Climate Connections

by GJEP | 2015-02-05 · 10:45

Climate Connections Update

As mentioned in the previous post, Global Justice Ecology Project has decided to shift our energies from Climate Connections to providing news and information through our website and social media platforms. We encourage you to

check out our website;
sign up to get an email when we add a blog post;
and follow us on Twitter and Facebook.

However, you can still access archived articles on Climate Connections by scrolling below or using the search field.

Below please find an informal list of sources (let us know what we missed!) that have been important to Climate Connections over the years. We only include media sources — it would be too much to list all of the organizations we also follow on social media! We will continue to post on our social media any alerts from those movement sources. Thanks for your patience in our evolution.

Biofuelwatch

https://www.biofuelwatch.net/

Indigenous Environmental Network

http://www.ienearth.org/

ClimateProgress, by ThinkProgress

http://thinkprogress.org/climate/issue/

Common Dreams

http://www.commondreams.org

Counterpunch

http://www.counterpunch.org/

DeSmogBlog

http://www.desmogblog.com/

Earth First! Newswire

http://earthfirstjournal.org/newswire/

The Ecologist

http://www.theecologist.org

EcoWatch

http://ecowatch.com/

Environmental Health News

http://www.environmentalhealthnews.org/

Grist

http://grist.org/

Indian Country Today Media Network

http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com

Inter Press Service

http://www.ipsnews.net/

InterContinental Cry

https://intercontinentalcry.org/

Mongabay Environmental News

http://news.mongabay.com/

OtherWords

http://otherwords.org

Popular Resistance

http://www.popularresistance.org

REDD Monitor

http://www.redd-monitor.org/

Truthout

truth-out.org

Toward Freedom

http://www.towardfreedom.com/

Upside Down World

http://upsidedownworld.org/main/

Waging NonViolence

http://wagingnonviolence.org/

WW4 Report

http://ww4report.com/

Z Commentaries

http://zcomm.org/commentaries/

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by GJEP | 2015-01-09 · 14:01

CIC’s environmental and social justice photography contest open for entries

Attention photographers! The Critical Information Collective (CIC) has just announced it’s first annual environmental and social justice photography contest will be accepting entires until 28 February 2015. The categories include: Buen Vivir (life in harmony), Our Changing Climate, Hungry for Change (food sovereignty) and Energy Justice for All. The competition asks for a small entry donation, which will be applied to CIC’s basic operating costs throughout the year.

Photography is one of the most effective ways to raise awareness about social and ecological injustice in the world.

Continue reading →

1 Comment

Filed under Climate Change, Events, Food Sovereignty

Tagged as CIC, contest, Critical Information Collective, photography

by GJEP | 2015-01-07 · 09:00

FBI Harassing Activists in Pacific Northwest

Alex Reid Ross over a Bark wrote this excellent article, originally posted on Defending Dissent, detailing the recent harassment of environmental activists in the Pacific Northwest. Clearly, this increased harassment comes because the stakes are so high for everyone and because groups like Rising Tide are doing such amazing work. The last paragraph definitely gets at that idea:

“My [attorney] was not able to find out what or why they were bothering my sweet folks, but I will tell you why,” one activist whose parents were visited wrote. “Its [sic] because Portland Rising Tide is outreaching, training, and organizing hundreds of Pacific NWers of all age groups to engage in a level of civil disobedience not seen in decades. We are going to do it to save our neighborhoods, our communities, our salmon, and our climate. And that scares the shit out of the powers that be.”

Ross does a great job working through individual stories that show the effects of harassment on people’s lives, and also provides the larger context of the movement as it continues to evolve.

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Filed under Political Repression, Tar Sands

by Anne Petermann | 2015-01-06 · 12:00

Global Justice Ecology Project Executive Director Anne Peterman on the GE American Chestnut

Protesters denounce GE trees at a meeting of the Sustainable Forestry Initiative in 2011
(image by Anne Petermann/Global Justice Ecology Project)

The Global Justice Ecology Project’s Executive Director Anne Peterman was interviewed by Joan Brunwasser on OpEdNews yesterday on the dangers and drawbacks of the GE American chestnut tree being developed by researchers at SUNY Syracuse.

Is GMO Chestnut Tree Monsanto’s Trojan Horse?

Interview by Joan Brunwasser, OpEdNews. 5 January 2015

JB: You’re up in arms against the humble chestnut tree. You recently wrote This Holiday Season say NO to GMO Chestnuts , a strong OpEd piece against it. I admit that I don’t know much about this subject and many of our readers are probably in the same boat. Would you educate us on the subject, please?

AP: Let me be clear first that my background is in forest protection. I have been working to protect the forests of the Northeast US and the world for the last 25 years. I started working on the threats posed by GE trees in 1999 because I worried about their impact on forests. The further I dug, the more concerned I became. So when we talk about the American chestnut tree, we need to understand that this tree was once a key part of the forest ecosystem in the Eastern US. There is an understandably strong desire to return it to that ecosystem. However, I do not agree with replacing wild American chestnut trees with genetically engineered facsimiles.

The reasons for concern about the GE chestnut are many, but one of the main problems is that the GE chestnut has been engineered with foreign DNA from wheat, a process which damages the genome and leads to numerous mutations. This means the engineered tree will likely have unanticipated and unpredictable consequences when released into a forest ecosystem. As we’ve seen time and again with GMO crops, these unanticipated consequences can be very damaging to biodiversity and wildlife, not to mention people. Just take a look at the iconic Monarch butterfly–it’s population is crashing due to the chemicals applied in abundance to herbicide resistant GMO crops. These herbicides are killing off the main food of the butterflies.

Read the entire interview here

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Filed under Biiotechnology, Biodiversity, Bioenergy / Agrofuels, Forests, GE Chestnut, GE Trees, Genetic Engineering, GMOs, Uncategorized

by Anne Petermann | 2014-12-25 · 12:10

GE Trees for Conservation? What are you Nuts?

Happy Holidays from the crew at Global Justice Ecology Project. Below is a very informative piece about the follies of attempting to use genetically engineered trees for conservation, by Rachel Smolker, co-Director of Biofuelwatch and Steering Committee member of the Campaign to STOP GE Trees.

Engineering Chestnut Trees? Biotechnology Takes a Walk in the Woods

By Rachel Smolker, Thursday, 25 December 2014 , Truthout | Op-Ed

As the holiday season approaches, I just can’t keep those traditional Christmas tunes out of my head: “Jingle Bells,” “Silent Night,” “12 Days of Christmas,” and of course “The Christmas Song,” with its famous opening line, “chestnuts roasting on an open fire.”I grew up in New York. My family used to venture into the city during the Christmas season, and we really did purchase little bags of roasted chestnuts from street vendors. I just love the smell and the sweet, earthy flavor of chestnuts. Reminiscing about that led me to think about food, forests and GMOs.

To read the entire article, click here

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Filed under Biiotechnology, Forests, GE Trees, Genetic Engineering, Greenwashing, Monsanto, Tree Plantations, Uncategorized

Tagged as chestnuts

by Anne Petermann | 2014-12-23 · 10:18

Zapatistas Host Festival of Resistance and Rebellion

It is 21 years since the Zapatista Army of National Liberation rose up in Chiapas, Mexico encouraging the mobilization of people around the world against neoliberalism, or global capitalism. They have not gone away, but are continuing to organize in their communities alternatives to the suicidal dominant system.

Zapatistas host world festival of resistance and rebellion
By Leonidas Oikonomakis, December 21, 2014, Roarmag.org

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Filed under Actions / Protest, Corporate Globalization, Indigenous Peoples, Latin America-Caribbean, Rights, Resilience, and Restoration, Victory!

Tagged as zapatistas

by Anne Petermann | 2014-12-19 · 16:00

GMO Chestnuts Draw Scrutiny this Holiday

During the holidays, a time of the iconic roasting of chestnuts, scientists and activists are raising alarms about these efforts to genetically engineer and widely release GE American chestnuts into U.S. forests. Syracuse.com recently reported in “Breakthrough at SUNY-ESF” that researchers at the SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry are growing 10,000 genetically engineered (GE) American chestnut trees to be distributed widely when approved.

The GMO chestnuts produced by these trees would be a new GMO food when concerns about GMOs and labeling are mounting.

Continue reading →

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Filed under Biiotechnology, Bioenergy / Agrofuels, Biofuelwatch, Climate Justice, False Solutions to Climate Change, Forests, GE Trees, Genetic Engineering, GMOs, Greenwashing, Uncategorized

by Anne Petermann | 2014-12-18 · 14:53

Photo Essay: The Pillaging of Paraguay

Woman holds photo of baby whose condition is blamed on agrotoxins, during rally in Asunción, Paraguay, 3 Dec 2014. PhotoLangelle.org

This powerful photo essay came out of a recent trip to Paraguay made by GJEP Board Chair and photographer Orin Langelle and myself to explore, with others from 5 continents, the root causes of the global deforestation crisis. Paraguay makes a good case study of deforestation and its impacts, as this photo essay demonstrates.

The Pillaging of Paraguay Photo Essay and Analysis

By photolangelle on December 18, 2014

“All signs show that Paraguay, both its territory and its population, are under attack by conquerors, but conquerors of a new sort. These new ‘conquistadors’ are racing to seize all available arable land and, in the process, are destroying peoples’ cultures and the country’s biodiversity — just as they are in many other parts of the planet, even in those areas that fall within the jurisdiction of ‘democratic’ and ‘developed’ countries. Every single foot of land is in their crosshairs. Powerful elites do not recognize rural populations as having any right to land at all.” – Dr. Miguel Lovera

Photographs by Orin Langelle. Analysis at the end of the essay by Dr. Miguel Lovera from the case study: The Environmental and Social Impacts of Unsustainable Livestock Farming and Soybean Production in Paraguay. Dr. Lovera was the President of SENAVE, the National Plant Protection Agency, during the government of Fernando Lugo.

To view the entire photo essay click here.

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Filed under Actions / Protest, Biiotechnology, Biodiversity, Food Sovereignty, Frontline Communities, Genetic Engineering, Indigenous Peoples, Industrial agriculture, Land Grabs, Latin America-Caribbean, Pesticides

Climate Connections