GJEP partners with the Sojourner Truth show on KPFK Pacifica Radio, Los Angeles for a weekly Earth Minute on Wednesday and an Earth Watch interview on Thursday.
The Devastating Costs of “Green” Hydropower
The environmental and social devastation caused by flooding millions of acres of wild ecosystems for hydroelectric dams belies the idea that these dams are “green” or “climate-friendly.” Dam reservoirs release vast amounts of methane, exacerbating climate change, and poisoning people and wildlife with methylmercury.
In many instances, Indigenous communities are forcibly removed for the dams, their food sources poisoned and their way of life lost forever.
Hydropower drives racist human rights abuses and must be rejected.
In Honduras, Goldman Prize winner and anti-dams activist Berta Caceres was murdered for her activism. In Chile, Mapuche Lonko and Goldman Prize winner Alberto Curamil was jailed for 18 months awaiting trial on bogus charges for stopping hydro projects on Mapuche land.
In Canada, Hydro-Quebec has been damming wild rivers on Indigenous lands for decades to supply electricity to aluminum smelters and for export to the US.
Hydropower is neither sustainable nor renewable. The Northeast Megadam Resistance Alliance is taking action. Learn more and sign their petition at northeastmegadamresistance.org
For the Earth Minute and the Sojourner Truth show, this is Anne Petermann from Global Justice Ecology Project.
