Category: Announcements

Announcements from Rising Tide and Rising Tide affiliates and close allies. An announcement is pretty much never also a reportback!

LIVE BLOG: Climate Resistance Breaks Free from Fossil Fuels

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For the past week, across the world people have been standing up to power of the fossil fuel industry.  Rising Tide North America will be sharing live updates from Break Free actions through the weekend.

May 15th,Whiting, IN [4:42pm CST]- Civil disobedience underway in Whiting at the gates of the BP refinery.

May 15th, Aliso Canyon, CA [1:30pm PST]- People blocking entrance into Porter Ranch.

May 15th, Whiting, IN [3:25 pm CST]- March approaching front gates of BP refinery.

May 15th, Aliso Canyon, CA, [1:11pm PST]- From Rising Tide SoCal: “Activists are converging now in the Porter Ranch, Aliso Canyon area. Authorities have not yet arrived. Rising Tide So Cal is there. We will do our best to bring you updates. Porter Ranch has been the invisible BP.”

 

May 15th, Anacortes, WA, [12:44pm PST]-Refinery entrance blockaded!

May 15th, Brazil [2:21pm GMT-2] – March in Brazil against fossil fuels.

May 15th,Whiting, IN [12:30pm CST]- Break Free Midwest on the move.

 

May 15th, Washington DC, [1:01 pm EST]- Rallying up at the White House.

May 15th, Anacortes, WA, [9:55am PST]- At least 52 arrested at train track blockade. Support their legal fund: bit.ly/legaldonate

May 15th, Whiting, IN, [9:48am CST]- Both sides prepare for today’s action in Whiting, IN.

May 15th, Proschim, Germany [4:19pm GMT +2]- Police kettling Endegelaende activists at Vattenfall coal mine. Shutdown of mine by thousands continues. 

May 15th, Anacortes, WA [6:09am PST]- Police raid Break Free PNW blockade encampment early this morning.

May 14th, Albany, NY [6:17pm EST]- Tents up on bomb train tracks awaiting police to move in. Police have ordered occupiers to vacate tracks. Response? “We’ll sleep on it and get back to you.”

May 14th, Los Angeles, CA [2:01pm PST]- Crowd gathering at city hall in LA.

May 14th, Thornton, CO [3:15pm MST]- Break Free Colorado blockades fracking wells and storage tanks in Weld County, CO.

 

May 14th, Burnaby, British Columbia [12:36am PST]- Break Free Canada shuts down the Kinder Morgan tar sands terminal by land and sea.

May 14th, Anacortes, WA [11:36am PST]- Hundreds prepare to march in the Pacific Northwest.

May 14th, Anacortes, WA [11:27 am PST]- Kayatktivists are heading off to blockade the Shell/Tesoro refinery by sea.

May 14th, Albany, NY [12:50pm EST]- No bomb trains in Albany today.

May 14th, Ecuador [12:27pm EST]- March on the refineria del Pacifico.

May 14th, Albany, NY [12:23pm EST]- Rail occupation begins as over a thousand swarm for health and safety at the Port of Albany.

May 14th, Albany, NY [12:20pm EST]- Follow two actions on live stream in Albany.

May 14th, Vancouver, BC [9:17 am PST]-  Crowd gathering in Vancouver to take action.

May 14th, Anacortes, WA [9:10 am PST]- Green Party presidential candidate Dr. Jill Stein to the join the Kayaktivist flotilla in the Pacific Northwest.

May 14th, Proschim, Germany [5:03 pm GMT +2]- Arrests happening at the Vattenfall coal mine.

May 14th, Thornton, CO [9:40 am MST]- Statement from Colorado Rising Tide: “Mountain Strong in the Face of Climate Crisis and Injustice.”

May 14th, Albany, NY [11:40am EST]- March on the bomb trains about to begin.

May 14th, Proschim, Germany [4:55 pm GMT +2]- Day 2 at the Vattenfall coal mine. Thousands gather and march to shut it down again.

May 14th, Albany, NY [10:27 am EST]- Crowd gathering to shut down the bomb trains.

May 14th, Thornton, CO [7:31 AM MST]- Hundreds have occupied frack well site in Weld County, CO. Bill McKibben, CO Rep Joe Salazar and Jonny 5 and the Flobots join the action. 

May 13th, Proschim, Germany- Video of protesters at a German coal mine run by Swedish power company Vattenfall — occupying the pit, giant excavators and a conveyor belt.

May 13th, Skagit Valley Free State, WA- Over 150 protesters are locked to rail tracks in Washington blocking all oil train traffic to largest overlooked point source of carbon pollution. Members of the group have set up tents!

May 13th, Proschim, Germany: 1500 people shut down Europe’s largest coal mine.

May 13th, Albany, NY- Kayak Flotilla and Banner Drop. Up next: Stopping the Bomb Trains.

May 12th, Lakewood, CO- A broad coalition of climate, environmental, Indigenous and social justice groups take action to shut down the Bureau of Land Management’s public lands auction in Lakewood Colorado. 300 march on the auction, over 100 occupy the lobby and 20 risk arrest by sitting in to disrupt the auction.

May 7th, Philadelphia, PA– Activists blockade the Philadelphia Energy Solutions oil refinery in, southwest Philly at the Right to Breathe Mobilization.

 

 

 

Rising Tide North America Statement in Response to “Citizens for Local Governance” Smear Campaign in North Texas

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DRC_FLIER_50098751Rising Tide North America Statement in Response to “Citizens for Local Governance” Smear Campaign in North Texas

In response to the recent smear campaign on members of Blackland Prairie Rising Tide by “Citizens for Local Governance,” Rising Tide North America issued the following statement:

“Rising Tide North America stands in solidarity with our friends in Blackland Prairie Rising Tide and other like-minded individuals in Denton, TX.

A Political Action Committee (PAC) in Texas is targeting residents of Denton who have been organizing to unseat establishment, status-quo candidates in their local City Council elections next month. The PAC is trying to delegitimize all opposition to their crony candidates by falsely asserting that Blackland Prairie Rising Tide (BPRT) is behind it all.

BPRT is in no way involved with any electoral campaigning, though some of its members are being subjected to McCarthyistic attacks. The PAC is attempting to smear all Rising Tide organizing, silence legitimate dissent in Denton and stop the good work being done to end fracking in North Texas. These attacks have come in the form of a website full of inaccuracies about Rising Tide North America, Blackland Prairie Rising Tide and friends in Denton, and a postcard mailed to thousands of registered voters in Denton with similar information.

We condemn the efforts of the Citizens for Local Governance. The organization implies through its smear campaign that dissent and non-violent civil disobedience are wrong and deserve the scrutiny of federal authorities. Citizens for Local Governance includes conservative activists associated with the fossil fuel industry.

Citizens for Local Governance has a moneyed interest in stifling free speech and real liberty from the corporate state. Its members worship at the altar of money, power and status, and thus are directly threatened by Rising Tide North America. For that reason, we know we’re doing our work right when attacked by groups like this. Smear campaigns like this only embolden us in fighting for a just and stable climate.”

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Vermont Pipeline Opponents Scale Tree, Halt Land Clearing for Pipeline?

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treevia Rising Tide Vermont

[UPDATE: Day 2 Press Release]

Monkton, Vt. – For the second time in less than a month, opponents of Vermont Gas Systems’ fracked gas pipeline have taken to the trees to prevent pipeline construction in Addison County. An individual is sitting in a platform thirty feet high, effectively stopping crews from clearing the pipeline route.

“As we’ve said before, this pipeline ends with us. We don’t see the state’s decision to support this polluting, expensive pipeline as a legitimate decision, and will continue to get in the way of construction as much as possible,” Addie Herbert of Rising Tide Vermont.

Vermonters from across the state have attempted to stop the pipeline for years, through testifying at public hearings, writing letters, appealing to elected officials and intervening in the controversial Public Service Board process. Many feel they are left with no recourse but to directly intervene in construction.

“The Public Service Board showed their true colors recently, when they proposed barring the public from pipeline hearings,” said Jane Palmer, who’s farm is less than half a mile from the tree sit. “It’s no surprise that people are putting their bodies on the line when the state is putting corporations above democracy.”

Vermont Gas Systems sources its gas from the Western Canada Shale Basin, one of the largest deposits of oil and gas in the world. If built, this pipeline will become a major emitter of greenhouse gas emissions over the coming decades. Opponents see the project as a direct link to the carbon and methane time bomb that scientists have warned

“We’re calling on all who are fighting to increase local control over energy projects in the state to join us in our effort to stop this undesirable pipeline,” Herbert said, in reference to recent legislation aimed at increasing town oversight in regards to renewable energy siting. “If we are to meet our energy needs in this state without wrecking the climate or landscapes of other communities, we need to end this system of unaccountable, corporate-owned energy and build a truly democratic energy system.”

Breaking: Climate Justice Activists Occupy the Superdome, Calling for No New Leases!

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Defenders of Land, Water and Climate Take Over Federal Oil Lease Sale at the New Orleans Superdome. Photo by Indigenous Environmental Network

Defenders of Land, Water and Climate Take Over Federal Oil Lease Sale at the New Orleans Superdome. Photo by Indigenous Environmental Network

Currently, hundreds of climate and social justice activists are occupying the Superdome in New Orleans in a mass protest calling to keep 43 million acres of oil and gas leases in the Gulf of Mexico.

Today, the Obama administration is auctioning off those 43 million acres to the oil and gas industry. Courageous activists have taken a stand to say a resounding “NO” to further oil extraction by the same people that brought us the BP Oil Disaster in 2010 and continue to decimate communities and ecosystems along the Gulf Coast. Our friends aren’t demanding “kinder and gentler” version of drilling,   but a stop to new offshore leases and no more drilling.. They’re setting an example for how movements against climate change and social justice can take bigger, bolder action.

In 2005, the Superdome became a symbol of climate injustice during Hurricane Katrina. Now despite recent news about the Obama Administration ending offshore drilling in the Arctic and the Atlantic seaboard, the industry is cynically being allowed to widen its profit margins by continuing business as usual in the Gulf from the very location of so much pain and misery.

We remain on the edge of catastrophe. Crushed between the pincers of climate chaos and economic, social and political inequality, our global society is hurtling toward a breaking point.

It’s up to us to bend the arc of history toward survival. Now is our chance.