WILPF EB/SF April 2020

WILPF NEWS

Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom

East Bay and San Francisco Branches

April 2020

Get involved! Become better informed!

Work to Advance Peace, Justice and Human Rights

OSPREY ORIELLE LAKE FROM WOMEN’S EARTH AND CLIMATE ACTION NETWORK SPEAKS ON APRIL ONE WILPF CALL

The main speaker on the April One WILPF call was Osprey Orielle Lake, founder of Women’s Earth and Climate Action Network (WECAN). They are a network of Native American and indigenous women leaders from around the world who work to protect their lands. WECAN will be having two new Webinars, April 14 and April 16, “Indigenous Women on the Frontlines” https://www.wecaninternational.org/online-trainings-network-calls. The link to WECAN is: https://www.wecaninternational.org/

BEFORE ENLISTING RECEIVES $2000 GRANT FROM PEOPLE’S LIFE FUND

In these difficult times, it was wonderful to receive the good news that our Before Enlisting group was awarded a $2000 grant for our counter-recruitment work. We go into high school classrooms to share different narratives about war and the military experience than the ones teenagers usually hear. We ally with school communities in the San Francisco Bay Area to balance the information and impact of military recruitment campaigns. Our mission is to support and empower all of our youth and their families to make informed decisions about the variety of options available for creating bright and self-determined futures. We will use this grant from the People’s Life Fund to give honorariums to our veterans, to produce literature to distribute, and to develop and expand our website.

See our website at www.BeforeEnlisting.org

SIGN PETITION TO SUPPORT WORLD-WIDE CEASEFIRE

The following is a statement by the Secretary General of the United Nations calling for a world-wide ceasefire during the pandemic.

TAKE ACTION NOW: Sign a petition calling for an immediate world-wide ceasefire.

Our world faces a common enemy: COVID-19. The virus does not care about nationality or ethnicity, faction or faith. It attacks all, relentlessly.
Meanwhile, armed conflict rages on around the world.
The most vulnerable — women and children, people with disabilities, the marginalized and the displaced — pay the highest price. They are also at the highest risk of suffering devastating losses from COVID-19.
Let’s not forget that in war-ravaged countries, health systems have collapsed.
Health professionals, already few in number, have often been targeted. Refugees and others displaced by violent conflict are doubly vulnerable. The fury of the virus illustrates the folly of war.
That is why today, I am calling for an immediate global ceasefire in all corners of the world.

– UN Secretary General,
António Guterres

On April 22, Earth Day Goes Digital

By Nancy Price
Co-chair, Earth Democracy

April 2020

Because of the coronavirus, organizers for this 50^th Earth Day Anniversary will use the power of the internet to connect and mobilize millions worldwide in a call for transformative climate emergency actions to save our planet.

If we are now demanding a WWII-scale COVID-19 Mobilization, only a WWII-scale Mobilization can protect humanity and the natural world.

In order for all of us to survive, we all must shift into emergency mode. The goal of the Climate Emergency Campaign is to compel governments to adopt an emergency response to climate change and the broader ecological crisis.

Earth Day and Climate Emergency

Fifty years ago, 20 million Americans marched in the streets, rallied in parks, and sat in college and university teach-ins. On this first Earth Day, environmental activists, who had been focused on separate local and states issues, came together with anti-Vietnam War activists in a new national environmental movement (read more about the history of Earth Day). In response, President Nixon quickly created the Environmental Protection Agency and Congress passed the Clean Air, Clean Water, and Endangered Species Acts.

Twenty years later, on April 22, 1990, Denis Hayes, one of the original organizers of the first Earth Day, spoke at the National Press Club in Washington, DC, to launch Earth Day, the new global organization to now mobilize 200 million people in 141 countries.

Almost a year ago on April 22, 2019, Hayes again spoke at the National Press Club to announce an ambitious plan for the 50th Anniversary – including “Vote for the Earth,” “Earth Challenge 2020,” and the 2020 theme for Earth Day – a global demand for transformative climate action.

This year as environmental activists join with the diverse, multigenerational global climate movement, I believe it is as urgent as on the first Earth Day that anti-war/peace groups also rise up to support the demand for transformative “system change” toward a just transition from fossil fuels to green, renewable, sustainable energy, and from a war to a peace economy.

We must redirect the multi-billion dollar military budget to job retraining, new technologies, and infrastructure to move swiftly to a zero-carbon future by 2030. And, don’t forget, not only is the U.S. military the single largest user of oil and gas, it is presently exempt from the Paris Climate Agreement (read more about the military’s carbon “bootprint” here). The next president must rejoin this agreement that came into force on Earth Day 2016.

Plans for the First Digital Earth Day

Earth Day Network, the global organizer of Earth Day, is focused on new ways to mobilize using the hashtags #EarthDay2020 and #EARTHRISE to coordinate and track the global conversations, calls to action, performances, video teach-ins and more.

A major global event coordinated across digital platforms will be announced soon – expect an eAlert by mid-April. Already, Earth Day 2020 has a map of global events posted. Go to www.earthday.org/earth-day-2020/ and scroll down to map.

350.org has posted a new community activist organizing guide called “How to care for your community in a crisis“. Meanwhile, many hundreds of local events worldwide already announced on Facebook have had to be cancelled. Check on status of local 350.org events near you.

#FridaysFutureStrike and GretaThunberg write about the coronavirus and climate activism saying: Listen to the science and local rules and guidelines; don’t put your health and safety at risk; choose other kinds of climate activism, be creative, have fun and join social media campaigns, such as:

email politicians
post on social media using the hashtags: #DigitalStrike, #Silentstrike, #ClimateHowl
put a strike sign in your window and post a photo of it on social media at #climatestrike and #fridaysforfuture
strike with others online with zoom
prepare future activities, thinking about what may be effective approaches

The Youth Climate Strike Coalition of the US Climate Strike Coalition is going online for an innovative three-day interactive live-streaming series of events from April 22- 24: Earth Day Live – A Digital Mobilization to Demand Climate Action with a focus on “Strike, Divest and Voter Registration.” The events will be accessible on computers and mobile devices in the hopes that it will encourage engagement and action among people who are secluded at home.

The aim is to:

Pass declarations of Climate Emergency with commitment to reach zero emissions and begin carbon drawdown at emergency speed (10 years or less).
Local elected leaders become advocates for emergency Climate Mobilization to the public, to other cities and to state and national governments.
Develop and implement mobilization policy locally, after declaration is passed.

The #Climate Emergency campaign states: A climate emergency is not coming. It’s already here. Approximately 400,000 people are killed annually from its impact and millions are displaced. The Earth is a wood house in a burning field, an airplane in free fall, a chemical plant about to explode. This is an emergency accelerating by the minute. There are no ambulances on the way. No one is coming to save us.

NEXT (VIRTUAL) MEETING: Saturday, May 9th, 10 am by conference call.