Events
Two big SF Bay Area Events: Sun Aug 29 Teach-In and Mon Aug 30 March and Nonviolent Direct Action
On the 5-Year Anniversary of Hurricane Katrina in Solidarity with Gulf Coast Communities: MAKE BIG OIL PAY!
* Moratorium on New Offshore Drilling. No Use of Dispersants. Full Access to Media and Civil Society.
* Big Oil corporations pay their debt to all impacted communities – Gulf Coast to Richmond, CA and around the world.
* Big Oil pay for community livelihood and ecosystem restoration, clean energy, public transportation, and healthcare for impacted communities.
* Big Oil Out of Politics!
Big Oil Corporations destroy our health, environment and the livelihoods of our communities. From the Gulf Coast Oil disaster to the Niger Delta, from the Canadian Tar Sands to Richmond, California – these corporations pollute our communities and cause climate change, destroying the environments we depend on. Big Oil makes billions, while buying and lobbying governments for subsidies, against public oversight, and against solutions to climate change. Join us in taking action to stop Big Oil’s destruction and support clean energy and positive solutions.
Sun Aug 29, 1-4pm
Teach-In:Big Oil, Community Resilience and Creative Nonviolent Direct Action
Frank Ogawa Plaza, near 14th St & Broadway (12th St BART), Oakland*
Brief Teach-In on BP, Big Oil and Local Impacts– positive solutions and what we can do. Followed by: * Nonviolent Direct Action: a public preparation for the campaign on nonviolent direct action against big oil and for climate justice. This will prepare participants to join the nonviolent direct action part of the following day’s demonstration, or just learn about what’s involved. Please come on time and stay for the whole time.
* Community Resilience: Movement Generation and Bay Localize teach this workshop to understand the importance of meeting our own basic needs to prepare our communities to weather economic, ecological and social instability. Learn to evaluate our community’s relative strengths and vulnerabilities, and learn concrete skills to build self-reliance and resilience. It covers the topics of; Resilient communities as part of resisting oppression; Food, Water & Energy; Transportation & Housing; Jobs & Economy; Civic Preparedness & Social Service
Mon, Aug 30, 11:30 am
March and Nonviolent Direct Action
Justin Herman Plaza (Embarcadero BART), SF
Join us for a march on BP and Big Oil’s SF locations: This event is for those who would like to simply march as well as for those who choose to risk arrest taking nonviolent direct action. We’ll be targeting the offices of BP and Chevron for their roles in environmental and community destruction in the Gulf, in the Bay Area, and around the world. We’ll also target the U.S. EPA to demand an end to the use of toxic dispersants, to follow the Clean Air Act that mandates they regulate the greenhouse gas pollution that causes climate change and stand up to industry pressure to expand drilling and prevent action to stop climate change.
Get Involved:
Form an “Affinity” or Action Group: to participate in the nonviolent direct action– ask your friends, family, co-workers, fellow students or group members. Come to a training on Aug 21 or Aug 29, send someone from your group to the Aug 22 meeting, take the day off work or school and take action!
Get the Word Out: Send this email with a personal note, link to our facebook page at:
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=138322482869220&ref=nf
Watch and share the BP & Big Oil Video Teach-In at:
http://www.youtube.com/ClimateJusticeWEST
Download flyers at:
http://west.actforclimatejustice.org/resources/imagery-and-fliers/
Make copes and get them out.
You can also get postcards and posters at:
SF: Global Exchange (9-5pm) 2017 Mission Street, 2nd Floor (at 16th St.) 415.255.7296
EAST BAY: Bay Localize (10-6pm) call first. 436 14th St. @ Broadway (12th St BART) , Suite 1216, Oakland (510) 834-0420
Sign up for action updates: text message to 40404 with the message “follow mcjwes”
JINN: Contact Diana to participate as a part of the JINN contingent: nicca@igc.org
mcjbay@gmail.com
ActForClimateJustice.org/West
Join Justice in Nigeria Now for a Happy Hour celebration and Going Away Party on July 28th, 6pm-7:30pm
Join JINN for happy hour on Wednesday, July 28th, 6pm-7:30pm, to celebrate our 2-year anniversary, a groundbreaking new transparency law, the Project Censored Award, and to celebrate and recognize the work of Abby Rubinson as she transitions out of JINN.
JINN turned 2 years old in May of this year, and last week JINN and the Publish What You Pay coalition achieved a major victory when the Senate passed a transparency law that requires extractive industries to disclose their payments to foreign governments on a country-by-country and project-by-project basis. On the same day, JINN was notified that its work bringing attention to the attacks of some oil-producing communities in May 2009 will be recognized by Project Censored.
The festivities will begin at 6pm next Wednesday, July 28th at JINN’s office (also Global Exchange’s office), 2017 Mission St.
Please join us!
Teach-In on BP Spill & Big Oil:
What’s Really Going On, What it Means & What We Can Do
Part of the 3-Month Gulf Disaster Anniversary National Week of Action
Tuesday July 20, 7-9pm
La Peña Cultural Center
3105 Shattuck Ave (at Woolsey next to Ashby BART), Berkeley
Free—donations appreciated. Food will be provided. Featuring:
Rose Braz, Center for Biological Diversity. Since the BP explosion, the Center’s decisive action and in-depth investigating have exposed massive government corruption and lax environmental review, leading to major media exposés and six lawsuits to secure a full cleanup and wildlife protection.
Antonia Juhasz, Director of Global Exchange’s Chevron Program. Antonia will have just returned from the Gulf, meeting with impacted communities and groups. She is an organizer with True Cost of Chevron Network, and the author of The Tyranny of Oil: The World’s Most Powerful Industry–And What We Must Do To Stop It.
Lindsay Imai, Urban Habitat’s Transportation Program, advocating for affordable, reliable, and racially and economically just public transit system in the Bay Area.
Carla Perez, Movement Generation Justice & Ecology Project and Mobilization for Climate Justice West.
MC: Ana Orozco, Communities for a Better Environment
Join us for a teach in on:
- Impact of the disaster on Gulf communities and eco-systems.
- BP/big oil’s handling and grassroots responses to the spill
- Real causes of the spill and the other disastrous impacts of big oil, including in the Bay Area.
- How we can mobilize in the Bay Area to resist BP, big oil and their environmental and climate pollution.
- Positive solutions we can organize for in the Bay Area to end our dependence on fossil fuels and corporate capitalism.
4:30 to 6:30pm: Nonviolent Direct Action Training: Same location (La Pena), before Teach-in:
Prepare for upcoming mass actions to resist BP/Big Oil and for climate justice (Sunday, August 29th will be a National/Bay Area mobilization– Save the date!)! A free and open to the public workshop on the basics of nonviolent direct action, how it works and how to keep our power in confrontations with authorities before, during and after actions. Please come on time and stay for the whole time.
Training sponsored by Mobilization for Climate Justice West.
Teach-In Sponsored by Mobilization for Climate Justice West & The Center for Biological Diversity
US Social Forum: June 22-26 in Detroit
If you are in Detroit for USSF this week, be sure to include JINN in your plans. Thursday is JINN’s big day!
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Thurs., 6/24, 10am-12pm: “Protecting Community Rights and Resources” workshop, sponsored by Publish What You Pay Coalition, the Sierra Club, and Justice in Nigeria Now.
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Thurs., 6/24, 3:30pm-5:30pm, “Oil and Outrage Flare in Nigeria: Ending Global Climate Crime and Protecting Local Health” sponsored by Justice in Nigeria Now.
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Watch for an announcement on a special screening of Sweet Crude in Detroit during USSF!
More detail on the workshops here:
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Thurs., 6/24, 10am-12pm: “Protecting Community Rights and Resources” workshop, sponsored by Publish What You Pay Coalition, the Sierra Club, and Justice in Nigeria Now.
Learn how countries rich in natural resources like oil, gas, and minerals can benefit from transparency in oil companies arguments regarding their payments and practices. These resources should provide an essential source of financing for improvements to social and environmental well-being.
However, economic dependence on these resources is more often accompanied by poverty, inequality, poor public services, and stunted economic growth, a trend economists call the “resource curse.” And an overdependence on natural resources in a weak or corrupt political system often leads to environmental devastation, human rights abuses, and poor labor practices. Citizens have the right to participate in the decisions that affect their environment. For citizens to combat the resource curse, they need to know how much corporations are paying their government to extract natural resources.
Here in the U.S. a bipartisan group of U.S. legislators have joined together in introducing the Energy Security Through Transparency Act (ESTT). Come find out about an exciting campaign to pass a landmark bill that will close a critical gap in information available to citizens and allow them to push their governments towards more environmentally responsible practices.
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Thurs., 6/24, 3:30pm-5:30pm, “Oil and Outrage Flare in Nigeria: Ending Global Climate Crime and Protecting Local Health” sponsored by Justice in Nigeria Now.
Life in the U.S. is partly fueled by oil extracted by U.S. companies like Chevron in Nigeria. Forty percent of Nigeria’s oil is exported to the United States. Peaceful and militant resistance to oil company human rights and environmental abuses, like the constant flaring of gas, are gaining power. In today’s world, we understand the harm that these poison fires cause to local health, sustainability and the global climate. It is time to hold corporations accountable, end toxic flaring and create the conditions for peace for the 20 million residents of the Niger Delta.
Join Nigerian activist and reporter Omoyele Sowore; Nigerian women’s rights advocate Emem Okon; and Nigerian activist, now in Bayelsa State government, Von Kemedi and JINN for an informative, inspiring workshop on gas flaring, oil impacts, and climate change in Nigeria.
Learn how you can take concrete action to participate in global solidarity campaigns to end gas flaring in Nigeria, pass U.S. transparency legislation to hold all extractive industries accountable, and resolve the root causes of the unrest in Nigeria. Attendees will also have a special opportunity to see 20 minutes of the beautiful and award-winning documentary Sweet Crude before its theatrical release and learn to bring the film and action campaign to local communities.
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Watch for an announcement on a special screening of Sweet Crude in Detroit during USSF!
With thousands of people congregating in Detroit this week, JINN is working on screening the film Sweet Crude during the week. Details are still in the works. Check back here (www.justiceinnigerianow.org/events) or contact abby@justiceinnigerianow.org for the latest updates.
June 21-28: Sweet Crude in Columbus, Chicago, and Atlanta
Publish What You Pay (of which JINN is a member) is bringing Sweet Crude to Columbus, Chicago, and Atlanta to raise awareness of the transparency legislation and to call on the attendees to call their Congressional representative and urge their support.
Please share the invites below with friends in these cities!
o Columbus, OH – Monday, June 21st, 7pm, Studio 35 (3055 Indianola Avenue)
o Naperville, IL – Sunday, June 27th, 7:00pm, DuPage UU Church (4 South 535 Old Naperville Road)
o Atlanta, GA – Monday, June 28th at 7:30pm, Plaza Theatre (1049 Ponce De Leon Avenue)
On the Eve of Chevron’s Annual Meeting . . .
Come to a Special screening of Sweet Crude, followed by Q & A with
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- Macon Hawkins, an oil worker held hostage by armed militants who remains sympathetic to the needs of those living in the Niger Delta;
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- Emem Okon, a leader of Nigeria’s women’s movement; and
- Omoyele Sowore, an activist from a Chevron production area in Nigeria.
This must-see screening takes place at Houston’s Angelika Theater, on May 25th, 8:30pm.
Join us for this powerful documentary about Nigeria, the U.S. and oil, plus Q & A with an amazing set of speakers–on the eve of Chevron’s May 26th Shareholder meeting in Houston!
Friday, May 21, 12:30-1:30pm: Brown Bag with Emem Okon, visiting from the Niger Delta
Justice in Nigeria Now, Global Fund for Women, and the 
International Forum on Globalization invite you to join us for a brown bag with women’s rights advocate, Emem Okon, visiting from the Niger Delta.
Tides Center Brown Bag Series
May 21, 2010
12:30pm-1:30pm
Pacific Room
Presidio Building 1014 (Lincoln Blvd. & Torney Ave.)
San Francisco, CA 94129-1755
415.561.6400
Emem Okon is a women’s rights activist and advocate from the Niger Delta’s oil impacted region of Nigeria. Ms. Okon is the founder and the Executive Director of Kebetkache Women Development & Resource Centre. She is a gender analyst, a trainer, a researcher, and a campaigner against all forms of violence including that directed at women and the environment. Ms. Okon was a leader of the powerful women’s protests of Chevron Corporation for its environmental and human rights abuses in Nigeria which garnered international media attention when a group of women took over an oil installation and threatened to take off their clothes if the company did not negotiate with them. She has coordinated several women’s networks and coalitions in the Niger Delta region, including Civil Society on HIV & AIDS, Gender and Constitution Reform Network, International Network on Women and Environment, and National Coalition on Affirmative Action, to mention a few.
Panel Discussion Lunch in Washington, D.C.,
Friday May 21, 12:30pm-2pm:
US Leadership for Energy Security? The Case of Equatorial Guinea
Space is limited! More information here.
Dance against Chevron with Afrolicious! This Friday, May 21, Benefit Party @ CODA!
Here’s the Facebook event invite: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=127580617259365
Join Mobilization for Climate Justice West
outside the “Navigating the American Carbon World” conference in SF-
one of the nation’s largest carbon market conferences – to expose the injustice and ineffectiveness of carbon trading and offset schemes that reward polluters and allow rich countries to evade the real responsibility of cutting greenhouse gas emissions.
When: Thursday April 15th, 12-2pm
Where: San Francisco Marriott Marquis (55 Fourth Street, SF – near Powell St BART)
[from http://west.actforclimatejustice.org/2010/04/april-15-rally-against-carbon-trading/]
Join us for a rally, street theater, and fun!
In order to respond to the present climate emergency in a just and equitable way, the rich countries of the world must take a lead on reducing greenhouse gas pollution that is threatening global climate catastrophe. But corporations and rich developed nations are pushing for policies that would allow them to “reduce” emissions by purchasing carbon “credits.” Unfortunately, carbon credits can be created through offset projects which supposedly reduce emissions in developing countries so that the companies or people purchasing the offsets don’t have to do anything to reduce emissions themselves. The problem is that these projects are frequently hard to monitor and fail to deliver the emissions reductions that they promise. Offsets essentially allow rich countries and corporations to purchase indulgences to keep polluting.
For example, the Nigerian government has stated its intention to participate in carbon trading and several oil companies are attempting to receive emissions credits. If this goes unchallenged, Chevron will be allowed to receive emissions reductions credits for ending the illegal and immoral practice of gas flaring in Nigeria. Under carbon trading proposals being considered in the US Congress, Chevron could keep polluting here at home, like at its refinery in Richmond, the biggest single source of greenhouse gas emissions in CA. It’s almost like a bully demanding a ransom to stop beating you up.
More Details: Event Flyer
This weekend:
Two Chances to See Sweet Crude–
followed by Q & A with Film Director Sandy Cioffi!
March 19 in Washington, D.C.:
Sweet Crude screens this Friday at the Environmental Film Festival in DC at 6:30pm at AED’s Globe Theater, 1927 Florida Ave., NW (Metro Dupont Circle, Q St. exit). Director Sandy Cioffi will be present and will answer questions following the screening.
March 21 in Tiburon, CA:
Sweet Crude screens this Sunday at the Tiburon International Film Festival at 7:05pm at 1680 Tiburon Blvd, Tiburon, CA (near San Francisco).
Sandy Cioffi will make a transcontinental voyage to San Francisco in order to attend this screening and answer questions afterward as well.
Whichever coast you’re on, you have an opportunity to see Sweet Crude and talk with director Sandy Cioffi this weekend!
Yoga Benefit for JINN on Mar. 14:
Spring Forward, Breathe Deeply, and Support JINN!
Join us for a lovely yoga practice, where you can breathe deeply for your own health and benefit JINN’s work to protect the health of those across the globe whose air is poisoned by toxic gas flares.
Mark your calendar, tell your friends, and don’t miss this special all-levels yoga class appropriate for total beginners and advanced practitioners taught by beloved Bay Area teacher Kimber Simpkins:
March 14th, 1:00pm-2:30pm for a sliding scale donation of $13-35 at 7th Heaven Yoga Studio, 2820 Seventh Street in Berkeley.
All proceeds go to JINN, as Instructor Kimber Simpkins and 7th Heaven have generously donated the time and space.
RSVPs are helpful, though not required.
December 11: Climate Change Candle Light Vigil for Survival – San Francisco
What: Candle Light Vigil for Survival
When: December 11th 5pm-7pm
Where: San Francisco Civic Center Plaza, across from City Hall at 1 Dr. Carlton B. Goodlett Pl.
On the weekend in the middle of the Copenhagen conference — Dec. 11-13 — people will be gathering at important places all over the world for candlelight vigils, in solemn solidarity with the citizens of those nations who will be first to face the challenge to their very survival posed by climate change. Eventually all of us will be hard-pressed by rising seas, spreading drought, and temperatures too hot for growing food. But right now—this year, this decade—there are countries being pushed to the brink. They’re at the forefront of a fight for real change in Copenhagen.
As Maldives President Mohammed Nasheed said last week at a summit for heads of state of the most vulnerable nations: “We will not sign a global suicide pact, in Copenhagen or anywhere.” Instead, he and the others called for a “survival pact,” for commitments by the developed world to cut emissions enough to get the atmospheric concentration of co2 back to 350. They know the simple, mathematical truth of global warming: 350=Survival.
In San Francisco, 350.org will be holding a candlielight vigil to reflect on the seriousness of climate change and the political negotiations that will determine our future. They will have an open mic at our vigil, giving attendees the opportunity to express their concerns about global warming.
They encourage people to bring candles, friends, and an item that represents why you are concerned about climate change.
RSVP and help spread the word on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=353232030363
Past Events