September 22: Join the Global Frackdown Day of Action

On September 22 Alliance for Democracy joins the growing coalition in the Global Frackdown Day of Action calling for a global ban on fracking.

Join this growing and powerful people’s movement to ban fracking not just in the U.S., but world-wide. This is one big step toward environmental and climate justice that will help secure national and international peace and freedom now and for future generations.

Alliance for Democracy is one of many hundreds of partner endorsing organizations. Sign on here as an AfD chapter, member network, or as an individual. Encourage your union, professional organization, community group or faith group to sign up too.

As a partner organization, we’ll have the opportunity to:

• Have local events featured on the Global Frackdown website with a link to our website and each scheduled event
• Increase media attention locally by tying the local event to the global day of action
• Have sample materials for use on the day of action, including: a media advisory template, events page to track registrations, and editable flyers 
• Create a powerful counter-narrative to the “dirty” energy industry’s PR by having coordinated, unified actions across the world.

Start now to plan a dynamic community action for September 22 
This could be a film screening, a potluck where participants can take photos with signs opposing fracking, a petition-signing to send to local and state legislators, or higher visibility events like constructing a fracking rig in a public space, coming together to make a human sign… just use your imagination. We’ll post your event to the AfD website and Facebook page.

Have a house party and show Gasland the award-winning documentary by Josh Fox. By the DVD on Amazon and use this Home Screening Tool Kit.

Go beyond the call to ban fracking by promoting solutions like Oregonians for Renewable Energy: OREP and the use of feed-in tariffs to jump start locally produced renewable and job creation at the same time. Print out OREP’s “Democratizing the Grid: A Sustainable Energy Future for Oregon”  brochure and distribute at you local September 22 event.

Educate your community on the impact of “dirty fuels” on the environment, public health, and global warming, and the renewable energy alternative now being pioneered by OREP, by requesting that your local public access TV station play these interview programs of leading activists on Populist Dialogues, available for free broadcast through PEGMedia.

This Global Frackdown will focus international attention to the oil and gas industry’s pro-fracking propaganda. Natural gas fracking IS NOT green energy. And with U.S. consumption down due to conservation, fuel-efficient vehicles, and a glut of natural gas that has reduced profits in the U.S., the rush to increase natural gas production in the U.S. is not for “energy independence,” but for export requiring thousands of miles of new pipe and rail lines to the Gulf of Mexico and the Pacific with huge terminal complexes planned for Washington and Oregon. Why subsidize “dirty” oil, gas and coal? Why not subsidize a sustained transition to true, green renewable energy, now?

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.

Suggested reading
“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 materials take.

“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.

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Who's in the oil industry's pocket?

A rundown on political bribery by the oil and gas industry from Power Without Petroleum, on Facebook here.

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Action Alert: Get investor rights clauses out of US trade pacts

We urge you to ask President Obama to stand by his campaign pledge to remove investor rights clauses from U.S. trade pacts--negotiations for a new one, the Transpacific Partnership, will get underway in San Francisco later this month. Please visit Public Citizen's site for background and to sign on to the call.

Background:
In 2008, the government of El Salvador lawfully denied mining permits to Pacific Rim Mining Company for a massive gold mine in a rural watershed area 40 miles south of San Salvador. To process the expected haul of gold and silver, mining operations would have used an estimated 22 million liters of water and 950 tons of cyanide, and the threat to water resources, agriculture and health spurred resistance to the plan across the nation. Even Salvadoran President Mauricio Funes has said, "It's very simple: my government will not authorize any extractive mining project."

But now Pacific Rim has gone to the World Bank, and in a closed-door hearing that started last week, the corporation will claim some $77 million in damages against El Salvador based on the controversial CAFTA investor rights rules. Under these rules, a private company can sue governments based on loss of future expected profits. It's the first time the investor rights clause has been used in an environmental protection case, but it won't be the last as multinational extractive industries go after a growing movement in the Global South for environmental justice, sustainability and rights of nature.

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"NOW" on natural gas fracking and contamination of groundwater

PBS's NOW had a story this week on hydraulic fracturing, or "fracking", the practice of drilling into and then fracturing natural-gas-bearing rock with a combination of compressed water and chemicals in order to release gas deposits that can't be extracted through conventional drilling. Hydraulic fracturing is being touted as a way to access large amounts of a cleaner fossil fuel within continental US borders, and so reduce dependency on both foreign oil and domestic coal, but the health and environmental costs of this procedure are still unknown, with some disturbing patterns of illness and contamination being seen in regions where fracking wells have been drilled, including Montana, Ohio, and Pennsylvania.

Here's an interview with filmmaker Josh Fox, whose Sundance-honored film "Gasland" spotlights the downside to this supposedly cleaner fuel, including chronic illness, tapwater fireballs, and lack of regulatory oversight to protect groundwater and health. You can read more about the show on the NOW site or visit the film website here.

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Want to help the Hive? It's a click away!

The extraordinary artists at the Beehive Collective need you! They're in the running for a grant from the Nau Clothing Company, and you can help them win it by voting for their project on Nau's site. The deadline is August 31.

The grant will fund printing of 10,000 posters and several large-scale cloth banners to be used by grassroots organizers across Appalachia for the Collective's "True Costs of Coal" campaign, which explores the environmental and social consequences of mountaintop removal mining. You can see pictures here.

Please take a few seconds to support the Beehive Collective by visiting Nau's site and voting for the True Costs of Coal project. Here's how you do it:

1. Go to www.Nau.Com/Collective/Grant-For-Change/



2. At the top of the page, you will see "My Account: Sign in/Register"



3. Log in. If you do not have an account, take two seconds to create one. All it takes is your email address, your name, and a password of your choice.

4. Once you are logged in, you will be sent back to the G4C home page. You are now ready to vote/rate.



5. NEXT, follow this link to the Beehive Collective's Profile (listed under two of the illustrator's names)
http://www.Nau.Com/Collective/Grant-For-Change/Beatriz-Mendoza-And-Zeph-Fishlyn-507.Html

Remember, the deadline is August 31.

If you're hearing about the Beehive Collective for the first time, please check out their lecture tour schedule and fantastic work at www.beehivecollective.org, and support them directly through purchase of artwork, posters, patches and clip art cds.

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Corporations and democracy in the news...

Lobbyists for the health care industry are pouring cash over Capitol Hill--NPR's All Things Considered aired this piece yesterday, and plans followups on lobbyist activities on finance reform and energy. The web page also features a panorama shot of the audience at a recent Heath, Education, Labor and Pensions hearings with pop-up tags identifying some of the lobbyists in attendance, the firms they work for, and the money they've earned from their health care clients.

Often the deepest line in the sand against corporate rule has been drawn by rural communities with the most to lose--culturally and environmentally--when corporations take charge of the land and water. Here's a coal country example from Orion Magazine's online edition, spotlighting community-based opposition to mountaintop removal coal mining and support of clean energy.

Got a story to share? Post the link in a comment!

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News from Portland (OR) Alliance for Democracy

Past events and upcoming actions from the Portland Alliance for Democracy include movement-building in response to economic crisis, a critical look at tar sands exploitation, and a video presentation on the "birthplace" of the atomic bomb. Portland AfD'ers are also working on legislation to support renewable energy development, and will be part of a demonstration marking the sixth anniversary of the Iraq war.

At the end of January, AfD successfully co-sponsored and co-organized an Economic Town Hall on the Economic Crisis attended by over 800 people. Delivering the keynote talks were Marty Hart-Landsberg, economic professor at Lewis and Clark College and Veronica Dujan, sociology professor at Portland State University.  Those talks were followed by about a dozen workshops including one on building democracy led by AfD Portland President David Delk.
 
The Portland chapter now has two public events coming up. 
 
The first is a talk by Andrew Nikiforuk on Tuesday, March 31st at the First Unitarian Church, SW 12th and Main Street in Portland.  Nikiforuk is the author of Tar Sands, Dirty Oil and the Future of a Continent.  Canada has become America's largest foreign oil supplier and what we import is largely tar sand oil. But the environmental and economic impacts of extracting tar sand oil are so extreme that our reliance on this supply is the chief indicator that peak oil is here and the age of cheap fossil fuel is over.  

If you are concerned about peak oil, water supplies, nuclear energy, petro-state "democracy" or a whole host of other issues, this presentation is for you. See the flyer here.  Co-sponsoring this event is the Economic Justice Action Group of the First Unitarian Church and KBOO, community-supported radio (additional co-sponsors listed on the flyer). 
 


The focus remains on environmental issues in the chapter's second scheduled event, a presentation of "Arid Lands," a video made by two local Oregon residents several years ago about the Hanford Nuclear Reservation in Washington State. Hanford was the "birthplace" of the bombs which fell on Japan at the end of WWII and has since been the principle dumping ground of nuclear waste from both weapons production and peaceful nuclear uses.

The Department of Energy has plans to increase the worldwide production of nuclear waste and to use Hanford as a "recycling" site; recycling produces yet more nuclear waste to be stored at Hanford.  Gerry Polett, Exec Director of Heart of America NW, will be there to talk about current threats and calls to action.  Event is scheduled for Wednesday, April 1st but that might change.  Please check our Portland website for updated information.
 


The Portland chapter also continues to make progress with spreading the word on the many benefit of Renewable Energy Payments (Feed-in Tariffs), through their "Democratize the Grid" campaign. The use of Renewable Energy Payments (R.E.P.) by Germany has propelled that nation into the forefront of renewable energy production worldwide.  It accelerates the rapid development of renewable energy as well as greatly increasing good paying green jobs. Energy utilities are required to buy all the energy produced by R.E.P. projects for set prices higher than rates customer pay the utility, thereby guaranteeing a profit for the project owner.  That in turn makes it easy to get a loan to pay for it as the bank knows that the project is very low risk.  The whole process favors small producers as opposed to the multinational corporations which have dominated the wind farm development which rely heavily on complicated tax-credit mechanisms. 

The chapter has written a legislative bill for presentation to the current session of the Oregon legislature.  Please visit their website to learn more on this exciting project. 
 

The chapter is also co-sponsoring and co-organizing a rally and march on Sunday, March 15, starting at 1 PM at the steps to the State Capital Building in Salem, to observe the 6th anniversary of the beginning of the war on Iraq.  The rally demands we "Stop the Wars at Home and Abroad - Keep Oregon's Guard Home from Iraq and Afghanistan!" All are welcome to march with the chapter--download a flier here.

Lastly, our project to change the electoral system continues with efforts to enact Local Option Instant Runoff Voting in Oregon. Instant runoff voting allows voters the option of ranking candidates in order of their preference and, if no candidate has a majority of votes, then eliminates the lowest vote getting candidate, followed by a recount of the vote.  The process continues until one candidate has a majority and is declared the winner.  IRV is a great way to increase the number of candidates as the charge that third party or independent candidate are “spoilers” is eliminated. 
 
The Local Option legislation (SB29) would allow cities, counties and special service districts the option of using IRV in their elections.  Please contact your Oregon state senator or representative; ask them to support SB29.  More information is here on our website.

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No Bretton Woods II without me and you

Alliance for Democracy has joined organizations worldwide in calling for a restructuring of a proposed November summit on the global financial crisis to be more inclusive, comprehensive, and transparent.

The proposed Global Summit, which will start November 15 in Washington, was organized by the Bush administration and currently includes only G20 countries, leaders of the World Bank, International Monetary Fund, United Nations and the Financial Stability Forum. The November meeting is the first in a proposed series.

Critics of the summit say that these "Bretton Woods II" talks need to be opened up to all who want to participate, including the global South, and NGOs, especially if the goal is to change monetary, development and international finance policies.

"We are deeply concerned that the proposed meetings will be carried out in a rushed and non-inclusive manner, and as a result, not address the comprehensive range of changes needed, nor fairly allocate their burden," says the statement. "Though the crisis originated in northern countries, the impacts are likely to be greatest in developing countries. It is therefore critical that all countries have a say in the process to change the international financial architecture."

Rather than the G20 summit, signatories call for a major international conference convened by the UN, but only if the meeting is open to all governments, and includes representatives from civil and citizen's groups, social movements and other stakeholders. Signatories also call for a clear timeline and process for regional consultations. The conference should be "comprehensive in scope, tackling the full array of issues and institutions," and its proposals should be publicly available for discussion in advance of the meeting.

For more information, see www.choike.org.

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