Two days before Christmas, 2011, President Obama signed a bill that forces a decision on the controversial Keystone XL pipeline within 60 days as part of a two month payroll tax cut extension. The Keystone XL pipeline would transport oil from the tar sands in Alberta, Canada to refineries in Texas.

When is an agreement not an agreement? When it’s an agreement to reach an agreement in the future. Far from being a "huge step forward" as Energy and Climate Change Secretary Chris Huhne insists, claims of success at the climate conference in Durban, South Africa are fraudulent.

A group of coal, railroad, and financial corporations want to build North America's largest coal export terminal in Washington State.

Residents of Lianhua County in the southeastern province of Jiangxi staged a large demonstration against a polluting chemical plant on 16 August. Their protest came just two days after more then 12,000 took the streets of Dalian, in the northeast, forcing the city authorities to close a petrochemical plant.

A report by European Parliament member, Paul Murphy of the Socialist Party of Ireland. Irish Police in Rossport brutalize peaceful environmental demonstration against the building of an oil pipeline.

The proposal to build North America's largest coal export terminal could change Whatcom County in Washington State forever. The huge corporations behind this profitable project -- Goldman Sachs, SSA Marine, Peabody Energy, and BNSF Railway Co. -- are fostering divisions between Bellingham environmentalists and Whatcom county unemployed workers in order to push their project through. Whatcom county labor leaders are currently supporting the Cherry Point Gateway Pacific coal terminal project, due to the new jobs that corporate executives claim the project will create.

Obama is continuing the policies of the Bush administration by promoting and subsidizing oil, gas and coal exploration and extraction. Meanwhile, the burning of these fossil fuels is the main cause of the buildup of CO2 in the atmosphere. Also, Obama has prioritized wars in the Middle East over passing effective legislation to combat global warming. Despite the attention given by the corporate media to some climate skeptics - usually funded by oil companies or extreme free-market organizations - the evidence has convinced the vast majority of scientists that unless we quickly reverse our present energy and industrial policies, the planet will be irrevocably damaged.

Featuring leading anti-war activist Cindy Sheehan and an eye-witness report from the historic Wisconsin labor protests! The Northwest Socialism Conference will be a rare opportunity to learn about, discuss, and debate the global movement for economic and social justice and how to take our struggles forward. Don’t miss this chance to get involved, meet, and talk with grassroots activists fighting to create a better world!

Since coming to office, Obama has spearheaded the nuclear industry’s revival in the U.S., championing it as a “safe, clean, and reliable” alternative to foreign oil. But as Normon Solomon pointed out, “There is no more techno-advanced country in the world than Japan. Nuclear power is not safe there, and it is not safe anywhere,” (Commondreams.org, 3/14/11).

The initial response to the quake has been one of shock and disbelief at the images coming from the Tohoku area. Although Osaka is several hundred kilometres from the areas affected by the devastating earthquake and tsunami, many people here have family or friends in those areas. There is a general air or depression and despondency hanging over society. Comparisons have been made to the devastation following World War 2, although obviously the area affected is much more limited.

The massive earthquake that struck north-eastern Japan on Friday 11 March and ensuing destruction caused by one of the most powerful tsunamis ever witnessed was the “worst crisis since 1945” according to Prime Minister, Naoto Kan. Capitalist governments always try to exploit for their own political reasons the spontaneous mood for unity in the face of disaster. The terrible events in Japan, however, raise many questions about the follies of capitalism and especially the massive development of nuclear power, never entirely safe, in a notoriously quake-prone region. Government officials say the death toll from the earthquake and tsunami could reach tens of thousands. As Reuters noted, “The catastrophe will also sorely test Kan’s deeply unpopular government.”

Climate Change is already destroying lives. 21,000 people died as a direct result of extreme weather conditions in the first nine months of this year, a new Oxfam report says.

The huge damage caused by the BP oil disaster in the gulf caused massive contamination of wildlife and the surrounding coastline. While the massive oil gusher has been sealed for several months, the consequences are still being felt. However, the corporate media have gone silent on the continuing contamination of the food chain resulting from the disaster.

The disaster in the Gulf of Mexico has proven that BP will gamble with people’s lives and the environment to get more oil and profits. The U.S. Government attempted to politically gain from the crisis by adopting tough posturing in the aftermath of the spill, but in reality they were the ones that allowed BP’s reckless drilling to go ahead.

On March 30 of this year, the New York Times reported “the Obama administration is proposing to open vast expanses of water along the Atlantic coastline, the eastern Gulf of Mexico and the north coast of Alaska to oil and natural gas drilling, much of it for the first time.” Three weeks later, disaster hit Deepwater Horizon.