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SUCCESSES
Here are some
examples of just what we
can and are accomplishing!
Our site is new and we have little of our own success
examples to demonstrate just how powerful our activism is. So for the time
being, I've chronicled here some successes I've noticed on some of my favorite
activist sites.
Successes chronicled through ActForChange
[
http://www.workingforchange.com/activism/victories_updates.cfm
]
Victories and
Updates
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2008:
Look at what the internet, speaking of spontaneous activism with a clear
message and nearly overnight impact, did for getting Obama into the
running for President! Unprecedented.
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Stand Up For Organic Standards
After more than a decade of consideration and hundreds of thousands of
public comments, the USDA implemented strong federal organic standards. Just
a few months after the standards went into effect, Congressman Nathan Deal
attached a last-minute rider to the omnibus appropriations bill that was
signed into law February 20th. The rider allowed poultry and livestock
producers to use non-organic feed, but still label their products as
organic. Fortunately, thanks to your emails, an amendment was quickly
introduced and approved that rescinded this insidious rider.
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Protect Overtime Pay: Tell Your Rep to Block the Bush Overtime Take-Away
Since June, ActForChange members have lobbied Congress to block overtime pay
cuts being pushed through by the Bush administration. Fortunately, both the
House and Senate voted to block the overtime take-away, and now senators and
representatives are meeting to hammer out differences between the U.S.
Senate and House versions of legislation that includes the measure to
protect overtime pay. In addition, President Bush is threatening to veto the
legislation if it blocks his overtime pay cut. We'll keep you posted on the
final results.
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Support Filibuster Against Estrada Nomination
We are pleased to announce that, after seven failed attempts to break a
filibuster blocking his nomination, Miguel Estrada withdrew his name from
consideration on September 4. Estrada, a nominee to the United States Court
of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, consistently refused to
answer questions about his views on important judicial decisions or to
release his written opinions and recommendations from when he worked in the
Solicitor General's office. Estrada had been widely touted as Bush's first
choice to fill any future Supreme Court vacancies, so this victory is
particularly important in our fight to maintain an independent judiciary.
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Cast
Your Vote for Greater Corporate Accountability
On January 23, thanks in part to the thousands of letters and email messages
sent by concerned shareholders to the Securities and Exchange Commission
(more than the agency received on any issue in its history), the SEC voted
to require mutual funds and investment advisers to disclose their proxy
voting policies and voting records.
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Care2's thepetitionsite.com website:
www.thepetitionsite.com sponsored by www.care2.com:
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Letters of Hope For a Tibetan Nun!
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A young Tibetan nun
imprisoned nearly a decade by China for "counterrevolutionary" crimes, was
released on October 17th, 2002, nine years ahead of schedule, thanks in part
to the active Care2 audience. In partnership with Amnesty International, the
Care2 audience was mobilized to send thousands of "cards of hope" to the
young nun and to put pressure on the Chinese authorities. The woman, Ngawang
Sandrol, was in her mid-teens in 1992 when a Chinese court first convicted
her for her protests on behalf of Tibetan independence. She is among China's
longest-serving female political prisoners. Now she is free again!
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/category.html?success=yes
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Arctic National Wildlife
Refuge Campaign
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Care2 and the American
Wilderness Coalition joined forces to gather comments from the public and
deliver them to U.S. Senators just prior to the vote on Drilling in the
Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Over 100,000 comments from people like you
were delivered to key Senators and ultimately, the vote was against Drilling
in the Artic. We are certain that there is more than a polar bear or two
that were happy to hear the news!
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These are some of the recent successes Environmental
Defense has had working in partnership with activists, policymakers,
companies and business groups, landowners, and other organizations and
concerned citizens dedicated to protecting our environment, natural
resources and public health. |
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Preserving Species and Habitat
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More than two million acres enrolled in our
Safe Harbor conservation program.
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Our coalition won a
doubling of conservation spending in the new Farm Bill.
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We helped block funding for the
destructive Maheshwar Dam project in India's Narmada Valley, which would
have flooded 61 villages, displaced 35,000 people and devastated local
ecosystems.
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Our computer-mapping study of New Jersey wetlands led to
the
preservation of 20,000 acres in the Garden State.
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We helped Brazil's Panará Indians
win
a legal settlement against mahogany loggers and ranchers.
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We
worked with community groups in Los Angeles to secure approval for Hope
and Peace Park.
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Stabilizing the Climate
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The California legislature passed and Governor Gray Davis
signed a
landmark auto emissions law to reduce global warming, requiring
automakers to produce cars that emit lower levels of greenhouse gases.
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We worked with Japanese officials to secure their
ratification of the Kyoto Protocol.
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We successfully defended EPA standards to
reduce haze in America's national parks.
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We orchestrated a
landmark greenhouse gas reduction agreement between a Pacific Northwest
utility and farmers through their support of direct seed planting; the
farmers avoid plowing, a practice that releases CO2 into the atmosphere,
while also reducing fuel use and the use of nitrogen-based fertilizers.
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Protecting Human Health
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New York Governor George Pataki supported our call for new
clean air rules for the World Trade Center construction site, signing an
executive order calling for the
retrofitting of diesel-powered equipment to be used in this mammoth
rebuilding project.
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We launched a nationwide campaign to
end
the overuse of antibiotics in livestock, to safeguard against the
proliferation of antibiotic resistance among humans.
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We persuaded McDonald's to
announce they had stopped buying poultry treated with an antibiotic
important to humans.
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The North Carolina General Assembly passed and Governor
Mike Easley signed the
Clean Smokestacks Bill, landmark legislation that mandates substantial
cuts in emissions of mercury, nitrogen oxide and sulfur dioxide from the
state's 14 coal-fired power plants. The bill is based largely on a plan we
developed with other environmental groups in the region.
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Our partnership with Federal Express has produced a
prototype hybrid delivery truck designed to cut air pollution 90% and
improve fuel economy by half.
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We helped secure passage of a Maine law ensuring the
safe disposal of mercury from automobiles before they are scrapped. Such
a program, funded by auto manufacturers, removes the highly toxic chemical
to prevent environmental contamination.
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North Carolina residents used our
Scorecard web site to
uncover health dangers posed by asphalt plants, and blocked construction in
residential areas.
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Safeguarding the Oceans
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We bridged a gap between fishermen and local
environmentalists to
promote marine protected areas off the Southeast U.S., that will both
protect endangered ecosystems and fish stocks while improving the health of
neighboring fisheries.
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We helped persuade the Bush administration to protect the
1,200 mile-long
Northwest Hawaiian Island Coral Reef Ecosystem Reserve from coral
harvesting.
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We worked with scientists and policy experts to help
safeguard Cuba's vast and pristine coast.
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Our scientists convinced California officials to institute
a
fishing ban in 20% of the Channel Islands National Marine Sanctuary.
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A new international fishing agreement went into effect,
containing our provisions to
protect migratory fish species such as swordfish and tuna.
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Protect Our Last Wild Forests From Clearcuts and Roads
The Bush administration has proposed opening the
ancient rainforests of Alaska to clearcutting and road building by exempting
them from the Roadless Area Conservation Rule. This move, which marks the first
step in gutting protections for our last wild forests, will allow logging and
road building projects to move forward in Alaska's Chugach and Tongass
rainforest, the world's largest coastal temperate rainforest. (Env'l. Defense)
Comments and successes from truemajority.org:
Congress recesses for August, so this is a good time to let you know how
things are going on the issues TrueMajority's 320,000 members have acted on. You
and your fellow TrueMajority members have sent over two million messages to
Congress so far this year, and WE ARE MAKING HEADWAY.
I. Calling for an investigation of Bush's justification for attacking
Iraq - This issue continues to pick up steam both in the press and in
Congress. The lead sponsors of the resolutions calling for an investigation in
the House are spending August adding to their 111 co-sponsors. Many other groups
have joined in pressuring the House to act.
II. Blocking the judicial nominations of Miguel Estrada and Carolyn
Kuhl - The filibuster blocking ultra-conservative Miguel Estrada from
getting lifetime tenure in the federal courts continues to hold. Facing similar
organized opposition, Carolyn Kuhl's nomination has yet to come up on the Senate
floor.
III. Blocking Bush's plan to dismantle Head Start - The
House approved by a vote of 217 to 216 a Republican version of Head Start
reauthorization that will dismantle Head Start. Opponents of the Bush plan cited
all pressure from Head Start supporters like TrueMajority members as the reason
for the close vote. The narrow vote makes it more likely that the Senate will
act to save Head Start.
IV. No more wars for oil: An Apollo Project for energy independence -
Candidates for the presidency continue to roll out their energy plans, many with
some of the tenets of the Apollo Project, though none have embraced it fully.
V. Opposing the new FCC rules allowing greater media consolidation -
Our first attempt to block the new FCC rules failed when the FCC voted
along party lines to allow individual media companies to buy up a greater
percent of broadcast outlets and to cross-own newspapers in the same cities.
Since then, the House has approved 400 to 21 an appropriations bill that blocks
enforcement of these new rules to further concentrate America's media. The
Senate committee has backed a similar bill with a full Senate floor vote
expected in September.
VI. No to new nukes - Bush requested $15 million towards a
new generation of "bunker busting" nuclear weapons and $6 million for "Advanced
Concepts" for new, small nuclear weapons. The House cut most of the money
requested ($10 million of the $15 million request) for a new "bunker buster"
nuclear weapon and all of the $6 million allocated for Advanced Concepts for
nuclear weapons. The Senate will consider these "usable nuclear weapons" in
September.
National Defense Resources Council
BioGems Victory!
The Araguaia River runs 1,600 miles through the heart of the Brazilian
Amazon, cascading down from the high country in a chain of breathtaking
waterfalls. Rare pink and Tucuxi dolphins swim through its currents, and black
saki monkeys climb on its densely wooded banks. It also provides one of the
richest fish habitats on earth: at least 20 fish species are found only here.
Until recently, an international consortium of aluminum companies had planned
a huge dam complex for the Araguaia. The companies, including Alcoa of the U.S.,
wanted to power their processing plants by building a string of dams that would
have submerged the rainforest and displaced local communities. The Santa Isabel
dam alone -- the flagship of the project -- would have squeezed out about 7,000
people and flooded an ecological reserve, destroying habitat and cutting off
wildlife migration and foraging routes.
Since early 2002, NRDC has been working with local environmental and
indigenous groups to persuade Brazil's government to reject Alcoa's proposal for
the Santa Isabel dam. During the same time BioGems Defenders sent more than
21,000 messages urging Alcoa not to build the dam. We are pleased to report that
following the Brazilian government's declaration in late 2002 that the dam would
not meet basic environmental standards, Alcoa and the other aluminum companies
have now abandoned plans for the project. NRDC will be monitoring Alcoa's plans
for other Amazon dams. And we extend our thanks to the thousands of BioGems
Defenders who helped achieve this important victory for the Brazilian rainforest
and the wildlife and people who depend on it.
Success Spotlight
Successes Archive
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_________
Together,
we are an
Watch
for this
BlogLight
/
multimedia
event!
_________
_________
_________
Example:
Pre-Inca
[Organic]
Agriculture in
Bolivia/Peru
Proving to Be Up
to 20 Times
More
Productive
Than
'Classic' Green
Revolution
Organics
_________
___________
______
Another
Dimension of Activism [example]:
_______
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