Feature Archives

Friday, May 4th was one of the most successful Oakland Critical Mass rides to date. The bicyclists rolled together down Telegraph, visited the Art Murmur, and encountered a scene where a bicyclist had apparently been struck by a motorist. After the ride, some cyclists continued through West Oakland to the collapsed portion of the MacArthur Maze, where they entered the worksite and observed the deconstruction/reconstruction. Later, they corrected a bike hazard that is known as the "Grates of Death." To further assert the message of carmageddon in the face of deadly grates, mazes, and consumer culture, the big box stores of Emeryville were stormed by TallBike.

Van Jones spoke at UCSC on April 25, on "Growing Greener, Growing Together: Sustainability, Social Justice and the Future of the Progressive Movement." Van Jones is the Executive Director of the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights, a national organization in Oakland, CA, that has focused on positive alternatives to incarceration and violence in urban America.

On April 14th, tens of thousands of people gathered across the country to call for action on climate change. The group Step it Up spearheaded the national day of action. Over 1,300 rallies, demonstrations and actions were held in all fifty states to call on Congress to cut carbon emissions by 80 percent by the year 2050.

In June of 2005, in a village called Rossport in Northwest Ireland, residents began to notice an unusual number of trucks carrying pipeline on their roads. There were so many trucks, in fact, that it was sometimes impossible to travel anywhere as these giant lorries could fully eclipse the narrow country lanes.

With royal fanfare, British Petroleum just donated big money in research funds for UC Berkeley, Lawrence Livermore Laboratories, and the University of Illinois to develop new sources of energy—primarily biotechnology to produce biofuel crops. This comes on the anniversary of Berkeley’s hapless research deal with seed giant Novartis ten years ago. However, at 500 million dollars, the BP grant dwarfs Novartis’ investment by a factor of ten. The graphics of the announcement were unmistakable: BP’s corporate logo is perfectly aligned with the flags of the Nation, the State, and the University.

Walking around San Francisco, you might have noticed bright green ads featuring cutesy witticisms about what “green is,” sponsored by the local utility monopoly PG&E. My favorite ad prominently displays a piece of cow dung with the quote “Green isn’t always pretty.” Here, PG&E isn’t too far off; for them, green is… a lie.

1. The Quiet Apocalypse of Rising Tides Climate change is everywhere, and the somewhat momentous report released February 3 by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) confirms that climate change is man-made, and unstoppable. The 21-page report, described as conservative by the IPCC itself, says man-made emissions of greenhouse gases are to blame for heat waves, floods and heavy rains, droughts and stronger storms (particularly in the Atlantic Ocean), melting ice-caps and raising sea-levels.