Building a Future of Equality and Sustainability

Vision for the Future

• Achieving a world where everyone has access to:
  • Clean water and air
  • Nutritious food
  • Housing
  • Education
  • Basic income
  • Caring community
• Ensuring equal access to meaningful work

Challenges and Lies

• Big Lies Hindering Progress
  • Sacrifice zones are necessary: Places like Cancer Alley and Port Arthur suffer from pollution and systemic racism.
  • Extracting individuals from communities for incarceration leads to safer neighborhoods.
  • Trade-offs are essential, such as pollution for jobs, over-policing for safety.
  • Billions spent on extractive industries are necessary.
  • Insufficient resources to meet all communities' needs.

Reality and Consequences

• Misuse of resources by the powerful leads to:
  • Climate crisis
  • Mass incarceration
  • Violence and loss
• Communities are exploited, termed as "fence line communities."
• Examples of affected communities:
  • Appalachia: Faced with prison projects, joblessness, addiction.
  • Texas and California prisons: Incarcerated individuals at risk during climate disasters.

Need for Transformation

• Recognizing the interconnected futures and struggles of communities.
• Emphasizing collective abundance, connection, and power.
• Divesting from zero-sum narratives and uniting against exploitative systems.

Success of Collective Movements

• Movements uniting against common oppressive systems have achieved significant victories:
  • Immigration and formerly incarcerated individuals stopped jail expansions in California.
  • Indigenous people and military families in Hawaii closed the Red Hill fuel facility.

Call to Action

• Everyone deserves to thrive, find joy in work, and live in harmony with nature.
• Encouragement to join the movement for a just world.
• Building liberation from oppressive systems, fostering interconnected liberation.
• "Watering the roses" metaphor for nurturing a just future.