Via the Rainforest Action Network:

Real Forest Protection Now

Though ANZ is Australia’s third largest bank, it is the country’s leading financier of environmentally destructive projects. One of ANZ’s most controversial clients, Gunns Limited, is rapidly destroying Tasmania’s forests. ANZ recently developed a draft forests policy that was supposed to apply ethical criteria to its investments. Unfortunately, the policy doesn’t reflect our discussions with the bank and would allow the bank to continue funding destructive projects, including Gunns’ pulp mill in Tasmania and illegal logging in Indonesia.

Tell ANZ’s Sustainability Director Gavin Murray that his company should develop a real forests policy and commit to not funding the Gunns pulp mill project!

Then, head on over to The Wilderness Society of Australia’s web site for updates and a list of additional actions you can take.

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Tagged: environment environmental environmentalism environmentalist action alerts RAN Rainforest Action Network The Wilderness Society Australia Tasmania forest ANZ Gunns Limited pulp mill logging deforestation bank banking investments investing

Via the Rainforest Action Network:

Tell Lehman Brothers ‘No New Coal’

Help us bring investment bank Lehman Brothers to the negotiating table for strong climate protection safeguard policies. If Lehman Brothers is serious about climate change, they and their partners who are bidding to be the new owners of TXU must craft a commitment to stop funding new coal power projects. Send a message to Lehman Brothers climate director Teddy Roosevelt IV and demand a climate policy that ensures Lehman Brothers won’t fund any new dirty coal plants. A clean enery future is possible in Texas. TXU is also Texas’ largest provider of wind energy, and numerous studies have show that efficiency measures and renewables can readily meet Texas’ energy needs while better protecting the environment and human health.

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Tagged: environment environmental environmentalism environmentalist action alerts ran rainforest action network coal climate change global warming txu Lehman Brothers

Via the Rainforest Action Network:

Citi - Stop Funding Global Warming

In Jan. 2004, Citi became a world leader in environmentally and socially responsible banking by developing strict policies that guide its project investments. This was the result of years of protest and pressure by all of you and other organizations. However, Citi never developed a comprehensive policy that addressed global warming and climate change. Over the past three years, we have urged Citi to accept its responsibility as the world’s largest bank and leading lender to the oil, coal and gas sectors to join the fight against climate change.

Not only has Citi refused to commit to a modern climate change policy, but the bank is involved in one of the dirtiest energy projects in North America: Texas utility company TXU’s plan to build 11 new coal-fired power plants. The plants will emit more than 78 million tons of carbon into the atmosphere annually as long as they are active — in pollution terms, that’s the equivalent of putting 14 million new cars on America’s roads every year for the next fifty years. Citi is one of three major banks lining up financing for the massive TXU power plant project, along with Merrill Lynch and Morgan Stanley.

The greenhouse gases from this project will affect everyone, whether you live in the remote rainforests of Brazil, the Arctic tundra, or anywhere else on the planet. The impact these plants will have on the air quality and health of surrounding communities will be severe. The environmental devastation caused by mining the coal for these plants is irreversible. We urge you to join the people of Texas in demanding that Citi rededicate itself to our environmental and economic future by writing a climate change policy that will help reverse global warming.

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Tagged: environment environmental environmentalism environmentalist action alerts ran Rainforest Action Network Citi TXU climate change global warming

Via the Rainforest Action Network:

Will PEFC support real sustainable forest practices?

The Pan European Forest Council (PEFC) recently gave in to pressure from the Australian government to accept the Australian Forestry Standard (AFS) as a legitimate certification for sustainable forestry. AFS was intentionally designed to provide a legal loophole for the lumber company Gunns, Ltd, so that it can continue clear-cutting Tasmania’s 200-year-old trees and wrecking a landscape that is truly a natural treasure.

Send a message to PEFC Chairman Michael Clark that he must renounce the AFS policy and stand up for real sustainable certification policies, not those engineered by the logging industry to greenwash their destructive practices.

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Tagged: environment environmental environmentalist environmentalism action+alerts ran rainforest+action+network PEFC Pan+European+Forest+Council AFS Australian+Forestry+Standard Australia Tasmania logging

Via the Rainforest Action Network:

Ask General Motors

American automakers talked a lot of “green” at this week’s L.A. auto show, but other than concept cars and more empty promises, there weren’t any signs of a real commitment to increasing fuel economy and bringing Detroit out from the basement of the automotive industry.

Join us in asking General Motors CEO Rick Wagoner to commit to becoming the most fuel-efficient car company by 2010 and change the way Detroit is headed. Right now, American automakers need leaders, not talkers.

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Tagged: environment environmentalist environmentalism action+alerts ran rainforest+action+network cars ford fuel+efficiency gm general+motors

Via the Rainforest Action Network:

End Oil Aid!

For more than three decades rich countries have been using aid money and international institutions like the World Bank to channel billions of dollars in subsidies to Big Oil. This “Oil Aid” diverts money that should be available to fight poverty and instead uses it to finance the work of international oil companies in impoverished countries who take the oil and export it to back to the United States and other rich countries. The End Oil Aid campaign is working to stop these perverse subsidies. We want limited development assistance to focus on efforts such as debt cancellation and alternative energy instead of being poured into the pockets of the oil industry. And we need your help! Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi, the next Speaker of the US House of Representatives, has made a commitment to roll-back government handouts to Big Oil.

Please sign the petition [here] to Congresswoman Pelosi thanking her for her leadership on this issue and highlighting the importance of ending oil aid as part of the broader effort to stop perverse subsidies to oil corporations.

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Tagged: environment environmentalist environmentalism action+alerts ran rainforest+action+network oil subsidies

In addition to marking National Feral Cat Day, October 16 also kicks off World Rainforest Week. Luckily, the Rainforest Action Network offers a list of enviro-friendly actions to help you celebrate the occasion! Each day has its own theme; today, RAN invites you to “Enter the rainforest!” and take the World Rainforest Week pledge. Tomorrow, learn how to live tree free. Visit their site to take action, and check out the themes for Wednesday through Sunday, too. All this and more on RAN’s WRW web page!

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Tagged: environment environmentalism action+alerts RAN rainforest+action+network world+rainforest+week rainforests conservation

UPDATE, 3/1/07, via Rainforest Action Network:

Calling Weyerhaeuser for Grassy Narrows

Grassy Narrows community members Maria Swain, Gloria Kejick and Warren Ashopenace started a 3,000 mile journey from Ontario to Seattle, Washington to demand an “exit strategy” from Weyerhaeuser CEO Steve Rogel at the company’s corporate headquarters in Seattle. You can help without having to go anywhere.

Join us in calling Weyerhaeuser to demand an exit strategy that will stop clear-cut logging on Grassy Narrows’ land.

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Via Rainforest Action Network:

Weyerhaeuser and Canadian Logging Rights: Defend Community Rights

Weyerhaeuser is cutting and running.

The failure of corporate logging is its treament of the land and the people who live on it. Weyerhaeuser’s cut-and-run strategy continues to leave communities behind while wrecking their environment with clear-cuts and loss of a precious natural resource: old growth forests. Not only is this cut-and-run strategy failing Weyerhaeuser’s own workers, but also its business. Government bailouts to support the company have only resulted in a form of corporate welfare that is prolonging the mistreatment of the land, natural resources and local people.

Join us in sending a message to leaders within Weyerhaeuser and the Canadian government demanding that the company turn over its logging rights in Saskatchewan and leave room for community forestry.

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Tagged: environment environmental environmentalism environmentalist action alerts ran rainforest action network Weyerhaeuser Grassy Narrows logging logging rights clear-cut logging

Via the Rainforest Action Network:

Ford: Lead the Way in Fuel Efficiency

With a new CEO taking the wheel at Ford Motor Company, we have the chance to make our voices heard. Please join us in letting Alan Mulally know that Ford must become a global leader in fuel efficiency.

Click here to learn more, or here to take action.

Via the Rainforest Action Network:

Tell Wells Fargo to Dump Massey Energy

Wells Fargo and Co. is the largest US bank operating with no social and environmental safeguards to prevent destructive investments that harm communities and ecosystems around the world.

Massey Energy has become a leader among it’s peers in the coal sector in eco-system destruction and community disenfranchisement. Massey Energy regularly engages in a destructive practice known as mountaintop removal. Mountaintop removal has decimated the Appalachian landscape. What kind of bank supports such environmental destruction? Wells Fargo.

Tell CEO Richard Kovacevich that Wells Fargo should stop supporting mountaintop removal and fund a sustainable and socially just future!