It’s Getting Hot In Here

Check it out: Last September, over a hundred cyclists joined the Brita Climate Ride and biked 300 miles from New York City to Washington D.C. to fight climate change. We’re riding again this September 26-30 and doubling the size of the event. We hope you can join us.

Here’s a description of the route, and a sweet slide show.

The Brita Climate Ride is a fundraiser for Focus the Nation, Clean Air – Cool Planet, and Rails to Trails Conservancy. Each rider raises $2,400, and the proceeds are split between these groups.

But this five-day ride is much more than a fundraiser. It’s an opportunity to be a part of a climate conference on wheels.

Brita Climate Ride staff and volunteers carry your gear from one campsite to the next. At night, you can relax, meet fellow Climate Riders, and hear expert speakers. While the ride is open to all age groups, over half of last year’s riders were in their twenties.

The ride ends at the steps of the Capitol building. Last year, when we arrived, Congressmen Lloyd Doggett and Earl Blumenauer met and addressed the riders. The following day, riders walked into the congressional offices and lobbied their representatives.

On the Climate Ride Blog, you can read what last year’s riders said about the event.

So sign up and join us. Fellowships are available.

About a month or so after the Capitol Climate action I wrote a movement strategy piece to reflect on its lessons. It is the cover story for the May issue of Z Magazine and pasted below. This magazine came out on the day we heard from the Administration that they have begun to implement their promise to phase coal out of the Capitol Power Plant.

Climate Justice and Coal’s Funeral Procession
Learning from the Capitol Climate Action

The snow was 4.5 inches deep and it was 23 degrees out when our action started at 1pm. We could already hear the Fox News commentators making the usual absurd statements: “A global warming protest in the snow?! Maybe this climate change stuff isn’t real after all, ha ha ha.” But by the end of the day, even Fox News gave positive coverage to the largest protest in history demanding solutions to the climate crisis.

On March 2nd, around 4,000 people came to the Capitol Power Plant in Washington DC, over 2,000 of whom risked arrest through civil disobedience. The vast majority had never been to a demonstration of any kind before, let alone engaged in non-violent direct action. People from communities most directly impacted by coal’s lifecycle — from Navajo reservations in the Southwest to Appalachian towns in the Southeast — led the march. With vibrant multicolored flags depicting windmills, people planting gardens, waves crashing, and captions like “community,” “security,” “change” and “power,” we sat-in to blockade five entrances to the power plant that literally fuels Congress. We called the whole thing the “Capitol Climate Action” (CCA).

The belching smoke stacks just two blocks from the Capitol building made a fitting target for a national flashpoint. They symbolize the stranglehold that the dirty fossil fuel industry – and coal industry in particular – has on our government, economy, and future. Burning coal is the single biggest contributor to global warming. We will not be able to solve the climate crisis or build a clean energy economy without breaking its hold.

Continue reading ‘Climate Justice and Coal’s Funeral Procession’

UPDATE: Five of 11 Massey protesters found in contempt of court, based on a pretty outrageous interpretation of restraining orders.

To be an eco-terrorist now you just gotta flap your jaw
And hey who knows by the time you have a chance to blink
Whether you’re a criminal might depend on what you think

-David Rovics

Sometimes in the new era of “hope” and “change,” you almost forget the way things work in the rest of the world.  In West Virginia and Indiana, environmental activists using tools like non-violent direct action and grassroots organizing are facing corrupt legal systems that are misusing existing laws to stop their campaign activities.

In West Virginia today (May 1), 8 activists and 3 journalists are set to appear before a state court to show why should not be held in contempt for violating a Temporary Restraining Order (TRO) brought by four Massey Energy subsidiaries. Massey Energy says that the activists engaged in three direct actions since February in the Coal River Valley stopping daily work are a violation of the TRO. Only one of the 11 is actually listed on the TRO and he hasn’t participated in any action since it was served.

The activists contend that the TRO is overly broad as it extends to “all other persons allied, associated, confederating, conspiring, or acting in concert with them.”  In other words, it extends to all of us that oppose Massey’s rape of Coal River Mountain. Continue reading ‘To be an Eco-Terrorist Now, You Just Gotta Flap your Jaw’