On the 5-Year Anniversary of Hurricane Katrina– in solidarity with Gulf Coast communities
Join Mobilization for Climate Justice West for 2 days of resistance to

MAKE BIG OIL PAY!

Sun Aug 29, 1-4pm
Teach-In:Big Oil, Community Resilience and Creative Nonviolent Direct Action
Frank Ogawa Plaza, near 14th St & Broadway (12th St BART), Oakland

• Brief Teach-In on BP, Big Oil and Local Impacts– positive solutions and what we can do. Followed by:
• Nonviolent Direct Action: a public preparation for the campaign on nonviolent direct action against big oil and for climate justice. This will prepare participants to join the nonviolent direct action part of the following day’s demonstration, or just learn about what’s involved. Please come on time and stay for the whole time.
• Community Resilience: Movement Generation and Bay Localize teach this workshop to understand the importance of meeting our own basic needs to prepare our communities to weather economic, ecological and social instability. Learn to evaluate our community’s relative strengths and vulnerabilities, and learn concrete skills to build self-reliance and resilience. It covers the topics of: Resilient communities as part of resisting oppression; Food, Water & Energy; Transportation & Housing; Jobs & Economy; Civic Preparedness & Social Service.

Please come on time and stay for the whole time.

Mon, Aug 30, 11:30 am
March on BP and Nonviolent Direct Action
Justin Herman Plaza (Embarcadero BART), SF

Join:

• Jonathan Henderson, who leads the BP drilling disaster field operations in the Gulf of Mexico for the Gulf Restoration Network
• Rev Kenneth Davis, Civil Rights veteran and community leader from North Richmond
• Antonia Juhasz, author of the Tyranny of Oil, just back from meeting with impacted communities in the Gulf.
• Rebecca Solnit, author and activist who has written on Katrina and the current Gulf disaster.
• Carla Pérez, Movement Generation
• Dave Room, Bay Localize

Join us for a march on BP and Big Oil’s SF locations and those who choose to will risk arrest taking nonviolent direct action in what may be the largest nonviolent direct action since the BP Gulf disaster. We’ll be targeting the offices of BP for their roles in environmental and community destruction in the Gulf, in the Bay Area, and around the world. We’ll also visit the U.S. EPA to demand an end to the use of toxic dispersants, to follow the Clean Air Act that mandates they regulate the greenhouse gas pollution that causes climate change and stand up to industry pressure to expand drilling and prevent action to stop climate change.

Join us in demanding:

• Moratorium on New Offshore Drilling. No Use of Dispersants. Full Access to Media and Civil Society.
• Big Oil corporations pay their debt to all impacted communities – Gulf Coast to Richmond, CA and around the world.
• Big Oil pay for community livelihood and ecosystem restoration, clean energy, public transportation, and healthcare for impacted communities.
• Big Oil Out of Politics!

Big Oil Corporations destroy our health, environment and the livelihoods of our communities. From the Gulf Coast Oil disaster to the Niger Delta, from the Canadian Tar Sands to Richmond, California – these corporations pollute our communities and cause climate change, destroying the environments we depend on. Big Oil makes billions, while buying and lobbying governments for subsidies, against public oversight, and against solutions to climate change.

As BP tries to spin the ongoing Gulf of Mexico worst-environmental-disaster- in-US-history out of view, Gulf Coast communities ask us to keep the spotlight on and to increase the pressure for justice. George Monbiot, author of Heat: how to stop the planet burning writes, “The oil leaking into the Gulf of Mexico from the Deepwater Horizon well is scarcely more damaging, and its eventual impacts scarcely more expensive, than the oil which is captured by neighboring rigs then processed and burnt as intended.” And as climate-related extreme weather disasters sweep the globe killing thousands and displacing millions, Amy Goodman writes, “The U.N. climate conference will convene in Cancun, Mexico, in December, where prospects for global consensus with binding commitments seem increasingly unlikely. Ultimately, policy in the United States, the greatest polluter in human history, must be changed. That will come only from people in the United States…”

Join us in taking action to stop Big Oil’s destruction and support clean energy and positive solutions.

Get Involved:

• Form an “Affinity” or Action Group: to participate in the nonviolent direct action– ask your friends, family, co-workers, fellow students, etc to join
• Get the word out: Forward this page to your friends, link to our Facebook page, download the flyer, make copes and get them out. You can also contact us (mcjbay[at]gmail[dot]com) to get posters to put up and cards to hand out.
• Sign up for action updates: text message to 40404 with the message “follow mcjwest”