[One of] the other things that keeps me going is knowing that one of my great aunts and my great uncles [had] respiratory problems. Their breath was taken away slowly inch by inch, feeling like they were being suffocated. When they died, thinking about them and thinking that how much better it would be for the rest of the people here. I don’t want them to die that way anymore, I want them to be able to breathe.” Fern Benally, Navajo Activist.

Shadia and I just finished an assignment in Arizona, covering an incredible group of activists that are working hard to stop dirty energy on the Navajo Reservation and pushing the envelope on clean energy development. We are focusing on the closing of one of the coal mines in the area, the tactics that were used and what this means to the people affected by the closure.

The former coalmine is in the Benally’s backyard, land that has been the families for thousands of years. For the last 30 years, 24 hours a day, the large coal trucks would rumble by the house and the coal crusher would drown out nature. Now, thanks to incredible co-operation and dedication amongst groups like the Black Mesa Water Coalition, Grand Canyon Trust and the Sierra Club, the life of mine permit was revoked in January. Now, the Benally’s can hear the birds sing and watch the stars like their ancestors did long before Europeans came here.

There are still many examples of environmental racism here in Arizona and across our planet. But, it is important to celebrate victories and share the knowledge so that we can all move towards a sustainable future. More to come on this project in the future.

Canada’s federal target is 3 per cent below 1990’s level by 2020, equivalent to 20 per cent less than 2006’s level, a target wholly inadequate to address the demands of science and justice that the climate crisis now presents. I am sad to say that Canada has also failed to take a leading role at the talks, instead actually presenting one of the major roadblocks to a fair and legally binding deal. (And all of this is not to mention the public shaming the Canadian delegation received at the hands of the Yes Men).

Why is my government’s performance so troublesome to me? Having spent two weeks in the Arctic this summer, I experienced the land, so far distanced from the stereotypical images of the Arctic I had imagined pre-expedition. The image of snow, ice and polar bears is one of rapid decline. With frightening predictions that polar ice will be non-existent within 30 years, this is no longer an issue we can ignore.

On my expedition this summer, the drastic changes occurring in the North became particularly evident during our hike to the Arctic Circle through Auyuittuq National Park – which means “the land that never melts” – (near Pangnirtung). I had mentally prepared myself for snow, ice and freezing temperatures. Although we crossed frozen rivers that were run-off from the glaciers we could barely see at the tops of mountains, this was as close to snow as we could get.

Seeing this beautiful but so unexpected land was a huge wake-up call. Getting sunburned swimming at the Arctic Circle was my breaking point. How can we continue to watch our world melt away? Having talked to the Elders and the children in Pangnirtung, we saw the unbearable effects of climate change, and could see how climate change is no longer just an environmental issue but also an issue of a way of life, of traditions and of culture.

Canada is known as a promoter of cultures, a peaceful and welcoming country, but with our government’s unwillingness to protect its own citizens, can we still live up to this reputation? The people of the North play such a vital role in our country and we should be taking what’s happening in the poles as a warning beacon as to what will happen in the rest of the world.

Clayton from the Indigenous caucus performing at vigil, photo by Kris Krug

Yesterday, I witnessed my good friend, Joshua Kahn-Russel of the Rainforest Action Network, get bludgeoned in the face by police officers. He, along with the rest of us, weren’t trying to get into the Bella Center. We weren’t compromising the safety of World leaders inside. We just wanted to access the street across the bridge, where those who could not get into the center were waiting for us. Where we would have converged, we were going to hold a “People’s Assembly,” to create the kind of treaty that we would have wanted to come from our leaders.

But, the police would not let us cross that bridge. We attempted to negotiate with them. They told us that if we were to pass, we would risk arrest down the line. We accepted this, and attempted to walk past them. But, they blocked the way, and started beating those they could reach. After a while of scuffling, we started to retreat. As we did, they circled around the activists in the front, trapping them. They started to wail down on them gratuitously.

This is when the conference rules stopped becoming about “protecting the safety of those inside the Bella Center,” but more about preserving power. In a larger sense, I think it showed how scared the elites are of us: They simply would not let us assemble, even though at this point we were far from the center.

After half of the public transportation shut down to impede Copenhagen’s visitors without private limos to access the center, we have escalated our tactics. Not with violence, but with peace.

This is why I fasted today. More generally, like most of those fasting today with me, it was to fast in solidarity with those who can not access food. This is not only due to climate change in itself, but the corrupt food system, which is making it more and more difficult for people on both sides of the equation to find something nourishing to their bodies in the midst of “development.”

But I also fasted because as an “observer” here at Copenhagen, I had run out of ideas. Nothing else seemed important enough or effective enough to do at this juncture.

The police have attempted to take away our rights. The city and the UN process has taken away our access, barring us from the process. But this in itself says something. It shows they are threatened, that they are scared, and that we are a voice to be reckoned with.

The failure of Copenhagen, like what was said at the vigil, is not a complete failure. They have not won. We have succeeded in shifting the power so that those vulnerable to the decisions of the rich and powerful have been elevated: this time their voice was heard by the world, loud and clear. People like President Mohammud Nasheed of the Maldives have helped strengthen the youth movement in this way, by lending us his voice and giving us hope in the possibility of leadership.

Copenhagen may be a failure, but if we can keep our strength up until the end, we will have gained some ground in this battle for humanity. My love and gratitude goes out to everyone that is here with me, and all over the world, striving everyday to make it a better place.

(Photo credit: Kris Krug)

Yesterday morning the meeting – the last meeting that all of civil society from Canada could attend as access started to be limited as of today, and will become increasingly limited as heads of state and their attachés arrive in Copenhagen and at the conference center (the Secretariat accredited 40, 000 people while the center has space for just 15, 000) – was a full house. All the seats were filled and many more stood and listened from the back of the room. The important part was the sheer diversity of Canadians in the room, from farmers to steelworkers to NGOs to indigenous peoples; youth, professionals, academics, politicians, and faith groups alike. These people came from all parts of Canada, East to West, North to South, and from rural regions as well as cities. Not everyone in that room would call themselves an environmentalist, and their concerns were not limited to the environment. They could not be put into a box called ‘Environmentalists’, ‘Greenpeace’, ‘Activists’, or ‘Treehuggers’. They represented so well that all Canadians are concerned about climate change and feel that the government is not fairly representing their concerns or values at these negotiations and in domestic climate policy.

A man from a labour union in Quebec emotionally asked if Michael Martin (chief negotiator) and other members of CAN DEL has considered those that will be disadvantaged in Canada as a result of the insistence by Canada that we use a 2006 base year. His reason was that many have significantly reduced their emissions between 1990 (the year recognized internationally as a base year for emissions reductions) and 2006, and would therefore have to reduce significantly more, and at a greater price, than industries that ignored climate change have only just started, or will soon be starting, to regulate their emissions.

I was empowered in that instance because I realized that Canadians want change. Canadians do not want to be embarrassed by their government’s policies on climate change, as David Miller, Mayor of Toronto, stated he was on Friday. Canada’s do not want to obstruct the negotiations, or garner a bad international reputation.

I started to wonder, who exactly was being represented by our country’s position in Copenhagen – whose interests? Surely not my own. As a young person I can see that the inaction of the government of Canada today and this week in Copenhagen will have serious repercussions on … my future, as cliché as that may sound. I cannot stand for a government that does not represent its people, who has fundamentally violated the contract between citizens and leaders.

I came to the briefing this morning with a question: If the government’s positions clearly does not represent the concerns of youth, students, workers, academics, municipal leaders, provincial leaders, athletes, professionals, indigenous peoples, immigrants – and so many other Canadians- who precisely does their position benefit, and whose voice are they being swayed by?

The answer? Michael Martin responded that the question was of a political nature and therefore not his to answer. This, I knew. Martin speaks to policy and just policy. But, Martin is the only person we have access to. Our representatives, who are supposed to be accountable to Canadians, Prime Minister Harper, and Minister Prentice, have not confirmed a meeting with Canadian Youth. Further, the problem is not specifically policy-related. Rather, it is a question of accountability. The House of Commons voted in favour of a motion for better a emissions reductions target, and a recent poll states that 74% of Canadians ‘believe the government must go further in the fight against climate change and adopt a more ambitious greenhouse gas emissions reductions target’ (a poll by Léger Marketing released on Thursday by Équiterre).

Canadians must be given the chance to express their concerns to the government, and it is unacceptable that the only person we have access to is one who says quite clearly that he is not accountable to us, but rather, accountable to the government. We cannot have our concerns addressed by a person who is not accountable to Canadians.

Story by Kari Hergott,  Fort Providence Métis

“Climate Change is a Human Issue. Our lives have already been altered by the impacts of the climate crisis. Climate change has affected our health, our food security and our cultural identities”

Excerpt from the Declaration of the Young Leaders’ Summit on Northern Climate Change, August 2009

I am not an activist, nor am I an environmentalist. I am an Indigenous person whose culture and livelihood is distinctly and completely connected to the land, environment and animals around me.  I am Métis, and I belong to one of the three constitutionally recognized Canadian Aboriginal groups.  I live on the banks of the Mackenzie River in the Northwest Territories, Canada.  The river, North America’s longest river, is an intricate part of Aboriginal culture and livelihood.

Question, how did a small town Métis girl from a community of 800 people end up in Copenhagen? And on the front lines of the December 12th march to the Bella Centre? Why am I here?  I am Aboriginal, Indigenous to Canada and extremely proud of it so it is my responsibility to ensure my voice is heard.  My ancestors have fought long and hard to allow me to live my life the way I do today.  In many ways, my involvement at the COP15 and Climate Change discussions allow me to honour their hard work, and ensure that there is a bright future for my own unborn children.

The tar sands are becoming one of the loudest and strongest concerns by Canadian youth, Indigenous peoples of the world and activists alike.  Canada has a long and cruel history of condemning the fate of our Aboriginal people, the Tar Sands and their support of it is another item to add to the list.  I am concerned about the Tar Sands, not only because of the environmental damage it is, and will continue to cause but also because of the direct impact it has on human lives.  Fort Chipewyan, Alberta is a community directly impacted; their people, their animals and their cultures are at stake.

The deadly chemicals in the air, the deadly chemicals in the water are horrific and stealing lives.  Not only are the Aboriginals of the affected communities, friends and relatives, they are fellow Canadians who deserve all the help in the world to ensure they survive.  Cancer is an awful disease, I am sure we all know someone who has been affected by this horrible disease.  The residents of Northern Alberta, around the tar sands development and those lives downstream are suffering from alarming cancer rates.  No one deserves that fate, no one!

My small community though is starting to show alarming rates of stomach cancer.  In the past year we have had 6 Aboriginal community members diagnosed, and sadly 3 of our Elders have passed on and now watch us from above.  It is such a tragedy that a highly respected elder from my community at 95, was diagnosed and passed on within a month of diagnosis.  Where is the logic that people who have survived some of biggest hardships in life (Residential School, Flu Pandemics, Colonization to name a few) end their lives not peacefully but in pain?  Why are my Elders, our Elders becoming so ill?

My community and region is at this weird “middle” state.  To our south and to our North our fate is being lived out in front of us.  The horrific realities our friends in Northern Alberta are facing, are terrifying me that if our country does not move forward and change its policy and their reliance on the Tar Sands, my community will be the next to suffer that fate.  Not only mine, but the entire Mackenzie River watershed that in turn will affect all of our communities.  Our neighbours to the North in the Arctic have been dealing with the changing environment and face the daily effects of climate change.  Traditional practices are being affected, for example if the ice is not freezing the way it has for hundreds of years, the ability to travel is limited and can become dangerous.  There are so many factors affecting human lives, and cultures.  It has been an honour to be surrounded by people who share the vision of protecting human lives, and cultures before non-renewable resource development.  Let us hope that our efforts will be heard throughout the walls of the Bella Centre, and into the hearts and consciousness of our leaders!

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What young people demand

From the Canadian Youth Delegation to Copenhagen

• Shut the tar sands down – we call for an immediate moratorium on all tar sands development
• A just transition for workers must be assured – all tar sands workers must be retrained and given support to thrive in a new, green economy
• Respect indigenous rights – respect and protect traditional territory
• Acknowledge the health concerns of impacted communities and take immediate action to address themYouth action inside the climate negotiations expressing solidarity with impacted communities

Youth action inside the climate negotiations expressing solidarity with impacted communities

Survival in our cities. This is what seemed like a compelling story. How does a massive city like New York reconcile those agendas? With such high concentrations of people: buildings, cars, public transportation, and even the competing agendas of capitalism and environmental awareness, this seemed like an issue worthy of exploration.

Constructing and retrofitting sustainable buildings are the most effective ways to reducing the pollution and carbon emissions in New York City. There are many aspects of the story yet to be uncovered. What technologies exist to do this? Which ones have been implemented so far? What are the factors that make policy so hard to achieve, and why are people resisting these changes?

Mayor Michael Bloomberg is serious in his efforts to in making the city sustainable. He has put in place initiatives towards environmental sustainability – ubiquitious new bike lanes, making Broadway in Times Square an open pedestrian space, and requiring hybrid models for all new taxis and buses.

But the sacred cow of the Bloomberg administration is real estate development. This is the one place where he can truly make a difference in cutting carbon. Last week he folded on an initiative for all new constructions to be environmentally sustainable and energy efficient.

We want the leaders at the COP 15 conference in Copenhagen to realize that many of us, living simply as citizens and working towards sustainable solutions, are already building a sustainable future. Pushing for an agreement that curbs emissions worldwide emissions may empower civil society by giving them the space to develop these initiatives.

These solutions are positive steps in a direction that’s absolutely necessary for our economy and for our survival.

Sitting in front of a computer here in the United States, I find myself trying to fully comprehend the fact that the future of my generation is even now being negotiated in a city on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean.  I can’t even imagine what the youth delegation in Copenhagen must be going through right now, and I’m so grateful to each and every one of the young people who has gone to attend in person the summit that may well determine whether the Earth remains hospitable to human life or not.

Every day seems to bring a new crisis or breakthrough in Copenhagen, and the survival of people, nations, and species rests on the outcome.  To the citizens of the Maldive Islands survival may mean a keeping global temperatures low enough to prevent the permanent flooding of their homeland, while to the inhabitants of African nations that repeatedly have expressed frustration with the unwillingness of industrialized countries to listen to what our own climate scientists are telling us, the main threat to survival may be catastrophic drought threatening to engulf huge regions.

One key to survival for human beings everywhere, though, is food.  A few weeks ago for Project Survival Media, I wrote about the struggles of farmers to build communities based on sustainable food in my own home state of Oregon.  In the Northwestern United States we’re lucky that most people have relatively easy access to healthy, locally grown food; meanwhile, in West Oakland, Project Survival Media team members have been documenting the difficulties of maintaining a healthy diet in the “food deserts” of the inner city.  In the end, our reliance on processed, packaged and fast food produced through industrial agriculture is hurting human health as much as an input-heavy oil-based agricultural system is hurting the Earth and the climate.

As the world seeks to stabilize the global climate and provide for the food needs of a growing population, it would be a mistake to assume the only or best way to feed the starving is through the same model of industrial agriculture that’s helped bring us to the point of environmental disaster.  Recent research indicates that sustainable farming practices and a shift in industrialized countries to more sustainable diets hold the potential to feed the world without wrecking the climate.  Indeed, a healthy planet and a healthy human population may each hinge on a diet less dependent on meat and oil-intensive agriculture, and more reliant on locally based food production systems.

One of the most environmentally resilient food productions systems I’ve ever observed exists in the forest villages that line the Amazon River outside of Iquitos, Peru.  In these small, traditional villages, farmers grow an astonishing variety of crops using methods that have sustained them for hundreds of years, and virtually no fossil fuel inputs.  Walking along a path through a village banana plantation, it’s occurred to me that there is no place I’d rather be during a global petroleum shortage or climate catastrophe that wreaks havoc with our import-oriented food supply chain.  Agricultural systems grounded in small-scale local food production not only contribute less to global warming, but may prove to be more resilient to a changing climate as well.

A continent away from the villages outside Iquitos, I have watched what seems to be a genuine trend, at least amongst Oregon farmers; the owners of small farming establishments are growing increasingly conscious of the unique role their industry will play in sculpting a world resistant to global warming.  For decades, the number of farms in the US has shrunk as family farms died out and industrial establishments gobbled up what was left over.  Yet today, small farmers have a new reason to take pride in their work, and society has renewed incentive to value its farmers.  Home gardens and local farms can bring relief to the food deserts of our large cities, while breaking the oil industry’s grip on our food production system.

In a time of global danger, nothing says “survival” like the ability to purchase healthy food that’s independent of a fossil fuel-based import system, and contributes to creating sustainable economies.  As the heads of state from some of the most powerful countries in the world arrive in Copenhagen this week, let’s hope they take note.

Noting the degree of consciousness shifting society around us, our media focused on what people are doing for the movement toward sustainability: activism, alternative energy, and green jobs. Everyone on our team agreed that it was more productive and inspiring to look at solutions rather than listen to dooms-day predictions, and that made the pursuit of our stories charged with excitement. It was a lot of fun to work hard with a group of people driven by meaningful purpose, and the result of our efforts was very rewarding.

We used borrowed gear, shared our skills, and supported one another in jumping hurdles along the winding way between idea and product. It wouldn’t have worked just fifteen years ago– our team was spread across the Eastern United States, brought together by virtual technologies like Skype and Google Docs. To move large video files across distances, we used Wistia media server technology, with an account donated by the good folks at Animal LLC, a digital media design studio in Providence, Rhode Island.

I’m proud of what we have accomplished so far, but I also feel like this is just the tip of the iceberg. There are so many more stories that need to be told, and the urgency of learning to grapple with the effects of climate change is increasing daily. In the quest for a sustainable civilization we need to work together, harness technologies, share our resources, and survival will be our profit. Project Survival Media is a prime example of people doing that, and I’m grateful for having been a part of it.

In West Oakland, California, people are dealing with food insecurity issues because of a corrupt food system, the same food system that is contributing to global climate change. People in West Oakland face challenges because of their food disenfranchisement, but they are also finding creative solutions.

Featuring Mandela food Co-operative, Planting Justice, the OFPC, and appearances by Michael Margolin’s elementary school class, a part of the Oakland Based Urban Gardens project. Credit also goes to Jake Schoneker and Paul Zink for help with filming and editing.

When Anne Berblinger delved into the world of small-scale organic farming in 1991, the concept of global warming had not yet entered mainstream consciousness in the US.  “It wasn’t at the top of everyone’s mind,” says Berblinger, while slicing freshly harvested peppers in the kitchen at Gales Meadow farm – a site she and her husband Rene’ have been farming since 1999.  Though climate concerns had yet to penetrate mainstream thought in the early ’90s, Berblinger says she was inspired to take up small farming in part out of her feeling that “the earth was in peril.”  Motivated by concerns about soil, wildlife, and the other casualties of industrial agribusiness she says, “Having a small piece of land to care for and be the steward of seemed important.”

Today, Anne and Rene’ Berblinger and a team of youthful helpers, many of them recent graduates of Pacific University, cultivate more than 200 varieties of certified-organic herbs and vegetables on the nine flat acres of Gales Meadow Farm. Many crops at Gales Meadow are heirloom varieties not found in the industrial farm zones that have given way to endless high-yield monocultures.  Each plant variety has a history, dating back to its origins in the traditional farming communities of Europe, North America, or elsewhere.  Every carefully cultivated strain represents a reservoir of genetic diversity – a diversity that’s become all the more important to bolster our agriculture’s resilience in a world where modern high-yield crops may turn suddenly vulnerable to changing climates.

Today, Berblinger cites global warming and the dangers of fossil fuel dependence as a major reason to reduce the scale of agriculture.  Small-scale farms cultivating a diversity of traditional plant varieties are not only more resilient to climate destabilization, but have the potential to replace industrial agriculture operations – today among the leading contributors of greenhouse gases to the atmosphere.  The fertile farmland of Oregon’s western Washington County, where Gales Meadow Farm is located, is home to both types of operations.  And the monotonous stretches of monoculture fields, propped up by heavy inputs of pesticides and synthetic fertilizers, could hardly be more different from sustainable, organic operations like Gales Meadow.  In addition to vegetable fields, greenhouses, and a large chicken pen, Berblinger’s property also supports a forested hillside and a stretch of riparian zone where cottonwood trees thrive beside the waters of Gales Creek.  According to one rough estimate, Berblinger reports, the farm is actually carbon negative, with its trees and other vegetation absorbing more carbon from the air than is produced by machinery and other sources of emissions.

Asked if government policies need to be reformed to smooth a transition to sustainable farming, Berblinger replies, “Absolutely.”  Like renewable electricity start-ups attempting to compete with coal and gas providers, sustainable farms face an uneven playing field.  Just as the US government has handed out subsidy after subsidy to make electricity from coal appear cheap, so industrial agriculture has benefited time and time again from policies favoring energy intensive, oil dependant, large-scale agriculture.  If the world’s international powers are serious about addressing the threat of global warming, they cannot afford to ignore the contribution of Big Agribusiness.  Re-scaling agriculture to feed a growing population with sustainable food will mean eliminating unfair subsidies, and doing away with international trade pacts that favor giant corporations over small home businesses like the Berblingers’.  Were the barriers to localized farming removed, Berblinger believes that many more young people would flock to a way of life that carries with it a certain self-sufficiency and the ability to contribute to a community’s needs.

Walking the rows of heirloom peppers in the Gales Meadow front garden, or watching a red-tailed hawk circle above the forested ridge behind the farm, it becomes momentarily difficult to remember that like small, sustainable farms across North America, this place is the scene of a frontline battle against the forces of corporate globalisation and industrial climate insanity.  Yet the truth is, Gales Meadow is even more directly impacted by government policies favoring the fossil fuel industries than are most small farming operations.  If giant energy companies get their way, Gales Meadow could be sacrificed through eminent domain to the right-of-way for a Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) pipeline, proposed by Oregon LNG to shunt imported gas through Oregon to the California market.  This fossil fuel infrastructure development project threatens to destroy years of hard work at Gales Meadow, making it impossible for the Berblingers’ home business to survive.  Right now Oregon LNG and other LNG developers are seeking eminent domain status for their projects, which would allow them to lay pipelines through landowners’ property without receiving permission from the landowner first.

Perhaps there is no more apt symbol of the current political system’s skewed priorities than a pipeline built directly through some of the Northwest’s most fertile farmland, to deliver a foreign fossil fuel to an increasingly globalised gas market.  Yet beside the rows of giant yellow, green, and red peppers at Gales Meadow, it’s impossible not to feel a certain faith in the future – the same faith that the traditional farmers who cultivated so many plants now grown on Berblinger’s property must have felt as they passed on the seeds of their crop to the next generation.

In attempting to follow the complex ins and outs of the international climate negotiations in the lead-up to Copenhagen, and the intricacies of the Kerry-Boxer climate bill’s slow progress through the US Senate, it’s easy to get bogged down in a feeling that such high-profile discussions sometimes devolve into mere political bickering.  However for communities that are already preparing to deal with the impacts of a changing climate, and for which struggles for survival against the globalised fossil-industrial complex are a daily fight, there can be no compromise on sealing a global deal that works for the planet.  With the Copenhagen climate now happening, the peaceful scenery of Gales Meadow Farm is a poignant reminder of what we stand to lose with a failed global treaty – and of what we can gain with a return to local, climate-sane policies for all.