Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: activism, Black, change, Oakland, people of color, race, racism
Oscar Grant mural in downtown Oakland on 17th and Telegraph
As a person of color, a writer, an activist, as a long-time resident of Oakland and someone who is Bay Area born-and-bred, I have some strong opinions and feelings about yesterday’s verdict in the Johannes Mehserle trial re: the murder of Oscar Grant. Unfortunately, I don’t have time to blog about it now because I have other writing to do, but if you’re interested in finding out more about what I think, please visit my Twitter feed, which is the main way I’ve been communicating with folks about what’s happening here.
And special shout out to Max Elbaum, fellow activist, writer and Oakland resident, whom I ran into at the rally last night downtown. He told me he's been following my blog (not sure which one) so just want to give him special thanks!
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Black, change, extraction, human activity, Obama, oil, people of color, race, US
I don’t agree with all of President Obama’s clean energy recommendations, I did appreciate many aspects of his speech on the BP oil spill and the tragic aftermath in the Gulf of Mexico. As I watched and listened to his speech, I also couldn’t help but remark to myself, ‘This is a Black man who is the President of the United States, talking about environmentalism on national television.” Since the ‘face’ and image of environmentalism on a national level in this country has been largely White, the historical weight of that fact needs to be recognized.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: animals, change, human activity, oil, pollution, US, weather
It’s been frickin’ hot lately here in the Bay Area—and while the Bay definitely has its fair share of hot spots, Oakland is generally not one of them. It’s warmer here, yes, than in San Francisco most of the time, but not as hot as, say, Concord, Pittsburg, Antioch or other points further east and farther away from the ocean.
So it’s a little weird that in early June—when at times the weather can be so mild in the Bay that you wonder whether you’ve got the dates right in your calendar—we’re having 80+ degree weather. Climate change? Natural fluke? I’m no weather expert, but I have lived here all my life, and I can say that the weather has become more erratic and extreme of late, shifting from cool and rainy (just a week ago) to swelteringly hot and back again. Weather in the Bay Area always has been a bit changeable and unpredictable, but generally we don’t get more than a 10-degree swing from month to month. And while I generally do like heat, and my tomatoes in the garden are loving it, it’s been a little strange.
Of course, all this heat is coming when all of us are thinking more and more about our dependence on oil as a fuel source, with the BP spill still leaking and tons of birds and other wildlife in the Gulf dying or suffering, and whole communities being devastated by this awful disaster. And in the local Oakland Tribune, there was an article today about how the waters of the Bay are rising, threatening to displace more than a quarter of a million residents from their homes in the next 50+ years.
On a positive note, however, there is a silver cloud to the BP oil spill tragedy—that hopefully it will get more people to open their eyes to the reality that we cannot keep exploiting the earth’s natural resources without some pretty terrible repercussions. And also, that we need to realize that everything is connected, and that the extreme weather many of us are witnessing is only one symptom of a larger problem.
In the meantime, I await my new oscillating fan/ionic filter for my home, and hunker down to do some reading and gearing up for some writing workshops, and continue to try to live as green as possible during what promises to be a hot, hot summer.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: activism, animals, change, disaster capitalism, extraction, human activity, nature, oil, pollution, US
I sent this email out to several of my colleagues and friends, because as a fundraiser and an activist I can’t just sit idly by while animals die, people’s livelihoods are destroyed, and an entire eco-system is plagued by man-made death and destruction. It’s bad out there. So please do what you can to help the people who really do care about the environment and communities of the Gulf Coast to hold BP accountable and aid in the cleanup efforts. This is just one way to help, but it is a way.
Hey there,
It makes me so mad to watch the news every night and see how badly the oil spill is affecting the Gulf of Mexico. The environment, the communities there, the whales . . . it’s crazy.
Luckily, there’s one easy thing we can do to help. The Gulf Restoration Network is keeping us up-to-date on their blog, and you can take action to make sure BP cleans up its mess by clicking the link below.
http://action.healthygulf.org/p/dia/action/public/?action_KEY=3796
Also, please consider making a donation to their work. I found about GRN through my friend Judy Hatcher, a long-time environmental justice activist who knows what’s what in the movement, and so I trust her opinion. GRN was her first referral to me when I asked about ways that I could help with this awful crisis in the gulf.
Thanks and take care,
Towards a just and sustainable world-
Rona
While President Obama is expected to announce an extension of a moratorium on deepwater oil drilling today, all I can think is, ‘We need more!’
Not more oil, but more of a lot of other things: more respect for the environment, more public education about and infrastructure-building for alternative energy sources, more protections against the potentially destructive and ultimately unnecessary offshore drilling that’s resulted in the hot mess that is the Gulf oil spill, which the LA Times environmental blog reports as being far worse than the Exxon Valdez disaster of 1989.
The superstitious Roman Catholic in me can’t help but think, ‘Why have two disasters of epic proportions struck the Gulf coast in the past decade?’ First Katrina and now this. And while deep down inside I don’t believe in a punitive God who rains destruction down on sinners, I do believe in karma. And offshore drilling is just wrong, wrong, wrong on so many levels, and I’m not surprised if Mother Earth is just sick and tired of our endless plundering of her natural resources and in her own epic way is saying, ‘Enough!’ And now, a the spill has reached a powerful loop current that could move the oil to Florida and beyond. Hot mess indeed! And it was just a matter of time before people started getting sick. And while officials are saying that the leak has finally been contained, I don’t sense anyone out there doing any high fives or holding any celebratory parties.
Because the cleanup on this is going to take a frickin’ long, LONG time, and the impact on wildlife, the ecosystem and human beings will persist long after most of the oil is gone.
The one upshot to all of this could be that this crisis is forcing a lot more people to have deeper and more sustained conversations about our energy usage and the dangers of offshore drilling. Even mainstream nature media stalwart National Geographic is airing a special tonight about the spill.
And that’s what we need more of—more conversation about things that really matter, like how we’re going to sustain ourselves on this planet, and not just distracting, mindless talk about TV shows or celebrities or fashion. Not that I don’t do those things myself, but there comes a point when you have to get clear on your priorities. And now more than ever that’s what we ALL need to do.
My mind’s still reeling with the news that the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico has still not been stopped and that thousands of gallons of crude are still leaking. Even more outrageous are the dishonest double-talk quotes from BP representatives. For example, excerpted from the New York Times article linked above:
“‘I wouldn’t say it has failed yet,’ said Doug Suttles, the operating officer for exploration and production for BP, the company that was leasing the oil rig when it exploded April 20. ‘What I would say is what we attempted to do last night didn’t work.'”
WHAT? What’s the frickin’ difference between ‘it didn’t work’ and ‘it failed?’ It’s appalling how these guys just outright LIE to all of us and will most likely walk away from this whole situation with just a few dollars short, maybe their jobs lost, but will probably just end up at some other oil company somewhere else in the world and do it all over again.
And I’m equally pissed at the media (liberal or otherwise), that has ‘moved on’, as the media is wont to do, to the next ‘new’ story: the political drama unfolding during the Senate investigation into what will undoubtedly be the worst oil spill in U.S. history.
Not that I’m saying that story isn’t important, but can we please spend more time talking about the environmental impact of this? Like the fact that the oyster-harvesters and other seafood harvesters in that part of the world could forever lose their entire livelihood and way of life? Not to mention what such damage to the ecosystem there would ripple through the rest of the food chain (and I’m not just talking about human beings not being able to get an oyster po’ boy).
This outrages me to no end, and I feel more people should be outraged, but I feel like even amongst my progressive/liberal friends, I hear very little talk about this. It’s like we just expect bad things to keep happening like this, and we just put our heads down and keep doing what we were doing. I’ve been doing the same, so I’m criticizing myself as well, but when do we stop and say, ‘Enough?’ And when, more importantly, do we then DO something different?
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: change, energy, extraction, human activity, infrastructure, oil, US
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I’ve been appalled, as many people have, by the massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico over the past week. It’s insane to me that this has not yet been contained. I literally have no words to express how outraged I am about this, and how inane it is that we are even in this predicament. I recently started reading Van Jones’ book, The Green Collar Economy, which starts off with an excellent preface by Robert Kennedy, Jr., who articulates how a nationwide shift to clean(er) energy such as solar, wind, etc. could be both a boon to our struggling economy as well as better for the environment.
Well, all I have to say is, for anyone that believes after this gigantic oil spill—the largest in the history of the US, if not the world—that a fossil-fuel based economy is still a good way to go, they may be certifiably insane.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: activism, change, Earth Day, human activity, nature
Today is Earth Day, a ‘holiday’ to celebrate the Earth and do ‘green’ things to help the planet thrive and become a more sustainable place for human beings and other beings to live. Earth Day is a good thing, for sure—Habitat for Humanity, for example, does a build-a-thon around Earth Day, and I’m sure hundreds of other nonprofits, businesses (including Google) and millions of individuals did things today to heighten public awareness of the dangers facing the environment and what we can all do to be more eco-conscious.
Maybe it’s because I live in the Bay Area, where there have got to be more Priuses and electric cars per square mile than anywhere else in the country, and where two of the biggest counties (Alameda and San Francisco) run extensive public recycling and composting programs for residents and even businesses, but Earth Day is not really that big of a deal to me. Not because I don’t think it’s good to celebrate the Earth on a special day once a year, but because I pretty much celebrate the Earth everyday.
Of course, there are days when my behavior is less eco-friendly than others (like when I give in to cravings and go get McDonald’s french fries or when I drive the two miles from my house to downtown Oakland for a meeting when I could easily take the bus), but most days, I strive to do as many things as I can in a way that’s less harmful to the environment and the living beings that dwell in it.
Some of the things I do everyday to honor the Earth:
– Thank the Earth for all that She gives us: food, water, ground to walk on, flowers, trees, soil.
– Recycle and compost (both through the public compost bin as well as two worm bins)
– Use a steel water bottle instead of buying plastic (90% of the time anyway ;))
– Garden pretty much ‘organically’, no pesticides
– Buy and eat locally grown, organic produce, from farmer’s markets and sometimes Whole Foods in a pinch
– Eat as much sustainably raised meat and seafood products as I can, given the limitations of the knowledge we have about our meat products
– Use cloth bags/sacks when shopping or just put things I buy in my (fairly large) purse
– Try to practice compassion and metta (loving kindness) as much as possible
– Donate money to environmental organizations
– Sign petitions in support of environmental causes and issues, such as this one that is pushing for more low-fat food, fresh vegetables, fruits, etc. be included in federally-funded school nutrition programs, which are largely aimed at serving low-income children
– Serve on the board of an environmental justice organization, the Asian Pacific Environmental Network
There are more things that I do, I’m sure, and there are also plenty of other things that I could do to be even more ‘green’. And Earth Day, I’m sure, helps a lot of people who don’t live in such highly eco-conscious environments learn more about what they can do to walk more lightly on the Earth.
But if we are going to make the big, long-term changes in the way we harness and use energy, in how we eat, in how we share resources and how we treat each other, we are going to have to practice being ‘green’ everyday, not just one day out of the year.
As we count down to Earth Day 2010, just wanted to share two examples of what the future could (and hopefully will) look like if we as human beings are able to overcome our prejudices, divisions and the injustices of the past and present.
I just started reading The Green Collar Economy by Van Jones, an old activist colleague of mine. Just reading the preface by Robert Kennedy, Jr. right now, which is in and of itself pretty fascinating, as I didn’t know that he was a big environmentalist and also because there’s some great info in there about the potential economic impact of decarbonizing, or ending our economy’s dependence on fossil fuels and shifting over to solar, wind and other cleaner sources.
Also, found this website recently, for an organization called the Farmer Veteran Coalition, which places war veterans in job training programs on farms in the US, where they can not only learn how to cultivate food but can hopefully gain a respite from the violence and horrors they witnessed during their tours. It’s a brilliant idea—one of healing that reflects the needs of both the people who have been wounded by our society’s overdependence on oil, as well as environmental needs.
It excites me to know that there are many, many people out there striving to create a future where we can all live freely, work with dignity, play joyfully, breathe clean air and eat fresh, healthy food. It’s the kind of life that too few people on this planet experience right now, but I hope that in the future, that will all change for the better.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Bay Area, change, climate, environmental justice, human activity, weather
The Bay Area has, for as long as I can remember, been one of those strange places weather-wise. Weather is often unpredictable and changeable from hour to hour, let alone day to day, but since I’ve been here my whole life, I felt like I had a good ‘sixth sense’ of what the weather was going to be like on any given day—there was something in the light, in the temperature of the air in the morning, in the quality and thickness of the clouds—that triggered something instinctual in me and told me whether I should bring a jacket or extra layer, or whether I should bring an umbrella, or whether I should wear something less heavy.
Of course, I could only tell what the weather was like in the immediate area I was in—our at turns hilly or flat, land-locked or water-bound terrain creates an incredible number of microclimates that can make temperature and even windy-ness in one neighborhood different than one a couple miles away—but I had enough sense to know that, for example, if I went to San Francisco it was generally going to be anywhere from 5-10 degrees cooler than it is in the East Bay, especially if I was going anywhere near the Pacific Ocean. Only the Pacific Northwest, where I spent a few weeks last May, was more changeable weather-wise in my experience (heavy rain in the morning could be followed by gorgeous sunny weather in the afternoon).
But lately, and yes I do blame climate change, I feel as if the unpredictability of Bay Area has changed. There’ve been days when the weather is actually WARMER in San Francisco than in Oakland. Or weeks (like these past few) when it rains heavily for a couple days, then gets almost Indian summer-like hot, then gets cold and rainy again. I don’t recall such extreme temperature and rainfall patterns ever happening in my lifetime here—or at least not over such a sustained period of time.
And please don’t post any silly comments about how you don’t believe man-made climate change is real, as they will be promptly deleted for their ridiculousness—as if humans can’t have any sustained impact on our environment!
This disruption of our normal weather patterns has made it hard to know how to prepare for each day—but that’s OK, it’s just one other thing to learn how to roll with. It is a bit frightening though, and makes me think of how much harder it must be right now in other places of the world—like the Philippines, South Asia, Central Africa, etc., which are often also the places where people color live—where weather and Mother Nature was already pretty extreme before climate change hit.
Frightening indeed.
Browngirl Going Green 