It’s Getting Hot In Here

Cross posted from Action Factory DC – by Julie Erickson

Despite the diversity of actions we’ve carried out this summer, I believe the Action Factory has developed a unique ‘Action Factory’ style that rings through nearly all of our actions. Our style is usually comedic and gimmicky, and our message always positive. Rather than highlighting the often dismal political and scientific realities of today’s world, our actions are instead suggestive of the change we desire and the future we envision. At their core, almost all our actions affirm the now-famous cliché, “yes we can”:

• Yes, the Senate can pass a clean energy bill that is Harder, Better, Faster, and Stronger than the house ACES bill. We just have to teach our senators the 5% Allocation Workout routine, and they’ll buff up the climate bill in no time.
• Yes President Obama can go in person to Copenhagen and raise the stakes at the negotiating table. It will even be fun and he can enjoy himself by eating danishes while in Denmark for the negotiations.

Climate change is complex and it’s difficult to talk about complexity in today’s news media, so we at the Action Factory have stayed away from communicating much about the complexities of climate change in our actions. Instead we’ve dumbed things way down for the sake of getting attention and keeping an up-beat tone. This has been very effective and I’m glad that through our actions, we’ve gained a reputation for being optimistic and hopeful — because we are.

Continue reading ‘A Different Tone for Action Factory with Tent City Action’

By Jennie Hatch

Over the past few weeks I have been discouraged, disappointed, frustrated, and sometimes terrified by the coverage of town hall health care debates across the country.  The misinformation and mob baiting by the right has gotten out of control.  It’s enough to want to make me put down my carefully-laid activist plans for Copenhagen and go work for Healthcare for America Now.

I say that only partially as someone whose future health and financial security quite literally depends on reforming the health care system.  The other part of me—the climate activist—is freaking out for an entirely different reason.  Six months ago, everyone wanted to reform the health care system.  It was one of Obama’s most popular issues—so popular that he was willing to make a promise that we would have health care reform by the end of the year.  Now, one of Obama’s top issues has caused his approval ratings to sink, has inspired nasty comparisons to Hitler, and is ground zero for those who want to ruin Obama’s agenda.

Some of that of course is a failure in messaging by democratic leaders.  However some of it is more insidious and discouraging for us.  Remember, this is an issue that was not nearly as controversial as climate change.  Sure, the way that heath care would be reformed was still up for debate, but the if of health care reform was not on anyone’s radar.  Heath care’s rocky path this summer should be a warning to us climate activists.  The way the health care debate is going is bad for people working on climate change for at least two reasons, and I think we need to focus some of our energy on the health care debate if we want to continue making strides on climate change. Continue reading ‘What the Health Care Debate has to do with Climate Change’

A quick post this morning…

The global community should be investing $300 billion annually to combat global warming, according to UN climate chief Yvo de Boer (pictured). De Boer, the Executive Secretary of the UN Framework Convention of Climate Change, says the world needs to be spending $100 billion annually to help vulnerable communities adapt to the impacts of climate change, and another $200 billion each year to shift the global energy mix away from fossil fuels.

“The world will need a phenomenal amount of money to change its energy supply from fossil fuels to cleaner sources and to adapt to climate change,” de Boer said Friday.

According to a UN Environment Program news update:

With 110 days left until the Copenhagen Climate Conference, only “limited progress” was made at the most recent United Nations climate change talks where financing to cut and cope with climate change proved to be a major sticking point among negotiators. …
De Boer estimates the annual cost of climate change adaptation at US$100 billion per year. This is the amount needed to cope with natural disasters such as flooding and drought that will result from increased warming. Meanwhile, he pegs the cost of cutting global emissions at US$200 billion annually.

Continue reading ‘UN Climate Chief: Global Community Needs to Invest $300b Annually in Climate Fight’

Update: Protest begins!  Starting the 24 hour vigil in front of the State Department

Read Kalen’s post on ActionFactoryDC.blogspot.com for more details

Climate change is forcing people to leave their homes, and even forcing entire nations to sink beneath the waves.  Yet climate refugees might not even be included in the international climate agreement being developed for Copenhagen.

At last week’s Bonn III negotiations (the talks to get ready for the big Copenhagen negotiations), the one line of text that referred to climate refugees was bracketed.  That means the text is flagged for possible approval, instead of being firmly included.  This slight change makes the US less responsible for the problem.  The United States would rather not even use the word ‘refugees,’ fearing its strong implications, and instead would use the word ‘migrants.’ Why?  Because a ‘migrant’ is someone who decides to move.

Peoples’ homes are being destroyed.  They are not going to be moving voluntarily, and any effort to make it seem like they are is a blatant shirking of responsibility on the part of American diplomats, most notably Hillary Clinton. Continue reading ‘Protest: State Department Ignores Climate Refugees’

Updated 6:00 pm PST: New video

Check out some early video footage from the mobilization:

Updated: 5:00 pm PST

What do you do when a multi-billion dollar company dumps 100,000 pounds in your community? Fight back. Today, hundreds of Richmond residents and supporters from across the Bay Area, around the country, and around the world, joined together to protest Chevron’s gross human rights and environmental justice violations.

The day started with a rally in downtown Richmond, with speakers from groups like the West County Toxics Coalition, Communities for a Better Environment, and the Asian Pacific Environmental Network, and performers and music. Hundreds of people then marched to the Chevron refinery in Richmond, the largest industrial polluter in the Bay Area.

Continue reading ‘Chevron Protest: Mobilization for Climate Justice (Live Updates)’

Youth climate leaders launch a new media initiative to put Survival front & center on international stage, pressure delegates in Copenhagen

San Francisco, CA.— On August 11, hundreds of youth climate activists, supporters, artists, and community members gathered at Minna Gallery to launch a global network of youth journalists who will use video, photography, and blogs to report from the front lines of the climate crisis in the lead up to the UN climate negotiations in Copenhagen this December.

The new media project is called Project Survival Media, and its goals are ambitious: Launch seven youth-directed new media teams, one from each continent; Report on compelling and under-told climate change stories; Leverage this media using the vast organizing and distribution networks that youth have built to spread their message; and Influence the international dialogue in the lead up to the UN Climate Negotiations.

“What if, on all seven continents, there were young people equipped to globally broadcast pivotal stories about the climate crisis?” says youth organizer and Project Coordinator Shadia Fayne Wood.

“What if these young people were empowered to amplify disenfranchised voices and propel the principle of “Survival” to the forefront of the political debate? Climate change is not a future threat – people all over the planet are suffering from different effects of climate change right now, and they don’t have time to wait until a solution becomes politically feasible.” Ms. Wood also pointed out that there is a real need to breathe life into the statistics of the climate crisis, and that new media has the potential to do just that. Continue reading ‘Project Survival Media Launches from Minna Gallery, SF’

Cross-posted from: here

The American Petroleum Institute is planning to launch a major astroturf campaign in the coming weeks to try in gin up “opposition” to climate legislation in the Senate. I saw this first on The Huffington Post by Kevin Grandia, who has provided the once secret memo uncovered by Greenpeace. The contents of the pdf are a letter by Phil Radford, the Executive Director of Greenpeace to the President of API calling him out. Below that is the memo sent by API to its allies. The best part of this is the context is which Radford closes his letter descrbing how API asked for it’s memo not to be divulged so that their gameplan is not known by critics. Radford says “game plan known”. The contents are copied below. Continue reading ‘“Game Plan Known”’

Posted on behalf of Stephanie Black-Schaffer, Western Mass Team Leader, Mass Climate Summer (a project of Mass Power Shift)

Mass Climate Summer is over, and yet certain things will always stay with me.  A new appreciation for the versatility of ketchup, a comprehensive familiarity with peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, the imprint of a bike seat on my derriere, and a better understanding of the urgency for climate action.   But if I didn’t understand the urgency from the beginning, why did I invest my whole summer in such an internship?  I will—obnoxiously—answer this question by asking another.

Do you know who the hardest person to canvass is?  Right now you’re thinking maybe it’s the misanthrope who takes vindictive pleasure cussing you out, or maybe the apathetic aristocrat who says ‘no’ before you open your mouth, or maybe the talkative old lady who keeps you on her porch for forty minutes.  –Incidentally, we had all three–

But the hardest person to canvass isn’t any of these.  It’s the person who is totally informed.  Informed but jaded.  It’s that individual who laughs when he hears your petition, tells you he’ll sign it because he thinks it’s a great idea, but that he’s been trying to change the world for decades and no one listens.  That gets you wondering.  If this active, experienced, informed person couldn’t get anything done, who are you—one college student—to try?

Now imagine living with such a person.  My father had the highest National Merit score in the state of Ohio.  One of the fifty greatest minds of his generation.  He’s also extremely well-read.  But though he’s certain climate change is occurring, he doesn’t believe we can do much about it.  He gets me wondering.  If my intelligent, informed father doesn’t think anything can be done, who am I—one little student—to presume?

But then it occurred to me: movements start with one or two little people.  The Civil Rights movement started in the single digits.  There were only nine Little Rock students, one Ruby Bridges, four sit-in demonstrators, one Rosa Parks, two black major league baseball players, one Martin Luther King Jr.  If they could change the course of history, why couldn’t I?

Continue reading ‘Final Thoughts on Mass Climate Summer’

Yesterday’s online conversation with Canada’s Chief Negotiator, Mr Michael Martin. Read below for both the actual and the between-the-lines versions of this exchange. If you have questions you would like to ask him, email adoptanegotiator@campaginhub.org .

The questions:

1. What was Canada aiming to achieve with the intervention made in the Finance sub-committee [yesterday]?
2. What is the primary objective for the Canadian delegation this week?
3. Is the Canadian delegation going to (or want to) give the chair/facilitators a mandate to revise the text?

Continue reading “Update from Canada’s Lead Negotiator” here…

Twilight West Virginia, Kent England, Hay Point Australia, Richmond California, Wise Virginia…. the lists go on and the names are many.  Former VP Al Gore has challenged us, climatologist James Hansen has joined us and now all over the world people are taking direct action at the point of climate destruction.

Mark Engler has written a new article which is now making the rounds on Grist, TomDispatch, Mother Jones and elsewhere talking about the rise of the “Climate Disobedience” movement and it’s comparison to the global justice movement that culminated in Seattle ten years ago.

As someone who cut their organizing teeth in those days, what really fascinates me about the history is how disparate issues and activists were merged into a “movement of movements” to take on seemingly all-powerful transnational institutions like the World Trade Organization (WTO) and IMF/World Bank and made such progress that the WTO is almost dead and the IMF/World Bank is severely weakened.  (So much that the “Shock of Victory” through the movement into a bit of a tailspin.)

“Before Seattle, localized activity by global justice advocates had similarly swelled—with a wave of student anti-sweatshop drives, environmental boot camps, organic food gatherings, corporate ad spoofs, indigenous rights battles, and cross-border labor campaigns already simmering. Seattle united these into a recognized “movement of movements” more potent than the sum of its parts.” Continue reading ‘Action and Hope at Climate Ground Zero’