Margaret Prescod, host of the Sojourner Truth show, talks with Eriel Deranger of the Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation about the ongoing efforts to stop the mining of tar sand deposits in Alberta, Canada and the environmental damage such exploitation has wreaked on the region’s indigenous communities.
Global Justice Ecology Project teams up with the Sojourner Truth show for weekly Earth Minutes and Earth Segment interviews.
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Filed under Actions / Protest, Biodiversity, Climate Change, Earth Radio, Ending the Era of Extreme Energy, Energy, Forests, Indigenous Peoples, Tar Sands
Note: The photos in the upper right and lower left of this poster were taken in the indigenous village Amador Hernandez on the border of the Montes Azules Biosphere Reserve by Global Justice Ecology Project Board Chair Orin Langelle during an investigative trip to Chiapas, Mexico with GJEP’s then-Communications Director Jeff Conant. The trip was organized in March 2011 to identify and expose the impacts on the indigenous communities in the Lacandon Jungle of Chiapas, Mexico that would be caused by the California-Chiapas-Acre (Brazil) REDD agreement, which was announced at the Cancun climate talks in December 2010. The series of events this week in California against REDD (also see previous blog post) feature Orin’s photography as well as GJEP’s film “A Darker Shade of Green: REDD Alert and the Future of Forests.” For more, go to no-redd.com
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Filed under Actions / Protest, Climate Change, Events, False Solutions to Climate Change, Forests, Green Economy, Greenwashing, Indigenous Peoples, Land Grabs, Photo Essays by Orin Langelle, REDD
October 2, 2012. Source: Tar Sands Blockade
Note: If you haven’t noticed, there is an epic fight going on in Texas to stop TransCanada’s Keystone XL pipeline. Consecutive and ongoing blockades and tree sits have delayed construction for weeks, and have inspired people across the country to embrace direct action campaigns against the Tar Sands. All the while, TransCanada continues to order workers to fell trees dangerously close to blockaders, embraces torture tactics against activists and intimidates private property owners who are resisting the illegal seizure of their land. If you are looking for a great way to pass the time, consider heading down to Texas to join in the fight. You can attend the Tar Sands Direct Action Training Camp on October 12-14 in East Texas to get trained and get involved.
-The GJEP Team
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Filed under Actions / Protest, Climate Change, Ending the Era of Extreme Energy, Independent Media, Tar Sands
On September 24, Climate Connections was the first media source to break the news nationally and internationally about the US military cover-up of secret testing on people in St. Louis. MO during the Cold War: primarily on poor black people. Prior to that, several outlets in St. Louis were covering the newly unfolding story. St. Louis’ KSDK TV (a NBC affiliate) is to be commended for their aggressive covering of the story and for standing up to the US military. As the story was breaking, GJEP worked with Sam Husseini from the Institute for Public Accuracy on a press release that sent the story around the world. We also worked with Margaret Prescod from KFPK’s Sojourner Truth show in Los Angeles.
Late last week, Missouri Senators and a congressman from the tested area called for an investigation of what happened. Now the Associated Press has sent a piece over the wire, and the racist act perpetrated by the US government is being even more widely exposed, as evidenced by the ABC national news article below.
We congratulate sociologist Dr. Lisa Martino-Taylor, the researcher who uncovered the secret testing and made the issue known.
Immediately following the AP-ABC article below is a twitter page from three time-Emmy Award winning former correspondent for CNN, Amber Lyon praising Dr. Martino-Taylor and warning about the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). If you haven’t heard of it, we encourage you to find out more about this threat.
Victims of this secret testing have begun speaking out about what happened to their families and themselves during the US military secret experiments in St. Louis. MO. We wish them all the best.
–The GJEP Team
Secret Cold War Tests in St. Louis Raise Concerns Source ABC News
Amber Lyon@AmberLyon
Lisa Martino-Taylor is a #HERO. She made it ‘her life’s work’ to expose the Army’s secret gas tests on poor, minorities in St. Louis.
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Filed under Climate Change, Photo Essays by Orin Langelle
Global Justice Ecology Project teams up with KPFK’s Sojourner Truth show for weekly Earth Minutes every Tuesday and Earth Segment interviews every Thursday.
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Filed under Climate Change, Climate Justice, Ending the Era of Extreme Energy, Indigenous Peoples, Pollution
By Phil Bereano, Profesor Emeritus, University of Washington, October 2, 2012
Note: The following was received by GJEP Executive Director Anne Petermann via email and will be read during the UN’s Cartagena Biosafety Protocol meeting today.
-The GJEP Team
Photo: Los Angeles Times
On behalf of the green NGOs participating in the 6th Meeting of the Parties to the UN’s Cartagena Biosafety Protocol, in Hyderabad, India (regulatng the cross-bundary movement of GMOs), I am introducing the following statement at the Wednesday morning plenary:
We have learned yesterday of the death of Barry Commoner–a great American scientist and, as the New York Times called him, the “lifeguard” of Planet Earth–this past Sunday, in New York City.
One of the first individuals to push for a greater involvement of scientists and other technical workers with society’s problems, he co-founded the Scientists Institute for Public Information in 1963 to provide relevant information to journalists and citizen activists. This effort to help empower citizens increased the quality and authenticity of public decision-making. Citizens were thus emboldened to become watchdogs, monitoring governmental and corporate activities and joining collectively to correct them; he insisted that civic society had the right to demand accountability. Commoner’s critique of capitalism’s heedless pursuits of profits regardless of external cost had a profoundly moral basis. He saw social justice concerns linking environmentalism, gender equality, issues of racial harmony, controlling militarism.
In our own field of biosafety, Commoner was, in the words of the Times, “a founder of modern ecology and one of its most provocative thinkers and mobilizers in making environmentalism a people’s political cause”. He was associated with the Council for Responsible Genetics, the world’s first NGO to take up the issues of genetic engineering (in the 1980s). In February of 2002, he authored one of the most profoundly important articles for laypeople on the subject of genetic engineering, “Unraveling the DNA myth: The spurious foundation of genetic engineering” (Harper’s Magazine)which exposed “the Central Dogma” that somehow DNA was solely determinative of an organisms life.
In 1970 at the time of the first Earth Day, Time magazine featured him on its cover as the “Paul Revere of Ecology,” referring to the American Revolutionary who warned citizens of danger from approaching British troops. Yes, Commoner sounded some of the first alarms over biosafety; we in the NGO community remember him with pride as we continue to respond to threats to the Earth’s well-being.
Phil Bereano
Prof Emeritus
Uiversity of Washington
& Washington Biotechnology Action Council
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Filed under Events, Genetic Engineering, Green Economy, Media
Note: Since Monday, 24 September, when we published the article Breaking News: Secret US military testing of radiological materials on poor and minority on our Climate Connections blog, it has become one of the most read articles since the blog’s debut in 2009. GJEP also worked with the Institute for Public Accuracy, on their press release Exposed: Secret Cold War Inhalation Experiments on Poor, Minority Communities in St. Louis; Possible Radiological Testing, as well as The Sojourner Truth show on KPFK Los Angeles and other media to help make sure that more people are informed of the secret testing.
Our prelude to Monday’s Climate Connections article stated: In a story that is breaking right now, Dr. Lisa Martino-Taylor, a sociologist in St. Louis. MO (US), has introduced evidence that “secret military tests conducted during the Cold War targeted poor and minority communities for exposure to what is likely radiological material.”The following is an update on the cover-up.
–The GJEP Team
Compiled by Orin Langelle and Anne Petermann
U.S. Senators Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., and Roy Blunt, R-Mo are calling for an investigation into the secret testing on humans during the Cold War.
After hearing that Senator Blunt and Senator McCaskill are asking for an investigation related to the 1953-1954 and 1963-1965 open-air military/USPHS tests, which focused on the DeSoto Carr, Pruitt-Igoe and other affected areas, Dr. Lisa Martino-Taylor told us, “any real and legitimate investigation will include public comment and participation from former residents in the affected areas. Their voices have not been heard. It would be very inappropriate for government agencies- some of which designed these tests- to conduct an investigation without availing themselves of the first-hand experiences of those residents who were directly affected.”
Select quotes from yesterday’s online St. Louis Beacon:
“Given the nature of these experiments, it’s not surprising that Missouri citizens still have questions and concerns about what exactly occurred and if there may have been any negative health effects,” McCaskill said in a statement.
“The National Research Council recommended that additional studies should be conducted and it’s my goal to find out whether or not they were.”
In a statement, Blunt said, “The idea that thousands of Missourians were unwillingly exposed to harmful materials in order to determine their health effects is absolutely shocking. It should come as no surprise that these individuals and their families are demanding answers of government officials.”
In his letter, Blunt asked the Army to report on the specific areas exposed to the spraying, the health impact of exposure to the chemical compounds, and whether there was indeed a radioactive component to the testing in Missouri.
U.S. Rep. William Lacy Clay, D-St. Louis, whose congressional district includes some of the affected parts of the city, said Thursday that “it’s time for the Army to come clean and tell us the truth.”
“The Army has never revealed the full story about this outrageous and irresponsible Cold War testing in the midst of our community,” Clay said in a statement to the Beacon. “It’s unclear if the recommended follow-up testing was ever conducted, and if any long-term health risks exist.”
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Filed under Political Repression
Dr. Lisa Martino-Taylor, Sociology Professor at St. Louis Community College in St. Louis, Missouri, discusses recently obtained documents exposing secret Cold War-era chemical studies conducted on poor, minority neighborhoods in St. Louis and their connections with the Manhattan Atomic Bomb Project.Comments Off on KPFK Sojourner Truth Earth Segment: Dr. Lisa Martino-Taylor on secret Cold War chemical tests in St. Louis
Filed under Independent Media, Pollution
