It’s Getting Hot In Here

UPDATE from Wild Idaho Rising Tide: “Last night the city of Moscow was a police-state, with close to 30 police officers lining a 3-block radius in downtown. We’ve been tipped off that Exxon put in a phone call to the City police department and is now paying the force’s overtime pay. The load was not blocked and people are just sick to their stomach. A community meeting is being planned and we need as much help as we can get.”

The fight against the tar sands is hot!

In the past week and half, over 700 people have been arrested sitting in at the White House in protest of the Keystone XL pipeline. Also today, Indigenous Canadians took action at the Canadian embassy in Washington D.C. More actions are planned everyday until Saturday and it’s beginning to spread around the world with solidarity actions in Cairo and Durban, South Africa.

And in Idaho, Wild Idaho Rising Tide has already taken multiple actions blocking the tar sands megaloads bound for Alberta.

Last week, 9 were arrested fighting the megaloads. More actions are planned. 67 more loads will be rolling and they need some help!

Oil companies like Exxon are transporting massive pieces of oil extraction equipment from South Korea to Portland Oregon via ship, up the Snake and Columbia Rivers by barge to Lewiston Idaho and plan to truck them to Alberta over Idaho and Montana’s scenic highways and byways. The megaloads have been fought in the legal and regulatory arenas in ID and MT. Exxon has used every trick and loophole in the book to move that equipment. Now they are moving and Idaho’s residents are responding with non-violent direct action.

Wild Idaho Rising Tide put out this call for support today:

“Keep up your creativity and resolve under pressure, dear comrades! Allies elsewhere, we are under escalating siege and need you by our sides, either physically or fiscally. Please come to Idaho or contribute your aid to our resistance of another 67 transports that build tar sands hell.“

Contact Wild Idaho Rising Tide at wild.idaho.rising.tide@gmail.com or on Facebook

They need support funds and people to help plan and carry out creative non-violent direct action.  Please support however you can. Continue reading ‘Red State Rebels: Idaho Residents Call for Support & Solidarity Against Tar Sands Megaloads’

As I sit on the ferry from Oaks Bluff, Martha’s Vineyard back to the mainland it is hard not to think of the people who are currently sacrificing their body and individual rights outside the White House at this very moment. We traveled out to the Vineyard to follow our President Barack Obama and hand-deliver press packets for the Tar Sands Action to the White House Press Corps that surround him in order to remind them the key role that the President can play in future of the Keystone XL pipeline.  Stopping the construction of this pipeline will halt a cascade of environmental impacts (“sure”?  sounds a bit awkward) and begin to fulfill the campaign promises that engaged so many in 2008.  Our mission to the Vineyard today was a simple but impacting way to support this growing movement to inspire the President to do the right thing.  I encourage you to find your way to contribute.

The Keystone XL Pipeline is Obama’s chance to turn tides and start to regain support from the many that voted him into office. The same people that slept on the floors of churches taking workshops on grassroots political campaigning are now using the same trainings to prepare to be arrested outside his front door in D.C. Continue reading ‘Activists Follow Obama and White House Press Corps to Martha’s Vineyard’

Was there ever a better opportunity to talk about how climate change can impact us urban residents of North America rather than now?

The densely populated cities of the Atlantic coast of North Americahave been preparing for Hurricane Irene. As someone who just decided that this was the perfect weekend to visit New York City, I find myself helping my brother and NYC resident tape up his windows, search for flashlights and candles, and fill the bathtub with water. We are checking the hurricane watch and evacuation advisories to see if it is necessary that we peace out of the city.

For someone who is typically living in Toronto, an urban setting which hasn’t faced a hurricane since I have lived there, this rapid response to extreme weather events is new. But, I don’t want to act like ALL people in North America are void of dealing with the impacts of climate change. I want to recognize the reality of communities in the Arctic, where unpredictable cracks in the ice can cost people their lives; farmers are faced with unpredictable weather, resulting in poor growing seasons; and we can never forget all the communities (mostly communities of colour and low-income communities) that live merely a few kilometers from logging sites, coal-fired power plants, fracking sites, tar sands projects, and mountain-top removal sites.

But this blog post isn’t for all of y’all. I am writing to those who have chosen not to take action on climate change because they think it does not directly impact them. I write to many of the other Torontonians, New Yorkers, or others who can talk about climate change as if it is something that impacts others.

Climate action advocates often face the difficulty of dealing on somewhat of an invisible issue, in that carbon emitted in the atmosphere is rendered invisible to cause floods and storms in Bangladesh, Pakistan, and small island nation states kilometres away. Floods and monsoons, pfft…I don’t have to deal with that (And sometimes it is pfft…I dont have to deal with that…yet)! The challenge then becomes compelling people to act on issues of climate change because they are acting in solidarity, which may be difficult given the pervasive aura of NIMBY-ism. Continue reading ‘Irene Came Because Its Getting Hot In Here. We Must Take Action Because Its Getting Hot In Here!’

Washington DC: The Indigenous Environmental Network (IEN) is a national environmental justice and indigenous rights organization taking part in the largest act of civil disobedience in decades taking place at the White House in Washington DC from August 20 to September 3, 2011.

The purpose of these actions is to send a direct message to President Obama to deny approval of the 1,702 mile Keystone XL pipeline. The pipeline would be transporting pollution from the tar sands (also known as oilsands) of Canada to the United States by carrying 900,000 barrels per day of thick, corrosive, toxic, synthetic crude oil for refining in Texas and the Gulf States. If approved, the Keystone XL would lock the US into a dependency of energy intensive, hard-to-extract dirty oil and create a massive expansion of the world’s dirtiest and most environmentally destructive form of oil development currently taking place in northern Alberta Canada. These operations are already producing 1.5 million barrels per day and having horrendous environmental justice and human rights impacts on the way of life and health of the local Native communities of Cree, Dene and Métis.

The proposed pipeline threatens to pollute freshwater supplies in America’s agricultural heartland and grasslands with increased emissions in already-polluted communities of the Gulf Coast. The Keystone XL would cross Indian Country; States of Montana, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas encompassing Indian-US treaty territories crossing water aquifers and rivers, grasslands, cultural sites and ecological sensitive areas. Leaks and spills are common occurrences from such pipelines that could result in disproportionate impact to Native Nations and thousands of tribal members. A spill from the Keystone XL poses an even greater threat, given that the pipeline would run directly through the Ogallala aquifer, which supplies one-third of our nation’s ground water used for irrigation, and drinking water to 2 million citizens. Continue reading ‘Native American and Canadian First Nations To Take Part In Largest Act of Civil Disobedience to Stop Keystone XL Pipeline’

UPDATE: Three more Wild Idaho Rising Tiders were arrested blocking more tar sands equipment shipments in Coeur d’Alene, ID.  Nine have been arrested so far this week fighting the megaloads.

They spill, they drill and we fight back with the only currency we have—our bodies, our minds and a fighting spirit.

Hundreds have been arrested sitting in at the White House this week and Alberta’s Indigenous communities have been fighting Big Oil’s development of tar sands for quite some time , but today residents in Moscow Idaho crossed a line of their own.

Last night in the wee hours of the morning, as the first megaloads were beginning to roll, six men and women with Wild Idaho Rising Tide sat down in front of the massive vehicles to stop their passage through the highways and byways of the Northern Rockies to Alberta.

A few weeks ago, after many legal and political battles Exxon announced they were re-routing their shipments through the Port of Pasco in Washington (down river from Lewiston, ID) and ship reduced size pieces of equipment. While it was seen as a victory for the long term community campaign against the oil giant, Exxon still is moving the reduced size hauls through Idaho.

Moscow resident Brett Haverstick said- “Big Oil intends to clear-cut and strip mine a place the size of Florida, and simultaneously destroys native communities and entire watersheds. I feel obligated to speak up and say this is wrong.” Continue reading ‘Breaking: Idaho Residents Arrested Blocking Tar Sands Megaloads Bound for Alberta’

When Joe Uehlein was a young boy, his father took him down to a United Steelworkers picket line in Ohio to teach him a lesson about the importance of standing up for the rights of working people. Today, 52 years later, Uehlein brought his own daughter out to the White House to take part in a sit-in to push President Obama to deny the permit for a massive new tar sands pipeline.

“Sometimes a decision forces you to think deeply about what you believe in and how you act on those beliefs,” wrote Uehlein in a letter describing why he was taking part in the protests.

Uehlein grew up in a union family. His father worked in the steel mills in Lorain, Ohio and was a founder of the Steelworkers Union and his mother was an organizer in the Clothing Workers Union in Cincinnati. Uehlein began his own union career working in an aluminum mill in Central Pennsylvania, as a member of the United Steelworkers of America (USWA). After the mill shut down, he went to work doing heavy construction as a member of the Laborers International Union of North America (LIUNA).

“That’s where I first learned something about working on pipelines,” Uehlein described. “I worked building the Texas-Eastern pipeline as it wound its way through the rolling hills of Central Pennsylvania.  Small teams of operating engineers, pipefitters, and laborers traveled across the state doing work we enjoyed and that we understood to be useful and important.  (We didn’t know then what we know now.)”

Uehlein went on to serve as the Director of the AFL-CIO’s Center for Strategic Campaigns, and as Secretary Treasurer of the AFL-CIO’s Industrial Union Department. He now acts as the Board President Labor Network for Sustainability.

On Tuesday, Uehlein was among 52 Americans arrested at the White House, part of a wave of growing protest to stop the proposed Keystone XL pipeline. Since the sit-in at the White House began on Saturday morning, 275 people have been arrested. Over 2,000 people from all 50 states and Canada have registered to take part in the ongoing protest which will continue until September 3rd. Continue reading ‘From Picket Lines to the White House: Labor Leader Joins Keystone XL Protest’

“When the odds were ten to two, darling I went down and fighted for you. Though I’m leaving in the morning to meet the evil at our door, I will return to you my darling… You are the one I fight my battles for, you are the one that I adore.“

These are lyrics from my favorite song this summer, Battles by The Smart Brothers.

It’s a love song, but I also hear a call to action, a call to protect that which we care most about.

The Keystone XL pipeline, and the tar sands extraction it would spur, is so obviously one of the worst actions the United States could take with regard to climate change, not to mention all the communities along the pipeline route whose water and ecosystems would be threatened by crude oil spills. Today, leaders of the largest environmental organizations in this country united to release a letter calling on President Obama to block the Keystone XL pipeline.  You know when Environmental Defense Fund teams up with Rainforest Action Network that something big is in the air.

The tar sands industry has been trying for years to send tar sands crude to American refineries, and the construction of the Keystone XL pipeline, in James Hansen’s words, would be game over for the climate.  The predecessor to Keystone XL, the Keystone pipeline, has already had 15 spills in the United States and over 20 spills in Canada since it became operational last year.  The Enbridge pipeline dumped 800,000 gallons of tar sands crude into the Kalamazoo River, and the pipeline that spilled 42,000 gallons of oil into the Yellowstone River also carries tar sands crude (a full list of pipeline accidents can be found here).

Continue reading ‘The Evil At Our Door’

Welcome to the Good Life!

I’m a lifelong Nebraskan. I was born in Omaha, Nebraska 22 years ago, and although I was swept away to the East Coast for school and sustainable farming opportunities in the past few years, my heart still bleeds bright Cornhusker red. I’ve been in love with my home state for as long as I can remember (in love enough to recently get the outline of my Midwestern home state tattooed on my back…yeah…I’m not kidding!)

In the summer of 2010, a few friends and I started the organization Guardians of the Good Life (GOTGL), a home-grown, grassroots group of activists and clean energy economy  radicals in the urban center of Nebraska, Omaha. An eclectic group of people, GOTGL, admittedly a cheesy name for such a fantastic organization ( “the Good Life” being Nebraska’s unofficial state motto), is made up of urban eco-activists of all walks of life. Formed under the core beliefs that urban Nebraskans have a vested interest in protecting our state from the dangerous Keystone XL Pipeline, Guardians of the Good Life has continuously kicked out creative and engaging campaigns to stop the tar sands from ever entering out state…and for that matter, ever leaving their dirty home in Alberta.

Sadly, not living in Nebraska anymore, I have not been able to participate in the Guardians activities since last summer. However, as a large group of Nebraskans were arrested today in front of the White House today and as I prepare to risk arrest next week, I felt it necessary to write about the activities and interests of urban Nebraskans fighting the pipeline. Last August, the Guardians hosted a Week of Action against the pipeline, including educational lectures, street demonstrations, a “tar sands lemonade stand” tasting, and culminating in a 100 person “Human Oil Spill” flash mob and banner drop over Omaha’s most busy thoroughfare during rush hour. Continue reading ‘The Good Life’

As thousands in DC prepare to risk arrest in an effort to stop the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline, a wave of creative protest and resistance to the fossil economy seems to be sweeping the US.  To take just one example I’m aware of, this past week ForestEthics organizers and volunteers in three cities took action to demand that Dole and Chiquita sever their ties to the Canadian tar sands.

In Los Angeles, Chicago, and Portland, Oregon, groups of activists staged creative protests outside of stores that sell bananas from Dole and Chiquita – companies the run their truck fleets partly on oil from the tar sands.  A typical banana travels 3,000 miles from plantations in Central America to store shelves in the US, making the tropical fruit industry a major oil consumer.  Dole and Chiquita could be using their market power to steer energy development away from destructive projects like the tar sands and toward renewable power.  Instead they’ve chosen to fuel their vehicles with tar sands oil, fueling demand for this deadly product.

Volunteers at this week’s three protests used giant banana costumes, “tar-covered” (actually chocolate-covered) bananas, and other creative props to get the attention of passersby.  They also collected “customer complaints” that will be delivered to Dole and Chiquita (you can sign the customer complaint petition here).  Earlier this week, thousands of activists flooded Dole’s and Chiquita’s Facebook pages with comments about the tar sands, posting links to an ad created by ForestEthics, which calls out the fruit giants in their hometown papers.

The online activism definitely got the companies’ attention: Chiquita temporarily shut down comments on its Facebook page in response.  Meanwhile store managers could hardly fail to notice the actions happening literally right outside their doors.  All this activity comes on the heels of actions that took place earlier this summer, at the launch of the campaign against Dole and Chiquita.

What’s inspiring to me about these protests and so many others springing up across the country (including the mass civil disobedience in DC), is that most people involved are so focused on staying positive, wearing a smile, and having a good time even as we confront a deadly serious issue.  Those pursuing direct action in the climate movement are intent on harnessing the power of positive hope and goodwill to create a better future, rather than getting bogged down in anger.

A beautiful movement for climate justice is taking shape as we watch.  And I for one am excited to be part of it.