Nonviolence News: Insure Our Survival, Lawn Chair Tree-Sit & Beatles Statue Holds Climate Protest

Insure Our Survival, Lawn Chair Tree-Sit & Beatles Statue Holds Climate Protest

Editor's Note From Rivera Sun

The streets of London are facing the colorful, disruptive direct actions of Extinction Rebellion’s Insure Our Survival Campaign (pictured above). Focused on the insurance companies backing fossil fuels, the sit-ins, die-ins, marches, rallies, and other acts of civil disobedience happening this week are pressuring insurers to stop providing oil, gas, and coal with financial security at the expense of humanity’s survival. It’s a smart strategy: all new fossil fuel projects need to have insurance. If they can’t get it, pipelines, mines, refineries, etc. simply don’t get built. If the campaign succeeds, it’s a fast way to dry up one of the key resources that fossil fuels need.

You’ll notice some common themes between the stories in this week’s round-up. Nurses in Honolulu and New Orleans each held a 1-day strike only to find that the management had locked the doors on them when they returned to work the next day. In Hawai’i, the nurses stayed out on strike and ultimately won. Will the Louisiana nurses do the same? Another shared theme is resistance to housing gentrification: Spain’s collectives are occupying vacant bank-owned buildings and stopping 3 evictions per week. Meanwhile, an Egyptian river island community is defying government eviction orders in order to resist an upscale development in the Nile. In the United States, residents could learn a lot from these struggles, as a new report indicates that we are now in an era of ‘hyper-gentrification’ in which ordinary renters and would-be homebuyers have to compete with the inflated prices driven up by large housing corporations.

And, of course, elections are another major theme in this week’s Nonviolence News. In 2024, 60% of the global population is going through an election cycle. Many of these are happening amidst mass protests, counterprotests, crackdowns by governments, and other unrest. You’ll find stories about Mozambique’s post-election turmoil, quiet campaigns to prevent elections-related violence in the US, a mini-course on how to rebuild trust in the wake of polarized election cycles, insights on how to vote through the lens of a movement mindset, and more.

The article to read in-depth is a fascinating story about how British Columbia is in treaty negotiations with 200 First Nations in a process intended to lead to joint decision-making on issues like forestry, mining, construction, land management, ecosystem restoration, and more. As they make strides toward decolonization, they’re also challenging the political system that protects corporate profits above all else. This has far-reaching implications … and potential.

As you read this week’s Nonviolence News, keep your eyes out for clever tactics to borrow from other campaigns. Nonviolence News is full of them. For example: Just Stop Oil has been turning iconic statues of the Beatles, Nelson Mandela, and Emmeline Pankhurst into climate demonstrators carrying speech bubbles calling for climate action. We all have a statue or two nearby … why not have icons of history past put in a good word for a liveable future?

Find all these stories and more in Nonviolence News>>

Fed up? Some of my favorite stories this week had to do with individuals who ‘snapped’ into nonviolent action. In Louisiana, a woman scaled a neighborhood tree with her lawn chair and jugs of water, launching a tree-sit to stop the city from cutting it down. In Brazil, an exhausted pharmacy worker let out a 1.5 minute TikTok tirade against the 6-day workweek. It went viral, launched a movement, and led to him getting elected as a city councillor. Interesting things happen when we get fed up with injustice. As Rosa Parks said about her historic civil disobedience on segregated buses, “the only tired I was, was tired of giving in.”

If you’re sick and tired of being sick and tired, consider how you could move into action. At the very least, be sick and tired in front of a decision-maker’s office holding a sign. Or up in a tree. Or by an iconic statue.

In solidarity,
Rivera Sun

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