Green Job Creation: The power lies with the people

I love Ahmina - and I think you all should too! Here is her great piece from Green For All reposted:

http://www.greenforall.org/blog/green-job-creation-the-power-lies-with-the-people

Celebrating Earth Day by Organizing to Defend our Rights and the Rights of Mother Earth

I spent this Earth Day in Los Angeles California with the Bus Riders Union, Communities for a Better Environment (CBE) and the Labor Community Strategy Center for an evening connecting with organizers working at the intersection of climate, environmental justice and human rights from across the country. I was on panel about real community solutions to the climate crisis with Nikke Alex from Black Mesa Water Coalition and Sunyoung of the Strategy Center right after a panel about false solution to the climate crisis with Ash-lee Woodward with Mountain Justice, Bill Gallegos (CBE), and Tom Goldtooth with Indigenous Environmental Network. Below is my presentation about our solutions in Detroit.

(Transcribed)

Happy Earth day beautiful people! And this is a room of beautiful people. I feel like I’m at home. I am also from the Great Lakes region – which I was happy to learn from Tom is the center of the Universe. Good news for me.

My name is Diana Copeland and I am the Executive Director of the EMEAC. Last June we were one of the hosts of the United States Social Forum and we also held an action against the dirty Detroit incinerator June 26^{th –} are the slides up there? The incinerator in Detroit is the world’s most polluting and children that live around the incinerator have 3 times the asthma rate as the rest of the nation. Due to the particulate matter, heavy metals at are released into the atmosphere as a result of the burning trash from the incinerator children miss out on school days and fun activities – cancer rates are higher - the quality of life among Detroit’s youth and community members is generally decreased. Keep in mind incineration is being touted as an “alternative energy” – these false solutions and framing are extremely dangerous to our communities.

The action was a powerful experience for the community because so many national partners came out to support us – like Grassroots Global Justice and the Ruckus society – they did a lot of the beautiful art for the action. It gave a platform for the affected community and put the community up front. The action had the demands developed by the local Detroit zero waste coalition:

- Stop the daily burning of over 2,000 tons of trash

- Begin citywide curbside recycling & recover materials for reuse

- Citywide composting as an industry

- Create new jobs & opportunities to attract green economies

- And we want full transparency of all waste contracts

City council and our former mayor had already agreed to this plan – but it has yet to be implemented.

The action was successful and the incinerator shut down as of last October – BUT - unfortunately it is almost guaranteed that the city will be burning the majority of its and surrounding communities, including Canada’s garbage for at least another 11 years, because of the deal with the new mayor for the purchase of the city’s incinerator in Nov. by a newly established energy consortium led by Connecticut-based Atlas Holdings.

As an organization we do work on strategic campaigns – like this obvious one against the incinerator but more than that we want to offer community based solutions as a real way to stop climate change and build community resilience. Moving away from the dirty incinerator and creating a city wide recycling facility is one (it is cleaner and would create many more jobs in the city).

Other Grassroots solutions – just to name a few

In addition to the disproportionate pollution – caused by the incinerator and hundreds of polluting industry, in the city of Detroit we are also up against a Right-sizing plan in the city proposed by the mayor– that would cut off services and force relocate many residents. We see this relocation effort and gentrification plan as an environmental justice issue - as a front line community we are demanding that the residents that have faced the worst of the ecological and economic crisis in the city receive priority on any incentives that would benefit the citizens of Detroit. The people’s plan is looking at scaling up local economies and strengthens community schools (while fighting off corporate charters and privatizations of natural resources).

Food justice/ composting – Detroit has over 1000 urban gardens and farms and we see urban farming as a solution to climate injustice by providing more green space in the city, creating more healthy foods inside the city and for its residents, creating new local economies, and dramatically cutting down on truck traffic that create harmful diesel pollution inside our city. As leadership of the food justice task force we are working to not only scale up the capacity for current farmers but also create new businesses in local foods marketing, local foods grocers, restaurants that serve local foods and create new businesses, curricula and emerging skill training inside Detroit schools. Just one example of the many schools we are working with, Nsoroma Institute located on Detroit’s far east side has:

- Community cooking demonstrations and cooking classes

- Aquaponics farm and curricula - to create healthy food for the neighborhood and a small amount of revenue for school projects

- Veggie stand – that 15 raised gardens with lots of squash, cucumbers, tomatoes, specialty herbs and much more!

- Worm composting – to reduce trash in at schools and to sell compost to supporting farms

The school is nestled among rows and rows of abandoned houses but the school is an absolute haven for students, parents and community.

Shout out to Detroit black community food security network

Digital justice and education solutions – media work is an emerging field and source of jobs in the city. As leadership of the Detroit Digital Justice Coalition (DDJC) we are working with local businesses, schools with the Allied Media Projects. Every collaboration we work with is based on the Environmental Justice and we work with every group to create our own principles of working together. Central to the principles of the DDJC is creating healthy communities. The DDJC provides space where people can investigate community problems, generate solutions, create media and organize together to promote alternative energy, recycling and salvaging technology. As a coalition we value multiple learning styles and expand the process of learning beyond the classrooms.

In Detroit we are using a multi-pronged strategy to fight false solutions and create models or real solutions.

Mitten State: Beekeeping's subversive secret: These little trait...

I am re-posting Hugh's article because I enjoyed it so much and I thought you all would too!

Mitten State: Beekeeping's subversive secret: These little trait...: "The hive. Karen did the artwork. I’m in bee school. The wise old hands from the Southeastern Michigan Beekeepers Association are teaching ..."

What is the Detroit People's Movement Assembly Process

I recently went to an excellent discussion about the state of Detroit's education at the Boggs Center. Over and over again it was emphasized that education often (maybe even mostly) happens outside of the classroom. As one of the anchoring organizations of the 2010 United States Social Forum I learned this lessons. Especially during the People's Movement Assembly (PMA) Process. In April we will have a city wide PMA in Detroit to create an alternative vision for land use were we will put into practice this style of community learning.

So what is the PMA?

We are a collective of community members that come together around shared principles. We look to the principles of environmental justice, the earth charter and the human rights for guidance. We hold each other and ourselves accountable to those principles with love. We are making our best effort to solve the most significant problems of the day. And in doing so we will spend more time building than attacking. The Detroit People’s Movement Assembly is a grassroots approach and we believe that self-determination should be at the center of the PMA and at the city’s foundation.

Our concerns with the Detroit Works Plan: Corporations cannot dictate the role of Detroiters and certainly not without involving them in the planning and real democratic decision-making related to their city. In this PMA process we presume that people have power, and that we are not victims. Together we are learning that the strongest solutions happen throughout the process, not in a moment at the end of the process. Together we are learning that the most effective strategies for us are the ones that work in situations of scarce resources and intersecting systems of oppression because those solutions tend to be the most holistic and sustainable.

We have a vision. We want to build on existing strengths and Detroit’s rich history. We know that when we look at the data that the mayor’s office is putting out and we read in the Huffington Post that the “only people left in the D are those that have no other options” that is not our living reality. Because when we look at their plan and when we look at our community capital of freedom schools, black owned business, community schools, youth organizing, community kitchens in churches, music and historical neighborhoods build by the people and made unique by its residence and we see two completely different analyses of a city. We made each neighborhood that is the tapestry of the city - we know we are the city.

We understand pain. We know there is a place for mourning and anger of the people that are being displaced, had their utilities cut off, even lost their children because their water bill was too high. We need a place to grieve and express our frustration. We honor this pain, and we don’t want to live there.

We are not the first to go through struggle and we are not alone now as we struggle. People throughout history have had to fight, struggle and articulate a better vision for what they need for their community and their sustainability. All of us are working in our particular and unique way but we do want to reflect that the PMA is not new but has been building up for a few years before the first USSF held in Atlanta in 2007. We do not just meet. We are creating plans. We want to be the ones telling the story and making the media.

We have been building as social movements from bottom up styles from community visions and desire. The PMA is our responses to this – a space to build our own narrative, our own plan, our own media. Even now through the people’s movement assembly process, we are connected to a national movement and to an international movement. The PMA process is something that Detroiters learned during the second US Social Forum held in Detroit. Over 25,000 people came to the city in June of 2010 to learn from Detroit’s leadership and the models of resistance we have created and are creating in the city. We built as a community during the USSF and have trained with our national PMA partners on how to build movement and facilitate a city wide visioning process.

We are connecting to others in the city who also have a vision – like Detroiters for Dignity and Democracy, the People’s Water Board, People and Energy, the Food Justice Task Force and the Detroit Digital Justice Coalition (to name a few). We are lifting up the solutions that currently exist in the city, and we are a group that is finding solutions to the most critical issues facing our city. This is hard, hard work. We work hard but we need to take care of the tools, resources, love, passion and hurt that we all bring. We are learning to do this but it is not without its bumps and bruises.

We are sick of being asked if we “are a believer”, were we “imported from Detroit”, do we “Declare Detroit”?

We have a voice. We have a vision. We are connected.

Climate Justice - GGJ delegation to COP16

Dec 8th 2010

Wednesday we were credentialed to go into the “inside UN space” with governmental representatives. We were able to get our credentials through Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives (GAIA). We spent most of the day in the NGO space and attended the official launch of the United States Strategy for REDD+ (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation) and how they are committed to “preventing deforestation” through such measures and carbon credits. They focused on the new programs and funding that will result. The technical presentation focused on the flagship program and projects the US is implementing, as well as planned investments and activities in forest carbon sequestration. Luckily the audience was stacked with Grassroots Global Justice, Indigenous Environmental Network and the Environmental Justice Leadership Forum. Questions were asked about the rollouts blatant disregard for indigenous rights and I got in the question:

“What are the specific safeguards for communities such as mine, Detroit Michigan, that are already overburdened by industrial toxins and will be impacted by REDD measures such as carbon credits. And what are the safeguards are there to protect the indigenous people use of their own land since the UN article 43 on the rights of indigenous people are nonbinding.”

The main message of our delegation is that the REDD+ proposal is bad for people in the community. From the “forest to the hood we are all united” that the most affected communities must be protected. Ahmina and I decided that we have to do a community debrief of our experience here and what we learned. We are thinking around Jan. 10^th as a good date and we’ll outreach to our EJ coalitions, PMA group and USSF Detroit group.

Ahmina spoke on a Sustainable Cities panel Thursday at 9am about the Detroit incinerator, our actions to shut it down as well as incinerator alternatives. She will write up her talk and add it to the Grassroots Global Justice (GGJ) Blog. All our reflections, pictures and film footage from us and all the GGJ delegates will go up on their website.

On Thursday afternoon we went to see Evo Morales speak, the Bolivian President. We were so fortunate and we sat in the international delegation section. He addressed La Via Campesina (international peasant movement)– the alternative climate forum that focused on how climate change is affecting farmers around the world. Obviously Food Security was a predominant theme is his talk. My two favorite Evo quotes from the speech were, “The UN is meeting on the moon (Moon palace was the name of the UN conference center for the governmental delegates) while we are here on earth coming up with the real solutions to climate justice” and “Climate Change is not a business venture!”

There was a very long dedication and ceremony by the Bolivian indigenous community before his talk and soon after Evo came on stage there was a huge double rainbow on each side of the stage. Everyone was crying and laughing and it was all extremely emotional. The folks in our IEN delegation were all saying that it is unbelievable to have a president saying the things he is saying. What an amazing time.

To check out photos, interviews and footage from marches check out the Redroadcancun.com.

Climate Justice - report from the Grassroots Global Justice delegation

December 6 2010 Ahmina Maxey and I safely made it through the espaco Mexico and via campisina marches today. It was a little sketchy because they changed guards from the state police to the policia federal at midnight last night and we were not sure how the marches would go.

Ahmina spoke at the rally at the end of the march about the affect of industry to the people and children in Detroit and LINK TV interviewed me after the march. I filmed Ahmina’s talk and we’ll post that and the interview on LINK as soon as it’s up. I’ll be working with the media team tonight and we will hopefully be posting both on the GGJ website.

The most exciting part of the experience for me has been working with Indigenous Environmental Network. Lottie would LOVE their mobile media (sometimes impromptu) labs and radio and web streaming stationing that they have set up inside the UN space and at the two spaces “outside” or the alternative forums.

Ahmina and I are getting accredited tonight or early tomorrow morning to go in and participate in the UN space. There are four main spaces. Moon palace (a conference center) is where the UN dignitaries (and where we're going tomorrow) are meeting, Via Campasina, Espaco Mexico and Clima Fora are all alternative climate forums. There are some politics around why there are 3 separate spaces are a little too complicated to get into right now – but our delegation has been focusing most on participating in getting into Moon palace and Via Campasina.

Working with all these great grassroots organizations around the world really makes me appreciate all you and I feel more and more confident that we are doing the work we need to be.

Well – last night was a REALLY late night preparing for the march so I’m going to bed now and we’ll give you another update soon.