Frontlines to Big Greens – Stand with us in calling for #Ceasefire now and Justice for Palestine

Over 2 million Palestinian people have suffered under a 16 year blockade on Gaza and now endure a complete siege, as Israel bombs, starves, and displaces them. Israel has cut off food, water, and electricity to Gaza and has engaged in bombing of residential buildings, markets, schools, health facilities, and mosques - all with the support of the United States and other governments. Palestinians are forced between two decisions, stay and try to survive, or try to flee into exile, but will never see their home again. Our solidarity as environmental justice and human rights defenders globally is vital, as we are witnessing genocide before our eyes. Israel is the largest recipient of U.S. foreign assistance at $3.8 billion a year, totaling more than $260 billion to date. Five of the top six global defense corporations based in the United States are profiting from and enabling the ongoing bombardment against Palestinians in Gaza.

As environmental justice frontline communities that have experienced violence and displacement at the hands of settler-colonialism, we stand in unwavering solidarity with the Palestinian freedom struggle for self-determination and to live freely with their human rights fully intact on their lands.

Our It Takes Roots alliances comprise over 200 groups in more than 50 states, provinces and Indigenous territories across North America, Puerto Rico and Guåhan. Since the beginning of the most recent escalation in the 75-year history of settler-colonialism and violence across historic Palestine, many of our members have drawn upon their extensive grassroots organizing experience and we have taken our grief and outrage to the streets, into the halls of Congress, engaged in direct action, and educated our communities. Together, we continue our practice of international solidarity, and call for an end to the siege of Gaza, and an end to the occupation.

Further, we call on the larger environmental and climate movement to stand with frontline and Indigenous Movements around the world by calling for a ceasefire, an end to all violence and warfare, insisting that Israel allow humanitarian aid into Gaza, and calling on our governments to refuse to send any additional weapons or funding to the Israeli military. Now is the time to build on our cross-sector relationships, and to appeal to all our partners and allies who might still be on the sidelines, to join the international struggle for a free Palestine. We must build momentum to prevent further loss of life.

Life is sacred. We mourn the devastating loss of all Palestinian and Israeli lives, and all casualties of colonialism and rising militarism around the world. It Takes Roots is determined to continue our work for justice and peace at home and globally. Liberation of one is only possible with the liberation of all.

Additional Resources:

Emergency funds are urgently needed. To move resources directly to Palestine, we recommend moving funds to Grassroots International, who has long-term relationships in the region and a commitment to movement-building. They are moving funding in limited ways right now, and are poised to move large-scale funding to Gaza as soon as it is possible, and to support groups impacted by repression in the 1948 lands, Jerusalem, and the West Bank. Additional resources:

Move emergency funds to Palestinian/Arab/Muslim-led diaspora organizing in the U.S.:

 


Peoples' Climate Week

In our ongoing commitment to address the pressing climate crisis, we focus on the root causes of the crisis through an intersectional lens of racism, classism, capitalism, economic injustice, and environmental harm. As part of this work, we proudly introduce the "Peoples’ Climate Week," which will take place in so-called New York on Lenape land from September 17-22, 2023, in collaboration with local NYC environmental justice and climate justice communities.

Peoples’ Climate Week stands as a counter-space amidst mainstream NYC Climate Week events. Here, our movements champion a Peoples’ Agenda, promoting tangible alternatives while actively intervening to disrupt the endorsement of deceptive "solutions" to climate change. These false solutions encompass Hydrogen, Climate Geoengineering, techno-fixes, Liquefied Natural Gas, Carbon Markets, offsets, and more. These misleading proposals are advanced by corporate entities, governmental bodies, and prominent environmental organizations within Climate Week, at the UN Ambitions Summit, and at the yearly UN Conferences of Parties.

The Peoples’ Climate Week Agenda showcases community-driven solutions to combat the climate crisis. It sheds light on the adverse consequences of prolonging fossil fuel industry practices, especially those involving unproven technologies such as direct air carbon capture and storage. Moreover, it exemplifies the unity and influence of Black and Indigenous voices within the environmental justice movement. We will also dissect the impact of the Inflation Reduction Act on our communities, exploring its potential to support grassroots initiatives. Additionally, we aim to rally support for a Just Transition towards a regenerative economy.

Kick-Off & Social Gathering

 

 

The Peoples’ Climate Week event at The New School (NYC) is comprised of two parts: the launch (9/18) and the following teach-in (09/19).

Speakers at these events Include:
Nnimmo Bassey, HOME-F, Nigeria
Tom Goldtooth, Indigenous Environmental Network
Claudiene Florencio, President of the Association of Pataxó Indigenous Women, Brazil
Raya Salter, The Black Hive and Energy Justice, Policy and Law Centre NY
Kali Akuno, Coop Jackson & Grassroots Global Justice Alliance
Krystal TwoBulls, Honor the Earth
Crystal Cavalier, No Mountain Valley Pipeline campaign
Juan Mancias, Frontlines of LNG pipelines in Texas
Jose Bravo, Just Transition Alliance
Panganga Pungowiyi, Indigenous Environmental Network
Julia Bernal, Pueblo Action Alliance
Natalie Jeffers, The Black Climate Mandate
Mohiba Ahmed, Desis Rising Up & Moving (DRUM)
Moñeka De Oros, feminist anti-militarism
Brittany DeBarros, feminist anti-militarism

Open to all, for both in person & live stream attendance. Register here!

 

 

 


COP 25 Webinar from Spain and Chile

The two delegations that went to Spain for COP25, and to Chile for the Cumbre de los Pueblos, put together a joint webinar, connecting the participation of indigenous and frontline youth at COP25 in Madrid, Spain and the mobilization against neoliberalism in Santiago.

Watch the recording to learn how we are pushing back against Carbon Market schemes at COP25, and why addressing only carbon emissions without challenging the growth-at-all-costs economy doesn’t resolve the real crisis.

Speakers also talked about the importance of the popular uprising in Chile, and about frontline community solutions that are being discussed at the Cumbre de los Pueblos in Santiago, Chile.

Webinar presenters: Mafalda Galdames, of the World March of Women, Chile and the peasant organization ANAMURI, Christian Rodriguez, of Ironbound Community Corporation, Eriel Deranger of Indigenous Climate Action, and Nyiesha Mallett of UPROSE. Moderator: Dallas Goldtooth of the Indigenous Environmental Network.


Grupos indígenas, comunidades afectadas y líderes sobre el clima denuncian la hipocresía ecológica en la Cumbre Climática, entregan una Carta Abierta al Gobernador Brown

For Immediate Release: el 10 de septiembre, 2018

Contacto: Cabot Lee Petoia, 828-899-9239, [email protected]; Kawana Lloyd, 240-472-2860, [email protected]

Grupos indígenas, comunidades afectadas y líderes sobre el clima denuncian la hipocresía ecológica en la Cumbre Climática, entregan una Carta Abierta al Gobernador Brown

En una carta abierta a Brown, las comunidades más afectadas por el cambio climático exigen verdaderas soluciones con base en el pueblo y la tierra

SAN FRANCISCO- En el tercer día de la Semana de Solidaridad y Soluciones en contra de la Cumbre Global de Acción Climática, líderes de las comunidades afectadas lanzaron una manifestación y entregaron una carta abierta en la cual rechazan la Fuerza de Trabajo sobre el Clima y el Bosque, y exigiendo su cancelación.

Activistas bloquearon la entrada de la reunión de la Fuerza de Trabajo del Gobernador Brown y fueron detenidos. Señalando las soluciones falsas que la Fuerza de Trabajo sigue promoviendo (que no hacen nada para frenar el calentamiento de la tierra), liderada por líderes indígenas locales e internacionales, divulgaron una carta abierta al Gobernador Jerry Brown y la reunión de la Fuerza de Trabajo.

En la carta declaran, “No se puede mercantilizar lo sagrado  -- rechazamos las soluciones al cambio climático con base en el mercado, así como los proyectos como el programa Reducción de las emisiones derivadas de la deforestación y la degradación de los bosques  (REDD+), porque son soluciones falsas que destruyen aún más nuestros derechos y nuestra capacidad de usar nuestros bosques y nuestra soberanía y autodeterminación. La Fuerza de Trabajo sobre el clima y los bosques del gobernador no nos representa y no tiene autoridad sobre nuestros pueblos y territorios.”

Los firmantes de la carta continuaron señalando prácticas específicas que han sido presentadas como soluciones con respecto al clima, pero de hecho, son intentos de mantener el poder en manos de las corporaciones y la posesión por parte del gobierno de los bosques y las tierras que deberían ser del pueblo y no hacen nada para mejorar la crisis climática:

“Pero para poder seguir controlando, inventan formas de propiedad del Estado como las ‘áreas de conservación’ o ‘áreas de desarrollo sostenible’. Inventan más formas de compensaciones, como por ejemplo la ‘agricultura inteligente’, las ‘compensaciones de la diversidad biológica’ y hasta las ‘compensaciones de mariposas’ que afectan de manera negativa a nuestras vidas, nuestra seguridad alimentaria, nuestros bosques, nuestra diversidad biológica y nuestra soberanía. Jamás aceptaremos la llamada ‘Área ecológica por el desarrollo sostenible de la Provincia de Pastaza o en ninguna parte de las 37 provincias, 19 países y una tercera parte de los bosques del mundo. Nuestros bosques no son basureros para el carbón; son nuestros hogares.  

La carta termina con un llamado a rechazar y disolver la Fuerza de Trabajo para las futuras generaciones que van a estar impactadas de manera desproporcionada por sus políticas y acuerdos:

“No se puede mercantilizar lo sagrado ni usarlo para negociar.  Lo rechazamos y llamamos por la cancelación de la Fuerza de Trabajo sobre el Clima y los Bosques del Gobernador. Esto lo declaramos por parte de las futuras generaciones para que tengan la posibilidad de vivir libres, como nuestros bosques y libre como el águila de la Amazona. Exigimos respeto para el derecho de escoger cómo queremos vivir, cómo queremos sentir y cómo queremos respirar.”

Tras una breve confrontación con los representantes de la comisión de defensa de  Brown, varios representantes Indígenas locales e internacionales fueron recibidos en la reunión para hacer sus demandas escuchadas.

La acción forma parte del Día 3 de la semana Sol2Sol que también incluirá eventos públicos, otra acción directa y foros para exigir que Brown y los vendedores del clima den prioridad a las comunidades, y no a las corporaciones; así como un llamado para retirar inversiones de las industrias energéticas extractivas e inversión en las soluciones de las comunidades locales para combatir el cambio climático. Léase la carta entera aquí.

###

#ItTakesRoots to #GrowtheResistance centers the leadership and power of urban and rural communities on the frontlines of racial, gender, housing, environmental, energy and climate justice in the United States to advance regenerative economies and healthy communities. ITR is a multiracial, multicultural, multi-generational alliance of networks and alliances representing over 200 organizations and affiliates in over 50 states, provinces, territories and Native lands in the U.S. and Canada, and is led by women, gender nonconforming people, people of color, and Indigenous Peoples. It is an outcome of years of organizing and relationship building across the Climate Justice Alliance (CJA), Grassroots Global Justice Alliance (GGJ), Indigenous Environmental Network (IEN), and Right to the City Alliance (RTC) alongside Center for Story-based Strategy and The Ruckus Society.


Indigenous, Frontline Community Groups & Climate Leaders Decry Greenwashed Climate Summit, Deliver Open Letter to Gov. Brown

For Immediate Release: September 10, 2018

Contact: Cabot Lee Petoia, 828-899-9239, [email protected]; Kawana Lloyd, 240-472-2860, [email protected]

Indigenous, Frontline Community Groups & Climate Leaders Decry Greenwashed Climate Summit, Deliver Open Letter to Gov. Brown

In Open Letter to Brown, Communities Most Affected by Climate Change Demand Real People and Earth-Based Solutions

SAN FRANCISCO- On day three of the Solidarity to Solutions Week countering the upcoming Global Action Climate Summit, frontline leaders hosted a rally and delivered an open letter rejecting the Governor’s Climate and Forest Task Force and demanding its cancellation.

Read the full text of the letter here.

Advocates blocked the entrance to Gov. Brown’s Climate and Forest Task Force meeting and risked arrest as they demanded entry. Calling out the false solutions the Task Force continues to push (which do nothing to stop global warming), local and international Indigenous leaders delivered an open letter to Governor Jerry Brown and members of the Task Force.

The letter states: “You cannot commodify the sacred -- we reject these market based climate change solutions and projects like the Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation program (REDD+), because they are false solutions that further destroy our rights, our ability to use our forests, and our sovereignty and self-determination. The Governors’ Climate and Forests Task Force does not represent us and has no authority over our peoples and territories.”

Signatories continued to call out specific practices that are presented as climate solutions, but, in fact, are attempts to maintain corporate power and government ownership of forests and lands that should belong to the people and do nothing to address the climate crisis:

“But in order to keep it in your hands you invent forms of state ownership such as ‘conservation areas’ or ‘sustainable development areas.’ You invent more forms of offsets such as ‘intelligent agriculture’ ‘biodiversity offsets’ and even ‘butterfly offsets’ that detrimentally affect our lives, our food security, our forests, our biodiversity, and sovereignty. We will never accept the state’s so-called ‘Ecological Area for Sustainable Development for the Province of Pastaza’ or anywhere else in the 37 provinces, 10 countries, and a third of the forests of the world. Our forests are not carbon dumps, they are our homes.”

The letter ended with a call to reject and cancel the Task Force on behalf of future generations who will be disproportionately impacted by its policies and agreements:

“The sacred cannot be commodified nor is it for bargaining. We reject and call for the cancellation of the Governors’ Climate and Forests Task Force. We declare this on behalf of our future generations so that they have the possibility of living free like our forests and as free as the eagle of the Amazon. We demand respect to our right to choose how we want to live, how we want to feel, how we want to breathe.”

After a short confrontation with representatives from Brown’s Task Force, several local and international Indigenous representatives were granted entry into the meeting to make their demands heard.

Today’s action is the focus of Day #3 of the Sol2Sol Week that will also include public events, another direct action and forums to demand that Brown and climate profiteers put communities, not corporations, first and call for a divestment from extractive energy industries and investment in local community solutions to fight climate change.

###

#ItTakesRoots to #GrowtheResistance centers the leadership and power of urban and rural communities on the frontlines of racial, gender, housing, environmental, energy and climate justice in the United States to advance regenerative economies and healthy communities. ITR is a multiracial, multicultural, multi-generational alliance of networks and alliances representing over 200 organizations and affiliates in over 50 states, provinces, territories and Native lands in the U.S. and Canada, and is led by women, gender nonconforming people, people of color, and Indigenous Peoples. It is an outcome of years of organizing and relationship building across the Climate Justice Alliance (CJA), Grassroots Global Justice Alliance (GGJ), Indigenous Environmental Network (IEN), and Right to the City Alliance (RTC) alongside Center for Story-based Strategy and The Ruckus Society.

 


The People's Orientation to the Global Climate Action Summit (GCAS)

 

On Wednesday, September 12, as part of its Solidarity to Solutions Week, It Takes Roots- together with the funder-allies from the Funders Support Circle hosted the People’s Orientation to the Global Climate Action Summit (GCAS) at the International Hotel Manilatown Center. The purpose of People’s Orientation was to provide philanthropy with a critical method of inquiry for assessing solutions showcased within GCAS.

Over 90 program officers and other members of philanthropy participated in the day-long event. Simran Noor (Consultant, Noor Consulting LLC) and Farhad Ebrahimi (President, Chorus Foundation) facilitated.

The program opened with a grounding in the history and significance of the movements that have graced the San Francisco Bay Area, and the particular role of the I-Hotel in the racial and economic justice movement of the 60s - especially in the Asian Pacific Islander struggles. Cindy Wiesner, Director of the Grassroots Global Justice Alliance, offered some overarching political framing juxtaposing GCAS with Sol2Sol and cautioning funders to inoculate themselves before entering GCAS. For this purpose, we developed the People’s Solution Lens as a tool that funders can use both as they interact within GCAS and as a broader framework of analysis. This lens asks the following critical questions:

1) Who makes the decisions?    2) Who benefits?     and     3) What else will this impact?

A plenary panel of frontline leaders from across the spectrum of our alliances, our issues and the values we represent spoke of Peoples Solutions and applied the People’s Solutions Lens to the five thematic tracks that were being explored at GCAS. ITR developed a people and planet centered spin on each of the tracks. And our plenary speakers commented on each.

    • Healthy Energy Requires Energy Democracy, Dipti Bhatnagar, Friends of the Earth International (Mozambique)
    • Sustainable Communities Require Community Self-Determination, Davin Cardenas, North Bay Organizing Project (Sonoma County, CA)
    • The Stewardship of Land & Oceans Requires Place-based Leadership, Chief Ninawa Huni Kui, Federation of the Huni Kui (Acre, Brazil)
    • Transformative Climate Investments Need to be Non-Extractive, Doria Robinson, Urban Tilth (Richmond, CA)
    • Inclusive Economies Require a Just Transition, Mateo Nube, Movement Generation Justice and Ecology Project (Oakland, CA)

Following the plenary, the keynote speakers along with the ninety participants broke off into small groups to explore the following thematic areas in depth. In closing funders were asked to consider ways in which they could make a commitment moving forward out of People’s Orientation  and in what ways they would want to continue learning. The responses ranged from “continue to share” about the People’s Solutions Lens to “commitment to moving $10 million in funding toward Just Transition solutions led by frontline communities.”


Sol2Sol Talking Points

It Takes Roots Solidarity to Solutions Week

Background & Talking Points

Given the current political climate in the United States, and given that any authentic, scalable solution must also be a local solution, when people in positions of power and privilege come together to discuss potential solutions to a problem, we must be highly vigilant questioning who is to benefit and at what real cost.

For, we must ensure that the lived experience and thought leadership of our communities who are first and most impacted by the problem, decide which solutions are most needed, transformative and just.

In centering the place-based knowledge of frontline communities, starting in traditional lands of local Ohlone Nations and in solidarity with Indigenous peoples around the world, we can start to engage in healthy debate and robust assessment of the most effective and democratic pathways for climate justice and action.

The It Takes Roots Solidarity to Solutions Week (Sol2Sol) September 8-14 in San Francisco, CA was organized in parallel to the Global Climate Action Summit (GCAS):

  • In service and solidarity with the thought leadership of communities in the Bay Area, across the state and around the world and our millions of place-based solutions,
  • To challenge, expose and stop the massive subsidies being handed to Multinational Corporations violating and destroying our families and ecosystems,
  • And, to move these public funds to repair, restore and protect Mother Earth and all her peoples.

Governor Jerry Brown’s Summit, and the host of market-based schemes and corporate techno-fixes being brokered inside the Summit, are neither democratic, ecologically sound or compassionate responses to the most painful crises facing humanity.

We need to end the epidemic of disaster capitalism, and redirect stolen wealth to the service, solidarity and support of communities forging the true, place-based strategies - solutions that address the root causes of climate change, poverty and the crises of democracy.

The following are talking points that local organizers, community leaders and spokespersons can utilize when speaking about Sol2Sol

 

Myth of Science and Market as Saviors

  • Market mechanisms aren’t authentic solutions → they lead to poverty for our people, the destruction of our air, water and lands, and the exploitation of our labor.
  • Schemes driven by corporations and venture capitalists to make money from misery and harm will not lead to the visionary action needed to move the masses to shift behaviors of consumption at the rate and scale needed to save the planet, only grassroots power-building can do that.
  • Corporations promoting these schemes are the very ones responsible for causing the climate crises, by being the opportunistic beneficiaries and primary drivers of the global “dig,burn, drive, dump” economy.
  • Most of these schemes, such as Carbon Capture & Sequestration (CCS), Biomass Energy (BECCS), Nuclear Power and Mega-Hydro projects - serve to further exacerbate, not solve the problem. Many of these schemes, such as climate engineering (aka geo-engineering) experiments are neither “proven” to be effective nor safe and are being explored in the US now.
  • Jerry Brown is championing the linking of international pollution trading markets, to further increase the profits and reduce the risks to the very corporations plundering the planet. If CA, the EU, and China join carbon markets, they will become the biggest securities market to benefit the fossil fuel industry and destroy humanity in history.
  • Trading pollution credits to perversely subsidize the global markets and dig, burn, drive, dump systems of extractive capital, keeps much needed funds from going to our self-determined solutions that both support our communities’ needs, while restoring the natural systems we need to be healthy and safe.
  • Financializing Mother Earth and enslaving all her forms of life to serve the needs of a privileged few, while destroying the lives of the many, is what we consider a path of ecological disaster.

 

Systems Change for Intersectional Justice in Practice

  • The problems our communities face are system crises created by institutions, corporations and decision makers. Organized groups of people and truly democratic governance can and must intervene to change these systems.
  • Approaches to scale and diversity need to be called to question if they continue to concentrate wealth and power while displacing, gentrifying, imprisoning and harming frontline communities locally and globally.
  • ITR will strategically highlight frontline communities from across the US, around the world and in San Francisco in particular, where we will make the case to the broader movement, general public, elected officials and our members that investing in community driven solutions that address the systemic drivers of the crises of the environment, the economy and governance is the only viable path forward.
  • Mayors and Governors responding to climate change in the void of national leadership are beholden to constituents and communities not corporations.
  • Right now, grassroots groups, thought leaders and funders are fighting for a radical democracy that includes all people. This should apply to our strategies for organizing solutions for climate action. The GCAS is by invitation only and top-down, communities consistently marginalized at The United Nations Conference of Parties (COPs) from Copenhagen to Cancun, Paris, and Morocco are coming together in San Francisco to shift a solutions narrative that will transform climate action.
  • Energy Democracy principles, scorecards and pledges developed by CJA, and allies hold local governors, mayors and utilities accountable to energy solutions that address energy efficiency, community governance, and incorporate the rights of nature amongst others and are better indicators of long term impact.

 

Shifting Corporate Subsidies to Communities on the Frontlines of Change

  • Corporate schemes to address climate change, such as market mechanisms like pollution trading, forest carbon offsets, clean coal, bioenergy, fracked gas, waste incineration and nuclear power only exacerbate the problem and do not offer real solutions to guarantee global temperatures don't rise by more than 1.5 degrees Celsius over the next few years, ensuring our survival on the planet.
  • Our communities (and our world) can and will thrive when we invest in democratic, people-driven solutions that successfully tackle the root causes of the crises.
  • Jerry Brown’s allegiance with big business, has resulted in his commitment to marketing pollution, selling out frontline communities for profit.
  • Intersectional movements are uniting to redirect all subsidies, community wealth, and public investments away from polluting, extractive corporations and their disaster capitalist schemes and moving these funds to community and worker led solutions.

 

Modeling Natural Ecosystems, Uplifting Indigenous Sovereignty

  • Indigenous Sky, Land, and Water protectors that are upholding the sacred relationship of communities to Mother Earth and Father Sky will unite to strategize beyond the borders of corporate empire and build power centering Indigenous spirituality, knowledge, sovereignty and leadership.
  • The scale and intensity of the ecological crises requires complex, transformative and systemic change strategies that are perfectly aligned with the natural systems of earth, air, water and fire that support life on our Earth. We need to design, build and invest in systems and cultures of economy, caring and sharing that prioritize the restoration of our relationship with these natural systems and each other.
  • Community-based solutions are defined by core design and environmental justice principles such as traditional ecological knowledge, mutuality and solidarity and intersectional inclusion.
  • Systemic change strategies such as energy democracy, food sovereignty, zero waste, ecosystem restoration, housing justice, and public transportation would serve to meet the needs of billions of people around the world, if guided by place-based ecological knowledge and leadership.

Check out more information on Carbon Pricing; A Critical Perspective for Communities Resistance too!


Social Media Kit

Spread the word about the ITR Sol2Sol Week with your family, friends and community! Whether you can join us in San Francisco or support from afar, we need your engagement to ensure that the lived experiences and thought leadership of our communities, who are first and most impacted by climate change, decide which solutions are most needed, transformative and just.

Content of this Social Media Kit:

Hashtags

The social media hashtags for the It Takes Roots Solidarity to Solutions Week are #Sol2Sol and #ItTakesRoots — use these hashtags in your social media outreach for Sol2Sol.

 

[fts_twitter tweets_count=3 twitter_height=350px cover_photo=no stats_bar=no show_retweets=no show_replies=no search=from:cjaourpower%#sol2sol]
[fts_twitter tweets_count=3 twitter_height=400px cover_photo=no stats_bar=no show_retweets=no show_replies=no search=from:cjaourpower%#ittakesroots]

Share the #Sol2Sol Flyer in English and Spanish


English
Download the flyer: PDF, JPG


En Español
Download the flyer: PDF, JPG


#Sol2Sol Images to Share on Social Media

Right click on the images and choose "save as" to download the images to your computer. Post them together with the sample Facebook, Instagram and Twitter messages below.

             


Video

Share these Solidarity to Solutions #Sol2Sol mobilizing video clips with your networks:

Solidarity to Solutions - It Takes Roots to Cultivate Solutions from Climate Justice Alliance on Vimeo.



Sample Facebook and Instagram posts

  • From September 8-14, 2018, we'll converge on the San Francisco Bay Area (in the original territories of the Ohlone Peoples) for the #ItTakesRoots Solidarity to Solutions #Sol2Sol week! Please spread the word and mobilize your community to come and support frontline communities' solutions to the climate crisis. Visit http://ItTakesRoots.org for more information.
  • The #ItTakesRoots Solidarity to Solutions (#Sol2Sol) Week is taking place from September 8-14, 2018 in the Bay Area. #Sol2Sol will highlight frontline communities’ solutions that address the interlinked crises of climate, economic, and racial justice. Through cross-sector, solutionary strategy exchange, local solutions tours, community leadership development, creative actions, and democratic popular assembly, we will provide direction on bold and transformative pathways for change and shift the narrative around false top-down marketdriven solutions and techno-fixes. We will illustrate how the most regenerative solutions to the climate crisis require not only decarbonization, but also strategies to decolonize, detoxify, demilitarize, de-gentrify and democratize our economies and our communities. Visit http://ItTakesRoots.org for more information.
  • Join me and take a stand for our community at the #ItTakesRoots #Sol2Sol Week in San Fran! Thousands will be there to make sure our voices are heard for climate justice! http://ItTakesRoots.org Come out and spread the word by liking and sharing this!
  • Be a part of the solution! Join me from September 8-14 in San Francisco and support climate justice solutions to the crises facing our communities. From climate change to racism, unfair housing practices to poverty and the breaking up of families, we need your voices to demand a change and ensure frontline community solutions are heard and listened to! #ItTakesRoots #Sol2Sol Week Join us and spread the word! http://ittakesroots.org/
  • Be a part of the solution to the market mechanisms that will be promoted at Governor Jerry Brown's Global Climate Action Summit this September!  They will only lead to poverty for our people, the destruction of our air, water and lands, and the exploitation of our labor. Join us at #ItTakesRoots #Sol2Sol Week September 8-14 in San Francisco to ensure frontline communities are listened to and valued!

 



Sample Tweets

  • Join frontline communities for Solidarity to Solutions Week in the San Francisco Bay Area from Sept.8-14. will present real, community-led solutions to the climate crisis. Visit http://ItTakesRoots.org for more information.
  • When the Global Climate Action Summit (GCAS) converges in San Francisco, we'll be there as well with the - Solidarity to Solutions Week from September 8-14, 2018: http://ItTakesRoots.org
  • Join me and take a stand for our community at the #ItTakesRoots #Sol2Sol Week in San Fran! Thousands will be there to make sure our voices are heard for climate justice! http://ItTakesRoots.org Come out and spread the word by liking and sharing this!
  • Be a part of the solution at the #ItTakesRoots #Sol2Sol Week 2 challenge the false models of the #GlobalClimateActionSummit! It's not 2 late to stop massive subsides to corporations violating our families and ecosystems, and 2 instead fund community solutions that benefit all!
  • Be a part of the solution! Sept 8-14 our movements are uniting to call for a redirection of subsidies, community wealth & public investments away from polluting corporations & moving funds to community & worker led solutions for climate justice! #ItTakesRoots #Sol2Sol Week

 

 


Defenders of Mother Earth Hold Prayer Action at Tacoma Detention Center to Stand in Solidarity with Families Being Separated

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
June 30, 2018

Contact:
Jade Begay, Indigenous Environmental Network, [email protected]
Olivia Burlingame, Climate Justice Alliance, [email protected]

Defenders of Mother Earth Hold Prayer Action at Tacoma Detention Center to Stand in Solidarity with Families Being Separated.

Indigenous Peoples, Grassroots Groups, Environmental Justice Activists Mobilized an Action to Respond to Border and Immigration Issues Impacting Families Across the Nation.

Tacoma, WA - Early Saturday Morning, Indigenous and Grassroots Groups held a prayer action at the Tacoma Detention Center, which is operated by the Geo Group on behalf of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The Geo Group is the one of the main companies that the U.S. government contracts for migrant detention.

This action took place during the Protecting Mother Earth Conference (PME), which is being held on traditional Nisqually lands, just 10 miles south of Tacoma. The purpose of the PME is to gather Indigenous Peoples from across the world to share lessons, celebrate victories, and build unity and stronger alliances to defend and protect, land, water, the climate and Indigenous Rights.

For Indigenous Peoples, the atrocities that we are witnessing throughout the country and on the borders today is merely history repeating itself. The forced separation of families, the abduction of children, and the detainment of innocent people, has been occurring for hundreds of years, namely with the boarding school and foster care systems implemented in Indigenous communities to assimilate and colonize children.

Following the action in Tacoma, organizers and participants returned to the Protecting Mother Earth Conference to lead a water ceremony at the Nisqually River.

The following is a statement drafted by Indigenous Elders and Youth of Turtle Island and Beyond:

“We are gathered here to recognize the continued entrapment and invasions of the Indigenous Peoples. We are here for your freedom. You have every right to be with your family. Your family is good. Your family loves you. Your families deserve to be together and free. These colonial settler states should not be doing this to you and this is not your fault. You did nothing wrong by arriving here to survive. Your families also belong here and we recognize you as our relatives. We relate and empathize with you. This colonial government continues to do to you what the’ve done to our native nations, through brutal separation, torture in boarding schools, and displacement. The fear that you feel and the uncertainty you feel now, we have felt before. We will create space for your healing.

You are now in our territories and we welcome you in a good way, because you belong with us and we belong with you. As original peoples of the this continent you are not immigrants, you are inside your own continental homeland. We do not recognize colonial borders created to subjugate us and to sustain White Supremacy. We will break this cycle of trauma that is continuing with your experience.

Our authority is in breaking circles of trauma based on colonialism. All of our ancestors are with you, our spirits are with you. We invoke the spirit of self-determination of the Indigenous People of Abya Yala (Turtle Island) and we commit to the continued liberation of all our relatives, of yours and our families and our territories. When we are done with our work fulfilling the Eagle and Condor prophecy, our children will be free to roam this land safe from violence and exploitation. As Indigenous Peoples, we are not immigrants in this continent.”

Signatories of this letter include:

Nisqually Indian Tribe
Indigenous Environmental Network
Climate Justice Alliance
Grassroots Global Justice Alliance
Indigenous Climate Action
Right to the City
TEJAS
Carrizo
Toña Tierra
Comunidad P’urhépecha
L’eau Est La Vie Camp
Louisiana Rise
Got Green
Immigrant Task Force of North Bay Organizing Project
Environmental Justice League of Rhode Island
Southwest Organizing Project
Chinese Progressive Organization
Asian Pacific Environmental Network
Witness for Peace
Rainforest Action Network
Amazon Watch

####


Solidarity to Solutions 2018, a Counterpoint to Global Climate Action Summit (GCAS)

The It Takes Roots Alliance held an informational webinar on Wednesday, June 20th to discuss the September 8-14, 2018 #ItTakesRoots Solidarity to Solutions Week in San Francisco this fall!

Watch the recording of the webinar here:

The Climate Justice Alliance, Grassroots Global Justice, Indigenous Environmental Network and Right to the City have joined forces in the It Takes Roots Alliance to focus our collective efforts on building a visionary opposition to the most critical problems facing frontline communities in the era of Trumpism.

Toward that end, we felt it important to organize a parallel week of action to the Global Climate Action Summit (GCAS) currently being organized by California Governor Jerry Brown. We want our actions and events to serve as a counterpoint to the GCAS, where market-based solutions will be lifted up as the ONLY solutions to climate change, which we know will only devastate our communities even more.

Presenters included: