Category: Climate Change

CT Legislature Ends Session with No Major Climate Change Action – Again

by Jan Ellen Spiegel, CT Mirror, May 10, 2024

Connecticut’s environmental community awoke Thursday morning to yet another legislative session that took no substantial action on climate change.

Aside from some slight expansions for solar power and funding for some climate-focused projects in the bonding package, other major climate bills failed — a tiny improvement from the previous session, which resulted in no climate action, period.

“I would give the session as far as the environment is concerned a C-minus,” said Rep. Joe Gresko, D-Stratford, co-chair of the Environment Committee, which handled the two biggest bills.

Reaction from advocates was even more harsh.

“Appallingly, this session has turned out to be yet another failure for climate legislation and for Connecticut’s people, businesses, and future,” Charles Rothenberger, climate and energy attorney with Save the Sound said in a statement. “Where once we were a leader, we are now a laggard, watching impotently as our neighboring states adopt milestone policies commensurate to the threat that climate change poses. Connecticut cannot continue to allow itself to be held hostage to a vocal minority of climate change deniers that reject the science, reject the evidence of our own eyes, and reject the clear desire of Connecticut’s residents for meaningful action on climate.”

[Entire article available here: ctmirror.org/2024/05/10/ct-climate-change-hb-5004]

Rock to Rock Earth Day Ride April 27

by Chris Schweitzer, New Haven Climate Movement

Saturday, April 27, 8 a.m. to 1 p.m., East Rock Park. Orange and Cold Spring Streets. Rain or shine. Join for a beautiful spring ride or walk!

Rock to Rock is in its 16th year, and on Saturday, April 27, over 800 riders and hikers will head out from East Rock Park on various riding and hiking adventures to support over 20 local nonprofit environmental projects. All Rock to Rock activities will help people explore local natural beauty, build community, have fun, and support environmental/climate projects.

Rock to Rock Earth Day Ride is the area’s largest Earth Day event, supporting over 20 local environmental projects.

Participants are invited to do Rock to Rock in small groups at staggered starts. In 2024 you can ride a new 5-mile Family Ride, a 12-, 20-, 40- or 60-mile ride in a loop starting and ending in East Rock Park. For our youngest riders, we’ll have our Bike Rodeo and a 1-mile loop around the park. You also are welcome to hike around the base of East Rock. Common Ground is offering a West Rock hike as well. There will also be a Green Fair from 11–2 p.m. with food trucks, organization tables, and live music. Check out our website for all the details at www.rocktorock.org.

Participants will raise over $200,000 this year for local environmental projects. All of the participating organizations are continuing to step up to face the slower-moving climate emergency that’s still in the background and to work in a hundred different ways to make our community greener, healthier, more welcoming, and more connected.

Visit rocktorock.org to see the listing of our partner organizations, to register to ride and for the day’s schedule.

Climate Promise March and Rally in Hartford Feb. 2

by the Sierra Club CT

Calling All Earth Defenders, Justice Champions, and Activists for a Better Connecticut! Climate chaos is upon us and Connecticut is lagging behind on meaningful and equitable climate action. After a lackluster session in 2023, folks who care about the climate, the planet, and the well-being of all people in the state are coming together to plan on how to put pressure on our elected officials and regulatory agencies to Keep Connecticut’s Climate Promise. Focusing on issues like greenhouse gas reduction, clean energy, housing, job creation, and corporate responsibility, we will come together at the Old State House, 800 Main Street, at noon to march through Hartford on Feb. 2 and we will keep up pressure on the legislature throughout the 2024 session. We are hoping for an enormous turnout to remind the powers that be of who they work for and of our inalienable rights to a safe, healthy, and sustainable world.

For more information, please contact Ann Gadwah, Sierra Club CT at 860-733-2249, or [email protected]. Old State House, 800 Main Street, Hartford CT.

Tens of Thousands attend New York City Climate March Sept. 17, 2023

From “Democracy Now!” Sept. 18, 2023

Tens of thousands of people filled the streets of midtown Manhattan Sunday to send a clear message to the world and leaders coming to the city for the U.N. General Assembly this week: End fossil fuels.

Climate March in NYC, Sept. 17, 2023. Photos Paula Panzarella

As part of more than 200 actions around the world leading up to the first-ever United Nations Climate Ambition Summit this Wednesday, more than 700 grassroots groups together called on President Joe Biden to declare a climate emergency, stop all federal approvals for new fossil fuel projects, phase out production of fossil fuels on federal public lands, and build a new clean energy future.

Climate March in NYC, Sept. 17, 2023. Photos Paula Panzarella

Speakers at the massive march’s rally included New York Democratic Rep. Jamaal Bowman, environmental justice activist Sharon Lavigne, former Irish President Mary Robinson, actor Susan Sarandon and climate scientist Peter Kalmus. “Every little bit of fossil fuel we burn makes the planet a little hotter,” warned Kalmus, while Bowman and Robinson condemned fossil fuel investment as “subsidizing” the planet’s “own self-destruction.” Added Kalmus, “This is a task of cosmic importance. …

We are on the brink of losing absolutely everything.”

https://www.democracynow.org/2023/9/18/march_to_end_fossil_fuels_presser

New York City Climate March September 17

by Emma Willer, 350 CT

On Sunday, Sept. 17, thousands of climate activists will take to the streets of New York City to demand an end to fossil fuels. This action is strategically planned to take place three days before the UN Climate Ambition Summit, also happening in NYC. The march aims to amplify the urgent call for action against climate change and a transition to renewable energy.

A coalition of environmental organizations, Indigenous, youth, elderly, and social justice groups has organized the march. The demonstration will represent a powerful collection of voices demanding a sustainable future for all. Climate change is no longer a distant enemy, looming in the future. It is here and now. Wildfires and smoke in the air, flooding, extreme heat and cold no longer affect remote communities. Everyone, everywhere, has experienced and will continue to experience these environmental changes.

A Connecticut coalition is organizing folks into buses and trains to transport them to the march. We have planning meetings every Sunday evening now until the march, and we need volunteers to help hand out flyers and put up posters. If you’d like to join the effort in CT, go to 350ct.org or email [email protected]. The national group will be announcing the march route and details soon. Keep an eye out at endfossilfuels.us.

We have an opportunity to build this mass action into a movement. The major social changes that have occurred in this country have come out of mass movements: antiwar, civil rights, gay liberation, etc.

People taking to the streets and demanding what they want is personally empowering and creates real change.

Download the poster here.

Death in the Atlanta Forest: Stop Cop City!

by Melinda Tuhus, climate activist

What can you say about a young activist killed by police while trying to stop the destruction of an urban forest for the construction of a militarized police training facility to practice urban warfare? It marks an escalation of repression against the environmental justice/climate movement in the U.S. of the kind more commonly associated with Brazil or Mexico. It has prompted rallies and vigils around the country, including in Connecticut.

On Jan. 18, Manuel Esteban Paez Terán, 26, who took the forest name Tortuguita (“Little Turtle”) or Tort, was shot by police who were raiding various camps and tree sits in the forest that comprised the movement to Stop Cop City. The official police story – amplified by the mass media, the mayor and Governor Brian Kemp – is that someone shot at the officers first, injuring one, and the police returned fire. They said no camera footage is available, and for several days they didn’t produce a gun that they now say was bought legally by Paez Terán. They have also told conflicting versions of what happened. In one version police say they surrounded the tent while Tort was inside, leading to speculation that the officer was injured by friendly fire.

The Atlanta Police Foundation, a private entity, got permission from the city to build an actual town on 100 acres of forest, the better to practice urban policing. Not just activists, but local residents from the neighboring part of the city, which is majority people of color and lower income, oppose the project…

The opposition to Cop City – focused on racial and environmental injustice and climate concerns – has been militant and decentralized, with some people carrying out sabotage of heavy machinery and focusing their ire on the CEOs of companies participating in or funding the project. Some consider destruction of property violence, while others don’t, but it certainly doesn’t rise to the level of killing another human being. Tortuguita (who used they/them pronouns) declared on several occasions to reporter David Peisner their commitment to non-violence, if not as a belief system, then at least as a strategy: “The right kind of resistance is peaceful because that’s where we win. We’re not going to beat them at violence. They’re very, very good at violence. We’re not. We win through nonviolence. That’s really the only way we can win. We don’t want more people to die. We don’t want Atlanta to turn into a war zone.”

[Article can be read in its entirety at www.melindatuhus.net/blog/death-in-the-atlanta-forest-stop-cop-city]

Mass Extinction: Art, Ritual, Story, and the Sacred

Yale Institute of Sacred Music

In January and February, the Institute of Sacred Music is hosting a series of four webinars that explore topics relating to Mass Extinction: Art, Ritual, Story, and the Sacred. The talks are all offered via Zoom from 12-1 p.m. Anyone is welcome to join, though registration is required. Please register for each webinar event separately. For more information on each webinar and for the links to register, please go to ism.yale.edu/news/mass-extinction-art-ritual-story-and-sacred

Webinars at a glance

  • January 27: Sacred Lands, Sacred Ecologies: Poetic and Photographic Engagements with Craig Santos Perez and Subhankar Banerjee
  • February 3: Narrating Extinction in History and Myth with Sadiah Qureshi and Nancy Menning
  • February 17: Aesthetics of Extinction with Sugata Ray and Stefan Skrimshire
  • February 24: Remembering Lost Species: Rituals for the Anthropocene with Persephone Pearl, Emily Laurens, and Rachel Porter

New Haven Climate Movement Volunteer Recruitment

by Chris Schweitzer, New Haven Climate Movement

New Haven Climate Movement would like to invite YOU to get involved. Below are invitations to join the Electric Future, Climate Education and 2023 Campaign committees. There is much to do to cut deadly climate pollution, and we need your help. We need people to specifically help plan campaigns, do research on climate solutions, coordinate outreach, and develop public education materials.

Electric Future campaign – The Electric Future campaign is pushing New Haven to have 100 percent of its buildings, vehicles, and appliances powered by electricity. To truly decarbonize, we must power everything using clean energy, and electrification is a necessary step in that process. Additional benefits of electrification include long-term savings on energy bills and public health benefits from improved air quality. Tasks: coordinate public education, work with City departments; advocate for more city investment and policies to support electrification; research solutions.

Climate Education Committee – advocate for more climate education in schools; support implementation of Board of Education Climate Emergency Resolution to reduce carbon emissions and other pollution (research, meeting with BoE committees); recruit new members, especially students; support NHCM’s Climate Justice Schools program.

2023 Campaign Committee – call on individuals, organizations, and governments in the greater New Haven area to substantially reduce their fossil fuel emissions in 2023. Public education; outreach to organizations; graphic design and video creation.

More info at newhavenclimatemovement.org, or email [email protected].

Fighting for Climate Justice, in the Streets and in the Court

by Melinda Tuhus, PAR reader and environmental activist

I was one of 15 elders arrested back in June for sitting in rocking chairs in the street for about a half-hour in front of JP Morgan Chase’s credit card headquarters in Wilmington, Delaware. It’s an impressive building, with an impressive sculpture of an eagle with outstretched wings flying from a tall pedestal – a perfect spot for two of us to unfurl a big banner calling on President Joe Biden and Chase Bank to do the right thing and stop investing in fossil fuel projects. Chase is by far the biggest investor in such planet- and people-killing practices.

In our trial for disorderly conduct that took place on November 12 – the last scheduled day of the COP 26 global climate summit in Glasgow, Scotland – Judge Kerry Taylor allowed the 11 pro se defendants (acting without a lawyer) to submit reports about the climate crisis and the role of banks in funding it.

We pursued a “choice of evils” strategy, which under Dela-ware law allows someone to break the law to prevent a greater “imminent” harm. The prosecutor, who was the arresting officer, kept asking defendants who took the witness stand how their blocking the road prevented “imminent” harm that would justify the inconvenience to motorists who were delayed for a short time. Defendants testified to the drastic “imminent” harms already occurring due to climate change, like the fact that on the day of the protest, temperatures reached 108 degrees in the Northwest, part of a multi-day heatwave that killed at least 600 humans and a billion sea creatures.

Getting this documentation into the record was historic, as judges almost never allow a choice of evils defense – also known as a necessity defense. It was part of our carefully crafted four-prong strategy: presenting the science; present-ing an expert witness who talked about the health impacts of the climate crisis; presenting documentation about the role of banks and Chase Bank in particular in funding the crisis; and presenting another expert witness who testified about the success of taking nonviolent direct action in winning climate concessions from a different bank.
After all that, Judge Taylor found us guilty.

I am more committed than ever to having a regular presence outside the Chase Bank branch in downtown New Haven in the month of December to continue putting pressure on the bank to stop funding fossil fuel projects, as part of a national campaign. Please contact me at [email protected]. Put CHASE in CAPS in the subject line if you would like to help.

For the full story in the New Haven Independent: www.newhavenindependent.org/index.php/archives/entry/why_we_rocked_for_climate_justice

North Haven Forum on Climate Change Convenes Forum to Reduce Fossil Fuel Use

By Kenny Foscue, North Haven Clean Energy Task Force

One of our North Haven Clean Energy Task Force’s successes is that we meet quarterly with our 1st Selectman Mike Freda and collaborate on campaigns, etc. We recently decided it was time to “circle back” to town residents to make sure they are making the link between human-caused climate change and the many storms, tornadoes and floods that have plagued our town. We wanted to present “news you can use” about what you can do, with a focus on the home.

Last week, we sponsored a forum on climate change, with a focus on Connecticut, with information about what residents could do to reduce fossil fuel use. Robert Klee from the Yale School of the Environment and Yale Law School, and former DEEP Commissioner spoke; Mauro Diaz-Hernandez of the Yale Center on Climate and Health presented on environmental and public health impacts of climate change, and I presented on specific measures and programs for residents. The forum was taped by the local cable TV station and was “not filmed before a live audience” because of COVID concerns. The link is below and also on our town’s home page. We have been promoting it on Facebook and other sites. Please take a look – we think it might be a good model for other towns – a way of trying to make sure we are continuing to “bring folks along.” vimeopro.com/northhaventv/nhtv-on-demand-videos/video/643697440

Nightmare on Grove Street Public Action October 29th, 5pm

Come demand climate action.
Climate Nightmare on Grove Street:
At “Scariest Place in New Haven” – Yale power plant emitting over 100,000 tons of greenhouse gas emissions per year.

Rally includes ghosts and witches and other creepy things….

Special Awards to be presented:
Dracula Award for institution that keeps sucking from future generations and their present GHG emissions will be attacking life for 1000s of years.

Zombie Award for institution that keeps doing same thing and stuck in fossil fuel mindset.
Frankenstein Award for institution that’s not very bright as continues addiction to fossil fuels when clear need to stop or face disaster.

Friday, Oct. 29, 5 p.m.
Grove and York Streets

Please share and invite friends:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/p/CVT5sVUsklg/?utm_medium=copy_link
Facebook Event: https://fb.me/e/2zNravuNT
and Cool Creepy TikTok Video:
https://vm.tiktok.com/ZM8AaYTGu/

It’s No Coincidence that Power Plants Are in Poor Neighborhoods

Stanley Heller, Promoting Enduring Peace

A climate rally in Hartford on Sept. 18 blasted the usual practice of putting power plants and waste processing facilities in minority and poor areas, calling it environmental racism. Speakers, almost all of whom were people of color, spoke from the park’s bandshell, in front of signs that read “Fossil fuels make us sick,” and “End environmental racism.”

They called on Gov. Ned Lamont, who talks “green” but makes no objection to pipelines and fossil fuel power plants, to change his tune.  In particular, speakers mentioned Killingly in the poorer eastern part of the state that will be saddled with another methane-burning power plant if industry and Lamont have their way. It will also pump out massive amounts of global warming gases. About 100 watched from grassy areas not in the surprisingly blistering September sun.

A number of groups had tables or booths at the rally. Promoting Enduring Peace had a booth draped with banners about our bold ideas on climate. Rather than appeal to the fossil fuel companies like Exxon and Shell to go “green,” PEP called for the popular takeover of the whole fossil fuel industry and its gradual abolition. We called for carbon capture by preserving mature trees (like the ones in Remington Woods in Bridgeport) and re-wilding land. We also asked for rationing the use of burned fuels (not only fossil fuels, but so-called “bioenergy”) as long as it’s absolutely necessary to use them.

Earlier in September, a Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection report revealed that Connecticut is not even on track to meet targets set by the CT Legislature for reducing its greenhouse gas emissions. The latest figures were from 2018 and showed that emissions actually rose from 2017 to 2018. The elite may think environmental racism keeps them safe, but we are losing the battle for a livable climate and that will be disastrous for all.

To see the video of the rally go to PEPeace.org.

We Are in a Climate Emergency

Melinda Tuhus, CT Climate Crisis Mobilization (C3M)

In light of the release of the latest – and grimmest – report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, two dozen New Haveners gathered on the Green on Friday, Aug. 13, to raise the alarm locally.

The report says humans have definitively caused the warming of the planet, that it is accelerating, but that there is still a small window of opportunity to avoid the worst impacts, like global drowning from sea level rise. One banner pointed to the rise in sea level, which could be as much as 30 feet by 2100 without drastic action, putting New Haven and the entire Connecticut shoreline underwater.

Joe Foran came with his eldest son, Joseph, who is 7. Foran said that after listening to dire climate news on the radio every morning, “My two sons were upset and asked me to not play the radio before school.” Later he added, “We are not just avoiding the news altogether. We are struggling as a family with how we tell them the truth in a way that is not overly burdensome to their young minds and young souls. I think the real thing that makes a difference for the kids are actions like today, where they gain their agency and they aren’t just passive victims of the climate madness.”

The other focus of the rally was to point out that Chase Bank is the biggest funder, by far, of the fossil fuel industry and to call on Chase to specifically stop funding Enbridge’s construction of the Line 3 tar sands pipeline across Anishinaabe treaty territory in northern Minnesota.

As an organizer with CT Climate Crisis Mobilization (C3M) I went to Minnesota and was one of 700 people – and counting – to be arrested along the pipeline route.

Eluned Li, a member of Sunrise New Haven, went to Minnesota in June, where she observed peaceful water protectors being abused by the police departments that are paid by Enbridge.

Members of ULA (Unidad Latina en Acción) came, holding a banner featuring Berta Cáceres, an indigenous land defender in Honduras who was murdered for her courageous opposition to a dam project. The climate crisis and the migration crisis are linked, with many ULA members fleeing their homes in Central America due to the ravages of stronger hurricanes and devastating drought.

After the rally, participants carried banners down the block to stand in front of Chase Bank, chanting, “Hey, JP Morgan Chase: bad investment, big disgrace!” and, “If you want it drier, hotter, fund Line 3: wipe out more water!” The company is taking five billion gallons of water for construction in the middle of a drought. Participants passed out flyers asking New Haveners to contact CEO Jamie Dimon.

To get involved, contact Melinda Tuhus at [email protected] or go to the website www.CTClimateCrisisMobilization.org or Facebook page CTClimateCrisis Mobilization.

[A version of this article with the above (donated) photo was published in the New Haven Independent Aug. 15. https://www.newhavenindependent.org/index.php/archives/entry/climate_rally]

Sign New Haven Bike Vision Petition

by Chris Schweitzer, New Haven Climate Movement

The Mayor and Board of Alders must act rapidly over the next three years (2021-2024) to create an interconnected, protected bike network in New Haven. As the New Haven Bike Vision report shows, there are successful models of street reconfiguration for limited costs, and converting just 6% of City street space to protected bike infrastructure would create an effective citywide bike network. Created in consultation with community members, this bike network would be an important part of a comprehensive redesign of multimodal transit in New Haven that would give residents and visitors safe, healthy, sustainable options to move around New Haven.

For more equitable use of public space, for environmental justice, and because of the climate emergency, we must act now. Sign and more info at:
newhavenclimatemovement.org/new-haven-bike-vision.

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