Converging Storms Action Network

Click on "Read More" for more information about this exciting new study series co-sponsored by Converging Storms Action Network and Studies for Global Justice.

WHEN:
Sundays, March 14 – April 18, 2010
2:00 pm - 6:30 pm
With time for refreshments

FIRST SESSION:
Sunday, March 14
See below for schedule

WHERE:
Flintridge Retreat Center
236 W. Mountain Street
Pasadena, CA 91103.
Meeting room is on Banbury Alley, between Mountain and Lincoln Ave.
(near the intersection of Orange Grove and Fair Oaks Ave.)
Nearest Metro Gold Line Station: Memorial Park (Holly St. near Fair Oaks)

WAYS TO REGISTER:
Mail Reg Form: PO Box 39712, L.A., CA 90039
Or CLICK HERE
Phone/leave message: (626) 628-3068
Advance registration suggested due to limited space and materials

REGISTRATION FEE:
$40 Registration Fee
$10-$30 Low Income Fees available
No one turned away for lack of funds
Checks payable to: A. Wallace (please note SGJ in memo)

STUDY SERIES SESSION SCHEDULE:
March 14: Introduction to Series, and Energy as a Critical Environmental Problem
March 21: On the Impact of Fossil Fuel Dependency: Peak Oil, Climate Change, Resource Depletion, and Global Toxification
March 28: Problematics of Capitalism and Environment Facing Activists Today
(no class April 4, but a party is being planned!)
April 11: Limits to Alternative Energy and Current Responses to Ecological Crises
April 18: Possible Future Scenarios and Strategies for Progressive Change

SERIES DESCRIPTION:
Converging Storms 2010:
The Crises of Energy, Capitalism, and the Environment

Converging Storms is a study series on the intersection of peak oil, global capitalism, and ecological crises. We will examine issues associated with a troubled global system whose petroleum dependency and imperative to expand is precipitating, and colliding with, the ecological realities of diminishing fossil fuels, global warming, resource depletion and contamination (eg. food, water, land), species extinction, and population pressure. What is the nature of the environmental crises now challenging the global system as we know it, and what is its systemic relationship to capitalism? Why do we think this issue should influence our analysis of everything from the current economic meltdown to the Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan to Hurricane Katrina? And what should activists be doing about it?

While many environmental reforms never fully address the global and systemic dimensions of our ecological problems, too many systemic, anti-capitalist analyses never fully address the centrality -- or urgency -- of the energy and environmental crises. Can lifestyle politics and incremental policy reforms adequately deal with the scope and power of such vast, deeply-rooted challenges as peak oil and global warming? Can socialists afford to wait for the end of capitalism to "fix" things, and how would that system's demise solve the immediate and scientific realities of finite resources in a finite (and life-threatened) global habitat?

SGJ/CSAN invite you to join us in considering whether, and how, we should centrally position the earth's ecological crises in our overall assessment of global capitalism today, and in the development and application of our strategies for progressive social change.

STUDY SERIES CO-SPONSORS:

Studies for Global Justice is a Los Angeles-based group of socialist-minded activists that coordinates study sessions on the history, nature, problems, and complexities of 21st-century capitalism.
Our mission is:
-- To provide an inclusive and respectful space for the discussion, debate, and systemic and multidisciplinary analysis of capitalism that uses popular, participatory, and collective learning.
-- To create an educational atmosphere that bridges activism and study.
-- To encourage participants to use this learning not only for their own intellectual development, but also as a means for generating power for political and social change in their communities, and for creating viable democratic socialist alternatives to the capitalist system.

Converging Storms Action Network is a network of activists from diverse
arenas whose shared analysis, activities, and actions for progressive social change centrally address the intersecting crises of energy, capitalism, and the environment.
Our principles of unity include:
-- We understand the crises of energy, capitalism, and environment to be systemically interconnected, and feel they must be addressed as such. We find capitalism (given its defining commitment to a competitive market economy, private property, profit maximization, perpetual economic growth, and unequal power relations) generates harmful, unsustainable, and unequal consumption of earth resources. Some of us believe capitalism can’t resolve these crises. Others believe it can. But we all agree that to remedy these problems, capitalism must be challenged.
-- Our objectives, therefore, are to contribute to a systemic analysis of the crises, to educate and mobilize people, promote activities, and build alliances consistent with this analysis, to illuminate the role and limits of capitalism and pressure that system towards fundamental change, and to advocate for sustainable alternative approaches (healthy, humane, just, economically and politically democratic) that will allow us all to live together in a finite world.