July, 31 2015, 02:00pm EDT
Climate Action Coalition Celebrates Historic Win in Raising Global Awareness on Urgency of Climate Crisis in #ShellNO Action in Portland
In record heat, members and organizers with the Climate Action Coalition in Portland, OR, together with Greenpeace activists made history on Thursday when they forced the MSV Fennica, the Arctic icebreaker, to stand down, delaying its departure by approximately 40 hours.
PORTLAND, Oregon
In record heat, members and organizers with the Climate Action Coalition in Portland, OR, together with Greenpeace activists made history on Thursday when they forced the MSV Fennica, the Arctic icebreaker, to stand down, delaying its departure by approximately 40 hours. The Fennica is now headed for the Arctic where it will assist Shell Oil in drilling for oil.
The non-violent direct action of "kayaktivists"--activists on kayaks--and Greenpeace climbers suspended from the St. John's Bridge in Cathedral Park in Portland, OR, focused international attention on the recklessness of Arctic drilling at a time when scientists tell us we must leave all unproven and most proven reserves of fossil fuels in the ground if we are to avoid dangerous and possibly runaway climate change.
As the Fennica approached, kayakers paddled toward the icebreaker and continued to impede its path. Law enforcement out on the water intervened; approximately 25 kayakers and canoers were detained; 11 were taken to the Coast Guard and detained and issued $500 citations, and at least two others were also issued $500 citations. At least three may face serious legal charges. Local representatives of CAC received reports from some observers that Coast Guard and other law enforcement boats were ramming kayaks to knock people into the water. One law enforcement boat allegedly ran over a kayaker who was forced between the moving Fennica and the law enforcement boat. Most disturbingly, a representative of the Backbone Campaign acting as part of the boat safety crew was detained by law enforcement while attempting to rescue two kayakers who had fallen in the Willamette River, creating a situation that could have been tragic. Portland Rising Tide activist Jonah Majure locked his neck to the railroad bridge before the boat attempted to come through, but was removed by police.
Despite the hazards and risk of arrest, at least 500 people gathered on the shore, chanting, "Stop that boat! Stop that boat!" At one point, the Fennica did indeed stop when kayaks again flooded its path, but the ship eventually passed through the blockade.
The Climate Action Coalition remains deeply disappointed that President Obama has not rescinded Shell's permit to drill in the Arctic, despite broad public opposition, but we are buoyed by Oregon Senator Jeff Merkley, who has come out in opposition to Arctic drilling. The Climate Action Coalition considers the blockade to be a huge victory that drew attention to the crisis of climate change and the recklessness of Shell's Arctic drilling.
"We are grateful for the huge outpouring of support from the local and global community, demonstrating broad public concern around both Arctic drilling and climate change," said Meredith Cocks of Rising Tide. "Between the bridge climbers, the railroad lockdown, and the kayak flotilla we were fighting by land, air and sea!"
"Scientists have sounded the alarm, telling us we need to keep most of our known fossil fuel reserves in the ground, and we have heeded the call with direct action in defense of our planet. Hundreds of Portlanders joined us in saying, 'Shell No!' and 'Stop that boat!' and we are grateful for their support," said Maya Jarrad with 350PDX.
"There is no greater moral issue before us today than global warming. Our generation has a sacred calling to prevent the worst: flooding of our cities, refugees fleeing rising water, failed states, and armed conflict over resources. The activists who created the blockade with their very bodies are spiritual warriors of the highest degree," said Rev. Marilyn Sewell, Minister Emerita, First Unitarian Church of Portland.
"When our elected officials refuse to act on climate change and permit extreme energy extraction such as Shell's reckless drilling in the Arctic, we are prepared to take direct, nonviolent action to preserve a planet for all of our children's sake, and hope others will do the same," said Daphne Wysham, director of the Sustainable Energy and Economy Network.
Climate Action Coalition members, friends, and Sierra Club activists will be gathering again at Cathedral Park on Friday at 7 p.m. to celebrate our successes, thank our supporters and build momentum for continuing activism.
For more information about us, see our website at: https://www.climate-action-coalition.org/doku.phpit
For photos, visit our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/ClimateActionCoalition?fref=ts
Follow the following hashtags: #ShellNO #PDXvsSHell #Floodthesystem
Institute for Policy Studies turns Ideas into Action for Peace, Justice and the Environment. We strengthen social movements with independent research, visionary thinking, and links to the grassroots, scholars and elected officials. I.F. Stone once called IPS "the think tank for the rest of us." Since 1963, we have empowered people to build healthy and democratic societies in communities, the US, and the world. Click here to learn more, or read the latest below.
LATEST NEWS
More Than 4 Dozen Unions Demand 'End of Repression' of Columbia Protests
"The right to protest is necessary for every struggle, and the direct attack on this right is an attack on labor as well," said the labor groups. "An injury to one is an injury to all."
Apr 23, 2024
More than four dozen labor unions across numerous industries on Tuesday signed a letter expressing solidarity with students who have been suspended and arrested in recent days for protesting at Columbia University, including members of the on-campus labor group Student Workers of Columbia.
Unionized student workers in SWC-UAW 2710 were among the hundreds of picketers who have been protecting the Gaza Solidarity Encampment, which students set up at Columbia on April 17 to pressure administrators to divest from weapons manufacturers, tech companies, and other entities that benefit from Israel's apartheid policies in the occupied Palestinian territories.
The Ivy League institution, protesters say, will remain complicit in Israel's bombardment and blockade on Gaza, the killing of at least 34,183 Palestinians in the enclave since October, and the intentional starvation of dozens of people, until it entirely divests from Israel.
"As workers, we stand in solidarity with our union siblings in SWC-UAW 2710 who were arrested and face suspension," said the unions, including the Mother Jones Staff Union, Irvine Faculty Association, and Cleveland Jobs With Justice. "We call for their and their classmates' immediate reinstatement and for Columbia to drop all charges against them, both legal and academic. We deplore [Columbia president Minouche Shafik]'s actions and call for Columbia to immediately end the repression of protest."
The protests at Columbia—where more than 100 students were suspended, arrested for trespassing, and in some cases, evicted from their housing—have galvanized college students and faculty members at a growing number of universities in recent days.
Campus groups at the University of Minnesota and the University of Pittsburgh both announced early Tuesday that they were setting up their own encampments in solidarity with Columbia students and victims of the Israel Defense Forces' relentless attacks on Gaza, which the International Court of Justice said in January was "plausibly" a genocide.
After police arrested students at the University of Minnesota Tuesday afternoon and broke up the encampment, thousands of members of the school community rallied to demand that the university divest from all arms manufacturers.
Encampments were also erected Monday at University of California, Berkeley and University of Michigan.
Jessica Christian, a photojournalist for the San Francisco Chronicle, reported that students were stopping to "ask what supplies the campers need as they walk by to class" at Berkeley, where roughly 50 tents were set up on Tuesday.
On Monday night, dozens of students at Yale University and New York University were arrested for protesting, setting up encampments, and "disorderly conduct."
The arrests at Columbia last week have not stopped students and educators from speaking out against the administration. A new encampment was set up last Friday and hundreds of faculty members staged a walkout Monday in support of the students.
In their letter, the unions on Tuesday warned that "the repression and criminalization of activists, students, professors, and academic workers across the country are violations of our elementary rights to free speech and protest."
"The right to protest is necessary for every struggle, and the direct attack on this right is an attack on labor as well," said the unions, "An injury to one is an injury to all—if the Columbia students can be repressed for protesting, Columbia workers and all workers could be too. Workers stand in full solidarity with this student movement."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Plastics Summit 'Die-In' Highlights Need to Cut Production
"This week governments have a choice: Stand up to this slash-and-burn approach by agreeing to radically reduce plastic output, or let the world be held to ransom by a dying industry."
Apr 23, 2024
As the fourth round of talks for a global plastics treaty kicked off in the Canadian capital on Tuesday, campaigners with the corporate accountability group Ekō staged a die-in at Ottawa's Shaw Centre to demand an ambitious plan to reduce production.
"Plastic pollution has reached the snows of Antarctica, the deepest oceans, even the clouds in the sky—and still fossil fuel corporations are trying to ramp up production," explained Ekō campaign director Vicky Wyatt. "This week governments have a choice: Stand up to this slash-and-burn approach by agreeing to radically reduce plastic output, or let the world be held to ransom by a dying industry. It's very clear to people across the planet which way they need to go."
Demonstrators—some wearing fish masks to highlight how plastic pollution impacts marine biodiversity—gathered in front of a 28-foot banner that used plastic trash bags to spell out: "Plastic is poisoning us. Cut production now."
(Photo: Ben Powless/Survival Media Agency)
Participants in the die-in—which followed the weekend's "March to End the Plastic Era" through the Canadian city—held smaller signs with similar messages, demanding that governments and industry "stop fueling climate chaos."
As Common Dreamsreported last week, new research from the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California shows that planet-heating pollution from the plastics industry is equivalent to that of about 600 coal-fired power plants, and 75% of the greenhouse gas emissions from plastic production are released before the plastic compounds are even created.
The protesters also highlighted that more than 180,000 Ekō members have signed a petition urging action on plastic pollution. The petition specifically calls for banning all plastic waste exports from the European Union and fully implementing the Basel Convention within the bloc, while the summit has a global focus and the plan is to have a treaty by the end of this year.
After countries agreed to draft a treaty two years ago, the latest talks in Kenya last year were flooded by fossil fuel and chemical lobbyists and ended with little progress, increasing attention on the Canadian meeting that began Tuesday and is scheduled to run through Monday.
"It's a crucial moment of this process," Andrés Gómez Carrión, chair of the negotiations and an Ecuadorian diplomat in the United Kingdom, toldReuters on Monday. "One of the biggest challenges is to define where the plastics lifecycle starts and define what sustainable production and consumption is."
Petrochemical-producing countries including China, Iran, and Saudi Arabia "have opposed mentioning production limits" while E.U. members, island nations, and Japan aim to "end plastic pollution by 2040," the news agency reported. The United States supports that timeline but "wants countries to set their own plans for doing so" and submit pledges to the United Nations.
"We are facing a global plastics crisis that requires urgent, global action. Reducing plastic production needs to be a core component of the solution," Christy Leavitt, campaign director at Oceana in the United States, said in a statement. "Countries must act now to stop the flood of plastic pollution that is harming our oceans, climate, health, and communities by starting at the source to reduce its production."
"The U.S. should support a strong, legally binding plastics treaty that addresses the full life cycle of this persistent pollutant from extraction and production to use and disposal," Leavitt added. "Now is the time for the United States to show its support to reduce plastic production, eliminate unnecessary single-use plastics, prohibit hazardous chemicals in plastics, and establish mandatory targets for reuse and refill systems. The United States and the world must act before it's too late."
Greenpeace last month installed a 15-foot monument outside the U.S. Capitol to send President Joe Biden a message.
"He can be the president who put an end to the plastic pollution crisis, or he can be the one who let it spiral out of control," Greenpeace oceans director John Hocevar said of Biden. "We're calling on him to stand up to plastic polluters like Exxon and Dow and put us on a greener and healthier path."
The petrochemical industry, Reuters noted, "argues that production caps would lead to higher prices for consumers, and that the treaty should address plastics only after they are made."
Sam Cossar-Gilbert of Friends of the Earth International emphasized the need to resist corporate pressure in a statement Tuesday.
"A people-powered movement and some governments are proposing ambitious steps to address the plastic problem, like regulating the harmful waste trade, single-use bans, and reducing global plastic production," said Cossar-Gilbert. "But multinational corporations will also be lobbying with their false solutions, distractions, and delays. Only by stamping out corporate capture can we deliver a new global treaty to end plastic pollution."
Mageswari Sangaralingam from the green group's Malaysian arm, Sahabat Alam Malaysia, stressed the need for strong waste management policies, given that Global South countries have become dumping grounds for richer nations' discarded plastic.
"Waste colonialism, whether in the form of trade in plastic waste and other hidden plastics, perpetuates social and environmental injustice," said Sangaralingam. "However, ending the plastic waste trade without reducing plastic production will likely trigger more dumping, cause toxic pollution, and contribute to the climate crisis. The global plastics treaty is an opportunity to plug loopholes and address policy gaps to end plastic pollution."
Keep ReadingShow Less
South Korean Court Hears First Asian Youth Climate Case
"Carbon emission reduction keeps getting pushed back as if it is homework that can be done later," said one plaintiff's mother. "But that burden will be what our children have to bear eventually."
Apr 23, 2024
One of South Korea's two highest courts on Tuesday began hearing Asia's first-ever youth-led climate lawsuit, which accuses the country's government of failing to protect citizens from the effects of the worsening, human-caused planetary emergency.
Nineteen members of the advocacy group Youth4ClimateAction filed a constitutional complaint in March 2020 accusing the South Korean government of violating their rights to life, the "pursuit of happiness," a "healthy and pleasant environment," and to "resist against human extinction."
The lawsuit also notes "the inequality between the adult generation who can enjoy the relatively pleasant environment and the youth generation who must face a potential disaster from climate change," as well as the government's obligation to prevent and protect citizens from environmental disasters.
"South Korea's current climate plans are not sufficient to keep the temperature increase within 1.5°C, thus violating the state's obligation to protect fundamental rights," the plaintiffs said in a statement.
South Korea's Constitutional Court began hearing a case that accuses the government of having failed to protect 200 people, including dozens of young environmental activists and children, by not tackling climate change https://t.co/XRIGE23KGM pic.twitter.com/snvqBaGGe9
— Reuters (@Reuters) April 23, 2024
Signatories to the 2015 Paris agreement committed to "holding the increase in global average temperature to well below 2°C above preindustrial levels and pursuing efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5°C."
According to the United Nations Environment Program's (UNEP) most recent Emissions Gap Report, the world must slash greenhouse gas emissions by 28% before 2030 to limit warming to 2°C above preindustrial levels and 42% to halt warming at 1.5°C. UNEP said that based on current policies and practices, the world is on track for 2.9°C of warming by the end of the century.
A summary of the lawsuit notes that South Korea is the fifth-largest greenhouse gas (GHG) emitter among Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development nations, and that the government is constitutionally obligated to protect Koreans from the climate emergency.
Instead, the plaintiffs argue, the Korean Parliament "gave the government total discretion to set the GHG reduction target without providing any specific guidelines." Furthermore, they contend that the government's downgraded reduction targets fall "far short of what is necessary to satisfy the temperature rise threshold acknowledged by the global community."
Lee Donghyun, the mother of one of the plaintiffs, toldReuters: "Carbon emission reduction keeps getting pushed back as if it is homework that can be done later. But that burden will be what our children have to bear eventually."
The South Korean case comes on the heels of a landmark ruling by the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), which found that Switzerland's government violated senior citizens' human rights by refusing to heed scientists' warnings to swiftly phase out fossil fuel production.
The ECHR ruled on the same day that climate cases brought by a former French mayor and a group of Portuguese youth were inadmissible.
Courts in Australia, Brazil, and Peru also have human rights-based climate cases on their dockets.
In the United States, a state judge in Montana ruled last year in favor of 16 young residents who argued that fossil fuel extraction violated their constitutional right to "a clean and healthful environment."
Meanwhile, the Biden administration is trying to derail a historic youth-led climate lawsuit against the U.S. government.
Keep ReadingShow Less
Most Popular