green scare

By staff - Labor Network for Sustainability, March 31, 2024

There’s a war brewing against dissent.

• In Georgia, lawmakers are attempting to make it illegal for communities to protest and advocate against environmental injustice by labeling protestors as “domestic terrorists.” 
• Bills introduced in legislatures around the country would make it illegal to protest at industrial sites, whether publicly or privately owned. 
• In Congress, two Republican Senators have introduced a bill that would make it a federal offense for protesters to block public roads and highways.
• According to the Protect Dissent Network, at least 22 anti-protest bills have been introduced across 15 states in the last year alone, and more than 45 states have considered anti-protest laws in the last five years.

These bills are often justified as protection against climate protestors. But throughout American history such laws have been used repeatedly to criminalize workers who try to organize and strike. They are designed to threaten both workers and communities mobilizing to protect themselves from threats to labor and environmental rights.

The Labor Network believes that workers and communities have a common interest in preserving the basic democratic freedom to protest.

For more on protecting the right to protest: https://www.rightsanddissent.org/campaigns/defend-the-right-to-protest/

By Mark Fiore, et. al. - Amazon Watch, April 26, 2023

By Madeline ffitch - Verso, April 22, 2023

Earth First! activist Madeline ffitch responds to Andreas Malm: "What if the mass climate movement was focused on supporting frontline direct action?"

By the time I read How to Blow Up a Pipeline, I had already seen its neon cover around, the unmistakable title plastered across the front in large block print. I had seen activists reading it, but not the activists I’d expected. These were well-heeled and buttoned-up types, people from environmental nonprofits, people I would associate with a permitted rally rather than an act of eco-sabotage. When I showed the book to one of my movement elders, a far less well-heeled person, they grimaced. “Who the hell comes up with a title like that?” they asked. “Does he think this is a game?” This movement elder, known for being grumpy and speaking plainly, is a decades-long veteran of direct-action eco-defense, a walking repository of tactical knowledge and movement history. They’re also an old Earth First!er. I’m a slightly younger one.

In his sensationally titled book, Andreas Malm tells us that between 1973 and 2010, Earth First!, the Earth Liberation Front, the Animal Liberation Front, and related groups pulled off 27,100 separate acts of direct action and sabotage. These would seem to be laudable examples in service of Malm’s central proposal, which is that climate activists must be willing to escalate tactics and consider property destruction. Yet Malm includes these actions only in order to disqualify them. “All those thousands of monkeywrenching actions,” he writes, “achieved little if anything and had no lasting gains to show for them. They were not performed in dynamic relation to a mass movement, but largely in a void.” Malm goes on to say that these actions “petered out just as the climate movement came into its own.”

Malm gets a lot right in his slim neon polemic, but when he dismisses existing traditions of militant eco-defense, he undermines his own good ideas. Direct action is not made relevant by its link to mass movements. It is the other way around. The more out of touch the climate movement is from what is happening on the frontlines, the more irrelevant it becomes. The frontline might sound to some like revolutionary jargon, but it’s simply another name for the often rural and sparsely populated places where people must defend their homes and lifeways from being sacrificed to industrialization. Here, theory is put into practice. There is real work to do—dishes, chopping wood, hauling water, physically stopping a pipeline from being built—and this means that the abstractions that bog down mass movement participation (ideological pacifism, climate fatalism) are less likely to gain a foothold. If the climate movement is looking for direction, as Malm claims, it would do well to pay attention to the tactics and strategies of those who defend the land and water far away from major centers of commerce and policy, often with only a handful of people and by whatever means necessary. In comparison to mass movement maundering, the ethical and strategic clarity on the frontlines is bracingly refreshing.

By staff - Global Witness, July 2020

For years, land and environmental defenders have been the first line of defence against climate breakdown. Yet despite clearer evidence than ever of the crucial role they play, far too many businesses, financiers and governments fail to safeguard their vital and peaceful work. 

The climate crisis is arguably the greatest global and existential threat we face. As it escalates, it serves to exacerbate many of the other serious problems in our world today – from economic inequality to racial injustice and the spread of zoonotic diseases.

For years, land and environmental defenders have been the first line of defence against the causes and impacts of climate breakdown. Time after time, they have challenged those companies operating recklessly, rampaging unhampered through forests, skies, wetlands, oceans and biodiversity hotspots.

Yet despite clearer evidence than ever of the crucial role they play and the dangers they increasingly face, far too many businesses, financiers and governments fail to safeguard their vital and peaceful work. 

Our annual report into the killings of land and environmental defenders in 2019 shows the highest number yet have been murdered in a single year. 212 land and environmental defenders were killed in 2019 – an average of more than four people a week.

Read the text (PDF).

By Beverly Bell - Global Justice Ecology Project, April 5, 2017

The Convergence of Popular and Indigenous Organizations of Honduras (COPINH) has defied all efforts over the past year, by the Honduran government and the DESA dam company, to destroy it. This past Monday, March 27, 24 years after Berta Cáceres cofounded the Lenca indigenous organization, COPINH hosted an anniversary celebration of rebellion and recommitment.

About 150 people from throughout Honduras and at least five other countries joined for a Lenca ceremony; a forum on challenges and advances; a concert; a film festival; and a humble feast of roasted pig, rice, tortillas, and birthday cake. The event closed late at night with an open-air performance of “Ancestras”, a new play by the Teatro Taller Tegucigalpa (Tegucigalpa Theater Workshop) about COPINH’s fight to defend the Gualcarque River, and structural injustice by the government and oligarchy.

COPNH has not only survived, it continues to serve as a source of inspiration for indigenous and other movements throughout Honduras and the world. As with Berta Cáceres’ life work, COPINH’s goes far beyond environmental defense. Its aim is to transform the political, economic, and environmental landscape of Honduras, and – in conjunction with movements elsewhere – of the world.

Gustavo Castro Soto, the director of Friends of the Earth-Mexico and Otros Mundos who was shot and almost killed in Cáceres’ home the night she was assassinated, said, “The death of Berta has not been the death of the struggle. On the contrary, it’s been a wake-up call.”

Compiled by x344543 - IWW Environmental Unionism Caucus, February 22, 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.

The following news items feature issues, discussions, campaigns, or information potentially relevant to green unionists:

Lead Stories:

• Register now for the Future of Railroads: Safety, Workers, Community & the Environment Conferences: Richmond, California (March 14, 2015) and Olympia, Washington (March 21, 2015) - railroadconference.org
• The Seeds of an Alternative; Thousands of oil refinery workers are striking for safer working conditions. Their fight is central to the struggle against climate change - By Trish Kahle, Jacobin, February 19, 2015

USW Refinery Workers Strike News:

• BP picketing outside, work inside continues - Karen Caffarini, Chicago Post-Tribune, February 17, 2015
• CBE Demands Safety from Chevron in Richmond during refinery workers strike - Communities for a Better Environment, February 17, 2015
• Fitch: Refinery strikes could send gasoline up if they extend into driving season - By Collin Eaton, FuelFix, February 18, 2015
• KPFA WorkWeek February 17, 2015; USW Oil Strike And PMA Lockout OF ILWU On West Coast Docks - KPFA [Soundcloud File]
• LyondellBasell: Strikers, come back to work - By LM Sixel, FuelFix, February 18, 2015
• Strike update: BP training additional replacement workers - By LM Sixel, FuelFix, February 18, 2015

We Just Come to Work Here; We Don't Come to Die:

• Blast hits Exxon Mobil refinery in Southern California [Video] - Associated Press, February 18, 2015
• Explosion at Exxon Mobil refinery in Torrance, California, injures four - By Nichola Groom, Reuters, February 18, 2015
• Explosion Rips Through Torrance Refinery, Shakes South Bay; Residents near the oil refinery said the ground shook and ash rained from above after the blast - By Jonathan Lloyd and Toni Guinyard, NBC Los Angeles, February 18, 2015
• Gas prices jump after Torrance refinery explosion - By Veronica Rocha, Los Angeles Times, February 19, 2015
• Huge Explosion Rips Through California Oil Refinery, Adding Fuel To Oil Worker Strike - Emily Atkin and Sacha Feinman, Think Progress, February 18, 2015
• Torrance ExxonMobil Refinery Rocked by Large Explosion; Earthquake-Like Shaking Reported - By Tracy Bloom, Melissa Pamer, Christina Pascucci, Erin Myers and Mary Beth McDade, KTLA TV 5, February 18, 2015
• USW: California Refinery Explosion Provides Further Evidence of Need for Safety Improvements; Union Calls on Industry to Negotiate Solutions to Protect Workers and Communities - By Wayne Ranick, PR News Wire, February 18, 2015

1267-Watch:

• After Oil Train Derailment, Will West Virginia Finally Protect Its Water Supply? - by Katie Valentine, Think Progress, February 17, 2015
• As Extreme Cold Engulfs Eastern U.S., Fossil Fuel Mishaps Leave Disaster Areas on Fire - By Amy Goodman, Democracy Now, February 19, 2015
• Citing government threats, Teamsters suppress Canadian Pacific rail strike - By Carl Bronski, World Socialist Website, February 17, 2015
• Company Whose Train Exploded Had Spent Millions on Lobbying, Campaign Contributions - By Andy Szal, Chem.Info, February 20, 2015
• Derailment highlights crude oil train, water safety issues - By Ken Ward Jr, Charleston Gazette, February 17, 2015
• Electrified rail one of best clean transport options - By Patrick Mazza, Cascadia Planet, February 17, 2015
• Exploding Trains, No New Regulations, Record Industry Profits: The Oil-by-Rail Story - By Justin Mikulka, DeSmog Blog, February 18, 2015
• Last-minute negotiations end strikes at CP Rail - By Ella Bedard, Rabble.Ca, February 17, 2015
• How Would You Like Your Oil Spilled Today Sir?; Oil Trains Spill More Often, But Pipelines Spill Bigger - By Emily Atkin, Think Progress, February 18, 2015
• ND oil train safeguards too little, too late [video] - by Rachel Maddow, Rachel Maddow Show, February 17, 2015
• Oil trains are blowing up all over the place - By John Light, Grist, February 17, 2015
• Report: Oil Trains Threaten 25 Million Americans, Iconic Rivers, Wildlife; Moratorium on ‘Bomb’ Trains Needed Till Safety Can Be Ensured [Notable: includes demands suggested by Railroad Workers United] - By Jared Margolis, Center for Biological Diversity, February 19, 2015
• Riverkeeper Calls for Immediate Steps to Protect Public From Danger of Crude Oil Trains - By Leah Rae, River Keeper, February 18, 2015
• Stephen Harper prepares to trample on workers' rights yet again - By Elizabeth May, Rabble.Ca, February 17, 2015
• Train that derailed in West Virginia had newer crude oil tanker cars - By Jeff Pegues, CBS News, February 17, 2015
• Trains Hauling Crude Oil Across North America Just Keep Exploding - By James West, Climate Desk, February 17, 2015
• Two More ‘Bomb Train’ Explosions Should Be ‘Wake-Up Call to Politicians to Stop These Dangerous Oil Trains’ - By Anastasia Pantsios, EcoWatch, February 17, 2015

Carbon Bubble:

• Marathon to lay off 350 to 400 workers - By Robert Grattan, FuelFix, February 19, 2015

Green Jobs and Just Transition:

• Analysis: Enercon affiliate loses labour dispute over weekend work - By Sara Knight, Wind Power Monthly, February 17, 2015
• Fossil fuel divestment backlash forces the question: Which side are you on? - By Kate Arnoff, The Ecologist, February 18, 2015

Greenwashing:

• The Bitter Twilight of Social Democracy: NDP, unions and enviro NGOs back transit referendum - By Aiyanas Ormond, The Mainlander, February 13, 2015
• Despite Claims of Progress, Labor and Environmental Violations Continue to Plague Apple - By Nicki Lisa Cole and Jenny Chan, Truthout, February 19, 2015

An Injury to One is an Injury to All!:

• Support the Injured Colombian Workers!!!  - By Paige Shell Spurling, Alliance for Global Justice, February 17, 2015

Other News:

• Doc Shows Canadian Police View Environmentalists, Not Climate Change, as Real Threat; RCMP document says 'small but violent-prone faction' of groups could pose 'a credible threat' to security - By Andrea Germanos, Common Dreams, February 19, 2015
• Ohio Farmers Union opposes proposed pipeline project - By Aaron Krause, Norwalk Reflector, February 16, 2015
• Thousands of Polish farmers march in Warsaw - By Julian Rose, La Via Campesina, February 19, 2015
• Trade Deals Should Come With Their Own Warnings for Public Health - By Chuck Idelson, National Nurses United, February 18, 2015

For more green news, please visit our news feeds section on ecology.iww.org; Twitter #IWWEUC

Compiled by x344543 - IWW Environmental Unionism Caucus, January 7, 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.

The following news items feature issues, discussions, campaigns, or information potentially relevant to green unionists:

Lead Story:

• Why Is the FBI Harassing Activists in Cascadia? - By Alexander Reid Ross, Defending Dissent, January 5, 2015

Carbon Bubble:

• Plunging Oil Prices Trigger Economic Downturn in Fracking Boom Town - By Anastasia Pantsios, EcoWatch, January 3, 2015
• Investors falter as fossil fuels face 'perfect storm' - By Kieran Cooke, The Ecologist, January 1, 2015
• Midland Basin oil worker talks crude prices, fracking bans in Reddit AMA - By Joshua Cain, FuelFix, January 1, 2015
• Oil driller laying off 700 in California - By Collin Eaton, FuelFix, January 2, 2015

Other News of Interest:

• Biomass Facility Fires a Regular Occurrence - By Josh Schlossberg, Vail Daily via Energy Justice Network, December 29, 2014
• India coal strike the biggest industrial action since 1977 - By Cecilia Jamasmie, Mining.Com, January 6, 2015
• Kinder Morgan: law-breaking, pollution, and cover-ups - By Derrick, West Coast Native News, January 5, 2015
• RMT pledges full support for general strike in Belgium - RMT Press Office, RMT, December 15, 2014
• This Changes Something - By Dru Oja Jay, Briar Patch, January 2, 2015

For more green news, please visit our news feeds section on ecology.iww.org; Twitter #IWWEUC

By Mark Strauss - io9, September 11, 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.

Valerie Barr, a professor of computer science at Union College, decided last summer to take a leave of absence to join the National Science Foundation and help improve science education among undergraduates. But when a background check revealed her involvement in left-wing groups 30 years ago, she was told to leave.

News of Barr’s dismissal comes three months after a respected policy analyst was fired from the Los Alamos National Laboratory following complaints about an anti-nuclear article that he had written. And, now according to a report in ScienceInsider, Valerie Barr’s colleagues worry that her experience will have a chilling effect on efforts to recruit other scientists under the Intergovernmental Personnel Act (IPA)—which allows academics to temporarily work for NSF without quitting their existing jobs.

At the center of the story is the Office of Personnel Management (OPM)—a federal agency that wields tremendous authority in vetting recently hired government employees. In the case of Barr, the OPM declared her to be guilty of “dishonest conduct,” because she allegedly lied about connections to a domestic terrorist group.

Nobody was more surprised to hear about that than Barr herself. She says that, when she was 22-years-old, she was a “worker bee”—handing out leaflets and baking cookies—for two organizations, the Women’s Committee Against Genocide and the New Movement in Solidarity with Puerto Rican Independence. Federal investigators say those groups were affiliated with a third, the May 19 Communist Organization (M19CO), which committed a series of violent crimes, including the killing of two police officers and a security guard during a failed 1981 robbery of a Brink’s truck near Nyack, New York.