Author: sparki

1500 people lay siege to coal plant in Copenhagen

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People in Copenhagen aren’t waiting around for world leaders to take action on climate change, on September 26 about 1,500 people took direct action to shut down one of Copenhagen’s coal fire power plants. The SHUT IT DOWN action plan had been openly announced several months earlier and Danish police had been gearing up for massive use of force to trial new anti-protest laws. Around 100 protesters managed to get inside the power plant.  Although at that point the plant should have been shut down due to safety regulations,  it was kept running.

Around 100 people have been arrested. One person so far has been charged. The action was widely and positively covered in Danish news. The  protesters regard this act of mass civil disobience for climate justice an encouraging success  and a positive trial run for the actions surrounding the COP 15 climate conference in December in Copenhagen (On Dec 16, RECLAIM POWER!).

Join the climate contingent at the People’s Uprising march on the G20 in Pittsburgh Sept 24th

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our_climate_-_not_your_business

Rising Tide invites you to join the climate contingent at the People’s Uprising march on the G20 in Pittsburgh

Thursday Sept 24.

Meet at 2:30 pm at Arsenal Park (40th Street & Penn Avenue in Lawrenceville)

Look for the “Our Climate is not Your Business” banner

The people who are responsible for evicting poor families from their homes and displacing entire peoples through wars of conquest, are the same people responsible for the climate crisis that evicts thousands from their communities each year as sea levels rise, droughts spread, and rivers overflow their banks.  On Sept 24th and 25th they will be meeting in Pittsburgh to salvage an economic system that wreaks havoc upon our communities and ecosystems. We will not be fooled by their desperate PR campaign to paint capitalism green, nor their attempts to solve the climate crisis via the very same free market ideology that created this mess. It is plain to see, capitalism means crisis.

As the Big Greens ready the beds in their luxury hotels to continue their love affair with corporate America, thousands will be flooding the streets of Pittsburgh to take direct action against the G20 and its destructive policies. Rising Tide invites all those who recognize capitalism as a root cause of climate change to join the climate contingent at the People’s Uprising mass march on the G20 on Thursday Sept 24th. This is an un-permitted march to the G20 summit site being organized by a coalition of anti-capitalist, student, labor, ecological, and anti-war groups. For the full call to action check: www.resistg20.org .

We also encourage everyone to partake in the day of decentralized actions in the morning on Friday Sept 25 (www.resistg20.org) and the Environmental/Climate Justice feeder march that afternoon. For more information check out about the feeder march and the 3 Rivers Climate Convergence Sept 20-25: www.3riversconvergence.org

You can’t bail out a dead planet!

-Rising Tide North America

3 RIVERS CLIMATE CONVERGENCE TO OPPOSE G20 AND INT’L COAL CONFERENCE

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Pittsburgh, PA – A Climate Convergence will be held in Pittsburgh to coincide with the International Coal Conference (Sept. 21-23) and G-20 summit (Sept. 24/25.

The 3 Rivers Climate Convergence [3RCC] is a partnership of local groups and individuals, concerned about climate change, environmental justice and true sustainability, collaborating with regional and national groups. Together, they are planning a variety of activities over a one-week period, involving public education and non-violent direct action targeting the International Coal Conference, local coal companies, the banks that finance them, and the G-20, which plays a pivotal role in enabling the industrial activities that negatively impact climate change. The focal point of the Convergence will be a Climate Camp and Sustainability Fair, which the groups are planning to hold at Point State Park. Continue reading

Climate Movement, Meet Global Capitalism. Global Capitalism, meet the Climate Movement. On the G20 and the fight for Climate Justice

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By Rising Tide

“Oceans turn increasingly acidic, wiping out calcareous plankton and further hitting surviving coral reefs-much of the marine food chain endangered. One summer in every two has heat waves as strong as the 2003 disaster in Europe, when 30,000 died. Drought, fire and searing heat strikes the Mediterranean basin. Greenland tips into irreversible ice melt, accelerating sea-level rise and threatening coastal cities around the world. Hundreds of millions live in peril of the rising seas. Polar bears, walrus and other ice-dependent marine mammals extinct in the Arctic. Glaciers in Peru disappear, threatening the water supplies to Lima. Declining snowfields also threaten water supplies. A third of species worldwide face extinction as the climate changes-the worst mass extinction since the end of the dinosaurs.”

This rather rosy scenario painted by author Mark Lynas is the reality we can expect to inhabit if the planet heats another 3.6 F degrees. Doesn’t sound like much fun, does it? Well unfortunately for us, 3.6 F also happens to be the degree to which our benevolent leaders at the G8 decided is ok to allow our world to heat up.  Last month with much fanfare and backslapping the world’s 7 richest nations (plus Russia), who not coincidentally are responsible for the lion’s share of global emissions, set the bar for the collateral damage they are willing to accept in order to preserve their economic stranglehold on our planet.

On Sept 24 and 25th the G20, an outgrowth of the G8, will be meeting in Pittsburgh in an attempt to salvage this global economic order. The G20 includes all the G8 countries plus the next twelve largest economies and “emerging economies.” The G20 countries account for 80% of the world’s global gross national product. Many of the G8 leaders remarked at this year’s summit that it is becoming irrelevant, and that the G20 is where the real decisions will be made. Before this year’s G8 summit German Chancellor Angela Merkel stated, “I think the G20 should be the format that, like an overarching roof, makes decisions about the future.” While the G20 summit in Pittsburgh is largely focused on pumping some blood back into global capitalism, we cannot afford to overlook how the abstract world of global finance has very real world affects when it comes to climate and justice. Continue reading