Tag Archives: United States

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,

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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.

Sincerely,

Ken Kimmell
President
Union of Concerned Scientists

1. http://www.ucsusa.org/sites/default/files/attach/2015/03/ucs-palm-oil-scoring-breakdown-2015.pdf, page 83
2. Ibid
3. http://www.ucsusa.org/sites/default/files/legacy/assets/documents/global_warming/palm-oil-and-global-warming.pdf, page 2

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Demand Tyson Foods transform industrial meat production

09/25/2015 Nativegrl77

Last month our Palm Oil Action Team took action at Hillshire Brands’ HQ in Chicago to call out the company’s use of Conflict Palm Oil, known for its massive climate and human rights footprint. But that’s not all Hillshire is known for. As of last year, Hillshire is owned by Tyson Foods, one of the biggest and most egregious meat producers in the world.

Raise your voice! Demand change at Tyson Foods!

Tyson Foods and its global subsidiaries are one of the world’s largest producers of chicken, beef, pork as well as prepared foods containing Conflict Palm Oil. It’s leading brands include Tyson®, Jimmy Dean®, Hillshire Farm®, Sara Lee® Frozen Bakery, Ball Park®, Wright®, Aidells® and State Fair®.

The food giant has unprecedented control over the nation’s meat supply and is the biggest poultry producer in the world. The system of chicken production that Tyson has built keeps farmers in a state of indebted servitude, living on the edge of bankruptcy, and takes a huge toll on the climate.

Altogether, our industrial system of agriculture is driving roughly one third of global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, largely from tropical deforestation/land conversion for livestock and commodity feed crops, methane emissions from the prevalent industrial/factory farming model of animal production, and food sector emissions like manufacturing processed foods.

Corporations like Tyson Foods, through its factory farm industrial model of production, are driving runaway climate change, increased levels of corporate control, high levels of food waste, forest loss and fragmentation, soil erosion, water scarcity and pollution, loss of biodiversity—both genetic diversity of crops and threatened extinction of key species, food insecurity, and racial inequity.

Please take action today to demand that the biggest and most destructive global meat producers, starting with Tyson Foods, adopt a comprehensive policy that includes strict environmental and social safeguards for palm oil and meat production that will break its link to the destruction of rainforests, peatlands and the abuse of communities, workers and animals. This policy should include data on rainforest conversion, GHG emissions, biodiversity, and water impacts for its palm oil, meat and feed businesses.

For a Responsible Food System,

ran.org

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The Navy limits sonar testing for the first time … ever

09/24/2015 Nativegrl77

Melon-headed whales like these on the west side of Hawai‘i Island will now be protected from dangerous mid-frequency sonar training and testing. (Daniel L. Webster/Cascadia Research Collective)