climate justice

By x344543 - IWW Environmental Unionism Caucus, April 15, 2016

It may seem like King Coal has suffered a couple of bad weeks in a row.  Consider the following:

Six years and a day after Massey Energy Co.’s Upper Big Branch Mine exploded, killing 29 men, U.S. District Judge Irene Berger issued former Massey CEO, Don Blankenship, the maximum allowable sentence for for willfully conspiring to violate mine safety standards: one year in prison, one year of supervised release and a $250,000 fine.

However, when broken down, this only roughly figures out to $8621 and 12½ days per dead miner. Perhaps that's why Tommy Davis, who lost his brother, son, and nephew in the explosion (while he was working in another section of the mine that day) shouted at Blankenship as he left the courthouse,

"You don’t have a heart; you don’t miss your kids like we miss ours...I hold a picture, I hold a tombstone; you hold nothing."

He further elaborated, in response to Blankenship's (no doubt well scripted) "apology" spoken in response to the sentencing

"It didn’t mean nothing, and it still won’t mean nothing...He never come to me in six years, never come to me, never come to my mom, my dad who’re gone now. They grieved themselves to death. He never come to apologize to us. He never said nothing."

This also likely explains why Annette Workman, who lost her husband, Ricky, in the incident angrily shouted, “Did you ever go down in that mine?” at the soon-to-be imprisoned (though not for long) erstwhile CEO.

Clearly this sorry affair reveals just how unfair the capitalist system really is. Any working class individual who'd caused the equivalent amount of death and mayhem would have been given the death sentence, but as long as such activity is done in the persuit of profit, it falls under the presumed innocence of capitalism and is thusly rarely charged more than a slap on the hand. One should not blame Judge Berger for not meting out harsher judgement. By law, she can only slap so hard. 

More Background

• Deadly mining blast gets coal exec Don Blankenship a maximum prison sentence: One year - By Xian Chiang-Waren, Grist, April 6, 2016
• Donald Blankenship Sentenced to a Year in Prison in Mine Safety Case - By Alan Blinder, New York Times, April 6, 2016
• Ex-coal CEO sentenced to a year in prison over mine-safety conspiracy - By Cecilia Jamasmie, Mining.Com, April 6, 2016
• Families react to Blankenship verdict: ‘I hold a tombstone; you hold nothing’ - By David Gutman and Kate White, Charleston Gazette-Mail, April 6, 2016
• Former Massey CEO Don Blankenship Sentenced to One Year in Prison For Conspiracy to Evade Mining Safety Rules - By Sharon Kelly, DeSmog Blog, April 6, 2016
• 6 Years After Coal Blast Killed 29, Former Coal Baron Heads To Jail For Workplace Safety Convictions - By Ryan Koronowski, Think Progress, April 6, 2016
• Remembering—and forgetting—Upper Big Branch - By staff, Charleston Gazette-Mail, April 5, 2016

By John Foran - Resilience, March 14, 2016

Introduction

We are living through an unprecedented crisis, in a world beset by massive social problems – the obscene poverty and inequality that neoliberal capitalist globalization has wreaked on at least two-thirds of humanity, the immobility of the political elite almost everywhere, and cultures of violence that poison our lives from the most intimate relations to the mass murder of the world’s wars.

These interconnected problems are rooted in long-standing processes of inequality – patriarchy, racism, colonialism, capitalism, and now corporate-controlled globalization – whose ongoing, overlapping legacies are making the early twenty-first century a crucial hinge of history.

And now, with climate change, we are facing a perfect storm of suffering. In fact, given the timeline that climate science is screaming at us, we confront a crisis of humanity and of all species that must be resolved for better or worse by those living on this precarious planet today.  We are called by the urgency of the crisis to “change everything” as Naomi Klein puts it, and to do so in something like the next two decades.

With other observers, activists, and scholars I believe that only the assembling of the broadest, most powerful social movement the world has ever seen has a chance of doing this in the narrow window the science imposes on us. The movements for environmental, climate, and social justice that I have spent my life studying and now participate in must become much stronger than at present.  But my reading of world history leads me to believe that they can succeed.  They must, if we are to safely navigate the present crisis and even come out of it living in ways that are far more egalitarian, deeply democratic, and fulfilling than the world we presently inhabit.

Those of us who are academics (or journalists, or writers and creators of culture of every kind) need to focus our minds now, I think, on the “wicked” problem of climate change, to reinvigorate our own disciplines and work on our interdisciplinary skills (another way of saying learning how to connect the dots) and bring all this into a wide open dialogue, in ways that are consistent with the first principle of sociology, of ecology, of systems thinking, and, ironically enough, of Buddhism, as I understand it (and of Gaia theory, for that matter):  everything is connected.

How Strong is the Climate Justice Movement?

The movement I study and am part of is growing, getting bigger, stronger, smarter, more diverse, and more creative with every passing year – and that’s important.

But it’s still not enough.

The task – and the question on every scholar-activist’s mind – is how do we get from where we are to where we need to be?  And how do we do that thoughtfully, quickly, and for the long haul?

If I had to try to sum up the broad outlines of what the climate justice movement is planning going into 2016, it would be something like Resist, Rethink, Retool, Re-imagine…

Adopted by UA Local 393 in San Jose - US Labor Against the War, March 9, 2016

Whereas;  On March 3, 2016 the temperature across the northern hemisphere,  crossed a line.  For a short time it was more than two degrees Celsius above “normal” for the first time in recorded history.  Governments are supposedly working to avoid crossing that so called “red line.” Arctic sea ice is at record low levels for the date.  Last month a tropical cyclone hit Fiji with the highest wind speeds ever measured, causing substantial regional destruction. Storms on Mexico’s West Coast have carried the highest wind speeds in history for months and carbon dioxide in the atmosphere unexpectedly surpassed 400 parts per million,  drastically changing the historical natural balance. This February we’ve seen record high temperatures. This is a glimpse into our climate changed future if we do nothing and,

Whereas; the Zika virus, spreading on the wings of mosquitos in the newly warmed climate, is attacking the brains of our babies, and we can expect a multitude of health effects to come out of climate changes in the environment, and

Whereas; the future is clearly coming much faster than science predicted. Global warming is no longer just a threat. It is increasingly a reality and a menace to our children, our loved ones and civilization as a whole, and

Whereas; almost all scientists agree that human use of fossil fuels propels climate change and that a rational approach to defend against the catastrophic effects of climate change is to leave most carbon fuels, coal, oil, and gas in the ground and develop new energy sources to serve our industries, homes, and economy - solar energy, wind energy and perhaps tidal energy, and

Whereas; the necessary changes the global community will need to make to prevent  catastrophic climate change in a positive way will have a powerful impact on the men and women who work in the pipe trades, and

Whereas; as our world and our industry evolves to prevent global catastrophe, many traditional UA and Building Trades jobs may no longer be needed, but with that change will come a tremendous upsurge in other technologies, such as solar power, wind power, tidal power, water reclamation, desalinization plants, and others that will offer monumental job opportunities to expand work for our members while ensuring a future for our children, so

Therefore Be It Resolved; that we call upon the United Association to form a Climate Change Commission of officers, members and scientific experts to study and develop plans that will respond to the new climate issues in a manner to best protect the needs of our members, our families, our people, our planet, and our Union.

By Jeremy Brecher - CounterPunch, March 2, 2016

One in six Americans say they would personally engage in nonviolent civil disobedience against corporate or government activities that make global warming worse. That’s about 40 million adults. The fate of the earth may depend on them — and others around the world — doing so.

Such actions are about to take a quantum leap both in numbers and in global coordination. From May 7-15, 350.org, Greenpeace and many other organizations — notably grassroots movement organizations from every continent — will hold a global week of action called Break Free From Fossil Fuels. They envision tens of thousands of people mobilizing worldwide to demand a rapid transition to renewable energy. Events will include nonviolent direct actions targeting extraction sites or infrastructure; pressure on political targets to shift policies around fossil fuel development; and support for clean energy alternatives. Mass actions in Australia, Brazil, Canada, Germany, Indonesia, Israel/Palestine, Nigeria, the Philippines, South Africa, Spain, Turkey, and the United States will target fossil fuel projects and support ambitious solutions. Before and during the week of action, additional, locally-initiated actions are expected in many other locations around the globe.

In the United States there will be actions in California, the Northwest, the Mountain West, the Midwest, Washington, D.C., and the Northeast. They will include support for a moratorium on the auction of public land for fossil fuel development; mass trespass at fracking sites; land and flotilla blockades of refineries; actions at the facilities of pipeline companies; and blockades of trains carrying fracked oil. In each case the partners include not only national and international environmental organizations but dozens of community, indigenous, climate justice, labor, religious, citizen action and other groups that have long been campaigning locally against these targets.

By The Heathrow 13 - Plane Stupid, February 29, 2016

On the 24th of February, we - the Heathrow 13 - were sentenced to 6 weeks in prison, suspended for 12 months, with an additional 120 to 180 hours community service on top. Whilst we are happy to not be in prison right now, this is far from a complete victory.

As our barrister  QC Kirsty Brimelow, so eloquently argued, there is a long tradition of direct action in the UK, and a convention for sentencing within the legal system. In fact Lord Hoffman, in an influential ruling, went as far as to say that it is the mark of a civilised society to accommodate this, and that the legal convention is for sentences such as a conditional discharge or community service. In this light, our barristers argued that our action clearly did not cross the custodial threshold – i.e. our sentence should not be imprisonment, immediate or suspended. The fact that Judge Wright chose to give us a suspended sentence marks a shift in the way protesters are treated, going against the normal convention. 

Experts have suggested that if magistrates impose custody for minor offences, that produces an incentive for activists to commit more serious offences. This is because more serious crimes are dealt with by a jury, who are more likely to be understanding of the issues. Whilst more radical actions are welcome, and in fact are necessary to tackle the scale of climate change, repression from the judicial system is not.

As we went into court on the 24th, all of us were prepared for the possibility for prison. We all experienced a rollercoaster of emotions, from fear and stress to defiance and pride. The support and love we were shown by family, friends and the wider movement made us feel all the more ready to deal with a potential prison sentence. Had we gone to prison, we would have depended on this support network around us. We all feel so grateful for this.

Yet, we should reflect on this as a form of privilege. There are over 85,000 people in prison in the UK, not including immigration detention centres, secure children's homes or those detained under the Mental Health Act. Those imprisoned are disproportionately from poor, minority backgrounds and are likely to have suffered various forms of abuse in their lives. Vulnerable people are the ones being targeted by the judicial system. These people are highly unlikely to be able to gain the same kind of support a high profile privileged group such as ours could.