Last weekend, activists from across the west coast joined residents of Richmond, CA for the West Coast Convergence for Climate Justice and Action, from September 18-20th at St. Luke’s United Methodist Church in Richmond. The goal of the Convergence was to connect local environmental justice struggles, especially the Richmond community’s ongoing struggle against the local Chevron refinery, to the global fight for climate justice. The global climate justice movement recognizes that the impacts of climate change fall most heavily on poor communities and that true solutions must come from those same communities on the front lines.

The West Coast Convergence for Climate Justice consisted of 3 days of plenary speeches, workshops, and strategy sessions, followed by a non-violent direct action on Monday, September 21st. Workshops and plenary sessions placed the local struggle against Chevron in the broader context of the movement for climate justice leading up to the Copenhagen climate negotiations. Speakers emphasized the role of corporations like Chevron in watering down climate policy and drew connections between the Richmond fight and other frontline community struggles, including those against tar sands in Canada and against the Dooda Desert Rock power plant in New Mexico. Other workshops focused on organizing skills and on local solutions, from urban gardening to local climate action plans. According to Carla Perez, one of the conference organizers, “the convergence was a gathering of stellar minds & hearts rooted in community organizing for social and ecological justice. It brought clarity and a deep understanding of the root causes of the climate problem and inspired Richmond leaders to connect their local work to this global struggle for a livable future.”

(more…)

For Immediate Release:

Climate Activists Drop Banner Over UN Motorcade, Raise Warning of Ineffective “False Solutions” to Climate Change

New York, NY – Early Friday morning, at the end of the first week of the High Level meetings during Climate Week in New York, a caravan of police-escorted limousines and SUVs carrying UN delegates was delayed as they approached the 42nd street bridge.A 25 foot banner reading “UN: Cap + Trade is a Dead End” was deployed as the motorcade drew near.

A group referring to itself as the “Greenwash Guerrillas” claimed credit for the banner, and prior to a hasty departure threw leaflets down onto the stalled traffic articulating their demands:

(TEXT:)

We know a highly-developed campaign has been launched in the United States by the worst transnational corporate polluters, Wall Street financiers, and well-funded professional enviros along with their lesser-funded camp-followers to pass a bill, any bill, possessing the namesake of ‘the climate’;

We hold that polluting corporations have never advocated for anything that would harm their bottom line, their short-term profits or their shareholders;

We recognize that Wall Street financiers, responsible for a world-wide economic recession due to a speculative bubble collapse, have set their sites on a $14 trillion carbon trading system as a means of reviving their fortunes;

We know that corporate polluters have effectively defanged the mainstream US environmental movement.  Many organizations that appear to publicly support environmental defense are welcoming disastrous policy within the US and the leadup to the December COP15 Climate Talks in Copenhagen.  The mainstream environmental movement has become little more than a sounding board for corporate sponsors of profit-generating climate change legislation.

As a people, we cannot define the systematic destruction of our environment, the unprecedented exctinction crisis, and oncoming impacts of climate catastrophe as a  money-making opportunity. We will not forget or forgive those who mindlessly, selfishly advocate a cap-and-trade system. The False Solutions agenda of the corrupt circles  of government at home and abroad will meet resistance.

Signed,

Agent Simple Green

The Greenwash Guerrillas

(New York) Climate justice activists from Rising Tide North America and Climate SOS in New York took to the streets on the final day of the UN Climate summit, making housecalls to the New York offices of the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), Environmental Defense Fund (EDF), and the Nature Conservancy. NRDC’s street-level banner was festooned with a 14 foot mock “Climate Bill” in the form of $2 trillion bank note (the approximate value of a U.S. carbon market). Imagery on the giant spoof bill critiques roles of many large environmental groups in their push for passage of the American Clean Energy and Security Act (ACESA), chiefly for its advocacy of an carbon market. Following NRDC, the offices of EDF and The Nature Conservancy received delivery visits where activists desperately tried to present organizational representatives with their version of the “green”.

These organizations are leading members of the US Climate Action Partnership (USCAP), which has united them with highly polluting corporations such as Dow, DuPont, General Electric and Alcoa Aluminum under the auspices of lobbying Congress to reduce emissions. This unsavory alliance played a major role in crafting the Waxman-Markey ACESA bill (HR 2454) passed by the US House of Representatives in July, and expected to make its way for a Senate vote imminently. (more…)

Environmental activists, some dressed as “Trillionaires for Bad Math” today delivered a “climate bill” to Copenhagen, ahead of schedule. The mock “bill” was delivered at a 3 pm lecture at Columbia University’s School of International Public Affairs hosted by Danish Climate and Energy minister Connie Hedegaard. Hedegaard is the chairperson of the UN climate summit to be held in Copenhagen this December, where many hope that a strong global climate agreement will be signed.

Representatives of groups including Climate SOS and Rising Tide North America presented a 14-foot banner representing the climate bill currently being debated in the US Congress, which many consider essential for strong US participation in Copenhagen. The banner depicts a two trillion dollar note, representing the size of the new market in carbon dioxide emissions allowances that would be established by the Waxman-Markey climate bill that passed the House of Representatives in late June.

The centerpiece of the banner is an image of a bewildered Al Gore, who introduced the concept of tradable emissions allowances into the UN process in Kyoto in 1997. Hundreds of environmental groups are critical of the current US climate bill. Many view the bill’s cap and trade provisions as a dangerous false solution, that is inherently unstable and ultimately incapable of reducing carbon dioxide emissions.

Leading Trillionaire, Cap’n Trade, dressed in pirate regalia, told the assembled crowd, “‘Tis a bloody shame for the climate that Congress has chosen me to clean up this mess for ‘em. But I don’t mind a bit,” he continued, “’cause rising seas and booty and plunder are just my thing and soon the land, air and water will be all mine.”

The “trillionaires for bad math” argue that the House bill “just doesn’t add up”, pointing out that it falls far short of scientifically valid targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions; removes the EPA’s authority to regulate emissions under the Clean Air Act; and incorporates massive corporate giveaways into its cap-and-trade program. Corporations would be able to defer needed emissions reductions for decades under the bill’s offset provisions. International groups widely condemn the lack of US leadership on climate issues and demand that wealthy countries pay their share of the accumulated “climate debt.”

“If these lily-livered politicians aren’t ready to do something about the climate, those scurvy activists on the streets of Copenhagen are going to make ‘em walk the plank,” said Cap’n Trade. “We’re all going to end up in Davy Jones’ Locker.”

As the Climate SOS crosscountry tour culminates, activists from Climate SOS, Rising Tide, and other groups of environmental activists in New York launched a series of direct action interventions to signal the widespread opposition to the Waxman-Markey climate bill and its inadequate targets and use of dubious financial mechanisms for greenhouse gas emissions reductions.

For press materials, photos and video: contact mutualaid@earthlink.net More info at: climatesos.org, risingtidenorthamerica.org

Contacts (Mobile phones): Rachel Smolker, Ph.D.802-482 2848, Brian Tokar, 802-595-9677

FROM THE  MOBILIZATION FOR CLIMATE JUSTICE

For Immediate Release            22 September 2009

Actions Spreading Across the U.S. Against Corporate-Driven Climate Policy

Kudos to all for embracing the centrality of NVCD to SOS. I love Rachel’s language: “…unabashedly stating our intent to employ NVCD in service of our demands for real climate legislation.”

Which brings me to the just-completed Heartland Tour. I write this from Cleveland, head home on the train starting at 3:45am tomorrow (Sat.).

TOUR SUCCEEDS! TOUR FAILS!

The Tour succeeded beyond my expectations in engaging folks close to key senate decision-makers, decision-makers who will determine if the U.S. starts to lead the world in climate laws and behavior or continues our wanton ways. We made strong local connections with activists in Arkansas and Ohio. For two weeks, we have been right where we need to be. I’m glad we did the Tour.

But… (more…)

Guess who was seated with us in the Dining Car on the last train from Little Rock to Cleveland? What are the chances of two Green Party candidates for Governor sitting opposite one another on a train? Rick Whitney, Green Party candidate for Governor in Illinois in 2006 and again in 2010, sat next to his wife Paula and across from Duff Badgley, Green Party candidate for Governor in Washington in 2008. As Duff put it, “this is a very small club.”

Yes, of course we talked long and in depth about climate issues. Best wishes for a winning campaign to Rick and Paula Whitney and the Illinois Green Party! We will keep in touch.

We left at 6:30 am on the first leg to Chicago.

It was a visually interesting ride, if you like endless fields of corn and soy.  “Biofuels,” said Duff, with contempt.  I noticed many corn fields that had an almost pinkish shade in their dryness.  Also noticed variations of color in the soy plants that brought this odd question to mind:  Is there any chance that such vast acres of non-food crops are being watered with pollution perhaps not allowed when the land was used for food crops?  I know agribusiness is a chemical business, and I know the energy business is in many places related to the waste disposal business.  The question arose from my protective nature:  when the land is returned to feeding life, will the land still be good for food crops?

Badgley, Laing, Sammons, Meredith Turner (Senator Brown's Liaison), and Tim Krueger (Cleveland resident, Coordinator Ohio Student Environmental Coalition)

Thursday, September 17, 2009. Meredith Turner met with us on behalf of Senator Brown. She paid close attention, asked questions, and told us very clearly that she doesn’t often get proposals that are as thorough and sensible as what we gave her.

Tim Krueger, an Ohio native and Cornell graduate, is the Coordinator for the Ohio Students Environmental Coalition. He attended the meeting with us, and spoke with Meredith about organizing a roundtable discussion that Senator Brown might attend to hear from his constituents about the problems with cap & trade, the error of including biomass with solar, wind and georthermal, and the underlying major problem of committing to actually reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

We have done an excellent job in our communications with Senators in the 4 states we visited. In Arkansas and Ohio, we have also made strong local contacts that we hope will develop into Climate SOS partnerships at the grass roots level. The Senators need to hear from us over and over and over again.

Meredith, Senator Brown’s liaison, told us it’s hard for them to know what constituents really want, because they hear most often from the money people; when they do hear from the everyday people, the presentations are almost never thorough and specific like Climate SOS’s.

OUR GRASSROOTS WORK HAS ONLY JUST BEGUN.

The FINANCIAL — Medical experts have warned of a global health catastrophe unless radical cuts are agreed in carbon dioxide emissions at a major UN conference in December. In an exceptional joint appeal published in the British Medical Journal (BMJ) and The Lancet, they called on governments to act decisively to roll back the threat from global warming.

A new report on climate change and health commissioned by University College London and the Lancet concludes that climate change is the biggest global health threat of the 21st century, according to BMJ. The report emphasises not only the immediacy and gravity of this threat but also the directness: although the poorest in the world will be the first affected, none will be spared. Doctors must take a lead in speaking out, say the authors of an open letter – “Politicians must heed health effects of climate change”

Scientists have repeatedly warned climate change could affect health in many ways, ranging from malnutrition caused by drought to the risk of cholera from flooding and the spread of mosquito-borne disease to temperate zones, as AFP reported. “Doctors must take a lead in speaking out,” said the doctors’ letter. “There is a real danger that politicians will be indecisive, especially in such turbulent economic times as these.»Should their response be weak, the results for international health could be catastrophic.”

December’s UN summit, to be held in Copenhagen, is due to agree a new global climate treaty to supplant the Kyoto Protocol, BBC gives information. But preparatory talks have been plagued by lack of agreement on how much to cut greenhouse gas emissions and how to finance climate protection for the poorest countries.

“There is a real danger that politicians will be indecisive, especially in such turbulent economic times as these,” according to the letter signed by leaders of 18 colleges of medicine and other medical disciplines across the world, the same source report said. “Should their response be weak, the results for international health could be catastrophic.”

The threat to health is especially evident in poorest countries, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa, as Lancet and University College London report shows. These countries are struggling to meet the Millennium Development Goals.

Their poverty and lack of resources, infrastructure, and often governance, greatly increase their vulnerability to the effects of climate change, according to Guardian. Warmer climate can lead to drought, pressure on resources (particularly water), migration, and conflict. The conflict in Darfur is as much about pressure on resources as the desert encroaches as about the internal politics of Sudan.

And the implications for the health of local populations are acute: on the spread and changing patterns of disease, notably water-borne diseases from inadequate and unclean supplies; on maternal and child mortality as basic health services collapse; and on malnutrition where food is scarce, the same source gives information.  And population stabilisation will not be achieved if, for want of resources, girls are not educated and contraceptives are unavailable.