Mobilization for Climate Justice

Archive for June, 2010

Joseph Nevins

As oil continues to gush into the Gulf of Mexico, just one of many manifestations of perilous ecological degradation across the planet, the need to challenge war and militarism—especially in terms of the United States—becomes ever-more pressing. The U.S. military is the world’s single biggest consumer of fossil fuels, and the single entity most responsible for destabilizing the Earth’s climate.

The costs of U.S. militarism and war are high and many. In addition to the growing civilian and military death toll in Iraq and Afghanistan, for example, total monies appropriated by Congress for the two wars surpassed the one-trillion-dollar mark on May 30th. Among other would-be purchases, such an enormous sum could provide 294,734,961 people with health care for one year, according to the Northampton, Massachusetts-based national Priorities Project.(1) Instead, the monies are dedicated to death and destruction—all in the name of “national security”—greatly enriching military contractors in the process.

The costs that one rarely hears about—at least here in the United States—are the associated environmental damages that regularly and systematically occur. Indeed, it is far more common to learn of the Pentagon’s efforts to “go green.”

In March, the Center for American Progress, for instance, reported on the Pentagon building’s “big green renovation.” When completed in 2011, “the Pentagon’s 25,000 military and civilian personnel will not only work in one of the biggest office buildings in the world,” the article gushed, “but one of the most energy efficient and environmentally sustainable.”(2)

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by Rachel Smolker (original link at Common Dreams HERE)

It’s downright amazing what people are willing to put their faith in when confronted with a crisis. With ever more dire impacts from a cooking planet, the “biochar worshippers” are doing their best to sell the idea that we can cure just about everything — from global warming to soil infertility, agrichemical runoff, even dirty toilets — by doing a little morecooking. Just cook up some trees, agricultural “wastes and residues” — maybe a few hundred thousand acres of industrial tree monocultures (why not?) and then bury the resulting charcoal in soils to “sequester” it.  This, they refer to as “a powerful tool to fight global warming.” (Footnote: If you think referring to them as “worshippers” is overstepping, see below)

So convinced are they that charred plant matter is the answer to global warming, that the International Biochar Initiative, (IBI), a group consisting of a mix of business, academic and hybrid interests, has spent tons of time and money zealously lobbying to have biochar included in all manner of policies intended to address climate change: from the UN and other carbon trading venues to the proposed “Water Efficiency via Carbon Harvesting and Restoration Act” (WECHAR) bill introduced by Senator Harry Reid from Nevada, which would have us char trees and other “biomass” from National Parks. Read the rest of this entry »

PRESS CONFERENCE: Wednesday June 9, 4:40 p.m., informational session: 4:15 to 5:30 p.m.

WHERE: Springfield, MA, Pynchon Park on the corner of State and
Chestnut Streets, next to the main branch of the Springfield Library
immediately prior to the Massachusetts Department of Environmental
Protection’s hearing on the Global Warming Solutions Act.

WHO:  Stop Toxic Incineration In Springfield, Arise for Social
Justice, Concerned Citizens of Russell, The Enviro Show, Stop Spewing
Carbon Campaign, Massachusetts Forest Watch, Pioneer Valley
Preservation Coalition, Concerned Citizens of Franklin County,
Students for a Just and Stable Society and McKnight Neighborhood
Council in Springfield.

A coalition of health, social justice, and environmental groups  is
letting the state and federal governments know that biomass
incinerators are not a climate change solution but make are a public
health and climate disaster and the state should not be promoting them.

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Coming to the U.S. Social Forum? Then, don’t miss THE big action of the Forum to shut down the world’s biggest waste incinerator and demand clean air, good jobs, and justice for all!

Join the People of Detroit on Saturday, June 26 for a Rally, March & Mass Demonstration to End the World’s Biggest Waste Incinerator!

Action starts at 9 am at Detroit Public Library, 5201 Woodward, Detroit.

Help us make history this summer! Join thousands of community activists, environmental groups and labor unions in demanding climate, community and labor justice!

Detroit’s waste incinerator is the largest incinerator in the world, operated by the world’s largest incinerator company – Covanta.

• Burning garbage is one of the primary sources of cancer-causing dioxins in the world
• Burning garbage for energy produces more climate pollution per unit of electricity than coal power plants.
• Over 90% of waste burned can be recycled or composted, generating more than 10 times the number of jobs than burning or burying these valuable resources.
• If all the waste buried or burned in the U.S. were to be recycled and composted, hundreds of thousands of long-term jobs could be created while reducing a massive toxic burden for some of the poorest communities in this country.

Detroit Mayor David Bing can choose to embrace Zero Waste Detroit’s plan for green jobs – expanding curbside recycling throughout the city and ending incineration of Detroit’s trash.

If you wish to join, support or endorse this day of action, email organize@cleanairgoodjobsjustice.org

Stay tuned to http://www.cleanairgoodjobsjustice.org/ for more info!

The Facebook event posting – http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=127846467243004

WHAT IS IT?

On June 23rd, environmental justice organizers will be guiding a tour through Toronto to expose institutions most responsible for the environmental and social impacts of Canada’s extractive industries both at home and abroad. Canada is home to 75% of the world’s mining and exploration companies, making it a global leader in this industry. Canada’s place within the G8 nations is largely due to the exploitation of Indigenous peoples, their lands and rural poor for mining, tar sands and oil/gas exploitation.

As residents of Canada, we will not standby while the Canadian government, banks, and corporations continue to destroy people’s livelihoods and ecosystems to secure wealth accumulation for a select few.

WHAT SHOULD I BRING?
We encourage folks coming to dress up and challenge those in power with costumes, floats and fancied up bicycles. We will be working on several floats in lead up but encourage all to dress up for our action.

Ideas for costumes: Executives with blood on their hands, corporate zombies, people covered in Tar Sands bitumen,. etc. (fake blood and bitumen will be provided)

WHERE AND WHEN?

Please join us at 11 am on June 23 at Alexandra Park.

For more information or to endorse the event, please contact: toxictourTO@gmail.com

Facebook event: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=127661243928642

WHY TAKE PART IN THE TOXIC TOUR?

The toxic tour will focus on four themes:

1. The extractive industry is violating human rights and the rights of mother earth. The federal government supports these companies even as human rights workers are killed, local peoples poisoned, and entire communities displaced. From the tar sands in northern Alberta to gold mines in Papua New Guinea to copper mines in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Canadian companies are exploiting indigenous and poor communities alike, violating their right to self-determination, poisoning their lands, manipulating any leadership that they can access, and often supporting brutal military and security operations.

2. The extractive industry is exacerbating the climate crisis. The tar sands gigaproject is the most destructive industrial project on earth and will be the leading contributor to climate change in Canada, making it impossible for our country to meet its international climate commitments. The climate crisis has been caused by the industrialization of developed countries like Canada, while disproportionately affecting indigenous peoples and the global south who are faced with sea-level rise, drought, permafrost melt, desertification, melting glaciers, and increased extreme weather events. These and other problems brought on by the climate crisis have destroyed the livelihoods of millions who are dying and being displaced from their homes.

3. The education system is taken over by corporate interests. The University of Toronto, Canada´s largest academic institution, is taken over by corporations, many of which are linked to the extractive industry. This corporate influence stifles open, honest, and critical debate in our institutions of higher learning and demonstrates how a wealthy few can dominate and shape the way people think. As an academic institution that strives to create the ‘leaders of tomorrow,’ we must challenge the notion that corporate greed and exploitation has any place in our education system.

4. The Canadian economy is dependent on exploiting marginalized peoples and the environment. Harper would not be at the G8 if it wasn’t for exploiting the resources and people of countries that the G8 is purposely shutting out of discussions. Solutions, however, are there—but the Harper government refuses to give people the ability to determine the future of their own lives and livelihoods.