Clearing the FOG speaks with activists from Washington State to Washington, DC who are taking on Big Energy to say “no” to more fossil fuel infrastructure. We begin with four organizers who walked across the United States last year to raise awareness about the climate crisis. They visited front line communities along the way. When they arrived in Washington, DC, they spent a week protesting the little known Federal Energy Regulatory Commission as part of the Beyond Extreme Energy coalition. Now they are planning more resistance. In Washington State, the “SHell No” campaign is organizing a Flotilla to keep Shell Oil out of the Port of Seattle. We’ll discuss why direct action is the necessary tactic to end fossil fuels and move to renewable energy sources.
Listen here:
Beyond Extreme Energy: Uniting to Retire Fossil Fuels by Clearingthefog on Mixcloud
Relevant articles and websites:
Extreme Energy Extraction: The Frightening Ways We are Destroying our Country for Fossil Fuels by Tara Lohan
Beyond Extreme Energy: Staying in FERC’s Face by Anne Meador
Can a Flotilla of Kayaks Block Shell’s Arctic Drilling Rigs in Seattle? by Sydney Brownstone
Guests:
Jimmy Betts
Sean Glenn from Simsbury, CT joined the Great March for Climate Action from LA to DC. During the March was arrested at #FloodWallStreet and is now organizing with various Climate Justice groups including Beyond Extreme Energy getting ready to stop the #FERCus.
Bill Moyer co-founded the Backbone Campaign in 2003 with friends from an artist affinity group. He has dual and intersecting paths as both an activist and artist. His involvement with social change work stretches back to the 80’s, when as a student he was deeply involved in the anti-nuclear movement and the anti-interventionist movement. After a few years of studying political science and American philosophy at Seattle University, Bill went to Big Mountain to assist Dineh elders refusing to relocate off their traditional land, attended the Institute for Social Ecology, and briefly lived on an organic vegetable farm in Vermont.
On returning to the Pacific NW to live on Vashon Island, activism was replaced with performance and study of music as a percussionist and sound designer. The G.W. Bush administration inspired him to apply lessons of the arts to social change. Backbone Campaign has been a vehicle for much growth and Bill has emerged as a leader in the theory and practice of “artful activism.” He designs and produces creative political actions and provides trainings in grand strategy and creative tactics around the country.
Bill (AT) BackboneCampaign.org
Lee Stewart is an organizer with Beyond Extreme Energy and a member of We Are Cove Point, a group mobilizing to stop the construction of a fracked gas refinery and export terminal on the Chesapeake Bay. He grew up in Northern Virginia, studied Religious Studies at Kenyon College, and spent three years teaching English in China before dedicating himself to climate justice. His activism around the climate crisis grew after his new baby nephew catalyzed an urgent sense of responsibility to act.
Mackenzie McDonald Wilkins is an organizer with Popular Resistance and Beyond Extreme Energy based out of Baltimore, MD. He has worked on various social and environmental justice struggles and is currently working to stop Fast Track for rigged corporate “trade” agreements and is the action Coordinator for the May Actions at FERC.