VOLUNTEER - Tammie Carson
Description of Individual or Organization
Tammie Carson has contributed greatly to environmental causes and to campaigns against animal cruelty in the area. She has done this by supporting organizations, participating in rallies, speaking out at public hearings and participating in direct action campaigns.
As a member of Tar Sands Blockade working on stopping the KXL pipeline Tammie chained herself to a TransCanada excavator in East Texas. She was arrested and served with a SLAPP suit by TransCanada. Her action was shown in the documentary Above All Else about the fight against Keystone pipeline and recognized with an award from the Dallas Peace and Justice Center. She also participated in No KXL protests and marches in Houston and Austin.
As a part of Occupy Dallas she participated in near daily marches, tabling and outreach work to inform people of the role big banks play in funding climate destruction.
She has been an active member of Liveable Arlington since the group’s inception. She has participated in all aspects of the group’s campaigns – tabling, door to door outreach, speaking at city council hearings against drilling permits, meeting with elected leaders to advocate against drilling near schools, speaking at EPA and TCEQ hearings in support of the methane cuts and for a better state plan to reduce ozone in the DFW area. Most Liveable campaigns are associated with powerful images of the people and places being hurt by drilling. Tammie Carson is a talented photographer who is responsible for all those images.
She is a member of the Sierra Club and the Arlington Conservation Council and recently fought a battle against the city of Arlington to stop the cutting of trees in her backyard and her Arlington neighborhood.
She has participated in climate marches, Dallas Peace and Justice Center actions and street theater, and volunteered often with the North Texas Light Brigade to support various environmental and human rights causes.
Tammie owned an eclectic boutique called the Cosmic Crow Collective in downtown Arlington for a few years. She let many community groups use space there for meetings and for campaign work. Liveable Arlington and others greatly benefited from this generosity. The store sold vintage, fair trade, and upcycled items and promoted a cruelty and waste free conservation ethic in the community.
She has been a guest speaker at the Texas Campaign for the Environment multiple times. She has been part Standing with Standing Rock events hosted by Yolanda Bluehorse and been at numerous marches and rallies in downtown Dallas and sometimes beginning at Energy Transfer Partners and marching past Kelsey Warren's home.
She has been an active participant of many campaigns against animal cruelty over the years. As a PETA member she promotes animal rights at numerous events-encouraging vegan lifestyle. She has helped document animal abuse locally and participated in letter writing campaigns against the dolphin slaughter in Toji, Japan.
As part of Mercy for Animals, she has been at tabling events with encouraging vegan lifestyle. She has participated in Petland protests sponsored by Animal Connection of Texas nearly every Saturday for a year in Arlington. That store is closed now. She has been part of Trophy Hunters protests two years in Dallas. She has been at weekend protests at the Dallas Zoo hosted by Margaret Morin for the Save Jenny campaign to move an old elephant moved to a sanctuary.
She has taken part with Animal Connection of Texas in numerous marches, protests and outreach/tabling events against the Ringling Circus for abuse of animals (now it is shut down), the Tyson chicken processing plant in downtown Dallas rally and march/candlelight vigil, and the Columbia pig processing plant in south Dallas that was leaking blood into the Trinity river.
For the last six years, Tammie has been tabling at the Dallas Veggie Fair promoting a vegan lifestyle. She has been volunteering at the animal shelter in Mansfield the last year with her granddaughter and has also gone to schools as part of the Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra’s outreach programs in public schools.
Leadership (Nominee demonstrates leadership through example, knowledge, attitude)
Tammie has been a constant fixture and an integral part of almost every effort to accomplish environmental progress, racial justice, advance human rights, and to stop animal cruelty locally for many years. Organizations and campaigns working on those issues have benefitted from her participation and efforts.
Environmental Impact (Nominee demonstrates a positive impact on the local environment via policy change, product offering, significant volunteer contribution or other achievement)
In her personal life she lives the ideals she promotes. She is vegan and cruelty free, she refused to sign up for drilling under her home. She led efforts to stop tree cutting in her neighborhood, and her Arlington store promoted cruelty free, and exploitation free products. She sold beautiful vintage and upcycled products to promote waste reduction.
Community Impact (Nominee demonstrates commitment to DFW green community through involvement with causes, business ventures or organizations)
I have addressed this in the earlier questions and below.
Other reasons for your nomination
She has participated in March For Our Lives candle light vigil for Treyvon Martin in Dallas
Save our Schools rally/march in Austin, been a speaker at civil rights event BORDC.org
She has participated in many events with 350.org, climate strikes in Dallas and Fort Worth, events with Code Pink, Amnesty International letter writing campaigns and tabling events.
I nominate her because Tammie has given her time, talents and labor generously and prodigiously to environmental issues and campaigns to end cruelty against animals in the DFW area. She has been a part of every bit of progress made locally in those areas. She has exhibited leadership and supported various groups, and has shown great courage especially in the Tar Sands Blockade. She has played an important role in all of Liveable Arlington’s efforts to stop drilling and fracking. When I look at the vast scope of her work and the number of causes she has worked so hard on, it is hard to believe that Tammie is one person. She is one person, but she has played a huge role in promoting clean air, fighting fossil fuels, stopping animal cruelty, and promoting peace and human rights and racial justice in the DFW area.
