Event: Will Changing Behaviours Secure the Future?

Event: Will Changing Behaviours Secure the Future?

Editor’s note: This is not a DGR sponsored event. While we may not agree with all of the analysis, this event may offer some useful points into understanding the disease of wetiko. DGR knows that the only way to secure the future of life on the planet is to dismantle civilization, which is the source of the dominant culture’s behaviours. This can not be accomplished through individual lifestyle and behaviour change. But it can be accomplished by joining together with like minded people that hold the commitment to fight against the destruction of the planet that is done in the name of “progress”.

Will Changing Behaviors Secure the Future?

Tuesday, March 12th, we will be discussing how to shift the Growth economy toward an economy which serves people and ecosystems first.

A Zoom and face-to-face gathering will take place at the Kanata Legion (70 Hines Road, Ottawa, Canada) on Tuesday, March 12th. The meeting, with Zoom, begins at 1:00 pm (EST) with short panel presentations setting the theme, followed by discussion. It will be preceded for those in the area with social time and bring your own lunch. Doors open at 11:00 am. The event will be recorded and added to CACOR’s YouTube channel.
The Zoom link is:
This session is hosted by Values Committee of the Canadian Association for the Club of Rome (CACOR) and is inspired by: World Scientists’ Warning: The behavioural crisis driving ecological overshoot; Joseph J Merz, Phoebe Barnard, William E Rees, Dane Smith, Mat Maroni, Christopher J Rhodes, Julia H Dederer, Nandita Bajaj, Michael K Joy, Thomas Wiedmann, Rory Sutherland, 2023. The panel will consist of Andrew Welch and Mike Nickerson, facilitated by Lalith Gunaratne with introductions by Gabriela Gref-Innes.
The Starting Theme:
Even with CO2 reduction and renewable electrification of everything, we still have to deal with the Growth based system that is overwhelming Earth.
Humankind needs to pioneer new values and cultural forms that are not dependent on continuous Growth.
Some Questions to consider:
What are the psychological and other reasons that society adheres to the “Growth Everlasting” ideology ?
How is that ideology being sustained ? How is commercialization and marketing hijacking human impulses and public domain.
How might we work with humanity’s underlying motivations to secure long-term well-being in response to the problems of growing past Earth’s ability to sustain us ?
Meeting details:
As with CACOR’s previous gatherings, doors will open at 11, with a $5.00 charge to cover the cost of the room rental. You can bring your own lunch or something to share with the group. Coffee and tea will be available and the bar will be open for wine and beer sale. Plenty of free parking is available.
Hoping you can join us,
Yours, Mike N.
A world at peace and in balance with the environment is hard for our minds to grasp, but it is not beyond the capacity of our hearts to experience and to hunger for.
Seventh Generation Initiative
CACOR
Stop State Grant for Copper Mining Porcupine Mountains

Stop State Grant for Copper Mining Porcupine Mountains

Editor’s Note: This is an update to a story that we published about the proposed copper mining in Porcupine Mountains. Michigan Strategic Fund is considering a grant for the Copperwood project – a project that will destroy the natural habitat in the Porcupine Mountains. This is an urgent call for action, you can find the original piece here.


URGENT: Michigan considering $50M grant for Copperwood

We are writing today with an urgent action request that needs to be completed as soon as possible. If you care about the health of Lake Superior and about the wilderness quality of the North Country Trail and Porcupine Mountains State Park, now is the time to fight for it.

An article released on January 30th reports that the Michigan Strategic Fund is currently considering a $50 million grant for the Copperwood project. This money would more than double Highland Copper’s bank account, but more importantly, a State endorsement would provide a massive boost in momentum and be used as leverage for future funds from grants, investors, and loans. To quote Highland Copper’s CEO Barry O’Shea: “I can tell you with certainty that an award of this nature will move the needle significantly in terms of how our debt providers and our equity investors look at our company. It’s not only a large financial boost for the project, but it is a true endorsement.

Fortunately, a few of the MSF board members have expressed doubts regarding the necessity and wisdom of the grant, and the decision has been deferred to subcommittee for expedited consideration. We don’t know the timeframe in which a decision will be made, which is why it is crucial we act NOW.

We are asking you to write a message to the Michigan Strategic Fund board members who are deliberating over this grant as we speak. Their emails are provided below. We have already sent them a thorough elaboration on all our key arguments, so you only need to follow up with a few short paragraphs or even a few sentences. Write about whatever points resonate personally with you, but keep in mind, these are businesspeople who are interested mainly in the soundness of their investment.

Here are a few points to inspire your pen:

General Arguments

  • Are they aware of this petition with over 11,000 signatures opposing Copperwood’s development? 11,000 is more than the populations of the closest three towns to the Mine combined (Wakefield, Bessemer, and Ironwood). Contrary to what they have been told, social license for this project is far from universal.
  • The board members are likely not familiar with this area— remind them that this is not “the middle of nowhere”: the juncture of Porcupine Mountains Wilderness, the North Country Trail, and Lake Superior is one of the most spectacular outdoor recreation areas in the country.
  • Outdoor recreation contributes over $10 billion to Michigan’s economy annually; mining, around $1 billion. An operating mine would disrupt this thriving outdoor recreation area with noise pollution, light pollution, subterranean blasting, and heavy industrial traffic.
  • Copperwood would be the closest sulfide mine to Lake Superior in history. Copper sulfide mines always contaminate and tailings dams are far from invincible.
  • Inform them that, despite what they may have been told, copper is NOT a critical mineral and therefore there is no urgent need to fund this project.

Specific Economic Arguments

  • Highland Copper is a foreign company, largely funded by foreign investors;
  • The copper will be transported to Canada for processing, meaning a great many of the highest-paying jobs will go to foreigners. See the 2023 Feasibility Study:

P. 1.18 states concentrate to be shipped by a trans-load facility in Champion, MI to have access to Canadian National Railway networks (CN).
P. 19.2.1 discusses the need for downstream refining and smelting: “Several smelters could receive concentrate with the nearby candidates being the Horne smelter located in Noranda, Quebec or the copper smelter in Sudbury, Ontario. Other alternatives include seaborne export to Asia or Europe.”

  • If this project is such a slam dunk, why haven’t they been able to procure funding after over a decade of scrambling?
  • And why did their CEO step down just a few months ago?
  • This study on the economic impact of mining shows that only 25% of mines lead to long-term economic benefit for communities, with half of those coming from before 1982, and most of those being new coal strip mines out West; in other words, it is an exceedingly small fraction of mines which will lead to meaningful economic revitalization.
  • The study specifically cites the issue of “flickering“— the tendency for metal mines to close and re-open, again and again, as the price of a mineral fluctuates above and below the cost of operation; this creates much uncertainty in the lives of workers. Flickering is what has defined Copperwood’s entire nonexistence thus far: the flickering of funding, the flickering of proposed start-up dates, the flickering of CEOs. Highland Copper has stated again and again that, in addition to awaiting the necessary capital, they are awaiting a surge in the price of copper to make the project viable— Great… but what happens if the price plunges after the mine begins operation?
  • This is a big chunk of change for a project that will only last 11 years;
  • Since HC’s market cap is only $43 million — well short of the $390 million in startup capital required — MSF would be investing in a company that likely will be taken over by a larger partner at some point before the mine is up and running;
  • Interim CEO Barry O’Shea said, “I can tell you with certainty that an award of this nature will move the needle significantly in terms of (how) our debt providers and our equity investors look at our company. It’s not only a large financial boost for the project, but it is a true endorsement.
    In other words, he has stated explicitly that they want to use an official State endorsement as leverage to win over more outside equity investors and bank loans— a pretty suspect use of Michigan taxpayer money, don’t you think?
  • Finally, Highland Copper no doubt touted their “resolutions of support” gathered from area townhalls. Keep in mind, those resolutions were agreed upon by no more than two or three dozen people. Meanwhile, there is a petition with over 11,000 signatures opposing the Mine.

 

Now, without further ado, the details of the action:

  1. Firstly, please submit your short message via this online form (allows for limited length )
  2. Secondly, send that same message, or a longer version, to the e-mail addresses below— you may copy and paste the entire list directly into the CC: field of a new email. These addresses comprise ALL the Michigan Strategic Fund board members, plus a few more of special relevance:

You can also call the office of Quentin L. Messer, Chair of the Michigan Strategic Fund:

517-241-1400

Again, this is our most important action to date, and the clock is ticking!

Thank you for your help, everyone! Remember, ProtectThePorkies is not an organization, but a movement, comprised of anyone who feels a connection to this area and a desire to fight for its wellbeing! Take care!

WHO Announcement of Guideline on Transgender Health

WHO Announcement of Guideline on Transgender Health

Editorial – Urgent Call for Comments on WHO Announcement of Guideline on Transgender Health

The World Health Organization (WHO) announced on December 18, 2023 that it is going to develop a guideline on the health of “trans and gender diverse” [sic] people.

The WHO announcement states:

“The guideline is supposed to focus on 5 areas: provision of gender-affirming care, including hormones; health workers education and training for the provision of gender-inclusive care; provision of health care for trans and gender diverse people who suffered interpersonal violence based in their needs; health policies that support gender-inclusive care, and legal recognition of self-determined gender identity.”

For this, WHO has assembled a guideline development group (GDG). The GDG is composed of 21 members. The GDG consists of researchers with relevant technical expertise, among end-users (programme managers and health workers) and among representatives of “trans and gender diverse” [sic] community organisations. The WHO announcement has also published the biographies of the GDG members.

All of this is open for public comment till January 8, 2024. You can email your comments to hiv-aids@who.int

In the following piece, we point out some problems with the above mentioned propositions, why it matters and what you can do about it.

“Gender-affirming care”–what do they mean when they say that?

The WHO announcement defines “gender-affirming care” as a range of social, psychological, behavioral, and medical interventions “designed to support and affirm an individual’s gender identity” when it conflicts with their sex. Behavioral intervention means behaving in ways that the society considers typical of the supposed gender identity of the individual. This is not harmful if a man or woman decides to break gender stereotypes and behaves in ways previously considered typical of the other gender. On the contrary, as a feminist, we support breaking gender norms. But when it comes to “gender-affirming care,” major questions arise:

Why is it that a trans-identifying man feels more feminine by wearing dresses and makeup? Who decides what kind of behavior is masculine and what kind of behavior is feminine?

The answer is easy: thousands of years of patriarchy that has created a system where certain behavior is considered feminine and others masculine. Through “gender-affirming care,” when a health professional recommends a trans-identifying man to act more feminine in order to conform to his “gender identity,” the health care professional is reinforcing these stereotypes created by patriarchy. Both patriarchy and “gender-affirming care” state that, if you are a particular gender, you have to perform in ways stereotypical to that gender in order to be happy. The only difference between the two is that patriarchy bases your gender on your sex (a biological reality), whereas “gender-affirming care” bases your gender in your gender identity (a psychological feeling that is in turn based on the social construct of gender).

Psychological intervention in a “gender-affirming care” is one that validates the client’s gender dysphoria. It does not challenge the dysphoria in any way. While validation might, on the surface, seem a compassionate response (and it is for a lot of situations), it is not an appropriate one in many situations. For example, an anorexic client believes she is fat, even when her body is dying out of a lack of nutrition. If a therapist tried to “validate” her feelings of being fat, he would (quite rightly) be questioned on the ethics of his action. The same goes for body dysmorphic disorder, where a person is obsessed with a part of her body being “abnormal” or “not right” that it affects her daily functioning. There’s also body integrity identity disorder, where a person believes that he cannot be his real self unless he destroys a specific part of his body and opts for voluntary mutilation. How would you feel about a psychologist who would validate a person’s desire to mutilate his body and assist in the process? Here’s a video of a woman who claims to have voluntarily poured toilet cleaner in her eyes in order to blind herself.

Is gender dysphoria like body dysmorphic disorder and anorexia nervosa, i.e. arising out of a deep-rooted hatred for one’s body, that needs to be challenged ethically, or is it like a condition that needs to be accepted?

There are differing opinions on this. Yet, there is one thing that cannot be discredited by anyone. It is that most people suffering from gender dysphoria have a history of childhood trauma and other problems, as confirmed by a whitsleblower of a so-called gender-affirming service. When a person suffers from that kind of trauma, feeling a hatred or disgust with one’s body, or even dissociation from one’s body, is a common response. Talk to anyone who has been sexually assaulted, or molested about the immediate response of her body. Psychologists or psychotherapists know this. Yet, under “gender-affirming care”, they conveniently overlook this. Under “gender-affirming care,” you cannot talk about the childhood trauma, because anything that mildly challenges their dysphoria is considered (in an Orwellian twist of language) malpractice. In reality, not dealing with trauma should be dealt as an unethical conduct for a psychologist.

Medical intervention in “gender-affirming care” involves the use of puberty blockers, hormone replacement therapy (HRT) and sex reassignment surgeries (SRS). Puberty blockers are used in prepubescenct children to stop puberty, because, we (as a culture) finally decided that a prepubescent child can have the right to make life-altering decisions. GnRH, a category of drugs used as puberty blocker, suppresses the release of testosterone in male and estradiol in female, thus stopping the development of primary and secondary sex characteristics. If taken for a long time, it permanently affects the body’s production of follicle stimulating hormone (FSH), lutenizing hormone (LH), testosterone and estradiol – all of which are related to a normal reproductive and sexual functioning. And, this is a decision a child is making before puberty, before the child has even had a chance to see himself as a sexual and/or reproductive being. Lupron is also the drug that is used to chemically castrate male sex offenders. However, it is recommended to be reserved for offenders with “highest risk of sexual offending due to its extensive side-effects“.

Simply put, the drug that is too harmful for a person with a low to medium risk of sexual offending, is promoted by “gender-affirming care” to children without a fully developed prefrontal cortex (i.e. without the ability to fully comprehend consequences of one’s actions).

HRT and SRS are not better either. There are many who regret these interventions for the impact that they had, and mainly because they were never given the actual intervention that they needed: trauma healing. A pioneer study looked into the lived experiences of 237 detransitioners on their regret, medical complications, and even, the vitriol they face from trans-rights activists.

For a well-written account of a detransitioner, read Kiera Bell’s story. Her tireless activism and legal lawsuit was what brought in stricter regulation for medical intervention in the UK.

Self-identified gender identity

Self-identified gender identity or Self-ID (as it is commonly known) means the ability of a person to be able to change one’s sex legally without the need for any medical intervention or for any form of psychological assessment. Trans rights activists have been pushing for self-ID in many countries, claiming that it would help with gender dysphoria. After all, treating a person in the way that they desire to be treated should not have been a problem. Unfortunately, it turned out to be. It meant rapists immediately after conviction claiming to be women and then being housed in women’s prisons, where they get access to vulnerable women. It meant men claiming to be a woman getting into seats reserved for a woman. It meant mediocre male athletes claiming to be women and playing in women’s sports, where due to their biological advantage, they easily win the competitions. It meant pedophiles claiming to be women to get lighter sentences. For countries where law does not recognize a woman raping woman, it could mean no sentence for a rapist claiming to be a woman. For more on how self-ID has been misused by sex offenders, read this open letter by Derrick, Lierre and Max.

Self-ID is an issue where the demands of the trans rights movement directly clash with the hard-fought rights of women for centuries. Sadly, many have chosen to forego of women’s rights in order to validate men’s feelings.

Why it matters?

WHO is a leading body on health related information throughout the world. Although WHO guidelines are not binding (i.e. no country is forced to comply by its standards), it does have high influence in creating standards across many countries. This is especially true for low and middle income countries (LMIC). LMIC lack the resources and expertise to develop guidelines of their own. As a result, they have a greater reliance on WHO guidelines for health related issues. Regardless of the economic status of the countries, WHO is an authority body when it comes to health related matters globally. It is bound to have a great influence in the policies of all nations.

What can you do?

  • Submit your comments to hiv-aids@who.int The deadline for submitting comments on the WHO announcement is January 8, 2024.
  • Sign this petition by Who Decides It explains many issues with the announcement that may not have been covered in the above piece.
  • Find women and men around you and organize to defend these hard-fought rights in your locality.

Photo by Alexander Grey on Unsplash

The ESA Is Not Protecting Wolverines

The ESA Is Not Protecting Wolverines

Editor’s Note: There are fewer than 300 wolverines in the contiguous United States. Wolverines were listed as a threatened species in the lower 48 states  under the Endangered Species Act (ESA) in November 2023. But there are still exceptions to the protection for the wolverines. The following is a piece written by Mike Garrity, the executive director of the Alliance for the Wild Rockies. He describes the legal situation regarding the protection of the wolverines. Finally the piece ends with a call for action to remove these exceptions.


Wolverines Protected Under the ESA. Here is the Rest of the Story

By Mike Garrity/Counterpunch

The Nov. 2023 issue of Scientific American reports that more than 1,600 species have been listed for protection under the Endangered Species Act (ESA), but less than 6% of species have recovered. We have to start recovering species and with wolverine, we need to start by protecting their habitat and outlawing trapping there with real protective administrative rules or regulations, not weak protections that place imperiled wolverines on the road to extinction.

After more than 20 years of advocacy and litigation by the Western Environmental Law Center for the Alliance for the Wild Rockies, Native Ecosystems Council, and other wildlife conservation groups, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service determined that wolverines warrant federal protection as a threatened species under the ESA.

Protects species and the ecosystems upon which they depend

The purposes of the ESA are two-fold: to prevent extinction and to recover species. It therefore “protect[s] species and the ecosystems upon which they depend.”

We are thankful after two successful lawsuits and court orders that the Fish and Wildlife Service finally came to its senses and protected wolverines under the ESA. But like everything, the devil is in the details.

Wolverines are now protected under the ESA but the next step is recovering wolverines and the ecosystems upon which they depend. The Fish and Wildlife Service does this through administrative rules to issue regulations that are necessary to protect and recover species listed as threatened and their habitat.

Exceptions

The proposed administrative rule for wolverines has exceptions that include:

(1) taking, or killing, wolverines due to scientific research conducted on wolverines by a federal or Tribal biologists,

(2) incidental take or destruction of wolverine habitat from logging for the purposes of reducing wildfire,

(3) incidental take or killing of wolverines from legal trapping consistent with state and Tribal trapping rules.

Before our court victory stopped recreational wolverine trapping in Montana in 2012, trappers killed about a dozen wolverines a year. Since then, 12 wolverines have been accidentally trapped in Montana, leading to three deaths. In Idaho, nine wolverines have been trapped resulting in two deaths that they know of since 2017.

Lose a foot

Assuming a trapper could even release an angry wolverine from a trap, most animals released after their blood circulation was cut off to a foot for several days in subzero weather end up with their frozen foot falling off, according to the Carter Niemeyer, a retired trapper for U.S.D.A.’s Wildlife Services. It is hard enough for a wolverine with four feet to survive. It is almost impossible for a wolverine to survive in the wild with only three feet. Therefore, the death toll on wolverines from accidental trapping is most likely higher.

Continued Destruction of Wolverine Habitat

The proposed administrative exception to allow the destruction or “take” of wolverine habitat for logging that pretends to fireproof a forest is an exception that swallows the rule. Almost every logging or clearcutting project on national forests in wolverine habitat is now for “fireproofing forests,” which is impossible to do and is just an excuse to mow down our national forests for private profit. We cannot help reclusive wolverines recover if we continue to bulldoze logging roads through all of their habitat and clear-cut forests.

What you can do

Please consider asking to the Fish and Wildlife Service to remove the exceptions allowing trapping, clearcutting and bulldozing logging roads in wolverine habitat by: going to https://www.regulations.gov. In the search box, enter FWS-R6-ES-2023-0216, which is the docket number for this rulemaking.

or

(2) By hard copy: U.S. mail: Public Comments Processing, Attn: FWS-R6-ES- 2023-0216; U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service; MS: PRB/3W; 5275 Leesburg Pike; Falls Church, VA 22041–3803. Comments are due by January 28, 2024.

Thank you for considering commenting on the Fish and Wildlife Service’s pathetic wolverine regulations, which won’t recover wolverines.

Banner: Wolverine on rocky ground. Photo: Public Domain

Hey y’all! FYI we had a glitch on our donation website for the last couple weeks, We encourage anyone to make any year-end donations they’d like to make using this link? https://givebutter.com/SA0iCU

Thank you very much! Happy solstice!

How to Beat the Fracking Frenzy

How to Beat the Fracking Frenzy

Editor’s Note: The successful Irish struggle against fracking by multi-national gas company Tamboran offers key insights on community power building for anti-extraction movements across the world.
The Australian corporation paints its international natural gas projects as ‘green’ with words like “Net Zero CO2 Energy Transition”. But people in the Beetaloo Basin in Australia and Leitrim in Ireland don’t fall for their lies.

Read about how local people, farmers, fishers and artists – deeply intertwined with their land – unite to fight for what they hold dear: rivers and streams, peat lands and hills, villages and work on the land.

Resistance movements of the past, both successful and unsuccessful, are a good lesson in organizing and strategy. DGR supports resistance against renewable energies as well, but as we see, the struggle against fossil fuels continues in every country.


By Jamie Gorman/Waging Nonviolence

Australian resistance

The reality of the climate crisis makes it clear that we must leave the “oil in the soil” and the “gas under the grass,” as the Oilwatch International slogan goes. The fossil fuel industry knew this before anyone else. Yet the industry continues to seek new extractive frontiers on all continents in what has been labeled a “fracking frenzy” by campaigners.

In Australia, unconventional fossil gas exploration has been on the rise over the last two decades. Coal seam gas wells have been in production since 2013, while community resistance has so far prevented the threat of shale gas fracking. The climate crisis and state commitments under the Paris Agreement means that the window for exploration is closing. But the Australian economy remains hooked on fossil fuels and the industry claims that fossil gas is essential for economic recovery from COVID, “green growth” and meeting net-zero targets.

The Northern Territory, or NT, government is particularly eager to exploit its fossil fuel reserves and wants to open up extraction in the Beetaloo Basin as part of its gas strategy. The NT recently announced a $1.32 billion fossil fuel subsidy for gas infrastructure project Middle Arm and greenlighted the drilling of 12 wells by fracking company Tamboran Resources as a first step towards full production.

Beetaloo Basin community struggle

Gas exploration is inherently speculative with high risks. The threat of reputational damage is high enough that large blue chip energy companies like Origin Energy — a major player in the Australian energy market — are turning away from shale. This leaves the field to smaller players who are willing to take a gamble in search of a quick buck. This is precisely how Tamboran came to prominence in Australia. After buying out Origin Energy in September 2022, Tamboran is now the biggest player in the Northern Territory’s drive to drill.

NT anti-fracking campaigner Hannah Ekin described this point as “a really key moment in the campaign to stop fracking in the Beetaloo basin.”

For over a decade, “Traditional Owners, pastoralists and the broader community have held the industry at bay, but we are now staring down the possibility of full production licenses being issued in the near future.”

Despite this threat, Tamboran has been stopped before. In 2017, community activists in Ireland mobilized a grassroots movement that forced the state to revoke Tamboran’s license and ban fracking. Although the context may be different, this successful Irish campaign has many key insights to offer those on the frontlines of resistance in Australia — as well as the wider anti-extraction movements all over the world.

Fracking comes to Ireland

In February 2011, Tamboran was awarded an exploratory license in Ireland — without public knowledge or consent. They planned to exploit the shale gas of the northwest carboniferous basin and set their sights on county Leitrim. The county is a beautiful, mountainous place, with small communities nestled in valleys carved by glaciers in the last ice age.

The landscape is watery: peat bogs, marshes and gushing rivers are replenished by near daily downpours as Atlantic coast weather fronts meet Ireland’s western seaboard. Farming families go back generations on land that can be difficult to cultivate. Out of this land spring vibrant and creative communities, despite — or perhaps because of — the challenges of being on the margins and politically peripheral.

The affected communities first realized Tamboran’s plans when the company began a PR exercise touting jobs and economic development. In seeking to understand what they faced, people turned to other communities experiencing similar issues. A mobile cinema toured the glens of Leitrim showing Josh Fox’s documentary “Gasland.” After the film there were Q&As with folks from another Irish community, those resisting a Shell pipeline and gas refinery project at Rossport. Out of these early exchanges, an anti-fracking movement comprised of many groups and individuals emerged. One in particular — Love Leitrim, or LL, which formed in late 2011 — underscored the importance of a grassroots community response.

Resisting fracking by celebrating the positives about Leitrim life was a conscious strategic decision and became the group’s hallmark.

In LL’s constitution, campaigners asserted that Leitrim is “a vibrant, creative, inclusive and diverse community,” challenging the underlying assumptions of the fracking project that Leitrim was a marginal place worth sacrificing for gas. The group developed a twin strategy of local organizing — which rooted them in the community — and political campaigning, which enabled them to reach from the margins to the center of Irish politics.

This combination of “rooting” and “reaching” was crucial to the campaign’s success.

5 key rooting strategies

The first step towards defeating Tamboran in Ireland was building a movement rooted in the local community. Out of this experience, five key “rooting strategies” for local organizing emerged — showing how the resistance developed a strong social license and built community power.

1. Build from and on relationships

Good relationships were essential to building trust in LL’s campaign. Who was involved — and who was seen to be involved — were crucial for rooting the campaign in the community. Local people were far more likely to trust and accept information that was provided by those they knew, and getting the public support of local farmers, fishers and well-known people was crucial. Building on existing relationships and social bonds, LL became deeply rooted in local life in a way that provided a powerful social license and a strongly-rooted base to enable resistance to fracking.

2. Foster ‘two-way’ community engagement

LL engaged the community with its campaign and, at the same time, actively participated as volunteers in community events. This two-way community engagement built trust and networked the campaign in the community. LL actively participated in local events such as markets, fairs and the St. Patrick’s Day parade, which offered creative ways to boost their visibility. At the same time, LL also volunteered to support events run by other community groups, from fun-runs to bake sales. According to LL member Heather (who, along with others in this article, is quoted on the condition of anonymity), this strategy was essential to “building up trust … between the group, its name and what it wants, and the community.”

3. Celebrate community

In line with its vision, LL celebrated and fostered community in many ways. This was typified by its organizing of a street feast world café event during a 2017 community festival that saw people come together over a meal to discuss their visions of Leitrim now and for their children. LL members also supported local renewable energy and ecotourism projects that advanced alternative visions of development. Celebrating and strengthening the community in this way challenged the fundamental assumptions of the fracking project — a politics of disposability which assumed that Leitrim could be sacrificed to fuel the extractivist economy.

4. Connect to culture

Campaigners saw culture as a medium for catalyzing conversations and connecting with popular folk wisdom. LL worked with musicians, artists and local celebrities in order to relate fracking to popular cultural and historical narratives that resonated with communities through folk music and cultural events. This was particularly important in 2016, the 100th anniversary of the Easter Rising, which ultimately led to Irish independence from the British Empire. Making those connections tapped into radical strands of the popular imagination. Drawing on critical counter-narratives in creative ways overcame the potential for falling into negative activist stereotypes. Through culture, campaigners could present new or alternative stories, experiences or ideas in a way that evocatively connected with people.

5. Build networks of solidarity

Reaching out to other frontline communities was a powerful and evocative way to raise awareness of fracking and extractivism from people who had experienced them first-hand.

As local campaigner Bernie explained, “When someone comes, it’s on a human level people can appreciate and understand. When they tell their personal story, that makes a difference.”

Perhaps the most significant guest speaker was Canadian activist Jessica Ernst, whose February 2012 presentation to a packed meeting in the Rainbow ballroom was described by many campaigners as a key moment in the campaign. Ernst is a former gas industry engineer who found herself battling the fracking industry on her own land. She told her personal story, the power of which was heightened by her own industry insider credentials and social capital as a landowner. Reflecting on the event, LL member Triona remembered looking around the room and seeing “all the farmers, the landowners, who are the important people to have there — and people were really listening.”

4 key reaching strategies against fracking

With a strong social license and empowered network of activists, the next step for the anti-fracking movement was to identify how to make their voices heard and influence public policy. This required reaching beyond the local community scale to engage in national political decision making around fracking. Four key strategies enabled campaigners to successfully jump scales and secure a national fracking ban.

1. Find strategic framings

Tamboran sought to frame the public conversation on narrow technical issues surrounding single drilling sites, pipelines and infrastructure, obscuring the full impact of the thousands of planned wells.

As LL campaigner Robert pointed out, this “project-splitting” approach “isn’t safe for communities, but it’s easier for the industry because they’re getting into a position where they’re unstoppable.”

Addressing the impact of the entire project at a policy level became a key concern for campaigners. LL needed framings that would carry weight with decision makers, regulators and the media.

Listening and dialogue in communities helped campaigners to understand and root the campaign in local concerns. From this, public health and democracy emerged as frames that resonated locally, while also carrying currency nationally.

The public health frame mobilized a wide base of opposition. Yet it was not a consideration in the initial Irish Environmental Protection Agency research to devise a regulatory framework for fracking. LL mobilized a campaign that established public health as a key test of the public’s trust in the study’s legitimacy. The EPA conceded and amended the study’s terms of reference to include public health. This enabled campaigners to draw on emerging health impact research from North American fracking sites, providing evidence that would have “cache with the politicians,” as LL member Alison put it. Working alongside campaigners from New York, LL established the advocacy group Concerned Health Professionals of Ireland, or CHPI, mirroring a similar, highly effective New York group. CHPI was crucial to highlighting the public health case for a ban on fracking and shaping the media and political debate.

2. Demonstrate resistance

Having rooted the campaign in local community life, LL catalyzed key groups like farmers and fishers to mobilize their bases. Farmers in LL worked within their social networks to organize a tractorcade. “It was all word of mouth … knocking on doors and phone calls,” said Fergus, the lead organizer for the event. Such demonstrations were “a show of solidarity with the farmers who are the landowners,” Triona recalled. They were also aimed at forcing the farmer’s union to take a public position on fracking. The event demonstrated to local farmers union leaders that their members were opposed to fracking, encouraging them to break their silence on the issue.

Collective action also enforced a bottom line of resistance to the industry. Tamboran made one attempt to drill a test well in 2014. Community mobilization prevented equipment getting to the site for a week while a legal battle over a lack of an environmental impact assessment was fought and won. Reflecting on this success, Robert suggested that communities can be nodes of resistance to “fundamental, large problems that aren’t that easy to solve” because “one of the things small communities can do is simply say no.”

And when frontline communities are networked, then “every time a community resists, it empowers another community to resist.”

3. Engage politicians before regulators

In 2013, when Tamboran was renewing its license, campaigners found that there was no public consultation mechanism. Despite this, LL organized an “Application Not to Frack.” This was printed in a local newspaper, and the public was encouraged to cut it out and sign it. This grassroots counter-application carried no weight with regulators, but with an emphasis on rights and democracy, it sent a strong signal to politicians.

Submitting their counter application, LL issued a press release: Throughout this process people have been forgotten about. We want to put people back into the center of decision making … We are asking the Irish government: Are you with your people or not?

At a time when public sentiment was disillusioned with the political establishment in the aftermath of the 2011 financial crisis, LL tapped into this sentiment to discursively jump from the scale of a localized place-based struggle to one that was emblematic of wider democratic discontents and of national importance.

Frontline environmental justice campaigns often experience procedural injustices when navigating governance structures that privilege scientific/technical expertise. Rather than attempt an asymmetrical engagement with regulators, LL forced public debate in the political arena. In that space, they were electors holding politicians to account rather than lay-people with insufficient scientific knowledge to contribute to the policy making process.

The group used a variety of creative tactics and strategic advocacy to engage local politicians. This approach — backed up by a strongly rooted base — led to unanimous support for a ban from politicians in the license area. In the 2016 election, the only pro-fracking candidate failed to win a seat. Local democratic will was clear. Campaigners set their sights on parliament and a national fracking ban.

4. Focus on the parliament

The lack of any public consultation before exploration commenced led campaigners to fear that decisions would continue to be made without public scrutiny. LL built strategic relationships with politicians across the political spectrum with the aim of forcing accountability in the regulatory system. A major obstacle to legislation was the ongoing EPA study, which was to inform government decisions on future licensing. But it emerged that CDM Smith, a vocally pro-fracking engineering firm, had been contracted for much of the work. The study was likely to set a roadmap to frack.
Campaigners had two tasks: to politically discredit the EPA study and work towards a fracking ban.

They identified the different roles politicians across the political spectrum — and between government and opposition — could strategically play in the parliamentary process.

While continuing a public campaign, the group engaged in intensive advocacy efforts, working with supportive parliamentarians to host briefings where community members addressed lawmakers, submitted parliamentary questions to the minister, used their party’s speaking time to address the issue, raised issues at parliamentary committee hearings, and proposed motions and legislative bills.

While the politicians were also not environmental experts, their position as elected representatives meant that regulators were accountable to them. Political pressure thus led to the shelving of the compromised EPA study and paved the way for a ban. Several bills had been tabled.

By chance, the one that was first scheduled for debate was from a Leitrim politician whose bill was backed by campaigners as the most watertight. With one final push from campaigners, it secured support from lawmakers across parties and a government motion to block it was fought off.

In November 2017, six years after Tamboran arrived in Leitrim, fracking was finally banned in Ireland. It was a win for people power and democracy.

Building a bridge to the Beetaloo and beyond

Pacifist-anarchist folk singer Utah Phillips described folk songs as “bridges” between past struggles and the listener’s present. Bridges enable the sharing of knowledge and critical understanding across time and distances. Similarly, stories of struggle act as a bridge, between the world of the reader and the world of the story, sharing wisdom, and practical and ethical knowledge. The story of successful Irish resistance to Tamboran is grounded in a particular political moment and a particular cultural context. The political and cultural context faced by Australian campaigners is very different. Yet there are certainly insights that can bridge the gap between Ireland and Australia.

The Irish campaign shows us how crucial relationships and strongly rooted community networks can be when people mobilize.

In the NT, campaigners have similarly sought to build alliances across the territory and between traditional Indigenous owners and pastoralists. This is crucial, suggests NT anti-fracking campaigner Hannah Ekin, because “the population affected by fracking in the NT is very diverse, and different communities often have conflicting interests, values and lifestyles.”

LL’s campaign demonstrates the importance of campaign framings reflective of local contexts and concerns. While public health was a unifying frame in Ireland, Ekin notes that the protection of water has become “a real motivator” and a rallying cry that “unites people across the region” because “if we over-extract or contaminate the groundwater we rely on, we are jeopardizing our capacity to continue living here.”

The Beetaloo is a sacred site for First Nations communities, with sacred song lines connected to the waterways. “We have to maintain the health of the waterways,” stressed Mudburra elder Raymond Dimikarri Dixon. “That water is alive through the song line. If that water isn’t there the songlines will die too.”

In scaling up from local organizing to national campaigning, the Irish campaign demonstrated the importance of challenging project splitting and engaging the political system to avoid being silenced by the technicalities of the regulatory process. In the NT, the government is advancing the infrastructure to drill, transport and process fracked gas. This onslaught puts enormous pressure on campaigners. “It’s death by a thousand cuts,” Ekin noted. “We are constantly on the back foot trying to stop each individual application for a few wells here, a few wells there, as the industry entrenches itself as inevitable.”

In December 2022, Environment Minister Lauren Moss approved a plan by Tamboran Resources to frack 12 wells in the Beetaloo as they move towards full production. But campaigners are determined to stop them: the Central Australian Frack Free Alliance, or CAFFA, is taking the minister to court for failing to address the cumulative impacts of the project as a whole. By launching this case CAFFA wants to shift the conversation to the bigger issue of challenging a full scale fracking industry in the NT. As Ekin explained, “We want to make the government listen to the community, who for over a decade now have been saying that fracking is not safe, not trusted, not wanted in the territory.”


 

Reno-Sparks Indian Colony Press Conference on Thacker Pass

Reno-Sparks Indian Colony Press Conference on Thacker Pass

November 29
For Immediate Release

On Tuesday, December 5th, from 1 pm to 2:30 pm, following a federal judge’s dismissal of their latest lawsuit, the Reno-Sparks Indian Colony (RSIC) will hold a press conference on their court cases against the Thacker Pass lithium mine.

Members of the media are invited to attend the press conference, which will be held at RSIC’s Multipurpose Room, 34 Reservation Road, Building A, Reno, NV. The press conference will also be available by zoom and will be live streaming on the RSIC Facebook page.

Speakers will include Chairman Arlan Melendez, who has led the Reno-Sparks Indian Colony for 32 years and is poised to retire at the end of this year; Michon Eben, the Tribal Historic Preservation Officer for RSIC; and Will Falk, one of the attorneys who has represented the tribe in the Thacker Pass court cases.

“We invite you to join us, as we continue our efforts to protect our sacred and culturally important site; considering it’s being destroyed right now,” said Chairman Melendez. Melendez is a nationally-respected Tribal leader and Vietnam war veteran who guided the Reno-Sparks Indian Colony through previous mining controversies, advocated for Tribal land protection and consultation rights, and helped coordinate the Tribe’s Thacker Pass strategy.

For two and a half years, Native American Tribes including the Reno-Sparks Indian Colony have been speaking out about the cultural importance of Thacker Pass, a remote mountainside in northern Nevada which Lithium Nevada Corporation plans to turn into a massive open-pit lithium mine to supply batteries for General Motors’ electric vehicles.

Thacker Pass is known as “Peehee Mu’huh” in the Paiute language, and is home to sacred sites, harvesting and hunting grounds, ceremonial areas, and the locations of two massacres of Paiute children, women and men.

On November 9th, Northern District of Nevada Chief Judge Miranda Du dismissed a second lawsuit filed in February of this year by the Reno-Sparks Indian Colony against the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) for allowing the Thacker Pass Lithium Mine to destroy sacred sites in Thacker Pass without concluding tribal consultation. The Reno-Sparks Indian Colony was joined by the Summit Lake Paiute Tribe , and Burns Paiute Tribe in the suit.

“We are very disappointed that the court is allowing Lithium Nevada to destroy the site of an 1865 massacre of Paiute peoples and a whole Traditional Cultural District before the Bureau of Land Management finished consulting with tribes about ways to avoid or mitigate harm to these sites,” says Will Falk. “While climate change is a very real, existential threat, if government agencies are allowed to rush through permitting processes to fast-track destructing mining projects like the one at Thacker Pass, more of the natural world and more Native American culture will be destroyed. Despite this project being billed as ‘green,’ it perpetrates the same harm to Native peoples that mines always have.”

Thacker Pass is located in northern Nevada near the Oregon border, where Lithium Nevada Corporation is in the first phase of building a $2 billion open-pit lithium mine which would be the largest of its kind in North America. The lithium is mainly destined for General Motors Corporation’s electric car batteries, which the corporation claims is “green.” Mine opponents call this greenwashing and have stated that “it’s not green to blow up a mountain.”

Lithium Nevada claims that its lithium mine will be essential to producing batteries for combating global warming. The Biden administration has previously indicated some support for Thacker Pass as part of the president’s climate policy.

Opponents of the project have called this “greenwashing,” arguing that the project would harm important wildlife habitat and create significant pollution, including greenhouse gas emissions. They say that electric cars are harmful to the planet and a different approach is needed to address the climate crisis.

The lithium produced at Thacker Pass would end up in electric vehicles produced by General Motors including the electric version of the Hummer, a $110,000, >9,000 pound behemoth that produces more carbon dioxide pollution than an average gasoline-fueled sedan.

“Global warming is a serious problem and we cannot continue burning fossil fuels, but destroying mountains for lithium is just as bad as destroying mountains for coal,” says Max Wilbert, co-founder of Protect Thacker Pass and author of the book Bright Green Lies: How the Environmental Movement Lost Its Way and What We Can Do About It. “You can’t blow up a mountain and call it green.”

To request the zoom link or to learn more about the RSIC community, culture, departments, economic developments, business opportunities and services, contact Bethany Sam, Public Relations Officer.

###

Protect Thacker Pass and several named defendants are fighting a lawsuit filed against them by Lithium Nevada Corporation. We are seeking monetary donations to their legal defense fund. You can donate via credit or debit cardPayPal (please include a note that your donation is for Thacker Pass legal defense), or by check.

Image by Max Wilbert of the landscape at Thacker Pass before mining construction began.