Triple Divide: Split Estate from Public Herald on Vimeo.

A wonderful video by Melissa Troutman and Joshuah Pribanic!

Not to be missed by those who are committed to Community Empowerment for a Sustainable FutureSpace is limited to 35 maximum. Sign up early and please forward this to people you know who would find this a really useful 

Friday evening, January 4,  6pm to 9pm 

Saturday, January 5, 9am to 6pm

2013, located in the Friends Meeting House, 4836 Ellsworth Avenue.

Contact environment@thomasmertoncenter.org

Community Rights Workshop

Not to be missed by those who are committed to Community Empowerment for a Sustainable FutureSpace is limited to 35 maximum. Sign up early and please forward this to people you know who would find this a really useful 

Friday evening, January 4,  6pm to 9pm 

Saturday, January 5, 9am to 6pm

2013, located in the Friends Meeting House, 4836 Ellsworth Avenue.

NEW! PAY BY Credit Card or Pay Pal. 

Wondering why corporations have more power than those of you living in your community? Wondering why Harrisburg licenses and permits corporations to harm your community? Wondering why Harrisburg routinely prevents you from making decisions that are in the best interests of your community?

The Pennsylvania Community Rights Workshop takes an in-depth look at how Pennsylvania's political and legal structures have been set up to protect the interests of an elite minority, at the expense of the majority of Pennsylvanians. We'll look at how Pennsylvania's constitution has continually evolved since the American Revolution to protect wealth and privilege over community self-government; we'll look at how corporations in Pennsylvania have received more rights and protections than those of you living in your community; and we'll look at how Pennsylvanians have pushed back against these oppressive structures to reclaim democracy in their communities.

Finally, we'll consider what it would take to create a Pennsylvania constitution that protects the rights of people, communities, and nature by securing our inalienable right to local self-government, free from corporate and state interference.

TO REGISTER SIMPLY EMAIL:  environment@thomasmertoncenter.org
and let us know how you will be paying. 

The total cost of the workshop is $50 per person.

A partial payment of $25 must be paid by January 1 unless a special arrangement is made (call Wanda at 724.327.2767 or 412.596.0066

NEW! PAY BY CREDIT CARD OR PAYPAL ACCOUNT! 

Checks should be made out to the Thomas Merton Center, with a memo notation 

“for Env. Just. Workshop”

Please send to Thomas Merton Center, 5129 Penn Avenue, Pittsburgh, 15224

The balance should be paid in full the evening of Jan 4 at the workshop. 

We are keeping our expenses to a minimum to ensure affordability for everyone. 

For this reason we will be sharing food.

A member of the planning committee will be calling to coordinate POTLUCK OFFERINGS.

Footnote: 

Pittsburgh's Community Bill of Rights: 

leading the way toward true local democracy, sustainability and justice

Can we support a Referendum?

In 2010, Pittsburgh famously became the first U.S. city to pass a Community Bill of Rights (CBoR) ordinance which, in contradistinction to the Supreme Court's Citizens United decision, limits the rights and influence of corporations and makes them subordinate to the rights of people and the natural communities upon which we depend. 

Now, this groundbreaking ordinance could become part of Pittsburgh's local constitution with great organizing. 

So what does the Community Bill of Rights do? It asserts the rights of residents to clean air, pure water, freedom from chemical trespass, peaceful enjoyment of home, local self-government, and the right to establish sustainable energy policies. It recognizes the rights of natural communities and ecosystems as well, and empowers community members with legal standing to enforce those rights. Included in the Bill of Rights, indeed the issue that prompted its introduction in the first place, is a provision that prohibits corporations from extracting natural gas within the city (with the exception of gas wells already established and in operation at the time of adoption of this amendment).

Here’s the reason why it could be important to move our Community Bill of Rights from the status of an ordinance to that of an amendment to the city Charter: Numerous times over this past year, the community has rallied to support the ordinance as the mayor was prodded by the gas industry to overturn the drilling ban so that such companies might "feel welcome" to set up their headquarters in Pittsburgh. If the citizens of Pittsburgh succeed in embedding the Community Bill of Rights in the Charter through a ballot initiative it will be clear to politicians that the people of Pittsburgh take their rights seriously. It will also take the Community Bill of Rights, including the gas extraction ban, out of the hands of future mayors and council members, who might be persuaded to rescind it on behalf of the gas corporations. 

So if you are a city resident and would like to learn more please come to the workshop.  

ACT Educational and Accountability Event Mon Oct 15th!

Environmental organizations and community groups will hold an event to educate the public on Act 13 prior to this year’s the State Supreme Court’s ruling. Please join us on Monday, October 15, from 6:30-8:30 PM at the Murrysville Community Center, 3091 Carson Avenue. 

Act 13 is Pennsylvania's controversial new oil and gas law, which stripped local governments of their right to plan where natural gas drilling operation can happen in their communities. In July portions of this new law were challenged by local township government officials, a Monroeville doctor, and Delaware Riverkeeper, and overturned by the Commonwealth Court and declared “unconstitutional.”

But the battle continues, as Governor Tom Corbett and his administration appealed the Commonwealth Court decision. These two sides, will argue their cases before the state Supreme Court on Wednesday, October 17th in Pittsburgh.

Many other municipalities and groups have filed amicus briefs in support of the Commonwealth Court’s decision that preemption of local municipal control over shale gas extraction is unconstitutional, including Pennsylvania Chapter of the American Planning Association, Pennsylvania State Association of Township Officials, State Association of Boroughs, Pittsburgh City Council, Earth Justice, Murrysville Council and Mountain Watershed Association.

Two days before this historic court hearing, the public is invited to a free, educational discussion about the new law, which covers all aspects of natural gas development in the state, as well as how the law came to be.

The event is hosted by PennEnvironment, Clean Water Action, Sierra Club, Westmoreland Marcellus Citizen Group, Local Authority Western Pennsylvania, Mountain Watershed Association. State Representatives of the 59th, 54th, and 25th districts and candidates for those seats have been invited as well. The question and answer period will be moderated by Wanda Guthrie of Local Authority of Western Pennsylvania and Thomas Merton Center.  An optional phone bank to call state legislators will immediately follow. 

For more information, contact Melissa at Mountain Watershed Association, 724-455-4200 ext. 6# or Melissa@mtwatershed.com.

Opportunity from the EarthQuakers

Join us for the Weekend of October 19-21.
At Merion Friends Meeting (Main Line Philadelphia).
Meals, Housing, Training Provided by Earth Quaker Action Team.

To prepare for a Day of Action
across the PNC Footprint
on December 1st.

Larry Gibson was nationally recognized as an inspirational leader in the movement to stop mountaintop removal. He spent over two decades working to preserve his family’s ancestral land on Kayford Mountain, despite continued harassment, including arson and violence. Larry passed away of a heart attack in early September; he was 66. (Donate to Larry’s Foundation and legacy, the Keepers of the Mountains, here.)

 

Our campaign is called Bank Like Appalachia Matters – and we need YOU to join the fight against mountaintop removal and other forms of extreme extraction, and the banks that finance and profit from these industries.

By the end of the weekend, you will be able to:

• Understand more about what nonviolent direct action is (and is not)
• Develop strategies for applying what you learn
• Describe the dangers and injustices of mountaintop removal and other extreme extraction methods
• Design and build a nonviolent action for your community (with EQAT’s help)
• Build a stronger network of allies in your Quaker meeting and/or home town
• Deepen your spiritual practice and apply it to your activism

REGISTER ONLINE HERE

Or Download the Registration Formto Distribute Widely
Registration Deadline is October 7th.

Space is limited, so Apply today!

More information available from Zach 

201.264.2200

This is a CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT! (Make no mistake)

Statement of Anti-fracking groups at the Cupula Dos Povos

June 22nd 2012, Rio de Janeiro For a Future without Fracking!

Gathered in Rio de Janeiro on Thursday 22nd June 2012 during the Peoples’ Summit, we, activists and campaigners engaged in the struggle against shale gas and shale coal and shale oil from around the world, including France, Spain, the United States, Canada (& Quebec), Australia, New Zealand and other countries, affirm our determination, our categorical opposition against all extraction of shale gas and shale oil and every use of hydraulic fracturing and other associated extractive industries such as frack-sand mining on our territories.

As many examples indicate in the United States, Canada, England and elsewhere, the exploitation of shale gas has lead to countless cases of chemical and toxic pollution, violations of human rights, health consequences for the populations, the wasting of drinking water, destroying lands, earthquakes, hazardous air pollutants leading to poor air quality and major greenhouse gas emissions. In order to deal with the energy crisis, fracking is not only being promoted as a low carbon transition fuel, but is one of the “false solutions” of the Green Economy.

We reject shale and coal seam gas & shale oil here and everywhere, today and tomorrow.

We must substantially reduce our reliance on dirty, non-renewable sources of energy and call on our governments to invest in the deployment of energy efficiency and support the development of clean, renewable sources of energy alternatives. Following the civil society mobilisations, especially the protests of local people most directly concerned, victory has been gained across the world with hydraulic fracturing being forbidden in hundreds of places on our planet.

To amplify these mobilisations, we engage ourselves to:

• Reinforcing the coordination of our actions at international level; 
• Strengthen the alliances and solidarity between international, national and local movements; 
• Work on a process at the international level to hold frackers legally accountable; Coordinate a global joint calendar; 
• Build a day of international mobilisation as well as supporting all national action days against fracking. 

 Signatories in Rio: Gabriella Zanzanaini (Food & Water Europe), Maxime Combes (Attac France), Samuel Martin-Sosa (Ecologistas en Accion, Spain), Vincent Espagne (Collectif Plaines du Languedoc, France), Darcey O’Callaghan (Food & Water Watch, USA), Jacqueline Balvet (ATTAC France), Terran Giacomini (Friends of the Earth Canada), Terisa Turner (Friends of the Earth Canada, Ecosocialist Horizons), Patrick Bonin (Association québécoise de lutte contre la pollution atmosphérique – AQLPA, Québec) Antonelle Risso, Mariann Lloyd-Smith (National Toxics Network, Australia), ACSUR-Las Segovias (Spain), OMAL (Spain), Ekologistak Martxan (Basque Country), ISF (Spain), Alianza "¿Economía Verde? ¡Futuro imposible!" (Spain), Polaris Institute (Canada), Supporting Organisations:

America the Possible: Manifesto for a New Economy

What on Earth

EventSpot by Constant Contact

James Gustave Speth, former Dean of the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies and co-founder of the Natural Resources Defense Council, has recently published his book America the Possible: Manifesto for a New Economy.  Please see below for the description of this important book about a bold vision of economic transformation in America.www.yale.edu/religionandecology www.emergingearthcommunity.org www.journeyoftheuniverse.org