10,000 protesters demand ‘Clean Energy Revolution!’

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VOL. 34, NO. 8, AUGUST 2016 WWW.SOCIALISTACTION.ORG U.S. $1 / CANADA $2 “People gonna rise like the water,” the most poign­ ant of the new songs of the climate justice movement, makes a strong prediction. And the potential breadth and power of that people was on display in a new way on July 24, as close to 10,000 marchers took to the streets on a sweltering day (97 degrees) before the opening of the Democratic Party Convention in Phila­ delphia.

The march began at City Hall after a press confer­ ence anchored by front-line activists from communi­ ties devastated by extreme extraction from Pennsyl­ vania to Honduras. There Teresa Hill of ACTION Unit­ ed condemned the plans to turn Philadelphia into a major “energy hub” for fracked gas, whose methane emissions are alone capable of taking us to a climate tipping point. Laura Zuñiga Cáceres, daughter of the slain Honduran environmental and Lenca warrior Berta Cáceres, closed with the now immortal words of her famous mother, “Wake up Humanity! Time is running out!”

While there have been larger marches, the July 24 “March for a Clean Energy Revolution” focused more pointedly on the immediate dangers of the fracking process and the massive infrastructure that is be­ ing constructed around the United States for fracked gas, which is obstructing the effort for an emergency transition to renewable energy. The unequivocal de­ mands for a ban on fracking, keeping fossil fuels in the ground, and a quick and just transition to 100% re­ newable energy represent the vanguard of the move­ ment and the terms on which the growing movement will be most effectively mobilized.

The insistence that both political parties were fail­ ing humanity on the climate front came through loud and clear. Mark Schlosberg, the organizing director for Food & Water Watch, the group that leads Americans Against Fracking and brought 900 national and local groups to endorse the march, built the demonstration by forcefully arguing, “both parties’ platforms fall far short of addressing the climate emergency we are in.”

These principled demands and the unwillingness to subordinate the movement to the Democratic Party agenda brought together a large number of activists from front-line communities in a display of determi­ nation to take back the earth from those who would sacrifice them and the land for profit. Participants included those struggling against the assault on their health in the Pennsylvania gas fields; those living next to the radioactive tailings ponds of the Southwest and the potential storage sites at Seneca Falls, N.Y.; and those from the urban centers where parked oil trains deprive their children of breath.

At the final rally, in front of Independence Hall, The­ resa Hill of the Green Justice Philadelphia Coalition pointed out that the local refineries are located ex­ clusively in economically depressed neighborhoods:

(Photo) Participants in the July 24 Clean Energy Revolution March included biologist and author Sandra Steingraber (ctr.), of Food & Water Watch.

“And they think that people of color and low-income people won’t fight back. But as we said to the CEO of this oil refinery, who still hopes to expand the refin­ ery, we are saying NO! … We will fight! Fight for our right to breathe!” Marchers reflected the understand­ ing of the enormity of this struggle in chants such as “Hydo-fracking: Shut it Down!; Oil Pipelines: Shut it Down!; the Whole Damn System: Shut it Down!”

One of the constituencies that were most warmly welcomed was that of public health advocates and workers. The organizer of the health contingent, Ka­ runa Jagger of Breast Cancer Action, rallied the crowd at the final rally when she said, “We are marching to demand an end to fracking and other dangerous drilling practices that rely on toxic chemicals and are linked to an array of deadly diseases and disorders.”

The devastating impact of the fracking on working-class lives is now documented in rising number of white papers. Sandra Steingraber, the science advis­ er to Food & Water Watch, wrote in the wake of the march that the number of premature births—prema­ ture birth being the number one predictor of infant mortality—rose 40% if one was forced by economic (continued on page 11, in “To save the climate, it’s ‘Time to Choose’”)

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