Stop the Tar Sands!
Rising oil prices have spurred companies to turn to unconventional sources of crude oil previously viewed as too costly or destructive to consider. A case in point: the tar sands in Alberta, Canada. Located beneath the boreal forests that Cree, Dené and Metis First Nations call home, tar sands (also called ‘oil sands’) development has been dubbed the most destructive energy project in the world. To get a single barrel of tar sands crude from surface mining, the forest is chopped down, about four tons of earth is removed, several barrels of water are used and giant tailings ponds are left behind. Another method, in-situ-leach mining, requires burning large amounts of natural gas to heat subsurface deposits and allow them to be sucked to the surface, where further upgrading is required before the crude can be sent via pipeline to refineries where it is made into fuels like gasoline.
The land, water, animals and people in Alberta are already feeling the brunt of this epic proportioned energy project. The downstream Indigenous community of Ft. Chipewyan has unheard of rates of rare cancers. The fish are not safe to eat, and the land is littered with toxic ponds and craters. Honor the Earth will continue supporting Native communities that are working to fight off expansion of the most destructive energy project in the world.
The Pipeline for the One Percent
BY WINONA LADUKE (Indian Country Today)
November 13, 2011President Obama’s pause on the Keystone Pipeline is a victory for the environment, for sure. It is also a victory for the American people. As it turns out, once the advertising, and lobbying dollars are kept in check, the Keystone pipeline appears as it should: as a sham, a money making scheme for oil and pipeline companies, not the Good Fairy for the American economy.
Occupy Wall Street has been called a movement lacking a mission, a circus of people who don’t understand economics and are simply disgruntled at being have-nots. If OWS were looking for a perfect mission, it would be defeating Keystone XL or the pipeline for the one percent. Read more...
Occupy Minnesota- Some Good Questions about Greed and Accountability.
By Winona LaDuke
October 2011 Read more...Nellis Kennedy-Howard: Speak up about Keystone XL Pipeline
By NELLIS KENNEDY-HOWARD
Indianz.com (October 3, 2011)Today, President Obama has the choice. Clean technology is at our feet. Sustainable resources are in our hands. And, here we sit in the past digging for oil. The State Department is currently reviewing a proposal to build the Keystone XL oil pipeline, a pipeline that will extend 2,000 miles across America and to the Gulf of Mexico. Crossing over 70 rivers and streams, the pipeline will also cross critical water sources such as the Ogallala Aquifer. The pipeline is scheduled for review by the Obama administration with a congressional deadline demanding a decision by the end of 2011. Read more...
Prevent a Tar Sands Disaster
August 19, 2011 (YES! Magazine)
BY NELLIS KENNEDY-HOWARDWhy developing the tarsands has been called "world's most destructive project."
What does it mean to live in an energy sacrifice zone? For many First Nations of Canada, it means that the land and water your families have lived on for generations is no longer safe. Nearly every major oil company in the world is participating in making the homelands of indigenous peoples unsafe by investing in the Athabascan tar sands. Read more...
National Congress of American Indians Opposes Keystone XL Tar Sands Pipeline
August 18, 2011 (NRDC Switchboard)
BY DANIELLE DROITSCHToday, the nation’s oldest and largest national organization of American Indian and Alaska Native tribal governments, the National Congress of American Indians (NCAI), announced their opposition to the proposed Keystone XL tar sands pipeline. This important announcement adds to the growing chorus of voices across the United States opposed to this pipeline and clearly finds that an additional tar sands pipeline is not in the national interest.
The NCAI resolution firmly states how Keystone XL is not in the national interest: Read more...
We Have a Shot to Stop the Tar Sands
Topic of Discussion: The Alberta Tar Sands; the Heavy Haul and Using the Columbia River as a Means to Transport Coal and Oil Drilling Equipment.
Big Oil Wants to Truck Through Nez Perce Land
BY WINONA LADUKE, Indian Country Today Media Network (March 24, 2011).
When 750 Nez Perce, accompanied by 1,000 horses, fled the U.S. Cavalry on a 1,200-mile route through the mountains, valleys and rivers of Washington, Idaho and Montana in 1877, their path took them past the Heart of the Monster, from whence the Nez Perce, or Nimiipuu people, originated, and through their precious Bitterroot Mountains. Their route was treacherous but their determination to survive was unshakable.
Some 140 years later, the black heart of industrial society has come to torment the Nimiipuu, using that same route. Read more...
Tar Sands Heavy Haul: Into the Heart of Darkness
BY WINONA LADUKE & RENEE HOLT, Ta'c Titooqan (March 2011), the Nez Perce Tribal newspaper.
When over 750 Nez Perce, or Nimiipuu people, accompanied by 1,000 horses fled the Cavalry on a 1,600 mile route through the mountains, valleys and rivers of Oregon, Idaho and Montana in l877, the route was treacherous and the determination to survive as a people deep. During the War of 1877, their journey moved beyond the Heart of the Monster, from whence the Nimiipuu were created, passed the precious and historical trade route of Indigenous people that predates Lewis & Clark through the Bitterroot Mountains. It is some l40 years later and a new industrial road seeks to follow a similar route, pushing through the heart of Nez Perce homelands into the darkest chapter of American oil expansion. Read more...
Halting the Tar Sands 'Heavy Haul'
Coming soon to the roads of the Northwest: loads of mining equipment shipped from Korea to Alberta. Each load up to 24 feet wide, 30 feet tall and 160 feet in length- about the size of the Statue of Liberty on its side. A fifty year projected project, the first “heavy haul” is slated for sometime later in 2010 or 2011, with 207 shipments planned for the first round. Harry Lillo of Imperial Oil/Exxon Mobil said he hopes the novelty of the huge loads will wear off quickly. "We're hoping about the time the fourth of fifth one goes by, people are going to say, 'Oh, there goes another one,'" he said. That is pretty unlikely.
Plains Justice Release: Keystone XL Environmental Review Fatally Flawed
Groups Ask State Department to Bring Review up to Standards or Deny Pipeline Permit
Today 13 northern plains and Native groups asked the U.S. Department of State either to revise the pipeline's draft environmental impact statement (DEIS) and resubmit it to the public for review or to deny the Keystone XL pipeline's application for a Presidential Permit. Read more...
