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Principles of Environmental Justice

C ongratulations Marisol Becerra, LVEJO Chairperson, for being one of the Youth Leaders to meet with Key Obama Advisors as they prepare to head to Copenhagen.

In this months issue of Family: LVEJO Member Rafael Hurtado

LVEJO to receive the 2009 ADPSR Lewis Mumford Award.
About LVEJO Staff / Contacts
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LVEJO Photo Gallery 1    Photo Gallery 2    Photo Gallery 3

Thank you to the LVEJO staff and board for making our Holiday Party a huge success. 

Not only did we start on time, we had a program for our events and had a great DJ.
The raffle, piñata, and dancing were amazing highlights!  All the staff did a amazing job
and the board who helped from close and afar were great as well. 

Congratulations for making this such a successful event!

Download: The Program | Patrocinadores del 2009 2009 Sponsors | Lideres Comunitarios / Community Leaders

In this months issue of Family - LVEJO's Rafel Hurtado

In this months issue of Family

Circle, LVEJO Member Rafael Hurtado was
featured in the  "Joy to the World" article featuring
three teens who are doing great things for the 
planet and inspiring others to follow.

Congratulations to Rafael and to LVEJO's
campaigns for this great article.

For full story Click Here

On behalf of LVEJO,

We would like to congratulate Marisol Becerra,
LVEJO Chairperson, for being one of the Youth
Leaders to meet with Key Obama Advisors as
they prepare to head to Copenhagen.



 This is a big day for the youth climate movement!

Marisol will be blogging at:

http://www.justclouds.org

The Story on Cap and Trade

LVEJO's Coordinator was featured on Earthbeat Radio to talk about the N30
actions in Chicago, the problems with cap and trade and direct action. We
invite you to watch this great movie on the Story of Cap and Trade as well.

http://www.earthbeatradio.org/home/the-story-of-cap-and-trade-seattlizing-copenhagen

Principles of Environmental Justice

Delegates to the First National People of Color Environmental Leadership Summit held on October 24-27, 1991, in Washington DC, drafted and adopted 17 principles of Environmental Justice. Since then, The Principles have served as a defining document for the growing grassroots movement for environmental justice.

PREAMBLE

WE, THE PEOPLE OF COLOR, gathered together at this multinational People of Color Environmental Leadership Summit, to begin to build a national and international movement of all peoples of color to fight the destruction and taking of our lands and communities, do hereby re-establish our spiritual interdependence to the sacredness of our Mother Earth; to respect and celebrate each of our cultures, languages and beliefs about the natural world and our roles in healing ourselves; to insure environmental justice; to promote economic alternatives which would contribute to the development of environmentally safe livelihoods; and, to secure our political, economic and cultural liberation that has been denied for over 500 years of colonization and oppression, resulting in the poisoning of our communities and land and the genocide of our peoples, do affirm and adopt these Principles of Environmental Justice:

1) Environmental Justice affirms the sacredness of Mother Earth, ecological unity and the interdependence of all species, and the right to be free from ecological destruction.

2) Environmental Justice demands that public policy be based on mutual respect and justice for all peoples, free from any form of discrimination or bias.

3) Environmental Justice mandates the right to ethical, balanced and responsible uses of land and renewable resources in the interest of a sustainable planet for humans and other living things.

4) Environmental Justice calls for universal protection from nuclear testing, extraction, production and disposal of toxic/hazardous wastes and poisons and nuclear testing that threaten the fundamental right to clean air, land, water, and food.

5) Environmental Justice affirms the fundamental right to political, economic, cultural and environmental self-determination of all peoples.

6) Environmental Justice demands the cessation of the production of all toxins, hazardous wastes, and radioactive materials, and that all past and current producers be held strictly accountable to the people for detoxification and the containment at the point of production.

7) Environmental Justice demands the right to participate as equal partners at every level of decision-making, including needs assessment, planning, implementation, enforcement and evaluation.

8) Environmental Justice affirms the right of all workers to a safe and healthy work environment without being forced to choose between an unsafe livelihood and unemployment. It also affirms the right of those who work at home to be free from environmental hazards.

9) Environmental Justice protects the right of victims of environmental injustice to receive full compensation and reparations for damages as well as quality health care.

10) Environmental Justice considers governmental acts of environmental injustice a violation of international law, the Universal Declaration On Human Rights, and the United Nations Convention on Genocide.

11) Environmental Justice must recognize a special legal and natural relationship of Native Peoples to the U.S. government through treaties, agreements, compacts, and covenants affirming sovereignty and self-determination.

12) Environmental Justice affirms the need for urban and rural ecological policies to clean up and rebuild our cities and rural areas in balance with nature, honoring the cultural integrity of all our communities, and provided fair access for all to the full range of resources.

13) Environmental Justice calls for the strict enforcement of principles of informed consent, and a halt to the testing of experimental reproductive and medical procedures and vaccinations on people of color.

14) Environmental Justice opposes the destructive operations of multi-national corporations.

15) Environmental Justice opposes military occupation, repression and exploitation of lands, peoples and cultures, and other life forms.

16) Environmental Justice calls for the education of present and future generations which emphasizes social and environmental issues, based on our experience and an appreciation of our diverse cultural perspectives.

17) Environmental Justice requires that we, as individuals, make personal and consumer choices to consume as little of Mother Earth's resources and to produce as little waste as possible; and make the conscious decision to challenge and reprioritize our lifestyles to insure the health of the natural world for present and future generations.
_____

The Proceedings to the First National People of Color Environmental Leadership Summit are available from the United Church of Christ Commission for Racial Justice, 475 Riverside Dr. Suite 1950, New York, NY 10115.

LVEJO is proud to announce they have been selected to receive the 2009 ADPSR Lewis Mumford Award for Environment.
It is an honor for LVEJO to recive this prestigious award and we graciously thank the ADPSR for this honor.

Subject: Congratulations! 2009 ADPSR Lewis Mumford Award Winner

Dear Kimberly Wasserman,

It is my pleasure to inform you that the Little Village Environmental Justice Organization has been selected to be this year's recipient of the ADPSR Lewis Mumford Award for Environment.

The Lewis Mumford Awards are a program of the National Non-Profit organization, Architects/Designers/Planners for Social Responsibility (ADPSR). To read more about our organization and the awards, please check out our website:
http://www.adpsr.org/national/about-lewis-mumford-awards

This year the event will be held on the evening of Saturday June 13th. We are in the process of finalizing details for the event and will pass it along as soon as we do. Some basic logistics are listed below. The event is free to attend and we have enough room to hold 150 people. Please feel free to invite your staff, supporters, and community members. (An estimated head count a couple of weeks before the event will be a big help! I'll be in touch for that again later.)

Where: Archeworks Design School: 625 North Kingsbury St. (at Ontario), Chicago, IL 60654-6997
When: Saturday June 13, 2009. Evening. (times have not been set yet)
Who: You and your community, design activists, community leaders, local movers and shakers, and other like-minded fantastic folks.
Why: Because you have been doing incredible work in, around, and with your communities and everyone needs to know about it! It's time to celebrate all of your hard work!

Again, congratulations and thank you for all of your amazing work. I look forward to honoring you at the Mumford Awards in June!

Kind Regards,
Dan Hatch
www.groundeddesignstudio.com
www.adpsr.org
773.896.5919

LVEJO is proud to be a partner in the EJ Leadership Forum

Environmental Justice Leadership Forum on Climate Change

Download PDF(s): EJ Leadership Forum Principles | PRINCIPLES OF CLIMATE JUSTICE | Signatories

As communities-of-color, Indigenous Peoples, and low-income communities, the Environmental Justice Leadership Forum on Climate Change calls on federal lawmakers and the new president to enact a suite of policies to address Climate Change as an immediate priority. These policies must be just, fair, sustainable and equitable. It is clear that in Congress a cap and trade mechanism has emerged as the leading approach to addressing the Climate Change Crisis. Our nation must do better than creating a stock market that commodifies pollution and continues to trade our health and environment for profit.

Climate change is the most significant social and political challenge of the 21st Century, and the time to act is now. In our post hurricanes Katrina and Rita era, we continue to bear witness to an increase in the number of severe weather events impacting communities in the United States. Whether it is the mighty Mississippi River rising along the shores of the Midwest, or the melting permafrost creating displacement in the Arctic, out-of-season record-breaking tornadoes in Mississippi and Kentucky, the burning hills in Sacramento and San Diego or the droughts experienced in Georgia, Tennessee and Alabama, all of these events can be linked in some way to climate change.

Vulnerable communities, even in the most prosperous nations, will be the first and worst hit, as has been confirmed by the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. In the U.S. context this includes communities-of-color, Indigenous Peoples, and low-income communities that are socio-economically disadvantaged, disproportionately burdened by poor environmental quality and are least able to adapt.

The scientific debate on climate change has shifted from uncertainty about the drivers of this phenomenon to clear confidence that human activity, specifically the fossil-fuel carbon intensive way we power our modern economy, is a central culprit or accelerant in the changes in the climate or what we call global warming. Scientists and policymakers concur that climate change and global warming will result in far-ranging effects on human health, and indeed sociopolitical and economic stability. Evidence of these impacts are documented by the World Health Organization that reports tens of thousands have been displaced in developed countries by the recent severe weather events.

The history of this country is one of struggles to achieve equity, justice and opportunity. Each generation has faced this political challenge. In this moment we are confronted with the real possibility of climate change stealing the American ideal of opportunity from not just the low-income American, not just Indigenous Peoples, not just the person-of-color in America, but all Americans. The Environmental Justice Forum on Climate Change calls on Congress to develop policies to combat climate change that:

Download PDF(s): EJ Leadership Forum Principles | PRINCIPLES OF CLIMATE JUSTICE | Signatories

For more information, contact 212-961-1000, extension 317

Environmental Justice Leadership Forum on Climate Change

PRINCIPLES OF CLIMATE JUSTICE

1. Establish a zero carbon economy and achieve this by limiting and reducing greenhouse gas emissions in accordance with the levels advocated by the scientific community (25% by 2020 and 80% by 2050) through mechanisms that are controlled by the public sector, generate revenue, are transparent, easily understandable by all, can be set-up quickly and have a track record of improving environmental quality;

2. Protect all of America’s people - regardless of race, gender, nationality, or socioeconomic status - and their communities equally from the environmental, health and social impacts of climate change. Ensure that any solutions implemented to respond to or mitigate climate change do not violate human or environmental rights;

3. Ensure that carbon reduction strategies do not negatively impact public health and do not further exacerbate existing health disparities among communities. This includes crafting strategies that prevent the creation of pollution hotspots, eliminate existing emissions hotspots in vulnerable communities, and reduce the emissions of greenhouse gas co-pollutants in and near communities-of-color, Indigenous, and low-income communities;

4. Require those most responsible for creating the impacts that arise from climate change to bear the proportionate cost of responding to the resulting economic, social and environmental crisis. In setting the proportionate cost of climate impacting activity, the full environmental, health, social and economic cost of energy use from extraction to disposal must be included to accurately reflect the cost that energy use has on our environment, our health and our communities;

5. Develop a national goal supported by legislatively dedicated resources to transition us from the fossil fuel economy to the green, clean renewable energy economy by 2020;

6. Position the public sector to be a catalyst for change in the transition to the green, clean renewable energy economy by dedicating some of the revenues generated by carbon reduction strategies to support green clean renewable energy initiatives;

7. Create the opportunity for all Americans, especially people-of-color, Indigenous Peoples and low-income Americans, to experience a just transition as well as participate in the creation and operation of a new green economy by creating a workforce development program to grow living-wage, clean, safe, green jobs in the energy sector and beyond;

8. Provide an economic and social safety net for low-income, people-of-color, Indigenous Peoples and those vulnerable in the middle-income from the structural adjustments in the economy as we transition from the pollution generating fossil fuel economy to the green, clean and renewable economy;

9. Ensure that the green economy has enough jobs for those who need to be retrained and those who historically have been chronically underemployed, unemployed and/or excluded from unions; and

10. Ensure that people-of-color, Indigenous Peoples and low-income communities, who are and continue to be disproportionately impacted by climate change, have the inalienable right to have our voices shape what is the most significant policy debate of the 21^{st Century.}

The Environmental Justice Leadership Forum on Climate Change believes that climate change policies that incorporate these principles are the way forward for the United States of America to restore our credibility nationally and globally on the issue of climate change while preserving the livelihood, health and safety of all Americans.

Download PDF(s): EJ Leadership Forum Principles | PRINCIPLES OF CLIMATE JUSTICE | Signatories

Come visit our Little Village Youth at El Cilantro

Check out the Chicago Clean Power Organization and Chicago Public Transit Organization

For general information please email us here.

Other important topics
Clean Air/Lulac Study / Youth & The Military

Environmental Research Foundation / Rachel's News Archive now housed with LVEJO (En Español)

"Tips on Base Building" from LVEJO Board Member Carlos Fernandez