G-20 Schedule of Awesome Community Events

Hello World Family,
Welcome to Pittsburgh! The weather is beautiful, although some rain may move in over night for you family members camping out. Stay warm and dry.

Here is a list of some very important activities, and we need some PLACES TO STAY for our family guests. If your church has space in the basement, yards, etc. for those who are coming to celebrate their voice and vision, we need you. Details are below.

From my Brothers and Sisters in the Three Rivers Climate Convergence (I love that name):
UPDATE: JUST RELEASED!!!
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE September 20, 2009
Contact: Kim Teplitzky, 267-307-4707, kim.pgh@gmail.com
NOTE: For questions about actions or to confirm information, please contact Kim Teplitzky as an official source for all 3RCC inquiries, additional spokespeople are listed below for climate/ environmental specific inquiries
3 RIVERS CLIMATE CONVERGENCE ACTIONS DEMAND SUSTAINABLE SOLUTIONS TO GLOBAL CLIMATE AND ECONOMIC CRISES
Convergence at Schenley Park serves as base camp for a series of workshops, film screenings, actions and events in response to the International Coal Conference and G-20
The 3 Rivers Climate Convergence kicks off Monday at Schenley Park for a week of action, education and organizing demanding sustainable and local solutions to the climate and economic crises.
The Convergence, being held at the Schenley Park Overlook Monday through Friday from 8:30am to 10pm is a hub for people and organizations demanding environmental and climate justice, demanding solutions that empower rural, Indigenous, and economically disadvantaged communities to overcome the toxic pollution and land grabs of our dirty energy dependence.
“The Coal Conference and the G-20 are a series of closed door meetings designed to further the same destructive systems that caused our current economic and climate crises,” said Kim Teplitzky, a Coordinator with 3RCC. “We want an end to these failed polices and institutions and instead solutions that value the health and safety of the 6 billion people of the world, not just the wallets of the few profiting from polluting our land, air and water.”
The group is demanding a swift move beyond coal and other dirty energy sources, including nuclear power that pollute and destroy land and communities here in Pennsylvania and around the world. Instead, they are advocating for clean energy solutions that will create jobs by jump-starting local economies.
“Because of longwall mining, Southwestern Pennsylvania is essentially being treated as an energy sacrifice zone. We provide “cheap” coal to a nation hungry for energy, while bearing a disproportionate amount of the environmental, health and economic costs to our citizens and communities,” said Raina Rippel, Director of the Center for Coalfield Justice.
The Convergence will feature workshops, films, art and demonstrations of sustainable alternatives, including a solar power array, a screening of the new movie “Coal Country” with speakers from directly impacted communities in nearby Ohio and West Virginia and trainings on “The True Cost of Coal”. See the full Convergence schedule below for more details.
The biggest challenge the Convergence currently faces is the denial of city permits for overnight camping, even in the face of precedent set by other groups who have camped in the parks overnight. The denial has caused a housing crisis for the hundreds to thousands of people expected to arrive this week who will be forced to the streets without the safe alternative housing space the Convergence was planning to set up at the park.
3 Rivers Climate Convergence is a collaboration of local and national individuals and organizations. Our purpose is to organize the voice of climate and environmental justice resistance and a vision for sustainable alternatives to the International Coal Conference and G-20 meetings in Pittsburgh from September 21-25, 2009.
For more information: 3riversconvergence.org On twitter: pghclimatecamp

3 RIVERS CLIMATE CONVERGENCE
OFFICIAL SCHEDULE OF EVENTS

Sunday Sept. 20
2pm-5pm Coal Country Film Screening, with Elisa Young, SE Ohio activist featured in the film
UPitt 120 David L. Lawrence Hall

10am-4pm Artbuild at CMU fence, as part of the G20 Artspace – a student project

Monday Sept. 21 – Welcome to Coal Country
7am-11am Convergence Site Set-up (good b-roll, background story opportunity)

10am-5pm Workshops at the Convergence, including “Decolonizing Your Mind”, “Health and Safety for Activists” and “Non-violent Direct Action”

10am-6pm 3 Rivers Climate Convergence banner and “Skills for the New Millennium” permaculture bus and display of sustainable and alternative living practices, including live chickens
At the Women’s Coalition Tent City at Point State Park, free lunch served at 12noon

11am-5pm Longwall mining tours led by the Center for Coalfield Justice
Departing from the Overlook at 11:30

12:18pm Flashmob “Wake up Call”
Penn Ave/7th St. Food Court

1pm Action on the Northside – Details TBA on Monday morning, call Kim for more info

4pm Climate Roundtable at USW Building – 3RCC focus on ensuring the voice of climate justice is present in the discussion

7pm “Coal Country” screening at Melwood Screening Room, followed by a reception at the Sierra Club office at 425 N. Craig St.

9pm-11pm Equinox Ritual – “calling for the sequestration of greed and the liberation of abundance” at Convergence space, Schenley Overlook

Tuesday Sept. 22 – This is Climate Ground Zero: Day of Actions for a Coal Free Future
8am Action Downtown – Details TBA on Monday night/Tues am, call Kim for more info

9am-4pm Rolling anti-coal actions downtown

1pm Action Downtown – Details TBA on Tues morning, call Kim for more info

10am-6pm 3 Rivers Climate Convergence banner and presence at the Women’s Coalition Tent City at Point State Park, free lunch served at 12noon

Wednesday Sept. 23 – Beyond Green Jobs, Building Sustainable Economies
9am-5:30pm Workshops at the Convergence space and “Skills for the New Millennium” permaculture bus and display of sustainable and alternative living practices

4:30 Youth Convergence and Critical Mass bike ride and caravan to the Clean Energy Jobs Rally
Meet up at Schenley Plaza, across from the Cathedral

4:30 Climate Justice convergence – Getting Beyond Green Jobs, alt organizing for Clean Energy Jobs Rally
Meet up at Steel Plaza on Grant and Sixth

Thursday Sept. 24 – Our Climate is Not Your Business
9am-2pm Workshops at Convergence site

2pm Youth Press Conference – Global Youth Voices for Climate Change Solutions, featuring the founder of the Indian Youth Climate Network, Executive Director of Energy Action Coalition (U.S. and Canada), Avaaz.org, Sierra Student Coalition and Pittsburgh Sustainability Alliance
At the media hub in the August Wilson Center for African American Culture
980 Liberty Avenue

2:30pm “Our Climate is Not Your Business” Climate Justice Contingent of G20 Resistance Project march
Meet up 40th and Penn

Friday Sept. 25 – United Voices for Global Solutions
11am Climate Justice feeder contingent to the People’s March (lots of great visuals, art displays and a drumming group)
Meet up at CMU lawn at Forbes and Melwood


3 RIVERS CLIMATE CONVERGENCE SPOKESPEOPLE

Raina Rippel - 724-229-3550 - Longwall mining, impacts on SW PA Communities

Raina Rippel has over nine years of experience researching and working on energy and environmental public health issues. She was previously the Executive Director of Physicians for Social Responsibility, Maine, and helped build coalitions around climate change and other progressive issues. During her studies at the University of Pittsburgh, she spent six months in Newcastle, Australia, where she witnessed daily lines of 35 or more coal ships on the horizon, living next door to one of the busiest coal ports in the world. As an avid supporter of climate change prevention and mitigation, she eagerly witnessed Australia's sign-on to the Kyoto protocol, and believes firmly that the local is the global, particularly when it comes to the devastating effects of coal as our number one energy source in America.
Dea Goblirsch – 914-960-2197 – Mountaintop removal, impacts on Appalachia, importance of non-violent direct action
Dea Goblirsch is an activist and writer based out of Rock Creek, West Va whose work with Climate Ground Zero has included doing off-site action media and co-writing the content for the website. She has written for Our Truths/Nuestras Verdades, Bitch Magazine, and most recently covered mountaintop removal coal mining for the Earth First! Journal. She studied at Oberlin College for two years, pursuing a major in environmental studies and spending a summer taking Spanish courses in Chile, before deciding to take a year off to seek her education in the real world. She is currently an organizer with the Three Rivers Climate Convergence and will be returning to West Virginia in October to work with Climate Ground Zero and Coal River Mountain Watch.

For the following, please contact Hallie Boas, on her mobiles 203 247 3756 or 415 336 6590

Anna Pinto - Climate Change, Gender Justice, Indigenous Rights
Anna Pinto is the Secretary and Programme Director of CORE (Centre for Organisation, Research and Education), an indigenous peoples' policy research and advocacy organization based in the North East of India. Anna has been an active member of the Indian Women's Movement for over two decades. She will speak about the intersection between climate change, gender issues and indigenous rights. Anna will tour the Northeast U.S. in September to help mobilize participation in actions and events that will take place in Pittsburgh during meetings of the G-20. While the leaders of the twenty richest countries meet about the financial crisis and the climate crisis, activists representing diverse movements will convene in Pittsburgh to expose the common root causes of the financial crisis and the climate crisis and link them to war as well as the other crises we face: including food, water and biodiversity.

Jihan Gearon - Impact on poor communities, connections to global finance to environmental Injustice
Jihan Gearon, is Diné (Navajo) and African American. She is Tódích'ií'nii (Bitter Water) clan, and her maternal grandfather is Tl'ashchí'í (Red Bottom People) clan. Jihan's family is from the community of Old Sawmill and she grew up on the eastern part of the Navajo reservation in Arizona. Jihan is the Native Energy Organizer at the Indigenous Environmental Network, a member of the Steering Committee of the Environmental Justice and Climate Change Initiative and on the Coordinating Committee of the Grassroots Global Justice Alliance. Jihan will be speaking about the impacts of climate change and fossil fuels on poor communities and communities of color in the United States; and about the intersection between the financial crisis and the climate crisis and connections with the struggle for environmental justice in the U.S. She will be speaking in the industrial Midwest on a tour beginning in Pittsburgh during the G-20 talks at the end of September and ending in Detroit one week later.

Anne Petermann
Anne Petermann is the Executive Director of Global Justice Ecology Project, and the Coordinator of the STOP GE Trees Campaign. She is also the North American Focal Point for the Global Forest Coalition. She has been involved in the international and national climate justice movements since 2004, when she co-founded the Durban Group for Climate Justice. In 2007 she co-founded Climate Justice Now! at the Bali UN Climate Conference. And in 2008 co-founded the North American Mobilization for Climate Justice. Anne speaks around the world against socially and environmentally destructive "false solutions" to climate change, specifically focusing on the destructive social, ecological and climatological impacts of genetically engineered trees, and second generation biofuels made from wood. She has presented around the world on the subjects of climate justice, GE trees and second generation agrofuels at capacity-building trainings for indigenous peoples, and at conferences including the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, the UN Convention on Biological Diversity, the UN Forum on Forests and the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues. She is the author of a report on genetically engineered trees, published in 2001, and is also a co-author of a major report on the impacts of agrofuels on forests and forest dependent peoples, published in 2008.

Lidy Nacpil
Lidy is currently Regional Coordinator of Jubilee South Asia/Pacific Movement on Debt and Development (JS APMMD). She served as International Coordinator of Jubilee South for 9 years, from 1999 until recently. She is also Vice President of the Freedom from Debt Coalition of the Philippines, Member of the Board of Director of the Development Group for Alternative Policies, and with the South Council for 50 Years is Enough. She started her activism in 1980 campaigning against the Marcos dictatorship, and contributing to the development of the women's movement. Her husband was killed by the military in 1987, leaving Lidy alone with her young daughter; In 1993, she began her anti-debt and economic justice work and is now considered one of the leading resource persons on the subject.
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--
Kim Teplitzky
Coal Campaign Coordinator
Sierra Student Coalition
412.802.0811 - office
267.307.4707 - cell
Skype: kim.teplitzky
Twitter: kim_t

As the Int’l Coal Conference and the G-20 descend on Pittsburgh,
people from around the globe will converge to show
that another, sustainable world is possible. We will resist the
corporate lobbyists and political leaders who profit from the
pollution of our land and demand solutions that empower and
strengthen our communities.
We are United For Environmental Justice

Featured events include:
climate action camp•
sustainable living fair
renewable energy demos
workshops•food•music
films•direct action

Workshops, Trainings, Art, Movies and More Monday, Tuesday
and Wednesday check out www.3riversconvergence.org
for the full schedule

Sunday:
•Coal Country Film Screening on Mountain Top Removal in Appalachia 2pm
120 David Lawrence Hall (3942 Forbes Ave), University of Pittsburgh
(www.coalcountrythemovie.com)
Monday: Welcome to Coal Country- End Long wall Mining in
Western PA.
•Citizens Coal Council Bus tour of Coal Mining effects on Greenfield County
Departing from XXX at 11am
•Wakeup Call Flash Mob @penn/7th corner food court (set your cell phone
alarm) 12:18pm http://tinyurl.com/pgh1218
•Flash Dash Against Coal For meet up 12:30 at North Side of PNC Park
•Put The Alliance For Climate Protection On The Hot Seat- ACP/USW
Climate Roundtable at Steelworkers headquarters 4pm 5 Gateway Center-
Show up with climate justice questions.
•Coal Country Film Screening on Mountain Top Removal in Appalachia 7pm
Melwood Screening Room 477 Melwood Ave
(www.coalcountrythemovie.com)
•The Age of Stupid (film) World Premier- 7:30pm Pittsburgh West Showcase
Cinemas 301 Park Manor Dr

Tuesday:

This is Climate Ground Zero: Day of Protest
against the coal industry in Pittsburgh
•8am meetup at the park at Grant and 1st street in Downtown.
•Noon meetup at Steel Plaza, Grant and 6th Street

Wednesday:

•Alliance for Climate Protection and United Steel Workers Rally For Clean
Energy Jobs with Joan Jett, Kathy Mattea- Doors at 6pm Point State Park
•Youth Convergence/Meetup and Critical Mass/Caravan to PSP- 4:30pm
Schenley Park Plaza
•Climate Justice Meetup for concert- Getting Beyond Green Jobs- 4:30pm
Steel Plaza, Grant and 6th Street.

Thursday:•

Our Climate is not Your Business! Climate Justice Contingent of the G20
Resistance Project march 2:30pm 40th St and Penn Ave. (Unpermitted)

Friday:•

Climate Justice Feeder March for the Peoples’ March to the G-20 leaving
from Carnegie Mellon University Lawn 11am
For a full schedule of all G20 events and updates check out:
www.g20media.org

THE PEOPLE'S SUMMIT
http://www.peoplessummit.com/page/full-schedule

The primary sponsors of the Peoples’ Summit are a partnership of educators and advocacy groups concerned with peace and social justice. They include:

Global Solutions Pittsburgh
State Senator Jim Ferlo (PA 38th District)
Three Rivers Community Foundation
The Thomas Merton Center
United Steel Workers
National Organization of Legal Services Workers (UAW Local 2310)
Project to End Human Trafficking



REMP Upcoming Events:
September 25, 2009: B-PEP Moment: 25 Years Anniversary Awards Dinner Rev. J.A. Williams Evening of Recognition at the Churchill Country Club, 800 Beulah Road, Pittsburgh, PA 15235

Join us as we honor Tim Stevens with our highest recognition award for 20 years of continuous service to the church and community and Celeste Taylor for her commitment as a civil rights activist and Dr. Marilyn Barnett for her contributions in the field of education. Come out and enjoy the excitement Tickets: $40.00
Call 412-330-4622 with any questions.

Don't forget to get your tickets to join us in Point State Park for our Rally for Clean Energy Jobs
Doors open at 6pm. Join The Sierra Club, Blue/Green Alliance and other organizations and unions for this event. There will be fun as Joan Jett and the Blackhearts will perform! Get your green on, and come let the world's leaders know what you want. After all, they do work for us...at least they are supposed to;)

Everyone be cool out there, and respect each other. We all have a job to do; let's honor each other with the spirit of understanding, even if we are on polor opposite ends of the spectrum when it comes to opinions and policies. Remember, there really is no US and THEM; there is only WE.

Stay strong and safe.
Peace,
Falcon and Dove