So We Stand

Campaigning - live debate today on the Guardian

Our very own Dan Glass from Plane Stupid will be debating live on the Guardian website today from 1-3pm. Dan will be arguing that grassroots movements are the most effective way of creating change as opposed to top heavy methods from big charities. Check out the panel below:

Chris Norman, Strategy Director at The Good Agency @thegoodagency

A founding partner of The Good Agency, Chris has worked on social and environmental campaigns across not-for-profit, corporate, and government sectors for the last 17 years, developing and implementing communications strategies to engage stakeholders to motivate behavioural and attitudinal change. His experience includes working with ActionAid to tackle issues such as conflict diamonds and patent on food; combating discrimination for Age Concern; banning wild animals in circuses, fighting intensive farming and irresponsible puppy breeding for the RSPCA; with UNISON on public engagement campaigns and social and environmental internal engagement campaigns for corporations like Mars and Diageo.

Linda Butcher, Chief Executive at Sheila McKechnie Foundation (SMK) @smkcampaigners

Linda Butcher joined SMK in September 2008, having been active in the voluntary and community sectors for more than two decades. From 2001-2008, she was Chief Executive of Off the Streets and Into Work (OSW), a charity that worked to alleviate poverty, homelessness and disadvantage, leading the development of the organisation from a London-based programme into an award winning, transnational network of organisations and individuals. OSW and CRISIS merged in 2010. Linda has also been a member of the London School of Economics Research Ethics Committee since 2008.

Dan Glass, Plane Stupid and So We Stand @planestupid

Dan organises with grassroots movements 'Plane Stupid Scotland' and 'So We Stand', bringing together anti-racism, anti-poverty and anti-climate change struggles to take united action.

He has spent the past five years in inner-city community and youth organising in Glasgow, Manchester and London. During this time he has worked building strategies for self-defence with communities of colour and economically marginalised communities that are disproportionately affected by polluting industries. Dan revels in finding ways to be a thorn in the side for those destroying the planet including duly occupying airports and dancing with old ladies blighted by flightpaths.

Jenny Driscoll, Senior Communications Manager at Which?

Jenny has been at Which? for over 12 years and have worked on campaigns in personal finance, energy, food and health. She has held various positions so has vast experience of targeting media, industry and government to achieve campaign aims. Prior to joining Which?, Jenny worked for ActionAid and the Church Urban Fund.

Join in the fun by leaving a comment here, or ask a question live and follow the debate today, Tuesday 15th March, from 1-3pm.

Environmental justice website launched

Welcome to the amazing Environmental Justice website that has just launched: http://environmental-justice.com/

Over the past year a movement has developed using creative and empowering methods to highlight the deep-seated reasons we need to take action today. The reality that climate change, poverty and pollution aren't a mistake - fossil fuel industries and the politicians who turn a blind eye to their impacts rely on the unequal burden place on ourselves and our communities to uphold unequal power in the UK today.

So We Stand - a people's movement organising for empowering social change to develop multiracial politics and self defence strategies to better our lives and communities - are calling for individuals to listen to the voices, witness the images of how we are forced to live and watch the videos of different stories and then more importantly - stand up to take action.

From Heathrow to Grangemouth to Merhyr Tydfill this is just the start. Through this project we realise that we are not alone in this fight. In order to tackle these growing problems we must join the dots between social and environmental problems. We have lived for too long while greed and addiction to profit has brutalised our way of life. Those days are long gone and we must fight for justice, a way of life free from poverty, climate change and pollution.

Reframing race and climate change

CtrlAltShift Blog #6 - In the last of the CtrlAltShift/Plane Stupid blog series, Dan Glass from Plane Stupid Scotland and from new project So We Stand explains why we should never succumb to racial or climate injustice, why we should never forgot those lost in the battle and why we should fight on, as a unit, for a better generation...

The convergence between racial equality and environmental justice is becoming clearer every day. As runaway climate change intensifies, every hour people from overseas continue to knock on UK immigration office doors. They do this not because they have damaged their own homes or are bored of their cultures, but because the nations in whom they seek solace have disrupted their way of life (in one way or another).

Carbon-intensive lifestyles in the West have caused floods, droughts, resource wars and continued exploitative exploration throughout communities in the global south. In my own opinion, non-white communities in the developing world bear the brunt of environmental justice. Meanwhile, at home in Britain, communities who work in high emission industries also face the worst. Before runaway climate change really hits home in the UK, as it has done already for people all over the world, we have a tiny bit of breathing space to understand the interlinked nature of its impacts. In the age of the "Big Society", when it is supposedly our duty to help our neighbours, how do we being to understand these issues and mould society into what we want it to be?

In the UK, fresh evidence highlights that ethnic minorities are more exposed to low air quality - a social consequence of carbon heavy industries. As research develops, the battle-lines are being drawn. Whether we're talking about communities living daily with pollution from London's major airports, witnessing the building of gas plants in many major British cities, or referencing inner-city poverty in areas of multiple deprivation across the UK, non-white communities often come off worse. What's more, the poor are being hit ten times as hard as the rich during the imminent budget cuts which we are told are 'across the board'.

Every day, people are being violently oppressed when trying to stop the impacts of environmental exploitation. We remember Ken Saro Wiwa and others who bravely challenged Shell's oil exploration in Nigeria, who received the death penalty instead of being listened to. We remember those people all over the developing world caught in the firing line for challenging environmentally destructive 'development'.

It can be disheartening to witness the continuation of a carbon-heavy, and psychologically unstable system. I wish it was simpler. For me, it is almost possible to wade through the congealed mass of society and see the isolation which is tearing apart its collective spirit. It is, however, still possible to wade through and pick up floating pieces of community cohesion, of youth support, celebration of ethnic diversity, of dignity. But the beauty lies in the interconnected nature of environmental justice - once you unravel one string in the massive tangle that is the problem, it makes it easier to understand the rest.

And how exactly can we hope to agitate, radicalise and empower ourselves for our common goals? Our strength will come in understanding the consequences and implications of those taking action to counteract structural oppression and injustice. Many people experience exploitation, environmental or racial, because certain social structures and policies that interweave their lives are controlled by and benefit disproportionately elite groups at the expense of the masses, limiting people that want to take action on their concerns.

Whenever you hesitate to open the newspaper for fear of fresh daily diagnosis of environmental and social problems, when your stomach churns at the racial or environmental injustice perpetuated by those in power, there is something you can do.

Patrol the police, hold them to account and help them swerve their line of vision to the real corrupt criminals, those lining their pockets at the expense of people and the planet. For us all to stop carbon heavy industry expansion, state repression against environmental refugees and more, we have to understand and support where people are coming from.

Movements mutate and develop by engaging in each others struggles. Fighting for climate injustice becomes the same battle as fighting for racial, class and gender equality, through struggling for the right to voice our concerns, to protest and ultimately - to exist in peace and dignity.

There's your Big Society! There are hundreds of projects out there and a lot to be excited about, from anti-racism projects in your local community to UK wide networks for environmental justice. These interconnections and links are our starting ground in addressing injustices that have raged for generations.