Top priorities for the Earth Democracy Issue Committee are protecting water from PFAS contamination, challenging fossil fuels, and addressing the spread of microplastics, alongside broader work on renewable energy, food sovereignty, and strengthening local economies. From deep research to partnering with allies to producing education materials, committee members connect all the dots. Earth Democracy meets monthly.
We are all members of the Earth Community. We all have the duty to protect the rights and welfare of all species and all people.
Humans, along with other species, share the ecological space of our planet. We humans must show respect both for other humans and for other life forms. The Earth Democracy issue committee calls for recognition of the Rights of Nature.
Earth Democracy connects people in circles of care, cooperation, and compassion instead of dividing them through competition and conflict, as presented by Vandana Shiva in her book, 10 Principles of Earth Democracy.
Earth Democracy Structure
- Earth Democracy Co-chairs: Nancy Price, Sacramento Branch, & Jean Hays, Fresno Branch
- General meeting times (monthly, evenings) to be arranged. Contact the co-chairs at earthdemocracy@wilpfus.org for more information.
- Coordinating Committee group meets Wednesday, 9:00 am PT once or twice a month. Current Coordinating Committee members include the following:
Lib Hutchby, Triangle Branch, NC
Eileen Kurkoski, Boston Branch
Jane Doyle, Randa Solick, Santa Cruz Branch, CA
Mary Hanson Harrison, at-large WILPF member
Marybeth Gardam, Chair, WILPF Women, Money & Democracy Issue Committee, Des Moines Branch, IA
Cindy Piester, Veterans for Peace, Ventura, CA
Earth Democracy’s Subject Areas
At this time, we are broadening the range of our work, although since 2020 we have been focused on the dangerous PFAS group of chemicals called “forever chemicals”. Our PFAS work has relied on several key ongoing leaders. Marguerite Adelman is the Coordinator of the Vermont PFAS/Military Poisons Coalition, a project of WILPF US. Investigator, reporter, and researcher, Pat Elder publishes articles based on his leadership on our MlitaryPoisons.org project website. And Patricia Hynes, a Traprock Peace & Justice Center Board member in Deerfield, Massachusetts, has contributed important articles, books, and works on peace education and women’s health.
Going forward, we will be clustering our work under three campaigns: Human Right to Water and Health, Global Warming and Renewable Energy, and Food Sovereignty and Local Economy. We will be creating special projects for immediate and more intense focus.
To integrate these broad subject areas under Earth Democracy, we highlight two framing initiatives:
Our Three Campaigns
Water, including the privatization of community water systems, has become an increasingly crucial concern. Earth Democracy is tracking these developments:
Water Act Congressional legislation to fund repair, rebuilding, and new infrastructure
Blue Communities: local resolutions to keep water in public hands
In the Human Right to Water and Health campaign, Earth Democracy has these Special Projects:
Exposing the Pentagon: Hidden Polluter of Water
PFAS and WILPF US MilitaryPoisons.org & Vermont PFAS/Military Poisons Coalition
UN Sustainable Development Goals 2030: #6 Clean Water and Sanitation
In this campaign we have multiple focuses. Under Climate Justice + Women + Peace we include these areas:
Impact of Militarism and War on Climate and Environment
Toward a Just Transition: From a War Economy to a Peace Economy
Special Projects:
Mobilization to support the Fossil Fuel Treaty and Moving to a Green Economy
UN Climate Change Conference: COP 29 in Baku, Azerbaijan, Nov. 11-22, 2024
This campaign includes these areas:
Indigenous Ecological Knowledge and Rights of Nature
Regeneration, Living Soil and Eco-Feminism
Special Project:
Confined Animal Feeding Operations: CAFOs – water and land pollution
How You Can Be a Part of our Earth Democracy Work
As you see, our work is expanding with new campaigns and special projects crucial at this time for the advocacy and action needed to take society in new directions.
We welcome you to join and engage in our Earth Democracy campaigns and special projects. Your work can go to research and writing; developing tactics and strategies; media outreach; and creating and designing actions, events, rallies, signs, banners and more.
You can help build this moment for change – based on the principles of diversity, equity, and inclusion; climate justice; and peace-building. If you’d like to know more about our Earth Democracy Committee and work, please email Nancy Price at EarthDemocracy@wilpfus.org.
Toolkit
Stop Fracking in California
Below is the description of a 2015 project by the Fresno Branch Earth Democracy committee, and the WILPF US Earth Democracy Issue Committee, which culminated in a DVD showing the economic and environmental impacts of extracting oil by hydraulic fracturing (“fracking”) in Kern County, California. If you are interested in obtaining a copy DVD, please contact Ellen Schwartz, ellen [at] nicetechnology [dot] com.
The TPP (TransPacific Partnership) and its complementary dangerous plan, the TTIP (Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership), were two programs pushed by President Obama. Unlike the usual kind of trade agreement to lower tariff barriers to encourage trade, these two agreements would give corporations the power to undercut our environmental, health, safety and labor laws and regulations Massive grassroots opposition managed to scuttle these plans, but global capitalism hasn’t stopped trying.
By Jean Hays, WILPF Fresno Earth Democracy, and Nancy Price, Earth Democracy
Governor Brown no longer qualifies as an environmentalist. Failing to enact a moratorium on fracking in California and to stop irrigation of crops with contaminated fracked water, he’ll go down in history as caving to Big Oil and gas.
On July 19, the Fresno Branch of WILPF US held its DVD premiere of “Crude Beyond Belief”. This video is the outcome of the fracking tour organized by Jean Hays of Fresno Earth Democracy and led by Kern County water and air expert Tom Frantz and filmed by our local Community Media Access Collaborative (CMAC).
As Elly Benson reported in a November 2015 article on the Sierra Club website: “Kern County, located in California’s Central Valley, is the nation’s top oil-producing county. Despite California’s reputation as a climate leader, it is the nation’s third largest oil-producing state—trailing only Texas and North Dakota. Approximately 75 percent of the oil extracted in California comes from Kern County, and the county is home to 95 percent of the fracking that occurs in the state.”
What can you do?
Please order “Crude Beyond Belief” now. The cost of the DVD + mailing is $15. You can send payment, along with your mailing information, to WILPF Fresno, P.O. Box 5114, Fresno, CA, 93755.
Plan to show “Crude Beyond Belief” at a House Party or local public event. This is the ideal WILPF resource for your branch, wherever you are, to educate your community about the harm caused by fracking and its associated infrastructure and to emphasize that we must keep 80 percent of fossil fuels in the ground to avoid runaway global warming and its impacts on people and the planet.
Complement your film screening with our Climate Justice+Women+Peace infographic card. Make the connection: The TPP will dramatically accelerate fracking and export of oil and gas to the Pacific Rim countries and increase extreme weather events.
California WILPFers: Sign the petition to Governor Brown: protect our food from toxic oil wastewater.
Work to STOP the TPP in the lame duck session, November 14 to December 16, 2016. As you know, President Obama is pressing forward for a lame duck vote and has submitted the required implementing legislation. But let’s be clear: Republican House Majority Leader Paul Ryan is a huge supporter of the TPP. Remember, Senate Majority Leader McConnell has come out against a lame duck vote, but wants to “improve” the TPP; and Hillary Clinton is, at present, against the TPP in its present form. Keep in mind that Clinton’s VP running mate, until recently, was a strong free trade supporter, and Clinton appointed wildly pro-TPP Ken Salazar as head of her transition team.
Please do your part. When Congress is back in D.C. on September 6, call your representative and ask for a “No” on the TPP and a “No” lame duck vote!