No LNG in PVD: Call the Governor / CRMC Hearing

This Tuesday, there are three things you can do to fight the fracked-gas liquefaction facility that National Grid wants to build on the Southside of Providence.

Call Governor Raimondo , (401) 222-2080, and tell her to publicly oppose National Grid’s proposed liquefaction facility. Details and a potential script are at the link. You can also just call that number, give your name and address, say “I’m calling to ask the Governor to publicly oppose National Grid’s proposed liquefaction facility,” thank the staffer, and hang up.

Come to the first Coastal Resources Management Council hearing, 5pm on Tuesday, One Capitol Hill, Department of Administration Cafeteria. Come prepared to speak or just support. We’ll have lists of talking points to share if anyone wants them. The CRMC is considering whether to grant one of the permits that National Grid would need; let’s show them why they should not do that.

Donate to No LNG in PVD’s legal fundraiser, if you haven’t already.

Every person who has ever said to me at the Climate Anxiety Counseling booth that you feel helpless–here are three ways to help.

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No LNG in PVD: Coastal Resources Management Council hearing 11/14

Please come.

Department of Administration Cafeteria

One Capitol Hill (across from the State House), Providence

5-8pm

Bring a sign that says “No LNG in PVD” or the climate justice/environmental justice message of your choice. Details of what we’re fighting and why are at the link. If you know you can’t make it, but have a little money to share, it would be so good if you could donate to the legal fund.

Let’s stop this before it happens.

 

Vigil for Healthy Communities: TONIGHT, 6pm

For over two years grassroots groups have been urging Governor Gina Raimondo to oppose the power plant that Invenergy has proposed for Burrillville and the LNG facility proposed by National Grid for the Port of Providence. There has been marches, call-in days, petitions and sit-ins.

But still Governor Raimondo has remained “neutral” on the issue and has refused to return campaign donations that she has received from both Invenergy and National Grid.

With critical state permit decisions coming up for both projects, now is the time for Governor Raimondo to finally join the opposition to Invenergy’s power plant and National Grid’s LNG facility. 

Join us for a peaceful vigil outside Governor Gina Raimondo’s house.  6pm, 126 Morris Ave, Providence.

If you can’t come tonight, but you can donate to stop the LNG facility, that would be good too.

Help No LNG in PVD fight environmental racism and fossil fuel infrastructure

You’ve probably seen my posts about No LNG in PVD, who are trying to keep National Grid from building a toxic, explosive, fracked-gas liquefaction facility, which will increase greenhouse gas emissions, in a neighborhood inhabited by working-class people of color. They need financial support this week. Can you help?

Let me know if you have questions.

TONIGHT: Burrillville Power Plant Public Hearing

Tonight is the final public hearing about the fracked-gas power plant that Invenergy wants to build in Burrillville. If you live in Rhode Island and can go, please do. Bring a sign opposing the plant. If you’re not a resident of Burrillville, you may not be able to get a spot to speak, but be there and show your opposition.

There are other hearings (dates at the link above) where the public can attend but won’t be allowed to speak.

Doors open at 5pm tonight and it’s expected to be crowded, so getting there at 4:30 if you can might be good.

TONIGHT (Tuesday), October 10th, 6-10pm

Burrillville High School Auditorium, 425 East Avenue, Harrisville, RI

We can’t afford any more fossil fuel infrastructure. A lot of people, I know, support this because they are hungry for construction jobs, and so making sure that Rhode Island develops jobs and training in renewable energy and energy efficiency construction (with something like the Energize RI bill) is an essential part of taking care of Rhode Islanders in the short term as well as the long term.

Looking for stories about the way climate change is changing you

Friends, I am looking for some help.

I want to know, and to talk about, and to write about, how we live with the knowledge of climate change: how we bear it, and how we act on it.

I’m working with a Rhode Island organization to create a manual of concrete actions for fossil fuel drawdown and community building in the state, called “Livable Rhode Island”, and so I’m looking for stories from Rhode Islanders specifically. If you have such a story, I can take it via email at any time: publiclycomplex at gmail is my address.

And I’m also working on a series of writings that will be a more general tool for transforming ourselves in response to the transformation of our world, so I want to listen to people about that. This, I’d like to do in person and in groups if possible.

The climate anxiety counseling booth isn’t really set up for this–for one thing, I want those conversations to be about what the person talking to me chooses and needs. I’m still working on the structure, trying to learn from the arc of Interdependence Days and other things I’ve been part of. Let me know if you think you might like to be part of this, and please ask me questions.

Talking is weird because it’s somewhere between feeling and doing–it’s a necessary prelude to action, but it isn’t itself action (though the amount of effort it takes to do it can trick you into feeling like it is). But it still seems to me to be a key part of making a possible, livable world in the present and for as long as we can–we need to listen to each other in order to know how we can work together.

Sorry about that “we”–I know it’s not as simple as that–but in its complication and variation is strength, too.

I hope you will stay with me.

Help for Houston and its people

Food banks: Galveston County, Corpus Christi, Houston

Texas Diaper Bank

SPCA (many shelters won’t take pets)

Portlight, providing disaster relief specifically for people with disabilities

Coalition for the Homeless

Texas Workers Relief Fund

Writer & former Houston resident Jia Tolentino, who supplied the names of many of the organizations on this list, also pointed out on Twitter, “As always, disasters are necessarily political: the kind of gov you would want to help your family in a crisis is the kind of gov you want!” Others have drawn the connections between Hurricane Harvey and climate change, between extractive capitalism and vulnerable infrastructure, between contempt for poor people and the quality of disaster planning and response.

UPDATE: Another very good list, compiled by Colorlines, here. 

Sometimes people say to me at the booth, “We need a really big disaster to wake people up.” Whether or not the waking up is forthcoming, we could’ve done without the disaster. If you can share your resources with Texans who need them, please do so.

Climate Anxiety Counseling at the Sankofa World Market TODAY; Public Meeting TONIGHT

Come and see me today at the Sankofa World Market. I’ll listen to your climate-change-related and other anxieties, and you can take home a picture of one of our nonhuman neighbors.

I’ll also have some information sheets about tonight’s public meeting about the LNG plant that National Grid wants to build on Allens Avenue, near people’s homes, hospitals, and schools. This meeting is a chance for Providence residents, from the neighborhood and elsewhere, to make it very clear that we don’t want this plant in our city. Digging up the site to start building the plant will disturb years of industrial toxins; the plant itself, in addition to increasing the planet’s fossil fuel burden, poses a threat in the form of leaks and explosions that would level the neighborhood. Building this facility, at every step, would put the neighborhood at risk. 

Meanwhile, as it is (undisturbed), the site doesn’t pose an acute hazard, which means it doesn’t qualify for the kind of permit that National Grid is applying for.

If you can’t go to the meeting, you can still submit a comment to the RI Dept. of Environmental Management (RIDEM), along the above lines. Send them to joseph.martella @ dem. ri. gov.

If you want more detailed points, or have questions, email me at my gmail address, publiclycomplex, and I’ll do my best for you.

Providence Resolution to Block Sale of Water to Invenergy: City Council Vote TONIGHT

From RI Future:

Providence City Councilor Seth Yurdin(Ward 1) wants the city to fight the sale of Providence water to Invenergy, the company that wants to build a $1 billion fracked gas and diesel oil burning power plant in Burrillville.

“The proposed gas-fired power plant is a serious threat to local Rhode Island communities and our climate.  The Providence Water Supply Board needs to join the Conservation Law Foundation‘s lawsuit and work to prevent the improper resale of water for use in this harmful project.,” said Providence City Councilor Seth Yurdin (Ward 1) about his resolution, being introduced tonight.

The resolution seeks to realign the positions of the City of Providence and the Providence Water Supply Board (PWSB) from defendants to plaintiffs in the case of Conservation Law Foundation (CLF) v Clear River Energy and the Town of Johnston.

This is a little confusing, but basically, it could be part of a strategy for blocking new fossil fuel infrastructure in RI, which is (part of) what we want. Show up TONIGHT at 5:30 pm, at Providence City Hall (City Council Chamber, 3rd floor) with signs!

Some sign ideas:

Be good neighbors / Protect air and water / Reject Invenergy

RI Needs Clean Water & Clean Energy / NOT Fossil Fuels

Good Jobs in Healthy Communities

 

 

 

 

Rally for Action on Climate Change at Governors’ Meeting, TODAY 12:15pm

The governors of 30 states, and also Elon Musk and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, are meeting in downtown Providence. Let’s tell them we need urgent, swift, effective action to reduce carbon emissions. Meet us at the corner of Sabin and Mathewson Streets (across from the convention center)–look for the big blue banner–at 12:15pm today. Details here.

This is the banner we’ll carry–a Portable Sea Level for 2100.