Here are my photos and video from the #DivestMA Global Divestment Day event at the MA State House. Below the media links is information on each of the speakers. Thanks to 350MA volunteers, especially Susan, for helping to collect this information.
Photos from the event
Available for media use with photo credit: Peter Bowden.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/116378748@N03/sets/72157650373614450/
Videos from the event
There are 20 videos in this playlist from the event. This includes those I filmed, plus others as I discover online.
DIVEST MA SPEAKERS (12-2pm)
Event moderated by Ericca Saunders and Nathan T. Nesbitt .
Tim DeChristopher
http://twitter.com/dechristopher
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Tim-DeChristopher/45507651565
Activist Tim DeChristopher speaks at the Massachussetts State House during the #DivestMA Global Divestment Day event on 2/12/15 organized by 350 Mass. For more on Global Divestment Day visit http://gofossilfree.org Tim, an independent climate justice activist, was featured in the documentary Bidder70, and is currently inciting dissent at Harvard Divinity School.
Nathan T. Nesbitt
https://nathannesbitt.wordpress.com
http://www.twitter.com/envirophysics
https://www.facebook.com/BCFossilFree
https://twitter.com/bclimatejustice
We have the solutions to climate change. Every year solar gets cheaper, and next year solar will reach grid parity in 47 states if the federal government renews the existing tax credit for solar installation. We need politicians in D.C. who will renew that tax credit. That starts here. That starts with MA Divestment.
Chuck Collins
CoFounder of Divest-Invest; Director of Institute for Policy Studies Program on Inequality and the Common Good
http://www.twitter.com/Chuck99to1
https://www.facebook.com/divestinvestorg
https://twitter.com/divestinvestorg
Divestment is powerful witness and action to weaken the political clout of the fossil fuel sector. But it is also an action to redirect capital to help us transition to a new and sustainable economy.
Dr. Itai Vardi
Lecturer in the Department of Sociology at Boston University, member of 350MA Cambridge, and co-founder of the DivestBU Faculty Group
Couching divestment in the context of climate justice, I will make a very brief connection between the current labor struggles of adjuncts in universities and the campus divestment movement. I will highlight the common causes and aspirations of both these political movements in higher education.
Mira Brown
Volunteer activist with Boston Climate Action Network (BCAN); Boston Public Schools (BPS) Teacher, a parent of a student in the BPS, a scientist, and a volunteer activist with BCAN
https://www.facebook.com/BostonCAN
https://twitter.com/bostonclimate
I am a Boston Public Schools (BPS) Teacher, a parent of a student in the BPS, a scientist, and a volunteer activist with BCAN, the Boston Climate Action Network. All these roles compel me to work to get our State Pension Funds out of the fossil fuel industry. Doing so is not only morally necessary and financially smart, but divestment is a powerful tool in changing the terms of the current political debate in the US, not just about climate, but about who should control the politics and economy of our nation and the world. Not so many years ago, when we passed dozens of environmental regulation laws in the 70’s, “The Polluter Pays!” was a recognized concept, along with the idea that government can and should tell big corporations how to run their businesses, especially when the big corporations would otherwise destroy lives and ecosystems.
Quinton Zondervan
Executive Director, Climate Action Business Association, Inc. (CABA)
https://www.facebook.com/cabaus
https://twitter.com/BARSBoston
We need to divest from fossil fuels and invest in our local economy, thereby creating jobs and protecting small businesses and our environment
Kerry Brock
Alliance for Climate Education (ACE) Senior Action Fellow; Co-Founder of the Student Organized Climate Action
http://www.twitter.com/_KerryBrock_
http://www.twitter.com/gracecaltabiano
http://www.twitter.com/acespace
http://www.twitter.com/socanboston
Youth will not let our future be destroyed by inaction on climate change. We are stepping up and calling upon our elected leaders in Massachusetts to join us by divesting from fossil fuels.
Paul Shannon
Organizer for the Peace Economy Working Group of Mass. Peace Action
https://www.facebook.com/masspeaceaction
https://twitter.com/masspeaceaction
The peace movement fully supports divestment from fossil fuels, not only because they lead to devastating climate change but because control of fossil fuels is at the root of war. It’s time for peace and climate folks to work together.
Jodi Sugerman-Brozan
Director, Bikes Not Bombs
https://www.facebook.com/bikesnotbombs
https://twitter.com/bikesnotbombs
Be the change you seek: We need to work simultaneously to organize and elevate voices for divestment and other strategies to reduce climate change – especially youth – while providing real programs that allow people to divest from fossil fuels in their own lives.
Rev. Jim Antal
Minister and President, Massachusetts Conference, United Church of Christ JimAntal; also UCCDivest
https://www.facebook.com/massucc
Our forebear in the faith, John Winthrop, proclaimed that the citizens of what would become Massachusetts “shall be as a city upon a hill” and that the eyes of all people would be upon them. When the national Synod of the United Church of Christ voted to divest in July 2013, Archbishop Desmond Tutu emailed his congratulations to me within the hour, adding, “We hope others will follow your splendid example.” Now its time for the elected leaders of the Commonwealth to make Massachusetts the first state to declare that it is immoral to allow fossil fuel companies to carry out their business plan, because if they do, they will wreck the earth. The eyes of all people are upon us. Let us be as a city on a hill, offering hope as we join with other leaders and forge a new and sustainable path.
Felix Arroyo, Sr.
Information pending
Natalie Vaughan-Wynn
Manager/Small Planet Institute
https://www.facebook.com/SmallPlanetInstitute
https://twitter.com/smallplanetinst
How do we make our voices heard in “the best democracy money can buy?”
Tim Killilea
Firefighter for local Fire Department, Director of Impact Resiliency, an organization that seeks to develop resiliency through education. Climate change is a marathon that requires divestment as a part of the long distance training program. Regardless of race, color, creed, or bank account, we are all trying to reach the same finish line, we may cross that line at different times, but we need to help each other with each step.
Pat Scanlon
Coordinator, Veterans For Peace, Smedley Butler Brigade
https://www.facebook.com/smedleyvfp
https://twitter.com/smedleyvfp
The premise for all the recent wars in the middle-east is to control oil. Fossil fuels are the hard path of energy, controlled by a few corporate giants, who control governments. We must look towards the future, towards the soft path soft path of energy, the cleaner path, the more peaceful path. In order to do that we must take control of our investments in fossil fuels away from the few in order to benefit all of us, help build a cleaner, safer world.
Nathan Tran-Trinh
Student at Boston Latin High School, and member of the Boston Student Action Council
Rabbi Katy Z. Allen Rabbi, Co-founder/ Jewish Climate Action Network; Founder and Rabbi/ Ma’yan Tikvah – A Wellspring of Hope
http://www.facebook.com/jewishclimate
https://twitter.com/JClimateAN
If we are to truly live our values, Jewish or other, then we must be constantly vigilant about how are money is being used at all levels, from our personal outlays, to our communal investments, to how our tax dollars are both used and invested.
Craig S. Altemose
Executive Director, Better Future Project craigaltemose
http://www.betterfutureproject.org
https://www.facebook.com/BetterFutureProject
https://twitter.com/betterfuturepro
We need to invest in good, renewable energy projects like Cape Wind that save lives, and immediately stop investing in and betting on fossil fuels, which end lives.
Michelle Wu
Boston City Councilor At-Large
http://www.twitter.com/wutrain
https://www.michelleforboston.com
https://www.facebook.com/michelleforboston
Wen Stephenson
Journalist for THE NATION magazine and author of the forthcoming book WHAT WE’RE FIGHTING FOR NOW IS EACH OTHER: Climate Justice and the Struggle for a Livable World (to be released by the Beacon Press, October 2015).
http://www.twitter.com/wenstephenson
http://www.thenation.com/authors/wen-stephenson
Is divestment a serious response to the climate catastrophe — commensurate with the radical situation we face? Yes. Because divestment, properly understood, is radical — and properly so. Because to be serious about the climate catastrophe, at this late hour, is to be radical. Not in the sense of ideology, but rather, a kind of radical necessity — a moral necessity.
Peter Bowden 