Gasland director Josh Fox supports the Global Frackdown from the banks of the Brazos River, in Parker County, Texas. Despite drought conditions, Parker County uses more than 30% of its available water for fracking. Take a look at where the banks of the Brazos are (not to mention the boat launch) and figure out for yourself whether that's the best possible use for an irreplaceable resource.
National and international policies based on neoliberal economics, corporate globalization, and "free" trade which aim to commodify, privatize and profit from almost every aspect of nature are destroying local communities and cultures, and the ecosystems on which all life depends. Earth Democracy is juxtaposed to this system and is grounded in the inherent rights of living beings and Mother Earth.
The Earth Democracy Conference will be one of several tracks at this year's Democracy Convention, to be held August 7 through 11 at Madison College, Madison Wisconsin. Earth Democracy builds on the declaration adopted by the Ecojustice People's Movement Assembly at the 2010 US Social Forum which states: "We support the conclusion that only by 'living well', in harmony with each other and with Mother Earth, rather than 'living better,' based on an economic system of unlimited growth, dominance and exploitation, will the people of this planet not only survive but thrive."
The Earth Democracy Conference will bring together people who are working on the frontlines of the ecojustice movement to:
The latest edition of "Populist Dialogues" features Dan Serres of Columbia Waterkeeper and Judy Barnes who heads up Alliance for Democracy's sponsored project, Oregonians for Renewable Energy Policy.You can watch the show on Blip.tv here, or right in this post.
The first half of the show features Dan's perpectives on the problems of fossil fuels. Then Judy discusses renewable energy solutions that will help us keep old hydrocarbons in the ground. She focuses on what renewable energy advocates are now calling Clean Energy Contracts, formerly known as Feed-in Tariffs.
Populist Dialogues programs are also available on the show's YouTube channel, and are easy to comment on, and share online.Watch it, "like it," and share it with friends on social media, or in your hometown by rebroadcasting it on your local community cable station.
Sharing "Populist Dialogues" on community cable isn't difficult! Requirements vary between stations but are usually quite simple. Your station can download shows for free at PEGMedia (instructions are here), but we can also send shows on dvd or via filesharing. Email the office for more information at afd //at// thealliancefordemocracy.org.
Alliance for Democracy's Portland chapter produces the interview show "Populist Dialogues," hosted by AfD co-chair David Delk, and featuring activists, writers, and educators on an incredible variety of policy topics.
Here are a few of the shows they've done in the past year on energy and environment. If you're thinking of actions that can continue past the Global Frackdown, why not share these with your city through your community cable television station? They're available for rebroadcast free through PEGMedia, or you can request dvds to share at meetings by contacting the Alliance for Democracy office.
There are more video and print resources on fracking at the end of this post, so keep scrolling down!
Solutions to Jobs/Climate Crisis
David Delk interviews Dave King, Portland Jobs with Justice, and Ted Gleichman with Oregon Sierra Club LNG subcommittee on the dual problems of the jobs crisis and the climate crisis. Looks at how the solution to one should be the solution to the other and what some of those solutions are. First broadcast June 3, 2012
There's a coal train comin'!
David interviews Laura Stevens of the Sierra Clubs campaign to stop using coal and opposing the building of coal export terminals in Oregon and Washington. First broadcast May 13, 2012
Community Based, Rights Based Organizing
Paul Cienfuegos, founder of Democracy Unlimited of Humboldt County in California, says that we need to cease being stuck in single issue campaigns and look at how we challenge corporate power. Democratically-instituted rights-based ordinances have challenged the corporate "right" to pollute or extract resources in Maine, New Hampshire, and Pennsylvania. Here's how they work. First broadcast 1-1-12
How do Feed-In Tariff work to rapidly jump start production of renewable energy and produce good paying jobs?
David talks with Judy Barnes, co-founder of Oregonian for Renewable Energy Policy, on the use of Feed-In Tariffs to address the global climate crisis by quickly jump starting the production of renewable energy sources and good paying green jobs at the same time. First broadcast on 5-22-11
And from other groups, elsewhere online:
In this “Viewpoint” web exclusive, Josh Fox, environmental activist and director of “Gasland,” talks about fracking and his new “emergency film,” The Sky is Pink about the impact of fracking on NY state, where Gov. Andrew Cuomo is considering allowing fracking in just a few counties.
“Hydraulic Fracturing and Water Resources: Separating the Frack from the Fiction” by the Pacific Institute, Oakland, CA, is an excellent source for detailed information, charts and maps on the threat of natural gas fracking to our fresh water resources and health.
“Scientists Tell Senate Panel: Climate Change Is Here and Disaster Costs Will Be Huge”
“Common Sense: Banning Fracking at the Local Level”
Go to the Fracking Action Center for: “How Much Do You Know About Fracking?,” “Why Ban Fracking?,” “Hazards to Drinking Water Aren’t the Only Reasons,” “Ready to Ban Fracking?,” “Your Efforts to Grow the Movement are WORKING,” and much more.
by Chris Buchanan, Defending Water for Life in Maine
With Canada developing natural gas fracking fields in Quebec and New Brunswick and a LPG (liquid petroleum gas) tank proposed for Searsport, serious questions have arisen as to whether the proposed East-West Highway might be destined to become a super-corridor to transport LPG in trucks to Canada and natural gas by pipeline along the highway to the Maritime Provinces for export. Here’s why we are concerned.
The East-West Highway route through Maine connects both the Canadian fracking fields directly adjacent to Maine so it could be highly profitable for the investors in the East-West Highway to run a natural gas pipeline along the highway from the Canadian natural gas fracking fields to the Canadian Maritimes. This would provide even greater returns for highway investors, in addition to tolls they would receive from Canadian transport trucks.
The proposed Searsport LPG storage facility comes into the picture because of new fracking technology developed by GasFrac, a Canadian energy company, which uses a thick gel made from propane, rather than water, to force the natural gas out of the shale rock. LPG is a mixture of propane and butane.
“This is a game changer for the industry,” says Don LeBlanc in a November 15, 2011 article in Chemistry World. LeBlanc is the “principal consultant at Eastex Petroleum Consultants in Halifax, Nova Scotia, who has been involved in shale gas trials with gelled propane in New Brunswick, Canada.” So far gelled propane has been used about 1,000 times mostly in Canada.
From an investor’s prospective, under this scenario a LPG tank in Searsport is a great idea. From there, they can truck the propane to Canada via the East-West highway to use for fracking shale gas. Then the natural gas produced by the fracking could be transported to the Canadian Maritimes via a pipeline built along the East-West Highway.
Indeed, Peter Vigue of Cianbro announced his vision to use the highway as a multi-use corridor during his presentation to the Maine Legislature’s Transportation Committee during the public hearing on Valentine’s Day.
This larger energy scheme would benefit private investors, but lead to further exploitation of Maine as a supercorridor throughway with only two proposed exits for the whole state. Yet the people of Maine would have no voice in how this private toll road was built or managed. Nor would the state and federal regulatory agencies be concerned with the environmental impacts of fracking or the safety of the new technology using highly flammable propane.
This is a highly organized energy triad, poised to make a few people very wealthy at the cost of Maine’s people and the land we need to survive. We were confused why Searsport selectmen were supporting the East-West highway, but now it is clear how the pieces can fit together in a highly profitable way.
Instead of locking Mainers into a supercorridor dissecting the state for foreign profit, our legislators need to step back and identify what the people of Maine need to thrive over the long haul. Prioritizing Canadian businesses and multinational corporations that do raw resource extraction, is not the way. Public funding for private investment, at the added cost of individual rights and local control, is not the way. We need to create a long-term vision that values Maine’s strengths—how we can benefit from our priceless ecological beauty and how best to use Mainers creativity, work ethic and passion to create lasting jobs for the people and families of Maine.
these tremendous-seeming jobs claims are based entirely on a report by the Perryman Group, commissioned by the pipeline’s owner TransCanada, whose results have been described as “dead wrong” and “meaningless” by Council on Foreign Relations fellow Michael Levi and environmental economist Andrew Leach, neither of whom oppose the construction of the pipeline.
What's a feed-in tariff and why is it so important for development of alternative, renewable energy? Judy Barnes of Oregonians for Renewable Energy Policy (OREP) explains it as "a piggy bank on your roof"--a guaranteed predetermined fixed price for each kilowatt hour of alternative energy you produce for a fixed amount of time, usually 20 years. OREP concentrates on developing solar power in Oregon, confident that by growing the current state feed-in tariff program, they can develop widespread solar capacity in the state. In this video, Judy gives a quick overview of feed-in tariffs and how they've worked. For instance, in Germany, feed-in tariffs have produced not just clean energy but 370,000 jobs, while lowering overall costs for solar power. Ontario's feed-in tariff program is new, but has already created 43,000 jobs, produced 5,000 megawatts of renewable energy, and has put the province on track to close all its coal-fired plants by 2014. Watch to learn more about organizing in Oregon to achieve these same successes.
The video was filmed at the international Moving Planet event in Portland, Oregon, on September 24, and was produced by Jim Lockhart, www.PhilosopherSeed.org. OREP is sponsored by Alliance for Democracy, and works closely with AfD's Portland, OR, chapter.
From The Guardian:
"Bolivia is set to pass the world's first laws granting all nature equal rights to humans. The Law of Mother Earth, now agreed by politicians and grassroots social groups, redefines the country's rich mineral deposits as 'blessings' and is expected to lead to radical new conservation and social measures to reduce pollution and control industry....
"Ecuador, which also has powerful indigenous groups, has changed its constitution to give nature 'the right to exist, persist, maintain and regenerate its vital cycles, structure, functions and its processes in evolution'. However, the abstract rights have not led to new laws or stopped oil companies from destroying some of the most biologically rich areas of the Amazon."
Oregonians for Renewable Energy Policy (OREP) has launched an online newsletter, OREP Policy Digest. OREP promotes feed-in tariff policies in order to expand local production of renewable energy. Feed-in tariffs are in use in more than 60 countries, and are responsible for 75% of the world’s solar energy and 45% of its wind.
The first issue focuses on global, national and state developments including use of feed-in tariffs in Italy and the UK, an ambitious program in Ontario that will create 70,000 jobs and cost taxpayers the equivalent of "a donut a month," a "how-to" on Oregon's program, and frequently asked questions.
You can learn more about OREP, and subscribe to the newsletter, at their website. You can also donate to OREP to support the growth of renewable energy in Oregon through Alliance for Democracy here.
A rundown on political bribery by the oil and gas industry from Power Without Petroleum, on Facebook here.
We ask for your quick action to sign on to this petition to tell climate negotiators - “Protect Water, Protect the Climate.” The petition will be sent in on Friday, June 11, so please read more and sign the petition at: http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/Water-and-Climate-Justice-Bonn
Background: Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) are meeting in Bonn, Germany from May 31- June 11 to prepare for the next major climate talks in Cancun, Mexico from Nov. 29 – Dec. 10. The Cancun meeting is the sequel to the failed climate talks in Copenhagen this past December, and already the People’s Climate Justice Movement is organizing to have a large presence and impact.
Unfortunately, protecting fresh water sources is not part of the discussion. The online petition sponsored by the Climate Justice Network, of which the Alliance is a part, seeks to change that, by emphasizing the link between stewardship of water and prevention of climate change.
The petition also asks for a more open negotiating process, and endorses recommendations for action that came out of the recent World People's Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth. These should not be ignored in preference to the Copenhagen Accord. Read here why the Peoples Conference model of inclusion offers only path forward on climate change.
Maggie Zhou, of Mass. Coalition for Healthy Communities, sends the following request:
Below is a link to an online action launched by Friends of the Earth that we urgently need people to take as part of the pressure we are exerting on the Chair of the Ad hoc Working Group on Longterm Cooperative Action (AWG-LCA) (at the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change negotiations) in Bonn so that the key recommendations of the Bolivian Summit (World People's Conference on Climate Change and Mother Earth's Rights) are included in the draft negotiating text. At present the text overwhelmingly reflects the weak and ineffectual Copenhagn Accord imposed by a small number of major powers through illegitimate process last December, which will commit the world to climate disaster.
Read more and sign the statement here.
We need to ensure that all options are reflected in the text so that there is an option for more ambitious action to be agreed. This action is critical, please forward to all your contacts.
From Chesapeake Climate Action Network's blog. Posted on May 20
Despite the Gulf disaster, no one from BP has been arrested and sent to jail. Despite safety violations at coal mines, no one from Massey Energy has been handcuffed. But today I write to inform you that one of America's best global warming activists is probably facing several months of jail. He's been convicted by a D.C. jury, and now he awaits sentencing on July 6th. Why? Because he peacefully dropped two banners on Capitol Hill that said: "GREEN JOBS NOW" and "GET TO WORK."
I’m not joking. Ted Glick of the Chesapeake Climate Action Network was convicted by a jury May 13th of peacefully dropping the banners inside the U.S. Senate Hart Office Building last September. The D.C. U.S. Attorney's office clearly has decided to make an "example" of Ted because of his previous two — count 'em, two — convictions related to peaceful acts of climate civil disobedience. Can you believe it? You can see a three-minute video of Ted’s September "crime" below. He's the guy towards the end (approximately 2:20 in) simply lowering the banners.
Now Ted is facing up to three years in jail. Based on the judge’s comments last week, it really does appear that he will be incarcerated for at least a month or two.
What can you do? Help spread the word about this fight to keep a morally innocent staff member out of jail during this time of great global crisis.
The BBC's Radio 4 Now Show, featuring Marcus Brigstocke and troupe, applies the rhetorical styling of Dr. Seuss to the Copenhagen climate summit.
The picture doesn't change, so just enjoy the vocals.
Thanks to Maggie Zhou of Mobilization for Climate Justice.
Video from Wednesday's rally and protest action outside of the 2nd Annual Carbon Trading Summit--protesting pollution for profit, with statements from organizers, singing, and testimony from Rev. Billy and the Church of Shop Shopping--"Somebody give me an Earthalulia!" The New York action capped five days of action and teaching as a followup to the failure of the Cophenhagen summit.
More at Mobilization for Climate Justice.
Follow the "read more" link for a press release.
In the wake of a controversial outcome at the Copenhagen climate talks, a diverse crowd of scientists, Faith congregation, activists, students, and concerned citizens converged in confrontation and protest at the 2nd Annual IGlobalForum Carbon Trading Summit today. The summit is the largest annual meeting place of corporations, banks, and lobby groups to further the agenda of a carbon trading scheme to address climate change. Activists rallied to oppose market-based trading of greenhouse gas emissions credits and call for real solutions to the climate crisis. Dr. Maggie Zhou of Secure Green Future Massachusetts was among the demonstrators who engaged in in nonviolent direct action and risked arrest in attempt to blockade a portion of the venue’s revolving doors to display a banner decrying carbon trading as a false solution.
“The same Wall Street bankers who gave us the global climate crisis are trying to own the sky,” stated Brian Tokar, director of the Institute for Social Ecology and an organizer of this week’s protest events. “Carbon trading is unjust, it will not work, and it is a false solution. It is a dangerous distraction from the urgent measures needed to prevent an ever-worsening destabilization of the climate.”
Speakers at the rally included Reverend Billy of the Church of Life After Shopping, who delivered a critique with the fire and brimstone of a televangelist; Bhaia Heller, Professor of Womens Studies at Mount Holyoke University and Father Paul Mayer, co-founder of the Climate Crisis Coalition and religious community leader.
Participants inside the Carbon Trading Summit will include executives from JP Morgan Chase, Goldman Sachs, Duke Energy and more.
“I don’t trust these people to make decisions about the future of humanity,” said one young participant, who wished not to give her name because she will be risking arrest today. “If we follow through with market-based solutions like carbon trading, everyone will regret it. We need to stop believing the corporations’ false solutions and put all our collective energy into getting this conversation onto a track that’s useful.”
Dr. James Hansen, renowned climate scientist, was present outside the Carbon Trading Summit yesterday to voice his opposition to carbon trading schemes.
“Cap-and-trade is not a smart approach,” wrote Hansen his book Storms of My Grandchildren. Hansen has stated that current US climate legislation is “worse than nothing” because it relies on risky and ineffective cap-and-trade. He also declared that the failure to reach an agreement in Copenhagen was a better outcome than adopting the carbon-trade-based approach that was being negotiated.
“Carbon trade, which includes cap and trade and offsets are a dangerous distraction, economically risky, and prone to gaming and speculation,” stated Dr. Maggie Zhou, from Secure Green Future and Climate SOS stated. “Offsets allow polluters to simply pay someone else somewhere else to reduce their emissions on your behalf, which in the end does nothing to actually reduce emissions. The climate crisis simply can’t wait!
“Carbon trade is an insidious threat to human rights,” stated Dr. Rachel Smolker from Biofuelwatch and Climate SOS. “It turns rights to pollute the atmosphere, as well as forests, soils and agriculture practices that store carbon into commodities to be bought and sold as excuses for polluters. This is the greatest corporate grab on the “global commons” ever! It is disastrous for most of humanity.
Is cap & trade carbon dealing a first step toward meeting the need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions or just the latest investment bubble scheme? This video, he Story of Cap & Trade, brought to you by the Story of Stuff folks, lays out the pitfalls inherent in marketing the right to pollute, from free emissions permits for big polluters, the difficulty in verifying that "offset" carbon represents a real reduction in emissions, free permits to big polluters, fake offsets and fraud, and distraction from real issues of economic justice. The film's a quick rundown on what cap and trade is all about, and where it will likely fall short of what's needed:
Two EPA attorneys who publicly criticized "cap-and-trade" as "fatally flawed" in both a YouTube video and a Washington Post op-ed have been told by the agency to remove or edit their video, entitled "The Huge Mistake."
EPA also said that the attorneys, Laurie Williams and Allan Zabel, would have to get prior approval for any outside writing projects they did.
Williams and Zabel say the solution to controlling carbon emissions is a system of fees and rebates, and that a cap-and-trade scheme, as written in the bill currently under consideration, locks us into our current pattern of climate degradation for approximately twenty years. They recently appeared on Democracy Now! to discuss their experiences with EPA and their views on climate change policy. The video is below.
The Boston/Cambridge Alliance's newsletter, The Dispatch, is out, with articles on the state of farms, Spokane's proposal to add a "Community Bill of Rights" to their city charter, the arts in Brazil and the coup in Honduras. There are reports on local projects on climate change and relocalization, and alerts for local and regional events. We have extra copies in the office; email afd@thealliancefordemocracy.org if you're interested!
Read more...A 200 page draft global agreement on climate change is under discussion in Bankok this week as officials from 190 countries gather for the last round of UN talks before Copenhagen.
The draft is online at the Guardian website, along with a "beginner's guide" to some of the major sticking points in negotiations between rich and developing/poor countries. The Guardian is also encouraging readers to comment on the draft in a wiki-like project to translate as much of its legalese and diplo-speak into plain English as possible.
The Guardian's post notes that observers are becoming pessimistic about the Copenhagen talks leading to the substantial emissions cuts necessary to forstall environmental disaster. One European official told the Guardian that once offsets, carbon credits, and other "fudges" are factored in, its unlikely that emissions in 2020 will be much lower than what they were in 1990, adding, "That's really scary stuff."
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