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Paxus Calta (born 1957), born Earl Schuyler "Sky" Flansburgh, is an American political activist, communitarian and writer. He has been involved with the anti-nuclear movement and is a member of the Twin Oaks Community.
Calta was born as Earl Schuyler Flansburgh, or "Sky" as a nickname, in 1957. Calta studied engineering and economics at Cornell University, where he served as a student member of the Board of Trustees and as a member of the Quill and Dagger society. Afterward he worked as a software designer, helping to found and ultimately sell two software consulting firms. [1] In 1982, he changed his name to Paxus Calta. In 1988, he hitchhiked on sailboats across the Pacific, [2] [3] settled briefly in Australia and then moved on to Hawai'i where he worked for Makai Ocean Engineering. After the fall of the Berlin Wall, Calta moved to the Netherlands and worked for The World Information Service on Energy (WISE [1] ) in Amsterdam.
Calta was invited by a Czech deep ecology organization, Hnutí DUHA, to run the international campaign against the Temelín Nuclear Power Station from Brno, Czechoslovakia in 1991, which remained his primary home base for most of the 1990s and from where he campaigned against nuclear power. During this time, he "moved up" in the Friends of the Earth hierarchy. [2] In 1998, Calta moved to Twin Oaks Community, located in Virginia in the United States.
Calta is a proponent of polyamory and writes [4] on the topic. In 2004, he wrote a chapter of the book The Impossible Will Take a Little While (compiled by Paul Rogat Loeb), in which he detailed a successful campaign launched by an 18-year-old to overthrow the Bulgarian government. [5]
Throughout the 1990s, Calta was involved in campaigns to stop nuclear power plants in 6 countries in Central Europe. Calta was the Chair of the international campaign commemorating the 10th anniversary of the Chernobyl disaster. [6] and co-managed the FAIRE project (Free & Applied Internships in Renewables and Efficiency) which trained Central European activists in English language skills, campaigning and then placed them in western environmental groups as interns. The FAIRE project was funded by the Heinrich Böll Foundation, which is affiliated with the German Green Party. Hnutí DUHA invited Calta to be the lead international anti-nuclear campaigner after he left WISE. In 1994, Calta presented materials before the US House of Representative Subcommittee on International Development to block the Export-Import Bank of the United States from funding the Temelín reactor. [7]
Calta initiated the Clean Energy Brigade project in the early 1990s in the Czech Republic in which local activists installed energy saving hardware in residential homes and public buildings at materials cost in exchange for documentation of reduced energy use. [8] The program was later expanded to 11 Central and East European countries and is now called the International Energy Brigades. [9] In aggregate, the efficiency upgrades from this project are abating thousands of tons of CO2 annually. [8]
More recently, he campaigned against a planned new reactor at North Anna in Virginia and was arrested [10] [11] and jailed [12] for protests there. On December 4, 2009 Calta critiqued Stewart Brand on NPR on the merits of using nuclear power to stop climate change. [13] Calta served on the board of directors of the anti-nuclear group Nuclear Information and Resource Service (NIRS) from 1997 til 2010, and as the president of the board for the last 3 years.[ citation needed ]
After the August 23, 2001, Virginia earthquake which closed down the North Anna nuclear power plant, Calta and others founded the organization "Not on Our Fault Line", for which Calta has been repeatedly a spokesperson. [14] [15] [16]
On November 30, 2011, Calta was arrested with 17 others in Charlottesville, Virginia as part of the Occupy Charlottesville protest. [17]
In late 2013, Calta co-founded the Point A project designed to start income sharing communities in urban centers on the East Coast of the US. These communities would be part of the Federation of Egalitarian Communities. In 2015, the Point A project launched its first new income sharing project in Washington DC called Compersia. [18]
On 16 January 2017, Certa presented an interactive workshop on activism at Elon University. [19] His effort was to describe methods that can be used, and motivate participants to choose their own causes. But his perspective was slanted as un-American when critically covered by the American Lens. [20] His response to their critique provides a minor insight into the substance of his character: "Appreciate being targeted". [21] In the summer of 2018, BBC 4 filmed part of their Utopia series at Twin Oaks, Calta was the principal guide. [22]
The Flip Project brings out-of-state activists, organizers, street performers and artists to referendums and US Senate elections of national importance. It is self funded, independent and disproportionately effective in getting voter turn out when compared with conventional door-to-door canvassing.
In 2018, Calta organized a group of intentional community members to canvass for the Florida state constitutional amendment restoring ex-felon voting rights. The referendum made the 60% threshold to be enacted in to law. Governor DeSantis blocked the referendum on a technicality cutting 1.4 million adults from the voting roles.
In 2020, Calta organized another group of activists in an effort to unseat US Senator Susan Collins in Maine, by supporting Green Party Candidate Lisa Savage. Because Maine uses rank choice voting, third party candidates are not spoilers as they are in "normal elections". After losing in Maine, the Flip team went to Georgia, where they organized concerts, tiktok videos, free ride to the polls promotion, vote curing. Both Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff won their very close races.
In 2022, Calta organized another group of activist to return for the re-election of Rev [Raphael Warnock] which was the only state wide election won by a Democrat that cycle.
Calta is already organizing for the 2024 election.
Calta authored a pamphlet about polyamory which has been translated into 5 languages. [23] [24] Calta considers himself an anarchist [25] and is the principal organizer of the Fingerbook Propaganda Project, which produces and distributes "Fingerbooks" (small handbooks) on consensus decision-making, [26] designing revolutions, polyamory, and intentional communities.
He has also been a member of Twin Oaks Community since 1998, serving as the community's recruiting manager, manager of outside work and a general manager of Twin Oaks Hammocks, Inc. He has appeared on both CNN and Voice of America videos discussing the community. [27] [28]
Calta is the son of the late Earl R. Flansburgh, a Boston architect, and the older brother of John Flansburgh, of rock band They Might Be Giants. His grandfather is Ralph Hospital through his mother, Polly Flansburgh, who is the founder and president of Boston by Foot, which gives architectural walking tours of the city of Boston.
Greenpeace is an independent global campaigning network, founded in Canada in 1971 by a group of environmental activists. Greenpeace states its goal is to "ensure the ability of the Earth to nurture life in all its diversity" and focuses its campaigning on worldwide issues such as climate change, deforestation, overfishing, commercial whaling, genetic engineering, anti-war and anti-nuclear issues. It uses direct action, advocacy, research, and ecotage to achieve its goals.
Friends of the Earth International (FoEI) is an international network of grassroots environmental organizations in 73 countries. About half of the member groups call themselves "Friends of the Earth" in their own languages; the others use other names. The organization was founded in 1969 in San Francisco by David Brower, Donald Aitken, and Gary Soucie after Brower's split with the Sierra Club because of the latter's positive approach to nuclear energy. The founding donation of $500,000 was provided by Robert Orville Anderson, the owner of Atlantic Richfield oil company. It became an international network of organizations in 1971 with a meeting of representatives from four countries: U.S., Sweden, the UK and France.
Louisa County is a county located in the Commonwealth of Virginia. As of the 2020 census, the population was 37,596. The county seat is Louisa.
Twin Oaks Community is an ecovillage and intentional community of about one hundred people living on 450 acres (1.8 km2) in Louisa County, Virginia. It is a member of the Federation of Egalitarian Communities. Founded in 1967, it is one of the longest-enduring and largest secular intentional communities in North America. The community's core values are cooperation, egalitarianism, nonviolence, sustainability, and income sharing. About 100 adults and 17 children live in the community.
John Conant Flansburgh is an American musician. He is half of the long-standing Brooklyn, New York–based alternative rock duo They Might Be Giants with John Linnell, for which he writes, sings, and plays rhythm guitar.
The anti-nuclear movement is a social movement that opposes various nuclear technologies. Some direct action groups, environmental movements, and professional organisations have identified themselves with the movement at the local, national, or international level. Major anti-nuclear groups include Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, Friends of the Earth, Greenpeace, International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, Peace Action, Seneca Women's Encampment for a Future of Peace and Justice and the Nuclear Information and Resource Service. The initial objective of the movement was nuclear disarmament, though since the late 1960s opposition has included the use of nuclear power. Many anti-nuclear groups oppose both nuclear power and nuclear weapons. The formation of green parties in the 1970s and 1980s was often a direct result of anti-nuclear politics.
Temelín Nuclear Power Station is a nuclear power plant in Temelín in the Czech Republic. Temelín NPP is owned by ČEZ Group, which employs 1000 workers at this site. The adjacent castle Vysoký Hrádek serves as an information centre.
The Nuclear Information and Resource Service (NIRS) is a 501(c)(3) non-profit anti-nuclear group founded in 1978. Its mission is to be an information and networking center for citizens and organizations concerned about nuclear power, radioactive waste, radiation and sustainable energy issues. The organization advocates for energy efficiency, solar power, wind power and plug-in hybrids.
Rising Tide North America is a grassroots network of groups and individuals in North America organizing action against the root causes of climate change.
The anti-nuclear movement in the United States consists of more than 80 anti-nuclear groups that oppose nuclear power, nuclear weapons, and/or uranium mining. These have included the Abalone Alliance, Clamshell Alliance, Committee for Nuclear Responsibility, Nevada Desert Experience, Nuclear Information and Resource Service, Physicians for Social Responsibility, Plowshares Movement, United Steelworkers of America (USWA) District 31, Women Strike for Peace, Nukewatch, and Women's International League for Peace and Freedom. Some fringe aspects of the anti-nuclear movement have delayed construction or halted commitments to build some new nuclear plants, and have pressured the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to enforce and strengthen the safety regulations for nuclear power plants. Most groups in the movement focus on nuclear weapons.
Nuclear weapons testing, uranium mining and export, and nuclear power have often been the subject of public debate in Australia, and the anti-nuclear movement in Australia has a long history. Its origins date back to the 1972–1973 debate over French nuclear testing in the Pacific and the 1976–1977 debate about uranium mining in Australia.
The anti-nuclear movement in Germany has a long history dating back to the early 1970s when large demonstrations prevented the construction of a nuclear plant at Wyhl. The Wyhl protests were an example of a local community challenging the nuclear industry through a strategy of direct action and civil disobedience. Police were accused of using unnecessarily violent means. Anti-nuclear success at Wyhl inspired nuclear opposition throughout West Germany, in other parts of Europe, and in North America. A few years later protests raised against the NATO Double-Track Decision in West Germany and were followed by the foundation of the Green party.
In the 1970s, an anti-nuclear movement in France, consisting of citizens' groups and political action committees, emerged. Between 1975 and 1977, some 175,000 people protested against nuclear power in ten demonstrations.
Brigadier General Ralph Hospital was born January 27, 1891, in Washington, D.C. He was commissioned in November 1913 as a Field Artillery officer and saw service with the 15th Cavalry Regiment during the Mexican Campaign in Douglas, Arizona and Sierra Blanca, Texas. He served as an Artillery officer in France during World War I and then took an instructor job at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York until the mid-1920s. Major Hospital served with the 15th Field Artillery Regiment during its period under the Hawaiian Division in 1925, and returned to the states in 1926 to attend Command and General Staff College at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. He was a Distinguished Graduate and soon returned to Ithaca to instruct ROTC again.
Anti-nuclear protests began on a small scale in the U.S. as early as 1946 in response to Operation Crossroads. Large scale anti-nuclear protests first emerged in the mid-1950s in Japan in the wake of the March 1954 Lucky Dragon Incident. August 1955 saw the first meeting of the World Conference against Atomic and Hydrogen Bombs, which had around 3,000 participants from Japan and other nations. Protests began in Britain in the late 1950s and early 1960s. In the United Kingdom, the first Aldermaston March, organised by the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, took place in 1958. In 1961, at the height of the Cold War, about 50,000 women brought together by Women Strike for Peace marched in 60 cities in the United States to demonstrate against nuclear weapons. In 1964, Peace Marches in several Australian capital cities featured "Ban the Bomb" placards.
Jan Beránek is a Czech ecological activist, energy expert, politician, employee of Greenpeace and former member and chairman of Czech Green Party.
In the 1960s the Austrian government started a nuclear-energy program and parliament unanimously ordered a nuclear power-plant built. In 1972, the German company KWU began construction of the Zwentendorf Nuclear Power Plant boiling-water 700 MWe reactor. In 1976, two years prior to the nuclear power-plant opening, the government began a program to educate its citizens on the benefits and safety of nuclear power. However, this campaign began a public discussion that led to large demonstrations against the Zwentendorf plant in 1977.
Denmark imports but does not produce nuclear energy, which is in accordance with a 1985 law passed by the Danish parliament, prohibiting power production from nuclear energy in Denmark. In 2014 and 2015, imported nuclear power accounted for 3-4% of electricity consumption in Denmark.
The nuclear energy policy of the United States began in 1954 and continued with the ongoing building of nuclear power plants, the enactment of numerous pieces of legislation such as the Energy Reorganization Act of 1974, and the implementation of countless policies which have guided the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the Department of Energy in the regulation and growth of nuclear energy companies. This includes, but is not limited to, regulations of nuclear facilities, waste storage, decommissioning of weapons-grade materials, uranium mining, and funding for nuclear companies, along with an increase in power plant building. Both legislation and bureaucratic regulations of nuclear energy in the United States have been shaped by scientific research, private industries' wishes, and public opinion, which has shifted over time and as a result of different nuclear disasters.
The anti-nuclear movement in Russia is a social movement against nuclear technologies, largely stemming from the results of the Chernobyl incident in 1986. During the most active phase of the anti-nuclear movement, from 1988 to 1992, construction of over 100 nuclear projects were prevented on the territory of the Soviet Union. Also, the economic troubles of the 1990s led to a reduction in the number of construction projects. This deprived the anti-nuclear movement of its raison d’être. At the same time, it too was affected by financial difficulties, in particular the lack of donations, which continues to be an issue today. Since the 2000s the Russian Government embarked on highly pro-nuclear policy, with plans to invest billions of dollars in developing the nuclear industry, which leaves the movement with big challenges.
Paxus Calta-Star—'Not Deterred': Brief powerful vignette of an 18-year-old who launched the overthrow of Bulgaria's dictatorship
