ACTION ALERT

Join Peaceful Uprising and a team of Survivaballs in kicking off our boycott of Snowbird Resort.  Pass out fliers, help support the Survivaballs and pull some stunts on the slopes.

Friday January 8, 2010

10:30am

Meet at the Little Cottonwood Canyon Park and Ride Lot
 

Dress warmly, we will be out for 3-4 hours. Bring your skis/snowboards if you want to participate in the stunts. We will be hiking up the hill, not riding the lift, so plan accordingly.  Email jessi.a.carrier@gmail.com for more information.

WHY BOYCOTT SNOWBIRD?

Snowbird owner Dick Bass is threatening the future of the ski industry by investing in the largest proposed coal strip mine in Alaska, the Chuitna mine.  The mine would destroy salmon fisheries, pollute streams, and decimate forests while significantly contributing to climate change. Beyond being environmentally barbaric, investing in a coal mine is a glaring contradiction for someone who owns a ski resort, and who claims to value environmental sustainability.

We don't want this mine to succeed, and putting pressure on Bass is the way we can make a difference.  We have chosen to boycott Snowbird resort until Bass agrees to disinvest in the mine.  We are encouraging skiers and snowboarders to patronize other resorts, and for Snowbird season pass holders to commit to not buying passes in the future. 
 

Hello Peaceful Uprisers!  It is good to be stateside again.

You may know that I went to Copenhagen to attend/participate in/keep an eye on the UNFCCC 15th Council of the Parties -- or COP15 --  climate summit. It was one of the most intense, whirlwind experiences of my life, and I was there for over 20 days, so I won't even try to relate ALL of the things I did there in one post, but upon request, I will share some of the highlights, and hopefully provide some inspiration for your own activism.

As far as the political why and how of the failure of COP15 -- well, that is a really long story that will be included in next month's issue. In a nutshell, COP15 failed because of 3 main reasons: 1) There aren't enough people "taking it to the streets" (particularly in the USA) and making it clear that survival is non-negotiable. This country never changes without a mass movement of citizens DEMANDING it, and the clean energy shift will be no exception. This apathy is partly due to the so-called "big green" groups like NRDC and WWF that are not telling the truth about how they are falling short of what is needed to create a survival future.  2) There is a lack of leadership, ownership, and foresight on this planet (consider the main debate: on one hand, we have the annihilation of 1000's of species, entire SOCIETIES of people, and an uninhabitable planet for our children. On the other, we might have to pay 15 or 20 dollars more a month on our utilities. And its a nail-biter? Our priorities are wacked! And 3) Corporations and their profit equations own our political leaders and many of our minds. See, healthy planetary change is not as profitable as the status-quo, and politicians vote along donor lines more so than public opinion polls. Of the People and By the People has been hijacked by special interests.

Ah, that brings up a good story about corporate influence. Coca Cola was the main sponsor of "Hopenhagen", which was the unscrupulous PR campaign commissioned by the UN to turn the main square of the city of Copenhagen into a concert space, media hub, and  all-around feel-good marketing opportunity venue.  Billboards lined the square with soft messages of hope (as in, we hope that our leaders will do what is needed, instead of making them do what is needed  [an admission of helplessness]), and all over town, Coca-Cola had saturated public space with "A Bottle of Hope" posters.

I spent most of my time with The Yes Men and their small crew, putting together elaborate shenanigans and being ready to participate should shenanigans find us. One day, I arrived at HQ (an art gallery downtown that we were using as a workshop) where people were talking about what we could do to expose Coke for their hypocrisy (Coke is the kind of corporation that executes labor organizers and destroys villages and uses more water that you could ever imagine, to name just a few things). So we hatched a plan, clapped our hands together, kicked it into overdrive, and 4 hours later we had written and sent out a press release to the major outlets covering "Hopenhagen", compiled a list of talking points about Coke's greatest crimes, and thrown together a fake commercial that was intended to project onto the gigantic globe in the middle of the square. Off to the corporate festival we went. Here's what we did:

Mike (the Yes Man) and Laurel (a Yes Woman) took on the persona's of Coke executives who were so fed up with their company's outright lies that they were calling the media to announce that they had written and taken a pledge to never drink Coke again. With the cameras rolling, group after group of Hopenhagen-goers took the pledge (I went first of course, acting like a passer-by). While outside, on a globe the size of a medium-sized house, an old Coca-Cola commercial came on, with the fuzzy polar bears (do you remember them?) interlaced with footage of real polar bears drowning. In that special cursive font that Coke uses, instead of saying "Always Coca Cola" it read, "Never Coca Cola".

That was just one afternoon/evening.  Things were happening every day!  The point of that story is that a group like Peaceful Uprising and The Yes Men don't wait around and wait for permission from a board of directors before we act. And when we act, we move to expose the truth creatively, nonviolently, and powerfully.

I'll give you another example of how creative, intelligent protest can make a difference. Early in the trip, I managed to get a badge for access to the "Fresh Air Center", which was a cavernous cafe in downtown Copenhagen that had been transformed into THE off-site media hub for journalists to use. A live feed was constantly streaming into the room from the plenary at the Bella Center (where the COP15 was actually being held), and computers lined all the walls. One evening, we heard that the assistant Secretary-General of the UN (second in command) was coming by to take a few questions and see the place. So we arranged to do an absurdist fashion show for him after he was done talking. As soon as he finished, we threw on some Survivaballs (funny inflatable, round suits that are meant to represent an option for the very wealthy to stay safe from climate change) and cat walked around the cafe. We were interrupted (planned) by the Climate Debt Agents (who were all over the place in Copenhagen, wearing bright red suits and sunglasses to symbolically collect the money owed to developing nations who are being affected the most by the pollution put out by developed nations) who took the stage and made their case. Apparently, the assistant Secretary General was so moved by this that he canceled his plans to meet Ban Ki-Moon (the Secretary-General himself) at the Bella Center so he could write about it in his personal blog.

One more story for this issue...this is my personal favorite.

As part of a super-elaborate hoax, (more on that next time) we rebuilt the press briefing room (watch first video) of the Bella Center in the basement of our workshop. My primary mission for going to Copenhagen was to provide some sort of contrast, some sort of message of hope that wasn't this baloney about crossing our fingers. I knew that COP15 would fall short, but what would a good deal even look like? I was afraid that the majority of people would have no idea in their minds about what success in Copenhagen would entail, thus having no constructive place to direct their anger and disappointment. So, after the Great Canada Hoax was finished, we opened up the set for people to come down and record videos of themselves making announcements from "The Bella Center." Since we were so close to the Fresh Air Center, I ran back and forth bringing leaders of the global climate movement and anyone who was interested into the basement to record a statement. I helped create the "Good COP" website, which looks exactly like the real COP15 website, but ours just has videos. We had Jessy Tolkan, fresh out af a meeting with Al Gore, Bill McKibben came, Daryl Hannah, and even George Monbiot from The Nation to name a few. It was a blast, I'm telling you. If you watch nothing else, see Mike's introduction and the announcement by Jessy Tolkan (leader of the Energy Action Coalition.) Jessy had zero time to prepare, and I still get goosebumps when I think of her video. It is on the top of the column of videos on the left, in the middle of the three.

That's it for this issue, my friends. I hope you don't mind if I share some more stories in a couple of weeks. It's my hope that you take away from my experience an enthusiasm for repairing the world creatively, and by taking chances, and putting yourself in the middle of the action. I would live to answer any questions you might have. Feel free to email me at peacefuluprising@gmail.com. Type "Attn. Ashley" in the subject line.

If you want in on the wealth of projects like these that we are currently working on, make sure you are on our Action Team! 

Here's to 2010 -- the year we stopped asking for a livable future and started demanding it.

(And had a hell of a good time doing it.)


Ashley Anderson

The next time you head for the ski slopes, make sure you pass by Snowbird resort. Dick Bass, Snowbird owner and outspoken advocate for environmental sustainability, is investing in Alaska’s largest proposed coal strip mine. Destined to destroy the local salmon fishery and contribute to quickly advancing climate catastrophe, the coal mine is environmentally barbaric and a glaring hypocrisy for Bass. Peaceful Uprising is leading a campaign to boycott Snowbird, putting pressure on Bass to disinvest in the Chuitna Coal Mine.

Take this quote from Snowbird’s website,

Since its inception, Snowbird Ski & Summer Resort has been committed to environmental stewardship. Snowbird’s environmental achievements range from improving wildlife habitat and water quality to resort-wide recycling programs and a groundbreaking effort to clean up heavy metals contaminating the American Fork River.

While Snowbirds environmentally responsible behavior is commendable and clearly makes a positive impact, but when juxtaposed with Bass’s dirty investments becomes more like deliberate greenwashing. Recycling at snowbird neither mitigates nor justifies destroying Alaska’s wilderness for coal production, which is the single most contributor to climate change. If we continue to burn coal, there will be no need for ski resorts like Snowbird, let alone programs to change all the lightbulbs Snowbird’s bathrooms.

The Sierra Club has expressed their opposition to the coal mine, and has launched a local campaign against Bass. Yet, they refuse to target Snowbird, support a boycott, or do much of anything. Peaceful Uprising knows we have to send Dick a much stronger message, and to do that we need to hit him where it hurts.

Don’t ski at Snowbird until Bass agrees to disinvest in the Chuitna coal mine, and urge others to do the same. If you are a season passholder, do not buy a season pass until Bass disinvests. You can sign a pledge at our website dontskicoalbird.com, and send a message to Bass personally. Pick up some Coalbird stickers, and plaster them around town and at local resorts. Join us in March 2010 for a massive Snowbird boycott and day of direct action. Stay tuned for more opportunities to take action as the season continues.

The climate justice movement is dynamic, mercurial, and often misrepresented in the mainstream media. Peaceup follows some websites that represent the voices of activists, scientists and leaders working from within the movement. If you want to know what is happening in the streets, check these out.

A blog by youth and student leaders in the climate movement. Everything from climate policy to direct action, this is what you won’t read in the paper. Impressive analysis of current issues, and ambitious stance on climate change.

Blog from a sometimes radical activist group in Maryland. Contains regional, national and international news, but I read it to get an idea of whats up in the south, southeast. Sign up for the weekly email updates.

One of my favorite groups. Blog profiles 350.org events worldwide. This is also where I tell people to look for a concise, accurate explanation of climate change and what we need to do about it.

Blog by climate minded bureaucrat and washington insider Joe Romm. Climate news through the lense of what’s politically feasible. Good coverage, though Peaceup does not always agree with his analysis. Read with a critical mind.

Energy Action Coalition has a meeting with top White House officials tomorrow.  Here is the message I sent them to encourage them to not hold back in speaking truth to power.  If you want the give them a little more encouragement to be bold and courageous, give them a call at (202) 328-1733.

 Dear Jessy and Energy Action Coalition,

Congratulations!   Your meeting with White House officials on the verge of the Copenhagen climate negotiations is a huge opportunity, and one that I’m sure you’ve worked very hard to get.  At that meeting, you will be speaking for millions of young people across the country, all those for whom survival is not negotiable.

We are counting on you to be bold and courageous in speaking truth to power.  As he heads into the defining moment for the battle against climate change, President Obama has already fallen far short of what is necessary to defend a livable future for our generation.  He has set his target as a 4% reduction in emissions from 1990 levels by 2020 while scientists have made it clear at least 40% cuts are necessary.  Many less conservative scientists have said we need 80% reductions by 2020 to have a reasonable chance of avoiding catastrophic climate change.  Obama failed to provide leadership for Congress to pass meaningful climate legislation and failed to stand up to right wing tactics of intimidation and misinformation.

There are plenty of mainstream environmental groups who have refused to hold Obama accountable for these failures.  Some of these groups are tied to an institutional model that requires them to pretend like what they are doing is working.  Others are afraid of losing their seat at the table at the Tuesday night meetings in the White House or just afraid of Rahm Emanuel’s wrath if they fail to toe the party line.  We need you to show more courage than this.  As representatives of the youth climate movement, your job is to be the uncompromising moral voice of the movement. 

You represent the people who will not accept half measures and baby steps in the right direction.  We know that halfway to survival is still not survival.  The only thing young people will really fight for is a full solution that will truly defend a livable future.  We have seen this in action over this year.  At Power Shift in February, 12,000 students spent considerable time and money going all the way to Washington, DC to work for a revolutionary change in our society.  A few months later, when you asked those same people to fight for an impotent ACES bill, only a few hundred answered the call.  That energy, empowerment and commitment at Power Shift were not a lie.  Those young people just weren’t willing to fight for a bill that we all knew wouldn’t actually have done anything to protect our survival.

You need to tell that to the White House.  Your PowerVote campaign last year was a significant part of the success of Obama and other Democrats.  All your young people worked on that campaign in the expectation that it would usher in the kind of revolutionary change we need.  I expect you know as well as I do that those young people would not put that kind of effort into a campaign for the kind of lukewarm reforms we’ve seen this year.  If he continues to look for friends on the right, Obama will lose the supporters who got him to this point. 

Students at Power Shift heard a hopeful and empowering message from some of the very same people you will be talking to on Wednesday.  Ken Salazar and Ed Markey thanked us for getting progressives elected and promised that the government would finally work in our best interests.  We were told that we would be listened to and that our leaders would step up to their responsibility to defend our future.  Then we got sold out.  When you outlined four things you wanted in Markey’s bill, not a single one of those requests was met.  It was clear that the profits of the fossil fuel industry were still far more important than our lives.  Young people around the country were outraged at being sold out.  If you don’t honestly represent that outrage when you speak truth to power, those 12,000 angry young people will feel alienated from a group that apparently doesn’t understand them or represent them.

As Energy Action Coalition founder Billy Parish said in 2007 when he spoke to Congress, “We are literally fighting for our lives.”  It is silly to think that if fighting within the system does not work, we will not look for other options.  If our leaders do not do whatever is necessary to protect our survival, we will.  If our leaders don’t reign in the fossil fuel industry, we will shut it down.  Obama and the rest of our leaders have the power to turn this runaway bus onto the smooth road of a clean energy economy.  The rest of us don’t have that power.  All we can do is grind it to a halt before we go over the cliff, and, absent political leadership, it is our ethical responsibility to do so.  If Obama fails to fight for our survival in Copenhagen, he forces upon us the moral imperative of directly shutting down the fossil fuel infrastructure around the country.

The Obama administration needs to know that we are going to do what needs to be done whether he is with us or not, but this doesn’t have to just be a threat.  This is also a promise that if he sets ambitious goals, we will make it happen.  We will rise up to fight the defenders of the status quo and put all of our courage, brilliance and creativity into achieving the vision of a just and livable future that he sets for us.  We are ready to be asked to do difficult things.  If Obama wants to take baby steps, he will have an uninspired baby-sized movement behind him.  But if he wants bold, revolutionary changes, he will have a bold and revolutionary army of young people making it happen.  Let him know that we are a bold and courageous generation, and any leader we fight for must be the same.

Good luck tomorrow!  We’re all behind you as long as you’re in front of us.

 

Sincerely,

Tim DeChristopher

President Nasheed of the Republic of the Maldives tells the World: "We Will Not Die Quietly."

The A.O.S.I.S. (Associaltion of Small Island States) is gearing up for the Copenhagen climate talks. I am hoping they will embarass the United States, President Obama, and other First World nations into doing something.

President Nasheed, a long time activist for justice and peace, gave this opening address at the Climate Vulnerable Forum:

 Your Excellencies, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen,

We gather in this hall today, as some of the most climate-vulnerable nations on Earth.

We are vulnerable because climate change threatens to hit us first; and hit us hardest.

And we are vulnerable because we have modest means with which to protect ourselves from the coming disaster.

We are a diverse group of countries.

But we share one common enemy.

For us, climate change is no distant or abstract threat; but a clear and present danger to our survival.

Climate change is melting the glaciers in Nepal.

It is causing flooding in Bangladesh.

It threatens to submerge the Maldives and Kiribati.

And in recent weeks, it has furthered drought in Tanzania, and typhoons in the Philippines.
We are the frontline states in the climate change battle.

Ladies and gentlemen,

Developing nations did not cause the climate crisis.

We are not responsible for the hundreds of years of carbon emissions, which are cooking the planet.

But the dangers climate change poses to our countries, means that this crisis can no longer be considered somebody else’s problem.

Carbon knows no boundaries.

Whether we like it or not, we are all in this fight together.

For all of us gathered here today, inaction is not an option.

So, what can we do about it?

To my mind, whatever course of action we take must be based on the latest advice of climate scientists. Not on the advice of politicians like us.

As Copenhagen looms, and negotiators frantically search for a solution, it is easy to think that climate change is like any other international issue.

It is easy to assume that it can be solved by a messy political compromise between powerful states.

But the fact of the matter is, we cannot negotiate with the laws of physics.

We cannot cut a deal with Mother Nature.

We have to learn to live within the fixed planetary boundaries that nature has set.

And it is increasingly clear that we are living way beyond those planetary means.

Scientists say that global carbon dioxide levels must be brought back down below 350 parts per million.

And we can see why.

We have already overshot the safe landing space.

In consequence the ice caps are melting.

The rainforests are threatened.

And the world’s coral reefs are in imminent danger.

Members of the G8 rich countries have pledged to halt temperature rises to two degrees Celsius.

Yet they have refused to commit to the carbon targets, which would deliver even this modest goal.

At two degrees we would lose the coral reefs.

At two degrees we would melt Greenland.

At two degrees my country would not survive.

As a president I cannot accept this.

As a person I cannot accept this.

I refuse to believe that it is too late, and that we cannot do any about it.

Copenhagen is our date with destiny.

Let us go there with a better plan.

Ladies and gentlemen,

When we look around the world today, there are few countries showing moral leadership on climate change.

There are plenty of politicians willing to point the finger of blame.

But there are few prepared to help solve a crisis that, left unchecked, will consume us all.
Few countries are willing to discuss the scale of emissions reductions required to save the planet.

And the offers of adaptation support for the most vulnerable nations are lamentable.

The sums of money on offer are so low, it is like arriving at a earthquake zone with a dustpan and brush.

We don’t want to appear ungrateful but the sums hardly address the scale of the challenge.

We are gathered here because we are the most vulnerable group of nations to climate change.

The problem is already on us, yet we have precious little with which to fight.

Some might prefer us to suffer in silence but today we have decided to speak.

And so I make this pledge today: we will not die quietly.

Ladies and gentlemen,

I believe in humanity.

I believe in human ingenuity.

I believe that with the right frame of mind, we can solve this crisis.

In the Maldives, we want to focus less on our plight; and more on our potential.

We want to do what is best for the planet.

And what is best for our economic self-interest.

This is why, earlier this year, we announced plans to become carbon neutral in ten years.
We will switch from oil to 100% renewable energy.

And we will offset aviation pollution, until a way can be found to decarbonise air transport too.

To my mind, countries that have the foresight to green their economies today, will be the winners of tomorrow.

They will be the winners of this century.

These pioneering countries will free themselves from the unpredictable price of foreign oil.
They will capitalize on the new, green economy of the future.

And they will enhance their moral standing, giving them greater political influence on the world stage.

Here in the Maldives we have relinquished our claim to high-carbon growth.

After all, it is not carbon we want, but development.

It is not coal we want, but electricity.

It is not oil we want, but transport.

Low-carbon technologies now exist, to deliver all the goods and services we need.
Let us make the goal of using them.

Ladies and gentlemen,

A group of vulnerable, developing countries committed to carbon neutral development would send a loud message to the outside world.

If vulnerable, developing countries make a commitment to carbon neutrality, those opposed to change have nowhere left to hide.

If those with the least start doing the most, what excuse can the rich have for continuing inaction?

We know this is not an easy step to take, and that there might be dangers along the way.

We want to shine a light, not loudly demand that others go first into the dark.

So today, we want to share with you our carbon neutral strategy.

And we want to ask you to consider carbon neutrality yourselves.

I think a bloc of carbon-neutral, developing nations could change the outcome of Copenhagen.

At the moment every country arrives at the negotiations seeking to keep their own emissions as high as possible.

They never make commitments, unless someone else does first.

This is the logic of the madhouse, a recipe for collective suicide.

We don’t want a global suicide pact.

And we will not sign a global suicide pact, in Copenhagen or anywhere.

So today, I invite some of the most vulnerable nations in the world, to join a global survival pact instead.

We are all in this as one.

We stand or fall together.

I hope you will join me in deciding to stand.