The Toronto Star Opponents to wind farms in Ontario, at the best of times a local thorn in the side of wind-energy developers, have suddenly realized the benefit of getting organized.

Earlier this week a new anti-wind group called Wind Concerns Ontario, a coalition of 22 small rural groups each fighting their own community battles, announced its creation as a “strong, unified voice of opposition” to provincial plans that would see thousands of industrial wind turbines “tearing apart the very fabric of rural Ontario.”

Democracy Now

In Japan, world leaders at the G8 summit have announced they would work toward cutting carbon emissions by at least 50 percent by 2050. The White House hailed the declaration as a major step forward, but environmental campaigners criticized the lack of a commitment to midterm targets. Global warming ties into other big themes, such as soaring food and fuel prices, being discussed at the three-day summit. We go to Hokkaido to speak with Walden Bello of Focus on the Global South.

People sometimes wonder why things like globalization, GMOs, or maltreated seals provoke outrage and protest, while the prospect of immanent planetary disaster do not, really. Well, protesters have finally arrived in Ottawa.

“Campaigners against climate change today denied claims they were planning to disrupt Heathrow with hoax bomb threats or runway protests as part of their week-long protest against air travel.”

Climate campaigners are camped outside London’s Heathrow airport to rally against expansion plans for the airport. They have threatened “direct action” but state that they will not endanger passengers.

Climate Change protesters camped outside London’s Heathrow airport are now slowly dispersing away. But protest is set to take place at other locations across the country.

“Greenpeace said it blockaded a ship Friday slated to carry a cargo of wood pulp from a Canadian freshwater port to a German plant operated by Stora Enso in protest over what the environmental group said are destructive logging practices.”

The Walk Against Warming, joined by ten of thousands of protestors across Australia aims to call for more political action to fight climate change.

A new report revealed Australia as the world’s biggest per capital carbon polluter. Greenpeace activists responded by protesting and causing the brief shut down of a coal-fired power station in the country.

“The environmental groups – ForestEthics, Greenpeace, Environmental Defence and the Western Canada Wilderness Committee – are opposed to any increase in activity in extracting oil from the sandy forests of northern Alberta. They say the federal government should impose caps on emissions from oil-sands development or shut down the northern Alberta industry.”