International Campaign Against Coca-Cola

PRESS: Coca-Cola, Others Charged With Greenwash
December 3, 2008

The Coca-Cola company and other water companies were challenged in San Francisco by a broad coalition of groups, charging the companies with greenwashing and abusing water resources. The water companies were in San Francisco for a meeting entitled "Corporate Water Footprinting: Towards a Sustainable Water Strategy" on December 2 and 3, 2008 to ostensibly outline water conservation strategies. The coalition organized a capacity-filled Water Rights conference on December 2nd as well as a protest, including street theater, at the corporate conference venue today.
http://www.indiaresource.org/news/2008/1062.html

The Winnemem Wintu took part in this protest and a public forum the night before in the SF Bay area on the 3rd of this month.
Headman Mark Franco, appearing at the request of our tribal Chief and Spiritual Leader, spoke on behalf of the Water, the Salmon and our relations who depend on water. We met and worked with Amit Srivastava, Director of the International Campaign against Coca Cola for the India Resource Center (I think that is right). Check out their web page and get involved in stopping this water sucking, human rights exploiting giant from doing any more damage!
The Winnemem Wintu are committed to protecting the rights of those with no voice from being trampled and we appreciate the efforts of folks like Amit, Jeff Conant and Winonah Hauter from the Food and Water Watch as well as all the others who stood up for all of you. Again, join us on the front lines...don't sit back with a designer bottle of water or a cola product thinking that all is well...it's not!

On a different line, the "Boss" also sent me to UC Berkeley to speak on water and environmental Justice issues for Torri Estrada's class there. I have been sent in like this before but I wanted to acknowledge the attention and participation of the students at Cal Berkeley. I hope that what I was able to share with them gives them a glimpse into the EJ fight at the tribal level and shows them that research in this important area cannot just be a 9-5 proposition. It takes a long time to actually understand a problem before a fix can be suggested or implemented and tribal communities are just now able to open up to actual caring researchers who want to help rather than checking a box on a future job application. More on this subject in later posts.

Today is the 67th anniversary of Pearl Harbor and the "official" start of WW2 for the United States. I would like to offer a silent prayer for our tribal warriors who fought for their homeland, like by father, uncles and my late father-in-law who served this country while their own homelands were being destroyed and exploited for "the good of" others. Thankfully, my father is still with me, the others of that "greatest" generation now on the other side. If you have relatives who served during that war and for those who were caught up in the subsequent wars, hold them and care for them...they risked it all for all of us.