Cross-border Work

The Story of Cap and Trade

By Carol Schachet
December 12th, 2009

As the Climate Summit in Copenhagen plods onward, various so-called solutions to global warming are being tossed around: Alternative energy, Cap and Trade, adaptation and mitigation, and many more. It can be hard to make sense of them, and even more difficult to unpack the myths from the realities. Fortunately, Annie Leonard, who brought us “The Story of Stuff” offers a new video to explain the Story of Cap & Trade.

International Day of Action for Rivers

Cultures in different parts of our planet have long held rivers to be life-giving. Early human civilizations are even known by their connection to the river systems whose banks they arose from like the Indus-Ganga, the Nile and the Yangtze Kiang-Huang He. But today human actions and inaction have literally throttled our rivers through industrial pollution, mega dams, diversification, deforestation and the list goes on.... But people are fighting back -- especially those most directly impacted. In my home country India, numerous popular movements have emerged like the Narmada Bachao Andolan (NBA-Save the Narmada Movement) and the Ganga Mukti Andolan (GMA-Free the Ganga Movement).

Grassroots International Partners in Haiti receive emergency funding

Since a devastating earthquake shook Haiti more than two weeks ago, Grassroots International’s partners on the ground have been working to assess the situation and respond to the needs of the community – even as they themselves have suffered great losses. With help from hundreds of people who have donated in response to the crisis, Grassroots International has made three initial grants to three of our partners in Haiti.

From Honduran ally organization: "Solidarity with the Haitian People"

The letter below comes from one of Grassroots International's allies in Honduras -- Civic Council of Popular and Indigenous Organizations of Honduras (COPINH)-- and expresses solidarity with their neighbors in Haiti.

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Solidarity with the Haitian People

From Gaza to Haiti and Back Again

GAZA CITY—I dreamt of Haiti last night. Something about the scene felt eerily familiar. The visions of people trapped under folded sheets of concrete, children crying out to family members they would never see again, and incapacitated hospitals overflowing with the dead and injured were so vivid that even after I opened my eyes, I still thought I was there. And then the early Islamic call to prayer brought me back to where I was—I had made it into the Gaza Strip from Israel the day before.

Last year, I visited Grassroots International’s partners and projects in Haiti right after spending time in Gaza over the summer.

Honduras: Unsolved matters

Gaza Freedom March -- No Token Delegation

Nitin Sawhney, a friend of Grassroots International and long time activist for Palestinian rights, was one of the 100 delegates, from the over 1300 international delegate-members of the Gaza Freedom March, chosen to go into Gaza through a last minute intervention by Suzanne Mubarak, wife of Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak. Nitin, and many of his colleagues including the American activist and Holocaust survivor Hedy Epstein decided at the last minute to not go.

Gaza Freedom Marchers await entry, keep vigil

Starting on New Year’s Eve, the Gaza Freedom March (sponsored by Grassroots International and scores of other organizations) was set up to be an amazing international show of solidarity for the Palestinian people trapped in this small strip of land, still suffering one year after the Israeli bombing campaign.

But things don’t always happen as they are planned.

More than 1,300 international marchers have been denied entry into Gaza by Egyptian officials, thus barring their only practical port of entry (since Israel has blockaded the territory).

We can’t change the climate, but we can change the system

A militarized regime in Honduras continues, Via Campesina headquarters broken into

Paraphrasing Lisa Sullivan, School of the Americas Watch Latin America coordinator, the Honduran election last Sunday is another case of political ‘whitewash’ in the American continent.