The meeting was attended by 107 climate activists, representing groups from across the country and abroad: California, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Texas, Vermont, Virginia and Washington; as well as Colombia, England and Canada.
The meeting took place the day after the huge April 29th March for Peace, Justice and Democracy down Broadway in Manhattan. On the wall was a 20 foot long banner which read: “No More Oil Wars—Clean Energy Now!” The banner, created and carried by Middlebury College students for the march, represented the connection people felt between the two events.
Opening Comments
Coraminita Mahr, Vice President of 1199/Service Employees International Union, opened by welcoming participants and reporting on 1199’s active two-year involvement with the Climate Crisis Coalition.
Tom Goldtooth, Executive Director of the Indigenous Environmental Network, offered his spiritual perspective to the proceedings, (in English and his native language), by calling on the spirit of those who have come before us who have struggled to defend THE rights OF indigenous people, of all people and of Mother Earth.
Morning Presentations
Mike Tidwell, Chesapeake Climate Action Network:
You need to pick a path and do it now. Greenland is melting. We could see 80 feet of sea level rise in coming centuries. Hurricane season 2005 was major: three catastrophic storms in 52 days. We need to think of ourselves as revolutionaries. We shouldn’t wait one more day for clean energy. In the Chesapeake region we tried different tactics to get the Maryland legislature to pass a bill to reduce CO2 and other air pollutants. We had to get ourselves arrested blocking the entrance to a coal-fired plant before things started to change. Three weeks afterwards the leading candidate for governor took up this issue. We have to figure out what gets people’s attention. We have the technology and tools to make this clean energy revolution. We need to make it government policy.
Ibrahim Abdil-Mu’id Ramey, CCC:
We need to be about movement-building. The greatest danger to humankind is globalized monopoly capitalism. People don’t want to say it, but we have to be honest so we can then develop an understanding of how to challenge it. Science shows we’re in dire peril. A movement comes from values and a vision. Humanity over profit. Unless we have a vision we’re managing crisis instead of transforming the situation. We need to move beyond a mono-cultural, mono-lingual movement to change the world so that it’s in the hands of the global majority. We need a marketing strategy. Change happens when people are motivated. It has to relate to them, like the cost of food, safety of their children, resources for development, etc. We need to connect to family and tap into Indigenous wisdom, point to successful movements like the one in the D.C. area or campuses shifting to clean energy.
Kim Teplitzky, Energy Action:
I’m doing the youth piece. Energy Action includes all of the major youth/student groups in the U.S. and Canada. Over 100 campuses are shifting to renewables. The Campus Climate Challenge is bigger than Earth Day. We’re working with environmental justice and Indigenous and older environmental groups with goal of 700 campuses by 2008. A sit-in at Penn State is happening right now. We just had a victory in California with a decision to purchase renewables. Green building and efficiency as far as architecture goes is big on campuses; also bio-diesel projects and new technology. Students and young people get this issue. We’re doing collaboration and confrontation. We’re into realigning power. We’re going to be dealing with all of this for a long time; we’re ready to push forward and carry the flame.
Tom Goldtooth, Executive Director of the Indigenous Environmental Network:
I’m here for a Commission on Sustainable Development meeting at the United Nations where the big issues are energy, climate and pollution. I’m co-chair of Environmental Justice Climate Change Initiative, which has supported youth leadership development, and bringing people of color into the white environmental movement. Winona LaDuke has talked about a T-shirt, Make Wind Not War. 75% of energy needed in the U.S. could be produced on the Great Plains. Renewable energy on reservations can both help our people and contribute to the planet. Energy policy in this country has had major negative impacts on Indigenous Peoples going way back. We’ve been doing direct actions in our network concerning coal-fired plants and fossil fuel development. We do have the technology in this country but not the political will. We have to deal with our energy addiction and waste; we need to reduce energy use in the home, transportation and industry, and increase fuel efficiency. We need to look at the question of carbon caps. We should make the polluters pay. Who controls the commons? I’m concerned about “clean coal” and sequestration. They say, “trust us,” but we’ve heard that before. We need to organize to build the political will. Enviros need constituencies. Say no to an industrial mindset. Relate to mother earth. Yes to environmental ethics. Make Wind Not War.
Cecil D. Corbin-Mark, West Harlem Environmental Action:
As Marvin Gaye said, “Makes me want to holler and throw up my hands.” In my community people don’t understand all the terms, but they know that air pollution causes asthma and experience heat waves and more severe weather. We have to break things down into simple, understandable terms. The word crisis is about both danger and opportunity. Dangers are ice caps melting, pollution, sea level rise, health impacts, asthma, rise of diseases like malaria. Opportunities are for a return to a set of values. History shows that we only move forward in this country when values are in alignment within mass movements. There is much within the Bible, the Koran and the Torah that are similar: ethic for the environment, stewardship, justice, equality and not domination. EJCCI (The Environmental Justice and Climate Change Initiative) has ten principles: stop cooking the planet; empower individuals and give knowledge; a just transition for workers and communities; require community participation; global solutions; we in U.S. must give positive leadership; stop exploration for fossil fuels; monitor carbon markets; caution in the face of uncertainty; and protect future generations. We must do all we can.
Questions, answers and comments from the floor followed. The meeting then divided into five breakout groups to discuss the themes of the morning presentations.
Afternoon Workshops
Congressional Focus
This workshop discussed the need to be active in promoting climate issues in this year’s midterm elections and specific ways that it could be done.
After an initial round of introductions, people explained why they thought this year’s midterm elections were particularly important to the climate crisis. Much of the meeting focused on the CCC ClimateUSA initiative. The Separation of Oil and State campaign and the Apollo Alliance Ten-Point Plan for Good Jobs and Energy Independence were also discussed.
Tom Stokes and Ross Gelbspan explained the rationale for the ClimateUSA initiative; events leading to its launching and how people could be involved: It’s an outgrowth of the People’s Ratification of the Kyoto Global Warming Treaty petition (www.kyotoandbeyond.org); last year the focus was on making an impact at the Montreal UN meeting; this year it’s a vehicle to impact the midterm elections. CCC wants candidates to talk about global warming. The 40,000 people who have already signed will be encouraged to circulate the petition locally along with the ClimateUSA platform. Candidates will be asked to support the three positions on the platform and it will be used to stimulate conversations of the climate crisis.
A significant portion of the workshop was spent discussing the ClimateUSA platform:
Calling for support for the Climate Stewardship Act (CSA), The Kyoto Protocol, and
transfer of subsidies from fossil fuels to renewables. Although it was explained that the platform was more of a starting point than a template of solutions to the climate crisis, there were concerns that it did not go far enough and did not adequately address root causes. Concerns were expressed about carbon trading and about the fact that giant polluters like ExxonMobil could collect subsidies for their green energy projects.
Although the workshop concluded without a strong sense of consensus about how climate activists should approach the midterm elections, most of the participants said they were committed to campaigns like ClimateUSA and Separation of Oil and State, and respective contact information was exchanged.
Mayor’s Climate Agreement and Local Initiatives
Several initiatives were discussed:
Local activism to encourage cities to reduce their GHG emissions: This discussion focused on the role municipal operations play in producing GHGs and how citizens can be a major catalyst in getting cities to reduce those sources. An evaluation of all sectors of a city, i.e. community, business, schools, etc., is an excellent tool to identify the most polluting sectors and can stimulate bylaws leading to reducing those gases.
Activities on college/university campuses: Meg Boyle, from Energy Action, explained how they and others were organizing thousands of students across the country.
We Act for Environmental Justice in New York City. Cecil D. Corbin-Mark described his organization’s efforts in West Harlem to ensure that neighborhoods and their residents were active participants in City planning efforts.
The Mayor’s Climate Agreement. Tom Kelly, of KyotoUSA, described the initiative to get cities across the country to take responsibility for their own GHG emissions. KyotoUSA encourages people to reduce their own carbon footprint, and to get involved locally to get their town or city to reduce its GHG emissions. Their primary message is that we all have a role in addressing climate change - that the solution will not come from somewhere else, especially under the current federal administration. It is up to us to act.
Sierra Club’s Cool Cities project. Dave Hamilton and other participants discussed their efforts.
Faith Based Initiatives
Rabbi Lawrence Troster spoke about his work with GreenFaith, to create green sanctuaries in NJ, including all faith groups; and with The Coalition on the Environment and Jewish Life (COEJL). COEJL is just completing a 2 year grant project in NJ focusing on four synagogues. They are also creating a web-based resource, a step-by-step manual of guidelines for green buildings--"Building in good faith", so that their efforts can be duplicated by others seeking to build green.
Rabbi Arthur Waskow of the Shalom Center in Philadelphia spoke of the Beyond Oil Campaign, as well as a coming event to be held in NYC on May 25, 2006.
Father Paul Mayer brought his religious call-to-action on global warming entitled "The Fire This Time". He also spoke of the Earth Circles Program, which is projected to provide emotional support and healing as this crisis impacts public consciousness--a piece he believes is necessary to the climate crisis movement.
Discussion: Activists were present from various parts of the U.S. including Michele Sprengnether of Mass. Interfaith Power & Light, who noted that most of the Catholic dioceses in the Boston area were very accepting of making their sanctuaries green; Josh Tulkin of Chesapeake Climate Action Network, spoke of the 3 year campaign in Md. which just succeeded in passing the Healthy Air Act, legislating the strongest restrictions for coal fired power plants in the U.S.
Consensus:Many overlaps and similarities with faith based groups approaches were observed. It was felt that all should work together and actively support one another's programs where feasible. It was further agreed to accentuate the faith piece in the climate change movement; finally it was noted that religious communities and leaders had led all of the successful social justice movements in the U.S.
Street Actions and Political Mobilizing:
This workshop, facilitated by Adrienne Maree Brown of the Ruckus Society, began with a report by Ted Glick on the discussion for a national march on Washington that began in the spring of 2005. It was suggested that with an increase in climate activism leading up to the November elections that a spring, 2007 action in Washington should be seriously considered. There was discussion about nonviolent civil disobedience at local Congressional offices this fall and in D.C. next spring.
Coraminita Mahr spoke of the importance of linking issues, as happened in the big march the day before. The anti-apartheid movement focused on corporations operating in South Africa. It became more effective when boycotts developed, going with CD, door-knocking to educate, postcards, petitions, always funneling popular opinion to elected leaders. Street action will not happen in a vacuum.
Mike Tidwell spoke of the value of specific legislation as an anchor for street action, to force elected officials to take a position. Publicity with actions to get attention, like dumping a ton of coal at an appropriate location are powerful tools. Creative actions will grab media attention: hybrid car rallies, doing mercury testing on legislators’ hair, etc.. The upcoming action on May 31 at the headquarters of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to call attention to their cover-up of the link between global warming and more intense hurricanes was also announced.
Jonathan Neale from England spoke of the plans for actions around the world on November 4th, the second international day of climate action. He reminded the group that there is the need to issue a call for a national march even if it might end up being small. From small beginnings can come a growing movement.
Other comments made:
- Build broad coalitions—a smorgasbord draws a wider audience.
- Action in the works for the August 29th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina. (direct action might draw more attention in D.C. than a march and rally.)
- Must build local groups - a key goal has to be to motivate more organizing on local levels. (Demonstrations generate new activists and amplify the message.)
Prior to the afternoon panel, Dave Hamilton, of the Sierra Club, spoke to the whole assembly on the need organize around stopping a new generation of coal-fired power plants, and Sharon Abreu presented the group with a musical selection.
Closing Panel Discussion
Beyond Kyoto: Tackling the Tougher Issues
Charles Komanoff, Komanoff Energy Associates,
Alice Slater, The GRACE Policy Institute,
Michael Dorsey, Dartmouth College,
Bracken Hendricks of the Apollo Alliance and,.
Ross Gelbspan, author.
Subjects addressed included the problems with nuclear power and carbon trading, the need for a carbon tax/tax shifting, the Gelbspan proposal for a much stronger international GHG-reducing treaty and the importance of reaching out to non-environmental constituencies.
Charles Komanoff:the importance of a carbon tax. We need to reduce the use of carbon fuels. We can do it in a conscious way and use the revenues to protect those hurt. Coal would be taxed most, then oil, then natural gas. A truism: anything cheap will never be conserved. The alternatives to a carbon tax fall short. CAFE standards get diluted and gamed. Hybrids are misused. Standards like RGGI will be subverted. Can’t be scatter shot. CAFE only affects what car to buy. Carbon tax affects things across board, how fast you go, how many miles you go, whether bike or walk instead, etc. Also, 60% of oil not used for cars but for freight, heat, recreational vehicles, air travel and paving. We can’t count on peak oil as a brake – as price goes up the companies go into tar sands and oil shale. Question: if you tax fuels, would consumers and business respond? Research says yes. A starter carbon tax would reduce emissions by 4%. Need to keep repeating. If did 10 times, coal-fired plants would be too expensive, SUV’s would be out. What do we do with revenues and to protect the vulnerable? Do tax shifting from regressive taxes like worker share of social security tax or state sales taxes. Without carbon taxes we’re subsidizing the jet-setting, opulent lifestyles of the rich. How do we build support? Need to build constituencies, make the polluter pay, full cost (including environmental) pricing.
Alice Slater:Nuclear power. Did people know that the former Greenpeace leader supporting nukes is being paid by the nuclear industry? The nuclear non-proliferation treaty allows the “inalienable right to peaceful technology.” Anyone with nukes can make bombs. The International Atomic Energy Agency is promoting nukes dominated by industry. Eisenhower said: we must be alert to public policy being captured by a scientific/technological elite. Bush: only the U.S. and a few others will make and sell nuclear technology. We have to make nukes and fossil fuels obsolete and renewables widely available. Hydrogen is being and can be used if made from green energy. Iceland: plans a green hydrogen economy by 2050 using geothermal. There’s no need to go the ethanol route. Corporate interests insist on peddling their cash cows. We need new thinking by people like us. FDR said in 1936: government by organized money is as dangerous as organized mob. Abolition 2000 has come up with a model statute for an International Sustainable Energy Agency that we will be advocating for at Commission on Sustainable Development.
Michael Dorsey:Carbon trading: a big problem as far as the Kyoto Protocol goes. The World Bank realized a decade ago that it was funding fossil fuels over renewables by 20-1 and it was a conflict of interest. There are no regulatory agencies to track the international carbon trading market. There is no real link between carbon trading and emissions reductions. We have to think broadly. Humans are not the problem but oil is slick. Exxon Mobil has had the highest profits of a corporation ever in 2005. Oil companies are driving global warming. What should we do: 1) Not an adaptation fund, but a petroleum rescue fund for those victimized by global warming (150,000 die each year); 2) Contain the carbon cartel, the polluter pays and a democratized, renewable energy revolution; 3) Criminal investigations of those running the oil companies. (The Inuit have taken the first step by going to the Inter American Court of Human Rights for redress); 4) Stop the pusher man; end petroleum and automobile advertising. 5) Justice for all means injustice for oil and auto.
Bracken Hendricks:Thanks to SEIU for hosting this. We need more people in the room given the threat we’re facing. I’m glad that building the political will and broadening out is part of this panel. The Apollo Alliance is named for getting a man on the moon in a decade in the ‘60s. The U.S. marshaled the resources of the country to do it. We need leadership and mass mobilization around the climate. We’re reaching out. So far, we have 100 businesses, 22 unions and the AFL-CIO, a range of enviro groups, 12 civil rights, 100 groups at local level, 9 states have coalitions. People need to see their self-interest in clean energy. The crisis and awareness is growing because the consequences are at hand: hurricanes, war, CA. energy crisis, abandonment of Kyoto, wildfires, mercury pollution, Exxon record profits, oil imports lead to dollars going overseas. We have to go beyond the usual suspects. We need to reframe this so this issue is brought into everything – a framework for a core progressive agenda. Government for people and against corporate power. The biggest challenge is articulating a vision for survival and what it can mean. There’s lots of anger concerning high oil profits that we need to tap into. There’s a regressive shift in wealth and profits. Support a windfall tax and a fund for renewables. People feel the peace/security/oil connection. There’s a health care crisis in the auto industry; demand that they retool. Sierra Club and Steelworkers Union are working together. Infrastructure investments are needed, global development of energy alternatives. Involve farmers, security hawks, labor, people of faith. Speak where people are, organize where you are.
Ross Gelbspan: We have less than 10 years to avoid a point of no return. We need a 70% reduction. Three strategies will do it:
- Changing Subsidies. Shift $200 billion in fossil fuel subsidies internationally to renewables. Corporations will follow the money and this will also encourage energy entrepreneurs.
- A Fund to Transfer Renewables to Poor Countries. Poor countries would love to go solar. We need $300 billion a year for 10 years. Several ways of getting that: a carbon tax, a tax on international airline travel, a ¼ of a penny tax on international currency transactions. This is a way of creating many millions of new jobs and building more equitable economies. We have to avoid environmental colonialism via countries owning 51% of operations.
- A Regulatory Mechanism for 5%/year Fossil Fuel Efficiency. Every country starts at its current fossil fuel use as baseline and each year increase efficiency by 5%. At first will happen through becoming more efficient, then renewables, which will create the markets and economies of scale to make them competitive with oil and gas. It’s easy to measure: carbon fuel consumption compared to GDP, as compared to difficulties of measuring what’s really happening with carbon trading/markets. All of this would bring home that we are living on a planet with limits, a whole new ethic of sustainability. It would put democratic boundaries around fossil fuel corporations, move past nationalism to a global consciousness and advance our social evolution.
Following discussion from the floor and some closing words from CCC organizer Ted Glick, the conference adjourned.
To connect with any of the speakers and resource people mentioned above, or to find out more, contact Ted at usajointheworld@igc.org.
