Rising Tide Education

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Introducing!

Rising Tide’s 2009 “Menu of Educational Offerings”

This is a 20-page booklet is a smorgasbord of tantalizing workshops and trainings that you can order for your school/organization/conference/etc today.

Includes renowned entrées such as:

*Direct Action Strategy and Planning*

*False Solutions to Climate Change*

*Making the Links of Climate Justice*

*Meeting Facilitation: Consensus Decisions*

*Rising Tide North America: an introduction*

along with 30 unique workshops and 40 hands-on trainings

Download the booklet here, figure out what you’d like, and contact us at:

education {AT} risingtidenorthamerica {DOT} org

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Action Map
Click the map for regional information

MOBILIZE! – NOVEMBER 30, 2009

As the world’s biggest companies and their friends in government continue to fight a transition to more just and sustainable ways of living, climate change threatens to turn our world upside down with water shortages, crop failures, sea level rise and ecosystem collapse.  A million species face extinction by the end of the century, and the people who have contributed least to the problem will continue to be the hardest hit.  What can be done at this critical juncture, with our future at stake?

Organize an N30 Action!

Throughout history, social change has come about when regular people get fed up with business as usual, get organized, and take to the streets. If we leave climate solutions up to politicians and corporations, then we will lose – not just a political battle, but the life-support systems of the planet.  Time is running out to avert the worst impacts of climate change: the time to act is now.

A broad coalition of organizations working for social, ecological, racial and economic justice has come together under the banner of the Mobilization for Climate Justice. Join us as we organize mass action on climate change on November 30, 2009!  November 30 (N30) is significant both because it immediately precedes the upcoming UN Climate Conference in Copenhagen and is the ten-year anniversary of the protests that shut down of the World Trade Organization meetings in Seattle, demonstrating the incredible power of collective action.

Every indication is that any agreement that emerges from Copenhagen will be nothing more than business as usual—sacrificing real emissions reductions in favor of market-based approaches that enhance corporate profits while delaying a transition away from fossil fuels. The current approach to climate change in the UN, and in the US Congress, is based on the creation of a new market in carbon emissions.  Carbon trading (aka “cap and trade”) and carbon offsets do not address the root causes of global warming, nor do they reduce emissions.  They are designed by and for corporations, and are a dangerous distraction that should be abandoned.

We urgently need to implement real solutions like ending excessive consumption, keeping fossil fuels in the ground, re-localizing production and consumption, and drastically reducing greenhouse emissions.  We must also protect the rights of workers, displaced peoples, and others affected by the transition.

In recent months, people of the world have taken valiant action for climate solutions. On Oct. 24th, people in 181 countries staged over 5,200 actions calling for global action on climate change. And on November 4, African delegates walked out of pre-Copenhagen negotiations in Barcelona – demanding that rich countries commit to deeper and faster emissions cuts – while European activists used civil disobedience to disrupt the talks.

And now, we’re asking you to join us in taking the next step – a global day of action for climate justice on Monday, November 30, 2009. Take the day off, get together with friends, and take a stand for real, just and effective solutions to the climate crisis!

__________________

WHAT YOU CAN DO ON N30:

Several actions are already being planned for November 30 – and many more will be coming soon – so if there’s an action happening in your city or region, we urge you to join it!  See the MCJ site for a map of N30 actions across the country and across the world.

If there isn’t an action being organized in your town, organize one! If you’re already involved in a campaign against a company that’s contributing to climate injustice, organize an action on against them November 30.  You can submit actions by clicking HERE.

If you’re organizing an action from scratch, we’d suggest you go after one of the following companies: Bank of America, JP Morgan Chase, Morgan Stanley, Chevron, BP, or American Electric Power. We picked these six companies because they’re all, through their investments, lobbying, and day to day business, going out of their way to obstruct real solutions to the climate crisis.  For more info about them, see our Corporate Criminals page.

Corporations like these will keep trying to distract us with false solutions, but we will send them a loud, clear message: Our climate is not your business!

Help us spread the word – we’ll see you in the streets!

If you can’t make it out, please consider helping others take action by making a donation.

______________________________________

The Mobilization for Climate Justice is: Alliance of Community Trainers, Art in Action, Asian-Pacific Environmental Network, Bay Area Labor Committee for Peace and Justice, Bay Localize, Beehive Design Collective, Burmese American Democratic Alliance, Communities for a Better Environment, Community Coalition for Environmental Justice, Direct Action to Stop the War, Earth First!, Eco-Cycle, Ella Baker Center for Human Rights, Environment and Social Development Organization, Environmental Justice &

Climate Change Initiative, Enviro Show, Filipino American Coalition for Environmental Solidarity, Forest Ethics, Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives, Global Exchange, Global Justice Ecology Project, Greenaction for Health and Environmental Justice, Headrush, Indigenous Environmental Network, Institute for Social Ecology, International Forum on Globalization, International Rivers, Justice in Nigeria Now!, Little Village Environmental Justice Organization, Movement Generation, National Network for Immigrant and Refugee Rights, Pacific Environment, Poor Magazine, PR for People & the Planet, Rainforest Action Network, Richmond Mayor’s Taskforce on Environmental Justice and Health, Richmond Progressive Alliance, Rising Tide North America, Ruckus Society, SmartMeme, Solidarity, Uganda Network on Toxic Free Malaria Control, West County Toxics Coalition, Women of Color United, Youth In Focus, Zero Waste Vancouver, and 350.org

As the world’s biggest companies and their friends in government continue to fight a transition to more just and sustainable ways of living, climate change threatens to turn our world upside down with water shortages, crop failures, sea level rise and ecosystem collapse.  A million species face extinction by the end of the century, and the people who have contributed least to the problem will continue to be the hardest hit.  What can be done at this critical juncture, with our future at stake?
Throughout history, social change has come about when regular people get fed up with business as usual, get organized, and take to the streets.  If we leave climate solutions up to politicians and corporations, then we will lose – not just a political battle, but the life-support systems of the planet.  Time is running out to avert the worst impacts of climate change: the time to act is now.
A broad coalition of organizations working for social, ecological, racial and economic justice has come together under the banner of the Mobilization for Climate Justice. Join us as we organize mass action on climate change on November 30, 2009!  November 30 (N30) is significant both because it immediately precedes the upcoming UN Climate Conference in Copenhagen and is the ten-year anniversary of the protests that shut down of the World Trade Organization meetings in Seattle, demonstrating the incredible power of collective action.
Every indication is that any agreement that emerges from Copenhagen will be nothing more than business as usual—sacrificing real emissions reductions in favor of market-based approaches that enhance corporate profits while delaying a transition away from fossil fuels. The current approach to climate change in the UN, and in the US Congress, is based on the creation of a new market in carbon emissions.  Carbon trading (aka “cap and trade”) and carbon offsets do not address the root causes of global warming, nor do they reduce emissions.  They are designed by and for corporations, and are a dangerous distraction that should be abandoned.
We urgently need to implement real solutions like ending excessive consumption, keeping fossil fuels in the ground, re-localizing production and consumption, and drastically reducing greenhouse emissions.  We must also protect the rights of workers, displaced peoples, and others affected by the transition.
In recent months, people of the world have taken valiant action for climate solutions. On Oct. 24th, people in 181 countries staged over 5,200 actions calling for global action on climate change. And on November 4, African delegates walked out of pre-Copenhagen negotiations in Barcelona – demanding that rich countries commit to deeper and faster emissions cuts – while European activists used civil disobedience to disrupt the talks.
And now, we’re asking you to join us in taking the next step – a global day of action for climate justice on Monday, November 30, 2009. Take the day off, get together with friends, and take a stand for real, just and effective solutions to the climate crisis!
————————————————–
WHAT YOU CAN DO ON N30:
Several actions are already being planned for November 30 – and many more will be coming soon – so if there’s an action happening in your city or region, we urge you to join it!  See http://www.actforclimatejustice.org for a map of N30 actions across the country and across the world.
If there isn’t an action being organized in your town, organize one! If you’re already involved in a campaign against a company that’s contributing to climate injustice, organize an action on against them November 30.
If you’re organizing an action from scratch, we’d suggest you go after one of the following companies: Bank of America, JP Morgan Chase, Morgan Stanley, Chevron, BP, or American Electric Power. We picked these six companies because they’re all, through their investments, lobbying, and day to day business, going out of their way to obstruct real solutions to the climate crisis.  For more info about them, see http://www.actforclimatejustice.org/tools-resources/dirty-money-and-dirtier-fuels-6-corporate-climate-criminals/
Corporations like these will keep trying to distract us with false solutions, but we will send them a loud, clear message: Our climate is not your business!
Help us spread the word – we’ll see you in the streets!
If you can’t make it out, please consider helping others take action by making a donation at www.actforclimatejustice.org.
————————————————–
The Mobilization for Climate Justice is: Alliance of Community Trainers, Art in Action, Asian-Pacific Environmental Network, Bay Area Labor Committee for Peace and Justice, Bay Localize, Beehive Design Collective, Burmese American Democratic Alliance, Communities for a Better Environment, Community Coalition for Environmental Justice, Direct Action to Stop the War, Earth First!, Eco-Cycle, Ella Baker Center for Human Rights, Environment and Social Development Organization, Environmental Justice &
Climate Change Initiative, Enviro Show, Filipino American Coalition for Environmental Solidarity, Forest Ethics, Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives, Global Exchange, Global Justice Ecology Project, Greenaction for Health and Environmental Justice, Greenpeace, Headrush, Indigenous Environmental Network, Institute for Social Ecology,
International Forum on Globalization, International Rivers, Justice in Nigeria Now!, Little Village Environmental Justice Organization, Movement Generation, National Network for Immigrant and Refugee Rights, Pacific Environment, Poor Magazine, PR for People & the Planet, Rainforest Action Network, Richmond Mayor’s Taskforce on Environmental Justice and Health, Richmond Progressive Alliance, Rising Tide North America, Ruckus Society, SmartMeme, Solidarity, Uganda Network on Toxic Free Malaria Control, West County Toxics Coalition, Women of Color United, Youth In Focus, Zero Waste Vancouver, and 350.org

Introduction

In many ways, Vaclav Smil’s Energy in World History is indispensable for those wanting a better understanding of the changing relationship between human society and energy.  Yet, his account is not without its shortcomings.  For example, as I have addressed elsewhere, Smil neglects the role of international forces, such as imperialism, in fashioning energy use.  Nevertheless, this is not the only oversight in Energy in World History.  This article will briefly address how Smil also misrepresents the roles of urbanization and gender in a history on energy.

Urbanization

There is much work examining the causes and consequences of modern urbanization, and Smil does reference some of it (Bairoch 1991; Chandler 1987; Engels 1887; Kay 1832; Williamson 1982).  He also recognizes the dialectical character of urbanization.  On one hand, he highlights the negative ecological implications of this development.  Widespread environmental degradation, Smil writes, “stems from the extraction and conversion of both fossil fuels and nonfossil energies, industrial production, and rapid urbanization.  The cumulative effects of these changes can go beyond local and regional problems to cause destabilizing global biospheric change” (158).  In his view, pervasive, densely-populated human settlement depends on an enormous quantity of energy, a demand satisfied with energy-dense fossil fuels, not with biomass.  This makes modern urban living unsustainable.  On the other hand, the massive population shift away from rural to urban areas, characteristic of industrialization, resulted in an explosion of technological and energy-saving innovations in the city (209).  Nevertheless, from an energetic point of view, Smil’s evaluation is clear: “The infrastructural requirements of urban life increase average per capita energy consumption levels far above rural means even if the cities are not highly industrialized” (237). Continue Reading »

This Spring, two womyn from the Portland Animal Defense League, Rising Tide North America and Stumptown Earth First! will be on tour up and down the west coast with an interactive and engaging presentation. We’ll be offering a two hour presentation on radical eco-feminism and environmental ethics. Eco-feminism is the social movement that regards the oppression of women and nature as interconnected. It is one of the few movements and analyses that actually connects two movements. Radical ecofeminist theorists have extended their analyses to consider the interconnections between sexism, the domination of nature (including animals), and also racism and social inequalities. Consequently it is now better understood as a movement working against the interconnected oppressions of gender, race, class and nature. Continue Reading »

Check out our new publications and multimedia web page for some readings on the issues.