no more business as usual…
Green Guerrillas checking in for the first time in 2010 to share what we have been up to lately… promoting renewable futures, learning about the trash trade and trash trains, continuing to raise awareness and encouraging activism challenging natural gas drilling in NYS in the Marcellus Shale, and offering all our positive energy to our family and friends in Haiti.
As we continue with pre-production for our fourth film — Green Guerrillas Blockumentary v.3 HD in 3G: Ganonyonk | Gye Nyame | Generation — we are looking inward during this clearing time of year to better understand what it means to be green.
We have been having several discussions since the start of 2010 about HOW to move forward in the “seemingly” climate crisis… and that was before devastation struck Haiti. This past Friday we hosted ITVS Community Cinema and screened Garbage Dreams: Raised in the Trash Trade.
Garbage Dreams: Raised in the Trash Trade
To us, Garbage Dreams is a powerful film connecting the dots between pollution, prisons, sustainability, and social change. Using analogies from the film, we were able to help those in attendance better understand that toxicity on the outside has been birthed from a seed of mental toxicity on the inside… meaning that the pollution of prejudice, inequality, oppression, and discrimination is directly proportional to the increased use of policing, incarceration, exploitation, and resource extraction nationwide and abroad.
So it is not surprising to us that in neighboring Seneca County — where the last maximum security prison in New York State was constructed over a toxic waste site in 2000 — local activists from this low-income rural community are fighting big corpa-sponsored (and government-favored) trash trains filled with over 9,000 tons of waste from all over the Northeast on a daily basis. Neither prisons nor pollution targeted at poor people are going to turn around sinking upstate economies… but to understand that means to value ALL life equally and to take responsibility for our choices and their impacts on both people and the planet.
During Community Cinema we talked about the need for personal accountability in terms of sustainability, accountability to the community, and the need to resolve the contradictions and inconsistencies that has us using GMO-corn plastic cups to achieve a “zero-waste” event… where the energy used to power our projector and the lights inside our screening room comes from coal or natural gas.
Yikes!
When we talked about creating “plastic-free zones” and supporting the implementation of greater awareness and appreciation for reduce, reuse, recycle, and rebuy on a municipal level… we also mentioned the need to take a hard look at our personal footprints and that of our families. We cannot just be against hydraulic fracturing or toxic trash trades… we have to also be FOR something that is life-affirming and offers an example for others to follow who care to do the same.
So we will continue to share in the coming months our process of working through the contradictions and inconsistencies… meaning that we know we have to work harder to make a RENEWABLE future available to all of us by transforming the culture within ourselves and our immediate communities to birth healthier seeds. We understand that to end toxicity on the outside, we have to first challenge and overcome the toxicity on the inside that lends credibility to life-threatening realities in the first place.
In the meantime… check out an upcoming screening of Garbage Dreams… and for those concerned about the environmental impacts hydraulic fracturing would have statewide, join activists from all over New York in Albany on January 25th:
Protect Environment from Nat Gas Drilling
This is your chance to join concerned citizens from across New York to rally at the Capitol. Once you’re in the Capitol, you can share your concerns about natural gas drilling with legislators and urge them to protect New York’s air, land and water.
WHO… Environmental Advocates of New York, Citizens Campaign for the Environment, Sierra Club-Atlantic Chapter, Catskill Mountainkeeper, and Many Others
WHAT… Rally to Protect New York State from Natural Gas Drilling.
WHEN… Monday, January 25, 2010
Rally 10:30 am to NOON
Lobby Visits with Lawmakers begin at 1:30 pm
WHERE… Meet us on the west side of the New York State Capitol building in West Capitol Park
WHY… In other parts of the country, natural gas drilling has polluted wells, lakes and streams and poisoned landscapes. We can’t let that happen in New York.
guerrilla griots ACTION! 