11/30/09
While the facts of environmental destruction have been public for some time, justice has been predominately forestalled by self-interested bureaucrats in the US political system. In effect, the rate of degradation vastly exceeds any political reform. Today we stand in solidarity with the call for direct action for climate justice because we know that necessary systemic change will never be accomplished through lobbyists and special committees. It is up to people of conscience to directly confront and shut down the industries that continue to sacrifice the very means of ecological survival for short-term private profit.
It is no secret that the degradation of life in general and of land bases, climates, and global ecosystems in particular is the direct consequence of the rapid expansion of profit-driven industry. As organizers against war and occupation we understand that war and environmental destruction are intricately linked in this expansion. From the radioactive contamination of Iraqi deserts caused by depleted uranium weaponry to the burning of olive fields and targeted pollution of water sources in occupied Palestine to the black mold that seeps from the abandoned Bureau of Mines buildings into sacred Dakota land at Coldwater Spring here in Minnesota, we know that US-sponsored war-making has always carried with it irreparable human and environmental harms. It is up to us to put an immediate stop to the forces of environmental destruction, including US-sponsored war and occupation, not just for people but for the planet as a whole.
