Climate Justice Friday: February 7, 2020

In honor of the weekly youth climate strikes and the urgency of the climate crisis, Illinois Initiative is taking action in support of climate justice every Friday. We call this campaign Climate Justice Fridays. We invite you to join us in taking action for climate justice.

This week’s climate justice actions include:

• Say No To DAPL Double: Environmental and climate justice advocates in Illinois are asking people to call Gov. Pritzker to tell him that they oppose the doubling of the Dakota Access Pipeline in Illinois. Energy Transfer Partners is trying to double the capacity of the Dakota Access Pipeline in our state from 550,000 barrels a day to 1.1 million. Dr. James Hansen has estimated that this is the equivalent of 50 new coal plants. Energy Transfer Partners plans to do this by petitioning the Illinois Commerce Commission to expand one pumping station and build two more to double oil transport capacity. There are new hearings related to this soon, which is why organizers are asking people to call prior to the hearings. See the Facebook event for more information.
• See Rev. Yearwood Speak: Rev. Lennox Yearwood Jr., president and CEO of the non-profit, non-partisan Hip Hop Caucus, will be the keynote speaker for Black History Month. He will address the “Importance of Voting” at 5 p.m. on Feb. 11 in the SIU School of Law Lesar Law Building Auditorium. He is also a host of a Hip Hop Caucus podcast called Think 100%: The Coolest Show on Climate Change. Obviously, the podcast focuses heavily on climate justice. There’s no word yet on how much of his talk will address climate justice since it’s a general talk about the importance of voting. Either way, he and his talk will surely be quite relevant to climate justice.
• Write Letters. Write a letter to one or more of your elected officials in support of climate justice. Visit www.usa.gov/elected-officials to find contact information for your elected officials. ResistBot is also a quick and easy way to send letters to your elected officials simply by sending a message to ResistBot via Messenger/Twitter. We don’t have a sample letter yet this week, but we will in future weeks. Check our Facebook page and group for sample letters.
• Do Local Outreach. Do you know any local individuals or groups who might have suggestions for future Climate Justice Friday actions? Contact them and let us know what they say. We want to do as much as we can to support other people’s programs and needs related to climate justice.

If you take any of these climate justice actions, let us know! Telling other people that you’ve taken action for climate justice is itself an important form of action too. It breaks the “climate silence,” which is one of the biggest barriers to taking any sort of action on climate.

Thank you for your interest and support. We look forward to taking action for climate justice with you again next Friday!