Mass mobilization works.  And in 2012, it’s time to apply this lesson to what may be the biggest carbon bomb of them all: a proposal to export US coal from the Powder River Basin to the international market.

If you’re not familiar with coal export proposals, you can get the miserable truth about the issue here.  For now, suffice to say large-scale coal export projects seem to be an even bigger threat to the climate than the Keystone XL pipeline.  In states like Montana, both Republicans and Democrats in statewide office seem bent on blowing up this carbon bomb, and have ignored the protests of environmental groups.

Lobbying, petitioning, and talking about “green jobs” have all failed to stop mine-for-export proposals moving forward (though all these tactics have helped build the movement we’ll need to win).  I believe the only thing that can keep Montana and Wyoming coal in the ground is a mobilization that includes large-scale direct action.  It’s time to do here what Occupy Wall Street did in Zuccotti Park, and what the Tar Sands Action did on President Obama’s doorstep.  We must reclaim power over our communities, and chart the course ourselves to a cleaner, more just future.

This isn’t going to be easy.  There are no really large urban areas in the northern Intermountain West, making mass mobilizations difficult to organize.  However, there is a growing movement within these states to protect our communities from the coal industry.  We know we have the support of activists in the not-so-far-off Pacific Northwest proper, who are organizing to stop proposed coal terminals on the West Coast.  And with a livable planet hanging in the balance, the stakes couldn’t be higher.

In 2012, we can channel the power of mass mobilization into the places where it will be most effective, throwing off the stranglehold of fossil fuel industries over our communities while opening up space for clean energy and green jobs.  With direct action sweeping the country, and ever more people in the West waking up to the impacts of coal export proposals, there couldn’t be a better moment.

I know I’m excited.

If you had the chance to talk to Big Oil directly to its big oily face, what would you want to say?

I recently had such a chance at a commercial shoot run by the American Petroleum Institute, the major lobbying and public relations front for the oil industry (ie ExxonMobil, Chevron, BP, Shell, TransCanada and just about every major oil company). Here’s what I had to say:

Through recorded audio, we got to expose API’s upcoming “Vote4Energy” campaign, which debuts January first on CNN during major political programs. Audio recordings from inside the Vote4Energy commercial shoot can be found on the Greenpeace website, and on Yahoo News. More can also be found at the Checks and Balances Project, where Deputy Director and youth climate leader Gabe Elsner has more recordings from inside the shoot.

The American Petroleum Institute (API) is building off of its “Energy Citizens” astroturf campaign, exposed in 2009 in a leaked memo from CEO Jack Gerard to the heads of major oil companies, and launching the Vote4Energy campaign to try and claim that Americans support the oil industry’s agenda. You know, the poor, poor industry that gets billions in taxpayers dollars each year even though its the most profitable industry on Earth, and has to bus oil employees to its own staged rallies.

API is currently spending millions of its $200 million annual budget to push dirty energy projects onto the American people, particularly tar sands through the proposed Keystone XL pipeline, fracking for ‘natural’ gas, and offshore drilling in the Arctic, to name a few. Anyone familiar with TransCanada’s reputation for pipeline leaks, the safety concerns and lack of oversight for gas fracking in the lower 48 states, and the implications of a BP-style offshore oil blowout in the frigid Arctic ocean recognizes the danger of the oil industry’s agenda.

Big Oil’s Christmas list does not fit with the desires of most Americans, no matter how hard they work to craft campaigns claiming otherwise. Sometimes, it is up to us to call them out face to face, and tell that story to others so they can recognize how dirty the petroleum industry really is. Tim DeChristopher is the shining example of that confrontational spirit, currently serving a two-year sentence for saving tens of thousands of acres of Utah land from oil and gas drilling by disrupting a Bush Administration auction that later proved to be illegal.

Climate change is only getting worse, and Big Oil, King Coal and other dirty interests are pulling out all the stops to squeeze every last dollar out of this planet while they still can. Their efforts are overwhelmingly funded, and often coordinated. Their business as usual has horrible implications for intensifying global warming and human rights abuses, so the idea that people like us want to spend 2012 voting in their interest is not only ridiculous, but dangerous.

Vote4Energy? More like Vote4BigOil. Don’t buy the lie, pay close attention, and vote for the future you really deserve.

Connor Gibson does research for Greenpeace. Here he is at the Tar Sands Protest back in August 2011.

Note: yesterday a group of youth activists at the University of Montana (including myself) drafted a call for a weekend of action to protect communities from the coal exports industry.  Coal export projects may well be the largest single threat to the planet right now; and those of us in the heart of coal country need all the help we can get to win this fight. Please see below for the official call to action.

Call for a Weekend of Action to Stop Coal Exports

We, youth climate activists at the University of Montana, are calling for a regional weekend of action to protect the greater Northwest from coal exports.  The action will coincide with the weekend of Rocky Mountain Power Shift, February 17^th-19^th.  That weekend, hundreds of youth climate activists will converge on the University of Montana campus to exchange success stories, hear from movement leaders, learn from each other, and take action to promote solutions to climate change.

On Sunday, Feb 19^th, we will march through downtown Missoula to protest an increase in coal exports (this action is not officially endorsed by Power Shift in any way).  We will draw attention to key politicians and industries who are financing and pushing coal export proposals.

If we can show that people across the greater Northwest region are concerned about this issue, we will dramatically increase our chances of success.  We are asking you to organize an action in your community on the weekend of Feb 18^th, in solidarity with this region-wide effort.

If coal exports increase, it will further jeopardize the health of communities along the rail line, from eastern Montana to the West Coast.  Coal trains are a source of toxic coal dust and diesel fumes, noise pollution, and traffic congestion.  Energy companies plant to ship Montana coal to China and nearby countries, where it will be burned and contribute to climate change and global mercury pollution.

We appreciate any support you can give us in the fight against increased coal exports.  You can take action in your hometown by leading a march, rallying on a street corner, holding a teach-in, lobbying elected officials, or coming up with some other type of action….get creative!

Here in Montana, we are organizing in the heart of coal country.  However, this issue affects all of us.  To make progress toward the goal of stopping exports and protecting our communities, we need your help.  Let us know if you can hold an action the weekend of February 18^th, by filling out the form at this link.  Thanks for anything you can do, and let’s work together to bring about a cleaner, brighter future!

Blue Skies & Coal Don’t Mix Campaign at the University of Montana

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.

The first stop along the march route was Safeway – a corporation using oil from the Canadian Tar Sands to fuel its vehicle fleets.  Unlike companies including Whole Foods and Bed Bath & Beyond, Safeway has not taken any significant steps to phase out tar sands oil – even after being pressed to do so by environmental groups like ForestEthics.  Since Safeway doesn’t seem to believe its customers care about the impact of the tar sands, we decided to prove them wrong by “returning” dozens of paper bags from Safeway, complete with a giant receipt of purchase.

Next we paid a visit to Bank of America, the biggest financier of coal in the United States.  In the Pacific Northwest, Bank of America is funding companies that are pushing coal export terminals and other destructive coal industry infrastructure.  Every B of A branch is essentially a climate crime scene; so in recognition of this fact, participants in the march strung caution tape and warning signs between the pillars at the Eugene branch.  A die-in outside the bank, some messages scrolled in chalk, and a bit of creative street theater rounded out the B of A action.

Our last stop was at the Eugene Democrats campaign office headquarters, where march participants pledged dozens of volunteer hours to fight for clean energy over the next year.  Calling on the Obama administration to reject the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline and harness the power youth activists ready to devote their time to a candidate who stands up for the climate, we joined with thousands of people across the country who are ready to see the President take the kind of bold stance that will re-energize his base for the 2012 elections.

It’s no coincidence that four days after thousands encircled the White House, and people across the country held smaller solidarity actions like the one in Eugene, the Obama administration took the first major step toward terminating the Keystone XL pipeline.  Yesterday the State Department announced it will re-assess the Keystone XL proposal, scrapping the original pipeline route and essentially sending the project back the drawing board.  This is a major blow that could well prove Keystone XL’s undoing.

If there was any doubt that strategically focused non-violent direct action produced change on a massive scale, the setback to Keystone XL should be enough to convince anyone.  Direct action has already prompted banks to begin the shift away from coal, stopped or slowed the trajectory of numerous fossil fuel projects – and now it has dealt a lethal blow to one of the biggest climate bombs on the planet.

Youth in the Pacific Northwest and across the country will continue to utilize direct action to confront direct action, in a tradition pioneered decades ago by leaders like Gandhi and King.  With the scrapping of the Keystone XL plan, our movement had one of its finest moments yet this week.  I anticipate many more such moments to come.

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.

Meanwhile a coal train made from shopping carts, a revitalized appliance art racer, and a washing machine-turned locomotive rumbled through Red Square, the heart of the WWU campus, and into the narrow corridor at the entrance to the event. As the train conductor blared his whistle, crossing guard Bodie Cabiyo preventing foot traffic from entering the event, “Sorry, expect ten minute delays every hour of every day from here on out,” he said. Increased train traffic resulting from the terminal would have such an effect in Bellingham, isolating communities on opposite sides of the tracks for as much as four hours a day.

Environmental science student Bodie Cabiyo said, “These big issues like dirty energy and climate change can seem pretty distant and relatively unimportant until they threaten to destroy communities and ecosystems right in your back yard. Then you realize just how real the issue actually is.” This week we, WWU students, will cast our ballots for a local economy that will support us into the future, and that will stop global coal trade in it’s tracks.”

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.

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

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.

Through the two weeks of action, we saw youth, Appalachians, Indigenous leaders from all over North America,  former Obama staffers and volunteers, anti-fracking activists, labor activists, Midwestern and Texan landowners and environmental radicals sit in on the White House sidewalk. Furthermore, it’s been organized by my close family of friends and comrades whom I always have a vested interest in seeing succeed.

Needless to say, it was a powerful two weeks.

In these situations, my mind often goes to the transformational power of direct action.  And to be really honest, I was initially was very skeptical about this action. But the tar sands action brought in many newcomers to the civil disobedience tactics (at least 2/3rds by the organizing group’s count.)

The arrest action itself was a short and sweet process, and not the harrowing experience I’ve gone through in harder actions. It didn’t entail climbing a dragline on a mine site or locking oneself to the gates of Exxonmobil, but it was still quite powerful for the first time participants and mainstream environmentalists caught in a crisis of faith about Obama and climate change.

Some personal anecdotes on the power of this action:

• On Monday, I was arrested with some Canadian grandparents (from Alberta, no less) as they took the grandmother away, her husband yelled “your grandchildren are proud of you today Mary!”
• Lots of staffers from the mainstream orgs like the 350.org, Energy Action and NRDC risked arrest. And to be honest, with some exceptions, traditional purveyors of breaking the law for the cause like Earth First!, RAN and Greenpeace did not play a central organizing role which I take as a good thing. Getting arrested is not always the goal, but this was been an important experience for those folks and their organizations.
• And Keystone pipeline actions also spread organically all over the world. There were pickets and protests as far away as Cairo and Durban, South Africa. Activists followed Obama to Martha’s Vineyard and a Obama for America event in Minnesota. On September 26th, another sit-in is planned for the Canadian capital in Ottawa. The media exploded with news around this and social media continues to be even bigger. After over a year of organizing, our friends with Rising Tide chapters have been taking direct actions against Exxon’s tar sands megaloads in Idaho and Montana.

People from all over the continent have begun to not only experience direct action in this action, but also a level of direct democracy. It’s not Seattle in 1999 or the IMF/World Bank protests in 2000 with affinity groups and spokes councils determining the course of the action or which intersections are to be held. But instead, its people voicing their outrage at this pipeline and Obama’s unwillingness to act for the good guys (us) on the climate issue. It’s beyond the ballot box or waiting for politicians to do something.

To me, people stepping out of their comfort zones and not doing what the police tell them until arrest is a radicalizing moment. People stepping out of the Tweedledumb and Tweedledumber two party political system, organizing their dissent and taking care of each other while doing it is a revolutionary act.

Those radicalizing and revolutionary moments are why I do this work.

All of this comes after a long spring and summer of fierce actions from the Dept. of the Interior in Washington D.C. to coal plants in Chicago to Tim DeChristopher’s trials and tribulations in Salt Lake City to the tar sands loving Montana governor’s office to tree sits on Coal River Mountain.

A wise friend of mine once said he prefers Democratic administrations in power not because he thinks the Democrats will do the right thing, but because it causes an upsurge in more radical organizing in the U.S.

Well, dear friend, here we go. I can’t wait to see what happens next.