by | 2012-04-20 · 16:56

KPFK Earth Segment: Rebecca Manski, with Occupy Wall Street, on Occupy Earth Day, and efforts to bring an ecological justice approach to the Occupy movement

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.

On this week’s Earth Segment, Rebecca Manski of Occupy Wall Street fills us in on Occupy plans for Earth Day and how they are planning to make visible ecological justice in actions around the May 1st general strike.

To listen to the Earth Segment, click on the link below and go to the third segment listed:

http://soundcloud.com/sojournertruthradio/sets/sojournertruthradio-april-19-1/

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by | 2012-04-18 · 08:00

This Week’s Earth Minute: GE Tree Field-trials Destroyed by Protesters in New Zealand

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. In this week’s Earth minute, Anne Petermann makes clear that, “if the government won’t stop GE trees, it appears some people are prepared take matters into their own hands.”

To listen to the Earth Minute, click here: http://bit.ly/IMCn71

The full text of this week’s Earth Minute:

In New Zealand, a field trial of genetically engineered trees was destroyed by protesters, who broke through two security perimeters to access them over Easter weekend.  Damage was estimated at over $400,000 New Zealand dollars.

The field trial was planted last year by Scion, a forestry research venture that is partnered with US-based GE tree company ArborGen.  ArborGen has petitioned the US government for permission to sell hundreds of millions of genetically engineered eucalyptus trees for planting across the US south.

But there is widespread public opposition to GE trees–which Scion clearly understood by their high level of security. GE trees are potentially disastrous, and once they escape into a natural forest, there is no calling them back.

The good news is there are no commercial-scale plantings of genetically engineered trees anywhere in the world, except for a small plantation in China.  GE trees are still one disaster we can stop.  And if the government won’t stop them, it appears some people are prepared take matters into their own hands.

For more information on GE trees, visit nogetrees.org.

For the earth minute and the sojourner truth show, this is Anne Petermann from Global Justice Ecology Project

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Filed under GE Trees, Media, Posts from Anne Petermann

by | 2012-04-17 · 15:00

Indigenous Peoples from around the World agree on solidarity: RIO+20

Note: Rio+20 is the twenty-year anniversary of the historic Rio Earth Summit where the world’s leaders came together to address the growing interlinked crises of environmental degradation and unjust development models–at least in theory.  They emerged from the 1992 summit with new commitments to tackle the climate crisis, the biodiversity crisis, the desertification crisis and to promote sustainable development.  Twenty years on and things are worse than ever.  As a result, organizations, social movements, Indigenous Peoples’ organizations and others are mobilizing for Rio+20–not just to demand real action to address the roots of these crises, but to hold an alternative summit where people can start coming up with the real solutions on their own.  This approach is critical since it is clear that many corporate controlled governments are heavily invested in business-as-usual and have no intention of doing anything but spooning out some greenwashed PR nonsense in the form of the so-called “green economy,” or as some are calling it, the “greed economy.”

This Climate Connections blog will be offering daily coverage of the Rio+20 summit–both the inner machinations of the official negotiations and the highlights of the alternative summit.  Stay tuned for articles, photo essays, videos and interviews as well as scathing critiques of the attempts by the “1%” to maintain their power and privilege at all costs.

–The GJEP Team

Indigenous Peoples Caucus

3rd Intersessional Meeting of the Preparatory Process for the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development (UNCSD)

March 26-27, 2012

New York

 We, indigenous peoples representatives meeting together as an indigenous peoples caucus during the 3rdIntersessional meeting of the UNCSD, after a thorough discussion of urgent issues and concerns affecting indigenous peoples activities related to the Rio+20 process, resolve and agree to the following points:

1. We will take efforts to build solidarity among the different Brazilian IP organizations and regional networks in Latin America in the spirit of reconciliation, and seek the help of some of our brothers and sisters in this effort [Tom Goldtooth (IEN), Vicky Tauli-Corpuz (Tebtebba) and Miguel Palacin (CAOI);]

2. We uphold and support the messages and agreements of the Manaus Declaration “INDIGENOUS PEOPLES IN ROUTE TO THE RIO + 20 CONFERENCE” made during the Global preparatory meeting of Indigenous Peoples on Rio + 20 and Kari-Oca 2 on August 22- 24, 2011 in Manaus, Brazil. This declaration includes the agreement to “organize Kari-Oca 2 as a global conference of Indigenous Peoples where we will share our efforts to implement development with identity and culture or our self- determined development, … and endeavour to reach a consensus on themes and issues of Rio +20.”

3. We appreciate the ongoing efforts and hard work of the Inter-Tribal Council to prepare a site for Kari-Oca 2 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil in accordance with the agreements reached during the Manaus meeting. We therefore urge the Global IP Steering Committee to support this effort and maximize the site being prepared for the Kari-Oca 2 Global Conference of indigenous peoples.

4. We further urge the Global IP Steering Committee to coordinate and harmonize the various indigenous peoples’ initiatives in Rio and come up with a common, unified calendar of activities for indigenous peoples during Rio+20 and Kari-Oca 2.

This will ensure that indigenous peoples will project a strong and united voice on the themes and issues related to Rio +20.

Agreed by the Indigenous Peoples Caucus with representatives from Latin America, North America, Africa and Asia on May 27, 2012, New York.

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by | · 13:30

Corporate takeover of UN Climate Conference

Note: The following cross-post is from the March 2012 newsletter, published in London, England  from our friends at the Environmental Network for Central America (ENCA).  I have known ENCA contacts and activists Nick Rau and Sheila Amoo-gottried for over a decade now and they have graciously put me up in their homes a few times in London.  Martin Mowforth, from the School of Geography, Earth & Environmental Sciences at Plymouth University has been sending me the ENCA newsletter for more years than I can remember.  I always am grateful to see it arrive.

I received this edition last evening, opened it immediately and was quite surprised to see the following piece written by ENCA’s Barney Thompson.  I smiled when I read the paragraph that begins, “With a similar outlook to ENCA, GJEP highlights the intertwined root causes of social injustice, ecological destruction and economic domination…”  We’re very honored to be considered in the same vein as ENCA, and appreciate the coverage we receive in the following post.

Thanks to ENCA for all of their amazing work in Central America and the service they provide by supporting the people who live in that region and for getting the word out to the rest of the world.

¡La lucha sigue!

-Orin Langelle for the GJEP Team

This short article is a summary of the Global Justice Ecology Project Press Release (13 December 2011) ‘GJEP Direct Action and Climate Justice at the UN Climate Talks’, GJEP, Hinesburg, USA.

Summary by ENCA member Barney Thompson

Frustrated by the lack of any significant progress at the recent UN Climate Conference in South Africa, the US based NGO Global Justice Ecology Project (GJEP) took direct action alongside hundreds of African youth activists and civil society representatives. On the final day of the conference they staged a sit-in in the convention centre halls which resulted in arrest, ‘debadging’ and ejection from the event. They were one of the very few organisations there to take any such direct action in protest at the corporate takeover and the dominance of empty rhetoric over binding action that has now become the norm at the UN climate talks.

GJEP is removed by UN security during sit-in occupation Photo: Ben Powless

With a similar outlook to ENCA, GJEP highlights the intertwined root causes of social injustice, ecological destruction and economic domination. They work to build bridges between social and environmental justice groups (including those in Central America) to strengthen their collective efforts. In Durban, GJEP raised awareness of the messages of such climate justice experts and front line community representatives by connecting them with major international media outlets for interviews as well as delivering press releases and conferences. Included in the speakers was Friends of the Earth El Salvador’s Ricardo Navarro, also a friend of ENCA. They also participated in a march for climate justice attended by tens of thousands of people before then deciding in frustration to take more direct action.

GJEP’s Executive Director Anne Petermann was one of those arrested and she released the following statement:

“I took this action today because I believe this process is corrupt, this process is bankrupt, and this process is controlled by the One percent. If meaningful action on climate change is to happen, it will need to happen from the bottom up. The action I took today was to remind us all of the power of taking action into our own hands. With the failure of states to provide human leadership, and the corporate capture of the United Nations process, direct action by the ninety-nine percent is the only avenue we have left.”

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by | · 10:28

Reflections on Hurricane Irene and the Climate Connection

The community of Waterbury, VT begins clean-up after Irene hit the state on Tuesday, August 30, 2012. Photo: Langelle/GJEP

Note: Last month I was asked to submit photographs for an upcoming book on Hurricane (Tropical Storm) Irene and its impact on Vermont.  I was requested to provide numerous photos from my Photo Essay from Vermont: The Recovery from Hurricane Irene Begins.  Quite a few of my shots will be published.

I sent the following article along with the photos.  It won’t be published for various reasons, so I thought I should share it with Climate Connections.

Today is April 17, 2012. Two days ago was the normal date for Lake Iroquois, where I live and wrote this piece, to be free of ice.  Yesterday, the temperature here reached the mid-eighties.  It also was my 61st birthday. (I’ve seen a lot in my life so far and I expect life on the Earth to become much more difficult due to climate chaos and the possibility of total ecological collapse.)

I wrote the following for a mainstream readership, so it may not be as radical as our Climate Connections readers have come to expect, but I do believe that the last few paragraphs which touch on community promote the revolutionary concepts of mutual aid and justice.  Those are just a few of the traits necessary to help build a movement to stop the onslaught of the Earth and its inhabitants by the tiny one percent neoliberal criminals.

-Orin Langelle for GJEP

Irene and the Climate Connection

Lake Iroquois, VT   US           March 19, 2012

This is the last official day of winter.  This afternoon I looked at our thermometer and it was 81 F degrees in the shade.

My partner, Anne Petermann, and I have lived in a cottage on Lake Iroquois in Hinesburg, VT for the past fifteen years.  A few years ago the lake’s ice melt was on the 31st of March.  I spoke with some long-time residents about the early ice melt that year and they could not remember Iroquois’ water open that early.  This year, on St. Patrick’s Day, people were water skiing on the lake—they should have been ice fishing or enjoying another winter sport.

Many of us did not go snowshoeing or cross-country skiing this season. We’ve seen some plumes of smoke coming from sugar shacks this month, but suffice it to say people who make maple sugar are not happy.

In the beginning of this month record-breaking tornadoes swept through the US, breaking records for the entire month.

Last year on top of Irene we were hit with floods that washed over many of the shores of Lake Champlain.  Crops were ruined from heavy flooding on VT Rivers.

Besides being the board Chair of Global Justice Ecology Project, I’m a photojournalist.  I’ve been working on climate related issues for years, starting with Hurricane Mitch that struck Nicaragua in 1998.  I’ve covered UN climate conventions since 2004 and listened to first hand accounts of extreme weather globally by people that are feeling its impacts.  We know people in the small islands of the Pacific whose land is disappearing.

Migrations of people and animals are taking place over the Earth right now because of the weather.

We must recognize that extreme weather is occurring.  And its pace is quickening.

I’m originally from Missouri and when the massive EF5 tornado devastated Joplin, MO last May, and for the fact that I’m a photojournalist working on climate, I almost went.  Anne, who also works on climate issues, talked me into staying in VT, saying unfortunately I’d get a chance to photograph extreme weather damage in VT.  Little did we know that it would happen so fast with Irene.

In beginning of the aftermath, the day after in fact, Anne and I photographed and interviewed military personnel from Camp Johnson, where the National Guard was mobilizing and FEMA was beginning to arrive.  We ended up later that day on a road to Grafton, one of the towns that were cut off from ground transportation.  We went as far as we could go.

Between going to Camp Johnson and ending up on a washed out road near Grafton, we spent most of our time in Waterbury.  As you can see [from my photo] essay), most of Waterbury was just beginning recovery from Irene.  People who lost everything were helping each other.  The community was uniting.  The community came together in an emergency.

Was Irene cause by the changing climate?  To me quite certainly, but in the end it is up for you to decide.

The Union of Concerned Scientists states, “Recent scientific evidence suggests a link between the destructive power (or intensity) of hurricanes and higher ocean temperatures, driven…by global warming.”

It is evident to many of us that for far too long industrial civilization has been belching carbon into the atmosphere.  Is it to late to stop the damage that has already been done?  Maybe.  Or maybe not.  But real change needs to start happening now.

Most communities come together in emergencies—all over the world.  It is a shame though that it takes disaster for most people in communities to work hand in hand for their common good. Maybe it’s time for real community to come together–not just when disaster hits–but all of the time.  Maybe then we can find real solutions that we the people talk about and decide.

But maybe real community is just a dreamer’s utopia.  Someone has to dream though, or everyone’s dream may become a nightmare.

Orin Langelle is the board chair for Global Justice Ecology Project and is a photojournalist now editing four decades of his concerned photography.

 

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by | 2012-04-13 · 09:39

Breaking News: GMO Tree Field Trial Destroyed in New Zealand

Note:  This breaking news from Aotearoa (New Zealand) was received by GJEP from sources around the world.  A colleague from Aotearoa writes, “…a bulletin on a break-in at the Scion site where people cut through the outer perimeter fence and dug under the inner security barrier to destroy the young [GM pine] saplings…GE Free NZ stopped short of condemning the action… I expect that the next few weeks will see raids on the homes and offices of known political activists over the Scion action. It will be sold to the public as an attempt to stop political insurrection. Wish us all luck. ”

Anne Petermann, GJEP’s Executive Director and Coordinator of the STOP GE Trees Campaign  stated this morning, “With the extreme security measures taken at the site, it is clear that Scion is aware of the powerful public opposition to genetically engineered trees.  People understand the inherent ecological, social and health risks associated with genetically engineered trees, and if the government won’t stop them, this action shows that people are prepared take matters into their own hands.”

Scion has been working in partnership with GE tree company ArborGen since 2006.  The GE eucalyptus trees being field tested by ArborGen in the US were genetically engineered in New Zealand.

For more on the dangers of genetically engineered trees and to read our new report on GE trees, go to: Analysis of the State of GE Trees and Advanced Bioenergy

–The GJEP Team

Cross-posted NZ Newswire unless noted.  More reports, video and sources at end of article.

For video on the incident, please click here (go to upper left side under headline)

375 genetically modified radiata pine trees at a research site have been destroyed by vandals. Photo / APNZ

A research trial of genetically modified trees destroyed by vandals in Rotorua could have informed the public debate on GM technologies, the Royal society of New Zealand says.

Police are investigating the attack over Easter weekend when 375 radiata pines at Scion’s forestry research institute were either cut or pulled out.

The vandals cut through fencing and tunnelled under another to reach the plants, causing about $400,000 of damage.

Royal Society of New Zealand, which promotes science, president Dr Garth Carnaby says the destruction means evidence that would have informed the public debate about GM technologies has been lost.

“Such vandalism is an expensive squandering of New Zealand’s limited research funding.”

Scion chief executive Dr Warren Parker estimated the vandals had caused about $400,000 of damage and put back research by a year.

“The field trial was approved under one of the strictest regulatory regimes in the world, and our team has fully complied with the containment controls. Despite this, our research opponents were determined to stop us and used criminal means to do so.”

The trials were looking at resistance to herbicides and reproductive development.

Massey University Molecular Genetics Professor Barry Scott said vandalism of this kind was “senseless” and destroyed years of work done by researchers.

“What is particularly abhorrent about this act is the thinking by those involved that their rights and actions should take precedent over the rights of other individuals.”

An anti-GE group is denying involvement in the destruction of genetically engineered pine trees at a research site in Rotorua. (msn nz)

GE-Free New Zealand president Claire Bleakley says she doesn’t know who was behind the attack and doubts it was anyone linked to her organisation.

Police believe the trees were destroyed sometime between Monday and Tuesday morning and want to hear from anyone with information.

miffyrotorua

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by | 2012-04-12 · 16:12

KPFK Earth Segment: Jihan Gearon, Director of Black Mesa Water Coalition, on proposed Arizona legislation that will have drastic effects on native lands and the region

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 Jihan Gearon, Director of Black Mesa Water Coalition, on a proposed Arizona state law that will have drastic effects on native lands and the region

To listen to the Earth Segment, click on the link below and scroll to minute  46:35:

http://archive.org/details/Sojournertruthradio041212

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Filed under Indigenous Peoples, Water

by | 2012-04-09 · 14:00

Critical Information Collective Offers Resources for Advancing Movement for Justice

Note: The following post regards a new organization, Critical information Collective, set up by our friends Joe Zacune and Ronnie Hall (both ex-campaign coordinators with Friends of the Earth International).  This initiative will be a very useful and powerful resource and clearinghouse for our collective struggle for social and ecological justice.  Check it out!

–The GJEP Team

From Critical Information Collective:

We really hope that you have time to read this short message introducing a new organisation, Critical Information Collective (CIC). It’s been set up by the two of us, Ronnie Hall and Joseph Zacune (ex-campaign coordinators with Friends of the Earth International), although we hope to expand it to include more researchers and advisors soon.

 CIC aims to be a resource for you all, providing social movements, NGOs and communities campaigning against corporate globalisation with a single ‘one stop shop’ of incisive, political and campaign-oriented analysis, images and tools – as well as more visibility for our collective effort to challenge the prevailing economic paradigm.

We aim to cover a broad range of critical issues related to corporate-led globalisation, including agrofuels, climate change, deforestation, food, GMOs, land, mining, poverty, rights, and trade and investment.

If you want to find the key documents on any one topic, from a range of different organisations (including your own), or easily find relevant and free/cheap images for your publications, or point your members to additional information resources and campaign tools, we hope you will visit/link to us.”

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Filed under Bioenergy / Agrofuels, Carbon Trading, Climate Change, Climate Justice, Corporate Globalization, False Solutions to Climate Change, Green Economy, Indigenous Peoples, REDD, Rio+20, UNFCCC, World Bank

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