The general rifle hunting season opened recently across Montana. Thousands of hunters began pursuing elk and deer with the intention of putting meat in their freezer, hunting with a reverence for the wildlife they are pursuing. But there is another hunt going on, void of respect and with no purpose but to kill. So we sued.
WildEarth Guardians and Project Coyote sued the State of Montana, Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks (MFWP), and the Fish and Wildlife Commission because the state’s extreme anti-wolf hunting and trapping policies violate the law, the state constitution, and the public trust.
We sued because the laws and regulations currently governing wolf management are clearly not based on science and thus do not provide an adequate foundation for conserving this iconic Montana species.
We sued because the state’s wolf ‘management’ is based on a 20-year-old, legally invalid wolf management plan. The science of wolf conservation has developed significantly since 2002, yet, for the second year in a row, the state will allow nearly half of the wolf population to be killed while its management plan is 20 years behind. Wolf managers in Montana illegally relied on the outdated plan to set the current quota and hunting regulations…
On Friday, the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 (IRA) passed the House and is headed to President Biden’s desk to be signed into law. This bill could have been our best – and maybe our only – chance to make real progress on fighting climate change and creating a just environmental and economic future. It should've been a major success for climate policy.
It is a deep disappointment that the IRA is not truly a climate bill and is certain to harm the very communities that most need action on climate. With the IRA, our elected leaders have chosen to side with dirty energy industries, their financiers and investors, corporate media, and political opportunists to prop up the dirty energy status quo with hundreds of billions of dollars in subsidies, financing, and devil’s bargains.
NIRS joins the many frontline and BIPOC-led organizations that have pointed out they cannot support the bill. The compromise between climate action and climate destruction in the IRA is not one we can accept. NIRS urges Congress and the White House to go back and develop a policy that truly addresses climate change and environmental injustice – including restoration and repair of the harms caused by fossil fuels and nuclear energy.
We refuse to accept that frontline communities must be sacrificed yet again for nuclear, fossil, and other dirty energy interests. We stand in solidarity with the frontline communities and we will not stop fighting for a just, equitable, and sustainable future.
BIG NEWS: West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin reached a deal with Congressional Democrats on a sweeping climate and energy package that supposedly would address the climate crisis, now called the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 (IRA). The Senate passed the bill on Sunday, August 7, and the House of Representatives plans to vote on it this Friday, August 12.
This bill could have been our best – and maybe our only – chance to make real progress on fighting climate change and creating the just environmental and economic future the Biden administration promised voters. It should've been a major success for climate policy, thanks to tireless activists who worked to hold Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer accountable to get Sen. Manchin to the table on climate.
But, among the desperately needed good progressive measures in the IRA are bad policies and hundreds of billions of dollars in poison pills – handouts to fossil fuels, false climate solutions, and Big Nuclear. These provisions would profit dirty and polluting energy industries that are causing climate and ecological crises at the expense of taxpayers, environmental justice, and TRUE investment in the 100% renewable, just, and sustainable energy future we deserve.
Frankly, the harm they would cause can’t be justified, and may actually block renewable energy and other real climate solutions in the bill.
Of the $369 billion dollars, up to $72 billion is slated for subsidies to aging nuclear reactors — a wasteful expenditure that will not create a single new job, reduce greenhouse gas emissions by any amount, nor make any progress towards climate action. The measure is nothing more than a corrupt bailout scam by the nuclear industry and their cronies in Congress. There is also:
$250 billion in taxpayer-guaranteed loans to prop up old nuclear and fossil fuel power plants
$40 billion in taxpayer loans that could go to building new reactors and fossil fuel power plants
$700 million to promote domestic uranium mining and enrichment
We cannot settle for the inadequate, unjust, and wasteful policies in the Inflation Reduction Act. We cannot settle for a bill that backs false climate solutions and sacrifices frontline communities. We MUST demand better from Congress: a strong national policy for climate, the economy, and for environmental justice. The time to act is now. Demand that Congress and the Biden administration eliminate the massive subsidies to nuclear power and other dirty energy.
More than 150 conservation, environmental, and social justice organizations have accused The Nature Conservancy of "promoting false climate solutions."
March 9, 2022
Since Putin's devastating invasion of Ukraine began, over 320 companies have announced their withdrawal from Russia in protest.
Nevertheless, some western companies have continued to operate in Russia undeterred; we identify several dozen companies with particularly significant exposure to Russian markets. In the days since we initially published our list, many of the "remain" companies have responded to public backlash and decided to withdraw, and we are continuously revising our list to reflect these decisions as they are made. The full, current list of companies that have curtailed operations in Russia as well as those that remain, as of March 9, can be seen below.
Welcome to the era of pandemics. Scientists have been warning us for years that new pathogens passed from wild animals will emerge more frequently, kill more people, and wreak more havoc on our interconnected economies.
As the human population continues to grow and we destroy more of the natural world and interact with more wildlife, we put ourselves at greater risk of diseases emerging that can infect people.
"The next pandemic will come within a decade," a G20 panel concluded recently. When you look at the past 25 to 30 years, that shouldn't be a surprise. Over the past couple of decades, we've witnessed the emergence of novel diseases like HIV, Ebola, SARs, avian and swine flu, and now Covid-19. On average a new infectious disease emerges every eight months…
Everyone dreams the words to long-forgotten songs.
The hills echo and the grey stones ring
With laughter and madness and pain.
In the middle of the dance,
The house takes off from the ground.
Clouds climb through the windows;
Lightning pounds its fists on the table.
The moon leans in through the window.
The wild god points to your side.
You are bleeding heavily.
You have been bleeding for a long time,
Possibly since you were born.
There is a bear in the wound.
‘Why did you leave me to die?’
Asks the wild god and you say:
‘I was busy surviving.
The shops were all closed;
I didn’t know how. I’m sorry.’
Listen to them:
The fox in your neck and
The snakes in your arms and
The wren and the sparrow and the deer…
The great un-nameable beasts
In your liver and your kidneys and your heart…
There is a symphony of howling.
A cacophony of dissent.
The wild god nods his head and
You wake on the floor holding a knife,
A bottle and a handful of black fur.
Your dog is asleep on the table.
Your wife is stirring, far above.
Your cheeks are wet with tears;
Your mouth aches from laughter or shouting.
A black bear is sitting by the fire.
Sometimes a wild god comes to the table.
He is awkward and does not know the ways
Of porcelain, of fork and mustard and silver.
His voice makes vinegar from wine
And brings the dead to life.
–– Tom Hirons at Coyopa - Tom's book, Sometimes a Wild God, which contains this and many other FINE examples of his wordsmithing is available via this link ---> http://shop.hedgespoken.org/products/sometimes-a-wild-god Please support artists & their work!
–– ––ART: Illustration by Janne Pitkanen & concept & photography by Harri Halme.
From the album cover The Spirit of Ukko by Finnish metal band Kiuas.
–– Title track – "The Spirit of Ukko."
Lyrics ––
Greetings, we are here tonight
To bring the flames of Ukko to your hearts
On this black night the stars are aligned
These ancient fireworks play their parts
Born from the dark to light a flame
What once had died shall rise again
Winds sweep the snow, resurrecting songs of darkness
Born from the cold to light a flame within our hearts
Winds sweep the snow, resurrecting songs of darkness
Born from the cold, now it's celebration time...
... The spirit of Ukko will burn with us tonight!
Let's bring back the good old times
When the true gods used to reign the northern skies
