Summer of Solidarity

An update from the tree tops (Day 7 of the Tar Sands Blockade.)

Sun, 30 Sep 2012 21:26:05 -0400

cross-posted from the TarSandsBlockade.org website.

I call myself Viridi, and I am writing this while 80-feet from the ground.

Despite the few telecommunications that we can transmit and receive on solar energy, our tree blockade feels like a separate, distant place. I am writing this because I want you to hear our voices, and to feel inspired by our unfolding stories in this struggle against tar sands exploitation. Ultimately, I would love to see you join ussomewhere on one of our many battlegrounds against the corporate giant, TransCanada.

This past Wednesday, September 26, many of us had a gut-wrenchingly visceral day. Around noon, another TransCanada helicopter buzzed over our platforms. As I heard its distant, incoming hum I shouted to the other trees and covered myself. My heart fluttered as I hid. The tallest leaves of the white oak I inhabit quivered and shook as it circled directly overhead. The air was tense until the sound of the machine faded. TransCanada has been eyeing us this way for weeks, but this was my first time being so close.

Within an hour we could hear the sounds of heavy machinery on the ground. They were slicing and crushing trees and undergrowth past a temporary timber bridge they had built 1,000-feet away. The machines continued to move closer, until they came into sight. The loud squeal of the bullhorn at our timber scaffolding wall 100-feet north of me cued us all to put on bandanas to protect our identity from lawsuits, as surveyors on foot approached. I peered behind the tarp that draped my platform to listen. The workers were pacing around, joking and harassing our comrades at the timber scaffold. They are our first line of defense.

The engines had stopped, and in that break of silence, a powerful voice came from 50-feet up, “This is a peaceful protest! If any of these structures are tampered with, people will be seriously injured or killed, and the world will know!” No response. “Turn your bulldozers and earthmovers around and leave this place!” Immediately, an engine fired again. The surveyors turned around to leave our frontline as the enormous feller buncher, a tree-killing machine, made its way closer.

Seconds slowly passed as decades of living growth was destroyed within only seconds. My heart began to race as falling trees and brush came within my sight, a haze of vaporized life stood still in the air ahead. I switched from my main climb line and climbed 20-feet higher for a better view. I watched the yellow-painted metal of the buncher as it tore through my reality and home. It reached a colossal white oak—easily 70-years-old and perhaps a sibling of the one I clutched—and swiftly sheared it at its waist. The oak’s great being fell, crushing the living floor below. An instinctual rush filled my gut and I screamed as loud as I ever have before. I immediately slumped in tears, dangling above my platform in despair of what this toxic pipeline would continue to do to our dying planet.

Meanwhile, the machine was approaching fast, carving a straight path toward our defense. It was only feet away now, ripping the earth and trees directly in front of the timber scaffolding without regard for our safety.

Oh my God.

My comrades stood firmly resilient on the scaffolding, despite the serious danger. I thought of the day before, when the same machine operator nearly crushed our friend with a fallen tree. I was scared for their lives. I wished for this insanity and devastation to stop. But the machine continued, against all logic and safety. It passed along the width of our timber scaffolding, not a tree’s height away, and dropped the dead to the north.

Our blockade defenders stood strong and recorded the wreckage as the machine cleared the rest of the pipeline easement to the North. It took only two hours for the entire swath of land before us to lay dead in TransCanada’s wake. Finally, the machine disappeared out of sight, the engine killed, and only the buzzing of chainsaws remained for the last few minutes of the workday.

I took me a while to gather myself, to come down from the tree and witness what had happened that day. A few others and I climbed over the corpses of our fallen friends. I picked some thrashed, edible life that lay limp in a discarded pile. There were now wandering creatures, anoles, aves, insects, and others, who, displaced by the devastation, were seeking new homes. I was emotionally drained, alienated from myself and snarled paths that I had walked before. The only hope I could grasp at that moment was that our defense would hold longer here, long enough to inspire others to link arms and fight against this disingenuous and malevolent corporate industry.

I am here writing from this place because I can’t go on seeing these homes and places destroyed for profit, but also because I can’t live and sleep knowing that it’s happening without resistance. I am writing because I think you care about these stories, and because I want you to. I not only want you to listen, but to send us your love, good intentions, and everything within your power and privilege. I want you to feel the swelling joy and deep despair of defending living lands and homes from annihilation and private profiteering. This means I also want tomeet you here for our upcoming Direct Action Training Camp October 12th-14th. I want you to join our collective struggle against tar sands exploitation. Our movement needs you in order for these spaces of resistance to grow as we fight for a more habitable world and more just communities.

Courage, as our struggle continues,

Viridi.

#ClimateSOS Video Chat Later Today

Wed, 19 Sep 2012 12:47:04 -0400

Check it out: http://bit.ly/ClimateSOS-Video-Chat

Support for Brave Appalachians & #ClimateSOS from Around the Planet

Fri, 17 Aug 2012 00:13:00 -0400

A unprecedented summer of action against the fossil fuel industry kicked off in Appalachia last month, and since then, solidarity photos have been coming in from around the world….

From Egypt… (Thanks 350 Egypt!)

From New Zealand… (Thanks 350 Aotearoa!)

From India… (Thanks Bharat Jan Vigyan Jatha!)

From Alaska… (Thanks Beehive Collective!)

From Texas… (Thanks Tar Sands Blockade!)

From North Carolina… (from @falseprofitsus and friends!)

From Vermont… (Photo by Dylan Kelley)

From Burundi… (Thanks 350 Burundi!)

CEO of Enbridge Remarks on Recent Upswell

Tue, 14 Aug 2012 14:43:00 -0400

Full quote:

“I think we’re facing a very strong, almost revolutionary movement to try to get off oil worldwide, and it creates a lot of passion and drive in those revolutionaries that are trying to change the environment in which we work.”

(via The Edmonton Journal.)

Photo descriptions (Clockwise from top left — all from this Spring/Summer): UK Greenpeace Shuts down 74 Shell Stations, Vermont’s Human Oil Spill for a Tar Sands Free New England, a WV coal haul road blockade on Kayford Mountain, Ohio’s massive “Don’t Frack Ohio” event, Montana’s week of sustained civil disobedience to challenge coal mining exports, NWF’s Michigan capitol human oil spill, NY’s first direct action against fracking industry, 3rd annual Tar Sands healing walk in Alberta, RAMPS’ shut down of Appalachia’s largest mountaintop removal site in WV, DC’s Stop the Frack Attack Rally, PA Save Riverdale Mobile Home Park blockade, Texas Tar Sands Blockade training.

Flying Veggies From Richmond

Tue, 14 Aug 2012 13:15:00 -0400

When Chevron managers held a town hall in Richmond last week after the refinery explosion that leaked toxic gas, people came out to throw their poisoned vegetables at the stage in disgust. (via Justin Wedes)

#ClimateSOS is Far From Over

Wed, 08 Aug 2012 19:37:00 -0400

Just some of what we hear is planned over the next couple days…

For folks in the New York area—check out the facebook event with more details.

Montana’s starting one week of sit-ins to challenge mega coal mining on Monday.

Vermont’s training for direct action this weekend too.

This Summer of Solidarity is far from over.

For Montana

Wed, 01 Aug 2012 09:26:00 -0400

Up Next: Week of Sit-ins at Montana Capitol to End Coal Export Mining

Tue, 31 Jul 2012 07:33:00 -0400

(via Coal Export Action’s Facebook Page)

All of this happened today (July 28th 2012)

Sat, 28 Jul 2012 23:48:00 -0400

All of this happened today:

A wave of folks shut down the largest mountaintop removal site in Appalachia,
Texans trained for the longest stained blockade of the southern leg of the Keystone XL,
and 1,000s marched through DC to embolden the movement to ban fracking!

Welcome to a newly escalated movement to keep all fossil fuels in the ground—kicking off into an amazing summer of solidarity!

Everybody's Mountains

Wed, 25 Jul 2012 13:26:31 -0400

Nothing in my education had prepared me to get arrested at Marsh Fork that summer.

It was hot, worse because we were instructed to wear thick jeans in case we were dragged along the ground. It was humid as it always is in eastern summers, when air is sweet and sweaty. I was terrified.

The miners were waiting for us when we arrived at the rally at the Marsh Fork schoolyard—a school sitting underneath a dangerous coal sludge dam and just a few hundred feet from a processing plant. Kids were choking on coal dust, and the school had become a battleground between industry and anyone who challenged its absolute power.

As more and more people poured in holding signs that said “Stop Mountaintop Removal,” just as many arrived wearing miner’s reflective stripes and signs saying “Outsiders Go Home.” The crowd swelled and the rally began, but the angry miners used noisemakers to drown out the speakers’ voices—someone even pulled the plug on the PA system.

In West Virginia, men are miners and women are the daughters, wives, and mothers of miners. When they say it’s coal country, they mean it. As they saw it, we wanted to take away their jobs. For us to have entered their territory and tell them to stop doing the thing that they not only depended on for a livelihood, but upon which they based their identity, was the worst kind of insult.

They were defending their families. And the truth is that while there were plenty of locals in the crowd, there were an awful lot of us who weren’t from there. I felt the anger turned in my direction, and acknowledged that, yes, this wasn’t my community. I didn’t belong there. I had the luxury of being able to leave.

The outside agitator argument is false; in this fight, there are no outsiders. As Judy Bonds, a coalfield native, said: “This is everyone’s problem.” And in the end, didn’t we want the same things? Didn’t we all want good jobs and clean water and clean air for kids to breathe while they’re at school?

But no one was in the mood for feel-good abstractions that day, myself included. The truth was that I came because I had been asked: by people like Judy who would later die of cancer probably linked to coal; and Larry Gibson, whose house still stands alone, surrounded by blown-up mountains; and Ed Wiley, whose granddaughter attended the school whose radiators rattled with coal dust. I was there because they needed us outsiders to support them in that fight, people who had the resources and bring the world’s attention to a part of our country that’s conveniently overlooked. How can you refuse a request like that?

After the rally we began the long walk to the coal plant entrance, the road lined on both sides with angry miners. Their screams are what I remember—not us singing Amazing Grace, whose words I could scarcely choke out. My stomach was tight with fear. I’d never done civil disobedience before. I took hold of my friend’s hand, someone six years younger than me and whom I scarcely knew, and held on. He held it back; perhaps he was afraid, too. The screaming miners pressed in on us, restrained by state troopers.

I don’t remember sitting down in the actual act of civil disobedience, or getting put in the back of the car; I vaguely remember chatting with Daryl Hannah, who was next to me in the police station. But something changed in me that day as I walked into the mob: Having always been schooled to be good and to obey, I crossed over into a place where I could finally say no, I do not always have to obey. And I learned that fear is overcome not through strength, but through love.

I wish I could be there for Mountain Mobilization on the 28^th. Up here in Canada, when I first saw the tar sands, it was ugly, but not a surprise—I’d seen a similar landscape three years ago, standing on Larry Gibson’s property and looking down into a gutted mountain. Because it’s all the same fight, you know—and there really is no such thing as an outsider.

(photo courtesy of Appalachian Voices)

Bill McKibben on the Summer of Solidarity

Sat, 21 Jul 2012 17:35:00 -0400

Read more of Bill McKibben’s reflections on what’s turning out to be quite a tough but hopeful summer in the HuffingtonPost…

and check out a few twitter responses below…

Poster: Climate Summer of Solidarity

Sun, 15 Jul 2012 10:45:22 -0400

(via @TarSandsBlockade)

Coming Soon: Mass walk onto a mountaintop removal site in West Virginia

Mon, 09 Jul 2012 23:19:07 -0400

Why One of Many is Traveling to Texas This Summer - #ClimateSOS

Mon, 09 Jul 2012 21:58:00 -0400

Check out this personal reflection piece from Ethan Nuss, a youth climate organizer, about what’s compelling him to travel to the Texas Blockade Action this summer. Cross posted from WearePowerShift.org.

Putting our Bodies on the Pipeline

Sitting cross-legged on scalding concrete in front of the White House, under the blaze of an August sun, I silently awaited my turn to be handcuffed for civil disobedience along with the other 1,252 brave people who participated in the Tar Sands Action.

I was reminded of that day four months later while sweating profusely under an equally oppressive Cambodian sun and squinting to see the fields of cracked, dry rice paddies. The farmer standing at my side managed a weak smile as we peered hopefully into the empty sky awaiting the rainy season that would water his crops and nourish his family. Over 80% of Cambodians survive on subsistence farming, and for them climate change is not a political abstraction but it’s a matter of life and death. No rain, no crops, no food for his children.

Intense experiences like these in the fiery heat have cemented my certainty that we have a moral mission to curb climate change. I’m not interested in feel-good green schemes; I’m even more determined to do what it takes to halt the destruction of our planet and fellow human beings. This is why I’m willing put my body on the line in the Tar Sands Blockade.

In January when I left to travel Southeast Asia, I left a climate movement emboldened by its renewed sense of our own power when we non-violently forced President Obama’s delay of the dreaded Keystone XL pipeline permit. We flooded hearings across the Midwest, held huge actions in key states, had a sleep out to testify at the State Department, and even encircled the White House. Over 1,200 people were arrested at Obama’s doorstep and thousands more vowed that we would never allow this destructive pipeline to tap the most dangerous carbon bomb on the planet.

You can imagine my dismay in a cramped Vietnamese internet cafe when through a spotty connection I read about President Obama’s betrayal in Cushing, OK when he announced he was fast-tracking of the Keystone XL’s southern leg. Amid the sickening thick cigarette smoke and my feelings of helplessness one thought gave me hope: “Don’t worry: our movement physically won’t allow it to be built.”

A few days after I returned to the states a small article appeared on the New York Times environment blog quietly announcing that Keystone XL had been granted the necessary permits to begin construction in Texas. TransCanada has deployed its bulldozers and confidently stated that it will begin digging on August 1st. Not long ago our movement’s mass opposition was making front page news in this same paper. Now that it’s election season are we going to quietly acquiesce to to this Big Oil pipe dream and allow super-PAC industry attack ads to define our energy future?

Fortunately, a rag-tag bunch of young people in Texas are taking a stand. They’re working closely with Texas landowners to defend their homes from this foreign invasion of filthy tar sands oil from cutting across America’s heartland. Inspired by their determination I signed up on their website, received a phone call, and within a week I’d made plans to join them down in Texas.

Traveling abroad gave me a new perspective on the United States. I saw first-hand how our greedy overconsumption is a death sentence for the world’s poor, but also have a renewed appreciation for our privilege and relative freedoms. A democracy is only as viable as the extent to which its populace exercises their freedoms. We have a moral obligation to use our freedom of speech and assembly to push the envelope as far as we can.

Fortunately, I’m not alone. This summer, amid alarming record heat waves, wildfires, super-powered storms, people across the country are taking a stand. These actions are forming a “Summer of Solidarity” with direct actions to stop coal-train exports in the West, shut down fracking in Ohio, and the Mountain Mobilization to stop mountaintop removal mining in West Virginia. Join one of these actions in your region and sign up for Tar Sands Blockade. It’s time to make some noise!

Activists Shut Down Pennsylvania Forest Fracking Well - Connect Dots to "beginnings of a national rebellion against extractive industry"

Mon, 09 Jul 2012 20:15:00 -0400

About 40 protestors this Sunday set up a blockade in the Pennsylvania Moshannon State Forest, effectively shutting down a fracking well that was just getting started. What’s remarkable isn’t just these activists’ pluck and gumption, but the way they articulated how this action was part of a new wave of resistance. This is the best articulation we’ve seen thus far:

“The upcoming months show the beginnings of a national rebellion against extractive industry across the board.

On July 28, anti-frackers from across the nation will gather in Washington D.C. for ‘Stop the Frack Attack,’ the largest mobilization against fracking ever.

In West Virginia, Appalachians and allies will stand together at the ‘Mountain Mobilization’ and shut down an active strip mine the last week of July.

In Montana, the ‘Coal Export Action’, a ten-day campaign of civil disobedience at the beginning of August will target coal shipments from strip mines in the Powder River Basin, overseas.

And later in the month, Texas residents have called for the ‘Tar Sands Blockade’ to block the recently approved southern leg of the Keystone XL pipeline.”

Read more about the action on NPR & the Marcellus EarthFirst! website.

Blackfeet Women Against Fracking plan 100-mile 'water walk.'

Tue, 03 Jul 2012 09:40:00 -0400

HT @BillMcKibben Find out more on Facebook.

“A proposed well site to explore for oil and gas has prompted a group of Blackfeet women to organize a 100-mile ‘water walk’ along the Rocky Mountain Front to raise awareness of hydraulic fracturing, or ‘fracking,’ and the potential environmental hazards it poses.” -The Missoulian

Athens, Ohio - Woman Chains Herself To Barrels At Fracking Well Site

Tue, 26 Jun 2012 13:24:00 -0400

This morning in Athens citizens came together to blockade fracking wastewater headed for injection wells. The action was led by one woman chained to two concrete barrels and supported by Athens landowners and citizens. (via Stop Fracking Ohio, Rising Tide NA, Don’t Frack Ohio)

Read more in EcoWatch.

Cascadians Climb Flagpoles, Lock Down in Oregon State Capitol, to Protect Ancient Forests

Mon, 25 Jun 2012 21:00:00 -0400

Earlier today, Cascadian activists took to Oregon’s state capitol in Salem to protest the plans for nearly doubling the annual clearcut in the Elliott State Forest. Read more on the Earthfirst! Newswire. Six were arrested, with a mass of folks singing in solidarity.

(AP)

Can someone start a meme for ‘Clueless Secretary’?

Looking closer…Protesters donned masks of the animals they wanted to protect. (via OPB News)

more photos here

Photo Essay: Late Spring Resistance for a Livable Planet

Tue, 19 Jun 2012 22:51:00 -0400

May 24th - Southern West Virgina: Pro-mountain activists blockade mountaintop removal haul road & board a coal barge on nearby river

Above photos by Diann Kelli.

photo by Brandon Hill

May 28th - Charleston, West Virginia: 20 women from across Appalachia shave their heads in silent solidarity with their mountains, which are being scalped for coal.

Top three photos by Richard Hypes.

May 31st - Pennsylvania: Blockade BEGINS at Riverdale Mobile Home Park, to defend residents’ homes from fracking company’s plans to evict them, in order to drain nearby Susquehanna River. Successful for 12 days!

above photos by Save the Riverdale Mobile Home Park

June 6th - Washington, DC: 22 Appalachians & their allies visit four Congressional offices, and demand their legislators stand for their survival. All are arrested.

While waiting for their rep, VA constituents do a little office re-decorating.

Meanwhile, over 100 people hold a rally outside the Capitol, and another wave of women shave their heads in mourning and protest of the impacts of mountaintop removal.

above photos by AppRising & Brandon Hill

June 17th, Columbus, OH: 1000 people shook Columbus in Ohio’s largest action against fracking ever.

Look familiar?

After taking the streets, activists took back the capitol, filling the rotunda to the brim, and declared a peoples’ resolution to ban fracking.…

above photos by Joshua Kahn Russell, Josh Lopez, John Duffy, Bill Boggs, J. Reed Steberger, & DontFrackOH

June 18th, Twitter Storm: People around the planet tweeted a message to #endfossilfuelsubsidies over 100,000 times in 24 hours, to push things forward at the UN Summit in Rio. A bunch of tweets were projected too!

Photo by @emma_biermann

Photo by @illuminator99

Up next — a wild & wonderful summer (check out this calendar sketch), including a mass direct action on a West Virginia mountaintop removal site in late July…