Winning Progressive

(By Joanne Boyer, cross-posted at Wisdom Voices)

Grassroots organizing.  Local communities reinserting themselves into the decision making process that impacts their communities. “We the People” reclaiming our role in democracy.  Those elements serve as the most effective tools at our disposal today to fight the environmental battles of the 21^st century says Thomas Linzey, Executive Director and co-founder of the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund (“CELDF”).

“There cannot be sustainability unless people who are impacted by certain decisions are actually making the decisions about what impacts their communities,” Linzey said in a recent interview with Wisdom Voices.  “We live in a system in which our communities have been systematically divested of almost any governing authority to say ‘no’ to the types of projects such as fracking coming into their communities.

“What that means is that under the system of law that we have, communities are prohibited from banning a ‘legal use’. That means that when the state or federal government legalizes a certain project or use by creating a permitting or regulatory structure for it, then municipalities are prohibited from then banning that use.

“And, if local communities attempt to then ban the use (like a corporate factory farm, or fracking project), then they are sued by the corporation whose project has been affected. And, through that suit, the corporation can demand damages from the municipality for “interfering” with its use. That result is produced by a combination of the doctrines of preemption (by which state law via the permitting process overrides any local control) and through corporate “rights” (by which corporations have certain constitutional “rights” to property that the municipality is then interfering with).”

Sound a bit daunting to those local communities trying to keep corporations from polluting or changing the environmental landscapes around the country?  That’s where Linzey’s organization comes in to help.

Founded in 1995, CELDF provides free legal services to community-based environmental organizations. Through their work, CELDF has become the principal adviser to residents, citizens groups, and municipal governments struggling to transition from merely regulating corporate harms to stopping those harms by asserting local, democratic control directly over corporations.

“The joke here is that we are the law firm of last resort,” Linzey said.  “People usually contact us after they’ve tried everything they’ve been told to do and still find they don’t have a remedy.  We’ve learned to have a lot of patience, because initially people think the system is something that it isn’t.  People don’t understand how the system works until they are in the jaws of it.  So, for example, if a factory farm is moving in next door, someone may say to themselves: ‘This is going to cost me 60 percent of my property value.  Surely, the system compensates me for that.’ And lo and behold, the system doesn’t.

“Communities generally believe that someone is looking out for them and intervenes in an unjust situation for them. And generally that’s just not true.  We have to explain to them that logically it isn’t true.  That in fact there’s a system of law created over the past 200 years that is all about resource extraction and use and not about the rights of nature or of people in communities.  The laws were established to protect production and commerce at all costs. That’s how the Constitution was written and it was a natural thing because the people who wrote the Constitution looked out and saw an endless bounty of natural resources.  Their interest was in building a nation state, not necessarily in advancing rights, especially at the expense of the production and the commerce that was necessary to build a nation-state.

“So what we got was a Constitution that put the rights of production and commerce above communities and nature. The Founders didn’t know anything about deforestation and global warming. They just thought that to become a great nation state you had to exploit your natural resources, and god knows they did a wonderful job with this Constitutional system they put in place.

“We are now in a different time and that means we need to look at what a new structure of governance looks like that wasn’t written in the 1790s.  But rather one that’s written today for the contingencies we are facing.”

And slowly but surely local communities are organizing and fighting back with new laws.  Currently, the Environmental Legal Defense Fund operates in 24 states and is creating an international presence.  “We assisted Equator with the drafting of a new constitution in 2008 that includes a ‘Rights of Nature.’  It’s a concept in which ecosystems in nature have the right to exist and flourish independently of human use of those natural resources.  It makes Equator the first country in the world to move from a property-based system of environmental protection to a rights-based system of protection.

“We now get calls from Nepal, Italy, different locations around the globe from people with a recognition that the existing systems we have that treat ecosystems as property just aren’t working and will eventually guarantee that the ecosystems we have will be extinguished.  This is actually one of the exciting pieces of our work, to see that we are beginning to move away from a corporate created system of protection toward one that is ecosystem centered.”

The work of community organizing and local governance restructuring is also happening within the United States.  Linzey points to the example of the City of Pittsburgh, whose city council in 2010 adopted a local bill of rights banning fracking of natural gas from the city, as one of the best examples.

“I’m inspired by the 140 municipalities in seven states who have said: ‘We’re done with the regulatory route.  We’re going to move to make new laws that actually protect our communities from these types of projects and corporations.’  So every day brings a new success story in terms of communities standing up on their feet and refusing to use the ‘corporate tools’ they’ve been left with to try to slow down environmental destruction.

“What we need now is for those 140 communities to become 10,000 and then those 10,000 communities need to stitch themselves together and push state constitutional change.  That’s when you begin to change the basic DNA of the system.  And then you have to have enough of those states join together for a federal Constitutional change.  A movement needs to be created, one that expands civil, political and environmental rights out at the local level and then drives it upwards against those other systems.  That’s when real change happens.

“What gives us hope is that people are finally pulling their heads out of the regulatory quagmire.  They have given up begging and pleading for regulatory agencies to do the right thing.  They’ve given up asking corporations to do no harm.  They’ve given up asking their elected officials to do something at the state and federal level and instead, they are beginning to take the law into their own hands.”

Find Out More

The Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund web site provides a full list of resources available and offers a wealth of information including updates from communities around the country in their efforts to fight back against fracking, factory farms, and other environmental issues.

“We’re beginning to awake from our slumber,” Linzey said.  “For decades we’ve ‘left it to the professionals’ to take care of the environment and the think was that that was good enough.  People are now figuring out that the professionals have things to gain from the system they created.  It’s up to us now.  The national government isn’t going to save us.  The state government isn’t going to save us.  It’s up to the communities to create this new system of law.”

(By Mark Bridger, cross-posted at ThatMansScope)

Republicans these days, in their constant quest to be beneath contempt,  are required to be ignorant of science or completely dismiss it. Consequently, they either (a) deny climate change, (b) deny that it’s caused by greenhouse gasses, or (c) deny the human role in the accumulation of greenhouse gasses.

The Australian Broadcasting System has a wonderful science site that is free and that has very informative articles and videos illustrating many different aspects of research and discovery. You can reach the site by clicking HERE.

Recently there was an article explaining exactly why the overwhelming majority of scientists believe that humans are mostly the cause for the buildup of the major greenhouse gas CO2 (carbon dioxide). Basically, it’s the subtle variation in the presence of the different forms of carbon in modern plants, fossil fuels (made from ancient plants), and in the atmosphere now and in the past. The argument is clever, subtle, and convincing to those who are willing to read it without closing off their minds to a bit of quantitative thinking. The same article also explains why scientist also discount the role of volcanoes in the accumulation of CO2.  Here is the article.

(Coincidentally, Rick Santorum, when asked about CO2 recently, said: “”Tell that to a plant, how dangerous carbon dioxide is.” Well, as the above science article points out, scientists have actually asked plants, in a way, and the plants’ response is that burning fossil fuels has increased the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere significantly.)

I guess this post is a little too late to be read by my evangelical followers in Alabama and Mississippi who gave important victories to Rick Santorum recently. No doubt digesting a bit of actual science would have made them more critical about Republican positions on climate science, thus lowering their turnout in the primaries and shifting the margin to Mitt Romney. I’m pleased that through this late posting I could do my part in helping the PTR advance the most absurd of its candidates, thus doing my small part in helping to re-elect Obama.

(Should Santorum actually become President, I will discontinue this blog since there would be no real point in doing anything except letting craziness play out its course.)

For this weekend’s reading list we have stories on the impressive scope of President Obama’s achievements, the $635 billion we have wasted militarizing police forces, why full employment is good for the working class, why environmental funders need to focus on building a grassroots movement, and a debunking of climate deniers.

If you have feedback on any of these articles, or would like to recommend a story for next weekend’s reading list, let us know in the comment section below, or at the Winning Progressive Facebook page.

The Incomplete Greatness of Barack Obama – a thorough accounting of how President Obama has achieved more in the first three years of his Presidency than any other President has in decades. Here is our list of accomplishments achieved by the Obama Administration and Congressional Democrats in 2009 and 2010.

The Cost of America’s Police State – a report on the nearly $650 billion we have spent since the September 11 attacks militarizing police forces throughout the US against a threat that is largely non-existent.

The Case for Full Employment – an analysis showing how having full employment – i.e., the lowest unemployment rate consistent with stable inflation – as the goal of our economic system benefits working and middle class Americans and reduces economic inequality.

Cultivating the Grassroots: A Winning Approach for Environment and Climate Funders - a critique of how funders of environmental causes have focused too much on top-down, D.C. based strategies and not enough on building a grassroots movement to support and push the environmental agenda

Why the Global Warming Skeptics Are Wrong – a debunking of myths offered by climate deniers regarding whether climate change is occurring, how humans are causing climate change, how it will impact us, and whether climate scientists are profiting off concerns about climate change.

(By Josh Marks, cross-posted at Green Forward)

It is no secret the fossil fuel industry for years has been funding front groups denying the reality of human-caused climate change and working against clean energy technologies. These attacks on science and reason have amazingly come from the same dirty energy industry that is actually making contingency plans for the effects of man-made climate change. That’s right, Big Oil is well aware that the millions of tons of carbon they carelessly pump into the atmosphere is contributing to global warming so they are planning for the consequences, while at the same time spending millions of dollars discrediting climate scientists and misleading the public.

Thankfully, climate scientists like Michael Mann (the physicist and climatologist, not the Hollywood film director) are, to use a hockey analogy, dropping the gloves and fighting back against climate-change-denying think tanks like The Heartland Institute, American Enterprise Institute, Koch Family Foundations, The Manhattan Institute, The Heritage Foundation, Cato Institute and The Mercatus Center. Mann’s new book, titled “The Hockey Stick and the Climate Wars: Dispatches from the Front Lines,” is being released on March 6 and is going to expose the moneyed special interests behind the attacks on science and reason and convey to the public the fossil fuel industry giants funneling money to these anti-science front groups.

The title of the book comes from Mann’s controversial hockey stick graph, which shows the temperature record over the past 1,000 years and the sharply upward warming trend during the late 20th century.

Click here for a link to an insightful profile of Mann from Mother Jones via The Guardian’s Climate Desk.

Here is video of Mann discussing his new book.

(By Josh Marks, cross-posted at Green Forward)

When it comes to the green economy, sometimes it seems like the United States of America is stuck in neutral while the rest of the world is fully charged up and racing ahead at warp speed.

Take electric vehicles as an example pulled from recent headlines. The Chevy Volt, General Motors’ new plug-in hybrid electric vehicle, recently became a political punching bag on Capitol Hill by a Republican-led Oversight Committee on a witch hunt against any project related to the Obama administration. Before it was Solyndra and solar energy, now it is the Volt and electric vehicles.

Lack of political will from Republican lawmakers in Congress is really the only thing that is holding back the United States of America from leading the “next industrial revolution”—the clean energy economy that is already rapidly transforming countries like Germany, China, Brazil, Canada and other governments that get it when it comes to giving the market signals with cap and trade programs and taxes on carbon. The fossil fuel industry seems to have the Republicans on too tight a leash for them to make decisions on behalf of the American people and the future of this great country.

Perhaps Gabrielle Giffords can provide some inspiration and convince at least some of the Republican lawmakers in Congress (the Obama administration and most Democrats are already onboard the high-speed clean energy train) that they must break the shackles of the oil, gas and coal industries and begin to embrace renewable power sources such as solar, wind, geothermal, hydro, biomass, biofuel, tidal and wave.

Giffords is a big advocate for solar energy because her home state of Arizona is blessed by the sun. She has supported clean energy legislation as well as ending oil industry subsidies and redirecting that money into clean energy research.

When Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL) read Giffords’ letter of resignation on the House floor on January 25, she said the following:

“In public service, I found a venue for the pursuit of a stronger America by ensuring the safety and security of all Americans by producing clean energy here at home instead of importing oil from abroad.”

Here is video of the entire speech.

For this weekend’s reading list we have a moving photo essay about the human toll of coal mining, the dangers posed by the lawsuit to strike down the anti-marriage-equality Proposition 8 going to the Supreme Court, ways to save the global economy, the importance of unions to democracy and the middle class, and the political benefits of President Obama’s contraception compromise.

If you have any feedback on these articles, or would like to recommend an article for next weekend’s reading list, please let us know in the comments section below or at the Winning Progressive Facebook page.

Coal – The Big Picture – a moving photo essay of the terrible human toll that the mining of 7000 megatons of coal has on people in the nearly seventy countries worldwide that mine coal.

Gambling With Gay Marriage - An essay detailing how, for all of the legal merits of the federal court challenge to California’s anti-marriage-equality Proposition 8, the case poses a huge political risk of either a 5-4 Supreme Court decision in favor of bans on marriage equality or a 5-4 pro-equality decision that triggers a political backlash against marriage equality.

13 Out of the Tinderbox Ways to Save the Economy – A series of essays in this month’s Foreign Policy magazine about ways to save the global economy, including essays calling for reducing military spending, increasing inflation, a $1 trillion global investment in infrastructure, and greening cities.

Unions Make Democracy Work For the Middle Class -  A new report from the Center for American Progress about how unions are critical to both a secure middle class and a vibrant democracy

Contraception Row Could Rebound in Obama’s Favor - an argument that President Obama’s contraception “compromise” – which still ensures that everyone has access to no co-pay contraception – should politically benefit Obama as he has shown himself to be reasonable while the GOP has loudly taken a public position that is opposed to the views of the majority of Americans.