CheckTheWeather

Today Catch Checktheweather.net Co-founders, Ellen Choy and Kari Fulton repping for Climate Justice at the USSF

10-12pm Kari Fulton is partnering with the Energy Action Coalition and Environmental Justice and Climate Change Initiative for a workshop on engaging youth with Climate Policy. This workshop will be held at Woodward Academy room 1437 Woodward is right off of Lafayette and 1-75

Then from 3:30- 5:30- Ellen Choy will be partnering with Asian Communities for Reproductive Justice to present Youth and Climate Justice. This workshop will feature a panel discussion featuring amazing Youth Climate Justice Leaders from the Bay Area! This is going down at the Woodward Academy room 1472!

Then Check out our partners for Justice at the Ecological Justice PMA! From 1-5 in Cobo Hall Room D2-08!

Jump with us for Climate Justice!

For More information visit USSF2010.org

The Politics of Climate Change has been growing in relevancy over the past few years across the world.  In December of 2009 at the United Nation’s Framework Convention on Climate Change, President Obama and a few other countries including China, Brazil and South Africa came up with a two page statement known as the Copenhagen Accord. The Accord was delivered during the last day of the Conference and faced tough scrutiny from world leaders who saw it as not tough enough on reducing the worst impacts of Climate Change. The President of Bolivia, Evo Morales was so upset that he decided to host the first ever World People’s Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth (PWCCC) in Cochabamba, Bolivia. Over 20,000 people from around the world attended the free conference. Together, the people came up with the People’s Agreement on Climate Change.

At the recent climate negotiations in Bonn Germany, leaders from Bolivia, China and developing nations that make up the G77 (a group of developing nations) were outraged to find that developed nations were trying to keep the People’s Agreement out from being utilized in future UN Climate Negotiations. Instead, some developed nations like the United States would only like to see the Copenhagen Accord being used to direct negotiations.

So how do the two documents compare when it comes to saving the world and ensuring justice and equality? Check this link from the official World People’s Conference on Climate Change to find out:

Comparision of the People’s Agreement and the Copenhagen Accord « World People’s Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth.

Much like Checktheweather.net, Al Jazeera was in Bolivia for the World People’s Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth. While we edit all of our amazing footage check out this piece from Al Jazeera on how and why Bolivia is becoming a lead voice on climate change issues.

This weekend, youth from around New York City and the country will gather together for the first ever New York City Youth Climate Justice Summit. The event will be held at Urban Assembly High School For Green Careers 145 West 84th Street on  April 16-17, 2010.

At the summit attendees will be able to partake in art presentations, free concerts from great NYC based artist such as Rebel Diaz and Climbing Poetree,  skills trainings and workshops on a wide range of  urban climate change issues including transportation, food, green jobs, immigration and gentrification.

This two day summit is hosted by Brooklyn based United Puerto Rican Organization of Sunset Park (UPROSE) with support from a number of leading  social justice and environmental justice organizations. Founded in 1966 UPROSE is Brooklyn’s oldest latino-community organization. They utilize an intergenerational approach to organizing that helps community members think about their own lived in environment (what is the environmental impact of the concrete we walk on really?).  Check out this video profile from Brooklyn Independent Television on UPROSE’s hybrid bus environmental justice tours through the Sunset Park Neighborhood of Brooklyn.

UPROSE’s work has gained the attention of major environmental and political leaders including EPA administer Lisa P. Jackson. Jackson will give a video address during the summit commending the youth and offering a call to action for the future of our planet.

This is definitely the dopest event in NYC this weekend and ITS FREE!. Hurry and register The first 100 folk to register online get a free T-shirt!

For more information and to register for this FREE event visit http://uproseyouthsummit.blogspot.com/

- Matthew J Miller

Note: I am an environmental justice advocate so this is certainly not a break from the environmental movement. It is my realization that I have a responsibility to do some cultural brokering. I intend to offer alternative and relevant perspectives, not to divide. Consider this an acknowledgment of the socioeconomic, racial, political, psychological, and even spiritual challenges that need to be hurdled and taken head on in striving to “green” communities, oppressed and liberated alike. Since this piece is slightly creative, take the personal pronouns as me speaking from a group perspective informed and inspired by personal accounts and my ethnic studies.

I get it: the world is crumbling. Boo-hoo. Did you think my world was in tact before? Oh yes, this is going to be one of those cups of tea. I hope you like it hot. (more…)

“Green is NOT white!”

So then why does it feel like only the rich countries like the U.S, Australia, Canada, and the European Union are dominating this Climate Conference and shutting out over 100 countries from the Global South!? This feeling is common in both the adult delegation as well as the youth. The adult delegation of these 100 developing countries has been threatening on several occasions to walk out of the Bella Center because of the lack of being heard and the US decision to stall negotiations. There has also been lack of communication from the US youth delegation towards other youth delegations of color.

I for one feel that if the US youth delegation and any other delegation that comes from a rich country for that matter, don’t show solidarity with other delegations then there shouldn’t be a delegation at all. We have made delegations to get together, and to unite with each other for a better future that will affect all of us. We did NOT join delegations to support only our own countries, and not attempt to make people-to-people ties with one another.

Coming from the US, this is just embarrassing. We, as a whole, adults and youth, are not representing very well, and it has been observed. We are all making decisions that are not improving our status, and many people are depending on us to start doing something. I for one am going to do what I can.

Over the next several days I will be in contact with other youth delegations such as the African Delegation, and the Indigenous People youth delegation, and others from all over the world. I will also get the stories from other adult delegations that will emphasize on the US and communications and how they think things will go in Copenhagen. I will be recording some of these interviews and writing their statements down. I will then compose a letter to Obama and send him the footage to show how many people depend on him and the US to do start doing something about climate change.

Lupita Troncoso is a junior at Abraham Lincoln High School in San Francisco, and is a 2nd year member of ESLI’s Youth Advisory Board. www.eslisf.org/youthblog.

Dear UN:

We are losing faith in you quickly. Please advise.

With love,
Future Leaders.

As Copenhagen boils with anxiety about today’s mass climate justice action at the Bella Center, all I can do is lower my head at the United Nations in complete disappointment.

Shutting out thousands of representatives of civil society from entering the UN conference this week, without showing a drop of compassion, has put me teetering on the edge of renunciation. We came to the UN conference to represent ourselves, as young leaders from the US and youth of color who believe that our presence here matters, and that the story we share can benefit the international community. What we faced Monday night and Tuesday morning, standing in the incredible line of 2nd week registrants waiting to get their badges – waiting a total of 7 hours in freezing temperatures, was offensive. And, from what we found out, we were lucky that it was only 7 hours – people we interviewed had stood for 9 hours on Day 1, only to be turned away on Day 2’s attempt after another 3-4 hours. A pregnant women, a high-profile expert consult to the Mozambique delegation, waited both days only to be forced to leave because of fear of her and her baby’s health. And not once did we receive clear updates on our potential to register as we stood in line. Not once did they show any compassion to the thousands of dollars and false hopes these thousands of people had spent to make it merely 20-30 feet from the Bella Center, only to be told that the UN could not accommodate numbers anywhere near to what was expected. Many got on early flights home.

I write this post as an indignant member of the next generation of climate justice leaders, who had nevertheless held onto her faith in an entity who has practically failed to address climate change for the past 15 years of the UNFCCC’s operations. The democracy here in Copenhagen is quickly crumbling before me, before the eyes of the two ESLI youth delegates that came with me and before the rest of the international community. Not to mention, police raids and preemptive arrests targeting young people has turned Copenhagen into a place of fear. Access to UN climate negotiations was already assumed to be limited to civil society – but now we know that we are blatantly not welcome.

(more…)

350-400 people were arrested in the first mass protest in Copenhagen today, reaffirming that civil society groups are determined to stay loud and clear on their message for a fair, equitable agreement out of COP15. See this Democracy Now! summary of Week 1 in Copenhagen, which tells a good comprehensive story of what’s going on inside and outside. Featuring Kate Horner of Friends of the Earth.

African Parliamentarians and members of African Civil Society groups joined representatives from US civil rights and environmental justice NGOs, including ChecktheWeather co-founder Kari Fulton, at a press conference Thursday from the Cop15 in Copenhagen to make an urgent appeal to US President Barack Obama calling for leadership on the issue of climate justice. The Pan African Climate Justice Alliance, an alliance of civil society organizations in 43 countries across Africa delivered an urgent appeal to Obama as he prepares to receive the Nobel Peace Prize tonight in Norway. The full press conference to come.

Photos from the Guardian, by PETER DEJONG/AP:

Coordinator Mithika Mwenda, left, and committee member Augustine Njamnshi, right, call upon the US president, Barack Obama, to take action at a press conference of the Pan African Climate Justice Alliance

ChecktheWeather co-founder Kari Fulton, a leader in the US youth climate movement, cries as she delivers an emotional speech calling upon the US president, Barack Obama, to take action on climate change

From a post by Naomi Klein on The Nation:

A video interview by The Uptake, with African poet and activist Nnimmo Bassey about Obama on climate.  Read Naomi Klein’s article about her discussion with Bassey here.

And tomorrow, African Parliamentarians and members of African Civil Society groups will be joined by representatives from US civil rights and environmental justice NGOs at a press conference in Copenhagen to make an urgent appeal to US President Barak Obama calling for leadership on the issue of climate justice. The Pan African Climate Justice Alliance, an alliance of civil society organizations in 43 countries across Africa will issue an urgent appeal to Obama as he prepares to receive the Nobel Peace Prize tonight in Norway. ChecktheWeather’s own Kari Fulton will be representing!
For those of you in Copenhagen:
WHERE:Asger Jorn, NGO Press Conference Room, Bella Center, Copenhagen, Denmark
WHEN: 8:30 a.m. Thursday, December 10, 2009