Environmental Justice

Groups Sue To Stop Secret Toxic Crude Oil Operation

January 31, 2015 EarthJustice, www.earthjustice.org Resist! Energy, Environmental Justice

Community and environmental groups filed suit today over the expansion—orchestrated mostly in secret—of a crude oil operation in Kern County that could lead to a 1,000 percent increase in the amount of crude imported by rail into California each year. The newly opened Bakersfield Crude Terminal in Taft, Calif., has the capacity to receive two 100-car unit trains a day of volatile crude oil from the Bakken shale formation as well as heavier, highly toxic tar sands. Screen Shot 2015-01-31 at 8.35.46 AM Today’s lawsuit was filed against the San Joaquin Air Pollution Control District for the piecemeal permitting process that allowed one of the largest crude oil operations in California to expand largely in secret, without environmental review of the risks posed by importing millions of gallons a day of toxic, explosive oil from North Dakota and Canada.

Hundreds Of Professors Call For Full Fossil Fuel Divestment

January 14, 2015 Lauren McCauley, www.commondreams.org Organize! Divestment, Education, Environmental Justice, Fosil Fuels

Hundreds of Stanford University professors published an open letter on Sunday demanding that the university divest the entirety of its holdings from all fossil fuel companies. Coming in the wake of the May 2014 Board of Trustees announcement that the school would not invest in publicly traded coal companies—a decision the university faculty praised for setting a "precedent of responsibility and integrity"—the letter reasons: "Given that the university has signaled its awareness of the dangers posed by fossil fuels, what are the implications of Stanford's making only a partial confrontation with this danger?"

Could Keystone Be America’s Last Pipeline?

January 12, 2015 Elana Schor, www.politico.com Resist! Environmental Justice, Oil & Gas, Politics

All that has changed. As Keystone’s problems imprint themselves on the nation’s political DNA, environmentalists and local advocacy groups are using the same template that has stalled it for six years to stoke resistance to fossil-fuel projects from coast to coast. Word is out in the oil and gas industry that NIMBY is the new normal. From fuel-starved New England to the refinery country of California, the legacy of the pipeline fight has become an organized and galvanized local resistance to new energy infrastructure. Recent example: Elizabeth Warren came out against the New England pipeline DeVito is fighting way back in August, delighting activists in her home state. The next target of anti-pipeline forces: Hillary Clinton, whom they still remember for musing in 2010 that her State Department was “likely” to approve Keystone.

Interfaith Climate Action Begins In Charlotte

January 12, 2015 Ahmer Inam, www.greenpeaceblogs.org Organize! Environmental Justice, Faith

Charlotte, NC seems like the perfect place to start bridging the gap between faith and climate action. Lush and green, with clean streets, Charlotte is a beautiful city and is known for being a great place to raise a family. Charlotte has a well-deserved reputation for being a city where faith groups flourish. According to Gallup, 50% of Charlotte’s residents belong to a religious congregation, 8th highest in the US, and according to American Bible Society, Charlotte is the 7th most “Bible-minded” American city. Charlotte also has a culturally and ethnically diverse population with strong representations from Jewish, Islam, Hindu, Buddhist, Sikh, Jain and other faiths from around the world. However, behind the appearance of green neighborhoods and churches covered by a canopy of trees, Charlotte faces some serious environmental issues. Charlotte received a score of “F” in Ozone in the 2014 air quality study conducted by American Lung Association.

Environmental Activist Charged With ‘Eco-Terrorism’ Is Released

January 10, 2015 Kevin Gosztola, www.dissenter.firedoglake.com Educate! Environmental Justice, Law, Surveillance

A 37-year-old environmental activist, who was convicted of “eco-terrorism” in 2007 and sentenced to 19 years in prison in 2008, has been released from jail after he uncovered evidence that the federal government withheld documents that would have been useful to his defense at trial. The release was a result of Eric McDavid pleading guilty to a lesser charge of “general conspiracy” to destroy “by fire or explosives one or more targets in the Sacramento area,” including the Nimbus Dam, US Forest Service Institute of Forest Genetics and local cellular telephone towers. Defense attorneys and the Justice Department came to a settlement and agreed to release him because he had served 9 years jail (four more years than the maximum sentence for a “general conspiracy” charge.

Trade Agreement Seeks To Increase Pesticide Use

January 9, 2015 Center for International Environmental Law, www.ciel.org Educate! Climate Change, Environmental Justice, Law, Pesticides

A new analysis exposes how the American and European pesticide industry is using ongoing EU-US trade negotiations to lower human health and environmental standards in order to increase trade in toxic pesticides. A new study by the Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL), Lowest Common Denominator: How the EU-US trade deal threatens to lower standards of protection from toxic pesticides, tracks how CropLife America and the European Crop Protection Association (ECPA) propose to use the ongoing Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) negotiations to lower levels of protection in the EU relative to those in the US. If adopted, the pesticide industry proposal would increase the amount of pesticide residue on food sold to consumers in Europe; allow the use of carcinogens, endocrine (hormone) disrupting chemicals (EDCs) and others toxic pesticides; and interfere with efforts to protect bees and other pollinators to safeguard food supplies for future generations.

Why Is The FBI Harassing Anti-Fossil Fuel Activists In Cascadia?

January 7, 2015 Alexander Reid Ross, www.defendingdissent.org Strategize! Environmental Justice, FBI, Surveillance

In August 2014, two activists with the environmentalist group Rising Tide spent a week riding the backwoods highways of Idaho monitoring a megaload—a big rig hauling equipment for processing tar-sands oil that’s wide enough to take up two lanes of road, too high to fit under a freeway overpass, can belonger than a football field, and can weigh up to 1,000,000 pounds. They had no idea that they would soon be wrapped up in a Federal Bureau of Investigation probe that encompassed three states and several environmentalist groups. Helen Yost of Moscow, Idaho, and Herb Goodwin of Bellingham, Washington, have spent years travelling through area the bioregion of Cascadia to halt megaloads, from Washington and Oregon to Idaho and up through Montana.

‘If You Organize, You Can Win’: Hopes Rise For Fracking Bans

January 7, 2015 Nadia Prupis, www.foreffectivegov.org Resist! Environmental Justice, Fracking, Law

In the wake of New York's victory against fracking, many regions in North America faced with growing climate threats seem ready to follow the state's lead and ban the drilling practice altogether. Just days after Governor Andrew Cuomo passed a moratorium on fracking following an intensive environmental activism campaign, the Canadian province of New Brunswick introduced its own temporary ban on the controversial method of drilling. New Brunswick Premier Brian Gallant, who promised a moratorium on fracking during his campaign, saidthe halt would be lifted for companies who meet certain conditions, which include a consultation process with First Nations tribes, a plan for waste water disposal, and credible reports on the health and environmental impacts of the practice.

2015: The Year We Turn Away From Tar Sands

January 7, 2015 350.org, www.350.org Resist! Climate Change, Environmental Justice, Tar Sands

In 2014 Naomi Klein popularized the term “blockadia” in her bookThis Changes Everything using the term as a sort of catch-all to describe the grassroots insurgency emerging across the globe in the face of extreme energy development. This past year also saw the continued desperate push by tar sands peddlers to build more pipelines, new mines and rush to dig up every last drop of tar sands crude. Thankfully, community opposition from the source to every coast (and even across the Atlantic in Europe, where protests met the arrival of the first shipment of tar sands to Europe) has risen up. As we leave 2014 and look forwards to 2015, here is a snapshot of the global movement to stop the tar sands.

SUNY Receives $3 Million Grant To Promote Dangerous Biofuels

January 5, 2015 Jay Burney, www.climate-connections.org Educate! Education, Environmental Justice

In case any are wondering why a State University of New York “environmental” college would be working on a major project to develop genetically modified chestnuts to introduce a population of GE Chestnuts to native and fragile forest ecosystems, an announcement last week by the college provides a valuable clue. The college announced on 15 December that they have received a $3 million grant to support bioenergy development. GJEP (who runs Climate Connections) and our partners at Biofuelwatch and The Campaign to STOP GE Trees do not hesitate to make the connection between the trojan horse of GE chestnut research and funding (which includes ArborGen, Monsanto, and a variety of bioenergy related grants by New York State and federal agencies) and the development of bioenergy products which are proven as false solutions to climate change and drivers of social disparity, land grabs, and a general decline of the human capacity to survive on planet earth.

Climate Advocates Shift Focus To State Action In 2015

January 3, 2015 Katherine Bagley, www.insideclimatenews.org Organize! Climate Change, Congress, Environmental Justice, Law

Concluding that global warming will be a toxic topic in the newly elected Congress, climate movement leaders say they will press for action by state and local authorities while encouraging President Barack Obama to advance his agenda for fighting climate change. "D.C. has always been tough ground—the fossil fuel industry owns one party and terrifies the other," said Bill McKibben, an environmental activist and founder of the climate advocacy organization 350.org. "We're aware of the hardship, but undaunted." Local and regional governments have initiated some of the most aggressive efforts to combat climate change in the U.S. This has been particularly true in cities, where 80 percent of Americans live. Climate leaders say they will lobby more states, cities and towns to start adaptation programs to stave off the worst effects of global warming, including rising sea levels, increasing temperatures and stronger storms.

Groups Challenge FERC Approval Of Pipeline In NY & PA

January 3, 2015 Earth Justice, www.earthjustice.org Organize! Energy, Environmental Justice, FERC

Environmental groups today called on the federal government to reconsider its approval of a 124-mile natural gas pipeline and gas transmission system project that would run from northeastern Pennsylvania through four counties in upstate New York. The groups say the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) in approving the Constitution pipeline earlier this month failed to properly assess the environmental impact of the projects as required under the National Environmental Policy Act. The pipeline project—planned by Constitution Pipeline Co. and Iroquois Gas Transmission System―would cut through Susquehanna County in Pennsylvania and Broome, Chenango, Delaware, and Schoharie counties in New York.

Court Rejects Oil And Gas Language In Drilling Ban

January 3, 2015 Earth Justice, www.earthjustice.org Organize! California, Environmental Justice, Law

The Los Angeles Superior Court ruled in favor of La Habra Heights residents today by rejecting inaccurate oil and gas-backed language from being included in a March 2015 ballot initiative. The Court ordered the City to revise the language. The community-proposed initiative aims to ban new oil and gas development, including high-intensity practices like fracking and acid well stimulation that have been linked to serious health and environmental impacts. This victory comes as a result of an Earthjustice, La Habra Heights Oil Watch, and the Center for Biological Diversity lawsuit against language that would have deceived the public into thinking that “The Healthy City Initiative,” otherwise known as Measure A, covers a broader scope of the industry than it actually does.

Kalamazoo Resident’s Week-Long Environmental Justice Fast

December 30, 2014 Michigan Cats, www.michigancats.org Resist! Energy, Environment, Environmental Justice

At 12am on December 25, precisely one week before the end of 2014, I began a week-long “environmental justice fast”. This fast is a personal, spiritual act of opposition to Enbridge and Enbridge’s tar sands tyranny. I was inspired to do this fast a few months ago as a result of casual internet research, looking to discover previous acts of opposition to Enbridge… I came across articles detailing a similar fast (check out this and this) done by Mia Nissenduring the last 7 days of the previous year in opposition to Enbridge’s Northern Gateway Pipeline. I thought that was pretty cool and honorable, and decided pretty much then and there that I’d do the same thing this year. For this fast I’m consuming nothing but water. I am not concerned for my health or the safety of the fast because I’ve fasted a few times before.

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