Toban Black

Here is a small set of photos from a recent critical mass bike rally here in London -

Mike also took this video as he arrived at the end of the ride.

Jim also has sent more photos.

I would have taken at least a couple more photos if I didn’t have camera battery problems.

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This ride was linked with a climate justice day of action — which you can read about at the end of this Ecojustice Declaration.
(Here are ways those links were made locally.)

[Read more →]

Here are some photos from an August climate camp gathering and protest in Dunham, Quebec — just north of Vermont. A tar sands pipeline and pumping station project (”Trailbreaker”) was our main target at the camp.

For more information, see this invitation, and this camp publication.

The main campaign around the climate camp is a way of blocking tar sands expansion, while helping out local victims, at the same time. The pipeline project cuts across Maine, Quebec, Ontario, Michigan, Illinois, and other surrounding areas — so there are plenty of points of intervention, and plenty of grounds for solidarity.

These photo sets are from the “convergence days” between August 18th and August 22nd.

Our climate camp was one of several during 2010; here is a list of 2010 climate camp web sites, in various Anglo and European countries.

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In the first photo there are signs that say ‘No dirty oil in our territory’ and  ‘climate action camp’ (in French).  The banners in other photos say ‘Change the system, not the climate’ (in French), ’stop the wave of destruction’ (in French), “CO2lonialism”, and ‘Change the system! Not the climate!’ “Trailbreaker = Tar sands”.

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A statement written for Climate Justice London, Ontario -

Members of our group took to the streets around the G20 Summit in Toronto with concerns about climate change, the Alberta tar sands, assaults on native sovereignty, and other environmental injustices. The Summit police in Toronto threatened, searched, arrested, and detained Climate Justice London activists, while other local climate justice activists stayed away from Toronto to avoid the G20 police regime. Our dissent was not permitted at the Summit. In fact, anyone who was outdoors in downtown Toronto was a potential target for the snatch squads, the riot cops, the mounted horse brigades, and thousands of other police at the Summit.  Our allies and our friends were pulled into this ‘security’ sweep, and all of us are left wondering which of the local police officers we encounter have brought their G20 summit training and hostility back to our cities.

Because we condemn this trampling of civil liberties, and because we always will call for democracy and social justice, members of our group have taken on leading roles in preparing a statement about police conduct and detention conditions at the G20 summit in Toronto.  People for Peace (London) activists helped to develop that London-specific version of the original statement from Toronto.  We hope that more Londoners will sign on to communicate their support.

Threats to our civil liberties will make it even more difficult to continue campaigning against environmental injustices — in a non-violent manner, without destructive sabotage tactics.

[Read more →]

I co-wrote this action report -
“Canadian action against Olympics sponsors and greenwashing”

Half of the photos are from me.

(A Grist photo)

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UK Climate Campers have said this on Twitter (in their “bio” statement) -
“It’s time to show our ‘leaders’ how we’re going to take action to reduce emissions ourselves. Because it’s business as usual at Copenhagen.”

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Cascadia Brian (of Rising Tide North America)
on the It’s Getting Hot in Here blog -
“Copenhagen and the end of naïveté”

A post from “tanuki” (of Rising Tide North America, and other networks)
on the It’s Getting Hot in Here blog -
“Out of the frying pan and into the streets!, or ‘How I stopped lobbying and put up my dukes!‘”
(I’m not re-posting that link to reject any and all lobbying — particularly at the municipal level, where lobbying impacts are more feasible.)

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Common people are going to have to sort these problems out;
and to accomplish that, we’re going to have to rise up — to take power.

We need to collectively re-make this world; and to do that, we’ll need to motivate and mobilize a lot more people — including ourselves, in some cases.

What are we waiting for? Let’s do this.
A lot more of us will have to be a lot more engaged in making this change happen.

Obama is not a radical superhero; and no one else out there is either.  There are no hero-saviours out there who are going to turn around these crises on, their own.

Join us in the climate justice movement
AND/OR
Join us in the pursuit of practical, community-level solutions.

[Read more →]

A car advertisement on the back of a local bus

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Andy Rowell on the Oil Change blog -
“Electric Vehicles May Increase CO2”
(I think it’s too much of a stretch to say that electric vehicles are “all the rage”; but some people definitely are looking toward them as ’solutions.’)

Brad Aaron on the Streetsblog New York City site -
“Do Your Part: Buy an Audi, Drive Fast” (in October)
(Evidently the author is using the word “transit” to refer to mass transit — such as buses.)

Fred Pearce in The Guardian -
“BMW’s ActiveHybrid X6 Accelerates Nonsense About High-performance, Low-emission Cars” (in September)

Brad Aaron on the Streetsblog New York City site -
“Ad Nauseam: Toyota’s (Passive-Aggressive) Ransom Note to America” (in October)

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Here are some related posts on this blog -
http://tobanblack.net/blog/?tag=automobiles

Andy Rowell on the Oil Change blog  -
“Big Oil Front Group Fights for Tar Sands” (in October)

Leo Hickman in The Guardian -
“CO2 is Green: The TV Advert Making Viewers Choke” (in September)

Anya Kamenetz on a Fast Company site -
“Head in the Tar Sands? The New York Times Runs Anti-Peak Oil Op-Ed” (in August)

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Coal industry PR

Amanda Terkel on Think Progress -
“‘Let’s Learn About Coal’: Industry Front Group Distributes Coloring Book On The ‘Advantages’ Of Coal”

Amanda Terkel on Think Progress -
“University Of Kentucky Approves New $7 Million Industry-Funded Dorm Named After ‘Coal’” (in late October)

“Sparki” on The Understory blog  -
“The Real FACES of Environmental Extremism” (in October)

[via Bouphonia]
(Click to enlarge)

That image…
is a metaphor for the divisions that separate the ‘First’ ‘World’ from the ‘Third’ ‘World’
and
it captures the ultimate dream of people who seek to profit without accountability for the consequences of their enterprises

Surbordination and exploitation are the lowest common denominators there.

[Read more →]

A post that I put together for the Waging Nonviolence web site -
“An invitation from the Mobilization for Climate Justice coalition”

This post introduces the U.S.-based Mobilization for Climate Justice, as well as similar critiques and activism associated with that Climate Justice coalition. As I indicate, the organizers in and around that coalition also address a range of energy & carbon issues (including tar sands pollution, and biofuel land grabs) — along with interrelated and more apparent global warming concerns. Their approach to these ecological issues is based on prior environmental justice critiques and activism, as well as wider opposition towards corporations, and other international market structures.

Climate Justice Action is another “climate justice” coalition. They seem to be a lot more connected with countries outside of North America — whereas The Mobilization for Climate Justice is very U.S.-based.

The phrase “climate justice” also is used by various other people — some of whom probably wouldn’t know anything about Climate Justice Action or the Mobilization for Climate Justice. The concept of climate justice was around for years before those two coalitions were formed, so the phrase has wider traction. Of course, the actual uses of that term are somewhat inconsistent; there is no absolute consensus about what ‘climate justice’ is.

[In this post I basically am following up another one titled "Waves of greenwash"]

Body Shop marketing in a mall

Shop for The Earth!
Buy from the Planetary Guardians!

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Exerpts from an article by Stan Cox in CounterPunch -
“The Political Economics of Greenwashing: Green as a Blackjack Table” (in 2008)

“In their desperation to keep the American economy afloat, government and business will be tossing overboard any proposals for real environmental protection. No time for such romantic foolishness when there are investments to be protected.”

“Not that we won’t be hearing about the environment; indeed, the next [commercial expansion] spurt, if it comes, is likely to be clothed in a green as green as the felt on a blackjack table.”

“For more than 30 years, The Body Shop and its CEO, self-styled anti-capitalist capitalist Anita Roddick, avidly cultivated a corporate image as pioneers of high business ethics. But The Body Shop has been dismissed by critics as no more than a world leader in pale-green consumerism.”

[Read more →]