ORGANISERS IN BRAZIL REFLECT ON THE UN CLIMATE SUMMIT FARCE ~ CCLA Belém ~ Even before it began, as anarchists and libertarians we couldn’t expect much from a meeting that, over the years, has failed to curb capitalist greed in the slightest. It has only brought as its sole concrete “solution” to climate deregulation the commodification of a supposed right to pollute: the so-called carbon market. Therefore, we had carefully prepared our cultural centre to welcome the most varied forms of protest coming from the Brazilian Amazon (starting with Belém and its metropolis), from South America, and from the rest of the world. Every day, during that circus of comings and goings of official delegations corrupted by oil lobbyists, we proposed cultural activities, debates and discussion groups, solidarity meals, preparation for popular protest marches, etc. Despite this preparation and planning, we were fortunate to encounter unexpected moments and meet unfamiliar people, and to connect with others we had previously only known through the internet: we were able to participate in the occupation of the COP’s Blue Zone by indigenous peoples, receive visitors from far and wide and engage in dialogue with them, such as Macko Dràgàn (France), Mário Rui Pinto (Portugal), and Peter Gelderloos (USA)… and that’s not all: these were beautiful moments, full of learning in terms of resistance practices, exchanges of perspectives on crises generated by those at the top, and sharing solutions for us to overcome these challenges from our peripheral position. To conclude these anarchist anti-COP30 journeys, we wanted to leave you with our assessment of this farce that was this COP, the thirtieth lost opportunity to save our Mother Earth (as Emma Goldman called her) and the populations that survive on her, trapped in avoidable ills and torments. We already knew it: the courage to break free from this path of destruction will only be ours, and when we manage to reverse this desperate situation through our struggles, we will leave only the elites with the shameful clothes of those who could have done so but didn’t try, to dress and walk amidst the jeers of humanity and all creatures on the planet, finally freed from capitalist exploitation, inequalities, and oppressions. * * * From the beginning, we considered the COP a farce in terms of resolving or mitigating the environmental crisis in which capitalism has placed us. As expected, this edition of the COP showed us this in several ways. There was a record accreditation of lobbyists from the fossil fuel industry – almost two thousand representatives, with the main objective of debating means for the “energy transition” with more oil extraction and production. Meanwhile, more than 40 accredited representatives of Indigenous peoples were prevented from entering the Blue Zone because they did not have passports – yes, entering the most restricted area of the COP was the same as entering another country. Throughout the event, the Lula government announced the implementation of the TFFF (Tropical Forests Forever Fund), yet another rent-seeking mechanism of financial capitalism that is far from solving environmental problems. This aligns with the logic of perpetuating the same mechanisms that produced this environmental crisis. For us, it is more of the same, without significant changes in the social conditions of those who suffer most from the extreme events of climate change. Meanwhile, the forest peoples continue without self-determination over their own territories. Not surprisingly, the two demonstrations that broke through the security cordon of the colored areas of the COP were led by Indigenous peoples of the middle and lower Tapajós. It was a demonstration of dissatisfaction with the progress of the debates, which did not address crucial issues for these peoples, such as the guarantee of saying no to carbon credit market companies, mining and prospecting in their territories, and saying no to the privatization of the Amazon rivers for the construction of waterways that will only benefit the large landholdings of agribusiness grain monoculture and mining. The COP reproduces the capitalist economic rationale of seeing everything that exists, including the air we breathe, as a bargaining chip. With this vision, solutions could only be conceived within the logic of the commodity. Ironically, on November 20, the day of Dandara and Zumbi, a fire broke out in one of the Blue Zone tents, symbolising an extreme event of climate change, burning down the COP. On the other hand, the activities of the Anti-COP Anarchist Days demonstrated that other worlds are possible, through the destruction of capitalism, the State, patriarchy, racism, and xenophobia. These were two weeks of activities, from street demonstrations, such as the Periphery March on Black Awareness Day, to debates with comrades from various parts of Brazil and several countries who contributed with their analyses, experiences, and struggles on various fronts of resistance against this system of domination/control/exploitation, where, in a broader assessment, while respecting the necessary dimensions in the These struggles are traversed by the imperialism of the powers of the Global North along with their colonialism and racism, by environmental devastation resulting from mining in the countries of the Global South, by the situation of political and climate refugees, by the invasion of the territories of indigenous and traditional peoples, by real estate speculation in large population centres, by human trafficking, especially of women; by speciesism that sustains the logic of animal abuse for human consumption, by poverty/social inequality/concentration of wealth; therefore, some of the problems that were debated, in several languages and with diverse accents. It is worth remembering that confronting this system of domination requires organisation, activism, conviction and resistance, but also music, dance and the construction of happiness. In the words of Emma Goldman, if this revolution doesn’t allow me to dance, then this isn’t my revolution; thus, we held a Libertarian Art Festival, another way to energise experiences of struggle and resistance through culture. We had performances by various musical groups and artistic groups where, nevertheless, we suffered police repression, typical of the modus operandi of this sector of the State, subservient to the petty elite who cannot stand to see the underprivileged in their cultural manifestations. We understand that this crisis cannot be overcome through the neo-extractivism of oil and mining, the neo-developmentalist technology that requires the waste of millions of cubic meters of potable water to cool the data centres of Big Tech companies, the monopoly of renewable energy companies such as wind and solar (the latter even requiring and encouraging the mineralogical race for rare earths), agribusiness, the deprivation of peoples from exercising their rights to live in peace in their territories, the privatization of water and air, the maintenance of the privileges of the rich and colonial elites sustained by the terrible housing conditions, illiteracy, hunger, genocide, sexual exploitation, and poverty of the majority of populations, especially black or racialised people. We do not support and fight against initiatives to mitigate the effects of climate change that do not place the real problem at the centre of the debate, that is, capitalism and its counterparts. We see in the practices of indigenous and traditional peoples those who truly safeguard biodiversity and the world’s forests, who remove tons of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, helping to regulate the climate and throwing the rent-seeking logic of carbon credits into disarray. This, combined with the struggles and resistance waged by poor populations in the countryside and cities, scattered from north to south and from east to west of the global map, even with much humiliation and difficulty in securing bread, tortillas, chapati, or beiju, reinvent themselves through mutual support and solidarity when they see their lives being impacted by extreme weather events, produced by the greed and profit of the rich. The COP has no solution for our problems; on the contrary, it is an organisation created for the management of the environmental crisis, established by the same sectors that manage world hunger and poverty. Thus, our urgent needs do not fit within the COP. The solutions to the climate-environmental-s From the humid tropics of the Amazonian lowlands, on the Belém peninsula in November 2025. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Machine translation. Photo: Peter Gelderloos The post Letter from the anti-COP30 anarchist days appeared first on Freedom News.

THEIR IDEA OF ‘SUSTAINABLE CAPITALISM’ IS TO SELL OFF THE RAINFOREST AND BUILD MEGA-PROJECTS ~ Rafael Sanz, desinformemonos ~ COP 30 has begun in Belém, the capital of the state of Pará and the main city in the Brazilian Amazon, a territory roughly the size of two Mexicos. The only reason it isn’t burning as it did in 2024 is that this is a La Niña year, meaning slightly more abundant rainfall in 2025. It will be the thirtieth time that lobbyists and representatives of governments and corporations from around the world gather to discuss fictions and unrealistic adjustments, green reforms for capitalism, and innocuous decarbonisation targets that they themselves routinely fail to meet, all while temperatures rise in the oceans, forests, and territories inhabited by humans. And in 2025, the various global climate representatives arrive in a rather complicated Brazil. The first scene from this Brazil is the recent Penha-Alemã massacre in Rio de Janeiro, where at least 128 bodies were executed by the state in the open air and piled up in a public square. The bodies had barely cooled when the media were already repeating the chorus from the state government itself (responsible for the “operation”) that all the dead were members of the Comando Vermelho criminal faction. Whether they were or not remains unknown. What is known is that the police’s main targets, the drug kingpins, were neither victims nor arrested, the city was paralysed for days, and the affected communities were collectively punished for the presence of criminal groups there, both legal (128 corpses) and illegal. But this approach to security is a constant throughout the country. In Rio, everything has been tried, from community policing models (Pacifying Police Units, UPPs) that have proven to be just as violent and prone to abuse as the regular police, to the infamous GLOs (Law and Order Guarantee Operations), in which the federal government authorises the use of the Armed Forces to assist the state police with public safety. In 2017, for example, General Walter Braga Netto led the GLO that promoted a military occupation of some Rio favelas, including Complexo do Alemão. A candidate for Bolsonaro’s vice presidency in 2022, he is now convicted of attempting a coup. And so the model arrived in the Amazon thanks to COP 30. Last Monday (3 November), President Lula signed a GLO for the capital of Pará at the request of Governor Helder Barbalho. On Tuesday morning, the military began arriving en masse with their land, water, and air vehicles. Social movements fear the repression that such security measures could generate, especially at COP 30, where Brazil is attempting to greenwash its recent environmental decisions. And by “recent” we don’t mean the tragedy we experienced under Bolsonaro’s government, prior to Lula’s current third term, in which our biomes burned like never before due to the deliberate federal promotion of expanding agribusiness and mining frontiers. Given the previous disaster, the change in administration brought with it the mistaken idea that the Brazilian state would be an ally of the rest of humanity in the fight against the socio-environmental collapse we witness daily. It is not. Throughout this administration, contrary to campaign promises to demarcate Indigenous and Quilombola territories and close the gap with extractive sectors (agribusiness, mining, hydroelectric projects, and highways), we have seen the opposite. Delays and bureaucratic obstacles have hindered the protection of already demarcated Indigenous lands and the demarcation of new territories. The encroachment of agribusiness into natural areas, culminating in the Day of Fire in 2024, not to mention the frenzy to build highways, railways, and hydroelectric plants that will primarily serve to distribute the predatory agribusiness’s production and facilitate the mass arrival of foreign data centers, with their high energy consumption and low-quality jobs for the working class. On the eve of COP 30, the energy transition model we are going to present to the world is based on the premise of treating hydroelectric power as “clean energy,” in contrast to thermoelectric and nuclear power plants abroad. But they fail to include deforestation in the equation, which is the main cause of carbon emissions here. Belo Monte, a hydroelectric dam built in Altamira (a municipality in Pará affected by the recent GLO), destroyed the once-lush Xingu River, turning it into a lake, but that’s not all. It also facilitated the arrival of a development model that doesn’t consider preserving the rainforest. The entire region has suffered deforestation and successive fires ever since. The model under which hydroelectric plants are built requires the construction of roads and railways that cut through the forest. These roads are necessary to transport all the grain, timber, minerals, and electricity produced in the most remote corners of Brazil. This infrastructure will also serve the small towns that are beginning to grow as a result of this model, which places greater demands on the previously preserved local environment. Two current examples in the transportation sector illustrate this model: Ferrogrão and the reconstruction of the BR-319 highway . Ferrogrão is a planned 933 km railway, starting in Sinop (in the state of Mato Grosso, a central area for soybean and corn production in Brazil’s Midwest region) and reaching the port of Miritituba. From there, the transported produce would travel down the Amazon River to the Caribbean Sea, then be shipped to California and China. This multi-billion dollar project offers no social or ecological benefits to Brazil beyond satisfying the immediate interests of agribusiness. On the contrary, it will cut through conservation areas like Jamanxim National Park and affect hundreds of Indigenous and peasant communities. But there are two aggravating factors: first, the mere mention by the federal government of building the railway has already stirred up the region’s land market, which operates in a gray area between legality and illegality, between speculation and displacement; The second aggravating factor is that the transport of agro-industrial production to China and California would be carried out through the Panama Canal, whose capacity for use is already compromised due to the climate crisis. And every time a railway or road is built in a previously untouched or relatively undisturbed natural area, what is known as the “fishbone effect” occurs—precisely a consequence of the booming grey market for land. Observe a wooded area from above, as if from a satellite or drone. The main road is opened, the backbone of the “fish.” Gradually, with the land market in full swing (literally burning everything down), secondary roads are opened to provide access to the newly occupied areas. And so we see how the landscape transforms into something resembling a fishbone. This is the main concern of serious environmentalists and the communities living in the region where the BR-319 highway, which would connect Manaus (capital of Amazonas) and Porto Velho (capital of Rondônia), is slated for reconstruction. The problem is that this area, following a herringbone pattern, would extend the arc of deforestation all the way to Manaus and open the way to still-preserved areas of the western and northern Brazilian Amazon. This would cause the collapse of Brazil’s most resilient Amazonian ecosystems. Brazilians would be the first to feel the effects, with their rainfall system completely destroyed. But the world would also see a slight increase in temperature, exacerbating the global climate crisis. Another problem with the charade of the ecological transition is that it doesn’t address the quilombos (settlements of escaped slaves), indigenous lands, and conservation areas, instead focusing on parcelling out forests and promising their preservation through privatisation and maintaining the same logic of private property that has brought us to this point in history. Let’s remember that before capitalism, human societies were never a threat to life on the planet, only to themselves. The illusion surrounding the utopia of reforming capitalism is completed with the final touch to this cake of ashes and fire: weeks before the start of COP 30, Ibama (the Brazilian Institute of the Environment, a federal agency) authorised Petrobras (the state-owned oil company) to investigate the feasibility of oil exploration at the mouth of the Amazon River. This is simply a highly turbulent oceanic zone, where a single spill could affect several neighbouring countries. An authorisation to investigate that will undoubtedly become an authorisation to exploit, given the direction of the political debate. But they want to sell us the idea that we are going to drill in a very complex area from an environmental impact standpoint, extract rivers of oil, and burn it so that, who knows, one day we can finally abandon fossil fuels. Perhaps when we are all dead. And while we watch year after year the “climate representatives” celebrating their parties and discussing their fictions, temperatures continue to rise, forests continue to fall, and people continue to live and die in increasingly worse conditions. It is impossible to debate the climate issue without including capital and the state in the equation as a problem rather than a solution. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Image: Indigenous people from various regions protest during the free land camp in Brasilia, 4 October. Joédson Alves/Agência Brasil The post COP30 farce in Lula’s Brazil appeared first on Freedom News.

FOSSIL FUEL INVESTORS UTILITIES SABOTAGED AND PALANTIR RECRUITMENT EVENT DISRUPTED IN ACTIONS LINKING CLIMATE CRISIS AND GAZA GENOCIDE ~ Alisa-Ece Tohumcu ~ Two militant climate action groups staged separate but thematically linked actions in London on Monday (18 August)—underscoring the growing urgency of confronting the institutions driving ecological collapse, militarism, and social injustice. In London, the underground network Shut The System claimed responsibility for sabotaging utilities at the offices of major fossil fuel investors, declaring the launch of a “Summer of Sabotage”. The coordinated action cut electrical and communications infrastructure at the UK offices of JP Morgan Chase, Allianz, and Barclaycard, with activists using cable-cutting and glue to disable service cabinets and masts. The group accused the firms of underwriting not only climate breakdown but also war crimes, highlighting Barclays’ and Allianz’s links to fossil fuels and, in Allianz’s case, its insurance of Elbit Systems, a key arms supplier to Israel. A spokesperson likened financiers’ complicity in fossil fuel expansion to wartime collaboration, calling it “unhinged, psychopathic greed at the expense of billions of people”. The group, which previously vandalised Barclays properties and disabled fibre optic cables at insurance offices earlier this year, promised escalation if their demands go unmet by October. Their manifesto, drawn from the Banking on Climate Chaos 2025 report, demands an immediate halt to fossil fuel expansion financing, absolute emissions reduction targets, robust transition plans, and the protection of Indigenous rights. Meanwhile, Climate Resistance disrupted a Palantir-run training camp for 16- to 18-year-old students. Chanting outside the venue, demonstrators condemned the attempt to “groom” young people for careers at a firm, whose technology supports surveillance states and the Israeli military. Palantir, which builds AI-driven data analytics platforms, has lucrative contracts with governments and militaries worldwide, including a £330 million data deal with NHS England. Although the company is opaque about its work with Israel, activists point to Palantir’s Gotham platform, described as part of the AI-assisted “kill chain” used to determine targets in Gaza. CEO Alex Karp has previously admitted the company’s software has been used to kill Palestinians, a claim framed by him as targeting “mostly terrorists”. “Students shouldn’t be groomed by companies like this,” said Climate Resistance spokesperson Sam Simons. “Palantir is enabling an ongoing genocide and helping authoritarian governments track every move of their citizens”. Neither Palantir nor the targeted financial institutions have issued public statements regarding Monday’s disruptions. The post Direct action targets UK military tech and fossil finance appeared first on Freedom News.

THE SLIPPAGE FROM CONTAINING WMDS TO CALLS FOR REGIME CHANGE RINGS ALL TO FAMILIAR — BUT WARS’ MAIN FUNCTION IS STILL TO PRESERVE REGIMES ~ Simon, Andy and Uri discuss this weeks headlines, including the scorching weather, the mountain-to-molehill cheapening of terrorism charges, direct action in Germany, and ruling-class realignment in Britain and the USA The post Anarchist News Review: Israel-Iran war, Kneecap and attacks on Amazon appeared first on Freedom News.

GROUP CLAIMS COORDINATED GRAFFITI, SUPERGLUE AND CABLE-CUTTING ACTIONS ~ Cristina Sykes ~ Shut The System (STS) says its activists have targeted branches of Barclays bank and the homes of senior management ahead of the bank’s Annual General Meeting on Wednesday. In a press release the group said they superglued door locks and ATMs and sprayed graffiti on the exteriors of bank branches in locations including London, Bath, Lincoln and Devon, and cut WiFi cables at the bank’s Northampton headquarters. The activists also spray-painted messages calling for divestment from fossil fuels on the properties of three senior Barclays executives—CEO Vimlesh Maru, global head of sustainable finance Daniel Hanna, and president of Barclays Bank PLC Stephen Dainton. Barclays is one of Europe’s biggest investors in fossil fuels, having poured $235.19 billion into the sector since the 2015 Paris climate agreement. The bank made some climate pledges and restrictions on new oil and gas financing in 2024, but its policies still allow investment in fossil fuel companies. Shut The System is demanding that Barclays and other banks immediately prohibit all finance and insurance for fossil fuel expansion, adopt emissions reduction targets aligned with 1.5°C scenarios, and scale up financing for a just transition. “For years Barclays have resisted the calls of peaceful campaigners to divest”, said the group in a press release. “By targeting Barclays offices, the luxury flats and mansions of their senior staff and organisations supporting the bank, we are creating the pressure to reign in these corporate murderers”. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Photos by STS The post Shut the System target Barclays over fossil investments appeared first on Freedom News.

CONFRONTING THE FAR RIGHT MEANS SOLIDARITY WITH CLIMATE REFUGEES ~ James Horton ~ In late January, the Climate and Nature (CaN) Bill failed to pass at the House of Commons. It would have given the UK government a legally binding duty to pursue goals aimed at reducing and reversing the effects of the climate crisis. Specifically, the proposal suggested that the UK government should seek to reduce carbon emissions in line with the 2015 Paris agreement, and work to drive back the ecological damage done domestically and globally. It also suggested the formation of a temporary citizens assembly for consultation on climate crisis issues. It was Liberal Democrat MP Roz Savage who sought to use state power and a promise of democratic dialogue to combat the crisis through this legislation. However, both Labour and Reform welded together to euthanise the debate, with the latter celebrating its failure on X as an absolute and undeniable win. So why exactly are the loathsome cretins at Reform UK so exuberant about defeating this legislation? Part of Reform’s anti-climate stance is about social class. Legislation like the CaN Bill—or the white reformism of organisations promoting green consumerism—appeals to the upper middle class, the same people who might donate to the Wildlife Trust or vote LibDem. But it alienates the lower middle class and de-classed groups targeted by Reform UK. Although their lives will also be ruined by climate change, they respond to climate legislation as an imposition from above and feel expected to experience guilt and shame. At the same time, the far right does stand to benefit from climate apathy and the growing opportunity to target climate refugees. Like in France, Italy and elsewhere, the far right in Britain only pretends that it doesn’t want refugees within its country’s borders. From an anti-fascist point of view it is plain to see that they actually rely on them as an ‘other’. As the crisis worsens, they will increasingly seize on opportunities to victimise climate refugees. The imperial forces of the world are doing fascists a huge favour as their climate policies continue driving people to escape affected regions.  After a forced effort to distance himself and his clique from Tommy Robinson and the street fascists, Nigel Farage, the last of Margaret Thatcher’s menagerie, now leads a party polling evenly with Labour. Meanwhile climate activism and antifascism remain separate for all the wrong reasons. Antifascists and climate activists should work together, and in solidarity with refugees and indigenous people around the world. How we resist the far right and its victimisation of ‘others’ is bound up with our politics of planetary survival. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Image: Refugee camp in Idomeni, Greece by Julian Buijzen CC-BY-NC-ND 2.0 The post Make Climate Politics Antifascist appeared first on Freedom News.

STAFFORDSHIRE BECOMES FIRST UK HIGHER EDUCATION INSTITUTION TO REMOVE BOTH SECTORS FROM ITS INVESTMENT PORTFOLIO ~ Cristina Sykes ~ Student campaigners have hailed a significant first after Staffordshire University committed to exclude fossil fuel companies from its investment portfolios as well as those involved with border surveillance, incarceration and forced migrant deportations. Although the student-led network People & Planet University League has already achieved 111 wins for its Fossil Free campaign over 12 years, and five for Divest Borders four years on from its launch, Staffordshire is the first UK university which has jettisoned the interlinked industries. “Students are unequivocal in their position that we must recognise that these systems of injustice are deeply interconnected, and that universities must lead by example”, said André Dallas, co-director of migrant justice at People & Planet. Cardiff Metropolitan, Kent, Northumbria and Worcester universities have already committed to divest from the border industry, while Staffordshire is the first to acknowledge the interconnection between climate and migrant justice with its action. “The exploitation of people and the planet cannot be separated”, said Dallas, “they are both symptoms of the same underlying forces privileging profit over integrity. It is the same systems of capitalism and colonialism that appropriate land, resources, and labour for profit, and that use the border industry to maintain a relationship of extraction with the Global South”. The post Dual victory as university divests from fossil fuel and border industries appeared first on Freedom News.

GLOBAL MEETING FOR CLIMATE AND LIFE BROUGHT TOGETHER MORE THAN 250 DELEGATES FROM LATIN AMERICA AND AROUND THE WORLD ~ from Desinformémonos ~ After five days of work, the Global Meeting for Climate and Life – AntiCOP 2024 concluded in Oaxaca, bringing together more than 250 representatives of the Waorani, Yaqui, Purépecha, Zapotec, Chatino, Mixtec, Ngiwa, Chontal, Wayuu, Ikoot, Sami, K’Ana, Kanak, Maya Q’echi, Munduruku and Nasa peoples, and from countries such as Argentina, Bolivia, Palestine and Kurdistan, to denounce the “greenwashing” of the Climate Change Summits (COP) and outline the organisational routes to confront the global climate crisis. Faced with the inaction of world leaders to protect nature, representatives at the Meeting proposed as lines of action the implementation of community-based water management, the promotion of intercultural environmental education, the implementation of regional AntiCOPs, a mobilisation towards COP30 in Brazil and climate meetings in different parts of the world, the creation of an Autonomous Fund for Climate Disasters, the recovery of pre-colonial lands, and practices to promote initiatives to revitalise species and ancestral agricultural systems, among other collective measures. The collective proposals of the peoples were the result of five days of work at discussion tables on the mega-projects imposed on their territories, the criminalisation of migrants, journalists and human rights defenders, militarisation, the forced displacement of peoples, and the commercialisation of life. “All COPs Are Bastards! COP29 is trying to hide behind a hypocritical greenwash the history of ecocide, genocide and atrocities committed by Azerbaijan against the Armenian People, which are not only a terrible chapter in history, but an echo of how war and the exploitation of natural resources and people are intertwined and exacerbate the climate and social crisis we face. The omission of the Genocide of the Palestinian People during COP28 in Dubai was proof of this”, the participants of the Meeting accused in a final statement. From November 4 to 9, indigenous peoples, collectives and organisations denounced how “governments, companies and criminal groups continue to perpetrate a deep war against peoples and nature to sustain this heteropatriarchal, capitalist and colonial system, which threatens to destroy the planet.” This war, they explained, “is disguised through institutional and official processes that do not fundamentally resolve structural conflicts, nor respond to collective territorial needs. Thanks to this, we are heading towards a world of catastrophic global warming, which is advancing towards a world of 2.6 to 3.1°C by the end of the century, challenging planetary balance and the survival of humanity”. They added that the AntiCOP 2024 meeting allowed for the articulation of peoples in resistance and of a movement that challenges extractivism, green colonialism and mega-projects that deprive communities of their resources and lands. “It is an articulation from below that remembers, imagines and builds other worlds in harmony with ecosystems, biodiversity and justice. From AntiCOP 2024, we commit to continue building together, respecting our differences and recognising our shared struggles. We are the Global South, we are the guardians of our lands and cultures. This struggle is ours and we defend it with determination and unity”, the participants stressed. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Photos: Assembly of the Indigenous Peoples of the Isthmus in Defense of the Land and Territory – APIIDTT The post AntiCOP 2024 concludes with indigenous peoples’ climate proposals appeared first on Freedom News.

IKEA TRAPPED ITS WORKERS INSIDE WAREHOUSES WHILE UBER EATS AND GLOVO FORCED COURIERS TO MAKE USUAL DELIVERIES ~ Emilia Aiguader ~ The city of Valencia was today dealing with the consequences of a devastating flood. Overnight, this “once in a century” storm laid waste to one of Spain’s most vibrant communities. Throughout the city and its surroundings, streets once bustling with people are now filled with brown, muddy waters and piles of destroyed cars. At the time of writing, more than 70 people have been confirmed dead, countless more are still missing and 155,000 people have been left without electricity. As climate change takes effect, Spain and Portugal have endured historically hot, dry summers and heavy autumn storms in past years. Yes perhaps the single most directly culpable person is Carlos Mazón, the president of the right-wing government of Valencia. When Mazón took office last year, one of his first moves was to shut down the Valencian Emergencies Unit, which had been established to provide a rapid response to natural disasters. Yesterday, as meteorological institutes issued a red warning, Mazón downplayed the risk and falsely claimed the storm was diminishing. Then, while entire towns went underwater and people began to lose their lives, he stalled for several hours before finally issuing a warning for citizens to seek safety. Unions have highlighted how companies risked workers lives during the flood. Ikea trapped its workers inside their warehouses as the waters rose all around them. Uber Eats and Glovo forced couriers to make their usual delivery routes and face torrential downpours with only bicycles and scooters. And Mercadona, the largest supermarket chain in the Valencian country, coerced its delivery drivers to drive head-on into the rapids, where they had to be rescued by emergency responders. Firefighters, healthcare workers and other emergency responders are working tirelessly to save lives. Mutual aid networks are rushing to provide food, clothing and shelter to those who have been left without it. And trade unions, including the anarcho-syndicalists of the CNT and CGT, are organising to fight for the workers whose lives have been endangered by corporate greed. Even in dark times, the bright light of solidarity is breaking through. The post Valencia floods: 70+ dead, unions say firms risked workers’ lives appeared first on Freedom News.

ACTIVISTS IN STORM-RAVAGED COMMUNITIES TALK ABOUT ABOUT SOLIDARITY AND COLLECTIVE SURVIVAL ~ Kelly Hayes ~ Last year, researchers at Tulane University ranked Asheville, North Carolina, as one of the most “climate-resilient cities” in the United States – municipalities whose geographies, economies, and preparedness appeared to offer some refuge from wildfires, rising temperatures and torrential storms. Now, Asheville is reeling from the devastating aftermath of Hurricane Helene, which has unleashed catastrophic flooding across the region. Despite its status as a would-be “climate haven”, Asheville received enough rainfall in just a few days to fill Lake Tahoe, leaving bridges washed out, homes destroyed, and many people still unaccounted for. Preliminary studies suggest that human-caused warming significantly amplified the storm’s impact. One analysis found that the extreme rainfall in Georgia and the Carolinas was made up to 20 times more likely by human-caused climate change, while another indicated that the storm was 20 percent wetter than it would have been otherwise. This disaster has swept away the myth of “climate havens” while highlighting a fundamental reality: in an era of crisis and catastrophe, we need each other to survive. This week, I spoke to several Asheville-based activists and organizers about the struggles they’re facing, and how mutual aid is enabling collective survival in storm-ravaged communities. PRECIOUS KINDNESS At least 133 people have been killed by Helene, with hundreds more unaccounted for. At least 57 people are confirmed dead in Buncombe County, where Asheville is located. Asheville resident Heather Laine Talley told me via text how she, her partner, and her seven-year-old daughter narrowly escaped the flood. “We are alive and grateful”, she said. Heather’s home was located near the Swannanoa River. The river, which is “typically too shallow to even kayak … rose to levels that felt oceanic”. Heather’s family scrambled for higher ground, scaling a slope behind their home. They found shelter from the storm when a neighbour they had never met opened their door and offered them refuge. “The kindnesses shown to me over the last 48 hours are the most precious I have ever known”, she said “Most houses on our street were lifted from the foundation and are entirely gone”, Heather said. “Multiple neighbours are missing in the flood water”. “From what we experienced, there is no power throughout much of the city”, she explained. “Power poles are cracked into two. Transformers are shattered in roadways. There is no running water. Some people have found spotty cell phone access at specific locations”. While major roadways were initially impassable, Heather and her family managed to evacuate by car on Monday. They are now staying with family in Gastonia, North Carolina. She is still in touch with friends and coworkers on the ground in Asheville. “One of our colleagues has no road access and is hiking out with a newborn and his three-year-old”, she said. “Other local friends are partnering with the National Guard and other emergency service workers to distribute water, diapers, and food, all while surviving this storm”. Collective survival has become a makeshift community project. “Families are piled together pooling resources and creating incredible webs of collaboration and support”, Heather said. “Everyone needs help”. Heather hopes that, amid a chaotic 24-hour news cycle, the public will not simply scroll past the story of Helene’s aftermath. “Please do not turn away from this crisis”, she said. “We need you. I have been in North Carolina for 26 years. It is home”. “WE SALVAGED EVERYTHING WE COULD” Beth Trigg’s home was not destroyed by the storm. “My house is at the edge of the area that became a river, at the edge of the real serious flooding of the Swannanoa River”. Beth’s house is situated at the top of a hill, which prevented her house from flooding. Beth was paying attention to the news, knowing that flash floods and other hazards might arise during the storm. She invited some of her neighbours, whose homes were built at lower elevations, to come stay with her. “At 1:00 am, we started getting these serious flood warnings. The emergency warnings were escalating”. At 5:00 am, Beth received a message that people in her area should evacuate. Knowing that her home was further above ground than most, and worried about dangerous road conditions, she chose to stay. “I had my two elderly parents who have health needs, my seven-year-old, my cat, and three other cats and two neighbours. I was like, ‘I think our best choice is to stay, ’ which I actually am not sure of now. I really don’t know”, she said. “The roads got very bad very fast and some people died in their cars, but also some people died in their houses who couldn’t get out fast enough”, she explained. About an hour later, she received a text from another neighbour whose home was being threatened by flood waters. The neighbour wanted to stay put, and use buckets to bail out any water that flooded his home. “I wrote back on the group text and was like, ‘Come here now. ’” Beth’s neighbour didn’t want to leave his home, but she told him it was time to abandon the structure. “This is Serenity Prayer time”, she said. “Give up. Come here now. It’s not worth losing your life”. When water began to rise from her neighbour’s drains, he agreed to head to her place. He arrived soon after, and within the hour, his house was underwater. The homes of the neighbours who had spent the night in Beth’s guest room were also submerged by flood waters. One of those homes was ripped from its foundations “and thrown into the trees”. After the rain stopped, Beth and her neighbours assessed the situation. “We started with our own basic needs”, she explained. “From there we were in touch with our neighbours right away, because we already knew them”. Beth, who is 51, has known most of her neighbours since her mid-twenties. “We’ve all been here in this community a really long time, and all of us, we’ve done direct action together. We’ve had parties together. We’ve just known each other for a really long time”, she said. “So, that was very helpful, to have a kernel of people who already have those relationships”. “Then, we began building our own systems”, Trigg said. “We had people with specific skills. My sister lives within walking distance and so she and her husband, we all agreed to just stage here and everyone brought their food here”. Beth’s sister’s home quickly became a mutual aid hub. Neighbours whose homes had not flooded, or who could still collect cans or jars from top shelves, brought their food. “We salvaged everything we could”, she said. “That’s how we got through it, and it’s built up since then”. On Tuesday, Beth wrote a Facebook post, which has been shared over 59, 000 times, describing some of her experiences in the aftermath of the storm. She wrote of the tremendous losses the community had experienced, saying: I have personally spoken to people who have dug living and dead people out of a mudslide, seen their neighbours swept away by water, and seen bodies that haven’t been able to be recovered. We have heard stories from Montreat, Grovemont, Beacon Village, Botany Woods – these areas are miles apart from each other and each place really different from the others.  A child told me he saw three houses slide down a slope into his neighbourhood. Friends had to claw their way to safety with their seven-year-old while their neighbours died in the river below them. Preparing meals for residents at a Jackson County school After her post went viral, Beth received an influx of messages from people who wanted to help. Beth has been working to route those donations to people and groups in need. She has also fielded worried messages from people who cannot reach their loved ones. Beth and her team have visited numerous homes in search of those people. “Most of the time when we get there, they’re fine”, she said. “Most of the time what we’re doing is just communication. Like, ‘Your daughter doesn’t know if you’re safe. She’s worried about whether or not you have water. Do you need water? Oh, you’d like some instant coffee. We happen to have some. Here you go. ’”“We are not first responders”, she said. “We are mostly just giving people stuff that is helpful, but not life-saving, and communicating with their loved ones or telling people that their house is safe to go back to, or stuff like that”. Beth is grateful for the outpouring of support she and her neighbours have seen, but she is also worried that the public’s attention will fade long before the crisis is over. “The need for support on the ground is going to be intense for a long time”, she said. “ We don’t know how things are going to evolve. This is a long haul. Schools are closed indefinitely. They’re estimating months to get city water back in Asheville. The whole region, right now, we’re still in emergency mode”. For now, Beth’s biggest priority is fortifying and expanding the area’s mutual aid infrastructure. “That’s what has been a breakthrough for us. Asking, ‘Okay, who else? Who can I call who’s already got their own hub?’ Then, that hub can lead us to a bigger hub”. Identifying groups that are taking action and whose relationships have positioned them to assist others is key. “We are looking at who knows each other, who’s helping each other, and listening to people about what their evolving needs are. Because those needs are going to be different tomorrow than they are today, and they’re going to be different next month and next year, and we’re…” she said, trailing off, and clearly exhausted. “It’s going to take a very long time”. “GET READY” “It’s like the kind of world you maybe watch on TV or something, but you never think you might have to experience it”, mutual aid organizer Sarah Nuñez told me. As we spoke, Sarah was sitting in her car, between mutual aid runs. “We just went to deliver a drop-off for some communities, our community over in Swannanoa, North Carolina. We got home, and now we have to fill our gas tanks with gas that got dropped off yesterday”. Sarah and her co-organizers haven’t showered in a week, and were clearly sleep-deprived. “I’m literally sitting in my car talking to you because my phone’s about to run out and all my external batteries are out of power”. Sarah has lived in Asheville since 1997. “I have a beautiful half acre of land and an herb farm and a mutual aid project called Aflorar Herb Collective that I have been running on site here for three years”, she told me. Sarah spoke lovingly of her relationship to the land. “The mountains here, I mean, it’s like paradise. The Blue Ridge Mountains are some of the oldest mountains in the world. The rhododendrons and the laurels just sit and they hold our mountains, our trees, our rivers. It is sacred land”, she explained. Sarah was out of town when the storm hit the area. She lost contact for 24 hours with the person who was looking after her dog and her farm, due to service outages. Unsure of what she would face when she returned, Sarah stocked up on supplies. “I was in Salt Lake City and I wasn’t going to come home empty-handed, so I went to the local military supply store and stocked up with anything I could think of to get”, she said. Upon arriving in North Carolina, Sarah connected with Nicole Townsend, a fellow organizer, and the two stocked up further on bulk supplies. “We got all the supplies, we made little kits with cookies, crackers, water, and stuff that we could get packed in little ziplocks, and we hit the streets on foot and in our cars, and then started meeting up with community”. Relying on a hand-crank radio for updates about storm fatalities and other news, Sarah’s small crew has worked to assist people who government aid efforts have not reached. “FEMA and the government resources really haven’t hit the ground in some of these communities”, Sarah explained. Many people in the rural mountain communities around Asheville are stranded, due to a lack of gasoline for their cars, and unable to seek assistance. Organizers from Atlanta, who Sarah and Nicole have relationships with, have brought gas that has allowed their team to make supply runs to some of their isolated neighbours. In Asheville, collective survival is presently maintained by a patchwork of communal care. “There’s small little hubs, small little resource hubs set up and some larger resource hubs”, Sarah said. The hub Sarah and Nicole are co-organizing on Sarah’s land serves as many as 100 people, but these organizers are also helping to create additional hubs. “With that drop we just made a little bit ago to Swannanoa, we helped them set up one of the first hubs for that particular community. It was an apartment complex that opened up their little picnic area”. Just prior to our conversation, the organizers made a supply run that exhausted their resources, but they said the organization Southerners on New Ground would be bringing more supplies soon. “There’s so many groups on the ground”, Nicole Townsend told me. “BeLoved [Asheville] is a large organization that’s been moving since day one. They’re able to get big trucks in and set up at different spots. They have been trained in disaster relief for a really long time”. Old Fort after Hurricane Helene. Emily Thomas/EdNC For smaller mutual aid groups, tight-knit relationships and a culture of problem-solving enabled organizers to move fast and tackle the needs of people who might otherwise be left behind. “We kind of get it”, Nicole said. “I was talking to [organizers with] Peace Gardens and Hood Huggers the other day and they were saying it’s like they’ve already been doing this work for a while, so they can just plug in and move stuff out”. “We’ve been organizing together, some of us, for two decades”, Sarah explained. “We’ve been through a lot. We’ve been through immigration raids, we’ve been through trying to move city and county policy. We’ve been doing inside, outside and against the state work for a while”. Nicole described the work of everyday people, rescuing and providing for one another. “We’ve seen eighty-year-old men put on their overalls and hop on their tractors and get people from their homes and rebuild their driveways so that they could actually figure out how to leave”, she said. In an era of catastrophe, no one is exempt from disaster. “Get your bug out bag ready”, Sarah said. “Get ready. Have everything you need to survive without water, power, or internet for at least a week. Get that ready because it could save your life or your community’s lives”. Nicole also stressed the importance of strengthening relationships and solidarity networks, which can quickly become avenues of survival for our communities. “There is a pretty tight community across the mountains”, she said. “People have literally just been knocking on doors saying, ‘I got you, what do you need?’” Mapping out the web of relationships and experience in the Asheville area has facilitated the creation of resource hubs. “Knowing that so-and-so lives on this street or so-and-so is a community leader here, let’s make their house a hub for this apartment complex or this trailer park”, Nicole explained. Finding a role in the webwork of collective survival has driven home the importance of each organizer’s knowledge and relationships. “There are moments as an organizer where you feel like, ‘Oh, maybe I’m not doing enough’, But then you realize, ‘Oh yeah, I actually know a hundred addresses’, or, ‘I have phone numbers for people in various parts of the region’. – this is generations of relationship building which has allowed neighbours and organizations to move supplies and do wellness checks to the capacity that it has been happening”, Nicole said. “I think that the folks on the ground are outpacing the local, the state, and the federal government when it comes to making sure people are alive and making sure folks have clean water”. There are, however, limits to what that local spirit of solidarity can overcome. “Winter is approaching in our mountains”, Nicole noted. “It’s going to be hard. There are people that we may not find for months. We know our smaller, more rural mountain towns are not getting the attention that Asheville or Hendersonville are getting. And so we need people to keep their eyes on our rural communities”. Support from outside of North Carolina has been crucial to mutual aid efforts on the ground. “There’s been an outpouring of people who can’t physically get to the region who have said, give me the link or tell me the supplies you need”, Nicole said. “We’ve had the anarchist punk queers from across the country say, ‘We’re going to get some friends together and raise $100 and Venmo you, ’ or, ‘We have a nana in Durham who can get some Ensure and some wipes’”. Nicole believes that people outside the region understand how special the area is, and appreciate its deep history in justice movements. “They love this region the way this region has loved the social justice movement for generations”, she said. However, like Heather and Beth, Sarah and Nicole worry that the damage from Helene will drift from public view. “Don’t forget about us”, Sarah said. “We have so much to rebuild. There’s so much devastation”. Sarah described the emotional toll the storm damage has taken. “We’re riding around town and your heart drops to your stomach. The places that you used to eat, the places you would gather with your friends, homes that you love, they’re gone”, she said. Continued financial support for local groups is crucial, she said, “and maybe even in a few weeks volunteering [in-person] could be helpful”. While organizers are not yet prepared to host an influx of out-of-town activists, Sarah feels such support could be valuable, in time. Once this early, urgent phase of the crisis has passed and “our parasympathetic systems get to a place of calm”, Sarah emphasised that organisers will need support to shore up their “emotional, spiritual, mental health”. “When natural disasters happen, they get 15 minutes of news rotation and then folks forget about us”, Nicole said. Nicole also mentioned the negative attitudes that some liberal Democrats hold about the South, and people in the South who are impacted by natural disasters. “I’m sitting with that narrative right now because I’m witnessing the resilience of thousands of people who are literally caring for each other and giving each other deep, intimate love in ways that are so unique to the South”, she said. “We know how the rest of the country views us as a region. And this was a moment when we rose to the occasion. We know no one’s coming to save us. We’ve got to save ourselves”. “Don’t forget about any community that suffers this kind of devastation. Folks who have a special skill when it comes to construction or building an ecovillage, whatever it is, when we call, pick up the phone and throw down with us”, Nicole said. Sarah also asked that people consider donating to small mutual aid collectives. “We deeply appreciate the big-name organisations and our local government, but there’s some small collectives that are moving some real shit. For some of them, $100 could transform their whole operation”. Sarah also looked to the future, questioning what we could do to prepare for the next disaster. “How do we ensure we’re being more diligent about preparing for more natural disasters that will come”, she asked. “We know that those who are in decision-making positions do not care about climate change. They’re arguing with each other and not taking real steps to protect our environment. We’ve seen a heightening of these disasters. So, what does it mean to fortify our climate justice framework?” Sarah talked about the need to build a stronger movement, one that isn’t rooted in “white, middle-class values”, but rather, “working class, BIPOC values”. As we wrapped up our conversation, Sarah checked her messages and absorbed another wave of bad news. “Generations are going to feel the impact of this”, she said quietly. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Top photo: Beth Trigg The post Neighbours as lifelines: The power of mutual aid in Asheville appeared first on Freedom News.