ecological movements and organizations

By Cody Bloomfield - Truthout, July 1, 2023

Much of the South River Forest, or as activists call it, Weelaunee People’s Park, has been clear cut. In a token gesture to the community, the city talked about opening a handful of trails in slivers of remaining public land. But driving past the original site of the occupation, there isn’t a tree in sight to hang a hammock on. At nearly 5:30 pm on a Saturday, three bulldozers rumble across the land, rearranging splintery piles of red dirt. Shadowbox Studios, also licensed to use the site, has completed construction. Ringing the perimeter of both, cop cars lurk, waiting for signs of trouble. I started counting in my head, then had to switch over to tally marks. Even taking photos is de facto forbidden; I was followed and then pulled over while trying to take photos from the street. By my count, 26 police vehicles were surrounding the site. The only sign of the previous occupation was a downed yellow tower, charred at the base, with “Defend the Atlanta Forest” written in green paint. In a tragic echo of the activists’ thriving mutual aid camps, the cops set up a couple tents of their own, where they could eat snacks out of a few metal trays and retreat to shade no longer provided by the Atlanta forest.

Coming into the week of action that took place June 24-July 1 — a week of protests, targeted boycotts and joyful celebration in nature designed to call national attention to Cop City — the threat of police repression weighed heavily on activists’ minds.

At Saturday’s opening carnival, one Atlantan, who wished to remain anonymous, was hard at work spray painting more t-shirts. Wearing handmade pinecone earrings and blue paint flecked combat boots, he painstakingly laid out foam letters as stencils. His own shirt said, “I can’t protest Cop City.” But upon request, he’d also make “I can protest Cop City” shirts.

“It’s about [addressing] the fear,” he explained. “Having solidarity with the people who are too afraid to protest. There’s the uncertainty and financial risk. It’s hard to evaluate risk — police stormed a protest downtown advertised as a vigil. I’m really rolling the dice about whether people will be holding hands or burning cars, or whether people holding hands will be attacked by police.”

By staff - Labor Network for Sustainability, June 30, 2023

The Gulf South and Appalachia have increasingly been the targets of environmental destruction by fossil fuel and other toxic industrial infrastructure – and the location of significant campaigns against that destruction. Over the past year-and-a-half the climate justice center Taproot Earth convened People’s Movement Assemblies to align grassroots organizers and regional efforts across the Gulf South and Appalachia. Along with the Climate and Community Project they have issued the “We Choose Now Climate Action Strategy” which highlights the deep connections between the Gulf South and Appalachia and calls for action to reject extractive economies and cultivate regional solutions that advance collective healing and climate justice.

The report notes that,

For many communities in the Gulf and Appalachia, the most lucrative financial paths are fossil fuels, military, or drugs. Future generations deserve more opportunities. We need solutions that move us away from labor that is extracted and exploited, to labor that is fulfilling and life-giving.

Proposed solutions include:

1. Repurpose fossil fuel infrastructure for renewable energy economy
2. Build a mine/well reclamation or fossil fuel transition workforce
3. Develop state Civilian Climate Corps and expand existing environmental job training programs

For Executive Summary: https://taproot.earth/wp-content/uploads/CAS_Executive_Summary_2023.pdf

For Full Reports: https://taproot.earth/category/reports/?eType=EmailBlastContent&eId=433c6f6a-c4d1-4906-bb49-a4cb89ac33eb

By Rhiana Gunn-Wright - Hammer & Hope, Summer 2023

I’m an architect of the Green New Deal, and I’m worried the racism in the biggest climate law endangers our ability to get off fossil fuels.

This summer, the earth raged. Fires in Maui and Canada, floods in Delhi and Beijing, heat everywhere — this is the beginning of the climate impacts scientists have long predicted, and the U.S. is unprepared in terms of everything from infrastructure to public health. And if I’m honest, I raged, too. Never in my life have I wished more to be a cyclone, blowing away everything in my path, or an earthquake, shaking everyone to their core until they take seriously the concerns of Black and Indigenous frontline communities.

August marked a year since the Inflation Reduction Act passed, arguably the most significant climate legislation in U.S. history. But the racist compromises and the marginalization of Black people and their demands that facilitated the bill’s passage have seeped into the climate movement, sowing division and narrowing discourse in ways that not only threaten to keep Black people at the bottom of a new green economy but also undermine efforts to address thornier issues, such as who owns energy resources or how to navigate conflicts about resource distribution and land use, questions that money alone cannot answer.

By Kamau Franklin, Mariah Parker, and Maximillian Alvarez - Working People, June 9, 2023

Read the transcript of this interview here.

By Daniel Randall - Extinction Rebellion Trade Unions, May 4, 2023

By Finlay Asher - Extinction Rebellion Trade Unions, May 10, 2023

By Clara Paillard - Extinction Rebellion Trade Unions, May 10, 2023

By Equity for a Green New Deal - Extinction Rebellion Trade Unions, May 10, 2023