Rights of Nature Tribunal Puts Chevron on Trial

MEDIA RELEASE

October 1, 2014

Contact: Shannon Biggs, Global Exchange

Nature Puts Chevron Refinery and Legal System on Trial

People’s Tribunal in Oakland Seeks to Give Nature a Voice in Law this Sunday

Oakland CA — On Sunday October 5, a People’s Tribunal will examine the violations of community and nature’s rights caused by the fossil fuel industry, using Chevron’s refinery in Richmond as a case study. Recognizing legal standing for ecosystems is a concept that has been gaining strength over the past decade, in dozens of US communities and in the constitution of Ecuador.

Two years after the refinery explosion that rocked the Richmond, CA community, residents still live in fear, while air quality and land remain contaminated. Despite having been found guilty of 62 violations of the law in 2012, Chevron Corp. will be expanding operations, and 4 new projects will bring Tar Sands and fracked crude from North Dakota to the Bay Area. The question for a growing many isn’t the violations of the law, but the daily chemical exposure permitted under the law.

“Chevron has been destroying nature and poisoning people for over 100 years. Humanity is part of the web of life known as Nature. If Nature doesn’t have rights, then a viable future for the next seven generations is doubtful,” says Richmond resident and Native American activist Pennie Opal Plant, who will also be one of several expert witnesses at the Tribunal.

Global Exchange’s Community & Nature’s Rights director, Shannon Biggs, one of the organizers of the event added, “the fact is, current law treats nature as property, so it’s easy for corporations to get a permit to blow the tops off of mountains for coal, or frack communities for profit. Recognizing nature’s rights provides new and critical protections for our communities and the ecosystems we all depend on.”

The tribunal, a project of the Bay Area Rights of Nature Alliance (BARONA) takes place Sunday 10 am – 2 pm at Laney College’s Forum, highlighting the impacts on people and nature from the Chevron refinery, and place on trial current legal and economic systems that advance the destruction of nature by the oil industry. Tribunal judges include:

Carl Anthony (Breakthrough Communities; Urban Habitat)
Brian Swimme (California Institute of Integral Studies; Journey of the Universe)
Anuradha Mittal (Oakland Institute)
Courtney Cummings (Arikara and Cheyenne; Native Wellness Center, Richmond)
Bill Twist (Pachamama Alliance)

The day will also include a “Web of Life Labyrinth,” created by local artists (opens 9:30 am), local music and food for purchase. Members of BARONA, a network of leading Bay Area rights of nature, ecological justice, human rights, local economy, Indigenous, women’s, and other groups will be on hand to answer questions. The event will be part of the global “Earth Rights Days of Action” sponsored by the Global Alliance for the Rights of Nature and the related efforts of the International Rights of Nature Tribunals in Quito, Ecuador (January 2014) and Lima, Peru (December 2014).

Please join us for a rich discussion of just what rights of nature could mean for residents in Richmond, CA—and across the country. Learn what over 100 other communities across the US are doing differently to put the rights of residents and nature before corporate profits.

Save your space for this important event register now.

It’s time we all got on board with a people-powered climate plan.

The People’s Climate Train is pulling out on September 15 from the San Francisco Bay Area and will arrive in New York City on September 18, 2014 to join the People’s Climate March September 20 & 21. Over 200 people have already registered to take the cross country journey, with new riders joining at stops all along the way.

The final destination on this journey is to join the largest-ever climate march in New York City on September 21 & 22, coinciding with the United Nations Climate Summit taking place there, which will serve as a public platform for world leaders, big business and some participation from civil society. The stated goal of the summit is “to catalyze ambitious action on the ground to reduce emissions and strengthen climate resilience and mobilize political will for an ambitious global agreement by 2015 that limits the world to a less than 2-degree Celsius rise in global temperature.”

Kylie Nealis of the Sierra Club and Suzanne York of the Institute for Population Studies will be in New York.

For many, faith in the UN as a global forum for solving the climate crisis has all but been shattered. Critiques range from calling out the UN as a flaccid institution to the more cynical view that it has been co-opted, branded and sponsored by corporations. Yet there are other reasons to show up in New York while leaders gather.

As David Turnbull, Campaigns Director for Oil Change International says, “World leaders have come together too many times with nothing more than strong rhetoric and empty promises in tow. Science is simply screaming at us that we must not delay action any longer, so the time is now to show our strength as a movement. I can’t wait to join the hundreds of thousands of real leaders marching on the streets of New York demanding action and to show our elected representatives that their empty promises will no longer be accepted.”

Others are going to highlight particular issues. An entire contingent of affected residents, activists and concerned Americans are going to connect the dots between fracking, other fossil fuel exploitation, and climate disruption. 350.org’s Fracking Campaigner Linda Capato says, “I’m going to PCM because we need to make it clear to decision makers that if we are serious about climate it needs to be a future without fracking.”
Global Exchange will be in New York not to beg officials to act, but to stand for communities are already on the leading edge of climate solutions, from banning fracking in their communities, to boldly placing the rights of residents and ecosystems above the array of harmful corporate projects that collectively emit the bulk of carbon stored in the atmosphere. The march is going to be big—really big, and there is value in connecting with people from all across the country in this way, sharing stories, networking and finding ways to come together to reinvent our future without dependence on fossil fuels.

Those of us working on the rights-of-nature framework are seeking to reconnect humanity with the rest of species. We seek to change human law that can only “see” nature as a thing — separate and apart from us, property to be owned and destroyed at will. We seek to change the law because our own salvation can only come from a cultural mindset enforced by an earth jurisprudence that we are a part of nature. In New York we will join allies including Osprey Orielle Lake, Executive Director of WECAN in presenting these ideas at a special panel: Rights of Nature and Systemic Change in Climate Solutions, on September 23. This event is free and open to the public however, due to its proximity to the global leaders, collected security in this part of the city is tight so registration is required. Once you register (which takes less than 30 seconds), you will receive an invitation that you will need to have in hand along with ID to attend the event. As Osprey says, “Nature will not wait while politicians debate. It is time for ambitious action that addresses the roots of the climate crisis and fosters justice for the Earth and future generations.”

For the variety of reasons people are coming to join the march, the reasons people are getting there via the climate trains (and buses) are the same — to connect with each other and build the nationwide movement for change in the only way that matters —by building people-to-people ties. I will be riding with people like Pennie Opal Plant from Idle No More Bay Area who says, ” I’m excited to meet activists working to ensure life as we know it continues on the belly of Mother Earth.” Sierra Club’s Kylie Nealis will be leading another train from DC to New York and says, “I’m joining the climate train because I believe its important to not just voice what we’re against but to also collectively advocate for solutions to climate change like clean energy and nature’s rights. The train will be a space for people to come together and connect around those solutions!”

I will be joining the train in the Bay Area, and meeting 170 fellow riders, sharing stories and strategies for change. I will be leading workshops on community rights, rights of nature and fracking, and learning from others as we come together from across the country to share knowledge and collaborate while enjoying a beautiful ride through breathtaking wilderness areas.

The first train is sold out—but don’t worry, they have already started another one to meet the demand—so there is still time to climb aboard. Visit People’s Climate Train to SIGN UP NOW! For anyone who still needs lodging in the Big Apple secure them now if you haven’t already and there is a free option! The PCM Faith Team has generously offered to match you up with available space in churches or homes. Contact Jennifer Kim at the Center for Biological Diversity.

The following is a guest post by Lexy Close who lives in East Tennessee, where she has been a program leader for Summer of Solutions since 2011. Her program, Build It Up East TN, focuses on food justice and sustainability.

In the face of a falling economy, an energy crisis, fragmented and inequitable communities, and the growing threat of global warming, youth are coming together to create solutions that address all of these challenges together.

These are Solutionaries – youth leaders who work as innovative organizers across issue lines to build the green economy as an engine for local opportunity, climate and energy solutions, and social justice.

Every summer, youth gather in communities across the nation for the Summer of Solutions – a training ground for its participants and a launching pad for the Solutionary vision. With the support of local partnerships and a national network of fellow solutionaries, participants create self-sustaining projects that have a direct impact on their communities and that serve as models for others to build on.

Running a program gives you the opportunity to create and support green economy projects that build power for people who currently don’t have as much access AND to empower young people from your community and beyond with the skills and strategies they need to do the same thing wherever they go next.

Apply now to run a Summer of Solutions program in your community in 2014!

In 2013, Summer of Solutions programs:

Hosted two public forums and submitted an energy efficiency proposal to City Council (Iowa City, IA)
Cleaned up a community ravaged by illegal dumping and neglect (Detroit, MI)
Grew 350 lbs of organic produce to supply their backyard CSA program (Chicago, IL)
Ran a free summer camp for 30 children in the Fruitvale community teaching lessons on sustainability, personal empowerment, and community action (Oakland, CA)
Hosted educational workshops teaching community members how to grow organic food, experiment with vertical gardening, make lotions and balms, raise chickens, save seeds, grow shiitake mushrooms, lacto-ferment pickles and krauts, and raise bees for honey (Johnson City, TN)
Constructed community gardens at a food bank, veterans’ hospital, and seven other locations (Southern WV)
Secured an agreement from Centerpoint Energy to assist Minneapolis in reaching 30% emissions reductions by 2030 and addressing methane leakage in natural gas and secured City Council support for a year-long process to secure clean, affordable, reliable, and local energy (Twin Cities, MN)
Managed 7 community gardens, including three gardens at local schools with which they are developing year-round school gardening curricula (Hartford, CT)

Read more about these and other stories at our program pages.

Interested in doing work beyond the summer?

Local Initiatives are year-round sites of solutionary work where emerging leaders focus on designing, testing, and replicating innovative solutions in the green economy. They are, in essence, launching pads for new community project models that could be replicated elsewhere.

Unlike Grand Aspirations’ other programs, Local Initiatives focus less on training and more on project development and implementation. We envision them as the testing grounds for entrepreneurial projects that can out-compete unsustainable economic models while addressing social injustice and building community.

We want to invite YOU to be one of those young people building those solutions. Apply here to start a program in your community. The deadline for summer programs is November 8th. For more details on the guidelines for running a program, including January Training Gatherings and other forms of support, click here.

If you have any questions about what being a program leader entails, please contact Alexis Close at alexis.close@gmail.com or 423-946-1673.Please share this opportunity with young people and leaders in your community and beyond!

Guest post by Linda Sheehan of the Earth Law Center.

In celebration of “International Mother Earth Day” in April, the United Nations General Assembly held an Interactive Dialogue on Harmony with Nature in New York. The Dialogue arose in part out of language in the final UN Outcome Document from the 2012 Conference on Sustainable Development (“Rio +20”), which acknowledged the growing rights of nature movement and called for alternatives to Gross Domestic Product as measurements of “progress.” In line with Rio +20, the April UN Dialogue examined how to achieve a “more ethical relationship” with the natural world through alternative economic systems that enhance the well-being of people and planet. I was fortunate to be able to participate as part of a panel of international speakers, and addressed the significance of the rights of nature, a point echoed by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon in his remarks.

Given that the UN will be taking up these issues in a new “High-Level Political Forum” in September, a few points bear highlighting now. The root of “economics” is from the Greek for managing our home. By all accounts, we have not been managing our home well. Scientists estimate that because of our actions, the rate of extinction is now 1,000 times the average across history. Even the World Bank is now reporting that our current climate change path will create a “transition of the Earth’s ecosystems into a state unknown in human experience.”

There is no Planet B. We cannot separate what we do to the Earth from what we do to ourselves. Yet, every element of our current, neoliberal economic system is intertwined with the idea that the natural world is property. We trivialize the fullness of life and diversity of natural world by labeling its elements “resources,” so they better fit within our neoliberal economic model. Workers, or “human resources,” are similarly treated as a cost to business, not a benefit to society. Our economic system is feeding itself with our collective well-being, and we must find an alternative.

To use a fashionable UN phrase, is “sustainable development” our end goal? Or should we be aiming for sustainable (or better yet, “thriving”) communities of humans and ecosystems flourishing together? Both types of communities are intimately connected, and both must be served by – not serve – the economy.

What kind of economic system serves the goal of thriving communities? Adam Smith, credited with neoclassical economic theories that evolved into the destructive neoliberal system driving the planet to ruin today, provides important and generally-overlooked insights. Smith wrote in his Theory of Moral Sentiments that the “chief part of human happiness arises from the consciousness of being beloved” – by those closest to us, and within our larger communities. Smith believed that “wise and virtuous” person was “at all times willing that his own private interest should be sacrificed to the public interest” – contrary to the motive of individual wealth maximization that drives economics today. In fact, Smith firmly believed that “[t]he rate of profit … is always highest in the countries which are going fastest to ruin.” This is borne out by our misguided use of GDP as an indicator of well-being, rather than recognizing that GDP grows with the expansion of harmful goods and actions.

The ethical qualities that create happy, prosperous homes and communities – love, cooperation, friendship, duty – both arise from and create strong relationships. We have discarded these ethics, however, in favor of an economic system premised on separation and greed. We can do better.

An essential element of this shift in perspective is realizing that relationships can flourish only if we recognize the inherent rights of their participants. As we came over time to acknowledge the rights of people who were formerly treated as property, we began to have full, thriving relationships with them, which benefitted all. These lessons extend to the natural world.

When the UN was drafting the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the drafting committee observed that “the supreme value of the human person…did not originate in the decision of a worldly power, but rather in the fact of existing.” So too do the rights and value of the natural world arise from existence. We are first and foremost Earth citizens, and we must recognize the rights of ecosystems and species to exist and thrive if we are to flourish ourselves.

Acknowledgement of the rights of nature is a movement that is spreading throughout the world. Ecuador recognized these rights in its Constitution in 2008, stating that nature “has the right to exist, persist, maintain itself and regenerate.” Under the Constitution, “[a]ny person” may “demand the observance of the rights of the natural environment before public bodies,” including rights to be “completely restored.” Bolivia has passed two sets of laws on rights of Mother Earth, and New Zealand recognized the rights of the Whanganui River and its tributaries last summer.

Recognition of the rights of nature is essential to help us build closer relationships with the environment that guide our actions to care for it. But we also must specifically reject the current neoliberal economic system and replace it with alternatives such as ecological economics, which recognizes that the economy is a subset of an overarching natural world, rather than the reverse. For example, roughly three dozen communities across the U.S. have passed local laws that both recognize the rights of nature and reject the rights of corporations over the rights of local community members to live in harmony with each other and their environment. These laws support a community’s right to nurture its home, rather than witness its destruction. The largest city to adopt such an ordinance is Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and the first West Coast city to take up this effort is Santa Monica, California, which adopted their “Sustainability Rights Ordinance” in April.

The goal of the UN’s new “high-level political forum” (HLPF) is to keep “sustainable development” high on national agendas. The first HLPF meeting will be September 24^th in New York City, as the 68^th Session of the UN General Assembly begins, and will address sustainable development goals that can be advanced worldwide. Earth Law Center and other Major Groups will attend to reinforce the message that such initiatives must serve sustainable communities, rather than solely development or the neoliberal economic model that advances unsustainable development. We must embrace actions commensurate with the sweep and importance of the challenges before us, and so must advance an economic system that guides us to fully care for each other, our communities, and the Earth as a whole, one that recognizes the rights of the natural world to thrive, and for us to prosper with it.

For more information on the UN International Mother Earth Day Dialogue, see the Harmony with Nature website, the U.N. Summary of the Dialogue, the U.N. Press release and the videos of the presentations.

Linda Sheehan is the Executive Director of the Earth Law Center, with over 20 years of environmental law and policy experience. She holds a B.S. in Chemical Engineering with a Concentration in Economics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology; an M.P.P. from the University of California, Berkeley’s Goldman School of Public Policy, where she was named a Berkeley Policy Fellow; and a J.D. from the University of California’s Boalt Hall School of Law. She is a Research Affiliate with the Centre for Global Studies at the University of Victoria, British Columbia, and is a member of the Commission on Environmental Law in the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). Ms. Sheehan is also Summer Faculty at Vermont Law School, where she teaches Earth Law. She is a contributing author to Exploring Wild Law: The Philosophy of Earth Jurisprudence, published by Wakefield Press in 2011; Wild Law in Practice, to be published by Routledge in 2013; and Rule of Law for Nature, to be published by Cambridge University Press in 2013.

With property values at record lows and vacant abandoned infrastructure all around, Detroit has started to capture the imagination of a generation of young adults flocking to the Motor City with the intent of building a new vision of the city in the 21st century. Among those are participants in the Green Economy Leadership Training (GELT) program.

For those unfamiliar with GELT, watch this video from 2010. This chick rocks!!!

Now here we are in 2012. 100 years ago Detroit was on the cutting edge of the industrial revolution, and was one of the most important cities in the world. Flash forward to 2011, Detroit is once again one of the most important cities in the world as a microcosm of a broken economy that is quickly leaving behind the working class and a growing disparity between rich and poor.

In newspapers and on TV, Detroit is depicted as the most dangerous city in America, backed by recent reports showing the highest murder rates in the country. Journalists have come from all over the world to document the decay, creating a new class of journalism labeled, “ruin porn.”

But underneath the stories the media portrays and the pictures many journalists project, a new generation of Detroit is rising. Artists, activists, organizers and entrepreneurs from all walks of life are descending on the city to take advantage of the wide open spaces, massive abandoned factories and warehouses and projecting a new vision for the 21st century American city.

The Green Economy Leadership Training program is on the forefront of this movement. The 2011 GELT program wrapped up last August, completing its second year of transformative action in Highland Park, Michigan, in the shadows of Henry Ford’s iconic Model T plant, the first automobile industrial assembly plant.

Over 25 people participated in the 2011 GELT, ranging from grandmothers born and raised in Detroit, to high school students from local schools, to college students and recent grads from all over the country.

Participants went through over 250 hours of trainings in urban agriculture, solar energy, energy efficiency, entrepreneurship and community wealth building. In addition to the trainings, participants spent most of their time this summer working in one of four project areas: solar energy, urban agriculture, waste manufacturing and deconstruction.

Participants in these projects took the lead on installing solar panels, building a 4-season greenhouse, remodeling an abandoned house and building a playground out of recycled tires for the neighborhood kids. Participants also received certifications in permaculture and the “NAPCEP” entry level solar photovoltaic.

So what’s next? GELT 2012, of course, and YOU are invited to apply!
We encourage you, or anyone you know, to apply for the third Green Economy Leadership Training from June 11-August 18, 2012.

Want to participate in community-led projects focused on developing local green economy resources? Interested in learning to organize social entrepreneurship ventures? Between the ages of 18 and 99? Want to spend the summer in Highland Park, MI and meet like-minded people from across the country working for social justice while working with the local community? Then apply to GELT today!

To apply for GELT 2012, click here. Application deadline: April 10th

If you cannot attend, you can still support the GELT project and sponsor a GELT summer fellow. Consider making a special gift today.

Watch the GELT video “We Will Carry the Fire”:

The international peasants and farmers organization, La Via Campesina, ends their global Call to Action for the upcoming June 16-18 Rio +20 United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development (UNCSD) with ‘GLOBALIZE THE STRUGGLE!! GLOBALIZE HOPE!!!’

The stakes are high in Rio. As Via Campesina points out, “Twenty years later, governments should have reconvened to review their commitments and progress, but in reality the issue to debate will be the “green economy” led development, propagating the same capitalist model that caused climate chaos and other deep social and environmental crises.”

Critiquing the focus on corporate ‘Green Economy’ evident in the march to Rio documents and planning, Via states:

“Today the “greening of the economy” pushed forward in the run-up to Rio+20 is based on the same logic and mechanisms that are destroying the planet and keeping people hungry. For instance, it seeks to incorporate aspects of the failed “green revolution” in a broader manner in order to ensure the needs of the industrial sectors of production, such as promoting the uniformity of seeds, patented seeds by corporation, genetically modified seeds, etc.

The capitalist economy, based on the over-exploitation of natural resources and human beings, will never become “green.” It is based on limitless growth in a planet that has reached its limits and on the commoditization of the remaining natural resources that have until now remained un-priced or in control of the public sector.

In this period of financial crisis, global capitalism seeks new forms of accumulation. It is during these periods of crisis in which capitalism can most accumulate. Today, it is the territories and the commons which are the main target of capital. As such, the green economy is nothing more than a green mask for capitalism. It is also a new mechanism to appropriate our forests, rivers, land… of our territories!

Since last year’s preparatory meetings towards Rio+20, agriculture has been cited as one of the causes of climate change. Yet no distinction is made in the official negotiations between industrial and peasant agriculture, and no explicit difference between their effects on poverty, climate and other social issues we face.

The “green economy” is marketed as a way to implement sustainable development for those countries which continue to experience high and disproportionate levels of poverty, hunger and misery. In reality, what is proposed is another phase of what we identify as “green structural adjustment programs” which seek to align and re-order the national markets and regulations to submit to the fast incoming “green capitalism”.

Investment capital now seeks new markets through the “green economy”; securing the natural resources of the world as primary inputs and commodities for industrial production, as carbon sinks or even for speculation. This is being demonstrated by increasing land grabs globally, for crop production for both export and agrofuels. New proposals such as “climate smart” agriculture, which calls for the “sustainable intensification” of agriculture, also embody the goal of corporations and agri-business to over exploit the earth while labeling it “green”, and making peasants dependent on high-cost seeds and inputs. New generations of polluting permits are issued for the industrial sector, especially those found in developed countries, such as what is expected from programs such as Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD++) and other environmental services schemes.

The green economy seeks to ensure that the ecological and biological systems of our planet remain at the service of capitalism, by the intense use of various forms of biotechnologies, synthetic technologies and geo-engineering. GMO’s and biotechnology are key parts of the industrial agriculture promoted within the framework of “green economy”.

The promotion of the green economy includes calls for the full implementation of the WTO Doha Round, the elimination of all trade barriers to incoming “green solutions,” the financing and support of financial institutions such as the World Bank and projects such as US-AID programs, and the continued legitimization of the international institutions that serve to perpetuate and promote global capitalism.

In April 2011 Global Exchange, in collaboration with the Council of Canadians and Fundacion Pachamama, released a book called The Rights of Nature: The Case for a Universal Declaration of the Rights of Mother Earth, which featured a chapter by then-Ambassador to the UN for Bolivia, Pablo Solon, titled ‘The Green Economy Versus the Rights of Mother Earth’. In it, he states,

“…From the point of view of these proponents of the green economy, in order to re-establish equilibrium with Nature, we must assign an economic value to the environmental “services” nature provides. An underlying assumption is only that which can be owned and profited from deserves stewardship.”

“…We are facing a debate in the United Nations among those that believe we need to strengthen the capitalist logic as it related to Nature, and others that suggest we should recognize the Rights of Nature. These are two very different conceptions. One advocates the path of the market, and the other the past of recognizing and respecting the larger system of the planet Earth on which we all live. The future of humans and Nature depends on the path humanity chooses.”

Global Exchange will be on the ground in Rio – promoting the Rights of Nature. Read more about the Community Rights Campaign here and join Via Campesina in the Call to Action. They:

… declare the week of June 5th, as a major world week in defense of the environment and against transnational corporations and invite everyone across the world to mobilize:

•   Defend sustainable peasant agriculture;
•   Occupy land for the production of agroecological and non-market dominated food;
•   Reclaim and exchange native seeds;
•   Protest against Exchange and Marketing Board offices and call for an end to speculative markets on commodities and land;
•   Hold local assemblies of People Affected by Capitalism;
•   Dream of a different world and create it!!

Global Exchange stands with Via Campesina to ‘GLOBALIZE THE STRUGGLE!! GLOBALIZE HOPE!!!’

Live in the Bay Area and want to learn more about the call for the Rights of Mother Earth at Rio+20? Attend the upcoming Rights of Nature seminar hosted by the Women’s Earth and Climate Caucus in Marin County April 13th-14th.

While some people look at Detroit and see problems, we see there is no better place to start building a new economy than in Detroit.

In 2010, Global Exchange’s Michigan team had an idea: create a training program in Detroit to rebuild a resilient community and economy by teaching skills of renewable energy, energy efficiency, and urban agriculture.

What started out as a 5 participant experiment, turned into a full fledged annual project called Green Economy Leadership Training (GELT).

The GELT house in Highland Park, Michigan

The project, based just outside of Detroit in Highland Park, trains youth and community members in practical skills to empower them to improve their communities through energy conservation, renewable energy, green building technology, water conservation, waste diversion (recycling and composting), urban agriculture and food security and urban forestry. The project does all of this through an environmental justice lens.

We are putting out an open invitation to the whole country to join us for the third Green Economy Leadership Training from June 11-August 18.

You, or anyone you know, can apply.

Inside the GELT greenhouse

To learn more about the GELT project or to apply for GELT 2012, click here.

If you cannot attend, you can still support the GELT project and sponsor a GELT summer fellow. Make a special gift today.

The time to join is now.

Detroit: Green Economy Leadership Training in action

Signs of hope continue to sprout in Detroit. For many of us working on the revitalization of Detroit, 2012 may prove to be the year when the tide finally shifts towards a rebirth of our great city. Some consider this a bottoming out after over a decade of massive manufacturing job losses to the tune of 200,000 jobs lost since the year 2000 and eye-opening population loss.

For many in Detroit, it doesn’t seem like the situation can get much worse. We are far removed from Detroit’s heyday when it was considered a bustling leader in organized labor and fair wages for workers.

Those of us still in Detroit have become a battle-tested and resilient bunch, and the skills that we have acquired through so much chaos and uncertainty could prove useful to the rest of the country, a country entrenched in a long-term recession and high unemployment rates.

Consciousness of large scale economic and environmental problems came to national attention last year as the Occupy Wall Street movement swept the nation. Time magazine even named The Protestor the 2011 Person of the Year.

Those same problems are under a microscope here in Detroit, where we started feeling the financial fallout many years before other parts of the country. In Detroit, it has been the norm to have corporations turn their backs on the people and the government ill-equipped and unwilling to respond to the massive problems plaguing the area.

2012 shouldn’t just be the year of large protests. We need a system change. As we’ve been saying here at Global Exchange, “Our 2012 resolution is global revolution!” We need new rules, skills and frameworks to take our movement to the next level. Together, 2012 can be the year that we truly change the rules to create a world that champions people power not corporate power. What better place to put these words into action than in Detroit? This is where the economic fallout started, and this will be the place where the strategies for a new world can be tested.

Detroit: Green Economy Leadership Training activities. Photo courtesy of Samantha Frick

At Global Exchange we’re helping to transition Detroit into a beacon of community organizing power. Over the past two years our summer Green Economy Leadership Training program has been working in the Highland Park community and has trained over 50 people in intensive skills trainings and projects that are helping move a new vision of Detroit’s economy forward.

We have worked side by side with community members to assemble urban farms and 4-seasons greenhouses, weatherize homes and develop community solar projects and create K-12 education programs that are transitioning Detroit to a self-reliant, post-industrial future. In 2012, we are continuing to build a new economy in Detroit, reaching one person at a time and working deeply within our community.

As we develop the skills for the new economy we also need to look towards putting the political power truly back in the hands of the people. Detroit has been the victim of corporate greed for too long. Communities like Detroit can benefit in a huge way by establishing community rights of their own. Our Community Rights Program is organizing across the country and around the world to pass revolutionary laws that strip corporate protections and assert the rights of communities to decide for themselves what happens where they live, and at the same time to recognize the rights of nature.

TAKE ACTION!

Apply to Green Economy Leadership Training: Be on the look out for an announcement to apply to our Green Economy Leadership Training in the next month. The application will be online, along with program information;

Attend Speaking Event: If you are in Michigan, I’ll be speaking this Thursday, 1/19, at Michigan State University in the Erikson Kiva @ 7:30 p.m. The topic is “Urban Green Strategies – How Detroit is Leading the 21st Century Sustainability Revolution?” Rsvp here.

“Every now and then in history, the human race takes a collective step forward in its evolution. Such a time is upon us now.”

—Renowned water/environmental activist (and Global Exchange ally) Maude Barlow

As we ring in 2012, let the revolution begin! From Tunisia to New York, from Spain and Greece to Oakland and ‘Occupies’ everywhere, people have taken to the streets to reclaim what is rightfully ours.

We the 99% seek more than the illusion of democracy… we want government in the hands of the people, not the corporations. We want just, fair, sustainable policies that benefit the majority — not only the wealthy few.

Global Exchange's Zarah Patriana speaking out in 2011

We will no longer stand by and allow banks, oil companies or our political system to place corporate interests above our shared values of justice, equality, good jobs and vibrant, resilient communities and ecosystems. We’re speaking out everywhere to deliver the message: Enough is Enough!

People across the world are saying enough is enough with the global economic and environmental crisis, and we are responding with a massive outpouring of activism and energy. Together we are changing the rules and creating a world that champions people power not corporate power, builds positive alternatives and promotes human rights, peace and democracy.

When a magazine like TIME names ‘Protesters’ the Person of the Year, it’s clear that our movement has truly captured the zeitgeist.

We are so inspired by the growing movement and the millions who have stood up against oppression, corporate exploitation, and environmental ruin. We, the 99%, are changing the rules!

Along with other Occupy activists, Global Exchange is speaking out in DC, New York, San Francisco and Oakland. We’re holding organizing workshops, taking critical next steps to stop the tar sands Keystone XL pipeline, organizing to oppose big banks and corporate greed, mobilizing our members to join us in taking a stand for system change and using all the tools of social media to reach thousands.

We are in the midst of revolution to end inequality. We are making history. The rule by the greedy few is collapsing. We know it.

This is what revolution for building positive alternatives looks like…

Rebuilding local green economies and sustainable, just communities!

Detroit is Ground Zero for the impact of casino capitalism. Shuttered buildings and vacant lots, unemployment and struggling schools are a grim testament to the power of an economic system that destroys entire communities to benefit the 1%.

In Detroit, we aren’t just Occupying — we are hard at work building the revolution.

Our Green Economy Leadership Training program helps rebuild the blighted Detroit community of Highland Park, neighborhood by neighborhood. We are working with local youth and residents to grow sustainable food, use clean renewable energy and create green jobs.

We’re not just theorizing. We’re digging, hauling, hammering and sweating — turning the ideas of local green economies into reality. Together we are demonstrating what economies and communities designed for the 99% look like.

This is what revolution for government by the people, not corporations looks like…

Transforming our laws to protect the rights of our communities — not corporations.

Current laws leave our communities at the mercy of corporate greed. Our communities are the battleground for the policies of corporate profit, from mass pollution, to the mortgage bailout, GMOs, fracking and more.

We are not just occupying public spaces, but working to occupy our local government and change laws to put communities — not corporations — in charge.

When the law denies rights of people and nature, we can and must change the law.

Our Community Rights Program is organizing in California, across the country and around the world to pass revolutionary laws that strip corporate protections and assert the right of communities to themselves decide what happens where they live, and at the same time to recognize the Rights of Nature.

This is what revolution for oil independence looks like…

Stopping the Keystone XL Pipeline Project!

The proposed Keystone XL Pipeline, which would transport oil from the tar sands in Canada to the United States, is the largest and most disastrous industrial project in human history. And although our determined activism to stop Keystone recently led to a delay in the decision to build it, we’re not out of the woods!

The Pipeline will not only put our communities and ecosystems from the Canadian border to the Gulf of Mexico at risk, it will expand the production of tar sands oil, and in the words of renowned climate scientist James Hansen, it will be “game over for life and the planet.”

Across the country we ‘occupied’ President Obama’s fundraisers, campaign offices and rallies — calling on the President to reject the Keystone XL Pipeline project.

We activated our networks across North America to join the movement to stop the pipeline, through protests, actions, rights-based organizing and letter writing campaigns.

Obama has temporarily heeded our call, and the State Department is once again reviewing its plans — this time without the input of a company closely allied to tar sands interests. But if this catastrophic project is reborn, we will again go state-by-state and work with local indigenous communities, ranchers and community members to shut Keystone down.

This is what revolution for Human Rights looks like…

Standing in solidarity with Mexico’s growing peace movement!

There is a growing citizens’ movement for peace and justice in Mexico. While they don’t term the movement “Occupy,” our brothers and sisters across the border are rising up to save their very lives. They are working to change a system that has left over 60,000 Mexicans dead.

We must stand with them. Global Exchange has joined with Mexican civil society to call for an end to the bloodshed and the policies that continue this brutal violence.

We are organizing our allies on both sides of the border to curb the flow of arms into Mexico, to address drug prohibition and to call attention to and ultimately end U.S. military support for Mexican drug interdiction forces.

We are the 99%. We are the revolution.

We are changing the rules and our future! We cannot let up. Together we can change the rules to build a world that respects human rights, protects the planet and practices true democracy — a world that is not governed for and by the 1%, but democratically led by us all. But we can’t do it without you and we look forward to working together in 2012.

Consider making a special gift and supporting the work of Global Exchange. Please give what you can today. Together let’s build a movement the 1% can’t shut down.

The GELT house in Highland Park, Michigan

It’s important to venture outside of our comfort zones once in a while to see what the world has to offer away from home. I was grateful for this chance when I traveled far from Global Exchange headquarters in sunny San Francisco to chilly Highland Park, Michigan last month.

My trip was centered on an Open House party that the Global Exchange midwest region Green Economy Leadership Training (GELT) program staff held in Highland Park to celebrate their hard work and accomplishments over the last two years.

GELT is an initiative of Global Exchange that educates, engages and empowers both youth and adults to be active agents of change in building the necessary clean energy, green economy future. The program trains youth and community members in practical skills that will empower them to improve their communities, such as environmental justice, energy conservation, renewable energy, green building technology, water conservation, waste diversion (recycling and composting), urban agriculture and food security and urban forestry.

GELT living room

I attended the GELT party not only as a representative from Global Exchange headquarters but also as a curious observer eager to see for myself what I had only learned about in blogs and news pieces.

I won’t go into great detail about the deep and complex history of Detroit and Highland Park (you can read more about the city’s rise and fall over the last several decades here). Instead I’ll share some of what’s happening in Highland Park now and the vision folks I met in Detroit have for their tomorrow.

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Driving into the small city of Highland Park at night (which is literally a city within a city entirely surrounded by Detroit), I passed by the massive vacant former Ford factory and countless abandoned homes – many of them burned and crumbling. It was particularly dark it was on the side streets. I learned later that the city of Highland Park recently removed the majority of city streetlamps to cut electricity costs. This is one of many examples of the lingering effects of a diminishing economy and a case in point for building up the green economy which Global Exchange is working towards in the area.

GELT headquarters and house in Highland Park

My trip began with a tour of GELT headquarters in Highland Park – a formerly dilapidated mansion built in the early 1900s, which now serves as place for green learning and home to several of the staff of the Green Economy Leadership Training (GELT) program (http://www.globalexchange.org/programs/greeneconomy). The staff worked day and night for weeks to renovate the massive house – now divided into four separate apartment units – in advance of the Open House. The space was glorious and proof that any of the countless old deserted buildings in the area could be turned into a haven for sustainable living and community.

Inside the GELT greenhouse

A few green features of the GELT home:

A grey water system installed in one of the bathrooms, which uses recycled water from the sink to power the toilet;
The team weatherized windows and doors to keep the heat inside during the cold months;
A mammoth greenhouse constructed behind the house this past summer and now has food growing in it year-round. It’s also used as a classroom twice a week for a group of 6^th graders from an elementary school across the street who seem hungry to learn about the environment in a fun and educational way. I was lucky enough to witness a Northpointe Academy school assembly during my visit, where animated 6^th grade students shared some of their GELT experiences with their entire school of fellow students.

With these green projects under their belt, GELT staffers have countless other big and small plans for the house to become an example of sustainable living and intentional community in Highland Park.

6th grade class at Northpointe Elementary presenting their work with GELT to the rest of the school at an assembly

The highlight of my trip was witnessing the energy and power in the room during the Open House party. Dozens of people gathered together at the GELT headquarters before shifting to the school auditorium to hear presentations by community leaders and staff members about the program successes.

Attendees included Highland Park residents and neighbors, representatives from community organizations, pastors, teachers, elementary school and college students who participated in GELT 9-week summer trainings, and passionate parents and kids. Even the Highland Park Mayor Elect’s mom was there! The excitement about this movement was palpable.

Pastor Bullock addressing the GELT community

We were all inspired by the opening words of Pastor David Bullock – a famous Highland Park leader and partner of the GELT program – who equated the efforts of GELT to bringing Highland Park out of the ashes. Pastor Bullock along with a passionate teacher, a committed 6^th grader, and Brandon Knight and Scott Meloeny (the visionaries behind the program) shared stories of the program’s successes over the past two years, and their dreams and plans for the program in the future.

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Thanks to all of the Global Exchange and GELT staff in Michigan who made this incredible event – and this valuable program – possible. I left Michigan looking at the world in a new and improved light.