Water is Life honors the Water Is Life Movement that began at Standing Rock. The show is a space for conversations that include honoring and loving our water in many different ways, and standing up to protect it. You can listen at KEPW.org, or at 97.3FM if you are in our service area in Eugene (which will be increasing shortly). Water is Life is produced in Eugene by Jana Thrift and John Abbe.
Download: MP3 of Water is Life #3
Our first guest this month (September 8th, 2017) is Jasun Plaedo Wellman (Facebook – Twitter), a local musician and member of the Eugene Avant Gardeners. He will share a song he has written called “Water Is Life” and talk about the connection between growing food and our precious water resource.
We’re excited to have three Heirs to Our Oceans with us in the second part of the show – Kiran, Shay, and Cambria. Heirs to Our Oceans (Facebook – Twitter) is a global movement that is creating the next generation of environmental leaders. These youth recognize that they will be inheriting the problems their oceans face from adults today, and they are rolling their sleeve up to do something about it. With their generation a shift needs to occur with humanity where they recognize the importance of their relationship with their natural environment. One is more likely to care about the Blue and protect it if they are connected to it spending time in, on and around water. Educational reform is a driving force of Heirs To Our Oceans as kids in primary and middle school can learn about the problems their planet faces and follow a path of solutions in their careers. They take on important matters, learning deeply about them including with expert mentors, and try to encourage children everywhere to do the same. Highly inspirational, Cambria, Shay and Kiran will talk about Heirs To Our Oceans and their journey in the organization as Heirs.
Kiran’s micro-website on how climate change affects the oceans. (Mitigation and adaptation resources coming in an update!)
Monthly News
Indigenous People’s Day is coming up October 9 this year. The city of Eugene acknowledged the holiday for the first time last year. You could also check in with UO or LCC Long House for related events.
Our heart goes out to the Dreamers who will now be waiting to see if this country will follow through on its promises to them. Anti-immigrant attitudes are particularly ironic in this country, as Patrick Miller points out here:
does ending DACA mean the native americans get their country back or are we selectively deciding whose ancestors are grandfathered in
— Its ya boy Patrick Miller aka Hat Trick Killer aka (@pattheflip) September 5, 2017
Three calls to action we’re aware of right now:
- September 8-9, StopETP – Actions encouraging people to divest from the banks funding Energy Transfer Partners, the company behind the Dakota Access Pipeline and a number of other foolish fossil fuel projects. On the website there’s a 10am action at Wells Fargo on September 9 in Corvallis.
- October 23-25, Global Days of Action to divest from banks funding. Sign up at the website to organize or participate in a local action.
- Equator Banks, Act! – Organizations can join over 100 others who have already signed onto this call for banks to formally strengthen the Equator Principles in considering climate change and respecting indigenous rights when making funding decisions on fossil fuel projects. (Participating banks meet on October 24 in São Paulo, Brazil.)
Water is Life – Plaedo
the song plays about 25 minutes into the episode
I live in a city, surrounding a river
but nobody live on dry ass Mars
yo here on Earth, Water is Life
inside every cell of everything alive
is a mini ocean so then tell me,
why we wanna allow the sell the water?
to corporate marauders with open wallets
when the rights get bought up then bottled for profit
so who got the dollar? and who live in squalor?
who drink it out the bottle? who drink it out the tap?
yet no water in Flint in the land of the rich
it will make you sick it’s polluted like that
so they A.k.A. Nestle donate a few cases
after taken and say it’s given back
still dirty water in the tap of the faucet,
to fix it’s an act of conscious, not capitalistic logic
but water’s not an object, it’s our stream of conscious
reflected in the water is our thought image
so don’t pollute the water nah let the water cleanse you
bless you as you drink it
water is sacred
not to be wasted
oil and water
really don’t mix,
So Standing Rock
Is Who I’m Standing With
I’m pouring you some truth
it’s up to you to sip.