Tag: pipeline fighter

Support Wet’suwet’en Hereditary Chiefs and land defenders

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photo credit: Michael Toledano

by Vanessa Butterworth

As I type this, the Wet’suwet’en First Nation is under attack. The hereditary chiefs and land defenders in Canada are being removed from their land by military police to build the Coastal GasLink pipeline, despite having rights and title to their land, since time immemorial.

The Coastal GasLink pipeline poses grave risks to the land, air, water, and climate, and to the Indigenous women living near the fracked gas pipeline route.

Here in the U.S., you can help by calling out the largest funders of the Coastal GasLink pipeline, JPMorgan Chase and Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co (KKR). Their plans to invest in the pipeline aren’t final and there’s still time to stop them.

Sign the petition and rise up with the Wet’suwet’en people: Demand Chase and KKR stop financing the Coastal GasLink pipeline and stop the violence!

The details of the deal are simple:

JPMorgan Chase, the world’s biggest banker of fossil fuels, is helping funnel more than $5 billion in loans to the company behind Coastal GasLink. And, KKR — a New York City based investment firm with a grotesque reputation for putting profits over employees, people, and the environment — is involved too. It has plans to purchase 65% of the pipeline with Alberta Investment Management Corp (AIMCo).

We need to stop all the funders of the Coastal GasLink pipeline.

Many people are rising up. A movement of defiant and uncompromising support is quickly building around the globe and taking unprecedented action. Indigenous people and allies in Canada have led railway blockades, port shutdowns, sit-ins at government buildings, and huge rallies that have brought parts of Canada to an economic standstill. Meanwhile, global allies are shutting down Canadian consulates and banks that are funding the pipeline. Today across Canada, there’s a nation-wide student walkout.

Add to the chorus now and we’ll be in touch about what you can do next!

Sign the petition and rise up with the Wet’suwet’en people: Demand Chase and KKR stop financing the Coastal GasLink pipeline and stop the violence!

This is as much of a fight for Indigenous rights as it is for the future of the planet. The Wet’suwet’en First Nation never signed a treaty to cede their land. Pipeline funders must be held accountable for their role in stealing Indigenous lands and fueling the climate crisis.

There is no climate justice without Indigenous sovereignty,

 

Mountain Valley Pipeline Fighter Locks Down, Stops Work on Construction Site

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Cross-posted from Appalachians Against Pipelines

Update from AAP: “He was locked to equipment on site for nearly 5 hours before being arrested. He has been charged with 3 misdemeanors (trespassing, obstruction, and tampering with equipment) and 1 felony (threat of terrorism); bail has been set at $8,000. This is the first felony charge in our nonviolent direct action campaign against the Mountain Valley Pipeline.”

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This morning, pipeline fighter Holden Dometrius locked himself to welding equipment at a Mountain Valley Pipeline construction site, stopping work.

“All the science suggests that fossil fuels are killing us,” states Holden. “A 42-inch gas pipeline is the complete opposite of an appropriate response to the greatest threat our planet has faced. Climate change is not something we can keep putting off; it needs to be dealt with immediately.”

Yesterday, the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection (WVDEP) modified the state’s water quality certification standards in such a way that will inevitably allow MVP to construct the pipeline across water bodies using a method that had previously been deemed illegal (and which remains extremely dangerous to impacted waterways and communities). In other words, when the WVDEP was “called out” in 2018 for having approved a pipeline construction plan that violated their own regulations regarding river crossings, their response was to rewrite the rules to allow construction to continue. The notice of this most recent rule bending by regulators to ease pipeline approvals was issued yesterday, April 24.

The banner on site today reads “TO HELL WITH YOUR PERMITS” in reference to this endless, thinly veiled corruption that is embedded in the pipeline approval process.

Holden continues, “We could just let capitalism run its course, sell environmental permits to Mountain Valley Pipeline and let extraction destroy the planet. That doesn’t make any sense to me. If it doesn’t make sense to you either, then make some moves. Get in the way. If everyone steps up, things could change, so here I am.”

SUPPORT HOLDEN & RESISTANCE TO THE MOUNTAIN VALLEY PIPELINE! Show up, and donate: bit.ly/supportmvpresistance

Read more on the WVDEP modified water certification permits (under “Public Notices”).