Greenspiration News: Militant Movement?

Tue Aug 9 23:46:42 EDT 2011

Greenspiration News

Hieroglyphic Stairway

it's 3:23 in the morning
and I'm awake because my great great grandchildren
won't let me sleep

my great great grandchildren
ask me in dreams what did you do while the planet was plundered?
 what did you do when the earth was unraveling?

surely you did something when the seasons started failing? 
as the mammals, reptiles, birds were all dying?
 did you fill the streets with protest when democracy was stolen?

what did you do
 once 
you
 knew?...   - 

drew dellinger

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Do We Need a Militant Movement to Save the Planet (and Ourselves)?

Derrick Jensen, Lierre Keith and Aric McBay call for new strategy to stave off environmental catastrophe.

http://www.alternet.org/story/151918/do_we_need_a_militant_movement_to_save_the_planet_%28and_ourselves%29?page=1

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Stop the Pipeline! Sit-in at the Whitehouse
From August 20th – September 3rd we’re planning a peaceful protest in Washington DC to defuse the largest carbon bomb in North America. With people power and time-tested tactics of civil disobedience – join thousands of people from across the continent in a wave of sustained sit-ins. Together we’ll amplify our voices and escalate the movement and stop the Keystone XL pipeline to the Canadian tar sands

http://www.tarsandsaction.org/
Bill McKibben has issued an invitation to everyone to come to Washington DC August 20 – 30 (or for a few of those days) for training and participation in direct action to stop the Keystone XL pipeline.  Great opportunity to join one thousand or more activists in this very critcal climate protection initiative.  Bill says: “The Keystone Pipeline would also be a fifteen hundred mile fuse to the biggest carbon bomb on the continent, a way to make it easier and faster to trigger the final overheating of our planet, the one place to which we are all indigenous.”

Maude Barlow, Naomi Klein and David Suzuki will be among those participating. http://www.tarsandsaction.org/sign-up/

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Will North America Be the New Middle East?

by Bill McKibben

The Saudis, of course, built their oil empire long before we knew that there was anything wrong with burning oil. The Canadians -- with American help, if Obama obliges the oil lobby -- are building theirs in the teeth of the greatest threat the world has ever faced. We can’t unbuild those Saudi Arabian fields, though happily their supplies are starting to slowly dwindle. What we can still do, though, is prevent North America from becoming the next Middle East.

So there will be a battle, and there will be nothing complicated or abstract about it.  It will be based on one question: Does that carbon stay in the earth, or does it pour into the atmosphere? 

http://www.postcarbon.org/article/407425-will-north-america-be-the-new

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Who deserves additional public financial support: Corporate Canada or Environment Canada?

As the axe falls on 776 jobs at Environment Canada as a supposedly ‘necessary’ cost-saving measure, the Harper government plans to continue with unnecessary and outrageous multi-billion dollar tax cuts to large highly profitable corporations, including oil companies, according to Canadians for Tax Fairness.
http://www.taxfairness.ca/news/who-deserves-additional-public-financial-support-corporate-canada-or-environment-canada
700 Environment Canada jobs on the chopping block

http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/politics/article/1034331--700-environment-canada-jobs-on-the-chopping-block?bn=1

Canada doing "unprecedented" Tar Sands Lobbying

http://www.no-tar-sands.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/FOEE_Report_Tar_Sands_Lobby_Final_July82011.pdf
U.S. scientists oppose Keystone pipeline for Albert tarsands

http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/story/2011/08/03/science-keystone-pipeline.html#.TjoPXAEaNpY.twitter

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Ten Questions the Media are not asking about Norway

... from the Metta Center for Nonviolence in San Francisco puts the killings in context and challenges us to change the culture of violence   http://www.mettacenter.org/blog/ten-questions-the-media-are-not-asking-about-norway.

The Metta Center has also initiated a campaign called ‘Love your enemy: A Campaign to Reclaim Human Dignity Through Nonviolence’  that starts this September: http://www.mettacenter.org/mc/projects/love-your-enemy

Democracy Now interview with Johan Galtung on the Norway killings: 

http://www.democracynow.org/2011/7/29/norways_johan_galtung_peace_conflict_pioneer

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The "Crossed Legs" Movement: How a Sex Strike Got Things Done

Like the SlutWalk protests, the crossed legs movement is a new interpretation of women's fight for their rights – one in which sexuality is being used as an empowering tool.

http://www.alternet.org/story/151940/the_%22crossed_legs%22_movement%3A_how_a_sex_strike_got_things_done?akid=7381.290405.QfKErY&rd=1&t=21

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Chomsky: Public Education Under Massive Corporate Assault — What's Next?

Converting schools and universities into facilities that produce commodities for the job market, privatizing them, slashing their budgets — do we really want this future?

http://www.alternet.org/story/151921/chomsky%3A_public_education_under_massive_corporate_assault_%E2%80%94_what%27s_next?akid=7377.290405.zkt1aK&rd=1&t=2

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I Do Not Want Mercy, I Want You To Join Me

Tim DeChristopher, who was sentenced Tuesday to two years in federal prison and a $10,000 fine for disrupting a Bureau of Land Management auction in 2008, had an opportunity to address the court and the judge today immediately before his sentence was announced. This is what he said (excerpts)

If the government is going to refuse to step up to that responsibility to defend a livable future, I believe that creates a moral imperative for me and other citizens.  My future, and the future of everyone I care about, is being traded for short term profits.  I take that very personally.  Until our leaders take seriously their responsibility to pass on a healthy and just world to the next generation, I will continue this fight.

…  when people stand together, they no longer have to be exploited by powerful corporations.  Alienation is perhaps the most effective tool of control in America, and every reminder of our real connectedness weakens that tool.

For the full speech, go to: http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/07/26-13

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Lithuanian mayor crushes luxury car parked in bike lane with a tank 

In a demonstration to warn luxury car drivers not to park in the bicycle lane in the Lithuania city of Vilnius, the mayor of the city recently crushed a Mercedes-Benz parked in the bike lane with an army tank.
Local citizens of the town are reportedly tired of luxury car owners constantly parking in the various cycleways and have requested the local council do something about it.

So, as reassurance that the public can rely on the council to clear up such matters, mayor of Vilnius, Arturas Zuokas, jumped in an army troop carrier and drove over a Mercedes-Benz S-Class that was parked in the lane. Now that is what you call a proactive council. Zuokas said,

“I’ve had enough of these drivers parking their luxury cars on bike lanes and pedestrian crossings. This tank is a good tool to solve the problem of parking in the wrong place.”

http://www.caradvice.com.au/130698/lithuanian-mayor-crushes-luxury-car-parked-in-bike-lane-with-a-tank/

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Are antidepressants taking the edge off love?

Sure, we know about the sexual side effects of SSRIs. But researchers now wonder if that's the only aspect of romance the drugs can influence.
http://articles.latimes.com/2007/jul/30/health/he-antidepressants30
Drugs or Love?
4 min. video about how antidepressant drugs affect romance and sex drive
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IcG6J-8OwAo&feature=player_embedded#t=0s 

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Famine in Africa

A humanitarian crisis is unfolding in Somalia and the Horn of Africa. Ten million people are facing famine.
As it has in the past, the Canadian government has pledged to match donations collected by relief agencies. Donations received between July 6 and September 16 will be matched.

Many organizations and agencies are accepting donations, some are listed here:

The Humanitarian Coalition is a network of five of Canada's relief agencies, Care Canada, Oxfam Quebec, Oxfam Canada, Save the Children and Plan Canada.   UNICEF, Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders) and the Canadian Red Cross are also accepting donations.

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Great Car Stats

A superb resource for transportation activists

http://www.worldcarfree.net/resources/stats.php

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It's all green lights for cyclists in this California city

A city in California is aiming to encourage people to ride their bikes by using "military-developed technology," which detects a bike approaching a traffic light and keeps the light green.

Dubbed the "Intersector," this cylindrical device can detect when a bike is approaching an intersection. It will then keep the light green until the cyclist has gone through an intersection, or turn the light green for the approaching cyclist.

http://thestar.blogs.com/cycling/2011/08/its-all-green-lights-for-cyclists-in-this-california-city.html#more  

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Who Killed Economic Growth?

Economists insist that recovery is at hand, yet unemployment remains high, real estate values continue to sink, and governments stagger under record deficits. Richard Heinberg propose a startling diagnosis: humanity has reached a fundamental turning point in its economic history. The expansionary trajectory of industrial civilization is colliding with non-negotiable natural limits.

6 min. animated video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EQqDS9wGsxQ

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Meat-eaters Guide to Climate Change and Health

Enviro life-cycle assessments of protein

http://breakingnews.ewg.org/meateatersguide/at-a-glance-brochure/

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