[video available at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mN-A6owgtEw]
ALACHUA COUNTY, FL- Today, A group of youth joined with Earth First! activists at Plum Creek's regional office chanting "From Florida to Maine Development is the Same". The youth who attended last week's Earth First! Roadshow presentation in Gainesville were inspired to take local action for the environment.
The youth, ranging in age from 4-11, requested a meeting to present letters expressing their concerns with Plum Creek's development plans here in Alachua County and in the Moosehead Lake region of Maine. Plum Creek is the largest land owner in the United States and have drawn criticism across the country for their land management practices.
They were denied entry.
The group sat peacefully in the door way with colorful signs reading: "Plum Creek, Listen Up!", "Save Our Streams", "Protect Maine's North Woods, Save the Sunshine State."
After being told to leave, the group distributed flyers with the following text:
Plum Creek - Why are you selling our future?
Maine:
In the Indian Stream area of the Moosehead Lake region, Plum Creek is planning to develop luxury resorts and sites open to gravel mining, water extraction, sewage sludge spreading, and commercial logging. This area is renowned as pristine, intact wilderness; sensitive habitat for endangered lynx; and culturally important deer yards.
Florida:
Plum Creek is trying to develop 1,800 homes near Gainesville, creating even more urban sprawl for our city. This development would take place in environmentally sensitive areas that include wetlands and headwaters of ecologically significant creeks.
Plum Creek is also creating Gopher Tortoise ‘prison camps’ masquerading as species conservation to facilitate sprawl and logging in North/Central Florida. Our turtles don’t need forced relocation, they need to be left alone, where they belong.
Save the North Woods, leave Maine alone!
Stay out of the Sunshine State, leave Florida alone!
xxxx
Thursday, March 26, 2009
Thursday, March 19, 2009
EARTH FIRST! ROADSHOW COMING TO PALM BEACH COUNTY...
For details: www.earthfirstroadshow.wordpress.com
3/20 Miami, FL
8:00pm Black Mangrove Collective
This event will include a presentation from Max Rameau of Take Back the Land
Location: 138 NW 37th Street, Miami
www.theblackmangrove.com
3/21 Jupiter FL,
Earth First! Benefit Show at Adam Barksdale’s place, with 14 bands, show starts at 4pm, EF! Roadshow will be tabling at event, doing our puppet show at 4pm and slideshow presentation at 7pm… donation $5-10
Location: 13926 157th Ct N, Jupiter Fl, 33478
3/22 Lake Worth, FL
at 7pm Benefit Dinner and Theater at the Canew (collective house in LW) 822 North C Street. RSVP requested.
Join us for a local foods dinner, activist theater and direct action slide show to benefit a great cause; the local Earth First! direct action movement and touring roadshow!
Making the connections between local sustainability and environmental action:
* local foods dinner - direct from our bountiful backyard garden
* tour of the garden, bee-hives, home-made solar panel and water systems
* exciting puppet theater & presentation by Earth First! about the U.S.radical
environmental movement
* good company to boot!
Sliding scale donation from $10 - $20. Money will support the Earth First! direct action movement and roadshow. Wine and beer cash bar available.
Seating is limited, please R.S.V.P and let us know your meal preference (vegan, vegetarian, omnivore) evergladesearthfirst@gmail.com or 561-584-2644
See you next Sunday!
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Other EF! Roadshow dates in Forida:
3/23 St. Augustine, FL
6:30 PM at Flagler College Campus, Palm Court
3/24 Tallahassee, FL [VENUE CHANGE]
7:00 PM at All Saints Cafe at 7pm. 903 Railroad Ave, Tallahassee, FL 32310.
-------------------------------------------------
More info on the Roadshow:
The Earth First! Roadshow will be crossing the country this spring to renew a grassroots ecological direct action movement in the U.S. Time is of the essence for the future of the planet. We are touring with inspirational stories from groups accross the country standing up to big business and the fossil fuel industry. We hope to encourage and inspire people to join in creating alternatives and defending our planet!
We have an interactive presentation, slideshow and puppet show to tell the story of Earth First! We are also offering workshops and trainings for safe and strategic direct actions/civil disobedience and making eco-action irresistible!
3/20 Miami, FL
8:00pm Black Mangrove Collective
This event will include a presentation from Max Rameau of Take Back the Land
Location: 138 NW 37th Street, Miami
www.theblackmangrove.com
3/21 Jupiter FL,
Earth First! Benefit Show at Adam Barksdale’s place, with 14 bands, show starts at 4pm, EF! Roadshow will be tabling at event, doing our puppet show at 4pm and slideshow presentation at 7pm… donation $5-10
Location: 13926 157th Ct N, Jupiter Fl, 33478
3/22 Lake Worth, FL
at 7pm Benefit Dinner and Theater at the Canew (collective house in LW) 822 North C Street. RSVP requested.
Join us for a local foods dinner, activist theater and direct action slide show to benefit a great cause; the local Earth First! direct action movement and touring roadshow!
Making the connections between local sustainability and environmental action:
* local foods dinner - direct from our bountiful backyard garden
* tour of the garden, bee-hives, home-made solar panel and water systems
* exciting puppet theater & presentation by Earth First! about the U.S.radical
environmental movement
* good company to boot!
Sliding scale donation from $10 - $20. Money will support the Earth First! direct action movement and roadshow. Wine and beer cash bar available.
Seating is limited, please R.S.V.P and let us know your meal preference (vegan, vegetarian, omnivore) evergladesearthfirst@gmail.com or 561-584-2644
See you next Sunday!
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Other EF! Roadshow dates in Forida:
3/23 St. Augustine, FL
6:30 PM at Flagler College Campus, Palm Court
3/24 Tallahassee, FL [VENUE CHANGE]
7:00 PM at All Saints Cafe at 7pm. 903 Railroad Ave, Tallahassee, FL 32310.
-------------------------------------------------
More info on the Roadshow:
The Earth First! Roadshow will be crossing the country this spring to renew a grassroots ecological direct action movement in the U.S. Time is of the essence for the future of the planet. We are touring with inspirational stories from groups accross the country standing up to big business and the fossil fuel industry. We hope to encourage and inspire people to join in creating alternatives and defending our planet!
We have an interactive presentation, slideshow and puppet show to tell the story of Earth First! We are also offering workshops and trainings for safe and strategic direct actions/civil disobedience and making eco-action irresistible!
Thursday, February 19, 2009
Open letter to people of the Everglades (and those who care about it)
from the Palm Beach County Stockade, February, 8, 2009, 5:30am
To have a home is to know your surroundings--where the water comes, where it goes, what the earth is like, what it can grow, who else lives around you... Most importantly, how you can defend it. To not know these things is to have been displaced from our home and in a foreign place. Many of us here in south Florida today fall into that category. Some of us try to find a way home by escaping; others find home by re-rooting themselves where they are.
I chose to be rooted, and for that i have found my current home to be a detention center on Southern Boulevard, Palm Beach County. Incarcerated. Sentenced to 60 days for defending my home from Florida Power and Light. The details are available elsewhere; this letter is to people who know enough--who are ready to fight, or are fighting already.
In 1963, Dr. M.L. King Jr. wrote a letter from Birmingham jail explaining his arrest: "the purpose of our direct action program is to create a situation so that it will inevitably open the door to negotiation." This is a crucial component of our movement also. We need space to have our positions presented. But more importantly, we need physical space protected; we need immediate destruction stopped, and we need true, uncompromising ecological restoration now.
Our life-support system is being stripped before our eyes and our failure to act effectively makes us culprits. In legal terms, we either plead guilty to criminal negligence or prepare to use the necessity defense. In our case, neither judge nor jury seemed honest or courageous enough to accept that defense. But that doesn't change the reality that it was the most responsible option available through the system of corporate rule that we live under. History has proven numerous times that the rule of law is trumped by the demands of justice, and in the current environmental context it rings truer than ever.
Our mandate doesn't come to us from law books, but from the combined voices of our future generations and our ancestors--those who know what has been lost, and those who would have to live with that loss. The Earth is in unprecedented urgency of which the ever popular climate change issue is only a factor. Despite Florida's vast coastline, inland hydrology changes pose an even more pressing threat to our peninsula. The circumstances are dire, but the visible response is nothing short of pathetic, in relation to the danger we face. If you think the declining economy is a problem, you are skimming the surface of the metaphoric iceberg below our sub-tropical titanic... "No, Governor Charlie, re-arranging the chairs on deck won't help this off-course cruise liner."
So what are available options before us? How do we become an unstoppable force that can change the course we are on? Over the last year it seemed we had a formula: one small group blockades a power plant, goes to trial, shows the legal necessity to defend our home and then invite people to flood the streets and take similar actions until we win our planet out from the hands of greed and corruption. Today, from this cold steel bench in the county jail, it seems that the strategy may take a bit longer than hoped for. We now find ourselves in the process of learning to turn short term losses into long term victories.
While it is a disappointment that our case did not succeed in court, it is no surprise (it, of course, succeeded immeasurably in gathering public support and awareness.) This system we live in thrives on two primary factors: high-level corruption and ground-level complicity. We have a very limited ability to expose the high level corruption, and while the current trend of incarcerated County Commissioners may be encouraging, it is a mere scratch at the surface of the problem. But our collective complicity, on the other hand, is within our realm of control. Our disobedience--or refusal to cooperate--can, and has, defended land and liberty (or whats left of it) throughout history.
There is little doubt in my mind that corporate interests like FPL can create immense pressure in courtrooms, just as they do in the legislature, commission chambers and halls of congress. They are the second largest power company in the U.S. They pay the firms who write the laws for power plant siting, the same firms who train the judges that screw environmental and community health interests regularly at the administrative level (Hopping Green and Sam and the Wetherell family in Tallahassee come to mind.)
I saw the same shiftiness and twitch of discomfort in Judge Laura Johnson (who sentenced me to twice the days suggested by State Attorney Danielle Croke) as i have seen in DEP employees testifying in administrative hearings in favor of FPL. Whether it reflects an intentional deviousness or a subconscious discomfort, i can't say. I only know the impression that was left on me and hope that someday the truth with surface.
In the meantime, i consider it a responsibility to take this case through appeals and to take similar actions until an honest judge and/or a courageous jury recognize the urgency we are facing [keep an eye on the Battle for Barley Barber brewing at the Martin County FPL plant] . Our adversaries thought this sentence would silence us--instead it will be a call to action. They are forcing us into an escalation of our resistance. And they know this too.
It is not a time for reckless bravery, but a time to let the green-fire in our hearts burn deeply and nurture a subtle, fierce courage that will glow, contagious to all those around us--all who have been longing, some for generations, to find their way home. And to defend it. It's time to move from abstract rhetoric to on-the-ground plans. Now is the time to keep pressure on our local battles, as our local victories (especially here in the belly of the beast) can stoke the flames around the world.
People following the WCEC fight should remember that it's far from over. The PBC Environmental Coalition is still awaiting federal trial for faulted permitting under NEPA (Natural Environment Protection Act) and Everglades Earth First! is just now beginning to look at the 500+ miles of new FGT gas pipeline across Florida and multiple LNG facilities needed to support the giant plant, which were not taken into consideration by permitting process that is supposed to review secondary and cumulative impacts.
So let's keep it up on all fronts--on the streets, through the courts and even in the jails. When i came to this facility i found that most everyone i met, convicts and deputies, had heard of the WCEC through our fight with FPL (some who had been following the story since last year) and so many have openly expressed support and sympathy for our efforts. And outrage over the sentence.. even those serving a much longer time incarcerated.
If i may tangent briefly, i want to also express that the captivity, rage and displacement i've witnessed behind these walls is terrifyingly reflective of the world outside it--a microcosm of what is happening to the planet and the people who live with it. But don't take my word for it; write a letter to any prisoner and ask what its like. I suggest starting with one of the political eco-prisoners listed in the back of the Earth First! Journal. I've only been down a week, and i am hoping to get out on an appellate bond for now. But we have people around the world doing hard time for defending their home. Just this Thursday, activist Marie Mason was sentenced to near 22 years for following her heart. She deserves all the love and support we can send her way... [see details below]
...For a brief moment, i can look out at the sun rising over the few Palm Trees i can see from this window, and i imagine the snores of fellow inmates are distant pig frogs and 'gators snorts and i envision a day when cypress domes and pine flatwoods and prairie marshes cover this concrete and over grow the razor wire fences... Gopher tortoises, eagles, indigo snakes, otters.. returning to their home. And i sit in a shady oak hammock, here in the Loxahatchee slough, around a campfire listening to Marie's sweet voice in song, laughing with friends from across these islands that span the hemisphere.. feeling in-place, connected, home.
Then i hear keys jingle. Door opens, pig frogs go silent: "You guys got rec in 15 minutes." I see the sun shining out there. Soon i'll get to feel it on my skin, for about an hour, if the clouds clear.
panagioti tsolkas, #0273636
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[author's notes and updates: Since writing this letter, above, i have been released on an $5000 appellate bond (thanks to my mother, Lynne's mother and a friend Sister Rachel, who testified to my reliability and commitment to the community i live in; also thanks to my partner Cara Jennings and Public Defender Erich Taylor who worked their asses off to pull it off). This means i was able to get out of jail until our case for an appeal of the circuit court verdict and sentence is heard by a higher court, which could take up to another year to be completed. My co-defendant, Lynne Purvis, made a tough decision to stay and get her 30 day sentence out of the way. I served 13 days of my 60 day sentence awaiting the bond hearing and processing, and received an incredible amount of support and solidarity, in the form of: dozens of letters, money in my commissary, covering my home responsibilities and most importantly, people picking up my slack in continuing the fight against FPL. I may still have to serve another 30-35 days if the appeal is unsuccessful, or i may serve out that time earlier if my bond becomes a financial burden.
In the meantime, Everglades Earth First! has called for a Week of Action in Solidarity with jailed activists, see details at: http://pbcec.blogspot.com/2009/02/solidarity-actions-with-everglades.html
For those of you who were inspired to write a letter through the bars, but didn't get to me in time.. Lynne will be in until Feb 24, and would love your letters:
Lynne Purvis, #0353397
L Dorm, Stockade
PO Box 24716
West Palm Beach, FL 33416
Also, please consider corresponding with a friend and comrade, Marie Mason, who was just sentenced this week to 22 years in prison for ecological direct actions; despite the fact that no one was injured by her actions. The news is tragic and has filled me with anger, sadness and humility. For updates, or to read her sentencing statement: http://freemarie.org/
The below address may only be good until the end of February; please check the website, as she is awaiting relocation:
Marie Jeanette Mason
Clinton County Jail
1347 E Townsend Rd.
Saint Johns, MI 48879
If you wrote me a letter and/or donated to EEF! on my behalf and i haven't thanked you personally, please allow me to express my total appreciation. Direct action is a community effort that goes far beyond the moment of confrontation. Those who offer continual, reliable solidarity are the roots of stability in our movement. Keep fighting, keep loving.. -panagioti tsolkas
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Looking for some background info about the ongoing fight against FPL and the Energy Empire in south Florida?
Some articles, videos and photos:
http://www.earthfirstjournal.org/article.php?id=361
http://www.browardpalmbeach.com/2008-11-06/news/tree-huggers-mobilize-to-stop-fpl-from-building-everglades-power-plant/
http://www.palmbeachpost.com/localnews/content/local_news/epaper/2009/02/03/0203_protest.html
http://blogs.browardpalmbeach.com/juice/2009/01/fpl_environmental.php
http://www.youtube.com/evergladesearthfirst
www.pbcec.blogspot.com
www.evergladesearthfirst.org
To have a home is to know your surroundings--where the water comes, where it goes, what the earth is like, what it can grow, who else lives around you... Most importantly, how you can defend it. To not know these things is to have been displaced from our home and in a foreign place. Many of us here in south Florida today fall into that category. Some of us try to find a way home by escaping; others find home by re-rooting themselves where they are.
I chose to be rooted, and for that i have found my current home to be a detention center on Southern Boulevard, Palm Beach County. Incarcerated. Sentenced to 60 days for defending my home from Florida Power and Light. The details are available elsewhere; this letter is to people who know enough--who are ready to fight, or are fighting already.
In 1963, Dr. M.L. King Jr. wrote a letter from Birmingham jail explaining his arrest: "the purpose of our direct action program is to create a situation so that it will inevitably open the door to negotiation." This is a crucial component of our movement also. We need space to have our positions presented. But more importantly, we need physical space protected; we need immediate destruction stopped, and we need true, uncompromising ecological restoration now.
Our life-support system is being stripped before our eyes and our failure to act effectively makes us culprits. In legal terms, we either plead guilty to criminal negligence or prepare to use the necessity defense. In our case, neither judge nor jury seemed honest or courageous enough to accept that defense. But that doesn't change the reality that it was the most responsible option available through the system of corporate rule that we live under. History has proven numerous times that the rule of law is trumped by the demands of justice, and in the current environmental context it rings truer than ever.
Our mandate doesn't come to us from law books, but from the combined voices of our future generations and our ancestors--those who know what has been lost, and those who would have to live with that loss. The Earth is in unprecedented urgency of which the ever popular climate change issue is only a factor. Despite Florida's vast coastline, inland hydrology changes pose an even more pressing threat to our peninsula. The circumstances are dire, but the visible response is nothing short of pathetic, in relation to the danger we face. If you think the declining economy is a problem, you are skimming the surface of the metaphoric iceberg below our sub-tropical titanic... "No, Governor Charlie, re-arranging the chairs on deck won't help this off-course cruise liner."
So what are available options before us? How do we become an unstoppable force that can change the course we are on? Over the last year it seemed we had a formula: one small group blockades a power plant, goes to trial, shows the legal necessity to defend our home and then invite people to flood the streets and take similar actions until we win our planet out from the hands of greed and corruption. Today, from this cold steel bench in the county jail, it seems that the strategy may take a bit longer than hoped for. We now find ourselves in the process of learning to turn short term losses into long term victories.
While it is a disappointment that our case did not succeed in court, it is no surprise (it, of course, succeeded immeasurably in gathering public support and awareness.) This system we live in thrives on two primary factors: high-level corruption and ground-level complicity. We have a very limited ability to expose the high level corruption, and while the current trend of incarcerated County Commissioners may be encouraging, it is a mere scratch at the surface of the problem. But our collective complicity, on the other hand, is within our realm of control. Our disobedience--or refusal to cooperate--can, and has, defended land and liberty (or whats left of it) throughout history.
There is little doubt in my mind that corporate interests like FPL can create immense pressure in courtrooms, just as they do in the legislature, commission chambers and halls of congress. They are the second largest power company in the U.S. They pay the firms who write the laws for power plant siting, the same firms who train the judges that screw environmental and community health interests regularly at the administrative level (Hopping Green and Sam and the Wetherell family in Tallahassee come to mind.)
I saw the same shiftiness and twitch of discomfort in Judge Laura Johnson (who sentenced me to twice the days suggested by State Attorney Danielle Croke) as i have seen in DEP employees testifying in administrative hearings in favor of FPL. Whether it reflects an intentional deviousness or a subconscious discomfort, i can't say. I only know the impression that was left on me and hope that someday the truth with surface.
In the meantime, i consider it a responsibility to take this case through appeals and to take similar actions until an honest judge and/or a courageous jury recognize the urgency we are facing [keep an eye on the Battle for Barley Barber brewing at the Martin County FPL plant] . Our adversaries thought this sentence would silence us--instead it will be a call to action. They are forcing us into an escalation of our resistance. And they know this too.
It is not a time for reckless bravery, but a time to let the green-fire in our hearts burn deeply and nurture a subtle, fierce courage that will glow, contagious to all those around us--all who have been longing, some for generations, to find their way home. And to defend it. It's time to move from abstract rhetoric to on-the-ground plans. Now is the time to keep pressure on our local battles, as our local victories (especially here in the belly of the beast) can stoke the flames around the world.
People following the WCEC fight should remember that it's far from over. The PBC Environmental Coalition is still awaiting federal trial for faulted permitting under NEPA (Natural Environment Protection Act) and Everglades Earth First! is just now beginning to look at the 500+ miles of new FGT gas pipeline across Florida and multiple LNG facilities needed to support the giant plant, which were not taken into consideration by permitting process that is supposed to review secondary and cumulative impacts.
So let's keep it up on all fronts--on the streets, through the courts and even in the jails. When i came to this facility i found that most everyone i met, convicts and deputies, had heard of the WCEC through our fight with FPL (some who had been following the story since last year) and so many have openly expressed support and sympathy for our efforts. And outrage over the sentence.. even those serving a much longer time incarcerated.
If i may tangent briefly, i want to also express that the captivity, rage and displacement i've witnessed behind these walls is terrifyingly reflective of the world outside it--a microcosm of what is happening to the planet and the people who live with it. But don't take my word for it; write a letter to any prisoner and ask what its like. I suggest starting with one of the political eco-prisoners listed in the back of the Earth First! Journal. I've only been down a week, and i am hoping to get out on an appellate bond for now. But we have people around the world doing hard time for defending their home. Just this Thursday, activist Marie Mason was sentenced to near 22 years for following her heart. She deserves all the love and support we can send her way... [see details below]
...For a brief moment, i can look out at the sun rising over the few Palm Trees i can see from this window, and i imagine the snores of fellow inmates are distant pig frogs and 'gators snorts and i envision a day when cypress domes and pine flatwoods and prairie marshes cover this concrete and over grow the razor wire fences... Gopher tortoises, eagles, indigo snakes, otters.. returning to their home. And i sit in a shady oak hammock, here in the Loxahatchee slough, around a campfire listening to Marie's sweet voice in song, laughing with friends from across these islands that span the hemisphere.. feeling in-place, connected, home.
Then i hear keys jingle. Door opens, pig frogs go silent: "You guys got rec in 15 minutes." I see the sun shining out there. Soon i'll get to feel it on my skin, for about an hour, if the clouds clear.
panagioti tsolkas, #0273636
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[author's notes and updates: Since writing this letter, above, i have been released on an $5000 appellate bond (thanks to my mother, Lynne's mother and a friend Sister Rachel, who testified to my reliability and commitment to the community i live in; also thanks to my partner Cara Jennings and Public Defender Erich Taylor who worked their asses off to pull it off). This means i was able to get out of jail until our case for an appeal of the circuit court verdict and sentence is heard by a higher court, which could take up to another year to be completed. My co-defendant, Lynne Purvis, made a tough decision to stay and get her 30 day sentence out of the way. I served 13 days of my 60 day sentence awaiting the bond hearing and processing, and received an incredible amount of support and solidarity, in the form of: dozens of letters, money in my commissary, covering my home responsibilities and most importantly, people picking up my slack in continuing the fight against FPL. I may still have to serve another 30-35 days if the appeal is unsuccessful, or i may serve out that time earlier if my bond becomes a financial burden.
In the meantime, Everglades Earth First! has called for a Week of Action in Solidarity with jailed activists, see details at: http://pbcec.blogspot.com/2009/02/solidarity-actions-with-everglades.html
For those of you who were inspired to write a letter through the bars, but didn't get to me in time.. Lynne will be in until Feb 24, and would love your letters:
Lynne Purvis, #0353397
L Dorm, Stockade
PO Box 24716
West Palm Beach, FL 33416
Also, please consider corresponding with a friend and comrade, Marie Mason, who was just sentenced this week to 22 years in prison for ecological direct actions; despite the fact that no one was injured by her actions. The news is tragic and has filled me with anger, sadness and humility. For updates, or to read her sentencing statement: http://freemarie.org/
The below address may only be good until the end of February; please check the website, as she is awaiting relocation:
Marie Jeanette Mason
Clinton County Jail
1347 E Townsend Rd.
Saint Johns, MI 48879
If you wrote me a letter and/or donated to EEF! on my behalf and i haven't thanked you personally, please allow me to express my total appreciation. Direct action is a community effort that goes far beyond the moment of confrontation. Those who offer continual, reliable solidarity are the roots of stability in our movement. Keep fighting, keep loving.. -panagioti tsolkas
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Looking for some background info about the ongoing fight against FPL and the Energy Empire in south Florida?
Some articles, videos and photos:
http://www.earthfirstjournal.org/article.php?id=361
http://www.browardpalmbeach.com/2008-11-06/news/tree-huggers-mobilize-to-stop-fpl-from-building-everglades-power-plant/
http://www.palmbeachpost.com/localnews/content/local_news/epaper/2009/02/03/0203_protest.html
http://blogs.browardpalmbeach.com/juice/2009/01/fpl_environmental.php
http://www.youtube.com/evergladesearthfirst
www.pbcec.blogspot.com
www.evergladesearthfirst.org
Wednesday, February 18, 2009
National Civil Disobedience Inspires Local Education on Energy Issues
Media Release
WHO: Everglades Earth First! and the Palm Beach County Environmental Coalition
WHAT: Educational event on grassroots renewable energy options
WHERE: At the Friends Quaker Meeting, 823 North A Street, Lake Worth
WHEN: March 2, 2009 from 5:00 P.M to 7:00 P.M.
WHY: In solidarity with the growing grassroots movement around climate change solutions
On March 2, 2009 thousands of activists will gather in Washington, D.C. to demand comprehensive and serious action on climate change by this administration.They will hold our elected officials accountable for reclaiming and safeguarding our future by taking significant initiatives toward tackling the climate crisis and providing an opportunity for a shift to truly clean energy and new clean, green employment. Thousands will engage in civil disobedience actions at the coal-fired capitol power plant which powers Congress with dirty energy. Activists have organized, lobbied, taken actions to pass policies, have educated and agitated and yet our government has failed to recognize the reality, scope and urgency of global warming and climate change. Capitol Climate Action activists will send a powerful message of the urgency through mass peaceful civil disobedience and other peaceful actions. Local representatives from Palm Beach County will be attending in D.C.
In support of and in solidarity with these actions in Washington, D.C., Everglades Earth First! will be promoting and providing a local action in which people can participate to show their support. A training workshop on clean, green energy initiatives and solar power education will be offered which will show ways that we can make the transformation to a clean, green lifestyle economically feasible for everyone. The training workshop is "A Handy-Person's Guide to Setting up and Equipping your Home for Solar Power and how to Save Money Doing It". The workshop will provide an overview of principles of electrical energy and solar power, and serve as an introduction to a follow-up, hands-on workshop on building solar panels and solar water heaters. The workshop will take place on March 2, 2009 from 5:00 P.M to 7:00 P.M. at the Friends Quaker Meeting House at 823 North "A" Street in Lake Worth and is free and open to the general public.
Links:
www.capitolclimateaction.com
www.powershift09.org
Friday, February 13, 2009
Solidarity actions with Everglades Earth First! Political Prisoners, Feb 18-24
February 18 – 24 Call in week to FPL and the Florida Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) in opposition to continued permitting of the West County Energy Center
February 24 Demonstration at DEP Southeast Regional Office 3-5pm at 400 N. Congress, West Palm Beach
On February 18, 2008, over a hundred Earth First! activists gathered at the entrance to the construction site of the largest new fossil fuel power plant in the county, Florida Power & Light’s West County Energy Center (WCEC). Twenty-six activists were arrested for blockading the construction entrance to the 3800 megawatt power plant adjacent to headwaters of both the Everglades and Loxahatchee River. The WCEC is permitted by the DEP to use over 7 billion gallons of water a year, drawn from surface, aquifer and re-use sources in and near the Everglades. It has also been permitted to emit over 12 million tons of C02 annually—an amount greater than the thirty least polluting nations on Earth.
On February 2, 2009, two of the activists, Lynne Purvis and Panagioti Tsolkas, were sentenced to 30 days and 60 days, respectively, for their participation in the blockade. Judge Laura Johnson’s punitive sentencing for civil disobedience is seen as an attempt to silence and chill dissent. As environmental activists are sentenced to jail, the criminal activity of FPL and the DEP continues in the continued permitting for the West County Energy Center.
Local residents filed an administrative petition to challenge the DEP permit which would allow an increased amount of contaminated power plant water to be injected into our aquifer. Their hearing scheduled to begin February 24 was denied. DEP has given FPL a green light permit to inject up to 21 million gallons of contaminated wastewater underground every day. The water would cycle through the plant and be re-injected into our aquifer, containing poisonous elements such as Chromium. These systems have a documented history of failure.
For technical and legal background documents on the case, see Division of Administrative Hearings, docket #08-6427: http://www.doah.state.fl.us/internet/search/docket.cfm?CaseNo=08-006427
Call FPL and the DEP, tell them that we will continue to fight against their expansion of fossil fuel power plants and destruction of the Everglades:
FPL’s environmental licensing specialist:
Barbara Linkiewicz, office (561) 691-7005, cell (561) 371-5351
Call DEP representatives:
Jack Long, southeast office (561) 681-6661, Mike Sole, DEP secretary, (850) 245-2011
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February 24 Demonstration at DEP Southeast Regional Office 3-5pm at 400 N. Congress, West Palm Beach
On February 18, 2008, over a hundred Earth First! activists gathered at the entrance to the construction site of the largest new fossil fuel power plant in the county, Florida Power & Light’s West County Energy Center (WCEC). Twenty-six activists were arrested for blockading the construction entrance to the 3800 megawatt power plant adjacent to headwaters of both the Everglades and Loxahatchee River. The WCEC is permitted by the DEP to use over 7 billion gallons of water a year, drawn from surface, aquifer and re-use sources in and near the Everglades. It has also been permitted to emit over 12 million tons of C02 annually—an amount greater than the thirty least polluting nations on Earth.
On February 2, 2009, two of the activists, Lynne Purvis and Panagioti Tsolkas, were sentenced to 30 days and 60 days, respectively, for their participation in the blockade. Judge Laura Johnson’s punitive sentencing for civil disobedience is seen as an attempt to silence and chill dissent. As environmental activists are sentenced to jail, the criminal activity of FPL and the DEP continues in the continued permitting for the West County Energy Center.
Local residents filed an administrative petition to challenge the DEP permit which would allow an increased amount of contaminated power plant water to be injected into our aquifer. Their hearing scheduled to begin February 24 was denied. DEP has given FPL a green light permit to inject up to 21 million gallons of contaminated wastewater underground every day. The water would cycle through the plant and be re-injected into our aquifer, containing poisonous elements such as Chromium. These systems have a documented history of failure.
For technical and legal background documents on the case, see Division of Administrative Hearings, docket #08-6427: http://www.doah.state.fl.us/internet/search/docket.cfm?CaseNo=08-006427
Call FPL and the DEP, tell them that we will continue to fight against their expansion of fossil fuel power plants and destruction of the Everglades:
FPL’s environmental licensing specialist:
Barbara Linkiewicz, office (561) 691-7005, cell (561) 371-5351
Call DEP representatives:
Jack Long, southeast office (561) 681-6661, Mike Sole, DEP secretary, (850) 245-2011
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