The Paris climate deal wasn’t something we were ever excited about. As George Monbiot succinctly said, “By comparison to what it could have been, it’s a miracle. By comparison to what it should have been, it’s a disaster.”
Twenty-six 350 Seattle activists were arrested today in an incredibly successful disruption of business at thirteen Chase Bank branches across the city– a major escalation in our campaign to keep banks from financing projects catastrophic to the climate and to indigenous rights.
We will be targeting JP Morgan Chase, one of the biggest funders of tar sands development–in order to demand that the bank not fund Keystone XL, or any other new tar sands infrastructure.
Though the national political situation seems bleak, and our state government is deadlocked by corporate interests, people power is winning on local levels, from $15 minimum wages to fossil fuel divestment. That’s the groundwork for a bottom-up movement that can achieve real progress toward a just world.
On Friday, for second time in less than 3 months, a Skagit County jury refused to convict climate activists of a crime that they openly admitted to. The six defendants had blockaded the train tracks into the Anacortes refineries for 36 hours as part of the global Break Free from Fossil Fuels mobilization in May 2016; they were charged with criminal trespass in the second degree.
We told you April was going to be busy: Marches and a summit, actions and comment periods, town halls and carbon taxes, valve turners on tour and fundraising for allies, we’ve got it all!
On October 11, 2016, my husband Ben was among those supporting the 5 activists who shut down all five tar sands pipelines into the US in an action called #ShutItDown. Theirs was an unprecedented act of climate direct action, and the biggest coordinated move on U.S. energy infrastructure ever undertaken by environmental protesters. Ben faces up to 5 years in prison (the people who actually turned the valves face up to 21 years). We’re in the waiting period, with ears ready for trial dates and lots of time for reflecting…
Sitting in the Pacific Building in the morning on March 9th, I learned an important lesson: high-powered decision-making is incredibly dreary. The halls of power (at least in Seattle) are lined with drywall and floored with shabby office carpet. Windowless conference rooms are stocked with the same drab plastic tables you would find in any corporate office. This seemed intentional—and a bit ironic, given that the people in this room could have a serious impact on climate change.
This afternoon, after dozens of Seattle residents gave passionate testimony in favor of a resolution introduced by Council Member Kshama Sawant, the City Council voted unanimously to seek out financial institutions that do not provide TransCanada or the Keystone XL pipeline with project-level loans.
Last month, the people of Seattle demanded loudly and clearly that the City remove our money from Wells Fargo, because of its investment in DAPL–and we won! We cannot let that money go to any bank that provides loans to TransCanada or Keystone XL.
