Greenpeace Climbers Block Houston Ship Channel, Halting Oil Industry Operations Ahead of Democratic Debate
Twenty-two Greenpeace USA climbers have formed a blockade from the Fred Hartmann Bridge in Baytown, Texas, shutting down the largest fossil fuel thoroughfare in the United States ahead of the third Democratic primary debate in nearby Houston. The climbers intend to remain secured in place for 24 hours, preventing the transport of all oil and gas through the channel. Their action is a bold call to leaders to imagine a world beyond fossil fuels and embrace a just transition to renewable energy.
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Greenpeace USA Activist Mike Herbert, one of the 22 climbers blocking the Houston Ship Channel, said:
"I grew up in the East Texas Oil Field, a place where the oil industry touches everything. I know how much power oil executives have over our democracy. That's why I'm taking action to shut down the Houston Ship Channel, the largest fossil fuel thoroughfare in the country. The oil industry has spent millions of dollars to convince the American people -- including the community I grew up in -- that we can't thrive without them. This just isn't true. We are here because we believe a world beyond oil is possible, we just have to fight for it.
"To the presidential candidates gathered in Houston today, we need you to know there is no middle ground to stand on. Will you champion a Green New Deal and ensure a just transition away from fossil fuels? Or will you side with the corrupt billionaires trying to wreck the planet for their profit? Millions of Americans are waiting on your answer."
The shores of the 52-mile Houston Ship Channel are home to the second-largest petrochemical complex in the world. On an average day, 700,000 barrels of oil pass through the location the climbers have blocked, more than any other export channel in the United States. Industry expansion plans could increase that amount to 2 million barrels in a matter of years [1].
Greenpeace USA Executive Director Annie Leonard said:
"We're in a climate emergency created by fossil fuel CEOs and made worse by Trump. We can either take bold action to combat the climate crisis today or suffer the consequences -- more floods, more mega-storms, and more fires -- for years to come.
"Here's what can happen when we finally choose renewable energy over fossil fuels: We can create millions of high-paying, union jobs. We can keep our air and water clean and safe. And we can safeguard our climate against catastrophe. We can't afford to screw this up, and we won't let oil executives do that for us."
The action comes as presidential candidates gather in nearby Houston for the third Democratic primary debate. The climate crisis has emerged as a top issue in the 2020 election. A majority of registered voters now say climate change is an "emergency" and 67 percent believe that the United States under the Trump administration is not doing enough to address the problem [2]. In recent weeks, multiple Democratic candidates have released plans to phase out fossil fuels, hold industry executives accountable for their role in the climate crisis, and create jobs and opportunity in the renewable energy economy [3].
The action also sets the stage for next week's youth climate strike. On September 20, three days before the UN Climate Summit in New York City, millions of people across the US and the world will participate in youth-led strikes to demand transformative action to address the climate crisis. Youth leaders are calling on elected officials to say yes to a Green New Deal and no to fossil fuel expansion.
Greenpeace is a global, independent campaigning organization that uses peaceful protest and creative communication to expose global environmental problems and promote solutions that are essential to a green and peaceful future.
+31 20 718 200081 Dead in Gaza in 24 Hours, Schools Targeted
"Why do they target us when we are innocent people?" said a Palestinian woman sheltering at a school attacked Tuesday. "We do not carry weapons but are just sitting and trying to find safety for ourselves and our children."
Israeli attacks have killed 81 Palestinians over roughly the last 24 hours, including an attack on a United Nations-run school shelter in Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza, according to data released by the Gaza health ministry on Wednesday.
The Nuseirat strike, which killed 23 Palestinians on Tuesday, was at least the eighth Israeli attack on a school shelter in the last ten days. Six of the schools had been run by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA).
"Why do they target us when we are innocent people?" Umm Mohammed al-Hasanat, a woman who was sheltering at the Nuseirat school, askedAl Jazeera.
"We do not carry weapons but are just sitting and trying to find safety for ourselves and our children," she said.
A Palestinian mother struggles to bid farewell to her son, killed by the israelis in an air strike that targeted the Razi UNRWA school in Nuseirat pic.twitter.com/LbRsw6INhg
— Sarah Wilkinson (@swilkinsonbc) July 16, 2024
Palestinians inspect the Abdullah Azzam Mosque and its surroundings after the Israeli occupation bombed the area in Nuseirat camp, leaving massive piles of rubble behind. pic.twitter.com/rMEfRK1p5G
— PALESTINE ONLINE 🇵🇸 (@OnlinePalEng) July 17, 2024
The Nuseirat attack was one of many in the last two days across the Gaza Strip.
A strike near Cairo School in the al-Rimal neighborhood of Gaza City on Wednesday killed at least nine, including three children. An overnight strike on a house in Al-Zawyda in central Gaza killed eight, while an attack on a house Wednesday in the Khan Younis area killed five. An Israeli bombing also killed two in the al-Shakoush area northwest of Rafah on Wednesday. Israeli tanks also advanced into northern Rafah, Reutersreported.
The latest string of attacks included another on Tuesday in which Israeli forces killed about 17 in a strike on a "safe" zone in al-Mawasi, a coastal area west of Khan Younis where refugees have gathered.
Even before Tuesday, Gazans were facing one of the deadliest weeks since the war began. Israel bombarded the al-Mawasi camp on Saturday, killing more than 90 Palestinians. Israeli forces also killed at least 17 people on Sunday in an attack on the UNRWA-run Abu Oreiban school in Nuseirat, which was housing thousands of displaced people; most of the dead were women and children, according toAl Jazeera.
UNRWA announced last week that Israeli forces have targeted two-thirds of the schools it administers in Gaza and attacked its facilities 453 times overall since the start of the war. Nearly 200 UNRWA staff members have been killed, the U.N. agency said.
The agency reiterated its call for a stop to Israeli targeting of its facilities in a social media message on Tuesday: "Nowhere is safe. The blatant disregard for U.N. premises and humanitarian law must stop."
Nearly 70% of @UNRWA schools in #Gaza have been hit since the war began.
Over 95% of these schools were used as shelters when hit. 539 people sheltering in UNRWA facilities have been killed.
Nowhere is safe. The blatant disregard for @UN premises and humanitarian law must stop. pic.twitter.com/EKiSiOm2kc
— UNRWA (@UNRWA) July 16, 2024
News of the atrocities in Gaza came as Human Rights Watch (HRW) on Wednesday issued a 236-page report on the atrocities of October 7, in which Hamas-led armed groups killed roughly 1,200 Israelis and kidnapped more than 250. The report's authors found that the groups had committed "crimes against humanity" and "war crimes" in their attack in southern Israel.
"Human Rights Watch research found that the Hamas-led assault on October 7 was designed to kill civilians and take as many people as possible hostage," Ida Sawyer, HRW's crisis and conflict director, said in a statement accompanying the report's release. "The October 7 atrocities should spur a global call to action for an end to all abuses against civilians in Israel and Palestine."
JD Vance Supports Tracking Abortion Seekers
"Donald Trump and J.D. Vance have a dark and dystopian vision for America's future, in which women are hunted across state lines for accessing basic healthcare," said one Democratic lawmaker.
As Republicans feted U.S. Sen. JD Vance Tuesday night at the GOP's national convention, welcoming the author and venture capitalist as presidential nominee Donald Trump's running mate, one of Vance's proposals for the future of abortion rights in the U.S. made national news.
Citing reporting from The Lever, MSNBC anchor Rachel Maddow warned viewers about Vance's endorsement of a request by at least 19 Republican attorneys general who asked the Biden administration to allow them access to the medical records of people who travel across state lines, including to states that allow abortion care.
"They want the right to follow women from their states all over the country to see if they might be getting an abortion somewhere. or might be getting any other kind of reproductive care anywhere that they want to bring criminal charges about, so they can use those records for prosecutions," said Maddow.
Last year, she added, Vance joined other GOP lawmakers in pressuring the Biden administration to withdraw a rule it introduced after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. The rule prevents state and local police in states that ban abortion from using medical records to prosecute people who have obtained abortion care elsewhere.
"If Donald Trump and JD Vance are elected in November, they will have the power to withdraw the Biden administration's privacy rule on this issue," said Maddow.
Maddow's warning is "not overstated," said David Sirota, founder and editor-in-chief of The Lever.
As Common Dreamsreported Tuesday, despite recent attempts by the Republican Party and Trump to suggest their ultimate goal is not to prohibit abortion care nationwide, Trump's selection of Vance as his vice presidential nominee elevated a lawmaker who has endorsed a 15-week nationwide ban and has opposed any exceptions for victims of rape or incest.
Vance's support for rescinding President Joe Biden's medical privacy rule exemplifies the "dark and dystopian vision for America's future" that the senator and former president have, said New York state Sen. Liz Krueger (D-28).
"This aspect of the post-Dobbs world is often treated as hyperbole in mainstream news coverage, something that might be theoretically possible but not something that's actually going to happen," wrote Josh Marshall at Talking Points Memo of the attack on medical privacy. "But Vance was one of only eight senators who thought [the Biden rule]... endangered 'valid state laws protecting life' and would 'limit cooperation with law enforcement.'"
"He's for real about this stuff," wrote Marshall, denouncing Vance as a "menstrual surveillance hawk."
Why Bernie Sanders Is Thanking Elon Musk
The Vermont senator said Musk has done "an exceptional job of demonstrating a point that we have made for years—and that is the fact we live in an oligarchic society."
U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders on Tuesday took the unusual step of applauding Elon Musk—but not for reasons that the Tesla CEO and world's richest man would likely find flattering.
In the wake of
reports indicating that Musk plans to inject $45 million per month into a new super PAC supporting former President Donald Trump's bid for another four years in the White House, Sanders (I-Vt.) thanked Musk for doing "an exceptional job of demonstrating a point that we have made for years—and that is the fact we live in an oligarchic society in which billionaires dominate not only our economic life and the information we consume, but our politics as well."
"And let me be clear. While the size of Musk's financial contribution is particularly egregious, he is not alone in attempting to buy this election to further his own needs," Sanders continued. "Other billionaires are also playing a significant role—in both political parties. Oh, I know... here goes Bernie Sanders again about Citizens United and the role of money in politics. I have no shortage of critics who accuse me of being boring and of hammering away at the same themes year after year after year."
"They're probably right. I am repetitious, but that’s because the problems we care about are only getting worse," he added. "Let's be clear. It has never made sense to me, then or now, that a tiny clique of people should have incredible wealth and power while most people have none."
"While people like Elon Musk try to buy elections for Donald Trump, people who work for low wages, have no health insurance, can't afford prescription drugs, and can't find affordable housing are giving up on politics."
Citing unnamed sources, The Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg reported earlier this week that Musk has pledged to donate $45 million per month to America PAC, whose founding donors include ultra-rich tech investors who are part of Musk's social circle. The New York Timesseparately reported that "one leader of America PAC told a friend that the group expected to have a major donor who would make donations in four batches, adding up to as much as $160 million over the course of the campaign."
The Journal and Bloomberg stories—which Musk denied with a meme that included the words "fake gnus"—followed reports that Musk had already given the super PAC a substantial sum of money despite his March declaration that he is "not donating money to either candidate for U.S. president."
Musk formally endorsed Trump on X—the social media platform Musk owns—following an assassination attempt against the former president this past weekend in Pennsylvania. Conspiracy theories about the attempt on Trump's life proliferated rapidly on X, with the help of Musk himself.
The Tesla CEO's name
did not appear on America PAC's disclosure filings for June, which could mean that he donated to the PAC earlier this month.
Musk, who is worth over $250 billion, is one of more than a dozen billionaires supporting Trump and his newly chosen running mate, Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio). Axios and the Times reported Tuesday that Musk personally lobbied Trump to make Vance his vice presidential pick.
Musk and other U.S. billionaires got $1 trillion richer during Trump's first four years in office, gains fueled by massive tax cuts he signed into law in 2017.
Why are billionaires like Peter Thiel, Rupert Murdoch, Stephen Schwartzman, and the owner of this website rallying behind Trump?
Yes, the tax cuts. But there's more.
The more Trump tears down democracy, the safer the oligarchy becomes.
— Robert Reich (@RBReich) July 16, 2024
Sanders wrote in his email Tuesday that Musk's influence on the 2024 election could be particularly pronounced given his ownership of X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter.
Musk, Sanders wrote, has used the platform "to amplify the voices of conspiracy theorists who deny the results of the last election and spread the dangerous idea that Democrats want to allow mass, undocumented migration to the country to replace, electorally, the votes of white people."
"The reality is that while people like Elon Musk try to buy elections for Donald Trump, people who work for low wages, have no health insurance, can't afford prescription drugs, and can't find affordable housing are giving up on politics," the senator continued. "They see the rich getting richer as they use their wealth to buy influence, and wonder whether anyone in Washington even knows what is going on in their lives."
Sanders argued that to end the pernicious political influence of Musk and other billionaires, it is essential to elect candidates who support overturning Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, the 2010 Supreme Court decision that spawned the super PACs now playing a massive role in the nation's elections.
"It is an issue that should concern all Americans—regardless of their political point of view—who wish to live under a government that represents all of the people and not just a handful of powerful special interests," Sanders wrote. "Taking action is not just good politics, it is also good policy. Because the truth is, campaign finance reform is the most important issue facing us today, because it impacts all the others."