EARTH ACTION IN THE NEWS - June 21, 2018 (Happy Summer!)

[Emerald]

​EARTH ACTION IN THE NEWS  

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​1) 'Historic First': Nebraska Farmers Return Land to Ponca Tribe in Effort to Block Keystone XL ​

https://www.ecowatch.com/nebraska-farmers-keystone-xl-2578444895.html?utm_source=EcoWatch+List&utm_campaign=3a0bb07bc3-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_COPY_01&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_49c7d43dc9-3a0bb07bc3-86095421

Common Dreams: "While TransCanada is trampling on Indigenous rights to fatten their bottom line, Native leaders are resisting by building renewable energy solutions like solar panels in the path of the pipeline," said 350.org executive director May Boeve. "Repatriating this land to the Ponca Tribe raises new challenges for the Keystone XL pipeline and respects the leadership of Native nations in the fight against the fossil fuel industry," she added. "Tribal sovereignty is central to the movement to keep fossil fuels in the ground and build a more just society for all."

2) Man vs. Monsanto: First Trial Over Roundup Cancer Claims Set to Begin
https://www.ecowatch.com/johnson-monsanto-trial-2579431928.html?utm_source=EcoWatch+List&utm_campaign=647d2ab285-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_COPY_01&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_49c7d43dc9-647d2ab285-86095421
U.S. Right To Know: "Both sides say the case and the outcome are important in a larger sense. If the jury finds in favor of Johnson it could encourage additional litigation and damage claims some of the lawyers involved estimate could run into hundreds of millions of dollars. If the jury sides with Monsanto, other cases could be in jeopardy. Additionally, a victory for Monsanto in this first case could ease regulatory questions dogging the company."
AND
He's dying of cancer. Now, he's the first patient to go to trial to argue Roundup made him sick
https://edition.cnn.com/2018/06/17/us/monsanto-roundup-dewayne-johnson-trial/index.html
CNN: "CNN reported last year that more than 800 patients were suing Monsanto, claiming its popular weed killer, Roundup, gave them cancer. Since then, hundreds more non-Hodgkin's lymphoma patients have made similar claims, Johnson's attorney, Timothy Litzenburg, said. He now represents "more than 2,000 non-Hodgkin's lymphoma sufferers who used Roundup extensively," he said."
AND
First Glyphosate Trial, of Thousands, Begins as Plaintiff Fights for His Life
https://www.ecowatch.com/glyphosate-monstanto-trial-2579109552.html?utm_source=EcoWatch+List&utm_campaign=3a0bb07bc3-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_COPY_01&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_49c7d43dc9-3a0bb07bc3-86095421
"The first plaintiff to get his day in court is Dewayne Johnson... Johnson is being granted an expedited trial because his doctors say he is nearing death, and California law facilitates speedier trials in such cases. Johnson worked doing pest management for a county school system and used Roundup 20 to 30 times per year in the line of duty... The trial will hinge on whether Roundup's key ingredient glyphosate causes cancer and whether Monsanto failed to adequately warn customers. "

3) Senate’s Farm Bill Moves Forward—But What Is It, Anyway?
https://www.ecowatch.com/senates-farm-bill-2578336092.html?utm_source=EcoWatch+List&utm_campaign=804e14d913-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_COPY_01&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_49c7d43dc9-804e14d913-86095421

YES! Magazine: "The Senate Agriculture Committee just passed its version of a farm bill in a 20-1 vote Thursday. It's one more step in what has been a delayed journey to pass a 2018–2022 bill before the current one expires in September. The farm bill is a colossal piece of highly partisan legislation passed every five years. It sets federal food policy, including determining where about $100 billion a year in taxpayer money is spent. These allocations impact farming livelihoods, how food is grown, and what kinds of food are grown, touching everything from climate change (this Senate bill includes a program that would pay farmers for building soil and measuring soil carbon) to Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits (protected under this Senate bill). Next, this bill will be considered by the full Senate. Because it's a strongly bipartisan measure, its chances of passage are good."

4) Japan suspends sale of Canadian wheat over discovery of Monsanto-made GMO
https://www.rt.com/business/429846-japan-canadian-wheat-ban/

RT: "The Japanese Agriculture Ministry suspended its tender and sale of wheat from Canada on Friday. This comes as grain containing a genetically-modified trait was discovered last summer in Canada’s Alberta province. “We are suspending the tender and sale of Canadian wheat until we confirm that the Canadian wheat that Japan buys contains no GMO,” an official at the Japanese farm ministry said. Japan was the top buyer of Canadian wheat until the mid-2000s, importing millions of tons."

5) Start Here
https://zerowastechef.com/2017/05/28/start-here/

Zero Waste Chef: "Want to break up with plastic but don’t know where to start? Start Here. Top 3 Ways to Break Up With Plastic."

6) Where have all our insects gone?
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/jun/17/where-have-insects-gone-climate-change-population-decline?platform=hootsuite
"There is a crisis in the countryside – and a massive decline in insect numbers could have significant consequences for the environment."

7) Does nature conservation deserve a slice of the aid budget?
https://www.businessgreen.com/bg/opinion/3034416/does-nature-conservation-deserve-a-slice-of-the-aid-budget

Business Green (UK): "It's a good time to be revisiting the case for integrating poverty reduction and environmental sustainability. Growing economic inequality in fast-growing developing economies is exacerbating threats to biodiversity, as poor farmers are pushed further into frontier wilderness. A combination of climate change and conflict mean that global hunger levels are growing for the first time in many years. Combining efforts to tackle our biggest environmental challenges with poverty reduction should produce win-wins, but progress has been elusive. There has been some momentum in climate policy, particularly in climate finance which is belatedly addressing the climate adaptation needs of the poorest farmers, but nature conservation and poverty reduction have been uncomfortable bedfellows."

8) Kochs Mobilize to Kill Public Transit Plans
https://www.ecowatch.com/koch-brothers-public-transit-2579462053.html?utm_source=EcoWatch+List&utm_campaign=647d2ab285-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_COPY_01&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_49c7d43dc9-647d2ab285-86095421

Climate Nexus: "The Koch brothers are pouring money into grassroots state efforts to defeat public transit proposals, The New York Times reported."

AND
Koch Brothers Launch Attack to Kill Electric Cars
https://www.ecowatch.com/koch-brothers-electric-cars-2456866524.html

DeSmogBlog: "Fueling U.S. Forward, the Koch-funded campaign to "rebrand" fossil fuels as "positive" and "sustainable," has released a new video attacking the Dirty Secrets of Electric Cars, signaling a possible strategic pivot from straightforward fossil fuel cheerleading to electric vehicle (EV) and clean energy bashing.The video and accompanying Dirty Secrets of Electric Cars web page feature blatant factual errors, misleading statements and glaring omission."

9) Underwater: Rising Seas, Chronic Floods, and the Implications for US Coastal Real Estate (2018)
https://www.ucsusa.org/global-warming/global-warming-impacts/sea-level-rise-chronic-floods-and-us-coastal-real-estate-implications?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=tw#.WytqcbjLezZ

Union of Concerned Scientists: "Hundreds of thousands of homes are at risk of chronic flooding due to sea level rise over the coming decades. The implications for coastal residents, communities, and the economy are profound."

AND
Louisiana Faces Faster Levels of Sea-Level Rise Than Any Other Land on Earth
https://www.ecowatch.com/louisiana-sea-level-rise-2178631264.html
AND
Sea Level Rise Could Put 2.4 MIllion U.S. Coastal Homes at Risk
https://www.ecowatch.com/sea-level-rise-coastal-homes-2579179782.html?utm_source=EcoWatch+List&utm_campaign=571c3e0840-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_COPY_01&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_49c7d43dc9-571c3e0840-86095421
"More than 300,000 U.S. coastal homes could be uninhabitable due to sea level rise by 2045 if no meaningful action is taken to combat climate change, a Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) study published Monday found."

10) India Suffers 'Worst Water Crisis in Its History'
https://www.ecowatch.com/india-water-crisis-2579202142.html?utm_source=EcoWatch+List&utm_campaign=571c3e0840-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_COPY_01&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_49c7d43dc9-571c3e0840-86095421

Climate Nexus: "India is facing its "worst-ever" water crisis, according to a report from a government think tank issued last week. Around 200,000 Indians die each year due to lack of water access, the report finds, and demand will be twice as much as supply by 2030."

AND
Heat wave in India worsens water shortages
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2018/05/heat-wave-india-worsens-water-shortages-180526115700664.html

Al Jazeera: "Water tankers are being used across northern India, but low water rations are increasing the risk of waterborne illness, particularly for children."
11)
 6 Things You’re Recycling Wrong

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/29/climate/recycling-wrong-mistakes.html

​NY Times: "Can you recycle coffee cups or greasy pizza boxes? If you’re tossing things in the recycling bin out of sheer hope, you might be an “aspirational recycler.”​

12) Standing Rock Water Protector Sentenced to Three Years in Prison (video)
https://www.democracynow.org/2018/5/31/headlines/standing_rock_water_protector_sentenced_to_three_years_in_prison

Democracy Now: "In news from North Dakota, a water protector who took part in the protests at Standing Rock against the Dakota Access pipeline has been sentenced to 36 months in prison. Michael “Little Feather” Giron was arrested on October 27, 2016, while defending the Oceti Sakowin treaty camp. He has been held in jail for the past year. Little Feather’s wife Leoyla Cowboy said on Wednesday, “The legacy of genocide and broken treaties has shown us that when indigenous people stand up to protect the water and the land from the colonization of resources, we will always be met with repression and violence. This struggle continues.”

13) [Act Out! 164] - Military Industrial Preschools, Corporate Slapps & Three Sisters vs. A Pipeline (video)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mGecApYI8Us&feature=youtu.be

Act Out!: "This week on Act Out! The war machine is now branching out – into early childhood education. Coke's bogus greenwashing and how corporations use courts to SLAPP down their opponents. Next, “serving, caring and protecting” are all words that authorities use – but as human rights violations and environmental abuses flourish – their mottos continue to fall facsistically flat. And finally, Jay from Three Sisters Camp joins us to talk about the camp's resistance to the Atlantic Coast Pipeline."

AND
[Act Out! 161] -Grandmas in the Gutter, The Hidden Employment Stats & Puerto Rico’s Ongoing Disaster (video)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dMJ_STiHRSo&feature=youtu.be
Act Out!: "UC workers strike but find a foe where the friendlies should be – an unfortunately familiar story. Next up, unemployment rates may be going down but what does that actually mean? Hint: no, our economy is not doing well. And neither are the soon-to-be-homeless elderly of Louisiana – because you know, budget cuts – and screw grandma. --- Finally, Alex Cohen of Earth Defense Coalition joins us to talk Puerto Rico – a colony wrestling with both climate change and colonial capitalism – and what aid and autonomy look like on the ground."
AND
[Act Out! 160] Illegal Recycling, The Framing of Iran & The Woman at Starbucks You Didn’t Hear About (video)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bNEJ6ofOUqE&feature=youtu.be
Act Out!: "This week on Act Out! water wars in the west are heating up – and did you know you could go to jail for more than a year for recycling?"
WARNING: These videos may contain adult language.

14) A Systemic Thirst for Greenwashing and Order
https://www.artkillingapathy.com/a-systemic-thirst-for-greenwashing-and-order/

Art Killing Apathy: "Back in 2007, Coca-Cola promised that for every drop of water they take, they’d give one back. The announcement came following some horrendous press in the mid aughts regarding Coca-Cola’s penchant for siphoning water from local sources in order to keep costs low. Initially set for 2020, the company announced that they had reached their water replenishment goal in 2016 – even taking out a full page ad in the New York Times to celebrate this unbelievable feat. The problem was and is that this feat isn’t just unbelievable – it is in fact not true."

Warning: Contains adult language.

15) 70-year-old grandmother faces a week in jail for blockading Kinder Morgan tanker terminal
https://www.nationalobserver.com/2018/06/20/opinion/70-year-old-grandmother-faces-week-jail-blockading-kinder-morgan-tanker-terminal

Canada's National Observer: "Over 200 people from all walks of life have been arrested blocking the Kinder Morgan gates since the anti-pipeline protests began on March 10. Most have never been in court before, except for jury duty, or to contest a parking ticket. But with this pipeline, they have decided to break the law — listening, as they have often said in their statements in court, to a higher moral law: to support indigenous rights, and to act against climate change or a tanker spill, before it is too late."

16) Some rare good climate news: the fossil fuel industry is weaker than ever
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/jun/21/climate-change-fossil-fuel-industry-never-been-weaker?CMP=twt_gu&__twitter_impression=true

The Guardian: "The financial world is just beginning to understand the fundamental weakness of the fossil fuel sector, and barely acknowledges the global climate movement’s growing power and reach. This has created a powerful opportunity to develop and foster a new storyline on Wall Street: that the oil and gas industry is an unstable financial partner just as it faces its greatest test.”

Call To Action!
We urge all groups including schools, neighborhood associations, organizations, clubs and groups of any kind to adopt a Climate Declaration.  Adopt ours or write your own.  Share your Climate Declaration with local governments, the media, write articles, and share information.
Occupy Sonoma County Climate Declaration

Occupy Sonoma County, along with concerned, forward thinking people all over the world, declares that climate change has reached catastrophic proportions as evidenced by the current level of CO2 in the atmosphere, the melting of polar ice caps, and the continual rising of global temperatures.  This is a global emergency, and we must act immediately.​  We invite all forces of life to join together for our survival.  We stand up for life.

We recognize that the root of climate change is a capitalist system run by money greedy corporations and the governments that they control.  We actively oppose greenhouse gas producers, nuclear power investors, and fossil fuel companies by boycotting their products, developing alternatives, divesting from corporations that endorse them and insisting that governments at all levels take action.  We call on all governments and corporations to adopt life-sustaining practices immediately.

The people must act now to stop this destruction from continuing and reverse the damage this has caused​.  The future is in our hands.  We are the 99%!

 

Take Action - Get Involved!

June 23 – SCCA Gala and Ernestine Smith award presentation, Friedman Center, Santa Rosa

http://www.conservationaction.org/gala2018/.
Sonoma County Conservation Council: sc...@sonic.net

June 24 – Laguna Foundation “Wings & Wetlands” event
http://www.lagunadesantarosa.org/benefit.html.
Sonoma County Conservation Council: sc...@sonic.net

Sat. June 30 (the last Saturday every month)

Community Seed Exchange
St. Stephen's Episcopal Church, 500 Robinson Rd., Sebastopol
For more info: communitys...@gmail.com
9-10:30 Optional Work Party
11-12 Free Healthy Soil for Healthy Plants Workshop
9-12 Seed Library

July 1-31
Occupy Sonoma County is participating in Plastic Free July
See our article in the current issue of the Peace Press at the Peace & Justice Center
Sign up at http://PlasticFreeJuly.org to participate in this international campaign

Saturday, July 14​, 3-5 PM
Sonoma Solidarity with Standing Rock Meeting
3:00-5:00 Main Meeting (no public banking meeting)
Peace & Justice Center - 467 Sebastopol Ave., Santa Rosa
For more info: www.facebook.com/SonomaNoDAPL/, Email sonoma.s...@gmail.com​
Look for Public Bank Santa Rosa on Facebook or email them at in...@publicbanksantarosa.com.  Be sure to read and endorse their new resolution.

Saturday, July 14

Healdsburg River Palooza at Veteran's Memorial Beach
B-Rad Foundation, Russian Riverkeeper, & Clean River Alliance
For more information contact rrke...@sonic.net or Sign up here.

Sunday, July 15 4-7 PM - Annual Summer Gathering with the Sierra Club Sonoma Group
Potluck Picnic at the Shady Oaks picnic site, Spring Lake Park; bring food/drink to share.
Contact 544-4582 or sc...@sonic.net.

 

Monday, July 16, 7-9 PM

Attend our next Earth Action Campaign meeting
Peace & Justice Center, 467 Sebastopol Ave., Santa Rosa
This campaign meets monthly on the 3rd Mondays. Meet in person or call in from home.
For more information go to http://OccupySonomaCounty.org or call 707-877-6650.

Wednesday, July 18, 7pm
350 Sonoma
Summer social with a Zero Waste potluck
For more info go to​ Facebook350 Sonoma or webpage 350sonoma.org. Email 350Sono...@gmail.com

Monday, July 30
Sonoma County Climate Activist Network (SoCoCAN!), 7-9 PM
Peace and Justice Center, 467 Sebastopol Ave., Santa Rosa
Climate activist groups and individuals working together to address and reverse climate change. We meet on months with a 5th Monday. 2018 Next Meetings: July 30, Oct. 29.
Please submit campaign proposals in advance to the SoCoCAN listserv.
For more info: (707) 595-0320 or SonomaC...@gmail.com (email preferred). Join us on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/SonomaCountyCAN/.

Volunteer Opportunities

• Set up help is needed prior to our teach-ins

Help with taking down tables, setting up chairs, and bringing things in from the car.

Next event is July 23 - set up at 6:00 at the PJC.

• Spanish translations or recommendation of a professional to hire

This is an ongoing but intermittent need starting with our Earth Action handout and improvements on our Spanish website.

We have one volunteer who has been doing this for us - one more volunteer is needed to take turns.

What Earth Actions are you taking?

707-877-6650
http://OccupySonomaCounty.org
http://OccupySonomaCounty.org/es ​ (en español)
http://www.facebook.com/OccupySonomaCounty
https://twitter.com/OcSoCo
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCmJoCP-ePUTPWNgHZwtBelg

Occupy Sonoma County embraces the egalitarian, deep democracy principles of the Occupy Movement with a regional strategy for effectively organizing countywide social justice campaigns that are globally relevant.