New Clear Vision

Green Justice Coalition Supports Labor and the Environment

by Amy Dean

According to Republican governors in places such as Wisconsin, Ohio, and Indiana, our states are in crisis and the only solution is to squeeze middle-class employees. Unions, in their view, are part of the problem. And if you point out that their attempts to seize power in the name of balancing budgets do little, if anything, to solve the real economic problems we face, they will insist that there is no alternative.

They are dead wrong. There is a better answer.

These governors could travel to Boston and the North Shore in Massachusetts to talk to Ana Perdomo about how we can create jobs, raise working standards and increase services for hard-hit communities – all while reinvesting public dollars in local taxpayers’ communities. The politicians might even learn a thing or two about protecting the environment.

A remarkable process has taken place around green jobs in the Boston area. It did not come easy, but rather took hard work and cooperation from local labor unions and community organizations. (more…)

‘Heartstorming’ as an Antidote to Denial

by Priscilla Stuckey

We know it’s getting worse; we’re not climate deniers. We’re well informed and aware of the facts. And yet we go about our lives as if nothing has changed. We live the same way we lived five years ago, before the wealth of new climate science confirming that the situation is worse than first thought. Maybe we travel even more than before or live in a bigger house than we did then. (Guilty on both counts.) What’s wrong with us?

We’re obeying the hush-hush rule on climate change. When the President can’t even utter the word climate in his State of the Union speech, at a time when climate change presents emergency levels of economic, health, and national security risks — and that’s just in this country, never mind the millions of people in other parts of the world whose homes and lives are already lost and endangered — you know something is seriously wrong. Even Stewart and Colbert seldom devote time to it. (more…)

A Time to Keep Silence … and a Time to Speak

by Debbie Ouellet

The older I get, the more in tune I become with the finite measure of time — not just for me, but for the place and planet I call home. This earth calls to me — from the most basic joy of placing my hands in dirt to bring life into my garden — to considering the enormity of the threats against this planet’s future. My poet’s mind tries to reconcile the awe of nature and all she has to offer with the fear that this all could one day end. Generations to come may never know the abundance of nature as I have over my lifetime.

This April marks two events close to my heart and soul: National Poetry Month and, on April 22nd, the 41st anniversary of Earth Day. How are these two events connected?

The great bard himself, William Shakespeare, said, “And this, our life, exempt from public haunt, finds tongues in trees, books in running brooks, sermons in stones, and good in everything.” If poetry isn’t about life, this earth, and our connection with it, then what is it about? (more…)

America’s Paradox: Getting Heavier and Growing Hungrier

by Kat Asselin, Kendra Broadwater, and Mollie Tarte

In a world of climbing food costs, media outlets are predicting the downfall of Americans increasingly subject to the diseases of obesity while concurrently talking about the epidemic of food insecurity that has only worsened in the decades since the so-called Green Revolution.

Obesity is clinically defined as a body mass index in excess of 30, but other studies and models suggest that there is genetic diversity in body types and a strong correlation with century-old dietary practices and co-evolution of human bodies and heritage cuisines. Over the past 30 years, the proportion of obese adults has climbed in most states, in some cases from less than 10% to more than 30% today.  The attention given to the ever-expanding American waistline has been impossible to ignore.

You can even see this drama unfold on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDCP) website. (more…)

Making Bioregional Planning a Reality

by Martin Zehr, aka Mato Ska

In the Middle Rio Grande region of New Mexico water planning took on a significant character that was open and inclusive. The Interstate Stream Commission (ISC) approved the 50-year plan worked on for over nine years by the Middle Rio Grande Water Assembly. The Water Assembly worked with the regional Water Resources Board of the Middle Region Council of Governments (MR COG) and maintained the direction and intent of the plan. The regional water plan was approved by the 15 municipalities of the region, the regional water utility authority, the irrigators’ conservancy district and the flood control authorities of the two counties in the region, some with particular caveats included in their memoranda of agreement. Hundreds of individuals from environmental groups, advocacy groups, real estate interests, water managers of utilities, planners, administrators and specialists in hydrology and geo-hydrology have participated and actively engaged the communities in the region for input on recommendations and preferred scenarios. (more…)

Can Ecological Democracy Trump Partisan Politics and Neoliberalism?

by Devon G. Peña

Over the past two and a half decades, environmental justice activists have tried to address the limits and contradictions of liberal democratic approaches to the protection of our most vulnerable communities. We have danced with the state but have also come to recognize how the existing framework for proactive transformational action is limited by the regulatory apparatus established by former President Bill Clinton through Executive Order 12898.

While E.O. 12898 proved useful to imaginative movement organizations and communities seeking to address the legacies and continued challenges of environmental racism, the status of the framework as an Executive Order also limited prospects for genuinely transformational change. It now seems clear that this is not the best framework to sustain our movement’s political influence, scientific efficacy, and mobilizing capacity. This essay charts the limits and contradictions of Executive Order 12898, summarizes prior efforts at legislating environmental justice, and closes with an analysis of the prospects and possible orientations of a new federal law for environmental justice. (more…)