First Nation and environmental groups in Alaska are legally challenging Shell’s permit to drill in the Arctic Chukchi Sea this summer. The Chukchi lies north of the Bering Strait between Alaska and Russia and is habitat for endangered species including bowhead whales, walrus and polar bears, which play a crucial role in the way of…

Another investigation by Taimour Lay shows the risks of Tullow & Heritage’s oil finds on Lake Albert fueling new fighting between armed forces (armies and militias) in the region. “Heritage Oil, owned by former mercenary fighter Tony Buckingham, had donated speed boats to the FARDC (Congolese national army) in March 2007 and had also been…

Positive news this morning as a Dutch court ruling announced that four Nigerian farmers and Friends of the Earth Netherlands can hold Royal Dutch Shell and Shell Nigeria accountable, a short distance from Shell’s global headquarters in The Hague. For more details please see the press release from Friends of the Earth Netherlands. If found…

As the California Zephyr climbs slowly into the Rockies, my fellow train passengers in the observation carriage stare in silence through the enormous windows, as we pass hundreds of miles of narrow gorges, red rock cliffs and frozen waterfalls. Coyotes run through the snow as the train approaches, while studious bald eagles perched above streams ignore us,…

Waking up in Indiana on Monday morning as my train trundles along the flat shores of Lake Michigan, BP’s mega-refinery at Whiting welcomes me to the outskirts of Chicago. Belching out pollutants over the local communities and into the lake since 1889, the refinery turns 410,000 barrels of crude into petrol, jet fuel and petroleum coke every…

I wake up from a light doze and search out the window for a mighty 19th century sloop looming out of the dark. But the wide Hudson River appears empty of sailing craft, with the wooded hills on the far banks disappearing into mist on this winter afternoon. Days of rain have welled the river’s…

Today’s climate protests in Copenhagen saw 100,000 take to the streets – the largest protests at a climate summit yet. The System Change not Climate Change Bloc was primarily driven by the Climate Justice Now and Climate Justice Action coalitions of activists and campaigners from the Global South and North. Aerial view of 300-400 climate change protesters arrested, handcuffed,…

Dorothea Smartt (African Writers Abroad) joined the C Words closing Party and Benefit for the Canadian Indigenous Tar Sands Campaigners live via Skype. She performed her specially commisioned poem, A Sense of Denial, together with several other poems written specifically to the C Words season and inspired by the issues raised. A Sense of Denial Denial looks black, panelled,…

Two poets from African Writers Abroad were commssioned to respond to the C Words season. To craft the poem below, Simon Murray (Sai MuRai) borrows the title of Dorothea Smartt’s poetry workshop “Full Circle” and draws upon some of the many words, phrases and themes that arose throughout the C Words season. The poem was performed live…