Rising Tide folks with a lot of support from others have set up a new website with information from the grassroots, for the grassroots radical and progressive response to Hurricane Gustav. We are currently receiving or collecting information from a dozen or so groups in the area.

Please spread the word: http://gustavsolidarity.org

The site features:

• Information on how to support community organized relief efforts and grassroots organizations doing social justice work in hurricane affected areas.
• Needs lists from affected communities and organization that need support.
• (soon) Sample flyers, announcements, etc. for organizing fundraisers, movie showings, and solidarity vigils in your community.

Keep in mind:

1. Even if there is no flooding in New Orleans and surrounding parish’s there is going to be major disruptions to social justice organizing in the area.
2. We have yet to receive updates from the poor, highly vulnerable, not to mention highly oil-industry impacted communities along the coast

———————————————————
“Reporters who have tried to interview the
report’s lead author, Federal Highway
Administration official Michael Savonis, have
been explicitly told by DOT officials that the
author and the press cannot communicate with each
other.”

“Federal scientists must be allowed direct
communication with the press, unimpeded by
politically-driven gatekeepers with an interest
in blocking the truth and playing down the
significance of climate research and assessment
findings.”
—————————————————-

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
March 14, 2008
1:25 PM

Government Accountability Project

Climate Change Report Buried by DOT; Author Blocked From Reporters

WASHINGTON, DC - March 14 - This past Wednesday,
March 12, the U.S. Department of Transportation
(DOT) and the U.S. Climate Change Science Program
quietly released a major assessment report on the
likely impacts of global climate disruption on a
wide range of transportation infrastructure in
the Gulf Coast region. This report release was
buried by the DOT, and officials have been
blocking journalists from speaking with the
report’s lead author.

Continue Reading »

I’ve been meaning to write a post about New Orleans for weeks now. This month - in the midst of the bad news from Bali and congress - a new climate-provoked crisis, one in the works since just after Hurricane Katrina has hit New Orleans hard. It’s been called “Hurricane H.U.D.” [HUD is the government office of Housing and Urban Development].

What’s at stake is the bulldozing of 5000 homes, or what politicians and reporters euphemistically call “units”, of public housing. These units, some moderately damaged, some unimpacted by Katrina, have been neglected for decades, but nonetheless were homes for some of New Orleans neediest and most disenfranchised people before the storm. Since the storm, rent prices are up by 50% and the homeless population is far larger than pre-storm levels. After nearly 2 and half years of all types of neglect and abuse toward survivors of a global warming related disaster, this has become a hugely symbolic battle against the ethnic cleansing of New Orleans.

And it has been the last straw for many of New Orleans’s most oppressed people.

While I’ve been following the housing struggle as its gone from grave to worse for two years, I reached a breaking point of despair these last 2 days when it got personal. At least 2 people I know in New Orleans, including one close friend, were TASERed by police while loudly, but peacefully, demanding entry into their city council meeting where the approval of the demolitions of these homes. Despite (police initiated) physical strife both inside and outside the chambers, the council approved the demolitions. Dozens more people, public housing residents and supporters alike, were pepper sprayed and beaten by police. 4 people, including my friend, were hospitalized. Continue Reading »