This summer, the 9th Circuit Court in California is weighing the question of whether companies have the right to take preemptive legal action against peaceful protesters for hypothetical future protests. This will be an extraordinary decision that could have a significant impact on every American’s First Amendment rights.

The case, Shell Offshore Inc. vs. Greenpeace, was filed by Shell Oil Company. Last summer, Shell assumed –based on conjecture — that Greenpeace USA would protest the company’s drilling in the Alaskan Arctic.  Shell asked the 9th Circuit court for a preemptive injunction and restraining order against Greenpeace USA [Full disclosure: Philip Radford is the executive director of Greenpeace USA].

Despite Greenpeace’s appeal, the court granted the injunction for the entire duration of the drilling period, a decision which effectively gave a federal blessing to the company’s wish to do its controversial work in secret.

Greenpeace has asked the court for a full review, and this summer, the court will decide the ultimate fate of the case.

If the court rules in Shell’s favor, it would have a profound chilling effect on First Amendment rights across the country. Nothing would stop other corporations from taking similar preemptive legal action against anyone they deem to be likely protesters. That could be an environmental group, it could be a civil rights group, or it could be a Tea Party group — or anyone in between.

Even if the most frivolous of these suits were eventually overturned on appeal, it would still set a dangerous precedent. Anyone who wants to silence a protest outside a convention, a disaster site, or any political space would have legal precedent to do so for as long as their lawyers could keep the case in court.

This case isn’t just about the fate of the Arctic. It is about the state of our democracy.

Entrenched power, whether corporate or governmental, wants to keep things just the way they are. For generations, ordinary people of social conscience who see injustice in the status quo have exercised their First Amendment rights in order to make the changes necessary for progress.

It isn’t always easy.

In 1965, after years of dedication to the Civil Rights Movement, Julian Bond was one of the first African-Americans since Reconstruction elected to the Georgia House of Representatives. Even though Bond won his election fairly and took a legally binding oath of office, his colleagues voted to deny him his right to speak in the Assembly. Despite the clear racial motivations, Bond was undaunted. He filed a federal lawsuit claiming that the Georgia House had violated his First Amendment rights, and the case eventually made its way to the Supreme Court. Bond’s right to speak was ultimately upheld.

In his decision, Chief Justice Earl Warren wrote that the case was central to the function of the First Amendment. Warren wrote:

Just as erroneous statements must be protected to give freedom of expression the breathing space it needs to survive, so statements criticizing public policy and the implementation of it must be similarly protected.

As Bond and Chief Justice Warren recognized, the right to protest is a foundational American right. In fact, this tradition, forged by Henry David Thoreau, Martin Luther King Jr., Rosa Parks, and countless others, is the only thing that puts the power of the people on any kind of scale relative to the power of multibillion dollar corporations or entrenched government power.

Our power as citizens lies in our ability and willingness to protest.  Without the right to speak and protest, the civil rights, environmental, and other movements would never have accomplished the great things we have. Right now Shell is trying to set a precedent to restrict Americans’ First Amendment rights. If they succeed, it will have a devastating and chilling effect on our democracy.

Alaska’s Bering Sea is home to one of the most remarkable places in the world, “the Grand Canyons of the Sea.”

These canyons are over a mile and a half deep and home to fish, crab, skates, endangered seals, orcas, and humpback whales.  It’s a truly remarkable ecosystem that starts with the fragile corals and sponges on the seafloor. Tragically, this ecosystem is under threat from industrial fishing fleets that carve up the corals and sponges with their trawl nets.  Bottom-tending fishing gear–especially trawl nets–destroys fragile corals and sponges that provide this essential habitat, including spawning and nursery areas for fish, crab, and other marine species.

The North Pacific Fisheries Management Council oversees the fisheries of the Bering Sea, and they’ve earned the respect of the oceans conservation world for managing the area as well as they have–up until now.  Despite repeated requests from conservationists to protect this vital canyon habitat from fishing impacts, the North Pacific Fisheries Management Council, has so far, taken no action to conserve this vital ecosystem.

When the Council last reviewed proposals to protect the canyons, they found there was insufficient scientific data to justify taking immediate action, but they prioritized the canyons for future research. Greenpeace took this as a challenge and an invitation.  When people think of Greenpeace they rarely think of cutting edge science, but that’s just what we were able to use when we brought state of the art submarines to explore and document the canyons. Our Oceans team worked with NOAA and the WAITT Institute to gather the scientific evidence that clearly shows the canyons contain vulnerable coral and sponge habitat directly threatened by industrial fishing.

For decades, the residents of Washington State have had tremendous influence over the fate of Alaska.  The fight for the Grand Canyons of the Sea is no different.  This June, the NPFMC will meet in Seattle to decide the future of the Canyons, either deciding to act on the available science Greenpeace, NOAA, and others have brought back for them, or to carry on with the status quo.

Over a billion dollars of seafood is harvested along the Bering Sea shelf break each year. Given the ecological and economic importance of the canyons and shelf-break zone, and how little we understand about deep sea ecosystems or the connections between seafloor habitats and commercially important species, it is extremely risky not to set aside representative portions of the shelf break as a buffer against uncertainty. Marine Protected Areas – particularly no-take reserves – provide an insurance policy against costly mistakes and are a key component of sound ecosystem-based fishery management. It’s these protected areas — Hope Spots — that represent our best chance to preserve the seeds of tomorrow’s healthy ocean and help reverse the damage done by rapacious fishing practices.

Mission Blue, a coalition of organizations that protect the ocean and raise awareness about the challenges it faces, has designated the Bering Sea as a new Hope Spot in 2013. This vibrant marine environment, along with the 18 other Hope Spots, form our best chance to protect what is left of the healthy functioning ocean on the planet.

Americans take pride in protecting national treasures such as Yellowstone, Yosemite and Denali, but because the Grand Canyons of the Sea feel so remote, the fishing industry has been allowed to plunder these dynamic ecosystems with impunity. If we want the ocean to continue to provide fish (from wild king salmon to Fish McBites), jobs, and the countless other contributions to the planet, then we need to protect ecologically vital areas like the Grand Canyons of the Sea.

First, the President’s proposal calls for more pollution today to generate money for a clean energy tomorrow.  This is absurd, especially when we can have clean energy today if the president uses the tools already at his disposal right now to make it happen. Let’s be clear: clean energy isn’t just the energy of the future–it is today’s energy. In fact, all new electricity generated in the United States this January was from wind and solar–no nuclear, no coal, and no natural gas.  This is happening right now, not in some sci fi tomorrow.

The question about the future is not if clean energy will be cost effective. We know it will be. The question is if the presidents’ children, and ours, will grow up in a world of much worse Sandys or much more solar. This depends largely on the President’s choices today.

The second shortcoming of the President’s strategy is that at a time when the President can unleash hundreds of billions of private dollars to deploy clean energy through the power of his pen, he is choosing to push for $2 billion through a Congress dominated by big oil and coal money.

In fact President Obama can use existing laws to move America to a clean, strong economy for all of us right now.

Here’s how:

*Enforce EPA carbon standards on existing power plants;

*Develop new appliance and equipment efficiency standards through the Department of Energy;

*Enforce his own executive order that calls for green federal infrastructure retrofits;

*Tell the Treasury Department to stop chaining us to coal companies and allow us to have solar on our homes–and pay for our electricity through our tax bills;

*Commit the federal government to buying 100% clean energy, following the lead of smart forward-facing companies like Facebook, Google, Apple, and major U.S. companies that have committed to doing the same.

President Obama is on record—very publicly–as saying he’s serious about solving climate change for future generations, and he’s clearly working on it.  But if he lets dirty energy have its way with the Keystone XL pipeline, lax carbon safeguards on power plants, and continued offshore drilling, while letting these opportunities for bold leadership pass him by, then all future generations will have is a tragically obsolete speech.  It is time for President Obama to move from the politics and the pollution of the past, embrace today’s energy – clean energy – and boldly lead our country forward. The world we hand to our children is at stake.

API also bought the back page of the A section of the Washington Post with a Vote4Energy ad that costs hundreds of thousands of dollars. That’s about as genuine as a gas-station burrito.

If you want authentic insights on Big Oil’s scheming, start with our own mock Vote 4 Energy commercial:

Anticipating this new misinformation campaign, PolluterWatch created the commercial to show how API and it’s oil company members (Exxon, BP, Shell, Chevron and all the usual suspects) are generating this phony citizen support for Big Oil.

What’s really fueling this bogus outreach is API’s $200 million budget to push dirty energy incentives and tax handouts for oil companies — something the petrol pushers can’t do on their own. Hence the need to prop up a phony corps of pseudo-interested citizens. They’ve even gone so far as to stage faux-rallies for their Energy Citizens astroturf campaign, as revealed by Greenpeace in a confidential API memo to oil executives. The con-job is essential to their strategy because American’s overwhelmingly support clean energy over dirty oil development.

We decided to fight astroturf with astroturf — the real stuff this time, rolling out a carpet of fake green grass at today’s API press conference, flanked by oil company logos that reveal who the real sponsors of this supposed citizens’ movement actually are. The K Street lobbyists seemed confused when the reality of their oily tactics was exposed for all to see.

Of course, all of this points back to our own, honest Vote 4 Energy campaign, which we’ll put up against the fake API version any day of the week.

API CEO Jack Gerard not only heralded the launch of the campaign, he championed even more dirty energy development like the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline in his “State of American Energy” address — a proverbial plastic cherry on top of this petroleum-derived sundae of misinformation.

Media aren’t fooled. Outlets from the Financial Times to Fortune reinforce what we all know: that this is nothing more than a fossil-fuel-filled PR push. The Hill uses refreshing candor right from the headline, labeling the whole effort nothing more than an ad campaign, quoting Greenpeace reps who reveal the truth despite the API soot-screen.

Oddly enough, just after bragging about a DC metro station “dominated” by API’s new Vote 4 Energy ads to those attending the campaign launch on Wednesday, Gerard say “This is not an advertising campaign. Our expectation is that it will be a conversation with the American people.” Except the Vote 4 Energy website’s front page clearly says “Vote4Energy launches ad campaign.” Hmmm… I guess that’s what astroturf campaigns are about — creating both sides of your “conversation with the American people” so you can easily come to a consensus with yourself.

Americans are clearly too smart to be faked out by Big Oil’s phony grass roots strategies. Real citizens will continue to counter the fictional folks created by API. We’ll demand clean, renewable energy alternatives that mean genuine job growth, a healthier environment, and a sustainable future that puts our planet ahead of petroleum profit.

Vote 4 yourself, not oil executives.

These safeguards are not for show. They reflect a raft of highly credible research proving that mercury, along with other toxic metals including arsenic, chromium and nickel, is spewed in to the air as an insidious byproduct of fossil fuel burning. These metals contaminate waterways, where they infuse the bodies of commercial fish and seafood. It’s no surprise that women of childbearing age are urged not to eat salmon and shrimp. High accumulated mercury levels in these and other frequently consumed species can be devastating to the unborn and infants.

That reality gave this effort tremendous momentum — a record-breaking 500,000 Americans reached out to the EPA in support of the standard, reinforcing the notion that we’d rather have healthy moms and babies than antiquated power plants raining contaminants down on our communities. We salute President Obama and EPA Administrator Lisa P. Jackson for standing fast against the antiquated interests of Big Coal and Big Oil in order to make this ruling a reality.

Unsurprising, however, has been the utility industry’s prolonged, expensive campaign of misinformation — millions of dollars and countless lobbying hours spent trying to convince legislators, and thus the American public, that a little mercury mutating a developing human nervous system was no big deal.

Some utility companies, along with members of Congress swimming in their campaign contributions, made heel-dragging on this issue an art. Their lobbyists are understandably upset, but we’re happy to treat them to a seafood dinner if that assuages their grief.

The barrage of tiresome talking points from Republican and industry opposition about how this epitomizes big government’s job-killing intrusion on free enterprise is already underway, but let’s be as clear as the forthcoming air:

• This rule will save lives. According to EPA, the rule will prevent up to 11,000 premature deaths, 4,700 heart attacks, and 130,000 asthma attacks each year, as well as almost 3,000 cases of chronic bronchitis yearly. Emergency room visits will drop by almost 6,000!

• This rule will protect the environment. In 2008, nearly half of all U.S. river-miles and lake-acres were under water contamination advisories. The vast majority of this contamination was due to mercury, including 100% of the Great Lakes. Over time, just one gram of mercury per year will contaminate a 20-acre lake.

• This rule will create jobs and boost productivity. EPA estimates that this rule will lead to 46,000 short-term construction jobs and 8,000 long-term utility jobs. Currently only 17 states have established mercury emissions limits on coal plants. That’s far from adequate, especially since the states with the largest volume of mercury emissions do not have emissions limits. In addition, we’ll avoid 540,000 sick days each year, enhancing productivity while lowering health care costs.

The downside for fossil fuel facilities is negligible at best. A mere eight percent of our nation’s coal-generation capability will be taken offline in the years ahead — decrepit, 30-to-50-year-old power plants that even utility companies agree need to be modernized or shut down outright as they have become too costly to upgrade or maintain, let alone operate.

So, let’s take a well-deserved deep breath and celebrate the fact that regard for a nation’s health and well-being has won out over the interests of a few backward-thinking bribe recipients who don’t lose sleep over causing cancer and birth defects.

Today is a great day for the future of the IT sector.  

Over the past few years, we’ve campaigned hard against Facebook to get them to commit to clean energy – specifically, we wanted them to change their siting policy-the decisions that they make about how to power their massive football-stadium-sized data centers.

When you go onto Facebook or Twitter or iTunes, your stuff -photos and music, status updates and party invitations- has to be stored somewhere.  It’s not something we all spend a lot of time thinking about, but that’s how we use computers, and how we’re going to use them in the future. It’s called “the cloud”. It’s growing fast-right now if the cloud were a country, it would be the fifth largest country in the world in terms of global warming emissions.  

All that information is stored in massive data centers, which look like huge warehouses straight out of the Matrix.  And more often than not, those data centers are powered by coal.

Like anyone else, I love Facebook.  It’s changed the way we can talk to our supporters on the web-I can log in and see how people are engaging with our campaigns, what excites them and what motivates them, and what changes they want to see in the world.  

We’ve won historic victories by relying on the power of Facebook-victories against major brands that happened virtually overnight.  On our Facebook campaign, we set the Guinness Record for number of Facebook comments on a page in 24 hours.  When I, or any of our activists, use Facebook, we want to know that we’re not contributing to the very problems that we’re fighting.

What we’re asking of corporations like Facebook is actually pretty incredible-we want them to be ambitious.  We don’t just want them to “do no evil,” (as Google says) -we want them to do good.  In fact, with the failure of the recent negotiations in Durban and America’s inability to pass climate legislation, we’re asking companies like Facebook to look far into the future, think about what’s good for their business and what’s good for the planet.  

We’re asking them to be champions, and they’re stepping up and doing it.

Facebook has raised the bar for everyone, and we’re now looking for companies like Apple, Twitter and Microsoft to make their next move.  What’s even more incredible is now that Facebook is demanding clean energy, utilities, like Duke Energy, are going to have to supply it.  
This is the future of campaigning – big business isn’t going anywhere, so we want them on our side. We think corporations can be the good guys, if people demand it.  We’ve asked them to step up and they’ve done it.  

Since the beginning of our seafood supermarket campaign, along with other organizations, we’ve gotten 15 major supermarket chains around the country to improve their sustainable seafood policies. Just this year we’ve gotten two of the largest toy companies, Hasbro and Mattel, to stop sourcing their paper from Asia Pulp and Paper, a major contributor to Indonesian deforestation. And just this week, GE and Ben & Jerry’s were successful in pressuring the Environmental Protection Agency to make green refrigerants legal in the United States, a step that will make a huge difference for the climate.

There’s so much more to come in 2012-we’re working to get the major tuna brands to use better fishing methods. We’ve got even more planned for the IT sector because we want to be able to use our gadgets, tweet and live our 21st century lives knowing that the cloud is cleaner.

And, as we say at Greenpeace all the time-no permanent allies, no permanent enemies. We’re committed to standing up for the truth and pushing corporations to be their absolute best-not just dollar-driven profiteers, but true members of our global community. Sometimes that means flying an airship over their headquarters (yup, we did that with Facebook too!) and sometimes it means standing together to ask for better solutions together. So here’s to 21st century campaigning and unlikely allies.  And thank you Facebook for helping us make history!

Read the agreement between Greenpeace and Facebook here.

Here’s a quick video ad that I think gets right to point:

Late last week the President blocked reforms to the Environmental Protection Agency’s plans to improve pollution measures to protect Americans against the harmful effects of toxic ozone smog. The President chose to side with big corporate polluters instead of with the 12,000 Americans that, according to the EPA, would have been saved by these proposed updates to pollution controls. Obama also chose to side with the big polluting industries instead of with the estimated 24 million men, women, and children suffering from asthma in this country who are forced to suffer even more because of heightened smog levels.

The decision outraged his biggest backers in the Democratic Party. Barbara Boxer, Chairwoman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, said that environmentalists should sue the Obama administration over the decision: “I hope they’ll be sued in court and I hope the court can stand by the Clean Air Act.”

On Friday, when the Obama announcement was made, top Democrat Congressman Ed Markey who sits on the House Energy and Commerce Committee said, “I am disappointed that the President chose to further delay important clean air protections that would have helped to prevent respiratory and cardiac disease in thousands of Americans.”

Obama needs to be reminded that come November, he will be counting on people who care about the environment and the health of their families and loved ones, not just for votes, but for volunteer hours and everything else that he needs from them to win his campaign.

This decision is all about politics, and that’s just sickening. There is still hope. The President just needs to do his job and start protecting us from ozone pollution — much of which comes from coal-fired power plants — and stop doing the dirty work of the big corporate polluters.

For many Americans, Obama’s promise to begin to move the United States away from its growing dependence on fossil fuels and address global warming was foremost among his promise of change. For many more, it was Obama’s assurance that his Presidency would change a political system dominated by lobbyists and their narrow interests, instead of the public interest. President Obama’s commitment on both of these promises – to the volunteers who knocked on doors, the young voters who elected him, and the country he leads – will be tested by his decision on the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline.

If approved, the pipeline construction would allow greater exploitation of the environmentally destructive tar sands, ripping up some of the world’s last, most intact rainforests and wildlife habitat that has taken 10,000 years to evolve. The pipeline also threatens communities along its route with toxic oil spills. And by opening a new source of highly polluting tar sands, it could cause even more global warming, as James Hansen and 19 other prominent climate scientists have warned. This is why Keystone XL is opposed by Nebraskan ranchers, communities near the dangerous refineries in Texas, the nation’s largest environmental organizations, and so many more.

The State Department on Friday showed the extraordinary influence that the fossil fuel industry still has in Washington, when it absurdly claimed that the environmental impacts of the pipeline would be ‘minimal.’ While these State Department reviews are “welcomed” by the American Petroleum Institute, the Environmental Protection Agency objected to earlier drafts as insufficient. For a glimpse of how the State Department’s Keystone XL reviews could release such an unrealistic conclusion, look no further than Transcanada’s lead lobbyist for the pipeline, a former top campaign aide for Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. This appears to be the kind of cronyism with the oil industry that Obama promised to end, but with several major oil companies involved in the project, it really is just a glimpse of the enormous lobbying pressure the oil industry has brought to bear.

Any hopes these oil lobbyists had for the closed door deal they are used to is now long gone. This week, we will stand with hundreds of Americans and our allies who take the world that we leave for our children seriously enough to risk arrest in hopes that President Obama will take the security of our country and the world we leave our children seriously enough to cancel the tar sands pipeline and fast track his work to get America off of oil, period.

We’ll see you at the White House.

Phil Radford, Executive Director, Greenpeace USA
Daryl Hannah, Actress/Activist