Washington DC: Mobilize for Climate Justice & Immigrant Rights on December 6

cross-posted from Shut Down DC

Around the world, climate change is driving mass migration as water dries up, farmland turns to desert, shorelines erode, coastal areas flood, permafrost melts and ecosystems can no longer support the communities they once could. And it is going to get much much worse.  As far back as 1990, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) noted that the greatest single impact of climate change could be on human migration – and we’re seeing this projection come true. The latest estimates predict as many as 200 million climate refugees by 2050.

This is a climate and human rights crisis. Climate migrants routinely face life threatening hardship, discrimination and repression in their search for safety for their families, and often those most vulnerable to changing climate and extreme weather lack the resources to migrate, so remain in harm’s way.

Even worse, many of the same banks that made billions of dollars financing the fossil fuel industry that caused the climate crisis–Black Rock, Wells Fargo and JP Morgan Chase–are now profiting off of climate chaos by investing in the companies that are contracting with ICE to finance border wall construction and run for-profit prisons and detention centers. First they drive climate migration, and then they profit from it.

On December 6th, we’re going to shut down business-as-usual for the financial institutions that profit off of the climate crisis and immigrant detention. Meet us at 11am in Franklin Square (14th St. and I St. NW, Washington, DC 20005) for a rally featuring Jane Fonda and Fire Drill Fridays along with Saket Soni, the Executive Director of the National Guestworker Alliance, GreenFaith, the Franciscan Action Network and other climate, faith and migrant justice organizers. At 12 noon we’ll march through the streets of DC to visit the banks and financial institutions in DC that are profiting off of the climate crisis and immigrant detention.

WHEN: Friday, December 6th, 11am
WHERE: Franklin Square; 14th & I St NW, Washington, DC

Chicago Climate Activists target Carbon Trading @ Chicago Climate Exchange

*More details and photos coming soon!*

Chicago climate activists returned to the streets today – this time in the financial district in downtown Chicago – in a colorful demonstration against cap and trade, carbon offsets and other “false solutions” to climate change. Building on the long-term campaign to shut down the Crawford and Fisk coal-fired power plants in the city, community and environmental groups from across Chicago and beyond have come together to demand just, equitable, and effective solutions to the climate crisis.

The main target of today’s action is the Chicago Climate Exchange, the first and largest carbon market in North America. Several other “climate criminals” were visited during a march, including JP Morgan Chase, one of the leading funders of mountain top removal coal mining; Midwest Generation, the owner of Chicago’s two coal-fired power plants; and the Board of Trade, which trades in palm oil, one of the leading drivers of rainforest destruction. Continue reading