Category: Uncategorized

Activists #FloodTrump with Human Wave at Trump Hotel

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For more information contact:
Drew Hudson, 802-272-9763

Trump Hotel – Saturday April 29, 7pm. Clad in blue and surging like the rising seas that threaten millions around the world due to climate change, activists staged a mass nonviolent action and sit-in at Trump International Hotel. Activists performed a choreographed motion, simulating the surging tides and severe storms that threaten millions around the world.

Activists said it was important to take direct action on the heels of the massive people’s climate march to show demonstrate that no matter where he goes or how loud his denial, the climate justice movement will show up to disrupt his business and brand at every turn.

Activists marched up 14th street to the White House, and then turned back down Pennsylvania avenue and proceeded to the Trump hotel, where they were met by a cheering crowd as they sang “The people gonna rise like the water, we’re gonna calm this crisis down. I hear the voice of my great granddaughter saying Flood Trump Flood Trump now.”

Once there, the crowd coordinated a motion, shouting, “rise, flood, recede” As they alternated standing, rushing forward towards the police barricades near the hotel entrance, and then receding back to the street.

Trump’s first 100 days in office have been an assault on vulnerable communities, common sense, common decency, and the climate: Under Trump the EPA, is facing a budget cut of nearly one-third. Scheduled for elimination are programs to clean up the Gulf of Mexico, address environmental justice, and criminal enforcement divisions to punish polluters like BP. Last month, the Department of the Interior announced 73 million more acres of the Gulf will be auctioned off this summer. Trump has issued dangerous executive orders curtailing climate research, ending pollution-reduction plans, and approving toxic pipelines like DAPL and KXL.

Photos, video and more can be found on the hashtag #FloodTrump, the flikr account https://www.flickr.com/photos/154380394@N04/ and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/ClimateShowdownFloodDC/

BREAKING: 12 Arrested at Citigroup Center in Pipeline Protest

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October 31, 2016

Contact: Laurel Sutherlin, 415.246.0161, [laurel@ran.org]

Bay Area residents demand end to bank’s financing of controversial North Dakota Pipeline in daring protest.

Photos Available Here: https://flic.kr/s/aHskKZW7ZG

San Francisco, CA – This morning, a dozen people were arrested in a daring occupation of the Citigroup Center lobby in San Francisco’s Financial District. The protesters demanded that Citibank, one of the largest funders of the Dakota Access Pipeline, stop financing the highly destructive project. The action comes in direct response to the crackdown by North Dakota law enforcement of protest camps blocking the construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline where 141 were violently arrested on Thursday.
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“We are determined to prevent the pursuit of extreme energy from destroying our communities,natural systems and climate, therefore confrontational protests like the water protector camps are necessary actions for change,” said Corazon Amada of Diablo Rising Tide, at today’s action. “We stand in solidarity with those who stand up for us all.”

The Dakota Access Pipeline has made international headlines in the past month as thousands have gathered in encampments along the Missouri River to block construction of the 1,100 mile-long pipeline. The pipeline would carry fracked-oil from the Bakken shale fields of North Dakota through 4 states to Patoka, IL for dispersal to several different pipeline systems for eventual refining and overseas export. The effort has reported over different 100 tribes represented at the camps. The pipeline threatens the Missouri River, an important source of water for the Standing Rock Sioux.

“I am here today because Indigenous friends and allies in North Dakota are literally risking life and limb to stop this pipeline,” said Christy Tennery-Spalding of Diablo Rising Tide while risking arrest at today’s action. “Oil companies and banks like Citigroup do not care about clean water and clean air of impacted communities. These companies only motivation is profit and we’re here today to say, ‘NO MORE!’”

Citigroup is a lead arranger and lender to the project. In August, the bank arranged for a $2.5 billion loan to the collection of oil companies building the pipeline. Along with Citigroup, Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ, Mizuho Bank, and TD Securities are major lenders of the project. Currently, Dakota Access can only withdraw $1.1 billion from these lenders until certain government permits are issued.

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Twenty Arrested Sowing Seeds on Country’s First Tar Sands Mine

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utah 1Twenty Arrested Sowing Seeds on Country’s First Tar Sands Mine

via Canyon Country Rising Tide & Wasatch Rising Tide

PR SPRINGS, UT: Thirty people walked onto one of the country’s first tar sands mine and sowed seeds to regrow land destroyed by tar sands – a fossil fuel more polluting than coal and oil. With butterfly puppets, songs, and banners, protesters trespassed onto the mine site and took the remediation of the stripped land into their own hands with shovels, pick axes and seed balls.

Evidently displeased with the sowing of native grasses and flowers, law enforcement intervened to arrest 20 of the planters, who banded together and sang until arrest. The action was planned by the Tavaputs Action Council, a coalition of grass roots social justice groups of the Colorado Plateau, and came as the conclusion to a 3-day event dedicated to celebrating land and biodiversity. Over 100 people participated, camping on public land next to the tar sands mine and attending workshops, panels, and music shows. People came together to hear about indigenous resistance to fossil fuels and colonialism, and to imagine a more equitable future together.

Canadian mining company US Oil Sands has leased 32,005 acres of public lands for oil shale development. In the future, 830,000 acres of public land could be at risk of irreversible tar sands strip mining in the western United States. Tar sands requites large quantities of water for processing into crude oil, putting extra pressure on a water system already under threat of running dry.

Kate Savage, Tavaputs Action Council: “By taking action today, we are creating in the present the future we are dreaming of. This means trespassing against US Oil Sands and other fossil fuel companies that want to make our future unlivable.”

Raphael Cordray, Tavaputs Action Council: “We took action today to tell US Oil Sands that we are here to stay and will not be intimidated by oppressive law enforcement and corrupt companies. Tar sands spells disaster for people and planet, and today we said: not in our name.”

Kim, Nihigaal Bei Iina: “We must remember that if we do not fight we cannot win, we don’t even have a chance of winning. By planting seeds we have a chance of winning another round for mother earth, we still have more battles to fight within us. These seeds planted will harvest another generation of fighters and warriors.”

“The boom and bust failures of coal, tar sands, and oil shale show that we cannot rely on the fossil fuel industry to provide long-term jobs and a steady economy.  We are demanding a “just transition” away from subsidizing dirty energy and towards a stable and sustainable way of living,” says Moab resident and CCRT member Melissa Gracia.  “That is an enormous task and yet people all over the world are rising to the occasion.  We need policies and institutions to support a just transition and we are building the people power to make it happen.”

According to Will Munger, “All across the region people are facing a similar situation. Take for example the recent bankruptcy of Peabody Coal.  They must be held accountable for their destruction of indigenous land on Black Mesa and we must ensure that the CEO’s don’t bail with bonuses while workers and local communities suffer.  We must take the money generated by the fossil fuel industry to repair the land and water while supporting local communities’ transition away from a fossil fuel-dependent economy.”

The Tavaputs Action Council supporting the Reclamation Action includes Canyon Country Rising Tide, Peaceful Uprising, Utah Tar Sands Resistance, Climate Disobedience Center and Wasatch Rising Tide.

Media Contact : Melissa Graciosa, Canyon Country Rising Tide; Tel: 503-409-7710 email: ccrt@riseup.net

Secondary Contact: Natascha Deininger, Wasatch Rising Tide, Tavaputs Action Council; Tel: 435-414- 9299; Email: wasatchrisingtide@gmail.com

FOR PICTURES: http://www.canyoncountryrisingtide.org

Website: www.reclaimtarsands.org

Climate Resistance Escalates Against the Fossil Fuel Empire

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resistDear Movement,

Escalation begins now.

Last December at the climate talks in Paris, over 200 nations agreed upon a weak and ineffective plan to address climate change. Governments stripped away language addressing the rights of indigenous peoples to their land. They removed reparations for the Global South. And, worse yet, the agreement emerged lacking real mechanisms to halt runaway climate chaos. All with the high praise of U.S. liberal politicians and large environmental organizations.

This week, Shell Oil reported it was responsible for another devastating 90,000 gallon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Pipelines and export terminal projects continue to move forward despite green climate friendly rhetoric from our elected leaders. Coal mines and coal plants continue to operate in many parts of the world. Indigenous and frontline communities continue to carry the burden of climate change from the Alberta tar sands to the rainforests of Indonesia.

Globally, environmental and social justice movements have reacted with escalations against the fossil fuel sector, the banks that fund them and the politicians that love them. In every part of the world, a climate resistance has taken action to stop the industry and the dire impacts it has on communities and eco-systems.

For the past week, the escalation has come at the fossil fuel empire with people powered action. In Philadelphia, climate justice activists joined with a local community fighting a new oil refinery. In Sacramento, CA, farm workers from the ground zero for California’s fracking industry, Kern County, sat in at Gov. Jerry Brown’s office.

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Photo via Trip Jennings

Today, from the seaways and railways of Washington state to the streets of Los Angeles to the frack-filled landscape of Colorado to the Port of Albany, NY to Kinder Morgan’s tar sands terminal in Burnaby BC, mass direct action is spreading across the continent targeting Big Oil, Big Gas and Big Coal.

Tomorrow more action will happen in the Midwest, Washington D.C. and beyond It is critical that we continue to escalate.

Please help by spreading the word by clicking SHARE on this page.

Thanks for all you do.

In struggle and solidarity, Rising Tide North America