Migrants and Climate Emergency! Lights for Liberty, Park Slope XR Kickoff Action!

Scenes  from the first XR Park  Slope action  and the  regeneration  game we played.

Back in NYC for a day,  I joined my friends in  Extinction Rebellion  for theirClimate Emergency! Park Slope XR Kickoff Action!

Public Hosted by Park Slope Extinction Rebellion and Extinction Rebellion NYC

“Our planet is facing a devastating climate catastrophe, and it’s time to act. NYC has declared a climate emergency, but how will we get to net zero emissions by 2025? Join Park Slope’s new Extinction Rebellion group in a fun and creative action to raise awareness about the climate emergency and demand net zero emissions now!”

At Grand Army Plaza,  I met my friend Greg who I was arrested with in April.

Waiting for the action, he told me about his entry into the  movement. 

“This is an uprising,” he explained. 

“Some friends in  Occupy sent me a link about the movement.”

They seemed like Greg’s kind of people.

A community gardener with the Imani Community Garden on  Schenectady Ave, Brooklyn,

he told  me about the struggle to save the space.

“We lost one third of the garden,  another two thirds  look like  they are saved.”

Gardens and human powered transportation – these are parts  of the resources we can use to support sustainable urbanism.  Just this spring, the climate movement stopped pipelines and  passed city and state climate bills. But the obstacles are many.

Instead of driving or depending on fossil fuels,  we can look  to  other  sources of energy.

“But people don’t  think,” Greg lamented.

“We could all use our shit  and  create biogas, as they are doing in Newtown Creek,” he explained.  But people insist, “we need  more  cars?”

Instead Greg looks  to  permaculture.

My friend Nora walked  up wearing a cardboard airplane she had made at a recent Extinction  Rebellion  Art Build.

“We talked about symbols, Carbon dioxide – that makes up the majority of greenhouse gas emissions, air planes.”

My friend Ken  walked up and mentioned  the Climate Mobilization  Action, a

 “bill with aims to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from buildings 40% by 2030 and 80% by 2050, which the New York City Council passed in April.  It targets greenhouse gas emissions from large buildings.”

I asked Ken why he was at the action. 

“Because its Extinction Rebellion.  Its my neighborhood.  We are facing a climate emergency.  I hope people act like it. In New York that means mass transit, solar, renewables, vegan diet, less plane travel.”

We talked about the permafrost melting and a 41 thousand year old worm that was recently revived.

The permafrost will  put out two  times the carbon in the atmosphere,  Ken went  on.

If it all melts, it will triple the carbon in the atmosphere making life uninhabitable for large vertebrae animals.

He showed me a few pictures  from the night before when people from five continents called for an end to human detention camps,  supported by the Trump Administration. 

It was  the largest protest ever, he went on. 

I dropped by the action  in Princeton  New Jersey.

“Lights for Liberty: A Vigil to End Human Detention Camps”

Fri, Jul 12, 2019, 7:00 pm

Rally for immigrants

Patricia Fernandez-Kelly, director of the Center for Migration and Development at Princeton, will be among the speakers featured at “Lights for Liberty: A Vigil to End Human Detention Camps.”, this Friday, July 12.

Location: Hinds Plaza next to the Princeton Public Library.”

People talked about the

“of detention camps… a part of a worldwide event organized by Lights for Liberty, which is a loose-knit coalition of grassroots activists. At 9 p.m., attendees will light candles in a silent vigil for the people who are being held in the detention camps.”

And we headed out through Park Slope, carrying signs, passing out flyers, calling for people to get involved, and become part of the solution.

People at the farmers market applauded us.

Others carried on their work selling local  goods and composting,  offering solutions.

“The earth, the earth, the earth is on fire,” we chanted, making our way through the park, circling up, playing the Extinction Rebellion Game. 

Heating up the space.

Creating  a space for transformation, 

For heat, 

For stopping, going,  growing. 

The earth the earth the earth is on fire.

We’re going to have as much fun, as much joy as we can,  trying to transform our world, 

Building community along the way.

Finishing the action, everyone hung out and chatted.

By the end of the day, the power grid shut off in NYC,

Leaving a blackout on the anniversary of the 1977 blackout in NYC.

In New Orleans friends planned for the flood, having  parties,

Looking  to each other. 

We don’t know what is going to happen.

But we do know we need each other,

Today and every day.

Migration and climate action are linked.

Hopefully we can all connect the dots and welcome refugees,

Coping with the crisis.

Rather than continue the horror. 

Finishing, I walked through NYC,

the city popping with energy.

Bodies moving to and fro,

Throughout the city,

Walking  through the East Village,

Greeting friends,

Snapping photos of the graffiti,

Grabbing a train back.

Feeling honored to be part of the first action of Park Slope Extinction Rebellion.

Message from Extinction Rebellion, 

Hey Rebels!

“June was a busy, successful month for XR NYC! We demanded that the New York Times #TelltheTruth about the urgency of the climate crisis and the 6th mass extinction, and demanded that the New York City Council declare a climate emergency (and succeeded)!

Now that we’ve taken some regen and debrief time, we are building up to the Fall Uprising. There will be actions in both September during the UN Climate Summit (Greta’s coming to town!), and October as part of the XR International Rebellion. More specific dates will be released in the next week.”