This week’s Earth Minute discusses self-replicating living organisms created through synthetic biology. This new technology is now being put into the hands of BP and Exxon. Click the link below to listen!
Yearly Archives: 2010
The Earth Minute on KPFK’s Sojourner Truth Radio Show
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Adventures in Bonn Or, The Descent into Climate Change Madness at the Maratim Hotel
Blog post 5/31/10
By Anne Petermann
Today is my father’s birthday. It is the first birthday that he isn’t around to celebrate. So I will dedicate today’s blog post in his memory. He would have been 69.
The train ride from Oxford—where Fiu, Camila and I had taken a brief detour from the GE trees and Agroenergy Tour for a meeting to discuss the international campaign against genetically engineered trees—was a long one. First the Oxford to London train—a slower local train, then the train from London to Brussels, during which—in the middle of the chunnel—the train’s electrical system fried my computer charger, then the leg from Brussels to Cologne (at 300 kilometers per hour), and the final short leg from Cologne (Köln) to Bonn.
We arrived at around 10:30pm finally at the hotel, ravenous—a slightly difficult position on a Sunday night in Germany. Our hunger had to be put on hold, however, while we had a very frustrating time with the Hotel staff person whose English was about as good as my Spanish. That is, barely comprehensible. Of course the hotel used an ancient non-computerized system of reservations that involved giant grids of paper marked with pencil. AND the reservation was not in our names so our reservations could not be located. Naturally. But all was not lost. I finally located the handwritten name of our colleague in whose name the reservation had been made. Redemption!
So off Camila and I went (Fiu sensibly retired) to attempt the task of finding an open restaurant.
We indeed found an open restaurant right around the corner—located a table and proceeded to peruse the menu. When the waitress finally arrived, Camila asked about their delicious-sounding spargel specials—this being prime spargel season. No, she wagged her head, the kitchen is closed. After the next similar encounter, we asked if we would be able to find a place that was open. Yes, was the reply, near the university. So 10 or 12 blocks later we finally found the elusive hot meal we were so desperately seeking. We shared a baked gnocchi with mozzarella in red sauce. Not particulary German, but it worked.
The next day (today) started the descent into hell—that is the Maratim Hotel in Bonn. We were all too familiar with the particular sulfuric aroma of the Maratim from our previous foray into its bowels in 2008 when we fought the good fight for a global ban on genetically engineered trees at the UN Convention on Biological Diversity’s Conference of the Parties. But that’s a whole ‘nother story. This time, the fight is to stop the rampaging corporados and their henchmen from shoving false market-based solutions to climate change down the throats of the rest of the world, while the temperature slowly rises…
I escaped the asylum long enough to find a new computer charger (2 doors down from the hotel!) and a new pair of black dress shoes to replace the ones I forgot in London (my hiking shoes just didn’t quite go with my suit). I also got the new Earth Minute recorded for KPFK’s Sojourner Truth show, which will be aired tomorrow and subsequently posted on this blog.
I did finally return to the Maratim when I could procrastinate no more, and worked on the press release that will accompany Wednesday’s launch of the report on the social and ecological impacts of wood-based agroenergy that was jointly produced by Global Forest Coalition, Global Justice Ecology Project and BiofuelWatch.
I begged out of the official reception that took place after the finish of the day’s negotiations. Just couldn’t bear the idea of standing around on my sore feet, eating greasy food, and watching megalomaniacal beaurocrats sip wine while the forests burn. Been there. Done that.
Stay tuned to this blog for more adventures from Bonn…
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REDD and Wood-based Bioenergy Threaten Planet’s Forests And People
Protest outside of a Norwegian government meeting to promote "Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation" (REDD) in Oslo, Norway highlights the social and ecological costs of the REDD scheme and draws attention to a scandalous Norske Hydro project that threatens to destroy Amazon rainforest in Brazil. Photo Courtesy: Friends of the Earth Norway
Anne Petermann Reports from London
Highlights Include–
• Norwegian Government Scandal in the Amazon Rainforest
• Links Between Climate and Trade
• Pacific Islander Denounces False Solutions to Climate Change
• Genetically Engineered Trees
London, England–In today’s blog post I am going to relate some of the presentations of my colleagues on the GE Trees and Bioenergy Tour which they today here in London.
The first presentation was by Almuth Ernsting of BiofuelWatch, a UK-based organization with an office in the U.S. BiofuelWatch is very focused on trying to stop the UK from the massive increase it has planned in wood-fired electricity plants.
Some of the main points of Almuth’s presentation:
The amount of electricity the UK generates using wood is projected to increase 3.5 times by 2020.
The vast majority of this wood will be imported.
Industry likes to promote the idea that they will be using wood residues (sawdust, etc), but the reality is, demand will be met by whole tree removal logging—logging that involves the entire tree from leaves to roots, which severely compacts and depletes the soil.
Much of the wood imported by the UK is currently coming from North America. Future imports are also planned from South America and the Baltic states.
Almuth concluded by showing a graphic from Science magazine which forecasts that the massive global increase in demand for wood-based energy will require so much land that it will lead to a total loss of natural forests and grasslands by 2050.
The next presentation by Simone Lovera, the Executive Director of Global Forest Coalition, who showed the powerpoint presentation created by Camila Moreno, who was still in Oslo fighting the good fight against REDD at a meeting on the subject convened by the Norwegian government.
Simone emphasized that the industry PR claiming that bioenergy crops will be grown on marginalized land is a myth. She pointed out that this marginal land is never in the UK, it is always in Africa and South America—places where people are trying to reclaim their lands before they are classified as degraded land and given away for bioenergy plantations. Water is also a crucial issue. Eucalyptus and other monocultures for bioenergy are very water intensive.
Another project she highlighted as absolutely a scandal. The Norwegians took over a 91% share in the largest aluminum smelter in the world as well as one of the largest bauxite mines—both in the Brazilian Amazon—and plan to power them with wood-based electricity and a new hydro-electric dam—the notorious and highly-controversial Belo Monte dam (See Video). Aluminum smelters use enormous amounts of electricity and require huge quantities of water. So while the Norwegian government is promoting “reducing emissions from deforestation,” a Norwegian company (48% state owned) Norske Hydro is simultaneously planning a huge project that will both drown vast areas of Amazon forest and burn mountains of trees.
Meanwhile, the timber industry is being rewarded for their extremely poor land stewardship (consisting primarily of expanding monoculture tree plantations and destroying native forests), with subsidies from governments both for the pulp itself (as so-called “renewable” energy) as well as from the REDD scheme.
She pointed out that in this alarming trend, communities, local cultures, and biodiversity are being lost. But the good news, she said, is that people are retaliating and taking over their lands again. Tupinikim and Guarani as well as the MST and the Women of La Via Campesina have taken direct action against eucalyptus plantations in Brazil.
Certification, she insisted, is not an option. Millions of hectares of monoculture tree plantations will always be destructive. You cannot certify overconsumption.
In conclusion, she asked the question, which future do you prefer? The future of monocultures or the future of diversity?
Mary Lou Malik, the Trade Campaigner for Focus on the Global South presented on the link between trade and climate change.
She began with the premise that corporate globalization is pushing the ecological impacts of the planet, and that 1/3 of trade is for non-essential goods or goods that don’t need to be imported in the first place.
The global economy, she pointed out, is causing poor countries to focus on cash crops for export that cannot be eaten, so that when trade crashes due to an economic downturn, their income dries up and people starve. Demand for biomass from Southern will exacerbate this problem by turning more agricultural land into tree plantations.
WTO connection to the climate:
Those that are driving the false solutions are the same as the ones driving the free trade system.
How free trade prevents action on climate change:
1 The attempt by countries to create “green” standards and prohibit the import of non-energy efficient products is being rejected by the big countries in the WTO who threaten to cut off the market access of those smaller countries .
2 Through the liberalization of “Environmental goods and services”—that is supposed to allow clean technologies to flow from the North into the South. However, most of the products that are included under this are actually fossil fuel-based, dirty or controversial (false solution) technologies. Northern governments are already required under Kyoto to transfer clean technologies. But putting it under trade means that recipient countries are required to give something up in return (the essence of trade).
3 TRIPS—Trade Related Intellectual Property Rights: Relevant again to climate because the newest clean technologies are all patented, ergo exorbitantly expensive and inaccessible to poor countries.
4 Trade Rules trump all other rules because they are legal and binding, whereas the UN climate agreements are non-binding. Therefore trade rules always come out on top. UNFCCC Article 3 states clearly that measures taken to address climate change should not constitute disguised barriers to trade. Trade comes first. Period.
5 Pushes “solutions” to be market-based.
What we need to do:
• Change Trade not the Climate
• Get rid of market-based and other false solutions
• Refocus trade to promote transfer of clean technologies, etc.
The final presentation of the day was by Fiu Mataese Elisara, who explained the impacts of climate change and false solutions from the perspective of the peoples of the Pacific. I will try to keep this report as much in his own powerful words as possible.
The countries of the Pacific occupy 1/3 of the surface of the globe. Ninety-five percent of the people in the Pacific are Indigenous. We are not responsible for the crisis, yet for us it is a matter of life and death. For this reason, when you talk about geoengineering, REDD, bioenergy and other false solutions, we are very worried, because they will not solve the problems. We have to keep the temperature rise well below 2 degrees. Yet the new Copenhagen Accord is predicted to lead to 4 degrees rise in temperature.
We need reductions of 80-90% of emissions by 2050 to save our islands.
Bioenergy and REDD (paying people who want to cut their forests) will make the problem worse, not better. The conservation of native forests is done by Indigenous Peoples. But under REDD, you have to be a deforester first before you can benefit. So the peoples who have conserved forests are left out. There are no guarantees that after the countries have been paid they won’t deforest a few years later anyway. Then there’s also the problem of forest definitions. We get crucified by forest definitions. When the UN allows plantations and Genetically Engineered trees to be called forests, it’s a major problem.
There is also the problem of sustainable development in the South, which is focused exclusively on economics—not on social or environmental values. Plantations funded under the CDM [through the Kyoto Protocol—ed.] are killing people whose forests are being taken away. These negotiations are violating our rights and that climate money is literally killing our people. The extremes in weather are also killing our people—the increase in number and severity of cyclones, for example.
Bioenergy is going to be more destructive than fossil fuels. Land grabbing is becoming a major problem in the Pacific as well. Eighty percent of our lands are Indigenous lands, and the opening of these lands to investors is going to devastate our people.
This is a collective issue. It’s good we are aligning but we have a big challenge ahead of us so let’s figure out how we can work together to address this problem—to confront the World Bank and the other forces causing this problem.
We have to go out to the communities and tell them the other side of the story, so they know what is possible, and not just what the government or companies tell them. And when we tell them, they get angry. The students get angry and then they get involved.
This is how it can change.
Anne Petermann is the Executive Director of Global Justice Ecology Project and is reporting everyday from the GE Trees and Bioenergy Tour in Europe. Anne also is the Coordinator of the STOP GE Trees Campaign. Stay turned to Climate Connections for her posts.
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Anne Petermann Reporting from London
Another World is Absolutely Essential
By Anne Petermann
Today’s blog post is going to be a short one since I am on a public computer.
Today the tour moved on from The Hague to London. While the chunnel was a
bit intimidating on the train, we arrived to sunny and–for London–warm
weather.
The conversation on the train ride with colleagues Simone Lovera of Global
Forest Coalition, Mary Lou Malik of Focus on the Global South and Fiu
Elisara of Samoa ranged from strategies for dealing with the problem of
NGOs and foundations that have bought into the REDD scam and carbon
markets in general; to our plans for the evening in London–one of the few
unscheduled chunks of time.
Fiu decided to retire, not having quite gotten used to the twelve hour
time difference, while Simone, Mary Lou and I are planning to connect with
another colleague of theirs for some stimulating conversation.
Our next event is tomorrow and it is a forum with other organizations from
around the region to discuss the dangers of wood-based agro-energy and
genetically engineered trees and what we can do about it. There are
likely to be a few organizations that we are going to have to convince,
since so many organizations are so desperate to offer up solutions to the
climate crisis–and unfortunately many of them will only look for
solutions that allow business as usual to continue with as little change
as possible.
We, on the other hand, understand that this is not feasible. Climate
change will mean very dramatic changes that will be most unpleasant unless
we choose as humans to make changes ourselves by choice. This is what we
are working toward at Global Justice Ecology Project. Creating alliances,
developing analysis and educating the public to make these changes
possible.
For another world is not only possible, it is absolutely essential.
From London,
Anne Petermann
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Anne Petermann Reporting from Amsterdam and The Hague
Camila Moreno from Brazil, speaks to the crowd about the dangers of agro-energy in The Hague. Photo: Petermann, GJEP/GFC
By Anne Petermann
(The first section is from Tuesday, May 25th, the second section from earlier today)
Ah, the red eye flight on a standing room only plane. There’s nothing like it…
Upon emerging from the jam packed metal tube full of people where the other occupants and I had been collectively attempting (mostly futilely) to catch a few hours of sleep, and trudging through the cold hard terminal, I stepped into the cool sunshine of Amsterdam and breathed a sigh of relief.
Into the taxi and straight to the lunch organized for the participants of the annual Board meeting of the Global Forest Coalition at their International office. Always good to see old friends and colleagues—Camila from Brazil, Fiu from Samoa, Simone from Paraguay, Yolanda from Amsterdam, Estebancio from Panama. While the board meeting was tacked relatively last minute on to take advantage of so many people from GFC being in the same place, the real purpose of the congregation of people was to take part in a tour designed to inform decision-makers and various organizations around the EU about the dangers of genetically engineered trees (also called GM trees or transgenic trees) and wood-based agro-energy.
My job at the GFC board meeting was to represent the decisions of the GFC Coordinating Group, of which Global Justice Ecology Project is a part, that were made at the annual Monitoring, Evaluation and Planning meeting of GFC in Panama in late-January. This was where Orin (co-Director/ Strategist of GJEP) and I had last seen many of these friends—on the island of El Porvenir in Kuna Yala, on the Caribbean coast.
Kuna Yala is the independent territory of the Kuna people, won from Panama in the early 1900s. The ride from the airport in Panama City across Panama and over the mountains that separate Panama from Kuna Yala was simply spectacular. Tropical forest dotted occasionally by small homesteads as far as the eye can see.
One of the major themes of the Kuna Yala meeting was the issue of REDD (the UN and World Bank scheme to supposedly reduce emissions from deforestation and forest degradation). REDD has, of necessity, been a major focus of forest dependent peoples and their allies since it was announced in Bali at the UN Climate summit in 2007. When the World Bank held their press conference to announce their Forest Carbon Partnership Facility (their precursor to REDD) it was greeted by loud and raucous protest.Panama has already been experiencing the impacts of the implementation of REDD, and Kuna activists such as Marcial Arias, the Spanish Speaking Focal Point for Indigenous Peoples for GFC, have been very eloquent and passionate in exposing the destructive impacts REDD has had on Indigenous communities in Panama and elsewhere.
Land grabbing, “protection” of forests through the exclusion or eviction of forest dependent communities, expansion of monoculture tree plantations and massive new profits for the timber industry are just a few of the lovely side effects of REDD.
Another little known effect is the promotion of genetically engineered trees under the auspices of REDD. In 2003, the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change decided that GE trees could be used in forestry projects designed to store carbon. In addition, because the UN definition of forests is incomprehensibly unscientific, REDD projects supposedly designed to protect forests (or at least their carbon) can include transgenic trees. The irony of allowing a forest protection scheme to include trees that will destroy biodiversity and contaminate forests with engineered traits, is yet one more reason why REDD is being rejected by peoples and organizations around the world.
Another nail in the coffin of REDD for me was my experience at the World Forestry Congress in Buenos Aires last October. This conference—which only occurs once every six years—was a revelation. The doublespeak of the forestry companies, World Bank personnel and their co-conspirators at the big Green groups was amazing. Their logic revolved around the best ways to profit from the implementation of the Reducing Emissions from Deforestation scheme while simultaneously profiting from increased deforestation for the large-scale use of wood to produce energy (electricity, heat and liquid transport fuels)—and how to sell both as solutions to the climate crisis. It doesn’t get much more opportunistic than that.
It is for this reason that Global Justice Ecology Project joined forces with Global Forest Coalition, BiofuelWatch and Friends of the Earth International for this GE Trees and Agro-energy tour. Europe is galloping ahead with plans to use biomass (woodchip derived electricity) and agrofuels (large-scale unsustainable liquid biofuels) to meet their target of 20% of their energy being “renewable” by 2020. This tour is designed to inform European decision-makers and other NGOs that we cannot look to trees to replace fossil fuels. Projections from industry indicate that use of wood for energy production will double or even triple the demand for wood globally in the coming decades. Being that the demand for wood is already unsustainable, how can anyone possibly suggest that we can use wood for energy production sustainably—or more ridiculously—as part of climate mitigation?
This is one false solution that must be nipped in the bud. And that is exactly what this tour is designed to do.
From Wednesday, May 26th
The tour today stopped at The Hague in the Netherlands to speak to a room packed with Dutch Parliamentarians, other environmental and social justice organizations and even a few industry representatives.
Fiu Mataese Elisara from Samoa chaired the meeting and emphasized the importance of getting to the bottom of the concerns about wood-based agro-energy because of the critical need to find real solutions to the climate crisis and to not get bogged down in the false solutions. Being from Samoa, he knows what he is talking about. His is from one of the small island nations threatened with total oblivion from rising sea levels due to climate change. Fiu is a very articulate and passionate representative of the Indigenous Peoples of the Pacific. He is also one of our New Voices on Climate Change speakers. You can learn more about Fiu by going to his bio on our website.
Camila Moreno did the first presentation of the day, that set the tone for the event. Camila is Global Justice Ecology Project’s representative in Brazil and also one of our New Voices On Climate Change speakers. Her presentation on the impacts of wood-based agro-energy on Brazil was extremely powerful. She spoke not only about the impacts of monocultures in Brazil (sugarcane, soy, eucalyptus) for energy and paper, but also about the intense resistance going on in Brazil against the eucalyptus plantations, which they call Green Deserts. She got a lot of questions from the participants about the outright rejection of certification schemes by Brazilian movements. But as Camila, and later Deepak Rughani from BiofuelWatch, pointed out, certification legitimizes whatever is being certified. And for the movements in Brazil, the monocultures cannot be legitimate.
Next came Dorette Corbey, of the Biomass Commission of the Dutch Parliament. She spoke about the need for sustainability criteria, not only for so-called “renewable” energies like biomass and agrofuels, but also for all energies—including oil, natural gas and coal. Her presentation following Camila’s set off a strong debate about sustainability criteria and certification schemes and whether or not they can be helpful or are innately harmful.
Unfortunately, following this presentation and debate Camila had to leave to catch a plane to a conference on REDD being put on by the Norwegian government in Oslo. She and Estebancio Castro, of the Kuna Nation in Kuna Yala are both participating in this event to try to highlight the social and ecological costs of REDD and to encourage the Norwegian government to stop promoting it. In 2007 the Norwegian government pledged $5 million to the World Bank for their Forest Carbon Partnership Facility during the World Bank’s press conference in Bali—ignoring the passionate cries of the protesters outside that this scheme was going to cause irreparable harm to peoples and ecosystems.
Deepak went next and provided a very detailed and statistics-rich presentation about the future forecasts of the amount of wood that will be needed to meet the projected growing demand for wood-based agro-energy. It was a frightening presentation. Think about the demand for wood doubling or tripling from its current level. We are already losing the last of the primeval biodiversity-rich forests because current demand can’t be sustainably met. The wood-based bioenergy path is one to certain planetary suicide.
My presentation came next and I focused on the implications of the commercialization of genetically engineered trees specifically designed to provide the products that fossil fuels do today—such as liquid fuels, jet fuel, chemicals, plastics, electricity and heat. As fossil fuels become scarcer and harder to access—and with backlash from catastrophes like the BP-Haliburton disaster in the Gulf—fuels derived from plants are rising in importance. But there is no way to engineer trees or anything else to take the place of fossil fuels. There is simply not enough land to do it. Craig Venter—the mad scientist who seeks to create new life forms—recently announced that he had succeeded in his mad objective. He had successfully created the first fully synthetic living organism. The purpose for these organisms? To manufacture life forms that create “designer” enzymes that can be used to transform cellulose (from trees or other plants) into plastics, chemicals or fuel.
Of course there have been no risk assessments and this mad science is so new it is basically unregulated. Once again humans are barreling ahead without pausing to consider the possible consequences. It is the same for GE trees. Risk assessments have not been done. What will be the long-term impact of ArborGen’s cold-tolerant eucalyptus trees escaping into native forest ecosystems in the U.S. South? We do not know. Decision-makers are not asking that question and scientists are forbidden from seeking the answer—unless they get prior permission from ArborGen.
Which brings me to the day’s last presentation, which was by Mary Lou Malig, the Trade Campaigner for Focus on the Global South who brought the whole wood-based agro-energy question back to the global trade in forest products and who is going to profit from this nightmare.
And at the end of the day, that is what it ultimately comes down to. Who is going to profit from these potentially disastrous schemes—and who is going to stop them…
Tomorrow: London
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The Earth Minute on KPFK’s Sojourner Truth Radio Show
This week’s Earth Minute, which we co-produce with KPFK’s Sojourner Truth
show also addresses the GE trees issue. It discusses the rubber stamp
approval by the USDA of ArborGen’s request to plant 260,000 GE
cold-tolerant eucalyptus trees throughout seven southern U.S. states along
the Gulf Coast–threatening the Gulf Coast with yet another catastrophe.
Click here to listen! Earth Minute – 5/25/10
European GE Trees and AgroEnergy Tour – First blog post
By Anne Petermann
Sitting in the Burlington, VT airport waiting for the inevitably delayed
late-afternoon flight to JFK. Thinking about today (the 24th)–the 20th
anniversary of the bombing of Judi Bari and Darryl Cherney.
I was not long out of college when it occurred and a new recruit to Earth
First!. Getting ready to hike the Appalachian Trail for a while then
catch a ride out to Yellowstone National Park–en route to the Earth First!
Round River Rendezvous in Montana. Rather than deter me, the tragic event
strengthened my determination to get out to Redwood Summer after the
RRR—which I did for about six weeks, working on jail support for the
dozens of people getting arrested on a weekly basis playing cat and mouse
in the logging areas with the intent of shutting them down, if only
temporarily.
I met my future partner, Orin, at the Montana RRR, though I didn’t know it
until the next summer, when I organized that year’s RRR after I moved to
Vermont (first time it was held back east). Orin arrived at the RRR site
early and we immediately hit it off. He moved to Vermont 3 months later.
One of the first major opponents we took on at that time was International
Paper. Their paper mill just across Lake Champlain from Vermont was
seeking to renew its permit to discharge dioxin into the lake and we
sought to stop it. The campaign was alternately humerous and ugly.
One of the media stunts we did to draw public attention to the campaign
was a funeral procession for Champ–Lake Champlain’s fabled lake monster.
Poor Champ died from the dioxin dumped by IP.
The procession started at the bridge that connects New York to Vermont and
featured a hearse-like station wagon toting a long makeshift coffin with a
big green scaly tail hanging out. We did the guerrilla theater to
publicize an upcoming public hearing about the discharge permit in
Ticonderoga, NY–home of the paper mill.
IP was none-too-pleased with our little publicity-grabbing stunt and on
the drive over to Ticonderoga—which took us through some very unfriendly
“Wise Use Movement” territory (the rabidly anti-environmental astro turf
group whose adherents at that time used arson as one of their tactics).
On the way to the hearing, we passed a hand drawn sign on the side of the
road that read “EF! come hang out with us,” with a stick figure hanging
from a noose to illustrate it.
When we arrived at the hearing, the absurdity began. First were the IP
drones handing out “IP Complies” stickers, which we promptly appropriated,
using magic markers to re-message the stickers by simply crossing out the
“comp” part of the sticker so it more correctly read, “IP lies.” But the
most amusing part of the evening consisted of someone running around the
hearing in a Champ suit with a sign around his neck that read “Champ
lives!”
We did our duty there and testified about the dangers of dioxin and why
the discharge permit should be revoked, knowing we would be ignored by the
department in charge, but needing, none-the-less to tell the truth and get
it on the record that people did oppose this ridiculous permit.
A few days later we were introduced to the famous dirty tactics of
International Paper. They had some kind of industrial accident at the
Ticonderoga mill that caused them to spill 250,000 gallons of untreated
waste water into the lake. Now, one would think this would call into
question the discharge permit of such an irresponsible company. But not
ones to miss a trick. IP used the spill to accuse Earth First! of having
sabotaged their mill and cause the spill. IP and their mean spirited
fairy tale actually made the front page of most of the regional newspapers
and I was quite incredulous when I actually had to explain to reporters
that we were trying to prevent the dioxin contamination of the lake and
would therefore not intensionally cause it. Duh!
A couple of days later, hidden away on some page in section B was a
paragraph long story confirming that the spill was an accident after all.
So it is quite ironic that here we are almost 20 years later battling the
same company–this time in the form of ArborGen—a joint initiative of
International Paper, MeadWestvaco and Rubicon. In the early days,
Monsanto was also involved, though they pulled out very early.
Twenty years ago Judi Bari was fighting Charles Hurwitz and Maxxam to stop
the chainsaws from destroying some of the last remaining ancient redwoods.
Today we are fighting International Paper and ArborGen to stop transgenic
trees from destroying some of the last remaining native forests left on
the planet.
It is for this reason that I am sitting on a plane headed to The
Netherlands for a tour on the social and ecological dangers of genetically
engineered trees and wood-based agro-energy. The tour is organized by
Global Forest Coalition and co-sponsored by Global Justice Ecology Project, BiofuelWatch and Friends of the Earth International. I start in Amsterdam, then head to The Hague to present
to the Dutch Parliament. From there it is off to London for an NGO forum
on the topic of GE trees and agro-energy, followed by two days of strategy
meetings on the international campaign to stop GE trees. Then to Bonn for
pre-Cancun UN Climate meetings, as well as several protests, workshops and
meetings organized by Climate Justice Now! and Climate Justice Action.
Finally the last stop is Brussels for a presentation to the European
Parliament.
The goal is to raise awareness of the significant destructive impacts of
both GM trees and wood-based agro-energy to put the brakes on the made
forward rush to massively apply these unproven technologies without
thought to the significant and devastating impacts they will have on the
world’s forests and forest-dependent peoples.
More on this in future blog posts. I plan to post updates from this tour
every day until I depart on June 4th.
To learn more or get involved in the campaign to stop GE trees, please
visit our website at http://nogetrees.org.
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Today, Climate Connections is dedicated to Judi Bari on the 20th anniversary of her bombing on May 24, 1990
The first posting is from Orin Langelle, Co-Director/Strategist for Global Justice Ecology Project and the second post, “JUDI BARI LIVES” is from Karen Pickett. Karen’s was first run in Oread Daily from an article for the Earth First! Journal. Karen is also a board member of Global Justice Ecology Project.
The Bombing of Judi Bari—Reflections Twenty Years After
(this one’s for you, Judi)
By Orin Langelle
Judi Bari shows police photo of her bombed car. Photo by Evan Johnson ©1993
I’ll never forget May 24, 1990. I was living in a farmhouse on the outskirts of Pacific, Missouri when a brief television report came on saying that a car carrying two environmental activists had been bombed in northern California. My stomach tightened because I new that tensions were high in that area due to a call for environmentalists to come to “Redwood Summer” in an attempt to stop the logging of some of the last standing ancient redwoods.
Within an hour my phone rang—it was the office of the Industrial Workers of the World, then in Chicago. “Judi and Darryl’s car was just bombed outside of Oakland. We don’t know their condition. We really don’t know anything yet.” And as a precaution I was urged to “go outside and check your car for any possible tampering—we don’t know if this is a hit to many organizers or just Judi and Darryl.” I checked my car and it was okay.
That was the start of many more phone calls. Thankfully Judi Bari and Darryl Cherney were alive, but Judi was severely injured and both were arrested. Then nausea set in.
The following days were days of disbelief and what the fuck was going on?
The FBI arrested Judi and Darryl for “transporting explosives.” Not anyone that knew Judi and Darryl bought that one; I know I certainly didn’t.
Both Judi and Darryl were prominent Earth First! organizers. Judi gained notoriety in California for bringing environmentalists and loggers together, pointing out that the real enemy was industry (capitalism) that was exploiting both the workers and the environment for profit. In the weeks following the bombing, industry and the government would attempt to employ a divide and conquer strategy and drive a wedge between environmentalists and workers by spreading disinformation to the public that Bari and Cherney were “terrorists.”
I remember my friend Steve and I staying up all night, getting out a special edition of the newsletter of Big River Earth First! that expressed the Big River’s collective disgust at the bombing and arrest.
Shortly thereafter, EF! activists in southern Illinois (soon to be Shawnee EF!) held a press conference where they turned all their weapons of terror over to the FBI. The “weapons” consisted of paper, pens and typewriters (not many computers back then).
Big River Earth First! from Missouri went to the Federal Building in St. Louis and held a rally where we told the media that it was ludicrous to think that activists preaching non-violence would be carrying bombs or would blow themselves up. I photographed that rally, and due to a deadline rush, immediately sent my undeveloped film to the Earth First! Journal, then published in Arizona. The film was never received. (Now go to 2010 real time where the Arizona state abbreviation should now simply be nAZi.)
Judi’s pelvis was shattered by the pipe bomb that exploded under her seat. She was told she would never walk again. She did. And she lived until March 2, 1997 before breast cancer claimed her life—but not before suing the FBI (winning posthumously) and speaking on numerous occasions from California all the way to Maine.
I first met Judi in the Jemez mountains of New Mexico in 1989 during the Earth First! Round River Rendezvous, an EF! Annual gathering that brings hundreds of radical environmentalists together from across the U.S. and usually a few from various parts of the globe. I believe there was an immediate comrade-ship formed because I told Judi how I was impressed with how she brought an analysis forward that looked at the interconnections of ecology and working class solidarity. In the months that passed she and I exchanged letters and phone calls…
After May 24, 1990 many things changed in many ways for many people. Many of us from Big River EF! had been planning to go to go to Redwood Summer and put ourselves on the line. Instead however, a timber sale was announced by the U.S. Forest Service that was to take place in the Shawnee National Forest of southern Illinois. The Fairview area, slated to be cut, was rich in biodiversity, a haven for songbirds and loved by the many locals who went there to watch the birds or just plain escape the pains of the 20th century.
A southern Illinois regional environmental group invited Earth First! to come in and defend the area. Tents were set up in the logging road and an encampment spread throughout the timber sale area. Tree sitting platforms were made. One of our road blockades consisted of an old beat up sedan that, for some reason or another we dubbed “The Biscuit.” Outreach went to the local surrounding communities. We declared that our actions were in solidarity with Redwood Summer as well as the Mohawk uprising in Kanehsatake (Kanienkehaka), Canada.
For almost three months we held the area (at that time the longest EF! blockade in history). The local postmaster even gave us a postbox so we could receive mail. At one time we had to put up a sign declaring, “Please no more food donations today—we have enough organic food already donated.” The major daily newspaper in Springfield, IL, the states’ capital, went so far as to say that what was going on in the Shawnee National Forest, “was a popular uprising.” Almost every night the occupation was the lead story on TV across a four state region (at least until George the 1st started bombing Baghdad).
Eventually Forest Service special agents arrived from across the U.S. and the invasion of law enforcement and bulldozers began. The day they moved in, my friend John, who turned thirty years old that day and was wanted by the Forest Service for entering a closure area illegally, turned himself in by using a kryptonite bicycle lock to lock his neck to a logging skidder (sort of a bulldozer). The Forest Service responded by putting an aluminum shield around his head and cutting off the lock with an acetylene torch while John sang, “God Bless America.” (FYI: that played well in the press.)
The cutting really never began that year as a Federal Court granted attorneys representing the environmental activists a temporary restraining order forbidding the cutting of Fairview until further review.
To many of us on blockade, this also was for Judi while giving the finger to the federal authorities.
In the summer of 1991, on a trip to the west coast, Steve and I visited Judi and I interviewed her for independent radio. At the end of the interview Judi sang a capella a parody of “Lullabye and Goodnight” that ended “Lullabye and goodnight for the Earth is dying…go to bed now, lay your head, in the morning you’ll be dead. Lullaby and goodnight, while toxic wastes are seeping, Lullaby and goodnight, what the fuck are you doing sleeping.” Not only was Judi an organizer, she sang and played fiddle as well.
In fall of 1991 Faiview fell to the chainsaws that were guarded by the elite shock troops of the Forest Service.
I moved to Vermont around that time. My partner, Anne Petermann, Judi and I continued to remain in contact. Anne and I traveled to California several times to see Judi. She even came to Vermont a couple of times. We discussed many different issues from eco-feminism to the questioning of work for others’ profit to politics to revolutionary ecology…
Once we went to Albion to see Albion Nation and support the struggle there that Judi was involved in
Another time, upon waking up in the morning in Judi’s Willits, CA home, Anne and I got up and stepped outside. I’ve never smelled ‘skunkweed’ so pungent—all around us. Judi also was one of the first organizers to try and unionize marijuana pickers in Northern California under the Industrial Workers of the World.
During the years after the bombing and before Judi’s death, Anne and I became close to Judi. Judi was some someone who could give advice when asked and was someone who we stood by. Sometimes it wasn’t easy as Judi could be as cantankerous as a rattlesnake. But most times it was very easy.
Judi had a sense of humor despite the crippling effect the bombing had on her body and the chronic pain she was in. One time, when was asked by a reporter if she equated EF! with the Weathermen (a late 1960’s and early 70’s group that went underground and attacked the U.S. imperialism with bombs). Judi laughed and said, “No, we’re like the Yippies!” The Yippies or Youth International Party in the sixties were also outraged at U.S. imperialism and the Viet Nam war, but were pranksters who thumbed their noses at the establishment with colorful stunts. One year they ran a pig, Pegasus, for President. Unfortunately Nixon beat out the pig and lashed out with savage bombing campaigns of North Vietnam, Cambodia, etc.
When Judi told Anne and me that she had incurable breast cancer we could hardly believe it. Here was a woman that was not only a brilliant organizer, but had been bombed and crippled for her skills, then walked when she was told she would never walk again. Here was a woman who stood up against the sick system that was complicit in her bombing. Here was a real revolutionary ecologist.
After that, Anne and I spoke with Judi several times as she put her life in order during her illness.
A week before she succumbed to cancer, Anne and I spoke very briefly with her and set up a time at the end of the week where we could all have an extended conversation.
Anne and I wanted to say good-bye. Judi passed from the Earth she loved before that call and we never got that chance.
That weekend, when the memorials and sad parties were held in California, some of Anne’s and my close friends gathered here in Vermont. David Rovics and crew sang Judi’s parody of “May the Circle be Unbroken”, which was “Will the fetus be aborted.” –this song was what authorities gave as one of ludicrous theories of why she was bombed.
As David sang, a joint was passed around to those present. It was a special joint of not just pot, but also mushrooms that had been sent by Scottish EF!ers who were blockading another Roman, er English motorway. The mushrooms had been picked off an ancient witches’ burial site that was in the path of the bulldozers.
As the IWW organizer Joe Hill said before he was executed in 1915 by the state of Utah, “Don’t mourn for me. Organize!” These were some of Judi’s last words also.
!Judi Bari, Presente!
Orin Langelle is the Co-Director/Strategist for Global Justice Ecology Project
http://www.globaljusticeecology.org
JUDI BARI LIVES
Published May 12, 2010 by Oread Daily
It’s been almost twenty years since a bomb sent Judi Bari to the hospital seriously injured. About Judi, Nicholas Wilson noted, “The common denominator was her indignation over injustice, whether in the form of war, racism, sexism, political repression, economic exploitation, or the unnecessary destruction of ecosystems.”
That was Judi.
When the then labor activist Judi Bari joined Earth First! and brought the IWW back to timber country in 1988, real grassroots opposition began to grow in timber country. Judi was charismatic and she worked for a an alliance between workers and environmental activists. So it is no surprise that both before and after her death, she was the target of national PR campaigns and covert actions aimed at discrediting and neutralizing her, the Earth First! movement, and radical environmentalism in general. The public relations firm Hill & Knowlton, representing logging corporations, was shown to be involved.
Judi was downright scary to the corporate powers. They shed no tears when she was stricken with breast cancer and left this world in 1997.
But to paraphrase a tune about Joe Hill, someone who would have loved her, “she never really died.”
The following is from Earth First! Journal.
Remembering Judi Bari
20 Years Ago an Explosion Filled the Sky and Changed Earth First!
By kp
I can barely believe it was 20 years ago, because the events are so fresh in my mind. Of course, I’ve always said that I was about as close to the bomb exploding in Judi Bari’s car on May 24, 1990 as I could have been without being in the car myself. I was at work in Berkeley, and got a call from Kelpie, my roommate and fellow activist, that something terrible had happened. Judi and Darryl Cherney had been taken to Highland Hospital in Oakland, Califonia badly injured by a bomb explosion. I had been at a Redwood Summer organizing meeting at the Seeds of Peace house just the night before, and Judi, Darryl and fellow musician George Shook were planning to go to Santa Cruz for a Redwood Summer roadshow event on the University of California Santa Cruz campus. A few minutes before noon, Judi made a lane change, triggering the motion device attached to the pipe bomb that had been planted unseen under her driver’s seat. The force of the explosion drove the seat springs up into her body, pulverizing her pelvis and nearly killing her.
When I got to the hospital—before the crowds arrived and after driving like a proverbial bat out of hell on city streets—I was taken downstairs by FBI agents and Oakland police to answer questions. Initially, this seemed routine. Ask questions—that’s what the police are supposed to do after a bomb nearly kills someone, right? Because I figured they were Bay Area cops and wouldn’t necessarily know what had been transpiring behind the Redwood Curtain, I told them this seemed to be the culmination of what had been unfolding in our lead-up to Redwood Summer. Our campaign, dubbed “The Timber Wars,” was heating up and activists had been receiving increasingly frequent and virulent threats—Judi in particular. The conversation, however, quickly began to stink like a 4-day-old dead fish when they started asking me personal questions; I yelled at the officers that my friend was critically injured upstairs, and stated that I was leaving and not answering any of their questions. I was then taken to the Oakland Police Department (OPD) where I was held incommunicado for hours. An attorney tried to get into my holding pen, being barred from seeing me, while the crowd at both the hospital and the OPD (where Darryl was held, somewhere else in the department bowels) grew to over a hundred people in just a couple hours. (This was all before “instant messaging,” texts and all that.)
Well, it was more than fishy—it was downright conspiratorial, and what unfolded over the next few days boggled the mind, since we hadn’t known we were being tracked so closely by the FBI, despite the fact that it had been a year since they dragged Dave Foreman out of bed in his skivvies and arrested Peg Millett, Mark Davis and Mark Baker for monkeywrenching in Arizona. Both Judi and Darryl were arrested for transporting the bomb, and the FBI and OPD held a press conference to proclaim Judi, Darryl and Earth First! terrorists as they tried mightily to erode any support EF! might have. Didn’t work. Eight weeks later, they were forced to withdraw the charges, but the attempts by the FBI to try to frame the two— particularly Judi—continued as they destroyed evidence, manufactured evidence, fed false information to the press, harassed every activist they could find and used their iron fist to try to crush the movement. Sound familiar? Precursor of the Green Scare. But there were no fires, much less any kind of violence perpetrated by anyone associated with EF! As Judi observed wryly at one point, the FBI would have people believe that “not only are Earth First!ers terrorists who carry bombs around in our cars, but we are stupid, violent terrorists who hide live anti-personnel bombs under our own car seats.”
Fast-forward to 2002 when the lawsuit put together by Judi finally burst into a federal courtroom—twelve years after the incident, and tragically, five years after Judi died from breast cancer. Judi worked on the case until her dying day, literally, and made her friends and colleagues promise that we would carry on the case. We did, and thanks to heroic efforts of a scrappy team of radical lawyers, we won! The jury found that the FBI and OPD violated Judi and Darryl’s First and Fourth Amendment rights: free speech and protection against illegal search and seizure. The jury’s decision was unanimous and 80 percent of the award was for violations of the First Amendment, recognizing the FBI’s deliberate smear campaign against Earth First! and against Judi and Darryl.
Judi’s victory against the FBI is an important and unprecedented mile marker to remember, as is the bombing itself. We commemorate it 20 years later because it is important that we never forget, and that we remember to never give up and to keep a bold resistance to strong arm tactics as well as to assaults on Mama Earth. Equally important is recognizing what Judi brought to Earth First!, which goes beyond her challenge to the FBI. She brought us lessons from her background as a labor organizer and analysis that helped evolve our radical thinking both philosophically and strategically. We are reprinting her zine, Revolutionary Ecology, where she discusses biocentrism in the context of radical thought: e.g., Biocentrism Contradicts Capitalism, Biocentrism Contradicts Communism, and Biocentrism Contradicts Patriarchy. Check it out.
Judi is an icon, but she would bristle at being canonized. She is symbolic of a revolutionary, irreverent and bold approach to biocentrism, and she had her share of shouting matches with other movement icons; in fact, she reveled in it.
Recognizing the roots of biocentrism not only in ancient native wisdom but “in context of today’s industrial society, biocentrism is profoundly revolutionary, challenging the system to its core,” as Judi puts forward in her booklet Revolutionary Ecology. While it’s easy to see that “biocentrism contradicts capitalism,” and that “modern day corporations are the very worst manifestations of this sickness,” her essay purports that biocentrism contradicts communism even though her background in revolutionary was rooted in Marxism. This is because, really, all leftist ideologies call for the redistribution of spoils from the rape of the Earth. She saw the possibility of ecological socialism that would organize human societies in a manner that is compatible with the way nature is organized.
The world around us changes, sometimes at breakneck speed. The context of movement building is always in flux and demands that we always evolve our thinking and strategic organizing. At the same time, it is valuable (and smart) to weave in institutional memory and not lose the wisdom embodied in the revolutionary thinking of our companeras that are no longer around getting in our face, reminding us of their views. Viva Judi!
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An event marking the 20th anniversary of the pipe bomb attack on Judi Bari and Darryl Cherney will take place in the San Francisco Bay Area, California, over the course of two days. On Sunday, May 23, an event dubbed “Revolutionary Ecology” will take place at La Pena Cultural Center in Berkeley, (3105 Shattuck, across from the Long Haul Infoshop), with a panel of speakers including Ramona Afrika, music by Darryl Cherney and others, film and an exciting historical exhibit. On the actual anniversary, May 24, people from near and far will gather at the moment of the bomb explosion at the site it blasted through Judi’s car, nearly killing her and forever changing the Earth First! movement. The site is on Park Boulevard in Oakland, CA. Details for both events will be posted on the JudiBari.org website. Info number is 510-548-3113.
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Listen to Anne Petermann, Executive Director of Global Justice Ecology Project and Coordinator of the Stop GE Trees Campaign, discuss the BP oil spill, the climate change bill and the USDA approval of GMO tree plantations in the U.S. south.
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