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Think tank looks to link environment justice and labor issues By Paul Rosenberg, Senior Editor
Peter Peyton has been an activist within the ILWU for 20 years, both in Local 13 and Local 63—where he’s held every office, including president. He’s also done important work in the International, where he has served on the executive board, created the legislative program and the political action program in the late 1990s. Peyton, a one time city council candidate, also sits on the Harbor Community Benefit Foundation—a
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foundation that was established as part of the TraPac settlement to administer mitigation funds to offset the negative impacts of port pollution. Now he’s engaged in creating a new entity, a think tank to deal with issues of labor and the environment in the ports, the wider community and transportation networks they are part of: the Aquamarine Institute. “It’s where blue meets green,” Peyton explained.
Aquamarine Institute/ to p. 3
Trayvon Martin, Troy Davis and the 2012 Election
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he idea for it developed specifically out of the combination of environmental concerns and the impact of the Great Recession. Others involved include Mark Vargas, formerly interim director at the Henri Cartier Bresson Foundation, Sean Arian, former director of Economic Development for the City of Los Angeles and David Hodgins, who has worked with the Clinton Global Initiative. The aim is to establish a sustainable regional economy that meets labor and environmental needs, while maintaining market share in the global economy. “We call it JEEP—jobs, energy, environment and profit,” he summarized. “Pre 2009 we had year-over-year double-digit growth,” Peyton recalled. “The problem then was how are we going to handle this growth... In the meantime, we had rolled out the clean trucks program, and a number of other environmental projects. At the same time, we were stalled on
By Bruce A. Dixon, Managing Editor, Black Agenda Report
Politics and Travon Martin/ to p. 5
Peter Peyton launches the Aquamarine Institute think tank to address environmental justice and labor issues at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach. Photo: Terelle Jerricks.
Aprl 6 - 19, 2012
When the president likened Trayvon Martin to his imaginary son, and said there ought to be a national debate about something or other, what did that mean? It might mean President Barack Obama wants the votes of those outraged by the murder, but isn’t prepared to do much of anything to deserve them beyond claiming to feel our pain. The world of U.S. politics and media is a twisted place where lofty words often cloak base intentions. It’s a world where Trayvon Martin’s parents, for instance, feel obliged to trademark phrases containing their son’s name to prevent economic exploitation of his case by canny entrepreneurs. But in a presidential election year, rampant political abuse,
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