Our "Break the Addiction" video is up for a Webby Award, and today is the last day to vote!

If you want to vote for our video, go to http://pv.webbyawards.com/ and follow these steps:

1. Click on the "Register now to vote!" button on the right and register to vote (It’s free and easy, but you need to use a working email address in order to confirm your registration)
2. Click on “Online Film & Video + Vote Now"
3. Scroll down and click on “Public Service and Activism”
4. Vote for “Breaking The Addiction” (yeah they got the name wrong...)

It's just that easy! For bonus points, you can also use the handy button to share your vote on Facebook.


Winners will be announced May 5th. Props to Brian Thompson, who put this video together for us.

Thanks for your support, and hope you enjoy the video!

We’ve been saying all along that nukes are not the answer to global warming: they’re too expensive, too risky, and new reactors take far too long to bring online. We need a clean energy economy now, not 10 years from now. Our Energy [R]evolution report shows how we can meet our growing energy needs and help rebuild our economy entirely without building new nuclear energy plants (or new coal-fired plants either, for that matter).

According to a Wall Street Journal blog post, it turns out the new chairman of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) agrees with us:

FERC Chairman: We Don’t Need No Stinkin’ Nukes

Forget everything you’ve heard from people like energy secretary Steven Chu and Exxon boss Rex Tillerson about the need for a mix of energy sources this century. The U.S. doesn’t need any new nuclear or coal-fired plants. It can do the job with just renewable energy and natural gas.

Yes, that is Greenpeace’s energy blueprint. It’s also the line of Jon Wellinghoff, the new chairman of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, the nominal head of the U.S. power system.

Speaking at a conference yesterday, Mr. Wellinghoff said the U.S. can make do without new nuclear or coal plants, Green Wire reports: “We may not need any, ever,” he said.

And yesterday the WSJ had another blog post up pointing out the similarities between our stance on coal and nukes and Mr. Wellinghoff’s. Yesterday, you might recall, was also our new boss’s first day on the job. Phil Radford spent the first half of his first day on a 140-foot construction crane helping to hang a banner across the street from the Major Economies Forum at the State Department, and the second half in jail for his part in this daring non-violent action. The WSJ blogger, Russel Gold, after first pointing out that both Radford and Wellinghoff oppose nuclear and coal, proceeds to ask, Who is the real radical: “The guy inside the political power corridors – or the one dangling from a crane above them?”

Now, given that he’s writing for the Wall Street Journal, I have a feeling Russel Gold is probably trying to undermine the credibility of Jon Wellinghoff, not demonstrate how our position on global warming solutions – which were once very much on the fringe, especially when we started working on the issue in the 90s – have become mainstream.

Of course the answer to Gold’s question is: neither! They’re both realists. There’s nothing radical about opposing nuclear power: at $12 to $18 billion per plant, even MidAmerican Holdings, a subsidiary of Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc. (Buffett, if you’re not familiar, is one of the world’s most successful investors, known as the “Oracle of Omaha” for his investing acumen), withdrew plans to build a new nuclear power plant because it was not economically viable (citation available in this PDF).

And Congressman Ed Markey has even said that, “by the time we reach the switch being pulled for the first nuclear power plant to be generating their first 1,000 megawatts we will probably have 150,000 megawatts of renewables 10 years from now.” Here’s hoping we do have that much renewable energy capacity by then, because if not, we will have failed to avert the worst effects of global warming.

Every one of those $12 to $18 billion we spend on a new nuclear plant is a dollar we don’t spend developing renewable energy generating capacity, or the smart grid needed to get that energy to the marketplace. These technologies are ready to start producing energy now, not 10 years from now. What’s so radical about wanting to implement a solution that will actually solve the worst environmental crisis of our time, rather than throwing money away on false solutions?

"Global warming is an issue that concerns all of us... If our leaders can find the time and the money to bail out the banks, then they can certainly bail out our planet. It's simply too big to fail."

There was a rather interesting (if you want to call it that) story in the New York Times today about how the Global Climate Coalition, "a group representing industries with profits tied to fossil fuels," ignored its own scientists' findings that human activity is causing global warming. These findings date back to the early 90s at least. Of course this is not surprising: The auto, oil, and coal industries, to name a few, are still by and large trying to obstruct legislation that will regulate their ability to pollute our atmosphere, even well after all legitimate debate on the issue is over.

These corporate polluters don't need to "win" the debate, of course, just sow doubt and confusion, in order to delay action on global warming. And they've done that quite well, often aided and abetted by journalists who are compelled to present both "sides" of an argument, no matter how illogical one side might seem, and are surprisingly easily duped by the hacks on the payrolls of groups like the Global Climate Coalition.

Greenpeace's own Glenn Hurowitz wrote a blog for the Huffington Post about how journalists are still being duped on a daily basis by these same industries:

The amazing thing about this story is not that industry deceived journalists about the threat of climate change, but that journalists are still buying industry deceptions to this day - just different ones.

Having finally lost the battle about the reality of climate change, these same industries and their backers in Congress have come up with a different deception: that bold action on climate change would somehow negatively affect the economy.

In fact, there's overwhelming evidence showing that climate change is causing hundreds of billions of dollars in drag on the U.S. and world economies as a result of drought, flood, sea level rise (Hurricane Katrina alone caused more than $100 billion in damage), and greater spending on hot-weather accoutrements like air conditioning. NRDC estimates the damage from just four impacts at $2000 per family every single year. And that number doesn't even consider, for example, the $167 billion annual health care costs attributable to regular old cancer-and-asthma inducing coal fired power plants.

Nevertheless, many journalists, including even many at The New York Times (here and here (h/t Joseph Romm) for instance) repeat as received truth the industry's latest myth that continuing to spew pollution is somehow good for the economy.

I'm sure the oil and coal industries have a memo somewhere that will come out in 15 years showing that, in fact, their economists knew the environmentalists were right all along: a clean energy economy will in fact boost GDP, create millions of new clean energy jobs, and save consumers money on their electricity bills.

But until that memo comes out, they're going to continue peddling totally concocted junk economics about dirty energy to reporters - and impede the creation of the clean energy economy.

It's time for journalists to learn from experience that no matter what your instincts or how slick and knowing the industry flacks seem, they cannot be trusted. They can't be trusted when they say tobacco is safe, they can't be trusted when they deny the need for seat belts, they can't be trusted when they deny the dangers of climate change, and they most certainly can't be trusted when it comes to the new green economy.

Just thought I'd share this video put together by our awesome video crew. It's from the Windy City action we did on Earth Day — when we erected six wind turbines in downtown Chicago to show what the clean energy future will look like.


If you're on YouTube, we'd appreciate it if you could favorite the video, as always!

As I’m sure you know, tomorrow is Earth Day. But this year, we’re getting started a day early. (Besides, it’s already Earth Day in places like Japan, Fiji, and New Zealand.)

With the Copenhagen Climate Conference coming up in December, every day needs to be Earth Day this year. We're mobilizing people to join our fight to force the world’s governments to act against runaway global warming, and we made this video, “Inspring Action,” to help recruit.

If you want to help, send the video link to 5 friends, favorite it on YouTube, and become a climate activist by signing up with Greenpeace.

Over 300 activists assembled today to participate in an act of civil disobedience in Charlotte, North Carolina to protest the massive new coal-burning power plant Duke Energy is building at Cliffside. It was the latest and biggest in a string of actions that have been carried out since the Capitol Climate Action in March, which unleashed a wave of grassroots activity aimed at stopping new coal plants from being built and ushering in a new era of clean energy in America.

After the estimated 300-400 activists rallied in front of Duke's Charlotte headquarters, 44 were eventually arrested, including Jim Warren of NC Warn; Bo Webb and Mike Roselle from Coal River Mountain in Appalachia; Larry Gibson and Mike McCoy-from Kentuckians for the Commonwealth; and several Rutherford County residents who live near the site where construction of the Cliffside plant is already underway. They are likely to be charged with second-degree trespass.

Duke Energy made an especially good target because the company’s CEO, Jim Rogers, likes to tout his company’s commitment to addressing global warming even while the company is building a coal-fired plant that will keep North Carolina hooked on coal, the dirtiest fossil fuel around, for the next 50 years.

But climate change-causing greenhouse gas emissions aren’t even the only reason why we need to transition off of dirty fossil fuels like coal and onto clean energy sources like wind and solar. The coal mining practice known as mountaintop removal, for instance, is incredibly destructive, capable of completely destroying whole eco-systems; mining in general is dangerous for miners and their families; and the burning of coal has several serious impacts on public health.

And of course let’s not forget the little problem of storing all the highly-toxic coal ash that is left over.

There’s also the fact that investing in renewables instead of coal would create more jobs and help revitalize our ailing economy. Read more about today’s action and the environmental, health, and economic costs of coal here.

The demonstration in Charlotte, NC was organized by a coalition of over a dozen environmental, faith-based, and social justice groups, all of whom are calling on Duke Energy and the state of North Carolina to cancel construction of the Cliffside coal power plant. The plant is predicted to cost $2.4 billion and emit an estimated six million tons of carbon dioxide every year for the next 50 years. Similar protests have happened at coal plants in West Virginia, Virginia, North Carolina, Kentucky, and other states. Several more are planned for this summer. You can view more pictures here.

The Capitol Climate Action was the catalyst for this new wave of climate activism. We can’t sit around and wait for solutions, we have to go out and make them a reality. And we simply can’t stand for decisionmakers like Jim Rogers delaying action while greenwashing their own activities.

Greenpeace’s field organizer in North Carolina, John Deans, put it best: “It’s absolutely hypocritical for Rogers to talk about sustainability and responsibility when Cliffside locks in dangerous climate pollution for another 50 years. If they really want to protect the planet and create jobs, they’d invest in wind and solar power instead of more polluting energy.”

Activists in Charlotte, NC have just reached Duke Energy HQ! They're there to protest the company's Cliffside coal-fired power plant, which is currently under construction and will only prolong North Carolina's reliance on the dirtiest fossil fuel around, coal.

Follow updates in real time on Twitter!

And if you couldn't be in Charlotte today but want to make your voice heard, you can call Duke Energy and tell them to "Stop Cliffside!" yourself:

Duke Energy
1-800-488-3853

This is an open thread, so let us know in the comments if you made a call and what response you got, or just tell us what you're seeing out there in the field.

Update: Greenpeace and  Kimberly-Clark have announced the successful resolution of the Kleercut campaign as the maker of Kleenex has established a new sustainability policy focused on protecting Endangered Forests. Go to www.greenpeace.org/kleercut to find out more!

A couple weeks ago, we released a video called “What's inside your box of Kleenex?” Kimberly-Clark doesn't have a policy for using recycled content in their consumer paper products, which include Kleenex as well as Scott, Cottonelle, and Viva. Even worse than not using recycled content, the company sources some of its wood pulp from virgin forest, including some of the last remaining ancient Boreal forests in North America. That’s the dirty secret about what’s inside every box of Kleenex: ancient forests.

Kimberly-Clark has launched a big marketing campaign to try and tell consumers that it "Feels good to feel" their tissues. But with virgin forest in every box, Kleenex comes with more than a feeling. So we made a video to get the word out:


If you’re a YouTube user, please favorite the video! And if you want to let Kimberly-Clark know that you won’t be using their products until they start using recycled content, please take action now!

Time is running out. There are now only 22 days and 21 hours left for Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar to rescind the Bush regulations that eviscerate the Endangered Species Act protections for polar bears by allowing federal agencies to disregard global warming impacts when planning or approving projects (read more here).



Meanwhile, Arctic sea ice – critical habitat for polar bears, who rely on the ice for hunting and breeding grounds – continues to melt at alarming rates thanks to global warming.

Salazar has been traveling the country holding hearings on whether Americans think it makes sense to drill the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS), and it just so happened that he had a stop in San Francisco this morning. So we trooped on out there, brought a couple polar bears with us, and stood outside of the venue demanding Salazar take action to save our furry friends.

But don’t think we ignored the issue of drilling the OCS. Oh no, friends. We were joined by folks from the Center for Biological Diversity, the Surfrider Foundation, and many other local activists later in the day at a big rally to let Salazar know that drilling the OCS is a fool’s quest. Not only would it threaten our coastlines with oil spills and all kinds of industrial disturbance that is harmful to wildlife like polar bears and coastal ecosystems at large, but opening more land to drilling would only serve to prolong our addiction to fossil fuels.

With a stroke of his pen, Salazar can simultaneously rescind the dangerous Bush regulations limiting the scope of the Endangered Species Act and prod America to step up our efforts to stop global warming. Join us in urging Salazar to do the right thing: Sign the petition now!

Images © Greenpeace / Diana Silbergeld

On March 2nd, over 3,000 people took to the streets of Washington, DC for the Capitol Climate Action. We surrounded the coal-fired Capitol Power Plant, which supplies Congress with dirty energy, shutting it down for four hours. Our message was simple: We need to end the stranglehold dirty energy has on Congress and start building the clean energy economy of the future.

The protest was a huge success – Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid sent a letter to the Architect of the Capitol (cool title, huh?) ordering him to switch the Capitol Power Plant off of coal by the end of the year. It was a major victory, but it was only the beginning.

The thousands who marched in the streets of DC that day have gone home and started grassroots campaigns to kick coal out of their communities, as well.

On April 20th, a coalition of activists will be protesting Duke Energy’s proposed Cliffside Coal Plant in Charlotte, North Carolina. You can check out the coalition, get the scoop on Cliffside, and RSVP for the event at StopCliffside.org.

Greenpeace will be there on the ground with the Stop Cliffside coalition. Just try and watch this video and not want to join us:

Here at Greenpeace we work a lot more to influence global warming policy than we do to promote individual lifestyle choices. But this recent HuffPo article, “The Breathtaking Effects of Cutting Back On Meat,” is an excellent reminder that our personal choices really do have an impact on the planet:

If everyone went vegetarian just for one day, the U.S. would save:

• 100 billion gallons of water, enough to supply all the homes in New England for almost 4 months;
• 1.5 billion pounds of crops otherwise fed to livestock, enough to feed the state of New Mexico for more than a year;
• 70 million gallons of gas--enough to fuel all the cars of Canada and Mexico combined with plenty to spare;
• 3 million acres of land, an area more than twice the size of Delaware;
• 33 tons of antibiotics.

If everyone went vegetarian just for one day, the U.S. would prevent:

• Greenhouse gas emissions equivalent to 1.2 million tons of CO2, as much as produced by all of France;
• 3 million tons of soil erosion and $70 million in resulting economic damages;
• 4.5 million tons of animal excrement;
• Almost 7 tons of ammonia emissions, a major air pollutant.

Of course lifestyle choices alone can’t deal with the scope of the global climate crisis. It’s incredibly important that we stay active and keep telling our elected representatives in no uncertain terms that we expect them to deal with global warming and kickstart an energy revolution. But being the change we want to see is also a very powerful way to make a difference.

If you want to know more about how industrial agriculture is contributing to global warming, check out this report: “Cool Farming: Climate impacts of agriculture and mitigation potential” (you can download the full PDF, or the summary). Deforestation to clear land for cattle grazing is also a huge contributer to greenhouse gas emissions; read more about that in our report, “Amazon Cattle Footprint.”

We also have a page in our Green Living Guide that deals with food choices. The page is called “On your plate.” It’s full of good tips, like this one: “According to author John Robbins in his book The Food Revolution, you could save more water by not eating a pound of California beef than you could by not showering for an entire year.”

So no need to forego showers! (Seriously, please don’t.) Whether you go vegetarian for life, for a day, or just eat less meat in general, you can make a huge reduction in your personal carbon footprint.

Our colleagues over at GreenpeaceSEASIA (Southeast Asia) have put out a comic book entitled Nuclear Meltdown: A Message from the Darkness: "an advocacy comic book about the perils of nuclear power and how the youth can make a difference in making the world a better place."

I just think this is really cool, especially because the point is to show youth activists that they can make a difference. Here's a little more info:

The comic book was developed by Indonesian artists with storyline by Greenpeace Southeast Asia Nuclear Campaigner Tessa de Ryck. In the story, two teenagers, Cosmo and Luna, go back in time to the year 2009 in a race to save the planet from the devastating effects of climate change and nuclear power.

Read more and download your copy on the GreenpeaceSEASIA website!

Okay, so you won't really become a star. But you can become an extra in the remake of a classic George Romero horror film from 1973, The Crazies, which is currently in production. And you're guaranteed to be seen in the theatrical or DVD release of the film!

In the movie, the residents of a small Iowa town start going crazy after they're infected by an unknown substance that leaks into their water supply. No, the substance is not coal ash, pesticide runoff from factory farms, or mercury pollution from power plants, as horrifying as those substances are. It's something far more "mysterious," I'm willing to bet.

So how do you support Greenpeace and get in the movie at the same time? Just go to this eBay auction and place a bid. The winner of the auction gets a featured walk-on role in the movie as an infected person, PLUS the comfort of knowing that the proceeds from the auction will benefit Greenpeace. We will in turn use the money to fund our work aimed at preventing people from getting infected by dangerous toxic substances, mysterious or otherwise.

The climate talks in Bonn, Germany have come to an end, and by all reports we sure could have used some of that leadership on global warming policy that Obama keeps promising us. According to my Greenpeace colleagues who were there, the presence of the Obama Administration and the reengagement of the United States was generally a good thing that created a much more positive atmosphere, but virtually no progress was made on key issues and critical decisions that need to be made.

Greenpeace USA deputy campaigns director Carroll Muffett had this to say:

The diplomats and negotiators in Bonn have been treading water for two weeks, while back in the real world ice caps have continued to melt at alarming rates and flash floods have devastated parts of Australia. As it stands, this exact same meeting will be repeated in June. Heads of State must now inject leadership and direction into the talks in order to avert catastrophic climate change.

Read our full response: "As Bonn Negotiations Conclude, U.S. Climate Leadership Still Missing".

You might recall Tim DeChristopher as the environmental activist and University of Utah economics student who staged an inspired one-man act of civil disobedience last December. When the Bush Admin was auctioning off some of Utah’s most pristine wildlands to oil and gas companies on December 19th, 2008, DeChristopher threw a giant monkeywrench in the process by bidding on several of the parcels even though he had no intention of actually buying them. In the end, DeChristopher won 22,500 acres of land near two national parks, Arches and Canyonlands, and drove the prices for several other parcels up by thousands of dollars. (This HuffPo piece has more.)

DeChristopher did this with full knowledge of the potential consequences. It was a truly courageous act. He put himself on the line and was willing to take whatever punishment came down, all for the greater cause of protecting our planet and attempting to stop pillagers like oil and gas companies, as well as their allies in the Bush Admin, from prolonging our dependence on dirty fossil fuels.

Late last week we got news that DeChristopher has been indicted by a federal grandy jury on two felony counts of “auction-rigging,” as well as being slapped with hefty fines by the U.S. Attorney’s office and by the Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Land Management (BLM), which ran the auction. Bidder 70 is now facing up to 10 years in prison and over $800,000 in fines for standing up for the Earth at the BLM auction.

But the damage that would be done to Utah’s wildlands and wildlife by oil and gas exploration, compounded by the damage that would be done to the Earth by prolonging our addiction to dirty fossil fuels, far outweighs the damage DeChristopher is alleged to have done by interfering with this reckless auction. For that reason and that reason alone, these charges and fines should be dismissed, if there is any justice in the world.

And then of course there’s the fact that Obama’s Secretary of the Interior, Ken Salazar, ordered a review of 77 of the parcels auctioned off in December, including all of the parcels “won” by DeChristopher, making those parcels ineligible for lease. If even the Obama Administration thinks these auctions were not proper, what harm can DeChristopher be said to have done whatsoever? He simply used the only means available to him to stand up for what’s right.

You can read more and follow new developments in this story on DeChristopher’s website. And check out this interview he did with Democracy Now!

President Obama is in Prague today for the EU-US Summit. As Obama was addressing a crowd of thousands, six Greenpeace activists scaled the Nuselsky Bridge and hung a banner that read, "Bail out the climate."


© Greenpeace/Ibra Ibrahimovie

Another banner was deployed at Prague's Nustle Bridge, within view of the venue hosting Obama's speech. This banner was addressed to Obama and read, "Lead the change on climate."

Meanwhile, half a world away, the Wilkins Ice Shelf was breaking off from Antarctica. The two actions in Prague today aimed to alert world leaders to the fact that patience is wearing thin for their endless delay on global warming while we're seeing the drastic effects of rising global temperatures every day.

Obama accepted our challenge to lead in his speech. Read more here.

You can also check out a great behind-the-scenes video of the banner hang here (Czech language site, but of course video is universal).
 

According to reports, the ice bridge connecting the Wilkins Ice Shelf to Antarctica has shattered.

This is a glaring example of global warming having drastic impacts on our planet. The Wilkins Ice Shelf only began to break up, or “retreat,” in the late 1990s. Scientists say it has been “very stable” since the 1930s, but believe it to have been stable for far longer than that. Per the British Antarctic Survey: “It is probable that the current reduction in ice-shelves in the region has no precedent in the last 10,000 years, and certain that this minimum has not been reached at any time in the last millennium.”

The collapse of the ice bridge has been expected for some weeks. Cracks in the ice bridge were first spotted by researchers last week using satellite imagery. The loss of the ice bridge puts the entire Wilkins Ice Shelf at greater risk of total collapse.

This dramatic event underscores the real and pressing need for global action to combat global warming. Greenpeace USA deputy campaign director Carroll Muffett puts it this way: “The breakup of this ice shelf is in vivid contrast to the glacial pace of the international climate negotiations, where governments are trying to avoid acting responsibly - and bickering about who’s at fault." You can read the rest of the Greenpeace’s reaction here.

More info on the breakup and its import via the BBC:

An ice bridge linking a shelf of ice the size of Jamaica to two islands in Antarctica has snapped.

Scientists say the collapse could mean the Wilkins Ice Shelf is on the brink of breaking away, and provides further evidence for rapid change in the region.

Sited on the western side of the Antarctic Peninsula, the Wilkins shelf has been retreating since the 1990s.

Researchers regarded the ice bridge as an important barrier, holding the remnant shelf structure in place.

Thanks to all of our letters and phone calls, the U.S. House and Senate passed President Obama's budget last night - with language that puts cap and trade legislation in the agenda for this year!

This vote is an important step forward because members of Congress who have never before supported action on global warming are now on record supporting an agenda for the year, including a cap on global warming pollution.

The work of Greenpeace and all our volunteers and activists was crucial in passing the budget and defeating efforts to strip global warming from the bill. Thanks to all of you for your efforts!

Via ThinkProgress, we learn the shocking news that Republican House minority leader John Boehner issued a press release that grossly misrepresented the cost-per-family of Cap-and-Trade proposals as estimated in an analysis done by MIT in 2007. Well, an MIT professor who was one of the authors of the study, John Reilly, wrote a letter to Boehner explaining his mistake:

It has come to my attention that an analysis we conducted examining proposals to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, Report No., 146, Assessment of U.S. Cap-and-Trade Proposals, has been misrepresented in recent press releases distributed by the National Republican Congressional Committee. The press release claims our report estimates an average cost per family of a carbon cap and trade program that would meet targets now being discussed in Congress to be over $3,000, but that is nearly 10 times the correct estimate which is approximately $340. […] Our Report 160 shows that the costs on lower and middle income households can be completely offset by returning allowance revenue to these households.

Unsurprisingly, that didn't stop the National Republican Congressional Committee from sending that same figure out in several more press releases. This is what we're up against, folks. The dirty energy industries and their allies in Congress will stop at nothing to stop the coming clean energy revolution from happening.

You can read the full letter from Prof. Reilly, who affirms that "green economy legislation" is urgently needed, and read more about this story at ThinkProgress.

This blog post by George Monbiot on the Guardian website would be pretty funny if it weren't, you know, so dreadfully serious an issue...

Here is the text of the G20 communique, in compressed form.

"We, the Leaders of the Group of Twenty, will use every cent we don't possess to rescue corporate capitalism from its contradictions and set the world economy back onto the path of unsustainable growth. We have already spent trillions of dollars of your money on bailing out the banks, so that they can be returned to their proper functions of fleecing the poor and wrecking the Earth's living systems. Now we're going to spend another $1.1 trillion. As an exemplary punishment for their long record of promoting crises, we will give the IMF and the World Bank even more of your money. These actions constitute the greatest mobilisation of resources to support global financial flows in modern times.

Oh - and we nearly forgot. We must do something about the environment. We don't have any definite plans as yet, but we'll think of something in due course."

The whole post is well worth the read, but the situation is not pretty. You might laugh. You might cry. In a nutshell, Monbiot says, "The G20's strategy for solving the financial and economic crisis, in other words, is detailed, innovative, fully costed and of vast scale and ambition. Its plans for solving the environmental crisis are brief, vague and uncosted."

Yikes.

On March 31st Greenpeace and the Center for Biological Diversity sent a letter to the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) notifying the agency that we will sue in 60 days if they fail to list the ribbon seal under the US Endangered Species Act.

The ribbon seal is one of four ice-dependent seal species in Alaska whose sea ice habitat is literally melting out from underneath them because of global warming. Greenpeace and CBD were successful in forcing the Bush administration to list the polar bear under the ESA due to global warming. This notice letter begins the same process for the ribbon seal. Read more here.

If the NOAA ignores the letter, then we will sue in 60 days. Let's hope the Obama administration does things differently than Bush on global warming/ESA issues.

There’s obviously more to come on this story. Stay tuned…