First Newsletter

Newslet­ter Edi­tion — Thurs­day, June 18th, 2010

Join Ener­gy Jus­tice Net­work at the US Social Forum 2010 in Detroit!

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Work­shop #1
Map­ping for Jus­tice: Open Source, Dirty Ener­gy and Waste Facilities
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http://organize.ussf2010.org/ws/mapping-justice-open-source-dirty-energ…

Wed, 06/23/2010 — 10:00am — 12:00pm
Wood­ward Acad­e­my Room 1449

Ener­gy Jus­tice Net­work is cre­at­ing a space to share critical
infor­ma­tion about all of the exist­ing, pro­posed, closed and defeat­ed dirty ener­gy and waste facil­i­ties in the Unit­ed States, the cor­po­ra­tions behind them and the grass­roots groups and activists
fight­ing them. By map­ping the grass­roots envi­ron­men­tal justice
move­ment, we aim to help grass­roots envi­ron­men­tal activists better
research their oppo­si­tion and con­nect with oth­er activists who can
best help them. We want to col­lab­o­rate with all activists that are
com­mit­ted to pro­gres­sive and crit­i­cal change in shar­ing data about
waste and dirty ener­gy facil­i­ties. Using open source soft­ware, we are
build­ing an online com­mu­ni­ty where you can add, edit, and ver­i­fy the
infor­ma­tion. We will share infor­ma­tion about dirty ener­gy and waste
facil­i­ties with par­tic­i­pants in a way that makes it easy to
understand.

The work­shop will intro­duce par­tic­i­pants to the con­cept of mapping
for social change, using the Ener­gy Jus­tice Map­ping Tool
(www.ejmap.org/), and dis­cuss the prin­ci­ples of online
col­lab­o­ra­tion, trans­paren­cy and account­abil­i­ty. Par­tic­i­pants are
encour­aged, yet not required to bring their com­put­ers if available.

For ques­tions and com­ments about the map­ping tool please contact
Aaron Krei­der <aaron@campusactivism.org>, if you have ques­tions about the work­shop includ­ing loca­tion, con­tent, etc. please con­tact Jan­vieve Williams C.<janvieve@energyjustice.net></janvieve@energyjustice.net></aaron@campusactivism.org>

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Work­shop #2
Bio­fu­els, Bio­mass, Bio-Econ­o­my: One Big Bio-mess! in col­lab­o­ra­tion with BioFuelWatch
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http://organize.ussf2010.org/ws/biofuels-biomass-bio-economy-one-big-bi…

Thu, 06/24/2010 — 3:30pm — 5:30pm

at Wood­ward Acad­e­my: 1473

Bio­fu­els, Bio­mass, Biochar and the Bioe­con­o­my: Can we replace fossil
fuels with plant-based fuels? What are the trends and impli­ca­tions for
food, agri­cul­ture, forests, bio­di­ver­si­ty, human rights and climate?
The bulk of sup­ports for renew­able ener­gy are direct­ed to “bio”
ener­gy, based on the assump­tion that agri­cul­tur­al crops and trees are
infi­nite­ly “renew­able” and that refin­ing or burn­ing them is
“clean and green”. But this myth is unrav­el­ing. Divert­ing grains
into bio­fu­els has impact­ed food pro­duc­tion, increased fer­til­iz­er use,
and left rur­al economies bur­dened with a col­laps­ing industry.
Mean­while burn­ing wood and oth­er forms of bio­mass incin­er­a­tion for
heat and elec­tric­i­ty is esca­lat­ing. The result is more industrial
burn­ers pol­lut­ing the air in our com­mu­ni­ties, and a mas­sive demand for
bio­mass that seri­ous­ly threat­ens forests, farms and waterways.
Genet­i­cal­ly engi­neered trees and microbes, are being devel­oped to
pro­duce fuels and oth­er “bio­prod­ucts”. A real­i­ty check on the
mean­ing of “renew­able, clean and green” and strate­gies for
oppos­ing this “false solu­tion” will be discussed.

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Tabling: Please stop by our table at the Social Forum to say hello!
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Launch­ing Our Ener­gy Jus­tice Map
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After two years of hard work, we are offi­cial­ly launch­ing our map of over 10,000 pow­er plants and dirty waste facilities!

Join our online net­work of activists
and help us make this resource even better.

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**WHAT IS THE ENERGY JUSTICE NETWORK?**
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The Ener­gy Jus­tice Net­work is the grass­roots ener­gy agenda,
sup­port­ing com­mu­ni­ties threat­ened by pol­lut­ing ener­gy and waste
technologies.

Tak­ing direc­tion from our grass­roots base and the Prin­ci­ples of
Envi­ron­men­tal Jus­tice, we advo­cate a clean ener­gy, zero-emission,
zero-waste future for all. Read more about our work and get involved.