Apocalypse Soon: Has Civilization Passed the Environmental Point of No Return?

“We’re in for a period of sustained chaos whose magnitude we are unable to foresee,” [Professor Dennis] Meadows [systems policy] warns. He no longer spends time trying to persuade humanity of the limits to growth. Instead, he says, “I’m trying to understand how communities and cities can buffer themselves” against the inevitable hard landing.

http://tinyurl.com/cnrf8an

Scientist to climate-change-denying politicians: ‘You can’t legislate the ocean!’

State lawmakers are considering a measure that would limit how North Carolina prepares for sea-level rise, which many scientists consider one of the surest results of climate change.

Federal authorities say the North Carolina coast is vulnerable because of its low, flat land and thin fringe of barrier islands. A state-appointed science panel has reported that a 1-meter rise is likely by 2100.
. . .

Longtime East Carolina University geologist Stan Riggs, a science panel member who studies the evolution of the coast, said the 1-meter estimate is squarely within the mainstream of research.

“We’re throwing this science out completely, and what’s proposed is just crazy for a state that used to be a leader in marine science,” he said of the proposed legislation. “You can’t legislate the ocean, and you can’t legislate storms.”

http://tinyurl.com/7ex6vtn

Occupy Providence plans round-the-clock sidewalk vigil at Netroots conference; police say sleeping bags prohibited

Occupy Providence activists say they plan to maintain a 24-hour presence, including sleeping bags, outside a “Netroots Nation” conference that begins Thursday at the Rhode Island Convention Center and runs for four days.

Nearly 3,000 progressive bloggers, grassroots and union activists and political leaders are expected to attend the four-day event.

Occupy Providence member Jared Paul said the protest is against economic injustice, not Netroots Nation.

http://tinyurl.com/cadhegs

Continue reading “The OB Media Rundown for 6/2/12” »

Occupy Wall Street Spawns DIY Solar Power

Back in the Fall of 2011, during the first wave of Occupy protests, a team from Revolt Labs apparently built solar-powered chargers for Occupy Boston protesters to help them charge their portable electronics. This was done using what I used to construct my own 5-volt USB charger: a 5-volt 7805 voltage regulator which is capable of charging all USB devices using a vehicle’s cigarette lighter outlet, or most cordless phone chargers.
. . .

The DIY Revolt Labs project generates 10 watts of power, sufficient to sustain small electronics such as cellphones. And, of course, cellphones and socket-free recharging are particularly important to protesters. Another even more portable and helpful device for charging portable electronics, which can fully sustain cellphones, is a 12-watt solar-powered foldable charge available from Wagan Tech for $130. The price is $11 per watt of power generation capacity, which is high, but can be expected from foldable solar panels.

For protesters who are on the move, the portability may be worth it, and they can use it personally at home too. For protesters who need more to power their laptops and other devices, and who need extra energy storage capacity, there is an 80-watt power cube I took a look at in a local store recently, also available on Amazon.

http://tinyurl.com/d8zaqcv

FBI Works to Taint the Occupy Movement

(video)

Two recently foiled “terrorist plots” that the U.S. government and mainstream media connected to the Occupy movement turned out to have been facilitated by federal agents. But that fact has “not stopped many from branding Occupy with an unfavorable stain,” RT reports.

http://tinyurl.com/cvbeu7d

NYPD Unconcerned With Actually Convicting Occupy Wall Street Protesters

As hundreds of protesters arrested during months of Occupy Wall Street demonstrations get their day in court, their arresting officers aren’t even bothering to show up. When they have, as in the first two cases to go to trial, the NYPD testimony was disproved with photographic and video evidence, resulting in both protesters getting acquitted. Many of the others charged, most often with disorderly conduct (a violation, not a crime), will have to wait until at least September to go before a judge because the prosecution doesn’t have their police witnesses ready. As with contesting a traffic ticket, it’s often difficult to get cops to court, but when it comes to protesters, there’s probably more to it than busy schedules.

“Mass arrests were being used as a tactic, as a weapon to stop the expressive activity and to chill people from participating in OWS,” Norman Siegel, an Occupy attorney and former head of the NYCLU, told Daily Intel. “You deal with the protest at that moment and you limit future activity. Even if the city arrests people and there’s no conviction, so what?”

http://tinyurl.com/7g8k3ww

Continue reading “The OB Media Rundown for 6/1/12” »

City of Buffalo shifts $45 million from JPMorgan to First Niagara

The City of Buffalo is withdrawing $45 million from JPMorgan Chase and depositing the money with First Niagara Financial Group, City Comptroller Mark J.F. Schroeder announced today.

The Buffalo Sewer Authority funding will earn 0.30 percent interest in the new account, more than the 0.25 percent rate it had been getting with JPMorgan, Schroeder said in a written statement.

The move follows concerns about JPMorgan raised with the Common Council by members of the Occupy Buffalo movement, who asked that the city withdraw its deposits from the institution.

“Not only will the funds earn more interest with First Niagara, a major local employer headquartered in Buffalo, but it also sends a crystal clear message to JPMorgan Chase that the City of Buffalo is not happy with their business practices,” Schroeder said.

http://tinyurl.com/7vsmzgs

3 Years After Taxpayer Bailout, Bank of America Ships Jobs Overseas

Bank of America, which last fall announced plans to lay off 30,000 workers, is about to go on a hiring spree-overseas.

America’s second-largest bank is relocating its business-support operations to the Philippines, according to a high-ranking Filipino government official recently quoted in the Filipino press. The move, which includes a portion of the bank’s customer service unit, comes less than three years after Bank of America received a $45 billion federal bailout.

Roman Romulo, deputy majority leader of the Philippine House of Representatives, bragged to the Manila Standard Today earlier this month that the Philippines “has secured its place as the world’s fastest-growing outsourcing hub.” Romulo pointed out that BofA is the last of the “big four” US banks to move their business-support network to his island nation, where the average family makes $4,700 a year.

http://tinyurl.com/8743slf

Postal Workers, Community Allies Increase Pressure as USPS Cuts Loom

As Congress dallies, postal workers and community activists are turning to civil disobedience to combat the sweeping cuts planned for the Postal Service.

Ten postal worker and community activists in Portland, Oregon, were arrested May 24 when they occupied the city’s University Station post office, refusing to leave and blocking the closure of the office’s retail desk.

Nearly 100 supporters rallied outside as the activists inside held their ground, singing and holding banners proclaiming “Occupy the Post Office” and “No Closures! No Cuts!” Police hauled them out after an hour and a half.

http://tinyurl.com/7y69z85

Continue reading “The OB Media Rundown for 5/31/12” »

Citizens Get Conflicting Messages About Their Right to Record

This month, federal agencies and local officials sent two powerful but conflicting messages to the American public about our right to record.

On May 14, the Justice Department submitted a letter to the Baltimore Police Department providing in-depth guidance on citizens’ right to record. The letter was submitted as part of a court case that dates back to 2010. The plaintiff, Christopher Sharp, alleges that after filming the arrest of his friend in Baltimore, police confiscated his mobile phone and deleted the video.

And while the Justice Department’s letter “specifically addresses the circumstances in this case,” it was also clearly meant to send a message to police departments and municipalities around the country. The authors take pains to point out that the guidance contained within the letter “also reflects the United States’ position on the basic elements of a constitutionally adequate policy on individuals’ right to record police activity.” This important statement came just a week after digital rights and press freedom advocates sent a joint letter to Attorney General Eric Holder asserting that in a changing media landscape it is increasingly vital for the DOJ to protect everyone’s right to record.

http://tinyurl.com/7a5gu99

Are co-ops the answer? Around the world, people are democratizing the workplace

Long before the Occupy movement sparked renewed protest of rising inequality, another global movement was quietly engaged in building a more democratic economy. From coffee growers in Kenya seeking a fair market price to worker-owned green businesses reviving the American Rust Belt, cooperatives are helping to spur a reinvention of work in a period of worldwide recession.

Globally, an estimated 1 billion people are members of cooperatives, and many believe that the scope of worker- and member-owned enterprises across the world represents a revolution already in the making. With combined earnings rivaling Canada’s GDP, co-ops could be the fastest-growing business model by the end of the decade. To promote awareness of their potential, the United Nations has declared 2012 the “International Year of Cooperatives.” Cooperative organizers, though they have generally worked on a separate track from protest movements, have called on Occupy and other mass movements to help build “an economy worth occupying.”

http://tinyurl.com/6t6s2vg

Occupy Albany, clergy push for higher minimum wag

A push to raise the minimum wage despite a political stalemate brought the Occupy Albany movement to the Capitol on Tuesday while dozens of clergy statewide pressured the Senate’s Republican majority and Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo.

“A living wage is possible, this movement is unstoppable!” chanted 40 demonstrators from the Capitol’s ornate Million Dollar Staircase. “It’s shameful and outrageous!”

http://tinyurl.com/7ef25ay
Continue reading “The OB Media Rundown for 5/30/12” »

Neoliberalism understood [and what to do about it]

Now is the time to speak the clear truth, which is that for America to be the nation that we want, we have to make things for those at the top worse. They can afford it. Perhaps that’s the greatest sin of all of it: the notion that what’s good for the wealthiest is good for the poorest. If we derive any wisdom from this terrible crisis, let’s start by acknowledging the obvious: that different classes are in fact natural antagonists, that sometimes we need to support one against the other, and that when those on top have too much power and too much money, it has to be clawed back, by the people, in a way that some won’t like. No more lies about rising tides, but instead the reality of class conflict.

http://tinyurl.com/cr6vrey

From Occupy to Quebec – Deepening the Struggle through Strategic Demands

If the Occupy movement did one thing in North America, it put class on the agenda.

By making it easier to forge links between differing struggles, the language of the 99 percent has acted as a social lubricant between struggles previously atomized by elite narratives. This shared language of inequality is perhaps the greatest gift the Occupy movement has given to those fighting for a more socially just world.

Thus, the Occupy movement should be seen as ultimately posing the question: If our society is increasingly unequal, what are we going to do about it?

http://tinyurl.com/7enkrah

Julian Assange show: Occupy, the movement to fight a global ‘enemy’

“There’s a feeling out there that the enemy is becoming increasingly globalized, and the only way it can be challenged is by global movements,” [David] Graeber said.

Although it is economic and social inequality that are named as the main causes behind Occupy, Alexa O’Brien from Occupy in New York and US Day of Rage says it is not just about the global financial crisis but also about a global political crisis – because “institutions are no longer functional.”

[Arron] Peters [of Occupy London] agreed, saying that political failure is a global phenomenon.

“We now recognize that public policy outcomes aren’t happening at the national level, and that policy makers aren’t actually the ones who are in national parliaments. They are elsewhere, and the ones that are dictating policy aren’t any way accountable, or, you know, they are not democratic representatives,” he said.

http://tinyurl.com/d76q82o

Continue reading “The OB Media Rundown for 5/29/12” »