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EcoUnionist News #118

Submitted by x344543 on Tue, 08/23/2016 - 21:44

Compiled by x344543 - IWW Environmental Unionism Caucus, August 24, 2016

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

Lead Stories:

Ongoing Mobilizations:

The Thin Green Line:

Just Transition:

Bread and Roses:

An Injury to One is an Injury to All:

Whistle Blowers:

Tags: 
Eco Unionist News
green unionism
Thin Green Line
just transition
whistleblowers
health and safety
agricultural workers and peasants
agroecology
labor and environment

Sean Sweeney of Trade Unions for Energy Democracy presentation to NZ ECO conference 2016

Submitted by x332349 on Sat, 08/20/2016 - 00:00

By Sean Sweeney - Trade Unions for Energy Democracy (YouTube), August 20, 2016

Sean Sweeney's introduces the work of Trade Unions for Energy Democracy to ECO conference 2016:

Corporations Call for “Net Zero” Emissions: Do They Know How to Get There?

Submitted by x344543 on Fri, 08/19/2016 - 17:10

By Sean Sweeney - New Labor Forum, August 12, 2016

In the months leading to the December 2015 Paris Climate Conference, representatives of global institutional investors and multinational corporations made headlines after they demanded that world leaders adopt radical emissions reduction targets, among them “net zero” emissions by 2050. Examples include the Global Investor Statement on Climate Change, which was signed by 409 investors representing more than $24 trillion in assets, and the Prince of Wales’ Corporate Leaders Group (which includes the likes of Shell Global and Heathrow Airport Holdings Limited). Following the Statement’s adoption in Paris, a cluster of corporate heads led by Virgin Group’s Richard Branson (calling itself the “B Team”) demanded that all governments turn the Paris net zero emissions target into national-level laws.

What are we to make of this? The practical implications of the net zero target adopted in Paris—if it is seriously pursued—are nothing short of revolutionary, opening up a “system crunch” scenario when the forces of growth, profit, and accumulation that presently propel capitalism collide with the political imperatives required to reach virtually total “decarbonization” in little more than a generation.

Paradoxically, the corporate push to adopt net zero by 2050—a target that is unprecedented in terms of its ambition—merely draws attention to the fact that the corporate elite has no clear or convincing idea about how it might be achieved. The capitalist spirit is progressively willing, but the flesh grows all the time steadily weaker.

Thus, the Paris Agreement can be a clarifying moment for labor, the climate movement, and the broader left in that, more than ever before, it exposes the gulf between what needs to be done from a scientific standpoint and what the global corporate and political elite are actually able to deliver.

Tags: 
renewable energy
green capitalism
ecosocialism
green unionism
just transition
Sean Sweeney

10,000 protesters demand ‘Clean Energy Revolution’

Submitted by x344543 on Fri, 08/19/2016 - 17:03

By Christine Marie - Socialist Action, August 17, 2016

“People gonna rise like the water,” the most poignant of the new songs of the climate justice movement, makes a strong prediction. And the potential breadth and power of that people was on display in a new way on July 24, as close to 10,000 marchers took to the streets on a sweltering day (97 degrees) before the opening of the Democratic Party Convention in Philadelphia.

The march began at City Hall after a press conference anchored by front-line activists from communities devastated by extreme extraction from Pennsylvania to Honduras. There Teresa Hill of ACTION United condemned the plans to turn Philadelphia into a major “energy hub” for fracked gas, whose methane emissions are alone capable of taking us to a climate tipping point. Laura Zuñiga Cáceres, daughter of the slain Honduran environmental and Lenca warrior Berta Cáceres, closed with the now immortal words of her famous mother, “Wake up Humanity! Time is running out!”

While there have been larger marches, the July 24 “March for a Clean Energy Revolution” focused more pointedly on the immediate dangers of the fracking process and the massive infrastructure that is being constructed around the United States for fracked gas, which is obstructing the effort for an emergency transition to renewable energy. The unequivocal demands for a ban on fracking, keeping fossil fuels in the ground, and a quick and just transition to 100% renewable energy represent the vanguard of the movement and the terms on which the growing movement will be most effectively mobilized.

The insistence that both political parties were failing humanity on the climate front came through loud and clear. Mark Schlosberg, the organizing director for Food & Water Watch, the group that leads Americans Against Fracking and brought 900 national and local groups to endorse the march, built the demonstration by forcefully arguing, “both parties’ platforms fall far short of addressing the climate emergency we are in.”

These principled demands and the unwillingness to subordinate the movement to the Democratic Party agenda brought together a large number of activists from front-line communities in a display of determination to take back the earth from those who would sacrifice them and the land for profit. Participants included those struggling against the assault on their health in the Pennsylvania gas fields; those living next to the radioactive tailings ponds of the Southwest and the potential storage sites at Seneca Falls, N.Y.; and those from the urban centers where parked oil trains deprive their children of breath.

At the final rally, in front of Independence Hall, Theresa Hill of the Green Justice Philadelphia Coalition pointed out that the local refineries are located exclusively in economically depressed neighborhoods: “And they think that people of color and low-income people won’t fight back. But as we said to the CEO of this oil refinery, who still hopes to expand the refinery, we are saying NO! … We will fight! Fight for our right to breathe!” Marchers reflected the understanding of the enormity of this struggle in chants such as “Hydo-fracking: Shut it Down!; Oil Pipelines: Shut it Down!; the Whole Damn System: Shut it Down!”

One of the constituencies that were most warmly welcomed was that of public health advocates and workers. The organizer of the health contingent, Karuna Jagger of Breast Cancer Action, rallied the crowd at the final rally when she said, “We are marching to demand an end to fracking and other dangerous drilling practices that rely on toxic chemicals and are linked to an array of deadly diseases and disorders.”

The devastating impact of the fracking on working-class lives is now documented in rising number of white papers. Sandra Steingraber, the science adviser to Food & Water Watch, wrote in the wake of the march that the number of premature births—premature birth being the number one predictor of infant mortality—rose 40% if one was forced by economic circumstances to live amidst the drilling pads despoiling large swaths of the U.S.

Labor organizers who have stepped up to help combat the climate crisis very visibly built the demonstration. Joe Uhlein of the Labor Sustainability Network and the convener of the Labor Climate Convergence in January of this year, urged trade unionists to attend. “It is time for those of us in the labor movement to rise to the challenge and become a central player in the movement to build a sustainable future for the planet and its people—not only for the survival and wellbeing of all, but also for organized labor’s own self-interest,” he wrote in a blog post called “Why Trade Unionists Should March for a Clean Energy Revolution.”

The labor contingent at the march, which included groups from AFSCME and the postal workers union was modestly impressive and reflected the patient and systematic outreach and education being carried out in labor councils, union locals, and other labor bodies from one coast to another.

A Peace and Climate Justice contingent, initiated by Peace Action and built by Code Pink, organized its members under the demands: Slash the Pentagon and world military budgets, provide strong aid to climate refugees, and fund green energy, targeting 100% clean by 2030. The adoption by the peace community of the latter demand is reflective of the now broad acceptance of the real science of climate change, a science that is unanimous in concluding that we must have an emergency transition that begins today and is extremely advanced just 14 years from now.

Fortunately, Mark Jacobson and his team at Stanford have made it crystal clear that current technology will allow us to complete a transition to a 100% renewable energy grid by 2050. The only obstacle is the political elite who refuses to take responsibility for organizing this transition.

Front-line marchers included participants in the “Indigenous Leaders Protect Our Public Lands Caravan,” a group of youth activists and elders from Colorado, Oklahoma, New Mexico, and Arizona who traveled to Philadelphia on a nickel and hope. The 17 spokespeople for the Native American victims of extreme extraction by the fuel industry also anchored the impressive Summit for a Clean Energy Revolution, held the day before the march at the Friends Center in Philadelphia.

Other contingents included those organized by the faith community, by elders, by advocates of a nuclear-free transition from carbon, for those leading the drive to popularize local 100% renewable solutions, by SURJ (Showing Up for Racial Justice), and students. The success of this march, organized effectively despite the tremendous negative pressures of the bourgeois electoral season—bodes well for the next steps in our efforts to build a massive movement independent of the Democratic and Republican parties and reliant on its own power in the streets.

Tags: 
green unionism
just transition
renewable energy

EcoUnionist News #117

Submitted by x344543 on Mon, 08/15/2016 - 19:21

Compiled by x344543 - IWW Environmental Unionism Caucus, August 17, 2016

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

Lead Stories:

Ongoing Mobilizations:

The Thin Green Line:

Just Transition:

Bread and Roses:

Tags: 
Eco Unionist News
green unionism
Thin Green Line
just transition
whistleblowers
health and safety
agriculture
agricultural workers and peasants
agroecology
labor and environment
green jobs
Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL)
World Social Forum

Capital Blight News #117

Submitted by x344543 on Mon, 08/15/2016 - 18:25

Compiled by x344543 - IWW Environmental Unionism Caucus, August 17, 2016

A supplement to Eco Unionist News:

Lead Stories:

The Man Behind the Curtain:

Green is the New Red:

Greenwashers:

Disaster Capitalism:

Other News:

For more green news, please visit our news feeds section on ecology.iww.org; Twitter #IWWEUC; Hashtags: #greenunionism #greensyndicalism #IWW. Please send suggested news items to include in this series to euc [at] iww.org.

Tags: 
capital blight
Eco Unionist News
green unionism
climate justice
ExxonMobil
climate change
Green is the New Red
Koch Brothers
Bill McKibben
American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC)
privatization

Rally to End Toxic Prison Slavery in Solidarity with September 9 Nationwide Prison Strike

Submitted by x344543 on Sun, 08/14/2016 - 14:24

By staff - The Campaign to Fight Toxic Prisons, August 11, 2016

Sept 9th is the 45th anniversary of the Attica Uprising in New York, where national attention was drawn to the problem of prisons in this country. This year there will public demonstrations in support of prisoners who have a called for a coordinated national work strike in response to extreme abuses they face, including toxic environments, discrimination and literal slavery based on the 13th Amendment which wrote prison slave labor into the U.S. Constitution.

The Campaign to Fight Toxic Prisons (FTP) is calling for action in solidarity with the IWW Union’s Incarcerated Workers Organizing Committee (IWOC) and other prisoner-led groups in planning activities around Sept 9th.

We are spreading the word to our prisoner contacts to invite friends and family on the outside to participate in these necessary efforts to address the violations of civil rights and environmental justice that still occur behind bars.

The primary FTP events will occur on Sept 10th at 10am in front of the Federal Correctional Complex (FCC) of Coleman, located at 846 NE 54th Terrace, Wildwood, Florida 34785. 

This location is the largest prison factory in the entire country, producing material goods for government agencies nationwide. Much of the very furniture which accommodates the offices of the bureaucrats that we live under is made by prison slaves at this facility.

Federal Prison Industries, also known as UNICOR, has over $34 million in contract obligation coming out of Bureau of Prison (BOP) facilities in Florida. This is three times higher than any other state in the country.

In addition, this prison is also home to one of the most famous political prisoners in the world, Native American activist and warrior, Leonard Peltier, who has been incarcerated over 40 years for his participation in the 1973 stand-off at the Pine Ridge Reservation and the liberation struggle of his people who experienced genocide and witnessed ecocide at the hands of the government who now holds him prisoner.

Also, it’s no coincidence that FCC Coleman is surrounded by a vast wasteland of rock mining operations, an industrial activity with a record of creating giant toxic ponds across Florida. Prisons all over the country are coupled with environmentally hazardous land uses that threaten prisoner’s health.

As another example of this, the federal Bureau of Prisons is now proposing to build a new maximum-security prison and slave factory on top of a former strip mine site in the coalfields of Letcher County, Kentucky. Any federal prisoner could at any time find themselves transferred to this prison, subjected to the health risks associated with a site where the air, water and soil are polluted by decades of coal mining and processing, which is still ongoing in the surrounding mountains.

Along with putting prisoners on a toxic site, the prison would also impact local people who live nearby, turning their community into a prison town. Construction alone will waste $444 million of federal tax dollars which could be used to address the crushing poverty that so often forces people into prisons in the first place.

The proposed site also sits a mile from a rare pocket of eastern old-growth forest that is home to dozens of Appalachian plant and animal species listed as threatened or endangered.

We feel that the existence of this industrialized, slavery-based system of mass incarceration stands as a primary obstacle to universal goals of freedom and harmony with the earth. Its continued existence is among the ultimate symbols of injustice in this country.

Stop Prison Slavery!
No New Toxic Prisons!
End Mass Incarceration!
Defend the Earth!
Free All Political Prisoners!

Tags: 
IWOC
Prison Ecology Project
prison labor
Industrial Workers of the World (IWW)
Earth First!
green syndicalism
green unionism

Californians Deliver 350,000 Signatures Calling on State, Gov. Brown to Stop Irrigation of Crops With Oil Wastewater

Submitted by x344543 on Sun, 08/14/2016 - 14:16

By Julie Light and Patrick Sullivan - Center for Biological Diversity, August 9, 2016

SACRAMENTO, Calif.— Pushing a wheelbarrow filled with 350,000 petition signatures, concerned Californians gathered outside the capitol today to urge Gov. Jerry Brown and the California Water Resources Control Board to stop the potentially dangerous practice of using wastewater from oil drilling to irrigate California’s crops. The wastewater, sold by Chevron and California Resources Corporation, is now being used to irrigate over 90,000 acres in the Cawelo Irrigation District and the North Kern Water Management District, and is slated to expand in the near future to other districts.

The group, which included Assemblymember Mike Gatto, UCSF nurse practitioner Lisa Hartmayer, Center for Biological Diversity scientist John Fleming and California consumers, delivered a petition with more than 350,000 signatures, gathered around the state and nation, calling for an immediate halt to the practice. The petition signatures were collected by CREDO, Care2, Food & Water Watch, the Center for Biological Diversity, RootsKeeper, Center for Environmental Health, Breast Cancer Action, Center for Food Safety, Courage Campaign, and the Center for Race, Poverty and the Environment.

“Californians want to know what is in the water and the soil that is used to grow their food. This should not be a problem, especially if there is nothing to hide,” said Assemblyman Mike Gatto (D-Los Angeles).

California produces almost half of the fruits, nuts and vegetables that feed the United States, and more than 100 farms in the Central Valley use oil wastewater for irrigation. Some of the United States’ most popular brands grow food in the Cawelo and North Kern water districts, including Trinchero Family Estates (makers of Sutter Home wines), Halos Mandarins (formerly known as Cuties) and The Wine Group (makers of Cupcake and Fish Eye wines).

At the same time, there hasn’t been a comprehensive, independent study to determine if the wastewater is safe for crop irrigation. The limited analysis done used outdated methods; regulators don’t screen for all the chemicals used in oil extraction, many of which are carcinogens. The Los Angeles Times reported that a test of the wastewater sold by Chevron to the Cawelo Irrigation District contained acetone and benzene.

Some of the chemicals used in oil operations are linked to cancer, kidney failure, reproductive issues and liver damage. No comprehensive and independent analysis has been conducted to assess the safety of the wastewater. Oil-industry wastewater can contain high levels of benzene and other cancer-causing chemicals. State oil officials’ own study detected benzene levels in oil wastewater at thousands of times the federal limits for drinking water.

“As a nurse, one of the simplest yet most important recommendations I can give a patient is to eat more fruits and vegetables,” said Lisa Hartmayer, nurse practitioner at UCSF. “How can our governor and water regulators sleep at night knowing that the fresh foods that millions of people eat to stay healthy may actually be threatening their health? We don’t know if our tangerines, almonds and grapes are contaminated with water that could be carcinogenic.”

In addition to the dangers posed to consumers, agricultural workers are exposed daily to the oil and gas wastewater with no protection for their health and safety.

“Oil wastewater doesn’t belong on California’s crops. It’s irresponsible to take this kind of risk with our food supply,” said John Fleming, a scientist with the Center for Biological Diversity. “We should take a precautionary approach to mixing oil with food and wait until there are studies proving this practice is safe before we even consider it.”  

“I’m here for my kids. It concerns me that Governor Brown would allow this practice without thorough testing. This is the food that I feed my kids every day. The thought that they could get sick from tainted food really worries me,” said Sue Chiang from Oakland.

Petition signers from around the state appealed directly to the governor and his desire to be perceived as an environmental champion. Rev. and Mrs. Don Baldwin from Nevada City wrote in their comments: "Dear Gov. Brown - If you are to truly go down in history as our 'environmental' governor, you MUST see this as one of the most significant actions you need to take."

A growing number of Californians are raising concerns about the use of wastewater for crop irrigation and organized Protect California Food, an affiliate of Californians Against Fracking, which is calling on Governor Brown and state water regulators to immediately ban the practice. Californians Against Fracking is a coalition of about 200 environmental business, health, agriculture, labor, political and environmental justice organizations working to win a statewide ban on fracking and other dangerous extraction techniques in California. Follow @CAagainstFrack on Twitter.

Tags: 
Jerry Brown
fracking
water pollution
green unionism
National Nurses United
Center for Biological Diversity

Plane Stupid stands in solidarity with #BlackLivesMatter's #ShutDown

Submitted by x344543 on Tue, 08/09/2016 - 16:08

By Paula - Plane Stupid, August 6, 2016

[On the morning of Friday, August 5, 2016] #UKBlackLivesMatter carried out a series of actions across the UK following a call for a #ShutDown.

Their actions were highlighting that for Black and Brown people, every day is a crisis in a system based on White Supremacy. That racism can be felt in many different ways, from the extreme brutality inflicted by police and state violence, which has resulted in 1,562 people losing their lives in police custody in the last 20 years; to the abhorrent detention of people fleeing war-zones; to the subtle and insidious forms of racism such as Black people being up to 37 times more likely to be stopped and searched. #BlackLivesMatter call for a #ShutDown of racism, and only by taking disruptive direct action are their voices beginning to be heard. Business as usual is a crisis. Therefore, we must #ShutDown.

By no small coincidence, some of these actions affected two major UK airports: Heathrow and Birmingham. For us the links between our struggles are clear. Expanding aviation, which is driving climate chaos, is part of the same way of thinking that is driving racism in the UK. Politicians and businessmen want to expand aviation to make more money for them and their friends. Also, the majority of flights in the UK – over 70% -  are taken by a rich minority of the population – just 15%. Globally, just 5% of people have ever taken a flight. The rich minority benefit, whilst other people pay the cost. This can be through losing their homes and or suffering pollution which affects their health locally and globally. The rich want to profit at the cost of other peoples' lives and communities.

Climate change is already killing 300,000 people a year and this will only get worse. The effects of climate change aren't colour blind, as it is primarily Black, Brown and indigenous people in the Global South who feel the effects first and hardest. The UN estimates there will be 75 million climate refugees by 2030. We're already able to see the effects, for instance, in Syria. It is only because those in power don't consider these lives to matter that they can make such life destroying decisions. The rich in the Global North benefit whilst the Global South pays the price. This is Climate Colonialism. This is Environmental Racism.

Our movements have a lot to learn from one another and have so much in common. Fundamentally, systemic change is needed to bring an end to both racism and climate change. People of colour's struggles have much to teach us, historically and in the present day, about what it means to be affected by these issues and how to fight back. #BlackLivesMatter are bringing these issues to the fore, and showing the rest of us that direct action is necessary to bring about change. It's time to #ShutDown.

Tags: 
Plane Stupid
Black Lives Matter
intersectionality
green unionism
green syndicalism
direct action
United Kingdom (UK)
Industrial Workers of the World (IWW)

EcoUnionist News #116

Submitted by x344543 on Mon, 08/08/2016 - 17:33

Compiled by x344543 - IWW Environmental Unionism Caucus, August 10, 2016

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

Lead Stories:

Ongoing Mobilizations:

The Thin Green Line:

Just Transition:

Bread and Roses:

Tags: 
Eco Unionist News
green unionism
Thin Green Line
just transition
health and safety
agricultural workers and peasants
agriculture
labor and environment
green jobs

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