Communities converge for climate justice, survival & solutions
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
August 3, 2008
Contact: Jon Booth 914 522 0822
E-mail: northeast@climateconvergence.
This past weekend approximately 250 people came together in High Falls, New York for the first Northeast Climate Confluence. The Confluence ran from July 31st to August 3rd, with workshops, trainings and panels ranging from immigration raids and the prison-industrial complex to mountain top removal and disaster relief. This wide range of workshops aimed to address, as the organizers put it, “the root causes of climate change.”
“The same system that wages a daily war on our communities is poised to destroy our very life blood: the earth, the water, our food, and our culture,” says Sundeep Sood, Confluence organizer. “By combining our knowledge and energy we will create real solutions and decrease our dependence on the institutions that are attacking the planet and all life.” With these ideas in mind people of all ages and backgrounds from across the Northeast came to the Epworth Center in High Falls to create the kind of world they want to see.
The Confluence opened on Thursday night with a speech from Tom Porter, the elder of the Mohawk Nation. He blessed the event and gave permission for the Confluence to take place on land that had once been part of the Mohawk Nation. In his beautiful speech he expressed hope for the future and a willingness to work with those attending the Confluence to help build a better world.
The three workshop streams, Ice Storms to ICE Raids, Self Sufficient Communities and Connecting Grassroots struggles all had a great variety of workshops and came up with concrete action plans for future activism on a variety of issues. Most people would agree with Dan Cabrera when he said, “I was able to learn so much about important issues at the Confluence, and also meet so many great people to network with. It was definitely the highlight of my summer.”
There were also two major panels at the Confluence. On Friday there was the “Cages and Walls” panel which focused on the prison industrial complex, which included former Black Panther prisoner Ashanti Alston. Saturday’s panel was titled “Indigenous Struggles for Land,” and included indigenous activists from Ecuador, Palestine, Canada, Puerto Rico and New York. Though less interactive than the rest of the Confluence, the panels were extremely interesting and informative.
In addition to all of the workshops and educational events, the nights were filled with music and fun. Performances from folk singer Evan Greer, Albany based hip-hop band Broadcast Live and others played late into the nights, which all ended with a large bonfire where people from across the region were able to stay up late, talk and network.
“The thing that made the Confluence different than other environmental conferences was its ability to make the clear connections between social and environmental justice struggles,” said Nicole Elliot of Barrie, Ontario. “These connections are often ignored,” she continued, “but if we want to do anything about climate change we have to fight it at its racist and colonial foundations.”
The Confluence occurred concurrently with convergences in Oregon and England, and other climate convergences are planned for the coming weeks in Australia, Virginia, Quebec and Hamburg, Germany. There are already plans in the works for a 2009 Northeast Climate Confluence, which promises to be even larger than this year’s.