The first annual Earth First! California Roadshow will be traveling through the state this month to build connections between bioregions and different ecological resistance groups, and to promote the upcoming Organizers' Conference and Winter Rendezvous in Santa Barbara. About a dozen events are scheduled from January 12th to 24th, including stops in Santa Cruz (Jan. 13), Santa Rosa (Jan. 15) and Fresno (Jan. 20), to feature skillshares, music and information about ecology-based resistance to hierarchical power structures. Read more

Wednesday at 6pm: Anarchism & Fiction / Earth First! Bio-Regional Resistance Tour

Looking back on a life growing up in East Palo Alto, 24-year-old Re'Anita Burns cannot remember a time when there was not a monster living her backyard. The monster was a hazardous waste disposal company, Romic Technologies, with billowing smokestacks that spewed foul-smelling chemicals into this low-income community of color.

After Re'Anita and other members of Youth United for Community Action (YUCA) helped shut down the monster, The Nation hailed their victory over Romic as one of the top 10 youth activism victories of 2007.

Now, entering a second decade of community organizing, Re'Anita fights in YUCA's battle for affordable, decent housing in East Palo Alto. Giant landlord Page Mill Properties went into receivership in 2009, which led to some long overdue changes fought for by YUCA members, including improved apartment complex maintenance. However, Page Mill raised rents in violation of the city's rent stabilization ordinance before its financial collapse. Re'Anita refuses to give up on the tenants who need relief, and is working to roll back rents in Page Mill apartments.

Read the article | Youth United for Community Action

A poorly researched article on California water, the "New Dust Bowl," is online and appeared in the November-December edition of Mother Jones magazine, a publication known for its investigative reporting. Dan Bacher, an Indybay contributor and editor for Fish Sniffer, critiques the article, stating, "The 'New Dust Bowl' sounds just like a headline from the Sean Hannity Show or Fox 'News' - and the article reads like a propaganda piece for growers on the west side of the San Joaquin Valley."

"On the west side of the valley, which is often last in line for deliveries from federal water projects, farmers are selling prized almond trees for firewood, fields are reverting to weed, and farmworkers who once fled droughts in Mexico are overwhelming food banks," claims the author, Josh Harkinson. "In short, the valley is becoming what an earlier generation of refugees thought they'd escaped: an ecological catastrophe in the middle of a social and economic one—a 21st century Dust Bowl."

In falsely portraying the west side as "a 21st century Dust Bowl," Harkinson sounds here like a speech writer for one of Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger's rants for a rally of the Latino Water Coalition, an "Astroturf" organization set up by the Governor and San Joaquin Valley growers to put a "human face" on corporate agribusiness in order to promote the construction of a peripheral canal and more dams and to strip protections for Central Valley salmon, Delta smelt and other fish species under the Endangered Species Act.

Read more | The PR Firm from Hell | Another Right Wing March and Rally for Water | The Three Big Lies Behind the Peripheral Canal | Arnold Astroturfs His Way to Environmental Destruction | Environmental Groups Around State Oppose Scary Legislative Water Package | San Joaquin Poverty and Industrial Agribusiness: Law Review Article by Lloyd Carter | We Expected Better of the Network That Gave Us Edward R. Murrow | USDA Data Dispels Myth that West Side Growers 'Feed the Nation'

Global UN Climate negotiations are proceeding in Copenhagen with over one hundred heads of state expected to attend in the next week. 2009 was the fifth hottest year on record, and scientists are saying a Climate Treaty is more urgent with global carbon emissions still increasing and acidification threatening marine biodiversity.

On December 12th, 100,000 people took to the streets of Copenhagen, but around 3pm police charged into the march and made arbitrary arrests of an estimated 1,000 people. Further protests are occurring over the next week inside the conference center and on the streets.

Read More | Indymedia.org Coverage | 350.org | Denmark Indymedia | Live Video Coverage

Copenhagen Protests: Danish police arrest nearly 1,000 protesters at climate conference | Supporting Poor, Vulnerable Nations | Glimpse at Activist Preparations in Copenhagen | Naomi Klein: Fate of Planet Rests on Mass Movement for Climate Justice | Climate Justice Activists Enter Day 34 of Hunger Strike

UN Climate Negotiations: G77 Chief Condemns Secret US-Danish Climate Deal | Walden Bello: Climate and Capitalism in Copenhagen | Bolivia responds to US on Climate Debt: "If you break it, you buy it."

Impacts Of Climate Change: Climate Change is a Feminist Issue | Scientist: Extinction threatens Coral Reefs unless CO2 limited to 350ppm | Indigenous Leaders at the Front Line of Climate Change | Angelique Kidjo Speaks Out on Climate Change

Recent Local Indybay Climate Change Coverage: Protest at Chevron Headquarters in San Ramon | N30 - International Day of Action for Climate Justice | Climate Activists Rally by the Ocean, the Redwoods, in Cities and Suburbs

PORTLAND — Dec 16th, 2009 — Jeff Free Luers, political prisoner and environmental activist, was released from the Columbia River Correctional Institution this morning after serving nine and a half years. Luers was originally sentenced in 2001 to twenty two years and eight months for the politically motivated arson of three SUVs at a car dealership in Eugene, OR. This sentence was deemed grossly disproportionate to the damage sustained by the car dealership and was condemned by legal professionals, human rights groups and activists worldwide. At an appeal hearing in 2007 it was ruled that Luers' original sentence was illegal, and was consequently reduced to ten years.

Luers' release today comes after what Oregon Department of Corrections described as a 'mistake' when they released him early on October 20th this year. After a few short hours of freedom, Luers was taken back into custody in Eugene after the State agency reversed its decision and determined that he did not qualify under the new House Bill 3508 for an additional 10% reduction in sentence. DOC's gross incompetence in this situation, and the emotional toll borne by his family and loved ones, is just one of many examples of the distressing levels of bureaucratic impropriety that Luers has endured during his years behind bars.

Upon his release this morning, Mr. Luers stated, "The last 9 years have been difficult at best. I have witnessed things in prison that I will carry with me for the rest of my life. I have endured hardship and loss. Without a doubt, this experience has changed me. What hasn't changed is my commitment to environmental and social justice."

Read more | Free Jeff Luers

Chevron, the largest and most polluting corporation in the state of California, was targeted by environmental activists on December 7th for undermining efforts to combat global warming. Demonstrators said that Chevron is using its immense financial resources to influence federal environmental policy. They interrupted business as usual at Chevron by blocking entrances to the corporation’s headquarters in San Ramon. Police arrested 31 demonstrators, who were cited and released.

Cathy Kunkel of Mobilization for Climate Justice said, "By working to derail effective climate change policy in the U.S., Chevron is undermining the UN climate negotiations where other nations are looking to the U.S. to make binding commitments to reduce emissions." Climate preservation activists report that that Chevron’s opposition to significant action on climate change is in line with its history of environmental and human rights abuses in communities all over the world.

The protest and non-violent civil disobedience was organized by a coalition representing more than 30 Bay Area social justice, environmental justice, and human rights groups, and was timed to coincide with the UN climate negotiations in Copenhagen, Denmark. The San Ramon Chevron demonstration was one of many protests this week both nationally and globally.

Read more | Videos: 1

On November 30th, the 10th anniversary of the global justice movement’s successful non-violent shut-down of the WTO in Seattle, activists exposed some of San Francisco’s worst climate criminals, demanding that they stop financing climate change and standing in the way of climate solutions. They also demanded that these corporations stop lobbying against climate policy and blocking a strong international agreement at Copenhagen.

Protesters met at Justin Herman Plaza marched to a non-violent civil disobedience at the Bank of America where about two dozen people were arrested. Activists elsewhere set out for other targets.

Photos: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7
Video: 1 | 2 | 3
Realtime Video and Photo Updates
Actions from Around North America

See Also: Announcement | Earth First Nonviolent Civil Disobedience Training for Int'l Day of Action for Climate | Mobilization for Climate Justice, West

Previous Related Indybay Features: U.S. Climate Policy Slammed by Climate Justice Protest in San Francisco | August 15 Mobilization for Climate Justice at Chevron’s Polluting Oil Refinery in Richmond

Danny Blackgoat, a longtime Dine' (Navajo) resister of forced relocation, will be traveling from his home at Big Mountain (AZ) this weekend to speak in Santa Cruz on Friday, Nov. 13th and San Francisco on Saturday, Nov. 14th. He will be screening a new 24 minute film featuring Pauline Whitesinger, and giving an hour long presentation about relocation, coal mining, and recent happenings at Black Mesa.

Since 1974, federal relocation policy has forced 14,000 Dine' people from their ancestral homeland in Arizona. This genocidal policy was crafted by government agents and energy company representatives in order to gain access to the mineral resources of Black Mesa - billions of tons of coal, uranium and natural gas. For over 30 years, traditional Dine' at Black Mesa have lived in resistance, steadfastly refusing to relocate as strip-mines rip apart their sacred lands and generating plants poison the desert air.

Both events are benefits for the 2009 Fall Caravan to Black Mesa.

Today the concentration of CO2 in our planet's atmosphere is 390 ppm, say the organizers of 350.org, a group that called for an international action on October 24th. They helped organize more than 5,200 rallies in 181 countries, calling it the most widespread day of political action in history. In countries throughout the world activists called for a reduction of CO2 to a maximum of 350 ppm, and in Northern California residents in many of the state's diverse micro-climates took part in the big day.

In Santa Cruz, marchers carried placards through town to the clock tower where they held a mock trial of the automobile. In Humboldt County, demonstrators chose the ancient redwood forest in Richardson Grove as their site for protest because it is threatened by Caltrans’ proposal to widen highway 101. In San Francisco, folks spread a giant 350 banner across Justin Herman Plaza to call attention to this important number.

In Menlo Park, a San Francisco peninsula suburb, the Raging Grannies sang their message, saying the trick is getting leaders to craft policies that will get us to the number 350. In addition to lobbying politicians, the Grannies have joined a year-long project led by Menlo Park's Green Ribbon Committee to promote homeowner installation of "cool roofs" that, because they are white or other light colors, can help protect the earth's atmosphere.

Photos: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | Video | 350.org

Donna Bird, Writes:, "In New Zealand we seem to have become the dumping ground for U.S. chemicals and the experimental ground for the biotech products manufactured in the United States and we are paying the price. New Zealand is being turned into a parking lot. Our forests, waterways and our health are all being systematically destroyed by your patented products which are designed to kill things.

"We banned your nuclear ships but the thing is, it feels like you ‘nuked’ us anyway. The deaths and destruction are subtle. It will leave the infrastructure behind but the soil and water will not ensure safe habitation for who knows how long….if ever.

"Very recently we a had minor victory with the Taupo District Council banning 1080 aerial drops. This evil compound made in Alabama, enough to kill 20 million people every year, is shipped to NZ to kill opossums. Our death by poison rate is 3 times that of the road toll.

"Why is there such a need for the U.S to control everything? Why can’t you people be satisfied with what you have got? Why so greedy? Your products are destroying the world on a global scale and we’re supposed to like you? Can’t you people look at the big picture and think at least 6 generations ahead?" Read more

Tempers flare at dog-death meeting In New Zealand - Environmental Activist Thrown Out | The Criminal Cover-up Of Pam Marrone's Agraquest Operation | Injured Agraquest Biotech Worker David Bell Tells His Story | Pam Marrone & Agraquest You Will Not Get Away With Your Environmental/Healthcare Crimes | New Zealander Donna Bird Poisoned By Spraying "You guys in America have to stop that"

A coalition of organizations from up and down the west coast arrived in San Francisco on September 21st to deliver a message to U.S. lawmakers and polluting corporations. The protest rally started at the San Francisco office of Senator Barbara Boxer, chair of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee that will be presenting a Climate and Energy Bill currently in Congress by the end of the week.

A letter was delivered to, and a delegation met briefly with Jennifer Tang, Senior Field Representative for Boxer, as activists below chanted, "set the cap, scrap the trade. CLIMATE JUSTICE" and unfurled a 35 foot parachute banner (painted by participants over the weekend) below Boxers office windows that read, "CLIMATE JUSTICE OR CLIMATE CHAOS."

The protest then moved to Chevron Oil Corporation’s downtown San Francisco "Energy Solutions" office (345 California St.). Participants occupied the front entryway as retired Richmond kindergarden teacher Michael Beers of the Richmond Progressive Alliance and Antonia Juhasz, author of the Tyranny of Oil spoke about Chevron role in driving climate pollution and using their billions in profit to lobby against real climate solutions. The group then took over the intersection outside of the building housing Chevron, occupying and briefly shutting down the busy financial district intersection with the giant parachute banner.

The action capped a weekend-long gathering, the West Coast Climate Justice Convergence, consisting of environmental and social justice organizations and activists and from Richmond, the Bay Area and the West Coast, including many from Rising Tide chapters. The gathering planned local climate solutions, and made plans for build grassroots political pressure and “street heat” in the lead up to the December 7-18, 2009 Copenhagen climate talks.

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