We speak with 350.org’s Bill McKibben about how the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe and members of hundreds of other tribes from across the U.S., Canada and Latin America have resisted construction of the $3.8 billion Dakota Access pipeline, even as police carrying assault rifles responded to them with armored vehicles, tear gas and helicopters. "We cannot pump more oil," McKibben says.
Meanwhile, a Reuters investigation finds pipeline spill detection system severely flawed
Close to 100 scientists have signed onto a letter decrying "inadequate environmental and cultural impact assessments" for the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL), and calling for a halt to construction until such tests have been carried out as requested by the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe.
It’s a simple choice: stop all fossil fuel prospecting, or break the Paris agreement on climate change.
published in the Guardian 28th Sepetmeber 2016
Do they understand what they have signed? Plainly they do not. Governments like ours, now ratifying the Paris agreement on climate change, haven’t the faintest idea what it means. Either that, or they have no intention of honouring it.
Imminent decisions on giant energy projects are sure to anger some parts of the electorate that swept him to power.
September 25, 2016
Photographs by Ben Nelms/Bloomberg [See original article for photos]
Along Canada’s evergreen-draped west coast, the fate of a multi-billion-dollar energy project and a nation’s reconciliation with its dark, colonial past hang in the balance.
The federal government’s decision on expanding the TransMountain pipeline, expected no later than Dec. 19, will be an early Christmas present for an as yet unknown recipient.
As opponents hope for a resounding “no” on the $6.8-billion expansion project, all but a few of the communities along the pipeline route — from Strathcona County in Alberta to Burnaby, B.C. — have signed agreements ensuring they get more than a lump of coal if the project goes ahead, whether they endorse it, or not.
Enbridge says they will pursue re-engagement with directly affected First Nations communities along the proposed route of their Northern Gateway pipeline, a proposed project that would carry bitumen from Alberta through to Kitimat.
Northern Gateway announced today they would not appeal the Federal Court of Appeal’s decision to reverse the pipeline’s federal approval. The court cited a lack of meaningful consultation with impacted First Nations.
Chief Namoks of the Wet’suwet’en questions the move as just a PR strategy.
At a meeting with the deputy political director of the AFL-CIO during my campaign for Congress, she looked across her desk and told me that I could get major union support by coming out in favor of the Keystone XL oil pipeline.
That was five years ago. Since then, the nation’s biggest labor federation has continued to serve the fossil fuel industry. Call it union leadership for a dead planet.
