Oil companies have quietly begun fracking California for oil — in the Bay Delta, the hills above Ventura, Kern County and the heart of Los Angeles — with plans for massive expansion at the expense of our air and water. The intensive process of fracking releases and extracts oil or gas by blasting water, chemicals, and sand at high pressure into deep underground rock formations, and is polluting local water and air, and accelerating climate change.

A deposit known as the Monterey Shale may hold 15.4 billion barrels of oil, according to federal estimates, two-thirds of the nation’s shale-oil reserves. And California was the third-largest oil producing state last year, behind Texas and North Dakota. California’s oil reserves could produce as much greenhouse gas emissions as much as all the tar sands flowing through the Keystone XL pipeline for 40 years.

There is no safe way to frack, so Food & Water Watch and our allies are working throughout California to achieve a statewide ban on fracking and we need your help . . . California’s legislature is considering two bills, AB 1301 introduced by Richard Bloom and AB 1323 introduced by Holly Mitchell, that would put an end to fracking in our state. We need your help to get these bills passed. This legislation is vital to protecting our state’s precious water resources and farmland.

You can tell your Legislators to please support a statewide fracking moratorium by signing our petition here.

Please come to our Green Sunday talk to learn why and how to stop the frack!

See: www.foodandwaterwatch.org/california

See also: Lawmakers advance bill to halt oil fracking (4/29)

Join Idle No More, Greenaction for Health and Environmental Justice, Communities for a Better Environment, and over 60 other environmental and climate justice groups on Earth Day as we gather at the San Francisco office of the EPA to make them listen to communities hardest hit by fossil fuel and toxic industries. We will demand the EPA do their job and protect our climate, health & communities, not polluters–and senior EPA officials will be there to listen.

* From the EPA, we’ll march to the State Department at One Market Plaza. In addition to Earth Day, it’s also the last day for public comment on the Keystone XL Pipeline’s Draft Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement (SEIS), written in part by a TransCanada (pipeline company) consultant. We’ll give them our comments loud and clear, just in case they don’t hear the hundreds of thousands of comments being emailed or the outrage of people forced from their from their homes by the Arkansas oil pipeline spill.

All actions will be peaceful and non-violent.

MONDAY, APRIL 22, 2013
12 noon: Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), 75 Hawthorne St., SF (between 2nd/3rd & Howard/Folsom St, near Montgomery BART/MUNI)
1:45pm: March to State Department: NO KEYSTONE XL!
2:15pm: State Department, One Market Plaza

Earth Day Coalition
http://www.greenaction.org

Keystone XL Nonviolent Direct Action
NextStepAction2013 [at] gmail.com
http://350bayarea.org/tar_sands

http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2013/03/20/18733911.php

Participating Organizations:

350 Bay Area, Amazon Watch, American Indian Movement West, ANSWER Coalition-Bay Area, Arc Ecology, Asamblea de Poder Popular de Gonzales, Asian Pacific Environmental Network, Bay Area Environmental Health Collaborative, Bay Localize, Bay Native Circle, Breast Cancer Action, California Indian Environmental Alliance, Californians for Pesticide Reform, Center for Environmental Health, Central California Environmental Justice Network, Center for Biological Diversity, Center on Race, Poverty and the Environment, Chevron Watch, Chinese Progressive Association, Communities for a Better Environment, Community Food and Justice Coalition, EBASE (East Bay Alliance for a Sustainable Economy), El Pueblo Para El Aire y Agua Limpio/People for Clean Air & Water of Kettleman City, Environmental Justice Air Quality Coalition, Environment California, Equal Justice Society, FACES (Filipino/American Coalition for Environmental Solidarity), Fresno Brown Berets, Friends of the Earth, Gathering Tribes, Gila River Alliance for a Clean Environment, Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives, Global Community Monitor, Global Exchange, Grayson Neighborhood Council, Greenaction for Health & Environmental Justice, Healthy 880 Communities, Huntersview Mothers & Fathers Committee for Health & Environmental Justice, Indigenous Environmental Network, International Forum on Globalization, MAPA (Mexican American Political Association), Movement Generation, No Nukes Action, Occupy Oakland Environmental Justice Committee, Occupy San Francisco Environmental Justice Work Group, PODER, Rainforest Action Network, Richmond Progressive Alliance, SF-Bay Area Chapter, Physicians for Social Responsibility, Rising Tide, San Francisco Green Party, Sierra Club, Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition, SSP&RIT (Sacred Site Protection & Rights of Indigenous Tribes), The Ruckus Society, Tri-Valley CAREs, United Native Americans, Valley Improvement Project, Wild Equity Institute, West Berkeley Alliance for Clean Air & Safe Jobs, West County Toxics Coalition West Oakland Environmental Indicators Project, Workers & Students United, Youth in Action, Youth United for Community Action

Please comment on Keystone XL at: http://act.350.org/letter/a_million_strong_against_keystone/

http://www.facebook.com/events/247835108693864/

I like to gather signs of hope that things really can change for the better in a major way. With that in mind, I keep the website venezuelanalysis.com as my home page. On the afternoon of March 5, 2013, I had to catch my breath when I saw the headline, “President Hugo Chávez has Died.” Almost ten years ago, inspired by the documentary The Revolution Will Not Be Televised, I started learning as much as I could about Venezuela and Hugo Chávez. I participated in “reality tours” and political delegations to show solidarity, and to bring the lessons back home. Here are some things I learned.

1. Keep Smiling. Hugo Chávez’ charisma and popularity was based on his speaking to – and acting on – the needs of the people, who could see he was one of them. Also, Chávez had a huge smile he gave generously, lifting spirits in the struggle. Sure, we can’t smile all the time, and Hugo Chávez didn’t either, but I learned that when we do smile, we give a renewable source of energy that can light up the place.

2. 1% Lies are Enormous. The 1%, along with their military-industrial-media complex, uses the approach “by any lies necessary” to counter the power of good examples that can inspire hope and action in the rest of us. As a result of these enormous lies, Americans who know almost nothing about current affairs in Latin America believe the lie that Hugo Chávez was a dictator. In fact, Chávez was a democratically elected president, elected by a wide margin after running as an outsider in Venezuela’s fixed two-party system. His first acts as president were to wipe out illiteracy, establish healthcare clinics in the poorest barrios, and create a brand new constitution based on citizen input and participatory democracy. I wish our democratically elected presidents and governors would strive to empower us with better education, healthcare for all, and new rules to improve our democracy.

3. Attacks by the 1% can Strengthen the 99%. Whether you call it the backfire effect or political jujitsu, one of the greatest lessons I’ve learned from Venezuela is this: the force the opposition uses against us, the people, can be used as a catalyst that helps us increase our power. Here are three examples during Chávez’ presidency. The 2002 military coup was turned away not by Chávez himself – he was in captivity on an island – but by a mass protest of people in the capital city of Caracas. That military coup backfired and so the 1% tried an economic coup later that year, with an oil company lockout. Although nationalized almost 30 years earlier, the oil company had benefited only the ruling oligarchy while the vast majority of people lived in poverty. In a stunning backfire despite great odds, workers and the Chávez government learned to run the oil company, and in effect, the old 1% managers fired themselves and the people got control. The third attempt was in 2004 when the 1% used the recall powers in the new constitution. In this electoral battle, Chávez supporters organized barrios and pueblos across the nation to get out the “NO!” vote, and the recall was defeated. As a result, the 1% became weaker; and the 99% became stronger and more organized. Backfire!

4. Learn from History. Hugo Chávez taught history in the military, and in the process learned what had worked and what had not worked in people’s struggles in Latin America and beyond. He  studied nonviolent movements by reading Martin Luther King, Jr., Nelson Mandela, and Gandhi, and he was influenced by liberation theology. A new approach to land redistribution was something I learned about firsthand on the Day of Indigenous Resistance (formerly known as Columbus Day). On that day, our Global Exchange reality tour reached a remote area of Venezuela via three different aircraft: presidential jet (without the president on board), prop plane, and helicopter. Chávez arrived shortly after we did, and was greeted by hundreds of campesinos and our group of a dozen “estadounidenses” (U.S. Americans). It was apparent that he had learned from history: if you simply redistribute land in order to solve the vast inequality of wealth, people might not be able to hang onto the land. Instead, Venezuela’s new plans included these elements: distribute unused government land first before unused private land; give farmers access to credit, equipment, and agricultural training to lay the groundwork for success; prioritize farming cooperatives to help ensure stability over time; and grant temporary use of land leading to permanent ownership after the farmers succeeded in making the land productive. On the return trip to Caracas, Chávez was aboard the presidential jet. There he was, big as life, beaming at everyone.

5. Empower your People, and your Peers, Connect with Everyone. Chávez said that to get people out of poverty, “Give them power.” He also knew it was important to empower peers – heads-of-state across the continent and even across the world. He learned from history that a single country, attempting to strengthen its own sovereignty at the expense of the interests of a super-power, is in much better position when in partnership with other countries also standing strong. Chávez worked diligently with other South and Central American presidents to fulfill liberator Simon Bolivar’s dream of a united Latin America. They built alliances for trade, finance, telecommunications, culture, and governance. Chávez’ approach seemed to be: connect with everyone, even those who oppose you, because there may be a time when their rarely given support could help your mission. When Colombia acted in ways that harmed the region, Chávez initiated meetings to address the matter, and to maintain a working relationship for future times when Colombia would stand with Latin America. Chávez also connected with other heads-of-state around the world, including those in the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), and he was willing to meet with American presidents from Clinton, to Bush, to Obama.

6. Missions, not Wars. Ten years ago if anyone had told me I would have great enthusiasm for a place where these elements combined forces: government, military, religion, and the oil industry, I would have said, “No way!” But there I was, participating in political delegations to Venezuela as often as my budget would allow. The Bolivarian “missions” were programs focused on literacy, healthcare, food, housing, agriculture, cooperatives, and much more. It struck me that the word “mission” made sense, since it was used in all of those arenas: government, military, industry, and religion. I thought, the U.S. doesn’t use “mission” like that, and so what word do we use? Then I realized, it’s “war” – the war on drugs, war on poverty, war on terror. After the Venezuelan oligarchy running the national oil company essentially fired themselves, those earnings were available to benefit all of Venezuela, and the power of the missions increased. The strength of Chávez’ presidency, whether in the streets or in foreign policy, was based on the Bolivarian missions, not on military might.

7. Ideas not Ideology. The goal of the Bolivarian Revolution is to create “socialism of the 21^st century.” Chávez and the people at the base (“el base” is the Spanish term for grassroots) aimed to implement that through participatory democracy, operating in what they referred to as “el proceso” rather than by a fixed, top-down plan laid out for the next 5 or 10 years. Significantly, the oil industry had already been nationalized in 1976 but the profits benefited very few Venezuelans. When Chávez became president, his administration did not immediately implement programs to redistribute land and nationalize the means of production across the board. Instead, Venezuela moved steadily toward nationalizing industries when it became possible; toward expropriating abandoned factories for workers to start up production; and toward creating cooperatives – while prioritizing industries essential for all Venezuelans and helping the new entities to succeed by giving them government contracts.

8. Paso a Paso, Step by Step, It All Contributes. In political delegations with the Task Force on the Americas, other participants and I often met with activists who had been organizing for 40 years or more. We asked them how on earth they managed to keep going all that time when the system seemed irretrievably locked into a two-party system with an entrenched oligarchy. The activists smiled and shrugged, “Hay que luchar, paso a paso” – “You have to struggle, step by step.” During all my travels to see firsthand what was happening in Latin America, I gained a new appreciation of history and how you’re never sure what’s going to happen, but when you are committed you can keep moving forward. It becomes clear that everything we’re doing now will be of use once there’s a crack in the seemingly impenetrable system. That crack happened in Venezuela; Chávez was elected; and the country began to turn away from concentration of wealth and power in the hands of the 1%, toward a sharing of wealth and power in the hands of the 99%.

9. Sometimes Loudmouths are Necessary. If someone had given me the decision about whether or not Chávez should refer to President Bush as the “devil” in a United Nations speech, I probably would have said “no,” but I would have been wrong. I’ll never forget that particular U.N. speech, or the news clip I saw online of a Fox TV reporter saying, “I don’t know what was more disturbing, his blasphemous remarks…. or the amount of applause he got when he finished.” Considering the problems Latin America faced as the “backyard” of the United States, the biggest economic and military super-power the world has ever known, I could see the need to have someone courageous enough to roar, so that others could at least peep.

10. You Don’t have to be Perfect. There were any number of things Chavez said and actions he tried that could be criticized as going too far or not far enough, and yet he never stopped moving toward his mission of a better world. Of the many things Hugo Chávez tried in his life, the one that catapulted him into folk hero status in his country in 1992 was his 90-second speech in which he took responsibility for a military coup attempt that had failed, “por ahora” – for now. The next day the words “por ahora” were written on walls all over the place. Later Hugo Chávez would spend time with Fidel Castro, and together they would agree that the way to go in Latin America was no longer armed revolution, but rather a combination of three elements: a strong social movement with people taking to the streets; an electoral revolution including former non-voters like the young and the impoverished taking to the voting booths; and an unwavering commitment to create a better world.

Last Friday, this happened in the city of Mayflower, Arkansas:

An Exxon tar sands pipeline burst, spilling a yet unknown amount of toxic oil into the surrounding community. As bad as this is, it could be worse — the proposed Keystone XL tar sands pipeline would carry 10 times as much oil as the pipeline that broke. And even when that oil doesn’t spill, it becomes equally dangerous when it’s refined and turned into climate-cooking CO2.

President Obama has a decision to make: he can stand up against this kind of destruction and stop Keystone XL, or let the tar sands flow, 800,000 barrels a day from Canada through a dangerous high pressure pipline.

The President is headed to the Bay Area this week, and when he does, we’ll be ready. We’re planning to meet him at his fundraiser, and send him a big message: it’s time to stop the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline for good.

The goal is to be unavoidable before the fundraiser — we’ll have signs and banners, so you can just show up ready to make some noise. This is one of the best ways to reach the President before he makes a decision about the pipline — and meet other great climate activists in the Bay.

Can you be there Wednesday at 5 PM when the President arrives in San Francisco?

Click here to RSVP in San Francisco: act.350.org/signup/SF_blocks_KXL/

Here are the details:

What: San Francisco tells Obama to Stop the Pipeline

Where: 2870 Broadway at Baker, San Francisco, 94115

When: Wednesday, April 3rd at 5:30pm (note the change of time from 5pm)

Who: It’ll be a party, with lots of folks from CREDO, 350.org, 350 Bay Area, Sierra Club, Friends of the Earth, Rainforest Action Network, Alliance for Climate Education and others.

Also, we just found out that President Obama is holding a second fundraiser Thursday morning at 8:15 AM in Atherton. Whether you can make it or not to the event on Wednesday, this is another important opportunity to send a personal message to the President (and nothing makes for better friends than early morning actions).

Click here to RSVP for the action in Atherton: act.350.org/signup/Atherton_KXL_Birddog/

What: Atherton action to stop Keystone XL

Where: Corner of Alameda de las Pulgas and Walsh Road in Atherton

When: Wednesday, April 4rd at 8:15am

Who: You and all your friends. We are organizing this event in coordination with local residents of the South Bay, 350 Silicon Valley, CREDO, and 350.org.

I’ll be there with friends and family both — I hope to see you there as well.

Sara Shor

350.org is building a global movement to solve the climate crisis. Connect with us on Facebook and Twitter, and sign up for email alerts. You can help power our work by getting involved locally, sharing your story, and donating here.

FORWARD on CLIMATE RALLY

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 On September 24, 2011, over 1,500 people came to San Francisco for Moving the Planet “A Day to Move Beyond Fossil Fuels” sponsored by 350.org.

He will be discussing the recent battle over the so-called fiscal cliff; analyzing the political considerations which were decisive in the outcome.  Recognizing that the battle over spending and taxation is far from over, he will talk about future battles as well.

Sunday January 13th, 2013
5:00 to 6:30 pm
Niebyl-Proctor Library
6501 Telegraph Ave. at 65th in North Oakland
wheelchair accessible

DIRECTIONS: One block north of Alcatraz on the West side of Telegraph, wheelchair accessible. Buses pass by regularly. Ashby BART is approximately 7 blocks away.

SPONSOR: Green Sundays are a series of free programs & discussions sponsored by the Green Party of Alameda County. They are held on the 2nd Sunday of each month. The monthly business meeting of the County Council of the Green Party of Alameda County follows at 6:45 p.m. Council meetings are always open to anyone who is interested.