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

• Mailing List

• Discussion Board

• 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

June 7 2012

• Pilgrim Coalition protest at NRC hearing on nuke plants Thursday in Court House at Post Office Square, Boston. Photos from event[1]and [2]

More info below* and at website Pilgrim Coalition and Boston Occupier. Fourteen people were arrested in Plymouth on May 20th as part of a protest to close the unsafe Pilgrim plant.

June 14 2012

• 11 a.m. Energy Week Lobby Day for Renewables Bill Senate 2214 at State House on Thursday, June 14 (next week). Meet on State House steps at 11 a.m. next to big banner for Climate Action--Connect the Dots, followed by visits to key legislators with support letter. Scroll below** for background reasons for passing the bill. This is part of a whole week of events with Energy Week Boston

July 11 2012

• Hearing of the 14 arrested at the May 20th Pilgrim Anti-Nuke Rally at 8 am at Plymouth District Court, 52 Obery St., Plymouth, MA. Please Join. Let your Federal and State officials know that the NRC's licensing and re-licensing of nuclear reactors is reckless, irresponsible and unacceptable without fai-safe temporary and permanent nuclear spent fuel storag solutions in place and functioning, and/or safety, environmental and public health contentions and challenges resolved. Info contact: William Maurer, wmmaurer@comcast.net.

10 Wicked Awesome Things You Can Do Now

(TBA!)

Our Process

• CASEJ Meeting 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