General

Week of Action in Solidarity with Stop Cop City / Defend Atlanta Forest

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Hello 350CT!

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

In solidarity,

Fiona

[email protected]

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.

Statement by National Director of 350 on Police Murder of Forest Defender Manuel Ternam

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January 19, 2023

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.

With rage and determination,

Jeff Ordower
North America Director
350.orgon

The Struggle to Stop the East Africa Crude Oil Pipeline Continues

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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. A family in East Africa cooks and smiles at the viewer.

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.

Saturday, December 10, 2022

10:00 am NYC Time—Online

To register:  bit.ly/3Vf2Wcd

Hosted by 350CT & CT Climate Crisis Mobilization

Info:   [email protected]

             929-500-1257

 

 

Environmental Groups Ask Lamont for a Holiday Gift: Say “NO” to NTE

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PRESS RELEASE

For Immediate Release: December 15, 2020

For More Information Contact:
Louis Rosado Burch, CT Program Director, Citizens Campaign for the Environment
[email protected], (m) 475.434.1606

Samantha Dynowski, State Director, Sierra Club CT Chapter
[email protected], (m) 860.916.3639

Emily Alexander, Climate Policy Advocate,Connecticut League of Conservation Voters
[email protected], (m) 860-617-8120

 

Environmental Groups Ask Lamont and CGA for a Holiday Gift: Say “NO” to Killingly

CT Deserves Clean Air & Climate Change Action for the Holidays

 

Killingly, CT—Environmental advocates, elected officials and community leaders joined together for a virtual press event today to highlight public opposition to NTE Partners’ proposed fracked gas plant in Killingly, and to call for a moratorium on new fossil fuel infrastructure projects in Connecticut. Together, grassroots activists have generated over 650 hand-written letters to Governor Lamont, in addition to 2,550 emails to the Governor and CT Elected Officials in opposition to the proposed fossil fuel power plant. The organizers closed out the zoom press conference with a holiday gift for Gov. Lamont; more than 5,925 petition signatures signed by CT residents in support of ending investments into fossil fuel infrastructure and investing instead into renewable energy and energy efficiency.

In their comments, speakers emphasized that new gas pipelines and power plants represent a glaring and unacceptable inconsistency with Connecticut’s clean energy goals, climate change policy and efforts to address dangerous air quality impacts in our cities:

“Connecticut continues to build 20th century technology in the 21st century,” said Louis Rosado Burch, CT Program Director of Citizens Campaign for the Environment. “We’ve adopted ambitious clean energy goals, established the Governor’s Council on Climate Change, and made commitments to transition away from fossil fuels. These important steps forward will be severely undermined by building new fossil fuel power plants. We need Governor Lamont and the CT General Assembly to move out of the 20th Century and into the 21st Century.  That means rejecting Killingly and prioritizing energy projects that help combat climate change. It’s time to say “NO” to Killingly once and for all, and to stop investing in dirty gas infrastructure projects.”

“In addition to being completely out of sync with the state’s bold carbon reduction goals  and harming public health, the proposed fracked gas power plant in Killingly will send treated wastewater containing toxic chemicals, pollutants and heavy metals into the Quinebaug River,” said Anne Hulick, Connecticut Director of Clean Water Action. “There is simply no good that can come from building this plant and we urge the Governor and DEEP to do all they can to stop it.”

 

“Governor Lamont and the CT General Assembly have a unique  window of opportunity to alter the course of our energy future.  Our state recognized the need to move away from fossil fuels twenty years ago when it acted to shut down the infamous ‘Sooty Six’ coal-fired power plants,” said Lori Brown, Executive Director of the CT League of Conservation Voters. “Today, we have a situation where a new polluting power plant has not yet been built and our elected officials must take meaningful action through a moratorium on new fossil fuel infrastructure to prevent this future disaster.”

 

“We’re calling on Governor Lamont to keep his promise and protect the health, safety, and economic well-being of the residents of the state of Connecticut and of our climate. Over the last two years, DEEP and the Governor have received thousands of phone calls, emails and letters from residents opposing the Killingly power plant. This administration has promised a clean energy future, but continues to allow dirty, dangerous fracked gas power,” Ann Gadwah, Sierra Club Connecticut Chapter chairperson said. “Even now as his own Council on Climate Change provides suggestions for climate action in the state, they’ve failed to recommend action on this high-profile and divisive gas proposal.These two directions are incompatible. We’re asking our elected official, sworn to protect us, to listen to our call to stop this power plant once and for all.”

“For Connecticut’s young people, the choice is stark. Going ahead with a new gas-fired plant now would ensure that our toxic dependency on fossil fuels, and the resulting damage to our community’s health and environment, would be extended for many years,” said Eluned Li, organizer with Sunrise New Haven. “This benefits no one but the oil and gas industry, authorizing them to continue to profit from activities which endanger our health and irreversibly degrade our environment. Our elected officials have the choice, now, to put a stop to the Killingly plant and serve as a strong step in realizing a Green New Deal, and a future for all of us. We ask them to make the responsible choice, for us and for their own children.”

“Climate science states that our society needs to eliminate greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 and Gov. Lamont has promised to transition Connecticut away from the fossil fuels causing the Climate Emergency,” said 350 CT Steering Committee Member Ben Martin. “It is past time for the governor to back up his words with action by rejecting the polluting NTE fracked gas plant in Killingly, preventing new sources of emissions, and retiring current polluting plants.”

“This choice is one between the peoples’ best interests and further support of the fossil fuel industry,” said Dr. Todd Douglas, postdoctoral associate in the dept. of Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology at Yale University. “A brand new fracked gas plant will harm more of Connecticut’s greenfield land and useable water than we can afford, compromising the health of every resident of Killingly and surrounding areas. We have safe, clean renewable energy solutions with far greater energy output available cheaply already. There is no reason to build a plant that could pump out up to 90,000 gallons of toxic wastewater every single day. It’s time to do the responsible thing. We have the ability to protect public health, preserve our future, and lead the nation in clean energy solutions. Governor Lamont, make the right call.”

The Governor’s Council on Climate Change (GC3) mitigation group draft report says Killingly “…does not align with Connecticut’s decarbonization policy objectives; and its long asset life will make it challenging to meet the state’s emissions reduction goals.”

Comments submitted by the Sierra Club on June 30, October 7 and November 18, detail impacts the proposed pipeline for the plant would have on local water quality and habitats of brook trout and endangered species, like the Northern long-eared owl and American bittern. The comments also note that the proposed pipeline will impact DEEP’s own plans to restore the Wyndham marsh to create habitat for endangered species.

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