Two Berkeley protests over Earth Day weekend – a human billboard along Sacramento Street, and the weekly confab at the Tesla showroom – a walkable distance.
Photos by Luke Hauser/DirectAction.org
Category: Climate Justice
Activist Photos from Luke Hauser
Photos of direct actions and other convergences by Luke Hauser from circa 2000-2015.
Includes Occupy, Black Lives Matter, peace and anti-war actions, climate justice, immigrant rights, and more.
Click here for index of actions.
Nuclear Power – the perfect solution for Utopians
A well-written article on the disastrous new interest in nuclear power by Serhii Plokhy, from the UK Guardian – click here.
Plokhy speaks of “the hazard inherent in all nuclear power. In order for this method of producing electricity to be safe, everything else in society has to be functioning perfectly. Warfare, economic collapse, climate change itself – all of these increasingly real risks make nuclear sites potentially perilous places.”
Great! As long as we can guarantee world peace and security for the next 10,000 years – not to mention solve all of the environmental crises – then nuclear power and waste make total sense.
Until then, count me out.
Click here for the full article.
Steve Nadel – Presenté!
Our old activist comrade and my close friend Steve Nadel passed away in early December 2021. Steve was 68, and had been in good health until a stroke in October.
Here’s a tribute from the Bay Area Sunflower Alliance
In my circles, Steve marched with Teen Earth Magic in the 2011 Solstice in the Streets event. We traveled together to Nevada Test Site several times for actions in the 1980s. He helped defend Peoples Park in the 1990s, and organized around Richmond Oil Refinery in recent years. He was also the Funky Nixons’ number one roadie!
Some folks from the old days knew Steve from Livermore Action Group, a 1980s Bay Area anti-nuke and anti-intervention coalition. The character Mort in my book Direct Action is based on Steve – http://DirectAction.org/book
Those who worked with him regarded Steve as one of the sharpest and clearest thinkers we ever met. I wish we’d pressed him to write more. He co-edited Direct Action newspaper in the 1980s and GroundWork magazine in the 1990s – click for back issues.
He consistently called old friends together for holiday BBQs, and hosted a Monty Python-infused party each year at Thanksgiving.
He’ll be missed by friends and by many on the activist front.
What is remembered lives – Steve Nadel, presenté!
– by George Franklin/Luke Hauser
Forest Defense – Logging Alert near Mendocino Woodlands
The decades-long effort to limit logging in Northern California’s Jackson State Demonstration Forest, which contains Mendocino Woodlands, is currently facing vast areas of active and proposed new cuts.
Mendocino Woodlands is home to four Reclaiming witchcamps as well as dozens of other grassroots camps and retreats.
Read a report from forest defender Fly.
Photo courtesy SaveTheRedwoods.org
Last Wild Witch – on Youtube!
Starhawk’s classic eco-fable for all ages – read by Georgie Craig. With surrealistic illustrations by Lindy Kehoe.
Youtube – with all of the pictures!
In the heart of the last magic forest lives the last wild witch…
Will the children of the perfect town find their inner power and let a little magic into everyone’s lives?
Youtube: History of Direct Action
History of Nonviolent Direct Action in the US: https://youtu.be/s6XTNv2Caus
A brief excursion through 200 years of US activism, with a focus on post-1980 nonviolent activism.
I originally made this video in connection with my book “Direct Action,” and updated it following the Fall 2020 Black Lives Matter protests.
It offers one version of the nonviolent activist lineage that helped shape today’s protest movements.
– George Franklin aka Luke Hauser aka…
Forest Protection at Fairy Creek
Indigenous People and allies are working to protect the Fairy Creek watershed. Front-line report from Kyla-Rose, with many links to resources and documents.
Youtube – A Brief History of Nonviolent Direct Action!
Direct action has a long and honored place in American history – from the revolution itself through abolitionists, suffragists, union organizers, civil rights advocates, feminist and gay rights activists, and on to today’s vibrant climate and social justice organizing.
Click here for A Brief History of Nonviolent Direct Action
Join author Luke Hauser for a profusely illustrated 25-minute journey through our past. We’ll focus especially on nonviolent organizing from 1980 to the present, with sections on the 1980s anti-nuke movement and 2011’s Occupy actions.
Originally created around 2000, the show has been updated with a revised text and many new images.
So make a big bowl of popcorn, pull up your beanbag chair, and get ready for a journey through our history!
Photo by Janet Delaney.
Planet Plastic – Good Article
Good Rolling Stone article on the deluge of plastics leaking into our food, water, and air.
Planet Plastic – Rolling Stone
Since 1950, the world has created 6.3 trillion kilograms of plastic waste — and 91 percent has never been recycled even once. More than half the plastic now on Earth has been created since 2002, and plastic pollution is on pace to double by 2030.
The Petroleum Connection
At its root, the global plastics crisis is a product of our addiction to fossil fuels. The private profit and public harm of the oil industry is well understood: Oil is refined and distributed to consumers, who benefit from gasoline’s short, useful lifespan in a combustion engine, leaving behind atmospheric pollution for generations. But this same pattern — and this same tragedy of the commons — is playing out with another gift of the oil-and-gas giants, whose drilling draws up the petroleum precursors for plastics. These are refined in industrial complexes and manufactured into bottles, bags, containers, textiles, and toys for consumers who benefit from their transient use — before throwing them away.
Get the full story:
Planet Plastic – Rolling Stone