Out of Carbon, Some Diamonds

Upon leaving Copenhagen, the city that had its heart set on a UN climate treaty, white snow & gray footprints of the world dust the streets. With our enormous carbon+ history already well in motion, I think what's next is that we apply the force necessary to make diamonds. So here are 3 diamonds in the rough...

1. hope = social movements
As government negotiations fail (duh!)-- as they always fail us in our country, our Congress, our City Council meetings-- hope always comes from the outside, the social movements. I have faith in our social movements emerging & exploding when there's a need. The ingredients are already there. We're just waiting for the occasion & the cook. Well, let's have that party-- the parallel party to the Conference of the Parties (COP) of these climate negotiations. I've seen its beginnings at the 12/13/09 Peoples Assembly inside the KlimaForum. That room of a thousand Global South & North allies, that opened with darkness & soon lit with walking candles, followed by word after word of our common struggles in different places. We too see our "common but differentiated responsibilities". We know that the climate crisis is a systemic issue that needs a systems change. We are already building that new world and we don't need to wait for our elected governments to lead the way.

2. US leadership = what we practice on the ground, replicated upward
What we know best is what we've done ourselves. If the US can experience how our grassroots solutions work, then I think we have a better chance of getting them to lay that out on the negotiations table. I felt that the breakthrough in our US CJ grassroots delegation strategy session came when we said that we've already begun to transform our communities: turning just transitions of polluting facilities into green jobs, directing energy stimulus funds to rehabilitate public housing & schools, practicing indigenous farming that feed & cure our folks, & more. We are already in motion! Imagine these local transformations replicated across cities, our country & around the globe. Now that sounds like the other world that's possible!

3. yes we can be fast!
Given skilled organizers focused on a single effort, from seed to fruit only took 3 days! Monday's idea of a US grassroots climate justice letter to Obama that we could rally around, materialized with a kick-ass letter (refined by many) & a powerful press rally infront of the US Embassy by Thursday. Now that's fast! Yes, having 10+ organizers staying in the same house for a week, open to coordination & willing to throw down, is the kind of movement house that makes things happen fast. We need to keep practicing it. I'm now a believer (tho a skeptic at first). Yes we can toss the notion that it takes a long time to get stuff done. Yes we can be fast. The times are urgent & I now see we can rise to the occasion!



Check out this video of our US Embassy action:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mUlfAWYgiOw

4 days + 4 mics in Copenhagen

Today was busy work inside our Flintholm House-- a buzz of 20 organizers of color planning a hot event for this Thursday (look for it!). Phones ringing, 5 laptops editing a google doc, fast notes in red marker, communal cooking, mad texting. It was the opposite of light white snow flittering outside the window. Now that I have a moment to reflect, I recall being on 4 mics in the last 4 days.

#1 mic: Amplified the US grassroots & justice factor to funders, that our new engagement in these climate talks are critical for the movement that we need to grow beyond Copenhagen. (I was the 6th speaker of 7, right before the "Shock Doctrine" author Naomi Klein.)

#2 mic: At the "outside" KlimaForum, in front of a thousand international climate campaigners' "People's Assembly", I opened saying I represented a US grassroots delegation of immigrants & communities of color, the "South within the North." And closed by sharing our win over the Richmond Chevron oil refinery, getting them to chant, "dirty in, dirty out". I shared the mic w/my companero, Jose Bravo from the Just Transition Alliance. He opened by invoking our shared family history as farmworkers, connecting eyes with our allies from the powerful La Via Campesina.

#3 bullhorn: Probably the best action (of the many) I've attended so far, I brought a message of solidarity to our sisters & brothers from indigenous communities in occupied Canada, fighting Tar Sands mining. What do poor Asian communities have to do with this opposition campaign on tar sands? We see in the lifeline of fossil fuels, from mining to refining to emissions, that environmental racism hits poor communities of color at each of these points. Our struggles are connected. APEN & allies are doing our part to
hold the line at the Chevron refinery who's trying to retool their facility to process heavier crude & tar sands. So when we're successful, we help their campaigns. And when they stop tar sands extraction, that prevents Chevron from refining it in Richmond. I gifted 5 APEN shirts to our native allies, wishing them good luck & the powerful dragon energy we hope help win their campaigns.

#4 sheer voice: Inside the highly-guarded UNFCCC Bella Center, we pulled in close a circle of 30+ US grassroots climate justice organizers of color to strategize on how we were going to pose an alternative American voice in these climate talks. Expressing frustration over how our US negotiators are misrepresenting our EJ+ realities, I facilitated the session where all around, we said we were so much more aligned w/the sentiments of African sisters & brothers, Pacific small island nations, Latin American vision, and indigenous struggles. The momentum generated from this discussion is now driving a unifying effort between us. Stay tuned...

Initial Reflections on the Global Climate Summit

Mari Rose Taruc, reflections on my 1st full day at the Global Climate Summit, 12/12/09s

The early winter cold of Copenhagen turns my face into a popsicle, but all I had to do was join the “Flood for Climate Justice” march of a hundred thousand energetic people from around the world to feel warm. A 4 mile, 4+ hour mobilization is enough to keep anyone from freezing. Signs of hope/despair: “There is no planet B,” “Nature doesn’t compromise,” to “systems change, not climate change.”

While on the march, a UK Guardian TV reporter asked me if I was optimistic or skeptical of these climate negotiations. Both. Skeptical because there’s no denying that many of our elected officials are in bed with corporations [while I held up my transported Bay area protest sign “Chevron, Corporations OUT of Copenhagen Climate Talks”]. And optimistic because I can’t just let my babies, family & community die from climate disruption.

We have work to do. I’m already learning a lot just by allies briefing me from the first week of these climate negotiations. Something we don’t hear often in the US is “ecological debt” or what some refer to as “carbon colonization”. It’s that rich countries have colonized the atmosphere with their industrial carbon pollution for so long that it’s time they pay for the mess they’ve caused. And rightly so, as small island nations like Tuvalu are headed to go under water this century, or African nations whose severe droughts have caused massive displacement & wars, they have every right to demand the strictest emissions reductions possible to stabilize the planet. Another big debate is with REDD, which our allies oppose because it would not only displace indigenous forest-dependent peoples, but also start a huge fake forest program around the world. Some say it’s like a rich person could say they’re carbon neutral if they pay to plant a tree but still drive their gas guzzling car.

It makes me think about how deeply we here in Copenhagen really understand the weight & depth of our actions & even solutions. Right now, most of us agree that we need climate justice… but what does that really mean? In this next & last week of the climate talks, our grassroots delegations of frontline, impacted communities & countries need to be heard: from the seriousness of the problems in our communities now, to the solutions we really need to turn the ecological crisis around.

There are many exciting & important events ahead: US grassroots/EJ discussion about how we will apply pressure on Obama as he represents the US later this week, a strategy discussion between North-South base-building allies on how our movements need to step up, to the midweek convergence of “inside” & “outside” delegates into a people’s assembly for climate justice. More stories to come & flood out of our delegation.