Archive for August, 2011
Photo Essay from Vermont: The Recovery from Hurricane Irene Begins
August 31st, 2011
As of Tuesday, 30 August 2011, there were still thirteen towns in the U.S. state of Vermont that were completely cut off from the outside world due to the torrential rains of Hurricane Irene. This was because roads like Route 100, which runs north and south through the state, sustained catastrophic damage to its culverts and bridges for many miles. In all, over 200 roads across the state were closed due to wash outs from the heavy rains that pelted the state for nearly twenty-four hours on Sunday, August 28.
Route 100–this and other washed out bridges and culverts cut off the town of Granville, VT from the outside world
Text: Anne Petermann, Executive Director, Global Justice Ecology Project
Photos: Orin Langelle, Co-Director/Strategist, Global Justice Ecology Project
Orin Langelle and I toured a portion of our home state of Vermont on Tuesday, 30 August to witness and document some of the destruction that Hurricane Irene had left in its wake. Though it was downgraded to a “tropical storm” by the time it reached Vermont, its torrential rains wreaked havoc around the state. Where we live, we had been quite fortunate and only lost electricity for twenty-three hours or so. Other parts of the state were far less lucky. During our travels, however, we witnessed the resiliency of Vermonters, who tackled their own loss or the loss of their neighbors, not only with fortitude, but also with humor and a very New England-like matter of fact-ness.
The post-flood clean up effort begins in Waterbury, VT
Our journey began at Camp Johnson in Colchester, where the Vermont National Guard is stationed, to see what an official governmental response looked like. Vermont’s National Guard sustained the heaviest losses of any U.S. state during the occupation of Iraq. Like many Vermont National Guardsmen, the young soldier we spoke with, Nathan Rivard of Enosburg Falls, explained that responding to the needs of his neighbors during disasters like Irene that was the reason he had joined the Guard. The response to the storm was, he felt, the real story in Vermont. “It’s people helping people,” he explained. “Not just the disaster, but how people respond after.”
VT National Guard personnel prepare relief packages
The Vermont National Guard responded while the storm was still raging to help Vermonters caught off guard by the inundation of water. Before the sun was up on Tuesday morning, thirty FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency) tractor-trailers had arrived at the National Guard’s Camp Johnson with water, ready to eat meals, blankets, cots and other supplies.
FEMA personnel prepare temporary shelters
Because of the widespread road damage, however, getting the supplies to the people who need them has been extremely challenging. With thirteen towns completely cut off from the outside world, National Guard helicopters have been almost the only way to get help in from the outside—either in the form of medical assistance or basic necessities like food and water.
National Guard medical helicopter
The ability of the government to help over the long term, however, is highly uncertain as the number of natural disasters in the U.S. over the past year has totally depleted FEMA’s budget.
[Note: We did ask the VT National Guard what communities in VT were receiving supplies from the Guard so we could document distribution. We were not given that information.]
The People Pull Together
From Camp Johnson, we headed to Waterbury, where Vermont’s state offices are located–and sustained heavy flood damage. Waterbury was submerged under 10 feet or more of water when the Winooski River rose to record flood levels in minutes. Even the state’s emergency management office succumbed to the flooding waters and had to relocate to Burlington—the state’s largest city. When Irene hit Sunday, WDEV (Radio Vermont) stayed on the air all day and night with a generator, despite losing power from the grid and their internet connection. While a commercial station, they remain dedicated to their community. WDEV provided valuable information to residents about flooding damage and impassable roads during the disaster. See Democracy Now! for an interview with the WDEV station owner.
This photo shows the high water mark from the flood in Waterbury
By Tuesday, volunteers and neighbors were pouring support into the community.
At the first house we came to on Elm Street, one of the streets where the flooding had been the worst, a group was sharing stories about the scene on Sunday. Their front yard was heaped with ruined debris. The home’s owner explained to us that the water in the apartment he rented downstairs had been up to his shoulders. He explained that he wouldn’t even be able to start dealing with the damage to the house until the insurance agent arrived—which wouldn’t be until Friday.
But, he emphasized, the outpouring of support had been amazing. Restaurants were donating food to the relief effort, and a bus full of “Youth Build” participants had arrived earlier that day to pitch in. “If you didn’t know there was a flood, you’d think it was a block party,” he explained with a smile.
Inside the house, it was easy to see just how destructive the flood had been. Kitchen appliances were covered in mud, while at one end of what had presumably been the living room, a happy birthday sign still hung. In another room, mud covered baby toys littered the floor.
A Happy Birthday sign still hangs on the wall
Cars did not fare well either during the flood.
Around the corner on Randall Street, the activity of clearing homes of debris and salvaging what could be salvaged was still under way.
Huge dumpsters lined the street and debris was being piled according to type with electronics in one pile, hazardous materials (mostly paint, stain and household chemicals) in another, and everything else going in the dumpsters.
We came across one woman who picked up a white jug and sighed, “this was an antique,” as she poured muddy water out of a gaping hole in its side. “Oh well,” she said. “It’s just stuff, right?” then chucked it into the dumpster. “Bye.”
For some people the loss was clearly overwhelming. Others got to work cleaning what could be cleaned.
Coming up the road we encountered three intrepid children, helping out the best they could by giving out bottles of water. They were very serious about their job, asking everyone they met if they wanted something to drink.
Among the ruins were tarps laid out with items that had been salvaged and washed, drying in the sun. Many people managed to tackle the mess with a positive attitude.
From Waterbury, we headed down Route 100—one of the hardest hit roads in the state. Not far down the road, we came to Moretown, were the Mad River had lived up to its name.
Bridge over the Mad River, severely damaged by the flood
The Mad River, now back to its calm, pristine self, had become a raging torrent on Sunday, shutting down Route 100B and flooding the Village Cemetery.
Workers repair the bridge over Route 100B in Moretown
The cemetery fence was buckling under the weight of the flood debris that was caught in its chain links and many headstones had been flattened—including those of the entire Philemon Family (dating back to 1865) and Bulkley Family (dating back to 1822).
Across the street, another home was half-hidden by debris with a lonely pair of mud-covered rubber boots testifying to the people that had lived there.
Further down Route 100, on the border of Waitsfield and Warren, the Mad River had taken out half of the road.
Nearby, American Flatbread, a unique and very popular Mad River Valley institution featuring an outdoor bonfire, indoor clay flatbread oven and walls covered with Bread and Puppet art, had also succumbed to the raging mud. As we passed, teams of people were pitching in to help clean out the mess.
Our final stop on Route 100, where we could go no further, was at the border of Warren and Granville. The road was washed out. Route 100 further to the south was closed due to water, and Route 125, the only link to the west, was also impassable. This left the towns of Granville, Hancock and Rochester, all located along Rte 100, cut off from the outside world.
At the roadblock we spoke with some electrical workers who were trying to get to the town of Rochester. They had been talking with the road worker at the wash out to see how they might travel south. “We’re based in South Royalton,” one electrical worker explained. “We’ve been trying to get to Rochester all day. They’re without power and we’re trying to get in to fix it. We tried to get to Rochester from the South but couldn’t get in. Now we’re trying to get in from the North, but that’s not working either. We’re going to try some small dirt roads now to see if we can get around these wash outs.”
The Mad River near Granville–not so mad anymore
While the record devastation around Vermont has been catastrophic to many communities, the spirit of collective teamwork that we experienced on our journey gave us a hopeful glimpse of what is possible and the mountains that can be moved when people pull together. As we head into the uncertain future of escalating climate chaos and extreme weather, this spirit may be the one thing that enables communities to come together to find local, small scale, ecologically sustainable solutions to the climate crisis.
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Article source: GJEP Climate Connections Blog
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August 31, 2011 (Washington, D.C.) – The Council of Canadians, the Indigenous Environmental Network and Greenpeace Canada presented a letter addressed to Ambassador Gary Doer at the Canadian embassy in Washington, D.C. today demanding an end to lobbying in favour of the Keystone XL pipeline.
“Ambassador Doer has publicly recognized he is actively lobbying for Keystone XL,” says Maude Barlow, National Chairperson of the Council of Canadians, who will be present to help deliver the letter. “To pitch the tar sands as the answer to American energy security ignores the destruction of the tar sands and turns away from the sustainable energy future Canada and the U.S. need.”
In May 2011, Alberta saw one of the largest pipeline bursts in the province’s history when 28,000 barrels of crude oil spilled into the local ecosystem near Peace River. In the past year, TransCanada’s first Keystone pipeline has spilled crude oil at least 12 times and contaminated water, air and soil in nearby communities. The spills resulted in catastrophic effects on wildlife and the quality of life of nearby farmers, landowners and Indigenous communities.
First Nations delegates with the Indigenous Environmental Network will also be present outside the Canadian Embassy. They have come to Washington to share their testimonies of the damaging social and health effects the tar sands are having on their communities.
“With the onslaught of tar sands exploitation, we are seeing more people developing serious respiratory illnesses. People of all ages are developing types of cancer that we have never seen in our area. As we have see the tar sands industry expand,” said Gitz Crazyboy of Fort McMurray, in the heart of the Alberta tar sands. Crazyboy continues, “We what we see is alarming – we are witnessing the complete destruction of the boreal forest as tar sands operations expand.”
The proposed Keystone XL pipeline would carry tar sands oil from Canada to the U.S. The controversial 2,736 kilometre project threatens to pollute freshwater supplies in America’s agricultural heartland and spike air pollution in the Gulf Coast. The pipeline would cross Indian-US treaty territories, water aquifers, rivers, grasslands, cultural sites and ecological sensitive areas. Tar sands operations and its associated infrastructure projects are consistently violating constitutionally recognized treaty rights in both Canada and the United States.
Melina Laboucan-Massimo, a climate and energy campaigner with Greenpeace Canada who is from Alberta said, “The Keystone pipeline is an act of aggression to the plants, wildlife and people who live in its path. We are proud to add our voice to the hundreds of brave activists who have peacefully opposed this destructive project over the past several days.”
Two weeks of protests in Washington, DC will end on September 3rd before transitioning to Ottawa for a one-day event endorsed by the Council of Canadians, Indigenous Environmental Network and Greenpeace Canada on September 26th. People across Canada have been invited to participate by signing on to the civil disobedience protest at ottawaaction.ca.
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Article source: GJEP Climate Connections Blog
First Nations leaders join Keystone pipeline protest
August 31st, 2011
Cross-Posted from CBC News Posted: Aug 30, 2011
Beginning of Story Content
Indigenous people from across North America are joining the White House protest against TransCanada’s proposed Keystone XL pipeline, which would carry crude oil from northern Alberta to Gulf Coast refineries in Texas.
Several First Nations leaders from Canada are making the trip to join the protest Sept. 2.
Protesters have gathered outside the White House in Washington, D.C. since Aug. 20, with actors and scientists among those opposing the pipeline. Over 250 people have been arrested, including Canadian actors Margot Kidder and Fort McMurray, Alta.,-born Tantoo Cardinal.
The Indigenous Environmental Network is organizing the effort to bring indigenous people to the U.S. capital. Campaign organizer Clayton Thomas-Muller said they’ve seen a “tremendous” outpouring of support from across North America and Europe for local people in Northern Alberta.
George Poitras, former chief of the Mikisew Cree in northern Alberta, plans to join the protest. He believes the oil sands have already had a dire impact on people’s health in his community of Fort Chipewyan.
“We would like President Obama to hear our pleas; perhaps he will not approve this pipeline,” he said.
Chief concerned about water quality
Bill Erasmus, Regional Chief with the Assembly of First Nations in the Northwest Territories, plans to attend and has already written a letter protesting the pipeline to U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
Erasmus says he’s concerned about water quality.
“Everything that happens in Alberta is part of the Mackenzie water basin, all that water comes north,” he said.
The pipeline passed a major hurdle on Friday when the U.S. State Department said there was no significant risks to the six U.S. states it would cut through.
The assessment moved the administration of President Barack Obama a step closer to a final decision on the pipeline. It now has about three months to determine whether the controversial project is in the national interest of the United States.
Keystone XL has become a lightning rod for the environmental movement in the U.S. in the aftermath of failed climate-change legislation last year.
Proponents, meantime, say the pipeline will create thousands of jobs and help end U.S. reliance on Middle Eastern oil.
With files from The Canadian Press
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Article source: GJEP Climate Connections Blog
Pipeline Protests: Beyond the Usual Suspects
August 30th, 2011
Several months ago, John Stansbury, a soft-spoken professor from Omaha, Neb., took his 12-year-old grandson to a public meeting to discussKeystone XL, the proposed mega-pipeline
that would carry oil from Canada across his home state to the Gulf of Mexico. At the time, Stansbury knew almost nothing about the pipeline and had never done anything particularly political. “I’m not really an activist,” he says, a bit sheepishly. But he wanted his grandson to “see democracy at work.”
The 61-year-old civil engineer also happens to be an expert in the transport of hazardous materials. And as he learned more about Keystone XL, he saw a disaster in the making. After the meeting, Stansbury began poring over official risk assessments of the pipeline and thought they grossly underestimated the probability of a spill. He was so troubled that he did something he’s never done before—he courted media attention. He drafted an independent report on the pipeline, asked the organization Friends of the Earth to help announce his findings, and held a press conference. He predicts the pipeline could have approximately 91 significant spills over the next 50 years—eight times as many as the energy company TransCanada estimated.
Keystone XL has enough strikes against it to turn political neophytes like Stansbury into first-time activists, and to compel some unusual alliances between conservatives and progressives. The pipeline was proposed by TransCanada in 2008, but its potentially disastrous consequences have only recently gottensignificant national attention. It is designed to transport viscous, corrosive bitumen extracted from oil shale in Alberta. Oil shale, also known as tar sands, is an especially dirty, expensive, polluting form of petroleum, and scientist James Hansen says escalating tars sands production would destroy any chance of reining in the most disastrous effects of climate change. Moreover, the byproducts of oil shale mining are toxic and carcinogenic; they’re already sickening communities that live near the tar sands.
The project awaits only a rubber stamp from the State Department before it can move forward. But environmentalists, scientists, and activists are pressuring Obama to halt it. And the pipeline crosses through a series of red states, where it has met surprising resistance from some vocal opponents, in large part because of the risks to water supplies. Both conservatives and progressives have plenty of sour memories of the Deepwater Horizon spill last year and this summer’s spill on the Yellowstone River. A worst-case rupture on the Keystone line could be more than 120 times larger than the Yellowstone spill, according to Stansbury.
Moreover, the Plains have enough of a libertarian and populist streak to make at least a few people distrustful of a Canadian oil corporation and a federal-government-led review process with little public input. Rural conservatives have been turning out at environmental meetings in Texas to fight the pipeline, according to the Los Angeles Times. The National Farmers Union has issued a strong statement on the pipeline, opposing any project that threatens water supplies. Ranchers and rural landowners are joining thousands this week in Washington, D.C., to risk arrest at sit-ins organized by a coalition of environmental groups and scientists. Jane Kleeb, founder of the progressive group Bold Nebraska, says even a few Tea Partiers have joined the Washington protests.
“We have to look beyond any political differences that we have because we have a common goal here,” says Randy Thompson, a rancher who has become the face of pipeline opposition in Nebraska. More than three years ago, TransCanada sought Thompson’s permission to route the pipeline across his land. Thompson refused out of concern for his water supply: The water table on his ranch sits just a few feet below the surface. He began writing letters to the editor. “I had never done that before in my life,” he says. The lifelong Republican then sought allies at Bold Nebraska. He says it’s been occasionally awkward but worthwhile to collaborate with a progressive organization: “It’s never been easy among our group. I would say I have gained a lot of respect for the people I’ve been working with.”
This month, Thompson was the poster child for a series of Nebraska events called “I Stand with Randy.” He has submitted testimony to Congress on the pipeline and plans to go to Washington, D.C., in October for a State Department hearing on the pipeline. He says his involvement has been eye-opening, and as he has learned more about climate change and water pollution, he has also become an opponent of oil shale mining. “This is an ugly project from beginning to end. And when you look at what’s happening up in Canada to that beautiful mountain area up there, turning it into a toxic waste dump, that’s just not right,” he says.
Pipeline opponents have been especially vocal in Thompson’s home state, and a random survey last fall of 500 Nebraskans showed that nearly half oppose the pipeline when they are given details about its impact. But people like Thompson are still the exception. The majority of conservatives aren’t ready to shake hands with climate activists. And there are few signs that Republicans in Congress are listening to pipeline opponents. Nebraska Republican Senator Mike Johanns has raised concerns about Keystone XL, but Republicans in the House have voted to fast-track the pipeline and force Obama to decide by November 1.
Still, Americans on both ends of the political spectrum are fed up with corporations’ deep influence in politics, and many who have been following the pipeline proposal don’t think a Canadian company should be allowed to push rural communities around in the United States. The pipeline looks like an issue that could bring at least some conservatives back to conservation for the first time in many years—and perhaps even become a means for awakening more of the public to thethreats posed by climate change.
This week at the White House, pipeline protesters made a point of showing up in business clothes. One of the key messages of the demonstration is that average, law-abiding Americans are ready to take climate change seriously. The pipeline could be a rare moment for Obama to act on his commitment to post-partisan politics, make good on his promise to act on climate change, and stop one of the world’s most environmentally disastrous projects.
Article source: GJEP Climate Connections Blog
Global warming fears rise in developing world
August 30th, 2011
Filed under Climate Change, Climate Justice, Greenwashing, natural disasters
Article source: GJEP Climate Connections Blog
Panda poop could revolutionize biofuels (Give me a break!)
August 30th, 2011
Filed under Biodiversity, Bioenergy / Agrofuels, Climate Change
Article source: GJEP Climate Connections Blog
New Reports on Geoengineering Released
August 30th, 2011
From the ETC Group:
There are two new reports out on geoengineering that we would like to bring to your attention.
First of all the long-awaited “technology assessment” done by the US Government Accountability Office has just been released in Washington – as hundreds of protestors continue to be arrested for opposing the Keystone pipeline that will carry dirty oil from the Canadian Tar Sands to the US.
The report, “Climate engineering: Technical status, future directions, and potential responses” is a detailed technical examination of different geoengineering technologies that concludes that none of them are now an option for addressing climate change, and the top one (direct air capture AKA carbon-sucking machines) scores only 3 out of 9 on a “technology readiness level (TRL)”. The report states that the majority of experts consulted favoured more research on geoengineering, while warning about risks and misuse of results. The GAO also undertook a survey of public opinion in the US and found concern about possible harm from geoengineering as well as a high level of support for CO2 emissions reduction. They found 50-75% of the public worried about the safety of such technologies and strong support for the involvement of multiple organizations and interests in decision-making around geoengineering. In an earlier report, the GAO had recommended a coordinated federal programme on climate engineering research.
For another view of what technology assessment is, see this short paper by ETC Group. The GAO report does not deal in any depth with the serious international, equity and justice concerns raised by geoengineering technologies. Using the GAO’s TRL methodology, “technological maturity” must include “testing in a relevant environment” (which in this case means mostly the ocean or the atmosphere). Given that the US is not a Party to theConvention on Biological Diversity which adopted a moratorium on geoengineering last year, this is extremely worrying. Some geoengineers will race to jump through the different levels of TRL and this may further increase the pressure to proceed with real-world testing. Rather than focusing on the critical problem of the lack of political will in the US to cut emissions, this report looks like it will encourage policy makers to continue down the delusionary path of trying to find a technical fix to climate change, squandering precious research funds and lending political capital to the geoengineering lobby.
Also in the realm of public opinion about geoengineering, a new report was also recently released in the UK: Public Engagement on Geoengineering Research: Preliminary Report on the SPICE deliberative workshops. This report concerns two of the major research projects that were funded in the UK following the release of the Royal Society report in 2009: the Integrated Assessment of Geoengineering Proposals (IAGP) and the Stratospheric Particle Injection for Climate Engineering (SPICE). The SPICE research is of particular interest to the HOME campaign because it involves an experiment of one of the delivery mechanisms that is foreseen for shooting sulfates into the stratosphere (to reflect sunlight away from Earth). These engineers are actually trying to build a hose, 25 kilometers long – that reaches the stratosphere – that will be held up by balloons and will inject chemicals into the upper atmosphere! The prototype they are planning to test – and this “public engagement exercise” seems designed to help them sell it to a sceptical public – will be one kilometre long but will serve as a key piece of hardware development for solar radiation management. It is called a test-bed. According to an interview with the sponsors on The Naked Scientist the testing is planned for October-November 2011. Stay tuned.
A key quote from the report:
Given our participants significant reservations regarding pursuing stratospheric aerosols, it is perhaps not surprising that they engaged critically with all aspects of the research process underpinning the test-bed. Importantly, questions were not only related to the more mundane/logistical inquires into how the test-bed would operate, participants were also deeply interested in why researchers, funders and so forth had all opted to pursue the lines of enquiry in the ways that they have.
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– Diana Bronson, ETC Group
Article source: GJEP Climate Connections Blog
GGJ: We Have Not Forgotten: Solidarity Statement on Anniversary of Hurricane Katrina
August 29th, 2011
Grassroots Global Justice Alliance
Solidarity Statement on Anniversary of Hurricane Katrina
August 29, 2011
Today the Grassroots Global Justice Alliance (GGJ) honors the people who passed away during the devastation caused by Hurricane Katrina on August 29, 2005. We also honor and stand in solidarity with the over 1 million people, mostly African Americans, who were displaced by the storm and by the negligence of government agencies. We appreciate the many organizations and activists of the Gulf Coast who continue to work to rebuild homes and communities, restore the cultural vibrancy and diversity of the Gulf Coast and attain justice for the displaced and current residents of the region. We support the right of return for the many thousands of people who continue to live in other communities in hopes of returning to their home.
GGJ is an alliance of US-based grassroots organizing groups who seek to play a role in transforming global policies. GGJ connects groups across sector, issue, region and constituency to develop a broad-based US movement that can participate in the international grassroots movement for peace, democracy and global well-being.
The experience of Hurricane Katrina was not just a natural disaster, but a disaster wrought by a legacy of racism, government abandonment, and opportunism by developers and wealthy elites.
Nearly 2,000 people were killed during or in the aftermath of the hurricane. Hundreds of thousands of people from the Gulf Coast region remain displaced from their communities while developers have descended upon New Orleans and other Gulf Coast cities to execute a vision of the region that caters to wealthy elites. As Katrina survivor Viola Francois-Washington noted about New Orleans: “We still have two cities. One is getting help, the other is not”.
On August, 2007 the Peoples Hurricane Relief Fund and Oversight Committee convened an International Tribunal on Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. The tribunal found: “that the federal, state and local governments are guilty of violating the human rights to life, dignity and recognition of personhood; the right to be free from racial discrimination– especially as it pertains to the actions of law enforcement personnel and vigilantes; the right to return, resettlement and reintegration of internally displaced persons; the right to be free from degrading treatment and punishment; the right to freedom of movement; the right to adequate housing and education; the right to vote and participate in governance and the right to a fair trial, the right to liberty and security of person and the right to equal protection under the law. Both actions and failure to act by the governments had disproportionate devastating impact with respect to race and gender.”
Four years after the findings of the Tribunal and six years after Katrina struck the Gulf Coast, justice is yet to be realized for the people of the region. The coast was struck by yet another disaster, the BP oil spill and again people were subjected to government failure to respond decisively and to hold the polluter accountable. The taxpayers, the people continue to bear the burden.
The survivors of Katrina are among a number of peoples that are the victims of severe weather and natural disasters in recent years, including the deadly floods in the Philippines (2009), Pakistan (2010) and Brazil (2011), the severe drought in northern China (2011), and the devastating earthquakes in Haiti (2010) and Japan (2011). This year the U.S. experienced the deadliest tornado year in nearly a century with communities being affected from Massachusetts to Alabama. It is clear that the heating of the planet is disrupting its ecological balance. This will continue to have devastating social impacts on all our communities. In a moment when we need to turn to clean and sustainable energy sources, governments and corporations continue to drill in deeper and deeper waters for thicker crude oil, ravage the land for tar sands and coal, and develop unsafe forms of energy like nuclear power. It is clear that peoples’ movements for the rights of people and the planet are all that will stand in the way of the irresponsibility of our political and economic leaders.
On this day we call on GGJ members, allies and friends to do at least one of the following:
- Conduct an activity in commemoration of Katrina
- To reach out to colleagues, friends and loved ones in the Gulf Coast or those of the Katrina diaspora
- To organize an act of solidarity, and
- To continue to prioritize the Gulf Coast as part of our national movement building agenda.
Article source: GJEP Climate Connections Blog
¡Will Miller Presente! May Day 1971 DC Mobilization: This is What Revolution Will Look Like
August 29th, 2011
By Anne Petermann, Executive Director, Global Justice Ecology Project
As I sat at home in northern Vermont yesterday, with the remnants of Hurricane Irene swirling outside, the rain beating in waves rhythmically on the roof, I thought about climate chaos—the intensifying effect the warming globe is having on the world’s weather; and I thought about the so-called leaders of this and other countries who stick their heads in the sand to ignore it, while corporations continue business as usual and the planet’s life-support systems steadily erode.
In the local paper on Saturday there was a front page article about the mobilization in Washington, DC against the tar sands: the world’s dirtiest source of oil and a major contributor to climate chaos. One barrel of tar sands oil results in three times the emissions of convetional oil. The oil is mined and extracted using a highly destructive and toxic process that poisons Indigenous communities and flattens boreal forests in the region of Northern Canada where the tar sands are found. Wildlife in the area is being devastated. Indigenous Environmental Network and other organizations have been campaigning to raise awareness about this horrific “gigaproject” for years now. And so far, several hundred people have willingly been arrested in Washington, DC to send politicians a message that they must stop all support for the tar sands project. IEN is calling for an Indigenous Day of Action this Friday.
Today, August 29th, is the birthday of our good friend and compañero, Will Miller. He would have been 71. He passed away in 2005. He was also one of Global Justice Ecology Project’s founding Board members. Will’s birthday and the tar sands civil disobedience campaign have made me think of another mass-mobilization in Washington, DC—this one happened 40 years ago on May Day 1971. It was called to stop another US government-backed horror—the Vietnam War. That mobilization was designed to shut down Washington, DC. To stop all business in the city. To let the politicians in Washington know in no uncertain terms that there would be no more business as usual until the war was ended.
I was not there, but my husband, Orin, was. As was Will. Though they did not know each other then. The May Day action plan was for affinity groups—tightly knit groups willing to take direct action together and risk arrest—to take over key locations across DC and shut them down. In Orin’s case, it was one of DC’s circle intersections. In the case of Will, it was the 14th street bridge. This collective direct action to shut down the city showed the country’s “leaders” that the anti-war movement was escalating its tactics in response to the growing body counts in Vietnam of both U.S. Soldiers and Vietnamese people. An estimated three million Vietnamese people were killed in that war, as were 60,000 U.S. soldiers. An additional 100,000+ U.S. soldiers who were in Vietnam committed suicide since returning from combat.
Will Miller (far left) at the 1971 May Day action in Washington DC.
The May Day mobilization was widely publicized and the authorities stood at the ready. Will (a veteran) and his affinity group had successfully taken over the 14th street bridge. The National Guard—a group of young soldiers recently returned from Vietnam—was called in to remove them from the bridge. The officer in charge ordered the soldiers to fix bayonettes and force the protesters off the bridge. These young draftees looked at the mix of veterans and activists on the bridge, then back at their commanding officer. Then they laid down their weapons and joined the protesters in blocking the bridge.
This, Will said, was what revolution would look like.
¡Will Miller, Presente!
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Article source: GJEP Climate Connections Blog
Justice Begins With Seeds: Conference–San Francisco Sept 16-17
August 29th, 2011
Justice Begins with Seeds Conference
September 16-17, 2011, San Francisco (Pre-conference events Sept. 12-15)
Friday, September 16, 2011 at 9:00 AM – Saturday, September 17, 2011 at 6:00 PM (PT)
San Francisco, CA
Summit at the Women’s Building and other locations in the Mission District, San Francisco California Biosafety Alliance www.biosafetyalliance.org
About:
We are at a time of many crises. And in the face of all the global challenges before us, the domination of the food supply, and the contribution of the current food regime to climate change, numerous environmental crises, humans rights abuses and displacement of people to name a few, makes it perhaps the most pressing issue before us.
To control food is to control people. To destroy topsoil is to destroy the most elemental thing upon which we all depend. And to convince people that this system is the only way and that there is no other option is one of the most pressing myths before us that needs to be shattered.
The conference: JUSTICE BEGINS WITH SEEDS will be a space for movement building to actively address the the symbol of the corporate food regime: genetically modified food, address the many layered implications of GE/GMO food, and build strategic coalitions and deeper collaborations amongst diverse stakeholders more widespread political action addressing GMOs in varying levels throughout the state of California.
The conference will focus on hands on workshops and panels on how to build alliances, how to start a rights based campaign, and how to get involved with GMO labeling initiatives throughout California. People from different organizing contexts will have the space to discuss, share strategy and build the movement to address the corporate food regime, encouraging people to actively take on the issue politically.
Pre-conference keynote event:
Vandana Shiva: September 13th in the evening
World-renowned environmental leader and thinker. Director of the Research Foundation on Science, Technology, and Ecology, and founder of Navdanya, promoting diversity and use of native seeds, she is the author of many books, including Staying Alive: Women, Ecology, and Development (South End Press, 2010) Soil Not Oil: Environmental Justice in an Age of Climate Crisis (South End Press, 2008), Earth Democracy: Justice, Sustainability, and Peace (South End Press, 2005),Water Wars: Pollution, Profits, and Privatization (South End Press, 2001), Biopiracy: The Plunder of Nature and Knowledge (South End Press, 1997), Monocultures of the Mind (Zed, 1993), and The Violence of the Green Revolution (Zed, 1992).
Keynote Plenary panelists:
Friday, September 16th morning: Local and global implications of genetically modified seeds.
Ignacio Chapela: UC Berkeley microbial ecologist and mycologist
Anuradha Mittal: Oakland Institute executive director
Marcia Ishii-Eiteman: Pesticide Action Network North America senior scientist
Friday, September 16th afternoon: Agricultural biodiversity and the real solutions we need
Adelita San Vicente: Semillas De Vida A.Z.
Dave Henson: Occidental Arts and Ecology Center executive director
Michael Dimock, Roots of Change president
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Saturday, September 17th morning: Where we are, learning from the past, and moving forward
Carl Anthony: Breakthrough Communities co-director
Jeffrey Smith: Institute for Responsible Technology executive director
Eric Holt Gimenez: Food First executive director
Mari Margil: Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund associate director
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Saturday, September 17th afternoon: Linking perspectives and building the movement
Gayle Mclaughlin: Mayor of Richmond
Andrew Kimbrell: Center for Food Safety executive director
Claire Hope Cummings: Journalist and Author of Uncertain Peril
Miguel Altieri: UC Berkeley professor of agroecology
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Panel and Workshop Speakers:
Track 1: GM Seeds: Global Threat, Local Struggles
Dr. Alejandro Espinoza: INIFAP Mexico, Union de Cientificos Comprometidos con la Sociedad
Dr. Antonio Turrent: Union de Cientificos Comprometidos con la Sociedad (Mexico)
Dana Harvey: Mandela Marketplace
Carlos Martinez: Ecoviva
Colin Rajah: National Network for Immigrant and Refugee Rights
Dr. Elena Alvarez-Buylla: Instituto de Ecologia-UNAM, Mexico
Juan Pablo: Indigenous voice on seed sovereignty
Katherine Zavala: International Development Exchange
Luis Magana: Comite de Defensa del Maiz Criollo
Maria Catalan: Catalan Farms
Phil Bereano: AGRAwatch
Rucha Chitnis: Women’s Earth Alliance
Tezo Tezozomac: South Central Farmers Cooperative
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Track 2: Understanding the Landscape: Legal, Political and Business Challenges and Opportunities for Change
Doug Mosel: GMO Free Mendocino and farmer
Gayle Mclaughlin: Mayor of Richmond
John Avalos: San Francisco Supervisor
Mari Margil: Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund
Mark Squire: Non-GMO Project and Good Earth Foods
Michael Dimmok: Roots of Change
Philip Heiselmann: California Attorney for sustainable food and food safety
Rana Chang: House Kombucha
Rebecca Spector: Center for Food Safety
Albert Straus: Straus Family Creamery
Zea Sonnabend: California Certified Organic Farmers
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Track 3: Building the Movement: Goals and Strategies
Adam Scow: Food and Water Watch
Ashley Schaeffer: Rainforest Action Network
Aaron Lehmer: Bay Localize
Claire Hope Cummings: Journalist and Author of Uncertain Peril and other books
Dave Murphy: Food Democracy Now
Doria Robinson: Urban Tilth
Doug Mosel: Farmer and Consultant to the former Mendocino campaign to ban GMOs
Heather Whitehead: Center for Food Safety
Jeffrey Smith: Institute for Responsible Technology
Jeff Conant: Global Justice Ecology Project
John Wick: Marin Carbon Project
Oscar Grande: PODER
Pamm Larry: Label GMOs in California 2012
Rey Leon: Latino Environmental Advancement and Policy Institute
Mary Ensch: Seedlings
Mateo Nube: Movement Generation
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The California Biosafety Alliance is a cross sector, multilevel and inter-ethnic alliance of individuals and organizations working together to engage in broader outreach around genetically modified (GMO) food issues and to bring together strategic coalitions of diverse stakeholders to advocate for a GMO free food supply, as a means of pushing for a shift from an industrial food model, to a model of local resilience. GMOs are a symbol that represent the industrial food system and a key point that needs to be addressed in order to address and shift away from the industrial food model.
Our vision is to get the multi-faceted number of issues with GMOs, ranging from health, to social justice, to environmental destruction, to a major contributor to climate change though topsoil degradation and numerous un-factored externalities, to corporate consolidation, to enter the framework of various groups that have not traditionally focused on the issue of GMOs as a central theme and point that needs to be addressed to push for a systemic shift in the current corporate food regime.
Article source: GJEP Climate Connections Blog
REDD-Monitor open thread: Capitalism, climate change and carbon trading
August 29th, 2011
In this open thread are six links covering two themes, followed by a seventh as a postscript. First, the global economy is in serious trouble. Second, runaway climate change seems to be getting ever nearer. While neither of these are strictly REDD issues, I think they are both relevant to REDD (for reasons that I hope I don’t have to spell out).
Capitalism
1. Nouriel Roubini, “Is Capitalism Doomed?”, Project Syndicate, 15 August 2011.
Nouriel Roubini is Professor of Economics at New York University’s Stern School of Business and is known as “Dr. Doom”. He is one of the few economists that predicted the financial crisis of 2007-2008. In his book “Crisis Economics”, Roubini and his co-author Stephen Mihm argue that the meltdown was not a black swan, or an unpredictable exception, but an inherent part of capitalism.
Here’s what he writes in a recent piece on the Project Syndicate website:
Now a combination of high oil and commodity prices, turmoil in the Middle East, Japan’s earthquake and tsunami, eurozone debt crises, and America’s fiscal problems (and now its rating downgrade) have led to a massive increase in risk aversion. Economically, the United States, the eurozone, the United Kingdom, and Japan are all idling. Even fast-growing emerging markets (China, emerging Asia, and Latin America), and export-oriented economies that rely on these markets (Germany and resource-rich Australia), are experiencing sharp slowdowns.
2. Carlo Rotella, “Can Jeremy Grantham profit from ecological mayhem?”, New York Times, 11 August 2011.
Every three months, Jeremy Grantham of investment firm GMO puts out a quarterly letter. April’s letter was titled, “Time to Wake Up: Days of Abundant Resources and Falling Prices Are Over Forever”. This, according to the New York Times is the gist:
“The prices of all important commodities except oil declined for 100 years until 2002, by an average of 70 percent. From 2002 until now, this entire decline was erased by a bigger price surge than occurred during World War II. Statistically, most commodities are now so far away from their former downward trend that it makes it very probable that the old trend has changed — that there is in fact a Paradigm Shift — perhaps the most important economic event since the Industrial Revolution.”
Grantham is, as the New York Times puts it, “the public face of a company that manages more than $100 billion in assets, the very embodiment of a high-finance insider in blue blazer and yellow tie”, but he “has serious doubts about capitalism’s ability to address the biggest problems facing humanity”.
He describes himself as an environmentalist. The Grantham Foundation for the Protection of the Environment supports the Environmental Defense Fund, the World Wildlife Fund and “other such organizations”. So that’s all right, then.
“We’re all involved in environmental causes,” Grantham said of his family. “We can’t recall some single moment of conversion. We found our separate ways to it.” His wife, Hanne, sits on the board of the E.D.F. [Environmental Defense Fund] One son, Oliver, buys forests for Harvard Management Company; another, Rupert, manages forests in Massachusetts; his daughter, Isabel, helps run an E.D.F. program that recruits summer interns from top business schools to improve companies’ energy efficiency.
3. A Visualization of United States Debt
What the US debt looks like as piles of US$100 bills:
The debt currently stands at US$14,654,237,323,627 – but by the time you click on the link, it will be somewhat higher.
To read the rest of the post, please got to REDD-Monitor
Article source: GJEP Climate Connections Blog
How Cap and Trade will affect real communities
August 29th, 2011
Filed under Climate Change, Climate Justice, False Solutions to Climate Change
Article source: GJEP Climate Connections Blog
Three more Tar Sands protesters arrested in Idaho
August 29th, 2011
Cross-Posted from THE SPOKESMAN-REVIEW
August 27, 2011
Three more megaload protesters arrested in Cd’A
Law enforcement officers confirmed that the arrests were made by Idaho State Police, but the names were not released.
One woman taken into custody had refused to identify herself, officials said.
The Coeur d’Alene arrests bring to nine the number of persons taken into custody in North Idaho since the 208-foot-long megaload left the Port of Lewiston on Wednesday night.
Its permit allowed nighttime travel, according to the Idaho Transportation Department.
Six protestors were arrested in Moscow early Friday morning, according to the Moscow-Pullman Daily News, which cited court records.
Tierra Linda, a spokeswoman for the protestors, said that concerned residents from North Idaho and Eastern Washington converged on U.S. Highway 95 when the megaload shipment arrived about 12:30 a.m.
According to Idaho Transportation Department, the load was scheduled to leave the Latah/Benewah county line at 10 p.m. on Friday and travel through Coeur d’Alene, stopping by 5:30 a.m. at a pullout on Interstate 90 at milepost 33.
The load is 413,000 pounds and measures 24 feet in width and 14 feet in height. It was to travel at 35 mph. The plan called for allowing vehicles to pass at more than two dozen locations on the route through North Idaho.
Linda described the protest as a “nonviolent public witness to challenge the shipment of ExxonMobil tar sands strip mining equipment to Canada’s threatened Athabasca River Valley.”
She said the people arrested in Coeur d’Alene were legally following the ExxonMobil convoy to monitor any safety violations and did not obstruct the equipment.
She described them as observers who were exercising their right to dissent.
Linda said that despite the arrests, the protestors planned to continue monitoring the megaloads.
Environmental concerns stem from the destructive nature of strip mining and the use of energy to extract oil from the tar sands.
She said it would create an “Appalachian moonscape over central Canada’s boreal forests and river valleys.
Linda, in a news release, quoted a NASA scientist as saying the tar sands mining could be a tipping point for global climate change.
In Latah County, court records identified the protestors arrested in Moscow as Vincent Murray, 61; Brett Haverstick, 38; Mitchell Day, 40; David Willard, 52; Gregory Freistadt, 26; and William French, 55.
They were all charged with misdemeanor unlawful assembly, disturbing the peace and refusal to disperse.
French was also cited by the Latah County Sheriff’s Office for malicious injury to property for allegedly breaking out the side window of the jail van, said Latah County Prosecutor Bill Thompson.
Associated Press contributed to this report.
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Article source: GJEP Climate Connections Blog
Native American and Canadian First Nations To Take Part In Largest Act of Civil Disobedience to Stop Keystone XL Pipeline
August 27th, 2011
Note: We stand in total support and solidarity with Indigenous Environmental Network’s national call for ACTION and Solidarity on September 2nd.
–The GJEP Team
August 27, 2011
Washington DC: The Indigenous Environmental Network (IEN) is a national environmental justice and indigenous rights organization taking part in the largest act of civil disobedience in decades taking place at the White House in Washington DC from August 20 to September 3, 2011.
The purpose of these actions is to send a direct message to President Obama to deny approval of the 1,702 mile Keystone XL pipeline. The pipeline would be transporting pollution from the tar sands of Canada to the United States by carrying 900,000 barrels per day of thick, corrosive, toxic, synthetic crude oil for refining in Texas and the Gulf States. If approved, the Keystone XL would lock the US into a dependency of energy intensive, hard-to-extract dirty oil and create a massive expansion of the world’s dirtiest and most environmentally destructive form of oil development currently taking place in northern Alberta Canada. These operations are already producing 1.5 million barrels per day and having horrendous environmental justice and human rights impacts on the way of life and health of the local Native communities of Cree, Dene and Métis.
The proposed pipeline threatens to pollute freshwater supplies in America’s agricultural heartland and grasslands with increased emissions in already-polluted communities of the Gulf Coast. The Keystone XL would cross Indian Country; States of Montana, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas encompassing Indian-US treaty territories crossing water aquifers and rivers, grasslands, cultural sites and ecological sensitive areas. Leaks and spills are common occurrences from such pipelines that could result in disproportionate impact to Native Nations and thousands of tribal members. A spill from the Keystone XL poses an even greater threat, given that the pipeline would run directly through the Ogallala aquifer, which supplies one-third of our nation’s ground water used for irrigation, and drinking water to 2 million citizens.
The Indigenous Environmental Network is bringing tribal governmental and grassroots leaders from US and Canada, directly impacted by the proposed pipeline and the tar sands oil operations, to say “NO KEYSTONE XL PIPELINE” to President Obama. This Indigenous Day of Action on September 2, 2011, at the gates of the White House will express the solidarity of Native Nations, standing with concerned citizens, workers, farmers, ranchers, unions, youth and a coalition of environmental groups from across the continent, in peaceful protest to protect Mother Earth and demand Obama respect the treaty rights and survival of Native Nations of the US and Canada.
“Nature is speaking, but Obama is not listening. The Keystone XL pipeline is a 1,700 mile fuse of the world’s largest carbon bomb. The Canadian tar sands, the proposed Keystone XL and all the other current and proposed pipelines are weapons of mass destruction leading the path to triggering the final overheating of Mother Earth”, says Tom BK Goldtooth, Executive Director of the Indigenous Environmental Network. “President Obama made promises to Native Nations and here is an opportunity for him to honor those promises and be a man of conscious by standing up to corporate power and say NO to the Keystone XL pipeline.”
A barrel of tar sands oil emits up to three times as much climate-disrupting gas as conventional oil. Building Keystone XL would be the greenhouse gas equivalent of adding roughly 6.5 million passenger vehicles to the road, or constructing 12 new coal-fired power plants.
“IEN is putting out a national call for ACTION and Solidarity on September 2nd. Even if your homes won’t be crossed by this pipeline, we are raising the consciousness of America to reevaluate its relationship to Mother Earth that would be ruined by the intensity of environmental devastation and of greenhouse gases created by the enormous tar sands oil infrastructure crossing North America. It’s like a giant spider web crossing our Turtle Island”, added Goldtooth.
National Native organizations such as the National Congress of American Indians, the oldest and largest Native organization representing Native Nations are calling for a moratorium and better management practices on expanded tar sands development and opposition to the Keystone XL pipeline. NCAI requests the U.S. government to take aggressive measures to work towards sustainable energy solutions that include clean alternative energy and improving energy efficiency.
The IEN delegation will arrive in DC on August 30th and be participating in the August 31st Canadian Day of Action and staying until the Indigenous Day of Action on September 2nd.
For more information, please visit www.ienearth.org/tarsands.html or www.tarsandsaction.org
Article source: GJEP Climate Connections Blog