It’s Getting Hot In Here

via RAN

Cross-posted from the Understory

This morning six local activists from Chicago climbed over a fence at the Crawford coal plant, scaled a mountain of coal, and unfurled a huge 7′ x 30′ banner reading “Close Chicago’s Toxic Coal Plants.” The toxic Crawford plant operates in the Little Village neighborhood of Chicago and is surrounded on all sides by homes, shops, restaurants and schools.

Activists representing Little Village Environmental Justice Organization (LVEJO), Rising Tide North America, Rainforest Action Network, and the Backbone Campaign are demanding that the City of Chicago close both the Crawford plant as well as the nearby Fisk Street plant in Pilsen.  Both plants are owned by Midwest Generation, a subsidiary of Edison International.

The action today is part of an ongoing campaign led by LVEJO and other local organizations demanding that Chicago replace their dirty, polluting coal plants with green energy alternatives. As a part of this campaign, LVEJO is also hosting an extraction fair in the afternoon as a part of the Day of Action Against Extraction, educating community members about the destructive impacts that extractive industries have on people living in Little Village and beyond.

Groups to mark Gulf Oil Spill anniversary with actions against corporate fossil fuel extraction

For Immediate Release | Contact: Rae Breaux; 818-271-0386 (cell)

extraction[[at]]risingtidenorthamerica.org  (email) | Media will be available at www.extractionaction.net

Washington D.C. — On April 20th, dozens of environmental, climate, and social justice groups will target government and corporate operations with aggressive protests and civil disobedience in an International Day of Direct Action against Extraction organized by Rising Tide North America to commemorate the first anniversary of BP’s Gulf oil disaster. The protests were organized to demand an end to the environmental destruction and climate destabilization created by fossil fuel and other extraction industries.

“For all practical purposes, Louisiana and the Gulf Coast function as a third world resource colony within the US.  For a hundred years, our people and ecosystems have been sacrificed to provide cheap energy and big profits,” said Devin Martin, a Cajun native of southern Louisiana.  “We pay for the hidden costs of oil and gas with our health and our lives through air pollution, oil spills, and a completely corrupted state government.  We already lose a football field of coastal marsh every 38 minutes, and now rising sea levels from climate change will put my home, including New Orleans, under water permanently.”

The day of action will feature events organized by Gulf Coast residents fighting offshore drilling, local residents in the south side of Chicago resisting two of the largest coal plants in the nation, Texas, Pennsylvania and New York residents opposing natural gas hydrofracking, Canadians fighting tar sands mining in Alberta and residents of Oregon and Washington resisting coal and tar sands exports along the Columbia River, as well as other community groups engaged in fights against extractive industries. Protests are also planned for the United Kingdom and New Zealand. Continue reading ‘Climate Group Calls for Extraction Phase-Out on Anniversary of BP Oil Spill’

The following is a post written by Vanessa Rule, a community leader, climate activist, and mother from Somerville, Massachusetts.

Residents from Gulf Coast, Appalachia and interior West join students and
climate justice activists in calling for more action on extractive industry.

For Immediate Release

Contact: Scott Parkin; on site mobile- 415-235-0596;
Henia Belalia; on site mobile- 510-529-8927
Email— extraction@risingtidenorthamerica.org

Photos available at www.risingtidenorthamerica.org

6:40pm (EST) UPDATE: Police are reporting 21 people have been arrested,
including youth and adults from across the country. Residents of Utah,
Wyoming, Texas, Vermont, Georgia, Washington DC and California were among
those arrested while occupying the Department of Interior offices.

Washington D.C.— Over a thousand climate activists marched from Lafayette
Park to the Department of the Interior’s headquarters in Washington D.C.
today. Reclaim Power coincided with the end of Powershift, a mass youth
climate conference, and came only 2 days before the anniversary of the BP
Gulf Oil Disaster. As many as 300 protesters ran inside the headquarters
in a Wisconsin-style occupation calling for the abolition of offshore oil
drilling, coal mining and tar sands extraction. In an act of civil
disobedience, young and old alike occupied the lobby for over an hour,
smiling and singing protest songs.

The Dept. of Interior has oversight over two agencies, the Bureau of Ocean
Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement (BOEMRE) and the Office of
Surface Mining (OSM), which are responsible for the BP Oil Spill,
mountaintop removal coal mining and tar sands oil drilling in southern
Utah. Furthermore, the Dept. of Interior just opened up over 7,000 acres
of land to industry for coal extraction in Wyoming’s Powder River Basin.

“Our demonstration today is to show that Wyoming might be small in
population but mighty in heart,” said Kevin Uransky, a resident from
Wyoming’s coalfields and member of High Country Rising Tide participating
in the sit-in.  “We don’t want to just stand by and allow big corporations
to destroy our homes, our way of life, and some of last open, beautiful,
and undeveloped terrain left in the United States.  We want to show that
Wyoming has a voice not to be drowned out by those of more represented
states, we have a voice, we have an opinion, and we want to be heard.”

Reclaim Power is being led by residents of residents of the Gulf Coast,
Appalachia and the interior West – regions directly impacted by heinous
oil, gas and coal extractive industries. Participants are calling for the
Obama Administration and the federal agency to phase out harmful mining
and drilling practices and facilitate transitions to sustainable local
energy systems.
Continue reading ‘UPDATE: 21 Arrested Staging Sit-in at Dept. of Interior Demanding Phase Out of Fossil Fuels’

Today the Yale Project on Climate Change Communication released a new report entitled “American Teens’ Knowledge of Climate Change” based on a national study of what teens aged 13-17 understand about how the climate system works, and the causes, impacts, and potential solutions to global warming. This research provides an assessment of how much American teens have learned about climate change in and out of school. For comparison, they also report how teens’ knowledge compares with that of American adults. The report is available online here.

Overall, they found that 54 percent of American teens believe that global warming is happening, but many do not understand why. In this assessment, only 6 percent of teens have knowledge equivalent to an A or B, 41 percent would receive a C or D, and 54 percent would get an F. Overall, teens know about the same or less about climate change than adults. The study also found important gaps in knowledge and common misconceptions about climate change and the earth system. These misconceptions lead some teens to doubt that global warming is happening or that human activities are a major contributor, to misunderstand the causes and therefore the solutions, and to be unaware of the risks. Thus many teens lack some of the knowledge they need to make informed decisions about climate change both now and in the future as students, workers, consumers, homeowners, and citizens. For example, only:

•  54% of teens say that global warming is happening, compared to 63% of adults;
• 35% of teens understand that most scientists think global warming is happening, compared to 39% of adults;
• 46% of teens understand that emissions from cars and trucks substantially contribute to global warming, compared to 49% of adults;
• 17-18% have heard of coral bleaching or ocean acidification, compared to 25% of adults. Continue reading ‘American Teens’ Knowledge on Climate Change’

Bill McKibben gave one of the most inspiring speeches on climate change I have ever heard at Power Shift.
You have to watch the video below:

Full transcript is Below the Fold.

Continue reading ‘Bill McKibben: “You are the movement we need to win in the few years we have left”’

Leaders of the UK Youth Climate Coalition are pretty inspired by what they’ve seen, and they sent a message of solidarity and hope.  Watch to hear about their plans for building a movement across Europe this summer.

Hey everyone!

Power Shift US looks like it has been going amazingly well!  – Great work to you all!

We were so inspired by what you were getting up to, that we thought we would send Power Shift US a message from Power Shift UK and Europe…

Enjoy!

Photo by Shadia Fayne Wood

Did you just go to Power Shift 2011? If so, you probably participated in the largest grassroots organizing training in our movement’s history. Hopefully, you learned how to tell your story of what motivates you to do this work and rise to the climate challenge. Perhaps you learned how to tell the story of your community, the struggles, hopes, and challenges of your friends, neighbors, dorm-mates, or co-workers.

I think you might have learned how to the story of now, why now is the time to get involved, to make the change needed to head off the climate crisis and build a clean energy economy strong enough to pull us out of the financial wreckage our out-of-control Wall street banks left us.

Guess what? Those stories can move people, motivate your friends and family to join the fight, and fire up a nationwide movement. However, you don’t have to always tell those stories one at a time. You can tell them to thousands of our friends, to our movement. I want to read these stories and learn about you, why you get up to take on climate change, your struggles, your victories.

So, consider It’s Getting Hot in Here an extension of your voice. The megaphone you need to tell the world, your movement, and your new friends all about you. We just broke two million views, so somebody out here is paying attention. Once you tell your story, stick around. You are going to learn from people, from all over the country, who just like you, care a whole hell of lot.

They may be nearby or clear across the country, organizing at an Ivy League or in the hollers of Appalachia, but if you read their stories, hear their heartbreak, their tears of joy, and their brilliant, beautiful ideas, you will slowly change.

They will become your new friends, your allies, those whose work keeps you going during the tough times and those who celebrate with you in the best of times. We need you and you will grow to find you need them too.

So, if you are that storyteller, email me: richard[at]firedupmedia.com and let’s get you started telling your stories right here on It’s Getting Hot in Here. All my love and in solidarity for a future worth fighting for.

Written by Sam Rubin

This Friday, April 15, I went to Congress to be heard. I went to Congress to sing. I went to Congress to speak truth to power. I entered the visitor’s gallery of the House of Representatives with eight others, and one after another.

We sang a modified version of the Star Spangled Banner:

Oh, Why can’t you see It’s my life that’s at stake
When you sell out our earth
You are stealing my future
Can you look in my eyes
As you Gamble our lives
When will you stop the lies
So that we can survive?
If you represent me
Not the fossil fuel industry
You must stop wasting time
Chasing your dollar signs
Oh, say will you listen to Our Generation
If you refuse to hear us now
Then we have to shut you down

For the entire half hour it took us to file into the gallery and the five long minutes that I waited in my seat, my stomach was hollow and I was more nervous than I had ever been. But once we were all in the gallery, I did rise and sing. I was arrested by the capital police, and along with the others, was changed with Unlawful Conduct: Disrupting Congress. I have a court date on May 5.

In many ways, my political awakening came with the election of Barack Obama in 2008. In Obama I did see a hope for the future. I saw the possibility that, with him, we could change the way that our government worked. We could start to change the ways of corporate influence over our democracy and, in that, begin to address climate change. This was, needless to say, a faith that was highly misplaced.

My role in that campaign, as nothing more than a canvasser a few times, had caused a need for action, and a need for change in the world, to bloom. In the Fall of 2009, I worked on a campaign that sought for 100% clean electricity by 2020, in Massachusetts – a goal that was realistic and within the requirements of scientific research. I dedicated myself whole-heartedly to this campaign, called the Leadership Campaign, and between myself and all the others working toward this goal, we spent thousands of long hours calling, writing letters, and visiting our Representatives. But it didn’t work. After all the intense energy and dedication that all of us put into it, the legislature just ignored the bill and us.

They don’t listen to our pleas as their constituents or as their children. They don’t listen to our scientists or our doctors. They don’t listen to our priests or our parents. We lost.

In the wake of that loss, I was forced to reevaluate the political system in America, and how that effects the climate movement. It was then that I realized that something more is demanded of us. If we actually believe in what we are fighting for- justice, the planet, and perhaps most importantly, each other- then we must hold ourselves accountable to do what is necessary. Continue reading ‘I will be Silent No More, Forever’