Media Advisory
Press Contact: Melinda Tuhus, 203-623-2186, melinda.tuhus2@gmail.com
Climate Justice Activists in DC to disrupt DNC with their bodies ahead of Democratic National Convention
Will Use Civil Disobedience to Confront DNC Chair and Call Out the Party’s Harmfully Weak Climate Positions
Where: Office of DNC Chair Debbie Wasserman Shultz (1114 Longworth H.O.B
Washington, DC 20515) and immediate vicinity
When: Thursday, July 21st, 2016
11:15am-11:30am: Gather at Spirit of Justice Park (corner of C Street SE and S
Capital Street SE)
11:30am-12:00pm: Visit Offices of Debbie Wasserman Shultz
12:00pm-2:00pm: Nonviolent Direct Action
A dozen or more activists with the climate justice network Beyond Extreme Energy will confront the DNC’s weak positions on climate change by using nonviolent direct action to disrupt business as usual in and around the offices of DNC Chair Debbie Wasserman Shultz in Washington, DC. The activists plan to lock themselves together in order to call out what they classify as climate denial and environmental racism in the party’s platform.
The activists are planning to risk arrest and will make four key demands. These demands are four items the party rejected from their platform– a ban on fracking, a rejection of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), an end to the use of eminent domain for private gain, and a halt to oil and gas drilling in the Gulf. Anyone who believes that fracking, the TPP, and the use of eminent domain for private gain are in line with strong climate policy, the group says, is promoting a new form of climate denial. Furthermore, the group says, by including language calling for an end to drilling in the Arctic and Atlantic, but not in the Gulf, the DNC shows it is willing to accept sacrifice zones and to perpetuate environmental racism. .
Beyond Extreme Energy 