Dear friends,
Happy Friday! If you’re willing and able to hit the streets, I have to give conflicting guidance, because you’re going to need to choose on Tuesday. There are big actions for important issues:
The struggle against fossil fuel infrastructure and the sacrifice of front line communities continues. This struggle is existential as well as spiritual. I encourage you to read this powerful piece about Muslim environmental activists who are fighting Line 3 in Minnesota.
We have been over and over what is at stake with Enbridge’s Line 3 tar sands pipeline: the history and continued threat to vulnerable wetlands, the treaty rights of the Anishinaabe people, and the threat to wild rice that is their staple crop. Obviously, this is part of the broader struggle against climate catastrophe.
Take action in Foley Square at noon to Stop Line 3 and Defend the Gulf!
If you can’t come out on Tuesday (or if you are headed to meet me in Union Square), you can work from home for justice today and call Governor Walz of Minnesota and ask him to drop the charges against the Line 3 protestors.
Call on Walz to immediately drop the charges of ALL water protectors. There is a phone script and call-connector hosted by Honor the Earth.
I will be just a few miles north at Union Square, relaunching the Fair Pay for Home Care campaign. While it is physically possible to do both, I’m going to sing with the new Caring Majority Choir and I need to show up for the noon rehearsal.
Fair Pay for Home Care is a human rights and worker justice campaign. Our campaign to raise home care worker wages is at a really critical point and we need to press Governor Hochul to include it in her executive budget. New York is facing a worst-in-the-nation workforce shortage. Care jobs are green jobs.
I don’t think I need to remind you that we will all grow old. When we do, I hope that we have well-paid, well-trained, good-as-gold people to care for us. I employ four such people to care for my mom, and it is not hyperbole to say that they are the heroes in our family story.
Come out and sing along (yes!) with us and support the astonishing mostly-immigrant workforce of caregivers to win Fair Pay for Home Care.
RSVP to let us know that you’ll show up for NY’s home care workers.
New York City Council was busy yesterday, and I promise to sort through their business and highlight the choicest bits for you. Meanwhile, there’s a bill that needs a push:
Anthony Reynoso introduced legislation that would
would repeal a notorious 2011 law that requires the Department of Transportation to notify community boards 90 days before installing or removing a bike lane — and then wait an additional 45 days after a community board hearing before doing the work.
New York City has made some strides in bike infrastructure AND we are way behind the great cities of the world in terms of creating a safe network of protected bike lanes.
Our local community board is generally obsessed with protecting private claims to public space (i.e. parking) to the exclusion of other concerns. Reynoso wants to maintain community engagement without allowing unelected community board members to needlessly obstruct “life-saving infrastructure.”
“Residents deserve opportunities for input on land-use decisions in their communities, including the installation of bike lanes. However, we also know that a bike lane can be the difference between life and death. Therefore, we need to ensure that once approved, bike lanes are installed as expeditiously as possible.”
Contact your city council representative today to urge them to support Int 2465-2021.
I’m taking Monday off to look in on some loved ones out of state. I’ve got my booster shot and my KN95 mask, and I’m still a little anxious. I find it helpful to remember my good fortune — that I have just a short list of mortal dangers to face each day.
Have a good weekend. I’ll be back on Tuesday with good news!
with love,
L
Even as evidence and climate threats knock on doors every day, in so many places, the oil-based mindset moves forward without consequence, delivering more global disasters than benefits for all.