February Update: Spreading like Wildfire, Climate Action in 2013

TSB OKClimate Direct Action is Taking Off!

Check out the growing resistance to fossil fuels extraction and combustion:

Youth Minister Ascends Equipment at TransCanada Construction Site in Oklahoma

Stefan Warner, a youth pastor who was born and raised in OK, locked himself to machinery being used to build the toxic Keystone XL tar sands pipeline near Schoolton, OK. Warner is acting with Great Plains Tar Sands Resistance, a coalition of Oklahomans and allies fighting to prevent construction of the Keystone XL Pipeline which will bring dangerous and toxic diluted bitumen from the biome-consuming Tar Sands giga project to refinery communities in the Gulf. In addition to Warner, seven others were arrested.

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Rising Tide Vancouver, Coast Salish Territories Action Against Enbridge Pipeline

Last month Rising Tide Vancouver, Coast Salish Territories took action with fifty other groups against the Tar Sands pipeline proposed by Enbridge. A noise demo was held that showed Enbridge, the Joint Review Panel, and any other entity that wants to put in pipelines without consent, that communities will not stay silent. Over 1,000 people participated and the noise was clearly held inside the hearing. Six people were arrested after making their way inside the building. The action was in solidarity with those on the frontlines to say that communities have the right to say NO.

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Idle No More World Day of Action and Tar Sands Blockade

The Tar Sands Blockade, Rising Tide Alaska and many other groups joined the Idle No More World Day of Action. In Texas, Blockaders joined with indigenous people representing Idle No More and the American Indian Genocide Museum for a rally at the Canadian Consulate in downtown Houston. People flew signs and banners, sang songs, and played drums before trying to deliver a letter of their demands to the consulate. Actions as part of the Tar Sands Blockade also continued with a lockdown at an oil and gas conference and a die-in at the Houston TransCanada offices.

The Tar Sands Blockade have also called for a week of action to stop Tar Sands profiteers from March 16-23. There will also be a action camp for Tar Sands resistance organized by the Great Plains Coalition in Oklahoma.

Read more about Idle No More.

Read the solidarity statement signed by organizations including Rising Tide North America with Idle No More.

Shadbush Environmental Justice Collective Lock Down for Food and Farms, Not Fracking!

January 27th, residents of Western Pennsylvania and friends of Lawrence County farmer Maggie Henry locked themselves to a giant paper-mache pig in the entrance to a Shell natural gas well site in order to protest the company’s threat to local agriculture and food safety. The newly-constructed gas well is located less than 4,000 feet from Henry’s organic pig farm. Prior to this action, Maggie exhausted all avenues to prevent or shut down the well through the legal system. Supporters of her farm have also held previous protests at the site. Despite the heightened risks posed by the abandoned wells in the area, Shell is moving forward with their operations, and Maggie’s supporters have turned to civil disobedience.

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Deconstruction of the Crawford Coal Plant in Chicago Begins

The deconstruction of the Crawford coal plant in the Little Village neighborhood of Chicago began in January. The closure of these power plants last year was a campaign that Rising Tide Chicago and many other community organizations have worked on over the years. This and the other coal fired power plant were the last in any major US city. The work of Rising Tide helps make sure this will be a scene that repeats itself with greater and greater frequency!

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Action against Chevron in Solidarity with the Wet’suwet’en Nation

On January 5th many action were held in solidarity with a call by the Wet’suwet’en Nation to take action against Chevron for their move, revealed on Christmas Eve, to purchase a full 50% share of the Pacific Trails natural gas pipeline, effectively taking over the project. The actions continued resistance to the pipeline including when on November 20, 2012, the Wet’suwet’en located several petroleum surveyors within their territory, and ordered them to leave. The surveyors were trespassing on indigenous lands, and they were given only one warning of eviction. These men worked for Can-Am Geomatics, a mapping and engineering firm hired by the Apache Corporation, the lead company in Kitimat LNG (liquified natural gas), the consortium heading the Pacific Trails Pipeline project (PTP). The PTP is a plan to construct pipelines to pump hydraulically fracked natural gas and tar sands crude oil from Alberta through We’suwet’en territory to British Columbia’s pacific coast for export.

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Support the Indiegogo for the Unist’ot’en Action Camp

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Lifelong Oklahoman Youth Pastor suspended from KXL Construction Equipment, locked to machinery.

TSB OKBREAKING: Lifelong Oklahoman Youth Pastor suspended from KXL Construction Equipment, locked to machinery.

Earlier this morning, Stefan Warner, a youth pastor who was born and
raised in Harrah, OK, locked himself to machinery being used to build the
toxic Keystone XL tar sands pipeline through Creek land by treaty near
Schoolton, OK. Warner is taking action to protect the North Canadian River
and
the health of the towns and land it runs through from being irreversibly
damaged by diluted bitumen (tar sands) leaks and spills, as well as to
send a clear message that the current day colonialism and disregard for
the health and sovereignty of indigenous peoples in Alberta and along
the pipeline is unacceptable—from a Christian perspective, as well as a
human perspective.

Tar sands pipelines have a horrendous track record: the existing
Keystone 1 pipeline leaked twelve times in its first year, and at least
thirty times to date. In 2010, the added dangers of tar sands pipelines
were demonstrated by Enbridge’s Line 6B pipeline spill of over a million
gallons of diluted bitumen into the Kalamazoo River in Michigan. The
Kalamazoo Tar Sands spill is the costliest inland spill in United States
history, draining the oil spill coffers and placing the $800 million and
rising price tag onto the backs of local and federal taxpayers. But it
is not the monetary burden that weighs heaviest; the toll on human life,
health and local ecosystems is immeasurable, and in the immediate, the
toxicity of the diluted bitumen and undisclosed proprietary chemicals
has proven devastating.

In addition to the immense dangers posed by the Keystone XL, TransCanada
has been misrepresenting the economic effects of the pipeline. The
majority of construction jobs are temporary and have been filled by
Wisconsin-based contractor Michel’s, not Oklahomans and Texans. Despite
TransCanada and the State Department’s rhetoric of energy independence,
the diluted bitumen transported by the Keystone XL is destined for
export to foreign markets after being refined in Gulf Coast refineries,
and the National Resources Defense Council asserts that the KXL will
increase domestic gas prices.

“I grew up in a town where the North Canadian River runs right through,
and we can’t let the North Canadian become another Kalamazoo ,” said
Oklahoman youth pastor Stefan Warner. “I figure folks have to take action to
stop our beautiful Oklahoma from being marred by a foreign corporation,
and stand up to fight big corporations who think that poisoning people
and stealing land is acceptable so long as they make a profit.”

Warner is acting with Great Plains Tar Sands Resistance, a coalition of
Oklahomans and allies fighting to prevent construction of the Keystone
XL which will bring dangerous and toxic diluted bitumen from the
biome-consuming Tar Sands gigaproject to refinery communities in the
Gulf. This action comes in the wake of dozens of similar actions which
have actively fought construction of the Keystone XL in Oklahoma and
Texas. In light of reports of shoddy welding by TransCanada
whistleblower Evan Vokes and the recent release of photographs depicting
holes in the weld of a pipe buried in Texas, the struggle to keep the
Keystone XL from being completed is even more urgent.

Activists Disrupt Arch Coal Corporate HQ In St. Louis

arch prayCREVE COEUR, MO —  Seven affiliated with the RAMPS campaign (Radical Action for Mountain Peoples’ Survival), MORE (Missourians Organizing for Reform and Empowerment) and Mountain Justice are locked down to a 500-pound small potted tree in Arch Coal’s third-floor headquarters while a larger group is in the lobby performing a song and dance.  Additionally, a helium balloon banner with the message “John Eaves Your Coal Company Kills”, directed at the Arch Coal CEO was released in at the Arch Coal headquarters.

Seven protesters locked down outside the corporate office of Arch Coal.

“We’re here to halt Arch’s operations for as long as we can. These coal corporations do not answer to communities, they only consume them.  We’re here to resist their unchecked power,” explained Margaret Fetzer, one of the protestors.

Arch Coal, the second largest coal company in the U.S., operates strip mines in Appalachia and in other U.S. coal basins. Strip mining is an acutely destructive and toxic method of mining coal, and resource extraction disproportionately impacts marginalized communities.

“From the Battle of Blair Mountain to the current fight with the Patriot pensions, the people of central Appalachia have been fighting against the coal companies for the past 125 years. The struggle continues today as we take action to hold Arch Coal and other coal companies accountable for the damage that they do to people and communities in Appalachia and around the world. Coal mining disproportionately impacts indigenous peoples, and we stand in solidarity with disenfranchised people everywhere,”  Dustin Steele of Mingo County, W.Va. said.  Steele was one of the people locked in Arch’s office.

Mingo County is representative of the public health crisis faced by communities overburdened by strip mining.  A recent study of life expectancies placed Mingo County in the bottom 1 percent out of 3,147 counties nationwide.

Arch’s strip mines not only poison communities, but also seek to erase the legacy of resistance to the coal companies in Appalachia. Arch’s Adkins Fork Surface Mine is blasting threatening to blast away Blair Mountain—the site of the second largest uprising in U.S. history and a milestone in the long-standing struggle between Appalachians and the coal companies. 

The devastation of Arch’s strip mines plague regions beyond Appalachia.  Arch’s operation in the Powder River Basin is the “single largest coal mining complex in the world.”  Producing 15 percent of the U.S. coal supply, Arch is a major culprit of the climate crisis.

NASA scientist James Hansen describes the burning of coal as a leading cause global climate change.  The Midwest region faces serious public health impacts from climate change due to “increased heat wave intensity and frequency, degraded air quality, and reduced water quality” according to recently published data from the National Climate Assessment.

More Than 100 Protesters Take Over TransCanada’s Keystone XL Offices in Houston

*More Than 100 Protesters Take Over TransCanada’s Keystone XL Offices in Houston*
MEDIA RELEASE: Jan 7, 2013

Contact: Kim Huynh, Tar Sands Blockade, 940-268-5375,
kxlblockade@gmail.com<https://fruiteater.riseup.net/sm/src/compose.php?send_to=kxlblockade%40gmail.com>

Liveblog and photos:
http://tarsandsblockade.org/houston-action-transcanada-offices

* *

*Tar Sands Blockade Proclaims Next Phase of Organizing with Largest-Yet Action*
*HOUSTON, TX, JANUARY 3, 2013 12:00PM*: Over 100 blockaders stormed the
lobby of TransCanada’s Keystone XL office in Houston this morning.
Protesters danced, spilled black ‘tar sands’ balloons and hung neon orange
hazard tape to highlight the deadly effects of TransCanada’s corporate
greed on communities and ecosystems.

After being forced out of the lobby by police, the protesters gathered on
the sidewalk and performed street theatre in which a “pipe dragon” puppet
destroyed homes and poisoned water until being slain by knights
representing the grassroots coalition of Tar Sands Blockade, Idle No More,
Earth First and others.

Today’s action was the largest yet in the months-long campaign by climate
justice organizers and Texas landowners against the pipeline and the first
mass action in Houston targeting TransCanada corporate offices directly. It
kicks off a new phase of Blockade organizing, targeting the corporate,
political and financial infrastructure behind the Keystone XL pipeline with
solidarity actions planned across the country this week, including in
Austin, Detroit and New York City.

Activist collective Anonymous today released the personal information of
TransCanada executives and Keystone XL’s financial backers in solidarity
with the launch of the Blockade’s new strategy phase. Protesters are
currently chained together and actively occupying TransCanada’s offices
near Boston.

“From the Texas backwoods to the corporate boardrooms, the fight to defend
our homes from toxic tar sands will not be ignored,” said Ramsey Sprague, a
Tar Sands Blockade spokesperson. “We’re here today to directly confront the
TransCanada executives who’re continuing on with business as usual while making
our communities sacrifice zones.”

Last Thursday, a tree blockade near Diboll, TX brought TransCanada’s
illegal practices to light, showing that they hadn’t received permission
from the county commissioner to build the pipeline through county land.

In addition to land and water concerns, the Keystone XL pipeline is a
classic case of environmental racism. In Houston, the low-income
neighborhoods near refineries, such as Manchester, whose residents are 90%
Latino, will have to breathe the noxious wastes of the tar sands refining
process.

“We’ve done everything we can to stop this pipeline: we’ve petitioned,
rallied and taken direct action. The historic resistance to this pipeline
shows how risky an investment this and other tar sands pipelines have
become,” said Alec Johnson, one of the office blockaders. “Tar sands oil
spilling into our waterways and millions of tons of carbon pollution
spilling into the atmosphere means that this industry’s days are numbered.”

####

Tar Sands Blockade is a coalition of Texas and Oklahoma landowners and
climate justice organizers using peaceful and sustained civil disobedience
to stop the construction of TransCanada’s Keystone XL tar sands pipeline. For
more information visit tarsandsblockade.org or follow us at @KXLBlockade.