These organizations use tactics varying from direct action to job training, but they all are working to protect the planet in a substantial way.

Through twitter, anyone can stay up to date with their latest efforts to restore and protect habitats, influence environmental policy, and curb climate change. Take the opportunity to tap into the thoughts of those pushing for change and perhaps find some ideas of how you can help.

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In a demonstration of increased surveillance on protest groups in Britain, police arrested 114 people for alleged conspiracy to commit criminal damage and aggravated trespass at a coal-fired power plant.

Huh? What kind of protest involves 114 people “conspiring” to enter and vandalize a power plant? Sounds like a few dozen were involved in logistics, and the rest had volunteered to go along for the ride. Does their willingness to participate really constitute conspiratory thought?

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Apa Sherpa, 49, has climbed Mount Everest a record 18 times but now he’s preparing for a 19th, this time to clean up the mess left by the thousands of climbers who have scaled the mountain since 1953.

Apa, a high-altitude guide, plans to take the Eco Everest Expedition up the mountain to clean up garbage left by previous expeditions. Climbers have noted the build-up of waste on the mountain for several years.

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Scientists at Pennsylvania State University have discovered a solution to the problem of reliable storage for alternative energy: a bacteria that can convert electricity to methane when combined with CO2.

Any surplus power from wind, solar, or tidal sources is fed into the bacteria and combined with CO2 from the atmosphere to create methane for storage. Methane is a clean-burning gas and 80% of energy fed into the process was retained at the end.

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Nine monkeys escaped from an Oregon Health & Science University animal testing lab after a cage was left unlocked. Four were shortly re-captured and four others have been spotted on campus — but one has entirely eluded authorities.

“One of our cage cleaners accidentally left a lock off a cage,” said Jim Newman, a university spokesman. “The cage was closed; however, the animals were able to slide the door open and get out.”

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With the recent successes in stopping the further expansion of coal-based energy, activists direly need a complete list of proposed mining projects.

While SourceWatch.org already hosts the CoalSwarm database with all sorts of information about coal plants across different states, it’s lacking information on proposed coal mines. Legal opposition and community protests have been shown to work, so if you live in a coal mining area please add any known projects to this wiki list.

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Boston police treated a mannequin chained to the front door of a Bank of America branch as a potential bomb threat, shutting down the bank while they investigated.

The mannequin wore a shirt with the message “THE REAL DUMMIES EVICT PEOPLE & FUND CLIMATE CHAOS.” Police were astute enough to realize that the mannequin posed no threat, and eventually a group called Mannequins for Climate Justice claimed the action.

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When a new coal preparation plant decided to begin construction without first securing a permit, Plains Justice with the Dakota Resource Council and local residents jumped at the opportunity to file a complaint against the company.

With the complaint challenging the plant’s construction, Great Northern Power Development withdrew its application for a new coal mine that was to work in conjunction with the plant. But the victory is bigger than one plant — it has repercussions for coal mining across North Dakota.

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When researchers from the Syrian Society for Conservation of Wildlife and RSPB noticed that hunters were shooting down sociable lapwings, one of the world’s rarest bird species, they immediately reached out to the government for protection.

Syria sent rangers out to discuss the plight of the lapwings and apparently they have agreed to stop the hunt. Sociable Lapwings are classified as critically endangered by Birdlife International, but their numbers have been on the incline with the discovery of two large flocks in 2007.

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Baard Energy withdrew an application for federal loans for a $6 billion coal-to-liquids plant in Illiinois last week. The company cited lawsuits by the Sierra Club and National Resource Defense Council for blocking the project.

“Baard keeps claiming this is a clean coal facility and nothing could be further from the truth,” said Nachy Kanfer of Sierra Club. “There is nothing clean about a fuel that emits twice the global warming pollution of normal gasoline or a refinery that spits out huge amounts of dangerous air pollutants and heavy metals.”

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Did you hear about KFC’s offer to fill the potholes in Louisville and four other US cities? Well, they’ve asked to be allowed to stencil an ad onto the pavement in exchange. Predictably, PETA and their KFC Cruelthy campaign now want some of the action.

“KFC might concentrate instead on improving conditions for the chickens it abuses, but it won’t, so we’re offering to double the money that KFC offered the City of Louisville—if the city will use our ads against KFC cruelty on its potholes instead,” reads a post today on PETA’s blog.

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The inch-long Christmas Island pipistrelle, which weighs about a tenth of an ounce, could become the first Australian mammal to become extinct since the Tasmanian tiger in 1930.

After years of unrequited calls to help the animal, conservationists have asked the government to begin an emergency breeding program for the tiny bat. Environment Minister responded by announcing breeding trials for a similar yet non-threatened population elsewhere to test the viability of breeding the pipistrelle.

Conservationists fear that it may be too little, too late.

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The Humane Society of the United States has returned to court in attempt to stop the sea lion cull near the Bonneville Dam in Washington and Oregon.

Hundreds of sea lions may be trapped and killed in a program aiming to increase the salmon population in the river. The animal welfare group argues that the NOAA Fisheries Service has not sufficiently explained why the sea lions are being singled out despite other predators (like humans) having a greater impact on the salmon population.

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Peter Sinclair is back again with a new installment of his always-insightful podcast “The Climate Denial Crock of the Week.” This time, he tackles the common claim climate change deniers make that thousands of reputable scientists dispute global warming. Check it out!

A rare species of sheep discovered by Marco Polo in the 13th century is edging closer to extinction due to increased trophy hunting in Central Asian countries, new research reports.

The species, once prominent in the Pamir Mountains on the border of China, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Tajikistan, now numbers around 10,000, according to George Schaller of the Science and Exploration Program of the Wildlife Conservation Society.

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Residents of Centerville, Virginia have sued Dominion Virginia Power to the tune of $1 billion for supplying 1.5 million tons of toxic fly ash to fill the hills of a nearby golf course.

The attorneys representing 400 Centerville residents claim that Dominion knew that the substance they supplied to the Battlefield Golf Club would eventually seep into the water supply. The suit also names the golf course’s developer and Dominion’s ‘coal-ash management consultant.’

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An undercover investigation by Endangered Species International has disclosed the horrific scale of the endangered species market in the Republic of Congo.

The nonprofit found that hunters source 95% of bushmeat around the Kouilou region, one of the most biodiverse areas in the country. In additon to gorilla meat, the investigation discovered the sale of other at-risk species like the forest hinged tortoise, draft crocodiles, blue duikers, and white-bellied pangolins.

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A South Korean woman living in Los Angeles has been charged with importing bear bile from China to illegally sell as an aphrodisiac. She faces up to 20 years in prison if convicted.

Investigators intercepted a package addressed the Seongja Hyun while waiting for transport to Los Angeles from a San Francisco sorting facility. Inside the package they found four containers of bear bile, leading them to further investigate Hyun.

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In a huge break for the United States’ anti-GMO movement, a federal judge ruled that the US Fish & Wildlife Service should not have allowed genetically modified crops to be planted within a Prime Hook, a national wildlife refuge in Delaware.

The suit, filed by the Center for Food Safety, Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, and the Audubon Society in Delaware, challenged that the US Fish & Wildlife Service knowingly put habitat at risk when it allowed farmers to plant GMO’s inside the 10,000-acre wildlife refuge. The results were better than anyone expected.

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With the help of conservation groups, the U.S. Office of Surface Mining launched the Appalachian Regional Reforestation Initiative to attempt to rescue the thousands forest acres left barren by mountaintop coal mining.

The volunteer-based initiative, which hopes to eventually plant 38 million trees in Appalachia, received the endorsement of the United Nations Environment Program yesterday. The UN aims to plant 7 billion trees in the next three years across the globe, so every small project across the globe contributes.

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