“…That’s how the light gets in.” (from Anthem, by Leonard Cohen).
In the closed, murky realm of democracy-for-sale and rent-a-politician, a huge, astonishing crack has just opened up in British Columbia.
Big congratulations and thanks to all who worked so hard to open it.
Let the light flood in!
Against impossible odds: Ecuadoreans’ Legal Fight Against Chevron Continues in Canada.
Texaco/Chevron vs Ecuador. Photo: La Hora.
On South America’s teleSur, journalist Joe Emersberger interviews lawyer Stephen Donziger on a crucial case with huge implications for us all.
Donziger: “The fact top law firms around the world are helping the Ecuadorean villagers is terrifying to Chevron and the fossil fuel industry and completely changes the risk calculus of oil drilling in delicate ecosystems. These firms normally represent the oil industry; now they are representing groups fighting that industry. That’s never happened before.”
True, this couldn’t happen without the lawyers. But before, during and after the courts have their say, again and again it’s people who live on the land and water under siege that have to hold the front line. Against Dakota Access, Enbridge, Line 9, Kinder Morgan, Energy East and all the other petro-invaders.
If our planet is to remain livable, these are the first people we should thank, and support.
In Saskatchewan’s second major oil spill, crews are still trying to identify where the rupture occurred in a tangle of pipelines from the Alberta tar sands that cross this land. Oil Pipeline Spills 53,000 Gallons on First Nations Land.
Tar sands, Alberta, Canada
Meanwhile, in Washington DC President Trump has just re-opened the door to the infamous Keystone XL pipeline, which his predecessor had temporarily blocked. The new president also promised to accelerate construction of bitterly fought Dakota Access Pipeline.
In Ottawa, the Liberal government recently rubber-stamped two dangerously invasive pipelines in Canada: Kinder Morgan’s line to the Pacific coast and Enbridge’s expansion of Line 3 to the U.S. midwest.
Prime Minister Trudeau also welcomed the Keystone decision. “I’ve been on the record for many years supporting it,” he said in Calgary. “We know we can get our resources to market more safely and responsibly while meeting our climate-change goals.”
Soon the world’s dirtiest oil will flow more abundantly than ever from the Alberta tar sands.
We are told by the oil cabal, its collaborators in government and big media that Canadians need it. But notice where it’s going: to the Pacific Ocean and to the USA, in both cases for sale far, far away. It will leave behind: mountains of broken promises to First Nations and the rest of us, a moonscape in northern Alberta, toxic spills and explosions along the routes, and countless tons of life-destroying greenhouse gas. Hidden somewhere in there, we are told, is a fair bargain.
In Alberta, Premier Rachel Notley welcomed all three pipelines. At the same time, her NDP government reneged on a promise to charge oil companies higher provincial royalties for the oil they plunder. “It is not the time to reach out and make a big money grab,” she told reporters, “because that is just not going to help Albertans.”
Ah. But then soon after and with no apparent shame Notley said, “We’re at the point now where the Alberta economy needs to be enjoying the benefits of a higher return for our oil and gas… That is definitely something that will happen as a result of the Keystone.”
With Liberals and social democrats like these running things, who needs a Trump?
Across Canada, the US and planet earth, our only home, the battle goes on.
Resisting the machine
DNB, the largest bank in Norway, has just sold its assets in the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL). Reports are unclear on the extent and nature of these assets (or maybe I just don’t know how to translate financialese). However, by all accounts the assets dumped by the bank are substantial.
Further, DNB is now considering the withdrawal of its loans to the project as well, which would leave a major gap in the project’s financing.
A first crack in the banking wall, DNB’s move is a direct result of steadfast resistance to the invading pipeline by the besieged Standing Rock Sioux and their allies, and escalating public pressure on the banks to divest from it.
This week from the Sacred Stone Camp, ground zero, comes a stark breakdown of why Energy Transfer Partners (the DAPL perpetrators) are pushing so aggressively to complete construction.
The stakes are incalculable: on one side, billions of dollars in profits, on the other side, survival.
Contact information for the CEOs of DAPL and other Bakken pipeline-complicit banks is here. If you bank with one of them, how about letting them know you might not?
Image: NASA/Goddard.
Have a look at this time lapse animation, the life of Arctic ice from 1989 to the present. It’s calmly explained by a sea ice researcher at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland.
How he remains calm, I have no idea.
We have to stop. Stop gorging on fossil fuels. Fuels made from our ancestors, all the life that came before us. The fossils are running out. So is the ice. So is life, and time.
I’m not saying anything new here. But it can’t be said often enough, or loud enough. We have to make them stop:
It can’t be said often enough, or loud enough. We have to stop. And start…
Start points are everywhere – personal, local, regional, national, global, online, on the ground. Like this one: Justice and Equity in a 100% Renewable World: a live online conversation. November 10, 2016, 10:00am Pacific/ 1:00pm Eastern. Details here.
Or this: Corporate and government response to the west coast diesel spill off Heiltsuk First Nation (see above, ‘moving crude oil by ship’) has been shamefully slow and lax. The Heiltsuk people are fund-raising online to do research on the extent of damage to their coast and fishing grounds, essential for their survival. Details here.
Or this: Haven’t got around to accosting the big banks that finance the Dakota Access Pipeline? The online grassroots organization SumOfUs has just made it a lot easier. They also include a list of other practical ways to support the resistance to DAPL. Details here.
Michael Riordon 