We want environmental laws to be implemented and enforced. We want the authority and relevant agencies to go after anyone and everyone who is cutting down trees in protected forest areas and such. Yet, sometimes, it might not be that simple. I visited an Orang Asli (indigenous people) village in Tapah, Perak with a group of awesome people who aim to educate the Malaysian public and increase awareness of the Federal Constitution. Several topics were being brought up: Orang Asli rights as stipulated in the Constitution, unfair land purchases, standing up against corporations or entities that... (continue reading)

Cross-posted from It’s Getting Hot in Here Written by Dea Goblirsch and Kim Huynh. Photos by Ben Droz. “President Obama, join me in my kitchen at 4 p.m. any day of the week and learn first-hand what you are allowing to happen in Appalachia and its mountain communities,” said Bo Webb, a ninth-generation resident of Naoma W.Va. in the Coal River Valley, “You’d hear and feel blasts coming from both sides of the valley, and if it rains, you might see water flowing black down river. The mountain behind my home is destroyed – gone forever – and across the valley Massey Energy is... (continue reading)

Let’s start from the basics: Do you know what mountaintop removal coal mining is? Here are resources in case you don’t: previous RYSE blog posts (here & here). Also, it has received some pretty good coverage in the New York Times lately, including this video. Photo credit: treehugger.com Now, have you heard of Appalachia Rising? It is a weekend educational event and day of action September 25-27. Here is the vision statement: “Appalachia Rising is a mass mobilization in Washington DC on September 27, 2010 calling for the abolition of mountaintop removal and surface... (continue reading)

With the BP crisis as their impetus, the ‘Bayou Healers’ aim to publicize environmental concerns and strengthen a weakened tribal identity Crossposted from solveclimate.com by Jacoba Charles – Aug 9th, 2010 GOLDEN MEADOWS, LA—The twisted silhouettes of leafless trees dot the marsh around the homeland of southern Louisiana’s Houma tribe. Telephone poles list sideways in the water that laps at the edges of many roads. It wasn’t always this way. These changes to the landscape serve as stark symbols of the myriad social and environmental problems facing... (continue reading)

Chevron is up for a huge award this month and we need your votes (VOTE HERE)  to help them win this much-deserved award. Each year ten corporations are (dis)honored by being named as finalists in the “Corporate Hall of Shame”.  This year Corporate Accountability International has deemed Chevron worthy of their final list because of the company’s toxic legacy of pollution in the Ecuadorean rainforest. It will surely be a close race as Chevron is up against some stiff competition: Monsanto – “for mass-producing cancer causing chemicals, aggressively running small farms out of... (continue reading)