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10 Years to Zero: News and Action for Tomorrow

The past few weeks have seen huge, hopeful developments toward mobilizing the United States to address the Climate Emergency. We’re pleased to share a snapshot of recent developments like the youth climate strike, recent press about the Climate Emergency Movement, civil disobedience, and the Green New Deal.

Climate Mobilization News

The past few weeks have seen huge, hopeful developments toward mobilizing the United States to address the Climate Emergency. We’re pleased to share a snapshot of recent developments:

 Map:  youthclimatestrikeus.org/strikes  Map: youthclimatestrikeus.org/strikes

  • The youth-led Climate Strike movement is launching over 150 events in the U.S. and 1,659 globally on Friday March 15! A key demand of the Youth Climate Strikes is “the climate crisis should be declared a national emergency because we are running out of time.” We agree!

  • On March 13, Margaret Klein Salamon appeared alongside Author of The Uninhabitable Earth: Life After Warming, David Wallace Wells, Tribal Member of the Ramapough Lenape Nation, Lehman A. Mann, Sunrise Movement co-founder, Sara Blazevic and NRDC Publications Director, Mary Annaïse Heglar at Artists Declare Climate Emergency, an event cosponsored by The Climate Mobilization and Art not War. Designed to “raise awareness and chart solutions for a regenerative tomorrow,” the event gathered creative thinkers and leaders in art and culture to sit with the painful truths of Climate Emergency and discuss a way forward.

Click here to watch a recording.

  • California State Assembly Member Todd Gloria called for a national mobilization to address the threats posed by Climate Emergency. Gloria spoke at a press conference with State Senators Henry Stern and Nancy Skinner, and Assembly Members Wendy Carrillo and Eduardo Garcia, who are working together to craft legislation to make California a leader in declaring a Climate Emergency and getting a mobilization started asap.

Watch the full press conference here.

  • The Climate Emergency Movement is growing! 31 local governments in Australia, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, and Canada declared a Climate Emergency in February.

Check out a complete listing of declared governments on our website.

  • As journalists, scientists, and pundits analyze the Green New Deal, one thing has become clear: We have the technology to accomplish a radical transformation of our economy. Now we need the political will to do it! That’s where we all come in.


Pipeline Protesters

The Green New Deal resolution, discussed below, sets forth a vision for mobilizing and transforming our economy and agriculture toward sustainable, renewable technologies and energy sources through government investment, social welfare programs, and environmental regulation. Preventing climate catastrophe will also require radically reducing, if not eliminating, the use of fossil fuels—and overcoming a $2 billion lobbying campaign by fossil fuel companies in the U.S. alone to preserve their profits at the expense of human and animal life on this planet. Increasing numbers of activists are also approaching the ongoing extraction of fossil fuels as a threat to human civilization and taking tremendous risks to try to stop it.

On October 11, 2016, five men and women cut through fences and shut down pipelines in North Dakota, Washington, Montana, and Minnesota that carried nearly 70 percent of the crude oil imported from Canada into the United States. The Valve Turners, as they called themselves, committed these coordinated acts of civil disobedience as a direct effort to slow down the burning of fossil fuels and draw attention to the crisis of climate change.  Faced with the possibility of human extinction, these pipeline protesters felt called to act in radical ways.

 image: Appalachians Against Pipelines, Facebook image: Appalachians Against Pipelines, Facebook

The Valve Turners are one of many groups putting their bodies and lives on the line in efforts to physically stop the extraction and flow of oil and gas. The goal of these protests is to prevent oil companies from transporting oil and thus to force them to “leave it in the ground.”. In Virginia, about a dozen young people have established a long-term tree-sit at the Yellow Finch action camp to prevent the construction of the proposed Mountain Valley Pipeline, which would transport natural gas through Appalachia.

In Louisiana, a small camp of protesters have formed the L’eau Est La Vie (Water is Life) protest camp in Chittimacha Atakapaw territory. Members of the L’eau Est La Vie camp have chained themselves to equipment, engaged in tree sits, and formed kayak blockades to stop the Bayou Bridge Pipeline. The BBP is the final leg of the Dakota Access Pipeline, whose construction in North Dakota prompted the Standing Rock protests of 2016-2017 led by youth and Water Protectors of the Standing Rock Sioux. (A suit by Energy Transfer against Greenpeace and an Oglala Lakota organizer, Krystal Two Bulls, alleging the protests were the product of an unlawful conspiracy was dismissed last month.)

 image: Mary Pember via Colorlines image: Mary Pember via Colorlines

Indigenous communities and indigenous young people have led and been on the front lines of many of these direct actions to stop pipelines.  First Nations peoples throughout Canada have invoked tribal sovereignty over unceded lands in efforts to prevent the expansion of Kinder Morgan’s Trans Mountain pipeline and TransCanada’s proposed Coastal GasLink pipeline.  And many indigenous groups, such as the Indigenous Environmental Network, have heralded the Green New Deal as a critical first step in decarbonizing our economy.  The impending global climate catastrophe and the rights and sovereignty of indigenous people are deeply related:

Globally, indigenous peoples are engaging in forms of land management crucial to carbon sequestration (especially in the Amazon, where both the rainforest and its people are threatened by President Bolsonaro of Brazil).  Indigenous peoples are also among the first and most severely affected as we begin to experience the effects of unfettered carbon use.  But indigenous thinkers and activists like Leanne Betasamosake Simpson have also demanded that we think of climate change “as part of a much longer series of ecological catastrophes caused by colonization and accumulation-based society,” and encouraged climate activists to reexamine even more fundamentally how humans relate to planetary limits.

If we think of Climate Mobilization, and the Green New Deal, as drawing inspiration from the massive, society-wide efforts at collective action and transformation during WWII, the pipeline protesters can be compared to resistance fighters: Taking enormous personal risk, on a small scale, to fight a world-historical threat—  and hoping to inspire all of us to sacrifice, and risk, in the service of our future as a species.

Green New Deal is having a significant impact on 2020

On February 7, Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) and Senator Ed Markey (D-MA) introduced House Resolution 109: Recognizing the duty of the Federal Government to create a Green New Deal.

(Read the text of the Green New Deal Resolution here.)

Many of the declared candidates for the Democratic nomination for President have voiced support for the Green New Deal.  Co-sponsors in the Senate include Bernie Sanders, Cory Booker, Kamala Harris, Elizabeth Warren, and Kirsten Gillibrand. For more details, read this rundown of Presidential candidates’ statements on the Green New Deal and climate change.

On February 25, Sunrise Movement led a series of actions across the country demanding action on the Green New Deal from Senators and Representatives. More than 100 youth protesters occupied Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s office in D.C. to demand he co-sponsor the Green New Deal resolution. Young people from Youth vs. Apocalypse and Sunrise Movement confronted Senator Dianne Feinstein at her San Francisco office—and the video of her response went viral.

Thank you for reading! Please share this news and inspire your friends and family to join the Climate Emergency Movement.


Send tips on Climate Emergency Movement news to: TCM@theclimatemobilization.org.

Visit ClimateMobilization.org to get involved. Link up with us on Facebook and Twitter.


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Zakaria Kronemer

Climate Survival Farming and Food Sovereignty Coordinator

Zakaria Kronemer is a farmer from Richmond, Virginia with roots in community organizing and climate activism. In 2017, he began working with farmers and other communities in rural Virginia to develop a robust campaign against the construction of two fracked-gas pipelines. It was through this struggle —and the relationships built along the way—that connections between food, land, and climate justice were revealed to him. He teamed up with other BIPOC farmers and set out to build an alternative, regional food-system founded on sovereignty, security, ecological stewardship, and human dignity. Zakaria most recently worked as a field manager and program lead with Real Roots Food Systems—an emerging organization striving to increase participation in our food system. He envisions a food system that people can meaningfully participate in without needing to become a farmer, chef, or professional, in which nutrient-dense, healing food is not a luxury or a lifestyle, but a right.

Daisy Carter

Kentucky Movement Incubation Coordinator

Daisy Carter (she/they) is a New Orleans native, queer multi-disciplinary artist and climate justice organizer working at the intersections of mutual aid, disaster resiliency, African-American herbalism, and grassroots organizing. Daisy is inspired by the black radical movements of the so-called U.S and African diaspora, reimagining what healing + self-determination look like for frontline, BIPOC (black, brown, and people of color) communities who are most vulnerable to climate disaster. For the past few years, they have been organizing around mutual aid, environmental + climate justice, and building BIPOC and marginalized leadership throughout Kentucky. In 2021, they founded Rise and Shine, a community-led mutual aid organization building power and solidarity with low-income, BIPOC, LGBTQ+, and other marginalized communities in Bowling Green, Kentucky and beyond. She has also led numerous political campaigns, direct actions, and led outreach + communications strategy for organizations such as The Sierra Club, Kentuckians for the Commonwealth, and the Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for a Moral Revival. At the Climate Mobilization, she is supporting programming, the development of the Movement Incubation Program, and the creation of climate survival outreach projects.

Alexia Leclerq

Network Coach

Alexia (she/they) is an environmental justice organizer based in Austin, TX. They graduated summa cum laude from NYU (’20), where they self-designed a major titled “The Politics and Economics of Inequality.” Their research focuses on political ecology, environmental justice, AAPI communities, inequality, postcolonialism. As an organizer and researcher they have spent the past 5 years working on various issues from preserving the Colorado River, water rights, fighting land use policy and zoning that enforces race-based discrimination, conducting ethnographic research on climate health, to organizing mutual aid, youth programming, and shaping national legislation alongside members of the Environmental Justice Leadership Forum and the Environmental Justice Health Alliance; today Alexia continues to work as an organizer with PODER, a grassroots EJ org. Alexia is also the co-founder of Start: Empowerment, a BIPOC led social and environmental justice education non-profit working with youth, educators, activists, and community members to implement justice-focused education and programming in schools and community spaces. S:E curriculum and programming has reached over 2,000 students, been recognized by the NYC Department of Education, and taught in universities. In 2021, their work was recognized by the prestigious Brower Youth Award.

Emmett Hopkins

Co-Leader and Director of Operations & Programs

Emmett manages operations and leads Climate Mobilization’s intersectional organizing around transportation justice, where he works with local community groups to build commitment, alignment and action among frontline constituents who rely on public transit and active transportation modes. He brings over a decade of experience collaborating with diverse stakeholders to activate power towards equitable, climate-friendly transportation systems, build mutual-aid-based community food systems, ensure equitable access to public lands, and mobilize resources towards a just transition. In 2021, Emmett developed an online platform for collaborative, community-scale visioning of a just, zero-carbon future. In 2022 he helped launch a transit riders union in Sonoma County, CA, which has engaged in mutual aid, storytelling, and a successful campaign to win fare-free buses and expanded frequency.

Suha Dabbouseh

National Organizer

National Organizer Suha Dabbouseh leads national strategy for The Climate Mobilization. They are originally from Chicago but have lived, organized and rebel-roused in seven states and 11 cities. Suha received their law degree from CUNY-School of Law where they focused on social justice lawyering representing detainees at Guantanamo Bay. While practicing law, Suha had worked to advocate on behalf of domestic violence survivors, transgender clients and fighting employment discrimination. Their passion is building people power and organizing to dismantle structural inequities.

Matt Renner

Executive Director of The Climate Mobilization

Matt has worked as a nonprofit executive in clean energy, climate policy, and journalism for over a decade, focusing on the near-term social and economic impacts of climate change. He leads organizational expansion and works closely with the communications and organizing teams. Matt earned a BA in political science from UC Berkeley, where he was deeply inspired by the work of Professor George Lakoff.

Mariyah Jahangiri

Co-Leader and Network & Movement Building Director

Mariyah is a first-generation Pakistani community organizer who is on a life-long journey of working to create alternative, anti-capitalist models of collective healing, popular education, community organizing, and mass movement. She has been inspired by studying social movements and organizing in many movement ecosystems and geographies – most recently in Cape Town, Iowa, Puerto Rico, Atlanta, and currently in Los Angeles. At Climate Mobilization, she started as a Network Organizer where she leads programming, coaching, and other resource development for a learning hub of 43+ local decarbonization and climate justice campaigns. She also recently developed strategy for youth, BIPOC-led, climate movements alongside the Network Support Team at Power Shift Network, and organized with the Asian Pacific Environmental Network to base-build in Wilmington and San Pedro alongside low-income API communities most impacted by extractive industries in Los Angeles. Mariyah has spent the past 7 years leading campaigns for Just Transition, abolition, food sovereignty, housing justice, undocumented workers’ organizing, reproductive justice, and Palestine solidarity as well as being involved in mutual aid projects, across more than 15 geographies.

 

Rebecca Harris

Co-Leader and Director of Resource Mobilization

Rebecca has been with Climate Mobilization since 2019 leading our organizing efforts. In this role, she has coached dozens of local climate groups, coordinated organizing trainings, and launched the campaign for a national Climate Emergency Declaration. In July 2021, she collaborated with Acton, MA residents to launch Housing and Climate Justice for Acton, a renters rights and climate justice group led by public housing and Section 8 renters and other low-income residents, and has already won several campaigns. Along with a history of social movement organizing, Rebecca previously worked as a journalist covering equity in Chicago public schools and as the Development and Communications Manager at Latino Union of Chicago, an immigrants’ and workers’ rights organization. She is a 2017 graduate of the Reframe Mentorship in strategic communications and a 2019 participant in the Anne Braden Organizer Training Program.

Marina Mails

Co-Leader and Director of Operations
Marina manages operations and volunteers for both The Climate Mobilization and Climate Mobilization Project. She brings broad experience working in non-profit organizations, health care settings, and running her own private counseling practice. Before joining Climate Mobilization, Marina maintained a practice focusing exclusively on climate-related emotional coping, helping people make bold choices for lifestyle and professional change in response to the Climate Emergency. She has a bachelor’s degree in political science and Spanish from Wake Forest University and a Masters in Counseling from UNC Greensboro.

Meghann Beer

Co-Leader and Director of Resource Mobilization and Strategy

Meghann brings more than 20 years of nonprofit management and fundraising experience to The Climate Mobilization and Climate Mobilization Project. For over a decade Meghann has worked as a nonprofit consultant helping organizations expand their capacity, secure revenue, develop successful strategies, and effectively evaluate their programs, enabling them to create greater positive change in the world. She has also worked as an executive director, designed and facilitated international service learning experiences, and taught university courses in fundraising and nonprofit management. Meghann earned a MPA in Nonprofit Management and Comparative and International Affairs from The School of Public and Environmental Affairs at Indiana University, in Bloomington, IN and a BA in Art History and American Studies from Tufts University in Boston, MA.

Cris Lagunas

Strategy Director

Cris is helping to grow the Climate Emergency Movement by supporting creative campaigns and extending the reach of the movement’s message. Cris is a co-founder of the National Immigrant Youth Alliance, an organization dedicated to using direct action tactics to expose, challenge and dismantle the immigration detention system.Cris got his start in organizing when he was 15 years old, getting involved in a local group of fellow undocumented youth.

Zack Burley

Policy Associate

Zack provides policy support for the Climate Mobilization team, and brings a versatile set of policy skills and experiences in labor organizing, journalism, legislative politics, and legal practice to the climate emergency movement. Zack earned a JD from Denver University Sturm College of Law, is a founding organizer of the Political Workers Guild of Colorado, and formerly served as a legislative aide in the Colorado General Assembly.

AriDy Nox

Co-Leader and Director of Narrative Strategy

 AriDy Nox is a multi-disciplinary black femme storyteller and social activist with a variety of forward-thinking creative works under her/their belt. They create out of the vehement belief that creating a future in which marginalized peoples are free requires a radical imagination. Their tales are offerings intended to function as small parts of an ancient, expansive, awe-inspiring tradition of world-shaping, created by and for black femmes. They have over a decade of experience as a young social activist and organizer, within reproductive justice and racial justice frameworks with organizations like the Young Women of Color Leadership Council with Advocates for Youth, the Toni Cade Bamabara Collective at Spelman College and Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority Incorporated. They bring creativity, enthusiasm and a tremendous capacity for organization to her/their role and deep belief that times of apocalypse are opportunities for rebirth. We need first imagine the world we want in order to create it.