EVENTS

• May 9: Anti- Mountaintop-removal Protest at Bank of America Shareholders Meeting (NC)
• May 15: Rally to Deliver 1 Million Messages: Say No to Arctic Drilling (DC)
• May 15: Volunteer Sign-up to Save National Forest (AZ)
• Ongoing: Global Amphibian Bioblitz: Saving Amphibians Through Social Networking (worldwide)
• Ongoing: FUEL: The Film (worldwide)

Anti-mountaintop-removal Protest at Bank of America Shareholders Meeting
May 9, 2012
Charlotte, North Carolina

A thousand-plus people representing the diversity of the 99 percent will converge in Charlotte, North Carolina, on May 9 to protest Bank of America policies that are bankrupting our economy and destroying our environment at the company’s annual shareholder meeting. Rainforest Action Network, the New Bottom Line, the Pushback Network and a growing number of other national organizations — like the Center — will coordinate with local grassroots efforts for the nonviolent mass mobilization.

The first week of May, Rainforest Action Network will sponsor an East Coast truth-telling tour, featuring speakers from Appalachia whose health and community are directly threatened by mountaintop-removal coal mining and people facing health hazards from coal-fired power plants financed by the Bank of America. Once in Charlotte, the coal community tour will attend an alternative shareholder meeting the day before the protest, May 8.

When: Wednesday, May 9, at 7a.m.
Where: Gather at The Green (400 S. Tryon St., between E. Martin Luther King and E. Stonewall); the march will proceed to 1 Bank of America Center by 8 a.m.

Learn more at Rainforest Action Network’s website, register for the event and check it out on Facebook.

Then learn about the Center’s fight to end mountaintop removal.

Volunteer Sign-up to Save National Forest
Sign-up Deadline: May 15, 2012
Southern Arizona

Do you live in southern Arizona, care about nature and like to spend time outdoors? Want to help save one of Arizona’s most beautiful national forests from off-road vehicle destruction? You’re in luck: The Center is looking for volunteers to help us document the condition of roads in the Coronado National Forest.

This forest is going through a planning process known as “travel-management planning” — the process through which it’s decided where roads and other travel routes should be placed in national forests to ensure the protection of their wildlife and natural resources.

We need your help to ensure that travel management on the Coronado is done right — specifically, that roads currently fragmenting wildlife habitat are closed. We’re looking for volunteers to get out in the woods and document firsthand the condition of roads in the forest. Volunteers need to be able to walk at least 3 miles in rugged terrain, have good map-reading skills, and be capable of working in the heat of southern Arizona in April and May. Volunteers will need a camera and a GPS unit to document the condition of roads on Forest Service lands throughout the Coronado.

Please contact Cyndi Tuell at ctuell@biologicaldiversity.org or (520)323-7396 x 308 for more information and to get a map and list of areas and roads that need to be documented. All work for the Coronado National Forest must be completed by June 1 — so we’re asking you to RSVP by May 15.

Then learn all about travel-management planning and off-road vehicle use.

Global Amphibian Bioblitz: Saving Amphibians Through Social Networking
Ongoing
Worldwide

Amphibians around the world are disappearing, and nearly a third are threatened with extinction. To better understand and conserve these animals, scientists need more information on their locations. And what better way to get the right info from around the globe than through people like you?

The Center has joined other conservation organizations to launch a Web-based social networking effort dubbed the Global Amphibian Blitz. The Blitz website allows amateur naturalists from around the world to submit their amphibian photographs, along with dates and locations. The site's lofty aim? To take a census of the world's amphibians and discover which species are still here, and where — so we can make sure they stay here. With your help.

Help save frogs, toads and salamanders — and have fun at the same time — by submitting your observations to the Global Amphibian Blitz now. Then learn about the Center's own Amphibian Conservation campaign and get more about the Blitz from UC Berkeley.

FUEL: The Film
Now playing

After growing up amongst Louisiana's oil refineries and watching his own family suffer from pollution-related cancers, in 1997 activist and filmmaker Josh Tickell took off in his biodiesel-powered "Veggie Van" on an epic road trip to make the film that would win the 2008 Sundance Film Festival's Audience Award for Best Documentary. FUEL, with appearances by a huge cast of notables including Jimmy Carter, Willie Nelson, Julia Roberts, and Robert F. Kennedy Jr., tracks the rise of Big Oil from Rockefeller's strategy to halt Ford's first ethanol cars to Dick Cheney's petrochemical company-sponsored legislation. But FUEL not only exposes America's debilitating addiction to oil — it also describes a gamut of intriguing solutions to "repower America," offering hope for a sustainable, oil-independent future. It received 11 standing ovations at Sundance, was shortlisted for the Oscars, and earned the Writers Guild of America's nomination for best documentary writing.

Take it from Tickell himself: "What's astounding about this movie is the way it leaves you feeling — hopeful, uplifted, and inspired." The FUEL team is building a national grassroots outreach campaign and wants you to help spread the word about the movie and what it stands for.

FUEL is now playing in various cities. Learn more about the film, watch a trailer, and see where it's playing here.