rights of nature - Global Exchange

By Shannon Biggs and Tish O’Dell

Around the country, communities fighting fracking took their cause to the ballot box in the 2014 cycle — or tried to. But even before voters got a chance to voice their values some were preempted by nefariously oily means. In Butte County, CA the Western States Petroleum Association (WSPA) —California’s biggest lobby — found a “formatting error” on residents’ petition (meaning: a few words that should have been in bold face type on the petition). Although Frack-Free Butte County won in court, their ordinance was delayed beyond the election season.

For some places, the corporate dollars were too big to beat. In Santa Barbara California, Chevron, ExxonMobil and other corporate oil interests donated $7 million to drown local efforts, confuse voters and sink endorsements of the defeated Measure P. They were not alone.

As Common Cause has reported, Big Oil spent $267 million in the last 15 years on California lobbying and political contributions in Sacramento, the lion’s share of which coincides with fracking’s ugly rise as the short-term future of the fossil fuel industry. Others made it on to the ballot, only to find millions of dollars being poured into their local elections by Big Oil and Gas lobbies.

In Colorado, statehouse officials denied democracy by refusing to let communities vote on fracking. In August, Colorado’s Democratic Governor, John Hickenlooper convinced U.S. Rep. Jared Polis (D-Boulder) to pull his support for the citizen initiative process that would have enabled two anti-fracking initiatives on the ballot and ammended the state constitution to give more control over drilling and fracking to local communities.

$dentonnofrack$

Victory denied? Less than 24 hours after their win, the state was already threatening to ignore Denton’s ban.

And in the most talked about local victory of the elections, residents of Denton, Texas, “the birthplace of fracking” overwhelmingly saw past the big lobby money to ban fracking on election day, only to have state officials and the Texas oil lobby sue to overturn the ordinance, telling residents that its “not their job” to approve or deny fracking permits in their town.

Even in San Benito California, CA, where residents passed a fracking ban despite the big lobby dollars, they may face a new post-election hurdle. “It’s a regulatory taking because it’s the regulation which is depriving property owners of the ability to extract value from their minerals or property,” Armen Nahabedian of Citadel Exploration, a company that’s developing an oil project in San Benito told KQED. “So it’s the duty of the county at this point to either allow people to continue to extract value from their property and not enforce the initiative or to compensate them accordingly with the fair market value of what they’ve been deprived of,” he says.

All of these point to a problem that is (unbelievably) even bigger than fracking—the state of democracy.

Two Communities Doing it Differently: In their Own Words

Two very different communities — Athens, Ohio and Mendocino County, CA also banned fracking this November, but did so by asserting their local right to make governing decisions, AND taking a stand against corporate violations of community rights “permitted” by state and federal governments.

On November 4, 2014, Mendocino County, known for wineries, farming redwood forests and the Pacific, became the first California community to adopt a Community Bill of Rights, placing the rights of people and their ecosystem above the interests of fracking companies. “Measure S”, put forward by the CRNMC (Community Rights Network of Mendocino County) declares the right of County residents to exercise their unalienable right to local community self-governance, the right of natural communities and ecosystems to exist and flourish, the right to clean water, air, and soil, and the right to be free from chemical trespass. Measure S prohibits fracking in Mendocino County because fracking is a clear violation of those rights. It passed with a 67% majority.

Mendocino small farmer and volunteer Jamie Lee said: “This is only the beginning of local self-governance for us up here in Mendocino, the first step of many toward changing the rules about ‘who decides’ what happens here. WE do.”   Peter Norris who helped spur the ordinance effort early on said, ” We reject the notion that corporations are people, (and that they have the constitutional right to plunder our resources for their profit), and also reject the unjust practice of state and federal preeminence over local governments.”

Charles Cresson Wood, local organizer for Mendocino Coast Transition Towns had this analysis: “Measure S was not the work of some hippie fringe group in the woods of Northern California. It was instead just another in a long string of communities across America who are standing up for their rights, and acknowledging in law the fact that we are all connected. It is not possible to simultaneously poison our precious drinking water with fracking chemicals and also have a vibrant agricultural sector in Mendocino County. So this new measure is only aligning the law with the laws of nature, is only recognizing that we are all in this together, and only acknowledging that we cannot allow short-term profit-driven activities of the fracking companies to harm the long-term health and wealth of our County.”

Baile Oakes, father, sculptor and land steward told us, “This is an important step along the way to true local self governance and to preserve the unalienable rights to a healthy ecosystem for all. Its local survival and laws to follow that rely on our community’s full support.”

$fracking_2$

“Thanks to fracking, we call it Ohiofornia because of the earthquakes we have now” says Tish O’dell

In Athens, Ohio, election night 2014 was one of great celebration. Over a year and a half after beginning their attempt to pass a Community Bill of Rights in their community and being kept off the ballot last November, the residents of Athens won and they won big—78% big!

According to Dick McGinn, spokesperson for the community group, “With this overwhelming demonstration of support, Athens residents are sending a clear message to the oil and gas industry and to the state of Ohio: We have a right to clean air and water. We have a right to local self-governance. And there will be no fracking or frack waste disposal within our city.”

Athens now joins Yellow Springs, Oberlin, Mansfield, and Broadview Heights, OH, which also adopted Community Bills of Rights banning fracking, beginning in 2012. Upon hearing the news of Athens, OH, Mendocino County, CA and Denton, TX, many residents of Ohio had an opinion on community rights and the people asserting their right to local self governance:

Susie Beiersdorfer, Ohio Community Rights Network (OHCRN) Board Member said, “The state has permitted injection wells in our city and one, shut down but not plugged, has triggered over 550 earthquakes, the largest a 4.0 in December of 2011. In April 2014, a radioactive frack waste processing facility was state approved and located along the Mahoning River just north of downtown without the knowledge of any city or county official. Like the residents of Denton, we first went through the normal channels of trying to engage our local and state politicians and received mixed results; silence, willful ignorance or active opposition. Those of us working to pass rights-based bans, stand in solidarity with the citizens of Denton, as they enforce their citizens’ ban and hold the government, state agencies and industry accountable.”

Gwen B. Fischer, OHCRN Board Member Portage County and member of Concerned Citizens Ohio, told us, “When I read that despite the vote to ban in Denton, the Chair of the TX Railroad Commission, presumably a governmental agency that works for the people declare she will continue to issue permits for drilling in Denton, ‘because that’s her job’ that tells me that the inalienable rights of the citizens of Denton are being violated. [We] do not live in a democracy. Because that can (and has) happened everywhere local people have conflicts with corporate profit-making, we must recognize that none of us lives in a democracy.”

Sherry Fleming, OHCRN Board member Williams County, Ohio said, “The valiant efforts of Denton, TX, to prohibit fracking through the existing structure of law has collided with the misconception that citizens may act at the local level to protect their health and welfare from corporate threats. … We are one of many communities across the country, facing a corporate harm, which is exploring a new path; one that takes a civil rights approach, using rights based ordinances to protect the community and the surrounding environment, in order to expose the imbalance of power between corporations and communities, and to test existing law to create change where communities may act in their best interest.”

Residents are Looking to the future

Lisa Kochheiser, OHCRN Board Member Wood County and Community Rights Activist, Bowling Green, OH “Community Bill of Rights are spreading not only across the state of Ohio but across the country in PA, NH, NM, CO, OR, and WA, as well. Community Rights is at work in many communities today, stopping corporate harm in the places where people live. Be the change – join the Community Rights Movement.”

Charles Cresson Woods added, “There is one message that we can teach now, and that THERE IS HOPE, that the average person like you and me can make a significant difference, and that grass-roots activism can actually bring about significant change. The corporations would have us think that we can do nothing, and that we must accept the established order. They are doing their best to redefine freedom and other core American values in ways that suit their commercial purposes.”

Shannon Biggs is the Community Rights Director for Global Exchange, and the co-author of two books, Building the Green Economy: Success Stories from the Grass Roots and The Rights of Nature. Her current work focuses on assisting communities confronted by corporate harms to enact binding laws that place the rights of communities and nature above the claimed legal “rights” of corporations.

Tish O’Dell is the CELDF Ohio Community Organizer. Tish co-founded the grass-roots organization MADION (Mothers Against Drilling in Our Neighborhoods) in Broadview Heights, OH, that successfully campaigned to adopt a Home Rule Charter amendment creating a Community Bill of Rights banning oil/gas drilling and fracking.

Mendocino County Becomes First in California to pass a Community Bill of Rights

At 8:00 pm on Election Night 2014, residents of picturesque Mendocino County concerned about the availability and quality of local water waited anxiously for the first results on Measure “S”, the Community Bill of Rights Ordinance that bans fracking, dumping of frack waste and protects their water from being used for fracking anywhere in the state. Global Exchange and our partners and allies were proud to support the Community Rights Network of Mendocino County (CRNMC), the group behind this initiative.

Just after midnight it was clear they had made California history, passing Measure S by a whopping 67% of the county vote. It was not the only measure in the state to ban fracking—San Benito, CA voters passed Measure J despite the heavy influx of Big Oil funding to defeat it, while Santa Barbara’s anti-fracking measure succumbed to corporate money influence.

But residents of Mendocino county did far more than ban fracking this election.

With the passage of Measure S, residents in Mendocino County made history as the first California community to adopt a Community Bill of Rights, placing their rights above corporate interests. Residents see enactment of this ordinance as the first step in asserting their right to local self-government, and a rejection of the idea that their community will be a sacrifice zone for corporate profits. This is a huge milestone for the community rights movement in California—joining with over 180 communities across the country who have also changed the structure of law by passing rights-based legislation.

The Mendocino County Community Bill of Rights Fracking and Water Use Initiative, (Measure S) establishes the rights of the people of Mendocino County to a healthy environment, including clean air and water, and the rights of ecosystems to exist and flourish. The measure also secures the rights of residents to local self-governance. Fracking is banned as a violation of those rights, and directly challenges constitutional so-called “rights” of corporations to frack in their County. The extraction or sale of local water for use in fracking anywhere in the state is also banned, along with the dumping of toxic frack waste. Further, the measure bans the transfer of offshore fracking oil or waste through the County.

Jamie Lee, a community-based farmer in the Anderson Valley of Mendocino attended the very first Democracy School, a weekend rights-based training, in California in 2006, hosted by Global Exchange and CELDF. “Who knew back then that we would be celebrating this victory today.” Over the years Jamie Lee brought Global Exchange’s Shannon Biggs to Mendocino many times to meet with groups and residents, hold public lectures, along with other practicioners and educators of the Community Rights framework, including long time advocate Paul Cienfuegos.

So by the time Peter Norris of Willits reached out to Global Exchange in 2013, there was already a strong sense of community self-governance throughout the far-flung county. A county wide Democracy School was held with 50 people, followed by steady flow of rights-based organizing support from Global Exchange, and the encouragement of the anti-fracking movement of California. David Braun, part of the coalition Californians Against Fracking was a regular visitor to Mendocino throughout the election cycle, “Starting today, in Mendocino, community rights trump those of big money and corporations, but they also ensure that fracking doesn’t destroy precious and irreplaceable water air soil and biodiversity. Big congratulations are in order to the people of Mendocino for their hard won battle against big oil. Now we need to double down and make sure all the people of California and around the country are protected from fracking. There is a lot to build on for all of us – and we will.”

Resident members of CRNMC turning in signatures for the ballot in June, 2014

But it was the community that came together to put this into law. A core group of 30 and countless volunteers worked tirelessly throughout 2014 to collect the signatures for the ballot, host public events, write letters to the editor, paint lawn signs and go door-to-door with the message that decisions about water protection in Mendocino belong to residents and residents alone. As key CRNMC member Kelly Larson said, “Measure S was organized around a network model, rather than the old hierarchical top-down leadership, thereby modeling the ‘community’ in community rights.”

CELDF’s Ben Price offered congratulations to the people of Mendocino County, and to the organizers of the effort, stating, “With this vote, the people of Mendocino are challenging a legal structure that protects a corporate “right” to frack above the rights of communities to not be fracked.”

As resident Carrie Durkee proclaimed, “The passage of Measure S looks like a milestone to me. I’m filled with appreciation, admiration, and gratitude to all for the creation of the Community Bill of Rights.”

Kelly Larson added, “Measure S is an important challenge to corporate constitutional rights, and the oil and gas industry. We’re grateful that the voters of Mendocino County so strongly support community rights…Local people deciding for local control and decision making. Democracy won here today!” Jamie Lee echoed this, saying, “this is only the beginning of local self-governance for us up here in Mendocino, the first step of many toward changing the rules about ‘who decides’ what happens here. WE do.”

Jeff Conant played a defender of Dirty Oil at the Rights of Nature Tribunal. Judges (L-R) include Carl Anothiny, Courtney Cummings, Brian Swimme, Bill Twist and Anuradha Mittal.

The following guest blog is by Jeff Conant, who participated in the BARONA (Bay Area Rights of Nature Alliance) Rights of Nature Tribunal on October 5, 2014. With 150 people in attendance, the tribunal imagined how different our world might be if our legal system saw ecosystems as rights-bearing entities—rather than as property to be destroyed for profit. Would fracking be legal? Deep-sea oil drilling? The tribunal examined the violations of community and nature’s rights using Chevron’s refinery in Richmond, CA as a case study. Five judges heard the eloquent testimony of many experts, including residents most affected by the refinery. 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.

When the newly formed BARONA held a tribunal to see what it might look if we held the fossil fuel industry to account for its violations of the rights of the living universe, I had the opportunity to indulge in a little Stephen Colbert-style theatrics, by playing the role of defense attorney for the industry:

Honorable judges, esteemed witnesses, ladies and gentlemen of the public, I said in my opening speech, if it were not for my client, the fossil fuel industry, none of you would be here today. The energy economy is the very foundation of every advance that we as a civilization have benefited from for the past hundred and fifty years. Yet, despite this fundamental fact, there are those among you who insist that somehow my client has done wrong.

Environmental justice activist and refinery resident Stephanie Hervey testifies on Chevron’s violations of health safety and welfare.

As defense attorney for industry, my arguments were based on two principles – principles we hear again and again from corporations, especially the big nasty ones like Monsanto and Chevron – 1) Our products may have fatal side effects, but they make your life possible, or at least convenient, and 2) Might Makes Right—including the “right” of corporations to be seen as “persons” with vast powers under law to make a profit.

Of these arguments, the first is the hardest to refute. Having grown up in the golden age of fossil fuels (and, most likely, toward the end of this age), we know no other way of living. So, to propose an idea as paradigm-shifting as Rights of Nature is, to say the least, preposterous. But for corporations to maintain their psychic stranglehold over us, they depend just as much on argument #2: we have the power and we’re not letting it go.

And this is precisely where the question of rights comes in as a strategic approach. Ever since the French Revolution, popular pressure to recognize human rights has been a key strategic approach to resisting abuses of power, whether by states or corporations. Though it is still in its infancy as a movement, efforts to gain recognition for the rights of nature could be an important element within a broader set of strategies to resist the abuses of corporate rule.

One of the witnesses at the tribunal, Corinna Gould, a local Ohlone woman who has been active for years in defending the history and culture of Bay Area native peoples, made the point that the U.S. Constitution was written by and for wealthy white men. Well, let me tell you, as the defense attorney for Industry, that really got my goat – so here’s what I replied:

Let’s remember our history. The Constitution is not the only document written by and for white men in this country. Following the 13th Amendment, which gave people of African descent the status of human beings, some friends of ours wrote the 14th Amendment which says that “No state shall deprive any person of life, liberty or property without due process of law nor deny to any person the equal protection of laws. Thanks to the Supreme Court decision San Mateo County vs. Southern Pacific Railroad, corporations, as we know, are persons. Therefore, under current law – and I don’t see this changing anytime soon – corporate persons, like my client the fossil fuel industry, have rights. Fairy tales like Mother Earth, on the other hand, do not.

In this case, as the faux-lawyer defending the status quo, I rejected the notion that ecosystems should have rights using a version of the Might Makes Right argument that says we are right because we made the laws.

The point I hoped to make, though, was the opposite: laws are meant to uphold and protect rights—those inalienable rights that come not from government but by virtue of being born. Living things have rights, and laws are made by people. When laws are unjust and deny rights, they can be changed by people. It is never easy, and it takes time – but power does change hands.

Of course, it’s not only Might that makes Right. In the current era of market fundamentalism, wealth also makes Right, which is why, as defense attorney, I made this point:

Richmond, CA – Chevron refinery explosion in 2012.

When the Chevron refinery in Richmond California suffered a regrettable fire in 2012, we paid the fines. Indeed, that same year, 2012, Chevron earned over $26 billion – its highest annual profits ever. If my client were not within its rights, would our profits continue to grow? Ladies and gentlemen, I don’t think so. And what have we done with these profits? Around the world, we have built schools, clinics, water treatment facilities, parks. We sponsor sports teams.

Does Mother Earth sponsor sports teams? No, she does not.

Your honors, I rest my case.

Jeff Conant lives in Oakland, CA with his wife and family. When he is not moonlighting as a faux-defense attorney for the likes of Chevron Corp. he is the director of Friends of the Earth’s international forests program, which seeks to protect forests and the rights of forest-dependent peoples by addressing the root causes of forest destruction. A longtime global justice activist, he also co-authored A Community Guide to Environmental Health (Hesperian Health Guides, 2008), a comprehensive community education manual which is being translated into numerous languages. As an independent journalist, Jeff has written frequently for outlets such as Alternet, Corpwatch, Earth Island Journal, Yes!, Race, Poverty and the Environment and Z Magazine.

MEDIA RELEASE

October 1, 2014

Contact: Shannon Biggs, Global Exchange

shannon@globalexchange.org 415.298.9419

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.

$Pennie don't frack CA$

Idle No More Bay Area’s Pennie Opal Plant speaking to crowds of over 5,000 at California’s largest ever environmental rally in 2014.

With the arrival of fracking on the political scene, California’s democracy is unquestionably drowning in Big Oil. As Common Cause has reported, over the last 15 years, $267 million has been spent on lobbying and political contributions in Sacramento, the lion’s share of which coincides with fracking’s ugly rise as the short-term future of the fossil fuel industry. Fracking is perhaps the worst energy idea to hit California’s communities and the climate in history, yet the echoes of “drill baby drill” seem to be resounding throughout the Capitol, overwhelming the voices of the people, common sense, the process of democracy, and the realities of the worst drought in history. As Americans Against Fracking’s David Braun says, “Only in a world where corporate influence rules public policy would slash and burn technologies like fracking—which utilizes enormous quantities of fresh water and toxic chemicals to smash bedrock and release dirty energy—be considered a good idea.”

Source: Damien Luzzo

Studies following the recently defeated fracking moratorium showthat State Senators who voted “NO” received 14 times more in industry contributions, coupled with massive industry lobbying expenditures, revealing money’s influence on politics. With huge campaign contributions to the Governor and state politicians; the intense pressure of lobbying; industry’s role in writing regulatory laws; the revolving door of government-to-industry-and-back jobs; and the inappropriate appointments of industry to myriad ‘watchdog’ posts—the crisis we face may be bigger than fracking. Increasingly, California communities are taking democracy into their own hands and banning fracking locally.

Following the fracking money: In the flash of a gas flare, Governor Brown has shaken the “moonbeam” moniker that dogged his early career as an idealist and an environmentalist who stood firmly outside of the establishment. Now, wading deep in the pool of political money, the third-term “climate leader” took Big Oil & Gas contributions totaling $2.5 million before signing the now-infamous bill-gone-bad SB4 into law, which instead of regulating fracking (the bill’s initial intent), actually exempts fracking from regulatory oversight, and even forces the state to issue fracking permits for at least the next two years.

Occidental Petroleum, Governor Brown’s biggest energy funder has the largest stake in Calfiornia’s fracking game. As Claire Sandberg reported in Truthout, in an October 2013 investor call, Occidental executives cited “more favorable permitting” as the impetus behind its plan to increase capital expenditures by $500 million next year in California. “Most of this increase will be directed towards unconventional drilling opportunities where we have more than 1 million prospective acres for unconventional resources,” said Occidental president and CEO, Steve Chazen. $fracking_contributions_to_senate$

Following the SB4 fail, concerned Californians rallied, continuing to plead and demand that state representatives protect California from fracking by passing a statewide moratorium, a bill known as SB 1132. In a powerful display of big money over justice, the bill was defeated, a well funded victory for the fracking industry. Following the money, nonprofit watchdog Maplight provided the following analysis: “Senators voting ‘NO’ on the moratorium bill have received 14 times as much money from the oil and gas industry, on average ($24,981), as Senators voting ‘YES’ ($1,772). Twenty-one votes were required for the bill to pass. The final vote was 16-16, with eight Senators abstaining. Three of the abstainers have been suspended from the Senate due to corruption allegations. If the five active Senators who abstained from voting—all Democrats—voted in favor, the moratorium would have passed.

The Democrats who abstained from voting on the moratorium have received, on average, 4.5 times as much money from the oil and gas industry as the Democrats who voted ‘YES’.
Senator Jeanne Fuller (R) has received $52,300 from the oil and gas industry, more than any other senator voting on the bill. She voted ‘NO’.”

Reported by the Daily Kos: Over their lifetime, the 16 Senators who voted against SB 1132 have taken $590,185 from the oil industry, while the 16 who voted no have taken $159,250. And, according to Truthout, the Western States Petroleum Agency—the biggest corporate lobby in California—spent $4.7 million in 2013, and $1.5 million in the first quarter of 2014, contributing to the estimated $15 million the anti-fracking coalition Californians Against Fracking says the industry spent lobbying against SB 1132.

Regulating fracking isn’t the answer either. With the creation of the Halliburton Loophole, fracking was exempted from the Clean Water Act and the Clean Air Act. But even if it wasn’t—fracking cannot be done safely, and it is largely the industry to be regulated that writes the policies, anyway. As Colorado biologist Shane Davis details, “The Colorado oil and gas conservation commissions (COGCC) regulations are nothing but a public pacifier. There is an internal ‘waiver’ system that allows the fracking industry a free pass to not have to abide by any regulation if they can show the regulation will cause undo financial burden to the operator.” As a scientist who is also living with high levels of Benzene and other toxins in his blood from exposure to fracking sites near his home, he has become a national spokesperson for the cause. Says Davis, “It is very clear the state of Colorado cannot abide by its mission to prevent adverse impacts to the environment and protect public health, safety and welfare.“

Fracking protests in New York warn Governor Cuomo. Could California be far behind?

So what happens next? For a growing number, the crush of money at the state level is beginning to draw the curtain on the idea that maybe the system isn’t broken but working perfectly—just not for residents or healthy ecosystems. So where do we turn to save ourselves from bad ideas like fracking? Well for now, the growing consensus seems to be that we must rely on our neighbors. A growing number of communities, including Santa Cruz and Beverly Hills, have passed local bans on fracking, with several more working to make it on their local 2014 elections ballot. Peter Norris, resident of Willits, CA, believes watching the statewide fracking debate play out “only points to the larger issue of democracy and gets to the question ‘who decides about fracking—residents or corporations?” It’s one of the reasons he’s part of a countywide group, the Community Rights Network of Mendocino County (CRNMC), which is working to pass an ordinance this November to assert their local right to ban fracking: “Residents here feel strongly that decisions about water here should be made locally and should be focused on the rights of community and our ecosystems, and enforced by laws.”

The CRNMC is gathering some 6,000 signatures throughout the county in order to put the idea of community rights on the ballot this November. If passed, Mendocino County will join the ranks of over 160 communiti es—from big cities to conservative rural townships across the US that have protected the health safety and welfare of residents and local ecosystems by asserting their right to decide what happens where they live. They are working with Global Exchange and the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund (CELDF) to pass an ordinance that bans fracking by elevating the rights of communities and the local ecosystem above the claimed “rights” of corporations. “I like to think of it in terms of the adage ‘we’re the ones we’ve been waiting for,” says Idle No More Bay Area’s spokesperson Pennie Opal Plant, “We can’t expect our elected officials to act in our best interests. We have to do everything we can to ensure the safety of our communities. Enacting local democracy is an important tool.”

Shane Davis agrees, “It is time that communities enact local control through the ballot box. Community rights should be supreme over corporate pollution.” To learn more about Community Rights, download Global Exchange’s new toolkit.

By Kiara Collins, Community Rights program intern, Global Exchange

Mora County Road Signs

Mora County, New Mexico is not the first place that comes to mind for challenging the ‘rights’ of corporations. This is high desert, and life moves pretty slowly for the 5,000 residents—at least until fracking arrived.

This sparsely populated county is politically conservative, with a large Native American population. Over half of those living in Mora County are native Spanish speakers, and for just about everybody, homesteading, ranching and living close to the land is a way of life. As resident Roger Alcon told the Los Angeles Times, “We’ve lived off the land for five generations. I don’t want to destroy our water, [and] you can’t drink oil.”

Do we have the right to pollute her future?

In 2013, Mora County became the first county in the U.S to ban hydraulic fracturing by exercising their right to local self-governance. By enacting these rights, they passed a local law—the Community Water Rights and Local Self-Governance ordinance—that bans all fossil-fuel extraction in their county, because to do so would be a violation of residents’ civil rights. The ordinance also strips corporations of their “right” to frack, and recognizes that the ecosystem upon which all life depends has a right to be free of the contamination that fracking brings.

BIG OIL TAKES ON THE PEOPLE OF MORA COUNTY

Shortly after the ordinance was passed, the Independent Petroleum Association of New Mexico and three landowners in a federal district court sued Mora County. They protested that Mora County had violated corporate constitutional rights “commemorated in the 1^st, 5^th, and 14^th amendments,” — the Constitution and a Supreme Court that has “found” that large corporations are rights bearing “persons”—which means as long as they have a permit, unwanted industry can set up shop where we live—even over our community objections.

Then in January of 2014, Shell Western E&P Inc. (SWEPI), a subsidiary of Royal Dutch Shell also sued Mora County claiming that enacting the Community Water Rights and Local Self-Governance ordinance was a violation of the corporation’s Constitutional rights.

Despite what the Supreme Court has said, Mora County residents don’t see the justice in corporate decision makers wielding the law to turn their community into a sacrifice zone for profit. The Mora County ordinance clearly states “…corporate entities and their directors and managers shall not enjoy special privileges and powers under the law which make community majorities subordinate to them.”

MORA COUNTY FIGHTS CORPORATE POWER

Mora County is not giving in to Big Oil & Gas’ exploitation of welfare, property values, health and the ecosystem all residents depend on. They stand behind the Bill of Rights ordinance which says that, “corporations in violation of the prohibitions enacted by this ordinance, or seeking to engage in activities prohibited by this ordinance, shall not have the rights of ‘persons’ afforded by the United States and New Mexico constitutions…”

With support from the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund (CELDF), Mora County Commissioners are working to defend this Community Bill of Rights, but even more so to defend themselves from laws that elevate corporate “rights” over community rights. CELDF and the New Mexico Environmental Law Center stand in solidarity with Mora County to exercise their inherent rights of environmental health and safety. Mora County Commissioners are calling on all communities across the U.S to stand in solidarity with the people of Mora county to challenge a structure of law that permits exploitation of the ecosystems and the poisoning of residents for the profit of corporate frackers.

As said by Ben Price, National Organizing Director of CELDF,

“Why is the outcome of this fight important beyond Mora County? Because at the heart of it is the question: ‘who has rights; people or corporations?’”

The Community Bill Of Rights aims to take back power that people have been stripped of due to corporate greed. People have a right and a duty to protect themselves from corporate elites who desire only to increase profit margins, and in the process, destroy local environments and families.

Nearly 170 communities have passed similar laws that aim to place the rights of residents and ecosystems above corporate interests. In Mendocino County, California, residents have formed the Community Rights Network of Mendocino County (CRNMC) in partnership with Global Exchange to pass a similar rights-based ordinance banning fracking.

CRNMC spokesperson Ed Oberweiser believes this is a time for standing in solidarity with residents in Mora County, saying

“Congratulations to Mora County for standing up against an unjust system that says communities don’t have the authority to decide what happens in their community. We here in Mendocino County, California are working to get a community rights ordinance on our November ballot for a vote by we the people. We hope to join Mora County soon with a passed ordinance.”

HOW YOU CAN SUPPORT MORA COUNTY’s STAND FOR RIGHTS

If you’d like to support the people of Mora County in this battle with big oil and the corporate elite, please visit the Mora County Legal Defense Fund. The Mora County Legal Defense Fund recognizes that Mora’s Community Bill of Rights Ordinance, and the lawsuits filed in an attempt to overturn it, are about much more than simply fracking—so they have filed to intervene in the case.

In a recent press release from the intervenors, their civil rights attorney Jeffrey Haas stated,

“This case is about who controls the water, the land, the natural environment in Mora County, the residents of the County who have passed the ordinance to protect their rights and the rights of nature, or an out of State Corporation.”

Because a picture says 1,000 words, check out this short video on fracking, and get informed about Community Rights by downloading Global Exchange’s new toolkit!

Kiara Collins is the Community Rights Program intern at Global Exchange. She aims to create positive change in her local and global community through acute social action and education. She currently attends Sonoma State University where she will be a sophomore this Fall.

Increasingly, communities throughout California are facing the dangers of hydro-fracturing (fracking). Despite the severe drought plaguing farmers, farming communities in the Central Valley and throughout the state are being siphoned for water for fracking operations, or being used as a dumping ground for the toxic waste fracking generates. But residents in Mendocino County have another idea for water protection—local control. A growing movement in this northern county—home to wineries, farms and redwood forests—is concerned about their already short supply of water, and are not willing to allow the toxic infrastructure and heavy water use that fracking brings. As Peter Norris, a Willits spokesperson for the newly formed Community Rights Network of Mendocino County (CRNMC) says, “Residents feel strongly that decisions about water here should be made locally and should be focused on the rights of community and our ecosystems, and enforced by laws.”

Fracking is slated to come to Mendocino in 18 months, though residents seek to stop it before it begins by putting a ban on the ballot this November—but the ordinance they seek to pass is more than just a fracking ban. Partnering with Global Exchange’s Community Rights program, residents there have recently formed the CRNMC specifically to assert their right to protect the community and local water by banning fracking for the extraction of hydrocarbons, banning the use of local water for fracking outside the county, as well as banning the dumping or transport of toxic fracking waste through the county. To do this, their ordinance will recognize their local authority to make decisions that directly affect them and their ecosystems in order to ban all practices related to fracking, and strip fracking corporations of the legal tools corporate executives use to turn communities into sacrifice zones for profit.

CRNMC’s Jane McCabe and Kimbal Dodge, with event posters.

The CRNMC will be enlisting volunteers and signature gathering at a series of four public events sprinkled throughout the county:

Friday June 6, 2014, 7PM in Willits: LL Grange, 291 School Street
Saturday June 7, 7 pm in Ft. Bragg: Town Hall, 363 N Main Street
Sunday June 8 at 1 PM in Boonville: Anderson Valley Grange, Hwy 128
Sunday June 8, 4 PM in Ukiah: Methodist Church, 270 N Pine Street

The events will feature local speakers from the CRNMC, Global Exchange’s Community Rights program director, Shannon Biggs, and Americans Against Fracking’s founder, David Braun. Come join a lively discussion, sign the petition, or volunteer with the campaign!

For more information on the events, contact Peter Norris 707.456.9968, or visit the CRNMC’s website or facebook page.

Because a picture says 1,000 words, check out this short video on fracking, and get informed about Community Rights by downloading Global Exchange’s new toolkit!

The majority of the world’s economies are based on the idea that nature
is property and most legal systems put real power behind the idea that nature is a “thing” separate and apart from humans, here only to serve our needs and whimsical desires. To accept the current structure of law and economy is to accept that the human relationship with the natural world is one of ownership, and promotes unfettered exploitation of the earth’s natural systems by humans. This is our current story.

So, how do we change this story? By recognizing that nature has rights.

Recognizing the Rights of Nature is a potentially powerful tool for protecting the planet. Rather than treating nature as property, Rights of Nature acknowledges that nature in all its life forms has the right to “exist, persist, maintain and regenerate its vital cycle.”

photo: Ben Powless

In the last few years, we have partnered with the Council of Canadians, and Fundacion Pachamama to release a report and a book gathering the stories and thoughts of leaders in the environmental movement as they discussed the paradigm-shifting approach to legislating resource use called the Rights of Nature, and the need to broaden legal frameworks to recognize ecological limits, natural laws, and the interdependency of all life.

Although these environmental leaders gathered at international conferences, contributed to these reports, and conversations about the Rights of Nature spread, these big thinkers had yet to sit down together to assess the current story and figure out how to take the Rights of Nature story to the next level in all of our environmental and social justice work.

So came the 2013 Rights of Nature and the Economics of the Biosphere bringing together more than 50 international, national, and local visionaries, thinkers, and activists from across the globe at the Stillheart Institute in Woodside, California over a four day period.

The Summit aimed to get these leaders from various disciplines to foster a deeper understanding of the Rights of Nature framework, to explore strategies for global movement building, and perhaps, most importantly, to forge new collaborations and campaigns and a revolutionary new path for safeguarding our planet.

The first half of the Summit tackled the international organizing around the Rights of Nature. On hand were Maude Barlow from the Council of Canadians, Pablo Solón from Focus on the Global South, Jeff Conant from Friends of the Earth, Gopal Dayaneni from Movement Generation, Tom Goldtooth from the Indigenous Environmental Network, and many more.

A range of topics were discussed beginning with finding common ground in everyone’s work and looking at the big picture of where we want to go from here, followed by looking at the relationship of indigenous rights and rights of nature, then looking at the financialization of nature and the threats associated with it.

The second half of the Summit sought to build bridges between organizations from throughout the Bay Area, a vision of organizing around a local biosphere by bringing together the individuals pushing for solar panels on rooftops with the people linking arms in front of the Chevron refinery in Richmond to organize around common principles based on the rights of nature. Global Exchange was proud to welcome Geogia Kelly from the Praxis Peace Institute, Osprey Orielle Lake of the Women’s Earth and Climate Caucus, Marco Vangelisti from SLOW Money, and many more.

Plans were put into place to figure out how to move the Rights of Nature framework forward into the mainstream and how to integrate this concept into our everyday work. Those in attendance worked together to draft a radical declaration that challenges capitalism and the structures that are destroying our world, and that calls for recognizing Rights of Nature as an essential way forward for humanity. We will continue to update you on the progress of this declaration as the final version is being drafted.

The consensus at the end of the summit was clear: Rights of Nature provides an exciting new way to draw together disparate strands of activism, and offers a new organizing energy for all of our work as we rewrite our human story.

SUPPORT THIS WORK

With the Summit over, we are turning to you to help us further our Rights of Nature work. Your donation will help us take the work of the Rights of Nature Summit to the next level and advance Rights of Nature as a real solution to the growing corporate-driven environmental and climate crises. A few dollars will go a long way.

We hope you’ll join us and donate $5 today. Donate $20 or more and receive the choice of one of two books: The Rights of Nature: The Case for a Universal Declaration of the Rights of Mother Earth or Building the Green Economy: Success Stories from the Grassroots. Get your copy today.

The following post was written by Caitlin Kawaguchi, summer intern with the Global Exchange Community Rights Program.

Cleghorn announcing announcing the easement next to the memorial tree under which Lucinda's ashes are interred.

Cleghorn announcing the easement next to Lucinda’s memorial tree.

When J. Stephen Cleghorn realized that Paradise Gardens and Farm, his certified-organic farm in Pennsylvania that sits above the Marcellus Shale formation, was at risk of being “fracked” for shale gas extraction, he knew he had to act. But he did more than just act against fracking when he became the first private property owner in the United States to use a deed easement recognizing the Rights of Nature to ban all activities that would do systemic harm to the ecosystem both above and deep below the surface of his farm.

“We wanted to preserve organic agriculture on these 50 acres to be sure, but also wanted to employ this recognition of Rights of Nature to deter any activity that would threaten those rights at the surface in the deep biosphere below this farm,” said Cleghorn.

Mineral “rights” enable fracking corporations to drill on and under your property. Photo courtesy of the California Department of Conservation. photo altered by Richard Thornton

Subsurface rights, sometimes called the mineral estate or ‘split’ estate, are often leased or sold to fracking companies in order to drill and dump millions of gallons of toxins below private property and ground water. In most states, these mineral “rights” were sold as long ago as 100 years or more, affording residents no say over what happens under their feet — and sometimes even on their property.

Cleghorn describes himself and his late wife, Dr. Lucinda Hart Gonzalez, as environmentally conscious, although they didn’t leave the city to take up farming with the intention of making a huge statement. His wife wanted to be a cheese maker and Cleghorn wanted to farm again after a short experience he had as a young adult. Together they thought that, while they might not be able to change the world, on their 50 acres they could make a positive contribution, farming as true stewards of the land, be part of a vibrant local food system and community, and reduce their carbon footprint. They set out to transition the farm to a local, organic, sustainable farm and hoped it would be a place to inspire and train future generations of farmers.

When Lucinda passed away in 2011, Cleghorn decided to use the easement to memorialize Lucinda’s legacy of very difficult work by which she and Cleghorn built a viable and thriving organic farm. He named the easement after her and enacted it on the first anniversary of her passing, November 14, 2012. With THE DR. LUCINDA HART-GONZÁLEZ CONSERVATION EASEMENT, Cleghorn sees himself as living the change the world needs and setting an example of working in partnership with Nature. That could change the world, he hopes, as the Rights of Nature are asserted, fully recognized, and protected under the law. He hopes that this easement will inspire other individuals to also take a stand for Nature and the future of the planet.

“This easement is not only about about preserving land for organic agriculture; it also speaks to a paradigm shift that is needed in our thinking so that we recognize that we are part of nature, not lords over it. Our long history is catching up with us. We’re either going to turn around our thinking and behavior, or we are going to leave a wasteland for future generations,” said Cleghorn.

Cleghorn accepts that the easement could devalue his property because it restricts the use of the land, but he believes that defending Nature’s rights is more important. Since it is attached to the deed, even when the deed changes hands, the new owners will have to comply with its terms.

“The groundbreaking idea of affirming the Rights of Nature is that this property is not so much longitudes and latitudes divided up into commodities. It’s first of all Earth, Nature, and it is indivisible,” said Cleghorn.

Cleghorn filing the easement at the Jefferson County Courthouse in Brookville, PA.

Cleghorn says he no longer recognizes Pennsylvania state laws that speak of supposed surface and subsurface “rights” to the land. “The state’s practice of splitting a part of Nature into who owns the surface versus who owns the subsurface, as well as considering each surveyed property as only ‘private’ property without respect to its origins within and connection to Nature as a whole, those are ‘rights’ I don’t recognize anymore. What we’re trying to do is make the gas companies come into court and argue against the rights of Nature , to make them argue that their industrial activity they call “fracking” gets to threaten those living systems by which all of life is sustained. We don’t think they will want to do that. The easement is one of a number of steps I’m willing to take to hold them off.”

It isn’t only individuals that can take a stand, and are taking a stand, in this way. Cities, townships, and municipalities are adopting community bills of rights that put their right to a clean ecosystem and the Rights of Nature into law. Pittsburgh has banned fracking within its city limits on such a basis. These local ordinances display a paradigm shift in our culture towards recognizing Nature’s rights and asserting our community rights. If the government won’t protect Nature, it’s time that others follow Cleghorn’s example and take action, as individuals or in our communities, to protect the world we live in.

Anyone interested in discussing a similar easement for their land should contact Shannon Biggs at Global Exchange, or the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund (CELDF). CELDF helped Cleghorn write his easement and is a signatory to it, standing ready to defend the easement in court if that becomes necessary. Stephen Cleghorn is also an active boardmember of the Stop The Frack Attack Network.

Fracking Corporations Played the Democracy Game – Two Communities Set New Rules this Election