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ACTION OF THE DAY
A MAJOR national bank has been forced to remove more than 100 misleading out of order signs from its ATMs after being targeted by anti-coal activists.
A MAJOR national bank has been forced to remove more than 100 misleading out of order signs from its ATMs after being targeted by anti-coal activists.
A score of ANZ Banking Group machines sprawled across six capital cities were plastered with "out of order" signs on Sunday after campaigners launched their latest bid to draw attention to the bank's funding of the coal industry.
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http://www.themonthly.com.au/how-vested-interests-defeated-climate-science-dark-victory-robert-manne-5853
ReplyDeleteYet there is more to this question than the movement of public opinion. Following the 2010 Congressional election it became clear that the Republicans had become the first major political party in the Western world to be wholly captured by climate change denialism. In April 2011, a bill was introduced into the House of Representatives to overturn the findings of the Environmental Protection Authority about the dangers of greenhouse gas emissions. It received unanimous Republican support
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This destroyed all possibility of American participation in the international struggle against global warming. In 2008, Obama pledged that he would lead the world struggle to combat climate change. The words ‘climate change’ now rarely pass his lips.
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In June 2011, a reporter from the New York Times attended the annual conference in Washington at what was then the most important denialist organisation in the United States, the Heartland Institute. It had about it, she said, “the air of a victory lap”. The jubilation was warranted. The long war the denialist movement had fought against science and against reason, in the US and throughout the English-speaking world, had indeed achieved a famous victory. This is a victory that subsequent generations cursing ours may look upon as perhaps the darkest in the history of humankind.
In the official Chinese press and in both the right-leaning and left-leaning quality press in France, Brazil and India there was almost no sign of climate change denial. It was, however, a major element in the climate change journalism in both the US and the UK.
DeleteIt is predominantly a phenomenon of the Right. While climate change denial as a psychological phenomenon occurs across the West, as a high-profile political phenomenon it exists almost exclusively in the English-speaking democracies. And although it has spread to Canada, Australia and the UK, within the Anglosphere its place of origin and heartland is the US.
http://www.chinapost.com.tw/international/americas/2012/10/03/356387/p2/US-court.htm
ReplyDeleteUS court probes alleged Nigeria, Shell torture
WASHINGTON --- The U.S. Supreme Court began its new session on Monday by re-examining an explosive international case alleging that oil giant Shell was complicit in acts of torture by the Nigerian government.
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In Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Petroleum, the oil giant is accused of being an accomplice to torture, extrajudicial executions and crimes against humanity by the Nigerian government between 1992 and 1995 in the Niger Delta region.
Shell is alleged have helped the former dictatorship arrest and torture 12 members of the Ogoni tribe, who had sought to peacefully disrupt oil development because of its health and environmental impacts.
Esther Kiobel, now a U.S. citizen, brought her claims on behalf of her late husband, Barinem Kiobel, who was executed in a sham trial in which Shell is alleged to have played a key role.
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This case is being closely watched as it has implications for several other pending actions, including a group of Indonesian villagers who accuse oil giant Exxon Mobil's security forces of murder and torture.
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http://www.enewspf.com/latest-news/latest-national/37090-shell-blocks-employee-access-to-activist-website-.html
71,010 employees blocked from tweeting Oprah about Supreme Court murder case
WASHINGTON --(ENEWSPF)--October 2 - Early Monday morning, 71,010 Shell employees received an email from the company's "Grassroots Employee Empowerment Division" providing information on Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Petroleum, a pivotal human rights case being argued in the U.S. Supreme Court. The email contained links to news stories, as well as a tool to help employees tweet their feelings about the case at key US news anchors (and Oprah Winfrey).
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The only thing is, Shell has no "Grassroots Employee Empowerment Division," and they don't want publicity for the case. The email was in fact the work of an activist group called People Against Legalizing Murder (PALM), who received the list of Shell emails from what they believe to be a group of disaffected employees. (A similar leak occurred two years ago.)
Within minutes of the email being sent out, Shell internally blocked the site, preventing employees from accessing it. "I would love to participate, but access is denied to all links you sent out," wrote one employee among many. The 71,010 employees were informed this morning of the situation and the site's new URL.
PALM intended the action to help shine a spotlight on the case, brought by the widow of Dr. Barinem Kiobel, who was hanged along with novelist Ken Saro-Wiwa for opposition to Shell's drilling plans in West Africa. Shell is alleged to have aided paramilitary forces that raided more than 60 villages, killed over 800 people, and displaced 30,000 more.