So I really like the Winter Olympics – they really put the Summer Olympics to shame. Hockey, luge, figure skating, bobsledding, downhill skiing… and even that sport that combines cross-country skiing and target shooting! (Whose idea was that??)

But this year, a wide variety of activists, in B.C. and beyond, are reminding us that the 2010 Vancouver Olympics aren’t all fun and games. In fact, they’re resulting in huge developments on unceded First Nations land, massive spending on hyper-militarized security, and displacement of poor people and increased homelessness in Vancouver.

And, of course, it’s an opportunity for some good ol’-fashioned corporate PR. Companies from around the world with gruesome environmental and human rights track records – like Dow, Coca-Cola, and General Electric – are lining up to spend millions on funding the Olympics and sprucing up their tarnished images.

And the lead sponsor of the Olympic torch run: Royal Bank of Canada, the ATM for the Alberta tar sands. In fact, their website for the torch run calls on people across Canada to “make a pledge” to “make a better Canada,” and touts RBC’s “Blue Water Pledge” to “support watershed protection” – a little bit hypocritical, given that RBC has pledged $3.8 billion in financing to tar sands companies in the last six months alone.

So a group of folks in Vancouver decided to call RBC on their greenwashing. They issued a callout last week – endorsed by RAN - calling for protests at RBC branches across Canada every Friday at noon, to protest RBC’s attempts to use their Olympic funding to greenwash their role as the world’s biggest financier of the tar sands.

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The controversy surrounding the US Chamber of Commerce continues. The labor coalition Change to Win recently issued a report on how the Chamber has been hijacked by right wing ideologues, whose opposition to regulation of greenhouse gas pollution has included calling for the EPA to conduct a ‘Scopes Monkey Trial’ on climate change. In a letter to members sent today, Chamber COO called groups like RAN who believe that climate change is a real problem ‘environmental extremists’.

Meanwhile, more and more companies and business groups (Apple, Exelon, PG&E) are dropping their membership in the Chamber and public opposition to the Chambers’ climate change denial is growing. The latest opposition is coming from the high tech sector, where the Silicon Valley Leadership Group and Silicon Valley Joint Venture are running an ad campaign against the Chamber for its opposition. And the Chamber is on the run, having been forced to backpedal on its claims to be the voice of the business community; last week the Chamber claimed to ‘represent’ 3 million businesses, but this week it quietly reduced that number to ‘300,000’ members. Investors are calling for companies that they own shares in to drop their membership in the Chamber, and local Chambers are formally distancing themselves from the US Chamber’s opposition to action on climate change.
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I’m sitting opposite the ‘Hotel Black Gold’ as the sun goes down over Lago Agrio and the streets start to hum with evening traffic, people returning home from work and families out walking together. It’s hard to believe that just a few short hours ago this street was filled with hundreds of indigenous people and peasant farmers loudly, passionately protesting Chevron’s (which became synonymous with Texaco when the two companies merged) continued refusal to clean up the toxic mess that they left behind almost twenty years ago. One man held a sign that said bluntly: “My family was killed by cancer, Texaco”.

As Chevron works overtime to complicate, undermine and even corrupt the trial that is very likely to find them guilty of health and environmental damages to the tune of $27 billion, the resistance of the affected people grows stronger and more determined. The crowd marched from three directions and converged on the courthouse, where a member of one of the Indigenous group approached the doors to ask if he and four spiritual elders could enter to perform a cleansing ceremony. The guard refused, saying (with a straight face and not a hint of irony) that it was impossible because the men would need to light tobacco and that might contaminate the inside of the courthouse. Undeterred, the elders from the Cofan, Siona and Secoya peoples performed their ceremony for the crowds on the street, grinding and drinking the bitter yoco root to give them all strength and renewed determination to fight Chevron.

Walking in the streets with these people was powerful and achingly painful at the same time – almost all of them are living without access to clean drinking water and many of them can’t afford to buy bottled water. I watched as an elderly indigenous woman drank deeply from a plastic water bottle that had been handed to her by one of the Frente (the coalition of groups working to fight Chevron and represent the affected peoples), wondering when the last time was that she had quenched her thirst without poisoning her body. It sounds dramatic, but it is no word of exaggeration to say that these people are dying. The indigenous groups are losing the last of their land and livelihoods and the peasant farmers are barely surviving on land that is growing more and more toxic as oil from the waste pits leaches out into streams and rivers.

Is there any doubt about this? I don’t think so. Just two nights earlier, I was sitting in the lounge of our hotel in Quito when a clean-cut American man came into the room and began to work on his computer. I asked him what his business in Ecuador was and he replied that he was just here for a visit to the Galapagos Islands. But as it turns out, Rick is a biophysical chemist, specializing in cancer research. So I inquired without telling him why I wanted to know: “is there any way that there is NO connection between long-term exposure to crude oil and cancer”. I expected to get some scientific prevarication, but Rick didn’t even pause, not for a second. “No way at all” he said.

Are you listening Chevron? These people need something very simple – clean water, free from crude oil residue. Or they will die.

Check out episode 6 of the 10 day adventure of RAN and Substance educating and mobilizing people to stop the Tar Sands, with rock bands Propagandhi and Strike Anywhere

Check out this great video from the Cliffside Climate Action.

A few hours ago hundreds of protesters converged on the headquarters of Duke Energy in Charlotte NC to demand a stop to the construction of the Cliffside Coal-fired power plant. This is just the latest in the growing wave of civil disobedience that is building around the country demanding that we get America off coal – the number one cause of global warming pollution in the US. Duke Energy stands out as one of the most hypocritical utilities – on the one hand professing to care about the climate, and on the other, continuing to pursue the construction of two conventional coal-fired power plants. Citi and Bank of America both have outstanding financial relationships with Duke – and this protest, coming on the eve of Citi’s shareholder meeting and just a week before Bank of America’s, underscores the escalating reputational risk associated with their continued support of dirty coal.

Stay tuned for a report and photos from the ground from Scott Parkin.

A news clip coverage of the Capitol Climate Action and Power Shift 09

It was a good week in the fight against tar sands.

Last week, RBC CEO Gord Nixon went on record saying that he would “consider” an invitation from Lionel Lepine to visit Ft. Chipewyan (video soon on youtube). After the meeting, the Financial Times cited concerns about RBC’s financing of a Transcanada pipeline across Lubicon Territory while the Vancouver Sun described objections to “the 2010 Olympic sponsor’s status as top financier of the Alberta oilsands.”

Then Monday morning, we warned Congressional Leaders about Canada’s Environment Minister Jim Prentice (pics/video). In a story about the protest, Mitch Potter at the Toronto Star’s Washington Bureau quoted one Canadian official saying “we are getting killed on oilsands” and the Star editorialized that “political realities aren’t following the script” of Prentice’s visit.

After the letter delivery, Gitz Crazyboy, down from ACFN in Alberta, lead a march to shut down a coal fired power plant while doing an interview with CTV (still looking for video).

Meanwhile Eriel and Melina were on CBC National News, talking about the campaign that brought them to Washington to warn Congress and the Obama Administration about the tar sands.

Along the way, we were also able to meet lots of new friends excited to help push the campaign forward. I’m especially excited about working with Dogwood Initiative on oil tanker traffic, Council of Canadians on water quality and Amnesty International on rights for the Lubicon.

In DC, it was great to work closely with IEN and have so much support from The Canadian Powershift Delegation including SYC, CYCC and Forest Ethics. Big thanks to Lionel, Melina, Gitz, Eriel and everybody who supported us!

Canadian Environment Minister Jim Prentice wrapped up his visit with US Cabinet and Congressional Leaders yesterday, but not without interruption. RAN received the following dispatch from Paul R. Bear from Washington, D.C.

After I heard about Prentice making a visit to DC, I grabbed a couple of buddy-bears and made a bee-line for the beltway. By developing the tar sands without a plan for reducing carbon emissions, Canada’s not taking climate change seriously and we wanted to be sure Prentice didn’t misrepresent that to Congress and the White House.

From the sound of it, the bears may have made a difference. The Toronto star quoted one Canadian official as saying “we are getting killed on oil sands.” Let’s just hope the bears don’t.

Yesterday thousands of people converged on the Capitol Power Plant to engage in mass civil disobedience, shutting it down for the afternoon to demand clean energy solutions to our economic and climate crises.

Check out the recent media coverage in Associated Press (AP), TIME Magazine, CNN, Huffington Post, The Hill, Alternet, and USA Today.

See lots of pictures here.

There is already a lot being written about how this action achieved our goals in building outside pressure, political will, and urgency to change the national conversation around the climate crisis and get bold policy in 2009. The announcement three days prior to our action that the Capitol Power Plant would be switched off coal validates the power of mass pressure and people power, as we push on to fight for truly clean energy. The amazing media we have already gotten has helped shape the national conversation.

I want to talk about another goal we had: movement building - and how we can make the most of it.

Through organizing this action, nearly 2,000 people were trained in non-violent direct action. Hundreds of people stepped into roles like peacekeepers, contingent leaders, artists, trainers, media runners, tablers, scouts, chant leaders, media wranglers, technical communications, police liaisons, worker liaisons, trash clean up, medics, support (bringing people food, water, blankets, and hot chocolate), online support, photographers and videographers, spokespeople, and many many others. Our resolve and determination not only brought many to risk arrest, but all of us to brave harsh weather. Speakers ranging from Dr. Vandana Shiva, to Bobby Kennedy, to DC Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton, to Dr. James Hansen took the mic to support this movement and action.

We certainly surpassed our expectation of 3,000 people participating, some are estimating thousands more than that.

But here’s the inside scoop: it’s important to be real about this action, what it is, and what it isn’t.

This action was a national flashpoint to get together and help move our country forward on a federal level. It was also an “outside strategy” that gave leverage to the thousands who were inside Congress lobbying for clear and specific policy.

But we all know that civil disobedience and non-violent direct action is just one tool of many – sometimes it’s strategic, sometimes its not. We are honored and excited that so many thousands of people have had a transformational experience yesterday and are energized to go home and use these tactics. That was a goal.

But to get excited about tactics for their own sake – devoid of strategic context and community accountability – would be to take the wrong lesson home.

We believe in direct action that is community led, and part of ongoing campaigns where directly affected people are in leadership positions and making decisions. These kinds of direct actions are often smaller and much less “sexy” and “flashy” than national convergences like Capitol Climate Action. The role of national convergences like CCA is specific and rare – and the real work happens when we go back home.

While yesterday’s action was endorsed by over 100 organizations, including many from impacted regions throughout the continent, the convening organizations who made up our organizing group (along with allies) – Rainforest Action Network, Greenpeace, Chesapeake Climate Action Network, and the Ruckus Society – are justice-minded organizations that are national or regional in scope, but are not community-based groups. We want to be transparent about that. We believe in supporting such groups and their leadership in our movement. We were honored to be able to support Native, Appalachian, and urban communities affected by the life cycle of coal in leading our march and being spokespeople for the action. But people wanting to engage in tactics like this should seek local community support and build with one another to craft a smart, thoughtful intervention and escalation with people who live in the impacted area. More »