Hundreds March in Santa Cruz in Advance of Paris Climate Conference
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On November 22, hundreds of Santa Cruz residents joined together for the "Climate Changes Everything" rally and march to demand action at COP21, which will be held in Le Bourget, France, from November 30 to December 11. COP21 is the 21st annual "Conference of the Parties," which is a meeting of nations organized to discuss taking action regarding the climate. After assembling at Calvary Church, community members marched downtown to San Lorenzo Park, where Rick Flores greeted them by reading a welcome message from the Amah Mutsun Tribal Band.
A wide range of speakers were heard in the park, and Santa Cruz Mayor Don Lane proclaimed November 22, 2015 as “Santa Cruz Climate Action Day.” The proclamation urges all residents to, "join together to achieve carbon-reduction goals in Santa Cruz and to join the Climate Action Network in urging global leaders at the Paris conference to adopt an aggressive plan to dramatically reduce carbon emissions around the world."
The Climate Changes Everything Rally was organized by the Santa Cruz Climate Action Network, and endorsed by many local groups, including 350 Santa Cruz, Citizens Climate Lobby SC, Sierra Club, Bay Area System Change not Climate Change, WILPF SC, Resource Center for Nonviolence, Pachamama South Bay Group, UC-AFT Green Caucus, and Fossil Free UCSC.
Introduction to rally by Michael Gasser
Santa Cruz Mayor Don Lane
Suzanne Moser, independent consultant on Climate Change and Social Change
Rick Nolthenius, Astronomy Dept. chair and Climate professor at Cabrillo College
Xiomara Castro, local union organizer
TJ Demos, head of UCSC Center for Creative Ecology - expert on Climate Justice Issues
Singer Anna Stearns invited the group to face the four directions with her as she sang
Student with Fossil Free UCSC
Student with Fossil Free UCSC
Student with Fossil Free UCSC
Summer Gray, UCSC post-doc and planning to be in Paris for the COP conference
Community members in Santa Cruz commemorated Juneteenth this year with a large march from Louden Nelson Center to Santa Cruz City Hall, where speakers were heard. Reverend Deborah L. Johnson of Inner Light Ministries started off the speeches with a history of the Juneteenth holiday. Other speakers included Valentin Lopez, Chairman of the Amah Mutsun Tribal Band.
The original Mission Santa Cruz adobe and the replica mission were both spray painted during a demonstration organized on June 10 in Santa Cruz in support of the abolition of police. The phrase "Fuck Your Citizenship" was painted on the Neary-Rodriguez Adobe, and the phrase "Maldita Cruz" was spray painted on two structures. The word maldita means "damned" or "cursed" in Spanish. Additionally, the word "genocide" was painted on the state park plaque, and the mission bell located in Mission Plaza Park was removed. Mission bells were installed across the state to memorialize the California missions. The bell displayed in Mission Plaza Park was donated by the Santa Cruz Woman's Club in 1998. In 2019, local indigenous leaders lead a successful campaign to remove the mission bell at UC Santa Cruz. They stated in a news release that the California mission system was a place where their ancestors were "enslaved, whipped, raped, ...
After being stopped by officers with the Santa Cruz Police Department in Downtown Santa Cruz over the summer, photographer Craig Burton explained in a video interview that he was taking a picture of a child in public and that his subsequent detainment by the SCPD was a case of racial profiling. Burton was clear in stating that his stop by the local police was unwarranted and that they should have known that he was not a predator. Though the authorities did not apologize to him or treat him politely, he didn't blame them, they were just doing their job he said. Burton instead focused on liberals in California, in general, as the source of the problem, stating that, "people act like they are really liberal, but they are not really liberal." He later added, "As you can see, this is Santa Barbara now." When officers Winston and Warren arrived in their patrol vehicle and first caught up to him that day on Locust Street, Burton said he was told by them to sit...
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