The Silver Maple Conspiracy (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9781506132167)

Avram Friedman is the current Executive Director of The Canary Coalition, a grassroots, non-profit organization based in western North Carolina that works on policy issues related to climate change, air pollution, energy and transportation. Under his leadership this organization has won prestigious awards from the US Environmental Protection Agency and from the Governor of North Carolina for effective activism on air quality issues. Since the 1960's his life has been devoted to social causes and community organizing in the tradition of Mohandes Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr. Along with other dedicated people, his organizational efforts have been instrumental in the creation of an effective ban on the construction of nuclear power plants in Oregon, the prevention of the location of a high-level nuclear waste repository in the Great Smoky Mountains region of North Carolina, the reversal of a plan to locate an eight-state low-level radioactive waste repository in eastern North Carolina, the passage of the milestone Clean Smokestacks Act in North Carolina and much more. He has run for public office four times in an effort to inform the public, the press and political leaders about important under-reported environmental issues. He has been arrested three times for acts of non-violent civil disobedience in an effort to raise public awareness about the dangers of nuclear power and the continued use of fossil fuels to produce electricity. In recognition of his important contribution, he was given one of the four pens used by then Governor Mike Easley to sign into law the NC Clean Smokestack Act, in 2002.