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 A full year after I disrupted the BLM oil and gas auction, I still have no regrets for my actions.  The legal case against me continues, and thanks to your support, my legal team and I will make a strong defense when the trial begins on March 15th.  Even as it looks more likely that I will be serving time, those consequences are as worth it as they have ever been.

While I’ve certainly been encouraged by the reversal of the leases, the most important thing that justifies any consequences is the development of Peaceful Uprising.  Over the past year, Peaceful Uprising has become a powerful force in the fight against catastrophic climate change.  We have developed an extremely talented and committed group of people who defend a livable future through empowering nonviolent action.  

Over the past year we have been experimenting with exactly what the role of Peaceful Uprising should be.  We launched the group by taking 30 students to Washington DC for the Power Shift Conference and the Capitol Climate Action.  Being a part of the largest mass civil disobedience in the climate movement, which shut down the Capitol Power Plant and ended their use of coal, was a very empowering experience for those students.  From there we initiated a grassroots lobbying effort which included a novel phone tree that generated almost 400 calls in one day to Blue Dog Jim Matheson about his statements earlier that day.  The pathetic result of the Waxman-Markey Bill helped many people realize that working within the system was not going to save us and stronger action was necessary.  Peaceful Uprising moved on with a powerful flash-mob in August and a highly successful 350 event on October 24^th.  

During this time, the true roles for Peaceful Uprising became clear.  At the dozens of speeches and public events I’ve done this year, countless people have expressed that they respect what I did and see the need for similar actions, but don’t feel empowered to take those actions themselves.  Creating that sense of empowerment is the most important role of Peaceful Uprising.  We do this first through our actions that demonstrate that ordinary people can be bold and effective agents of change. We are also committed to walking people through that personal transformation necessary to realize their potential.  We help people find where they fit into the movement and see that they are more courageous, creative and beautiful than they ever knew.

The other role of Peaceful Uprising is to take the actions that other environmental groups are not willing to take.  Some of our mainstream environmental groups are opposed to the owner of our local Snowbird Ski Resort, Dick Bass, developing a massive coal strip mine on Alaska’s Chuitna River, but they were not willing to wage a boycott against the resort.  So PeaceUp stepped in and created dontskicoalbird.com for skiers and season pass holders to commit to never buying another pass at Snowbird if Bass goes through with the mine.  We will continue escalating this campaign with actions at Snowbird throughout the winter.  Likewise, we will be complementing the campaign of some of our local clean air groups against Kennecott Copper Mine, who runs the only coal fired power plant in the Salt Lake valley, with the confrontational actions needed to stop their coal burning forever.  

Now that the Copenhagen negotiations have catastrophically failed, the need for a bold and honest group like Peaceful Uprising is greater than ever.  The failures of Copenhagen and climate legislation have created a clear moral imperative for direct citizen action.  As we are running out of time to deal with the climate crisis, Peaceful Uprising is a force that can turn the movement’s failure into success.  We now have three people working full time and dozens of others putting consistent effort into our mission.  We are connecting to other bold groups and creative leaders across the country to create the impactful climate movement that we so desperately need.

Many people from around the country supported me when I took a risky move.  PeaceUp will make sure that actions like mine will continue to happen often enough to defend a livable future.  Please help support Peaceful Uprising so that my action is never thought of as a single feat but as just one act in a bold movement.  Your donation can make a huge difference to our success in rising to the greatest challenge we have ever faced.  Can you donate $20 to help defend a livable future?  We run a lean and mean operation, so even a few dollars helps.  Click here to donate now.  

If you’d like to stay up to date on Peaceful Uprising, sign up to receive our newsletter.  If you’re in Utah, stop by our office at 362 S. 300 E. to find out how you can get involved.