Tag: Climate

MN: Water Protectors Disrupt Governor Walz Public Interview to Demand He #StopLine3 Pipeline

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Protestors disrupt public talk by MN Gov. Tim Walz. #stopLine3

Posted via Northfield Against Line 3

February 13, 2019

Water Protectors Disrupt Governor Walz Public Interview to Demand He Stop Line 3 Pipeline

A dozen leaders with Northfield Against Line 3 held banners and publicly questioned Gov Walz at a University of Minnesota event.

ST PAUL, MN – Today a dozen Water Protectors peacefully disrupted a public interview with Minnesota Governor Tim Walz at the Humphrey School of Public Affairs to demand he halt pre-construction of the Line 3 tar sands pipeline during the appeals process. 

Yesterday Governor Walz announced he would re-file the Department of Commerce’s appeal to the Certificate of Need for the pipeline project. However, Enbridge is currently engaged in illegal pre-construction, clear cutting trees and building access roads, for the toxic project.

Stop Line 3. Photo via Northfield Against Line 3.

A dozen members of “Northfield Against Line 3” persistently interrupted the MPR interview with questions of their own. The Governor was publicly questioned about his 2017 comments denouncing Enbridge’s new pipeline and about the contradictions in his tacit support for a carbon-producing pipeline and his support for Green New Deal legislation. Water Protectors unfurled banners demanding he #StopLine3 and not exacerbate the crisis of missing and murdered Indigenous women as a result of the pipeline’s construction. Governor Walz responded that he’s met with groups opposing the pipeline but the fact is that he has yet to meet with Indigenous youth after promising to do so. 

All five of the directly affected Objibwe Tribal Nations in Minnesota oppose Line 3 because of the threat it poses to their fresh water, culturally significant wild rice lakes, and tribal sovereignty. Line 3 will accelerate climate change by bringing carbon-intensive tar sands bitumen from Alberta to refineries in the Midwest. Climate change disproportionately impacts Indigenous and frontline communities across the world. 

For photos and videos see Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/nfld.against.line.three

Twitter: twitter.com/ResistLine3 

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Salem OR: Climate Justice Activists Protest Clean Energy Jobs Bill

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Banner displayed in Salem, OR.

Cross-posted from Portland Rising Tide

February, 6 2019

Climate Justice Activists Protest Clean Energy Jobs Bill

Salem, OR: Activists with the group Portland Rising Tide showed up at the Clean Energy Jobs lobby day with a banner that read, “World on Fire, CEJ Brings Garden Hose.” Hundreds of climate activists from across Oregon gathered in Salem to lobby for climate action, including volunteers with Portland Rising Tide who are calling for a Green New Deal. As Democrats are poised to pass the Clean Energy Jobs bill with support from Big Green Organizations, grassroots activists are calling on Democrats to dramatically reform the bill or abandon it and pass stronger legislation instead.

Activists with Portland Rising Tide are calling attention to major problems within the Clean Energy Jobs bill, including no limits on the construction of new fossil fuel infrastructure, use of carbon markets and carbon trading, and the proportion of the revenue that will go into the Highway Trust Fund, potentially leading to increases in greenhouse gas emissions.

Instead, activists are calling for a Green New Deal in Oregon that includes direct industry regulation, transformation of the food system, massive expansion of public transportation, and job programs.

“We’re out here today because we want to see serious action on climate change,” said Jesse Hannon with Portland Rising Tide. “We are very concerned that this bill is not going to do what it claims. Cap and trade has been a failure for 13 years, and with only 12 years left to significantly reduce emissions, we don’t have time to waste on policies that don’t work. We need something better and we need it now.”

Increasingly, Oregonians are concerned about climate change and calling for climate action. In response to the recent studies showing that irreversible climate tipping points could be reached as soon as 2030, people are calling for rapid carbon emissions reductions and a society-wide transition off of fossil fuels.

Portland Rising Tide is an all-volunteer network of climate justice activists organizing against the root causes of climate change.

For more information and pictures from today’s action, visit @pdxrisingtide on Twitter and Facebook.

Salem, OR: Pipeline Resistors Disrupt Oregon Gov. Kate Brown’s Inauguration

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Cross-posted from EF! Newswire

Happy inauguration day Governor Kate Brown! We are in Salem to demand you #walkyourclimatetalk this year by stowing up with frontline communities to #stopJordanCove.

Pipeline Resistors Disrupt Oregon Gov. Kate Brown’s Inauguration

[SALEM, OR] — Activists with Southern Oregon Rising Tide interrupted Governor Kate Brown’s inaugural State of the State address this afternoon to demand the Governor direct state agencies to deny the proposed Jordan Cove LNG export terminal and fracked gas pipeline. Following the Governor’s swearing-in ceremony, the activists unfurled a large banner reading “Hey Kate: Walk your climate talk. Support the frontlines, stop the pipeline.”

At the same time, more pipeline resistors gathered on the front steps of the Capitol building with large banners calling on the Governor to live up to her promises to take strong action on climate change.

“Governor Brown talks a big talk about climate change, but she’s remained silent on the largest fossil fuel proposal in the state and claims it’s a federal decision, not a state decision,” said Alex Budd of Southern Oregon Rising Tide. “Our state has the power to stop Jordan Cove LNG and it’s time our Governor shows up for communities who have been on the frontlines of this project for over 13 years.”

Governor Kate Brown has stated in interviews that Jordan Cove LNG is a federal decision, however, the state of Oregon denied permits and stopped a much smaller LNG export terminal proposed on the Columbia River in 2011. Additionally, the Department of State Lands stopped a coal export terminal by denying the same permit they are currently considering for Jordan Cove LNG in 2014.

Supporters at Governor Kate Brown’s inauguration today were given goodie bags full of recommendations for the Governor to help her live up to her rhetoric around climate change. We know climate leaders don’t build pipelines, but does she?

If built, the Jordan Cove LNG terminal would become the largest source of climate pollution in Oregon and open up fracked gas exports from the West Coast of the United States. A recent report from the research organization, Oil Change International, concluded that the full lifecycle greenhouse gas emissions of the project would be equal to over 15 times the Boardman Coal plant, which is set to be shut down in 2020 because of pollution concerns.

“In our region, hotter, drier summers mean longer and more intense wildfire seasons,” said Zac Wilner, a wildland firefighter from Jackson County. “Governor Brown should know that it is unacceptable to permit any new fossil fuel infrastructure, especially an explosive gas pipeline through Southern Oregon’s most fire-prone forests.”

Just last week, thousands showed up to Department of State Lands hearings across Klamath, Douglas, Jackson, and Coos counties to ask the agency to deny ‘Removal-Fill’ permits for the 229-mile highly explosive gas pipeline and mega-export terminal. The DSL who could issue the permit is overseen by the Oregon State Land Board, which is tasked with denying permits that jeopardize Oregon’s clean water and is headed by Governor Kate Brown. Impacted Tribal members, landowners, students, and more expressed concerns around the project crossing waterways nearly 500 times. Construction of the pipeline would risk the clean drinking water of over 150,000 people in Southern Oregon. The final DSL hearing on Jordan Cove will take place tomorrow, January 15, in Salem at the Oregon Department of Veterans’ Affairs, with a rally starting at 4:15pm.

“Our communities aren’t backing down in the face of this project; we will continue to take action to defend water, land, and communities,” said Grace Warner of Southern Oregon Rising Tide.

Southern Oregon Rising Tide is dedicated to promoting community- based solutions to the climate crisis and taking direct action to confront the root causes of climate change. We are based in the mountains and rivers of rural Southern Oregon, with most of our members living on ancestral Takelma land in so-called Jackson and Josephine Counties.

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Oklahoma Glitter Environmental Activists Headed To Trial!

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okvia Great Plains Tar Sands Resistance

Oklahoma Environmental Activists Headed To Trial

Contact: Stefan Warner
Phone: 405-283-6140
Email: gptsrmedia@gmail.com
Date: 6/27/2016

On December 13th, 2013, Moriah Stephenson and Stefan Warner were arrested while taking part in a non-violent peaceful protest. The two activists were taken into custody after hanging a glittery Hunger Games themed banner in the open-to- the public atrium of the Devon Energy Center. The activists were booked into the Oklahoma County Jail under the felony charge Terrorism Hoax, which carries up to 10 years in prison. The activists’ arrest gained international media attention due to the severity of the arresting charge. Documents obtained by journalists proved that the Joint Terrorism Task Force, TransCanada Corporation, and the Oklahoma City Police had met together prior to the construction of the Keystone XL pipeline to strategize ways to prosecute environmental activists as terrorists. The terrorism hoax charges have been dropped, but Stefan Warner and Moriah Stephenson will stand trial for misdemeanor disorderly conduct on June 30 th at 8 am in the Oklahoma City Courthouse. A charge which their lawyer argues is still a violation of free speech.

The glittery banner in question read, “The Odds Are Never in Our Favor.” The banner highlights the disproportionate ways in which oil and gas development occurs, granting power, wealth, and access to oil corporations while disenfranchising communities of color and low-income- rural communities. The reality that “The Odds Are Never in Our Favor” has become even more clear in recent years as the State’s budget deficit has resulted in funding cuts for public education and public needs programs while continuing to offer tax incentives to large oil corporations. Warner and Stephenson had no intention of causing panic or alarm, they simply were using free speech to highlight the similarities between The Hunger Games series and our everyday lives in Oklahoma: a small group of people profit off of the resources and labor of many, while exploiting marginalized communities. These activists wanted to highlight at least three primary injustices perpetrated by Devon Energy: 1) Devon Energy is
involved in extracting and transporting tar sands oil, the heavy and toxic crude that the Keystone XL pipeline carries from Canada to the Gulf of Mexico to be sold on the global market, 2) Devon Energy’s practice of tar sands extraction is environmental racism, most negatively impacting low-income, indigenous communities in Canada and across the U.S. such as the Lubicon Cree First Nation, Mikisew Cree First Nation and Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation 3) Devon Energy lobbies for and receives large tax incentives which have resulted in the disastrous budget deficit Oklahoma is currently facing.

In all of these ways the dominance of the oil and gas industry and the failure of the Oklahoma state government to
diversify the economy create a situation in which “The Odds Are Never in Our Favor.” These activists’ arrest highlights another way that “The Odds Are Never in Our Favor,” violation of free speech. The odds are not in our
favor when the oil and gas industry is protected when environmental catastrophe or economic crisis occurs, but
individual residents are persecuted for spilling glitter from a banner.

Stephenson and Warner invite community members to be present at their trial on June 30th at 8 AM.

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