Posts Tagged ‘direct action’
The Climate Movement is Dead… Long Live the Climate Movement!
March 2nd, 2010
Rising Tide North America is pleased to announce the release of our latest publication:
The Climate Movement is Dead… Long Live the Climate Movement!
In the aftermath of the COP15 talks in Copenhagen, the inability of the Big Greens, governments, and market approaches to find genuine and sustainable solutions to climate change is undeniable. As author Naomi Klein so aptly observed at the end of COP15 talks, “A particular model of dealing with climate change is dying.”
DOWNLOAD HERE [PDF]
In the same uncompromising spirit as Rising Tide publications such as Deal or No Deal, and Hoodwinked in the Hothouse, CMID:LLCM delivers a timely critique of the failures of this “particular model” as exemplified by the mainstream NGOs who have grown all too cozy with corporations and the political establishment. It explores the ways in which “green” capitalism,electoral politics, and market mechanisms, far from solving the climate crisis, are some of the climate movement’s biggest obstacles.
Not content with mere polemic, CMID:LLCM charts a course that diverges from the dominant discourse of the mainstream climate movement. The essay lays out a strategy of supporting and escalating frontline struggles againstdirty energy while building a new global climate movement from the ground up, based around core principles of climate justice, grassroots power, solidarity, and direct action.
The Climate Movement Is Dead: Long Live the Climate Movement is a must-read for anyone left disenchanted by the mainstream climate movement, and all who are ready to step it up and fight for climate justice.
You can download a digital copy to view online or print yourself.
Or send us an email to contact (at) risingtidenorthamerica (dot) org with your name, address, and how many copies you would like to receive. We are happy to provide this publication for free but as an all volunteer collective we greatly appreciate donations. Also consider joining in our print run collaboration:
Rising Tide North America is excited to announce a “Print-Run Collaboration” project for CMID:LLCM. Local groups and allies can help us raise the funds necessary for an initial print-run of several thousand copies, and in return, receive a big stack “hot-off-the-presses” at approximately the cost of printing (cheaper than photocopies!).
Click HERE to join in
Local Citizens ‘Die-in’ at Xcel HQ in Coal Protest (Colorado)
February 27th, 2010
Group calls on Xcel to Keep Comanche 3 Closed and Produce 100% Renewable Electricity by 2020
Denver, CO – At 11:45am on Friday, February 26th, local citizens demonstrated at the Denver headquarters of Xcel Energy – located at the corner of 17th St. and Lawrence St. – in protest of the utility’s impending plan to bring a new coal-fired power plant online in Pueblo, CO. The lunch hour protest called on Xcel executives to move Colorado in the right direction by keeping the Comanche 3 coal-fired power plant closed. Protestors demonstrated in a ‘die-in’ in front of the building’s main entrance to highlight the grim consequences that coal has on our lives and those of future generations. Simultaneously, two activists clad in hazmat suits dropped a banner off an adjoining bridge on Lawrence St. Police arrived on scene but no arrests were made.
The 750-megawatt Comanche Unit 3 would be the largest coal-fired power plant in the state, surpassing even the mammoth Cherokee coal plant in North Denver. “At a time when the costs of coal are becoming increasingly clear and the benefits of clean energy are ever more apparent, building the largest coal-fired power plant in the state is taking us 180 degrees in the wrong direction,” said Amy Guinan, an activist with Power Past Coal. Read the rest of this entry »
What are you going to do to raise the stakes this Fossil Fools Day?
February 23rd, 2010
Matt Wilkerson on It’s Getting Hot in Here
2 years ago I and several friends shut down construction at the site of the Cliffside Coal Plant in North Carolina. It was April 1st, Fossil Fools Day. After public hearings, petitions, legislative efforts, and protest failed, we knew we had to do something to up the ante in the fight against coal plants in this country. So it was that we found ourselves locked to Duke Energy’s bulldozers on that dark, drizzly morning.
Did we permanently stop the Cliffside construction site? No. However this action, along with the countless other actions like it by groups around the country, have greatly increased the cost, both politically and economically, of building coal plants in this country. While the construction at Cliffside continues, I feel confident that our direct actions, and those of others, is in part responsible for the wave of coal plants that have been canceled in the US (100 and counting).
No doubt utility companies and state governments pursuing new coal plants took note of the fight against Cliffside and decided that the constant controversy and harassment was not worth it (of course the recession and prospects of CO2 being regulated has helped as well). Well its 2010 and Fossil Fools Day is once again rounding the corner. We’ve witnessed the spectacular failure of Copenhagen, the Obama administration time and again capitulating to big business, and corporations doing there best to stall our efforts.
Yet we’ve seen inspiring resistance around the country, from Climate Ground Zero’s relentless direct action campaign against mountaintop removal to citizens shutting down Chevron’s refinery in Richmond, CA. The question is: What are you going to do to raise the stakes on April 1st?
Arrests, Actions: Blowing Off Thumbs of Soldiers, Blowing Off Mountaintops, Does JP Morgan Chase Fund Crime?
February 18th, 2010
Racketeering: The federal Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) (18 USC §§ 1961-1968) prohibits (1) acquiring, establishing, or operating an enterprise with illegally derived income, (2) acquiring or maintaining an interest in or control of an enterprise through illegal activity, and (3) using an enterprise to commit illegal acts (Extortion, Blackmail, Etc. , 31A Am Jur 2d).
As fearless nonviolent protestors occupy the corporate office of a life-threatening and violation-ridden mountaintop removal operation in the Coal River Valley, West Virginia this morning, hundreds of thousands of American citizens are jamming the social media networks today, calling on JP Morgan Chase to end their financing of arguably criminal mountaintop removal coal mining operations in Appalachia.
Al Gore may have called mountaintop removal “a crime and ought to be treated as a crime,” but God bless veteran activists Mike Roselle, Joseph Hamsher, and Tom Smyth and the footslogging Climate Ground Zero nonviolent campaigners who are willing to put their lives on the line to stop mountaintop removal mining. Read the rest of this entry »
March 3rd: Take action against RBC tar sands financing!
February 14th, 2010
All Out March 3rd – Tell RBC shareholders: Stop bankrolling tar sands!
On March 3rd, the Royal Bank of Canada will hold its annual general meeting of shareholders’ at the Toronto Metro Convention Center. It’s the one time every year that the bank’s top executives, board and other decision makers gather in the same place to hear from shareholders. This year, we want them to hear from you!
Since 2007 RBC has backed more than $16.9 billion (USD) in loans to companies operating in the tar sands—more than any other bank. Expansion of the tar sands is trampling the rights of Indigenous peoples, destroying globally significant ecosystems and significantly increasing Canada’s carbon emissions.
Representatives from several First Nations impacted by tar sands expansion will attend the meeting to demand that RBC recognize the right to Free, Prior and Informed Consent for Indigenous communities and suspend its financial support for tar sands expansion.
Join us for a morning of creative, non-violent direct action culminating in a rally outside the Metro Center at 1 pm to show solidarity with First Nations representatives.
When: morning actions, rally @ 2pm, March 3, 2010
Where: Metro Convention Center, 255 Front St. W, Toronto
Take Action in your area – If you are interested in organizing an action before or at RBC’s AGM, please contact Eriel Deranger eriel@ran.org or Dave Vasey dvasey@ran.org
————————-
Here’s the Facebook event posting -
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=301815070834
Tags: action, action alert, big business, Canada, climate, direct action, indigenous issues, protest, RBC, tar sands | 
No Comments »
Canadian action against Olympics sponsors and greenwashing
February 14th, 2010
A report from a successful environmental justice rally and action in downtown London, Ontario, Canada, on Saturday, February 13th -
Some photos from our event are posted here and here.
The local protest was part of a wider day of action, which was called by the Indigenous Environmental Network, with others who supported action against Olympics sponsors, Olympics greenwashing, the Albertan tar sands, and native oppression. Local activists here in London, Ontario know of other Canadian protests in Ottawa, Toronto, Vancouver, Halifax, Kitchener-Waterloo, and Montreal. There even was an event in London, England, which was timed to coincide with the Canadian protests.
In each city, the focus was the same: we were raising awareness about and protesting against the social dislocation and environmental destruction associated with the Olympics and its leading sponsors — including RBC (the leading financier of tar sands projects) and PetroCanada/Suncor (which directly operates six tar sands projects).
April 1, 2010: Fossil Fools Day!
February 14th, 2010
The fossil fools ain’t no joke – but that doesn’t mean we can’t fight them with one!
The Fossil Fuel Empire is real and it’s here. The stakes couldn’t be higher: destabilization of the global climate, communities from Alaska to Appalachia being destroyed by dirty energy extraction and combustion, devastating super hurricanes, droughts, flooding, the list goes on…
Last December in Copenhagen, the politicians sold us out to the fossil fools, corporate lobbyists and big banks. Now we’re left with “green capitalism,” carbon market shenanigans and continued assaults on our communities and ecosystems. If we’re going to stop climate change, the only real solution is to keep fossil fuels in the ground.
This April, join Rising Tide North America as we pull some pranks that pack a punch. Use the simply subversive to the downright disruptive: office occupations, banner drops, road blockades, clownish parades, spoof product launches, sub-vertising, leaflets, street theater, lock-downs and laugh-ins. Whatever works for you and your group!
Climate change is no laughing matter, but we can’t take things too seriously all the time. Join us this Fossil Fools Day as we employ our senses of humor to hatch some harebrained schemes that will strike a blow to fossil foolery everywhere!
And remember what Abbie Hoffman said: “The first duty of a revolutionary is to get away with it.”
Let us know if your group wants to endorse or co-sponsor!
WHAT: Actions, Jokes and Pranks Galore to Stop the Fossil Fools
WHERE: Your Town USA
WHEN; April 1st, 2010
CONTACT: fossilfoolsday@risingtidenorthamerica.org
FOR MORE INFO: http://www.fossilfoolsdayofaction.org [to be updated soon!]
Brought to you by your friendly neighborhood radical climate justice network, Rising Tide North America
Nine-Day Tree Sit Ends, Sitters Vow Not Over Until Blasting Stops
January 31st, 2010
Friday, January 29th, 2010
UPDATE – legal support needed! click here
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: 304-854-7372, news@climategroundzero.org
Note: For more info, see : www.climategroundzero.org, www.mountainjustice.org
PETTUS, WVa—After blocking Massey Energy’s operations on the Bee Tree Permit for nine days, Amber Nitchman, 19, and Eric Blevins, 28 descended from their respective trees. They had occupied the two oak trees—originally accompanied by a third tree sitter, David Aaron Smith, 23—to protest mountaintop removal and the blasting of Coal River Mountain. Upon descent, they were immediately arrested by West Virginia State Troopers. The sitters’ decision to leave the trees was made in light of the recent drop in temperature.
After a week of Massey security harassing the sitters with deafening sirens and air horns, a call-in pressure campaign was launched by Climate Ground Zero, Mountain Justice and other anti-mountaintop removal groups. The receipt of hundreds of calls from around the country led to an emergency meeting with Climate Ground Zero volunteers, the Raleigh County prosecutor and Governor Manchin. The meeting resulted in the moratorium and a call for an investigation of the abuse.
The tree sit represents Climate Ground Zero’s most sustained intervention in mountaintop removal mining operations since its campaign of nonviolent direct action began last February. Read the rest of this entry »
Tree Sit Halts the Blasting in southern West Virginia
January 21st, 2010
“Coal River Mountain was the last mountain around here that hasn’t been touched and they could’ve been using it for windmills…But Massey wants to get that coal. It seems like they just don’t care about the populace. Just the land and their checkbook.” – Richard Bradford MARFORK, W.Va. – Protestors associated with Climate Ground Zero and Mountain Justice halted blasting on Coal River Mountain today with a three-person tree-sit. David Aaron Smith, 23, Amber Nitchman, 19 and Eric Blevins, 28 are on platforms approximately 60 feet up two tulip poplar trees and one oak tree. They are located next to where Massey Energy is blasting to build an access road to the Brushy Fork Impoundment on its Bee Tree Strip Mine. Their banners state: “Save Coal River Mtn.,” “EPA Stop the Blasting” and “Windmills Not Toxic Spills.” Read the rest of this entry »
Green is the New Spectacle
January 17th, 2010
From The Nor’easter – by Jason Slade
The Spectacle —- Environmental issues can oftentimes be very complex. Some issues directly relate to climate change, and some do not. However, it is very important to connect the dots between issues because almost all environmental problems are caused, at their base, by capitalist expansion, commodification and privatization. Corporations have used the climate crisis and growing public concern about environmental issues to their advantage. They have learned to use the rhetoric of environmentalism to justify extremely oppressive projects whose sole purpose is to increase their power and to continue the cycle of production and consumption. Incredibly destructive projects, such as hydrofracture natural gas extraction in Upstate New York, are marketed as clean. This absurd spectacle must be stopped.
In Guy Debord’s Society of the Spectacle, he writes, “The spectacle presents itself simultaneously as all of society, as part of society, and as instrument of unification … The spectacle grasped in its totality is both the result and the project of the existing mode of production.
It is not a supplement to the real world, an additional decoration. It is the heart of the unrealism of the real society. In all its specific forms, as information or propaganda, as advertisement or direct entertainment consumption, the spectacle is the present model of socially dominant life … It is the sun which never sets over the empire of modern passivity. It covers the entire surface of the world and bathes endlessly in its own glory.” And now the light of that sun is green. The green spectacle is confronting the climate crisis with hollow solutions presented to us in a pleasant, prefabricated package that can be bought if we can afford them and allow us to pollute in good conscience. In an absurd twist, these corporate false solutions cause the poor, and those who resist these schemes, to be blamed for destroying the planet. Read the rest of this entry »
Climate Justice Activists confront Carbon Trade Summit with demonstration, direct action
January 13th, 2010
1/13/2009 – New York, NY – In the wake of a controversial outcome at the Copenhagen climate talks, a diverse crowd of scientists, Faith congregations, activists, students, and concerned citizens converged in confrontation and protest at the 2nd Annual IGlobalForum Carbon Trading Summit today. The summit is the largest annual meeting place of corporations, banks, and lobby groups to further the agenda of a carbon trading scheme to address climate change. Activists rallied to oppose market-based trading of greenhouse gas emissions credits and call for real solutions to the climate crisis. Dr. Maggie Zhou, from Secure Green Future and Climate SOS, was among the demonstrators who engaged in a nonviolent direct action and risked arrest in an attempt to blockade the venue’s revolving doors, and display a banner decrying carbon trading as a false solution.
Other outraged environmentalists and faith-community activists entered the hotel and disrupted the Carbon Summit luncheon, challenging attendees to consider the future of the planet above their own short-term financial interests and denouncing them as climate profiteers. The private gathering, separated from the central hotel atrium by a tall curtain, was suddenly exposed to activists and other members of the general public when the curtain was torn down.
“The same Wall Street bankers who gave us the global climate crisis are trying to own the sky,” stated Brian Tokar, director of the Institute for Social Ecology and an organizer of this week’s protest events. “Carbon trading is unjust, it will not work, and it is a false solution. It is a dangerous distraction from the urgent measures needed to prevent an ever-worsening destabilization of the climate.”
Speakers at the rally included Dea Goblirsch, organizer with Climate Ground Zero in southern W. VA., Reverend Billy of the Church of Life After Shopping, who delivered a critique with the fire and brimstone of a televangelist; Chaia Heller, Professor of Gender Studies at Mount Holyoke College, and Father Paul Mayer, co-founder of the Climate Crisis Coalition and religious community leader.
Participants inside the Carbon Trading Summit included executives from JP Morgan Chase, Goldman Sachs, Duke Energy and more, as well as polluter-friendly environmental groups like the Environmental Defense Fund and World Wildlife Fund.
“I don’t trust these people to make decisions about the future of humanity,” said one young participant, who wished not to give her name because she will be risking arrest today. “If we follow through with market-based solutions like carbon trading, everyone will regret it. We need to stop believing the corporations’ false solutions and put all our collective energy into getting this conversation onto a track that’s useful.”
Dr. James Hansen, renowned climate scientist, was present outside the Carbon Trading Summit on Tuesday to voice his opposition to carbon trading schemes.
“Cap-and-trade is not a smart approach,” wrote Hansen his book Storms of My Grandchildren. Hansen has stated that current US climate legislation is “worse than nothing” because it relies on risky and ineffective cap-and-trade. He also declared that the failure to reach an agreement in Copenhagen was a better outcome than adopting the carbon-trade-based approach that was being negotiated.
“Carbon trade, which includes cap and trade and offsets, are a dangerous distraction, economically risky, and prone to gaming and speculation,” stated Maggie Zhou. “Offsets allow polluters to simply pay someone else somewhere else to reduce their emissions on your behalf, which in the end does nothing to actually reduce emissions. The climate crisis simply can’t wait!
“Carbon trade is an insidious threat to human rights,” stated Dr. Rachel Smolker from Biofuelwatch and Climate SOS. “It turns rights to pollute the atmosphere, as well as forests, soils and agriculture practices that store carbon into commodities to be bought and sold as excuses for polluters. This is the greatest corporate grab on the “global commons” ever! It is disastrous for most of humanity.
# # #
Climate SOS, Rising Tide North America, Beyond Talk (Climate Pledge of Resistance), Rainforest Action Network, Institute for Social Ecology, The Change You Want to See Gallery and others are behind this effort. To learn more and take a stand for climate justice, for real solutions, and for the future of our planet, please visit above websites, or visit us on Facebook. contact@climatesos.org
Counter Carbon Trading! NYC – January 9-13
January 7th, 2010
CALL TO ACTION!
NONVIOLENT RESISTANCE TO CARBON TRADING
NEW YORK CITY, JAN. 9-13
CONFRONTING THE SOURCE OF COPENHAGEN’S “FAILURE” Read the rest of this entry »
Statement from those still imprisoned in Denmark
January 1st, 2010
Something is rotten (but not just) in Denmark. As a matter of fact, thousands of people have been considered, without any evidence, a threat to the society. Hundreds have been arrested and some are still under detention, waiting for judgement or under investigation. Among them, us, the undersigned. We want to tell the story from the peculiar viewpoint of those that still see the sky from behind the bars. Read the rest of this entry »
NONVIOLENT RESISTANCE TO CARBON TRADING – NEW YORK CITY JAN. 12-13
December 31st, 2009
Following closely on the heels of the failed UN Copenhagen climate conference, , the Second Annual Carbon Trade Summit will be convened on January 12-13th in New York City, bringing together representatives of some of the most polluting industries, industry associations, carbon financiers, banks, government officials and corporate “big greens.” Participants will include executives from JP Morgan Chase, Goldman Sachs, Duke Energy, and many more. (See http://www.iglobalforum.com/conference_live.php?r=22&p=home.)
Here they will discuss how to take advantage of the emerging carbon markets. Under a veneer of greenwash, they will be determining ways to ensure that marketable allowances for greenhouse gases (a.k.a., “cap-and-trade” schemes) remain the centerpiece of global climate policy.
Curing Post-Copenhagen Hangover
December 24th, 2009
video directed by Sara Taigher. Medley of songs from DJ Rupture & Matt Shadetek
December, 23 2009
By Bond, Patrick
In Copenhagen, the world’s richest leaders continued their fiery fossil fuel party last Friday night, ignoring requests of global village neighbors to please chill out.
Instead of halting the hedonism, Barack Obama and the Euro elites cracked open the mansion door to add a few nouveau riche guests: South Africa’s Jacob Zuma, China’s Jiabao Wen (reportedly the most obnoxious of the lot), Brazil’s Lula Inacio da Silva and India’s Manmohan Singh. By Saturday morning, still punch-drunk with power over the planet, these wild and crazy party animals had stumbled back onto their jets and headed home.
The rest of us now have a killer hangover, because on behalf mainly of white capitalists (who are having the most fun of all), the world’s rulers stuck the poor and future generations with vast clean-up charges – and worse: certain death for millions.
Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: 770 ppm, accord, action, Barack Obama, carbon markets, climate debt, Climate Ground Zero, climate justice, COP15, Copenhagen, direct action, disaster, environmental justice, fossil fuel, government, green capitalism, greenwash, hang over, Jacob Zuma, loopholes, Lula de Silva, media, mtr, party, protest, sea level, tar sands, UN, UNFCCC, Video, Wen Jiabao |
No Comments »