This article by Benjamin Barber appeared in The Guardian newspaper on May 7, 2017. If only the author had been aware of the Community Rights movement when he wrote this article, he would likely have acknowledged that cities already have a way of insisting on their “right of self-governance”, by passing Community Rights ordinances. For example, in Paul Cienfuegos’ groundbreaking speech, “We the People Standing Together to Protect Our Climate: Lessons From the Community Rights Movement“, he shares numerous examples of local laws that could be passed in cities nationwide, such as:
* Requiring local lending institutions to provide low-interest loans to individuals and companies proposing carbon-neutral developments, and also prohibiting those institutions from lending money to any new fossil-fuel development projects
* Prohibiting any further local fossil fuel extraction, pipelines, coal or oil trains and barges through the community
* Prohibiting the privatization of local utilities, and if necessary, reversing previous privatizations, to bring decision-making authority back under local public control
* Prohibiting local media from accepting advertising from fossil fuel companies
You can read Benjamin Barber’s entire article HERE.