Youth Climate Strikes Leader To Join Call For Conversion Of BIW To Address Climate Emergency

Dud Hendrick, major organizer for the BIW shipyard Conversion Campaign in Maine, was invited to present at a PechaKucha Summer 2019 event, EARTH, last week in Portland. He gave a great talk about his work with Veterans for Peace in solidarity with the many indigenous groups displaced or harmed by U.S. military dominion over the planet.



If you are unable to view the embedded video, use this link to see it on YouTube.

The speaker just after Hendrick was 12 year old Anna Siegel, Maine's leader of the Youth Climate Strikes. Her presentation on the climate emergency and what she and other Maine kids are doing about it, was powerful, too.


If you are unable to view the embedded video, use this link to see it on YouTube.

Siegel received a standing ovation for her message of urgency and all hands on deck to halt a climate catastrophe already well underway.

After watching her powerful message I stumbled across this news in Common Dreams: 'Class of 0000' Campaign Denounces 'Cowardly' Censorship of Student Call for Climate Action. Apparently valedictorians all over the U.S. had their graduation speeches cut by school administrators too timid to tolerate notice that there is, indeed, an accelerating climate emergency that may well threaten human life on the planet by 2050. 

Both Siegel and Hendrick will be on hand at our June 21 Conversion Campaign news conference in Portland. This event will officially launch the campaign, and we will be inviting people to consider joining us the following day to protest the celebration of yet another carbon belching war ship. That event takes place at 8am in nearby Bath and more details are available here (and the spybook event can be found here).

Here's the press release that went out this morning for the news conference. (Each sponsoring organization's name is a link to more information about their work on behalf of climate, peace, and justice on the planet.)

MEDIA ADVISORY: U.S. YOUTH CLIMATE STRIKES LEADER

ANNA SIEGEL, 12, WILL SPEAK JUNE 21 TO CALL FOR CONVERSION

OF BATH IRON WORKS TOWARD HALTING CLIMATE CHANGE

Climate activists will gather to call on Bath Iron Works to shift its industrial power to addressing climate change at a news conference for the Conversion Campaign on June 21. The conference will take place at 11:00 am in the Portland Public Library, Room 3.

Environmental, faith, labor, education and social justice leaders will be on hand to share their views on conversion, including Anna Siegel, age 12, state leader for the U.S. branch of the international Youth Climate Strikes movement. Presenting at PechaKucha in Portland on June 6, Siegel said:

“I envision a future when this planet has a future…We will get there, if we listen to the children. We must, or all will be lost.”

Nickie Sekera of Community Water Justice and Barry Dana, past Chief of the Penobscot Nation will also be on hand.

“A business model that banks on the destruction of our environment needs to be reevaluated and changed, as there is no larger national security issue than the protection of our air and water sources,” said Sekera.  “There is nothing to protect if not for all life in a more equitable way.”

Dana commented, “War will soon be seen by all as a waste of time. We will soon be too consumed with basic survival due to our climate no longer providing life.”

He went on to say, “Our actions of CO2 emissions, of which the military is the largest emitter, along with the millions of people flying, buying goods transported thousands of miles all in the interest of profit margins, comfortable life styles and feeding the rich, will no longer be possible.”

“Survival will consume our every thought and action. Is this the world we want to leave to our grandchildren?"

A 2017 National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration report has projected at least a six inch sea level rise by 2050.

“Conversion should influence every decision our Congressional delegates make in the conduct of their work as our representatives,” said Dud Hendrick of Veterans for Peace. Hendrick presented the work of the Conversion Campaign at PechaKucha's June 6 show in Portland called, "Earth."

“Our planet hangs in the balance. Conversion at Bath can create more jobs while benefiting our planet.” Hendrick also called on the audience to join him in protesting the celebration of another war ship on June 22. He and 24 others were arrested April 27 for obstructing a public way at the BIW shipyard when a war ship celebration was going on; District Attorney Natasha Irving declined to prosecute their case.

Others who will speak on June 21 in support of the BIW Conversion Campaign: Dr. Jill Stein, Green Party US candidate for president in 2016;  Robert Shetterly, Americans Who Tell the Truth; Jason Rawn, Maine Natural Guard; Justin Beth, Chair of Portland Greens; Sue Pastore, 350 Maine; Bruce Gagnon, Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space; Ken Jones, retired professor of Teacher Education, USM; and Bill Slavick, Pax Christi.

Organizations sponsoring the Conversion Campaign: 350 Maine, Americans Who Tell the Truth, Citizens Opposing Active Sonar Threats (COAST), Durham Quaker Meeting, Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space, Island Peace & Justice, Maine Green Independent Party, Maine Natural Guard, Maine Veterans for Peace, Maine War Tax Resistance Resource Center, Midcoast Peace & Justice Group, Pax Christi Maine, Peace Action Maine, Peace & Justice Center of Eastern Maine, Peace & Justice Group of Waldo County, PeaceWorks of Greater Brunswick, and Peninsula Peace & Justice.

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