By staff - Reclaim the Power, February 22, 2017

150 people gathered on the beach by Aberthaw power station to demand Green jobs now – Close Aberthaw, on Saturday 28th January. People gathered to demand that Aberthaw power station close and that jobs are found for the current highly skilled employees in the green economy. After a rousing rally with music and food on the beach, the gathered crowd walked to the main entrance of the power station.

RWE npower were expecting us, and as a result there were no works vehicle movements for at least 4 hours, at an entrance which normally has HGVs every few minutes. Gathering at the power station was effective in raising awareness of the issues as well as causing Aberthaw to cancelled all deliveries and the removal of coal ash.

Demo on the beach

Marianne Owens from the PCS union said, “It’s working class people who suffer from this dirty energy,” as she addressed the crowd from the sea wall. She demonstrated that moving to green energy would create more jobs than exist in the fossil fuel industry.

As Chris and Alyson Austin held hands and addressed the crowd, Alyson described how dust from Ffos-y-fran opencast coal mine pervades her house. Communities living near opencast coal mines now experience similar illnesses to deep miners when underground mines operated.

Anne Harris from the Coal Action Network said, “Saturday’s demonstration at Aberhaw power station sent a clear signal to its operators RWE npower and the government, that the public demand that this power station is promptly closed. Children, working people, pensioners, Welsh people and those from as far away as Machylleth and London gathered on the beach.”

There were a number of angry local residents at the demonstration who feel like they’ve been sacrificed to this power station, as highlighted by this comment on the Coal Action Network’s web page about the protest local resident. Roy Shropshire said, “We have lived in Rhoose for almost 40 years, complained many times to the EPA/NRW [Environment Agency and National Resources Wales] of what we considered to be unacceptable levels of pollution… Clearly, there has been a failure to inform us of the known dangers and a disregard to our health and well being. Clearly, those responsible should now be made accountable.”

RWE’s Aberthaw power station kills 400 people a year, 67 of them in Wales, as it pumps out huge quantities of toxic nitrogen oxide. The government lost a case at the European Court of Justice for allowing the power station to poison so many people. UK government had given RWE npower an exemption to EU air quality rules, which should never have been granted.

By Daniel Macmillen Voskoboynik - New Internationalist, February 22, 2017

The fight to tackle climate change has two core branches: mitigation (curbing excessive greenhouse gas emissions) and adaptation (addressing the effects of climate change that are already unfolding). But although both areas are needed, the public tends to focus on the former in discussions on climate change.

The pressing priority is always to pull down emissions. Climate change is portrayed a future threat and our responsibility to act is framed in reference to our children and grandchildren. If environmental ruin is already here, it is deemed marginal compared to the tempests amassing on the horizon.

But this uneven focus on the future understates the gravity of present impacts. Today, climate change accounts for 87 per cent of disasters worldwide. Some of the worst droughts in decades are continuing to unravel across southeastern Africa and Latin America. Cyclonic storms, floods, wildfires, and landslides are bearing on the world’s most vulnerable populations.

The sudden violence of disasters is paralleled by the brutality of gradual change. Coastlines are being shaved and eroded by rising tides. The encroachment of sea water is increasing the salinity of littoral lands, leaving them withered and infertile. Rain patterns are shifting, shattering the millions who rely on the sky for sustenance. Every second, one person is forced to flee their home due to extreme climactic conditions.

This context of daily displacement and desolation means that the fight to tackle climate change today is fundamentally a fight to determine the fatality of the future. Yet adaptation, the crucial tool in that fight, has been side-lined and neglected.

By Álvaro Robles Cartes, Francisco Seijo, and Josetxu Guijarro Urízar - Green European Journal, February 22, 2017

Beyond the tit-for-tat factional politicking that we have come to expect of North American democracy and its complex cryptic political rhetoric, the Trump presidency may ultimately prove to be the most unwillingly transformative administration yet regarding the unfolding global warming drama. For the first time since 1969 an American president has fearlessly decided to skip over mountains of scientific evidence and decades of politically correct platitudes to place the issue at the centre of his presidency’s political agenda; albeit if only in an effort to deny it. Trump may, however, prove to be a blessing in disguise for climate activism; a singular turning point for the largely inconsequential political strategies that activists have conceived to advance their cause so far.

As the classic protest song from the 1960s would have it, “There’s battle lines being drawn and nobody’s right if everybody’s wrong”. Indeed, Trump has managed to draw, in only a few weeks’ time, new lines in the climate change political battle with bold, abstract expressionist strokes that may have an initially shocking aesthetic effect but may prove, ultimately, to be only intelligible as a representation of Trump’s peculiar personality. Propagandistically, no doubt, Trump has been astute in reducing a complex scientific and intellectual debate to 140-character Twitter sound bites suggesting geopolitical conspiracy theories that have undoubtedly resonated with politically sceptical and economically depressed working and middle class Americans. Tellingly, Trump’s campaign spin that climate change is a hoax perpetrated by China with the goal of making American industry non-competitive is vaguely reminiscent of German nationalists’ concerns in the 1970s that the Nixon administration was trying to use the issue to check Germany’s emerging industrial power. In due course, this politically clever tweet could come back to bite Trump since the relaxation of American environmental legislation to regain industrial competitiveness can only result in more climate induced environmental disasters for the American workers whose interests he claims to prioritise. A form of socio-environmental dumping that Trump, ironically, accuses his main commercial rivals of inflicting upon America.

By Paul Gregoire - Sydney Criminal Lawyers, February 16, 2017

Web Admin's Note: the IWW does not endorse or make alliances with political parties, even green or socialist parties, however, we are posting this article for information purposes due to the program of the caucus mentioned in the following article:

Left Renewal is a group of left-leaning rank and file members of the NSW Greens party that caused a stir amongst the broader Australian Greens, when they announced their presence in December last year and declared their anti-capitalist agenda

The arrival of this socialist group has posed a challenge to the mainstream Greens as a whole, as they’ve always stated that there are no factions within the party ranks. The party line has always been that they’re self-governing and their policies are based on a consensus model.

However, Left Renewal tend to differ on these points. They believe the Greens have strayed from their more radical roots. And that today, the party doesn’t formulate all of their policies democratically and some of the party leaders aren’t elected.

Calling themselves a tendency, as the term faction has negative connotations, Left Renewal base their ideology on the four pillars that the Australian Greens were founded upon. These are ecological sustainability, grassroots democracy, social justice, and peace and non-violence.

By Mark Clatterbuck - Lancaster Online, February 12, 2017

On Feb. 3, the dangerous marriage of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and billionaire energy companies was on full display.

For three years, residents of Lancaster County have demonstrated unprecedented opposition to the proposed Atlantic Sunrise pipeline. Yet when Williams gas company sent a brief letter to FERC asking that a decision be made seven weeks early —for no other stated reason than the company’s own convenience — FERC eagerly obliged.

The decision was so premature that the commissioners themselves had to include a 100-page addendum of issues that had yet to be resolved before permission could legally be granted.

The LNP Editorial Board last week opined that “protests and arrests aren’t going to change the reality” of this situation. To the contrary, history has shown that large-scale, nonviolent civil disobedience is one of the few, and arguably most effective, ways of changing systems of exploitation when all other means have failed.

The women’s suffrage movement did not achieve success by patiently waiting for the Supreme Court to acknowledge women’s right to vote. Nor did the civil rights movement overturn segregation by making timid, well-behaved appeals to Congress. Disciplined, creative, courageous civil disobedience gave women the right to vote and broke the back of legalized segregation.

Industry billionaires — along with cowardly politicians who serve them on both sides of the aisle — are hardly motivated to abolish the system that lines their pockets. The system will not change unless we, the people, force a crisis of conscience on a scale that can’t be ignored. Every successful movement to check systemic abuse in this country has known this.

It is not easy to protest.

At Standing Rock, North Dakota, members of local tribes spent months enduring enormous sacrifices to peacefully protect their sacred land and drinking water. My daughter was among those who faced pepper spray and attack dogs by industry-hired security thugs after Native Americans held a sacred ceremony on ceremonial tribal grounds threatened by construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline.

Originally, the Dakota Access Pipeline was going to cross the Missouri River just above the city of Bismarck. However, the plan was scratched due to complaints that the route put the capital city’s drinking water at risk. The solution? Reroute the pipeline through the reservoir that provides drinking water to the entire Standing Rock Sioux Nation.

Chris Stockton, the ubiquitous spokesman for Transco/Williams, loves to talk about all the adjustments they’ve made to the Atlantic Sunrise route due to public comments. He forgets to mention that our community doesn’t want an explosive, high-pressure, fracked gas pipeline-for-export running anywhere through our county. Moving the route simply poisons different streams, violates different Amish farms, permanently fragments different forests, threatens different families.

When someone is threatening to beat you in the head because you’re standing in their way, and they ask, “Would you rather I smash your kneecaps, instead?” we hardly praise the abuser for his mercy.

Lancaster County residents are facing the very real prospect of having our water poisoned, our forests clear-cut, our preserved farms violated, our Amish neighbors shamelessly exploited, and our ancient indigenous burial grounds desecrated. Thirty landowners in Lancaster County alone are facing condemnation proceedings for refusing to allow a company halfway across the country to inflate their profits by shipping explosive gas through their property to foreign markets.

Each of these abuses represents an unacceptable harm. Taken together, they represent an assault on Lancaster values and basic American liberties than many of us refuse to tolerate.

No wonder more than 500 local residents, in the past three weeks alone, have signed a pledge vowing to participate in creative, nonviolent, civil disobedience to stop this dangerous project.

The gas industry is already attempting to paint us as “radicals” or “outside agitators.” But here in Lancaster County, we know better.

We are teachers and students, counselors and construction workers, mothers and grandfathers, Republicans and Democrats, farmers and business owners who believe this land and community are worth defending, even at risk of arrest.

This is not the time for hanging our heads and saying “what a shame.” This is the time for courageous, creative, nonviolent, massive civil disobedience.

After three years of public comment, town halls, lawsuits, fruitless meetings with elected officials, and expert testimony confirming the irreversible harms we face, FERC’s approval Feb. 3 leaves us one option. We are compelled by a moral imperative to use nonviolent civil disobedience to change this fatally broken system.

For anyone willing to join us, we welcome you to our peaceful encampment at The Lancaster Stand.

By Nick Mullins - The Thoughtful Coal Miner, February 18, 2017

Before coal miners begin rejoicing the end of “Obama’s War on Coal,” they should realize the war on their jobs isn’t over—that war began well before Barack Obama took the oath of office.

Amid the name calling, political propaganda, and willful ignorance that came as a result of coal industry’s “War on Coal” campaign, many Appalachian miners forgot a very important fact, their jobs have always been considered overhead on the company’s quarterly statements. Their job, like any other overhead such as the cost of supplies, fuel, equipment etc., is a drain on the company’s overall profit. Within our system of capitalism and free market economics, businesses must continually seek to reduce expenses (overhead) so they can increase their quarterly returns, satisfy their stockholders, and  compete with other companies on a global scale.

As Bruce Stanley stated in the new documentary film Blood on the Mountain, “Coal doesn’t want you to have a job, because coal does better if you don’t have a job.  That’s benefits that don’t have to be paid, that’s salaries that don’t have to be paid, that’s so when you’re broken and busted you don’t have to be cared for.”

If anything, Trump’s signature paved the way to reducing mining jobs in Appalachia by opening the floodgates on surface mining, a highly productive form of mining that requires fewer miners who can be paid lower wages. If a coal company can make a higher profit by surface mining, why would they be inclined to open and operate as many underground mines?

This has not been a win for coal miners, this has been another win for coal companies.

By Anand Gopal, Owen Jones, Naomi Klein, Jeremy Scahill, and Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor - Verso Books, January 26, 2017

“It’s not enough to simply say ‘No’ to attacks [from the Trump administration]. It’s not enough because we know that where we are now, before the attacks come, is entirely unacceptable. The levels of inequality, the levels of racism―and the planet chaos that we have unleashed. We need radical system change.” —Naomi Klein

The Anti-Inauguration presents an initial discussion of what resistance should look like in the age of Trump—and what kind of future we should be fighting for. Featuring contributions from Naomi Klein, Jeremy Scahill, Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, Anand Gopal, and Owen Jones.

The five essential speeches presented here are taken from “The Anti-Inauguration,” held on inauguration night 2017 at the historic Lincoln Theatre in Washington, DC. The Anti-Inauguration event and ebook are joint projects of Jacobin, Haymarket Books and Verso Books.

By Sabal Trail Resistance - Earth First! Journal, February 16, 2017

Over the last month many of you responded to the call Sabal Trail Resistance (STR) put out to mobilize around the Suwannee River pipeline drilling site over the MLK Day weekend. Thousands helped to spread our calls to action, hundreds made the trek out to blockade construction and 48 organizations thus far—from national to local—vowed to lend their support to this effort.

Jan 14 was the largest mobilization to date against Sabal Trail and the Southeast Market Pipelines Project, and despite differences of opinion on strategy and tactics, we presented a unified front against the pipeline pushers that continues to be talked about, as people keep sharing stories, photos and videos from that weekend, a month later.

But successful displays of resistance don’t appear from thin air. Much organizing work goes into building moments like that. For example, in the lead up to the MLK Day weekend events, we:

• hosted multiple workshops, where over a hundred people got training on the strategic use of direct action;
• invited a founding organizer from the Sacred Stone Camp in North Dakota to give talks about the experience of watching the camp grow from ten people to ten thousand;
• organized group hikes to the drill site;
• coordinated with lawyers from Southern Legal Council for free speech protection and legal support;
• assisted with email blasts to the memberships and social media base of large activist networks such as Rising Tide, Power Shift, Greenpeace, 350.org, and Food & Water Watch.
• generated local/national/int’l media coverage about the pipeline and civil disobedience to stop it (Gainesville Sun, Jacksonville Times Union and Tallahassee Democrat, The Guardian, to name a few, as well as multiple TV stations in the region.);
• kept a social media buzz about the MLK weekend of action, including the creation of a powerful short video through Nomad’s Land;

written or assisted with articles in multiple independent publications (printed and online), including Earth First! Journal, the Iguana, It’s Going Down and The Fine Print;

• circulated over 3000 flyers across North/Central Florida; and
• supported other groups in protests and outreach events all across the state, including the Dec 29 multi-city action and the die-in/banner-hang at the State Capitol.

We mention these things to illustrate the effort that goes into movement organizing. We built from the foundation of over three years of community organizing against this pipeline, and we continue to do so.

Compiled by x344543 - IWW Environmental Unionism Caucus, February 19, 2017

News of interest to green unionists:

Bipartisan Group of Governors to President Trump: Renewable Energy Is an ‘American Success Story’ - By Stephen Lacey, Greentech Media, February 14, 2017 - When it comes to creating jobs and innovating in the energy sector, President Trump doesn't have to try very hard to make America great again. Because renewable energy is already making it great, says a bipartisan group of governors. They can see it firsthand in their states.

BNEF: US economy 'decoupled' from energy demand as renewables rise, emissions fall - By Robert Walton, Utility Dive, February 9, 2017 - Major shifts in the United States energy sector, including a long-term push towards decarbonization, are helping to grow the country's economy while creating high-paying jobs, according to new analysis.

California’s Climate Policies Bring Good Jobs to the San Joaquin Valley - By Betony Jones, UC Labor Center, February 6, 2017 - Even after accounting for as many of the costs as was possible, the state’s climate policies and programs have had a positive impact on the region’s employment and economy.

California Farmers Backed Trump, but Now Fear Losing Field Workers - By Caitlin Dickerson and Jennifer Medina, New York Times, February 10, 2017 - As for his promises about cracking down on illegal immigrants, many assumed Mr. Trump’s pledges were mostly just talk. But two weeks into his administration, Mr. Trump has signed executive orders that have upended the country’s immigration laws. Now farmers here are deeply alarmed about what the new policies could mean for their workers, most of whom are unauthorized, and the businesses that depend on them.

Chemical Plant Boom Spurred by Fracking Will Bring Smog, Plastic Glut, and Risks to Workers' Health, New Report Warns - By Sharon Kelly, DeSmog Blog, February 14, 2017 - On the heels of the shale gas rush that's swept the U.S. for the past decade, another wave of fossil fuel-based projects is coming — a plastic and petrochemical manufacturing rush that environmentalists warn could make smog worse in communities already breathing air pollution from fracking, sicken workers, and expand the plastic trash gyres in the world's oceans.

Cherokee Nation Files, is Granted Emergency Restraining Order, Halting Disposal of Radioactive Waste near the Arkansas & Illinois Rivers - By staff, Native News Online, February 10, 2017 - Sequoyah Fuels Corporation was opened by Kerr-McGee in 1970 to convert yellowcake uranium into uranium hexafluoride, a compound that produces fuel for nuclear reactors. The company switched hands several times over the years before closing in 1993 after several releases of hazardous chemicals. In January 1986, one worker was killed and dozens more were injured after a cylinder of uranium hexafluoride ruptured. It has since been in the decommissioning process, under the authority of the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

CTA Port-A-Potties Are So Dirty Some Bus Drivers Wear Diapers, Union Says - By Mina Bloom, DNA Info, February 7, 2017 - CTA bus workers are taking a stand against the portable bathrooms they're forced to use on the job, which they describe as "unsanitary, unsafe and degrading."

Chile Escondida BHP copper mine workers gird for long battle - By staff, Reuters, February 9, 2017 - Workers gearing up for what could be a prolonged strike at the world's leading copper mine, BHP Billiton's Escondida, are stockpiling rations and supplies to survive the searing sun and bone-chilling nights of Chile's northern high-desert.

Condemnation of the murder of Suleiman Hammad, Palestinian farmer - By staff, La Via Campesina, February 13, 2017 - La Vía Campesina strongly condemns the brutal and intentional murder of our comrade Suleiman Hammad, an 85-year-old Palestinian farmer who on February 8th, 2017 was run over by an Israeli settler, while walking to work on his land near Al-Khader Village, south of Bethlehem.

Consumer, Environmental and Workers Groups File Legal Challenge to Trump’s ‘One-In, Two-Out’ Executive Order on Regulations - By staff, Earth Justice, February 8, 2017 - Public Citizen, NRDC and Communications Workers of America represented by Earthjustice seek injunction barring agencies from following order.

Dakota Access Pipeline Opponents Call on CalPERS to Divest - By Darwin BondGraham, East Bay Express, February 13, 2017 - Today in Sacramento, more than one hundred people crowded into the board meeting of the nation's largest public pension fund calling for divestment from the companies building the DAPL.

Dakota Access pipeline protesters urge CalPERS divestment - By Adam Ashton, Sacramento Bee, February 13, 2017 - Activists are packing today’s CalPERS Board of administration meeting, urging the retirement fund to divest from the controversial Dakota Access pipeline.

End coal by 2030 to meet Paris climate goal, EU told - By Megan Darby, Climate Change News, February 9, 2017 - Alison Tate, climate expert at the International Trade Union Confederation, told Climate Home governments needed to help communities through the transition. “Workers want to have a sense of hope and they want to have jobs on a living planet,” said Tate, who is speaking at the report launch on Thursday. “Unions are really serious about ensuring there are decent work opportunities in sectors that will help to reduce carbon emissions.”

Encouraging signs of change in EU occupational safety and health policy - By staff, European Trade Union Institute, February 10, 2017 - On 10 January this year, the European Commission adopted a communication on the future of EU legislation and policy on occupational safety and health (OSH). ETUI researchers have studied the text and have identified positive signs of a shift in policy in favour of workers, particularly with respect to exposure to chemical risks. The Commission’s proposals regarding a number of problems associated with the organisation of work, however, such as musculoskeletal disorders, remain distinctly unambitious.

Energy experts give Trump the hard truth: You can’t bring coal back - By Joe Romm, Think Progress, February 10, 2017 - Trump won’t be bringing back the domestic coal industry. And even if he could, he can’t bring back the jobs because it’s the coal industry itself that wiped out most of those jobs through productivity gains from “strip mines and machinery,” as Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman explained in 2014.

Environmental Justice Groups Show How to Organize in the Age of Trump - By Jeremy Deaton, Nexus Media, February 3, 2017 - Environmental justice groups operate at the intersection of progressive issues, where liberal constituencies find common cause. Organizers don’t talk about the environment or climate as discrete issues. Rather, they link climate to jobs, health and social justice. They advocate for a just economy, where everyone has the right to be safe and healthy, and everyone has the chance to get ahead. And they work at the grassroots level.

Federal Employee Free Speech Tied in Knots - By Kirsten Stade, Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, February 13, 2017 - Federal employees concerned about Trump White House actions face legal constraints on their freedom to protest, according to ethics warnings posted today by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER). Some restrictions are clear but others are subject to interpretation.

Food Sovereignty within a new Agricultural Policy - By staff, La Via Campesina, February 9, 2017 - Food Sovereignty remains a highly subversive concept. It’s essential in countering destructive trade and agricultural policies in a globalised economy. Food sovereignty must be at the core of a large overarching food policy, one which will promote, support and develop sustainable food and farming systems that respect human rights and the environment.

Former Transcanada Engineer Warning to Residents South of the Border — Don’t Trust Transcanada - By staff, Corporate Crime Reporter, February 9, 2017 - Evan Vokes worked as an engineer for TransCanada for five years — from 2007 to 2012. And right from the beginning, it was clear to Vokes that the company had a hole in its pipeline compliance program.

Guerrilla archivists developed an app to save science data from the Trump administration - By Zoë Schlanger, Quartz Media, February 9, 2017 - On the first Saturday morning in February, scientists, programmers, professors and digital librarians met at New York University in New York City to save federal data sets they thought could be altered or disappear all together under the administration of US president Donald Trump. Around 150 people turned out for the gathering, many after hearing about it through Facebook.