Central Vermont WILPF Sponsors Global Warming Events

SEE IT AGAIN - PRIZE WINNING FILM
AL GORE'S "AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH"
FRIDAY,JAN 25TH-6:30 PM
BETHANY CHURCH, MONTPELIER
DISCUSSION:LED BY CARL ETNIER

For more information, two international environmental activists will discuss Trading Carbon-will it help?
on Monday, Jan.28th-7pm
Unitarian Church, Montpelier

Three Week-of-Action events to fight racism

Monday, January 21: MLK Day

1pm: Reading to End Racism

Leverage the power of literature and the importance of reading. Brainstorm ideas for helping to eliminate racism. Honor thelegacy of Dr. King. Make a difference. At the Peace & Justice Center.

7pm: At the River I Stand

This moving documentary recounts the two months leading to Martin Luther King Jr.'s death in 1968, coinciding with the 65-day strike of 1300 Memphis sanitation workers. At the Vermont Workers' Center.

Tuesday, January 22, 6pm: Undoing Racism: Film & Discussion

Showing of the PBS documentary "Race: The Power of an Illusion," followed by a panel and discussion. At the Vermont Workers' Center.

Week of Action events in the Upper Valley

Upper Valley Localvores have scheduled a week-long January Localvore Challenge Jan 20-26. The focus is on eating foods grown within a 100-mile radius of home. Our belief is that there are many environmental, economic and social benefits to greater regional food sovereignty, not the least of which is the decentralization of power over our food supply.

The Upper Valley Co-op in WRJ is having a week-long focus on reducing packaging waste Jan 20-26.

On January 24th, at King Arthur Flour in Norwich, VT, 6:00 PM, Vermont Earth Institute is having a Localvore Potluck and showing of "The Story of Stuff" and discussion of ways to reduce the stuff in our lives.

http://www.uvlocalvore.com/

Rural Vermont organizes HEMP week during week of action

Why is Agricultural Hemp important to Vermont's farmers and the agricultural economy? What are the status of hemp laws in the US and Vermont? How can you get involved in Rural Vermont's Hemp for Vermont Campaign? Join us for a week-long series of hemp events and get answers!

Featured at several events will be two speakers who played key roles in the passage of the law that legalized agricultural hemp in North Dakota. Representative David Monson is a farmer, house representative, and one of the first applicants for a hemp-growing license in North Dakota. Roger Johnson has been North Dakota's Agriculture Commissioner since 1996; he is a farmer with a degree in agricultural economics and a background in agricultural mediation.

Sun 1/20 ~ 6:30 - 8:30 pm
Ilsley Library, 75 Main St., MIDDLEBURY
Film: Hemp and the Rule of Law, followed by discussion with Rep Monson and Roger Johnson

* SPECIAL SCREENING *
Mon 1/21 ~ 10 am - 12 pm
Savoy Theater, 26 Main St., MONTPELIER
Film: Hemp and the Rule of Law, followed by discussion with Rep Monson and Roger Johnson
* Admission = $10 *

Mon 1/21 ~ 6:30 - 8:30 pm
Buffalo Mountain School, 39 N. Main St., HARDWICK
Film: Hemp and the Rule of Law, followed by discussion with Rep Monson and Roger Johnson

Tues 1/22 ~ 6:30 - 8:30 pm
Springfield Unitarian Universalist Church, 21 Fairground Rd., SPRINGFIELD
Film: Hemp and the Rule of Law, followed by discussion with Roger Johnson

Wed 1/23 ~ 6:30 - 8:30 pm
St. Michael's Episcopal Church, 16 Bradley Ave., BRATTLEBORO
Film: Standing Silent Nation, followed by discussion with area experts

Thurs 1/24 ~ 6:30 - 8:30 pm
Immanuel Episcopal Church, 20 Church St., BELLOWS FALLS
Film: Hemp and the Rule of Law, followed by discussion with area experts

$5 - $10 suggested donation for all events (except Montpelier) - no one turned away for lack of funds. Limited quantity of Rural Vermont goods available for sale. Make a $100 donation and get a Vermont-made HEMP bag with Rural VT's logo!
ALL PROCEEDS TO BENEFIT RURAL VERMONT’S HEMP FOR VT CAMPAIGN!

For more info and film descriptions, call (802) 223-7222 or visit ruralvermont.org.
If you want to schedule a hemp event in your area, give us a call!

Rural Vermont is a nonprofit advocacy group founded by farmers in 1985 that advocates, activates, and educates for living soils, thriving farms, and healthy communities.

Week of Action events so far...

Details will be forthcoming on some of these, for right now check out the online calendar for times and locations.

Sun, Jan 20: Community Dinner/Information Fair on No Child Left Behind
Mon, Jan 21: Film: At the River I Stand
Wed, Jan 23: Panel on Racism and War and Hinesburg Monthly Community Social Potluck
Fri, Jan 25: Film: Michael Moore's SiCKO
Sat, Jan 26: Global Day of Action

• Building a Movement for Worker Justice Conference
• MARCH: TROOPS HOME NOW, HEALTHCARE IS A RIGHT, CLIMATE JUSTICE
• Global Warming Panel
• Social Forum Social

Mon, Jan 28: Livable Wage Button Day to support Burlington school workers

Some global initiatives around the Global Week of Action

- CARITAS INTERNATIONAL has issued a call to all its members to participate - http://www.wsf2008.net/eng/node/1167

- HABITAT INTERNATIONAL COALITION: Campaign Act Together – Housing for All! - http://www.wsf2008.net/eng/node/1930

- HEMISPHERIC SOCIAL ALLIANCE is planning the following: as the Bolivian crisis is getting deeper, the HSA proposes at the national level, but also in Bolivia, to organize solidarity activities on Jan 26 around the Bolivian situation - http://www.asc-hsa.org

- VIA CAMPESINA calls for mobilization throughout the world against multinational corporations. Via Campesina has member organizations in 56 countries in Asia, Africa, Europe, and the Americas - http://www.viacampesina.org/

- WORLD MARCH OF WOMEN: The WMW has sent an appeal for the different countries to participate and there are already 17 countries where some initiative will be organized. These initiatives are called usually in coordination with other social movements and NGOs or with local chapters of international networks. For January 26th, WMW international committee is suggesting to the local groups to organize a week/day of demonstrations of solidarity with women globally, especially with those who are in conflict zones such as Burma, Colombia, Haiti, Iran, DRC, Sudan and who will not be able to be in the streets on that day. The proposal is to strengthen solidarity amongst women and show that violence is also a reality in each country, in all circumstances - http://www.wmw-action26january.blogspot.com/

World Social Forum 2008: a Global Day of Action and Mobilisation

At the end of January, thousands of people all over the world will march, speak, celebrate, and dialogue in villages, rural zones, and urban centers, in the context of hundreds of decentralized self-organized actions. They will mobilize over a one-week period in January, culminating in a Global Day of Mobilisation and Action on the 26th to show that another world is possible.

At the same period, the “old” world will meet in Davos for the World Economic Forum, bringing together its economists, experts, ideologies and techniques that produce violence, exploitation, exclusion, poverty, hunger and ecological disaster, depriving people of human rights and our Earth of its resources.

The World Social Forum is an open space where social movements, networks, NGOs and other civil society organisations come together to raise issues, debate ideas, formulate proposals, share experiences, and build networks for effective action. These movements are opposed to a world ruled by capitalism and all forms of imperialism and domination.

Since the first worldwide encounter in 2001, the World Social Forum has become a permanent global process seeking and building alternatives to neo-liberal policies.

World Social Forums have taken place at the end of January at different sites throughout the world every year for the past seven years, and this spirit of diversity will continue to be reflected in the activities planned for the Global Day of Mobilisation and Action in 2008.

The website www.wsf2008.net is the main connection tool for all participants in the decentralized WSF 2008. Invite your friends to join and contribute through action spaces, present your action, upload your videos, publish news and connect your actions with those of others.

For more information on how to use the website www.wsf2008.net, read the previous edition of this newsletter at http://www.wsf2008.net/eng/node/1730.

Business tops climate for Douglas

Published: Monday, December 31, 2007 in the Burlington Free Press

By Rachel Smolker

Jim Douglas is clearly more interested in doing business than addressing climate change. Last session, he vetoed a forward-looking bill that would have created green jobs and siginificantly reduced Vermont's emissions. Instead he proposes the same false solutions to global warming that are being pursued at the international level: creating carbon markets and biofuels.

Carbon trade: Trading in carbon credits, enshrined within the Kyoto Protocol, turns the atmosphere and the carbon absorbing biosphere into a commodity that can be bought and sold. It is a "convenient lie," profitable for polluting corporations, ineffective in addressing climate change and disastrous for the poor. Carbon markets permit wealthy polluters to avoid reducing emissions by purchasing credits elsewhere: thus far proven both ineffective and inequitable. Many credited projects have in fact resulted in a net increase in greenhouse-gas emissions, while also violating human rights. Carbon markets permit a tradeoff between carbon extracted from below ground, where it was safely sequestered, with carbon that is circulating above ground, where it contributes to global warming: for example, offsetting emissions from a coal-burning utility by planting trees. Marketing carbon depends on being able to accurately measure and control carbon flows, which is more often than not virtually impossible. A "Vermont Green Standard" would essentially sell off our forests to companies as "credits," allowing them to pollute more.

Biofuels: The second pillar of Jim's plan is biofuels. Corn ethanol in the U.S. is a massively subsidized disaster. Growing corn causes erosion of precious and dwindling topsoil, increases fertilizer and pesticide use, and requires irrigation. Converting corn to ethanol requires polluting refineries and massive use of scarce freshwater. A recent study by Nobel laureate Paul Crutzen demonstrated that greenhouse-gas emissions from fertilizer use outweigh benefits from displacing fossil-fuel use. The diversion of corn and other foodcrops, meanwhile, has contributed to a murderous global increase in food prices. In South America and Asia, biofuels from sugar cane, soy and palm oil are driving deforestation, and therefore resulting in yet more carbon emissions, while also displacing people and food production. In Asia, peatland forests are destroyed to make way for palm oil for biodiesel. Massive carbon emissions result not only from deforestation but also from the oxidation and burning of the peat, now responsible for a whopping 8 percent of global greenhouse-gas emissions, causing Indonesia to rank third for emissions, behind only the U.S. and China.

Jim is banking on using switchgrass and wood biomass to produce cellulosic ethanol, supposedly better because they will not compete with food crops or agricultural land. The problem is that the technologies are not yet viable and it may be years before they are. Also, the quantity of biomass required to produce enough ethanol to have a significant impact is staggering! Refineries must be able to ensure adequate and sustainable nearby supplies. The biotechnology companies know this, and are eagerly pursuing the development of genetically engineered (GE) trees -- because in their view it is inevitable that massive industrial monoculture plantations of high-yield trees will be needed. Tree monocultures are essentially cornfields with trees instead of corn stalks, and GE trees will inevitably contaminate native forests, with unknown and irreversible consequences. Further, cellulosic ethanol requires enzymes from GE microbes, opening a "Pandora's Box" of contamination risks.

Creating "smoke and mirror" carbon markets and pretending we can subsititute biomass for fossil fuels is hopelessly inadequate. Vermont can truly become a leader by directing resources toward real, immediately available and proven solutions, many recommended in the Climate Change Commission report: dramatic improvements to building and heating efficiency and public transportation systems. The time is long overdue for tough and effective decisions, Jim, even if they are not the most profitable.

Rachel Smolker, Ph.D., of Hinesburg is a research biologist with the Global Justice Ecology Project.