Year: 2009

Your field guide to climate action this summer

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Climate Ground Zero, West Virginia, All Summer

Come to West Virginia to take direct action against mountaintop removal coal mining. CGZ will be coordinating action training camps and organizing actions against coal companies destroying the mountains and communities of WV. We will have non-violence and other trainings, a kitchen and people who can explain the corrupt practice of MTR. We are hoping to shut down the sites on an ongoing basis all summer long. But we need your help.

www.climategroundzero.org

Contact Guin at 304-854-7372, guinstigator@yahoo.com

Cascadia Summer 2009

The Pacific Northwest is looking hot for direct action this summer with plans for massive public lands logging on the table. Thanks to a scheme called the Western Oregon Plan Revisions (WOPR) passed by Bush at the last minute around 25,000 acres of public lands will be cut. That’s a 436% percent increase in logging. Aside from the horrific impacts on the local ecosystem the logging would result in releasing 180 million tons of carbon into the atmosphere. The equivalent of putting one million cars on the road for 132 years.

Fortunately Oregonians are gearing up for a summer of resistance with several action camps and direct actions planned throughout the summer:

May 23-25 Cascadia Summer Campaign Action Camp

June 20-26 Trans and Womyns Action Camp

June 29-July 6 Earth First! Round River Rendezvous

July 8-July 15 EF! Climbers Guild Intensive Climb Camp

For more information contact forestdefensenow@gmail.com

www.forestdefensenow.org Continue reading

A Call to Action: THE MOBILIZATION FOR CLIMATE JUSTICE

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WE STAND AT A CROSSROADS.

Emissions

Confront Copenhagen at Home

www.ACTFORCLIMATEJUSTICE.org

read and pass on the Mobilization’s
Open Letter to the Grassroots

The facts are clear. Global climate change, caused by human activities, is happening, threatening the lives and livelihoods of billions of people and the existence of millions of species. Social movements, environmental groups, and scientists from all over the world are calling for urgent and radical action on climate change.

On the 6 December, 2009 the governments of the world will come to Copenhagen for the fifteenth UN Climate Conference (COP-15). This will be the biggest summit on climate change ever to have taken place. Yet, previous meetings have produced nothing more than business as usual.

There are alternatives to the current course that is emphasizing false solutions such as market-based approaches and agrofuels. If we put humanity before profit and solidarity above competition we can live amazing lives without destroying our planet.

For a just transition to a low carbon future we must invest in community-controlled renewable energy and leave fossil fuels in the ground. We must stop over-production for over-consumption. All should have equal access to the global commons through community control and local sovereignty over energy, forests, land and water. We must acknowledge the historical responsibility of the global elite and rich Global North for causing this crisis. Equity between all peoples in the North and South through reparations of this ecological debt is essential to climate justice.

Climate change is already impacting people, particularly, indigenous and forest-dependent peoples, women, small farmers, workers, marginalized communities and impoverished neighbourhoods who are all calling for action on climate- and social-justice.

We call on all peoples around the planet to mobilize and take action against the root causes of climate change and the key agents responsible, both in Copenhagen and around the world.

This mobilization has already begun but is still in the planning stages. We have time to collectively decide what these mobilizations will look like, and to begin to visualize what our future can be. It is now time to take the power back!

We encourage everyone to start mobilizing today in your own neighbourhoods and communities.

Please get involved and take action for climate justice.

Hope is not just a feeling, it is also about taking action.

To read the Mobilization’s Open Letter to the Grassroots Continue reading

North Carolina ups the ante against coal. 44 arrested protesting Duke Energy’s Cliffside coal plant

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April 20 300 people took to the streets of Charlotte, NC to demand that Duke Energy stop the construction of the 800 mw Cliffside coal plant in Rutherford County, NC. After rousing speeches from coalfield residents and local church leaders the crowd marched to Duke Energy’s headquarters. Shouts of “No new coal!” and “Cancel Cliffside” echoed off the skyscrapers of the nations second largest financial center, as the crowd wound its way through the lunch hour traffic.

The protest was a fine example of solidarity in the movement. Folks from Ohio fighting AMP coal plants, Kentuckians resisting mountaintop removal, West Virginians defending Coal River Valley, Virginians fighting Dominions Wise County Coal Plant were all there. Asheville, Boston, Baltimore, and Bay Area Rising Tide were all representing in the streets of Charlotte and played a part in making this a successful action.

Once the march arrived at Duke Energy headquarters we presented CEO Jim Rogers with a letter for him to sign, declaring that he would cancel the Cliffside plant. Unsurprisingly he did not come down. Not content with just going home, 44 people crossed onto Duke Energy’s property to deliver the letter to Rogers. The police gave one warning and then began to make arrests. As protestors were led to police vans the crowd chanted, “Arrest Jim Rogers” and “You can put our friends in jail. But we will drive the final nail.” Those arrested ranged from young college students  to  80 year old grandmothers.100_2965

This protest is an important and exciting escalation in the fight against Cliffside and for the anti-coal movement as a whole. Lets keep up the good work and continue to extend our solidarity to all communities fighting the fossil fuel industry. We’ll be back in Charlotte on May 7th which is being held at Duke’s headquarters. As one sign at the protest said, “Jim Rogers, we won’t stop until you do!” For updates check out www.stopcliffside.org

Asheville Rising Tide Declares NC Gov. Perdue in Bed with Duke Energy

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Wednesday, April 1st039

Asheville, NC – In response to the North Carolina Division of Air Quality (DAQ) ruling that Duke Energy’s Cliffside coal plant is a “minor source of emissions”, 30 protesters gathered at noon today outside Governor Perdue’s Western North Carolina office in downtown Asheville to demand that she revoke the plant’s permit.

In a demonstration organized by Asheville Rising Tide, protesters set up a bed in front of Governor Perdue’s office with people in business suits representing Duke CEO Jim Rogers, DAQ head Keith Overcash, and Governor Perdue under sheets and covered in money. Banners reading, “Governor Purdue in bed with Duke Energy” and “Stop Cliffside” were held in the background. Protestors also roped off the office entrance with Global Warming Crime Scene tape.

While Beverly Perdue publicly opposed Cliffside during her campaign for the Governorship, following the DAQ’s ruling she sent out a press release defending the decision to classify Duke’s new coal plant as a “minor emitter.”  A report released last month by the Civil Society Institute found that Duke Energy contributed nearly $30,000 to Gov. Purdue’s election campaign and $40,000 to Lt. Governor Walter Dalton. Since the report was released there have been calls for corruption inquiries into the relations between Duke Energy and Purdue. “We know who Governor Purdue and the DAQ are taking their marching orders from,” stated Jill Walker of Asheville Rising Tide. “With this ruling it is clear that they are more interested in protecting Duke’s bottom line than the health of North Carolinians.”038

Throughout Duke’s application process, the DAQ, controlled by the Governor’s office, has consistently showed favoritism to the industry they are charged with regulating, at the expense of public health, water conservation, and attempts to curb climate change. “It is absurd that the DAQ could rule that the dirty Cliffside coal plant, which will emit millions of tons of pollutants each year, including greenhouse gases, mercury and other heavy metals, could even be considered a minor source of emissions,” stated local farmer Tobias Wolfe.  “Still, it is not too late for Governor Perdue to do the right thing for the people of North Carolina and call for the cancellation of Cliffside.”

Today’s protest was part of an international day of action called Fossil Fools Day (www.fossilfoolsday.org) that calls for an end to fossil fuel extraction and consumption. Duke Energy is the third largest emitter of greenhouse gases in the US; if completed, the Cliffside plant would emit over 6 million tons of CO2 every year. According to the UN’s International Panel on Climate Change we have only 6 years to begin reducing emissions in order to avoid catastrophic climate change. There has been growing opposition to the Cliffside coal plant both in North Carolina and nationwide. Last year, NASA’s chief climatologist James Hansen, called on Jim Rogers to cancel the plant.

Asheville Rising Tide is a member of the Stop Cliffside Coalition (www.stopcliffside.org), a coalition of faith-based,social and environmental groups organizing a mass rally and civil disobedience at Duke Energy’s headquarters April 20th.

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