Congress, symbolizes the stranglehold coal has over our government and future. Even though clean alternatives are readily available, Big Coal’s allies in Congress keep this polluting plant open.

That’s why on March 2nd dozens of groups across the country are organizing the largest mobilization against coal in history.  Thousands of people will turn out to take a stand against the Capitol Power Plant and for a clean energy future.

We need YOUR help on Facebook!  On Tuesday February 3rd we are calling for a Facebook Day of Action to help spread the word and send thousands of event invites.

TAKE ACTION NOW!

1) Invite ALL your friends to the Facebook event: http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#/event.php?eid=50666378622

Whether folks can make it to DC or not, we want to publicize this movement far and wide!

2) RSVP to show your support for the Capitol Coal Action.

3) Update your Facebook status: “On March 2nd, we all quit coal: http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#/event.php?eid=50666378622 ”

If you are interested in our thinking behind this, we are aiming to pioneer new tactics in online organizing and Facebook Days of Action provide a unique opportunity to create buzz on Facebook all at once.  Folks will see several of their friends signing up and will want to be in on the fun and pass the word along and thus amplify the number of invitees exponentially.  Also, after the designated push time comes to an end, the Facebook Event administrator can send a message all the new invitees before they have a chance  to RSVP “no” to the Event.  That way we have an extra chance to get folks excited about the action.

Together we can create a beautiful green future!

Peace and thanks,

Chris

Online Community Organizer

Greenpeace USA