As you are so well aware from the massive media coverage (note the sarcasm?), 10,000 youth climate activists gathered in Washington, DC, last month, in Powershift 2011. Powershift representatives met with the President (for a first-person account, see What I Said at The White House). They shared their stories — successes and failures. They engaged with key leaders and activists from across the climate disruption world — non-profits, researchers, and otherwise. They ‘flash mobbed’ a BP station to highlight a dirty anniversary. Thousands of them gathered in Lafeyette Park to heard a range of impassioned speakers and, led by Lafayette, they marched from there to protest outside the US Chamber of Commerce, BP’s DC headquarters, and elsewhere. They descended on Congress to lobby their “representatives”.
Amid these were activists who chose to take a ‘next step’ and risk arrest to bring attention to the urgency of serious attention to and action to address climate disruption:
- The same day that President Obama met with Powershift leaders, in the House of Representatives, “nine activists were arrested for disrupting the
final session by singing an alternative Star Spangled Banner that decried
the lack of progress on climate change and corporate pollution of the
political system.” - The same that 1000s rallied before the White House and Chamber of Commerce, “after an unpermitted march of over 800 left Lafayette Square singing “We Shall Overcome,” 21 climate justice activists were arrested occupying the [Department of Interior’s] lobby in protest of the DOI’s rubber stamp for extractive industry from offshore drilling to mountaintop removal to the strip-mining of western lands for coal and tar sands.”
Like the 10,000s arrested for climate disruption and environmental destatition through burning coal and spilling oil [again, note any sarcasm?], these 30 Rising
Tide North America and Peaceful Uprising climate activists face fines and legal bills. From a Peaceful Uprising email appeal:
While the defendants are fundraising to cover their costs as well, Rising
Tide North America and Peaceful Uprising are joining up to raise $10,000 in a week for the Power Shift 30.We’re on Day Two and need your support. Whether it’s $5 or $500, please
support these folks.Please donate here
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