Note: GJEP Executive Director Anne Petermann was interviewed for this film at a Rising Tide event in 2008. The film details the devastating ecological and social impacts of agrofuels. The trailer for the film is below.
–The GJEP Team
Released in October 2011: a half-hour in depth educational supplement to the feature film:
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Filed under Bioenergy / Agrofuels, Climate Change, Corporate Globalization, Energy, False Solutions to Climate Change, GE Trees, Genetic Engineering
Photo: Langelle/GJEP
Burlington, VT–Occupy Burlington and their supporters, to pay their respect to Joshua Pfenning, a homeless man and a participant of Occupy Burlington, who once served in the military, held a candlelight vigil and memorial tonight. Pfenning committed suicide yesterday.
At this point the Occupy Burlington encampment is cordoned off by by police tape. No one is allowed to stay in their tents.
The Burlington Free-Press reported that earlier in the day: “Police Chief Michael Schirling, speaking at a press briefing at the police department’s North Avenue headquarters, said the shooting Thursday afternoon and the near-riot later that night had convinced him that the public’s safety cannot be assured unless the encampment is disbanded.”
Tina Goldman an Occupy Burlington supporter said later, ” So I guess this means if a homeless person commits suicide at a homeless shelter, officer Shirling would have everyone in the shelter thrown out on the street and have the shelter shut down. This is utterly ridiculous.”
Occupy Burlington, now all homeless, will discuss their next steps tomorrow.
–Orin Langelle
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Filed under Uncategorized
Bridging mass movements for economic and environmental justice
The System of Debt is the System of Death:
Examining the intertwined root causes of the crises we face
A workshop and dialogue hosted by Anne Petermann and Orin Langelle
of Hinesburg-based Global Justice Ecology Project
11am, City Hall Park
Saturday, Nov. 12th
“We live in a toxic crisis-ridden world because choices are driven, not by ethics or morals, not by justice vs. injustice, not even by objective science. Choices are driven by the bottom line. The 1% who run corporations make their decisions based on profits–on advancing their own self-interests to the detriment of all other life on Earth.”
In this workshop, we will discuss the intertwined root causes of the crises we face, and develop ideas about what we can do to build alliances based on these commonalities to diversify and strengthen our movement.
Coordinated by the #OWS-VT Burlington Environmental Working Group
http://owsvt.wikispaces.com/burlington+environmental+working+group
The System of Debt is the System of Death Workshop/Dialogue
The use of taxpayer money for the outrageous bailouts of banks engaged in high stakes gambling, and the subsequent slashing of the social safety net has mobilized people, around the world, with “occupy” movement rising up in 1,500 cities globally. One of the biggest galvanizing issues has been rapidly expanding economic injustice, exemplified in the U.S. by the enormous debt burdens being carried by graduating college students.
Combined with the million plus people who’ve lost their homes to foreclosure because of predatory lending scams by huge financial firms, there is no doubt as to why many thousands of people across the U.S. are mobilizing for a more just economic system.
But the financial crisis and its outcomes are merely symptoms of a much greater crisis. The crisis of death: exemplified by the climate crisis, the food crisis, the water crisis, the biodiversity crisis, and on and on…
The climate crisis is fast becoming climate catastrophe as region after region suffers the impacts of extreme weather–from floods to hurricanes to droughts to tornadoes to snowstorms–in a trend that shows no sign of slowing down.
Hundreds of species go extinct every day to extinction. The oceans have lost 90% of their life due to industrial fishing and climate change. The world’s forests–known both as the cradles of biodiversity and the lungs of the earth–are rapidly being destroyed, and there are plans to accelerate this deforestation to produce wood-based electricity.
We live in a tangled and beautiful web of life. This means that these myriad crises are reflected in our own bodies. Cancer is an epidemic. One in two men in the U.S. will develop cancer over the course of their lives; as will one in three women. Think about all of your family and friends. Now realize that one in two or one in three of them will develop some form of cancer. Imagine what that means.
We live in a toxic crisis-ridden world because choices are driven, not by ethics or morals, not by justice vs. injustice, not even by objective science. Choices are driven by the bottom line. The 1% who run corporations make their decisions based on profits–on advancing their own self-interests to the detriment of all other life on Earth.
The system must be transformed. It cannot be sustained.
In this workshop, we will discuss the intertwined root causes of the crises we face, and develop ideas about what we can do to build alliances based on these commonalities to diversify and strengthen our movement.
Outrage! Many young people were rounded up after a protest and put on a bus to take them off the grounds of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (2010) in Cancun, Mexico. Photo: Langelle/GJEP-GFC
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Filed under Biodiversity, Climate Change, Climate Justice, Corporate Globalization, False Solutions to Climate Change, Food Sovereignty, Genetic Engineering, Green Economy, Greenwashing, Indigenous Peoples, Land Grabs, Natural Disasters, Rio+20
Note: This is our third post in the spirit of Arab Spring and the Occupy Movement’s Western Fall by showing a music video a day until this weekend from the prolific songwriter and singer, David Rovics.
And since this is Veterans Day, please watch the ‘Song for Bradley Manning’ immediately following the ‘John Brown’ music video, especially in the light of the Occupy Burlington (Vermont) homeless military veteran who took his own life yesterday. And Kayvan Sabehgi, the second Iraq war veteran hospitalized following involvement in Occupy Oakland protests. Another veteran, Scott Olsen, suffered a fractured skull also in Oakland. How many veterans have committed suicide, hospitalized or are amongst the walking wounded? No wonder there is talk of revolution in the air.
-Orin Langelle for the GJEP Team
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Filed under Actions / Protest, Corporate Globalization
Note: The latest information is that Josh was a military veteran-Orin Langelle for GJEP in Vermont.
Today, November 10th at 2pm, Josh, a valued member of Occupy Burlington and the houseless community, took his own life at the encampment. We want to take this moment to offer our thoughts and condolences to Josh’s family, and to the members of the Occupy community who got to know Josh over the last two weeks.
Again, our thoughts and prayers are with everyone reeling from this loss and we deeply appreciate everyone who has offered support, compassion, and solidarity. It is our hope that this tragedy will serve as a rallying cry for occupations around the country to continue the fight for system change.
In Solidarity,
Occupy Burlington
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Filed under Climate Change
This week on the Sojourner Truth show on KPFK, hear Ellen Choy, climate justice organizer in Oakland, drawing the links between climate justice and the Occupy movement; also hear Jackie de Salvo, Erica Huggins of the Black Panther party, our friend Tina Gerhardt from Honolulu on the new trade agreement in the works for the Asia/Pacific region, and the Pacifica News on the outbreak of police violence against student protests on the UC Berkeley campus last night.
To hear Ellen Choy, follow this link and scroll to minute 49:00:
http://archive.kpfk.org/parchive/mp3/kpfk_111110_070010sojourner.MP3
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Filed under Climate Justice, Media
Note: In the spirit of Arab Spring and the Occupy Movement’s Western Fall, we are going to show a music video a day until this weekend from the prolific songwriter and singer, David Rovics. Rovics has been compared to the late Phil Ochs who attacked the establishment with his words and music. Today’s video is about the beginning of the uprising in Tunisia. Thursday and Friday we will post music videos about Bradley Manning and John Brown. We hope you enjoy David’s music. Some of us have known David for years. In Rostock, Germany during the G8 in 2007, David, Morrigan Phillips and GJEP’s Orin Langelle were a three person affinity group during the first mass march. We could say more, but we’ll leave it at that. We hope you enjoy the videos and music of David Rovics today through Friday.
-The GJEP Team
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Filed under Corporate Globalization
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 Indigenous Peoples’ protest against the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline project that occurred in Washington DC on Sunday, November 6th. To listen to this week’s Earth Minute, click here.
Text from this week’s Earth Minute:
This past Sunday, thousands of people traveled to the White House to protest the massive pipeline that would carry tar sands oil from the devastated boreal forests of Alberta to the Gulf of Mexico. President Obama will decide if the pipeline project can proceed in early 2012.
While the US is obligated to honor the Treaties it made with the Lakota and other indigenous nations, there has been virtually no consultation regarding the environmental impact of this massive pipeline that would endanger their lands.
At the DC rally, Cree/Métis Tantoo Cardinal, stated, “I was raised in the Fort McMurray area, the heart of the current tar sands projects. We are all protectors of the land and water. If you were to see with your own eyes the incredible destruction of our ecosystem, you’d understand that blind greed is destroying our land, water, and way of life.”
If approved, US based Native Nations in solidarity with First Nations from Canada have sworn to stop the pipeline.
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, Earth Minute, Energy, Indigenous Peoples, Posts from Anne Petermann, Tar Sands, Water
