WE’RE GEARING UP FOR THEMARCH TO END FOSSIL FUELS — A MASS DEMONSTRATION IN NEW YORK CITY LEADING UP TO THE UNITED NATIONS CLIMATE AMBITION SUMMIT.
Thousands of us will take to the streets of New York to demand President Biden leads the way off fossil fuels for a livable future — and we’re starting to mobilize now.
We’ll launch this action with a special call on Thursday, June 15th, where we’ll be joined by actress and climate activist Jane Fonda to share more details on the march and ways to start getting involved.
What: Kickoff Call for the ‘March to End Fossil Fuels’
When: Thursday, June 15, at 8 pm ET
Who: JANE FONDA & Movement Leaders from across the U.S.
Thanks for your interest in the fight to Stop Cop City and Defend the Atlanta Forest. I am part of an emerging coalition in Connecticut building solidarity events and raising funds for Atlanta Forest Defenders. On Tuesday, Feb. 7, we had our first meeting with around forty activists and community members from around the state. Coalition participants include members of Sunrise CT, 350CT, Service Employees International Union, Connecticut Climate Crisis Mobilization (C3M), Workers’ Voice, National Education Association, Herban Bridge Allies, Save Remington Woods, CT DSA EcoSocialists, Greater New Haven NAACP, and more. We hope to substantially expand individual and organizational supporters.
The next planning meeting will be on Zoom, Thursday Feb. 16 @ 7PM. Please register here!
For updates, we suggest following the coalition’s Instagram: @stopcopcityct
We ask that supporters share this email with friends, family, coworkers, and their organizing lists!
Stop Cop City CT Coalition is calling for pickets against major Cop City supporters during a nationwide week of action from Feb. 19-26. Connecticut is home to AXA XL Reinsurer’s international headquarters. AXA XL is the main insurance company backing the project and has been identified as the main target of activists’ corporate campaign.
The current week of action plan includes mass flyering and postering every day, as well as in-person pickets:
Monday Feb. 20, 11AM-1PM
AXA XL Headquarters, 677 Washington Blvd, Stamford, CT
Friday Feb. 24, 11AM-1PM
Atlas Technical Consultants, 290 Roberts St, East Hartford, CT
More Information about Cop City and the movement against it!
Cop City is the name given by the movement to a proposed massive new police training facility in Atlanta. The construction of Cop City would be a major blow to local ecosystems as well as the civil liberties and general comfort of surrounding communities, which are composed of majority working class Black people. Specifically, Cop City would be used to conduct large-scale training on militarized urban policing in the vein of the SCORPION unit in Memphis whose officers recently brutally murdered Tyre Nichols. Residents in surrounding communities already complain about the sounds of gunshots regularly emanating from the police shooting range in the area slated for the training center’s development.
Cop City also entails a major destruction of potentially hundreds of acres of the Atlanta/Weelaunee Forest, which would add to urban heating and flooding as well as destroy an important public community space. The run-off from construction and use of the facility, as well as increased soil erosion, will have poor effects on the important and vulnerable South River. Local communities, which are predominantly Black and working class, are already suffering from worsening flooding due to climate change and erosion and deforestation in the forest. The construction of Cop City is a textbook example of environmental racism. At every moment of public comment, the vast majority of community members have voiced extreme opposition to the project, including over 17 hours of public testimony to the City Council before the latter voted for approving the project.
Local police, CEOs, and media have been portraying the movement to Stop Cop City in various negative ways, but the reality is that the vast majority of actions have been community building events – including potlucks/cookouts, forest clean-ups, and peaceful demonstrations often led by young children from Atlanta. In recent days, labor leader Chris Smalls (Amazon Labor Union) as well as students from the Atlanta University Center, a group of allied HBCUs, have spoken outpublicly against Cop City. 33 faculty members at Morehouse College (a component of the AUC) recently released an Open Letter denouncing Cop City.
The government in Georgia, with support from city, County, and Federal police units, has launched a severe crackdown on civil liberties. In the last two months, nineteen activists have been arrested and charged with “domestic terrorism” despite a total lack of evidence. Police officers shot and killed a protestor, Manuel (Manny) “Tortuguita” Paéz Terán, with a story that keeps changing and contradicts the narratives from other activists as well as unaffiliated community members. Recently released bodycam footage appears to further contradict the cop’s original story. Georgia Governor Brian Kemp declared a state of emergency, which is ongoing, that gives him unilateral power to shut down any organized demonstration with force and can mobilize up to 1000 National Guards members for this purpose. These are chilling escalations in a growing state of repression against protest rights which could have national ramifications.
Building solidarity with the movement in Atlanta to Stop Cop City is essential for all of us that support civil liberties and oppose all forms of racism and ecological destruction.
I write to you with a heavy heart. Atlanta police yesterday murdered Manuel Teran, known to comrades as Tortuguita. Tortuguita’s “crime” was defending a forest in the heart of Atlanta — but not just any forest, one that is being destroyed so that the police can have more space for their “Cop City” training the police using military-grade facilities.
If you have not been following this critical campaign, the Atlanta Police Foundation — a private entity — received governmental clearance to begin destroying Weelaunee Forest to build Cop City over the objections of local Atlanta residents. The Cop City project threatens the forest, along with the expansion of Blackhall studios—slated to bulldoze another section of the Weelaunee Forest to build movie production sound stages. After exhausting legal channels, organizers moved into the forest, occupying trees and slowing down construction, while running a campaign targeting the Police Foundation and private contractors. You can learn more about the perniciousness of police foundations in this report. Yesterday, police moved in full force to evict the encampment, using their usual litany of brutal tactics.
As we’ve seen all too often with police brutality (especially when waged on Black communities), we can expect the usual false claims of “self-defense,” coupled with an attempt to smear the victim. We will also likely hear a lot about “appropriate” and “inappropriate” forms of protest. I assure you, we stand with the Atlanta Forest Defenders and all of those who defend the land, the water, and the planet. Unfortunately, we also fear — given what we have seen at Standing Rock, in Atlanta, and during the uprising in the wake of the murder of George Floyd — that police violence will increasingly become the norm, not the exception to protest movements here in the U.S.
We will continue to track these threats and we promise to keep you informed about what you can do to support the frontline activists at Stop Cop City.
Even with heavy hearts, our movement carries on with determination and radical joy(e): tomorrow, we honor another hero who passed away too soon, Joye Braun, the first camper at Standing Rock, who spent decades on the frontlines defending Indigenous lands. We hope you will sign up and join an event in honor of Joye if you haven’t yet — we need all of us in this fight.
Thanks to the historic struggle by the nations of the Global South, COP 27 ended with a commitment to develop a fund for the “loss and damage” wrought by extreme weather in the semi-colonial world, but the fund remains without structure, without money, and without the rich emitting nations assuming liability. This shameful conclusion makes it all the more important that the U.S. climate justice movement prioritize solidarity with the powerful movements being led by organizations defending working people and farmers against fossil fuel giants on the African continent.
One of those struggles centers on the East Africa Crude Oil Pipeline (EACOP). French oil giant Total and the China National Offshore Oil Corporation are on the cusp of building a massive crude oil pipeline right through the heart of Africa – displacing communities, endangering wildlife and tipping the world closer to full-blown climate catastrophe. A powerful #STOPEACOP alliance, that includes 350 Africa, has been formed. Join us to learn and plan out solidarity action.
Hear Diana Nabiruma, Africa Institute for Energy Governance (AFIEGO).
Diana Nabiruma is a Senior Program and Communications Officer with AFIEGO, an organization based in Uganda that has been central to efforts to stop fossil fuel expansion in Uganda.Nabiruma leads her organization’s movement building, communication as well as advocacy efforts to stop the expansion of fossil fuels.
