Jason Ray was a ray of hope and joy on the University of North Carolina campus.  He performed the role of Rameses (the University mascot) for 3 years, hauling his giant ram’s head costume to sporting events one day and to children’s hospitals the next. He was an Eagle Scout, Honor Student, Black Belt in Karate, Lead Singer in a Rock Band and life held much promise for this energetic and compassionate boy.

A 35-metre pine rests at a sick angle on the roof of a Washington DC home on the city's edge. The tree snapped like a toothpick midway through the storm, tearing down the electrical lines and leaving this household dark – and along with an estimated 200,000 people, reliant on battery and candle power.

If there was an award for "most badly behaved protest group," Rainforest Action Network (RAN) would be contender for the title. Now, the Berkeley-based group of activists is trying to pull U.S. business (as well as an Italian fashion house and an Indonesian paper manufacturer) down with them. Americans will need to brace themselves, because they're about to get a taste of greenmail.

Greenmail is a dubious but common practice in which large environmental groups threaten aggressive campaigns to publicly besmirch businesses in order to coerce them to alter successful business practices that don't fit with activists' agenda. This unscrupulous tactic is often at the front of RAN's playbook. Before coming stateside, the group campaigned in Europe - subjecting the fashion house Gucci to attacks over shopping bags purchased from a company that sourced its paper from Indonesia.