The Church of Stop Shopping returns to New York now, after a week in the Bay Area.  A highlight:  we launched the “Extinction Resurrection” campaign at the front doors and inside the big banks that finance climate disruption. Then, each evening we went indoors to a concert stage–and direct activism spiced up the prayers, songs, and shouts of “Earthalujah!”

In “The Revolt of the Golden Toads” tour, we concentrated our crawling and hopping on JPMorgan Chase and Bank of America–which move billions into coal-fired power plants. We believe that the Golden Toad was forced into extinction 25 years ago by drought conditions in their cloud forest home–destruction that was funded by these banks.

Our impact this week in San Francisco? It is impossible to make Nielsen Ratings from activism. Clearly more and more people know they must now be Earth radicals. Put some URGENCY in the EMERGENCY. Our post-big-daddy-god church, with the wonderful music, tries to activate direct action. In nine Bay Area performance events we had something short of 2000 individuals in our audiences. Our media coverage was good and in our interviews we tried to be guided by the Extinction Resurrection theme, which is surreal and funny–but people get it.  It’s about survival.

We’re not celebrities. Celebrities don’t “Stop Shop.” So we have to land the message manually. During “Toads” we went at it non-stop for 6 days and 6 nights. The upside for the non-celebrity approach is this: it builds communities. (We call people who join our church–the citizens of “Earthalujahville.”  For instance, we were fed, transported, and offered beds by Earthalujahville citizens as we zig-zagged around the Bay.)

Everyone in the Stop Shopping Church experienced Hurricane Sandy–and the super storm created our new songs and put us into the masks of extinct beings. Last November we were left thinking that Earth is destroying consumerism on purpose. Earth is interrupting the sale. Why? Because consumerism keeps us a bunch of little apex predators and that adds up to a horrific Super Devil. Then again, anything that distracts us from this Eco-pocalypse is the Devil and must be cast out.

Extinction Resurrection. The Dark and the Light. Honest assessment of the current environmental movement leaves us feeling dark. But the ecstatic release of a good direct action raises us to the light. Darker and Brighter. Extinction and Resurrection. It’s the up and down and up of Evolution. We felt the darkness when we performed at Oakland City Hall and felt the memory of police violence there during Occupy. But moments later we unloaded some happy toad gospel at the Chase Bank across the street. They closed the bank and locked the doors after our first song. So they had to seal off the hushed high church of the bank. So we sang on the sidewalk and sent happy curses up into the surveillance system. Eventually we’ll be naked animals hopping on Jamie Dimon’s desk. Earthalujah!

We wish to thank RAN for posting these reports. Now the toad hops back to NYC, then over the Atlantic.

To be updated with Rev. Billy and The Church of Stop Shopping tour dates, click here for tour dates.

Photo Credit: Steve Rhodes

Rev. Billy and The Church of Stop Shopping are in the Bay Area this week! Click here for tour dates.

Mike Roselle’s smack-down of “Big Green” and Sandra Steingraber’s letter from jail–serving time for her fracking resistance in upstate New York–show us the sea-change that must take place in green activist culture.

I met Randy Hayes, RAN founder, in the late 80′s and came to know the Earth First and Redwood Summer activism while a Bay Area resident. Now these years later, we’ve worked with RAN campaigners Amanda Starbuck, Scott Parkin, and Annie Sartor in Mountaintop Removal activism.  During our partnership with RAN we began blasphemous performers in lobbies of big banks:  JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, PNC, UBS, Deutsche Bank and HSBC–are among the banks whose gods we have transgressed against–with BankTrack’s latest study as our Bible, supplied by RAN.

I moved from the Bay Area to New York in the early 90′s and gathered the singing activists after Reverend Billy’s sidewalk preaching began in front of the Disney Store in Times Square. Our activist group, legally constructed like a small theater company, was soon defending community gardens in the city. We took turns responding to hesitant overtures by such Big Green orgs as NRDC and Sierra Club, but we proved too wild and woolly. Meanwhile, since 2005′s Katrina and Rita storms–our “Devil” turned from big retail toward the CO2 emitting (think Dirty Coal) investments by big banks.

Most of our partners are local veterans of the MTR, fracking or pipeline wars. Time and time again, after a collaboration with a big green org, after a concert or a videotape or leading a parade before a rally–our relationship would end. A harsh example:  in 2007, when the Stop Shopping activists were hotly pursuing Starbucks for their suppression of licensing opportunities for the makers of Ethiopia’s Sidamo and Harrar coffees–we were told by Oxfam America that “We cannot state publically that we are working with you.” By that time we had gone to jail several times, and were involved in a YouTube duel with a Starbucks’ marketing VP.  Although the campaign was a success for Ethiopian coffee families, Oxfam didn’t want to be identified with activists who were sitting in the Tombs. They had that disease called “Fear of the what the imaginary middle class might think.”

Oxfam may have objected to our manipulation of fundamentalist religious memes, of the use of humor, dance and music in our activism, or just our lack of money. Who knows?  In 2013 –would Oxfam personnel feel differently about us, as eco-activism increasingly resembles the dramas (and arrests and police violence) of the Civil Rights Movement? We believe that the orgs of Big Green, and the foundations and donors that often side with them–are ready for a change. Everyone everywhere that loves Earth is becoming radicalized. There is more of a connection now with cultural change in American history, which has always involved bodily risk, music and general brazenness. Amen?

Rainforest Action Network staff–thank you for your hosting of our REVOLT OF THE GOLDEN TOAD Bay Area Tour. Our connection to your founders, and to your ambitious activism against the climate-change financing by big banks–feels like a natural home.

Earthalujah!

Every day this week in marking the third anniversary of the Deepwater Horizon disaster, the art collective Liberate Tate is giving a performance dramatizing the trial of BP. It’s entitled ‘All Rise’ and is all taking place at the Tate Modern in London.

It’s not unusual for artists and cultural events to reference contemporary news or disasters. The difference here is that this is a guerrilla performance, completely unsanctioned by Tate or by one of its sponsors: BP.

Each day this week at 3pm UK time (GMT+1), performers using specially constructed cameras will film themselves wandering Tate Modern whilst whispering selected transcripts of the proceedings from the New Orleans courtroom.

The live-streams of the different performers are available to watch online from around the world on the dedicated website  (where an archive allows future viewing).

The BP trial, which started this February, accuses the massive corporation of gross negligence by plaintiffs who did not take part in a separate settlement made by the oil giant last year.

At the trial’s opening, Assistant U.S. Attorney Mike Underhill said: “Not only was it within BP’s power to prevent the tragedy, it was its responsibility.”

As Paul Brady, one of the performers on Monday April 22, underlined: “It’s not only BP that’s on trial for the devastation it has caused to Gulf Coast communities and ecosystems, it’s also Tate and other cultural institutions that provide BP with the social legitimacy to continue operating with such destructive consequences.”

‘All Rise’ is a performance that brings the BP trial into Tate Modern because BP’s arts sponsorship cannot be separated from the irrevocable damage it does to communities, the environment, and the climate.

For example, BP’s first advertising campaign after the Gulf of Mexico disaster was in the summer of 2011 and used the corporation’s sponsorship of art in a multi-million dollar attempt to rehabilitate its brand. This was very deliberate. The value to BP of the arts establishment that supports the oil company by accepting its sponsorship money is clear: BP uses its involvement in arts and culture to project a “feel good” image of the company.

In doing so, BP buys the leverage it needs to gain acceptance from elites and influential publics to carry on plundering the planet, to proliferate human rights abuses, and to interfere in what should be democratic political processes.

What is so invidious is that public cultural institutions also fall into what BP has captured.

This is why Liberate Tate has vowed, since its founding in January 2010, “to take creative disobedience against Tate until it drops its oil company funding.” And to inspire others to join in doing so as well.

‘All Rise’ follows a performance by Liberate Tate last July when over 100 members of the art collective installed ‘The Gift’ — a 16.5 metre wind turbine blade – in the Turbine Hall of Tate Modern.

On the first anniversary of the Deepwater Horizon disaster in 2011, Liberate Tate poured oil over a naked man lying in the middle of Tate Britain in a work called ‘Human Cost’.

This week as we whisper extracts from the court transcripts — damning reports, objections, evidence, accountability, and risk throughout the BP sponsored Tate gallery spaces — we insistently ask: How much more environmental, societal, and climate damage does BP need to do for Tate to forego its sponsor? When will Tate put their sponsor on the stand?

The good news is that the public call for Tate to stop its relationship with BP is growing. Thousands of Tate members and visitors have voiced their objection that through its support of sponsor BP, Tate is forcing environmentally and climate-conscious gallery goers into an uncomfortable position of complicity with the oil company, one of the most environment-destroying corporations on the planet.

When our public cultural institutions have a formal relationship with corporations engaged in socially and ecologically destructive activities, exhibitions and galleries become part of the creation of climate chaos through the construction of a social licence to operate for oil companies.

Our practice involves illuminating this process at the culture wellhead through interventions and artworks created in Tate galleries.

We situate our interventions in the growing wave of desire for citizens to reclaim public space: a gallery should be a place to enjoy great art, not a site where an art museum associates visitors in the ecological destruction and criminal acts of its corporate partners.

About the Author

Glen Tarman is an artist, activist and advocacy director based in London. Glen is a founding member of the art collective Liberate Tate.  Liberate Tate explores the role of creative intervention in social change and aims to free art from the grips of the oil industry.

For more information on Liberate Tate, see http://liberatetate.wordpress.com/. Liberate Tate can also be found on Twitter: @liberatetate

Uttuh’s treetop protest is just the latest appearance in a month long ‘invasion’ of forlorn orangutans in Cargill’s hometown outside Minneapolis. Multiple homeless orangutans have already been arrested protesting Cargill’s refusal to implement adequate environmental and social safeguards for the palm oil they trade across the globe.

To make matters worse for the Sumatran Orangutan, Cargill has also recently announced its plan to expand their Indonesian palm oil plantations — meaning that many more Critically Endangered forest species on some of Southeast Asia’s last natural rainforests will fall to Uttuh’s same fate. Target sites include Sulawesi, Central Kalimantan and South Sumatra, homes to thousands of unique species and Indigenous Peoples who rely on the lowland jungles of the rainforest for their survival.

While Cargill claims that it’s simply trying to feed the world and bring economic benefits to local communities in Southeast Asia, as the largest privately held multinational corporation in the US, it can’t hide from its most genuine motivation. Profit. Anthony Yeow, President Director of PT Hindoli, a Cargill oil palm plantation in South Sumatra is quoted as saying, “We are aggressively looking for new areas in Sulawesi, Central Kalimantan and South Sumatra that are environmentally safe to expand our oil-palm footprint.” Aggressively looking to expand our oil palm footprint? Environmentally-safe? Are these not oxymorons?

The truth of the matter is that the demand for palm oil is at an all time high. It’s found in over half the products sold in American grocery stores and has quickly emerged as ‘the’ cheap source of vegetable oil on the market. Its high profitability drives suppliers like Cargill to buy and sell more and more irresponsibly produced palm oil which is contributing to the unchecked expansion of palm oil production in Southeast Asia.

The facts are clear. Indonesia’s forests continue to be destroyed for new palm oil plantations. Endangered species like the Sumatran orangutan continue to be pushed closer to extinction. And, companies like Cargill continue to trade irresponsibly produced palm oil while unaccountable certification systems, including the Roundtable for Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO), attempt to legitimize the practices of the same companies who are continuing this deforestation!

Cargill needs to play its part in transforming the way palm oil is produced in Indonesia. They need to immediately establish environmental and social safeguards for their supply chain to ensure that the palm oil it produces and trades does not result in the destruction of rainforests, or lead to adversely impacts on Critically Endangered species, like Uttuh, and forest communities.

Let’s make Cargill accountable for their profit-driven assaults on Sumatran Orangutans, like Uttuh, by pushing them to change their palm oil safeguards right now. Sign up to be part of our National Palm Oil Action Team today!

Click here to stand with RAN in calling on the US snack food industry to cut rainforest destruction from its products.

In Cargill’s Hands from Rainforest Action Network on Vimeo

UPenn students sit-in at Dow Chemical campus recruitment, 1967

I had the great privilege of representing Rainforest Action Network at the student-led Power Up! Divest Fossil Fuels Convergence. Hosted by Swarthmore Mountain Justice, students from around the country gathered for conversations about movement culture and strategy. I was thrilled to find myself amidst a dynamic and emergent group that asked all the right questions: what does student autonomy look like? How can students use their privilege to act in solidarity with extraction communities and people on the front lines of climate impacts? How can students create the signifiers of a resistance culture, the songs and images that can sustain a movement for justice over the long term?

Compared with the campus climate activists of the past, the students of the divestment campaign have a certain edge. Currently united by a tactic consciously culled from the anti-apartheid movement of the 1960s, 70s and 80s, the campus divestment movement possesses an awareness of movement theory and history, past and present. The orange felt squares pinned to the divestistas’ chests are a riff from the Quebecois student uprisings, and demonstrate an intentionality and commitment to long-haul organizing that should inspire great hope for this movement. Divestment activists are aware that they stand on the shoulders of preceding justice movements, and look to history to inform their tactics.

All this to say, students and their opposition should prepare for escalation. Time and time again, campus-based movements for justice have embraced tactics that evolved from symbolic, polite appeals to the power structure to direct intervention in the same, especially when those structures are found to be unyielding in the face of student power through “legitimate channels” (say, campus-wide student referendums). In the past, appeals to campus based authorities have tended to broaden and extend to direct confrontation with offending industry itself, in the present case, the fossil fuel industry and its abettors. The potential for such an escalatory evolution in the current divestment milieu is good news for the climate justice movement, and bad news for the fossil fuel industry and their allies.

Already, student divestment organizers are realizing that the pernicious influence of the fossil fuel industry in the university extends far beyond the direct holdings of endowments. In fact, the university system serves the fossil fuel industry in a number of direct ways: by providing legitimacy and greenwashing credentials through corporate partnerships, by offering up university land and research capacity for “innovations” in extraction processes, and, perhaps most insidiously, by churning out an educated and corporate-trained labor force to ride the desks and populate the labs of the fossil fuel machine. In their process of uncovering past movement history, the divestment organizers will surely learn how past movements have intervened in this nexus between university and corporation. Let this post present a partial uncovering of campus recruitment interventions, past and present.

Vietnam-Era Recruitment Disruptions

Notre Dame students block Dow Chemical recruitment, 1969

While there are surely antecedents, the first accounts of student-led campus recruitment interventions as a widespread tactic appear in the late 1960s, several years into the evolution of the campus anti-war movement. Across the country, student resistors coordinated sit-ins and shut downs of both military and corporate recruiters, including Dow Chemical, which developed napalm and profited from its deployment in the villages of Vietnam. In February, 1967, 75 Oberlin students sat in to block US Navy recruiters; by May, the Oberlin sit-ins expanded to over 200 students blocking military recruitment. In the fall of that year, students from California to Maine sat in to block Dow Chemical and General Motors recruitment sessions on the grounds that profiting from war is immoral. In many cases, these protests were successful at completely denying military and corporate recruiters from gaining access to students, sometimes on a semi-permanent basis. On some campuses, including University of Pennsylvania, students expanded their activities to opposition in corporate-university partnerships that produced chemical and biological weapons.

Anti-Apartheid Recruitment Disruptions

Twenty years later, a surging student opposition to South African apartheid and CIA interventions in Central America picked up the recruitment intervention tactic. In 1985, 450 University of Colorado-Boulder students were arrested as they disrupted CIA recruitment interviews. In 1986, 250 anti-apartheid divestment organizers at UCLA occupied the University Placement Center, “where corporations hold recruitment meetings.” As the linked dispatch from the antiapartheid student movement demonstrates, this action was part of a widespread and coordinated (yet autonomous) escalation that expanded beyond university investment boards and extended to direct anti-corporate action. At the UCLA recruitment center, students passed out literature explaining  “they had selected the career-placement office as the focus of their protest because it…represents the University of California’s complicity with apartheid South Africa. It is in this office that companies like IBM, Hewlett-Packard, Bank of America and Shell, companies which help continue the oppression of apartheid, recruit students to work for corporate irresponsibility.” Sound familiar to our context?

Millennial Derecruitment

Yale students Stop the Brain Drain, 2011

More recent times have provided examples of coordinated student interference in unjust corporate recruitment. In 2005, the huge Campus Anti-war Network (CAN) marked the second anniversary of the war in Iraq with disruptions and shut-downs of campus military recruitment, spawning actions from coast to coast. CAN organizers incorporated an economic justice analysis into their disruptions, pointing to the disparity between military recruitment on private and public campuses, and presenting students with alternatives to enlistment. Rutgers student organizer Ian Chinich wrote, “We hope that the public and the anti-war movement realize that counter-recruitment is one of the most effective strategies for fighting against the war and is also a moral imperative.” Seven years later, students members of the Occupy movement launched “Stop the Brain Drain,” disrupting and shutting down the recruitment sessions of Wall Street banks defrauding the public. At campuses including Yale, Princeton, Harvard, University of Illinois, Dartmouth, Cornell, Brown, and UPenn, students organized to kick recruiters off campus and save their peers from joining the ranks of Wall Street’s calculating drones.

Divestment Disruptions

What of the current fossil fuel divestment movement? This semester, I’ve had the pleasure of coordinating with students on ten campuses in five states to disrupt Bank of America’s campus recruitment sessions. As the number one underwriter of the U.S. coal industry, Bank of America profits from and makes possible mountaintop removal mining and coal burning infrastructure. More than any other U.S. financial institution, Bank of America is responsible for coal’s contributions to the climate crisis, having pumped more than $6.4 billion into the industry over the last two years. Thankfully, student divestment organizers are pushing back at campuses like Harvard, UNC-Charlotte, UC Berkeley, NC State University, UNC-Chapel Hill, Boston College, MIT, Florida International University, and New York University. After an initial round of disruptions on five campuses, including a 30-student deluge in the UC Berkeley career center, student disruptors at MIT and UNC-Charlotte found Bank of America recruiters hiding behind police guard to prevent further disruption (see a video here). At Florida International University, students discovered that campus administrators had been warned by the bank to watch out for “coal protestors.” Last week, at New York University, divestment organizers and their Occupy allies were successful at completely shutting down a Bank of America recruitment session: the bank canceled the entire session just hours before it was set to begin. The takeaway? Disruption of campus recruitment events has a direct impact on the operations of the fossil fuel industrial complex.

Where to from here?

What’s next? The fossil fuel industry and their financial abettors are using your campuses for their greenwashing purposes, and are recruiting our generation for jobs that, in an era of rapidly changing climate, are meaningless.  Bank of America’s recruitment sessions are finished for this semester, but next fall they will be back on your campus, recruiting your peers to work for their profits and at the expense of our planet. I have a vision of the campus divestment network standing up to shut down Bank of America’s recruitment activities, a threat too big for the bank to ignore. This will only be possible if students are willing to embrace their own autonomy, and figure out what degree of interference is possible and appropriate for their context. With our combined power, our movement has the potential to shut down the operations of climate change’s worst villains. Our responsibility to extraction and climate impacted communities demands that we use our position as members of a university community to confront and inhibit bad actors like Bank of America. To do that, our movements must move beyond symbolic protest to directly confront and disrupt the operations of the corporations that are destroying our future. There are many tactics, justice is the goal. For now, you can sign here to tell Bank of America’s CEO to expect resistance on your campus.

A Bank of America recruiter flees divestistas, UC-Berkeley, 2013

This is the first time in 25 years that I’ve committed an act of civil disobedience. Because this moment, with the threat of inaction in the face of climate change, demands something more.

Will you stand with me? Will you take five minutes right now to ask President Obama to make climate change a priority this year, starting by putting an end to the Keystone pipeline? And then ask five of your friends to do the same?

I need your helpto show the president that the 40+ of us out here today are backed by a national movement that is more determined than ever to see action on climate change.

As NASA scientist James Hansen, who is out here with me today, has said: “The Keystone pipeline spells game over for the climate.” If we don’t act, this massive 1700-mile pipeline would allow some of the world’s dirtiest oil to travel from Canada’s tar sands through America’s heartland—jeopardizing our water, our air, and our climate.

We need to keep up the pressure on all sides—in the streets and online. Please send an email to President Obama right now reminding him that this climate movement is only getting louder.

The entrenched, powerful fossil fuel industry has kept our government from taking comprehensive action to address the climate crisis. But we’ve outmatched them at every turn with the Keystone XL pipeline.

It’s the actions of people like you and me that have stalled pipeline construction for more than a year. This is a dramatic political shift. It tells me we’re on the right track and need to keep it up.

To be clear, putting an end to the Keystone XL pipeline is just our first demand. When I say this is the year for climate action, I mean it. This is the year to push to limit carbon pollution from our nation’s dirty power plants, move beyond coal and natural gas, and fire up our clean energy economy.

As we’ve seen with the Keystone pipeline, it takes strategic, powerful grassroots opposition from all sides, spanning from First Nations in Alberta to farmers in Nebraska—from loud online actions to the 40+ of us at the White House here today. I believe that massive grassroots activism is what it takes to make change in this country. If you agree, join me today, and let’s keep it up!

Early in the morning, about half a dozen UC students staged interventions into Bank of America’s recruitment interviews at the UC Career Center — and raised concerns about the bank’s involvement with the coal sector. The student interventions stopped the recruitment interviews as Bank of America staff heard about the impacts of the bank’s investment portfolio.

A few moments later, about 20 more students and activists joined them at the UC Career Center. The second wave further confronted the Career Center and Bank of America’s recruitment staff with questions about the bank’s policies on coal, climate change, and greenwashing. Outside the Career Center, students and activists rallied to call out the bank’s destructive investment practices as potential recruits entered the building.

Bank of America is one of the top funders of the coal industry, both in the mining and coal-burning utility sectors.  Between 2010 and 2011, it pumped $6.8 billion into the U.S. coal industry, the single largest source of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions.

Gabe Schwartzman, a student at UC Berkeley who participated in–and helped organize–the action said: “Students everywhere are refusing to work for the largest funder of coal and climate change—Bank of America. Until the bank addresses its coal problem, young people on college campuses will be bringing this issue to the table.”

This action was one of a series of actions happening across the country targeting Bank of America recruiters on campuses across the country. As student activists are organizing campus divestment campaigns against fossil fuels, and climate activists are taking action against pipelines, coal mines, and fracking wells — the campaign against the coal industry’s financial backers is beginning to heat up.

Unfortunately for the bank, UNCC’s best and brightest were there to protest Bank of America and their funding for coal and climate chaos.

Six activists, supported by UNCC alumni and students, burst into a Bank of America campus recruitment interview and delivered a clear message: “Bank of America, Divest from Coal!”

Maiada Carpano, a recent graduate of UNCC who helped plan today’s action, said: “This is a strong statement from students. Bank of America is pushing students into financial debt and the bank is destroying our future by funding coal and climate chaos. We will not further Bank of America’s destructive agenda by working with them.”

Ms. Carpano added: “We ask students across the country to join us in exposing Bank of America’s greenwash by disrupting their campus recruitment events.”

Student power is on the march; across the country, campuses are uniting against university investments in the fossil fuel industry. Students know that investments in fossil fuels–like coal and oil–are investments in climate chaos and mass extinction.

At UNCC, students and community allies worked together to leverage their power against Bank of America’s massive investments in the coal industry. Over the past 2 years, the bank has pumped more than $6.4 billion dollars into mountaintop removal mines and coal-fired power plants. Imagine an amount that is likely more than your local university’s entire endowment funneled exclusively into coal, the largest source of climate changing emissions in our country. That’s some dirty business.

It is past time Bank of America divests from the coal industry, but the bank still needs convincing. That’s where student power comes in. Over the upcoming months–maybe even next week–Bank of America recruiters will come to campuses looking to hire students for internships and careers. Would you take a job with one of the nation’s largest climate criminals?

RAN is calling for students, alumni, and allies across the country to push back against Bank of America’s campus recruitment activities. Collectively, students can withhold their labor and consent for Bank of America’s climate-destroying coal financing. By leveraging our voices at these key opportunities, our movement can cut the financial legs out from under the coal industry. To start taking action, email RAN’s global finance campaign at: todd@ran.org

On December 1, Earth Quaker Action Team (EQAT) put PNC Bank on notice: the campaign to stop PNC from financing mountaintop removal coal mining is powerful, growing, and rapidly spreading across the bank’s geographic territory. Last Saturday saw the largest single-day protest against PNC’s investments in mountaintop removal since EQAT launched their Bank Like Appalachia Matters (BLAM!) campaign in 2010.

From Philadelphia to Pittsburgh, Princeton to Cincinnati, EQAT coordinated 15 nonviolent direct action protests at PNC bank branches in five states and Washington, DC. At most locations, activists brought samples of contaminated water taken from Eunice, WV containing arsenic, selenium, mercury, and other toxins that routinely leach into the water table as a result of the mountaintop removal mining process. The water came from the well of Junior Walk, who currently suffers from severe gastro-intestinal illnesses and other health problems common in the region, where increased rates of cancer and birth defects have been documented.

Demonstrations included a banner drop over a highway in Morgantown, WV, mock “taste tests” of contaminated water in Princeton, a parade of toxic chemicals with a sit-in at Bryn Mawr, PA, and numerous public statements by PNC customers who closed their accounts on Saturday or who plan to do so unless PNC adopts a sector exclusion banning investments in mountaintop removal.

Two years ago, in response to demonstrations by Earth Quaker Action Team, PNC updated their Corporate Responsibility Report with a policy that prohibits investments in coal companies that source a majority of their coal from mountaintop removal. The policy, however, does not apply to any of the six largest mountaintop removal corporations with whom PNC does business, and has not significantly impacted PNC’s investments in the industry, according to a recent RAN report.

“We know PNC can do better, and we are committed to using nonviolence to stand up for the people of Appalachia,” said Bryn Mawr student Samantha Shain.

“PNC was formed from a merger between Pittsburgh National and Provident Bank, which was founded by Quakers,” said EQAT board member Eileen Flanagan. “As Quakers, we feel that if PNC is going to promote itself as a ‘green’ bank, they must act with integrity and live up to their claims of caring about the environment and the communities where they do business.”

PNC’s response to the Day of Action was consistent with their reaction to the Green Walk for Jobs and Justice staged by EQAT last spring: no comment. Activists report being met by security guards or police at the door, being threatened with arrest, being told by bank employees (including managers) that they could lose their jobs if they spoke to EQATers about the issue, and being blocked from entering. Banks in Washington, DC and Delaware completely closed down for the duration of the actions, angering unwitting customers trying to do their banking on a busy holiday shopping weekend. Some said they were surprised and unhappy to discover that PNC was involved in financing mountaintop removal. In many cases, PNC branch managers accepted the toxic water samples, waited tolerantly while the activists had their say and then left without comment. In Harrisburg, the manager was asked if he would be sending a report to his superiors and if he thought they were getting EQAT’s message. “Oh, they are well aware, believe me,” he replied. That would appear to be the case; in a number of locations extra security guards were hired for the day.

Maybe PNC is beginning to agree with the Harrisburg Patriot-News, who called Earth Quaker Action Team a “multimillion-dollar threat” to PNC.

Amy Ward Brimmer is a founding member of Earth Quaker Action Team and served on its board prior to becoming Executive Director. She is a lifelong questioner of authority and has worked as a theater artist, writer, editor, and holistic health educator specializing in childbirth and mindful movement for everyday living. Find her on Twitter @mindfulactivist.

July ‘06 Blockade of the English River Road

On December 2, 2002 the Indigenous youth of the Grassy Narrows First Nation lay down in the path of industrial logging machines—blocking access to their tribal homeland in Northern Ontario, Canada. The action, led by women and youth, sparked the longest standing Indigenous logging blockade in North America.

Since 2004, RAN has worked closely with the Grassy Narrows community as well as activists across North America determined to stand up for Indigenous rights and defend their traditional territory from predatory logging. Together, we were able to pressure AbitibiBowater (now Resolute), the largest newsprint manufacturer in the world, to stop clear-cutting on more than 2 million acres of Grassy Narrows’ traditional territory. In 2011, a landmark judgement by the Ontario Superior Court ruled that the Government of Ontario must respect the Treaty rights of Grassy Narrows and cannot authorize an industrial activity without their consent.

And now, as a decade has passed since the historic blockade began, which RAN continues to support through small grants, the Grassy Narrows community remains ever-vigilant in the face of imminent new threats to their territory. While an appeal of the court decision will be heard early next year, the Ontario government has already released a 10-year plan calling for more logging within the heart of Grassy Narrows.

Meanwhile, Grassy Narrows is calling on supporters to show solidarity by helping to commemorate the 10 year anniversary of the blockade and the international support it catalyzed around the world. Please join them in celebrating resistance, sovereignty, and action in defense of their traditional territory and the earth. Visit FreeGrassy.org for more information.

Also, take a look at this great photo retrospective by Jon Schledewitz:

The day ended with nine arrests, a swarm of media attention and hundreds of people showing their support with phone calls directly to key decision makers at Bank of America.

Today’s inspiring and complex action was deployed seamlessly by a passionate and peaceful crew of activists determined to send BofA a loud and clear message that the bank bears responsibility for the disastrous impacts of its coal funding. Coal is the largest source of climate change pollution in the U.S., and a major cause of air pollution and asthma.

Local grandmothers Patricia Moore and Beth Henry were among those arrested today after locking themselves to 55-gallon barrels in front of an Uptown Charlotte BofA branch. Pat spoke to the gathering crowd with dignity and deep emotion about her concern for her granddaughter who suffers from chronic asthma after growing up in close proximity to five coal-fired power plants that surround the city of Charlotte.

As fire engines roared into place and police and television helicopters gathered overhead, protest particpants—residents of Charlotte, Asheville, West Virginia and beyond—sat firm, blockading the doors of BofA’s bank branches to calmly but firmly make their case to the media and bank employees.

Some of today’s arrestees live in communities directly impacted by the devastating practice of mountaintop removal coal mining in Appalachia. Others pointed to the massive damage recently caused by super storm Sandy as urgent evidence that climate change is already directly affecting our lives and time is running out to take action for future generations.

Today’s action showed that standing up to protect our families, our homes, our climate requires bold acts. What we saw today was a group of people from wide ranging backgrounds come together to use the power of creative innovation and dignified resistance–what we saw, was a group of nine people able to get the attention of one of the world’s largest banks.

You can join those in Charlotte by calling Bank of America right now.

Thank you to all of those who put their bodies on the line today to ring the alarm bell that BofA must change its ways for the sake of us all and future generations. It is time for BofA to realize that the climate movement is only growing. More and more people of conscience will be inspired to take action until the bank stops funding dirty and dangerous coal and starts funding a clean energy future.

It seems these distraught red apes have descended on the small, affluent town of Wayzata to protest what they say is the destruction of their rainforest habitat for palm oil by Cargill.

The first of the forlorn primates appeared last week just before dawn on a local park bench on the shore of Lake Minnetonka, holding a sign that read “Home Destroyed for Palm Oil. Anything Helps.” Within minutes of sitting down, an upset passerby, apparently a Cargill employee, jumped out of her SUV and assaulted the peaceful orangutan, removing her sign and leaving her alone in the cold autumn air.

A few days later another of the great apes appeared on a busy public square in Wayzata carrying a sign reading “Evicted by Cargill. Will work for habitat.” This animal was more warmly received and he sat peacefully for hours as hundreds of people commented and interacted with him amicably.

The latest sighting was early in the morning this past Monday when a bundled-up orangutan was spotted hitchhiking near the entrance to Cargill’s headquarters in the town of Minnetonka. After hundreds of Cargill employees drove slowly past the hitchhiking protestor as they arrived to work, a team of Cargill private security officers arrived on the scene. The security team interrogated the orangutan for several tense minutes before rudely pinching his side and then picking him up and loading him into the back of their patrol vehicle. His current whereabouts remain unknown.

While it is unclear exactly how these tropical animals ended up in the frigid Midwest, their appearance follows a high profile string of public advertisements by Rainforest Action Network, including billboards, full page print ads and an online campaign calling attention to the urgent crisis of extinction orangutans face due to the wholesale destruction of Indonesia’s rainforests for palm oil plantations.

Cargill is the largest importer of palm oil into the US and one can only guess these intelligent creatures came to Cargill’s doorstep in a last ditch effort to save their kind before it is forever too late.

Please be on alert—while orangutans pose no threat to humans, these animals are clearly desperate for their survival and unless Cargill acts quickly to make sure it stops buying palm oil that destroys their precious habitat, there is no telling what they might do next.

This morning, in defiance of police and TransCanada’s lawsuits, over 50 people marched onto the easement to resupply the tree blockade with fresh food and water.

Follow tarsandsblockade.org for updates.

Here’s the press release:

Over 50 Enter Tar Sands Blockade Tree Village in Defiance of Police and Legal Repression to Defend Tree-Sitters

Risking arrest, lawsuits protesters rally for massive tree blockade after expansion of TransCanada’s overreaching SLAPP suit

WINNSBORO, TEXAS – MONDAY, OCTOBER 15, 2012 – Following a weekend of nonviolent civil disobedience training in North Texas by Tar Sands Blockade, many dozens of protesters and supporters are rallying today at the site of the largest and longest tree sit in Texas history to stage the largest walk-on site protest and civil disobedience in the history of Keystone XL pipeline construction. Several individuals are defending the tree sitters and the trees by locking themselves to construction equipment being used in proximity to the forest blockade. Solidarity actions are also taking place in Washington DC, Boston, Austin and New York City.

Altogether more than 50 blockaders are risking arrest to stop Keystone XL construction and bring attention to TransCanada’s repression of journalists attempting to cover the blockaders’ side of the story. They are joined by dozens of supporters who are rallying on public property with colorful banners and signs alongside the easement’s closest highway crossing. A massive media team is in tow to document the day of action and any possible police repression.

As the Winnsboro tree blockade enters its fourth week, the blockaders are resupplying their friends in the trees with fresh food, water, and cameras to further document their protest despite the threat of a newly-expanded Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation (SLAPP) by TransCanada and egregious criminal overcharges by local law enforcement. Due to the SLAPP suits’ outrageous claims, the tree sitters have by-and-large felt too threatened to safely reveal their identities, despite their protest being nonviolent. That the defiant walk-on protest is the largest yet attempted in the history of protests surrounding Keystone XL construction sends a clear signal that the blockaders will not be deterred by SLAPP suits and other legal threats to limit their civil liberties.

“Three weeks is a long time to be sitting in a tree. The training I got this weekend has me ready to rise up and join the sitters in defending Texas homes from the toxic tar sands,” shared Glenn Hobbit, 28. “They’re saying we might get sued or worse, but stopping this pipeline is too important.”

Last week, the multinational corporation opened a civil suit in which it named 19 individual defendants, 3 organizations, and 6 anonymous tree sitters for a total of 28 defendants seeking an injunction, declaratory relief, and damages. All the named defendants are former arrestees of Tar Sands Blockade actions with the exception of media spokesperson Ron Seifert, who has yet been arrested in connection with a protest, and area landowner Eleanor Fairchild, who acted independently with activist and actor Daryl Hannah. Hannah was not named in the suit.

Tar Sands Blockade is a coalition of Texas and Oklahoma landowners and climate justice organizers using peaceful and sustained civil disobedience to stop the construction of TransCanada’s Keystone XL tar sands pipeline.

“In reality, Tar Sands Blockade is not trespassing on TransCanada’s property. Many of TransCanada’s easement contracts were brokered through fraud and intimidation, and their entire legal foundation is being challenged in the courts for those reasons,” explained Ron Seifert, Tar Sands Blockade spokesperson. “If anything TransCanada is trespassing on the property of landowners who never wanted anything to do with their dangerous tar sands pipeline.”

Call TransCanada's CEO and tell him we stand with the brutalized Tar Sands Blockade activists. Click image to jump to a sample call script.

Yesterday, we learned that Texas police applied sustained chokeholds, violent arm-twisting, pepper spray, and multiple uses of tasers to move two peaceful protesters—all at the behest of TransCanada employees.

On Monday, eight brave people climbed trees on private land in Texas to block construction of the southern leg of the Keystone XL pipeline and protect their homes. On Tuesday, two peaceful protesters with the Tar Sands Blockade, Shannon Beebe and Benjamin Franklin, locked themselves to Transcanada’s machinery in support of the tree-sit, delaying work on the pipeline for most of the day.

Here’s how our allies on the ground in Texas described what happened to Shannon and Benjamin (warning: it’s pretty horrifying):

The most physically aggressive was the ranking officer, a Lieutenant with the Wood County Sheriff Department under the observation of TransCanada employees. He twisted and contorted the tube that [Shannon] Bebe and Franklin had locked their arms into, cutting off circulation to their hands and cutting abrasions into their hands and forearms.

Franklin and Bebe then describe pepper spray as the most painful part of their ordeal. Police sprayed into their lockdown tube, and the chemicals burned their already-open wounds.

Fortunately they were able to make it through their mutual torture by intimating personal reassurances to each other. Franklin and Bebe say they were able to endure the pain knowing that they were in it together. Despite the immense pain our brave blockaders remained locked to the machinery for several hours—determined to stop this toxic tar sands pipeline.

After the pepper spray didn’t work the police again conferred with TransCanada employees before sending someone back to the police car to bring a taser. Franklin and Bebe were each tased for one second. Then Franklin was tased for 5 entire seconds. He described the pain as immense and almost physically unbearable.

Afterwards, John, the senior TransCanada supervisor, openly congratulated the aggressive Sheriffs Department Lieutenant on a “job well done.” To which the Lieutenant replied: “if this happens again we’ll just skip to using pepper spray and tasing in the first 10 minutes.”

Will you help us send a message to show that Shannon and Benjamin are not alone? Call TransCanada CEO Ross Girling to let him know that we won’t stand for Big Oil instigating police brutality against peaceful protesters. Here’s his number: 1.800.661.3805 (click here to jump to a sample call script).

At the beginning of September, tar sands oil giant TransCanada started construction on the 485-mile southern leg of the Keystone XL pipeline, which will send billions of gallons of crude oil from Cushing, OK to Port Arthur, TX. After using every political and legal avenue to attempt to stop this dirty oil pipeline from devastating their homes, Texas landowners, environmentalists and average folks took to the trees to block Transcanada’s pipeline construction. Forming the “Tar Sands Blockade,” these brave people are using non-violent civil disobedience to stop this pipeline from destroying their land and watershed as well as our climate. Shannon and Benjamin’s treatment has shaken all of them, and they need our support now more than ever.

Thankfully, Shannon and Benjamin are ok, but their treatment was beyond abhorrent. Every one of us has taken a stand against the Keystone XL pipeline. We need to stand with Texans today who are still fighting this pipeline as it threatens to snake across their lands and dislocate their homes.

For brutality of this scale, a simple email to the CEO just wont cut it. Please take a few minutes today to call TransCanada CEO Ross Girling and let him know that his company’s urging of police brutality against peaceful protesters will not be tolerated… and neither will his tar sands pipeline. Here’s how:

1. Call 1.800.661.3805 (free call from anywhere in North America).

2. If someone answers the phone, ask to speak to Ross Girling (it’s highly unlikely they will put you through). Whether your call is answered by voicemail or a real person, be polite and respectful, but above all make sure you state how seriously you’re taking TransCanada’s encouragement of police brutality against peaceful protesters.

Here’s a sample call script:

Hello, my name is ____{name}____ and I’m calling today to tell Ross Girling that I think it’s absolutely reprehensible that TransCanada is urging police brutality against peaceful protesters.

On September 25th, police used brutal tactics like chokeholds, pepper-spray and tasers on two peaceful protesters occupying TransCanada contstruction equipment in Texas–at the behest of TransCanada employees on the scene.

I am outraged at these acts and TransCanada’s participation in them. I demand that your employees cease participating in these activities immediately.

Thank you for your time.

3. After you call, click the button below to report how it went. It’s important we get an accurate count of how many folks made a call, and what TransCanada’s response is.

In the past two months, the Tar Sands Blockade has brought new energy to the campaign to stop the Keystone pipeline. TransCanada knows we’re a threat to its plans to wreck the planet for profit—and that’s exactly why we must keep the pressure up. We WILL stop the Keystone XL pipeline once and for all, thanks to you and everything you do.

Supporters of Rainforest Action Network joined with members of Rainforest Relief and Global Justice for Animals and Ecology to greet the CEOs and CFOs from Indonesia’s biggest banks—e.g. Mandiri Bank, Bank Republic of Indonesia, Bank Central Asia—as well as executives from palm oil (big ag), coal, oil and gas, steel, telecommunications and pulp and paper companies as they hobnobbed with US  institutional investors trying to make deals.

The demonstration was organized to send a clear warning to potential investors to be aware of the major risks involved and avoid putting their money into companies with track records of deforestation and social conflict. Some of the world’s most notorious forest destroying companies dominate Indonesia’s paper and palm oil industries in particular and are responsible for widespread human rights abuses.

Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono gave a morning speech at the New York Stock Exchange and then gathered with US bankers and Indonesia’s business elite at the upscale Conrad Hotel for an event called “Indonesia Investment Day.”

A protester dressed as a critically endangered Sumatran tiger singled out logging giants Asia Pulp and Paper (APP) and APRIL for their role in “double defaulting” on investors to the combined sum of over $17 billion. APP is still in gross violation of its legally binding “Master Restructuring Agreement with forest conservation commitments made to western financial institutions and Export Credit Agencies.

Scientists estimate there are less than 400 Sumatran tigers remaining in the wild and habitat destruction by the pulp and paper industry is a primary cause of their decline.

Other protestors held placards that read “Development without Deforestation!” and “You can’t Hedge Extinction.”

Originally posted by the Tar Sands Blockade

Eight people climbed 80 feet into trees in the path of Keystone XL construction and pledged not to come down until the pipeline is stopped for good. Construction cannot proceed until tree-sitters descend and TransCanada clear-cuts through hundreds of trees to make way for the toxic tar sands pipeline.

The blockade is carefully organized to ensure that everyone sitting in the trees can remain safe as long as TransCanada does not attempt to continue clear-cutting the trees. These ardent advocates of landowner’s rights and climate justice have the safety equipment and food supplies to last indefinitely. Help spread this breaking story  on Facebook and Twitter.

“Today I climbed a tree in the path of Keystone XL to demand TransCanada stop construction of this dirty and dangerous pipeline. This pipeline is a disaster for everyone it touches, from the cancer tar sands extraction is causing indigenous communities, to the water poisoned by inevitable tar sands spills, to the landowners whose land has been seized, and to everyone that will be affected by climate change,” said Mary Washington, one of the Tar Sands Blockade members sitting in a tree.

Show your support for Mary and our seven other blockaders with a generous donation to help keep them supplied with food and water.

It’s not easy to see our friends disappear up a tree, exposed to the elements, and not know when we will see them again. But knowing what this pipeline is doing to our neighbors and the planet, we are more resolved than ever to keep fighting this pipeline by whatever means we can.

This blockade is a continuation of an unprecedented summer of actions against fossil fuel infrastructure across America, from Montana to Ohio to New York. As a record heat wave baked the country, Americans stood up in unheard of numbers to oppose fossil fuels that are contributing to climate change. Join this growing movement when you sign up now to join one of our upcoming actions. If you were thinking about coming to Texas, now is the time!

“Climate change killed half a billion trees in Texas last year—and if TransCanada cuts these down, than the dirty oil they send down the pipeline will trigger yet more out-of-control warming,” said climate activist Bill McKibben, who helped lead huge protests in Washington, DC against the pipeline last fall.

Tar Sands Blockade has already successfully shut down Keystone XL construction for about two-and-a-half days in Livingston, Saltillo, and Winnsboro.

Watch the action-packed video from our recent actions and sign up to join us.

“Today’s bold action by these eight brave people demonstrates their resolve to stop this dirty and dangerous pipeline. They understand the severity of the threat and that taking action is less risky than doing nothing,” said Ron Seifert, a spokesperson with Tar Sands Blockade. “We are defending our homes, our communities clean drinking water, our land rights, and a stable, livable climate.”

Three landowner advocates have locked themselves to a massive wood chipper and a skidder, both used in clear cutting trees in the path of the toxic pipeline. Tar Sands Blockade has again delayed construction on a segment of TransCanada’s Keystone XL tar sands pipeline. Today’s action marks the third time that blockaders have halted construction in recent weeks.

Tar Sand Blockade again halts construction on the toxic Keystone XL pipeline in its sustained campaign of civil disobedience

Four blockaders total entered a construction yard risking arrest. Texas-born blockaders have united with neighbors from other states to support rural and neighboring communities threatened by the toxic pipeline’s diluted bitumen slurry.

Doug Grant, 65, from San Francisco, CA, says, “Having worked for years for Exxon, I know how enticing it is to want to develop the Alberta Tar Sands, but it’s just wrong; wrong for the folks who live near the surface mines and toxic ponds, wrong for the landowners who are coerced under duress into contracts or taken to court to have their homes stolen from them, and just wrong for the climate.”

“As a mother and step-grandmother, I want to be able to tell my children that I did something when the time came,” explains Amarillo-born R.C. Saldaña-Flores, 36. “I’m willing to take risks today to raise awareness of this horrible situation—even if that means being away from my children in jail for a day.”

Kentucky-based solar installation expert and author of the forthcoming book The Pipeline and the Paradigm: Keystone XL and the Rise of Global Consciousness, Sam Avery, 63, suggests that sometimes you must create an obstruction in order to facilitate necessary discussion. “I don’t believe it’s too late. We have time,” he says. “We simply must continue to stand with landowners who are having their homes and farms ruined. We must continue to press for dialogue amongst all people victimized by TransCanada’s ruthless harm. Civil disobedience allows for that space to develop.”

Tar Sands Blockade is a coalition of Texas and Oklahoma landowners and climate organizers using peaceful and sustained civil disobedience to stop the construction of the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline.

“People from all walks of life are banding together to defend their homes in the face of TransCanada’s fraudulent bullying,” suggests Ron Seifert, a spokesperson for the Tar Sands Blockade. “Their Keystone XL pipeline serves no legitimate public interest, and people are waking up to the fact that this multinational corporation is stealing land and poisoning water supplies illegitimately. For that reason, we are proactively defending homes through nonviolent civil disobedience.”

One thing is clear from the recent victories that stopped Keystone XL construction for the entire day in both Saltillo and Livingston, Texas: people power works.

Sign up now to join one of Tar Sands Blockade’s upcoming actions.

You can also stay up to date with TSB on Facebook and Twitter.

The blockaders have been locked down for several hours now, the work site is closed, and TransCanada has sent 20 workers home.

Now we’re hearing reports that police have left the scene with the blockade intact!

via Tar Sands Blockade

Dontcha wanna join the Tar Sands Blockade?

Landowner advocates lock selves to feller buncher machines in KXL easement’s path of destruction!

SALTILLO, TEXAS – September 5, 2012, 7AM – Three landowner advocates and climate justice organizers have locked themselves to feller buncher machines used for clearing large trees in the path of the Keystone XL pipeline. Today’s action has halted work on a segment of TransCanada’s illegitimate pipeline outside of Saltillo, TX. As promised, Tar Sands Blockade’s rolling campaign of nonviolent civil disobedience pushes forward.

Five blockaders total are currently risking arrest to stop work on this segment of the Keystone XL pipeline. Contractors discovered their presence early in the work day, and work at the site was called off shortly thereafter. Texas-born blockaders have united with neighbors from other states to support rural and neighboring communities threatened by the toxic pipeline’s diluted bitumen slurry.

Tar Sands Blockade’s landowner solidarity actions hit home with 22 year old Houston-born blockader, Sarah Reid. “This pipeline affects me, my friends and my family directly. The toxic contents threaten the water we drink, the air we breathe.” Reid, who traces her Texan ancestry back to Obedience Smith, the first female settler to own land in Texas, continues, “Out in East Texas, the landowners I’ve met are honest, hard working people who have been taken advantage of by TransCanada. They’re people who just want to protect themselves and their families.”

The sense that legal means have failed to curb the landowner abuse inherent in the current eminent domain process is palpable. Gary Lynn Stuard, 54, of Dallas is no longer willing to wait for regulatory reform or judicial intervention: “We have exhausted all of the traditional avenues, and it’s not enough. It’s unjust that a multinational company can seize people’s property by proclaiming themselves a “common carrier” – that’s eminent domain abuse. It’s theft, and these peoples’ homes and land shouldn’t be ruined while decisions on what to do are put off.”

Mikey Lowe, 24, traveled from California to raise awareness of the tar sands carrier’s deception. “I feel that eminent domain has really gone too far. I really want to show [the world] what’s going on,” he shared.

Former Quinlan resident, Beverly Luff, 23, is primarily motivated by the threat that tar sands surface mining and extraction pose to the future of a livable climate. “The more people ignore it, the worse it will get. There’s only one planet, and we can’t afford to let dirty business interests cheat to win in East Texas or elsewhere.”

Tar Sands Blockade is a coalition of Texas and Oklahoma landowners and climate organizers using peaceful and sustained civil disobedience to stop the construction of the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline. Today’s action comes on the heels of last week’s outside of Livingston, TX in which seven blockaders were arrested when four locked themselves to a truck delivering pipe segments to a Keystone XL construction site. Their successful nonviolent action stopped activity in the pipeyard for the day. In response, TransCanada claimed its pipeline was not to carry anything other than “crude oil,” which is factually inaccurate at best.

“TransCanada commits fraud when it lies about the substances in its toxic tar sands slurry pipeline,” explains Tar Sands Blockade spokesperson Ron Seifert. “East Texans have been documenting TransCanada’s deceit for over four years now. Rural and neighboring families have been treated as nothing more than collateral damage by industry, political and regulatory leaders on all sides of the aisle. The truth is TransCanada will do or say anything to ram this pipeline through, regardless of who gets hurt along the way.”

Reposted from the Tar Sands Blockade. 

**2:22pm: Heard from blockaders in Polk County jail. Every one is safe and being processed.

**1:15pm–Final blockader arrested. 7 brave people shut down #KeystoneXL construction for the day! Dissembled pipe truck still blocking the entrance of the pipeyard.

** 1:10PM – Police are dismantling truck axle. One blockader is holding tight! The 3 others have been arrested. 1 of 6 arrested so far is a journalist.

**11:20AM — 4 Blockaders Have Been Arrested!

**10:00AM — 4 Blockaders Have Locked Themselves to a Pipe-carrying Truck In Livingston, TX, bringing construction on the Keystone XL pipeline to a stop!!

Just minutes ago, four landowner advocates and climate justice organizers have locked themselves to the underside of a massive truck carrying 36″ pipe intended for Keystone XL construction. The truck is parked, idled at the entrance of the pipeyard, rendering construction activity impossible. Seven blockaders total are onsite risking arrest. We will be getting photos and video throughout the day, but check out our testimonial video below of some of today’s blockade participants.

Blockaders from the Red River valley to the Gulf Coast are uniting to realize their collective vision of a world without toxic tar sands pipelines being forced through the homes of families who don’t want them. Today’s message is clear: The people are rising up to defend their homes.

This act of peaceful civil disobedience comes in the wake of a recent court decision condoning TransCanada’s use of eminent domain for private gain. Last week Lamar County Judge Bill Harris ruled in a shockingly abbreviated fifteen-word summary judgment that Texas farmer Julia Trigg Crawford cannot challenge TransCanada’s claim that it is entitled to a piece of her home. The underwhelming ruling was emailed to Ms. Crawford’s attorney late in the evening of August 15 from the Judge’s iPhone.

**Live Blog: Visit this page throughout the day for breaking updates on actions happening in the region.

The arrogant disregard levied at landowners like Julia Trigg Crawford for simply not consenting to have a tar sands pipeline permanently bisect their homes is what motivated Houston businessman Ray Torgerson to take action with the Blockade. “The fact that this corporation can check a box on a form and steal someone’s land is insulting,” Ray says. “We are here to defend our homes and stand with landowners like Julia.”

Further emblematic of the disrespect small town families like the Crawfords have faced throughout Keystone XL legal proceedings, Ms. Crawford received first notice of the ruling from a reporter seeking comment who had been blind carbon copied on the County Judge’s email ruling.

“It was heartbreaking to hear a generational family farm like the Crawford’s can be taken away by a multinational corporation,” exclaims blockader Audrey Steiner, a linguistic anthropologist from Austin. “I’m here to change the direction our country is taking.”

Crawford’s challenge to TransCanada’s “common carrier” status was supported by a recent Texas Supreme Court case, Texas Rice Land Partners v. Denbury Green Pipeline, but Judge Harris clearly ignored what should have been a precedent-setting ruling.

As appeals wind through the legal system, pipeline construction continues.

The concerns of the blockaders today go well beyond TransCanada’s appalling contempt for property rights. As Tammie Carson, a lifelong Texan living in Arlington explains, “I’m doing this for my grandchildren. I’m outraged that multinational corporations like TransCanada are wrecking our climate. The planet isn’t theirs to destroy, and I’m willing to take a risk to protect my grandchildren’s future.”

Denny Hook, a retired Methodist minister from Gainesville, Texas describes himself as “An environmentalist that happens to be a minister.” In taking action today, Hook hopes to inspire more people to join the movement. “Things are so dire that if all of us don’t rise up we won’t make it. This pipeline is the difference between Earth on the edge and Earth over the edge.”

In the face of this waking nightmare, blockaders have little choice but to act out of conscience. We simply have no time left to wait for the legislative to catch up with the judicial. We won’t allow our homes and our futures to slip through regulatory loopholes!

Tar Sands Blockade is a coalition of Texas and Oklahoma landowners and climate organizers using peaceful and sustained civil disobedience to stop the construction of Keystone XL.

“The blockade is an expression of people who have spent years using every available avenue afforded to them, and nothing has worked,” explains Tar Sands Blockade spokesperson Ron Seifert. “The urgency of this crisis is galvanizing supporters who understand that doing nothing involves a greater risk than taking action.”

Photo by Rae Breaux, via coalexportaction.org

This post originally appeared on Alternet.

It wasn’t as big as we’d hoped. These things never are, until, well, they are.

It didn’t really matter though: Hundreds converged from across the country for the Coal Export Action and 23 participated in five days of civil disobedience in protest of the coal industry’s latest scheme to save itself from obsolescence. The message we sent reverberated around the state capitol here in Helena, MT: We will not sit idly by while King Coal attempts to export coal from the Powder River Basin through port towns in Oregon and Washington to Asian energy markets.

Every day, people sat-in in the middle of the Montana statehouse until it closed at 6 pm. At 5:30, the nervous facilities manager, Marv Eicholtz, would awkwardly give the larger group the first dispersal order. At 5:50, he’d issue a second one with Helena policemen standing in the background. At 6 pm, Eicholtz would approach and say, “I’m giving you the third and final dispersal warning. Anyone refusing to leave the building will be turned over to the Helena Police Dept.” Those not risking arrested would circle around those sitting in and ask them why we were going to jail, sing civil rights songs, or chant. They’d then quickly leave and wait outside as the police brought the arrestees out to idling sheriff’s vans and took them to the Lewis and Clark county jail.

Every day for five days this routine happened over and over. By the end of the week, 23 had been arrested. Most of the arrestees were from Montana, Oregon and Washington—all states expected to be impacted by coal exports, coal trains and expanded western coal mining.

On the fourth day, I joined the sit-in with my friends Griff (an Episcopal minister from Portland), Jasmine and Gloria (who are Rising Tide organizers in Portland and Chicago, respectively), and younger activists Mia and Kai’l (both from Portland). Every day was a theme day, and on our day it was “climate change day.” Quite fitting since everyone arrested that day had worked on climate campaigns from Appalachia to the South Side of Chicago to Oregon port towns at one time or another. All six of us opted not to pay the $340 bond and be bailed out. We spent the night in the Lewis and Clark county lock up in general population, a small sacrifice for making a statement against coal exports.

Montana Rising

The Coal Export Action was initiated and led by grassroots, youth, and student organizers from Montana, Oregon, and Washington, most of them affiliated with the Blue Skies Campaign and the Cascade Climate Network. It was also supported by a number of environmental and climate groups like Rainforest Action Network, 350.org, and Rising Tide North America. It was inspired by the Tar Sands Action called for by writer Bill McKibben at the White House in 2011, which resulted in over 1,200 arrests. Some of the 23 arrested in Helena last week were also participants in the actions at the White House.

For months, we’d organized, done outreach, and built a buzz calling on people from the coastal and mountain regions of the West to join the Coal Export Action. It was eight days of rolling sit-ins and protests at the Montana statehouse designed to pressure the state’s land board to deny Arch Coal’s permit application to mine Otter Creek and create a new source of greenhouse gas emissions.

While not the same size as the Tar Sands Action, the Coal Exports Action was not lacking in spirit. Noted Montana environmental writer and poet Rick Bass sat-in and was arrested on the first day with six others. On the second day, three Montana men sat in and were arrested. On the third day, a group of women called “Montana Women For” led a ladies-only occupation of the capitol rotunda. On the fourth day, our climate crew was arrested. On the last day, three men were taken away.

More importantly, the Coal Export Action turned a spark of grassroots climate activism in the Northwest into a blaze. “We are here to demonstrate mass citizen opposition to big coal corporations’ dirty plan to export millions of tons of Powder River basin coal each year to the international energy market,” said Lowell Chandler, a construction worker and volunteer with the Blue Skies Campaign. “We’re here to pressure the state Land Board to stand with us against these massive coal export proposals.”

Every day the Coal Export Action transformed the Montana statehouse into participatory space where people from around the country held teach-ins and strategized the next steps for coal export campaigns in the West. A No Coal Exports grassroots coalition is coming out of Helena fired up and ready to fight.

The Coal Industry is Dying

In the middle of the week, Arch Coal issued a press release stating that they’d officially applied for the permit to strip mine Otter Creek. Otter Creek is a tract of land in southeast Montana sitting between two national forests and on top of over a billion tons of coal. The permit spreads over 7,639 acres of state, federal and private land. Arch paid the state of Montana $86 million for the coal and will also build new rail lines to get the coal transported out.

It became obvious the tension we’d hoped to create was working. The day after Arch’s announcement, we picketed the Montana Dept. of Environmental Quality’s offices and began a dialogue with the agency’s amiable director, Richard Opper. He was obviously sympathetic but also said he had to abide by state laws and regulations.

The coal industry is dying. Coal has peaked in Appalachia. Environmental regulation, litigation, community-led campaigns, and the price of natural gas have all drastically reduced the amount of electricity generated by coal nationally, from 50% to 35%. The shrinking demand has led to large layoffs and fading quarterly profits for the biggest coal companies.

Now the coal industry is moving into an endgame scenario and coal exports are its last hope. Coal reserves in the Powder River Basin area of Montana and Wyoming are still abundant and the industry is hoping to export coal through proposed mega-ports on the Oregon and Washington coast to international energy markets in China and India.

At the end of the Coal Export Action, I traveled to Missoula to unwind for a few days. On one of those days I took a six-mile hike into the Bitterroot Wilderness. Sharing a name with Montana’s state flower, the Bitteroot is populated with majestic trees, diverse wildlife and flowing waterways. Along the trails I encountered fellow hikers, fisherman, and horse packers. It was an opportunity to reconnect, if only for a moment, with the forests and mountains I’d spent a night in jail to preserve.