2024 Year-end Newsletter: Living in Nature
We hope you enjoy the articles, factoids, features, and spotlights of the…
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Newsletters, Resources
News From the Community Rights Movement
Nov 19, 2021
Newsletter: Oregon Update
Justice continues to be denied in Oregon. Community rights efforts in Lane and Lincoln counties have, quite wrongly, found themselves mired in the Oregon court system on issues that should’ve been considered and resolved by the people of their respective counties.
Read More | Blogs
Nov 16, 2021
Community Rights Lane County Issues Values Statement
Community Rights Lane County educates and mobilizes citizens about their rights to local community self-governance. They believe decisions affecting communities must be made by community residents – the people directly impacted by these decisions and laws that authorize harmful corporate activities.
Read More | BlogsNov 11, 2021
BOOK: One-Block Revolution
CELDF’s Kai Huschke was centrally involved in the first-in-the-nation Community Bill of Rights and Worker Bill of Rights. His chapter for the new book One-Block Revolution, details the community building behind the efforts.
Read More | PublicationsNov 5, 2021
Q&A with SUNDANCE, Executive Director of Cleveland A.I.M.
How do we unite to create a more just and sustainable vision for the future. What are the possible next steps?
Read More | Events, UncategorizedNov 3, 2021
COMMUNITY RIGHTS AT THE OREGON SUPREME COURT
Community Rights at the Oregon Supreme Court: Understanding the Impacts of Denying Direct Democracy
Read More | Chemical Trespass, Community Rights, EventsNov 2, 2021
Shifting the Lens: Energy & Environment Series
Would recognizing Rights of Nature affect you, the community and possibly the planet? Instead of looking at nature as mere property and as resources, what if we shifted the lens and the law to recognizing nature as living and therefore entitled to rights to life, to flourish and thrive?
Read More | Events, Rights of NatureNov 1, 2021
Legal Self Defense
Legal Self Defense understands that the U.S. Constitution guarantees neither fairness nor safety, but that de-escalation skills coupled with some targeted legal knowledge can improve your security during interactions with law enforcement.
Read More | Defunding Violence, Publications
Oct 11, 2021
Transnational Institute of Social Ecology 2021 Conference
Bookchin recognized that social ecology will advance the cause of social and environmental justice by activating communities on many fronts. Uniting parallel efforts can actualize social ecology’s goals.
Read More | Events, News from the GrassrootsOct 9, 2021
BOOK FOREWORD: Empowering Municipal Sustainability
They say that knowledge is power, but it’s not true. Knowledge fuels our actions and our actions are power.
Read More | Community Rights, Democratic Rights, Rights of NatureOct 8, 2021
Book: The Politics of Rights of Nature
How Rights of Nature laws are transforming governance to address environmental crises through more ecologically sustainable approaches to development.
Read More | News, Publications, Rights of NatureOct 7, 2021
Columbus Free Press: Beware the Brine
Members of OHCRN have called on Ohio’s Attorney General, Dave Yost, to open an investigation into the violation of Ohio law and the criminal actions of state officials and industry who were and are well aware that this brine is highly radioactive, yet still approve and allow it to be spread in Ohio communities.
Read More | Chemical Trespass, News from the Grassroots
Sep 23, 2021
Corporation Asks Nottingham, N.H. For Legal Fees After Suing Over Climate Ordinance
The Freedom From Chemical Trespass Rights-Based Ordinance asserted residents’ rights to a healthy climate and banned corporate activities that would interfere with those rights, punishable by a fine of up to $1,000 per day.
Read More | Community Rights, Extraction & Pollution, Issues, News from the Grassroots, Water PrivitizationSep 17, 2021
Newsletter: Ohio Update
Ohio communities over the past decade have worked hard to protect ecosystems and their communities from various harmful projects. They did the work of asserting democratic rights to alter and reform their government. They collected signatures, argued in court, battled in lopsided campaigns and even won a few only to have the courts overturn their… Read more »
Read More | Blogs, Chemical Trespass, Community Wires, NewsSep 15, 2021
Invisible Hand Film Showing and Conversation
Join us on September 29, at 6:30 pm CET, for a virtual screening of the award-winning film Invisible Hand, a documentary exploring the global Rights of Nature movement, followed by a conversation with key actors and organizers of the movement from both America and Europe. 48 hours before the event, you will receive a link and… Read more »
Read More | EventsSep 15, 2021
Newsletter: New England Update
Residents are blowing the whistle on large-scale industrial solar arrays that require the cutting of old-growth forests in favor of destructive greenwashing.
Read More | Blogs, Community Wires, NewsSep 14, 2021
Newsletter: Pacific Northwest Updates
Invisible Hand, the rebirth of the WACRN, and updates from the West Coast.
Read More | Blogs, Community Wires, News, News from the GrassrootsSep 13, 2021
Newsletter: Building a Movement in Pennsylvania
Community Rights organizing began in Pennsylvania over two decades ago. Since then, dozens of local laws have been adopted that ban everything from factory farms, to the spreading of sewage sludge, to oil and gas fracking and pipelines.
Read More | Blogs, Community Wires, News, News from the GrassrootsSep 13, 2021
Corporation Demands $40,281.50 From Town For Passing Climate Ordinance
As climate change brings suffering across the globe, in New Hampshire Judge Martin Honigberg has sided with a local corporate actor who seeks financial retribution against the Town of Nottingham for the popular adoption of an ordinance recognizing a right of townspeople to a “climate system capable of sustaining human societies.” On September 1, 2021 the sole corporate actor, Brent Tweed, of G&F Goods, LLC submitted a $40,281.50 bill to the court for attorney fees.
Read More | Community Rights, News, News from the Grassroots, Press ReleasesSep 10, 2021
Newsletter: Asheville Climate Bill of Rights Begins Signature Gathering
A new ordinance seeks to place a Climate Bill of Rights on the 2022 ballot, which explicitly challenges North Carolina’s infamous state preemption scheme and privileges afforded private corporations.
Read More | Blogs, Community Wires, Corporate 'Rights', Extraction & Pollution, News, Rights of NatureSep 9, 2021
Newsletter: Non-Linear Change
As we organize to make change while environmental and racial injustice run rampant, and as drought and a poisonous status quo threaten the conditions for life, identifying where to invest time and energy can be as complex as getting to know another human being. Nothing about forming relationships follows a straight line.
Read More | Blogs, Democratic Rights, NewsSep 8, 2021
Newsletter: Updates on Defunding Violence
The Defunding Violence Ordinance has been circulating in activist communities across the country. It continues to be a living document that both informs and is informed by grassroots efforts to defund and depower the institution of policing.
Read More | Blogs, Community Wires, Defunding Violence, NewsAug 29, 2021
Preemption Workshop
On Thursday, September 9 at 6:30 pm, please join us for a workshop by the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund (CELDF) “Preemption as a Lethal Weapon: How Corporations and Government are Deliberately Destroying Communities and Nature”.
Read More | Democratic Rights, EventsAug 24, 2021
Conversation: United Church of Christ Becomes First Mainline Church Body to Declare Earth has Rights
The General Synod of the United Church of Christ has become the first mainline Protestant body to publicly proclaim that nature has rights.
Read More | Community Wires, News, News from the Grassroots, Rights of Nature, Success StoryAug 17, 2021
Just Compensation
The courts of the empire may rely on self-referential legalisms to declare that the original indigenous inhabitants never had legal claim to ownership of the land, or that the U.S. Constitution did not, at the time, recognize enslaved people as capable of owning anything, including their own lives and labor; hence nothing recognized as legal property was taken from them and no compensation is owed. Typical judicial gaslighting.
Read More | Blogs, NewsAug 10, 2021
International Agent Orange Day: Aug. 10
Efforts by both female protagonists in ‘The People vs. Agent Orange’ film have been suppressed since the award winning documentary was released.
Read More | Chemical Trespass, News, Press ReleasesAug 5, 2021
Abolitionist Legal Self Defense Webinar
Join us for a conversation to share legal self-defense best practices and to critique the role of police in stabilizing an oppressive status quo.
Read More | Defunding Violence, EventsAug 4, 2021
Rights of Nature Principles
CELDF has been involved in establishing legal Rights for Nature in Western law for over two decades, from the beginning of this movement’s contemporary phase. We recognize that institutionalizing the Rights of Nature requires a cultural paradigm shift that challenges and changes our legal, social, and moral behavior. For life on Earth to survive, and… Read more »
Read More | Issues, Resource Links, Rights of NatureJul 30, 2021
Columbus Free Press: Stifling Democracy?
One citizen-led initiative makes it on November’s ballot but the other is denied By Free Press Staff The citizen-led ProEnergy Ohio ballot initiative is likely making Columbus City Council, the Mayor’s Office and the Columbus Partnership take serious pause. Many believed the initiative was doomed, yet it made it on November’s ballot. Unfortunately, another environmental… Read more »
Read More | UncategorizedJul 29, 2021
Youth Declaration on the Rights of Nature and Future Generations
Earth Law Center and the Global Alliance for the Rights of Nature (GARN) Youth Hub led two sessions on “Youth and the Rights of Nature Movement: shifting the paradigm for all future generations” at the first IUCN Global Youth Summit April 7-9. As a result of the Rights of Nature sessions, a Declaration was drafted.… Read more »
Read More | Community Wires, Issues, News, Resource Links, Rights of NatureJul 29, 2021
Glen Ford, Veteran Journalist And Founder Of Black Agenda Report, Dies At 71
Glen Ford spent more than four decades delivering the news from a Black perspective on a national scale.
Read More | Community Wires, NewsJul 26, 2021
Guest Blog: Critical Race Theory
Put another way, critical race theory illuminates our historical record despite centuries-long efforts to whitewash it. White nationalists present “alternative facts” conducing to a zero-sum society of white winners and nonwhite losers.
Read More | Blogs, Defunding Violence, NewsJul 15, 2021
Oregon Community Rights Activists Undeterred by Court’s Validation of Timber’s Toxic Legacy
The Court of Appeals of the State of Oregon issued a one-page decision in late June upholding a trial court decision overriding the will of voters and siding with corporate timber. The court has allowed for the continued use of aerially sprayed pesticides.
Read More | News, Press ReleasesJul 10, 2021
Legal Talk Network: Lawyer 2 Lawyer Podcast
Tune in to Legal Talk Networks Lawyer 2 Lawyer podcast featuring CELDF attorney, Lindsey Schromen-Wawrin. Listen as they discuss law and Nature and take a look at what rights we have to access Nature.
Read More | Issues, News, News from the Grassroots, Rights of NatureJul 8, 2021
BREAKING: Civil Rights Leaders in One of Nation’s Poorest Cities Launch Environmental Justice, Ecosystem Rights Ballot Initiative
Petitioners in Reading, Pennsylvania have officially kicked off a campaign to amend the Reading City Charter to outlaw “toxic trespass,” the poisoning of people and the environment within the city. The ballot initiative is in response to unaddressed toxic waste and environmental racism in the post-industrial city.
Read More | Chemical Trespass, News, Press ReleasesJul 4, 2021
Guest Blog: How Qualified Immunity Subverts the Rule of Law
This guest submission was originally given as a graduation address on police reform. The author argues, our informed consent is what legitimizes government. And so it’s up to us to command all of our public servants, including cops. We the People must nullify the despotic doctrine so-called qualified immunity. The buck stops with every single citizen from their eighteenth birthday.
Read More | Blogs, Defunding Violence, Democratic Rights, News, UncategorizedJun 27, 2021
Appellate Court Rules Lincoln County Aerial Spray Ban Invalid
Lincoln County voters passed Measure 21-177, banning aerial pesticide spraying in the county in May of 2017. Representatives of the timber industry promptly sued to overturn the ban.
Read More | Chemical Trespass, Community Wires, NewsJun 21, 2021
Ohio Residents Call On State Attorney General and 9 County Prosecuting Attorneys to Launch Criminal Investigations Into Radioactive Pollution in Waterways
Under a 2002 law, introducing radioactive elements into Ohio drinking water is a felony offense.
Companies are violating this by spreading oil and gas waste ‘brine’ — proven by the Ohio Department of Natural Resources to contain radioactive concentrations that exceed federal and state standards — in critical watersheds. So are state actors, residents assert.
Jun 16, 2021
National TV: ‘The People vs. Agent Orange’ to Air on PBS Independent Lens June 28th
Tune in on Monday June 28, 2021 for the national airing of the award-winning film “The People vs. Agent Orange” on PBS’ Independent Lens!
Read More | Chemical Trespass, Events, Issues, News, News from the GrassrootsJun 10, 2021
Judge Rewards Corporation for Suing to Halt Implementation of Climate Ordinance, Orders Town to Pay Corporate Attorney Fees
As global carbon dioxide concentrations hit their highest level in 4 million years, a New Hampshire Judge has rewarded a local corporate actor in Nottingham for opposing a democratically adopted ordinance, the Freedom from Chemical Trespass Ordinance, that recognized a right of townspeople to a “climate system capable of sustaining human societies.”
Read More | Chemical Trespass, News, Press ReleasesJun 9, 2021
Clara Township Home Rule Commission Meets After Residents Vote To Consider New Government
Clara Township residents voted overwhelmingly to create a Home Rule Government Study Commission made up of seven elected Township residents.
Read More | News, Press ReleasesJun 3, 2021
Whose Constitution Is It?
Join CELDF attorney Lindsey Schromen-Wawrin for a presentation and discussion on the history and current significance of the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments to the United States Constitution. The presentation’s content inspired by Eric Foner’s 2019 book “The Second Founding: How the Civil War and Reconstruction Remade the Constitution.”
Read More | Uncategorized