tar sands

Article and Image by Dahr Jamail - TruthOut, November 13, 2015

(Depicted: right) Coyne Gibson and Alyce Santoro are part of a grassroots resistance movement opposing a massive gas pipeline project between Mexico and the US. (Photo: Dahr Jamail)

If a couple of billionaires get their way, a 143-mile-long, 42-inch high pressure natural gas transmission pipeline will be built right through the heart of Texas' starkly beautiful and remote Chihuahuan desert. Plans are currently in the works for the pipeline, which would be larger in diameter than the infamous Keystone XL.

Although it has garnered far less media attention than the Keystone XL, this West Texas project has already sparked a massive grassroots resistance movement that has unified ranchers, Tea-Partiers, artists, environmentalists and the vast majority of the residents in this sparsely populated corner of the country.

Texas billionaire Kelcy Warren, the head of the Dallas pipeline company Energy Transfer Partners (ETP) which now boasts former Texas governor Rick Perry on its board of directors, and Carlos Slim of Mexico, who is reportedly the second-richest person on earth, are the core partners behind the Trans-Pecos pipeline project. The aim of the pipeline is to deliver natural gas from Texas to Mexico, where it is in high demand.

Transporting gas from a plant in Coyanosa, near Fort Stockton, Texas, down to the border, the line is supposed to be built underneath the Rio Grande River, after which it will connect into Mexico's gas infrastructure.

Slim and Warren promise that the pipeline will be both safe and environmentally friendly.

But Coyne Gibson, who worked for a decade in the oil and gas industry as an electrical and control systems engineer, vehemently disagrees with that claim.

"I used to do this kind of work, so I admit to past crimes, so to speak," Gibson told Truthout in Alpine, Texas, where signs of the pipeline's construction are already evident.

"I've seen firsthand what this [pipeline] does to the places it touches," he said. "It is horrifically environmentally impactful. The immediate impact is the absolute environmental destruction of every living thing in its path. And that's just to get started."

It is information like this coming from Gibson, coupled with what people are perceiving as an arrogant and bellicose attitude of Energy Transfer, that has created what has now become a battle for the land in Far West Texas.

By Elena Mora - Left Streamed, September 29, 2015

Disclaimer: The views expressed here are not the official position of the IWW (or even the IWW’s EUC) and do not necessarily represent the views of anyone but the author’s.

At the beginning of the federal election campaign, Toronto Centre NDP candidate and respected author Linda McQuaig stated a simple fact: “a lot of people recognize that a lot of the oil sands oil may need to stay in the ground if we're going to meet our climate change targets.” This sparked a corporate media backlash, accusing her of being ideologically-driven, anti-Alberta and anti-jobs.

The science is clear: if Canada continues to extract the tar sands, it will be game over for the climate. To avoid climate catastrophe we need to keep the vast majority of tar sands in the ground. In addition to their impact on the climate, the tar sands disproportionately affect Indigenous communities - from Dene, Cree, and Metis communities at ground zero of the tar sands mega project, to Aamjiwnaang First Nation surrounded by the tar sands refineries of Chemical Valley. The transport of tar sands bitumen through pipelines and by rail also threatens people, communities, and waterways right across the country. At a time of both an economic and ecological crises, investments in the tar sands waste resources that could be creating green jobs and infrastructure, and empowering local communities. While solutions to the climate and ecological crises exist, they have been all but absent in the federal election campaigns.

By Josh Fox and Lee Ziesche - EcoWatch, September 12, 2015

Disclaimer: The views expressed here are not the official position of the IWW (or even the IWW’s EUC) and do not necessarily represent the views of anyone but the author’s.

TRAILER FOR GASWORK THE FIGHT FOR CJ's Law A NEW SHORT FILM BY JOSH FOX from JFOX on Vimeo.

When we hear politicians and gas companies extoll the virtues of fracking, jobs created by drilling is usually high on their list of talking points. But the jobs created by fracking are not the kind of quality jobs American workers deserve.

They are not the kind of jobs American laborers have fought and died for throughout our country’s history.

They are extremely dangerous, exposing workers to chemicals whose long-term impacts on human health are yet unknown. In fact, the fatality rate of oil field jobs is seven times greater than the national average.

In our new short film, GASWORK: The Fight for C.J.’s Law, we conduct an investigation into worker safety and chemical risk. We follow Charlotte Bevins as she fights for CJ’s law—a bill to protect workers named for her brother CJ Bevins, who died at an unsafe drilling site.

We interview many workers who have been asked to clean drill sites, transport radioactive and carcinogenic chemicals, steam-clean the inside of condensate tanks which contain harmful volatile organic compounds, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons and other chemicals, and have been told to do so with no safety equipment.

Compiled by x344543 - IWW Environmental Unionism Caucus, August 4, 2015

Disclaimer: The views expressed here are not the official position of the IWW (or even the IWW’s EUC) and do not necessarily represent the views of anyone but the author’s.

The following news items feature issues, discussions, campaigns, or information potentially relevant to green unionists:

Lead Stories:

• Beyond Extinction: Transition to post-capitalism is inevitable (A response to Margaret Atwood's, It’s Not Climate Change It’s Everything Change) - By Nafeez Ahmed, Medium.Com, July 28, 2015
• The Hurricane Katrina Pain Index: 10 Years Later - By Bill Quigley, Portside, July 20, 2015

Ongoing Mobilizations:

• Flood the System - Fall 2015: Flood, blockade, occupy and shut down the systems that jeopardize our future! | #FloodTheSystem
• People’s Climate Strike - November 26 - December 12, 2015
• Railcon15 - Chicago, Illinois Saturday, September 19, 2015 | #Railcon15
• Trade Union Climate Summit - September 14 & 15, 2015 Paris | #unions4climate

Bread and Roses:

• Strike Suspended in Potosi, Bolivian VP Declared "Persona non Grata" - By EFE, Earth First! Journal, August 3, 2015
• Farmworkers score big in new tomato deal - By Eve Andrews, Grist, July 29, 2015
• Farmworkers Walk Out Again in Organic Blueberry Fields Over Continuing Unattainable Production Standards Under Sakuma’s New Pay Scale - By Staff, Boycott Sakuma Berries, July 24, 2015

From the Introduction:

Desperate to avoid climate regulation that may affect profits, polluting corporations are working hand-in-hand with governments, presenting a dizzying array of false solutions that deepen inequalities in our societies. There is a clear agenda: Manage the climate crisis without compromising profits, the power structures or the economic system that got us here, even if that means exacerbating the problem. Wall Street financiers, the synthetic biology industry, “green” venture capitalists and a host of others are jumping on the “we care about the climate, too!” bandwagon.

These actors have reduced one of the clearest consequences of an unsustainable system into a mere technical problem that can be “efficiently” dealt with through market-based solutions. This market fundamentalism diverts attention away from the root causes of the problem, encouraging us to imagine a world with price tags on rivers, forests, biodiversity and communities’ territories, all in the name of “dealing with the climate crisis.” At the heart of all false solutions is an avoidance of the big picture: the root causes.

False solutions are constructed around the invisible scaffolding that maintains the dominant economic, cultural and political systems—the idea that economic growth is both desirable and inevitable; that progress means industrial development; that Western science and technology can solve any problem; that profits will motivate and the markets will innovate. Most of us in the Global North, whether sensitized to it or not, are participants and, at times, even take comfort in this world view. Sadly, many find it easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of a globalized economy built upon the unsteady legs of expanding empire, ecological erosion and exploitation of workers and communities.

We can take steps, large and small, to stop the climate crisis. What we cannot afford to do is go down the wrong road. Hoodwinked in the Hothouse is an easy and essential guide to navigating the landscape of false solutions—the cul-de-sacs on the route to a just and livable climate future.

--Gopal Dayaneni, Movement Generation: Justice and Ecology Project

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By Judy Rebick - Rabble.Ca, June 29, 2015

Disclaimer: The views expressed here are not the official position of the IWW (or even the IWW’s EUC) and do not necessarily represent the views of anyone but the author’s.

Jobs, Justice, Climate is the slogan of what we hope will be a massive march in Toronto on July 5 and Vancouver on July 4. To my knowledge it's the first action in Canada that has linked jobs with the battle for climate change in a context of social justice.  While turtles and teamsters have marched together in the past, it has usually been with a focus on social justice, against corporate globalization and trade deals.  This is not only the first time climate change is a focus in a march co-sponsored by the labour movement, it's the first time that the links are being made to the struggles of Indigenous peoples, immigrants, and people of colour and the first time our cross-sector movement is not just saying what we are against but what we are for. Check out the video promoting the march.

In May I attended a cross-country meeting called by Naomi Klein and Avi Lewis to begin the work of building a broad movement to fight climate change by presenting a new vision where reversing climate change can be done in the context of increasing social justice and good jobs. A movement where Indigenous Peoples, the first defenders of the land, are in the lead. A movement that reaches out to immigrant communities whose countries are already drowning, baking, or collapsing in face of climate catastrophes. A movement where unions realize that climate change is as much a threat to their members as austerity and find ways to link both struggles. A movement where environmental activists understand that it is the peoples of the earth not the corporate overlords who will save the planet. 

There were divisions at that meeting and they continue.  Unions, for example, support certain pipelines that environmentalists oppose. 350.org, a key organizer of the march wants the bitumen from the Alberta Tar Sands to stay in the ground. The unions don't agree yet. There remains deep scepticism among Indigenous activists about how solid is the solidarity expressed by settlers. There is concern from activists of colour that support for their issues is only present when their support is needed. There is still the gap of knowledge and sometimes solidarity between Quebec and the rest of Canada. All of these divisions were present in the May meeting and we talked about them. 

I pointed out another powerful movement where the differences were just as great. In the anti-Viet Nam War movement some of us supported the victory of the Viet Cong. We used to chant “Ho Ho Ho Chi Minh, the Viet Cong are gonna win;” while others were only in the demonstration because they didn't want their sons to be drafted.  In those days we didn't have facilitators to help us through negotiating those differences in a positive way.  We pretty well hated each other but we marched together because the stakes were high and we contributed to stopping that terrible war. This time the stakes are much higher.

As Naomi argues in her book, This Changes Everything, those of us who have been fighting for social justice all our lives now have an opportunity to create a new vision of a just and caring society. A society where caring for each other, the land and the creatures that share it with us is a powerful transformative idea that can appeal to a majority of people around the world. 

Join us on July 5 in Toronto at Queen's Park at 1 p.m. for the Jobs, Justice, Climate March or you can participate in actions sponsored by 350.org in various cities across the country .

By Jennifer Gollan - Reveal News, June 13, 2015

Disclaimer: The views expressed here are not the official position of the IWW (or even the IWW’s EUC) and do not necessarily represent the views of anyone but the author’s.

In the early evening of Sept. 14, 2011, Jebadiah Stanfill was working near the top of an oil rig at a bend in the Missouri River in North Dakota. Jolted by a deafening boom in the distance, he swung around from his perch and saw a pillar of black smoke twisting into the sky.

Less than a mile away, another rig had exploded. “There’s men over there!” a worker below him shouted.

Stanfill, a compact and muscular man in his 30s, descended to the ground and hopped into the bed of a red pickup driven by a co-worker. Bruce Jorgenson, a manager overseeing the work of Stanfill and his crew, jumped into the passenger seat, and they raced to the explosion.

A few minutes later, they reached the burning rig and pulled up next to Doug Hysjulien, who was wandering in a valley and clutching the front of his underwear. The rest of his clothes were gone.

“They’re over there,” Hysjulien shouted, pointing toward the fiery rig. “Go help the other boys. They’re worse.”

Stanfill sprinted until he spotted Ray Hardy, who had been hurled into a patch of gravel. His skin was charred black and peeling. His nails were bent back, exposing the stark white bones of his fingers.

“How many people were on the rig?” Stanfill asked Hardy.

“He’s over there,” Hardy responded, gazing toward a field near the rig. Stanfill scrambled over a berm and waded through knee-high wheat until he found Michael Twinn, lying on his back naked and seared. His hair was singed and his work boots had curled up in the heat. He cried out in agony.

“The derrick man’s dead! The derrick man’s dead!” Twinn screamed.

“They were beyond burned,” Stanfill recalled. “Nothing but char. The smell of flesh burning. … It smelled of crude oil.”

Brendan Wegner, 21, had been scrambling down a derrick ladder when the well exploded, consuming him in a fiery tornado of oil and petroleum vapors. Rescuers found his body pinned under a heap of twisted steel pipes melted by the inferno. His charred hands were recovered later, still gripping the derrick ladder. It was his first day on the rig.

Hardy died the next day of his burns. Twinn had his lower legs amputated. Dogged by post-traumatic stress disorder, he killed himself in October 2013. Each left behind three children. Hysjulien suffered debilitating third-degree burns over half of his body. He is the lone survivor.

To this day, the explosion – pieced together from interviews, court documents and federal and local reports – remains the worst accident in the expansive Bakken oil fields since the boom began in 2006.

Beyond the human toll from that day, which continues to haunt Stanfill and others, the 2011 explosion offers a striking illustration of how big oil companies have largely written the rules governing their own accountability for accidents.

Read the entire article here.