Someone asked me this question (on Kasama, here: http://kasamaproject.org/2010/08/25/our-planet-our-people-are-not-expendable/):

“Obviously the destruction [of the planet] already occurring hasn’t been enough to bring us to the tipping point [of resistance]. What will it take for the masses to unite behind an effective solution?”

* * *

My reply:

“What will it take?” is something I wonder about all the time. How far does the murder of the planet have to go? Do we really have to be starving and gasping for breath before we break through denial? We’re almost at that point now, and denial is still rampant.

Part of the problem is that most people in this culture don’t have any idea how to live without industrial production — without water from the tap, without food from grocery stores. If the only source of basic necessities is this system, and people don’t know any other way to live, then they will continue to defend the system that provides them.

It’s like the demand for jobs. In the context of this society, most of us can’t live without jobs, though they’re the arena in which our exploitation takes place. So until we understand that the whole system must be done away with, and until we can live some other way, we end up demanding that the system provide more jobs.

I saw a TV program where someone showed common vegetables (eggplant, tomato, etc) to schoolchildren, and none of them could identify them. In the last couple generations, most of us have lost the ability to grow food (even when we can still identify it). More importantly, most people have no access to land.

A lot of people argue that we should form communes, permaculture “eco-villages,” community gardens and so on to serve as examples of how we could live sustainably. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with doing those things, but they’re not going to be what’s needed to defeat this system.

There were many cultures who used to live sustainably on this continent, and they’ve been systematically all but wiped out. So it’s not enough to withdraw. As soon as the system wants what you have, or demands your participation, they will violently destroy anyone who doesn’t cooperate.

What will it take? The same things it’ll take to make revolution to uproot all forms of exploitation and oppression.

In the first stages:

* Broad realization that this system is killing the planet, and that to save all life, including our own, we need to defeat and dismantle the system.

* A recognition of who the enemy is.

* The sense that it is more dangerous to let things go on as they are than it is to rise up and fight back.

* A vision of a viable future.

These ideas are spreading, and we need to spread them more, to unite as many as possible in a powerful movement to take this system on. We need to connect the struggle for saving the planet with the struggles for social justice — the enemy is the same.

My Code Green cartoon (animated by the ultra-talented David Essman) is hard to find on the Sun Sentinel website, so here’s a direct link:

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/opinion/sfl-code-green-comic-07232010,0,2408768.htmlstory

Please spread the word!
Thank you.

Tomorrow (Friday), the South Florida Sun-Sentinel will start to run my Code Green editorial cartoons each Friday. Also, a version of the first one, animated by David Essman, will be posted on the Sun-Sentinel website. http://www.sun-sentinel.com/.

If a lot of people click on it, perhaps they will continue to run it in the future. So please, if you like my Code Green cartoons, and would like to see them animated, please watch it on the Sun-Sentinel website and let them know.

Thank you!
Stephanie

Here are some cartoons I’ve drawn in the last several months for the VJMovement (http://www.vjmovement.com/), an international cartoon agency based in Amsterdam.

Cartoonists and video journalists pitch stories to them, and then anyone is welcome to vote (pitches are displayed in the “newsroom” section) on which ones they would like to see made. Those are the ones that then receive funding. Media democracy in action!

This is a draft leaflet I wrote and am proposing for a group of South Florida activists. Even though it’s not final, I’ll share it here.
* * *
OUR PLANET, OUR PEOPLE ARE NOT EXPENDABLE!
WE REFUSE TO SACRIFICE LIFE FOR CORPORATE PROFITS!

The Gulf of Mexico has been destroyed. Immeasurable, irreparable damage has been done to wildlife, the health of the ocean, and people’s livelihoods. We have been cursed for years to come. It can not, as BP promises, be “made right.” In fact, even after this utter catastrophe, crimes against the planet and its inhabitants continue without pause.

We are told that the government is supposed to guarantee the rights of the people. But when a big corporation decides our rights are not in their interests, then POOF! They vanish into thin air. In a clear violation of our rights to free speech and a free press, government agencies have assisted BP’s lies and cover-up by restricting media access, threatening journalists with felony charges and $40,000 fines. Uniformed police officers in Louisiana have harassed photographers at public beaches. BP has threatened workers with firing if they talk to anyone about anything.

We are also told that the government’s purpose is to protect the country and us. But instead the government helps big corporations plunder the country and trash our lives. The Minerals Management Service allowed BP to cut corners and violate safety regulations, leading finally to the fatal decision to save a few hundred thousand dollars by not installing a backup valve.

When BP ignored an order by the Environmental Protection Agency to stop using the dispersant Corexit 9500 (a poisonous compound banned in Europe), the EPA did absolutely nothing. Millions of gallons are still being dumped into the Gulf, even as it has been shown to evaporate and fall as toxic rain, and is damaging plants far inland.

BP and its employees have given more than $3.5 million to federal candidates during the past 20 years, with the biggest portion going to Obama. It also spent $15.9 million on lobbying last year alone, for the purpose of controlling energy policy.

What does all this tell us?

The government repeatedly sells us out to corporate interests. It sells out our rights, our health, our safety, our livelihoods, our lives, and the natural world. The government is merely a tool to facilitate the conversion of life into profit.

The BP spill is not an accident. It is an inevitable consequence of a global economic system that values profit over life. The BP spill is not unique. Oil companies have ruined large areas of the Niger Delta, Ecuador and other parts of the world, and they will continue to do so until they are stopped.

The ruthless pursuit of profit has caused 98% of old growth forests to be cut down. 99% of the prairies are gone. 80% of rivers worldwide no longer support life. 94% of the large fish in the oceans are gone. 120 species per day becomes extinct. Now the Gulf of Mexico has been ruined. Clearly, a global economic system based on perpetual growth is unsustainable. Yet those who run this system do not stop, will not stop.

At what point will we stop accepting this?

We can not stand by while big corporations like BP, with the assistance of the US government, destroy our lives and our planet. We should have stopped them a long time ago. Now we must stop them before they do even more damage, before they kill everything. We depend upon the natural world — we must now urgently come to its defense.

If you go to San Diego Comic-Con next weekend, please come and see me at the NBM Publications table!
Here’s my schedule:
Thursday 2:30-4 p.m.
Friday 4-5:30 p.m.
Saturday 2:30-4 p.m.
Sunday 10:30 a.m.-noon

1) I did an interview with Susan Marie on ThinkTwice radio. We had a great, hour-long conversation about ecocide, resistance and cartoons: http://www.thinktwiceradio.com/sue-marie/sue-marie.html

2) I’m participating in an eBay auction of webcomics originals to benefit Gulf cleanup efforts. Get a “Code Green” original and print. At this point it’s pretty cheap! Here’s the whole auction:
http://shop.ebay.com/whirringblender/m.html?_nkw=&_armrs=1&_from=&_ipg=&_trksid=p3686

Calling all people in South Florida, if you’re angry about the Gulf oil spill and all its associated crimes, please come to an organizing meeting for a new coalition to fight back against these atrocities and those responsible. I’ll be there — hope you will too!
Stephanie

***
Here’s the Facebook page:

http://www.facebook.com/#!/event.php?eid=135485193148140&ref=mf

Mass Organizing Meeting to Stop the Gulf Ecological Disaster
Date: Saturday, July 10, 2010
Time: 10:30am – 12:30pm
Location: St. Maurice Catholic Church (Hospitality Room), 2851 Stirling Road, Dania Beach, Florida

Description

Building on the heels of June 26th’s huge Hands Across the Sand protest and numerous local initiatives protesting BP and offshore drilling, a number of activists and people new to activism are starting to combine forces to begin building a powerful MOVEMENT demanding action against the oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, full immediate compensation for all those affected, an end to offshore drilling and support for clean, renewable energy sources.

We’re just starting out and we’re having our first MASS PUBLIC MEETING. We’re looking at building support for a variety of creative tactics to channel our outrage, our sadness, our commitment, and our determination to win. THIS IS A LONG-TERM FIGHT! It will need to be a huge mass movement if it’s going to go anywhere. It’s taken the ongoing ecocide in the Gulf to take this organizing to a whole new level. But we also realize the problem is much larger than just BP or any single company.

You have an historic opportunity to get in on the ground floor of this newly emerging movement. We’ve yet to decide on how we want to organize ourselves, what we want to do next, even what we call ourselves. Because we’re in South Florida, what we say and do can have a national and international impact. We’re making connections with folks organizing in the Gulf Coast and beyond. But we need YOU if we’re going to make this into a large and powerful force that can actually win.

Our mission is nothing less than saving Planet Earth. Help make history on Saturday, July 10th. It’s up to you.

************************************************************
St. Maurice Church is located at 2851 Stirling Road in Dania Beach (Broward County), FL. From I-95 Stirling Road exit, go west about a mile to the traffic light at Lakeshore Dr. Turn on Lakeshore and the parking lot is immediately there on your right. The Hospitality Room is on the first floor of the only two-story building on the campus, right next to the Chapel (not the Church).

This cartoon is scheduled to appear in the LA Times on Sunday, June 27, 2010.

My outrage at what is happening in the Gulf has generated a lot of ideas for Code Green comics. I’ll probably do some extras this week. Want to help me decide which ones to do first? Which would you choose? Here’s my list:

1)
Image: A bunch of protesters stand in front of BP, sweltering in the hot sun, holding signs that are lame because they are overly polite: “If you wouldn’t mind…” etc.
Person to friend: We’ve got them where we want them. Only 10000000000 more hours of protests to go before they *have* to listen.
Person 2 (kneeling and praying, reading a book: “Obama’s Prayer Manual”): Don’t forget praying.

2)
Obama (dressed as general with opulent uniform and hat, rubber boots and sword held aloft, standing in oily water): Because war rhetoric usually suckers the American people: JOIN MY GLORIOUS WAR ON ERROR!

3)
Caption: BP committed at least 760 “egregious” and “willful” safety violations
during the last 3 years.
BP official (yelling at the sky): It was a tragic, random, accidental act-of-God accident. Damn you, God!

4)
Image: Person (standing on dead planet covered with corpses and toxic waste, indignant): Sure, civilization has its costs. But it’s so convenient. Hey – got any food?

5)
Image: 2 people are at the edge of the oily Gulf.
Person 1: This is nothing new. Oil companies already wrecked huge areas in Ecuador and the Niger Delta.
Person 2: When I demanded an end to outsourcing, I meant jobs.

6)
Image: BP and US officials hold up large banner with photo pristine beach scene, hiding real oil-poisoned beach behind them.
One: We don’t block media access.
Other: Take all the photos you want.

7)
Image: 2 people stands in ruined landscape, with mushroom cloud, toxic water, fires, etc.
Person 1: *THIS* catastrophe is *FINALLY* going to make everyone understand that our way of life is unsustainable.
Person 2: I think I need one more oil spill.

8
Image: Person stands in ruined landscape.
Person: Technology will fix it.

[EDIT 6/20: Paypal button removed -- thanks to everyone who donated! Future donations to this organization can be made to them directly]

I’m raising money for the Gulf Emergency Summit to take place June 19 in New Orleans.

Donate $18 and I will send you a signed, full-color print (on photo paper) of this cartoon:

I will collect funds through midnight June 19 (Saturday). On Monday (June 21) I’ll make the prints and mail them out, and will send 100% of the donations (after mailing and printing costs) to the Summit organizers.

If you’d rather donate to them directly, there’s a link on their website.

From the webpage of the event:

Call for an Emergency Summit

AN EXTRAORDINARY CRISIS REQUIRES
AN EXTRAORDINARY RESPONSE

THE PEOPLE MUST ACT
TO STOP THE GULF CATASTROPHE

The BP oil blowout is an environmental catastrophe, bringing great peril to marine and wildlife in the Gulf and threatening ecosystems of the planet. The spill is still out of control and spreading. It jeopardizes communities and livelihoods. The government and BP have proven unable and unwilling to stop the disaster, protect the Gulf, or even tell the truth.

The people must come together now to stop this nightmare.

Millions are sick at heart and looking for ways to act. Many individuals and groups have spoken out, offered suggestions, volunteered to help, protested. BP and the government – pursuing their own interests – have ignored people’s ideas, blocked public participation, suppressed and harassed scientists, and prevented people on the Gulf from taking initiative to keep oil away from shore.

This must not continue. A broad, determined, and powerful “peoples’ response” is urgently needed – to get the truth out, to protect the shores and oceans and deal with the ecological impacts, while exploring deeper causes and solutions.

The Emergency Summit will bring together scientists, people from fishing communities, environmental activists, progressives, radicals and revolutionaries, artists, intellectuals and all who want to halt this horror. There will be testimony on the true scope and impact of the disaster and on what can be done to protect ecosystems, wildlife, and people. We’ll thrash out ways for people to act now – on different fronts and in different ways – and to galvanize many, many more, across the Gulf and beyond.

The world is watching. We must not allow the Gulf and oceans to be devastated. Our mission is nothing less than stopping this catastrophe.

Draft Demands:

1. Stop oil drilling in the Gulf
2. The government and entire oil industry must allocate all necessary resources to stop the spill and clean up the devastation. Full support, including by compensation, must be given to efforts by people to save the Gulf.
3. No punishment to those taking independent initiative; no gag orders on people hired, contracted, or who volunteer.
4. Full mobilization of scientists and engineers. Release scientific and technical data to the public; no more lying and covering up. Full and open scientific evaluation of emergency measures like the use of dispersants. Fund all necessary scientific and medical research.
5. Full compensation for all losing livelihood and income from the disaster.
6. Provide necessary medical services to those suffering health effects of the spill. Protect the health of and provide necessary equipment for everyone involved in clean up operations. Full disclosure of medical and scientific studies about the effects of the oil disaster.

Initial Endorsers:
William Quigley, Loyola University; Legal Dir., Center for Constitutional Rights*
Michael G. Hadfield, Marine Biologist, University of Hawaii*
Larry Everest, author Oil, Power & Empire, Revolution newspaper
John Pearse, Prof. Ecology & Evolutionary Biology, University of California, Santa Cruz*
Eloise Williams, Lower Algiers Environmental Committee, New Orleans
Elizabeth Cook, Women United for Social Justice, New Orleans
Andy Washington, Civil Rights Activist, New Orleans
Survivors Village, New Orleans
Ben Gordon, Pax Cristi, New Orleans
Debra Sweet, Director, World Can’t Wait
Sharon Jasper, public housing activist, New Orleans
C3-Hands Off Iberville, New Orleans
George Mahdi, Social Worker, New Orleans
Endesha Juakeli, housing activist, New Orleans
Randy Poindexter, New Orleans
Rebecca Austen, New Orleans
Gilda & Sain Reed, New Orleans
* for identification purposes only

Website: gulfemergencysummit.org
Email: gulfemergencysummit@gmail.com

Saturday, June 19, 2010
10AM-End Time TBA
First Unitarian Universalist Church, Sanctuary
5212 South Claiborne Avenue
New Orleans, LA

From the New York Times:

Sex, Drug Use and Graft Cited in Interior Department

By CHARLIE SAVAGE
September 10, 2008

Excerpt:

WASHINGTON — As Congress prepares to debate expansion of drilling in taxpayer-owned coastal waters, the Interior Department agency that collects oil and gas royalties has been caught up in a wide-ranging ethics scandal — including allegations of financial self-dealing, accepting gifts from energy companies, cocaine use and sexual misconduct.

“A culture of ethical failure” pervades the agency, Mr. Devaney wrote in a cover memo.

More: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/11/washington/11royalty.html?_r=4&hp&oref=slogin

In the Guardian UK, April 9:

British campaigner urges UN to accept ‘ecocide’ as international crime

Proposal to declare mass destruction of ecosystems a crime on a par with genocide launched by lawyer
by Juliette Jowit

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/apr/09/ecocide-crime-genocide-un-environmental-damage/print

Of course the big polluters won’t even pretend to comply with this, even if it does miraculously pass, because they can’t. Their system can’t run that way.

Still, it’s good to have standards. I especially like these two points:

“…Higgins is suggesting ecocide would include damage done to any species – not just humans. This, she says, would stop prosecutions being tied up in legal wrangling over whether humans were harmed, as many environmental cases currently are.”

“…prosecutions would be against individuals such as directors rather than the companies…”

Most mind-bending quote by Obama:

““[W]e need to move beyond the tired debates of the left and the right, between business leaders and environmentalists, between those who would claim drilling is a cure-all and those who would claim it has no place.”

So ending the debate by giving the energy companies the right to drill is some sort of… compromise?

Obviously I’m not criticizing scientists from the same point of view as climate change deniers. Some scientists do great work sounding the alarm about global warming. Others, and this is what this cartoon is about, minimize the danger.

From BBC News:

…Professor Semiletov’s fellow researcher aboard the Russian icebreaker that carries the ISSS team each year is Professor Orjan Gustafsson from Stockholm University in Sweden.

Despite the high readings, Professor Gustafsson said that so far there was no cause for alarm, and stressed that further studies were still necessary to determine the exact cause of the methane seepage.

* * *

I disagree. I think we should be highly alarmed, and we should do whatever it takes to save the planet. Even if there’s disagreement about what the increased methane means, we should not be playing with that. Life on Earth is at stake. We don’t get another chance to do it over if we miss our chance to save it.

Here’s the whole article: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8437703.stm

Schemes to make businesses “green” are a sick mockery of any real attempt to save the planet.

Excerpt from an article in the New York Times:

Paying More for Flights Eases Guilt, Not Emissions

…

The whole article is here: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/18/science/earth/18offset.html?scp=1&sq=guilt%20carbon&st=cse