Tag: direct action

Bay Area: PG&E, We Need #PowertoLive! On December 16th!

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cross-posted from Diablo Rising Tide

We shouldn’t have to choose between deadly blackouts or deadly fires. We shouldn’t be at the mercy of PG&E’s negligence while vulnerable communities who need #PowerToLive and the public continue to pay the price.

Join us on December 16th at noon at the PG&E corporate headquarters on 77 Beale St in San Francisco to #ReclaimOurPower and let’s start a wave of action that continues through the winter. There will be speakers, programming, and more! Accessible and kid-friendly.

PG&E, we demand you:

1. GIVE BACK ALL SHAREHOLDER PROFITS UNTIL PG&E CAN SAFELY PROVIDE POWER. STOP PROFITING OFF PEOPLE’S LIVES.

PG&E has paid out billions in shareholder dividends to predatory investors, while people are dying due to PG&E’s negligence. PG&E has failed to upgrade infrastructure for the stresses we face amidst climate change. Their equipment failures start fires that burn down cities, displace whole communities, and poison the air we breathe across entire regions. PG&E dodges accountability by continuing to seek executive bonuses amidst bankruptcy, shutting down power instead of repairing their equipment, and spending thousands on an exclusive retreat the day before the largest shutoffs.

2. INVEST IN VULNERABLE PEOPLE’S BASIC POWER NEEDS. STOP PUTTING PEOPLE AT RISK.

Disabled people have died in the shut offs — even one loss is too many. Ten more years of blackouts are unacceptable because blackouts kill disabled people and harm Black and Brown, working class and poor communities. #NoBodyIsDisposable! PG&E must invest in: solar-powered batteries to power the equipment of every medical baseline customer during power outages; HEPA air filters for chronically ill people, elders, and children in areas impacted by fire smoke; groceries for people who live paycheck to paycheck; alternative lodging for people whose homes depend on power to survive; compensation for small businesses who experienced losses during the shutoffs; and, payouts to victims of PG&E-caused fires.

3. TURN PG&E OVER TO THE PEOPLE.

PG&E has a well documented history of criminal negligence of its infrastructure, which has caused fires, death, and destruction. Now, PG&E has claimed that it will take ten years to fix California’s grid — that means 10 more years of rolling black outs with the public footing the bill. This is unacceptable and will consistently put so many lives at risk. We won’t let PG&E continue with their negligence. A public takeover of the grid will allow for the needs of the public, rather than shareholders, to be the priority. By switching to a publicly owned grid, California can create a more democratized, decentralized, and sustainable power grid for all.

RSVP To Join the Action Here

Water Protectors Block Gate at Enbridge U.S. Tar Sands Terminal in Minnesota

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Pics from Northfield Against Line 3

cross-posted from Northfield Against Line 3

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
November 25th, 2019
Contact: giniw@protonmail.com
ayse@ran.org

Water Protectors Block Gate at Enbridge U.S. Tar Sands Terminal: We Will Stop Line 3

Early Monday morning, water protectors blockaded the primary gate of Enbridge’s U.S. terminal, the entry point of several pipelines carrying Alberta tar sands into the region.

One water protector was suspended from a tripod, in solidarity with indigenous-led opposition to Enbridge’s proposed Line 3 pipeline. Line 3 poses to be a 10% increase of tar sands extraction. The project seeks to pass through the Mississippi River headwater, hundreds of watersheds, and terminate at Lake Superior.

Pics from Northfield Against Line 3

The climber, Sara-Beth Anderson, 21, a resident of Minneapolis, said, “I am a diver and love the ocean with all of my heart. The destruction of the sacred is happening because of these terrible decisions to keep extracting, to keep harming the earth despite what climate science has told the world’s leaders. I take this risk for the unborn, for the indigenous peoples fighting to protect their territories all over the planet, for the oceans. Anyone can take a stand against the greatest threat facing our shared world — get involved, get involved now.”

Washington DC: Mobilize for Climate Justice & Immigrant Rights on December 6

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cross-posted from Shut Down DC

Around the world, climate change is driving mass migration as water dries up, farmland turns to desert, shorelines erode, coastal areas flood, permafrost melts and ecosystems can no longer support the communities they once could. And it is going to get much much worse.  As far back as 1990, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) noted that the greatest single impact of climate change could be on human migration – and we’re seeing this projection come true. The latest estimates predict as many as 200 million climate refugees by 2050.

This is a climate and human rights crisis. Climate migrants routinely face life threatening hardship, discrimination and repression in their search for safety for their families, and often those most vulnerable to changing climate and extreme weather lack the resources to migrate, so remain in harm’s way.

Even worse, many of the same banks that made billions of dollars financing the fossil fuel industry that caused the climate crisis–Black Rock, Wells Fargo and JP Morgan Chase–are now profiting off of climate chaos by investing in the companies that are contracting with ICE to finance border wall construction and run for-profit prisons and detention centers. First they drive climate migration, and then they profit from it.

On December 6th, we’re going to shut down business-as-usual for the financial institutions that profit off of the climate crisis and immigrant detention. Meet us at 11am in Franklin Square (14th St. and I St. NW, Washington, DC 20005) for a rally featuring Jane Fonda and Fire Drill Fridays along with Saket Soni, the Executive Director of the National Guestworker Alliance, GreenFaith, the Franciscan Action Network and other climate, faith and migrant justice organizers. At 12 noon we’ll march through the streets of DC to visit the banks and financial institutions in DC that are profiting off of the climate crisis and immigrant detention.

WHEN: Friday, December 6th, 11am
WHERE: Franklin Square; 14th & I St NW, Washington, DC

21 Oregonians Arrested in Governor Brown’s Salem Office for Demanding She Oppose Jordan Cove LNG

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image courtesy Southern Oregon Rising Tide

cross-posted from Southern Oregon Rising Tide

 21 Oregonians Arrested in Governor Brown’s Salem Office for Demanding She Oppose Jordan Cove LNG

SALEM, OR – After a nine-hour peaceful sit-in and two informal meetings with Governor Brown, 21 Oregonians were arrested in her office after the Governor refused to take a public stance against the Jordan Cove LNG export terminal and fracked gas pipeline. Despite heartfelt testimony from impacted landowners, tribal members, youth, and dozens of others, the Governor twice refused to take a public stance against what would become the largest climate polluter in the state.

One of those arrested standing up for their clean water and a healthy climate was Sandy Lyons, an impacted landowner in Days Creek, Oregon. In a statement she said:

“My husband and I have lived on our ranch for the past 29 years working extremely hard to create and live our dream. We raised our son here teaching him to respect the land, its people and its incredible natural resources. For 15 of those years we have been fighting the proposed gas pipeline which a fossil fuel corporation has chosen our land to cross and seize it from us by eminent domain. I am here today because we have tried every possible way to be heard and want somehow to gain the Governor’s attention to how wrong this is and the negative ways in which it will permanently scar us and our land.”

Another of the 21 arrestees was Emma Marris, an environmental writer from Klamath Falls:

“I live in Klamath County and this is a terrible deal for us. We would bear all the environmental and safety risk so others could profit. Southern Oregon is not a sacrifice zone. All Oregonians should be demanding this project be stopped. I could not look my children in the eyes unless I took this stand today.”

image courtesy Southern Oregon Rising Tide

Inside the sit-in people sang songs, shared stories from over 15 years of fighting the Jordan Cove LNG project, and connected over community solutions to the climate crisis. People inside the room applauded the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality for their denial of the 401 Clean Water Act permit in May and acknowledged Governor Brown’s pushback against the Trump administration’s attack of that law.

However, community members participating in the sit-in reiterated many times throughout the day that real climate leadership means standing up against the fossil fuel industry and that they would stay until Governor Brown publicly opposed Jordan Cove LNG. This comes at an especially critical moment with the Federal Government making a decision on the project this February.

“If Governor Brown cares about climate change as much as she claims to, there’s no reason she shouldn’t oppose Jordan Cove LNG today. Governors in New York and Washington have come out publicly against similar fracked gas projects this year,” said Owen Walker with Southern Oregon Rising Tide. “It’s time for Governor Brown to be a climate leader by opposing this project.”

Donate to the legal support fund.

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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 stolen Takelma land.