The pages here will be left up as an archive.

This CCJN thing originally was meant to be ran collectively, but it hasn’t panned out that way, and it likely won’t in the future. There just isn’t much growth potential for this project.

A few more local climate justice groups have gotten on their own feet now, but there doesn’t seem to be much of a role for this Network to tie together what we’re doing.  Hopefully we’ll find other ways to get together a more unified front.

Every year, the Media Co-op publishes a special issue of The Dominion delving deeper into one particular topic. In March, based on reader input & proposals, we’ll be publishing our next special issue – this time on Climate Justice.

Climate justice involves injecting a human element to the climate debate, and making social justice a top priority. This doesn’t just mean considering the poorest of the poor in the regions most vulnerable to the effects of global warming, it also means enhancing equality while rapidly reducing emissions in high-emitting countries like Canada.

The Dominion’s special issue on Climate Justice will focus on such struggles within Canada’s borders, and those that implicate Canadian actors abroad — whether governments, corporations or non-governmental organizations. This critical resource comes at a time when the media downplays the importance of Climate Justice movements while underscoring false solutions to climate change.

Our goal is to leave readers with a rich array of stories about Climate Justice struggles in or connected to Canada; vivid glimpses of individuals on the front lines; as well as clear pathways to taking action in campaigns for Climate Justice.

Our coverage, and our ability to cover these issues, depends on you: the readers, subscribers and sustainers who support Media Co-op and make The Dominion possible.

There are several ways you can help make sure that thousands of copies of this issue make it into the hands of people across Canada:

DISTRIBUTE
Getting The Dominion out across the country isn’t easy. If you can pass on copies to friends or drop a stack in a local coffee shop, click here to sign up.

DISCUSS
To really get information into circulation, it needs to be talked about. It can be five people in a living room or a packed community hall, but we need people to organize at the level of neighbourhoods and institutions. It’s easier than you think: get a room and tell us the place and time. Contact us at info@mediacoop.ca with CJ LAUNCH in the subject line for more on organizing a launch.

DONATE
If you can spare $20 or $200, or your business wants to advertise in this issue, you’ll be helping get independent journalism to folks who want to read it. Every donation helps; to give, click here.

Communities around the world are under attack from extractive industries that poison our families, kill our loved ones on the job, and destroy the ecosystems we cherish. The BP oil spill was unfortunately just one of an endless string of disasters born of an economic system that must endlessly consume the Earth’s  resources.

Extraction is the act of taking without giving anything back. Extraction takes workers lives so  corporations can make a few more bucks. Extraction takes clean water and air and gives us blackened oceans and a climate in chaos. Extraction takes the natural wealth of communities and ecosystems and leaves behind poverty and ecological wastelands.

For a stable climate, clean air and water, we must stop the extraction of fossil fuels and other “resources.”  From the tar sands of Alberta to the Gulf Coast, people are fighting back against the extractiveindustries  that have declared war on our planet. Rising Tide is calling for a day of direct action against extraction on the 1 year anniversary of the BP oil spill.

On April 20th take it to the point of production.  Shut down a well site, occupy a mine, take over an office, blockade a bank. Nobody’s community should be a sacrifice  zone.

For climate justice and a livable planet,

Rising Tide North America

[Printable poster - http://www.risingtidenorthamerica.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/forPRINT_extractionactionposter.pdf]

[On Facebook - http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=183592348320694]

Please help us get the word out by printing and distributing the newsletter in your community!

DOWNLOAD NEWSLETTER HERE -
http://www.risingtidenorthamerica.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/winter-2011-newsletter2.pdf

First edition highlights community struggles and makes the links between climate and social justice

At the fourth annual Everyone’s Downstream conference, Climate Justice Montreal and members of the provisional comittee for the foundation of the Climate Justice Co-op, launched a new publication entitled Beyond Parts Per Million: Voices from the Frontlines.

Featuring accounts from frontline communities around the globe and connecting climate and social justice struggles, this project aims to amplify the voices of those people most impacted by environmental destruction and a changing global climate.

DOWNLOAD IT!

http://www.mediacoop.ca/sites/mediacoop.ca/files2/mc/BeyondPPM.pdf

PLEASE REGISTER YOUR EVENT HERE: http://viacampesina.org/en/index.php?option=com_content&view=category&layout=blog&id=50&Itemid=195

Social movements from around the world are mobilising for the 16th Conference of the Parties (COP 16) of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) that will take place in Cancun from 29 November to 10 December 2010.

Thousands of women and men, people affected by the destruction of the environment, farmers, landless, Indigenous Peoples and activists from all sectors of society will gather in Cancun to propose thousands of solutions to confront climate change. They will show the world leaders their opposition to the false solutions to climate chaos discussed by the UNFCCC, such as market-based proposals on carbon trading and REDD, agrofuels and geo-engineering.

Meanwhile, echoing the Via Campesina call for thousands of Cancun, we call on social movements, popular organisations and all people of the world to amplify the resistance in Cancun and to organise thousands of protests and actions to reject false solutions and to support a people’s agenda for climate justice. We declare ourselves in permanent mobilisation during the UNFCCC conference and especially on December 7, the date of the mass farmers protest in Cancun and International Day of Action “Thousands of Cancuns”.

Wherever you are: Join us!

Mobilisations can take many shapes: direct actions, parties, markets, festivals, discussions or exhibitions…. They can take place in any city, village, school or community.

Let us know what you are planning to do (when and where) by sending us a note before November 25.

Andsend us your posters, announcements, articles, pictures, videos…

They will be posted on the Thousands of Cancun web page.

However, after the 2009 Copenhagen Climate Conference or COP15 many climate justice communities have lost all trust in such negotiating processes. What did we see at last year’s COP15? Just three days into the conference, a leaked document (“The Danish Text”) that set predetermined agreements allowing rich countries to pollute more. Real climate crisis solutions represented by grassroots activists, organizations and NGO representatives were locked out of the Bella Center. The introduction of new anti-democratic laws limiting free speech, actions, mobilizations, and any real development of effective climate justice. A crack down on legal and democratic rights through major human rights violations implemented by an overly violent and aggressive police presence in Copenhagen- something that is becoming far too familiar for the people fighting the false solutions to the climate crisis. And finally in the early hours of the last morning of the Copenhagen conference the global leaders came together and created “The Copenhagen Accord,” a document that abandoned lowering target carbon emissions and thus openly accepted the deep and utter failure of the entire conference.

What did the global climate activist community learn from this experience? The conference failed, the governments failed, and the leaders are unwilling to act. The real solutions and real changes can only happen through the people and from the ground up! We have not been silenced- we have only grown stronger. The global climate justice movement is gearing up and we are ready to move forward with more force once again:

1,000 Cancuns:
In response to the COP16, La Via Campesina invites people’s movements around the world to mobilize in order to create 1,000 Cancuns: ‘We call on social movements, popular organizations and all people of the world to organize thousands of protests and actions to reject the false and market solutions.’  For more information see: http://viacampesina.org/en/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=941:the-people-create-thousands-of-solutions-to-confront-climate-change&catid=48:-climate-change-and-agrofuels&Itemid=75

CJA 1,000 Cancuns and COP 16 Report Backs:
Climate justice Action will be in touch with grassroots climate justice comrades on the ground in Cancun and with those who are planning an action for 1,000 Cancuns. We plan to report on the climate justice struggles and successes during the conference and other mobilizations happening at the same time. This information will be updated and posted on the CJA website regularly. The success of these updated reports relies on our international solidarity. Will you be in Cancun or would you like to help with writing report backs? If yes, please take time to write us an email at info@climate-justice-action.org so we can get accurate report backs from you.

Klimaforum10 in Cancun:
Klimaforum Mexico will be hosting grassroots movements and civil society during the COP16. They will be providing “space for all people, where they can gather, debate on constructive solutions, propose and find consensus towards coordinated international action in the face of the climate crisis. Where governments fail, the people shall prevail.” Please check http://10.klimaforum.org/

Here is their national call to action, their press release, some photos, and other action coverage.

The 5 demands for Climate Justice:

1. Lead, follow, or get out of the way
At the upcoming UN Climate Summit in Cancun, Canada should be the first nation from the global north to adopt the emissions reductions and temperature rise limitation targets of 300ppm and 1.5 degrees celsius, presented by the largest gathering in history of directly impacted communities at the April 2010 World People’s Summit on Climate Change and Mother Earth in Cochabamba, Bolivia.  The first step to achieving this and repaying our climate debt is accepting the Cochabamba Declaration text presented at the UN Summit.

2. Shut Down the Tar Sands
Tar sands developments are on course to destroy a section of the boreal forest the size of England, and are Canada’s fastest growing source of greenhouse gas emissions. The direct pollution from tar sands developments is poisoning the Athabasca River watershed and surrounding lands, and is a health catastrophe for impacted communities who are experiencing high rates of cancer and a loss of traditional food sources.  Therefore, we call for an immediate moratorium on present and future tar sands expansion projects, a phase out of existing projects, and to hold corporations responsible for environmental destruction while facilitating a just transition for workers out of destructive industries.

3. No more Tax Breaks or Subsidies for Oil Companies
Oil companies received more than $2.8 billion dollars in government tax breaks and subsidies in 2008. These subsidies lower the cost of oil and promote the use of dirty fossil fuels when we should be transitioning to clean forms of energy.  Therefore, we call for an immediate end to government financing of environmentally and socially destructive industries.

4. Invest in Community Solutions
Community-based renewable energy sources like wind, solar, and hydro need to be developed in a way that does not damage natural ecosystems, meaning energy production must be controlled by communities and not corporations. Current subsidies and systems of agriculture decrease healthy food choices, contribute to  ecological destruction, and hurt small scale farmers, while a shift towards community-controlled diversified agriculture leads to healthier people and ecosystems.  There are more efficient ways of transporting people and products than building mass highways;  Canada needs to invest in solutions that re-imagine how we move around within and between cities through the localization of production, bicycle infrastructure, and accessible public transit.

5. Reject False Solutions
Canada currently relies heavily on technofixes, such as promoting biofuel projects where the amazon rainforest is slashed and burned to grow corn to put in our cars and investing over $3 billion in expensive and unproven carbon capture and storage technology.  Furthermore, solutions such as carbon trading and offsets turn our atmosphere into a commodity to be bought and sold, allowing corporate lobbying to export responsibility for reductions to elsewhere and perpetuating inequality. Instead of wasting billions on band-aid solutions that ignore the root of the problem, Canada needs to take action at changing unequal and unsustainable systems of production, consumption, and distribution….
BECAUSE IF OUR POLITICIANS WON’T GET TO WORK ON CLIMATE JUSTICE, WE WILL!

Step 1: Post this to your wall and invite all your friends to this event and tell them to do the same.

Step 2: Call any or all of the following politicians and let them know you support the five demands for Climate Justice.

Stephen Harper (Prime Minister): (613) 992-4211
John Baird (Acting Minister of Environment): (613) 996-0984

Michael Ignatieff (Leader of the Official Opposition): (613) 995-9364
Gerard Kennedy (Liberal Environment Critic): (613) 992-2936

Jack Layton (Leader, NDP): (613) 995-7224
Linda Duncan (NDP Environment Critic) (613) 995-7325

Gilles Duceppe (Leader Bloc Quebecois): (613) 992-6779
Bernard Bigras (Bloc Quebecois Environment Critic): (613) 992-0423

Step 3: Email your M.P. with the five demands and let them know that you support the action in parliament and want them to start talking to your community about what Canada really needs.

Find you M.P. here: http://webinfo.parl.gc.ca/MembersOfParliament/MainMPsCompleteList.aspx?TimePeriod=Current&Language=E

Got Twitter? Tweet this link to all the Federal leaders!
@pmharper, @M_Ignatieff, @jacklayton, @GillesDuceppe

Thanks for joining the fight for Climate Justice!