Activism // Current

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2 months ago

A new crop of eco-warriors take to their streets

It is 8:30 a.m. on a Sunday. Along streets of grimy stucco bungalows with bougainvillea, American flags and "Beware of Dog" signs on chain-link fences, a couple of residents are hosing down lawns.

It ought to be quiet, but it's not.

Behind the garden walls of Astor Avenue, there's a chugging and a hissing and a clanking and a squeaking. Two yellow locomotives, hooked to cars piled high with metal containers, idle on the track of the Union Pacific. Their stacks spew gray plumes of smoke.

"We call this cancer alley," said Angelo Logan, who grew up on the city of Commerce street. "And we're fed up."

Logan, 42, is part of a new generation of urban, blue-collar environmentalists. The son of a janitor and the youngest of five children, he dropped out of school in 10th grade and went to work as a maintenance mechanic in an aerospace factory.

Now he is executive director of East Yard Communities for Environmental Justice, with a paid staff of four and 200 members who join for $5 a year. They recruit door-to-door in Commerce, Bell Gardens, Montebello and East Los Angeles, where more than three-quarters of residents are working-class Latinos.

East Yard operates from a storefront on Commerce's Atlantic Avenue, a street lined with cheap motels and fast-food joints. It has no celebrities on its board, no publicity staff churning out press releases, no in-house attorneys to go toe-to-toe with $500-an-hour corporate law firms.

But in California, where Latinos, African Americans and Asians now collectively outnumber non-Hispanic whites, political power is shifting. Here especially, but also across the country, mainstream foundations, which had long supported environmental groups led by white lawyers and policy wonks, have begun to channel grants to community organizations run by Latinos and blacks who see clean air and water as civil rights.

In the Southland, these environmental justice activists, as they are called, wage war in the dense corridor that runs from the massive ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach through neighborhoods that line the 710 Freeway -- Wilmington, Carson, Compton, Huntington Park, Commerce-- and on through Riverside and San Bernardino counties, with their vast distribution warehouses.

"There are no buffer zones," said Gilbert Estrada, a teacher who co-founded the East Yard group with Logan. "We are the buffer zones."

end of excerptIt is 8:30 a.m. on a Sunday. Along streets of grimy stucco bungalows with bougainvillea, American flags and "Beware of... more

JanforGore
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2 months ago

Greenpeace greets G20 leaders with massive banner off Pittsburgh Bridge

Pittsburgh, United States — Greenpeace activists are rappelling off of a Pittsburgh bridge with a massive banner displaying our message to G20 leaders gathering for tomorrow's summit. The banner takes the form of stylized "road sign" that warns of the political maneuvering and delay that have put a international climate treaty in jeopardy as the world enters the final stretch on the road to Copenhagen.

"It is imperative that developed world leaders do not fail again in Pittsburgh. They must put money on the table to support developing countries" said Damon Moglen, Greenpeace USA's global warming campaign director. "It is also critical for G20 leaders agree to kick-start economic recovery through clean energy investment. Both of these elements are vital to achieve a good deal in Copenhagen and avert catastrophic climate change."

Saving the Environment and the Economy

World financial representatives and leaders of the G20 (19 of the world's largest national economies, plus the European Union) are meeting in Pittsburgh to discuss both the global financial crisis and the global climate crisis.

At this meeting President Obama, Chancellor Merkel, President Sarkozy and other G20 leaders will have an opportunity to kick-start growth and put us on a path to stopping global warming by agreeing to invest in clean, cutting edge technologies for the future. Global prosperity is not in conflict with preserving the environment--in fact, our prosperity depends on it. The decisions our leaders make at this meeting will help to decide whether we create millions of green jobs or face ecological and social collapse.

Global Warming Affects the Economy, Stupid

Already, the price tag of global warming on our economy is staggering. Today, global warming costs the world's economies $125 billion per year, according to the Global Humanitarian Forum. Given the predicted impacts--and the associated costs-- of climate change, we simply can’t afford not to tackle global warming.

end of excerptPittsburgh, United States — Greenpeace activists are rappelling off of a Pittsburgh bridge with a massive banner displaying... more

JanforGore
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2 months ago

Documentary day in Sustainable Agriculture Group

Today the featured articles will all revolve around current documentaries made about our food system, soil, markets, and... more

JanforGore
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2 months ago

Envy on the Coast Denounces the LNG facility Slated to Be Built 13 Miles South of Long Beach, NY.

This plan is bad for the environment, ocean life, and beach goers. It poses a threat to security in the Northeast, and it broadens... more

andy88
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2 months ago

A victory! Activists celebrate Nestle's withdrawal from McCloud California project

San Francisco, Calif.—Food & Water Watch and the McCloud Watershed Council achieved a major victory today when Nestle Waters of North America announced it would withdraw its proposal to build a bottling facility in McCloud, Calif. The news came after 6 years of intense public debate regarding the plant and its potential impact on water resources in the area. At one point the deal would have allowed Nestle to pump up to 200 million gallons of water from nearby Mt. Shasta springs- enough water for 614 typical U.S. families.

This latest development is one is an escalating trend against allowing private corporations to bottle public water. In July, 2009, the grassroots group Michigan Citizens for Water Conservation successfully sued Nestle to limit the amount of water the company could withdraw for one a bottling facility in Mecosta County. Less than a month later, the City of Flagstaff, Ariz. denied Nestle a contract to bottle water from local resources there. Proposed bottling operations in Maine, Oregon, Colorado and Wisconsin are also drawing public scrutiny.

“This decision to withdraw the contract for a new water bottling facility is a major setback for Nestle, which has been eyeing water in McCloud for many years,” said Mark Schlosberg, western states director of Food & Water Watch. “It reflects the strength of community opposition towards Nestle’s plans to take local water and highlights a growing consumer understanding that bottled water is expensive, a waste of natural resources and bad for the environment.”

Declining consumer interest in bottled water is further evidenced by the fact that, for the first time in five years, bottled water sales are on the wane.

“It is important for people to realize that they can make a difference. Nestle’s departure proves that ordinary citizens can successfully protect their community resources and way of life,” said Debra Anderson, president of the McCloud Watershed Council.

Food & Water Watch, a nonprofit consumer organization, works to ensure clean water and safe food in the United States and around the world. We challenge the corporate control and abuse of our food and water resources by empowering people to take action and transforming the public consciousness about what we eat and drink.

For more information, visit www.foodandwaterwatch.org.San Francisco, Calif.—Food & Water Watch and the McCloud Watershed Council achieved a major victory today when Nestle... more

JanforGore
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2 months ago

Engaging the Government, Via Twitter

see the above link for more information on how to become a new user. a democracy, a govenrment for the people by the people of the... more

sk8bs55
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3 months ago

September 9th could change Civic Activism as we know it

http://www.dontgetrolled.org Once upon a time, corporate titans bankrolled our elections with no limits. There were no social... more

asherp
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3 months ago

Common, Nas, The Roots Perform For Good Cause

Common's [click to read] Common Ground Foundation will be hosting a night of Hip Hop performances for a good cause with a... more

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3 months ago

The Struggle for Animal Rights Amongst other Struggles

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Animal Liberation is Human Liberation. Humans are animals. Accepting these first two sentences is critical not only to aid other animals, but to create a framework that will most efficiently lead to the evolution of humanity. However, this seems to be something very difficult for people to grasp, even from the most passionate of backgrounds.

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While some acknowledge that other animals deserve to be treated with "respect" they still seek to support their commodification and exploitation through food, clothing, testing, and so forth (therefore missing the meaning of "respect" entirely).

Let's start by dissecting some of this reasoning people use of why nonhuman animals should have to wait and the hypocrisy involved in these reasons. I will not go into the longer explanations of these, but simply seek to address how they specifically interact with other movements these people do support.

BIOLOGY. Biology has been used as an excuse against humans and other animals since before any study of biology existed. Skin color (a trait that is purely biological) is a reasoning people use for someone being inferior in other ways, even if they are not relevant to the biology of skin color. Gender and sexuality, things that are both biological and social constructs, are other things that people have used- claiming women are weaker and irrational, ignoring that there are more than two genders, and claiming that non-heterosexuality is some form of disease. All of these things are using one biological frame of reference for the worth of another human being.

This is also what humans are doing to other animals. Anti-animal rightsists go against their own belief systems in claiming that the biology of other animals makes them less worthy than ourselves. They use humans and only humans as a (speciesist) starting point for measures of intelligence, skill, and worth. For instance, one study put out recently showed that dogs were "as smart as 2 year old children". The study showed that dogs had the language abilities of 2 year olds, the arithmetic abilities of 4 year olds, and the social lives of teenagers. Still, they moved the intelligence measure to that of human language- 2 years- despite the fact that they have lives much richer and more intelligent as well as have other abilities and senses that far outweigh humans. Another study showed that animals have the ability to appreciate various types of music. This is one excuse people have used for years that separates us from other animals- art appreciation. There are species of animals whose memory capabilities far outweigh that of any human, and even though memory is a construct of human intelligence, we ignore this attribute in other animals because it does not fit our own reference of domination. The instances are endless. Animals have all of the same brain areas we do allowing them to have similar experiences, they just have less of them. This however, is not reason to use their biology as an excuse to treat them as commodities (whether we are nice to them or not).

RELIGION. Let's pretend for a moment that I believe in religion. Some religions give man dominion over other animals while others hold some species of animals to be sacred. To be brief, these religious texts also said many things that were oppressive towards women, other races, sexualities, and so on. So, to take what they say about animals as rock-hard truth while being able to toss out the massive prejudices placed against women, races, nationalities, other religions, and so on is simply irrational, and convenient for those who seek to exploit other animals.

POLITICAL/SOCIAL. Quite frequently, I hear that we can help the animals only when we have fixed everything going wrong with humans. The big misconceptions here are that humans and animals are separate entities...

Full article at link... Animal Liberation is Human Liberation. Humans are animals. Accepting these first two sentences is critical not only to aid... more

animalia_libero
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3 months ago

Activists in Pennsylvania thwart three privitization attempts

"Last week, the Mt. Jewett Borough Water Authority Board in Mt. Jewett, Pennsylvania announced it would deny requests from... more

JanforGore
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3 months ago

Tell the USDA that GMOs and nanotech are not organic

Destroying our food to serve the corporate benefactors who fill their campaign coffers. Is our biodiversity and health worth that?
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One reason consumers shop for things that are certified organic is to avoid the ubiquitous and unlabeled genetically engineered and nanotech products that have filled stores in recent years.

After so many years of beating back attempts to contaminate organic with untested technologies, it is very discouraging to learn that the USDA under Obama, just like under Clinton and Bush, is still trying to help industry destroy organic.

A recent report issued by the USDA Foreign Agriculture Information Network, The Unexplored Potential of Organic-Biotech Production, argues "Governments should change their regulations to allow producers to gain organic certification for biotech crops grown with organic methods."

The National Organic Standards Board has been considering an official ban on nanotechnology in organic, but feels stymied by their concern that “Under the current definition, most nanotechnology would not fall into the category of excluded methods.”

Genetically modified organisms are not safe. They have been linked to thousands of toxic and allergenic reactions, thousands of sick, sterile, and dead livestock, and damage to virtually every organ and system studied in lab animals.

Nanotechnology is also very dangerous. Early scientific evidence indicates that some nanomaterials produce free radicals which destroy or mutate DNA and can cause damage to the liver and kidneys.

Every day, new evidence of the dangers of nanotechnology emerge:

* Workplace nanoparticle exposure was linked to seven cases of serious and progressive lung disease in China – including two patient deaths.

* Nanoparticles present in a chemical found in sunscreens - titanium dioxide - are being studies for their connection to Alzheimer's and Parkinson's diseases.

Please use the form below to tell the USDA that you (1) oppose their cynical attempt to promote genetic engineering as potentially organic and (2) want the National Organic Standards Board to take a strong stand against the use of nanotechnology in organic.Destroying our food to serve the corporate benefactors who fill their campaign coffers. Is our biodiversity and health worth that?... more