Dispatches from the Youth Climate Movement
This week, a series of State Department hearings on the proposed Keystone XL pipeline are underway across America’s heartland. Not surprisingly, the pipeline company TransCanada has cranked up it’s PR machine, making a series of false claims about the benefits of the pipeline while downplaying the enormous risks.
The Rainforest Action Network compiled a list of “Key Facts on the Keystone XL” which help clear the air:
Continue reading ‘Keystone XL: Debunking TransCanada’s Lies’
It’s been raining photos for 36 hours at 350.org HQ in San Francisco. As the sun moves around the globe, we’ve been watching images pour in from almost everywhere (except North Korea)–from Hanoi, from Cape Town, from Buenos Aires, from Delhi. It’s an incredible show of global solidarity. And a clear sign that the planet is really ready to “move beyond fossil fuels.” Check out Moving-Planet.org for even more photographs from around the world.
Cairo, Egypt: Two young woman march, holding signs with over 600 other Egyptian marchers and cyclists who took to the streets for Moving Planet, the September 24, 2011 international day of climate action. They formed a “Human Nile” representing the vulnerability of Egypt’s precious river to climate change and demanding a clean energy and clean transport future for Egypt and for the world. Photo: Ahmed Selweq
Continue reading ‘PHOTOS: Moving Planet Climate Rallies Around the World’
This morning, events in Egypt and the Kingdom of Tonga helped launch “Moving Planet,” a global day of demonstrations aimed at moving the world beyond fossil-fuels.
Over the next 24 hours, Moving Planet will bring together over 2,000 bicycle rides, marches and rallies in 171 countries. The day of action is being coordinated by 350.org, an international climate change campaign, and came together through emails, social media sites, and blogs.
In Cairo, over 600 young Egyptians wearing blue clothing flowed into the streets to form “Human Nile,” representing the critical threat global warming poses to water security and their future.
Sarah Rifaat of 350.org and the Cairo Cycling Club, who handed out bicycle helmets to revolutionaries in Tahrir Square this spring, said, “In Egypt, we’ve seen the amazing changes that can take place when people work together to move in a new direction. We need the same sort of energy put towards addressing the climate crisis and moving away from fossil fuels.”
Continue reading ‘Moving Planet: Egypt and Tonga Launch 2,000+ Worldwide Events’
Cross-posted from the Earth Quaker Action Team
Quaker Environmentalists Hold Trial Inside PNC Over Investments in Mountaintop Removal Coal Mining
Bank branch closed for three hours as PNC refuses to meet with Earth Quaker Action Team
25 environmentalists and members of the Earth Quaker Action Team (EQAT) held a public trial inside the main lobby of PNC Regional Headquarters on Thursday, charging PNC with “Impersonating a Green Bank”.
“PNC promotes itself as an environmentally responsible bank, but the truth is they are the nation’s #1 financier of corporations that practice mountaintop removal coal mining, which has destroyed over 500 mountains and led to thousands of violations of the Clean Water Act.” said Jonathan Snipes, acting as lead prosecutor in the case.
The trial, which featured a robed judge, prosecution, defense, and a full jury, caused the bank to close its customer branch for the duration of the event, which lasted a little over three hours. Four members of EQAT, acting as bailiffs for the court, stood in front of a row of management elevators and refused to leave the bank when directed to do so by PNC Security, demanding that the Regional President J. William Mills come down to the lobby and answer the charges on behalf of the bank. Continue reading ‘Quakers Hold Trial Inside PNC Bank Over Investments in MTR Coal Mining’
Can the bicycle save the world? This Saturday, hundreds of thousands of people around the world will be hopping on their bicycles and taking to the streets for Moving Planet, a global demonstration coordinated by 350.org. Together, we’ll not only be calling on our politicians to help move the planet away from fossil fuels, but embodying one of the simple, powerful solutions that could help usher in a clean energy future: the bicycle.
There are huge Moving Planet bike rides planned all around the world this Saturday. Whether you live in San Francisco or Bangalore, Minneapolis or Kinshasa, Boston or Jakarta, this weekend is a great time to get pedaling for a safe climate future. Click here to find an event near you.
Continue reading ‘Moving Planet: Can the Bicycle Save the World?’
Across the country a bold movement is emerging to demand a clean and sustainable future. People of all ages and backgrounds are coming together to show industry and politicians that we will not let our country continue its dangerous addiction to fossil fuels and youth are at the forefront. Whether it is in DC resisting the disastrous Keystone XL pipeline, in Appalachia resisting the destructive process of mountaintop removal or in cities resisting the placement of toxic industries near low-income communities our generation is taking a crucial role in this process.
In the Pacific Northwest, we face numerous and complex problems. There is the export of coal to Asian markets, the expansion of clear cutting in ancient forests, the importation of tar sands equipment, unsustainable food systems, close ties between industry and politicians, and the ongoing inequity in the distribution of environmental harm in our own communities. Yet we also know how powerful we are when we come together as a movement. Youth environmental activists have been victorious in gradually phasing out coal plants, defeating LNG export terminals, and passing some of the boldest climate legislation in the country.
That is why on November 4th-6th, members of the youth environmental movement from up and down the west coast are going to Eugene for Power Shift West. The weekend long conference will have speakers, panels, skill building workshops and opportunities to network with other leaders of the youth climate movement. We gather to deepen our understanding of the systems that are destroying the environment and to develop tools to dismantle those systems and construct equitable and sustainable alternatives.
We demand a viable future where the health of our communities and our land is put above the profit of corporations. Come join us and be part of this growing movement.
Get involved today by registering to join us at Power Shift West.
It’s not at the White House or Obama for America rallies. It’s on the highways and byways of Wild Idaho. While hundreds sat in at the White House for “a very civil disobedience” at the White House, Wild Idaho Rising Tide lived up to their name by stepping up the campaign against massive tar sands truck shipments with rowdy protests and street blockades.
The so-called “heavy hauls” or “megaloads” are carrying huge pieces of equipment (the size of a house) shipped over from South Korea to Portland, OR and then floated up the Columbia and Snake Rivers to Lewiston, ID. In Lewiston, they have waited for a green light to complete the journey to Alberta. The megaloads have been challenged in the Montana and Idaho courts and regulatory channels for over a year on the grounds of environmental and community impacts. Exxon found a loophole by reducing the size of the equipment before they sent them off to Alberta.
In the midst of the Tar Sands Action hoopla, our friends in Idaho began their actions. Five were arrested the first night (early in the morning of Aug. 26) blockading the road where the megaloads were rolling. The next day, two more were arrested while monitoring and gathering data on the trucks.
Since then, the trucks move with a large police detail to protect them. It’s also been learned that Exxon is paying the overtime for state police to protect the heavy hauls. That information should quell any doubt people might have about who really controls the government and politicians. Continue reading ‘Ordinary Heroes Standing Up To Big Oil In Wild Idaho’
tipping point (tɪpɪŋ point) — n the crisis stage in a process, when a significant change takes place
This last week, I went to Washington D.C. and joined the Tar Sands Action which was the biggest environmental mass action in a generation. Over a thousand were arrested calling on Obama to deny the permits for the Keystone XL pipeline which would cut down the middle of America’s heartland from Alberta to oil refineries on the Texas coast. The pipeline will carry billions of gallons of oil extracted from Indigenous land in northern Alberta.
The Tar Sands Action is a “tipping point” for the climate movement that I’ve been calling a “Camp Casey” moment. If you remember Camp Casey in 2005 was when anti-war activist Cindy Sheehan, who’d lost a son in Iraq, began an encampment at Bush’s ranch in Crawford,TX. It was a “tipping point” in the war. It cracked Bush’s popular support for the war and led to political routes in 2006 and 2008, and the sacking of War Sect. Donald Rumsfeld. And it helped trigger a partial withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq (at least for now.)
The sit-ins at the White House seem to have caused a major shift for the climate movement.
My arrest day (August 29th, the 6th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina hitting New Orleans, no less) included going to jail with climatologist James Hansen, a large interfaith contingent (Christian, Jew, Muslim, Buddhist), leadership from non-profits like Greenpeace and 350.org and lots of ordinary folks from many generations and many walks of life. Continue reading ‘Drawing A Line In The Tar Sands’
Cross-posted from www.solutionaries.net, where you can find more stories of young people building the green economy.
When I helped close the 2011 Twin Cities Summer of Solutions three weeks ago, I knew something amazing was happening, but in the flurry of it all I wasn’t really able to identify it. I started to get a sense of it when I first sat down at the Grand Aspirations August Gathering two weeks ago, when forty people from all over the country streamed in with wondrous stories of their work creating the green economy. By the end of the Gathering, last week, the full depth of the change was starting to dawn on me and was brought to the front of my attention when Ethan Buckner, a friend and Oakland Summer of Solutions Program Leader, said smiling at the end of a big group hug, ‘you know, we’ve created something really remarkable in the past few years’. Now, after a week of catching up and taking the next steps forward back in Minnesota, I’m finally seeing the view from four years out.
Four years ago was about 6 months after the events that got Cooperative Energy Futures and the Alliance to Reindustrialize for a Sustainable Economy off the ground – the seeds of my green economy work in the Twin Cities. It was about 6 months before the vision for the Summer of Solutions and Grand Aspirations emerged. Four years ago, there had been no national gatherings of thousands of youth activists, candidate Barack Obama was barely a competitor, and the economy had not yet tanked. The dream of a green economy was barely starting to be voiced, and the idea that we could sustain ourselves, our communities, and the future of our world by creating new ways to feed, house, power, and transport our society was an exciting but utopian ideal.
So what has changed?
Continue reading ‘The View from Four Years Out’
I recently caught up with a once-and-forever youth climate leader who has since moved on to fill his days with other ways of building global community. I asked what we needed to do to bring him back to the fold. He, in turn, confessed he wished he could borrow one of our own to further his new pursuits. I gave him my blessing– but only if in four years, both of them would come back to us by running for elected office.
He laughed. I wasn’t joking.
Continue reading ‘Outside, In.’
You are currently browsing the It’s Getting Hot In Here weblog archives for September, 2011.
