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Archive for the ‘climate change’ Category

What Really Stopped Shell’s Drilling Rig

Posted in climate change, tagged , on October 6, 2015| Leave a Comment »

Last August, Equal Exchangers Meghan, Casey, Jim, Ellen, and Lincoln joined the ranks of hundreds of other activists doing their part to stop Shell Oil from drilling in the Arctic.  (If you didn’t have a chance to read their gripping stories of the Shell No! Greenpeace action in Portland, click here to do so!)

So, congratulations to our Equal Exchange West Coast team, and all the other kayaktivists, general activists, and other leaders for winning the fight!  Shell has abandoned plans to drill for extreme oil off the coast of Alaska!!

In the end, of course, it wasn’t actually a boat, a petition, or even a swipe of President Obama’s pen that Shell claimed had changed their plans and stopped them in their tracks:  it was economics, pure and simple.  Costs ran over and investors dried up.

Equal Exchange, Divest-Invest, and a Coalition of 18 other organizations, are now calling on everyone, whether you’re a thousandaire, millionaire, or only have a couple dollars in your pocket — to pledge to be among tens of thousands of others saying no the fossil fuel economy and yes to our clean energy future. When we all act together, we’re unstoppable and another world is possible.
If you’re ready to beat the NEXT extreme energy project — whether it’s Exxon’s plan to drill the Russian Arctic or a local fracking well in your town — it’s time to own what you own, get out of the dig, dump & burn economy, and hit them where it hurts (in their wallets) by pledging to:
  1. Make no new investments in the top 200 oil, gas, and coal companies
  2. Sell any existing assets tied to these oil, gas, and coal investments within 3-5 years.
  3. Roll a portion of investments into climate solutions like clean energy, sustainable agriculture, local business, and many more.

Divestment and clean energy investment are sweeping the planet. In the last 2 weeks, Celebrities like Leo DiCaprio, Mark Ruffulo and more have divested. While institutions and leaders have pledged to move their money – over 2.6 Trillion and counting! – out of fossil fuels and into the clean energy economy.

The latest big news was Mayor Bill Deblasio of New York who is beginning to move the pension funds of America’s largest city out of dirty fossil fuels and into clean energy instead.

If you’re ready to join these leaders from the stage and screen to the streets of New York by owning what YOU own, Click here to sign the Divest Invest pledge with great partners like Divest Invest Individual, Equal Exchange, Daily Kos, 350.org and more.

Read more about Equal Exchange’s climate justice initiative, and how you can help, here!

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A New Perspective on Combatting Climate Change: Support Soil & Small Farmers; Not Oil and Big Agriculture!

Posted in climate change, small farmers, tagged , on September 30, 2015| Leave a Comment »

“It is a civilizational wake-up call. A powerful message—spoken in the language of fires, floods, droughts, and extinctions—telling us that we need an entirely new economic model and a new way of sharing this planet.”

― Naomi Klein, This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. The Climate

 

As the world’s governments, scientists, farmers, industry representatives, and activists get ready for the next round of UN climate talks in Paris this December, hundreds of declarations, statements, proposals, and treaties are being drafted to address the dangerous situation in which humans have gotten ourselves and our planet. There are many proposals out there but two pathways are clear: First, we must divest from the fossil fuel industry in all its facets (mining, drilling, burning, etc.), and instead invest in renewable energy sources.   And secondly, we must break away from industrial agriculture, and in its place invest in small scale, organic, regenerative farmers. Ultimately, any path toward a climate change solution is going to require that we work together to rebuild and reshape our economy. It is more than time to move away from our current system which encourages and rewards corporate greed and control and work to create a new, solidarity economy, of co-operatives and socially responsible businesses, that places people and the planet above profit.

 

Equal Exchange is proud to launch our new Climate Justice Initiative, focusing on this two-fold approach: Soil not Oil. Our farmer partners are doing their part. Read what Equal Exchange is doing and how you can join us to help our partners mitigate, adapt, and build resiliency all while taking steps to help combat the greatest challenge we may face in our lifetimes and those of future generations.

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Shell No!!! Equal Exchangers Join Arctic Drilling Protest on Portland’s Willamette River – Part II

Posted in climate change on August 7, 2015| Leave a Comment »

Yesterday, Lincoln Neal wrote about last week’s arctic drilling protest on Portland’s Willamette River.  This morning we hear another account of the demonstration…. this time from one of the kayakactivists, Equal Exchange’s Meghan Huebner. 

meghanI was offered a seat in a kayak and given a large Alaskan flag to hold.  I happily jumped in, eager to see the action on the water. Soon after, I saw Jim and Casey in a canoe that they had found on the beach. They were paddling with the top of a Tupperware container and a two by four but ended up acquiring a couple of paddles abandoned by other activists who had been arrested.

We were paddling around passing out Equal Exchange  goodies and listening to the strategies of the protestors. The main plan once the ship was close enough, was to swarm towards the center of the river and create a dense wall, making it difficult for the ship to pass and more challenging for authorities to reach everyone.

After only 20 minutes on the water, we could see the Fennica moving steadily closer.

As the ship neared the bridge, kayakers were doing all they could to dodge the police and Coast Guard and form a barrier. Kayakers and boaters charged towards the front of the ship and within minutes, many aggressive protesters were pulled from their vessels and detained, leaving stranded kayaks all throughout the river. The authorities ended up making their own defensive wall between the Fennica and the kayakers.

By this point. fewer Green Peace protestors were still suspended from the bridge leaving just enough room on the west side for the Fennica to pass beneath and continue its journey to Alaska.

What an amazing scene, especially feeling the energy that surrounded the protesters. The highlight for me was being able to make it to the supply bag for one of the climbers who was suspended below the bridge and drop in some Equal Exchange snacks! Although the ship passed through, I hope that everyone who was part of this protest feels a tremendous sense of accomplishment and pride that they were able to stand up for their beliefs and also inspire countless others along the way.

 

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From Mexico to New Hampshire and Back: Coffee Sales Promote Solidarity & Climate Change Solutions

Posted in climate change, Fair Trade, food co-operatives, small farmer co-operatives on July 27, 2015| Leave a Comment »

Last week our friends at the Coop Food Stores in Hanover-Lebanon, New Hampshire sent us these photos of a large display they have created to promote our exciting coffee partnership in which we attempt to link consumer coop members in New Hampshire, worker coop members at Equal Exchange, and indigenous small farmer coop members in Chiapas, Mexico.

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To read more about this exciting partnership, click here.

Last Thursday, we reposted a link to an article written by Amanda Charland, Director of Outreach and Member Services at Co-op Food Stores, about her visit to CIRSA last year and the connection between coffee, climate change, and co-ops.  Click here to read.  Later this week, we’ll feature two more articles on this topic written by other members of Co-op Food Stores who had the opportunity to visit CIRSA as part of this new sister co-op relationship Equal Exchange is helping to develop.

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World Environment Day – With Liberty, Justice and Sovereignty for All

Posted in climate change on June 29, 2015| Leave a Comment »

The following post was written by Sara Mersha, Director of Grantmaking and Advocacy at Grassroots International on World Environment Day. Sara eloquently makes the connections between food sovereignty, agroecology, and climate justice. Reposted from the Grassroots International blog.

Sara Mersha
June 5th, 2015

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Social movements around the world, including Grassroots International partners, take action on World Environment Day (June 5) to highlight the importance of ecological justice.  On this day, we are happy to share a video from a recent talk that Grassroots International had the opportunity to be a part of, along with Anim Steel, founder and Executive Director of the Real Food Challenge, and Mark Bittman, New York Times journalist and author.Titled, “With Liberty, Justice, and Sovereignty for All,” this talk was part of UC Berkeley’s Edible Education series.  In it, we discussed several themes of ecological justice, including what we’ve learned from our partners such as La Via Campesina: how food sovereignty and agroecology are two of the most powerful real solutions to both the causes and impacts of climate change.

Many thanks to UC Berkeley for inviting Grassroots International to be part of this series, and to Mark Bittman and Anim Steel whose insights, questions, and experiences made it such an exciting conversation.  We are looking forward to continued collaborations to strengthen connections between food justice/food sovereignty efforts and climate justice.

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Small Farmer Co-operatives: Saving Coffee–and the Earth

Posted in climate change, Fair Trade, food co-operatives, small farmer co-operatives, Uncategorized on October 6, 2010| Leave a Comment »

By Nicholas Reid, Equal Exchange Natural Foods Sales Representative

Equal Exchange has credited co-ops with building Fair Trade coffee and making the alternative trade system possible, by keeping farmers organized in developing countries, and connecting them to consumers through co-ops like Equal Exchange and their local food co-ops. This October, while we celebrate Co-op and Fair Trade Month, and consider the values and successes of these two movements that are so intrinsically connected, Equal Exchange would like to push ourselves even further. The support and collaboration of co-ops is crucial to the future of organic coffee.

Declining yields due to soil exhaustion and global warming are threatening specialty coffee production, and the livelihoods of thousands of farming communities that rely on it. Once charged with making coffee cultivation economically viable for small-scale producers, Equal Exchange now asks co-ops to support those farmers in their efforts to adapt, innovate and invest in the future of high-quality, organic coffee.

The history of commercial farming in Latin America (and in the United States) is one of extreme short-sightedness, environmental destruction and an ever-increasing reliance on chemical and technological inputs. One need only look at the former sugar plantations of northeast Brazil, now deserts and agricultural wastelands, or the destruction of local communities and ecosystems that banana cultivation led to in Central America, to see that modern agriculture effectively raped the soil of nutrients, destroyed local flora and fauna that sustained the land, and nearly ended the possibility of human existence in those areas. (more…)

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