This guest post was contributed by Eric Jensen, a student activist at Western Washington University

Wednesday night, outside of a heated local candidates debate about a proposed massive coal export terminal just ten miles from Western Washington University, a group of students with the Western Action Coalition decided to have a little fun while calling attention to the issue.

The coal terminal, proposed by SSA Marine and it’s minority owner Goldman Sachs, would ship coal from open pit mines in Wyoming through Bellingham, Washington and out of a port at Cherry Point, eventually reaching East Asian markets. The terminal poses a significant threat to communities near WWU: coal dust and coal runoff from open freight cars are a concern to anyone near the tracks; thriving forest would be stripped from the land at Cherry Point; and 80 acres of uncovered coal could degrade the spawning grounds of an endemic herring population, which forms the bottom of the marine food chain. The impacts are as diverse as the communities that would be affected by them.

An action organized by the Western Action Coalition with Earth First! Whatcom focused attention on some of the impacts, while calling the WWU student community to take action with their ballots this week.  Olivia Edwards, a junior studying environmental science dressed as a Salmon. Unconvinced by SSA’s arguments, she said “there are still a multitude of questions that need to be answered and that deserve to be addressed.”

Demonstrators distributed literature endorsing county council and mayoral candidates that will stick up for a sustainable economy for Bellingham and beyond. They called for electing Pete Kremen, Christina Maginnis, and Alan Black for Whatcom County Council and Dan Pike for Bellingham Mayor – all of whom have been endorsed by Washington Conservation Voters.

Continue reading ‘Bellingham Students Speak Out for a Clean Energy Future’

Cross posted from DeSmogBlog.com written by Emma Pullman

EthicalOil.org’s new spokesperson, Kathryn Marshall, authored an insulting piece this week on the Huffington Post titled “Care About Women’s Rights? Support Ethical Oil”. Marshall’s piece is a response to the October 11 article by Maryam Adrangi at It’s Getting Hot In Here.  Adrangi argues that the underlying motive of the “ethical oil” campaign is to deflect negative attention from the tar sands, not to actually engage in a conversation about women’s liberation.

“If women’s rights were of genuine concern to EthicalOil.org” writes Adrangi, “then there would be a conversation about the impacts that tar sands extraction has on women”.

You’ll notice that Marshall’s attempted rebuttal fails to actually address the substantive criticisms made in Adrangi’s piece – Marshall never mentions the impacts of Alberta’s tar sands development on women, but instead repeats the same arguments and general hand-waving that sparked Adrangi’s criticism of EthicalOil.org’s conservative pundits in the first place.

Marshall’s promotion of tar sands oil is framed around a central argument that if we care about women’s rights then we must support tar sands expansion, and by extension the Keystone XL pipeline, because Canadian women fare far better than women in petrocracies, such as Saudi Arabia.  But Marshall’s argument doesn’t hold up to scrutiny for three major reasons.

The first is that increasing tar sands output will not hurt the Saudi sheiks’ coffers. TransCanada’s own research proves that the Keystone XL pipeline was never meant to decrease our reliance on foreign oil, just to keep Gulf Coast refineries at capacity. As global demand for oil keeps going up, a marginal shift in Canadian and US consumption will be offset by growing demand from other countries, keeping prices high and continuing to enrich the oppressive Saudi regime. Expanding the tar sands just buys Saudi Arabia a bit more time to profit before we are compelled to shift away from oil addiction towards a clean energy future – the real ‘ethical’ choice.

This leads to the second major flaw in Ethicaloil.org’s argument: it presents the reader with a false choice. Marshall’s bait-and-switch suggests that we must make a choice between “conflict oil” and “ethical oil”. On the contrary, you can simultaneously support women’s rights and oppose Alberta’s tar sands. The two aren’t mutually exclusive, to say the least. If we really want to hurt the regimes of oppressive petrocracies, then the wise choice is to end our addiction to fossil fuels and move rapidly towards a clean energy economy, setting a model that the rest of the world can follow. EthicalOil.org’s entire line of reasoning is a diversionary tactic designed to obscure this hard reality. It’s a red herring, and a dangerous one at that.

Third, Marshall’s emotional appeal tells readers that because women’s rights are worse in petrocracries, then we needn’t concern ourselves with what’s happening in Canada. In Canada, we have female mayors and premiers. We are a liberal democratic nation that respects human rights. I agree that the plight of women in many petrocracies is grave, but that does not mean that the plight of many women in Canada deserves less consideration from Canadians.

We can and should engage in critical discussions on women’s rights in Canada. And tar sands expansion forces us to explore some of these issues head-on.

In Alberta’s tar sands region in particular, rates of sexual violence towards women have increased and women working in the industry have reported sexual harassment and gender discrimination. With expansion of the tar sands industry, instances of domestic violence in Fort McMurray have spiralled upwards, and few women have safe places to go, forcing many to return home to their abusers.

Instead of pretending that expanding the tar sands will somehow help women in Saudi Arabia, let’s talk about how we can help Canadian women impacted right here at home by tar sands expansion.

Marshall boldly demands to know where Canadian women’s groups have been in speaking out against Saudi women’s oppression. Did she ever think to ask these groups? I did. For one, Jan Slakov, the National Secretary for Canadian Voices of Women for Peace, the organization that Marshall attacks in her piece, told me,

“The Canadian Voice of Women for Peace has worked to support women’s rights and well-being, not just in Canada, but around the world. Groups have raised funds to support programs in countires where women face systematic human rights abuses. We also work at the international level to support women’s rights through the UN.”

As a Women’s Studies graduate, Marshall should know that Canadian women’s rights groups are engaged in this fight directly. Instead, Marshall, while claiming to be an advocate of women’s rights, erases the history of the women’s rights movement in Canada and its work in global solidarity with women living under oppressive regimes. I can’t speak for women’s groups, but I think it’s telling that we haven’t heard any credible organizations supporting EthicalOil.org’s message. I suspect they see right through EthicalOil.org’s insincere issue hijacking.

Cross-posted from www.solutionaries.net by Ruby Levine

I spent the weekend at Midwest Powershift in Cleveland. Among the rallies, trainings, and speeches, I was able to catch some downtime with fellow Summer of Solutions program leaders and participants from around the Midwest. Especially valuable was a conversation I had with members of other Midwestern programs on Saturday night.

500 young people applaud Joshua Kahn Russell's keynote poem at Midwest Powershift in Cleveland. Photo credit Ben Hejkal.

This conversation helped me articulate two things: one, the “good environmentalists vs. the evil polluters” framing I saw a lot of other places during the conference makes me deeply uncomfortable, and two, if the green economy is going to work it needs to be the whole economy, not a side industry.

Continue reading ‘Thoughts following Midwest Powershift’

***This was posted on behalf of Caroline Wooten, a student organizer with the Chicago Youth Climate Coalition and a student at the University of Chicago***

Over 50 Chicagoans gathered outside the Obama Campaign’s Chicago Headquarters last Friday demanding that the President prevent the construction of the Tar Sands Keystone XL Pipeline.  The demonstrators, a colorful mix of students, families, and individuals from Occupy Chicago, came bearing a petition against the Tar Sands signed by over 700 Illinois residents.

Ana Ahmeti, a sophomore at DePaul University, spoke before the crowd, explaining the purpose of the visit, “In 2008, Obama told Americans that under his leadership, our generation would be the one to free America from the tyranny of oil. We are here today to remind the President of his promise.”

The demonstration, like many of the countless Tar Sands actions that have happened throughout the country since August, emphasized the role that youth played in Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign. One banner, held by students from Loyola University, read “Can you give our generation the audacity to hope? Stop the Keystone XL.”

The action also drew links between opposing the pipeline and standing up to corporate power.  “Big banks have taken our homes,” stated Ahmeti. “Big oil wants to take the only home we know.”
Although representatives from the Obama campaign refused to meet with the entire group, they did speak with three representatives who presented the petitions on behalf of the demonstrators.

Marissa Lieberman Klein, a student at the University of Chicago, and one of the individuals who delivered the petition, said that in speaking with the campaign representatives, the group emphasized the work that citizens are doing in Chicago to move the city beyond fossil fuels. She explained, “We told them that here in Chicago, a lot of us have been working to clean up or retire the two coal plants in the city. We’re taking efforts to make our city—also Obama’s city—cleaner and healthier. We want Obama to do the same thing for our nation.”

Take a look at this incredible video of indigenous activist Clayton Thomas-Muller of the Indigenous Environmental Network, one of the leaders of the growing movement to stop the Keystone XL pipeline and shut down the tar sands. 

Here is a post from 350.org India Coordinator, Chaitanya Kumar. As people across the United States continue to rise up against coal plants, fracking, and the Keystone XL pipeline, it’s important that we’re building solidarity with movements around the world. 

Local victories against Coal: Maharashtra
by Chaitanya Kumar

We recently finished the Naya Swaraj cycle yatra from Sevagram in Maharashtra to Mumbai. The 850 KM cycle rally aimed at highlighting the negative impacts of fossil fuels on our agriculture and understanding the need for organic farming. While the 20 day journey was an enriching experience in understanding the diversity of issues that Indian farmers face, one of the issues that continues to trouble most of us is the growing cluster of coal fired thermal power plants in India and especially the state of Maharashtra.

The numbers speak for themselves. In the state of Maharashtra, 38 thermal power plants are planned to be set up in the coming few years. That makes it a total of 32376 MW of coal fired power being proposed for one single state and is a little more than a sixth of India’s total installed power generation capacity as of 2011. These power projects are being set up by big companies both private and public like the Reliances, Maharashtra Genco (MAHAGENCO), TATAs, NTPC, LANCOs. Many other small  companies are foraying into power generation after observing the state and central Govt’s lack of attention to environmental and social harms of coal.

But if recent developments in India are to go by, then the road ahead for most coal fired power stations is going to be much more difficult than one predicted. Quite recently a 4000 MW Ultra mega power project in the Raigad district got scrapped after local residents opposed the project tooth and nail over land acquisition issues. Strong advocacy and campaigning amongst farmers in the region by local movements helped raise awareness over the issue and moved people to act in order to protect their land and natural resources. Another recent victory comes from the Wardha district of the state where local movements encouraged by groups like the Vidharbha Environmental Action Group successfully won a court hearing in against Lanco and their corrupt environmental practices.

Continue reading ‘Coal Victories in India’

Friends,

Let’s speak frankly. In the years after the failure of a climate bill to pass the US Senate and the climate treaty implosion at Copenhagen in 2009, we’ve been wandering in the wilderness figuring out what went wrong. Sure, in 2010 California’s landmark global warming law was saved from big oil’s nefariousness, but that same election put dozens and dozens of climate deniers into office.

We’ve got this pipeline issue going on; something I’ve been arrested over and slept on the ground for. I hope we win, and I will continue doing what I can to see that we do, but the pipeline is just a symptom of larger issues central to the current system (obviously).

We are now presented with a real chance to change that system: the Occupy Movement. Given how fast our civilization is hurdling toward/past climate tipping points, we have got to change the system of government to deal with the serious problems in this country. Right now profits are more important than people and the planet, grand larceny goes un-prosecuted on Wall Street, K Street lobbyists get away with legalized bribery and money-laundering, and mega-corporations plunder anything and everything they can.

In response, something is happening in the United States that has never happened before: deliberately defying unjust laws, Americans are occupying public spaces as an ongoing protest against the excesses of the 1% that own 40% of the wealth. Many of these places are important and symbolic of the power of the 1%.

Everyone I’ve spoken to at the Occupation of DC in McPherson Square (occupydc.org) understands the necessity of dealing with climate change – climate change being a symptom of deeper problems. Last night we approved the funds to buy solar panels for our encampment so we won’t have to use a gas generator.

But if the earnestness of protestors not wanting to use fossil fuels to power their movement doesn’t convince you, how’s this: I’ve watched young friends age very quickly in this struggle to stop climate change, usually by working within the accepted channels of political action. It hasn’t worked so well. So just as Bill McKibben said, we as folks worried about climate change need to participate in this movement. Hell, even Al Gore has unabashedly endorsed the Occupy Movement.

I’ll see you at the General Assembly!

Drew

PS – Environmentalists love camping. Think of it as camping where the 1% don’t want you to!

Elizabeth McGowan, a reporter who has done fantastic coverage on the Keystone XL pipeline fight for SolveClimate, has an article today that interviews a few “analysts” who criticize “greens” for focusing on the Keystone XL pipeline as the key environmental test for President Obama before the 2012 election.

Over 100 people visit an Obama for America office to push the President to the stop the Keystone XL pipeline. Photo credit: Shadia Fayne Wood. 

As someone working with Tar Sands Action, one of the groups working on Keystone XL, I wanted to put out a few quick responses. Over the last few months, the Keystone XL pipeline has transformed from a regional fight led by organizers along the route and indigenous communities in Alberta, to what the Washington Post referred to as “a headache for the Obama Administration.” That transformation in itself is a huge accomplishment: most pipelines or fossil fuel projects — just look at the opening of Powder River Basin for coal mining — happen in the dead of night without much opposition. To drag Keystone XL into the spotlight and turn it into a national bellwether is a testament to the hard work of not just “greens” (oh, the media’s love for slightly derogatory catch-alls) but of Nebraska ranchers, Texas farmers, environmentalists, young people, indigenous peoples, and many more.

The odds are still tilting towards approval, but that’s not much of a surprise when you have the  Canadian government, Big Oil, conservative press, the State Department, and status-quo commentators pushing the pipeline. What’s incredible is that we’ve got a fighting chance to stop this thing, an opening that will only get wider over the months to come as protests continue across the country.

Let’s take a moment to break down the specific arguments of the “analysts” that McGowan cites (you’ll recognize one of them as Ted Nordhaus, the author of “The Death of Environmentalism” and the “bad-boy” who’s made a career of criticizing environmentalists –come on, I mean, Bjorn Lomborg was all over that in like 1997, man).

Continue reading ‘Why “Analysts” Are Wrong on Keystone XL Strategy’

Cross-posted from www.solutionaries.net by Ruby Levine.

The Summer of Solutions is a program for young people who want to build just, sustainable economies in their communities.

We want to invite YOU to be one of those young people building those solutions. Apply here by October 22 to start a program in your community or to join an existing program leader team.

Running a program gives you the opportunity to create and support green economy projects that build power for people who currently don’t have as much access AND to empower young people from your community and beyond with the skills and strategies they need to do the same thing wherever they go next.

Past Summer of Solutions programs have:

• Built community gardens and farms on vacant lots
• Taught neighbors how to use bikes as an effective form of transit
• Run summer camps for children to help them learn about healthy eating and growing their own food
• Founded and partnered with energy businesses to create a community-based clean energy system
• Created community spaces, from mini-golf courses in the coal fields of West Virginia to a playground in Detroit, MI
• Designed and organized for green manufacturing at a closing car factory in Saint Paul, MN

Continue reading ‘Apply to Start a Summer of Solutions Program in Your Community!’