Category: Oil

40 Climate Solidarity Actions Launch Worldwide to Defend Our Homes From Dirty Energy and Climate Change

UPDATE: Thurs­day, Nov. 15th – Four arrest­ed for shut­ting down an Amer­i­can Petro­le­um Insti­tute lun­cheon in New Orleans

UPDATE: Thurs­day, Nov. 15th – Four arrest­ed for shut­ting down an Amer­i­can Petro­le­um Insti­tute lun­cheon in New Orleans

Four pro­tes­tors where arrest­ed after a group of over a dozen shut down an Amer­i­can Petro­le­um Insti­tiute lun­cheon in the Roo­sevelt Hotel in New Orleans, Louisiana. Today’s action in sol­i­dar­i­ty with Tar Sands Block­ade was in response to Hur­ri­cane Sandy and the new­ly approved Park­way Oil Pipeline that would endan­ger the cities beloved Lake Pontchar­train.

New Orleans res­i­dents under­stand what the impacts of cli­mate change mean for the health and safe­ty of their com­mu­ni­ty. The cli­mate super pow­ered storm of Hur­ri­cane Sandy serves as an all too famil­iar reminder of the dev­as­ta­tion these more fre­quent storms will bring to the most vul­ner­a­ble fam­i­lies around the globe. Today over a dozen orga­niz­ers marched in the streets and shut down the Amer­i­can Petro­le­um Insti­tute lun­cheon to protest the source of this threat, Big Oil’s stran­gle­hold on our econ­o­my and our liv­able future. They chant­ed: “No pipeline! No tar sands! No destruc­tion of Louisiana land!”

UPDATE: Wednes­day, Nov. 14th – Ris­ing Tide Ver­mont shuts down a talk by a Shell Oil Exec­u­tive 

Nine mem­bers of Ris­ing Tide Ver­mont inter­rupt­ed a Shell oil exec­u­tive last night while he was speak­ing on a pan­el about ‘Big Oil in the Niger Delta.’

Activists shared tes­ti­mo­ny from Niger Delta com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers suf­fer­ing the impacts of Shell Oil oper­a­tions on their home­land. Shell Oil has a long-stand­ing rela­tion­ship with Nigeria’s var­i­ous mil­i­tary dic­ta­tor­ships and has been impli­cat­ed in the geno­ci­dal dev­as­ta­tion of ecosys­tems and com­mu­ni­ties in the Niger Delta. They also read state­ments from mem­bers of com­mu­ni­ties in Nige­ria, Alber­ta fac­ing tox­ic tar sands extrac­tion.

After the speak­er was inter­rupt­ed sev­er­al times in a row, police were called and the event was cancelled/postponed.  Many peo­ple who planned on attend­ing left, and the voice of Shell Oil was suc­cess­ful­ly chal­lenged and silenced.  No one was arrest­ed.

“This day kicks off a week of actions in sol­i­dar­i­ty with front­line strug­gles in the move­ment for cli­mate jus­tice,” said Avery Pittman.  “From the oil­fields of the Niger Delta, to the tar sands in Alber­ta, to the ongo­ing block­ade of the Key­stone XL tar sands pipeline in east Texas, com­mu­ni­ties are resist­ing extreme ener­gy and assert­ing their right to a healthy envi­ron­ment.”  Read more here.

UPDATE: Wednes­day, Nov. 14th – Cli­mate Sol­i­dar­i­ty Action in the Philip­pines as part of Glob­al Week for Cli­mate Jus­tice 

Hun­dreds march through the streets of Manil­la, Philip­pines toward the US Embassy to call for urgent action on cli­mate change. Ris­ing sea lev­els caused by cli­mate change are a mat­ter of sur­vival for the thou­sands who live along the coast­line of this island nation. Marchers con­nect­ed the dots on cli­mate change and oth­er cli­mate super pow­ered storms like Hur­ri­cane Sandy with their signs. The march fea­tured beau­ti­ful, the­atri­cal street the­ater and giant pup­pets was orga­nized by the Philip­pine Move­ment for Cli­mate Jus­tice as part of the Glob­al Week for Cli­mate Jus­tice, which list­ed Tar Sands Blockade’s Mass Action on Mon­day the 19th as part of their glob­al week of action.

UPDATE: Wednes­day, Nov. 14th -  Mon­tana ral­lies to stop dirty coal exports and cel­e­brate civ­il dis­obe­di­ence 

Over 30 peo­ple gath­ered in Hele­na, Montana’s Con­sti­tu­tion Park to sup­port the ven­er­a­ble US tra­di­tion of civ­il dis­obe­di­ence. Imme­di­ate­ly before an omnibus court hear­ing for the 23 peo­ple arrest­ed dur­ing last August’s peace­ful protests against coal exports at the Mon­tana Capi­tol, the group gath­ered with signs read­ing “Sup­port the Coal Export Action 23,” and “No More Coal Exports.”

Sev­er­al peo­ple addressed the crowd, includ­ing some of the 23 who had been arrest­ed in August. “I came to Hele­na, to my own state­house and got arrest­ed because it looks to me like there is no more time for writ­ing rea­soned let­ters to the edi­tor or hav­ing meet­ings with the politi­cians,” said Lin­da Kenoy­er, describ­ing why she par­tic­i­pat­ed in last summer’s civ­il dis­obe­di­ence. ”The time has come to put my body on the line, to risk my safe­ty and clean record if that’s what it takes to get someone’s atten­tion.”

View more pho­tos and read about the action on Coal Export Action’s blog.

Almost 40 cli­mate sol­i­dar­i­ty events have sprung up across the globe as part of the week of action Novem­ber 14–20! These actions are in direct response to the after­shock of Hur­ri­cane Sandy, clos­ing out the hottest year on record and the ongo­ing eco­log­i­cal dev­as­ta­tion of tar sands extrac­tion.

Cli­mate change con­tin­ues to put a dis­pro­por­tion­ate bur­den on low income com­mu­ni­ties and com­mu­ni­ties of col­or around the world, and this weeks events high­light this strug­gle as locals rise up to defend their homes from cli­mate chaos. These events serve as a reminder that we are part of a grow­ing move­ment to demand cli­mate action. Get ideas for your own local action here.

“Com­mu­ni­ties around the world are work­ing togeth­er to expose the threat that the fos­sil fuel econ­o­my pos­es to fam­i­lies every­where,” said Arielle Klags­brun of Mis­souri­ans Orga­niz­ing for Empow­er­ment and Reform. “As extrac­tive indus­tries grow increas­ing­ly des­per­ate for prof­its, cor­po­ra­tions like Peabody Coal and Tran­sCana­da are resort­ing to the most dan­ger­ous of ener­gy reserves, like hydro-frack­ing, tar sands exploita­tion and moun­tain top removal coal min­ing.”

This week’s actions are hap­pen­ing in almost 40 loca­tions includ­ing the fol­low­ing:

    • Sat­ur­day, Novem­ber 17 – Occu­py Sandy and Stop Spec­tra Pipeline Coali­tion takes action to respond to the dev­as­ta­tion of the cli­mate super pow­ered storm, Hur­ri­cane Sandy and put an end to hydro-frack­ing.
    • Sun­day, Novem­ber 18 – Over 3,500 peo­ple ral­ly at the White House to call on Pres­i­dent Oba­ma to reject the per­mit for the Key­stone XL north­ern seg­ment. Event orga­nized by 350.org, Sier­ra Club, and oth­er allies.
    • Mon­day, Novem­ber 19 – Dozens of com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers ral­ly in Nacog­doches, Texas to oppose the con­struc­tion of the Key­stone XL tar sands pipeline from endan­ger­ing their homes. Tar Sands Block­ade will be tak­ing non­vi­o­lent direct action to halt its con­struc­tion.
    • Mon­day, Novem­ber 19 – Com­mu­ni­ty orga­ni­za­tions in St. Louis are tak­ing action to tar­get JP Mor­gan Chase for bankrolling the tar sands extrac­tion. Event orga­nized by Mis­souri­ans Orga­niz­ing for Empow­er­ment and Reform and Cli­mate Action St. Louis.
    • Mon­day, Novem­ber 19 – Res­i­dents of Salt Lake City are per­form­ing the­atri­cal exhi­bi­tions out­side The Bureau of Land Man­age­ment for its approval of pub­lic lands for the first tar sands mine in the US. Event orga­nized by Peace­ful Upris­ing and Utah Tar Sands Resis­tance.
    • Tues­day, Novem­ber 20 – In Lon­don, UK Tar Sands Net­work, Ris­ing Tide UK and oth­ers will protest a meet­ing of Cana­di­an tar sands exec­u­tives, bank­ing indus­try rep­re­sen­ta­tives and gov­ern­ment lead­ers meet­ing to dis­cuss fur­ther expan­sion of Alber­ta tar sands extrac­tion.
    • More events are on the map in these loca­tions: Water­loo, Ontario, Cana­da; Nor­man, OK; Char­lotte, NC; Den­ton, TX; Eugene, OR; Mid­dle­sex, NY; Cor­val­lis, OR; Seat­tle, WA; Fair­fax, CA; Bridge­port, CT; Bloom­ing­ton, IN; Burling­ton, VT; Hele­na, MT;  Nashville, TN; Cincin­nati, OH; Port Townsend, WA; Jef­fer­son, NH; San­ta Clari­ta, CA; Albany, CA; Burling­ton, VT; New Orleans, LA; Salt Lake City, Utah; Austin, TX; Eure­ka, CA; Port­land, OR; Den­ver, CO; Min­neapo­lis, MN; New York, NY; Lon­don, UK; Minisk, NY; Asto­ria, OR; Wilton, NH; Swarth­more, PA; Philadel­phia, PA…and count­ing!

“It’s encour­ag­ing to see these sol­i­dar­i­ty actions spring up across the globe in response to the esca­lat­ing dev­as­ta­tion of cli­mate change,” said Nicole Browne of Tar Sands Block­ade, who helped put out the call for the sol­i­dar­i­ty actions. “From the Alber­ta tar sands to the forests of East Texas and all around the world, these actions give hope to peo­ple every­where who are defend­ing their homes from reck­less ener­gy extrac­tion that is fuel­ing cli­mate chaos.”

Activists disrupt Shell greenwashing event

Ris­ing Tide activists have invad­ed the stage tonight at a Shell-spon­sored lec­ture at the Geo­log­i­cal Soci­ety!

The title of the lec­ture — “Geo­log­i­cal Aspects of Renew­able Ener­gy”; the *only* speak­er — a Shell employ­ee. Coin­ci­dence? Or per­fect oppor­tu­ni­ty for seri­ous green­wash­ing?

(The ban­ner says — “Shell Tar Sands = 55 years First Nations treaty vio­la­tions”)

EF! Winter Moot 2013: 22–24th February, near Preston

A week­end get-togeth­er for peo­ple involved in eco­log­i­cal direct action, from fight­ing open­cast coal, frack­ing, GM, nuclear pow­er to road build­ing. There’ll be dis­cus­sions and cam­paign plan­ning – with the empha­sis on the tac­tics and strate­gies we use, com­mu­ni­ty sol­i­dar­i­ty and sus­tain­able activism.

A week­end get-togeth­er for peo­ple involved in eco­log­i­cal direct action, from fight­ing open­cast coal, frack­ing, GM, nuclear pow­er to road build­ing. There’ll be dis­cus­sions and cam­paign plan­ning – with the empha­sis on the tac­tics and strate­gies we use, com­mu­ni­ty sol­i­dar­i­ty and sus­tain­able activism. This year we’ll be in Lan­cashire…

 

Update: full trans­port details and pro­gramme at link below.

Read more

Wife of Gulf Coast Oilfield Worker Chains Herself to Keystone XL Pipeyard Gate

Draw­ing con­nec­tions to all coastal com­mu­ni­ties threat­ened by tox­ic tar sands devel­op­ment, Cher­ri Foytlin, an indige­nous South Louisiana moth­er of six and wife of a Gulf Coast oil­field work­er, chained her­self to the gate of a Key­stone XL pipeyard. Effec­tive­ly block­ing pipe from being shipped to con­struc­tion sites along the con­tro­ver­sial pipeline’s route, Foytlin’s action coin­cides with the Defend Our Coast activ­i­ties in British Colum­bia, where more than 60 Cana­di­an com­mu­ni­ties are protest­ing a pro­posed tar sands pipeline through their region.

Yes­ter­day the Athabas­ca Chipewyan First Nation filed a legal chal­lenge to Shell’s pro­posed expan­sion of the Jack­pine Tar Sands Mine in Alber­ta, Cana­da. From It’s Get­ting Hot in Here:

“Fol­low­ing these projects, Coun­cil will con­tin­ue on its six-day No Pipelines, No Tankers Speak­ing Tour, stop­ping in com­mu­ni­ties on or near the routes of the Pacif­ic Trails, Enbridge North­ern Gate­way, and Kinder Mor­gan Trans Moun­tain Pipelines.

” ‘The idea is to build sol­i­dar­i­ty between the dif­fer­ent pipeline cam­paigns,’ says Har­jap Gre­w­al, Pacif­ic Region­al Orga­niz­er of the Coun­cil of Cana­di­ans. This includes cam­paigns to stop the pipelines at their source—in the Alber­ta Tar Sands and Frack­ing region in north­east­ern BC.”

Occu­py the Pipeline activists in New York have been strug­gling against the Spec­tra Pipeline which will pump fuel hydrauli­cal­ly-fracked from Pennsylvania’s gas fields into New York City

Foytlin’s arrest is the 32nd arrest since Tar Sands Block­ade‘s actions began more than two months ago and today marks the 31st day of sus­tained protest at the Winns­boro tree block­ade.

“This pipeline is a project of death. From destruc­tive tar sands devel­op­ment that destroy indige­nous sov­er­eign­ty and health at the route’s start to the tox­ic emis­sions that will lay fur­ther bur­den on envi­ron­men­tal jus­tice com­mu­ni­ties along the Gulf of Mex­i­co, this pipeline not only dis­pro­por­tion­ate­ly affects indige­nous front­line com­mu­ni­ties but its clear that it will bring death and dis­ease to all in its path,” Foytlin declared.

Refus­ing to accept the Gulf Coast’s des­ig­na­tion as the Nation’s Ener­gy Sac­ri­fice Zone, Foytlin, along with many Gulf Coast res­i­dents and indige­nous activists are dis­mayed but not sur­prised to find the con­ver­sa­tions regard­ing Key­stone XL as a whole from nation­al envi­ron­men­tal groups to the Pres­i­den­tial cam­paigns have made lit­tle to no men­tion of the dam­age TransCanada’s Key­stone XL Pipeline will heap upon Gulf Coast com­mu­ni­ties like Hous­ton and Port Arthur, TX, where Key­stone XL will ter­mi­nate. Already over­bur­dened with oil refiner­ies and oth­er dirty ener­gy relat­ed indus­try, this neglect­ful atti­tude dove­tails neat­ly with TransCanada’s reck­less dis­re­gard for the health and safe­ty of fam­i­lies in the refin­ery com­mu­ni­ties and else­where along the pipeline’s route.

The Rayne, Louisiana res­i­dent, who in the Spring of 2011 walked 1,243 miles from New Orleans to Wash­ing­ton DC as a call for action to stop the BP Drilling Dis­as­ter, has been a con­stant voice speak­ing out for the health and ecosys­tems of Gulf Coast com­mu­ni­ties.

She con­tin­ued, “This fight is also about the per­son­al free­doms giv­en to us through the blood of all of our com­bined ances­try. Con­ser­v­a­tives believe gov­ern­ment is too big, that they are chok­ing out our free­doms. The Occu­py Move­ment believes cor­po­ra­tions have kid­napped those same rights in the pur­suit of prof­it over human­i­ty. I believe both groups are right, and this pipeline and the use of emi­nent domain by a for­eign com­pa­ny to seize and lay claim to Amer­i­can land, aid­ed by the silence of the gov­ern­ment, is an epic exam­ple of those truths.”

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 Pacif­ic Coast to the Gulf Coast, Tar Sands Block­ade acts in sol­i­dar­i­ty with all com­mu­ni­ties and indige­nous peo­ple ris­ing up to defend their homes from tox­ic tar sands pipelines. The refin­ery com­mu­ni­ties of the Gulf Coast have his­tor­i­cal­ly been and con­tin­ue to be treat­ed as col­lat­er­al dam­age by indus­try and now landown­ers from Cana­da to Texas are learn­ing that real­i­ty, too,” stat­ed Ram­sey Sprague, a Tar Sands Block­ade spokesper­son born in Houma, Louisiana to a Chiti­macha fam­i­ly. “From start to fin­ish, tar sands devel­op­ment only fur­ther endan­gers com­mu­ni­ties already at far greater risk for death and dis­ease from tox­ic envi­ron­men­tal expo­sure to human-made chem­i­cal pol­lu­tants than com­mu­ni­ties fur­ther away from the petro­le­um refiner­ies and the uncon­scionable min­ing oper­a­tions that define their ori­gins.”

(Belgium) Brussels – Top executive ExxonMobil Nicholas Mockford shot dead

15/10/2012: BRUSSELS – Sun­day night a top exec­u­tive of the petro-chem­i­cal com­pa­ny Exxon­Mo­bil was shot dead in the street in Ned­er-over-Heem­beek, near Brus­sels. Nicholas Mock­ford was shot in the head twice, when he and his wife were leav­ing an Ital­ian restau­rant around 22h. Wit­ness­es saw two men run­ning away car­ry­ing a motor­cy­cle hel­met.

The man died on the way to the hos­pi­tal. His wife Mary was beat­en and cov­ered in blood. Police and DA’s office are say­ing that at this point they aren’t exclud­ing any pos­si­bil­i­ties, from a hit to a car­jack­ing gone wrong. Although the vio­lence used appears to be dis­pro­por­tion­ate for a car­jack­ing, espe­cial­ly know­ing that the killers left the Lexus ATV behind.
Inves­ti­ga­tors are doing every­thing they can to locate the per­pe­tra­tors. They are going through his work at his firm in the hope of find­ing a clue. Exxon­Mo­bil is the com­pa­ny that owns Esso, Mobil and Exxon gas sta­tions.

Video: Canadian Minister and Shell embarrassed over tar sands at climate conference

Watch the Cana­di­an Envi­ron­ment Min­is­ter and Shel­l’s UK Chair­man hav­ing their Lon­don con­fer­ence speech­es hijacked by our anti-tar sands stage invaders.

Watch the Cana­di­an Envi­ron­ment Min­is­ter and Shel­l’s UK Chair­man hav­ing their Lon­don con­fer­ence speech­es hijacked by our anti-tar sands stage invaders. See con­fer­ence del­e­gates laugh­ing as the min­is­ter is called “an agent from a rogue petro-state”, and Shel­l’s speech referred to as “world-class green­wash”.

(USA) Tar Sands day of action — Over 50 Enter Tree Blockade in Defiance of Police Repression to Defend Tree-Sitters

WINNSBORO, TEXAS – MONDAY, OCTOBER 15, 2012 – Fol­low­ing a week­end of non­vi­o­lent civ­il dis­obe­di­ence train­ing in North Texas by Tar Sands Block­ade, many dozens of pro­test­ers and sup­port­ers are ral­ly­ing today at the site of the largest and longest tree sit in Texas his­to­ry to stage the largest walk-on site protest and civ­il dis­obe­di­ence in the his­to­ry of Key­stone XL pipeline con­struc­tion. Sev­er­al indi­vid­u­als are defend­ing the tree sit­ters and the trees by lock­ing them­selves to con­struc­tion equip­ment being used in prox­im­i­ty to the for­est block­ade. Sol­i­dar­i­ty actions are also tak­ing place in Wash­ing­ton DC, Boston, Austin and New York City.

Alto­geth­er more than 50 block­aders are risk­ing arrest to stop Key­stone XL con­struc­tion and bring atten­tion to TransCanada’s repres­sion of jour­nal­ists attempt­ing to cov­er the block­aders’ side of the sto­ry. They are joined by dozens of sup­port­ers who are ral­ly­ing on pub­lic prop­er­ty with col­or­ful ban­ners and signs along­side the easement’s clos­est high­way cross­ing. A mas­sive media team is in tow to doc­u­ment the day of action and any pos­si­ble police repres­sion.

As the Winns­boro tree block­ade enters its fourth week, the block­aders are resup­ply­ing their friends in the trees with fresh food, water, and cam­eras to fur­ther doc­u­ment their protest despite the threat of a new­ly-expand­ed Strate­gic Law­suit Against Pub­lic Par­tic­i­pa­tion (SLAPP) by Tran­sCana­da and egre­gious crim­i­nal over­charges by local law enforce­ment. Due to the SLAPP suits’ out­ra­geous claims, the tree sit­ters have by-and-large felt too threat­ened to safe­ly reveal their iden­ti­ties, despite their protest being non­vi­o­lent. That the defi­ant walk-on protest is the largest yet attempt­ed in the his­to­ry of protests sur­round­ing Key­stone XL con­struc­tion sends a clear sig­nal that the block­aders will not be deterred by SLAPP suits and oth­er legal threats to lim­it their civ­il lib­er­ties.

“Three weeks is a long time to be sit­ting in a tree. The train­ing I got this week­end has me ready to rise up and join the sit­ters in defend­ing Texas homes from the tox­ic tar sands,” shared Glenn Hob­bit, 28. “They’re say­ing we might get sued or worse, but stop­ping this pipeline is too impor­tant.”

Last week, the multi­na­tion­al cor­po­ra­tion opened a civ­il suit in which it named 19 indi­vid­ual defen­dants, 3 orga­ni­za­tions, and 6 anony­mous tree sit­ters for a total of 28 defen­dants seek­ing an injunc­tion, declara­to­ry relief, and dam­ages. All the named defen­dants are for­mer arrestees of Tar Sands Block­ade actions with the excep­tion of media spokesper­son Ron Seifert, who has yet been arrest­ed in con­nec­tion with a protest, and area landown­er Eleanor Fairchild, who act­ed inde­pen­dent­ly with activist and actor Daryl Han­nah. Han­nah was not named in the suit.

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.

“In real­i­ty, Tar Sands Block­ade is not tres­pass­ing on TransCanada’s prop­er­ty. Many of TransCanada’s ease­ment con­tracts were bro­kered through fraud and intim­i­da­tion, and their entire legal foun­da­tion is being chal­lenged in the courts for those rea­sons,” explained Ron Seifert, Tar Sands Block­ade spokesper­son. “If any­thing Tran­sCana­da is tres­pass­ing on the prop­er­ty of landown­ers who nev­er want­ed any­thing to do with their dan­ger­ous tar sands pipeline.”

UPDATE 8:15AM - Sup­port­ers ral­ly near­by to stop the pipeline.

UPDATE 8:20PM- A beau­ti­ful morn­ing in what remains of our East Texas for­est. Tran­sCana­da has clear-cut out­side of their des­ig­nat­ed path­way and around the west side of the tree block­ade leav­ing a mud­dy path of destruc­tion in their wake.

UPDATE 8:35PM-  Over 50 block­aders march through the woods toward the tree block­ade

UPDATE 9:00AM - One block­ad­er arrest­ed after sit­ting down in the path of Key­stone XL and refus­ing to leave.

UPDATE 9:06AM- Three block­aders have been arrest­ed. We out­num­ber TransCanada’s police 3 to 1. Two block­aders have locked down to exca­va­tor equip­ment pro­tect­ing the tree block­ade.

UPDATE 9:20AM- Livestream­er @uneditedcamera (Loren­zo) has been detained and hand­cuffed, but they’re STILL STREAMING! Police are try­ing to flank groups of pro­tes­tors. Watch the stream live NOW!

UPDATE 9:45AM– Small group of ground block­aders break through police line and enter tree block­ade!

UPDATE 10:00AM- 4 arrests so far. Free­lance journalist/livestreamer Loren­zo Ser­na has been released. The ral­ly at the ease­ment near the high­way is going strong with chant­i­ng, singing and lots of col­or­ful ban­ners. Tran­sCana­da is bark­ing orders at the police. We should have video and pic­tures soon.

UPDATE 11:00AM- Today’s first sol­i­dar­i­ty ral­ly in Wash­ing­ton DC is begin­ning now out­side the Amer­i­can Petro­le­um Insti­tute!

UPDATE 11:10AM- 6 block­aders have been arrest­ed at the Tree Block­ade.

UPDATE 11:35AM- Pic­ture from the DC sol­i­dar­i­ty ral­ly. Over six­ty peo­ple turned out over their lunch hour to stand with the Texas block­ade and stop Key­stone XL.

 

UPDATE 12:50PM-We have now con­firmed that a 70-year-old woman par­tic­i­pat­ing in the block­ade was thrown to the ground and tack­led by TransCanada’s hired thugs. Video will be com­ing soon.

UPDATE 1:55PM – At least eight peo­ple have been arrest­ed after walk­ing onto the Key­stone XL clear cut in defi­ance of recent repres­sion. Two block­aders are still locked to huge exca­va­tor in the path of tox­ic pipeline.

UPDATE 3:20PM- Sol­i­dar­i­ty ral­ly in Den­ton, TX has begun!

UPDATE 3:45PM- In case you missed it, Tar Sands Block­ade was on Democ­ra­cy Now! this morn­ing. Our spokesper­son Ron Seifert was joined by landown­er Susan Scott and actress Daryl Han­nah to dis­cuss the block­ade, TransCanada’s bul­ly­ing and the SLAPP law­suit against 21 peo­ple asso­ci­at­ed with stop­ping tar sands.

UPDATE 3:50 PM — Two block­aders who locked them­selves to Key­stone XL machin­ery have been arrest­ed. A crowd of sup­port­ers stood by and cheered for as they were tak­en into police cus­tody to the cheers. These two most recent arrests make eight total for the day.

UPDATE 4:00PM – Our first arrestee has been released with­out charges. He was arrest­ed ear­ly this morn­ing when he sat down in the Key­stone XL’s path­way and refused to move. His defi­ant action helped delay police offi­cers and allowed oth­er block­aders to breach the police line and enter the tree block­ade. After he was arrest­ed he was made to lie face-down in the mud for sev­er­al hours. He con­tin­ued to refuse com­pli­ance with the police and sit­ing health con­cerns had to even­tu­al­ly be removed on a stretch­er. He was lat­er released from the hos­pi­tal with­out charges.

UPDATE 4:15PM- Sol­i­dar­i­ty pho­to in front of the Tran­sCana­da offices in West­bor­ough, Mass­a­chu­settes.

UPDATE 4:30PM ‑We’re get­ting sued!

As the Winns­boro, Texas tree block­ade enters its fourth week, over 50 block­aders pub­licly demon­strat­ed on the Key­stone XL ease­ment despite the threat of a new­ly-expand­ed Strate­gic Law­suit Against Pub­lic Par­tic­i­pa­tion (SLAPP) by Tran­sCana­da and egre­gious crim­i­nal over­charges by local law enforce­ment.

Due to the SLAPP suits’ out­ra­geous claims, the tree block­aders have by-and-large felt too threat­ened to safe­ly reveal their iden­ti­ties, despite their protest being non­vi­o­lent. Today’s defi­ant walk-on protest is the largest in the his­to­ry of protests sur­round­ing Key­stone XL con­struc­tion sends a clear sig­nal that we will not be deterred by SLAPP suits and oth­er legal threats to lim­it our civ­il lib­er­ties.

Appar­ent­ly we’ve been caus­ing some seri­ous delays of Key­stone XL tar sands pipeline.

UPDATE 6:00PM- Six of the eight arrest­ed today have been released from jail on charges of crim­i­nal tres­pass which is a class B mis­de­meanor. The bail was $1,500 each, a total of $9,000. The two block­aders who locked them­selves to Key­stone XL machin­ery will see a judge in the morn­ing.

UPDATE 8:00PM- Today was our biggest day of action yet! More video and sto­ries will be trick­ling out over the next cou­ple of days as we try and wrap our heads around every­thing that hap­pened today. In the mean­time we have a ton of bril­liant and beau­ti­ful pho­tos that begin to tell the sto­ry. Check them out.

UPDATE 6:00AM – Read the excel­lent cov­er­age about the block­ade in today’s Wash­ing­ton Post.

On Mon­day, after a week­end of non­vi­o­lent civ­il dis­obe­di­ence train­ing, sup­port­ers of the Tar Sands Block­ade ral­lied in Winns­boro, Tex., where pro­test­ers were hold­ing a “sit-in” 70 feet off the ground in a swath of trees. The trees stand in the mid­dle of a cor­ri­dor already cleared for the pipeline. The tree-climb­ing pipeline foes unfurled a ban­ner that reads: “Rise Up and Defend Your Homes.”

“The only option afford­ed to pow­er­less indi­vid­u­als who have been abused by the sys­tem is this tac­tic of non­vi­o­lent civ­il dis­obe­di­ence,” said Seifert, the Tar Sands Block­ade spokesman. “Every­thing has been done to peti­tion for jus­tice at every lev­el. And the insti­tu­tions failed. This is a clear case of injus­tice, and it’s up to peo­ple to rise up and defend them­selves.”  Read the full sto­ry here.

UPDATE Oct 16th, 7:00AM - Watch our intense action video!

For fur­ther updates vis­it http://tarsandsblockade.org

(USA) Updates from Ongoing Tar Sands Blockade

A sec­ond treesit has been set up at the site of the Tar Sands Block­ade in Texas; both sits are ongo­ing. In oth­er news:

A sec­ond treesit has been set up at the site of the Tar Sands Block­ade in Texas; both sits are ongo­ing. In oth­er news:

  • The tar sands block­ade has suc­cess­ful­ly delayed con­struc­tion of the pipeline for two days by lock­ing them­selves to con­struc­tion machin­ery and shut­ting down the con­struc­tion sites. There have been two suc­cess­ful block­ades at con­struc­tion sites in Liv­ingston and Saltil­lo, Texas.
  • Tran­scana­da sur­vey­ors were also pre­vent­ed from prepar­ing for con­struc­tion when landown­ers and com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers turned them away north of Winns­boro at an ongo­ing vig­il to pro­tect a local vine­yard which will be destroyed if con­struc­tion begins.
  • Two jour­nal­ists work­ing for the New York Times were hand­cuffed, detained and then turned away from pri­vate prop­er­ty by local law enforce­ment employed as pri­vate secu­ri­ty guards for Tran­sCana­da.
  • Nev­er­the­less, the New York Times still ran a front-page arti­cle about the Tar Sands Block­ade, includ­ing the first tree block­ade in Texas his­to­ry.
  • On August 19th the Tran­scana­da cor­po­ra­tion offi­cial­ly began con­struc­tion of the Key­stone XL pipeline which will car­ry poi­so­nous tar sands from Alber­ta Cana­da to the Gulf of Mex­i­co despite over­whelm­ing oppo­si­tion from landown­ers and con­cerned res­i­dents, but a broad coali­tion called the Tar Sands Block­ade is orga­niz­ing to stop it.

 

 

Tar Sands Street Theatre Pictures

cam­paign­ers from the UK Tar Sands Net­work staged a dra­mat­ic piece of street the­atre out­side Chatham House. Con­fer­ence atten­dees, includ­ing Peter Kent him­self, were greet­ed by the dis­turb­ing spec­ta­cle of black-clad masked fig­ures rep­re­sent­ing Cana­da and Shell lit­er­al­ly ‘stran­gling’ cli­mate activists. The cam­paign­ers hand­ed out fly­ers and spoke to the con­fer­ence atten­dees, ques­tion­ing whether gen­uine solu­tions to cli­mate change that would end our depen­dence on fos­sil fuels, pro­mote cli­mate jus­tice and penalise high­ly-car­bon-inten­sive com­pa­nies could real­ly be on the table for dis­cus­sion at an event spon­sored by Shell and fea­tur­ing Peter Kent as a keynote speak­er.

Activists disrupt speeches by Canadian Minister and Shell Chairman

Today at a high-lev­el con­fer­ence on cli­mate change at Chatham House, Lon­don, two activists inter­rupt­ed first Peter Kent, Canada’s Envi­ron­ment Min­is­ter, then Shell’s UK Chair­man Gra­ham van’t Hoff, as they got up to make speech­es.

Today at a high-lev­el con­fer­ence on cli­mate change at Chatham House, Lon­don, two activists inter­rupt­ed first Peter Kent, Canada’s Envi­ron­ment Min­is­ter, then Shell’s UK Chair­man Gra­ham van’t Hoff, as they got up to make speech­es.

The first activist, Dan­ny Chivers, accused Peter Kent of being a ‘dan­ger­ous rad­i­cal’ and asked for him to be removed from the stage. The audi­ence respond­ed to the tongue-in-cheek speech – in which Kent was also referred to as an ‘agent from a rogue petro-state’ – with a mix­ture of laugh­ter and heck­ling, and the pro­test­er was able to speak for sev­er­al min­utes before being removed by secu­ri­ty.

Dur­ing the inter­ven­tion, Mr Chivers explained that Kent had clear­ly got into this cli­mate change con­fer­ence under false pre­tences. Far from being a leader on the issue, Kent is ded­i­cat­ed to pro­mot­ing the high­ly destruc­tive tar sands – despite the industry’s neg­a­tive impact on local indige­nous com­mu­ni­ties, and its poten­tial to emit enough green­house gas to tip the world over the edge into run­away cli­mate change. Kent also pulled Cana­da out of the Kyoto Pro­to­col and his coun­try con­tin­ues to lob­by fierce­ly against the inclu­sion of tar sands in the EU Fuel Qual­i­ty Direc­tive, which aims to reduce emis­sions from trans­port and has stalled as a result of Canada’s inter­fer­ence.

The sec­ond activist, Sophie Pre­ston, then rose as Gra­ham van’t Hoff was about to speak. She accused Shell – the spon­sor of the event – of being a ‘world-class green­wash­er’ whilst ener­get­i­cal­ly lob­by­ing against gen­uine nation­al and inter­na­tion­al cli­mate action. Shell is one of the largest oper­a­tors in the tar sands and plans to dou­ble its pro­duc­tion despite a legal chal­lenge from the Athabas­ca Chipewyan First Nation who claim their treaty rights have been vio­lat­ed. She too was removed by secu­ri­ty.

Ear­li­er that morn­ing, cam­paign­ers from the UK Tar Sands Net­work staged a dra­mat­ic piece of street the­atre out­side Chatham House. Con­fer­ence atten­dees, includ­ing Peter Kent him­self, were greet­ed by the dis­turb­ing spec­ta­cle of black-clad masked fig­ures rep­re­sent­ing Cana­da and Shell lit­er­al­ly ‘stran­gling’ cli­mate activists. The cam­paign­ers hand­ed out fly­ers and spoke to the con­fer­ence atten­dees, ques­tion­ing whether gen­uine solu­tions to cli­mate change that would end our depen­dence on fos­sil fuels, pro­mote cli­mate jus­tice and penalise high­ly-car­bon-inten­sive com­pa­nies could real­ly be on the table for dis­cus­sion at an event spon­sored by Shell and fea­tur­ing Peter Kent as a keynote speak­er.

The protest fol­lows a series of dam­ag­ing rev­e­la­tions about how close­ly the Cana­di­an gov­ern­ment, oil com­pa­nies such as Shell and BP, and some British politi­cians are work­ing togeth­er to fur­ther the high­ly-pol­lut­ing tar sands industry’s aims. Ear­li­er this year the Fuel Qual­i­ty Direc­tive – a key piece of EU cli­mate leg­is­la­tion that would dis­cour­age tar sands imports to Europe – stalled after inten­sive lob­by­ing by Cana­da and the oil indus­try result­ed in key mem­ber states, includ­ing the UK, not sup­port­ing it. Two weeks ago, Vince Cable, for­mer­ly Shell’s chief econ­o­mist, was revealed to be ‘Con­tact Min­is­ter for Shell’ with­in the UK Coali­tion Gov­ern­ment, fol­low­ing a Free­dom of Infor­ma­tion Request.

Dan­ny Chivers, said ‘Invit­ing Peter Kent and Shell to speak at a cli­mate change event is like ask­ing the Cook­ie Mon­ster and Homer Simp­son to address a con­fer­ence on healthy eat­ing. We know that in order to have a chance of pre­vent­ing run­away cli­mate change, we need to leave the tar sands in the ground, yet Cana­da and Shell are intent on heav­i­ly pro­mot­ing this insane­ly destruc­tive indus­try. They are part of the prob­lem and cer­tain­ly should not be held up as experts in a dis­cus­sion about effec­tive cli­mate solu­tions.’

Sophie Pre­ston, who is a Cli­mate Change and Pol­i­cy stu­dent, said: ‘I have been to Cana­da and seen first-hand the dev­as­tat­ing effects of tar sands oil extrac­tion on the local envi­ron­ment and Indige­nous com­mu­ni­ties whose rights are being vio­lat­ed. So I am very dis­tressed to find that lob­by­ing by Cana­da and Shell is now also scup­per­ing attempts to make effec­tive cli­mate pol­i­cy in the EU and inter­na­tion­al­ly. Until it has halt­ed all plans to expand the tar sands, Cana­da should be treat­ed as a cli­mate pari­ah, not invit­ed to the table to skew the debate.’