AN EMERGENCY SITUATION

GLOBAL WARMING IS HAPPENING

FASTER THAN ANYONE PREDICTED.

On November 30, one week before the UN climate negotiations in Copenhagen open, and on the 10th anniversary of the World Trade Organization (WTO) protest in Seattle in 1999, major demonstrations, teach-ins and civil disobedience are taking actions place in cities around the U.S.

(Video: Chicago lockdown at the Chicago Climate Exchange on N30)

Reports are in from:

Chicago, IL: Activists target Carbon Trading @ Chicago Climate Exchange – 12 arrested
Greensville, SC: Blockade of shipment of generator to Cliffside Coal Plant, 4 arrested
New York City, NY: Occupation of the Natural Resource Defense Council Office with James Hansen exposing their ties to industry
Plymouth, UK: Two Women lock down at Coal Financing Bank
San Francisco, CA: San Francisco Climate Justice Action at Bank of America; 200 Rally with at least 23 Arrested
Seattle WA: Lock downs at Bank of America and Chase
Whitby, ON: Sit-in for Climate Justice at Finance Minister’s Office
Baltimore, MA: Targeting Constellation Energy
Boston, MA: Planet DIE-OUT in the rain, Open Letter to Kerry and Kirk
Burlington, VT: Rally for Climate Justice and against false solutions
Charlotte, VA: Banner drop: “Capitalism is the Crisis”
Denver, CO: Citizens ‘Die-in’ at Department of Public Health and Environment in Coal Protest
Pheonix, AZ: Banks targeted during march
Washington, DC: Downtown march targets major polluters and lobbyists

Also, the creators of the widely acclaimed “Story of Stuff” animated documentary released a new video, the “Story of Carbon Trading” covering this central non-solution to the climate crisis!

Updates are still coming in from other locales – you can read all the details at the MCJ Newswire!

Also, check out an interview interview with MCJ’s Ananda Tan and David Solnit on today’s broadcast on Democracy Now!

With the corporate media unlikely to give major coverage to such actions, we need you to spread the word! You can see the combined and growing photo gallery here and follow updates on facebook or twitter.

The Mobilization for Climate Justice is a broad and diverse coalition of organizations working for social, environmental, economic and racial justice is calling for urgent action on the global climate crisis, based on equitable, democratic and science-based solutions.

As world leaders gather in Copenhagen, the people hit hardest by this crisis and the least responsible for its cause—working class, Indigenous and people of color communities around the world—have been systematically excluded and are demanding a voice at the table.

Meanwhile, the world’s major corporations have been dominating international and domestic climate policy – as they did in the international trade policy arena. Carbon-trading and carbon offset projects have already allowed these polluters to avoid cutting emissions and expand their markets into poor countries, accelerating corporate take-over of the world’s resources at the expense of local and Indigenous communities.

“We cannot allow the world’s largest corporate polluters to continue robbing our children’s future,” stated Carla Perez of Movement Generation Justice and Ecology Project, who will be marching with her daughter in a parade of children and the Raging Grannies. “US corporations have been holding real climate solutions hostage, while burdening our communities with ongoing attacks on our health and livelihoods.”

In December 2008, a major Climate Science Congress, attended by over 2,000 scientists, concluded: “the worst-case IPCC scenario trajectories (or even worse) are being realized.” We are receiving daily reports on the alarming rate of Arctic ice melting. Climate change is now recognized as likely the most serious threat to national security, because it threatens to inundate low lying areas, sending waves of refugees scattering, disrupt agriculture leading to widespread famines, spreading disease, extinctions and massive civil conflict. As the nation with leading per capita emission now, and with by far the greatest historical contribution to greenhouse gases, it is absolutely essential that we take responsibility for this mess, and fast! A federal climate bill that seriously limits emissions, in line with what climate scientists advise, is key.

But the current bill, the “American Clean Energy and Security Act” (ACESA) that passed the house last month is entirely inadequate, having been twisted, warped and compromised by special interests who literally “held the bill hostage” with their demands.

Now we must demand not just a climate bill, but a truly historic and groundbreaking and effective bill from the Senate; one that will lead us back towards a safe future for our children and future generations.