U.S.: Have You Taken the Climate Pledge of Resistance?

Last summer, the Yes Men launched www.beyondtalk.net
calling on thousands to sign up and put their freedom on the line by
committing civil disobedience to save the climate.  Now, a coalition of
social, environmental, faith-based, indigenous and climate groups have
taken beyondtalk one step further and created the “Climate Pledge of
Resistance.”

Inspired by the 1980’s Pledge of Resistance solidarity movement against U.S. intervention in Central America, climate groups are moving “beyond talk” and organizing active resistance against climate chaos and climate injustice.

In the 1980’s various faith
and peace groups coordinated hundreds of affinity groups around the
nation to prevent U.S. sponsored death and destruction in Central
America.  The Climate Pledge of Resistance
will be creating a similar infrastructure of non-violent direct action
and climate justice to challenge governments and corporations complicit
in destroying the climate and harming those communities most impacted
by climate change.

This year, we’ve already seen mass anti-coal actions in Washington D.C. and Charlotte, NC, ongoing direct actions in southern West Virginia against the mining industry and mass action at Chevron’s Richmond California refinery. In the coming weeks and months, resistance to corporate sponsored climate change will grow and spread. 

This weekend, two climate convergences will happen in Richmond, CA and in Pittsburgh, PA.  Next week climate activists will march and take action at the G20 in Pittsburgh.  On Oct 24
will be a global day of action against climate change and on Nov. 30
there will be another day of action against climate change, both
leading into the Copenhagen talks in early Dec. [where mass action is expected].

Now is the time to step up our actions and move beyond talk. On Tuesday, activists in the U.S. and Canada risked
livelihood and liberty to stop carbon intensive tar sands projects. 
Every time I look at my computer I hear about new actions in Appalachia
to stop King Coal’s deadly advance.  We need more and more people to
join these efforts.  We need people to take the Climate Pledge of
Resistance and begin organizing actions to save the climate in your
community.

Get involved.

Check out the press release:

Thousands Called to Risk Arrest To Fight Climate Chaos

 

Climate ‘Pledge of Resistance’ Effort Spurs Tradition of Nonviolent Civil Disobedience in the USA

Nationwide~A Climate Pledge
of Resistance <http://beyondtalk.net/ pledge/>  (CPR For the Planet) has
been initiated by social, environmental, faith-based, indigenous and
climate groups to move beyond talk by organizing the largest civil
disobedience campaign in the history of the struggle to stop climate
change.

The Climate Pledge of
Resistance/CPR For the Planet was inspired by the 1980s Pledge of
Resistance solidarity movement against U.S.   involvement and
support for wars in Central America.  That Pledge emerged with a very
effective national campaign whose structure supported autonomous
grassroots nonviolent direct action and rooted itself in direct
democracy.

Sharon Lungo of the Ruckus Society
said:    “Climate chaos is real and people are obligated to come
forward and help resuscitate our planet from the on-going damage that
is being done. The Pledge realizes that no social justice movement in
history has been successful without the strategic use of nonviolent
direct action. There comes a moment in every struggle when the power of
everyday people needs to be felt, and when the community understands
that it can only attain victory by advancing their front line. That
moment is now.”

Lungo also points to a
recent example of the effectiveness of nonviolent action: “This Call
for CPR For the Planet comes on the heels of the Environmental
Protection Agency’s decision last week to put a moratorium on Mountain
Top Removal, following a massive campaign of non-violent civil
disobedience. Non-violent direct action works.”

“Not only are the extraction
and combustion of fossil fuels killing our sacred Mother Earth, it’s
peoples and all living things, fossil fuels development is a human
rights and environmental justice issue disproportionately affecting
Indigenous Peoples and cultures here in North America and around the
world,” stated Tom Goldtooth, Executive Director of the Indigenous Environmental Network Goldtooth
continued:   “People and most especially governmental  leaders of the
industrialized countries of the North must take responsibility and take
action now to quickly make a transition away from a fossil fuel economy
and demand real solutions to climate change.”

“Climate policy arenas (in
DC or Copenhagen) will not deliver any durable solutions unless
community-based, actions-led strategies can neutralize the power of big
oil and their buddies,” said Ananda Lee Tan of Rising Tide North America. 
Tan is mobilizing support for community-led campaigns to end the
Chevron Oil company’s climate pollution in Richmond, CA and around the
world

Tan concludes, “In order to
save people and planet, we need to confront the biggest corporate
polluters with direct action in our own backyards.”

The Call also comes one week
before the International Coal Conference and the G-20, both meeting in
Pittsburgh, PA.  So far that city is planning for a virtual lock-down,
even calling in 2,000 combat ready National Guard troops, plus
thousands of other law enforcement personal.  The city is not allowing
the Three Rivers Climate Convergence to assemble and camp, escalating
the need for activists to commit civil disobedience in defense of the
planet.

Nonviolent direct actions
are planned which will call upon the Senate to pass legislation that
will adequately address the climate crisis.   Such actions will
build toward and culminate in full implementation of the Climate Pledge
of Resistance on November 30, 2009. This is one week before the United
Nations Climate Conference begins in Copenhagen, Denmark where
negotiators will attempt to find agreement on a climate treaty to
succeed the expiring Kyoto document.   The Pledge states that, “Sadly,
if these leaders reached an agreement today, it wouldn’t be strong
enough to do much good.”

Civil disobedience has a
long history at home and abroad.  It was only the uncompromising action
of hundreds of thousands that ended U.S.   segregation and South
African apartheid.

“Non-violent civil
disobedience has been at the forefront of almost every successful
campaign for change. Especially in America, and especially today, we
need to push our leaders hard to stand up to industry lobbyists and
make the sorts of changes we need,? said Andy Bichlbaum of The Yes
Men.  “Roosevelt would never have been able to push through the New
Deal if people hadn’t taken to the streets, occupied factories, and
demanded it. The election of Obama is still a huge opportunity – but
only if we give him the pressure he needs to be who we elected him to
be,” he added.
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