Youth Vs. Apocalypse Drops Third Single, Climate Poet Tamiko Beyer Drops Knowledge,Meet Baltimore Climate Peoples Movement and The Power Shift Network

IN COMMUNITY ACTION NEWS, MEET THE BALTIMORE CLIMATE PEOPLES MOVEMENT

We just found out about a great grassroots organization just up the road in Baltimore, MD. It’s called the Baltimore Climate People’s Movement.

It was founded in 2017 by a group of organizations, advocates, artists and faith leaders who realized they were all striving for the same goal, but in an uncoordinated way, unintentionally disconnected from each other. Rather than merge all into one, the Baltimore Climate Peoples Movement charter sought catalyze the parts into an “intersectional climate justice movement for Baltimore.”

The Baltimore Climate Peoples movement is more than 25 organizations acting in a decentralized-yet-unified manner to build the New Energy & Economic Future. Their goals are to reverse environmental racism in Baltimore. It’s first project was mobilizing 600 Charm City residents to the 2017 People’s Climate March in Washington, DC.

Since then, the BCPM has rallied around projects on zero-plastic burning in Baltimore-area power generation/incinerator plants, reclaiming vacant lots in Baltimore through native plant restoration, the linkage between air pollution and mental health in communities of color and more.

DEEPER DIVE: BPCM Facebook, BPCM, Power Shift Network

IN MORE COMMUNITY ACTION NEWS, MEET THE POWER SHIFT NETWORK

Young people today face a world in crisis: a broken political system, deepening inequality, entrenched and emboldened racism, and a catasTROPHically changing climate. Into the breach steps the Power Shift Network. It’s an organization committed to action, mutual support, and solidarity —  building a strong, intersectional, bottom-up movement to take on the climate crisis, shift the power, and change the system.

The mission of the Power Shift Network is to mobilize the collective power of young people to mitigate climate change and create a just, clean energy future and resilient, thriving communities for all.

The Power Shift Network has multiple lines of work/action, including: periodic power shift convergences; pipeline resistance training and events; webinars on political education; a fiscal sponsorship program; even a Youth Climate Justice Spokesperson Bureau.

What’s great about the Youth Climate Justice Spokesperson Bureau is it’s actually a collection of first person narratives by power shift network participants. If your life is rosy,so you’re conflicted about climate change, check out some of these “sh*t just got real” stories from young people who will be spending most of their lives in the era of climate change. Jarring-yet-inspiring.

Find out more by Checking out the link @ theclimate.org/episodes at the bottom of this story.

DEEPER DIVE: Power Shift Network, Youth Climate Justice Spokesperson Bureau,

CLIMATE CHANGE POET, TAMIKO BEYER

Tamiko Beyer is the author of two books of poems addressing the environment and climate change. Beyer’s first, We Come Elemental, published in 2013 by Alice James Books, features, as Poets at Work say, “environmental poems, but not pastoral; we don’t see the traditional imagery of untouched meadows or flowing springs, instead, Beyer gives us pollution and unease. This sense of destruction flows through the collection is Beyer’s way of heightening our awareness [of] environmental destruction.”

Her second foray, Last Days, also published by Alice James Books in 2021, is a practice of radical imagination for our current political and environmental crises. It excavates the conditions that have brought us here—white supremacy, heteropatriarchy, corporate power, capitalism—and calls ancestors, birds, organizers, and lovers to conjure a new world. It explores how to transform our future to be more beautiful, more just, and more compassionate than we can imagine. Here’s a snippet of “Equinox”: 

She is a queer, mixed race (Japanese and white), cisgender woman and femme, living in on land traditionally cared for by the Massachusett people.

DEEPER DIVE: Tamiko Beyer, Equinox, Alice James Book

YOUTH VS. APOCALYPSE HAS GOT TRACKS!

Earlier this year, The Climate Daily introduced you to Youth Vs. Apocalypse, the Oakland, California based,  network of diverse, young climate justice activists working together to lift the voices of youth, in particular youth of color, and fight for a livable climate and an equitable, sustainable, and just world.

Guess what we just found out? YVA’s got tracks, y’all! According to a press release from the Power Shift Network, Youth vs. Apocalypse recently released their third single and music video, “Where’s the Money At?” This song is about divesting from and defunding systems that devalue life — such as policing and fossil fuels— and investing in and funding systems that value sustainability and equity. 

YVA’s second musical release was an EP called, “This is the Time.” It dropped December 31, 2020. The song and video were part of YVA’s “Hip Hop & Climate Justice Initiative.” That initiative provides a space for youth to use their art to express their activism whether that be through poetry, rap, visual art, or dance. 

YVA’s very first single and music video release occurred back in April 2020. It’s called , “No One is Disposable.” 

I love the variety of ways Youth vs. Apocalypse is reaching out:physically and musically. The more we can normalize combating climate change in US culture, the faster we’ll all get to lessening the severity of climate change, adapting to the consequences of it, and achieving resilience through learned coping skills.

DEEPER DIVE: SoundCloud, PowerShift Network