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By Dan Zukowski for Eco Watch – “This morning, by 7:30 PST, 5 activists have successfully shut down 5 pipelines across the United States delivering tar sands oil from Alberta, Canada in support of the call for International Days of Prayer and Action for Standing Rock. Activists employed manual safety valves, calling on President Obama to use emergency powers to keep the pipelines closed and mobilize for the extraordinary shift away from fossil fuels now required to avert catastrophe.” 
By Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers for Popular Resistance. Protests at homes of public officials and corporate CEOs is a common tactic used widely because it can be very effective. The response of Barrasso shows it is working and should continue. As Saul Alinsky, author or Rules for Radicals, pointed out “any effective means is automatically judged by the opposition as being unethical.” Such protests have to be nonviolent and conducted in a way that does not inconvenience neighbors but educates them about why the protest is occurring. These tactics seek to personalize the issue, to make it less abstract than a federal agency. The campaign should keep their focus on the people responsible, not let up, continue to escalate and make the person isolated and unpopular. The goal is to maintain constant, escalating pressure so the official pays a heavy personal price for their actions. 
By Staff of The Council of Canadians – Early yesterday morning, someone shut down Enbridge’s Line 7 oil pipeline near Cambridge Ontario by activating a shutoff valve. This is the third time in less than a month that an Enbridge pipeline was turned off- but the first time that it was done anonymously. On December 7th, activists in Quebec closed a valve on Line 9 and locked themselves to the equipment putting the controversial pipeline out of service for most of the day and resulting in three arrests. 
By Jim Robbins for Yale Environment 360 – Sitting in his office on the outskirts of Montreal, Serge Otis Simon, council chief of the Kanesatake — a band of Mohawks — is clear about what might happen if the proposed Energy East Pipeline is routed through the band’s land, in spite of their opposition. “The Warrior Society are men whose duty is given by creation to protect the land, people, and community,” he told me, describing a group of Mohawks who go by that name. “I can’t think of a more honorable way to be killed than standing in the way of that pipeline.” The rhetoric may be extreme, but it reflects the passions surrounding the debate over oil and gas pipelines in Canada. And it may well not be… 
By Steven Verburg for Wisconsin State Journal – Crews hired by Enbridge Inc. are surveying a 300-mile corridor running the length of Wisconsin for a possible new tar sands pipeline that would be the twin to an underground line whose capacity has quietly eclipsed the projected flow of the Keystone XL project. Activists and landowners say they are worried that digging for a new pipeline would disrupt lives, lead to a repeat of environmental violations committed when the last line was laid, and increase the chances of a devastating spill of heavy crude. A spokeswoman for the Canadian pipeline giant last week said the company has improved its safety practices and said there was no timetable for building a line. 
By Staff of CTV News – CALGARY — Royal Dutch Shell is scrapping its Carmon Creek oils ands project in northwestern Alberta, citing a lack of pipelines to coastal waters as one reason for the decision. The move comes after a review of the project’s design and costs and where it stacks up against other projects Shell has in its portfolio. The European energy giant first announced it would build the 80,000-barrel-a-day, steam-driven operation near Peace River, Alta., in October 2013. But last March, the company said it would slow down the project while attempting to lower costs and improve its design. 
By Sarah Lazare in Common Dreams – Chanting “No tar sands on stolen native lands,” First Nations women disrupted and shut down a Montreal public hearing on the controversialEnergy East pipeline on Wednesday night, the latest in a resistance campaign against the massive project proposed by the Alberta-based TransCanada Corporation. “What we want TransCanada to understand is that no means no. This is Kanien’ke, this is Mohawk Land, and we are tired of occupation, we are tired of environmental disaster,” declared Amanda Lickers, who hails from the Seneca-Haudenosaunee community, at Wednesday’s hearing. “This is our land and we are going to protect it.” Four Indigenous women took the stage and hoisted a banner reading, “No consent, no pipelines” as dozens of protesters cheered them on. The action successfully shut down the hearing, and while police were called, no arrests were made. 
By Melina Laboucan-Massimo in Green Peace – After dealing with three decades of intensive oil, gas, logging, fracking and tar sands exploitation in our homeland, my community of Little Buffalo decided to forge a new future and become powered by the sun. First Nation communities have been on the front lines of resource extraction for far too long and we have paid the price for humanity’s addiction to oil, but we have hope for a way out of the crisis we are currently facing in Alberta and around the world. In a community of 500 in northern Alberta, this 20.8 kW solar installation will power the First Nation’s health center, and put additional energy back to the grid. Our community used to be self-sufficient and was able to live off the land. Now the community deals with contaminated water, polluted air and a compromised landscape. In 2011, the community had to deal with one of the largest oil spills in Alberta’s history. 
By Filiberto Nolasco Gomez in Elhuateque.com. Washington, DC – Responding to what they believe to be an illegal backroom deal between John Kerry’s State Department and pipeline company Enbridge activist’s have staged at protest at the home of Secretary of State John Kerry. Protesters argue that the pipeline deal would allow the Alberta Clipper tar sands pipeline expansion to proceed without any federal environmental review. Protesters appear to have there arms linked in plastic tubes in order to stage a sit in and risk arrest. 
By Steve Horn for Desmog Blog – On August 4, the U.S. Appeals Court for the 10th Circuit shot down the Sierra Club’s petition for rehearing motion for the southern leg of TransCanada’sKeystone XL tar sands export pipeline. The decision effectively writes the final chapter of a years-long legal battle in federal courts. But one of the three judges who made the ruling, Bobby Ray Baldock — a Ronald Reagan nominee — has tens of thousands of dollars invested in royalties for oil companies with a major stake in tar sands production in Alberta. And his fellow Reagan nominee in the Western District of Oklahoma predecessor case,David Russell, also has skin in the oil investments game. The disclosures raise questions concerning legal objectivity, or potential lack thereof, for the Judges. 
By Gary Mesker of Peaceful Uprising/Utah Tar Sands Resistance. Utah Tar Sands on the Edge of Destruction by Rogue Corporation. Sobering news; please share widely: United States Oil Sands (USOS) has begun illegally stripping the trees, the soil, the very lives present at Children’s Legacy Camp in Grand County Utah. In a stunning show of contempt for lawful public process today four USOS earth movers are dozing a one mile loop from the Legacy Camp to below the USOS tar/chemical processing plant on Seep Ridge Road to dump the soil and return again and again and again from 6:15 AM ’til 5 PM. 
By Jennifer Dobner in The Salt Lake Tribune – Four activists reportedly were arrested in Utah’s Book Cliffs on Monday during a protest against the planned expansion of a tar sands mine, which the group argues could do significant damage to regional water resources in the Colorado River watershed area. Peaceful Uprising announced the arrests on its website and through Twitter on Monday and said police officers from two state agencies and sheriff’s offices in Grand and Uintah counties were involved in the arrests. It wasn’t immediately clear if the individuals were taken into custody or cited and released by police. On Monday, protesters suspended themselves from metal tripods to block site-clearing work underway at PR Spring, where the East Tavaputs Plateau straddles the Grand and Uintah county lines. Officers reportedly used a cherry picker to remove them. 
By Jesse Fruhwith of Peaceful Uprising. PR SPRINGS, UT –Several dozen climate justice land defenders will enforce a shut down at the US Oil Sands tar sands mine today in the Book Cliffs of Utah. The action comes just days after a century-old mine poured millions of gallons of toxic sludge into waterways that sustain 40 million Americans. Calgary-based US Oil Sands is amidst an $80-million construction phase to assemble processing equipment, clear cut more land for more strip mine pits and ultimately to turn tar sands rocks into liquid fuels. The company operates on land traditionally inhabited by Ute people and is now managed and leased to private corporations by the state of Utah. 
By Gus Burns in M Live – A group of more than a dozen activists wanted to make point about water access Monday. Wearing ventilation masks and carrying signs that read, “Thousands of kids w/o water” and “Water is life,” they walked up the circle drive to Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan’s’ home, the Manoogian Mansion, hooked hoses to the tap and filled up water jugs. Daymon Hartley, who photographed the protest for the People’s Tribune, said the activists spent about 10 minutes filling jugs and took group photographs on the front lawn of the 4,000-square-foot riverfront home without being approached by Duggan’s security detail or Detroit police; although Hartley said he saw an unoccupied, unmarked police car in the driveway. The Detroit Coalition Against Tar Sands, who are environmental protection advocates, helped organize the protest in response to the growing number of Detroit and other area residents who are forced to live without water because of shutoffs. 
By Erika Lundahl for Occupy.com – Six months ago, my friend Phil Jones announced that he was making a bicycle pilgrimage to the tar sands in Alberta, Canada, and asked if anyone wanted to join him. As he spoke, I nodded and listened, thinking Wait. Where is that? At the time I was working as a barista in Downtown Seattle, pouring espresso shots, pinging between freelance writing jobs and playing music in my band. It took me a while to make the connection in my mind that this place, one of the biggest and most devastating oil extraction projects in the world, was close enough to my home in Seattle that I, too, could ride my bicycle there – all 1,100 miles along the route of the Trans Mountain pipeline through Canada. The scope of this journey hooked my imagination, and as I read up on the tar sands, spoke to others with firsthand knowledge of the issue, and trained physically for the ride, I began to feel its true gravity and urgency. I, along with others, am now asking you to support us as we embark on this two-wheeled journey for the climate. |
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