Climate Action, Sustainability, and Environmental Justice (CASEJ)
This is the Climate Action, Sustainability, and Environmental Justice(CASEJ)' Working Group wiki page. This working group seeks to provide a space where members of the Occupy/99% Movement and their allies can come together to help create a more just and sustainable world, locally and globally.
Meetings:
Mission Statement
The Occupy Boston Climate Action, Sustainability and Environmental Justice (CASEJ) Working Group seeks to provide a space where members of the Occupy/99% Movement and their allies can come together to help create a more just and sustainable world, locally and globally. We will accomplish this goal by:
- Educating ourselves and our communities about climate change and the environmental issues and creative solutions before us;
- Building Diverse Alliances within and beyond the Occupy/99% Movement to increase our collective power; and
- Taking Non-Violent Direct Action to confront the social, economic and political forces causing environmental injustice and highlight a new paradigm for life on earth, both human and non-human.
Contact US
- Contact e-mail: occupyboston.climate.action@gmail.com
- twitter: OB_CASEJ
- BLOG: CASEJ Blog (semi-official)
Current Campaigns
Occupy MBTA’s campaign for fair and affordable public transportation
Tar Sands Action: a national campaign against the construction of the Keystone XL pipeline and more broadly opposing the extraction of crude oil from tar sands
Natural gas pipelines and Spectra Energy: A Houston-based company called Spectra Energy is looking into expanding an existing 1,120 mile pipeline to bring more natural gas from Pennsylvania and New York to Massachusetts. Spectra Energy has a spotty track record and is already facing significant grassroots opposition to a new gas pipeline they’ve proposed that would cut through the densest parts of New York City and New Jersey. The company received 17 citations for pipeline safety violations in 2011 and has spent over $5.5 million lobbying the federal government since 2007. In 1989 their pipeline division was hit with a $15 million penalty – the largest in EPA history at the time – for discharging highly toxic PCBs at 89 sites along a 9,000 mile pipeline from Texas to New Jersey. As of 2009 much of this contamination persisted in their pipeline system.
In addition, Spectra Energy’s proposed pipelines would spur an increase in fracking, a toxic gas drilling technique that is already poisoning the health and water of local communities all over the world, without doing anything to address the climate crisis. A recent study from Stanford climatologist Ken Caldiera found that a large-scale shift from coal to gas would have a negligible impact on global temperatures.
Massachusetts needs truly sustainable zero-carbon solutions, not dangerous half-measures driven by irresponsible fossil fuel corporations.
Actions and Events
Upcoming
May 9th 2012
- 5 p.m. -8:30 p.m. Cambridge City Councilor Marjorie Decker invites the community to a discussion on The True Cost of Energy. It will include a short screening of "The Last Mountain". Panelists include Avi Chomsky, Pat Gozemba, Drew Grande. Cambridge Public Library, 449 Broadway, Cambridge
- 6 p.m.-7:00 p.m. Gary Rucinski will discuss carbon fee and dividend on OBRadio. Stay tuned for a recorded interview with Grace Ross on FSU on OB Radio
May 12th 2012
- 8 p.m. -11 p.m. The People of Color Group of OCCUPY Boston, in solidarity with the entire OCCUPY BOSTON community, extend this invitation to join us for a ceremony to preserve the last standing grove of Silver Maple trees that are slated to be cut down for redevelopment of the Alewife green space into luxury apartments for the 1%. Jimi Two feathers and Brian Kwoba will facilitate this gathering. The walk to the sacred trees will be promptly at 8:15. Everyone attending will need a flashlight, water, an instrument of choice and insect repellent.
May 16th 2012
- 11 a.m. Riders and workers from across the State—Boston, Springfield, Fall River, and New Bedford—will gather to launch the Green Justice Coalition’s campaign, Public Transit–Public Good. People will meet at the Statehouse steps
10 Wicked Awesome Things You Can Do Now
(TBA!)
Our Process
Passed Proposals
... that relate to our mission
Recently passed ["Call to Action"] about egregious corporate assault on the environment.
On February 4, 2012, members of CASEJ brought the following proposal to the Occupy Boston General Assembly, which was passed by consensus. See also http://www.occupyboston.org/2012/02/06/occupy-boston-supports-fossil-fuel-nuclear-subsidies.
The below proposal reached agreement at OB General Assembly, on February 4, 2012.
Fossil fuel and nuclear corporations are some of the wealthiest interests on the planet – yet they still suck up billions of dollars in government subsidies. They buy off elected officials and corrupt our political process while sticking us – the 99% – with the bill for the health, ecological and climate destruction they cause. Their coal, oil, gas and nukes fuel our unjust economic systems, imperil our planetary future and prevent us from shifting to a clean energy economy of, by and for the people.
Occupy Boston therefore calls for:
- An end to all government subsidies to fossil fuel and nuclear energy interests;
- An end to corporate influence, including energy industry influence, on politics;
- Immediate action to reduce greenhouse gas concentrations to below the safe atmospheric threshold of 350 parts per million CO2e; starting with the rejection of the Keystone XL pipeline;
- A just transition for workers currently employed in fossil fuel and nuclear energy sectors to sustainable employment.
We pledge to make personal and group choices that support these aims.
Related Organizations
We've Worked With
In Boston
In the Occupy movement
Resources
CASEJ in the Media
- Calling Foul on Fossil Fuels, Boston Occupier
- Climate Activists and #Occupy Boston Call “Foul” on Scott Brown’s Support for Keystone XL Pipeline, Open Media Boston
- Occupy MBTA Protests Fair Hikes Cuts at State House, The Daily Free Press
Links and Articles of Interest
The Case for Carbon Fee and Dividend provides an overview of the economic rationale for why we need to put a tax on the carbon in fossil fuels in order to avoid the worst effects of climate change. It presents a specific policy proposal called Carbon Fee and Dividend which would achieve gradually increasing costs for fossil fuels while shielding low income households from rising energy costs. It explains how implementation of this policy would stimulate economic growth to help undo the effects of the Great Recession.
CCL Boston Resource Library provides a collection of useful links to articles that help explain different dimensions of the problem of climate change focused primarily on economic and policy issues rather than the science.
grist is a website that provides environmental and sustainability news and policy analysis.
Climate Progress, a blog with up to date, informative articles on climate and energy