It sounds like a bad business plan: Las Vegas is planning a $15 billion project to extract water from the driest places in the country. Ranchers, farmers, indigenous and rural communities, hunters, and
environmentalists are coming together to oppose the project, and clean air activists from Salt Lake City are worried that the project might cause major dust issues in the valley.
Join community organizers Saturday, January 11th at the downtown library in Salt Lake City to learn more about the so-called “Water Grab” – the project that is the epitome of unsustainable development and massive public subsidy to the rich. Despite a recent court ruling that deals a major blow to the project, opposition continues as SNWA will not give up on their desperate gamble.
Prepare to learn about the burden this project would put on taxpayers, the stunning natural places it would turn into deserts, the communities that would be impacted, and the political scheming going on in Las Vegas to make it happen.
Join us on January 11th to stand up for what is right. We say, “Stop the Water Grab!”
The event will take place at 3pm on Saturday, January 11th at the Downtown Salt Lake City library – 210 E 400 S, in Meeting Room A, downstairs in the main foyer of the library.
Deep Green Resistance has just updated the REAL: Resistance Education At Libraries project. This easy to use website helps identify libraries lacking our targeted resistance media, and makes it easier to contact each library or “Suggest a purchase” to fill in the gaps. The new updates include an improved user interface, many new libraries from college towns, and libraries in Canada.
REAL initially focuses on three foundational works of the Deep Green Resistance and strategic anti-civ movement:
Deep Green Resistance by Derrick Jensen, Aric McBay, and Lierre Keith is crucial reading for anyone who has accepted that civilization is destroying the planet, but hasn’t known how to respond. This is the single most useful book to grow our movement of strategically thinking resisters. Deep Green Resistance is a plan of action for anyone determined to fight for this planet — and win.
Endgame, by Derrick Jensen, gives readers a crash course in anti-civ critique, an excellent and (relatively) succinct summary of what’s wrong with this culture and why. Many people already know this in their bones, but will benefit from Jensen’s eloquence and analysis to help them piece together a coherent big picture. By challenging readers to seriously ask themselves what it will take to make them fight back, and what that might look like for them as individuals and as a movement, this volume builds an important foundation for Deep Green Resistance. This book has awakened and radicalized many people, and has the potential to reach many more.
Franklin Lopez’ film END:CIV offers a powerful visual introduction to some of Endgame‘s premises and arguments, on which it is based. The movie simultaneously presents some of the worst atrocities of civilization and argues for the necessity of fighting back. It has the potential to reach many people new to anti-civ critique who otherwise might not pick up one of the above books for a “casual” read.
Many people first came to their awareness of the problems of civilization and the need to fight back thanks to these works. Getting them into public libraries will make them more accessible to people who find them by accident, or who seek them out after hearing about Deep Green Resistance and anti-civ activism.
You can help by using the website tools to make suggestions to your local library and to encourage friends and family to do the same. You can also contribute funds to help us donate copies of these media to libraries which can’t afford them from their own acquisition budgets.
Several environmental groups protesting tar sands development in the Book Cliffs region of southeast Utah stopped work Monday on a road that will serve a strip mine to be operated by Calgary-based U.S. Oil Sands.
Celia Alario, a spokeswoman for Canyon Country Rising Tide and Peaceful Uprising, said dozens of protesters had peacefully stopped road building on Seep Ridge Road and also interrupted mining operations at the East Tavaputs Plateau site. Protesters surrounded heavy equipment and, in some cases, chained themselves to it, she said.
No one was arrested or cited, said Uintah County Chief Deputy Sheriff John Laursen. He confirmed that 50 to 60 protesters halted road work and, for a time, closed the county road.
“Mostly we just wanted to make sure no one got hurt,” Laursen said.
The CEO of U.S. Oil Sands said his company is not building the road. It does, however, have a small test mine at the site but is not now producing oil. In a telephone interview, Cameron Todd said the oil sands mining operation is scheduled to ramp up in 2014.
The protest came after a week-long training camp that brought environmentalists to Utah from around the region for instruction in nonviolent, civil disobedience, according to a statement released by the organizations.
“The devastating consequence of dirty energy extraction knows no borders,” said Emily Stock, a Grand County resident and organizer with Canyon Country Rising Tide. “We stand together to protect and defend the rights of all communities, human and non-human.”
The U.S. Oil Sands CEO said he would not respond to the environmentalists’ claims.
“There is a [county] road contractor that is using our site as a staging area,” Todd explained. “I feel sorry for the contractor.”
Uintah County had long planned improvements on Seep Ridge Road, said Cheri McCurdy, executive director of the county’s Transportation Special Service District.
Public hearings on the Environmental Assessment were held in May 2009. The BLM gave approval for the road expansion in 2011. The road will serve the general public, ranchers, recreationists and energy companies, she said.
U.S. Oil Sands has received all the required regulatory permits to mine for tar sands in the region, according to a spokeswoman for the Utah School Institutional Trust Lands Administration (SITLA), which is leasing the land to the Canadian interest.
“They are generating money for public schools,” said Deena Loyola. “That’s our legislative mandate.”
Currently, tar sands from mining operations in Alberta, Canada, are being refined in Salt Lake City by Chevron Corp.
Members of the environmental coalition have not planned any activities for the remainder of the week, Alario said. But they do expect to organize future protests on the East Tavaputs Plateau, and other energy extraction sites.
Most of us who hold radical political beliefs have likely felt isolated and alone at one point or another. This isolation is a powerful tool of oppression. When we are alone, we are powerless to share our experiences, powerless to reflect on them, and powerless to organize together to make concrete material change in the world.
Fighting back against this isolation and building strong communities of mutual support and resistance needs to be one of our top priorities as people who care about justice in the world. Change requires sacrifice, and sacrifice requires commitment. True community is one of the few ways to build that commitment, to one another and to the land.
It sometimes surprises me how many ordinary people understand the Earth- and community-destroying nature of the dominant culture. I really should stop being surprised – most people don’t have the language to describe and analyze the culture, but the knowledge is there, deep within us.
Capitalism, white supremacy, civilization, patriarchy – we understand in our bones, from when we are children, that this is a way of life built on crumbling foundations and supported by global violence and ruthless exploitation.
But it’s hard to take the next steps alone. It is hard to move from a place of understand to a place of action. That is why, since the beginning of the Deep Green Resistance movement in 2011, there have been several speaking tours across turtle island to promote the DGR strategy and analysis, support allies, and build communities of resistance.
In fall of 2011, the first Deep Green Resistance speaking tour traveled the west coast of Turtle Island (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PkQ8kT_uzDY). Since then, other tours have made their way across the eastern seaboard, the midwest, and deep into Canada.
This summer, the latest in a long series of DGR speaking tours will be making it’s way across occupied native land known as ‘New England’. This tour will focus on sharing strategies and tactics for effective resistance – knowledge that can be used by anyone to gain more leverage in our movements for justice. We are asking your support to make this happen. We need funds to help the tour succeed and venues to host public events. We can’t do it without you.
To the cheers and applause of the dozens of supporters below, anti-fracking activists unfurled a two-story banner with “Don’t Frack Illinois,” from the balcony of the state capitol rotunda. During impassioned testimony from activists with the Illinois Coalition for a Moratorium on Fracking (ICMF), the brightly colored banner gave visual support to the voices gathered from throughout the state who came together in Springfield for this the second lobbying and day of action called for by the coalition. “We won’t allow water, air, and living communities to be traded for short-term jobs,” If the industry pursues fracking in Illinois, we will hold these corporations and the policymakers who support them accountable.” said a member of Deep Green Resistance.
Oil and gas companies have bought mineral rights to land and are poised to start fracking in Southern and Central Illinois. Meanwhile, state lawmakers are debating on how to handle this threat. In February a regulatory, bill HB 2615, was introduced. This bill was crafted by a select group of industry, lawmakers and a few large green groups. This bill puts in place some safeguards, but largely leaves communities vulnerable. Chiefly, HB 2615 does not give local counties local control to ban the practice and it does not require that companies disclose proprietary chemicals used in the mining process prior to introducing them into the environment.
In contrast, a Moratorium bill, SB HB 3086 would put a two year moratorium on fracking in Illinois and require that the state conduct a thorough, independent assessment of the effects of hydraulic fracturing. Southern Illinoisans Against Fracturing our Environment (SAFE) a grassroots group based out of Carbondale, IL and a growing number of environmental groups are pushing for a moratorium on hydraulic fracturing in Illinois.
“It’s ridiculous that our lawmakers see hydraulic fracturing is an opportunity for our state. Out of state corporations will be making most of the money while residents and our climate will be suffering from this polluting industry” said Angie Viands of Rising Tide Chicago.
This day of action in Springfield included citizen lobbying, a morning press conference with the banner drop, and Illinois Peoples Action storming the Illinois Manufacturer’s Association (IMA) offices. IMA is a main proponent of bringing hydraulic fracturing to the state.
