NONVIOLENCE RADIO* THE BEAT OF AN UNSTOPPABLE MOVEMENT A MAGAZINE FOR PRACTICAL IDEALISTS Winter/Spring 2017 climate protection applying nonviolence to safeguard our earth * formerly Peace Paradigm Radio Airs every other Friday at 1pm PST on KWMR. Find station info and show streams at kwmr.org. Podcasts available at: iTunes, Stitcher, AudioBoom featured inside Principle & Strategy Person Power & Unity 8 Nonviolence & the Earth 26 Stepping Up Resistance Action-oriented nonviolence can be applied The climate justice movement is taking bold anywhere. As Michael N. Nagler notes, the and creative action—and winning some place we most need it today is with climate victories. Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers protection. illustrate a few actions. 10 Stop the Oil Trains 58 Healing Ourselves & the World Dan Everhart, an activist with Chico 350, Peace educator Stephanie Steiner looks at writes about efforts in his Butte County, healing from the inside out. To help our California community to halt dangerous oil Earth heal, she insists, we must take care of trains. ourselves—we are the Earth. 14 A Next Step for Climate Justice Experts say the planet is warming faster than scientists expected. Li and Stellan Vinthagen propose a controversial movement strategy. Earth provides enough to satisfy every [hu]man’s needs, but not every [hu]man’s greed. ~ Gandhi 4 nonviolence Interviews & Insights Scholarship & Culture 18 Q&A: Marissa Mommaerts 31 Inseparable Aims Marissa Mommaerts is Director of Programs Randall Amster, Director of the Program on at Transition US. She spoke with Stephanie Justice and Peace at Georgetown University, Van Hook about resilience and ecological looks at the intersections of environmental preparedness. and social issues. 36 Q&A: Rachel Marco-Havens 32 Who Do We Owe In her role as Youth Engagement Coordinator In his piece, Abraham Entin turns the notion for Earth Guardians, Rachel Marco-Havens of debt upside down. He describes it as a supports youth empowerment in the climate social commitment rather than money owed justice movement. to corporations. 46 Mother Earth Treaty 42 Going Local in Maine “As Indigenous Women of the Americas, Author and activist Rivera Sun grew up in a we understand the responsibilities toward potato-farming family in Maine. She shares the sacred system of life given to us by the how small farmers there created a successful Creator,” state Indigenous Rising. local food movement. 50 How to Create a Nature Reserve Writing from the UK, Adrian Cooper provides Poetry a case study of starting and maintaining a community nature reserve. His tips include working with neighbors and local media. 13 Isle de Jean Charles by Ira Batra Garde 54 The Power of Music Music can be a catalyst for social change weather and revolution. Lukas Walsh highlights 10 25 contemporary songs to inspire social change. by James Phoenix 56 Our Nonviolent Nature Stephanie Van Hook connects the dots between ant baits and fighter jets, observing that understanding is the key to avoiding “us vs. them” antagonisms. nonviolence 5 nonviolence PUBLISHER The Metta Center for Nonviolence EDITOR & CREATIVE DIRECTOR Kimberlyn David WINTER/SPRING 2017 CONTRIBUTORS Designer Miroslava Sobot Proofreader Todd Diehl Writers Randall Amster Adrian Cooper Abraham Entin Dan Everhart Margaret Flowers Indigenous Rising Michael N. Nagler Stephanie Steiner Rivera Sun Stephanie Van Hook Li Vinthagen Stellan Vinthagen Lukas Walsh Kevin Zeese Poets Ira Batra Garde James Phoenix Photographers Backbone Campaign Dan Felix Karen Laslo Marian Stephens Transition US HOW TO REACH US MAIN OFFICE The Metta Center for Nonviolence PO Box 98, Petaluma, CA, 94953 PHONE NUMBER 707-774-6299 WEBSITE www.mettacenter.org All contributors maintain the rights to their work as they choose, though the publisher generally uses Creative Commons licensing (CC BY-NC-ND). Please request permission to reproduce any part of Nonviolence, in whole or part. For info about permissions, advertising or submissions, email the editor: [email protected]. 6 nonviolence editor’s letter The poetry of the earth is never dead. ~ John Keats Photo: Red squirrel, via Pexels “It is a wholesome and necessary thing Toward the end of September, Climate Central, an for us to turn again to the earth and independent organization of scientists and journalists who in the contemplation of her beauties research and report on climate issues, delivered an alarming to know the sense of wonder and finding: We’ve passed the 400 parts per million (ppm) humility,” the noted marine biologist threshold on carbon dioxide—and we’ll likely stay above and conservationist Rachel Carson that ppm “for the indefinite future,” as one Scripps Institute wrote in The Sense of Wonder. Carson’s scientist put it. 1962 book Silent Spring is often credited with inspiring the contemporary global Which means that the emissions-reducing commitments movement to protect the environment. government leaders made at last year’s climate talks in Paris, and that were ratified in early October, must be enacted immediately. It also means that the shift from extracting and burning fossil fuels must proceed swiftly. There’s no time to waste: even if we succeeded in making that transition 100 percent tomorrow, the existing carbon will remain in the atmosphere for several decades. By now, we’re familiar with the doomsday scenarios. So our editorial team, along with our contributors for this issue of Nonviolence, feel called to look at climate from little-discussed angles. How can we transcend collective paralysis to protect the environment, move away from the destructive system that led us here and grow into more peaceful human beings? What community actions, broad-scale strategies and personal-societal healing could get us there? Our Winter/Spring 2017 issue revolves around these and related questions. While we don’t necessarily agree with every position taken by our contributors, we believe that the realities we’re facing at this time call for multiple perspectives and diverse proposals, from which successful strategies can emerge. We find hope in the possibilities. Is your community developing resilience strategies or taking climate-protection actions? We’d love to hear about them: [email protected]. KIMBERLYN DAVID Editor & Creative Director nonviolence 7 Photo: Red Berries, via Pexels 2 nonviolence thankfulness The Metta Center for Nonviolence, publisher of Nonviolence, thanks all the volunteers who share their love and help spread the mission of creating a nonviolent future. This issue of Nonviolence was made possible, in part, by generous support from the following people: MARY ANDERSON BURNETT BRITTON TODD DIEHL MIKE GAJDA PAULA HUGGINS ANNA IKEDA JOHN LEWIS TRAVIS MELLOT RICH MEYER MICHAEL & VICKI MILLICAN MICHAEL NAGLER PRASHANT NEMA MARK PARNES LORIN PETERS JAMES PHOENIX DAWN RAYMOND BERT SACKS JEANINE SAPERSTEIN JIM SCHUYLER JOHN WADE SUSAN FISCHER WILHELM nonviolence 3 Principle & Strategy Nonviolence & the Earth by MICHAEL N. NAGLER This is why it’s important to recognize the good news when it’s there: During this year’s US It’s important to recognize primaries, 350 Action challenged the presidential the good news when it’s there. candidates with its “keep it in the ground” campaign, which helped get Hillary Clinton come out against the Keystone XL pipeline and to back Nonviolence can be applied everywhere. The most keeping publicly owned fossil fuels in the ground. urgent place we need it today is to overcome the Now the tide is turning against fracking too, and the unheard-of damage industrialism and greed are story of Exxon’s deception regarding climate change doing to our planet, euphemistically called “climate has become a defining political issue. change” or “global warming.” These may seem like small steps, but in the words of This destruction is reversible. As Science has recently a Sufi master, “When we take one step towards God, reported, the drastic thinning of the ozone layer he takes seven steps toward us.” In other words, that protects us and all other living beings from nature is resilient and as it were, just waiting for us to the harmful effects of ultraviolet solar radiation has take restorative actions. Nevertheless, today we need begun to heal. According to UN scientists, we are to engage the full spectrum of nonviolent measures, on track to see a complete recovery of the ozone from personal empowerment and constructive layer by 2050. How did we accomplish this feat? program to outright nonviolent resistance. Under the Montreal Protocol of 1987, world leaders agreed to stop the release of chloroflourocarbons There is a line in one of the ancient Vedic hymns (CFCs) into the atmosphere. To do that, they went that often comes to mind when I think about climate against the strenuous objections of DuPont, the main disruption: Mã gãm anãgam Aditim vadhishta!, or Do profiteer from CFC-propelled products. DuPont not injure the faultless one, Aditi, the (cosmic) cow! argued in the face of mounting scientific evidence and predicted dire results for the global economy, Aditi here stands for the divine feminine principle, but science and sanity prevailed. In case you haven’t the creative power of the universe in its active form, noticed, the lack of CFCs in your hairspray hasn’t the origin of all forces of nature. That she is called damaged the global economy. a “cow” is highly honorific in an Indian context, where the cow was the symbol of wealth and of all Good news on the environment, especially climate innocent nature. “Cow protection” in modern India disruption, is so rare that when I read that the is meant to remind us not to injure the earth or Antarctic hole in the ozone layer was shrinking I at any living thing. We are all involved in what Martin first thought, “Oh no, we’re losing more ozone!” As Luther King Jr.