Global Justice Ecology Project partners with Margaret Prescod and the Sojourner Truth show at KPFK Pacifica in Los Angeles for weekly Earth Segments and weekly Earth Minutes.
This week’s Earth Segment features Nnimmo Bassey, Executive Director of Environmental Rights Action in Nigeria, West Africa, on the Niger Delta oil disaster and on the move to replace fossil fuels with biofuels.
To listen to the Earth Segment, go to the following link and click on minute 15:35.
Filed under Biodiversity, Bioenergy / Agrofuels, Climate Change, Pollution, Water
Note: Today’s Earth Segment on the Sojourner Truth show will not be aired due to a severe wind storm that knocked out KPFK’s transmission. Climate Chaos strikes again!
–The GJEP Team
Global Justice Ecology Project partners with the Sojourner Truth show on KPFK Los Angeles for a weekly Earth Minute and weekly interviews with activists on key environmental and ecological justice issues. In addition, during major events such as the UN Climate Conference we are attending right now in Durban, South Africa, we organize daily interviews Tuesday through Thursday.
The interview we organized for Wednesday, 30 November featured Nigerian activist and Right Livelihood Award winner (the alternative Nobel prize), Nnimmo Bassey. To listen to the interview, click the link below and scroll to minute 34:30.
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Filed under Climate Change, Climate Justice, Energy, Indigenous Peoples, Pollution, UNFCCC, Water
Global Justice Ecology Project partners with Margaret Prescod’s Sojourner Truth show on KPFK–Pacifica Los Angeles radio show for a weekly Earth Minute on Tuesdays and a weekly 12 minute Environment Segment every Thursday.
This week’s Earth Minute discusses the impacts of climate change on bark beetles, which are wiping out vast expanses of conifer forests in North America. On this week’s Earth Segment, Kari Fulton, of Environmental Justice Climate Change discusses the recent announcement that the decision on the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline would be “postponed.”
Text from this week’s Earth Minute:
At the upcoming UN climate conference in Durban South Africa later this month, protecting forests will once again being looked to as the solution to climate change. Meanwhile a tiny beetle, assisted by warming temperatures, is devouring coniferous forests across North America.
Since the 1990s, bark beetles have killed 30 billion trees in North America. Climate change is expanding the range of the beetles and increasing their numbers, while human activities–such as wildfire prevention and logging the best and strongest trees–has further assisted the beetle epidemic.
But instead of stepping back to evaluate what’s causing this forest crisis, the timber industry is moving ahead with plans to turn these trees into wood chips to be shipped around the globe for so-called “renewable” electricity production. While this will supposedly help replace fossil fuels and mitigate climate change, it will also result in bark beetles spreading into and destroying new conifer forests–which will, in turn, worsen climate change.
For the Earth Minute and the Sojourner Truth show, this is Anne Petermann from Global Justice Ecology Project.
To listen to the Earth Minute, Click here: earth-minute-11_15_11
To Listen to the Earth Segment with Kari Fulton of Environmental Justice Climate Change being interviewed about the recent Keystone XL Pipeline decision, click here and scroll to minute 48:45.
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Filed under Climate Change, Earth Minute, Energy, Indigenous Peoples, Natural Disasters, Posts from Anne Petermann, Tar Sands, UNFCCC
Earth Grab
Geopiracy, the New Biomassters and Capturing Climate Genes
Diana Bronson, Hope Shand, Jim Thomas, Kathy Jo Wetter
Preparations for the Rio+20 meeting that could decide whether humans survive or not are hotting up. 1 November 2011 is the deadline for official contributions to its Zero Draft document but over the next seven months decision-makers and campaigners will need all the facts they can lay their hands on.
‘Earth Grab – Geopiracy, the New Biomassters and Capturing Climate Genes‘ – essential, cutting-edge climate science in everyday language – is published this week (27 October 2011). The authors reveal information that the large corporations who profit from climate change do not want the public to know.
‘Earth Grab’ analyses how Northern governments and corporations are cynically using concerns about the ecological and climate crisis to propose geoengineering ‘quick fixes’. These threaten to wreak havoc on ecosystems, with disastrous impacts on the people of the global South. As calls for a ‘greener’ economy mount and oil prices escalate, corporations are seeking to switch from oil-based to plant-based energy.
The authors expose some truths behind the exploitation of biomass, which is far from the solution to environmental problems that many have claimed it to be. A biomass economy based on using gene technologies to reprogramme living organisms to behave as microbial factories will facilitate the liquidation of ecosystems. This constitutes a devastating assault of the peoples and cultures of the South, accelerating the wave of land grabs that are becoming common in Africa, Asia and Latin America.
The book shows how the worlds largest agribusiness companies are pouring billions of dollars into, and claiming patents on, what are claimed to be ‘climate-ready crops’. Far from helping farmers adjust to a warming world – something peasant farmers already know how to manage – these crops will allow industrial agriculture to expand plantation monocultures into lands currently cultivated by poor peasant farmers. They are not a solution to growing hunger, they will feed only the corporate shareholders’ profits.
Eminent environmentalist Vandana Shiva, founder of the Research Foundation for Science, Technology and Ecology, writes in her foreword that this research ‘pulls back the curtain on disturbing technological and corporate trends that are already reshaping our world and that will become crucial battlegrounds for civil society in the years ahead’.
The book has already captured the attention of writer Naomi Klein, who writes that this ‘crucial book reveals … Indispensable research for those with their eyes wide open’. Campaigner George Monbiot adds that its exploration of ‘three crucial issues which will come to dominate environmental and human rights debates in the coming years make it an essential resource for anyone trying to keep up with the times’.
‘Earth Grab – Geopiracy, the New Biomassters and Capturing Climate Genes‘ is written by ETC Group, renowned for its research into biotechnologies, plant genetics and biological diversity, and for its analysis of the consequences of new technolgies for corporations and humans.
Published by Pambazuka Press, it is available from www.pambazukapress.org and all good bookshops.
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Filed under Biodiversity, Bioenergy / Agrofuels, Climate Change, False Solutions to Climate Change, Food Sovereignty, Geoengineering, Green Economy, Land Grabs, Latin America-Caribbean, Rio+20
Global Justice Ecology Project partners with Margaret Prescod’s Sojourner Truth show on KPFK–Pacifica Los Angeles radio show for a weekly Earth Minute on Tuesdays and a weekly 12 minute Environment Segment every Thursday.
This week’s Earth Minute discusses the links between the ever-worsening ecological crisis and the financial crisis being targeted by the Occupation Wall Street protests. To Listen to the Earth Minute, click here
Text from this week’s Earth Minute:
For more than 2 weeks, demonstrators on Wall Street have been standing up against corporate power and these protests are now spreading to other cities. It is the unjust economic and social system that sparked these growing protests that is at the root of many of the crises we face.
It is a system driven by fossil fuels–fuels heavily subsidized by the US government, which gives away billions to oil companies while slashing benefits for the poorest among us.
Fossil fuels are driving climate chaos, causing catastrophic floods, droughts, wildfires and crop failures that further impact vulnerable populations and cause social turmoil.
The US military is deployed to ensure these crises do not impede our steady supply of oil. This military also happens to be the largest single source of greenhouse gas emissions on the planet.
Politics, economics, ecology, race and class are intertwined. If we are to find solutions to the many crises we face, we must understand these connections and take action–just action that respects Mother Earth.
For the Earth Minute and the Sojourner Truth show, this is Anne Petermann from Global Justice Ecology Project.
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Filed under Actions / Protest, Biodiversity, Climate Change, Climate Justice, Earth Minute, Energy, Posts from Anne Petermann
Clayton Thomas Muller leads a workshop on the tar sands at the US Social Forum in Detroit in June 2010. Photo: Langelle/GJEP
This week’s Earth Segment on KPFK Los Angeles features an interview with Clayton Thomas Muller, Tar Sands Campaign Organizer for the Indigenous Environmental Network and a member of Global Justice Ecology Project’s Board of Directors.
Clayton discusses the Indigenous Day of Action that took place in Washington, DC on September 2nd to stop the Tar Sands Keystone XL pipeline, as well as the impacts of the pipeline and the tar sands gigaproject on Indigenous communities.
To listen to this interview click here and scroll to minute 6:12.
About Clayton:
Clayton Thomas-Muller, of the Mathias Colomb Cree Nation also known as Pukatawagan in Northern Manitoba, Canada, is an activist for Indigenous rights and environmental justice. With his roots in the inner city of Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada,Clayton began his work as a community organizer, working with Aboriginal youth. Over the years Clayton work has taken him to five continents across our Mother Earth.
Based out of Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, Clayton is involved in many initiatives to support the building of an inclusive movement for Energy and Climate Justice. He serves on the board of the Global Justice Ecology Project and Canadian based Raven Trust.
Recognized by Utne Magazine as one of the top 30 under 30 activists in the United States and as a Climate Hero 2009 by Yes Magazine, Clayton is the tar sands campaign organizer for the Indigenous Environmental Network. He works across Canada, Alaska and the lower 48 states with grassroots indigenous communities to defend against the sprawling infrastructure that includes pipelines, refineries and extraction associated with the tar sands, the largest and most destructive industrial development in the history of mankind.
The Earth Segment is a collaborative effort between Global Justice Ecology Project and KPFK’s Sojourner Truth show with Margaret Prescod.
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Filed under Actions / Protest, Biodiversity, Climate Change, Climate Justice, Energy, Indigenous Peoples, Tar Sands
Washington DC- American Indian and Canadian Native leaders were arrested September 2, 2011, in front of the White House as they refused to move under orders from the police. Representatives of Native governments and Native organizations from the United States and Canada traveled long distances to join thousands of people that have come to Washington DC during the past two weeks to tell US President Barack Obama not to issue a permit for the construction of a controversial 1,900 mile oil pipeline from Canada to the Gulf Coast.
The Indigenous Call: Take Back Our Future
More on yesterday: First Nations and American Indian Leaders Arrested In Front Of White House To Protest Keystone XL Pipeline
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Filed under Actions / Protest, Climate Change, Energy, Indigenous Peoples, UNFCCC
Global Justice Ecology Project teams up with Margaret Prescod’s Sojourner Truth show on KPFK Los Angeles for a weekly segment on an environmental topic.
This week’s show features an interview with Chief Bill Erasmus, the Regional Chief of the Northwest Territories. He is from the Dene Nation. Regional Chief Erasmus has been elected as a member of the AFN Executive Committee since 1987. Chief Erasmus was instrumental in working with the National Congress of American Indians as the NWT Vice Chief of the Assembly of First Nations in their passage of the resolution opposing the Keystone XL Tar Sands Pipeline. He will be taking part in the DC Indigenous day of action on Sept 2, 2011
To listen to the 12 minute interview, click here and scroll to minute 21:40.
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Filed under Actions / Protest, Biodiversity, Climate Change, Climate Justice, Energy, Indigenous Peoples, Pollution, Tar Sands, Water
