All News Feeds

‘A powerful message through song’: the UK’s Climate Choir Movement is growing

The Guardian | Protest -

Founded in Bristol in 2022, ‘the moderate flank of protest’ has 600 members in 11 choirs

Harmonies echo from every corner of the hall: a group of older women stand in one corner singing a reworked Spice Girls song: “Stop right now, you dirty, dirty bank.” Some younger singers stroll across the room, singing another protest song to the tune of Handel’s Hallelujah Chorus.

An 80-year-old stacks his folding bike against the wall. An 18-year-old turns off her phone. The singers congregate under a banner quoting Kurt Vonnegut: “Dear future generations, please forgive us. We were rolling drunk on petroleum.’ The London Climate Choir’s monthly rehearsal has begun.

Continue reading...

The only protection from nuclear catastrophe is prohibition

Waging Nonviolence -

This article The only protection from nuclear catastrophe is prohibition was originally published by Waging Nonviolence.

Embed from Getty Imageswindow.gie=window.gie||function(c){(gie.q=gie.q||[]).push(c)};gie(function(){gie.widgets.load({id:'uuwMz9-6TOR5H_Mn7ZZFJQ',sig:'wcq9P5IZq3ymekwQwmW1QbdaRvFXbP6ocOHBuRMng2M=',w:'594px',h:'407px',items:'828371196',caption: true ,tld:'com',is360: false })});

This article was originally published by TomDispatch.

What’s in your basement? Mine is full of things I’ve mostly forgotten about — tools I bought for projects I never completed, long abandoned sports equipment, furniture I planned on refinishing ages ago, and unused cans of paint I thought I wanted when someone was giving them away. 

We’ve owned this house for nearly 12 years, since just weeks before our son was born. In all that time, I’ve regularly gone down there to do the laundry and store my things (which never seem to stop accumulating). And somehow, it went from being empty when we bought it to chock-a-block full today in a way that would make Marie Kondo’s perfect hair stand straight up. 

One day recently, I noticed two booklets attached by a screw with an outdated head to one of the beams under the basement stairs. That roused my curiosity since I had no memory of putting them there and, without laundry to distract me, I tried to free them, using a dozen different screwdrivers, none of which had that old-fashioned head, so eventually I pulled them loose with the claw end of a hammer.

Keep calm and head west

The top one was entitled “Emergency Planning at Connecticut’s Nuclear Power Plants: A Guidebook for Our Neighbors” and was addressed to “Resident.” Nowhere in that 23-page booklet was there a date, but it referred to our power company as Connecticut Light and Power and mentioned Connecticut Yankee, a local nuclear power plant that closed nearly 30 years ago.

We still get a similar booklet every couple of years, because we live seven miles from the area’s remaining nuclear power plant, all too aptly named Millstone and situated on a picturesque peninsula that juts into Long Island Sound. I sat in my kitchen, holding that ancient booklet and listening to the hum of the refrigerator (powered by — yes! — nuclear energy). The current PR line on nuclear power is that it’s a cheap and reliable bridge to renewable energy and a crucial partner in generating a carbon-free future. Here in Connecticut, half of all our power comes from Millstone, which is managed by Dominion Energy.

On its peninsula between Pleasure Beach and Hole in the Wall Beach, Millstone draws 2.2 billion gallons of water from Long Island Sound daily to use in its cooling towers. That water, according to a report from the Yale School of Management, is then returned to the Sound 32 degrees warmer than when it was pulled out. Scientists are now studying warm water plumes from Millstone, Indian Point, and other East Coast nuclear power plants to try to understand their impact on oxygen and nutrient levels in those waters. The Yale report notes that “populations of several commercially important species, including lobster and winter flounder, have steeply declined in Long Island Sound over the past two decades, but scientists are unsure whether overfishing, habitat degradation, disease, or warm water discharge from Millstone is to blame.”

Three Mile Island Nuclear Power Plant, just about 80 miles due north of Baltimore, my childhood home, suffered a meltdown three days before my fifth birthday. So, I have a visceral fear of cooling towers and nuclear radiation. The booklet I found didn’t exactly allay my anxieties. It suggested that, in the event of a crisis at the plant, we should evacuate along a series of two-lane roads that have only gotten more congested in the decades since that booklet was published. “If possible, use only one car. If you have room, please check to see if any of your neighbors need a ride. Keep your car windows and air vents closed.” It suggested packing for a three-day trip and included a helpful list of things not to forget like pillows and toiletries. The booklet advised calm again and again, offering these (cold) comforting words, “Contrary to some popular misconceptions, a nuclear plant emergency would not be a sudden event. A severe nuclear accident would take considerable time to develop, enabling state and local officials to take the necessary protective actions in a timely fashion.” Tell that to the people of Chernobyl and Fukushima. How much time is time enough?

#newsletter-block_35e45a1c6685d71506656dcc616ec5b2 { background: #ECECEC; color: #000000; } #newsletter-block_35e45a1c6685d71506656dcc616ec5b2 #mc_embed_signup_front input#mce-EMAIL { border-color:#000000 !important; color: #000000 !important; } Sign Up for our Newsletter Build a bunker, survive the fallout (but not the blast)

The second booklet was emblazoned with the all-caps title “FALLOUT PROTECTION FOR HOMES WITH BASEMENT” and was sent to our address in May 1967 by the Department of Defense’s Office of Civil Defense with the descriptor “Family Residing At.” As I leafed through the 60-year-old pages, I realized that the long-time homeowner had screwed it to the underside of the basement stairs in response to a suggestion on the back of the booklet: “For quick reference, hang this booklet in the corner of your basement having the best fallout protection.”

The booklet was personalized for our very basement based on a questionnaire the homeowner must have filled out once upon a time, because we were instructed to follow plans C through F to increase our “Protection Factor,” or PF, from radiation by 40 percent. Any “Home Handy Man,” we were assured, could construct a permanent shelter in the basement or at least pre-plan one to be quickly constructed after a nuclear attack. The booklet also had recommendations for how to improvise a shelter once you were cowering in that post-nuclear basement of yours. It did warn, however, that even if you had indeed constructed one, a “fallout shelter provides only limited protection against blast.”

Previous Coverage
  • Nuclear weapons ruined my life, and I wouldn’t have it any other way
  • There was, as it happened, no third booklet offering instruction to the home handyman on just how to protect his family from a future neighborhood nuclear blast and, of course, all these years later, there’s no fallout shelter in our basement and no stack of materials to make one with. Still, as someone whose parents were well-known anti-nuclear activists and who’s always feared the possibility of a future nuclear war, I found myself riveted to the spot in the basement of my 1905 home, imagining my family of five seeking shelter here during some kind of nuclear catastrophe. The walls are stones cobbled together with mortar and painted. That painted mortar regularly flakes onto the cement floor, coating it in a sort of crumbly dry snow. We occasionally squirt expanding foam into the holes in the foundation, but there’s still one corner where my kids like to hold their hands and exclaim: “I can feel the breeze” and “it smells like mud right here.” According to our Fallout Protection booklet, that corner is the “strongest” one, so before a nuclear attack, I do hope that I’ll get around to closing up all those holes.

    In truth, it would be a mighty grim existence in that basement of ours. Especially if I don’t fix the corner where the kids feel the breeze. There are lots of bikes, a massive canoe and life preservers, plenty of canning supplies, a dehydrator, heat lamps and other accessories for raising chickens, and my husband’s beer-making and distilling supplies. Most of these cool homesteadish things are useless without electricity, heat, or potable water.

    The booklet offers no advice on how to supply a fallout shelter with water or beer or anything else, nor does it tell us how long we’d need to be down there. It does say: “Until the extent of the radiation threat in your town is determined by trained monitors using special instruments, you should stay in your shelter as much as possible. For essential needs, you can leave your shelter for a few minutes.” It suggests we get a battery-powered radio.

    Previous Coverage
  • If doomsday prepping has taught me anything, it’s that we can’t survive alone
  • Of course, the information in that booklet is now 57 years old, long before the world of modern media arrived. I could go online and stream untold numbers of DIY tutorials on bunker-building and provisioning. By now, prepping for disasters, whether nuclear, conventional, or farcical is a multibillion-dollar business. You can even attend a weekend course on wilderness survival techniques for $800. However, nothing I read about that class offered guidance on surviving “a war, societal collapse, or some other calamity” with three kids, so I’m probably staying put. A battery-operated radio might not be a bad idea, though.

    You can’t hide from nukes

    I mostly head down to the basement in a “keep the laundry-train running” fog. Nuclear war is a constant hum in the back of my mind. It’s a fear that won’t go away and that sets me apart from most Americans. It seems as if most of us deal with nuclear issues by — should the thought even occur to us — trying to push them away as quickly as possible. In an annual survey, Chapman University has been tracking American fears for nearly a decade now. Government corruption and economic collapse top the list, which also includes loved ones getting sick and dying. Fears of war are similarly prevalent, but the specific fear that stalks my dreams isn’t there — the possibility that the nightmare that rained down on the people of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945, killing more than 100,000 of them, when the United States became the first and only nation to use nuclear weapons, could happen again.

    I know I’m an odd duck with my nuclear preoccupation. Of course, I live in the self-declared “Submarine Capital of the World.” New London/Groton has been building nuclear submarines since the 1950s and the U.S. naval base here is home port to 15 nuclear attack submarines. So that’s one reason nukes are on my mind.

    Then there are those two terrible wars raging right now between nuclear-armed invaders (Russia and Israel) and non-nuclear entities (Ukraine and Hamas).  Those nuclear-tinged wars worry me. And am I the only person who noticed that, just recently, the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists decided to keep its Doomsday Clock at 90 seconds (yes, 90 seconds!) to midnight? I also read enough to know that our government is going to spend more than $55 billion on nuclear weapons research, development, and testing in 2024 alone. And that figure doesn’t even include the whopping sums being invested in new nuclear delivery systems like Columbia class submarines or the upgrading of the B2 Spirit Stealth Bomber. I can get stuck there sometimes, especially when schools, clinics, and homeless shelters around me are struggling to keep their doors open.

    #support-block_69ba915be2a6b2f83bddc0a608969024 { background: #ECECEC; color: #000000; } Support Us

    Waging Nonviolence depends on reader support. Make a donation today!

    Donate

    Watching the (nuclear) clock at family gatherings

    Such facts swirl in my head all the time — sometimes emitting a low hum, sometimes growing uncomfortably shrill. But I work hard to have other interests and worries. My anti-nuclear activist mother was constitutionally unable not to talk about nuclear weapons and that’s a cautionary tale for me. I can still remember how we wouldn’t go to family weddings or reunions or anything else scheduled in the first 10 days of August, because we were memorializing the bombings of Hiroshima (August 6, 1945) and Nagasaki (August 9, 1945). Since my mother was one of seven siblings in a big Irish Catholic family and had dozens of nieces and nephews, we missed a lot of family summer gatherings thanks to that principle.

    Perhaps it was for the best, though, since I do remember one truly awkward exchange between my mother and a relative:

    “Oh hi, Liz, good to see you. You look lovely. How have you been?”

    And my mom replied: “Well, I’ve been better. We’re three minutes to nuclear midnight, you know. It keeps us very busy.” (In those days, the Bulletin’s Doomsday Clock was slightly farther from “midnight.”)

    An uncomfortable silence followed, spreading like nuclear winter and eventually the relative excused herself to get another martini.

    I try not to do that myself to unsuspecting friends and relatives, but I’d be lying if I told you that sometimes I didn’t think like my mom.

    Unlike me, most people have, I suspect, stuck the whole history, science, and politics of that world-killing technology in the proverbial basement (though not ours, of course). So, imagine my surprise when I found all that strange history stuck in my own basement!

    The only protection is prohibition

    Now that I think about it, the best protection to be found in that basement of mine is our stash of anti-nuclear protest signs. In one corner are all the ones the Connecticut Committee to Prohibit Nuclear Weapons uses in its protests. There are “disarm now” signs, a sturdy yellow banner with quotes from the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, and a stack of 70 “Thank You” posters for each of the nations that are party to that Treaty. My kids, some of our friends, and I made those signs to express our gratitude to countries like Benin, Honduras, and Thailand that have agreed (unlike the nine countries with such weaponry) not to develop, test, produce, manufacture, acquire, or possess, no less stockpile nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices, or accept nuclear weapons from other countries, or allow them to be stored on their territory.

    Mark Twain supposedly said that war is how Americans learn geography. In making those signs and waving them near the local General Dynamics complex contracted to design the next generation of nuclear-capable submarines, my kids and I are learning adifferent kind of geography. As we resist, we celebratethe geography of the true superpowers on this planet, the nations that are trying to lead the way to a nuclear-free, bunker-free future where children won’t have to even imagine hiding in their basements.

    In the meantime, I’m going to hang these two booklets back up under the basement stairs as relics of what I’d love to think of as a bygone era. I just have to find the right screwdriver.

    This article The only protection from nuclear catastrophe is prohibition was originally published by Waging Nonviolence.

    After 38 attacks on art, climate protesters have fallen into big oil’s trap – it’s time to change tack | Giovanni Aloi

    The Guardian | Protest -

    Repetition has blunted the art museum protests so much that the pumpkin soup assault on the Mona Lisa felt pathetic. More effective tactics are needed

    How many of the 38 environmental protests staged in museums in 2022 can you remember? How many of the more recent ones only generated widespread outrage? Did any of them lead to tangible change? The protesters’ cause is serious, the threat is very real, the message is important and urgent. But is it not getting through to the public?

    Sixty years ago, Andy Warhol’s Brillo Boxes and multiplied Marilyn Monroe screen-prints exposed modern repetition as an ideal of mindlessness – an inescapable capitalist pattern ingrained in the oversaturated modes of production and consumption that distract and overwhelm while nurturing an irreducible sense of modern apathy. How many times is too many? Repetition is a complex phenomenon: it can deepen or hollow out experiences depending on how it is deployed. Repeated ad libitum anything shocking quickly becomes commonplace. Aware of the risk, good artists try not to repeat themselves; instead they strive to constantly reinvent. From Friedrich Nietzsche to Søren Kierkegaard, Jean Baudrillard, Walter Benjamin, Mark Fisher, Frantz Fanon, Robert Hughes, and Amia Srinivasan, modern thinkers have dwelled extensively on the all-pervasive pacifying powers of unwitting repetitiveness. The shock of the new quickly melts into the air.

    Continue reading...

    Tractor chaos, neo-Nazis and a flatlining economy: why has Germany lost the plot? | Peter Kuras

    The Guardian | Protest -

    A few years ago, Germany seemed like it had all the answers. But in 2024, we find ourselves in a land of bleak absurdity

    Germany doesn’t have a reputation as a funny country, but its dark humour is currently shaming the best recent efforts of both Britain and the US. Not that there is a sudden bumper crop of talented comedians in Germany, but who needs them when reality itself is already so bleakly cartoonish? A few years ago, Germany seemed like it had all the answers: a robust economy and a stable and broad-based coalition against the far right. Now, the economy is faltering as the combined effects of mismanagement collide with a bureaucratic culture that makes investment and innovation difficult. Striking rail workers and protesting farmers have brought chaos to the cities. The only thing collapsing faster than the German economy is the country’s status as a moral example, which hit an all-time high with the refugee crisis of 2015-16 and has now tumbled like a vaudeville star on a banana peel.

    Jewish critics of Israel being arrested by Berlin police for allegedly antisemitic speech? It’s a joke worthy of Franz Kafka, who would also certainly have got a kick out of the enormous disparity between the treatment of protests in support of a ceasefire in Gaza and the farmers’ protests and their cavalcades of tractors.

    Peter Kuras is a writer and translator based in Berlin

    Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here.

    Continue reading...

    About 200,000 people protest across Germany against far-right AfD party

    The Guardian | Protest -

    Chancellor says protests are ‘strong sign in favour of democracy’ as demonstrators gather in Berlin, Dresden, Hanover and other cities

    About 200,000 people have taken to the streets of Germany in further protests against the far-right party Alternative for Germany (AfD).

    Protests on Saturday also took place in Dresden, Mainz and Hanover in a sign of growing alarm at strong public support for AfD.

    Continue reading...

    Tens of thousands protest in Berlin in latest rally against far-right AfD party – video

    The Guardian | Protest -

    About 120,000 people have taken to the streets of Berlin in further protests against the far-right party Alternative for Germany (AfD). The protests, which are now in their fourth week, followed a report last month that two senior AfD members had attended a meeting to discuss plans for the mass deportation of citizens of foreign origin. AfD has denied that the proposal represented party policy

    Continue reading...

    Hundreds of thousands expected at pro-Palestine march in London

    The Guardian | Protest -

    Met police ban face coverings in Westminster as organisers accuse force of bowing to political pressure

    Hundreds of thousands of pro-Palestine demonstrators are expected to march through central London on Saturday in the UK’s first national demonstration since the UN’s international court of justice ordered Israel to ensure its forces do not commit acts of genocide in Gaza.

    Organisers have said the Metropolitan police are expected to take a harsher approach compared with previous demonstrations, accusing the force of bowing to political pressure from the government to restrict the marches.

    Continue reading...

    How older climate activists helped win the fight over LNG exports

    Waging Nonviolence -

    This article How older climate activists helped win the fight over LNG exports was originally published by Waging Nonviolence.

    In a win for climate justice, the Biden administration announced a pause last week on the approval of new liquefied natural gas, or LNG, terminals in the United States. Long touted as a climate solution by the fossil fuel industry, LNG is better known among activists as “fossil gas,” given its contribution to greenhouse gas emissions. Although existing LNG facilities remain in operation, most new gas terminals were slated to be built in the Gulf region, where communities of color already bear the costs of environmental racism. While the decision has been listed as one of the Biden administration’s climate accomplishments, it is a huge win for the activists, communities and grassroots organizations that have been organizing and agitating for such an outcome with the #StopLNG campaign.  

    Among those organizations is Third Act. Founded in 2021 by journalist and environmental activist Bill McKibben, Third Act organizes Americans over 60 years of age in climate and democracy actions. There are 24 location-specific working groups across the U.S. with more in formation —  and five affinity groups to harness the talents of lawyers or creatives, for example. For the past several months, Third Act has been involved in the #StopLNG campaign, and were scheduled to undertake three days of nonviolent civil disobedience at the Department of Energy in early February.  In light of the Biden administration’s decision, the action has been canceled, but their organizing — especially for the upcoming election — continues. 

    I spoke with B Fulkerson, Third Act’s national organizer. A fifth-generation Nevadan and a lifelong activist, Fulkerson — now 63-years-old — began volunteering with Third Act in the wake of the Caldor and Dixie fires in 2021. We discussed the organizing that led to this decision, the power of nonviolent direct action, and why it’s important to stop and celebrate success.

    B Fulkerson protesting with fellow Third Actors. (Brooke Anderson)

    As an organization, how did Third Act react to the Biden administration’s recent decision on new LNG terminals?

    Our reaction went from shock to elation. Third Act — alongside frontline leaders such as Roishetta Sibley Ozane, Gwen Jones and a number of groups from throughout the country — took on some of the biggest, nastiest, richest, most powerful forces in the world and did an amazing job. It is a beautiful example of people and various sectors of the climate movement coming together and taking something that was really arcane and somewhat disconnected from the conversation five months ago, and kicking their asses and leaving them crying in the gutter. It feels really good. We all feel empowered. 

    How did you plan for the #StopLNG campaign over the past five months?

    Five months ago, Bill McKibben brought it up at one of our team meetings. He said that the Biden administration was getting ready to take a look at these massive fossil gas terminals that were going to be built, and it was probably something Third Act could weigh in on. Also, if we went deep and hard and fast — we might win. So we talked about it. We were in the middle of our Costco campaign, a Citibank campaign, and we were starting to get our work together for the 2024 elections, but we decided this could be a moment for us. We usually have a saying at Third Act: Because we’re all a bunch of geezers, we go slow to go fast. Well, this was one of those moments where we had to go fast to go fast. People across our team really stepped up as other organizations throughout the country did as well.

    Previous Coverage
  • Movements have a long history of playing the inside-outside game effectively
  • In terms of planning, I think this was a really great example of an inside-outside strategy. Bill, because of who he is, has the ability to have conversations with Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm and other people in the White House in order to gather intelligence to inform our strategy. We also have people who have been involved with the Mountain Valley Pipeline fight and involved very deeply in nonviolent direct action and civil disobedience. Because of that, we started a nonviolent direct action training series in November, which was in the works for months before that. We knew that looking back at nonviolent history that big things don’t really happen without the serious threat of mass civil disobedience, so we knew that had to be a part of it, as well.  The Climate Disobedience Center was involved in helping us with these trainings and getting hundreds of folks mobilized and ready to risk arrest during a three-day sit-in at the Department of Energy. I was really thrilled at the level of support we got from people who were willing to do that. 

    Do you think the three days of nonviolent civil disobedience planned as part of the #StopLNG campaign was the tipping point that led to the Biden administration’s decision?

    Absolutely. Definitely. We were quite clear to the administration that we were going to be out there for three days with 500 people getting arrested and more in support. They did not want that to happen. Absent the threat of mass civil disobedience, I don’t think the administration would have gone this way. You could also say that absent the leadership of the Gulf Coast folks who are on the front lines it would not have happened, and absent some of the great communications work other groups did it also would not have happened. It’s a great example of the whole being much greater than the sum of the parts and really being able to accomplish big things together. 

    #newsletter-block_9525ad8a4cd98ceb9185b4272020b706 { background: #ECECEC; color: #000000; } #newsletter-block_9525ad8a4cd98ceb9185b4272020b706 #mc_embed_signup_front input#mce-EMAIL { border-color:#000000 !important; color: #000000 !important; } Sign Up for our Newsletter

    Given that the decision arrived before the planned actions in D.C., how has that impacted Third Act’s #StopLNG campaign? 

    Well, what we’re going to do now is pivot. Our nonviolent direct action trainers are still going to do a deep nonviolent civil disobedience training for our Third Act community in the D.C., Maryland and Virginia areas, where there is some really strong interest. Then we’re going to hold two additional trainings across the country. The idea is to use nonviolent direct action as a key strategy and a tactic in the fight to reduce carbon emissions — and to take on the fossil fuel industry whether that’s Citi Bank or other enemies. Frankly, I’m a little bit disappointed, as it would have been my third time getting arrested in D.C. But you know, what? It’s a good problem to have. Sometimes, as Bill says, the best actions are the ones you don’t have to have. 

    Prior to the #StopLNG campaign, was civil disobedience part of Third Act’s strategy?

    I wouldn’t have come to Third Act if nonviolent direct action was not part of our DNA, and it’s something that we’ve been talking about and knowing we need to have in our quiver for a long time. However, we’re only two and a half years old, so this was going to be the first time we were going to do it as an organization. We also don’t want to suggest that unless you’re getting arrested, you’re not really a climate activist — making phone calls and knocking on doors is just as important. But we know that this is an essential tactic and strategy that we’ll have to employ going forward. 

    How does Third Act take time to celebrate, reflect or learn from a win like this?

    Last night, we had a call with hundreds of our Third Actors and Gulf region frontline leaders. It was pretty emotional and pretty telling about how this is a moment for the Third Act to be in service. There was celebration and there was some debrief involved. On Tuesday, we had our first team meeting since the decision came down and we spent a long time going around talking about what this means and celebrating. We’ve all been part of those groups where it’s like, “okay, we did the thing, let’s move on.” We don’t stop to take a breath, let alone, say “hey, what was the meaning of that experience we had together? Let’s harvest that.” But again, we’re old, we have to stop, we have to rest, we have to look back. At Third Act, we slow down.

    What other organizing has been happening alongside the #StopLNG campaign?

    Citibank is our number one target. They’re the biggest funder of fossil fuel expansion, so we’d like to take them down. Part of it has been going through Costco because a lot of Third Actors have Costco credit cards. So we got 30,000 signatures and did an action at the Costco shareholders [meeting] a couple of weeks ago. Costco is famous for its sheet cakes, so we got a whole bunch of Third Actors to dress up in the Costco aprons and uniforms, the name tags, and delivered a sheet cake and the 30,000 signatures to the Costco headquarters in Kirkland [Washington]. Outside the headquarters, there were songs and a mobile billboard — so that when the shareholders went in, they saw the campaign in bright colors and letters. Meanwhile, across the country, Third Act working groups met with the branch managers at their local Costcos and delivered mock signatures. 

    Following that, the Costco CEO said at a board meeting, “We hear you and we’re in conversations with Citibank about these concerns.” Now, I don’t know what that means, but for the third largest retail store in the country to acknowledge our campaign is pretty big. We’ve talked about what this means in view of that campaign, in view of Citibank and where we’re going to go next. We haven’t made any big decisions yet, but we have to decide as we’ve got a lot of eager people out there. It’s incumbent upon us to make sure that our strategy is sound and that our targets have a reasonable chance of folding if we employ those tactics and strategies. 

    Third Actors delivering a sheetcake and 30,000 signatures to Costco headquarters. (Twitter/Third Act)

    You mentioned that there are local working groups across the country. How do the working groups operate in relation to the national organization?

    We have 35 working groups right now and about eight more in formation in key states across the country. They are all volunteers, so we’re getting hundreds of thousands of volunteer hours from people all over the country. We ask that the groups do 60 percent of their work on our campaigns — climate and democracy — and then a working group can spend 40 percent or less of their time on a local campaign that they’re interested in, say a community garden or something that’s related to climate or democracy. 

    There are also five affinity based groups for lawyers, educators, trade unionists, creatives and people of faith. In these groups people come together and lean into their profession to get Third Act strategies and campaigns implemented within their sector. For example, the retired trade unionists bring a real union organizing mentality to us about rigor, discipline and research.

    Could you elaborate on how trade union organizing informs Third Act’s work?

    One of the main things we can learn from trade unions is the approach to research. In Nevada, the reason the culinary union is the biggest, baddest outfit in the state — and brings the biggest gaming companies to their heels — is because they have a research department that’s working to find out the vulnerabilities of each of those companies. When it comes time for negotiations, they hit them and they hit them hard. So research is key. They also bring relational organizing to Third Act. The one-on-one is absolutely essential to organizing as change happens through relationships and undergirds the work that we do. A lot of that comes out of a union background. 

    Third Act collaborates, backs-up and supports youth-led climate initiatives. How is organizing alongside youth different from organizing those over 60 years of age?

    Previous Coverage
  • How young climate activists built a mass movement to be reckoned with
  • One of our working principles is to be humble and that’s really essential when geezers and boomers come into spaces with youth, especially Gen Z, who are primarily Black, Indigenous and people of color. We carry all our power, privilege, unconscious biases and our unearned advantage of those spaces and want to run the show, but it just does not work. You do a lot more listening when you work with youth, a hell of a lot more listening.

    With our Third Actors,  people are dying and they’re taking care of their loved ones who are dying. I have hundreds of calls a month, several of them canceled because a loved one has died, or they have to take care of a loved one or go to hospital. It’s a really tender moment in our lives. We don’t have time to waste. There’s a volunteer from Texas who encapsulated it really well. He said, “I just want to go out right.” We know that we’re closer to the exit than the entrance — and not that that makes us any more virtuous than young people, no way, but we don’t want to make any more mistakes. We want to get this shit right before we go. 

    Why is offering training such an integral part of Third Act? 

    Training is a huge part of what we do especially with so many new activists. We have people who have been teachers for 30 years, for example, and they’ve never been an activist before. Now they want to do something. Our culture says, shut up, you’ve got wrinkles (especially if they’re women). We don’t want to look at you, you know, disappear. But we’re saying, this is the best time of your life. Come on out and we’ll build community, we’ll build relationships. This will be great for your health, the health of the community, our country and our planet. We’re going to provide these trainings on how to do it, we’re not just going to say go forth and conquer. 

    We have a racial justice program that teaches our leaders how to build strategic collaborations with youth and Black, Indigenous and people of color communities, and how to recognize our unconscious biases, how to have authentic dialogue, how to check our privilege, our power and the unearned advantages that we have. We do “how to lobby” trainings, “how to organize” trainings, and “how to do one-on-one” trainings. Most of our stuff is available online on our Vimeo page

    There’s also a lot of peer learning that takes place within our working groups. One of our greatest volunteers is a woman named Lonnie Ritter Hall who was a school teacher for 35 years. With Roe v. Wade overturned, she wanted to do something, and two years ago she went to her very first protest. She is now our lead national volunteer and does training sessions along with a whole team of other elders to teach people how to run a Zoom call. Another team she runs is “how to work Google Docs.” But we also know there are some outstanding training sessions offered by groups like People’s Action or the Climate Disobedience Center and we send our people to those places as well. We have a real generous spirit and want to share our love and take theirs in.

    #support-block_edc63eaaa5a42cbd91b3eb39994b9ac3 { background: #000000; color: #ffffff; } Support Us

    Waging Nonviolence depends on reader support. Make a donation today!

    Donate

    There’s an upcoming training about hope and joy. Why is this important to activism and organizing?

    These are times of deep despair and we don’t want to sugarcoat everything because things are bleak. There’s no doubt about it, but it doesn’t do our bodies — let alone the movement — any good to go around looking like Eeyore all the time. Bill also says that the key to getting people to work together is having fun while doing it and putting some joy into that work. We want to build organizing homes where people do feel that joy, so why not tackle that head on? Why not talk about the grief and the despair that is absolutely part of this, but at the same time acknowledge the joy in the connections that we’re making with each other. There’s joy in knowing that there’s still beauty out there on this big, beautiful planet, and there’s joy knowing that people are still going to be able to love each other no matter what. 

    What are the next steps for Third Act?

    The next thing is to stop a goddamn fascist from getting elected in this country. We’ve been leaning hard into the elections and getting all of our Third Actors involved and engaged in key ways: making phone calls, knocking on doors, getting out the vote, doing whatever we need to do to ensure Biden wins. We also have a campaign called “Power Up Communities,” and it’s geared towards getting our Third Actors engaged with other efforts in their state to influence the public utilities commissions.

    They are the ones that are going to be leading the renewable energy transition at the state level and implementing the Inflation Reduction Act, but have been mostly insulated from public scrutiny. We want to piggyback on the work other groups are doing and get our Third Actors involved. 

    This article How older climate activists helped win the fight over LNG exports was originally published by Waging Nonviolence.

    Judge throws out case against Greta Thunberg and other London protesters

    The Guardian | Protest -

    Court rules not enough evidence provided to prove defendants failed to comply with section 14 order at anti-fossil fuel rally

    Greta Thunberg and four others charged with public order offences over a protest in London have been cleared after a judge ruled that they had no case to answer.

    Thunberg was charged alongside Christofer Kebbon, Joshua James Unwin, Jeff Rice and Peter Barker with “failing to comply with a condition imposed under section 14 of the Public Order Act”.

    Continue reading...

    In a world built by plutocrats, the powerful are protected while vengeful laws silence their critics | George Monbiot

    The Guardian | Protest -

    In the UK and around the world, those who challenge rich corporations are being hounded and crushed with ever-more inventive penalties

    Why are peaceful protesters treated like terrorists, while actual terrorists (especially on the far right, and especially in the US) often remain unmolested by the law? Why, in the UK, can you now potentially receive a longer sentence for “public nuisance” – non-violent civil disobedience – than for rape or manslaughter? Why are ordinary criminals being released early to make space in overcrowded prisons, only for the space to be refilled with political prisoners: people trying peacefully to defend the habitable planet?

    There’s a simple explanation. It was clearly expressed by a former analyst at the US Department of Homeland Security. “You don’t have a bunch of companies coming forward saying: ‘I wish you’d do something about these rightwing extremists.’” The disproportionate policing of environmental protest, the new offences and extreme sentences, the campaigns of extrajudicial persecution by governments around the world are not, as politicians constantly assure us, designed to protect society. They’re a response to corporate lobbying.

    George Monbiot is a Guardian columnist

    Continue reading...

    ExxonMobil blocks activists’ attempt to seek climate strategy vote

    The Guardian | Protest -

    Follow This drops petition for shareholders to vote on whether oil giant should set emissions reduction targets

    ExxonMobil has quashed an attempt by a group of climate activists to seek a vote on the US oil giant’s climate strategy at its annual shareholder meeting later this year.

    A Dutch green activist investor group, Follow This, has dropped its petition for Exxon shareholders to vote on whether the company should set emissions reduction targets after Exxon took legal action against the plans.

    Continue reading...

    Pro-Palestine march in London will end near Downing Street, say police

    The Guardian | Protest -

    Met had previously refused to allow expected 300,000 demonstrators to hold rally on Whitehall on Saturday

    The latest pro-Palestine march of hundreds of thousands of protesters through central London will end with a rally near Downing Street after a climbdown from the Metropolitan police.

    Following a meeting late on Thursday afternoon, organisers of the march said they had been given permission for the end stage of Saturday’s demonstration to take place on Whitehall.

    Continue reading...

    Why are farmers protesting across the EU and what can the bloc do about it?

    The Guardian | Protest -

    Food producers say increasing costs, tiny margins and climate policies leave livelihoods in peril

    Hundreds of tractors choked Brussels city centre on Thursday and angry farmers pelted the European parliament with eggs. Although agriculture was not on the agenda for EU leaders meeting just up the road, politicians may find that they ignore these grievances at their peril.

    Here is a look at what lies behind the farmers’ protests that have been sweeping Europe for months – in countries such as Greece, Germany, Portugal, Poland and France, where the government was taken by surprise this week by a motorway blockade of Paris.

    Continue reading...

    ‘It’s unfathomable’: speed hump saboteurs join Italy’s pro-car vandals

    The Guardian | Protest -

    First cameras were torn down by someone calling themselves Fleximan – now traffic calming measures are being targeted

    Renzo Bergamini, the mayor of Gualtieri, was on his way to buy the newspapers on Tuesday morning when he noticed something was amiss with one of the two speed humps positioned on the town’s ring road.

    “I saw that the sections of the hump were slightly misaligned,” he said. “The bolts had been unscrewed.”

    Continue reading...

    Farmers hurl eggs at European parliament as leaders meet for summit

    The Guardian | Protest -

    Farmers from across EU stage protest calling for more help with taxes, rising costs and environmental rules

    Hundreds of protesting farmers have thrown eggs and stones at the European parliament, lighting fires, dumping manure and setting off fireworks to put pressure on a summit of European leaders to do more to help them with taxes, rising costs and environmental rules.

    Many farmers had travelled from countries across Europe including France, Germany and Italy after weeks of protests in which tractors have blockaded roads, ports and entrances to cities. Small groups of protesting farmers in Brussels tried to tear down barriers in front of the European parliament but police fired teargas and sprayed water to push them back.

    Continue reading...

    Met accused of bowing to political pressure with Palestine march curbs

    The Guardian | Protest -

    Organisers of ‘Stop the Genocide’ protest this Saturday told they cannot rally outside Downing Street

    The Metropolitan police commissioner, Sir Mark Rowley, has been accused of bowing to political pressure by banning pro-Palestine demonstrators from ending their march this Saturday with a rally outside Downing Street.

    The marches in London have regularly ended both at Trafalgar Square and near Downing Street on Whitehall to allow the huge crowds to safely disperse from two locations.

    Continue reading...

    Myanmar at standstill as silent strike marks three-year anniversary of coup

    The Guardian | Protest -

    Towns and cities empty during protest on anniversary of coup and arrest of Aung San Suu Kyi

    Cities and towns across Myanmar have come to a standstill as people took part in a silent strike to signal defiance against the military junta on the anniversary of the 2021 coup.

    Three years since the military detained political leaders including Aung San Suu Kyi, its grip on power is more uncertain than at any point in the last six decades, according to analysts. The UN says two-thirds of the country is experiencing conflict.

    Continue reading...

    Protesting farmers light fires and clash with police at European parliament – video

    The Guardian | Protest -

    Protesting farmers blockaded roads and camped outside the European parliament building in Brussels on Thursday, ahead of a EU leaders' summit in the Belgian capital. The demonstrators lit two fires outside and placed their tractors in front of the European parliament building. Farmers have been protesting across Europe against rising costs in the agriculture sector and falling prices for produce

    Continue reading...

    ‘They were dying, and they’d not had their money’: Britain’s multibillion-pound equal pay scandal

    The Guardian | Protest -

    In 2005, Glasgow council offered to compensate women for historic pay inequality. But it sold them short again – and soon workers all over the UK started fighting for what they were owed

    Just before Christmas 2005, Frances Stojilkovic was offered what sounded like free money. She was working as a carer, providing in-home assistance to elderly and disabled people. The letter she received, along with 11,000 other women working for Glasgow city council, told Stojilkovic she was entitled to compensation resulting from wage disparity between men and women. This was the first time most of the women had heard that they were being paid less than their male counterparts – but what drew the attention of Stojilkovic and her friends was the promise of a cash injection. “It was a carrot dangling before Christmas. Everyone wanted to have something for their kids,” she told me recently.

    Stojilkovic is a no-nonsense woman, born and bred in Glasgow. When she got the letter, she was in her early 40s, and had been working as a home carer for about a year. She loved the job, and was conscious of its importance – sometimes she was the only person someone spoke to that day. But it did not pay well. Many of Stojilkovic’s colleagues, especially the single mothers, worked multiple jobs to make ends meet: night shifts cleaning or weekends in retail. She considered herself lucky because she and her husband both had jobs – he worked in restaurants – so they had two incomes. But she still worked a lot of overtime, and weeks would go by when she and her husband saw little of each other. Stojilkovic was excited at the prospect of a payout. Having done the job for a year, she was told, she was entitled to £2,800. “I just thought – £2,800! I’m rich!” she recalled.

    Continue reading...

    Pages