It’s Getting Hot In Here

This article sent to me from Dave Shukla really represent how a group of students can take the momentum behind a national campaign, localize it, and make it their own. Great work

Another occupation at the New School? Over the past weekend, I have received a lot of questions, requests for more information, and just general concern from people all around the country regarding the latest student action at the New School.

Make no mistake, the local and national media has been suffuse this past weekend with things that I want no part in. I will spare you a long and lengthy assessment of what New School activism has been like since December. Some background information can be found here (http://www.zcommunications.org/znet/viewArticle/21066), but I want to here focus on what has been relevant to Power Vote and Power Shift.

Continue reading ‘What Are You For?’

While the 24 hour cable news cycle has been obsessing about “Obama vs. the Pirates,” this weekend the British police pre-emptively arrested 114 anti-coal activists suspected of planning actions at an EON coal plant.

Recently, U.K. activistas have been stepping up direct action against coal and climate change  (this has been very visible in Australia and, now, the U.S. as well) and the authorities appear to be stepping up their actions against protestors.

The Guardian reports that British police have been surveilling thousands associated with U.K. Climate Camps and storing that info in a database for the past 7 years.

I’ve been part of many movements (anti-war, global justice, etc.) where the police act like George Bush in Iraq (and now Obama in Somalia) and pre-emptively strike at a perceived threat.  As we organize and step up our  activities against the fossil fuel empire, we can expect violations of our civil liberties by their agents. Continue reading ‘British Police Pre-Emptively Arrest 114 Anti-Coal Activists’

“Intel remains committed to the principle that Oregon continues to lead on the critical issues of carbon reduction and climate change. I hope and believe there will be legislation this year that delivers on that goal.” -Jonathan Williams, Government Affairs Manager for Intel Oregon

When the Wall Street Journal devotes page space to the concept of industry greenwashing, you know you’re looking at what might just be a change in public consciousness. More and more people are turning a critical eye to corporations that trumpet their own environmental concernedness far and wide, then turn around and pollute the air, destroy biodiversity, or fight government policies that would raise environmental standards. Nowhere is that more true than in my own environmentally-inclined state of Oregon. None of our Oregon-based companies quite made the Journal’s list of the “Top Ten Greenwashers in America.” But if you drew up a similar list specifically for corporations with close ties to the Northwest, you’d have to put Intel Corporation somewhere near the top.

While Intel, the largest computer chip manufacturer in the world, is technically based in California, Oregon is the company’s largest center of manufacturing in the US. And unsurprisingly, the Oregon branch of Intel has pulled out all the stops attempting to paint itself as “green.” But over the last year, I’ve worked with other student activists to look at just how Intel’s policies in Oregon match up with the company’s green rhetoric. And this is what we’ve found:

As the largest private employer in Oregon, Intel wields immense political power in this state. Yet as the Oregon legislature debates some of the most progressive climate policies in the country this year, Intel has been conspicuously silent. And for Intel, silence means giving a thumbs-up to those who would like to gut Oregon’s promising clean energy future. Why? Because Intel is one of the largest members of Industrial Customers of Northwest Utilities (ICNU) – a group that has consistently lobbied against progressive climate policy in Oregon. This year, ICNU has joined forces with a variety of other corporate interest groups to form Oregonians for Balanced Climate Policy – actually an anti-environmental conglomeration of the worst polluters in this state that now represents the single most powerful opponent to climate policy in Oregon.

Continue reading ‘Intel Oregon: Outstanding Achievement in Corporate Greenwashing’

Tim Aubrey

On the President’s 100th day, join impacted communities in solidarity by telling Obama and Congress your own story.

Today marks President Obama’s eighty-second day of office. I know because it’s my job to count: each morning I mark the days since our new President told us to, “pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, and begin again the work of remaking America.”

I count other things too: actions groups have taken with Power Past Coal since inauguration (that’s 202 today), Focus the Nation town halls (103), new coal plants denied permits (95 and counting), mountaintop removal permits withheld by the EPA (3 more last week), revenue that wind turbines on Coal River Mountain could bring to the local community (1.7 million), and the President’s commitments to regulating carbon dioxide emissions from coal plants (1) and coal ash from sludge ponds (1).

There are some things I’ve seen in these eighty-two days that are more difficult to quantify. First, the disbelief, the elation, then the deep disappointment I watched on my neighbors faces in the Coal River Valley when the EPA’s supposed hold on all mountaintop removal permits led Lisa Jackson to clarify that most of the pending permits would “not raise environmental concern.” Second, the stoic determination with which my neighbors and fellow activists returned to work the next morning. False alarm: Coal River Mountain was far from saved, and there was no time for rest.

And I can’t begin to quantify this movement we’ve been witnessing. There are countless communities in every region of this country who still bear the burden of dirty coal, but who are just beginning to find their voice. For the first time in history, these impacted communities have come together in a united call to action. They’ve been the “people power” behind Power Past Coal’s 100 Days project, and the voices behind this new letter they hope you’ll sign.

On President Obama’s 100^th Day, six delegates of these impacted communities are coming to DC to represent the growing movement in front of Congress. They come from Chicago’s asthma ridden inner city, Pennsylvania’s longwall mining region, the Powder River Basin’s stripped and dried farms, the Black Mesa Navajo reservation’s coalfields, North Carolina’s mercury-polluted valleys, and Kentucky’s leveled mountaintops.

But when the delegates present their case for a transition away from coal, they won’t be the only voices in the room. They plan to deliver a stack of letters, thousands deep, each attached with its own coal story.

To join in solidarity with impacted community members, fellow climate activists, and other concerned citizens, please sign our letter and add your story – on the 100^th day, we’ll prove to Obama the diversity and power of this beautiful movement.

April 13, 2009 – Young leaders organized by Focus the Nation are holding an unprecedented 103 Town Halls across the country beginning today and throughout this week’s Congressional recess to engage Congressional representatives, mayors and other elected officials in accelerating America’s transition to a clean energy future.

50 members of Congress have confirmed their participation in the Nationwide Town Hall on America’s Clean Energy Future, along with dozens of city and state elected leaders. The events are being held during the Congressional spring recess to allow maximum participation.

Sen. Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania is kicking off the week today, at a 2 p.m. appearance at a Philadelphia Town Hall at Drexel University [Event details: http://www.focusthenation.org]. Sen. Christopher Dodd of Connecticut is confirmed for Apr. 16 at Central Connecticut State University in New Britain.

The majority of the Town Halls, including one with Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island, will take place on Apr. 18. A full map and list of local events and details is available at www.focusthenation.org/map.

“Sen. Specter’s participation in the launch of this national discussion epitomizes the opportunity America has to redefine the kind of leadership it will take to keep our country at the forefront of building the clean energy future,” said Garett Brennan, executive director of Focus the Nation. “This is our window to shift our economy from crisis to opportunity. Legislators need to hear that serious investment in green jobs and affordable clean energy isn’t bold to their constituents at all. It’s common sense. It’s what they want and it’s what our economy needs.” Continue reading ‘Youth to Engage Members of Congress, Local Officials in 103 Town Halls Nationwide to Build Clean Energy Future’

Last week, a few members of IYCN headed down to Dharavi, India’s largest slum and the true heart of Indian recycling to participate in RESPECT RECYCLE, an incredible event organized by our friend and road tour colleague Jitin Abraham, 21 Tigers, IYCN, and Acorn Foundation. We had a chance to visit some of the recycling facilities in Dharavi, places where women were sorting through tiny pieces of electronics to sort out metal, places where all of the cardboard of the city flowed in and out, sorted by shape and size, pieces of old plastic phones sorted and melted. It was beautiful, toxic, unbelievable and heart-breaking all at once.

The event of REspect REcycle was to draw attention to the work of Bombay’s ragpickers and pay homage and respect to the work they do daily to protect our planet, our health, and our cities. Methane emissions from landfills are a serious component of India’s greenhouse gases, and improving recycling units are a bit part of the solution. Several artists of Timbaland Productions headed into Dharavi to show RESPECT to Bombay’s rag pickers and the entire recycling industry that is based out of Dharavi, by celebrating music, graffiti art and sculpture at a gym in Dharavi. Continue reading ‘REspect REcycle’

Nothing compared to ecosystem collapse that is.

Spreading hands as dry and cracked as the orchards he tends, the stout man his mates call Tank explained what damage a decade of drought has done.

“Suicide is high. Depression is huge. Families are breaking up. It’s devastation,” he said, shaking his head. “I’ve got a neighbor in terrible trouble. Found him in the paddock, sitting in his [truck], crying his eyes out. Grown men — big, strong grown men. We’re holding on by the skin of our teeth. It’s desperate times.”

A result of climate change?

“You’d have to have your head in the bloody sand to think otherwise,” Eddy said.

Ten years ago I traveled to Adelaide, South Australia, the driest province in the driest continent on Earth. I spent five months of my Junior year in college studying sustainable development, environmental politics, and climate change. It was the first time I grasped the issue of global warming. At that time, the drought described by Tank had only just begun.

Now, ten years later, Australia is teaching me a new lesson – as depressing as they may be, articles about climate impacts can still teach us something.

My climate reading for today all started with this news story about global warming creeping into Joshua Tree territory. Have you no decency, Mr. Crisis. That’s my tree you’re messing with.

Combining Urgency with Hope will get us to Victory.  Compromise and long-term, complex goals will not.

The situation:
Right now, congress is struggling to pass a carbon cap and trade bill that will reduce our emissions 80% by the year 2050. President Obama, congressional leaders, and even environmental advocates are talking about needing to compromise – doing things like giving away pollution permits for free to dirty energy, providing public money for the mythological “clean coal,” and weakening the 2020 targets well below the already absurdly weak 20% below 1990 levels. They say such compromises are the only way we’ll get a bill passed.

Why we’re losing:

Take a look at our message:

Global warming is a major problem that will be disastrous for our country. So we need you to call your congressperson, and tell them to vote for a bill that will implement a cap and trade system that will reduce our emissions 80% by 2050. (Insert more detailed, complex, techno-babble here about auction permits, renewable portfolio standards, CCS, REDD, and the like).

See the problem? This message is horrible, and its making us lose for two primary reasons:

1) We’re proposing a band-aid for a gunshot wound, so people think we’ve got a paper cut.

There is a cognitive dissonance in our messaging. Our proposed solutions aren’t as serious as the problem, so people think the problem isn’t serious.

Continue reading ‘Why We’re Losing (And How to Win!)’

English version follows

Confieso que, aunque yo era uno de los preocupados ciudadanos de Toronto que querían que el RBC (Banco Real de Canadá) invirtiera en energía renovable y dejara de invertir en la expansión de la industria petrolera en Alberta, no era consciente de cuánto habían jugado con su imagen medioambiental.

¿Qué es lo que RBC dice que hace por el medio ambiente? Para averiguarlo, fui al sitio web medioambiental de RBC. El párrafo principal de la página principal dice que RBC ha escogido tres asuntos medioambientales como “prioridades.”

1. El cambio climático
2. La silvicultura, biodiversidad e indígenas
3. El agua

Es evidente que el banco más grande de Canadá (por sus activos) que ha invertido cincuenta mil millones de dólares para la expansión de la industria petrolera ha manipulado la palabra “prioridad”. Veamos…

Continue reading ‘Las Mentiras de Un Banco Justo’

Cross-posted from Dispatches from Life

Joseph Romm is one of the most respected writers on climate policy. Here is a summary of his thoughts on what is necessary to avert catastrophic warming:

We have to bring down the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere to between 350-450 parts per million (ppm) to avoid the hellish worst of climate change. Economically and technologically, this is quite doable. However, it is not plausible in the current political climate. Because the alternative is unacceptable, we will get there, but to do so we must all become familiar with the best solutions, and then loudly push our political leaders toward them.

Read the specifics below the fold…
Continue reading ‘Joe Romm’s Solution to Climate Change’