It’s Getting Hot In Here

Good Afternoon Climate Champions,

The SustainUS Agents of Change COP-15 delegation needs your help! Each of our 26 delegates is working to raise funds for the SustainUS delegation as well as a Latin American Youth delegation for travel to Copenhagen.

We’ve submitted a proposal to the Brighter Planet Project Fund, and have an opportunity to win $5000 for the delegation. Your 3 votes can help us get even closer to our fundraising goals. Voting goes until Nov. 15th, and the race is incredibly close. As of right now, we cling to a razor-thin 27-vote lead.

We’ve had a solid lead all of last week, but over the weekend, another group started gaining on us, so we’d really appreciate your votes. The funding will help us make sure that economic status doesn’t prevent any of our delegates from attending the negotiations in Copenhagen, and will also help the delegates put more of their energy into fundraising for a Latin American youth delegation.

Voting is simple:
1) Visit http://brighterplanet.com/. Sign up or log-in. If you’re a new member, you’ll have to confirm your email address before you can vote.
2) Go to http://brighterplanet.com/project_fund_projects/68 or click on the Project Fund tab.
3) Vote up to three times for the Agents of Change project.
4) Share far and wide!

The Brighter Planet Project Fund seeks to foster local leadership and seed worthy community projects that will help people fight or adapt to climate change. Grants are available every month and Brighter Planet members decide—as a community—which project to seed.

Thank you so much for your support!

The SustainUS COP 15 Delegation

This post is provided on behalf of Project Survival Media – a grassroots, student-run media project designed to highlight the true costs of fossil fuels in the lead up to Copenhagen.  As part of this initiative, Project Survival Media team members in California and Oregon are documenting industrial agribusiness’ contributions to global warming and displacement of communities, as well as the role which small, sustainable farms can play in creating a more viable and just food-production system.

When Anne Berblinger delved into the world of small-scale organic farming in 1991, the concept of global warming had not yet entered mainstream consciousness in the US.  “It wasn’t at the top of everyone’s mind,” says Berblinger while slicing freshly harvested peppers in the kitchen at Gales Meadow farm – a site she and her husband Rene’ have been farming since 1999.  Yet though climate concerns had yet to penetrate mainstream thought in the early ’90s, Berblinger says she was inspired to take up small farming in part out of her feeling that “the earth was in peril.”  Motivated by concerns about soil, wildlife, and the other casualties of industrial agribusiness she says, “Having a small piece of land to care for and be the steward of seemed important.”

Today, Anne and Rene’ Berblinger and a team of youthful helpers, many of them recent graduates of Pacific University, cultivate more than 200 varieties of certified-organic herbs and vegetables on the nine flat acres of Gales Meadow Farm. Many crops at Gales Meadow are heirloom varieties not found in the industrial farm zones that have given way to endless high-yield monocultures.  Each plant variety has a history, dating back to its origins in the traditional farming communities of Europe, North America, or elsewhere.  Every carefully cultivated strain represents a reservoir of genetic diversity – a diversity that’s become all the more important to bolster our agriculture’s resilience in a world where modern high-yield crops may turn suddenly vulnerable to changing climates. Continue reading ‘Farming on the Frontlines of Change: a Report-Back from Project Survival Media’

From Joel Batterman, Senior at Reed College in Portland, OR

Students at Reed College in Portland, Oregon have been working to green their campus for years. In the past decade, they’ve established an Environmental Studies major, composting program, organic farm, and sustainability grant fund. The Student Senate has called on the College to hire a Sustainability Coordinator and develop a carbon reduction plan. Yet despite students’ repeated entreaties, Reed President Colin Diver continues to resist such action on the grounds of defending the College’s “political neutrality.”

Their patience wearing thin, concerned Reed students crashed a question and answer session with the President at the College’s Parents Weekend. Using humor to leaven a deadly serious thesis, they sent a clear message that Reed has a moral responsibility to clean up its act, all to the tune of “American Pie,” as seen in the video above.

Project Survival Media is alive and working globally to bring the survival tactics and sustainable practices of real people to the UN conference in Copenhagen. Right now all over the world, teams are filming different groups of people for their own documentaries.

Luke Estrella at the UN Plaza Farmers Market

Here in the Bay Area, California, after wwoofing for two months in Willits, I have been given the opportunity to lead the Northwestern project.

Today I went to the U.N. Plaza Farmers Market on my way around the city to see the prevalence of organic farm choices for the mainstream San Franciscan public. This market is not known for its sustainability, but for it’s prices and accessability.

There were a few organic farm choices, but I did have the opportunity to talk to one young organic farmer, Luke Estrella from Bounty of the Valley, Salinas Valley. Bounty of the Valley is a 50 acre human powered farm, full of young farmers who are learning how to grow their own food.

I asked him what he thought about the next generation of farmers, since in this area there seems to be a growing trend of young farmers. Farmers used to be an average of 60 years old, but people in their 20′s have, for the first time in years, started to pick up the old pitchfork.

“[young farmers] have a lot of new ideas to bring to the table, young farmers will bring about the change we need for sustainable action.”

He also warned against green washing on the organic front, and how current policy may encourage this.

“There are 500 acre certified organic plots that have organic soil and seeds, but they have a machine that does everything. These are also the farms that have the money to pay for being certified [organic]. These farms are unsustainable by design.”

He elaborated on a machine that many large scale farmers contract out to plant, till, and harvest. Many of these farmers do not touch soil and are not acquainted with their own land, although their products are touted as sustainable.

But, what may be organic isn’t necessarily sustainable. It is important that we not only push for policies that help organic farmers, but that we pay close attention to new policies, and make sure that they are also helping local and sustainable farmers, which organic is only one factor in.

We also need to make this clear to the UN delegation. We are young, ready for change, and unwilling to adapt to old standards.

This is according to Veteran Richard Allen Smith, a member of the group VoteVets and Operation Free, in response to an e-mail sent out by ACCCE, the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity, which reads

“Greetings!

With Veterans Day around the corner, we wanted to take a moment to reflect on all the military personnel who are involved in ensuring our country is protected.

Energy security is one issue that has become increasingly important to our veterans. In fact, national veterans groups Votevets and Operation Free are urging the government to become more energy independent and less reliant on foreign oil.

We can do this by using the abundant domestic fuels we already have. With more than 250 billion tons of recoverable coal reserves, the United States has more coal than the Middle East has oil.

We need to start putting our coal to use – and technologies such as hybrid-electric cars and cleaner, more efficient power plants are making it easier for us to do that.

How do you feel about the issue? Let us know on Facebook or Twitter.

As always, thank you for your continued support. We hope to hear from you!

Cheers,

The ACCCE Team”

This e-mail is of course misrepresenting what VoteVets and Operation Free advocate for. As Smith writes, the groups are not advocating for increased coal use… Continue reading ‘Coal Front Group “Hijacks Veterans, Dishonors Veterans Day”’

NOVEMBER 30, 2009

As the world’s biggest companies and their friends in government continue to fight a transition to more just and sustainable ways of living, climate change threatens to turn our world upside down with water shortages, crop failures, sea level rise and ecosystem collapse. A million species face extinction by the end of the century, and the people who have contributed least to the problem will continue to be the hardest hit. What can be done at this critical juncture, with our future at stake?

Throughout history, social change has come about when regular people get fed up with business as usual, get organized, and take to the streets. If we leave climate solutions up to politicians and corporations, then we will lose – not just a political battle, but the life-support systems of the planet. Time is running out to avert the worst impacts of climate change: the time to act is now.

A broad coalition of organizations working for social, ecological, racial and economic justice has come together under the banner of the Mobilization for Climate Justice. Join us as we organize mass action on climate change on November 30, 2009! November 30 (N30) is significant both because it immediately precedes the upcoming UN Climate Conference in Copenhagen and is the ten-year anniversary of the protests that shut down of the World Trade Organization meetings in Seattle, demonstrating the incredible power of collective action.

Every indication is that any agreement that emerges from Copenhagen will be nothing more than business as usual—sacrificing real emissions reductions in favor of market-based approaches that enhance corporate profits while delaying a transition away from fossil fuels. The current approach to climate change in the UN, and in the US Congress, is based on the creation of a new market in carbon emissions. Carbon trading (aka “cap and trade”) and carbon offsets do not address the root causes of global warming, nor do they reduce emissions. They are designed by and for corporations, and are a dangerous distraction that should be abandoned. Continue reading ‘November 30th – Take Action for Climate Justice!’

When people ask me the best way to get back to 350 ppm, my first answer is always: ”Organize!” That’s because citizen action is key to passing the type of national legislation and creating the international treaties we need to solve the climate crisis. But a constant obsession with top-down solutions — the big treaties or government programs — can sometimes distract us from the local solutions that are all around us.

Here’s a great video made by some friends in China (you can see one of the filmmakers, my buddy Bo Chung, holding a 350 sign on October 24 in the picture to the left) on one local solution: small scale biogas generators:

I love this video not only because it shows a compelling green path to rural development, but because it talks directly with the people who are managing and benefiting from the biogas generator. The upcoming climate talks in Copenhagen this December will be dominated by diplomats and politicians. Yet, as October 24 showed, the real leaders on climate change are the millions of average citizens around the world who are going out of their way to chart a new course towards green development.

Getting to 350 will require new technologies, mega-wind farms and fields of solar panels. But it will also require small scale solutions and community action. As our friend Van Jones says, “We’re going to need the PHD’s and hte PH-Do’s.” This video is a great look at some of the do-er’s on the ground in rural China.

Today, the Senate Finance Committee held its first hearing for the Boxer-Kerry bill. News such as this would typically be welcomed as necessary progress, as we are pushing for strong climate legislation to pass through the Senate before Copenhagen. However, one must take into consideration ulterior motives when Senator Max Baucus (D-MT) is chairing the committee in question.

As the only Democratic Senator to vote “no” on the bill as it was marked up in the Environment and Public Works Committee, Baucus continues to mire progress in hearings that are antithetical to the success of the bill. Today featured industry and conservative lobbyists testifying before the Finance Committee on “Climate Change Legislation: Considerations for Future Jobs”. Included amongst the pro-nuclear and coal representatives was our friend Kenneth Green from AEI (side note: he remembered us interrupting him at the adaptation hearing. Success?)

Brad Johnson on Wonk Room called out Baucus on his indefensible submission to the “polluter lobbyists”, sharing the same sentiments as us that this hearing was supporting nothing more than the same empty rhetoric that has been spewed “time and time again for the past 10 years”.

The action factory shifted into high gear, deciding that we had to bring Finance Committee Senator’s attention to youth demands and constituent calls for global climate action.

John Kerry accepts our 350 tie

Continue reading ‘The Same Tired Talking Points Brought To You This Time by Senator Baucus and Dirty Energy Lobbyists’

Yesterday I came back from Ohio jazzed about all of the great work and outcomes of the Power Shift Ohio Summit – movement building, training, campaign development, and real political impact!

Power Shift Ohio and West helped us conclude the regional summits with a bang, and when I returned to DC, I wondered what would come next.  I turned on my computer, started sifting through emails, Facebook messages, and Tweets, and WOW, did I find a lot.  So much that I’m afraid I can’t chronicle it all, but I do want to highlight a couple of the most immediate things.

• Tomorrow the Michigan Student Sustainability Coaliton and Detroit ASAP are hosting the 11th Hour Rally and March, and in two locations! Calling on Senators Stabenow and Levin to support strong legislation that will deliver clean energy jobs to hard hit areas like Detroit.
• On Nov 13th, in Connecticut there will be a March on CT Senators’ Hartford offices, and not a moment to late at Sen. Lieberman becomes a more influential deal-maker in the deliberations.  Follow @GreenKatCT on Twitter for more info.
• That same day in Pittsburgh, local youth and the Sierra Student Coalition will be meeting with staff of Senator Spector’s office.
• Further down the coast, on Nov. 21st, there will be a rally at the South Carolina State House to remind federal representatives what youth stand for: real climate solutions and action!
• And we can’t forget the Leadership Campaign in Massachussetts which continues to host weekly sleepouts Sunday nights on Boston Commons, refusing to sleep in homes or dorms powered by dirty energy, until the state legislature and Governor Patrick pass legislation that takes the state to 100% clean electricity by 2020!

Again, I know that I’m only skimming the surface, but I wanted to share some of the action.  If you are hosting an event, rally, call-in day, or anything else, let us know in the comments or by posting it on the developing online community, that allows others to see your events, join them, or get some ideas for events in their own community!  We need to keep it up, keep building stronger and louder, so that Congress and Obama clearly know that It’s Game Time.