The news out of Los Angeles County of the newest success in the battle against the Plastic Bag Monster reminded me of this fun and inspiring video from Green Sangha, with Bay Area performers and activists AshEl Eldridge and Jenni Perez.
Here are the lyrics:
Shoulda brought your own bag
Yeah but you forgot it though
You were busy dreamin of ice cream and
all that cookie dough
Your life is wrapped in plastic
Convenience is your motto
But plastic addiction’s worse
than they want you to knowContinue reading »
Los Angeles County joins the small but growing ranks of local governments that have banned single-use plastic bags. After California’s statewide plastic bag ban law (AB 1998) failed to pass this year under pressure from the chemical and plastic bag industries, it is up to cities and counties to take local action to halt the plastic bag monster.
Los Angeles County supervisors approved a measure on Tuesday that bans plastic bags from being given out at stores. The measure affects only the unincorporated areas of the county, so does not include the city of Los Angeles, but will apply to over a thousand stores and a million residents. The measure also requires stores to collect a ten cent fee on paper bags. For low income customers that receive supplemental food assistance, the new ordinance requires stores to provide paper or reusable bags free of charge.
The theory behind the ordinance is simple–by not having plastic bags available and charging a little bit for paper shoppers will be encouraged to bring their own reusable bags. The law begins to be implemented in July 2011.Continue reading »
Once again, the 3-day Bioneers mother-ship has landed and departed, and a thousand pods of social and environmental change have dispersed across the globe, refreshed and re-energized. Or to use the less technological metaphor by Janine Benyus, founder of the Biomimicry Institute,
“This is kind of a seasonal migration ceremony, Bioneers. If we were migrating birds, this would be our staging ground, where we come and talk about what we have hatched this year and what breeding was like.”
The Bioneers Conference, hosted in San Rafael, CA on what is the ancestral lands of the Coast Miwok, is a leading-edge forum presenting breakthrough solutions for people and planet. Over its twenty-one years Bioneers has become a global community of some of the most dedicated, passionate, and creative thinkers and leaders facilitating a wiser way forward for the earth community.
Farmers, students, social justice workers, scientists, artists, musicians, writers, entrepreneurs, indigenous leaders, environmental activists, peacemakers, and a motley assortment of engaged citizens come together to learn, network, and re-energize their efforts in creating a just and resilient world. The topics discussed range from organic farming, green chemistry, and women in the media to cross-cultural education, traditional indigenous knowledge, and local democracy.
The experience is as intellectually stimulating as it is personally transformational. Over the next few days I will be discussing some of the most visionary and exciting projects, ideas, and people at Bioneers, including the Million Kid March, the new shift in environmental and community protection using a rights-of-nature framework that is taking root across the world, the Dreaming New Mexico local foodshed & fair trade work, the One World Youth Project that is creating a new paradigm for cross-cultural education, new models of clean energy, the transformation of urban landscapes and the work of Andy Lipkus and the TreePeople, Jane Goodall’s Roots & Shoots programs in 120 countries, the heroic ethnographic work of Elizabeth Kapu’uwailani Lindsey, the first female fellow of the National Geographic Society, and the move to amend the constitution to limit corporate person-hood and restore free speech for people alone.
Here I want to highlight what I take to be some of its core themes and messages and hopefully in the process capture some of the spirit of Bioneers.
1) Urgency of Action: All the signals from the biosphere and indicators from our body and economy are in: the time is past due for massive shifts in how we do things.
“This moment beckons us all to think big,” said Bioneers co-founder Nina Simons. “To match all we are each capable of with the needs of a planet” in peril.
Another panelist, Ami Marcus from Mt. Shasta, whose community is fighting corporate raiding of their water and manipulation of their weather, said, “It is not enough to feel it here,” she said, pointing to her heart, “we must codify it in our structures on the ground.”
And that takes the hard work of speaking out, organizing, speaking face to face with our neighbors about the issues, of challenging the status quo, saying yes to things not yet born but are in our imaginations, not accepting no, and of not waiting on leaders to come. It means scaling up the work we are doing already. It means moving beyond bumper sticker activism and clicktivism.
Bioneers co-founder Kenny Ausubel invoked Winston Churchill: “It’s no use saying, ‘We are doing our best.’ You have got to succeed in doing what is necessary.”
The Four Years. Go campaign was presented, a global effort to awaken the best of our collective awareness and action. It is based on the premise that what we do or don’t do in the very short term will effect generations to come and that we have the solutions at hand, but we need all hands on deck. The mission is to empower “individuals and organizations to set and reach goals that will cause a positive global tipping point by 2014, setting humanity on a new path toward a socially just, environmentally sustainable, and spiritually fulfilling future.” As the video suggests, it is not a new organization, it represents goals for every organization.
We are urged to plug-in, co-create, and act with fierce determination. We are the leaders. As one speaker urged, “Whatever you do, wherever you are, find a way to be ever more involved.” Continue reading »
Founder Kenny Ausubel coined the word bioneers in 1990 to describe “an emerging culture of social and scientific innovators who are mimicking nature’s operating instructions to serve human ends while enriching the web of life.”
Of course I’ll be following up with a report back of the most inspiring and exciting ideas and projects.
In the morning, marchers first stopped at the Environmental Protection Agency with the message, “Do your job!” Here is a clip from the rally. The mobilization continued to the White House, where West Virginia resident Larry Gibson, climatologist James Hansen, and others addressed the people gathered.
“We cannot enrich the experience of a few at the expense of many,” Hansen told the crowd. Hansen, Gibson, and several others were arrested.
Earlier, members of the Quakers, Rainforest Action Network, and Appalachia Rising conducted a direct action at the doors of the PNC Bank, a key mountaintop removal financer (and TARP-funds recipient, by the way) in downtown D.C. They were removed by police and arrested, including West Virginia resident and Appalachia Rising Coordinator Katie Rooth. All the while, Reverend Billy Talen (of Church of Life After Shopping and What Would Jesus Buy? fame) gave a Sermon on the Mountaintop, after which he also was arrested.
Appalachia Rising Mobilization at the White House (Photo Credit: RAN)
Activists made a visit to the headquarters of Army Corps of Engineers, where several Rising Tide members were taken out of the building after occupying the office. After the crowed formed a circle around the building, two Kentucky coalfield residents were granted a meeting with officials from the Army Corps of Engineers.
Reports coming in have said over 100 people have been arrested so far.
Dr. James Hansen, Appalachian residents and retired coal miners arrested are all calling for the abolition of mountaintop mining and immediate veto of Spruce mine project.
The showdown for a clean energy and clean air future is here and we should be jolted. In November we all have to come out in force and vote no on the Dirty Energy Proposition 23. And we must not just beat Prop 23, we must pulverize it like the dust beneath our feet.
Here are the 5 top reasons why Californians must crush Prop. 23.
RT @plantingjustice: Bam! New issue of Edible East Bay with a feature article on Planting Justice! Also includes a feature on our... http:… 15 hours ago
