It’s Getting Hot In Here

The Clearing the Air Road Tour is part of a collaborative research project – involving the NAACP, the Environmental Justice & Climate Change Initiative, Little Village Environmental Justice Organization, Women of Color United, and other organizations – which is creating a detailed, comprehensive ranking of all coal power plants in the U.S., based on their effects on environmental justice. This report will be released in the coming weeks.

For this road tour, Jacqui Patterson of NAACP traveled to communities nearby the “Dirty Dozen” – the 12 U.S. coal plants with the worst impacts on environmental justice – and interviewed community members about the plants’ impacts on health and life in their communities.

This blogpost was written by Jacqui Patterson, and is cross-posted from the NAACP’s Climate Justice Initiative blog (where you can view posts from other Dirty Dozen communities as well).

Chicago has the dubious honor of being host to two of the highest emitting power plants in the nation, Fisk and Crawford Generating Stations. These plants are located on the lower west side of Chicago, in the predominantly Latino Pilsen and Little Village neighborhoods; other nearby neighborhoods include a significant population of African Americans. Within a stone’s throw of each plant are homes, parks, schools, etc.

Ms. Kimberly Harrington lives in Chicago and is a registered nurse.  She comments on the health effects and trends she sees and speculates on the link to the coal fired power plants.

Continue reading ‘Clearing the Air Road Tour: Crawford and Fisk Power Plants, Chicago, Illinois’

UPDATE: Danish speakers can read an article here about this protest in Politiken.

Today, 100 COP-15 delegates – mostly from NGOs, but led by two members of the Bolivian government delegation, and with dozens of members of organizations from the Global South and Indigenous groups – marched out of the Copenhagen climate talks and tried to join the People’s Assembly at the Reclaim Power protest outside, only to be blocked and severely beaten by Danish police (who were working closely together with UN security).

The police cracked down incredibly hard on the Reclaim Power protest today – both inside and outside the Bella Center – and arrested 240 people (on top of the over 1,000 that they’ve arrested in the past week), but they didn’t prevent the protest from being an incredibly powerful and formative moment in the global movement for climate justice.

The Reclaim Power protest was co-organized by Climate Justice Now! and Climate Justice Action, two international networks of people’s movements, Indigenous groups, and grassroots activists from around the world – including Via Campesina, Indigenous Environmental Network, Focus on the Global South, Kalikasan-People’s Network for the Environment. The action sought to subvert the undemocratic and unjust UN COP process by creating a People’s Assembly, which would privilege the voices for climate justice of Indigenous peoples and people from the Global South – those groups that have been most marginalized from the COP-15 talks.

While thousands of activists on the streets outside were marching towards the Bella Center, our goal was to march out of the Bella Center, and hold this People’s Assembly in the streets outside the conference. Continue reading ‘Police Beat NGO Delegates Trying to Join Protest Outside COP-15′

As Reclaim Power begins in Copenhagen, the UNFCCC and Danish police – acting in close coordination – are clamping down heavily on activists both inside and outside the Bella Center.

On the outside, police have established an extremely strong security perimeter around the building, and have shut down the Bella Center metro station. 50 people from the march’s Green Bloc have been arrested before the march even began. There’s a heavy riot police presence at nearby metro stations and major intersections, and police vans have been seen racing all over the city.

Yesterday, police raided the Candy Factory – a key activist space – and arrested 20 people near the Klimaforum, the alternative COP-15 climate meeting. (Many more details on protests outside will come later – I’m inside, so my ability to report is limited.) Continue reading ‘Heavy Security Presence as Reclaim Power Begins’

UPDATE: You can help by signing this petition protesting Danish police violence against climate protestors.

Over the past week, the Danish capital has welcomed delegates, corporate lobbyists, and representatives of mainstream, moderate NGOs with open arms; however, they’ve shown a somewhat uglier face towards activists advocating climate justice.

Yesterday, a massive, peaceful protest of 100,000 people – the largest demonstration for climate justice in world history – was met with a heavy-handed response by the Danish police. Thousands of riot police swarmed the march route, blocked off streets surrounding large groups of protestors, and arrested almost 1,000 people. Arrestees were cuffed and forced to sit in rows for hours, as the temperatures dipped below freezing; numerous people urinated on themselves after being denied use of toilets. Despite the mood of severe frustration with the state of climate talks that pervaded the march, there were only a few reports of property destruction and minor skirmishes with police (which the media have hugely played up) – however, the police swept up masses of people, including NGO delegates and independent journalists, with little focus on determining who had actually broken the law. As one British protestor, Georgy Forshall, put it: “Two of my friends are in there. The police said demonstrators had been throwing stones, but my friends were in a cow costume, they wouldn’t have been able to throw stones.”

Continue reading ‘Crackdown in Copenhagen’

Written by Jennifer Krill and Adrian Wilson.

Whispers in the hallways at the COP-15 Copenhagen climate negotiations emerged as a full blown controversy yesterday, when the UK Guardian published leaked text that was written by a secret group of negotiators, the so-called ‘Circle of Commitment’.  The U.S., UK, Denmark and other rich countries are apparently responsible for the text, which was written in secrecy in a dirty backroom deal. The Danish Text, as it’s being called here in Copenhagen, utterly excludes the U.N. process, especially cutting out the developing countries that are pushing for a strong, legally binding deal, with targets of 40-45% emissions reductions below 1990 levels in order to avert the risk of catastrophic climate change.

Photo Credit: Mat McDermott

By contrast, the leaked text effectively kills the Kyoto Protocol and its emphasis on compliance and binding targets, while gutting much of the negotiations that have been underway over the last two years. Here’s a short summary of a few of the problems with the leaked text:

• The Danish Text repeatedly refers to “the shared vision limiting global average temperature rise to a maximum of 2 degrees [Celsius] above pre-industrial levels.” This vision is certainly not shared - as the Pan-African Climate Justice Alliance stated yesterday, “according to the IPCC a two degree increase in the global mean temperature will mean a three or more degree increase for temperatures in Africa, [causing] 50% reduction in crop yields in some areas.”
• The text also specifies that “developed country parties commit to deliver upfront public financing for 2010-201[2] corresponding on average to [10] billion USD annually for early action, capacity building, technology and strengthening adaptation and mitigation readiness in developing countries.” While this figure is still bracketed, the idea that the Global North is considering initially giving only $10 billion per year in mitigation funding to the Global South is viewed by many G-77 nations as a slap in the face – especially given that the governments of the Global North have spent over $4 trillion in the past two years on economic stimulus and bailouts of the banking and auto industries. (NOTE: In negotiating text, the brackets refer to sections that are still in negotiation.) Continue reading ‘COP-15: Climate Justice for the Poor, or Backroom Deals by the Rich?’

This editorial is one of the most incredible examples I’ve ever seen of the mainstream media taking an activist role in fighting climate change.

Today, 56 newspapers in 45 countries around the world – in 20 languages – ran an unprecedented common editorial, calling for bold and justice-based action against climate change in Copenhagen.

The papers included the UK’s Guardian, the Miami Herald, Canada’s Toronto Star, Mexico’s El Universal, Argentina’s Diario Clarin, China’s Economic Observer, India’s The Hindu, Bangladesh’s Daily Star, Pakistan’s Daily Times, Vietnam’s Tuoi Tre, Germany’s Sueddeutsche Zeitung, France’s Le Monde, Italy’s La Repubblica, Spain’s El Pais, Russia’s Novaya Gazeta, Israel’s Maariv, Dubai’s Gulf News, South Africa’s Mail & Guardian, and Uganda’s Daily Monitor. Most of the papers, like the UK’s Guardian, ran it on their front page (you can see the Guardian‘s front page here).

The writing of the editorial was lead by the Guardian, but it was co-written with the editorial boards of 20 of these 56 papers. As Guardian editor-in-chief Alan Rusbridger put it: “Newspapers have never done anything like this before – but they have never had to cover a story like this before.”

The project began as a conversation between two editors from the Guardian and China’s Economic Observer, and was quickly endorsed by editorial boards all over the world. The one notable major country where the Guardian had difficulty finding a major national paper, of course, was the U.S., where the independent Miami Herald was the only paper to run it. “A number of major US titles evinced support for the project, even conceding that they agreed with everything in the editorial, but stopped short of signing up… It is hard not to be struck by the parallel with the Kyoto agreement when the US stood to one side as the world began to move against climate change.”

The editorial also has an admirably strong focus on climate justice: while stating that developing countries must “pledge meaningful and quantifiable action of their own,” it also states that “the rich world is responsible for most of the accumulated carbon in the atmosphere [and thus] must now take a lead” and that “social justice demands that the industrialised world digs deep into its pockets and pledges cash to help poorer countries adapt to climate change.”

But above all, the editorial demands urgency: “The politicians in Copenhagen can and must agree the essential elements of a fair and effective deal and, crucially, a firm timetable for turning it into a treaty. Next June’s UN climate meeting in Bonn should be their deadline.”

Continue reading ’56 Newspapers Around World Publish Common Editorial Calling for Climate Action’

Written by Maryam Adrangi and Eriel Tchekwie Deranger. Cross-posted from the Understory.

A group of Canadian climate change activists caused a ruckus in Canada’s Parliament yesterday. In doing so, they brought their demands for bold action on climate change directly to the country’s leaders – and they didn’t stop until they were expelled from the Parliament building, with five of them being arrested and roughly dragged out.

During a Parliamentary debate, several protesters stood up in the House of Commons Observation Gallery and began chanting loudly, voicing their support for the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and Bill C-311, the Climate Change Accountability Act.

This news video shows the reaction on the floor of Parliament while the protestors were chanting (skip to 0:50):

The observation gallery was mainly filled with youth listening to the Members of Parliament, who were bickering about pension plans. One activist stood up and yelled: “Canada needs to sign and ratify the UN Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.” Security rushed over, grabbed the individual, and quickly escorted him out as another individual stood up and shouted: “Pass Bill C-311 and take action on climate change.”

Continue reading ‘Canadian Youth Confront Parliament, Demand Action on Climate’

Cross-posted from the Understory.

October 12-18 is World Rainforest Week. Every year, we take this opportunity to highlight rainforest destruction around the world – and what we are doing to stop it.

But I’d like to use this year’s World Rainforest Week to talk about a little-known threat that tar sands development poses to temperate (i.e. cold, not hot & sweaty) rainforests in British Columbia.

“Rainforests – in British Columbia??” you might say. That’s right: BC is home to the Great Bear Rainforest, an area of spectacular natural beauty and biodiversity, home to many species – like the “spirit” bear – that exist nowhere else in the world. Continue reading ‘Tar Sands Threaten Canada’s Rainforests’

Crossposted from the Understory.

Poor Big Oil. They’ve really been taking a hit lately. Between weak climate legislation that would marginally take a bite out of their mammoth profits, billion-dollar lawsuits accusing them of dumping wastewater in some rainforest somewhere, and direct actions blaming them for cooking the climate, oil companies have really been feeling the heat. And I’m sure that many of you, like me, have been saddened that this great American energy giant has been humbled by a bunch of Washington liberals and pinko commie hippie environmentalists.

But never fear: there’s a “grassroots movement” afoot to protect Big Oil’s American right to profit off of environmental destruction!

Recently, Greenpeace leaked a memo from that valiant defender of the oil industry’s rights, the American Petroleum Institute, to “API Member Company CEO/Executives.” The memo showed that a grassroots movement is afoot – led by API’s Executive Committee, with help from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the National Association of Manufacturers, and “a highly experienced events management company” – to fight for Big Oil’s right to profits! This grassroots citizen-led movement (after all, the API are citizens, right??) will be organizing “Energy Citizen rallies” in 20 states across the country!

The objective of these rallies is to put a human face on the impacts of unsound energy policy and to aim a loud message at those states’ U.S. Senators to avoid the mistakes embodied in the House climate bill and the Obama Administration’s tax increases on our industry. … It’s important that our views be heard.

That’s right! After all, spending $700 million on lobbying over ten years – and billions more on advertising – can only get you so much publicity. It’s time for ordinary citizens to stand up and publicly demand justice for the oil industry!

Continue reading ‘“Grassroots” Movement Demands Justice for Big Oil’

Cross-posted from the Understory.

Over the past decade, as oil prices have risen ever higher, oil companies have begun a massive – and massively destructive – project of tearing Canada’s boreal forest to pieces, in order to get at a layer of sand that contains 10% oil. To get the oil out, they need three barrels of natural gas for every barrel of oil produced. The process creates vast lakes of polluted water – which already cover 50 square miles – that areseeping into the groundwater and rivers, poisoning Indigenous communities; already, thousands of ducks have died after landing in these wastewater lakes. The wreckage from this horribly destructive process already covers 500 square miles – but the area earmarked for future destruction is the size of Florida. Protests of Indigenous peoples are being ignored. Politicians are redirecting money from clean energy projects to finance tar sands research. And all this is happening in our friendly neighbor to the north, Canada – and U.S. oil companies are raking in huge profits from tar sands oil, and are pumping the world’s dirtiest oil from Alberta straight to your gas tank.

Sounds like a pretty important news story, right?

Continue reading ‘Tar Sands Fighters to U.S. News Media: WAKE UP!’