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For Immediate Release
September, 29 2015, 12:45pm EDT
Contact:
daphne@sustainable-economy.org
george_edwardson at hotmail.com
carlwassilie.acyn at gmail.com
Climate Victories: From Shell Arctic Drilling to China Policy
Daphene Wysham is director of the Climate and Energy Program at the Center for Sustainable Economy. She said today: "Over the past few days, we have seen a cascading set of victories for the climate. The fossil fuel divestment movement picked up $2.6 trillion in pledges to divest. China joined numerous other nations and publicly financed institutions in agreeing to limit its 'high-carbon' financing. Brazil announced it would cut its emissions by 43 percent by 2030.
OREGON
Daphene Wysham is director of the Climate and Energy Program at the Center for Sustainable Economy. She said today: "Over the past few days, we have seen a cascading set of victories for the climate. The fossil fuel divestment movement picked up $2.6 trillion in pledges to divest. China joined numerous other nations and publicly financed institutions in agreeing to limit its 'high-carbon' financing. Brazil announced it would cut its emissions by 43 percent by 2030. And Shell announced it would withdraw from oil and gas drilling in the Arctic. All of these victories can be attributed the power of ordinary people taking extraordinary action -- students divesting their universities, kayaktivists blockading ships en masse, thousands marching in the streets, all of us demanding change."
George Edwardson, Vice president of Inupiat Community of the Arctic Slope, Edwardson said today: "We have 70-80 percent unemployment in our communities and the only way people can feed themselves is subsistence hunting; our main meat supply comes from the ocean, so drilling in the Arctic is a death sentence for our people. The lease sale area Shell was exploring is right smack in the middle of the North American salmon nursery -- this is the last third of the world's fish. We call for all oil companies to declare the Arctic off limits to drilling."
Caril Wassilie, a Yup'iaq biologist, Wassilie is co-founder and community organizer with Alaska's Big Village Network. He organized against the Shell plans for Arctic drilling in Alaska as well as Portland and Seattle with "kayactivist" actions. He was just interviewed by The Real News: "We want to protect what we have left in the global nurseries of the Arctic Ocean that provide for life. Not only in the Arctic, but also the last of the wild salmon fisheries left on the planet as well as the fish production and the fisheries that provide for the Pacific Northwest, and is the last great American fishery. So from a national point of view this is a win for fishermen, this is a win for Native Americans, this is a win for environmentalists. And this is also a win for the planet."
A nationwide consortium, the Institute for Public Accuracy (IPA) represents an unprecedented effort to bring other voices to the mass-media table often dominated by a few major think tanks. IPA works to broaden public discourse in mainstream media, while building communication with alternative media outlets and grassroots activists.
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arrested 21 pro-Palestinian protesters who blocked the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade route.
According toABC 7:
For the second year in a row, the group ran in front of the Ronald McDonald float to briefly stop the parade.
This year, they jumped the barricades at West 55th Street just after 9:30 am.
Many sat on the ground, locking arms and chanting "Free, free Palestine!"
Others held a banner behind them, reading "Don't celebrate genocide! Arms embargo now."
Video footage shared on social media shows members of the New York Police Department grabbing protesters and their banner, and throwing at least one person face-first into the road.
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NDN Collective said that "as Indigenous peoples, we reject colonial holidays rooted in the genocidal erasure of our existence. We demand #LANDBACK to reclaim sovereignty, repair ties with Mother Earth, and protect Indigenous ways of life—honoring them for generations to come."
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"Our history books mark 'the first Thanksgiving' in 1621 when at least 90 Wampanoag men, led by Massasoit, walked in on a Puritan harvest feast," Beyal detailed. "Approximately 150 years later, all 13 colonies celebrated a day of solemn Thanksgiving to celebrate the win of the Battle of Saratoga in December of 1777. [U.S. President] George Washington called for a day of thanksgiving and prayer in 1789 to give gratitude for the end of the Revolutionary War."
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