As always, we’re committed to making our workshops highly interactive, and seek to connect the dots between all the interlocking issues that we’re facing and inspire communities to take action against the root causes of climate change. We’re always looking for feedback, positive and negative, so if you were at one of our events we would love to hear from you. What worked and what didn’t? How did you feel during the event, and after it?

Send any and all feedback to education@risingtidenorthamerica.org

Check out our workshop menu (download pdf below), and give us a holler if you want us to come round your way and help with some educatin’.

With the increasing awareness and hype about climate chaos in the past 2 years, people are trying to cash in. Rising Tide North America has initiated a new campaign against some of the “False Solutions” to climate change currently on the market.

The false solutions we are working to expose include carbon trading, offsets, and sequestration schemes and “alternative” fuels like nuclear power, “clean” coal, agrofuels (like ethanol), and liquefied natural gas that aren’t really any better than our current energy sources.

Our need to believe that something can save us from climate change, our fear of change and the unknown make these purely technological and market-based solutions extremely seductive. Yet upon closer examination they are dangerous detours on the road to a just climate future, and take us farther away from addressing the root causes of climate change.

To address these root causes, Rising Tide believes we must look honestly at how terribly tangled up we are in systems of social and environmental devastation, rather than buy into the scams of disaster profiteers. For us this means making our communities more just and sustainable, dismantling the many systems of oppression within our society that separate us from each other and the earth, challenging the power of corporations and governments tied to the expansion of the fossil fuel empire, and keeping coal, oil and natural gas in the ground.

In the coming months check back here for more resources on these topics, as well as for news about and ideas for taking ACTION against false solutions and for climate justice.

Contact falsesolutions@risingtidenorthamerica.org if you want to join us!

Start planning your action now for Fossil Fuels Day. We’ve got outreach materials and action ideas for you.

If you are interested in doing an action in your town or just getting the word out please contact fossilfools@hushmail.com. And check the international action page: www.fossilfoolsday.org too!

Please contact us at anytime at cascadia@risingtidenorthamerica.org.

Convergence 2008
The international movement to confront climate chaos is heating up! Following to the success of this past summer’s Convergences for Climate Action in the south east, west coast as well as the Camp for Climate Action in the United Kingdom we are excited to announce that there are plans to organize more convergences next summer. Planning is in the works for the United Kingdom, New Zealand, Germany and Australia and here in North America we’re planning convergences on the west coast, in the south east and the north east. Do you want to help with organizing one of these convergences or plan one in your own region? Please email us at contact@risingtidenorthamerica.org or call (202) 657-6772 for more information.

Regional Convergence Planning Contacts:

Northeast:
The Northeast region is holding convergence planning meetings once a month, the next meeting will be in Worcester March 22th and 23th, email for more information:
northeast@climateconvergence.org or visit http://www.climateconfluence.org/northeast

Southeast: This years Southeast Convergence for Climate Action is being held in Virginia in the greater Richmond area. Building on the success of last years climate convergence we will once again come together to fight the coal and nuke industries and build a more sustainable and just world. Email us at: risingtide@mountainrebel.net or visit www.climateconvergence.org/southeast

West Coast: westcoast@climateconvergence.org

What is a convergence for climate action anyways???
An opportunity to bring different people and organizations together for a week to talk about tangible ways we can confront the root causes of climate change while at the same time envisioning and creating thriving healthy communities that do not rely on the burning of fossil fuels. There will be dozens of workshops, trainings and teach-ins on a plethora of topics as well as coordinated days of action.

Check out the web-page! www.climateconvergence.org

Read on for a review of last summer’s convergences….

THE PRECAUTIONARY PRINCIPLE
Concerned scientists the world over have developed what is known as the Precautionary Principle. The Precautionary Principle states that, in the face of scientific uncertainty, humyns must take precautionary action. Shift the burden of proof onto the perpetrator. With any proposed course of action (or inaction) that may engender any possible harm to Life, 3 questions must be critically and thoroughly addressed:

-Is this harm preventable?

-Are there any alternatives?

-Do we know enough to act?

If these crucial questions cannot be definitively answered-then we should NOT move forward with the proposed action!

The mission of this working group is to monitor the Earth’s weather and climate for purposes of understanding the changes that global warming will bring, to aid researchers and planners in their efforts to understand and develop responses to the implications of climate change, and-perhaps most of all-to keep climate change activists in tune w/ Nature Herself as the great changes invariably ensue. The rules are changing-and our previous experiences with seasonal and geographical climates, weather patterns, and weather extremes and abnormalities will likely bear little resemblance to the new climate and weather regimes that have already begun taking shape around the world. To the best of our abilities we must study the new unfolding patterns and try to anticipate what changes will ultimately occur where and when and through what set of processes-if we want to successfully plan and implement efforts to ensure the survival of as many species (including humans) as possible in all bio-regions on Earth. Natives, scientists, researchers, educators, students, activists, community planners, farmers and workers, health-care providers and many more will want to track weather and climate developments as they occur and unfold in order to help their communities prepare for inevitable and unstoppable changes.

The New Mother Nature’s Takin’ Over-& She’s Gettin’ Us All!

To learn more about this working group, please contact:

stormf5@riseup.net

Links to other orgs tracking anomalous weather and climate science:
www.realclimate.org
www.climatehotmap.org
www.newsscientist.com
www.ssec.wisc.edu/data

Moderated climate listserv:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ClimateConcern/

Funded by London-based Conserve Africa. Moderated by a Canadian.
Watched by agencies,individuals and organizations around the globe.

3 BASIC PRINCIPLES

1 - “The structural relations within and between human societies and
their environments form the most complex systems known to science.”
Charles D. Laughlin and Ivan Brady, editors, Extinction and Survival
in Human Populations.

2 - “Making connections is the essence of scientific progress.”
Chris Quigg, “Aesthetic Science,” Scientific American, April 1999

3 - “Ignorance of remote causes disposeth men to attribute all events
to the causes immediate and instrumental: for these are all the
causes they perceive.” Thomas Hobbes