This weekend's Global Climate March broke records as the largest climate mobilization in history! From
São Paulo to Sydney, 785,000 of us shook the ground in over 2,300
events in 175 countries, united in one voice calling for a 100% clean
energy future to save everything we love. It was front page media
worldwide, and the impact is already being felt at the summit here in
Paris.
It’s nearly impossible to describe the powerful and diverse beauty of humanity that rose up yesterday, but these photos help:
London, UK
This is the movement our world has been waiting for. Many
countries, from Bangladesh to Ireland, saw the largest climate marches
in their history. In Australia, 120,000 people marched, in India, over
100,000. And in towns across the planet small groups of us joined
together in beautiful local events. Even in Sana'a, Yemen, organisers
went ahead with their march despite bombs falling close to the route!
Clockwise from top left: Melbourne, Helsinki, Berlin, Amsterdam, Bogotá, Jakarta
P.S. Click here for an Op-Ed from Avaaz' CEO, Ricken Patel, on this moment as a test of humanity.
On Nov. 12, 2015, Portland, OR, became the first city in the country (and possibly, the world--we're not sure)
to pass a resolution opposing all new fossil fuel infrastructure in the
city and its adjacent waterways. We in Portland will be spending the
remaining 14 months while our mayor is in office making this resolution
binding law-- a process we hope will show other cities how to do the
same.
On Dec. 11-12, 2015, the mayors of all of the major west
coast cities are coming to Portland, OR, to discuss (among other things)
climate action by these cities. We are calling on all of these mayors
of the major west coast cities who will be coming to Portland (San
Diego, LA, San Jose, Oakland, San Francisco, Eugene, Tacoma, Seattle,
Vancouver, B.C. and Honolulu), along with the mayors of smaller cities,
and leaders of the Native American and First Nations tribes to oppose
all new fossil fuel infrastructure.
We could use your help in the following ways.
1) Review the statement below or here: and sign on, as an individual or organization. Bill McKibben, Winona LaDuke, and Tom Goldtooth have been among our first signatories.
2)
Share the statement far and wide, especially with friends and allies in
west coast cities with the following groups of people in particular:
-- Labor unions
-- Government officials at all levels in all west coast cities
-- Any affiliated groups up and down the west coast of the US and Canada -- Rising Tide or other groups to help us prepare a brilliant strategic actions in all of
the cities and/or in Portland when the mayors come to town on Dec.
11-12.
--Outreach to the climate scientific community to get them on board
--Letters to the editor in small papers up and down the west coats, supporting this call --Outreach to college campuses in west coast cities to get them on board.
3) If you have any spare funds, we are doing all of this on a shoestring budget, and could use donations! Donations link here
Thank you!
--Daphne Wysham Sustainable Energy & Economy Network
We the undersigned organizations and their members in the states on
the West Coast of the United States and the province of British Columbia
in Canada call on leaders of the First Nations peoples of Canada and
Native Americans of the U.S., Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of Canada,
President Barack Obama of the United States, the premier of British
Columbia, governors of U.S. states, city mayors, and other elected
officials, and regulatory agencies to stand up for climate solutions by
putting an end to the construction of new fossil fuel infrastructure in
our cities, our coastal ports, and communities and beginning the just
transition to the new clean economy now. The scientific community, President Obama and other political and
religious leaders have told us very clearly that we have arrived at a
critical moment in human history when we either act now or we doom
present and future generations to an escalating planetary crisis of
catastrophic climate change. They tell us we must leave 80 percent of
proven fossil fuel reserves in the ground, and leave all unproven
reserves untouched.[1] Despite the growing scientific alarm, too many of
our elected officials are continuing with business as usual, condoning
the expansion of this deadly fossil fuel industry and exacerbating a
crisis that the Pentagon has called a “threat multiplier” that could
exacerbate terrorism.[2]
Our communities are assaulted every day with ever-increasing volumes of
explosive oil and gas cargo close to our homes, our schools and our
places of worship; with coal dust clouding our air as mile-long trains
cut through our towns; with unaccountable corporations pushing oil and
gas pipelines across our land; and with toxic emissions increasing rates
of asthma among our children and threatening our elderly when this
fossil fuel is burned. The fossil fuel export terminals and pipelines
often traverse geologically active areas and earthquake subduction
zones, exposing nearby communities to the risk of calamitous explosions
and toxic spills should a major quake take place. At the point of
extraction, and at every step of the way to our port cities, too often
Native American and First Nations treaty rights are being violated in
order to facilitate the extraction, transport, storage and export of
this dangerous cargo. Too often, it is the poorest that bear the brunt
of this pollution. Our water is threatened by regular spills of oil and
tar sands, and by toxic mercury emitted when these fossil fuels are
burned. Our fish are dying in rivers overheated by rising temperatures
caused by the burning of fossil fuels. And our forests, once a place of
refuge for wildlife in the heat, are increasingly going up in flames or
succumbing to pests due to increasing temperatures. The oceans are
becoming too acidic to support critical links in the food chain.
This destruction is as unnecessary as it is unconscionable. Solutions
are available now. There are no insurmountable economic or technological
obstacles to a clean energy transition. Our cities are demonstrating
the promise of this transition every day, building healthier
communities, better buildings, and more efficient and affordable
transportation systems while lowering emissions. We are taking our money
and power back and investing them in our communities. We can do this.
But there’s a reason that we are not doing it fast enough now, a reason
that we continue to make the problem worse even as we prove the promise
of solutions: the entrenched power of the fossil fuel industry, and
their unconscionable campaign of deception that protects that power.
We now know that the fossil fuel industry has been covering up the
devastating truth about climate change for almost four decades. Recent
reports[3] reveal that Exxon knew as early as the 1970s that climate
change would threaten all of us, yet chose to confuse and mislead the
public, putting its profits ahead of the planet. The delays caused by
these actions by the fossil fuel industry leave us with no time to lose.
We must act immediately and decisively. Implementing solutions will
take time, but we must stop investing in the problem right away.
New fossil fuel infrastructure locks us into a deadly climate future,
making the problem not just worse but insoluble. The transition from
present emission levels to safe levels will take decades, but it begins
with a simple and firm commitment today: we must stop making it worse
with large new capital investments that increase emissions. We don’t
have time or money to waste going backwards.[4] In order to begin to act on climate change, we support and align your jurisdiction’s policy to these two vital commitments:
1) We must stop building new fossil fuel infrastructure in order to
leave at least 80% of proven fossil fuel reserves in the ground;
2) We must invest in a “just transition”[5] to a clean economy – a
transition that delivers shared prosperity, good, family-supporting
jobs, and support for people and communities who bear the brunt of
climate impacts and economic dislocation.
It is imperative that the West Coast of the United States does our share to meet these two commitments.
David Ferris, E&E reporter
SEATTLE -- China is seeking to tap the flood of cheap natural
gas coming from the interior of North America by converting it to
methanol at three huge refineries in Washington and Oregon.
The processing plants, collectively called Northwest Innovation Works, have received little attention despite their head-snapping impact:
The refineries could increase demand for natural gas in the Pacific Northwest by 40 percent.
They would more than triple the size of the fast-growing U.S. methanol industry.
With an estimated $7 billion price tag, the refineries would be one
of the largest investments ever by China in new U.S. manufacturing.
The largest plant, planned for Tacoma, could use more water than
all the residential customers of the city's public utility district
combined.
"This is really a cross-Pacific collaboration," said Simon Zhang,
the project's CEO and a former official with BP who is based in
Shanghai. "It's very unique in that it brings a benefit to both sides of
the Pacific very clearly."
However, the plan is being viewed warily by Pacific Northwest
environmental groups, which have proved effective at slowing a long list
of proposals to deliver coal, oil and natural gas from the continent's
midsection to hungry markets in Asia.
"They fit into the pattern of more fossil-fuel infrastructure built
on the Columbia that we have concerns about," said Brett VandenHeuvel,
the executive director of Columbia Riverkeeper. Two of the three
refineries would sit on the banks of the Columbia River.
The Chinese proposal, first made public last year, is different from
other projects that would export raw fossil fuels. First, the end goal
is methanol, a crucial building block of plastic and many other
materials of modern life. Second, China would be the sole recipient.
Third
is that it aims to lower greenhouse gas emissions in China, while
raising them to a lesser degree on American shores. China is the world's
largest producer and consumer of methanol, and it manufactures almost
all of it from coal, which creates a great deal of carbon emissions.
Reducing carbon emissions across industries is an increasingly
urgent goal for China, which will be a key player at the Paris climate
talks at the end of this month. In September, China announced it would
establish a carbon-trading market by 2017.
The Pacific Northwest venture claims that using natural gas instead
would reduce emissions by 70 percent, and that it will employ a new
technique that reduces the carbon footprint even further.
Northwest Innovation Works says the three refineries would create
3,000 construction jobs and 460 permanent jobs. It could spawn new
customers for natural gas in the Pacific Northwest, where industrial
jobs have been on the wane. The proposal has received an enthusiastic endorsement from Washington Gov. Jay Inslee (D).
The factories would also use enormous quantities of water, an
obvious selling point for China and a potential flashpoint in the
Pacific Northwest. China has chronic water shortages, while Washington
and Oregon have lots of it -- though that supply is in question as
climate change reduces the region's snowpack.
Two of the refineries would sit on opposite banks of the Columbia
River, one in Clatskanie, Ore., about an hour's drive northwest of
Portland, and the other at the Port of Kalama in Washington state. Both
would produce about 5,000 metric tons of methanol a day, which would put
them on par with the world's largest methanol plants.
But both would be dwarfed by a third proposed refinery at Tacoma, a
busy industrial port a half-hour south of Seattle. Double the size of
the other two, it would be the largest methanol refinery ever built.
Cheap gas fires up U.S. methanol
The new refineries would bring an even steeper growth curve to an already fast-growing methanol industry in the United States.
Methanol, also known as methyl alcohol or wood alcohol, is a
precursor to hundreds of products, from plastics to fabrics to paints to
windshield wiper fluid. The Washington and Oregon projects, like other
plants, would combine natural gas with steam and heat to make a
synthesis gas of carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide and hydrogen. That gas
is heated and compressed and run over a catalyst to make a crude
methanol, and then it is distilled with water.
The resulting methanol -- colorless, flammable, and a liquid at
atmospheric temperature -- would be shipped to China, where it would be
converted into olefins, such as ethylene and propylene, and used to make
a range of products..... read more here
By Phil Taylor, E and E News, November 17, 2015
The
Bureau of Land Management late last night announced it is postponing
today’s scheduled oil and gas lease sale in Salt Lake City to appease
activists who are fighting to keep those minerals in the ground.
BLM had planned to lease up to 37,580 acres scattered around the
center of the Beehive State for future oil and gas development, but the
agency said it needed more time to “better accommodate the high level of
public interest in attending the sale.”
It marks the first time that the “Keep it in the Ground” climate
movement — which seeks to end the sale of federally owned oil, gas and
coal — has disrupted a BLM lease auction.
BLM said it intends to reschedule the sale in the “near future.”
“As a public agency, we understand the importance of transparency,”
said BLM spokeswoman Megan Crandall. “Given the large interest, we chose
to postpone the sale and will be working to find the best way to
accommodate the public and those who wish to attend and participate in
the auction when it is held.”
It was the third consecutive BLM lease sale to be confronted by
climate protesters who believe the burning of federally owned fossil
fuels will undermine the nation’s efforts to reduce greenhouse gas
emissions.
Roughly 50 people gathered last week outside BLM’s Colorado
headquarters in Lakewood to protest the agency’s sale of 90,000 acres in
the Pawnee National Grassland, according to the Western Energy
Alliance.
BLM moved forward with that auction, selling 106 parcels covering 83,534 acres for $5 million.
Protesters also demonstrated outside a Nov. 3 lease sale in Wyoming.
Crandall said there was not enough room in BLM’s downtown Salt Lake
City auction room to accommodate members of the public who wanted to
attend. The room is about 28 feet wide by 60 feet long and also has to
accommodate up to 30 bidders and reporters, she said.
BLM planned to live-stream the auction, but many activists insisted on attending in person, she said.
The “Keep it in the Ground” campaign is backed by some major
environmental groups including the Natural Resources Defense Council and
is buoyed in Congress by legislation from Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.)
that would end new leasing and renewals of nonproducing federal leases
for oil, coal and gas. -continued below-
Passed: The City Council voted 5-0 on the Fossil Fuel Policy!
Portland City Council voted 4-0 passing the Oil Train Resolution last
week and Thursday evening the Fossil Fuel Policy was passed by a 5-0
vote!! Thank you to everyone who came to the hearing, sent emails and
made phone calls! Video above
In a landmark victory for climate activists, the Portland, Oregon city council voted yesterday to pass a resolution that opposes any new infrastructure that would transport or store fossil fuels within the city or its adjacent waterways.
The vote, which was unanimous, comes a week after the city council voted to adopt a similar policy
opposing any proposed rail projects that would carry crude oil through
the city of Portland or Vancouver. Together, the resolutions constitute
what environmentalists are calling the strongest city-supported
opposition to fossil fuels in the country.
“We seem to be reaching some sort of tipping point where people are
waking up and realizing the enormity of the issue,” Adriana
Voss-Andreae, director of 350PDX, told ThinkProgress. “That we got a
unanimous vote was jaw-dropping. It was an inspiring moment for all of
us.”
While Portland cannot, due to interstate commerce laws,
unilaterally ban fossil fuels from being shipped via rail, road, or
water, it can enact local laws that limit the transportation and storage
of fossil fuels within the city itself, especially if those laws are
based in environmental or safety concerns. That’s largely the goal of
this resolution — to codify into law things like zoning restrictions or
restrictions on materials that would make shipping and transporting
fossil fuels through Portland either prohibitively expensive, or too
time consuming, for fossil fuel companies.
“Our work is not done yet, but we feel that with this unanimous vote,
there is good chance that the codifying language is going to be strong
and signal to the fossil fuel industry that Portland is not open for
their business,” Voss-Andreae said.
Protesters before the hearing on oil trains last week.
CREDIT: Rick Rappaport
Located at the mouth of the Columbia River Gorge, Portland is an
important port city for the transport of fossil fuels overseas and has
been the site of standoffs between environmentalists and fossil fuel
companies for years. In 2014, the Canadian energy company Pembina
proposed constructing a propane export terminal
in the Port of Portland, which would have received, stored, and shipped
some 1.6 million gallons of propane a day. The terminal, which would
have cost an estimated $500 million, would have been the single largest
private investment project in Portland’s history. At first, Portland
Mayor Charlie Hales appeared to support the project, but faced with a
groundswell of local opposition, Hales came out in opposition of the
project in May of this year.
To the activists that rallied against the project, the stakes were
higher than a single export terminal — it was a stand against a future
where increasing fossil fuel infrastructure was the political and
economic status quo.
“Here you have this pipeline project that, six months ago, was seen
as just a simple economic development project, shipping one more thing
through the Port of Portland,” Carl Abbott, an urban studies and
planning professor at Portland State University, told the Globe and Mail
in May of this year. “Now it has gotten caught up in the fear of energy
transportation and the cause of global warming and taking a stand
against more fossil fuels.”
Earlier this summer, Portland again found itself at the center of the
debate about fossil fuels, as a Royal Dutch Shell ship attempted to
make its way through Portland and up to the Arctic to aid in Shell’s
exploratory drilling efforts. The ship was initially stopped by 13 climbers
who hung from Portland’s St. John’s Bridge for 38 hours, impeding the
ship’s ability to pass. Eventually, the ship was able to pass through
the climbers and leave Portland, but news of the protest spread through
social media and national outlets, increasing the visibility of the
movement, according to the protesters.
“That whole movement, from Pembina to Shell to divestment, really set
the stage for this,” Voss-Andreae said. “This is a very exciting moment
for our movement.”
Oil Industry Turns to Pacific Northwest Oil Train Terminals in Wake of Keystone Rejection
New report shows controversial facilities would boost oil extraction and climate-warming pollution.
Last
week, President Obama rejected the Keystone XL pipeline, a strong stand
for climate protection. Yet a new report shows that the oil industry
will now turn to massive oil-by-rail
terminals proposed in the Pacific Northwest as a second-best
alternative to Keystone. In fact, in the absence of new pipelines
serving the Canadian oil sands fields, the fiercely debated Northwest
rail terminals would be the sole driver of new extraction there.
That’s
according to a new Sightline-commissioned analysis by independent
research group Oil Change International (OCI). Taken together, the
proposed Northwest oil-by-rail terminals
would be the climate pollution equivalent of adding more than 28
million cars to the road.
The climate impact of the proposed crude-by-rail terminals in the Pacific Northwest.
The Pacific Northwest states of Oregon and Washington are facing a
quadrupling of their crude-by-rail terminal capacity to over a million
barrels a day. Sightline Institute commissioned this report from Oil
Change International (OCI) to examine the impact that expansion would
have on climate change. In Tracking Emissions: The Climate Impacts of the Proposed Crude-by-Rail Terminals in the Pacific Northwest,
OCI deploys the oil industry’s own forecasting and modeling tools
together with a detailed examination of the Northwest facilities’
configurations. Key findings in the report concern:
Propping up Canadian tar sands: In the absence of new pipelines, Northwest rail terminals would be the sole driver of new growth in Canadian tar sands oil.
Multiplying oil extraction and climate pollution:
Oil train facilities in the Northwest could unlock as much as 382,000
barrels per day of new tar sands production that would otherwise not be
extracted. The resulting greenhouse gas pollution from extra tar sands
production could be as much as 106 million metric tons per year of
carbon dioxide—the equivalent of doubling the total greenhouse gas
pollution of Washington state.
Feeding the Bakken beast: Northwest oil train
terminals could also lead to more oil drilling in the Bakken formation,
as much as 114,000 barrels per day beyond what would be produced without
the terminals. The resulting greenhouse gas pollution from this extra
production could be as much as 30 million tons per year of carbon
dioxide—the equivalent of doubling the number of cars on the road in
Oregon and Washington.
It’s been a while since I’ve posted an update on Sightline’s
research, and we’ve published a few gems recently that I suspect many of you
will enjoy.
First, a pair of post-election analyses, one on the
influence of coal money in Whatcom County and the other on the growing
importance of elected port officials:
