The Northeast Climate Confluence
July 30 ­ Aug 3rd, 2008
Epworth Camp & Retreat Center in High Falls, NY
www.climateconfluence.org

Hello,

The purpose of this letter is to tell you about the Northeast Climate Confluence and invite you to our next Westchester planning meeting at the end of June 2008 at the WESPAC space at 255 Martin Luther King Blvd in White Plains, NY.

Confluence: a mixing of different streams or weather patterns that flow together and become stronger, resulting in a series of storms.

The Northeast Climate Confluence is a week-long coming-together of movements, groups, and individuals to strategize for action, strengthen our relationships, and share ideas and skills. The same system that wages a daily war on our communities is poised to destroy our very life blood: the earth, the water, our food, and our culture. The power to stop this destruction already flows through our roots, and by combining our knowledge and energy we will create real solutions and decrease our dependence on the institutions that are attacking the planet and all life. The workshops at the Confluence will be organized into tracks with concrete goals. For example, one of the tracks will be a Northeast Disaster Relief Network track, which will, by the end of the Confluence, create a regional network made up of local organizations.

This event was conceived as a response to global warming – the disruption of the planet’s climate caused by industrial pollution that threatens all life on Earth. Global warming/global climate change is still a central focus, but we realize that we can’t simply talk about the issue of climate change and ignore the hundreds of other issues that it is deeply connected to. We are looking to address the political and social “climate” as well as the Earth’s changing climate. It is the combination of both that is already bringing us highly visible disasters like Hurricane Katrina, as well as hidden disasters like higher asthma and cancer rates, mass extinctions worldwide, and ongoing wars.

Water Warriors Maude Barlow The Nation April 14, 2008 issue _____________________________________________________________________ Thousands have lived without love, not one without water. W.H. Auden, First Things First...