The Rocky Mountain Peace and Justice Center is a left-leaning advocacy organization focused particularly on non-violent social change. ¹ It has provided fiscal sponsorship services to numerous other organizations, including a Denver-based Black Lives Matter organization. ¹ The Rocky Mountain Peace and Justice Center describes itself as “radically progressive” and works on issues including opposing pesticides, “social justice,” “global peace,” and “nuclear guardianship.” ² The Rocky Mountain Peace and Justice Center has opposed to the use of zero carbon nuclear energy. ^{3 4}

Background

Rocky Mountain Peace and Justice Center was founded in 1983 by people who had been involved in demonstrating against the Rocky Flats Plant nuclear weapons facility. ¹ The organization focuses on several issues for involving various left-progressive “justice” causes,² hosting regular collective meetings, including “Social Justice,” “Media Literacy,” “Economic Justice,” “Global Peace,” and “Nuclear Guardianship.” ²

The group advocates “radically progressive” personal and social change. ⁵ The organization also opposes using pesticides in Boulder County, Colorado, believing them dangerous to community health. ⁵ The organization views social justice as requiring a change in the distribution of wealth and it believes the climate change contributes to this inequality. ²

Black Lives Matter

The Denver-based Black Lives Matter 5280 is sponsored by the Rocky Mountain Peace and Justice Center. ⁶  On its website, Rocky Mountain Peace and Justice Center features its sponsorship of Black Lives Matter 5280 and its movement is “aligned in Black love, power, and liberation” in support of the Black Lives Matter movement, in order to embody the declaration that Black Lives Matter “regardless of gender identity, gender expression, sexual identity, immigration location or status, gang affiliation, profession, ability, economic status, and religious beliefs or disbeliefs.” ⁷

Opposition to Nuclear Energy

Rocky Mountain Peace and Justice Center is a member of the Alliance for Nuclear Accountability, a coalition that opposes the use of nuclear energy and refers to it as a “dirty” and “dangerous” power source that “makes climate change worse.” ^{3 4}

Nuclear power plants produce no carbon dioxide or other greenhouse gas emissions, and as of 2021 accounted for 19 percent of American electricity production—the largest source of zero carbon electricity in the United States. ⁸ An October 2018 proposal from The Nature Conservancy noted that zero-carbon nuclear plants produced 7.8 percent of total world energy output and recommended reducing carbon emissions by increasing nuclear capacity to 33 percent of total world energy output. ⁹

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1. About: Rocky Mountain Peace and Justice Center: Boulder, CO. (n.d.). Retrieved June 28, 2020, from https://www.rmpjc.org/about-us
2. “Collectives.” RMPJC. Accessed June 28, 2020. https://www.rmpjc.org/collectives.
3. “Alliance Members: The heart and soul of the Alliance for Nuclear Accountability.” Alliance for Nuclear Accountability. Accessed August 1, 2023. https://ananuclear.org/ana-members/
4. “Nuclear Power.” Alliance for Nuclear Accountability. Accessed August 1, 2023. https://ananuclear.org/nuclear-energy/
5. “Rocky Mountain Peace and Justice Center.” Colorado Nonprofit Association. Accessed June 28, 2020. https://www.coloradononprofits.org/membership/nonprofit-member-directory/nonprofit/50608.
6. Stilson, Robert. “The Organizational Structure of Black Lives Matter.” Capital Research Center. Capital Research Center, June 18, 2020. https://capitalresearch.org/article/the-organizational-structure-of-black-lives-matter/.
7. “About: Fiscal Sponsor Groups.” RMPJC. Accessed June 28, 2020. https://www.rmpjc.org/fiscal-sponsor-groups.
8. “Nuclear explained.” U.S. Energy Information Administration. Accessed July 25, 2023. https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/nuclear/us-nuclear-industry.php
9. “The Science of Sustainability.” The Nature Conservancy. October 13, 2018. Accessed July 25, 2023. https://www.nature.org/en-us/what-we-do/our-insights/perspectives/the-science-of-sustainability/