Tag Archives: United States

~ politics petitions pollution and pop culture

This elephant has been alone for 28 years

09/26/2015 Nativegrl77

Petitioning Chairman CDA, Marc, CEO, Chris, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA)

Help free Kaavan the elephant from 28 years of solitary confinement

Petition by Samar Khan

Fremont, California

280,960

Supporters

Sign Samar’s petition

~ politics petitions pollution and pop culture

Giving Poachers the boot … Saving our wildlife

09/26/2015 Nativegrl77

The Black Mambas, a Mostly Female Anti-Poaching Force, Have Won a Top U.N. Environmental Award

~ politics petitions pollution and pop culture

Criminal charges against Lumber Liquidators for illegal logging?

09/26/2015 Nativegrl77

Lumber Liquidators is in hot water, reportedly facing criminal charges from the U.S. Department of Justice — and for good reason. The nation’s leading hardwood floor retailer has allegedly imported illegally harvested wood from critical habitats, including the Russian Far East.

These forests are home to the world’s last remaining Siberian Tigers. With only around 450 of these majestic tigers remaining, we can do more to respond to illegal logging across the globe.

The Lacey Act, passed in 1900 to combat the illegal wildlife trade, was strengthened to fight illegal logging in 2008 — and it’s these forests’ best defense. If adequately enforced, the law would ensure that wood products have been sourced legally and violators like Lumber Liquidators would face fines or jail time.

Let’s not let Lumber Liquidators off the hook. Tell President Obama and his agency heads to fully enforce the Lacey Act!

Last year, thousands of RAN activists expressed outrage at Lumber Liquidator’s ties to illegal logging and destruction of the last habitat of the Siberian Tiger. Now, our friends at Sierra Club are taking the campaign one step further – by demanding criminal charges be pursued against Lumber Liquidators. We fully support this campaign and wanted to ask you to help out as well. See Sierra Club’s message below for details on how you can help.

Christy Tennery-Spalding, Rainforest Action Network

Taking criminal action against Lumber Liquidators sends a strong message that corporations will be punished for profiting from the illegal destruction of critical habitat.

With the Lacey Act, the U.S. can lead the world in combatting illegal logging. Yet, this powerful law can only be successful if enforcement is taken seriously and corporations are put on notice that violations will not be tolerated.

Protect the world’s ancient forests! Ask President Obama and his agency heads to continue holding Lacey Act violators like Lumber Liquidators accountable.

Thanks for all you do for the environment.

Sincerely,

Jesse Prentice-Dunn

Sierra Club

~ politics petitions pollution and pop culture

TAKE ACTION: Ask the Pope to protect the Ecuadorian Amazon

09/26/2015 Nativegrl77

Pope Francis:
Call on Ecuador to Protect the Amazon
and its Peoples!

“For human beings…to destroy the biological diversity of God’s creation; for human beings to degrade the integrity of the earth by causing changes in its climate, by stripping the earth of its natural forests or destroying its wetlands; for human beings to contaminate the earth’s waters, its land, its air, and its life – these are sins.”
– Pope Francis,
Laudato Si, On the Care of Our Common HomeTAKE ACTION

On July 5th, Pope Francis, who has called deforestation a “sin,” will visit Ecuador, the country with the highest deforestation rate in South America. A major driver of Ecuador’s deforestation is state oil company Petroamazonas, which is leading a massive expansion of the Amazonian oil frontier.

Most disturbingly, Petroamazonas is attempting to drill in Block 31 and ITT – the most fragile part of Yasuni National Park and home to Ecuador’s last indigenous peoples living in voluntary isolation. The Ecuadorian constitution qualifies any operations there as “ethnocide” because such activity would threaten the very existence of those isolated communities. This behavior echoes Pope Francis’ warning in his encyclical that “environmental exploitation and degradation” can lead to “the disappearance of a culture,” which “can be just as serious, or even more serious than the disappearance of a species of plant or animal.”As His Holiness prepares to meet with Ecuador’s devout Catholic president Rafael Correa, let’s ask him to urge President Correa and Petroamazonas not to drill Yasuní National Park. We also ask him to meet with theKichwa ofSarayaku, the Amazonian community who wrote to him in May which has successfully protected its territory fromthe incursion of oil companies for decades.For the Amazon,

~ politics petitions pollution and pop culture

Starbucks, Whole Foods and carbon pollution

09/25/2015 Nativegrl77

10% of all carbon pollution comes from tropical deforestation, largely driven by palm oil production. We can stop it by pressuring corporations to use palm oil that doesn’t burn up forests—but only with your help.

Give now to fight global warming and protect tropical forests.

Donate Now

From French fries to face wash, everyday products are filled with palm oil, a lot of it produced by destroying tropical forests.

UCS members have helped convince some of the world’s largest users of palm oil—corporations you’d recognize in an instant—to buy from sources that don’t rely on destroying tropical forests.

But some companies are lagging behind—even a few that may surprise you: companies like Starbucks and Whole Foods. Based on our research, they’re not doing as well as McDonald’s or Subway.

We’ve made too much progress on deforestation to stop now. Will you help us turn up the heat on more corporations, and support the next phase of our campaign?

Make a tax-deductible gift to the Union of Concerned Scientists today.

Companies that make a show of corporate responsibility should be leading on palm oil, not lagging behind. Yet Starbucks has stopped at half-measures—relying on a palm oil certification system that still allows for forest clearance rather than pledging to eliminate deforestation entirely and only promising to use deforestation-free palm oil in its company-owned stores.¹ Whole Foods promised to switch to deforestation-free palm oil three years ago, but hasn’t hit its targets.²

We’ve always known that science alone wouldn’t convince every major company to do the right thing on palm oil. That’s why, beyond meeting directly with executives to show them how deforestation-free palm oil won’t hurt their bottom lines, we’ve sent more than 750,000 letters to CEOs demanding action. So far, more than a dozen companies have answered our call—most recently, McDonald’s and Yum! Brands (owner of Pizza Hut, KFC, and Taco Bell).

If these fast food giants can commit to deforestation-free palm oil, there’s no excuse for companies like Starbucks and Whole Foods to hold out.

We have to turn up the pressure on companies dragging their feet on palm oil deforestation. Please, support our campaign with an urgent gift now.

You shouldn’t have to wonder if your Whole Foods groceries or Starbucks snack could be contributing to massive deforestation that’s decimating wildlife and releasing tons of global warming pollution.

Yet Whole Foods and Starbucks haven’t taken reasonable steps to make sure that their products don’t contribute to the wide-scale loss of tropical forests… to the plight of threatened wildlife like Sumatran orangutans and tigers… or to fires that have released hundreds of years’ worth of stored-up carbon into the air, burning for weeks or even months.³

Our efforts on palm oil are having a lasting impact on our planet. But it takes resources to organize hundreds of thousands of consumer activists and pressure global corporations to do the right thing. That’s why your gift today is so important.

Help fight global warming and environmental devastation by powering one of the most effective campaigns being run today.

I hope you’ll be a part of this truly historic effort. Thanks for your support.