Community Members Across the Pacific Northwest Protest Murphy Company’s Old Growth Logging

pics via South Sound Forest Defense

cross-posted from South Sound Forest Defense

(Elma, Washington & Eugene, Oregon) – This morning activists gathered at Murphy Company facilities in both Washington and Oregon in protest of their continued logging of bio-diverse old growth and mature forests. Advocates in Elma, Washington gathered at Murphy Softwood Veneer Plant, while in Eugene, Oregon community members rallied at Murphy Headquarters.
The protestors called for an end to clear-cut logging and for reparations for the destruction wrought by the Timber industry to be paid to Black, Indigenous and People of Color communities that disproportionately experience the impacts of environmental and climate pollution from industrial logging. Specifically, they called for the immediate halt of Murphy’s logging of old growth and mature forests on Washington Department of Natural Resources (DNR) land in the Capitol State Forest.
One protestor said:“In the face of the climate crisis, if we are to have any chance at protecting our communities, we need to protect the land. We cannot afford to allow corporations like Murphy Company to clearcut our lifeline to the future.”
Another stated: “The Murphy Company is a threat to our society and to our environment. For decades they have shown that they are more concerned with private profit than with protecting our climate and our environment for current and future generations.”
The actions come as the Washington DNR last month acknowledged that the “Smuggler Sale” purchased by Murphy Company from the Washington DNR includes old growth forest that meets the criteria for protection. The DNR also acknowledged that they had failed to identify or mark individual structurally unique trees exceeding 60 inches in diameter, which should have been marked for retention. While two acres of the sale were dropped, protestors believe that no mature forest should be logged and that the Smuggler sale in the capitol forest should be dropped.

pics via South South Forest Defense

One activist said:“Public land management agencies and the timber industry are continuing the colonial legacy that birthed them and as such they are complicit in the harm they perpetuate. We refuse to be. They put profit above all else. They take more than they give and cover up the harm done by labeling lumber from clear-cuts sustainable.”

One community member stated: “The science is clear – logging increases wildfire risk. In the face of the growing threat of climate-driven wildfires, it is imperative that we protect our fire-resilient forests from being replaced with highly flammable dog-hair timber plantations”
For more information or interview, please email: worthmorestanding@protonmail.com (South Sound Forest Defense, Washington)
  • Read about previous actions to defend the so-called Capitol State Forest here.
  • Read about the climate impacts of logging here.
  • Learn more about the Smuggler timber sale.
  • Learn more about Murphys’ logging of old growth in rendsland creek.

Macalester College: Students launch blockade during statewide day of action in solidarity with the movement to #stopLine3

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE 3/5/2021

Contact:  Priscilla Trinh, UMN Student, primoria1890@gmail.com for general inquiries, and to be connected with student press contacts at each school

Photos: find more photos of the day here

Macalester College students blockade Grand Avenue during statewide day of action at Minnesota schools in solidarity with the movement to stop Line 3 

(MINNESOTA) Today, hundreds of Minnesota college and university students are staging demonstrations on their campuses to raise awareness of the Line 3 pipeline, and to call on their institutions to divest from fossil fuel industry projects. Students from the University of Minnesota Morris, UMD, UMN Twin Cities, Carleton College, St Olaf College, The College of St Benedict’s, Gustavus Adolphus College, and Macalester College have been collaborating to plan this day of action for months. b`

Emily Wittkop, a junior at the University of Minnesota Morris said, “I’m fighting Line 3 for several reasons – the danger to our environment, the violation of Minnesota’s treaties, the impact of oil on the world’s political climate. I’m also pushing the University of Minnesota to begin fossil fuel divestment so that the financial investments of UMN matches their stated mission and the will of the student population that pay so much for their education here.”

For this statewide day of action, student activists at 8 Minnesota schools are staging art installations, hosting protests, and talking with their peers about how their schools are funding construction of the Line 3 pipeline. (More information about each school’s activities available upon request.)

At Macalester College in St Paul, 350 students have blockaded the city street, Grand Avenue, that runs through the campus. Dozens of Macalester students, alumni, faculty, and staff have been involved in the Line 3 resistance movement over the years, and several have even been arrested protesting on the frontlines in recent months.

Helen Meigs, a Macalester senior, said “We are out here today because it is unethical for Macalester to claim that they are preparing us for the future when their investments are part of the system robbing us of that very future. Macalester’s investments in Enbridge support a pipeline that will have devastating consequences for global climate change, a pipeline that when it spills, will poison the drinking water of millions along the Mississippi, a pipeline that violates the treaty rights of the Anishinaabe people. We are here today in solidarity with the indigenous water protectors up north and to call on Macalester to stand with us and divest to stop Line 3.”

Students from the 8 participating schools have been collaborating to prepare for today’s activities for months. Connecting over zoom meetings and workshops, they’ve developed a community and had space to discuss their shared values and visions for a better world. It was those relationships that pushed two Macalester College seniors to reinvigorate their divestment campaign with a proposal to the Macalester Board of Trustees specifically calling on them to divest from Enbridge Energy in protest of the Line 3 pipeline. Most of the participating groups have made ongoing or past fossil fuel divestment asks of their schools’ administrations.

The coalition of Minnesota schools also collaborated with students from around the US and Canada to plan the Student Divestment Virtual Rally to #Defund Line 3 for today at 3 pm.

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Texas Freezes Over: Cowboy Capitalism, Big Oil’s Spin Machine and Mutual Aid

cross-posted from Medium

by Scott Parkin

Two weeks ago, a polar vortex hit my home state of Texas. The heating Arctic pushed cold air far south and temperatures plummeted below freezing. In a state that has been hit by hurricanes, drought and wildfires, the climate crisis coming home to roost in one of the most pro-oil and gas states in the country is nothing out of the ordinary. Despite decades of dealing with the aftermath of these climate disasters, the notoriously libertarian state fails at providing for the needs of its residents over and over. But a polar vortex hitting Texas was completely new and it’s leadership even more unprepared for the disaster.

Gas and coal-fired power plants lacking winterization had their facilities freeze and shut down. In a state of 29 million, this led to over four and a half million people without power in frigid weather. Residents living in homes built for the tropics shivered in the dark. Some froze to death. The next phase of the disaster had more than twelve million Texans lose their water or put under “boil advisories,” (which means you have to boil your tap water before you drink it.) More than 130 of the state’s 254 counties were experiencing water outages or potential contamination, and more than 250,000 residents had not had water service for three days, according to state data. Some still don’t have water.

At last count, over one hundred people have perished from the Texas freeze.

Along with the overarching climate crisis that gets worse every year, the libertarian “the market will provide” Republican politics of today is the root of this month’s humanitarian disaster in Texas. The U.S. has three energy grids — one in the west, one in the east and one in Texas. Texas is notorious for its deregulated energy grid. In the mid-1930’s, Texas oil men had an aversion to being part of a federal power grid, so they pursued energy systems that eventually led to the state’s electricity being governed by Electric Reliability Council of Texas, Inc. ( ERCOT).

In 2011, another unseasonal blizzard led to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission reported that winterizing of the power grid was necessary. ERCOT didn’t require the winterization as “mandatory” to the private energy companies. Of course, the companies were too busy making huge profits to “volunteer” to winterize their operations, as my co-host Prof Bob Buzzanco pointed out. Even worse, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s appointees to the Public Utility Commission (PUC) of Texas wreaked havoc on oversight of Texas utilities. In July 2020, they disbanded the PUC’s Oversight and Enforcement Division dropping pending cases to unsure reliability. In November 2020, they ended a contract with the Texas Reliability Entity which reduced oversight of the power grid. After this months crisis, five members of the ERCOT board resigned. All five lived out of state.

The Rand Paul free market fundamentalism grift, promoted by the Republican Party and the fossil sector, is one part of our modern phenomenon of disasters. The other is their decade’s long promotion of denial that a heating Arctic causes climate change, polar vortexes and hurricanes. This allows our society to continue to be run on fossil fuels.

The response of Texas Republican politicians (you know, those in power at most levels of state government) has been what we’ve come to expect from Republicans in the age of Trump.

The most honest has been from the Mayor (now former Mayor) Tim Boyd of Colorado City in West Texas. In the midst of the crisis when the residents of Colorado City were without power, water and heat, Boyd posted on Facebook that “only the strong survive and the weak will [perish].” He went on, “No one owes you [or] your family anything; nor is it the local government’s responsibility to support you during trying times like this Sink or swim it’s your choice! The City and County, along with power providers or any other service owes you NOTHING! I’m sick and tired of people looking for a damn handout.” He then abruptly resigned his office.

A number of Republican politician decided that it was a good moment to start a GOP “Texodus.” Senator “Flyin’” Ted Cruz hopped a plane for a family vacation at a luxurious resort in Cancun, Mexico. Once the story hit social media and then the mainstream press, Cruz came home, saying he’d only left town because his kids asked him too. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton left the week for Utah. Paxton tweeted he needed to be in Utah for an in-person law enforcement demonstration and to meet with Utah’s attorney general. Upon his return, he didn’t respond to press inquiries about holding ERCOT responsible for power failures. State rep. Gary Gates (R- Ft. Bend) took his private jet for a family getaway in Orland, FL after the family’s pipes burst. Sadly, none of his neighbors or the millions of other Texans with burst pipes got an invitation.

But the more important Republican responses has been the public relations offensive in the defense of their deregulatory practices.

Their first wave of attack was against green energy. Internet rumors circulated that the rolling power outages were a result of “frozen wind turbines.” While some turbines froze without proper de-icing materials (another result of the lack of winterizing by state regulatory agencies), less than 15% of Texas electricity comes from wind power. Instead what froze and caused the power outages was the more than 80% of Texas power coming from gas, coal and nuclear power.

For what it’s worth, the images circulated in the rapid response disinformation campaign turned out to be frozen wind turbines in Sweden from 2013.

Next, Greg Abbott appeared on Fox News promoting the failure of clean energy and then followed up with the lie “this shows how the Green New Deal would be a deadly deal for the United States of America.” By the way, the Green New Deal has never actually been up for a vote in Congress. After that, Perry double-downed with anti-government rhetoric saying that Texans sitting at home in the freezing dark to keep the federal government out of their business. And, of course, Senator John Cornyn followed up saying that Texas should “trust the free market.”

Climate campaigner Jamie Henn of Fossil Free Media recently told the podcast that I co-host, the Green and Red Podcast, that this is a normal playbook put out by Big Oil’s spin machine.

At the same time, the fossil fuel sector is making a “jackpot.” Natural gas companies have announced record profits with spiking gas prices as demand has far exceeded supply. Billionaire owner of the Dallas Cowboys Jerry Jones owns 75% majority of shale driller Comstock Resources and will be a major beneficiary of the crippling Texas winter. At the same time, ordinary Texans are getting exorbitant electricity bills. The New York Times reported that Scott Willaboughy, a retired army vet in the Dallas area living on social security, received a montly bill of $16,752. Not only were people left alone freezing in the dark, they are also now on the wrong end of the class divide. Furthermore, this is all designed to keep a greedy few wealthy and out of reach of any accountability from the rest of us.

In the wake of the Texas freeze and power outages, mutual aid networks across the state have sprung into action. In the state’s capitol, networks strengthened during the pandemic and George Floyd uprisings are canvassing East Austin neighborhoods asking what residents and elders need. At this point, according to Austin organizer Debbie Russell, the city government takes cues from the mutual aid networks at this point. Volunteer networks of anarchists, Beto O’Rourke supporters, Black Lives Matter protesters and other left-liberal types in Texas are distributing food and warm clothes, finding shelter for the houseless and making sure elders are safe. Socialist foil to the far right Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has raised millions and traveled to Ted Cruz’s hometown of Houston to work at a local food bank.

When Hurricane Katrina made landfall on the Louisiana coast in 2005, the first disaster came from the climate enhanced storm. Next, government deregulation failed New Orleans by leaving inadequate levees to stop floods. After that, came from the government’s inability to muster disaster relief. In Texas, it’s been Hurricane Katrina at a Texas sized scale. First, a climate enhanced polar vortex swept into the region. Next, deregulated oversight and power operations failed to maintain the electric grid. After that, Texas officials failed to muster disaster relief. Millions were left without power and water in a polar vortex. The winter weather in Texas may be over, but the underlying issues of the crisis still remain.

On the Anniversary of a Catastrophic Oil Spill, Water Protectors Rally Against the Line 3 Pipeline

cross-posted from Giniw Collective

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: giniw@protonmail.com
March 3, 2021
More than 70 Peaceful Protesters Cited, 1 arrested*
On the Anniversary of a Catastrophic Oil Spill, 75 Water Protectors Rally Against the Line 3 Pipeline
(GRAND RAPIDS, MN) Today, a crowd of 75+ water protectors commemorated the 30th anniversary of the largest inland oil spill on Turtle Island (so-called North America). 30 years ago today, on March 3rd, 1991, the Line 3 pipeline ruptured spilling over 1.7 million gallons of oil near Grand Rapids, Minnesota. Water protectors are rallying against Enbridge’s Line 3 expansion to stop the pipeline and ensure that an oil spill like that never happens on Indigenous land again.
The 1991 oil spill flowed into Prairie River, a tributary of the Mississippi that flows into the river near its sensitive headwaters. Oil made it half a mile away from the Mississippi, but the thick sheet of ice covering the Prairie River stopped the oil from flowing further than that. With a changing climate and a constantly warming planet, we may not have been so lucky if the spill had occured today. Since 2002 alone, Enbridge has reported 307 oil spills to federal regulators, totaling 2.8 million gallons of oil. The 1991 spill, not included in that figure, spilled more than half as many gallons as Enbridge has reported since 2002.
Water protectors marching today stand in solidarity with the right to live and thrive for all people. As one water protector at the rally said, “with the approaching trial of Derek Chauvin, we uplift the interconnectedness of the struggle to protect treaty rights, clean waters, sacred space and Indigenous sovereignty with the right of all people to live in a world free of oppression and destruction of the earth”