Activists Begin Sustained Hunger Strike, Demand That Valero Divest from Keystone XL Pipeline
HOUSTON, TX – THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 28, 2012 8:00AM –
Activists Begin Sustained Hunger Strike, Demand That Valero Divest from Keystone XL Pipeline
HOUSTON, TX – THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 28, 2012 8:00AM –-Longtime Gulf Coast activists Diane Wilson and Bob Lindsey Jr. have locked their necks to oil tanker trucks destined for Valero’s Houston Refinery in solidarity with Tar Sands Blockade’s protests of TransCanada’s Keystone XL pipeline. Valero Energy Corp. is among the largest investors in TransCanada’s toxic tar sands pipeline that will terminate near the community of Manchester, located in the shadow of Valero’s refinery. Not only are Wilson and Lindsey blockading the Valero refinery, the two lifelong friends have also vowed to begin a sustained hunger strike demanding that Valero divest from Keystone XL and invest that money into the health and well-being of the people of Manchester.
With a 90% Latino population, Manchester’s relationship with the Valero refinery is a textbook case of environmental racism. Residents there have suffered through decades of premature deaths, cancers, asthma and other diseases attributable to the refinery emissions. With little financial support for lawsuits and without the political agency necessary to legislatively reign-in criminal polluters like Valero, the community suffers while Valero posts record profits.
“All my life the Gulf Coast has been an environmental sacrifice zone, and enough is enough,” declared Diane Wilson, who spent over twenty years organizing to stop chemical plants from dumping toxins directly into Gulf waters. “Keystone XL will bring to dirtiest fuel on the planet right down to the Gulf, where already overburdened communities like Manchester will be forced to suffer even more. After decades of toxic air in Manchester, I refuse to just let them continue to punish this community. I won’t eat until Valero divests from Keystone XL.”
Wilson, a fourth-generation Gulf Coast shrimper, is no stranger to civil disobedience. After years of fighting industrial pollution in her hometown of Seadrift, TX, her willingness to use civil disobedience in the struggle for clean water and the successes it wrought for her community changed the landscape of environmental justice along the Gulf Coast.
Newly designated by the Waterkeeper Alliance as the San Antonio Bay Waterkeeper, Bob Lindsey Jr. was born and raised in Calhoun County, which has highest rate of cancer of any county in TX. Lindsey also has a shrimping heritage stretching back five generations. His sister has had four episodes of cancer, and his father and nephew both died of rare disorders while in their forties. All of these diseases are traceable to the chemical facilities around which Bob’s family members lived and worked.
“Me? I’m healthy. They’re the ones I’m fighting for. We have to be prepared to fight for those who can’t fight for themselves or who are too afraid to fight for themselves. That’s why I’m here.”
“Diane and Bob’s decision to hunger strike in protest of TransCanada’s Keystone XL and challenge Valero’s longstanding disregard for the health and safety of the people of Manchester pushes the boundaries of the Gulf Coast environmental movement yet again, explains Ramsey Sprague, a Louisiana Gulf Coast-born Tar Sands Blockade spokesperson. “Manchester deserves justice as do all communities treated as energy sacrifice zones. Corporations like Valero and TransCanada cannot seem to function without violating the health and safety of the people everywhere from Alberta to Manchester.”
“This is a project that reflects the occupation…of Mapuche territory,” said Iván Reyes, an indigenous leader staunchly opposed to the construction of an international airport in the southern Chilean region of Araucanía.
Reyes, an agricultural technician, said the construction project was approved thanks to an environmental impact study “based on lies” that was carried out by Arcadis Geotécnica, the Chilean subsidiary of a Netherlands-based international consulting and engineering company.
The study “says there will be no impact on communities in the area. But in a later analysis, we detected that the base line and measurements had been manipulated,” he said.
The new airport, whose construction was actually approved in 2005, is now one of the most high-profile projects of the right-wing government of Sebastián Piñera. It is being built in Quepe, 20 km from the city of Temuco and nearly 700 km south of Santiago.
The La Araucanía New International Airport, which will replace the Maquehue Airport, will have a 2,440-metre runway and a 5,000-square-metre passenger terminal.
Temuco, which is halfway between the Pacific Ocean and the Andes foothills, is in the middle of prairies, pasture and farmland, and forests.
Although a few Mapuche communities support the new airport, which they see as a step forward for the region in terms of economic and cultural development, many others are staunchly opposed, arguing that it will undermine biodiversity and the environment, and will destroy their ancestral territory.
The Mapuche, Chile’s largest indigenous group, number nearly one million in this country of over 16 million people, and the struggle for their ancestral land in the south of the country has frequently pitted them against large landholders, logging companies and other private interests.
At the age of 23, Tranamil is already a Mapuche leader, in charge of the religious life of his community, Rofue. He is tenaciously opposed to the construction of the airport, which he describes as “a gateway to invade Mapuche territory.”
Tranamil, or “machi Fidel” as he is known by the local community, is one of the most active indigenous leaders in the area. He has been arrested several times, and his home is frequently searched by the police. Since 2005, his mother has been living with seven pellets in her right knee, after a harsh police crackdown on a protest.
The house where Tranamil and his mother live is warm and quiet. They raise pigs and chickens, and have a small vegetable garden.
“But soon, airliners will be landing every minute. That will not only violate our spiritual life but also our culture and harmony,” he said.
He also said that to build the airport, “between 200 and 300 hectares of native (old-growth) forest will be cut down, and lost forever. It would take 400 years for the trees to grow back to their current height.”
The ZAD airport protest site in France is still being evicted, a process that started on the 16th October. The zone is gradually being militarised but there are HUGE numbers of protesters and seemingly more every day. We're still fighting and it is not over!
The ZAD airport protest site in France is still being evicted, a process that started on the 16th October. The zone is gradually being militarised but there are HUGE numbers of protesters and seemingly more every day. We're still fighting and it is not over!
The ZAD is an airport protest site in the west of France about 15 miles north of Nantes. The airport project was first proposed over forty years ago and has faced constant local resistance ever since. The project is in the hands of the multinational company Vinci, who also provide us with such « services » as prisons, motorways and nuclear power stations. It is the particular pet project of Jean Marc Ayrault, the former mayor of Nantes and current Prime Minister of France. In 2009 the area hosted a climate camp, since when the empty houses, fields and forests have been gradually filling up with people disgusted enough by the idea of this project to stay and resist. The reasons for staying are as diverse as the people but the occupiers are united by an idea that fighting capitalism is an important part of every day life.
Until the second week of October you could still arrive on the ZAD and tour around over 30 diverse squats spread across the two thousand hectares of threatened land. The people united there to organise together and fight the airport project but life was far from unpleasant. You could visit the beautiful straw bale house bakery which provided the whole area with free price delicious organic bread twice a week, the numerous collective gardens, the home made wind turbine to provide electricity, an incredible range of cabins on the ground and in the trees made from collected materials, and you probably would have been able to go to a concert, join us on an action, help us organise and come to a few workshops to learn to climb, or knit, or maybe build a rocket stove.
Right at the moment though we don't seem to be leaving ourselves much time for knitting workshops. On Tuesday 16th October the large scale evictions of the place we call home started, and they weren't messing around. Riot vans arrived en masse from six in the morning and had already evicted seven squatted houses and burned down a large cabin by ten o'clock in the morning. Approximately 1200 police were mobilized for this so-called 'operation Cesar', protecting the workers who use plain white vans, hiding their company names. Since then we have seen nearly all of those houses razed to the ground, and most of the other houses, cabins and homes evicted and destroyed. We have also nearly all inhaled a deeply unhealthy amount of tear gas and seen enough blue vans and uniforms to last a lifetime.
November 17th marked a huge change in this struggle. Somewhere between 20,000 and 40,000 (depending who you ask) people were united together on the ZAD for the huge Reoccupation Demo. This involved a march from the nearby town of Notre Dame des Landes (where the demo stretched for nearly eight kilometres) and a chestnut plantation close to the centre of the ZAD where huge numbers of people got to work building new cabins. All day it was hard to move without getting in the way of people hammering, sawing and carrying heavy things into the forest. Witnessing this collective energy, and around ten large cabins fly up in the course of an afternoon is something I feel sure no one who was there will forget. More than that, I hope that every single person who squelched through the mud that day now feels a part of the ZAD, and that we will not lose this collective force and feeling of strength.
Since then there has been vast amounts of construction happening all over the ZAD. In fact it is hard to find a place on the zone where you can't hear hammering. Unfortunately for the last few days this has been accompanied by the all-too-familiar sounds of concussion grenades and tear gas bombs. All of the newly constructed tree houses and the ground-level cabin in the Rohanne Forest were once again destroyed on Saturday in a constant cloud of tear gas. Despite being attacked and gassed all day, the huge number of supporters on the ground stayed until long after dark, until the police finally crawled back to where they came from. The new cabins from the reoccupation demo remain but they seem at risk of being destroyed soon. During the weekend there were huge numbers of injuries for the first time since the evictions started, and also instances of police attacking barricades in the middle of the night. They are now militarising the zone, staying all night on the roads to stop us from moving around, and gradually upping the pressure.
We got the message yesterday that the evictions will stop if we stop building, and I can smile as I type that I feel quite sure that will not happen. We will continue to build, and continue to fight against this oppression and this useless senseless project. We will not let them win so easily. There are more of us than ever and it is impossible not to feel strong, even as they destroy our homes again and again. We have ever more people to keep rebuilding.
There is a call out for solidarity actions on our website (www.zad.nadir.org)
The struggle continues for us, and we welcome the support of those as disillusioned as us with this company, the state, and the control on our every day lives. It's far from over, this is just the beginning.
The road leading to Sizewell nuclear power stations A & B has been blockaded since 6:45 this morning. The protestors are still there (9:00).
Waste of Our Future
26.11.2012
The road leading to Sizewell nuclear power stations A & B has been blockaded since 6:45 this morning. The protestors are still there (9:00).
Waste of Our Future
At 6:45am this morning campaigners opposing nuclear new build blockaded the entrance to EDF’s Sizewell facility in Suffolk limiting access to the site by visitors to the site. This is the second time in three days that EDFs nuclear facilities have been targeted by activists, following hot on the heels of Friday’s dawn Blockade at Hinkley Point in Somerset.
EDF began their Consultation on the 21 Nov, and the public have just eleven weeks (until the 6th Feb 2012) to wade through the 342 pages of consultation documents. The glossy Brochures encourage us to play an ‘active’ role in the consultation, so here we are. Said mom Nikki Clark, “The government’s energy policy and changes to the planning system are pre-emptively denying people the opportunity to raise their legitimate concerns about nuclear power. This makes acts of civil disobedience extremely important as without this there is no other way to raise these issues.” She went on to say “If the process already underway at Hinkley Point in Somerset where I live is anything to go by, then the public here at Sizewell can expect a sham process which is nothing more than a cynical box-ticking exercise designed to allow EDF to claim that they have ‘listened’ to people’s concerns. The new process that the government has introduced to ‘fast-track new nuclear’ is totally undemocratic and therefore, illegitimate.
On Friday the government announced that “they have reached a landmark agreement on energy policy that will send a durable signal to investors”1 so that they can introduce the Energy Bill next week however most commentators believe that The Electricity reform Act is more about subsidising new nuclear that it is about subsidising ‘low carbon technology, the proof (if any were needed) lies in the fact that the governments proposals as they stand will hamstring genuinely renewable projects2.
On-shore wind would only require a strike price of around £80 per megawatt hour compared to the minimum ‘strike’ price of around £165 per MW/h that would be needed to subsidise new nuclear build. This would not be the only ‘subsidy-that-isn’t-a-subsidy ‘ that nuclear power would require. Said Mell Harrison, Education Director at a local Eco-centre “The biggest ‘subsidy-that-isn’t-a-subsidy’ that this industry will receive will be the one that comes in the form of highly toxic radioactive waste legacy they plan to store on-site at new build facilities. The cost of these subsidies will be borne by our grandchildren both physically and economically in around sixty years time when EDF get to leave the waste where it is and return ‘custody’ of it to our grandchildren. This will be in the form of highly dangerous waste that will require a minimum of a further hundred years cooling in-situ before anyone can even begin to think about packaging it for any further ‘storage’3
Said local campaigner Helen Swanston “Most people around here don’t realise that EDF were given the go ahead recently to build a dry storage facility to house the backlog of 1,466 tonnes of radioactive waste that is accumulating on site. The reason for this accumulation is because the technocrats of yester-year promised that the ‘waste issue’ would be resolved ‘in the future’ making fantastic promises about magical disposal facilities that would materialise in the not too distant future. These are the same empty promises that todays technocrats and politicians are making to us now. We are no closer now to any kind of interim storage facility let alone any kind of final resting place for nuclear waste.” The government’s so-called policy of voluntarism has seen only one set of local authorites even consider ‘volunteering’ and even they seem to have cold feet having deferred any decision to get involved until January of next year.4 EDF plan to create 3500 tonnes of waste from their twin EPR reactors 5
2 – Dr David Toke is Senior Lecturer in Energy Policy in the Department of Political Science and International Studies in the University of Birmingham (UK). He was a key player in the campaign to establish feed-in tariffs for small renewable projects in the UK, the legislation for which was passed in 2008 http://realfeed-intariffs.blogspot.co.uk/2012/11/are-tories-anti-bourgeois-left-or-just.html
3 –The Nuclear Regulatory Commission and Argoone National Laboratory in the U.S highlighted the dangers associated with the new high burn up fuel in 2008 in a conference where ‘They say that fuels with a burn-up above 45 GWd/tU cause previously unforeseen safety problems’ http://www.robedwards.com/2008/04/nuclear-super-f.html
On Saturday, after 3 weeks of evictions, more than 30000 came to re-occupy the ZAD. As soon as the demonstration arrived, 5 pre-assembled structures started to get built: a meeting-room of 80m², a kitchen house, 2 dorms, a toilet and bath block and a workshop.
On Saturday, after 3 weeks of evictions, more than 30000 came to re-occupy the ZAD. As soon as the demonstration arrived, 5 pre-assembled structures started to get built: a meeting-room of 80m², a kitchen house, 2 dorms, a toilet and bath block and a workshop. On Monday, the work is continuing. Thanks to a sum of ingeniosity, mutualised know-hows and endless human chains to bring the tons of planks, as well as cross beams, metal sheets and straw needed for the work, the construction showed rapid progress. The achievement is breathtaking and can only leave large smiles on the faces. In order to celebrate that, and inaugurate, a cocktail is announced, this monday, at 17:00 on the building site. We would like to remind that these new collective buildings are meant to become a crossing point for all opponents and a headquarter to organise the resistance to the airport construction. The prefecture, who knows what they are about, have announced as of Saturday, that these new huts were “woed to dissappear”. But the land on which most of the reconstructions were made is lent by a private owner, opposed to the airport and also ongoing expropriation. Therefore, there is no judicial way to evict these houses without lenghty procedures, regarding the urbanism laws, to be performed by the prefecture. We can therefore reassure to everyone who got involved in the reoccupation on Saturday, that, according to the law, these building cannot be destroyed at least for some time. In parralel to these large constructions, new huts and living spaces are being rebuilt on squatted lands owned by Vinci. During the whole week, treehouses will nest again in the Rohanne forest. Whether on lent or squatted land, we call for common defense of each hut with all the required determination. If they evict us, we resist, and we come back!
Civilization is not a static force. It has metastasized across the world by accelerating its own development, by transforming the blood and corpses of its victims into new weapons with which to wage its relentless war against all life
Grasslands become grain monocultures feeding armies, conquering forests and mountains that become ships and swords that kill other cultures, conquering more forests and mountains, whose trees and minerals are turned into timber mills and trains, going forth to damn rivers, turning the relentless fluidity of their being to electricity to smelt iron and steel and aluminum, which in turn become guns and ocean tankers, which expand this superstructure ever further, tirelessly taking in what little wild remains, absorbing everything and everyone into this accelerating death march.
And yet, as the world is tied and bound tighter into this brutal arrangement, civilization (and especially industrialism) becomes more and more vulnerable, more open and fragile to disruption and destruction.
This brittleness is exemplified by the near-total dependence of the industrial economy on “advanced” technology, and the internet. This dependency upon a decentralized and accessible system that is poorly regulated and controlled—at least compared to other physical structures, like the offices of the same corporations— presents a potential point of powerful leverage against the operation of civilization.
Activists and resisters around the world are beginning to realize this, and seize the opportunity it presents to groups engaged in asymmetric forces against destruction.
Such as in Saudi Arabia; from a recent article in the New York Times;
“On Aug. 15, more than 55,000 Saudi Aramco [described as the world’s most valuable company] employees stayed home from work to prepare for one of Islam’s holiest nights of the year — Lailat al Qadr, or the Night of Power — celebrating the revelation of the Koran to Muhammad.
That morning, at 11:08, a person with privileged access to the Saudi state-owned oil company’s computers, unleashed a computer virus to initiate what is regarded as among the most destructive acts of computer sabotage on a company to date. The virus erased data on three-quarters of Aramco’s corporate PCs — documents, spreadsheets, e-mails, files — replacing all of it with an image of a burning American flag.”
This attack presents a good example of targeting a systemic weak point within the infrastructure of Saudi Aramco and maximizing impact through effective use of systems disruption: destroying three-fourths of corporate data will have impacts that last for weeks, and inhibit the company’s operation for some time. In fact, the attacked leveraged the company’s response against itself:
“Immediately after the attack, Aramco was forced to shut down the company’s internal corporate network, disabling employees’ e-mail and Internet access, to stop the virus from spreading.”
The cyber-sabotage also highlights the importance of careful planning and timing.
“The hackers picked the one day of the year they knew they could inflict the most damage…”
This smart and strategic approach to action planning is something that is too often overlooked, ignored, or dismissed entirely. Yet for resistance to be effective, it must follow the same principles. Rather than striking at weak points to cripple the operation or function of industrial activity, attacks are typically made against symbolic or superficial targets, leaving the operation of the brutal industrial machine unscathed. We cannot continue to stumble with strategic blindness, lashing out all but randomly, and no more than hoping to hit the mark.
Again, civilization is not a static force: every hour, more forests, prairies, mountains and species are destroyed and extirpated. Every hour, civilization is pulled further into biotic collapse. We are out of time. With everything at stake, we are not only justified in using any means necessary to bring down civilization; it is our moral mandate as living beings to do so. But for that resistance to truly be meaningful and effective, it must also be smart. It cannot be reactive and sporadic, but strategic and coordinated; designed not just to inflict damage or dent profit margins, but to disable the fundamental support-systems that sustain industrial civilization and bring it all to a screeching halt.
This is one reason why cyber-sabotage has such potential as a tactic to be used in dismantling industrial civilization. Most, if not all, of the critical systems that sustain it are by now reliant upon computer networks, which as the Saudi Aramco attack demonstrates, are very vulnerable to disruption.
Online attacks also lend themselves as a tactic to asymmetric forces, and allow a very small group of people to carry out decisive, coordinated strikes from a distance, rather than requiring people on the ground to coordinate across the country to achieve a similar effect.
Civilization’s relentless growth and accelerating technology-spiral has rendered murder and death across the planet on a scale that would be unimaginable if it weren’t the horrific reality we now find ourselves in. But this process of unceasing centralization and control has also become its weakness, and for all its imposing gigantism, the tower of civilization is incredibly unstable, and now begins to sway precariously. It’s time to push with all our might, and topple it once and for all.
Learning to leverage key systems against themselves is crucial to the success of a militant resistance movement, and ultimately is at the core of any effective strategy to disable the function of industrial civilization and ultimately to dismantle it. Cyber-sabotage presents a vital opportunity to use the dynamics of industrial operations—such as the complete dependency of the electric grid or oil refineries upon complex computer systems—to accomplish that most fundamental and necessary goal.
On the evening of November 20th, 2012, Wet’suwet’en Chief Toghestiy intercepted and issued an eagle feather to surveyors from the Can-Am Geomatics company who were working for Apache’s proposed Pacific Trails Pipeline (PTP). In Wet’suwet’en law, an eagle feather is used as a first and only notice of trespass. The surveyors and all other people associated with PTP were ordered to leave the territory and told that they are not ever allowed to return to Unis’tot’en land. As a result of the unsanctioned PTP work in the Unist’ot’en yintah, the road leading into the territory has been closed to all industry activities until further notice.
Toghestiy stated, “I have invoked the Wet’suwet’en Inuk nu’ot’en (Law) called Bi Kyi Wa’at’en (Responsibility of a husband to respectfully use and protect his wife’s territory) to issue a trespass notice to Pipeline workers on her sovereign territory. My Clan’s territory called Lho Kwa (Clore River) is located behind the Unist’ot’en territory adjacent to the Coastal town of Kitimat and it is our responsibility to protect our territory as well. We will be stopping all proposed pipelines.”
The Wet’suwet’en are made up of five Clans, with territories that they are expected to manage for their future generations. The Unis’tot’en clan has been dead-set against all pipelines slated to cross through their territories, which include PTP, Enbridge’s Northern Gateway, and many others. The Unis’tot’en have established a permanent community along the Widzin Kwa (Morice River) directly in the path of the proposed energy corridor and made their opposition extremely clear.
Freda Huson, spokeswoman for the Unis’tot’en Clan, states: “PTP does not have permission to be on our territory. It’s unceded land. We said “NO!” in their meetings. We’ve written them letters; I’ve sent them emails, saying “absolutely NO!” to their projects. Consider it trespass when you enter our territory without permission. You’ve received your warning. Don’t come back!”
This marks the second time that eagle feathers have been issued to pipeline workers. On August 23rd, 2010, Toghestiy and Hagwilakw of the Likhts’amisyu clan gave Enbridge representatives trespass warnings during a Smithers Town Council meeting where Enbridge attended to attempt to smooth over their recent oil spill on the Kalamazoo River.
For more information:
Freda Huson, Spokesperson for the Unis’tot’en by email at fhuson@gmail.com or by cell phone at 778-210-1100.
Toghestiy, Hereditary Wing Chief of the Likhts’amisyu at toghestiy@gmail.com , interview requests can be made by sending an email along with your contact information to the aforementioned email.
Day of Action Sees Dozens Walk On to Work Site as the Nacogdoches Community Rallies with Affected Landowners at Lake Nacogdoches to Protect Fresh Water Supply from Toxic Tar Sands
NACOGDOCHES, TX – MONDAY, NOVEMBER 19,
Day of Action Sees Dozens Walk On to Work Site as the Nacogdoches Community Rallies with Affected Landowners at Lake Nacogdoches to Protect Fresh Water Supply from Toxic Tar Sands
NACOGDOCHES, TX – MONDAY, NOVEMBER 19, 2012 8:00AM – Today, four people locked themselves to heavy machinery used along the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline route. They were joined by several others forming a human chain to block the movement of heavy machinery onsite, while more than 30 people walked onto the same construction site to halt work early this morning. Meanwhile, three others launched a new tree blockade at a crossing of the Angelina River, suspending themselves from 50 foot pine trees with life lines anchored to heavy machinery, effectively blocking the entirety of Keystone XL’s path. Today’s Day of Action is in solidarity with local landowners struggling to protect their water and land from TransCanada’s toxic tar sands pipeline.
Keystone XL would cross 16 large rivers in Texas, including the site of today’s latest tree blockade, the scenic Angelina River. Nestled amongst 50 foot pine trees in forested bottomlands, the tree blockaders have settled in for a long standoff in protection of their fresh drinking and agricultural water. The waters downstream feed into the popular Sam Rayburn Reservoir, the largest lake entirely within the state of Texas, renowned for its angling opportunities and competitions.
“Tar Sands Blockade stands with all communities affected by the Canadian tar sands. From indigenous nations in Alberta, Canada to the besieged refinery neighborhoods of the American Gulf Coast where the tar sands will be refined, there’s a groundswell of resistance demanding an end to toxic tar sands exploitation. Today’s events simply mark the latest in our sustained, community-based civil disobedience campaign, and many more communities are destined to rise up to defend their homes from TransCanada’s fraud, bullying, and reckless endangerment of their lives and fresh water,” insisted Ron Seifert, a Tar Sands Blockade spokesperson.
Included amongst the Angelina tree sitters is local Stephen F. Austin State University student, Lizzy Alvarado, 21, an Austin-born, third-year cinematography major. Leading outdoor excursions for other local youth and having helped found the Nacogdoches Rat Skulls, an all female cycling-advocacy organization, Alvarado is an active member of the Nacogdoches community.
“I climbed this tree in honor of all the landowners who have been bullied mercilessly into signing easement contracts and who were then silenced through fear by TransCanada’s threat of endless litigation. That’s not what this country stands for in my mind, and if we don’t take a stand here to secure our rights now, then it will keep happening to everyone,” proclaimed Alvarado. “What’s happening isn’t just threatening my community’s drinking water but it will threaten that of all communities along the pipeline’s path.“
While these multisite actions halted Keystone XL construction this morning, local community members rallied at Lake Nacogdoches to further highlight the threats Keystone XL poses to the community’s watershed and public health. These events around the Nacogdoches area coincide with a week’s worth of events in solidarity with Tar Sands Blockade. Scheduled to occur in over 40 communities around the world, these actions highlight the urgent need to address the climate crisis.
Some actions have targeted policy makers or financial institutions bankrolling dirty energy projects while others rallied to address the damage done by Hurricane Sandy through community organizing and connecting extreme weather to extreme extraction. Yesterday in Washington, DC, more than 3,000 gathered at the White House to call on President Obama to reject the permit for the northern segment of TransCanada’s Keystone XL pipeline. Other actions are scheduled to happen today and later this week.
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.
“From the Sandy-decimate streets of New York City to these piney woods here in East Texas, communities are resisting dangerous corporations like TransCanada. These solidarity actions are part of a burgeoning movement of ordinary folks coming together in their neighborhoods, schools, and community centers to draw the connections between extreme extraction like tar sands exploitation and extreme weather like the droughts devastating farmers and ranchers all over Texas and the Midwest. Today we rally to build a future where all people and the planet are healthy and thriving,” said Kim Huynh, a spokesperson for the Tar Sands Blockade.
UPDATE: 8:15 am – Police officers arrive on site at Angelina River tree blockade
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UPDATE: 8:40 am – Police threatening to cut support lines for tree blockaders
Cherokee County Sheriffs have been caught on tape making multiple threats to cut the support lines of the tree blockades, which could be potentially fatal for Lizzy and the other blockaders occupying the tree-sits.
UPDATE: 9:10 am – All construction stopped at site of lock down; workers have completely left site
Workers intending to continue construction of the Keystone XL pipeline have completely abandoned all plans to work today at the site of our lock down and have left the site. A crew of blockaders will maintain a presence there while reinforcements are being sent to the new tree blockade to support Lizzy and the other blockaders whose lives are being threatened by the police.
UPDATE: 9:30 am – TransCanada workers return to lock down site with police officers and video equipment
TransCanada workers were overheard telling the police that they want the blockaders out. Police are calling for reinforcements and getting out flexicuffs.
UPDATE: 9:40 am – One person detained at lock down site, placed in flexicuffs
The police have detained one person supporting the blockaders who locked themselves to heavy machinery this morning. Hear from the blockaders themselves why they decided to take action:
UPDATE: 10:15 am – Police pepper spray two people locked down; one person arrested on the ground at tree blockade
Police have sprayed pepper spray onto the skin of two people locked to heavy machinery on the Keystone XL pipeline easement as supporters and local media watched from the road. The blockaders who were pepper sprayed responded by singing loudly and are in good spirits. Meanwhile, at the tree blockade, one person was arrested on the ground for trespassing on the easement.
UPDATE: 10:40 am – Solidarity actions take off in Minneapolis and San Francisco
Solidarity actions took off this morning with a banner drop overlooking Minneapolis. In San Francisco, demonstrators rallied outside the Canadian Consulate in the financial district, demanding that Canada withdraw its support for the Keystone XL Pipeline, and gathering strength for the continued push to hold recently elected US politicians accountable to the will of the American people to combat climate change.
UPDATE: 10:55 am – Second supporter arrested at lock down site; police putting handcuffs on blockaders locked to machinery
A second person supporting those locked to heavy machinery has been arrested by the Cherokee County Sheriff Department, while officers have handcuffed the free hand of those locked down. The police are tampering with the lock boxes but seem unsure about how to remove the blockaders.
UPDATE: 11:10 am – Solidarity action in Palm Beach, FL results in arrests in front of Deutsche Bank
A solidarity action in Palm Beach, Florida targeting Deutsche Bank, a major financier of the Keystone XL pipeline, has resulted in the arrest of multiple protesters. The protesters demanded that Deutsche Bank “refuse to facilitate any future investments in Big Oil, starting with the construction of the Keystone XL Pipeline.”
UPDATE: 11:15 am – Two blockaders extracted from lock down; two more holding strong despite police brutality
The police have just extracted the two blockaders they had pepper sprayed earlier this morning. Both individuals had their eyes swollen shut because of the pepper spray. After they were removed from their lock down device, the blockaders went limp and were dragged away by police. This brings the total number of arrests so far today to five. Please make a generous donation to help get them out of jail quickly and to support their legal defense.
UPDATE: 11:25 am – Police pepper spray remaining two blockaders, dragging away arrested blockader who went limp
Police have pepper sprayed the remaining two blockaders locked to heavy machinery and continued to brutalize the two blockaders who were already arrested. They were seen dragging one blockader who seemed in extreme pain and unresponsive face down along the ground by his shoulder and shoving him into the back of a police car while refusing to clean pepper spray out of the eyes of the other arrested blockader or provide him with water.
UPDATE: 11:40 am – Remaining two blockaders extracted after being pepper sprayed
All four blockaders that were locked to heavy machinery have now been arrested after being pepper sprayed and brutalized by Cherokee County Sheriffs. This brings the total number of arrests so far today to seven, with two supporters at the ground blockade and one supporter at the tree blockade also being arrested. Donate now to help get them out of jail and to support their legal defense.
UPDATE: 11:55 am – Sheriffs shaking tree-sit lifeline; sitters refusing to come down
Sheriffs shook the support line for one of the tree-sits, even after being repeatedly informed that the ropes are critical support lines and must not be tampered with. Lizzy and the other tree-sitters are refusing to come down, even with their lives endangered by the police. In response, sheriffs cleared supporters out from underneath the tree-sits and the one in charge was seen having a long phone conversation next to a lifeline.
In a beautiful display of nonviolent resistance, the “Commonluck Theater of Dramatic Nourishment” delivered cookies and other treats to the Santa Clarita, California office of McKenna, Long, and Aldridge, the main lobbying firm for TransCanada, in an attempt to change their hearts, “Grinch style”. The stark contrast between the tactics of our movement and the tactics of those in power could not be more abundantly clear, with this action coming on the heels of several blockaders being brutalized and arrested by Cherokee County Sheriffs earlier today. Pleaseconsider a donation to the legal fund to support those who were met with violence just for standing up for the health of their communities.
UPDATE: 1:10 pm – Ground supporters blockade cherry picker to protect tree-sits; police retaliate with reckless pepper spray and arrests
Cherokee County Sheriffs brought in a cherry picker to try and extract the three tree blockaders. In response, a couple dozen ground supporters stood in front of the truck with the cherry picker and pushed up against it in an attempt to stop it. The truck driver refused to stop until they hit one of the supporters and almost dragged him underneath the vehicle. In an effort to disperse the crowd, police began indiscriminately spraying people in the face with pepper spray, including a 21 year old woman from Nacogdoches and a 75 year old woman with a heart condition. The officer who pepper sprayed supporters is refusing to identify himself. Two more of the ground supporters have been arrested, bringing the total for today to nine. Donate now to support these brave blockaders standing up for their communities in the face of brutal police repression.
UPDATE: 2:00 pm – From coast to coast, solidarity against the Keystone XL
In Burlington, Vermont, and Fairfax, California, activists displayed banners decrying Keystone XL’s role in the ongoing climate crisis. “As communities continue to rebuild in the wake of Superstorm Sandy, it should be obvious that the expansion of fossil fuel infrastructure is unacceptable,” said Sara Mehalick of Rising Tide Vermont. “From Transcanada’s Keystone XL tar sands pipeline, to Vermont Gas’s scheme to pump gas under Lake Champlain, to ExxonMobil’s plans for a New England tar sands pipeline, our right to a livable planet is under attack.”
Canada-EU Energy Summit disrupted as Canada’s aggressive lobbying threatens EU climate legislation
Canada-EU Energy Summit disrupted as Canada’s aggressive lobbying threatens EU climate legislation
This morning an‘oil orgy’ performance-protest disrupted the Canada Europe Energy Summit, at Canada House, in London. The annual energy summit was hosted by Canadian High Commissioner Gordon Campbell and featured top officials from Shell, Total and Enbridge, along with Conservative Energy and Climate Minister John Hayes (who has recently received media attention for an alleged plot to promote the anti-wind farm agenda in the Coalition Government). The aim of the event was to promote Canada’s tar sands in Europe, and discussions included how to deal with ‘public policy risks’ such as impending European transport legislation which would discourage imports of highly-polluting fuels like tar sands into the EU market.
At 8.30am, half an hour before the event was due to start, 30 protesters rushed to the steps of Canada House and blocked the entrance with their bodies and a huge banner saying ‘Stop tar sands’. They then held a tongue-in-cheek ‘oil orgy’, featuring dancing shadowy representatives of the oil industry, and speech bubbles with ironic pro-oil statements such as ‘Destroy the Fuel Quality Directive’, ‘Canada: emerging energy supervillain’, and ‘Gag climate scientists’. The main entrance was blockaded until after the event was due to start, forcing delegates to be diverted around the protest through a back door.
“Tar sands extraction is devastating ecosystems and trampling on Indigenous rights. Worryingly, London has become a hotbed of collusion for the Canadian Government’s ‘dirty diplomats’ to schmooze with oil giants and promote tar sands in Europe,” said Suzanne Dhaliwal, from the UK Tar Sands Network. “With Europe negotiating new climate legislation which would threaten the highly carbon-intensive tar sands industry, Canada’s lobbying has become increasingly aggressive.”
The Canadian Government has recently been exposed as mounting an unprecedented lobbying campaign to undermine the EU Fuel Quality Directive (FQD), which aims to reduce emissions from transport fuel by 6% by 2020, and would label tar sands-derived fuel as highly polluting. “The Canadian Government is working overtime to undermine climate policies in Europe so that they can barrel forward with unfettered tar sands expansion,” said Hannah McKinnon of Climate Action Network Canada (see Dirty Oil Diplomacy: The Canadian Government’s Global Push to Sell the Tar Sands). “There is no doubt that the tar sands are standing in the way of Canada’s climate promises, but they shouldn’t stand in the way of Europe’s as well.”
The UK Coalition Government has been documented as supporting these attempts by the Canadian Government and British oil giants BP and Shell to undermine the FQD.
“We are already seeing the impacts of climate change around the world, and want to see the kind of leadership the European Union is taking to reducing emissions from transport fuels. But the UK Government is cosying up to Canada to sabotage key climate legislation,” said Philippa de Boissière from People & Planet. “We need to see the UK Coalition Government take action on reducing emissions rather than staying tangled in their twisted love affair with big oil.”
Today’s performance-protest follows a mass action by People & Planet two weeks ago, which saw 400 students call on Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg from his Sheffield Hallam constituency, to support the FQD (‘No more sorries Nick’ mass action and e-action).
this afternoon, the 'reclaim shakespeare company' ran through some of their best performances in the great court hall of the british museum, cheered on by a flashmob of up to a hundred climate activists.
this afternoon, the 'reclaim shakespeare company' ran through some of their best performances in the great court hall of the british museum, cheered on by a flashmob of up to a hundred climate activists.
click photo for large version. some rights reserved. free for credited non-commercial radical useage. otherwise contact author.
today's show marked the end of a series of guerilla performances which took place this year at various venues linked by their acceptance of BP sponsorship. these included the tate, the stratford royal shakespeare company, the national portrait gallery and the royal ballet.
the british museum has been hosting a "shakespeare: staging the world" exhibition which is BP-sponsored. activists see oil company sponsorship as an attempt to greenwash their brands and to mitigate the immense destruction caused by the deepwater horizon spill, the exploitation of the arctic, and the expansion of fracking and tar sands extraction.
earlier this year, the 'reclaim shakespeare company' infiltrated the exhibition and launched into a short performance leading to the staged ejection of the BP logo (aided by museum security) – see the video at http://vimeo.com/46968930
today, the group repeated that performance, along with other short activist plays previously seen on the stratford stage and other venues. the flashmob, which at its peak grew to more than a hundred spectators, many pre-armed with scripts, joined in the chorus "out damned logo", as the actors playing BP execs were lifted and carried out of the hall.
unlike previous performances, the museum was aware of today's plans, which had been made public.
as a result, visitors had to queue to enter via a specially erected security tent, and as well as a huge number of security staff, there were also more than a dozen police officers, including members of the forward intelligence team (dressed in normal uniform). museum staff photographed the actors and flashmob, both on the ground and from the galleries. other plain clothed characters were spotted, presumably from the corporate spy company employed by BP to keep tabs on the activist groups.
despite the huge security operation, the performances were allowed to continue, drawing the crowd round the grand court. the opening act was signalled by a drummer, and the unfurling of a large tar sands banner. visitors to the museum stopped and watched and took leaflets, and the shakespeare exhibition itself was closed by security for a while as a precautionary measure.
after around 20 minutes and some final speeches, everyone left peacefully.
today also marked the 12th anniversary of the global climate activist network, rising tide, so celebrations were held in a local pub.
for more info and to join future actions: bp-or-not-bp.org risingtide.org.uk risingtide.org.uk/london artnotoil.org.uk no-tar-sands.org rikki e-mail:rikkiindymedia[At]gmail(d0t)com
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