Category: Capitalism / Globalisation

Today, 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 protests, lock-ons and civ­il dis­obe­di­ence are tak­ing place in cities around the world.

USA: Con­cerned cit­i­zens block ship­ment of gen­er­a­tor to Cliff­side Coal Plant

Update: Four have been arrest­ed: 2 who were locked down and 2 oth­ers. About 20 oth­ers are still at the site with ban­ners.

For Imme­di­ate Release

Novem­ber 30, 2009

Press Con­tact: Liz Veazey 919–627-7324 ashevillerisingtide@gmail.com
Onsite Con­tact: Atti­la Nemecz
919–889-1261 www.asheville.risingtidenorthamerica.org

Con­cerned cit­i­zens block ship­ment of gen­er­a­tor to Cliff­side Coal Plant.

Greenville, SC Two pro­test­ers have locked them­selves to the 1.5 mil­lion pound gen­er­a­tor des­tined for Duke Ener­gy’s Cliff­side coal plant in Ruther­ford Coun­ty, North Car­oli­na. Pro­tes­tors are vow­ing to pre­vent the gen­er­a­tor, which has been trav­el­ing across South Car­oli­na on a 300 foot trail­er, from reach­ing the coal plant. “Our nation has no choice, we must stop burn­ing coal. The only choice that we can make is whether we do that in time to still have breath­able air, drink­able water, a liv­able cli­mate, and stand­ing moun­tains,” said, Cather­ine Anne. Pro­tes­tors also draped a large ban­ner from the top of the gen­er­a­tor read­ing, “Stop Cliff­side.”

The con­tro­ver­sial Cliff­side coal plant would emit over 6 mil­lion tons of car­bon diox­ide ever year in addi­tion to tox­ic lev­els of heavy met­als such as mer­cury, great­ly exac­er­bat­ing glob­al warm­ing and our abysmal air qual­i­ty. Duke Ener­gy is seek­ing to raise elec­tric­i­ty rates in order to pay for the con­struc­tion of Cliff­side at a time when record num­bers of fam­i­lies are strug­gling to put food on the table due to the reces­sion.

This act of civ­il dis­obe­di­ence comes a week before world lead­ers meet in Copen­hagen to hash out a glob­al cli­mate agree­ment. “Any agree­ment made in Copen­hagen will be mean­ing­less if the US con­tin­ues to build coal plants such as Cliff­side. It is time to tear down coal plants, not con­struct new ones,” said Rachel Scara­no. There are cur­rent­ly 43 coal plants pro­posed or under con­struc­tion in the US, though over 100 oth­ers have been can­celled due to wide­spread protests.

Since it was first pro­posed, there has been mas­sive oppo­si­tion to Cliff­side. In the past year and a half over 60 peo­ple have been arrest­ed protest­ing the plant, and they vow to con­tin­ue the fight. “Since politi­cians and cor­po­ra­tions refuse to take seri­ous action to stop cli­mate change, cit­i­zens must step in to shut down coal plants,” said
Atti­la Nemecz. The protest was orga­nized by Asheville Ris­ing Tide and Croatan Earth First! and is part of a nation­al day of action with dozens of protests around the coun­try includ­ing Chica­go, New York City, Wash­ing­ton DC, and San Fran­cis­co.

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UK: Cli­mate activists block­ade bio­mass plant in Port Tal­bot on 30th Novem­ber 2009

Activists from Cli­mate Camp Cym­ru [1] have block­ad­ed a bio­mass plant in Port Tal­bot to protest against plans to pro­duce elec­tric­i­ty from import­ed wood­chips.

Two pro­test­ers used bicy­cle locks to close off the plant’s entrance, stop­ping the hourly 20-tonne deliv­er­ies of wood­chip need­ed to keep the pow­er sta­tion oper­at­ing. A large ban­ner on the gates reads “Bio­mess”. Oth­er activists climbed up the chim­ney to unfurl a giant ban­ner in Welsh read­ing “Clean Ener­gy: Dirty Joke”.

The plant is the first of its kind in the UK, incin­er­at­ing wood­chips to gen­er­ate elec­tric­i­ty. It is a test plant for the large-scale plants that have been announced in Britain. The world’s largest bio­mass plant (350 MW) has already been approved in Port Tal­bot and con­struc­tion is due to start ear­ly next year. The sec­ond largest in the world is planned for Holy­head, Angle­sey.

Rob Good­sell, 33 said, “The Port Tal­bot and Holy­head bio­mass plants will require an area of ded­i­cat­ed bio­mass plan­ta­tions half the size of Wales. A land area this size could feed up to a third of the pop­u­la­tion of Britain. With the world fac­ing seri­ous food secu­ri­ty issues in com­ing years this is crazy.”

Ioan Gwyn, 29 said: “The pow­er com­pa­nies said the wood will come from sus­tain­able sources but the real­i­ty is very dif­fer­ent. In 2008 about 9 mil­lion hectares of indus­tri­al tree plan­ta­tions have been cer­ti­fied as sus­tain­able despite evi­dence of their dev­as­tat­ing effects on peo­ple and the envi­ron­ment [2]. These plan­ta­tions are in fact green deserts: they con­sume vast amounts of water and are emp­ty of native wildlife.”

Melis­sa Har­vey com­ment­ed: “Burn­ing wood is called car­bon neu­tral but this is a myth. [3] It’s hard to believe but burn­ing wood for elec­tric­i­ty is even dirt­i­er than coal. It releas­es one and half as much car­bon diox­ide as burn­ing coal, [4] and the oth­er pol­lu­tion affect­ing air qual­i­ty is near­ly as bad as coal.” [5]

Adam Thoro­good said: “We’re going to cook the world’s remain­ing forests to fight cli­mate change. At this rate, research shows that the world’s forests will be all gone with­in the next 60 years.”

Ioan Gwyn com­ment­ed: “Burn­ing wood releas­es car­bon diox­ide. Each plant will emit about 4 mil­lion tonnes of car­bon diox­ide a year. This means that Wales’ car­bon diox­ide emis­sions will increase by 20% as soon as Port Tal­bot and Holy­head bio­mass plant open. Whilst sci­en­tists are warn­ing of the fragili­ty of for­est ecosys­tems, the UK gov­ern­ment is sub­si­dis­ing their destruc­tion by giv­ing these two devel­op­ers £400 mil­lion a year. Instead, they should be giv­ing sub­si­dies to tru­ly clean ener­gy, such as wind and solar pow­er.” [6]

Rob Good­sell added: “Forests play a key role in seques­ter­ing car­bon diox­ide from the atmos­phere. The best thing to do is to leave the car­bon locked up as wood, and that means not burn­ing it.”

Melis­sa Har­vey con­clud­ed: “Cat­a­stroph­ic cli­mate change could be unstop­pable in as lit­tle as 10 years. This is our last win­dow of oppor­tu­ni­ty. False solu­tions such as bio­mass and car­bon trad­ing mean we’ll have no chance at all. And when we talk about cat­a­stroph­ic cli­mate change, we’re not talk­ing hot sum­mers, we’re talk­ing about the ques­tion of sur­vival.”
Con­tacts for inter­views:

* Pro­test­ers: mobile phone num­bers: 07952 932 626 / 07909 171 951. Address: West­ern Wood Ener­gy Plant, 1 Long­land Lane, Port Tal­bot, SA13 2NR.
* Inter­views in Welsh: Ang­harad Pen­rhyn Jones: 07780 914 369
* Bio­fu­el­watch: Almuth Ern­st­ing: 01224 324797.
* Port Tal­bot Res­i­dents Against Pow­er Sta­tions: Pete Wil­son: 01639 884 820, Jere­my Bai­leys: 07702069561. http://www.pt-raps.co.uk/index.html; info@pt-raps.co.uk
* High-res pho­tos avail­able here.

Notes:

[1] Cli­mate Camp Cym­ru: www.climatecampcymru.org. Take Action 1–7 Decem­ber.
[2] “Can we trust the FSC?” the Ecol­o­gist: http://www.theecologist.org/trial_investigations/325243/can_we_trust_the_fsc.html
[3] “Good­bye to Car­bon Neu­tral” http://www.maforests.org/Carbon.pdf
[4] Bio­mass Fact­sheet from Dr Mary Booth http://massenvironmentalenergy.org/docs/biomass%20factsheet%20from%20MEEA.pdf
[5] Envi­ron­men­tal Impacts of Bio­mass Ener­gy Options: Gov­ern­ment report Sept 2006: http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Publications/2006/09/22094104/6
[6] “Fix­ing a Crit­i­cal Cli­mate Account­ing Error” T. Searchinger, S.P. Ham­burg: http://www.princeton.edu/~tsearchi/writings/Fixing%20a%20Critical%20Climate%20Accounting%20ErrorEDITED-tim.pdf
Fur­ther infor­ma­tion:

- In total, at least 2,400 megawatts of wood-fired ener­gy plants have been announced in Britain: http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=48574

- Back­ground infor­ma­tion regard­ing Holy­head 300MW bio­mass plant pro­pos­al: http://www.biofuelwatch.org.uk/angleseyoct2009.php

- Where would the wood come from?

* Last month at the UN-spon­sored World Forestry Con­gress in Buenos Aires, the agron­o­mist engi­neer Hec­tor Gin­zo, an advis­er of the Kyoto Pro­to­col, stressed that plan­ta­tions could not be clas­si­fied as sus­tain­able. He said UN rules “would nev­er allow of plan­ta­tion of euca­lyp­tus or oth­er fast grow­ing trees for use as pulp or wood to be con­sid­ered a sus­tain­able forestry project, because that kind of pro­duc­tion favours mono­cul­ture forests and the car­bon cap­ture is lost when the trees are cut down”.

* Port Tal­bot – 350MW bio­mass plant: “Pren­er­gy is com­mit­ed to obtain­ing feed­stock from a range of over­sea sources”.

* Holy­head project: This pow­er sta­tion would burn 2.4 mil­lion tonnes main­ly import­ed wood every year. This is more than twice the amount of wood which the UK gov­ern­ment states can be obtained from increased wood har­vests in the UK – yet net imports of wood and wood prod­ucts already account for about 80% of our use and indus­tri­al tree plan­ta­tions. In the UK, includ­ing in Wales, mono­cul­ture tree plan­ta­tions have cre­at­ed acidic degrad­ed soils and have had severe impacts on our bio­di­ver­si­ty.

* How­ev­er, the impact on the glob­al South of the UK’s rapid­ly grow­ing demand for wood chips and wood pel­lets will be far more severe, although in this case, they may be pri­mar­i­ly indi­rect impacts. Angle­sey Alu­mini­um Ltd have spo­ken about poten­tial sup­plies from the US and Cana­da, how­ev­er across North Amer­i­ca vast num­bers of wood pow­er sta­tions are already being built which can­not be sup­plied with­out much faster destruc­tion of North America’s nat­ur­al forests. Across the south­ern US, vast areas of native for­est have been destroyed to make way for pulp and paper tree plan­ta­tions, sup­ply­ing much of the US demand for paper. Now, the south­ern US wants to use that wood for bioen­er­gy, includ­ing in the UK. This means that the US is increas­ing­ly look­ing to South Amer­i­ca and oth­er coun­tries in the glob­al South for pulp and paper. Tree plan­ta­tions have already had dev­as­tat­ing effects on peo­ple and the envi­ron­ment across South Amer­i­ca, Indonesia/West Papua and oth­er regions where expan­sion due to our demand for bio­mass is like­ly. More ecosys­tems and more lands on which local com­mu­ni­ties depend for their liveli­hoods will be destroyed as a result of US wood being burned in UK pow­er sta­tions. Brazil, Chile, Uruguay, Indonesia/West Papua, Ghana and Argenti­na are amongst the coun­tries like­ly to meet future Euro­pean demand for wood chips and wood pel­lets.

More pic­tures

See video of the action

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UK: ‘Cli­mate refugees’ d‑locked on Bar­clay’s build­ing’s entrance!

Update: Two activists stayed locked on inside the build­ing entrance for 2 1/2 hours chant­i­ng, singing, and inform­ing Bar­clay’s cus­tomers of Bar­clay’s dodgy invest­ments, before they were arrest­ed. Bar­clays even­tu­al­ly closed their main entrance and mem­bers of the pub­lic were very sup­port­ive.

Today at mid­day, Ris­ing Tide-Ply­mouth ‘Cli­mate refugees’ have d‑locked them­selves to Bar­clay’s bank build­ing’s entrance to high­light the invest­ments this bank is doing on Coal, Tar Sands and Arms Trade in times of Cli­mate emer­gency.

Coal is the dirt­i­est, most dat­ed and inef­fi­cient fos­sil fuel (1)

Tar Sands Oil is the dirt­i­est and most expen­sive oil in terms of extrac­tion and emis­sions ‑and glob­al oil resources are run­ning out! (2)

The Arms Trade gen­er­ates vio­lence every­where and also green­house gas emis­sions — Bar­clay’s being the largest investor of all UK banks in this sec­tor. (3)

Coal,Tar Sands and the Arms Trade are not only respon­si­ble for a phe­nom­e­nal amount of glob­al Green­house Gas emis­sions but if they do con­tin­ue, it will lead us inevitably to run­away Cli­mate Chaos. We have already more than 20 mil­lion of refugees from envi­ron­men­tal dis­as­ters caused by glob­al warm­ing.

This action seeks to remem­ber the pow­er of the Peo­ple to con­front issues that endan­ger their future as peo­ple in Seat­tle did 10 years ago(4), when a mas­sive direct action took to the streets of Seat­tle to stop the World Trade Organ­i­sa­tion meet­ing to keep mak­ing prof­its out of our future.

Also, Ris­ing Tide want to raise their voice towards Copen­hagen Cli­mate talks (COP15) where thou­sands of peo­ple will pres­sure for real Cli­mate Jus­tice and to stop the ‘busi­ness as usu­al’ atti­tude towards Cli­mate chaos(5)

Anne Smith, spokesper­son for Ris­ing Tide-Ply­mouth explains: “Our future is under a big threat called Cli­mate Change, we, the peo­ple, need to take respon­si­bil­i­ty to do some­thing about it. Today, tens of thou­sands are mobi­liz­ing to COP15 to say enough is enough. Enough of putting prof­it before life. Enough of ‘busi­ness as usu­al’ at the
expense of our future. Enough of mak­ing excus­es with false solu­tions to keep exploit­ing peo­ple and the plan­et”.

RT PRESS CONTACT: Anne Smith 07990 923 234

Ris­ing Tide is a grass­roots net­work con­fronting the root caus­es of Cli­mate Change with Non-vio­lent direct action and Pop­u­lar edu­ca­tion.

Ris­ing Tide-Ply­mouth: plymouth@risingtide.org.uk
Web: www.risingtide.org.uk

Notes to Edi­tor:

1. Coal is rec­og­nized as the dirt­i­est, most dat­ed and in-effi­cient fos­sil fuel. See the report “Cash­ing in on coal”: http://www.platformlondon.org/carbonweb/showitem.asp?article=338&parent=9

2. Tar Sands (oil sands)represent unre­strained fos­sil fuel use and unchecked green­house gas emis­sions. See: http://www.tarsandswatch.org/

3. The Arms Trade alone pro­vide 25% of glob­al emis­sions.

4. In Novem­ber 30th 1999 thou­sands of pro­test­ers shut down the WTO meet­ings for 4 days. See: http://www.realbattleinseattle.org/node/18

5. Peo­ple are mobi­liz­ing now. See: http://www.climate-justice-action.org/ and http://climatecamp.org.uk/

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USA: Cli­mate Activists tar­get Car­bon Trad­ing @ Chica­go Cli­mate Exchange – 12 arrest­ed

200 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.

The event kicked off at 11a.m. at Fed­er­al Plaza (Adams and Dear­born Street), and is part of a nation­al day of action called for by the Mobi­liza­tion for Cli­mate Jus­tice in the lead-up to the UN cli­mate sum­mit in Copen­hagen and on the 10-year anniver­sary of the suc­cess­ful shut­down of the WTO in Seat­tle in 1999.

“From Chica­go to Copen­hagen, pow­er­ful com­pa­nies are cash­ing in on the cli­mate cri­sis, tak­ing advan­tage of pub­lic con­cern over cli­mate change in order to make a buck. Car­bon trad­ing insti­tu­tions like the Chica­go Cli­mate Exchange are pri­va­tiz­ing the air we breathe and hand­ing over rights to the atmos­phere to the biggest pol­luters,” stat­ed Ang­ie Viands, of Rain­for­est Action Net­work (RAN) Chica­go. “Car­bon Trad­ing is a fraud­u­lent mar­ket that inten­si­fies social injus­tice, does not reduce emis­sions in a mean­ing­ful way, and acts as a dan­ger­ous dis­trac­tion from the real cli­mate solu­tions we urgent­ly need.”

Event orga­niz­ers seek to high­light the con­nec­tions between the glob­al dri­vers of cli­mate change and local strug­gles for envi­ron­men­tal jus­tice and cli­mate sta­bil­i­ty.

“The solu­tion to cli­mate change isn’t car­bon trad­ing; it is a just, rapid tran­si­tion away from the indus­tries that are poi­son­ing our com­mu­ni­ties and the plan­et. We can begin by shut­ting down the Craw­ford and Fisk coal plants right here in Chica­go,” said Dori­an Breuer of the Pilsen Envi­ron­men­tal Rights and Reform Orga­ni­za­tion (PERRO).

While car­bon trad­ing is the cen­ter­piece of plans to deal with the cli­mate cri­sis both in the UN, and in the US Con­gress and Oba­ma Admin­is­tra­tion, many civ­il soci­ety orga­ni­za­tions con­sid­er this mar­ket-based approach to be inef­fec­tive and unac­cept­able from a cli­mate jus­tice per­spec­tive. “The air is not for sale!” declared Abi­gail Singer of the Mobi­liza­tion for Cli­mate Jus­tice. “Cap and trade plans are an unprece­dent­ed and oppor­tunis­tic attempt to pri­va­tize the atmos­phere; in real­i­ty, many off­set projects embody a new form of colo­nial­ism in the devel­op­ing nations that are most heav­i­ly impact­ed by cli­mate change. We reject these plans as inher­ent­ly unjust as well as inef­fec­tive at reduc­ing emis­sions.”

Crit­i­cism of car­bon trad­ing has been mount­ing, most recent­ly from sources like top NASA cli­mate sci­en­tist Dr. James Hansen and EPA attor­neys Lau­rie Williams and Allan Zabel, who between them rep­re­sent over 40 years of expe­ri­ence ana­lyz­ing cap and trade and off­set pro­grams. Both were recent­ly muz­zled by the EPA for their out­spo­ken crit­i­cism of Admin­is­tra­tion plans to pur­sue cap and trade and off­sets which appeared as a Wash­ing­ton Post edi­to­r­i­al.

Activists will also con­front Mid­west Gen­er­a­tion LLC, own­er of the Fisk and Craw­ford coal-fired pow­er plants in Pilsen and Lit­tle Vil­lage, Chica­go. Local res­i­dents attribute numer­ous adverse health effects to the con­tin­ued oper­a­tion of the plants, prompt­ing com­mu­ni­ty groups LVEJO and PERRO to active­ly cam­paign for their clo­sure. This demand has been heard by Ald. Joe Moore (49th Ward), who announced plans on Octo­ber 24th to intro­duce an ordi­nance which would effec­tive­ly shut the plants down. The Fisk plant was the tar­get of a large com­mu­ni­ty demon­stra­tion in Octo­ber on the 350 Inter­na­tion­al Day of Cli­mate Action. Togeth­er, Fisk and Crawford’s emis­sions rep­re­sent one-fifth of Chicago’s car­bon foot­print.

“We are here today as a com­mu­ni­ty demand­ing a trans­par­ent and tru­ly renew­able clean ener­gy future. Our environment’s future should not be depen­dant on a mar­ket based sys­tem, it should be reli­able to save our future. We demand our voice be heard!” said Kim Wasser­man, Coor­di­na­tor for the Lit­tle Vil­lage Envi­ron­men­tal Jus­tice Orga­ni­za­tion (LVEJO)

“We have lived in the shad­ows of these coal plants for far too long. The recent law­suits against the plants for health vio­la­tions show that gov­ern­ment is will­ing to move, but we need them to move faster and stronger,” Wasser­man said.

“To bring atmos­pher­ic car­bon into the safe zone of 350 parts per mil­lion (ppm), we must phase out dirty coal, invest in clean, decen­tral­ized, renew­able ener­gy, and adopt agri­cul­ture and forestry prac­tices that sequester CO2. False solu­tions like car­bon trad­ing, so-called “clean coal” and nuclear pow­er are not going to solve the cli­mate cri­sis,” states Debra Michaud of Rain­for­est Action Net­work Chica­go.

Orga­niz­ers express oppo­si­tion to cur­rent­ly pro­posed U.S. cli­mate leg­is­la­tion which relies heav­i­ly on can and trade and car­bon off­sets.

“The cur­rent cli­mate leg­is­la­tion is fatal­ly flawed, set­ting weak tar­gets and cre­at­ing inap­pro­pri­ate tools,” remarks David Kraft of Nuclear Ener­gy Infor­ma­tion Ser­vice. “It should be mod­i­fied to exclude false cli­mate solu­tions, or else reject­ed; and cer­tain­ly should NOT in its cur­rent form serve as the blue­print for the U.S. nego­ti­at­ing posi­tion in Copen­hagen,” insists Kraft. A co-signed let­ter in oppo­si­tion will be deliv­ered to the offices of Sens. Richard Durbin and Roland Bur­ris before the ral­ly, and for­mal meet­ings request­ed of the Sen­a­tors before they vote on the Sen­ate ver­sion of the cli­mate bill.

Some par­tic­i­pants will take part in non­vi­o­lent direct action and civ­il dis­obe­di­ence at one of the sites along the march route.

Pho­tos and updates from the event will be avail­able at:http://howgreenischicago.org and http://www.actforclimatejustice.org. The pro­ces­sion will include a march­ing band and many col­or­ful ban­ners, props and signs.

Today’s action is one of nine major protests tak­ing place across the US orga­nized by the Mobi­liza­tion for Cli­mate Jus­tice, Ris­ing Tide North Amer­i­ca, and the Cli­mate Pledge of Resis­tance. Local­ly, five orga­ni­za­tions that helped orga­nize the Octo­ber 24th protest ral­ly at the Fisk coal-fired pow­er plant in Chica­go are endors­ing today’s action and are par­tic­i­pat­ing in the march and ral­ly: Rain­for­est Action Net­work Chica­go, Lit­tle Vil­lage Envi­ron­men­tal Jus­tice Orga­ni­za­tion, Nuclear Ener­gy Infor­ma­tion Ser­vice, Pilsen Envi­ron­men­tal Rights and Reform Orga­ni­za­tion, and Eco-Jus­tice Col­lab­o­ra­tive.

In addi­tion to the pho­tos above, check out Joe P. Dick’s gallery here.
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USA: 22 arrest­ed in San Fran­cis­co to set the tone for Copen­hagen

A crowd of 200 peo­ple gath­ered at Justin Her­man Plaza at 11:30 AM to pre­pare for the days events. The Rag­ing Grannies (http://www.raginggrannies.com/)kicked off the morn­ing with four sassy songs, fol­lowed by cli­mate sci­en­tist Pay­al Parekh and Rich­mond com­mu­ni­ty leader, Dr. Hen­ry Clark. The pro­gram end­ed with a the­ater piece about cul­tur­al and bio­di­ver­si­ty loss as a con­se­quence of cli­mate dis­rup­tion. The Brass Lib­er­a­tion Orches­tra (http://brassliberation.org/) lead the march down Mar­ket street then turned right on Mont­gomery (a one-way street mov­ing in the oppo­site direc­tion). Peo­ple in cars accept­ed fly­ers and onlook­ers we intrigued by the chant­i­ng mass, “Sys­tem Change, Not Cli­mate Change!” Short­ly there­after, we arrived at Bank of Amer­i­ca. The para­chute ban­ner unfurled, signs were quick­ly post­ed, and both entrances to the bank were tak­en over.

It wasn’t long before police pres­ence grew, but most­ly inside the build­ing, watch­ing from behind the glass. Five con­cerned cit­i­zens were arrest­ed while demand­ing that Bank of Amer­i­ca stop the fund­ing false solu­tions. Over­all, twen­ty-two were arrest­ed. Many stat­ed that this is only the begin­ning and that sup­port for our friends going to Copen­hagen con­tin­ues Decem­ber 7th in San Ramon at Chevron’s Head­quar­ters – (http://west.actforclimatejustice.org/upcoming-events/december-7th-chevron-protest/)

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Cana­da: Ontario cli­mate jus­tice sit-in and office occu­pa­tion con­tin­ues

PEOPLE FOR CLIMATE JUSTICE

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

For More Infor­ma­tion Con­tact:

Crys­tal Metham 416–435-3516

Kate­lyn Blacisk 647 929 2400
POLICE ISSUE ULTIMATUM TO PROTESTERS ORDERING THEM TO LEAVE BY END OF DAY OR BE FORCIBLY REMOVED

Novem­ber 30, 2009 (Whit­by, Ontario) — Police have issued an ulti­ma­tum to the sev­en cli­mate activists inside Finance Min­is­ter Jim Flaherty’s Whit­by office, stat­ing they must leave by the end of the day or else be forcibly removed. To speak direct­ly to one of the pro­test­ers cur­rent­ly occu­py­ing the office, the fol­low­ing mem­bers of Peo­ple for Cli­mate Jus­tice can be reached via cell phone:

Paul Mero 514–825-9878

Janet McNeill 647–207-3208

The third of a series of peace­ful sit-ins staged by a coali­tion of con­cerned indi­vid­u­als tar­get­ing elect­ed offi­cials, tar sands financiers, and the coal and tar sands indus­tries began at Finance Min­is­ter Jim Flaherty’s office today, locat­ed at: 701 Ross­land Road East- Unit 204, Whit­by. Sev­en mem­bers of the Peo­ple for Cli­mate Jus­tice coali­tion entered the office just after 9:30 refus­ing to leave, demand­ing that the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment act to com­bat the cli­mate cri­sis and stem the mil­lions of deaths and dis­place­ments that will result from more inac­tion.

“While our gov­ern­ment stalls, mil­lions of peo­ple will die or become dis­placed due to the cli­mate cri­sis,” said Green­peace Cli­mate and Ener­gy Coor­di­na­tor, Dave Mar­tin from inside the office. “If they fail to reach an agree­ment the Cana­di­an gov­ern­ment is say­ing it does not care about the lives of those cur­rent­ly and most affect­ed by cli­mate change. Min­is­ter Fla­her­ty must put pres­sure on the Gov­ern­ment to act and push for a just, ambi­tious, and bind­ing deal in Copen­hagen with sci­ence based tar­gets, that is led by the voic­es of those who are most direct­ly impact­ed by the cli­mate cri­sis.”

Inac­tion on cli­mate change is already dis­plac­ing and killing mil­lions, and send­ing many into pover­ty. The UN esti­mates there will be 150 mil­lion cli­mate refugees by 2050.

“Despite the grow­ing cri­sis, the Harp­er Gov­ern­ment is try­ing to sab­o­tage efforts to solve this glob­al prob­lem, expand­ing the tar sands rather than lead­ing the push for and financ­ing of real solu­tions. We will not let our gov­ern­ment delay any fur­ther while mil­lions die and are dis­placed. Their behav­iour is unac­cept­able, we need gov­ern­men­tal lead­er­ship for cli­mate jus­tice now,” said par­tic­i­pant, Indra Noyes.

The indi­vid­u­als inside have mul­ti­ple affil­i­a­tions. They pre­sent­ed a let­ter addressed to Finance Min­is­ter Fla­her­ty out­lin­ing their con­cerns and demands (Attached). The sit-in of office is ongo­ing. The police have been called and there is the poten­tials for arrests. A group of local and region­al sup­port­ers have also gath­ered out­side of the Finance Minister’s office.

“Let­ter writ­ing, ral­lies, meet­ings, and phone calls are all impor­tant actions, but our Government’s inac­tion indi­cates that these tac­tics are not enough. We must step up the pres­sure so we are engag­ing in peace­ful civ­il dis­obe­di­ence, like those before us, to ensure we do our part to solve the great­est envi­ron­men­tal threat of our time,” stat­ed for­mer con­stituent Janet McNeill.

For pho­tos of the action, seehttp://www.flickr.com/photos/canadaclimatejustice

Infor­ma­tion about the call for civ­il dis­obe­di­ence for cli­mate jus­tice, as well as updates on actions set to take place across Cana­da in the com­ing weeks is online at:
http://canadaclimatejustice.wordpress.com/

DEMAND LETTER:

Hon­ourable Min­is­ter Fla­her­ty:

We are hold­ing a sit-in at in your con­stituen­cy office today because the Con­ser­v­a­tive Gov­ern­ment is stalling progress to build a just, mean­ing­ful, and bind­ing cli­mate treaty this Decem­ber
in Copen­hagen.

Inac­tion on cli­mate change is already dis­plac­ing and killing mil­lions, and send­ing many into pover­ty. In Cana­da, cli­mate change is harm­ing the land and lives of indige­nous com­mu­ni­ties in the Far North.
Glob­al­ly, recent declines in food pro­duc­tion due to cli­mate-cat­alyzed droughts, is caus­ing food short­ages in some poor coun­tries and esca­lat­ing glob­al hunger. Cli­mate caused events like floods, melt­ing glac­i­ers, and sea lev­el rise, are forc­ing mil­lions to per­ma­nent­ly flee their homes, from Pacif­ic islanders to sub­sis­tence farm­ers in India. The UN esti­mates there will be 150 mil­lion cli­mate refugees by 2050.

We call on you Min­is­ter Fla­her­ty to pub­licly com­mit to do every­thing in your pow­er to mean­ing­ful­ly and fair­ly address the glob­al cli­mate cri­sis.

We call on you Min­is­ter Fla­her­ty to make sure the Cana­di­an Gov­ern­ment sup­ports a just, mean­ing­ful, and bind­ing cli­mate treaty this Decem­ber in Copen­hagen.

We call on you Min­is­ter Fla­her­ty to pub­licly com­mit to pass the Cli­mate Change Account­abil­i­ty Act, which calls on Cana­da to dras­ti­cal­ly reduce its green­house gas emis­sions and do its’ part to solve cli­mate change.

Final­ly, we demand that you pub­licly com­mit to sign the UN Dec­la­ra­tion on the Rights of Indige­nous Peo­ple. Cli­mate change is a human rights issue, and First Nations in Cana­da are feel­ing
cli­mate change worst and first.

The glob­al cli­mate cri­sis is threat­en­ing our future, and human­i­ties’ future. We have passed the time for inac­tion. We demand change.

Yours,

Peo­ple For Cli­mate Jus­tice

CITIZENS OCCUPY RONA AMBROSE’S EDMONTON OFFICE
CALL FOR CLIMATE JUSTICE IN LEAD-UP TO COPENHAGEN TALKS

Novem­ber 25, 2009 (Edmon­ton, Alber­ta) — The sec­ond of a series of peace­ful sit-ins tar­get­ing elect­ed offi­cials, tar sands financiers, and the coal and tar sands indus­tries began at 11:00 am at Labour Min­is­ter Rona Ambrose’s Edmon­ton con­stituen­cy office (6801 170 St.) today. 10 peo­ple entered the office and have staged a peace­ful sit-in – refus­ing to leave until the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment com­mits to com­bat­ing the cli­mate cri­sis and stems the deaths and dis­place­ments of mil­lions that will result from fur­ther inac­tion. The occu­pa­tion fol­lows a sim­i­lar occu­pa­tion that was held on Mon­day at Envi­ron­ment Min­is­ter Jim Prentice’s office in Cal­gary.

“While our gov­ern­ment delays mil­lions of peo­ple will die or become dis­placed due to the cli­mate cri­sis. By stalling and block­ing progress the Cana­di­an gov­ern­ment is say­ing it doesn’t care about the lives of those cur­rent­ly and most affect­ed by the cli­mate cri­sis,” said Mar­tin Tweedale, one of the peo­ple occu­py­ing the office. “Rona Ambrose must put pres­sure on the Gov­ern­ment to act and push for a just, ambi­tious, and bind­ing deal that lis­tens to the sci­ence, and is led by those most direct­ly impact­ed by the cli­mate cri­sis.”

Inac­tion on cli­mate change is already dis­plac­ing and killing mil­lions, and send­ing many into pover­ty. The UN esti­mates there will be 150 mil­lion cli­mate refugees by 2050.

“Canada’s econ­o­my is being left behind, our envi­ron­ment is being dec­i­mat­ed and we are telling those most vul­ner­a­ble that their lives don’t mat­ter. Rona Ambrose should be invest­ing in green jobs not car­bon inten­sive indus­tries like the tar sands. The US gov­ern­ment invest­ed 14 times more per per­son in renew­able ener­gy than Cana­da last year,” said Keely Kid­ner. “We’ve held ral­lies, phone-ins, flash mobs, we’ve writ­ten and talked to our MP’s and noth­ing has changed. Now we are tak­ing the next step, in the tra­di­tion of Gand­hi and the Civ­il Rights Move­ment to do our part to solve the great­est envi­ron­men­tal threat of our time.”

The sit-in is still ongo­ing. The police have been called and there is poten­tial for arrest.

Infor­ma­tion about the call for civ­il dis­obe­di­ence for cli­mate jus­tice, as well as updates on actions set to take place across Cana­da in the com­ing weeks is online at:
http://canadaclimatejustice.wordpress.com/

For More Infor­ma­tion Con­tact:
Keely Kid­ner: 780 695 9057
Mar­tin Tweedale: 780 490 8015

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USA: Seat­tle lock-down at Bank of Amer­i­ca and Chase

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There were oth­er protests, most­ly in North Amer­i­ca, but also around the world: march­es in Mehdi­ganj (India), Phoenix, Wash­ing­ton, DC, and also in San Fran­ciso (USA); die-ins in Den­ver, Boston (USA); street-the­atre in Den­mark and New York; ban­ner-drops in Char­lottesville and ral­lies in Burling­ton, Bal­ti­more (USA) and Mon­tre­al, Que­bec (Cana­da), leaflett­ted in Lon­don and mooned at the Cana­di­an fed­er­al par­lia­ment in Ottawa.

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MCJ 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.”

Look­ing to get involved in the next action? Please fol­low www.actforclimatejustice.org to get involved!

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