Green Party Candidates will appear on PA 2024 Ballot
Activists Locked Out by PA Governor
Green Party of Pennsylvania
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Sunday, April 7, 2024
CONTACT:
Chris Robinson, Communication Team Co-Leader
215-843-4256 and [email protected]
Activists Locked Out by PA Governor
By Doug Mason
Due to PA Governor Josh Shapiro’s stance on climate change many environmentalists were enthusiastic supporters and promoted his 2022 campaign for PA Governor. Now it appears that they have been fooled.
Shapiro claims that he has an open door policy. When two dozen protesters from Pennsylvania Action on Climate (PAC) went to his office in Harrisburg on March 19, the door was locked and surrounded by a dozen capital police and state troopers. PAC had tried to set up a meeting both in person and online with the governor to no avail.
During this attempted office visit, three members of PAC were arrested on the floor of the Capitol building: Rev. Tim Seitz Brown, a Lutheran pastor from York; Rachel “Renzy” Neffshade, a Pittsburgh climate activist; and Doug Mason, chair of the Sierra Club Moshannon Group and of the Green Party of Centre County. The Moshannon Group has 905 members from Pennsylvania’s central counties from Maryland to New York. The Green Party of Centre County is a chapter of the Green Party of Pennsylvania (GPPA, https://www.gpofpa.org). These three leaders were protesting Shapiro’s acceptance of bribes from the fossil fuel industry, despite his claims to be a climate advocate.
The three protestors attempted to read a statement from PAC, but it was ripped out of their hands. They were then handcuffed and taken to the basement of the Capital Complex to be processed. After about two hours, they were released on their own recognizance.
“I’m a 73 year old climate dissident who took the personal risk of acting in civil resistance against state government policies, as well as the business-as-usual activities of industry, economic systems, and individuals that fail to take urgent action to reduce and eliminate carbon dioxide emissions caused by fossil fuel use,” said Mason. “The risks I incur from this action are a small sacrifice compared to the scale and urgency of the threats of climate change to our existence.”
“I claim my right under the First Amendment of the United States Constitution to conduct this nonviolent civil disobedience as an expression of my freedom of speech to petition to the government for redress of the extreme and manifest grievance caused by government policies and laws failing to effect carbon dioxide reduction or lacking in the power to enact necessary preventative and remedial actions to reverse the negative effects of carbon emissions from fossil fuel burning and to limit fossil fuel extraction and halt the increase of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere that are causing global heating and climate change,” concluded Mason.
The previous few weeks had been contentious between the governor and environmentalists. Maya van Rossum from the Delaware Riverkeeper Network, concerned about hydrogen hubs, interrupted Shapiro at a Philadelphia union event, and a Dimock resident and disabled veteran, Ray Kemble, challenged him at another union event a few days later in Scranton over lax enforcement and water-supply losses.
Apparently the governor’s “open door” is not for people who are concerned about political corruption, hurt by fracking or want to comment on development of hydrogen hubs in PA. These three issues are connected because it is very likely that the way hydrogen is produced in PA will support the expansion of fracking.
The Green Party of PA, https://www.gpofpa.org, has opposed fracking since 2008, and it continues to represent the environmental movement in elections to this day. The Green Party of PA is an independent political party which stands in opposition to the two corporate parties. GPPA candidates promote public policy based on the Green Party’s Four Pillars: grassroots democracy, nonviolence, ecological wisdom, and social justice/equal opportunity. For further information about GPPA, please email [email protected]. Please follow GPPA on social media: Facebook, https://www.facebook.com/gpofpa/; Instagram, https://www.instagram.com/pagreenparty/; and Twitter, https://twitter.com/GreenPartyofPA.
For More Information
Pennsylvania Action on Climate, https://www.pennsylvaniaactiononclimate.org
“Climate Activists Trying to Meet with Gov. Shapiro Arrested After Refusing to Disburse,” Patriot News, March 19, 2024, https://www.pennlive.com/politics/2024/03/climate-activists-trying-to-meet-with-gov-shapiro-arrested-after-refusing-to-disperse.html
Marcellus Shale Resolution, Green Party of PA, April 2011, https://www.gpofpa.org/fracking
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Green Party Kicks Off PA Nomination Campaign
Green Party of Pennsylvania
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Friday, April 5, 2024
CONTACT:
Chris Robinson, Communication Team Co-Leader
215-843-4256 and [email protected]
Green Party Kicks Off PA Nomination Campaign
Getting Green Party candidates on the ballot will be extremely important this year in Pennsylvania because there will be vital issues which candidates from the two corporate parties will not touch. Clean water, public housing, rights during an eviction, reproductive rights, public transit, climate change, genocide, and neo-colonialism are all issues which will be addressed by Green Party candidates. Now is the time to get on the ballot candidates who have solutions for homelessness, mass incarceration, global wars, and rampant industrial pollution.
On April 3, the Green Party of Pennsylvania (GPPA, https://www.gpofpa.org/) announced the kickoff for the 2024 nomination campaign. Nomination papers are now being distributed state-wide.
The GPPA nominated Dr. Jill Stein on March 10 to be their candidate for President of the U.S. She has the answers for the big questions facing the nation. Co-leader Alex Casper (Philadelphia) of the GPPA Green Wave Team, says, “Jill needs our help, and so do our PA Attorney General and U.S. Senate candidates. Please help Greens win in 2024 so that we can make big changes happen.”
“For the Green Party candidates to appear on the General Election ballot,” continued Casper, “we will have to gather nomination signatures from 10,000 registered voters. The Green Wave Team will be hosting petition trainings each Wednesday at 7:00 pm and Sunday at 3:00 pm. Please check the GPPA Calendar, gpofpa.org/calendar, to RSVP for the next petition training.”
The Green Party of PA, https://www.gpofpa.org, is an independent political party which stands in opposition to the two corporate parties. GPPA candidates promote public policy based on the Green Party’s Four Pillars: grassroots democracy, nonviolence, ecological wisdom, and social justice/equal opportunity. For further information about GPPA, please email [email protected]. Please follow GPPA on social media: Facebook, https://www.facebook.com/gpofpa/; Instagram, https://www.instagram.com/pagreenparty/; and Twitter, https://twitter.com/GreenPartyofPA.
For more information:
“PA Greens Nomination Jill Stein for President of the U.S.” GPPA News Release, March 14, 2024, https://www.gpofpa.org/pa_greens_nominate_jill_stein_for_president_of_the_us
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GPPA welcomes Pope Francis to Pennsylvania
For Immediate Release
September 25, 2015
Contacts:
Jay Sweeney [email protected]
570-587-3603
David F. Ochmanowicz Jr. [email protected]
GPPA welcomes Pope Francis to Pennsylvania
The Green Party of Pennsylvania welcomes His Holiness Pope Francis to our beloved Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. His much-anticipated visit to Philadelphia is a joy to so many.
In Pope Francis’s recent encyclical about climate change and the environment, Laudato Si’ (Praise Be to You), he has shown his passion to live up to his adopted papal name Francis, after the Christian patron saint of animals and the environment.
“Pope Francis shares many of the The Green Party of Pennsylvania’s values.” said GPPA Chair Jay Sweeney. “He is outspoken on social justice, environmental and economic issues that our party has been equally outraged over”, Sweeney concluded.
“Pope Francis’s encouraging words and efforts to address climate change, his implicit opposition to fracking, his care and respect for people of all nations and his criticism of the ‘cheerful recklessness’ of pure unregulated capitalism show that we share mutual goals in these important areas”, said GPPA Steering Committee member David Ochmanowicz Jr.
The Green Party of Pennsylvania is an independent political party that stands in opposition to the two corporate parties. The Green Party of Pennsylvania stands for grassroots democracy, social justice, non-violence and ecological wisdom.