Dina Gilio-Whitaker: 'Summer Heat' brings in Native activists

In early August 2,000 to 2,500 climate justice activists in the San Francisco Bay Area marched in solidarity against oil industry mega-giant Chevron on the first anniversary of a massive explosion at its Richmond refinery that sent 15,000 people to area doctors and hospitals, thanks to a toxic cloud that blanketed the region. It also comes on the heels of a lawsuit filing by city officials against Chevron for economic damage caused by the fallout. The action was part of a larger campaign called "Summer Heat," a series of coordinated actions across the country designed to increase public awareness (and criticism) for the fossil fuel industry and its role in climate change.

Summer Heat’s strategy of nonviolent civil disobedience capitalizes on the media attention generated when massive numbers of people are arrested. And it works, too—the Richmond protest resulted in 210 planned arrests and the story being picked up by numerous news outlets in the US and beyond. The tactic of nonviolent civil disobedience as a method to attain justice is the bailiwick of progressive politics and is extensively used by climate justice activists which include indigenous peoples, increasingly working cooperatively with non-Native activist groups. As non-Native people see themselves victimized by the neocolonial forces of globalization in much the same way Native people have been for centuries, the need to join forces against the world’s “corporatocracies” are painfully obvious.