Tag: Rising Tide North America

Rising Tide North America Rocked The House In 2014!

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Wow. What a year.RisingTideSeaSept

 We took amazing action. Not only did we shake things up with direct action against the fossil fuel industries, but also worked with frontline communities most impacted by extraction in Canada, Mexico and the U.S.. Whether it’s blockading pipelines and oil trains or organizing training camps to educate the next generation of climate activist, we’ve truly been rocking the house to make a better world possible.

 Can you donate to Rising Tide North America to “rock the house” in 2015?

 Here’s just a taste of the things we did in 2014:

  • In the western region of the continent, our chapters in Seattle, Portland, British Columbia, Utah and elsewhere have led actions against fossil fuel infrastructure. Whether it’s been train blockades in Washington or Oregon, or  civil disobedience against the tar sands in Utah, Rising Tide has modeled a new level of resistance across the continent.

  • From Vermont to Cove Point, Maryland, Rising Tide groups and affiliates  have organized fierce disruptive campaigns to stop fracking infrastructure throughout the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic regions.  As the gas industry attempts to expand their pipelines and export terminals, we mobilize to stop them.

  • In New York City, in the wake of the massive People’s Climate March, Rising Tide activists, organizers and trainers joined with climate activists around the world to Flood Wall Street.  We successfully helped organize a massive occupation of New York’s financial district truly taking the fight to one of the root causes of climate change–Wall Street and it’s investments in oil, gas and coal!

  • And finally, beginning last March, our chapter in Mexico, Marea Creciente, launched La Caravana Climatica that traveled from Northern Mexico the United Nations climate talks in Lima, Peru this month. While traveling in Ecuador, they had their bus confiscated and are targeted by the authorities on trumped up charges.  Despite this government oppression, the group made it to Lima to denounce extraction and industry in Lima.

Can you help us bring more of the same in 2015?seattle

We’re an all-volunteer network of activists and have done a lot this year. Now we need your support to keep going in 2015.

Can you give $5, $10 or $50 to support us in 2015?

Thanks for all you do.

Solidarity,

Rising Tide North America

Build The Climate Justice Movement In 2015

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There is good news for the climate. And there is bad news for the climate. 15321845232_dabd18f6cd_o

The good news is that movements for climate justice and action are growing. From the Pacific Northwest to the eastern plateau of Utah to Vermont and the streets of New York, we’ve mobilized against the fossil fuel industry, the big money behind it and the politicians that love it. We’ve blocked oil trains in Seattle and Oregon. We joined in actions against the first U.S. tar sands mine in Utah. We’ve launched powerful and effective campaigns against fracking from Vermont to Maryland.

In late September, we joined Flood Wall Street to occupy New York City’s financial district with 3,000 people. And we’ve been critical in supporting current organizing in St. Louis, British Columbia and Mexico around Ferguson, Burnaby Mountain and the United Nations Climate talks in Lima, Peru. Furthermore, seeking to connect the dots between climate change and social justice, we have built a network throughout North America that has not only fought on the frontlines of climate change, racial injustice and capitalism.

Rising Tide North America has been central to building these movements.

Can you make a donation to support Rising Tide North America?

Unfortunately, the bad news is that our movements are not growing fast enough. And we need more to happen sooner rather than later.

The most recent round of climate talks in Lima, Peru resulted in a draft agreement that removed all hard targets for cuts in carbon emissions. Government leaders have once again delayed goals on emissions cuts until the next round of talks in Paris in 2015. In North America, oil companies, coal companies and gas companies are constantly creating new extraction project. For every pipeline or coal mine shutdown, the industry moves to open more. The reality is that carbon must remain in the ground and only social movements are pushing back against fossil fuels.

Now, we MUST go bigger and bolder to make resistance and disruption more widespread. And we need you to help us do it.

We need you to donate and help us make these movements bigger and bolder. Whether its $5, $50 or $500, we’ll take whatever you can give. We’re a small all-volunteer network of activists and our primary base of support is you.

Please donate and help us fight for climate justice in 2015

Thanks for all you do.

For the Earth and the people on it,

Rising Tide North America

Mass Climate Protest Disrupts NYC Financial District — Hundreds Risk Arrest

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Thousands Flood Wall Street With Mass Sit-In for Climate Justice

For immediate release:

Thousands ‘Flood’ Financial District Following Sunday’s Historic March

Interviews available upon requests

Photos available here

New York, NY — 3,000 people dressed in blue are currently between Exchange Place and The Bull in Manhattan’s financial district, sitting down to interrupt the business day and targeting corporations and businesses financing and fueling the climate crisis.

“Communities that are first and most impacted by storms, floods and droughts are also on the frontlines of fighting the dig-burn-dump economy causing climate change,” said Michael Leon Guerrero of the Climate Justice Alliance. “We are flooding Wall Street to stop its financing of planetary destruction, and to make way for living economies that benefit people and the planet.”

“Many of us were also involved with Occupy Wall Street,” said Michael Premo, an organizer of Flood Wall Street and a Brooklyn-based artist. “Just like the financial crisis, the climate crisis is a product of an underlying political crisis. It’s the result of policies that serve the shortsighted interests of the few over the survival and well being of everyone.”

Yesterday’s historic 400,000-person march showed widespread support for action on climate change, and Flood Wall Street is confronting those who stand in the way of change and connecting the climate movement with a long tradition of nonviolent direct action.

“Throughout history, people have engaged in nonviolent civil disobedience in response to moral crises, when political leaders have failed to act,” said Vida James, a Flood Wall Street organizer. “What could constitute more of a moral crisis than the health and survival of our planet, our communities, and our grandchildren?”

Art, music, and giant visuals are prominent features of the festive demonstration, beginning the day with the Rude Mechanical Orchestra, a local activist marching band. Nearly a hundred people carried a 300-foot banner that read: “Capitalism = Climate Chaos — Flood Wall Street,” among many other visuals.

The day began with speakers from around the world that have been impacted by climate change, emphasizing that leadership on climate justice must come from below.

“The real solution to global warming is organizing workers worldwide for the construction of a new model, with justice, equality and respect for life,” said Elisa Estronioli, a Brazilian land-rights activist.

More updates coming.

MEDIA ADVISORY
September 22, 2014
Phone: (406) 356-6316
floodwallstreet@riseup.net
http://floodwallstreet.net

Oil Train Opponents Blockade Tracks At Port Westward, OR

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Oil Train Blockade

Clatskanie, OR—Climate justice activists, local Clatskanie farmers, and oil train opponents from all over Columbia County are blockading the tracks that lead to Port Westward on the Columbia River. The blockade consists of a 20-foot-high tripod of steel poles, its apex occupied by 27-year-old Portland Rising Tide activist Sunny Glover. Any train movement would risk her life, as would any attempt to remove her from the structure. A banner suspended from the tripod reads: “Oil trains fuel climate chaos.” She has vowed to stay as long as she is able.

Donate to help Rising Tide Portland keep blockading!

Massachusetts-based Global Partners ships oil by rail from the fracking fields of the Bakken Shale to the blockaded facility. From there, it is loaded onto oceangoing vessels bound for West Coast refineries. The facility was constructed with public clean energy loans and tax credits to manufacture ethanol in 2008. The owners declared bankruptcy almost immediately, and in a twist of savage irony, it became a crude oil terminal.

“Fossil fuels are catastrophically destructive,” Glover said. “Extraction ravages land, water, and the health of local communities – transport results in deadly explosions, toxic spills and dust – and as they are burned, the Earth is forced ever deeper into immense climate instability. Fossil fuel production is violence, and on an incredibly vast scale.”

Dozens are joining Glover on the tracks. The increase in US oil production in recent years, and the consequent rise in oil train traffic, has outraged a diversity of groups and communities. Rising Tide activists, hoping to deter the most severe effects of climate change, are demanding a rapid dismantling of fossil fuel infrastructure throughout the region and the world. Residents of areas effected by oil train traffic are horrified by the propensity of Bakken crude trains to derail in fiery explosions—a May, 2014 emergency order by the US Department of Transportation describes the trains as an “imminent hazard.” Residents of the patchwork of farms, dikes, and waterways north of Clatskanie are fighting to protect agricultural land and salmon habitat from industrialization.

“When the crude oil trains began rolling through Columbia County, we had no prior warning—not from DEQ, not from the Port of St. Helens, not from the county, and not from the State of Oregon,” said Nancy Whitney. “With the close proximity of our towns, and particularly our schools, and considering the track record of crude oil derailments, my fear is that the potential devastation from leakage or explosion could be astronomical—and it will happen unless these trains are stopped.”

This is the fifth oil train blockade in the Pacific Northwest since June.

“This is only the beginning,” said Noah Hochman. “We will continue to blockade until it is financially, logistically, and politically untenable for oil trains to threaten climate and communities.”