Category: Announcements

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

Rising Tide North America Continental Gathering in Utah; July 18-20

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Click here to register for the Gathering!!

Click Here to Donate to the Gathering!!

Update on the Location:  If you are planning on attending the gathering please orient your travel toward Green River, Utah. If you are flying, either Salt Lake City or Grand Junction are the best bets, although we’d suggest Grand Junction, CO (it’s just closer).  We hear there are really cheap flights from LA and Las Vegas on Allegiant Air ($60!!)  into Grand Junction if you search. From both SLC and Grand Junction there are daily trains directly to Green River for fairly cheap. From SLC the train leaves 3AM; 4pm from Grand Junction. Of course, we can find people accommodations in either location if you plan on arriving early and shuttles or car pools can be available. Just make sure you let us know ASAP.  If you register for the gathering, you’ll receive another email requesting you travel info if you need help getting there. If you don’t register, we don’t know you’re coming!! Again, the accommodations are most likely going to be camping, so come prepared.

Our strength comes from our connection, our power from our unity.

WHAT: Rising Tide Continental Gathering

WHEN: July 18-20, 2013 (17th arrival, 21st departure)

WHERE: Utah; Exact Location TBA

CONTACT: gathering@risingtidenorthamerica.org

INFO: https://risingtidenorthamerica.org/2013/05/gathering/

DONATE: https://www.wepay.com/donations/rising-tide-continental-gathering

The Pitch

This July, many of the members of Rising Tide-affiliated, anti-extraction, and climate justice groups around the U.S., Mexico, and Canada will converge in beautiful Utah to train, discuss, strategize, and develop the structure, dynamics and capacity of the Rising Tide network.

Rising Tide is an international, all-volunteer, grassroots network of groups and individuals who organize locally, promote community-based solutions to the climate crisis, and take direct action to confront the root causes of climate change.  Some network members are called Rising Tide, others are not.  In its essence, Rising Tide seeks to create a broad, long-term, international, collaborative platform for direct action and climate justice organizing.

The Rising Tide North America network consists of groups and local contacts throughout Canada, the United States, and Mexico.  Local groups work on a wide variety of issues that pertain to the local communities in which they reside.  If you are already part of the Rising Tide network, if you are interested in joining as an individual or a group, or if you want to find out how a grassroots, horizontally-organized, dedicated network of direct action-oriented, climate justice organizations can change the world, the Rising Tide Continental Gathering may just be the place to come.

All of the groups involved in the Rising Tide network are actively organizing on the ground in their communities.  Many are taking the lead in staging bold direct actions that are altering the course of the climate fight.  Many are participating in national and international projects that are at the forefront of movement building and solidarity work against tar sands, fracked oil and natural gas, and coal exploitation.

The Rising Tide Continental Gathering will provide a significant venue for networking and forwarding proposals that will impact the course of the burgeoning anti-extraction and climate justice movement.  The gathering will also promote solidarity work with frontline and fenceline communities that must be a part of our struggles.  The network itself is
collaboratively creating the agenda for the gathering, ensuring that participants will get out of the gathering what they put into it.  Come, participate, and help it grow.

The Goals

The focus of this year’s Rising Tide Continental Gathering will be:

1. Broaden connections between network groups and share resources

Through meeting each other and being present and working together in the same place, we hope to open space to talk about furthering network communication and collaborations and generally expanding and strengthening our working relationships.

2. Strategize around growing the power of the anti-extraction and climate justice movement

We also hope to create space for developing strategies around our different struggles.  Regional, industry, and affinity breakout sessions will all provide spaces in which we can develop this work, make proposals, and strategize together as a network.

Get Involved

We want the Rising Tide Continental Gathering to be as collaboratively created as possible.  We plan to offer the time for members of the network to talk about their interests.  We also need a lot of help with event outreach, logistics, and fundraising.  Currently, you can plug into four working groups in operation.  Contact us for more information about
helping out.

Why Utah?

Utah is gearing up to be another major front of tar sands and fracking related organizing.  After the Rising Tide Continental Gathering, Utah-based groups Peaceful Uprising, Canyon Country Rising Tide, and Before It Starts are hosting the Utah Tar Sands Action Camp from July 21 to 28.  We are encouraging folks interested in attending the Rising Tide Continental Gathering to also engage in the action camp.  The Rising Tide network chose this specific collaboration as a strategic place to forward anti-extraction and climate justice work in the U.S.  However, we do understand if participant schedules do not permit attendance of both the gathering and the camp.

Basic Logistics

Travel

Please make your travel plans early and orient them toward Salt Lake City.  The gathering will occur at an as of now undetermined,  location in Utah.  We will organize and inform you of emerging pick-up and drop-off travel arrangements to transport everybody who does not already have a ride to and from the gathering site.

We are prioritizing limited travel funding for folks who may be coming from out of the country or at least from far away.  But if you need assistance in getting to the gathering, we are happy to help in any way that we can, through ride shares or possible partial or full travel funding.

Utah Summer

Utah in July has the potential to be hot – really hot.  Please come prepared to be in a likely outdoor environment.  Bring bottles for water, sunscreen, and clothing to be comfortable and to protect yourself from the sun.  We encourage gathering participants to bring camping gear, tents, blankets, or sleeping bags suitable for summer weather.

Updates and Information

Please check our website often for updated info about rideshares, travel, schedules, and site logistics.  As we get closer to the gathering, we will post new ways to be involved, working group updates, and the agendas there.

https://risingtidenorthamerica.org/2013/05/gathering/

RTNA April Newsletter: Fossil Fuel Resistance Heating Up!

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seattleFossil Fuel Resistance Heating Up!

UPCOMING ACTIONS AND ACTION CAMPS

May 17th-19th – Central Wisconsin Action Camp – Stevens Point, Wisconsin

The Central Wisconsin Action Camp will bring together organizers and activists from Wisconsin and the Great Lakes region to foster a culture of direct action that challenges false solutions to environmental and economic problems including upcoming regional infrastructure projects.

May 19th-27th – Mountain Justice Summer Action Camp – Damascus, VA

Join Mountain Justice this year near Damascus, VA. Mountain Justice has grown from a fast burning brush fire that helped push Mountaintop Removal to national awareness into a critical support network at the base of a growing, national anti-extractive industry movement for social and environmental justice.

May 26th-June 1st – Resist the Biotech Tree Conference – Asheville, North Carolina

Join activists from around the country to protest an international gathering of scientists and industry executives who are working to replace our native forests with genetically engineered tree farms.

June 15th-23rd – Wild Roots Feral Futures – Southwest Colorado

For the 5th year running, the Wild Roots Feral Futures (WRFF) eco-defense, direct action, and rewilding encampment will take place in the forests of Southwest Colorado this coming June, 2013.

July 23rd-29th – Trans and Womyn’s Actions Camp – Near Eugene, Oregon

TWAC is a movement to unite, support and inspire trans and women activists to take action against patriarchy, oppression and exploitation and in defense of our communities and ecosystems.

CONTENTS

Oklahoma Grandmother Locks Herself to Keystone XL Heavy Machinery — Halts Construction

Last week Oklahoma grandmother Nancy Zorn, 79, from Warr Acres, has locked herself to a piece of heavy machinery effectively halting construction on TransCanada’s Keystone XL toxic tar sands pipeline. This action comes in the wake of the disastrous tar sands pipeline spill in Mayflower Arkansas, where an estimated 80,000 gallons of tar sands spilled into a residential neighborhood and local waterways.

Read more – Great Plains Tar Sands Resistance

Environmentalists Put Their Bodies on the Line to Protest Keystone Pipeline Profiteers

Last month in the nation’s capital, five members of DC Rising Tide participated in a peaceful act of civil disobedience against one of the corporations that stands to profit from the Keystone XL Pipeline. The five were arrested by DC metro police after a sit down peaceful protest in the lobby of 601 Pennsylvania Avenue, which is the DC corporate office of Valero Energy Corp. Valero owns oil refineries that are poised to receive at least 20% of the tar sands exported from Canada through the nation’s heartland to Texas.

Read more – Rising Tide North America

Global Day of Action against Chevron and the Pacific Trail Pipeline

Everywhere Chevron operates they exploit land and people for shareholder profit, often they use force and intimidation, very rarely do they take responsibility for the consequences. From the US to Nigeria, Australia to Equador, Brazil to Bangladesh, Chevron brings death and destruction. In Canada, Chevron’s Pacific Trail Pipeline threatens unceded indigenous land. Last month groups from around the world united and took action in solidarity with the Unist’ot’en and all frontline communities affected by Chevron, to clearly state, Chevron your time has come your days are numbered! Stop Fracking Chevron!

Read more – Unist’ot’en Camp

Newswire

 

Upcoming

Two Lifelong Oklahomans Halt Construction of Keystone XL Work Site

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Eric_machines_LIGHT

Action in Oklahoma

Cross-Posted from Great Plains Tar Sands Resistance

BRYAN COUNTY, OK – Tuesday, April 16, 2013, 8:00AM – Two lifelong Oklahomans have effectively halted construction on an active work site for TransCanada’s Keystone XL tar sands pipeline in Bennington, Oklahoma.

Eric Whelan, 26, who grew up in McLoud, Okla., has ascended 40 feet into the air in an aerial blockade that began at dawn this morning.

Gwen Ingram of Luther, Okla., 56, has locked herself to heavy machinery and shut down the construction site.

Today’s event marks the fourth act of civil disobedience by Great Plains Tar Sands Resistance and comes in the wake of the disastrous tar sands pipeline spill in Mayflower, Arkansas.  For the last three weeks, over 300,000 gallons of tar sands diluted bitumen have spilled into a residential neighborhood and local waterways.

“Keystone XL sounded like a bad idea from the beginning,” explained Whelan. “The Mayflower spill proves that we shouldn’t be trusting these multi-national corporations, like Exxon or TransCanada, because every spill further exposes their criminal incompetence. Now, TransCanada wants to build a toxic pipeline through the center of the country.

“I’m taking action to prevent a tragedy like that from happening in Oklahoma.”

The tar sands’ corrosive nature makes pipelines more prone to leaks than transporting crude oil, as evidenced by the Exxon’s Pegasus pipeline burst in Mayflower, Ark.

Luther resident Gwen Ingram before her direct action in Bennington, Oklahoma.

When spills inevitably do occur, the heavier diluted bitumen sinks in water and into the water table. Keystone XL’s proposed route cuts through the heartland of North America, crossing the Arbuckle Simpson and Edwards Trinity Aquifer in Oklahoma.

“The Keystone XL tar sands pipeline would carry the dirtiest fuel on the planet from Canada to America’s Gulf Coast’s refineries and ports, and then overseas for export,” said Gwen Ingram, before locking herself to TransCanada’s heavy machinery.

“I simply won’t allow this pipeline to cross our precious rivers; the North and South Canadian, The Red River, The Cimmaron and threaten our drinking water.”

Oklahoma Grandmother Locks Herself to Keystone XL Heavy Machinery — Halts Construction of Tar Sands Pipeline

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MEDIA RELEASE: April 9, 2013

For Immediate Release

Contact: Eric Wheeler, Great Plains Tar Sands Resistance, 760-914-2480, gptsresistance@riseup.net

Live updates and photos: http://gptarsandsresistance.org/2013/04/09/3rd-action/

Oklahoma Grandmother Locks Herself to Keystone XL Heavy Machinery — Halts Construction of Tar Sands Pipeline

In response to Exxon Mobil’s disastrous tar sands spill in neighboring Arkansas, Oklahoma residents are engaging in nonviolent civil disobedience to halt construction of the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline

ALLEN, OK – Tuesday, April 9, 2013, 9:00 AM – Oklahoma grandmother Nancy Zorn, 79, from Warr Acres, has locked herself to a piece of heavy machinery effectively halting construction on TransCanada’s Keystone XL toxic tar sands pipeline. This action comes in the wake of the disastrous tar sands pipeline spill in Mayflower Arkansas, where an estimated 80,000 gallons of tar sands spilled into a residential neighborhood and local waterways.

Using a bike-lock Zorn has attached her neck directly to a massive earth-mover, known as an excavator, which has brought construction of Keystone XL to a stop.  Zorn is the second Oklahoma grandmother this year risking arrest to stop construction of the pipeline, and her protest is the third in a series of ongoing civil disobedience actions led by the Oklahoma-based coalition of organizations, Great Plains Tar Sands Resistance.

“Right now our neighbors in Arkansas are feeling the toxic affect of tar sands on their community. Will Oklahoma neighborhoods be next?” asked Zorn before taking action today. “I can no longer sit by idly while toxic tar sands are pumped down from Canada and into our communities. It is time to rise up and defend our home. It is my hope that this one small action today will inspire many to protect this land and our water.”

Exxon Mobil’s recent Pegasus pipeline spill has forced local residents to evacuate their homes due to life-threatening toxins released into their neighborhood. Local families have experienced episodes of nausea, headaches, and respiratory problems due to acute exposure to deadly chemicals, like benzene, that are mixed in with the raw tar sands. Pegasus was carrying up to 90,000 barrels of tar sands a day before it ruptured and spilled.  The Keystone XL pipeline is slated to carry over 800,000 barrels a day; an alarming 10 times the amount of tar sands.

“In the last two weeks alone there have been at least six different inland oil spills across the country,” said Eric Wheeler, an Oklahoma native and spokesperson for Great Plains Tar Sands Resistance. “It’s time to stop referring to pipeline spills as accidents, it’s now abundantly clear that leaks are just part of business as usual. Tar sands hurt everyone they touch, from the indigenous communities in Alberta whose water is being poisoned, to the Gulf Coast communities that are forced to breathe toxic refinery emissions. We’re not going to allow this toxic stuff in our beautiful state.”

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 Great Plains Tar Sands Resistance is a coalition of groups, individuals, and supporters dedicated to stopping tar sands transportation and extraction infrastructure in the beautiful heartland of North America.