Activism

"As the congressional leaders decide on members for the new bipartisan debt-reduction super committee, green advocacy groups are already on the offensive, calling on the committee to cut billions of dollars in tax breaks and energy subsidies for the oil and gas industry."

"Conservation groups asked an appeals court on Monday to strike down a move by Congress to strip more than 1,500 wolves in Idaho and Montana of federal endangered species protections."

"A sentencing hearing turned into a rally supporting an environmental activist who has become an antihero after disrupting a government auction of oil and gas leases near two national parks in Utah."

"Thousands of demonstrators formed a human chain outside France's oldest nuclear power plant on Sunday to demand the site be closed as the government mulls whether to extend its life by a decade."

"An environmental group threatened to sue two of the nation's biggest rail owners Tuesday under a novel legal theory that would classify diesel exhaust as hazardous waste."

"A bloody outbreak of fighting that has ended a 17-year ceasefire between Burmese government forces and a tribal militia was partly caused by the expansion of Chinese hydropower along the Irrawaddy river, conservationists claim."

New Jersey is pulling out of the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, and three other states may follow. Why is RGGI on the ropes and who is throwing the punches? RGGI is made up of 10 northeastern states stretching from Maine to Delaware. In 2008, they banded together to form a carbon-trading program for power plants --- a market mechanism that enables utilities to buy and sell emission credits so they can meet caps on the amount of carbon they're allowed to put into the air.

The rise of the 'tea-party' movement has caused House Energy Committee Chairman Fred Upton (R=MI) to transform himself from a green advocate to an anti-EPA standard bearer.

"The 1985 bombing of the Rainbow Warrior made the converted fishing trawler a campaigning icon. Now, in its 40th anniversary year, Greenpeace is launching its first purpose-built protest ship – one of the most technologically advanced vessels to set sail."