Tag: Indigenous

New Book Uncovers Critical Climate Change Flaws Ahead of Earth Day

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE – 12 April 2021

Download at www.climatefalsesolutions.org

Register for telepress conference featuring experts and book authors on 15 April at 2pm EDT here

 

NEW BOOK UNCOVERS CRITICAL CLIMATE CHANGE POLICY FLAWS AHEAD OF EARTH DAY

At a time when governments are rolling out climate change policies around the world, activists and experts from climate and environmental justice groups across North America and globally are explaining why  real climate solutions must go beyond the greening of business-as-usual and require an entirely different framework for addressing the climate crisis. These groups have come together to publish the Third Edition of Hoodwinked in the Hothouse: Resist False Solutions to Climate Change to highlight the need for real solutions that go beyond the profit motive.

Using sharp wit and original artwork, the authors argue that this is a decade of no-turning-back in order to address the crisis. Hoodwinked is an easy-to-read, concise-yet-comprehensive compendium of false corporate promises designed to hoodwink elected officials and the public, leading us down risky pathways poised to waste billions of public dollars on a host of corporate snake-oil schemes and market-based mechanisms. This is not hyperbole. Written by grassroots veteran organizers, movement strategists and thought leaders from across climate, Indigenous, peasant and environmental justice movements, the authors draw on expert data as well as on-the-ground knowledge and experience to show  that corporate and market focused false solutions distract from real solutions that could serve our most urgent needs (see authors and organizations listed below).

As a pop-ed toolbox, Hoodwinked promises to be instructive for activists, impacted communities, social movements, educators and students, and anyone who seeks to engage in a deeper discussion  about climate solutions. It also offers elected officials with a critical lens to examine a complex, technocratic field of climate change policy strategies, from local to national and international arenas.

The second version of Hoodwinked in the Hothouse was released in 2009 as a popular education zine collaboratively produced by Rising Tide North America, Carbon Trade Watch and a number of allied environmental justice, Indigenous and climate action organizers leading up to the 2009 United Nations climate conference in Copenhagen (COP 15). During that mobilization and in years since, Hoodwinked has played a major role in raising awareness across climate movements around the world – both helping organizers in their fights against dirty energy proposals and shifting policy positions of many non-governmental organizations.

With the proliferation of false solutions in the Paris Climate Agreement, as well as national and subnational climate plans, including many emerging from the Biden Administration, the new and updated third edition of Hoodwinked in the Hothouse aims to provide a resource that dismantles the barriers to building a just transition and a livable future. It points to a plethora of ways forward that do not rely on false solutions and are based on Indigenous traditional knowledge, community health, deepening democracy, and respecting the territorial integrity of Mother Earth.

See Quotes from Authors and Contributors

Interviews and comments: Download our list of experts and authors available for interviews

Download the book and more information: www.climatefalsesolutions.org/

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

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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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Water Protector Climbs onto Section of Line 3 Pipeline to Prevent Damage to Pipe

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cross-posted from Camp Migizi

Water Protector Climbs onto Section of Line 3 Pipeline to Prevent Damage to Pipe

[FOND DU LAC] Late Monday afternoon, three water protectors were arrested for blocking construction of Line 3. Two of the protestors were arrested while blocking the entrance to the site, while the third, Jeff Nichols, climbed onto a section of the pipeline dangling over a trench. Jeff sat on the pipe for nearly five hours, preventing workers from putting the pipe onto frozen sand bags which would have damaged the structural integrity of the pipeline.

In a Facebook livestream from Camp Migizi, a water protector camp based out of Fond Du Lac, Jeff shared that he felt compelled to act when he saw the workers were about to put the pipe into the ground onto frozen sand bags. In the livestream, it was also shared that OSHA, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, put out a mandate ordering Enbridge to not use frozen sandbags, as they force the pipe to bend, causing fractures and leading to spills.

On the livestream, Jeff can be heard saying, “It’s not even a question. This one will leak. The sandbags are frozen. You guys have already received violations for that” while other protestors shouted “all pipelines leak.”

Line 3, if built, would cross over 200 hundred bodies of water in Northern Minnesota, including the Mississippi River. Enbridge itself is responsible for numerous oil spills in Minnesota, including the largest ever inland oil spill in North America when nearly 1.7 million barrels of crude oil spilled in Grand Rapids.

For more information, contact Camp Migizi on Facebook.