green urbanism

By Patrick Mazza - Cascadia Planet, May 18, 2016

Over the first half of May climate warriors put their bodies in the way of fossil fueled business as usual around the world. Break Free civil disobedience events targeted major carbon bombs on six continents.

Here in Cascadia a tent city held a rail line leading into the region’s largest oil refinery complex at Anacortes, Washington for 36 hours. In Newcastle, Australia people power disrupted the world’s largest coal port by land and sea. Some of the largest coal plants in Brazil and Germany, and the world’s largest open-pit coal mine in Britain, were just some of the 20 sites around the world where around 30,000 people stood up to say now is time to break free from coal, oil and gas, and the carbon pollution disrupting weather patterns across the planet. An off-the-charts April temperature spike underscored the urgency of rapid transition to clean, renewable energy.

The Break Free actions were always intended to focus this necessity, to put forward a powerful solutions “yes" to complement the fossil fuels “no.” Now the real work begins.

Fortunately, the solutions are with us, and already working in many places. We can move beyond an economy based on energy from coal, oil and gas. We can make a just transition to a world run on 100% renewable energy, create millions of new jobs, and build stronger communities. Following are eight solutions that we can forward to break free from fossil fuels in Cascadia:

• Four Solutions for Clean Energy show how we can move to 100% renewables in electrical power, transportation and buildings.
• Four Solutions for a Socially Just Transition line out how to move our communities beyond fossil fuels while improving the quality of life, especially for lower-income people, and providing new opportunities for displaced workers.

The solutions are given in an order, but it does not indicate a ranking. All are important and necessary. We need to pursue all eight to meet the huge climate and energy challenges facing us. We can unite a broad movement around these solutions, and create a better world for ourselves and our children. It’s up to us, and the solutions are at hand.

By various - CUPW, Leap Manifesto, et. al., March 2016

Many think of Canada Post as a place to mail a care package, buy stamps or pick up the latest commemorative coin.

Some consider the post office past its prime: the last decade has seen efforts to cut, devalue and undermine this quintessentially public service. These moves have been fiercely resisted by people across the country.

What if our cherished national institution, with its vast physical infrastructure and millions of daily human interactions, could offer us something completely different? What if the post office could play a central role in building our next economy — an economy that is more stable, more equal, and less polluting?

Just Imagine...

• Charging stations for electric vehicles at post offices
• a renewable-powered postal fleet that connects farms to dinner tables
• Door-to-door mail carriers checking in on seniors and people with mobility issues as well as delivering locally-produced food and other services
• Post offices as community hubs for social innovation, connecting climate-friendly businesses to customers
• Postal banking services that provide small towns and Indigenous communities with inclusive financial services – like loans to families underserved by commercial banks
• Public-interest financial services that fuel the green energy transition in urban, rural and Indigenous communities We want a 100% renewable economy that addresses inequality, puts power in our hands and improves our lives.

Our post office can deliver it.

Read the report (PDF).

By Eco-General Strike - Defend Knowland Park, August 11, 2015

Disclaimer: The views expressed here are not the official position of the IWW (or even the IWW’s EUC) and do not necessarily represent the views of anyone but the author’s.

On Friday, August 7th, after discussion amongst participants, Defend Knowland Park took its first direct action against the fencing construction in hopes that people would do the same on a regular basis.  Chain Link Fencing and Supply Inc. has started to construct a mile-long perimeter fence around the proposed development. We can find no  approved building permit for this construction so this fence may be illegal.  No permit is posted on-site and there has been no response about the fencing from the City building permit staff. Therefore, it is within our “legal” right to take direct action  and stop fencing from going up .

Please Join us, Monday – August 17th at Knowland Park to demand their permit to work or if you cannot make it call and email their office repeatedly to jam their lines and respectfully demand information regarding their Work Permit for fencing construction at Knowland Park.

Monday, August 17th, 2015 at 11 AM: Knowland Park entrance at the end of Edgemont way near Edgemont and Malcolm Avenues in Oakland, California.

By Michelle Chen - The Nation, September 24, 2014

Disclaimer: The views expressed here are not the official position of the IWW (or even the IWW’s EUC) and do not necessarily represent the views of anyone but the author’s.

At the moment of silence during Sunday’s People’s Climate March, a deep hush washed over Sixth Avenue, symbolizing a growing, worldwide commitment to fighting climate change. Yet the moment also recalled the aftermath of the city’s most recent climate catastrophe, Superstorm Sandy, when Manhattan’s mighty skyline was for several days stunned into an eerie stillness by nature’s ire.

But on Sunday, the city put a more positive spin on the connection between the global environmental struggle and the local disaster of Sandy. Mayor Bill de Blasio tried to make good on his campaign vow to address the underlying climate-change problems Sandy exposed, starting with a retooling of the city’s buildings.

The “One City, Built to Last” plan aims to slash building-based greenhouse gas emissions and boost the economy simultaneously. Overall, the plan promises to bring “$8.5 billion in energy cost-savings over ten years.” The long-term goal is to cut total emissions by 80 percent by 2050. Buildings contribute a large majority of local carbon pollution, and the plan would “cut energy use across all building sectors on average by at least 60 percent from 2005 levels and switch to renewable fuel sources.”

Many of the changes outlined in the 110-page blueprint are basic. In contrast to the sexy tech-driven solutions like electric cars and flashy rooftop photovoltaics, the de Blasio administration and City Council members are focusing on nuts-and-bolts efficiency projects to expand “green collar” job sectors.

The plan would in the immediate term “generate approximately 3,500 new jobs in construction and energy services,” according to Amy Spitalnick, a spokesperson for the mayor’s office. Modest numbers, but the main goal is putting the city’s infrastructure on a greener and more equitable development path.

Matt Ryan, executive director of the advocacy group ALIGN-NY, tells The Nation that the plan reflects a “need to think about dealing with climate change in a way that not only addresses the root causes, such as carbon emissions, but also addresses jobs and economic issues that are related.”

Some of the proposed initiatives include a “retrofit accelerator” program for an estimated 20,000 private buildings, about 40 percent of them public housing or rent stabilized. Public school buildings, firehouses, hospitals, police stations and homeless shelters would get energy-saving retrofits and lighting upgrades, and fixed up with clean technologies. The city would install solar panels “on more than 300 city buildings, generating 100MW of energy over the next decade.” The plan would link green building projects to the broader agenda of controlling housing costs: less energy consumption means lower utility bills, which “will make it easier for people to afford to live in New York City” and “invest in other capital upgrades to improve the quality of our housing stock.”

But the plan doesn’t spell out exactly how the city will push the private sector to invest in efficiency and renewables. The report focuses on voluntary programs, and the administration has for now avoided proposing strict mandates for carbon reductions, relying instead on seeding environmental business incentives (though mandates may be “triggered” later if needed). The administration advocates, for example, providing “green grants” that tie affordable-housing goals with eco-friendly construction, “which would fund efficiency upgrades in exchange for regulatory agreements to preserve affordability.”

Nonetheless, progressive groups are wary of leaving too much of the plan to market forces. Though some landlords may respond to green incentives because it makes business sense, Ryan says, given the ambitious emissions targets, “There is no way we’re going to move fast enough through a voluntary system, to meet the urgency of the climate crisis.”

Some progressive labor advocates fear that the workforce initiatives may not be ambitious enough, either. The Center for an Urban Future (CUF), which has pushed the administration to expand jobs programs for disadvantaged youth, warns that although green jobs could benefit struggling young workers, they need more comprehensive job training and placement services.

Read the entire article: here

By Henry Grabar - Salon, July 27, 2014

Disclaimer: The views expressed here are not the official position of the IWW (or even the IWW’s EUC) and do not necessarily represent the views of anyone but the author’s.

In March, when a cloud of particle pollution settled across Western Europe, Paris took a radical approach. The Ile-de-France region introduced alternate driving days (odd-number plates one day; evens the next) and eliminated fares on local trams, buses, trains and subways.

Traffic dropped by nearly 20 percent in Paris; congestion on the Périphérique ring road fell by 30 percent at rush hour; large-particle pollution fell by 6 percent. Measured by the impact on the roadways, the emergency measures worked as intended.

And on the rails? Unfortunately, the open-gate policy meant that the transportation authority didn’t count how many travelers boarded trains, subways, buses and trams during the fare-free days. The city performed a huge experiment in transportation policy, and nobody bothered to watch.

It doesn’t matter much in context. We can’t expect the traffic-choked French capital to make a habit of such initiatives. Alternate driving days are an intolerable hassle for car-dependent commuters; lost fares and the provision of supplementary service to the tune of 600,000 seats on the Métro, the tramway and suburban rail system cost the region nearly $3.5 million per day. Fares cover nearly half the operating costs of the RATP, the state-owned transit operator, so eliminating them would put a tremendous hole in the annual budget.

And yet, Paris would have been a valuable case study. The consequences of eliminating transit fares remain surprisingly obscure. Can a fare-free policy transform a regional transportation picture? Can it pay for itself? Or is it merely a publicity gimmick that inflicts needless financial woes on local transit agencies?

Many people reject the idea out of hand, saying free rides are a problem, not a solution. But “free” transit, of course, is only as free as public libraries, parks and highways, which is to say that the financial burden is merely transferred from individual riders to a municipal general fund, a sales tax or local businesses and property owners. A free ride policy represents the culmination of a long shift from thinking of transit as a business sector — one that was quite profitable in its heyday — to considering it an indispensable public service.

Read the rest of the article here.

By Samantha Winslow - LaborNotes, May 1, 2014

Disclaimer: The views expressed here are not the official position of the IWW (or even the IWW’s EUC) and do not necessarily represent the views of anyone but the author’s.

On the other side of town, workers wait at bus stops. The buses that carry them to work come less and less frequently, thanks to service cuts. Drivers struggle to get through their routes in less time.

Both scenarios are part of a promising trend: transit ridership is at its highest since 1956, with 10.7 million trips in 2013, according to the American Public Transportation Association.

This is despite widespread cuts to bus and rail service—and rising fares. The 2008 economic crisis started the pinch, but federal and local officials have continued to squeeze.

Yet “young people are rejecting cars in record numbers; they are moving to urban America,” Amalgamated Transit Union President Larry Hanley said at the recent Labor Notes Conference.

Whether the spike in rider numbers is caused by environmental consciousness, urbanization, or belt-tightening, clearly it calls for more transit funds, both for more frequent service and for infrastructure—not for cutbacks.

And the spending needs to be spread across our communities—not target one area at the expense of another.

From libcom.org, February 25, 2014

Disclaimer: The views expressed here are not the official position of the IWW (or even the IWW’s EUC) and do not necessarily represent the views of anyone but the author’s.

Liguria, with its beautiful coastline and wonderful mountainous hinterland, has been a place for people from Northern Europe and the north of Italy to take holidays since the 19th century. After the Second World War the region saw a boom in tourism and in industrial development with all the attendant consequences: illegal building activity, destruction of the environment, very large numbers of migrants and urbanisation of the rural population.

Today the region is being hit by de-industrialization and a difficult rebuilding of the economy. Local government is focusing on mass tourism (particularly cruise ships) and port development, seemingly ignoring the increasingly impoverished population which pays the environmental costs of the associated pollution. Each autumn and winter there are devastating floods which claim lives, caused by the destruction of forests, the abandonment of rural areas and uncontrolled building. Little Liguria comes first on the list of Northern Italian regions for crime connected to illegal development (often involving the mafia and politicians) and second for unemployment.

Looking at the issue of the Maersk platform in Vado Ligure is a good way to understand Liguria’s economic system: public money serving private companies, indifference to the needs of the region and its inhabitants’ wishes and opinions, and the destruction of the natural environment.

By x363464 - November 25, 2013

Disclaimer: The views expressed here are not the official position of the IWW (or even the IWW’s EUC) and do not necessarily represent the views of anyone but the author’s.

Come join us for The No Thanks Resistance Festival and three day Camp-out to defend the Albany Bulb from Eviction! See the Flyer for the schedule of events! Schedule updated to the event page tonight!

FB Event Page - http://www.facebook.com/events/405870986212443/

FB Event Page for the No Thanks Anti-Colonial Potluck - http://www.facebook.com/events/547036912048234/

FB Event Page for the Artwalk of Friday and Saturday! - http://www.facebook.com/events/587362084664394/

To help organize, distribute flyers, and or propose a workshop send an email to nothanksresistancefestival [at] gmail.com

Workshop proposals should include if you want to do it on Friday or Saturday, What time between 10 AM and 3 PM, things you need from organizers, and the title of your workshop!

Existing workshops include: Know your rights training - Labor, the Working Class, and Housing - Towards An Ecological General Strike - Tarsands Blockade - Direct Action Training - The IWW EUC, The BLF Green Bans, and Working Class Strategies to Halt Gentrification and Ecological Destruction - ect.