Celebrate Earth Day April 22

Signs by Jeri Bodemar on left; and Paula LeRoy at the Santa Cruz climate march. Credit: Joy Hinz

By Nancy Price, Earth Democracy Issue Committee

On Earth Day, let’s celebrate Berta Cáceres’ life and honor those in our communities who are dedicated to exposing and finding solutions to environmental racism and ecocide perpetrated by governments and corporations.  

As WILPF’s recent statement makes clear Berta was assassinated for her outspoken leadership and organizing to stop the Honduran government’s deals with foreign multinational corporations for mining and dam projects.

We all know, too, that environmental racism and corporate profiteering at the expense of people and the planet is happening right here in our communities across the US

So, this Earth Day let’s honor those guardians of Mother Earth in your branches and local communities and stand with those who are exposing and working to stop environmental racism, human rights abuses, and ecocide locally and globally.

Read what Sandra Steingraber of We Are Seneca Lake wrote from jail on Earth Day 2013.

We are facing a climate disaster. Mother Earth is struggling to breathe and to provide the essentials of clean air, land, fresh water and ocean habitats on which all life depends.  Just recently Bill McKibben wrote that methane is a far more potent climate-changing greenhouse gas than previously calculated. And, there is greater urgency now about global warming, the melting glaciers and Arctic and Antarctic ice, and sea level rise.

This Earth Day it is vital to make the connection that without Trade Justice there is no Climate Justice. The TPP and TTIP will accelerate extraction of fracked oil and gas across the US for export to the Pacific and Europe with more CO2 and methane emissions and global warming. Remember the carbon from air and sea transport is not calculated in national greenhouse gas emissions. More export and import equals more air and sea transport.  

Our economy, society and planet are at tipping points.  We need to say no to corporate power and to assert the people’s rights and rights of Mother Earth. 

Read Brian Tokar’s 2010 article, “Reclaiming Earth Day: With Climate Chaos on the Horizon, the Environmental Movement Needs Traction” and “What’s trade policy got to do with climate policy?  It’s got the whole world to do with it!” that I wrote for the Liberty Tree Foundation.

If you’ve planned an event or action or are joining with others

Please put your event on the Global Climate Convergence Earth Day to May Day calendar and it will be put on the ED2MD map. And please endorse the People’s Climate Strike. Please send Nancy Price (nancytprice39@gmail.com) a description of your event and photo for the May Earth Democracy eNews.

Order now for tabling & events to receive before April 22  

CLIMATE JUSTICE+WOMEN+PEACE INFOGRAPHIC CARD

Click here to order. WILPF members and branches can order bulk quantities free and pay only for mailing costs. Contact Marybeth Gardam (mbgardam@gmail.com) stating the number of cards desired and your preferred mailing address.