Category: RT Press Releases

Rising Tide Chicago: Chase Bank Board Member Gets Climate Justice Wake Up Call

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cross-posted from Rising Tide Chicago

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
May 17, 2021
Contact: Cailie Kafura, she/her pronouns, organizer, Rising Tide Chicago, cailiekafura@gmail.com, 715-938-1563
The day before the JP Morgan Chase Annual General Meeting of Shareholders, Board Member James Crown awakens to activists calling him out for fossil fuel funding
CHICAGO, IL — Early this morning, activists from Rising Tide Chicago made a ruckus to awaken JPMorgan Chase Board member, James Crown, and neighbors, in their quiet Gold Coast neighborhood. James Crown is one of the bank’s executives responsible for allocating billions of dollars towards fossil fuel funding. This timely action comes one day prior to JPMorgan’s Annual Meeting for Shareholders. Activists unfurled a massive banner along the street in front of his home that stated, “James Crown Lets Chase Fund Climate Crisis”.
“The extractive industry is propped up by those who fund it, and those who fund it have names and addresses. Chase Bank’s executive James Crown has made the decision to invest in climate chaos and genocide, so we are making the decision to give him a wake up call.” – Cailie Kafura, organizer, Rising Tide Chicago (she/her pronouns)
The $317 billion Chase has poured into fossil fuels over the past four years has enabled pipeline construction that poisons Indigenous land and water, and increases sexual violence and murder of Indigenous women, girls, and two-spirit people. Over the past decade, pipeline projects have been responsible for spilling 800,000 barrels of oil in the U.S., with more hazards anticipated in the future if these projects continue. Environmental and Indigenous groups have been protesting against pipeline projects for decades, raising concern for their impacts on communities, ecosystems, and the climate.
“Corporations, especially banks and the fossil fuel industry, have placed the majority of the burden on us to reduce our carbon footprint to help solve the climate crisis.  We are here today to hold these companies accountable and say no more. James Crown is in a position of power as a Chase board member and is therefore complicit in the destruction of our planet. We are here today to let him know that we are aware of his actions and to urge him to make future decisions based on planet over profit.” – Emily Murphy, organizer, Rising Tide Chicago (she/her pronouns)
Rising Tide Chicago uses direct action and education to confront the root causes of climate change, which include capitalism and white supremacy. Organizers target banks like Chase because without their funding, pipelines like Line 3 can’t be built. We urge readers to raise awareness and funds for the frontlines, and take action in solidarity with the Movement to Stop Line 3.

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Vancouver Island: Gate Locked as RCMP Ramps up to Attack Growing Logging Blockades

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photo: Fairy Creek Blockade

cross-posted from It’s Going Down

In so-called British Columbia, a campaign to stop the logging of old-growth forests has been building, with a network of active blockades forming a direct line of resistance to logging. According to the Fairy Creek Blockade on Instagram:

“Our movement is growing far beyond what anyone originally imagined. We are holding down a half dozen forest protection camps, and this fight is becoming about a lot more than just the forest. The time will soon come when the RCMP will show up in an attempt to break our movement. When they do we need you to be ready to spring into action and join us on the front lines.”

After over 285 days of direct resistance to the logging of old-growth forest, on May 17th, “they announced they will be setting up a checkpoint on McClure Road near the Caycuse Blockade, with arrests to follow.”

In a statement sent to It’s Going Down anonymously by anarchists involved in the blockade, forest defenders wrote:

“On May 17 2021, the same day RCMP scum began enforcing Teal Jones Group’s court injunction against long-term logging blockades in Pacheedaht and Ditidaht territory, we locked TJG’s gate on Grierson Main road.

This action happened inside the injunction zone, within a few hours of the pigs beginning their assault on the brave land defenders at Caycuse blockade.

This gate, one of many in the area installed by Teal Jones to restrict access to their operations, is so easily turned against them. It now obstructs them from further destroying the upper reaches of the already ravaged Camper Creek watershed.

Fuck the injunction. Fuck Teal Jones. FUCK the police. The land is too big for you to control.

And hey liberals, let’s get real. Defending the last 1% of old growth forests only, while actively promoting all other industrial logging in so called BC, is like trying to save a few wild animals in a tiny zoo, while promoting the factory farming of millions of others.

-Some anarchists.”

In a call for solidarity and support, the Fairy Creek Blockade wrote on Instagram:

“[L]and defenders have been preventing the clear cutting of old growth forest on Southern Vancouver Island for over 9 months, and now the Royal Canadian Mounted Police are beginning to arrest protesters to clear the way for Industry to log some of our last old growth forests.

We need everyone to join us on the frontlines! Bring your friends and friends, bring your kids. Join us at Fairy Creek HQ. It’s on Google Maps and just a few hundred meters of pavement, from there you will be redeployed to where you are needed the most! There is room for both arrestable and non-arrestable positions at camp. Come self-sufficient.”

For updates, follow the Fairy Creek Blockade here.

Mountain Valley Pipeline Fighter Blocks Easement with Vehicle

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cross-posted from Appalachians Against the Pipeline

“Max blocked access to a Mountain Valley Pipeline easement and equipment yard lot for 5.5 hours today!! During that time, workers and pipe trucks were unable to access the site, effectively halting work in the area.
Around 11:30 A.M., after the cops cut through the blockade vehicle’s welded shut doors and rebar, Max was extracted from the blockade and arrested.
In reference to the message painted on the side of the blockade vehicle, “Who Killed The World?,” Max stated: “The truth is, the end of the world is not new. Indigenous people around the world have faced and continued to face settler colonialism and genocide and have survived. As I sit here in Virginia, Palestinian people are confronting that same colonial violence as bombs fall on apartment buildings and families are forced from their homes. […] The people of Palestine and Colombia are in my heart today. The Indigenous people of occupied Turtle Island are in my heart today. Their fierceness emboldens me to take this risk in the fight against MVP.
“Hope is not a mistake. Resistance is not a mistake. Imagining our survival is not a mistake.”
Montgomery County resident Crystal Mello, who was present at the public rally today in support of Max’s blockade, added: “There have been many ‘proper’ channels taken, and many protests against the Mountain Valley Pipeline. All have gone unheard. It’s come to the point where it takes measures like this to grab the media’s attention and get people to listen. Meanwhile, MVP still can’t work on Cove Hollow Rd, a site they had to irresponsibly abandon, and I’m currently looking at a hill they have to blast. These are the things that should have caught people’s attention long ago. I stand in support of the protest today.”
Actions like this cost MVP time and money (adding to their ballooning budget and delaying their estimated completion date — nearly $3 billion over budget and 3.5 years behind schedule and counting), making the pipeline less profitable and decreasing the chances that it will ever be finished. Thank you, Max!
Donate to support Max and resistance to the Mountain Valley Pipeline: bit.ly/SupportMVPResistance
Join us: email appalachiansagainstpipelines@protonmail.com

Join us to Stop the Line 3 Pipeline on June 5-8

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An Indigenous-led movement has resisted Enbridge’s Line 3 pipeline through legal advocacy, organizing and direct action for over seven years. Hundreds of actions have happened on the ground in Minnesota and across the world to stop it. Indigenous leadership has put out a call for people in all parts of the country to converge on Minnesota and engage in direct resistance.

As oil giant Enbridge builds Line 3 through Anishinaabe treaty land and the Mississippi Headwaters, we’ve heeded that call to escalate resistance to the pipeline at the Treaty People Gathering. On June 5-8, we will gather in Northern Minnesota to put our bodies on the line to stop construction and tell the world that the days of tar sands pipelines are over.

Go here to find out more about the gathering and sign up to get more information

Line 3 would bring nearly a million barrels of toxic tar sands per day from Alberta, Canada to Superior, Wisconsin– through sacred wild rice beds, and the headwaters of the Mississippi. Its impact on Indigenous sovereignty, communities, wild places and the climate is devastating.

Resistance to Line 3 pipeline has resulted in hundreds of actions across the country, and around the world. It’s time for the rest of us to step and resist.