It’s Getting Hot In Here

This post originally appeared on the blog of the Population and Development Program, based in Amherst, MA, which works at the intersection of reproductive freedom, environmental justice and peace.

American environmentalists are declaring victory over the announcement that the United States will research alternate routes for the Keystone XL pipeline.  While Obama’s announcement was an encouraging gesture, U.S.-based activists are in danger of missing the forest for the trees.  We must look north, the source of tar sands oil, where First Nations people in Canada are directly confronting the accelerating fossil fuel expansion on their land, as we plan the next steps in our movement.

Indigenous Assembly Against Mining & Pipelines, November 2011

The Keystone XL pipeline is just one in a massive network of pipelines branching out from the oil fields of Alberta, illustrated by this map.  The trade magazine Pipelines International reports on this extensive infrastructure of, as they call them, “energy lifelines.”  While the tar sands (or oil sands) have received international attention since the protests against Keystone XL lit off this summer, pipeline expansion is occurring on many fronts in Canada: tar sands oil, conventional oil and natural gas which is being pumped out of Canadian soil. American activists have shown their mettle in facing down the importation of tar sands oil into the U.S., but where do they stand on the dozens of other pipelines that make up this spiderweb?

Traditional environmental leaders, Indigenous environmentalists and youth came together in unprecedented ways during the Keystone fight; now we must move forward with our eyes on the frontline. The untold story of fossil fuel expansion in Canada is its toll on Indigenous communities, or First Nations.  First Nations in Canada in active resistance show paths forward, as fossil fuel companies only intensify their development efforts.
On the same weekend that 12,000 protesters encircled the White House, the 2nd Indigenous Assembly on Pipelines and Mining took place in Vancouver, Coast Salish Territories The Indigenous Assembly over the weekend of November 5th, issued this call to action:

Indigenous communities from across the province are gathering in Vancouver Unceded Coast Salish Territories to oppose this conference and those corporations who profit off the destruction of the land. No mining, no pipelines, no resource extraction on unceded native lands! Defend the people, protect the land!

The Assembly hosted No Mining on Native Land!, a march through downtown Vancouver on November 6th. The pipelines, notably the Enbridge oil pipeline and the Kimimat Summit Lake gas pipeline (or Pacific Trails), endanger the lands of Indigenous people who are dependent on trapping and hunting for survival.

Tribe members block PTP from entering unceded land.

The Pacific Trails pipeline would lead to a new liquefied natural gas (LNG) port at Bish Cove, an ecologically pristine beach, on the Western cost. The Enbridge and Pacific Trails pipelines would run alongside each other near the Morice River.  The proximity of gas and oil pipelines to each other is particularly dangerous, though the companies have made no statement on this risk.  Many tribal councils and governments have approved one or both pipelines, in large part due to promises of jobs, but among Indigenous residents on the land, resistance is fierce.

The same week, Likhts’amisyu and Unist’ot’en clans of the Wet’swet’en nation confronted officials from Pacific Trails pipeline (PTP), who were attempting to illegally enter their territory to move drilling equipment.  This nation is one of many in Canada on land unceded to the Canadian government.  The nation owns the land and PTP was not authorized to enter.   Tribe members blockaded the access road, and formed an encampment until the company removed all equipment and vehicles several days later.

The Unist’hot’en clan has also built a cabin on Wet’suwet’en territory in the path of the Enbridge pipeline, PTP and one other pipeline, to prevent construction.  They intend to defend the cabin and halt illegal construction on their land.  Mel Bazil of the Lhe Lin Liyin (The Guardians), which support the Unist’hot’en Wet’suwet’en writes,

A delay could benefit their [Transcanada and other companies’] plans to assist in what we consider the systemic scope of the Tar Sands expansion activity. Tar sands may require offsets to operate, and proposed pipelines that acquire tenure through band chiefs and councils, and through treaty agencies … could make deals without the input or involvement of grassroots and indigenous peoples, who experience the environmental damage and pollution.

American activists must link to the struggle of First Nations people resisting Enbridge, PTP and other pipelines.  The Keystone XL pipeline, once considered a no-brainer for approval by industry and legislators, now stands in limbo.  That is a success for American activists.   However, fossil fuels are an international industry, and NAFTA and other treaties have deeply linked the American and Canadian economies.  The frontlines of fossil fuel in the U.S. are inherently connected to the struggle unfolding in Canada as part of a global supply chain.

As collaboration between major environmental NGOs and Indigenous environmental leaders deepens and expands, we must not allow Washington insiders to define the terms of victory.  There is no victory until Indigenous communities, and all frontline communities, are safe from the indignities of fossil fuels.

Read Martha’s previous coverage of Tar Sands oil extraction, activism to stop the Keystone pipeline, and Indigenous organizing in the US and Canada in Resisting the Tar Sands: Bridging Communities & Struggles, published in October, 2011.

Occupy Denialism: Toward Ecological and Social Revolution

This is a reconstruction from notes of a keynote address delivered to the Power Shift West Conference, Eugene, Oregon, November 5, 2011.

All of us here today, along with countless others around the world, are currently engaged in the collective struggle to save the planet as a place of habitation for humanity and innumerable other species.  The environmental movement has grown leaps and bounds in the last fifty years.  But we need to recognize that despite our increasing numbers we are losing the battle, if not the war, for the future of the earth.  Our worst enemy is denialism: not just the outright denial of climate-change skeptics, but also the far more dangerous denial — often found amongst environmentalists themselves — of capitalism’s role in the accumulation of ecological catastrophe.¹

Recently, climate scientists, writing in leading scientific journals, have developed a way of addressing the extreme nature of the climate crisis, focusing on irreversible change and the trillionth ton of carbon.  Central to the scientific consensus on climate change today is the finding that a rise in global temperature by 2° C (3.6° F), associated with an atmospheric carbon concentration of 450 parts per million (ppm), represents a critical tipping point, irreversible in anything like human-time frames.  Climate models show that if we were to reach that point feedback mechanisms would likely set in, and society would no longer be able to prevent the climate catastrophe from developing further out of our control.  Even if we were completely to cease burning fossil fuels when global average temperature had risen by 2° C, climate change and its catastrophic effects would still be present in the year 3000.  In other words, avoiding an increase in global average temperatures of 2° C, 450 ppm is crucial because it constitutes a point of no return.  Once we get to that point, we will no longer be able to return, even in a millennium, to the Holocene conditions under which human civilization developed over the last 12,000 years.  Many of you are aware that long-term stabilization of the climate requires that we target 350 ppm, not 450 ppm.  But 450 ppm remains significant, since it represents the planetary equivalent of cutting down the last palm tree on Easter Island.².

Continue reading ‘Occupy Denialism’

This post cross-posted from TarSandsAction.org

Yesterday we got some of the strongest confirmation yet that efforts to stop the Keystone XL pipeline are having a long-term impact on the tar sands industry. It’s clearer than ever that President Obama’s decision on the pipeline will have a critical impact on the development of the tar sands in Alberta – potentially leading to “stranded oil sands” long term.

Canada’s Financial Post – the premier business magazine of Canada – published an article detailing how the escalating pressure to stop Keystone XL is causing investors in the tar sands to reconsider their long term plans for exploiting the world’s second largest pool of carbon. Organizing by environmental justice advocates across the country has put the Keystone XL pipeline in question, which in turn has revealed just how important the pipeline would be to the development of the tar sands industry.

Here is the key conclusion from the Financial Post – read the whole thing here.

“The signs are there: the Keystone XL oil sands pipeline has festered into an uncomfortable election issue for the U.S. president, Barack Obama.

The upshot for Canada: a decision on whether to grant a Presidential permit, promised by year end, could once again be delayed.

The reality is that anything short of a go-ahead in December for Keystone XL would plunge the oil sands sector into disarray until new solutions move forward. The worst-case scenario? Stranded oil sands — for years.

Keystone XL, with a capacity to carry up to 830,000 barrels a day from Alberta to Texas, was due for startup in early 2013. There is no backup on the same scale or timeline.”

Continue reading ‘Tar Sands Industry Admits Impact of Keystone XL Organizing’

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.

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!’

Given recent major actions opposing the tar sands in Washington, D.C. and Ottawa, it seems that increased pressure on the Alberta Tar Sands has held oil lobbyists’ feet to the fire.  EthicalOil.org, a site devoted to advancing the ideas of right-wing pundits such as Ezra Levant who has popularized the term ‘ethical oil’ to refer to tar sands bitumen (aka “dirty oil”), has begun using women’s liberation struggles to justify continued extraction and expansion of tar sands oil.

The premise is that supporting “conflict oil” from Saudi Arabia would prop up a regime that is oppressive to women. The underlying motive, however, is not to talk about women’s liberation, but rather to deflect negative attention from the tar sands.

If women’s rights were of genuine concern to EthicalOil.org (and all the individuals that make it possible such as Ezra Levant, Alykhan Velshi, Kathryn Marshall, and their corporate oil buddies) then there would be conversation about the impacts that tar sands extraction has on women.

The tar sands boom has created dangerous jobs with long hours, fostering a culture of alcohol and substance abuse in the off hours. As a result, rates of sexual violence towards women have increased and women working in the industry have reported sexual harassment, gender discrimination, and unequal pay. Gender-based discrimination have also resulted in unequal access to higher paying jobs in communities in the region, and with skyrocketing housing prices and costs of living, there is also unequal access to housing.  Increases in female homelessness exacerbate the challenges faced by women in the area.

But EthicalOil.org ignores the problems that women in tar sands impacted communities face. In fact, the site’s main idea of “ethics” is based on a sense of Canadian superiority as a country which demands women’s rights.  This idea hides some of the blatant facts:

“Since 2006, Harper has cut funding for women’s advocacy by 43 per cent, shut 12 out of 16 Status of Women offices in Canada, and eliminated funding of legal voices for women and minority groups, including the National Association of Women and the Law and the Courts Challenges Program,” writes Emma Pullman, campaigner with Leadnow.ca. Pullman continues to describe the parts of Harper’s agenda that specifically ignore the systemic violence faced by Indigenous women.

Tar Sands mining operations, pipelines, and refineries disproportionately impact Indigenous peoples by violating Treaty Rights, their right to say no  (free, prior, and informed consent or FPIC, which is outlined in the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples) to industrial activity taking place on their lands. Tar sands projects have affected Indigenous peoples ability to hunt, trap, and continue traditional practices.

Furthermore, while environmental pollution and contamination associated with tar sands projects affects all people, the health impacts on women’s bodies are destructive to the future wellbeing of entire communities as women bear children. Given that the vast majority of communities living downstream from tar sands and most impacted by the pollution are First Nations communities, the tar sands have been called an “environmental genocide” by indigenous peoples.

So if these facts about “Ethical” oil’s impacts on women are so clear, why is EthicalOil.org implicitly calling for a boycott of Saudi oil?

Maybe they are trying to distract us; so, instead of planning how to make housing in Northern Alberta more affordable to women, I am writing a blog to counter EthicalOil.org’s insincere interest in advancing Saudi women’s struggles. Or maybe they are trying to dictate the conversation; so, instead of talking about alternative forms of energy that do not centralize power in large multinational oil companies, I am reacting to EthicalOil.org’s insincere interest in advancing Saudi women’s struggles. Or maybe they have just run out of good ideas, and are now pretending to care about Saudi women’s struggles.

Maybe tar sands opponents have simply done a good job at making right-wing pundits find any ludicrous argument to convince the general public that tar sands oil is “ethical.”

With two mass actions against the tar sands in September alone and another planned for November, all of which have garnered celebrity support and numerous headlines, it is no surprise that EthicalOil.org is trying anything to promote an industry so widely recognized as destructive.

The lesson? When we get attention, they get defensive. And they look silly.

This means that we do not need to waste our time countering their arguments (I am aware of the irony of this comment, given that I just wrote this blog). We can spend our time doing other, more fruitful things. We can organize creative ways to stop large oil corporations from destroying people and the planet. We can come together to demand that oil companies stop exploiting women through the workplace, their communities, and their bodies.

Oil companies and lobbyists may continue attempts to co-opt women’s movements (or others) as excuses for resource exploitation, but regardless, we  can still come together to build a broad base of people demanding climate and gender justice. Once we are united, we watch them expose their own contradictions and develop more poor attempts to justify their actions.

On the same day that Occupy Missoula protests began on the lawn of the County Courthouse, around forty University of Montana students and Missoula community members visited a local Wells Fargo branch to demand the bank stop funding coal.  This action came at an opportune moment, as energy giants like Arch Coal are attempting to turn Missoula into a throughway for their dirty product.  By sending Montana coal through Missoula on the way to internal export markets, Arch and other companies hope to get rich by fostering coal dependence abroad.

Concerned citizens in Missoula, a town known for progressive ethics and environmentalism, aren’t going to stand by and let this happen.  This morning our group rallied on the UM campus to hear from local business owner Mark Kersting.  As the owner of the Stensrud Events Center, located mere blocks from the railroad that passes through Missoula, Kersting’s business is already being impacted by noise and air pollution from existing rail traffic.  Increasing the number of coal trains on the line to an extra train per hour every day – something we could see happen if Arch gets its way – would make the problem even worse.

According to Kersting, “Officials here in Missoula are doing nothing to address this problem.  The first responsibility of elected representatives should be to protect public health and safety.”

Continue reading ‘Missoulians Tell Wells Fargo: Blue Skies and Coal Don’t Mix’

Across the country a bold movement is emerging to demand a clean and sustainable future. People of all ages and backgrounds are coming together to show industry and politicians that we will not let our country continue its dangerous addiction to fossil fuels and youth are at the forefront. Whether it is in DC resisting the disastrous Keystone XL pipeline, in Appalachia resisting the destructive process of mountaintop removal or in cities resisting the placement of toxic industries near low-income communities our generation is taking a crucial role in this process.

In the Pacific Northwest, we face numerous and complex problems. There is the export of coal to Asian markets, the expansion of clear cutting in ancient forests, the importation of tar sands equipment, unsustainable food systems, close ties between industry and politicians, and the ongoing inequity in the distribution of environmental harm in our own communities. Yet we also know how powerful we are when we come together as a movement. Youth environmental activists have been victorious in gradually phasing out coal plants, defeating LNG export terminals, and passing some of the boldest climate legislation in the country.

That is why on November 4th-6th, members of the youth environmental movement from up and down the west coast are going to Eugene for Power Shift West. The weekend long conference will have speakers, panels, skill building workshops and opportunities to network with other leaders of the youth climate movement. We gather to deepen our understanding of the systems that are destroying the environment and to develop tools to dismantle those systems and construct equitable and sustainable alternatives.

We demand a viable future where the health of our communities and our land is put above the profit of corporations. Come join us and be part of this growing movement.

Get involved today by registering to join us at Power Shift West.

Attend on Facebook & follow us on Twitter.

tipping point  (tɪpɪŋ point) — n  the crisis stage in a process, when a significant change takes place

This last week, I went to Washington D.C. and joined the Tar Sands Action which was the biggest environmental mass action in a generation.  Over a thousand were arrested calling on Obama to deny the permits for the Keystone XL pipeline which would cut down the middle of America’s heartland from Alberta to oil refineries on the Texas coast. The pipeline will carry billions of gallons of oil extracted from Indigenous land in northern Alberta.

The Tar Sands Action is a “tipping point” for the climate movement that I’ve been calling a “Camp Casey” moment. If you remember Camp Casey in 2005 was when anti-war activist Cindy Sheehan, who’d lost a son in Iraq, began an encampment at Bush’s ranch in Crawford,TX. It was a “tipping point” in the war. It cracked Bush’s popular support for the war and led to political routes in 2006 and 2008, and the sacking of War Sect. Donald Rumsfeld.  And it helped trigger a partial withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq (at least for now.)

The sit-ins at the White House seem to have caused a major shift for the climate movement.My arrest day (August 29th, the 6th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina hitting New Orleans, no less) included going to jail with climatologist James Hansen, a large interfaith contingent (Christian, Jew, Muslim, Buddhist), leadership from non-profits like Greenpeace and 350.org and lots of ordinary folks from many generations and many walks of life. Continue reading ‘Drawing A Line In The Tar Sands’

I recently caught up with a once-and-forever youth climate leader who has since moved on to fill his days with other ways of building global community.  I asked what we needed to do to bring him back to the fold. He, in turn, confessed he wished he could borrow one of our own to further his new pursuits.  I gave him my blessing– but only if in four years, both of them would come back to us by running for elected office.
He laughed. I wasn’t joking.
Continue reading ‘Outside, In.’