Latinos, Technology, and Environment; Digital Capital Week Climate Justice Panel

(Washington, D.C.) -  As intergovernmental negotiators in Bonn are yet again, finding it impossible to reach a mutual agreement on Climate Change, digital savvy Latino-environmentalists are using technological innovation within and across borders to unite new and legacy media through organizing for climate justice.  Join us for our panel during Digital Capital Week in Washington, D.C., on June 13^th from 3 to 5pm, hosted at the Energy Action Coalition to find out more.  The panel 'Latinos, Technology and the Environment,' examines the opportunity presented by the digital sphere as it relates to Latinos and the environment.  We will discuss our participation in the recent World's People Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth in Cochabamba, Bolivia and explore the role of technology in organizing the grassroots movement for the next annual meeting of intergovernmental climate negotiators (COP16) which coincides with theKLIMAFORUM10 both scheduled for November in Cancun, Mexico.  

 

At 49.7million, Latinos are the fastest growing and largest 'minority' population in the United States. In a recent poll commissioned by the National Resource Defense Council (NRDC), 66 percent of Hispanics (Latinos) said tackling climate change should be a “high” or “very high” priority with 41 percent supporting the regulation of carbon emissions.” The National Latino Coalition on Climate Change (NLCCC) and the Commission to Engage African Americans on Climate Change (CEAACC), conducted a joint study in swing States across the U.S. that backs these findings.  An overwhelming majority of Latino voters in Florida (80%), Nevada (67%) and Colorado (58%) say they are more likely to vote for a U.S. Senate candidate that supports proposals for fighting global warming. 

 

The concern for climate action amongst Latinos in the United States is directly linked to the fact that they live or work in the most environmentally degraded areas, are amongst the most climate vulnerable in the United States and come from countries across Latin America where climate change has already wreaked havoc and caused hardship for their families and friends.  Mainstream environmental organizations have yet to fully engage the Latino community online although, their presence as a group within social media networks is more active than non-Latinos.   The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) reports that 59.5% of Latinos are online, while a March 2010 report by Forester shows them growing most in the creator, critic and collector levels of the “Social Technographics Ladder.”

 

The few mainstream organizations that have taken the leap, such as the NRDC with Voces Verdes, the Earth Action Network, and the Sierra Club are yet to channel mobilizing online with face to face creative space. The opportunities to cultivate support for the environment regionally by building link between US Latinos and their countries of origin have yet to be strategically explored. Conferences such as the World People's Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth in Bolivia, Digital Capital Week coming up in Washington, D.C., and the US Social Forum in Detroit, do away with the bureaucracy and ego of traditional conferences and create the space to organically grow common visions in a big way from the grassroots.

 

The integration of Web 2.0 technology into these creative spaces has facilitated diverse environmental and social justice groups to stay connected and develop common strategies that sustain time and cross sectors as well as, borders.    Angela Adrar, an environmental new media communicator and Latino activist says that “Latinos in the US are growing weary of organizations that do not respond to their needs. They are sharing their experiences using bilingual communication and community muscle to change the narrative of power through social media and succeeding.”  The rise of the digital activist has been a long time coming but the effectiveness, tools and ability to create real world impact is exponentially increasing as more communities of color come of age online enabling them to generate their own stories and offer their own solutions. 

 

Kety Esquivel, Interim Executive Director of Latism, the largest organization of Latinos in Social Media and Angela Adrar, Environmental Communicator with La Trenza Leadership Eco-Hermanas will be spearheading the panel. 

Kety Esquivel (410) 500-8340 kety.esquivel@gmail.com Twitter: @KetyE Blog: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/kety-esquivel

Angela Adrar (202) 439-7724 dancingsparrow@gmail.com Twitter: @DancingSparrow Blog: http://citizeninspired.blogspot.com

Is Hugo Chavez Hitching a Ride on the Backs of the Peoples Climate Movement?

Photo credit: Joaquin Noguera 

So why do I get nervous when I see Hugo Chavez hitch a ride on the back of the People's Climate Movement? Well, because I see how the media automatically moves the conversation from one of Climate Justice and Mother Earth to one of South vs North or one of Venezuela vs the United States and that is not the pressing issue at hand now, Climate Change is. I know that I will be angering folks that both support and oppose Chavez but I feel very strongly about this. Props have to be given to Chavez for the speech he gave at Copenhagen demanding a more inclusive process of climate negotiations. Evo Morales is now honored globally for his efforts to organize support for Indigenous Peoples worldwide and for mobilizing so many to "live well" and in harmony with Pachamama (Mother Earth) but the people have spoken and it is now time to listen, reflect and plan action.

"Yo no soy Yankee, ni quiero ser, yo estoy con Evo, con Hugo y con Fidel." Im not a Yankee, nor do I want to be, I stand with Evo, with Hugo, and with Fidel. What? I thought this was a Climate Change Conference. Yet, those were the words of the large group of Socialist Argentinians chanting in the row behind me, only feet away from the stage where Evo welcomed people from over 146 countries to the World People's Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth (WPCCC). For many people, myself included, the three days of the conference were a historic moment where Indigenous, Afro-Descendant, Latinos, feminists, the poor, small farmers, working mothers, the unemployed, and labor union members united and spoke or chanted their diverse issues under the shade of "Pachamama."

From a US perspective, I can only attempt to relate this moment to the comprehensive organizing efforts born from the Civil Rights Movement, the Chicano Movement, the American-Indian Movement on through to the Rainbow Coalition in the United States which organized peoples from various interest groups and racial backgrounds in support of those hurt by the Reaganomic policies of the 1980s. The 80s was also the decade that gave birth to the Environmental Justice Movement in the United States which, shifted the conversation from wilderness land conservation to the environmental-human rights of the then "minority" communities and the working class.


The WPCCC's great accomplishment is that it united people in favor of Climate Justice for the "vulnerable yet dignified" communities of the world. It was not an easy task yet is was Globalization at its best. The common enemy targeted this time was the shortcomings of Capitalism which the majority rightfully linked to the United States. To witness this movement take organic shape has injected energy into many social and environmental activists that had long thought the most effective days of the struggle were buried with Che Guevara. A good number of which were also from the United States.

The WPCCC was truly a People's Climate Conference, different from the Copenhagen Climate Summit of government leaders and that is where its power rests and that is where the Peoples Climate Movement will take root and sprout. The conversations around the environment, climate change and the possible future were very different from any environmental conference I have attended before. Traditional knowledge and culture were honored, people's voices were encouraged, and the terminology to describe the pressing environmental urgency moved from scientific to common language. Everyone may not have agreed but many of us were present in dialog and that is a start.

Evo Morales and Hugo Chavez have set the foundation. Now as leaders, they need to step aside and let the Worlds People digest what took place in Cochabamba, share it with their communities and meet again in Cancun in November for COP16 with an action plan. Otherwise, I am afraid that this may indeed turn out to be another Copenhagen and we promised that Cochabamba was everything but COP15. I for one, am excited to be part of the conversation playing out in the United States in preparation. While we prepare for Mexico the "Olympic Summits of Climate Change" have already been planned for 2011 with COP 17 happening in South Africa next year, and Qatar and South Korea bidding to host COP18 in 2012.

Love, Death, War, Life, Transit

Right about this time, middle of the week, one starts entertaining options for the weekend.  If in San Francisco, look no further, Tim Barsky's, The Bright River is a performance that is equal parts morbid and enlightening, dangling hope in an underworld of despair.  Unfortunately, there are only three shows left before "the mass transit bus of the afterlife" departs the historic Brava Theatre Center with destination unknown.  So needless to say this weekend is the last chance to see The Bright River at the end of the tunnel.  It ends on February 20th, 2010.

The press release notes that : The Bright River: A Mass Transit Tour of the Afterlife is a beat box-musical that is part Sam Spade, part Dante’s Inferno, part love story, and part socio-political commentary infused with bodkin (a traditional Hassidic street theater style that was popular hundreds of years ago in the streets of a Jewish ghetto). But when you watch the performance, you will discover what lies under the theatrical layers and at the the heart of The Bright River.  It is a brute and raw glimpse into the lives of those people that are hustling their way through the injustices in the world, on a daily basis. It is a story of those that find their homes and identities in the underground.

"There's a rising divide between people, between each-other, and between ourselves, and yet I think there's something awesome in reclaiming the high ground, in about saying; yeah this is our country, this is our world. Those in power want to dictate terms to us but their stories are not as good, their beats are whack." - Tim Barsky

Watch some snippets of the performance and see what else Barsky, has to say about The Bright River, in this YouTube video:



This 5 person performance crew takes multi-tasking to the highest level.  They are actors, musicians, urban-artists, beat-boxers, folk-lore entertainers, circus performers, historians, hip-hop DJs, educators and grass-roots social activists, sharing their love for social justice both on stage and in their communities.  They teach beat-boxing at San Francisco juvenile detention facilities and poetry at correctional facilities, educate at risk youth about  lyrics, help ESL kids improve speech skills, teach break-dancing to children and keep music alive so that youth can better express themselves.  In a world full of high drama and injustice, they are true urban heroes.

            Carlos Aguirre,  Alex Kelly, Tim Barnsky, Kevin Carnes, DC Beatbox
            Photos borrowed from The Bright River producer, Laird Archer, Golden Gate Recordings

Purchase your tickets from Brown Paper Tickets and invite your friends.  $17.00 gets you through the door of this intimate theater and $35.00 will have you practically sitting on stage beat-boxing along with the crew.

Support other and all events at the Historic Brava Theatre Center owned and operated by Brava! for Women in the Arts; committed to the artistic expression of women, people of color and youth.

Half The Sky

Welcome to Citizen Inspired! Angela and I are thrilled to provide a creative forum for people around the world who are passionate about human rights, environmental sustainability, and global progress.

We decided to launch our blog on Martin Luther King Day because we believe in Dr. King’s peaceful and incredibly courageous fight for justice. The spirit of the civil rights movement doesn’t lie dormant in history. It’s today. It’s the here and now. It is, in a word, imperative.

That being said, I couldn’t think of a better inaugural post than one about the new book Half The Sky, by New York Times reporter Nicholas Kristof and his colleague (and wife) Sheryl WuDunn. Both Pulitzer Prize-winning international journalists, they met in China while covering Tiananmen Square, and have since spent most of their careers traveling around the globe, reporting from some of the world’s most vulnerable regions.

Over the years, they’ve met dozens of women and girls who have suffered – and continue to suffer -- unimaginable abuse because of cultural and political systems that deny women basic human rights. Bearing witness to stunningly brave real-life characters, the book is an unsentimental yet passionate call-to-arms; its theme -- that the fight for women must be treated with the same urgency and persistence as the fight to abolish slavery. And when you read the stories in Half The Sky, you’ll agree.

The irony here is that although women in the international development community have been fighting these systems for over twenty years, it took a celebrity journalist – who also happens to be a white guy from Oregon – to put it on the mainstream radar. But at the end of the day, it doesn’t matter who got people to listen; it just matters that they are.

The bottom line is this: when women can’t get access to health care or education; when they die unnecessarily during childbirth or from preventable diseases; when they are not afforded the same economic opportunities as men; when they are sold into slavery, entire nations suffer. The world suffers. Dr. Martin Luther King understood this fundamental truth.

Buy the book, join the movement, and learn how you can help by visiting the official website. You can also read an excerpt from the book, check out relevant articles, and watch some multimedia presentations in this special issue of the New York Times Magazine.

“Women hold up half the sky.” -- Chinese Proverb