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Climate Justice

Tacoma City Council Passes Climate Commission Ordinance

Tacoma, WA – Dozens of community members gathered at the Tacoma City Council chambers on Tuesday, December 17, in preparation for the city of Tacoma’s vote to pass the city’s first Climate and Sustainability Commission into law. “It’s great that the city council is planning to pass an ordinance enshrining the Climate Commission into law, but as it stands there are some serious problems with it,” said Haze Bender, a rank-and-file member of Teamsters Local 174. “As written, the commission is only advisory, has no real power, and all members are appointed, rather than elected.”

New Report Shows A Surge In European SLAPP Suits

Lawsuits to silence those speaking out and fighting in the interest of the public are increasingly being used as a form of private censorship, according to a new report published last week by the Coalition Against SLAPPS in Europe, or CASE. Developed in collaboration with the Daphne Caruana Galizia Foundation, the report shows that SLAPPs continue to rise in Europe and identifies a total of 1,049 cases between 2010-2023. The lawsuits cover a broad range of topics, and environmental issues made up the second-most-targeted subject of all the SLAPP suits reported, behind corruption.

Climate Change Trial At The Hague

The stakes are extremely high as the impact of fossil fuels on climate change goes to The Hague for hearings December 2-13, 2024 to determine whether nations are obligated to phase out fossil fuels. Will the esteemed court issue an opinion that truly impacts climate change? Antarctica is experiencing a frightening collapse that has polar scientists fearful and speaking out like never before. A link to an interview with James Woodford, a New Scientists’ reporter, who attended a recent emergency session with 450 polar scientists is found at the end of this article. Woodford: “Nobody could have foreseen Antarctic sea ice dropping off a cliff in the way that it has.”

The Zionist Effort To Defund Climate And Environmental Justice

While the emissions reduction efficacy of the so-called Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) is still in question, it’s less debatable that the “historic climate law” has distributed hundreds of millions of dollars, if not billions, to certain climate and environmental justice organizations (CEJ). Many in the U.S. climate community herald this development as CEJ groups have been historically underfunded and markedly less resourced than historically white-led environmental organizations, commonly referred to as “Big Green.” According to a 2020 report by researcher Michael Thomas, environmental justice organizations received between $25 and $50 million.

Unprincipled, Unstrategic, And Unsustainable: E(U)Logy For The US Climate “Movement”

In 1991, Strong Island trio, De La Soul dropped their second album on wax, “De La Soul is Dead.” Writer, Jeffery Harvey characterized the group’s sophomore offering as, “a kamikaze mission of salvation through sabotage,” noting that the group embarked on a high-wire act of destruction and deconstruction that included a sonic castigation of the corporate takeover of the hip hop brand that resulted in more funding and investment for hedonistic and misogynist manifestations that largely only exacerbated the “nihilism in the streets.”

Lessons On Fighting For The Climate Under Authoritarianism

In 2013, in the devastating wake of Typhoon Haiyan, Yeb Saño began a two-week hunger fast. Saño, then a diplomat and the head of the Philippines delegation at the U.N. climate talks in Poland, had watched as one of the most powerful tropical storms in history obliterated his hometown of Tacloban. Just a few days after the typhoon, a weeping Saño declared to the delegates in Warsaw that he would not eat again until meaningful climate progress was made. But the fast, which Saño now also calls a hunger strike, was not just a political move.

The First Gas Utility Sued For Climate Deception

For the first time, a gas utility could be on the hook for its role in deceiving the public about the climate crisis. Multnomah, Oregon, has added NW Natural — Oregon’s oldest and largest supplier of “natural” gas, also known as fossil or methane gas — to the list of defendants in a lawsuit that seeks to make fossil fuel companies pay $52 billion for their role in the deadly 2021 Pacific Northwest heat dome. NW Natural “has routinely misrepresented” the climate harms of gas while undermining the energy transition “in an effort to frighten customers and discourage policy makers from using their authority to protect the public,” according to the county’s amended complaint.

Climate Activists Battle The False ‘Solution’ Of Forest Biomass

“Who will own the forests? Who will own the sky?” sang dozens of umbrella-wielding protesters as rain drizzled outside the World Forestry Center in Portland, Oregon on Sept. 25. Inside the building, timber company representatives, investors and others involved in deciding the fate of forest ecosystems were meeting for an event called CANOPY: Forests + Markets + Society. Billed as “the premier annual event on institutional forestland investing,” CANOPY is a conference whose 2023 attendees included Weyerhaeuser, Boise Cascades, biomass energy giant Drax and J.P. Morgan.

First Just Stop Oil, Now Extinction Rebellion Activists Found Guilty

Extinction Rebellion activists who took action in defence of life, known as the “Worley Three,” have been found guilty of causing £6,000 in “damages” for their peaceful protest at the offices of multinational corporation Worley. It was over the so-called EACOP project. Sentencing will take place on 14 November. The action involved washable fake oil and chalk spray, designed to spotlight Worley’s ties to the controversial East African Crude Oil Pipeline (EACOP), a project widely condemned for its devastating environmental and social impacts and to ultimately demand a boycott of the pipeline.

Citibank Is Bankrolling The Largest Offshore Oil Facility In The US

On an early morning this September, I stood in front of the headquarters of Citibank, chanting and singing as 31 activists were dragged away by police for blocking the building’s entrance. I’m a retired teacher and a grandmother living in Texas. How did I wind up helping lead this action in New York City? Over the past three months, organizers have engaged in the Summer of Heat on Wall Street, the largest sustained civil disobedience campaign in the climate movement’s history. For the past twelve weeks this summer, more than 5,000 people — from faith leaders to scientists, from students to grandparents — have taken to the streets, demanding that Wall Street banks end their funding of climate chaos. That’s how I ended up rallying at Citibank’s doorsteps.

Climate Lawsuits Against Fossil Fuel Companies Have Nearly Tripled

Washington, DC – 86 climate lawsuits have been filed against the world’s largest oil, gas, and coal producing corporations – including BP, Chevron, Eni, ExxonMobil, Shell, and TotalEnergies – with two in five cases involving claims for compensation for climate change damages linked to fossil fuels. The number of cases filed against fossil fuel companies each year has nearly tripled since the Paris Agreement was reached in 2015, according to a new report, titled Big Oil in Court – The latest trends in climate litigation against fossil fuel companies by Oil Change International and Zero Carbon Analytics. The analysis reveals the intensifying legal pressure on fossil fuel corporations responsible for 69% of human-caused carbon dioxide emissions, the main driver of the climate crisis.

‘Sustainable Square Mile’ Tests Power Of Biden’s Billions For Climate Justice

Two days after a series of tornadoes ripped through Chicago’s South Side, leaving hundreds of thousands of people without electricity, Naomi Davis and Suzanne Waddell met in the front yard of Emmett Till’s childhood home to assess the damage. Fencing had been blown down. Their organization, Blacks in Green, founded by Davis in 2007, owns the historic landmark. It will open as a playhouse, community farm and museum in 2025, honoring the life the 14-year-old deserved to have. Even in 92-degree heat, people stopped by to take photos, a regular occurrence that reminds Davis of the larger duty marginalized people in America have ​“to remind each other of our greatness.”

Capitalism Facilitates Firestorms, Floods And Tornadoes

Summer 2024 has been host to severe and persistent wildfires and tornadoes throughout the United States. Long before the summer, just from January through March alone, more than 2,669 square miles were charred in the United States. That’s larger than the area of Delaware and was already half of the total area impacted in 2023. Moreover, the National Weather Service confirmed 180 tornadoes in July, the most the country has had since 1997, when there were 190. Most of these tornadoes resulted from two storm systems: Hurricane Beryl and the July 15 Derecho — a very long-lived and damaging thunderstorm that can itself be as damaging as a tornado — that impacted Chicago.

Climate Activists Celebrate Shutting Down Major Polluter

Minneapolis, MN – On August 16, over 100 activists and community members held a celebratory rally in response to winning the struggle to shut down a long-time polluter, Smith Foundry. The Smith Foundry is one of several heavy industrial sites located in the residential Minneapolis neighborhood of East Phillips, one of the most diverse and working-class neighborhoods in Minnesota. The city has long used East Phillips as its toxic dumping ground, and, as a result, East Phillips has some of the highest rates of asthma and cardiovascular disease in the state. Notably, Smith Foundry operated as the top lead polluter in the county, further poisoning an already environmentally overburdened community.

Airport Disruption Entered Fourth Day; Starmer’s Government A Target

On Saturday 27 July, peaceful protests took place in at least six cities across six countries in support of Oil Kills – an international uprising to end oil, gas and coal by 2030. Airport disruption was a key feature, again – with more arrests amid blockades. However, in the UK things went up a gear – as activists targeted Keir Starmer’s new Labour Party government. Across the UK, Switzerland, Austria, the Netherlands, the USA, and Canada, protesters are gathering to demand their governments commit to establishing a legally binding treaty to stop extracting and burning oil, gas and coal by 2030 as well as supporting and financing poorer countries to make a fast, fair, and just transition.

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Keep independent media alive. 

Due to the attacks on our fiscal sponsor, we were unable to raise funds online for nearly two years.  As the bills pile up, your help is needed now to cover the monthly costs of operating Popular Resistance.

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