by Deep Green Resistance News Service | Nov 14, 2017 | Protests & Symbolic Acts
by Dan Bacher / Intercontinental Cry
Governor Jerry Brown doesn’t always deal with critics of his controversial environmental policies well — and that was the case again on Saturday, November 11, when he spoke at the UN Climate Conference in Bonn, Germany. Californians, including indigenous water protectors and those on the frontlines of climate change, disrupted California Governor Jerry Brown’s speech at the “American’s Pledge” event at the UN climate talks to confront his strong support of fossil fuels in his state.
The banner-carrying protesters yelled, “Keep it in the ground” and other chants, referring to the governor’s strong support of fracking, both offshore and on land in California, and cap-and-trade policies that could prove catastrophic to the Huni Kui People of Acre, Brazil and other indigenous communities around the globe.
“I wish we have could have no pollution, but we have to have our automobiles,” said Brown as the activists began disrupting his talk.
“In the ground, I agree with you,” Brown said. “In the ground. Let’s put you in the ground so we can get on with the show here.”
“This is very California. Thanks for bringing the diversity of dissent here,” the visibly disturbed Brown continued.
This is not the first time that Brown has employed harsh words to blast his opponents. On July 25 of this year, Brown blasted critics of his oil industry-written cap-and-trade bill, AB 398, for practicing “forms of political terrorism that are conspiring to undermine the American system of governance” in an interview with David Greene of NPR (National Public Radio).
Governor Brown, portrayed as “a green governor,” “climate hero,” and “resistance to Trump” by the mainstream media and corporate “environmental” NGOs, has come to the climate talks to promote California as a global model of “climate leadership” at a time when increasing number of Californians are fed up with his pro-Big Oil and pro-Big Ag environmental policies.
“When cities and states combine together and then join with powerful corporations, that’s how we get stuff done,” said Governor Brown at Saturday’s event at the U.S. Climate Action Pavilion, the exhibition space sponsored by U.S. non-federal leaders at COP23. “We’re here, we’re in and we’re not going away.”
However, Indigenous Peoples, frontline communities, environmentalists and climate activists disagreed strongly with Brown’s contention that cities and states collaborating with “powerful corporations” is “how we get stuff done” – and held this non-violent direct action to expose Brown’s deep ties to Big Oil and ‘false solutions” such as carbon markets.
“From refusing to ban fracking to letting oil companies dump toxic waste into underground water supplies, Governor Brown promotes policies that incentivize oil and gas production in the state,” according to a news release from the Indigenous Environmental Network. “His cap-and-trade extension includes provisions written by oil lobbyists that prevent state and local agencies from directly limiting carbon emissions from oil refineries. He has also failed to shut down the Aliso Canyon natural gas storage facility, where the largest methane leak in U.S. history forced thousands to flee their homes in 2015.”
On November 9, a Center for Biological Diversity report released at the Bonn conference revealed that three-quarters of California’s oil is as “climate-damaging” as Canadian tar sands crude. “Oil Stain: How Dirty Crude Undercuts California’s Climate Progress” found that eight of the state’s 10 largest-producing oil fields produce “very dirty crude with greenhouse gas emissions comparable to tar sands oil,” according to the Center. The report detailed how “the state’s dirty oil problem is compounded by policies that incentivize crude production.”
The groups called on Governor Brown to ban new drilling and fracking, phase out fossil fuel production, and commit to “a just transition to clean energy for all.”
“Northern California has five refineries stretching along our Bay on the North East side of San Francisco,” said Daniel Ilario, Idle No More SF/Bay Area. “Those living along this Refinery Corridor experience continuous negative health effects such as respiratory problems, birth defects, leukemia and cancers. California’s answer to our global climate crisis, the Cap and Trade extension (AB 398), will continue allowing refineries to expand, pollute, and ultimately destroy life.”
“The Phillips 66 Refinery in Rodeo, CA plans to expand their marine terminal to increase crude oil imports by water from 30,000 barrels a day to 130,000 barrels a day. We will not let this happen. Decision makers around the world need to understand that Governors Jerry Brown’s carbon market scheme will continue killing our people and poisoning our water, air, and soil. We will not accept the false solution of carbon trading that increase pollution in our hometowns while violating indigenous rights and human rights around the world. We must keep fossil fuels in the ground,” said Ilario.
Ninawa Nuneshuni Kui, President of the Huni Kui People of Acre, Brazil, said Brown’s “American Pledge,” based on environmentally unjust carbon trading, would lead to the displacement of his people and the destruction of his land.
“I wanted to leave a message here, for humanity and all of planet, that the peoples need to join to defend Mother Nature, the soil, water and air because they are being threatened,” said Ninawa Nuneshuni Kui, President of the Huni Kui People of Acre, Brazil. “And humanity needs Nature to survive. So I want to say that Nature and the air are not a means of commerce for anyone and it’s every human’s right to live in peace. Jerry Brown’s ‘American Pledge’ will lead to the displacement of my people and the destruction of my territory. We need to respect the rights of Nature and humans beings that need her to survive.”
Eva Malis, a young person from Valencia, CA, pointed out that Californians have been asking Governor Brown for years to step up and “be a true climate leader.”
“If he is going to be celebrated by the world as a climate leader, he needs to commit to the communities on the frontlines of fossil fuel extraction. Real climate leaders don’t frack. This isn’t just about Californians. The world needs Jerry Brown to do more in his own state,” said Malis.
“California Governor Jerry Brown is one of the biggest liars when it comes to being a ‘climate leader,’” summed up Isabelle Zizi of Idle No More SF Bay. “In 2014, hundreds of our drinking water and agricultural aquifers were contaminated with 3 billion gallons of fracking wastewater. The cap and trade bill that he passed in the summer of 2017 is in favor of more greenhouse gas emissions, more offsets for the fossil fuel industry, and is a false solution to stop climate change.”
Zizi is in Bonn for the UN Climate Talks. Follow her for updates on actions from the #ItTakesRoots delegation of Indigenous people, frontline communities and people of color.
While Brown portrays himself as a “climate leader,” he has in fact received over $9.8 million in contributions from oil, gas and utility companies, often within days of winning big political favors, according to Consumer Watchdog’s “Brown’s Dirty Hands” report released in August 2016.
“The timing of energy industry donations around important legislation and key pro-industry amendments, as well as key regulatory decisions in which Brown personally intervened, raises troubling questions about whether quid pro quos are routine for this administration,” said consumer advocate Liza Tucker, report author. “While Brown paints himself as a foe of fossil fuels, his Administration promoted reckless oil drilling, burning dirty natural gas to make electricity, and used old hands from industry and government, placed in key regulatory positions, to protect the fossil fuel-reliant energy industry.”
The report claims that twenty-six energy companies including the state’s three major investor-owned utilities, Occidental, Chevron, and NRG—all with business before the state—donated $9.8 million to Jerry Brown’s campaigns, causes, and initiatives, and to the California Democratic Party since he ran for Governor.
Then on February 6 of this year, twelve public interest groups, led by Consumer Watchdog and Food & Water Watch, unveiled a comprehensive “report card” on Jerry Brown Administration’s environmental record showing he falls short in six out of seven key areas, including oil drilling, fossil fuel generated electricity, toxic emissions, the California Environmental Quality Act, coastal protection and water.
The report calls for a moratorium on the building of natural gas powered electricity plants, given what they described as “the glut of electric capacity,” and calls for an outside audit of the state’s energy needs. The groups showed how California can improve its environmental protections to meet standards set in other states. The document also urged Brown to abandon his Delta Tunnels project, a plan to construct two massive tunnels under the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta, and to make water conservation a priority.
While Brown portrays himself as the “resistance” to President Trump’s positions on climate change and other issues, it is worth noting that Brown and the Trump administration appear to share a lot of common ground on many issues, including water infrastructure, public lands, the Delta Tunnels and the expansion of fracking in California. On April 13, Brown and Secretary of Interior Ryan Zinke had a “positive and productive” meeting during the Secretary’s visit to California, according to Zinke.
by Deep Green Resistance News Service | Nov 4, 2017 | Lobbying
by Protect Orange County and Stop the Minisink Compression Station
In a move that is being widely celebrated by both activists and national environmental rights groups, this afternoon, the US Court of Appeals, Second Circuit in NY issued an emergency stay of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s (FERC) “Notice to Proceed with Construction”, issued on October 27, 2017 to the Millennium Valley Lateral Pipeline. The stay halts construction activities until a hearing can be held by a three judge panel.
The pipeline is intended to serve a controversial fracked gas power plant under construction by Competitive Power Ventures in Orange County NY. The battle between the State of New York and FERC over approval of the pipeline reflects an escalating conflict between impacted communities and environmental activists on the one side, and the powerful gas industry along with FERC, an agency described by opponents as a “rubberstamp” arm of the industry, on the other. Opponents of pipeline projects across the country argue that FERC systematically disregards adverse environmental impacts and see the authority of the state’s as the only means to control what they consider “reckless” approvals.
The stay is the latest legal salvo by NYS in response to repeated attempts by Millennium Pipeline to upend the state’s sole authority under federal law to determine 401 Water Quality Certification. In August, 2017, the NY State Department of Environmental Conservation pursuant to the Federal Clean Water Act, a Section 401 Water Quality Certificate for the construction of the Millennium Valley Lateral Pipeline. The 7.8 mile pipeline would traverse NY wetlands and endangered species habitat in Orange County, NY, while supplying fracked gas from PA to the plant.
Taking their cue from an administration with little regard for the rule of law, on September 15, 2 Trump appointed FERC commissioners overrode NYSDEC’s authority over the water quality permit. FERC’s authority under the Natural Gas Act does not the pre-empt the authority of a state over the Clean Water Act. “It’s like trying to use a U.S. passport to drive a car in NYS”, says Pramilla Malick, of Protect Orange County, the community group leading the opposition. “While FERC may have siting authority, only the state can permit any activity that could impact water quality.”
Last week the agency pushed the envelope further by issuing the notice to proceed with construction of the pipeline despite pending motions by the NYSDEC before the commission. Malick expressed outrage at this action. “FERC routinely violates the fourteenth amendment rights of citizens but this is the first time they’ve ever violated the due process rights of a state.”
In an earlier statement Malick described FERC’s approval as an “Act of war against both the State of New York and the Federal Clean Water Act”. Her group urged Governor Cuomo to fight FERC’s federal overreach.
Malick lauded state leaders today, “We are deeply grateful to Governor Cuomo, State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, and General Counsel for NYSDEC, Thomas Berkman for courageously fighting for the state’s right to protect its natural resources despite the heavy handed rebuke of the gas lobby.”
Today’s stay was issued with some urgency, as word spread in the local community that Millennium, acting swiftly on FERC’s illegal notice, began marking tree clearing areas that opponents claim would destroy a significant amount of endangered species habitat as well as a mating eagle’s nest. Activists vowed to take any actions necessary to prevent construction from beginning.
Citizens and environmentalists have long been urging Governor Cuomo to take action to shut down CPV, which is situated in Wawayanda, NY, on the edge of NY’s renowned Black Dirt farmland, and near pristine water resources. Opponents of the CPV project assert that this populated and environmentally sensitive location will suffer irreparable harm from the plant’s daily emissions, in a region with declining energy demands.
Upon news of the stay Protect Orange County issued the following statement:
“Now more than ever, as we witness the dire global consequences of climate change; as clean water, air and soil resources are sacrificed to the greed of polluting fossil fuel giants; as our current administration in Washington, DC, continues to deny climate science, rolling back environmental protections, obstructing efforts to move toward clean energy, while winking at the lawlessness of big energy polluters, we need responsive and courageous local leaders to defend our resources with every means that the law allows. Today, our state leaders, led by the Governor, advanced the interests of the citizens of Orange County and New York State by acting decisively on behalf of the people, and not in the interest of corporate polluters.”
Ironically also in yesterday’s news the Senate confirmed the remaining two FERC nominees creating a complete 5 member commission. Environmentalists had hoped the nomination process would included hearings on a long list of abuses by the agency over the rights of impacted communities.
by Deep Green Resistance News Service | Nov 3, 2017 | Lobbying, NEWS
Editor’s note: The Rights of Nature movement has arrived in the United States! On September 25, Deep Green Resistance, with noted civil rights attorney Jason Flores-Williams, filed a first-in-the-nation lawsuit – Colorado River v. Colorado – seeking personhood for the Colorado River and recognition of the river’s rights to exist, flourish, regenerate, and naturally evolve in the United States District Court, District of Denver. While courts in India, New Zealand, and Ecuador have granted rights to ecosytems, this lawsuit represents the first Rights of Nature action ever brought before a federal court. If the case succeeds, the natural world will gain a powerful new tool in the struggle to stop corporate exploitation.
Denver, CO—For the first time in U.S. legal history, a natural entity itself will stand as a party before the court. The first hearing in Colorado River v. Colorado will address emerging legal issues in rights of nature litigation as well as the Attorney General’s Motion to Dismiss.
“You can try to dismiss a complaint,” says attorney Jason Flores-Williams, “But you can’t dismiss reality.”
Prior to the hearing, there will be a press conference at 9:00 a.m. at the federal courthouse featuring statements from members of Deep Green Resistance, serving as “next friends” to the Colorado in this action. Fair trade coffee provided at the courthouse with an event to follow 12 p.m. to 2 p.m. at the Mercury Café located 2199 California St, Denver, CO 80205.
The Mercury Café event will: 1) Provide a guide for groups to file their own rights of nature litigation; 2) Feature a discussion on the rights of nature and creative resistance. The hearing will be at 10:00 a.m. November 14th, 2017 Ctrm C204, Alfred J. Arraj Courthouse, 901 19th St., Denver, CO 80294.
Media inquiries:
Law Office of Jason Flores-Williams
303-514-4524
Editor’s note: you can find the Facebook event here and read the full text of the complaint, Colorado River v. Colorado, here.
Photo by Gert Boers on Unsplash
by Deep Green Resistance News Service | Sep 25, 2017 | Lobbying, Strategy & Analysis
Featured image: Dead Horse Point, Colorado River. (Clément Bardot/Wikimedia/CC-BY-SA-3.0)
Editor’s note: The first Rights of Nature lawsuit in the US was filed on September 25, 2017, in Denver, Colorado. The full text of the complaint can be found here.
by Will Falk / Deep Green Resistance
On Tuesday, September 26, the Colorado River will sue the State of Colorado in a first-in-the-nation lawsuit requesting that the United States District Court in Denver recognize the river’s rights of nature. These rights include the rights to exist, flourish, regenerate, and naturally evolve. To enforce these rights, the Colorado River will also request that the court grant the river “personhood” and standing to sue in American courts.
Four of my comrades in the international environmental organization Deep Green Resistance and I, are serving as “next friends” to the Colorado River. We are represented by the noted civil rights attorney Jason Flores-Williams who is based in Denver. Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund is serving as advisors in the case.
The term “as next friends” is a legal concept that means we have signed on to the lawsuit as fiduciaries or guardians of the river. Under current law, the Colorado River is not “legally competent” and, so needs “next friends” to ensure her rights are protected. A “next friend” is someone who appears in court in place of another who is not competent to do so – like a minor or someone with a mental disability. My role, as next friend to the Colorado River, is to protect the river’s rights.
We recently released a press release that has been widely shared on social media. National media outlets are beginning to take notice. And, we’re getting interviews, receiving email inquiries, and responding to online comments. So far, the most common question is: Why does the Colorado River need rights?
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The most fearless environmental philosophers – thinkers like Susan Griffin, Neil Evernden, Derrick Jensen, and John Livingston – have insisted that we will never be safe so long as the natural world we depend on is objectified and valued only for the way humans use it. Livingston calls the objectification of nature “resourcism” and explains: “A ‘resource’ is anything that can be put to human use … It is the concept of ‘resource’ that allows us to perceive nature as our subsidiary.” Livingston notes that once the nonhuman “is perceived as having some utility – any utility – and is thus perceived as a ‘resource,’ its depletion is only a matter of time.”
Because our legal system currently defines nature as property, “resourcism” is institutionalized in American law. While climate change worsens, water continues to be polluted, and the collapse of every major ecosystem on the continent intensifies, we must conclude that our system of law fails to protect the natural world and fails to protect the human and nonhuman communities who depend on it.
Jensen, while diagnosing widespread ecocide, observes a fundamental psychological principle: “We act according to the way we experience the world. We experience the world according to how we perceive it. We perceive it the way we have been taught.” Jensen quotes a Canadian lumberman who once said, “When I look at trees I see dollar bills.”
The lumberman’s words represent the dominant culture’s view of the natural world. Jensen explains the psychology of this objectification, “If, when you look at trees you see dollar bills, you will act a certain way. If, when you look at trees, you see trees you will act a different way. If, when you look at this tree right here you see this tree right here, you will act differently still.”
Law shapes our experience of the world. Currently, law teaches that nature is property, an object, or a resource to use. This entrenches a worldview that encourages environmental destruction. In other words, when law teaches us to see the Colorado River as dollar bills, as simple gallons of water, as an abstract percentage to be allocated, it is no wonder that corporations like Nestle can gain the right to run plastic bottling operations that drain anywhere from 250 million to 510 million gallons of Colorado River water per year.
The American legal system can take a good step toward protecting us all – human and nonhuman alike – by granting ecosystems like the Colorado River rights and allowing communities to sue on these ecosystems’ behalf. When standing is recognized on behalf of ecosystems themselves, environmental law will reflect a conception of legal “causation” that is more friendly to the natural world than it is to the corporations destroying the natural world. At a time when the effects of technology are outpacing science’s capacity to research these effects, injured individuals and communities often have difficulty proving that corporate actions are the cause of their injuries. When ecosystems, like the Colorado River, are granted the rights to exist, flourish, regenerate, and naturally evolve, the obsolete causation theory, en vogue, will be corrected.
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American history is haunted by notorious failures to afford rights to those who always deserved them. Americans will forever shudder, for example, at Chief Justice Roger Taney’s words, when the Supreme Court, in 1857, ruled persons of African descent cannot be, nor were never intended to be, citizens under the Constitution in Dred Scott v. Sanford. Justice Taney wrote of African Americans, “They had for more than a century before been regarded as being of an inferior order, and altogether unfit to associate with the white race … and so far inferior, that they had no rights which the white man was bound to respect…” And, of course, without rights that white, slave-owning men were bound to respect, the horrors of slavery continued.
The most hopeful moments in American history, on the other hand, have occurred when the oppressed have demanded and were granted their rights in American courts. Despite centuries of treating African Americans as less than human while defining them as property, our system of law now gives the same rights to African Americans that American citizens have always enjoyed. Once property, African Americans are now persons under the law. Similarly, despite a centuries-old tradition where women were, in the legal sense, owned by men, our system of law now gives the same rights to women that American citizens have always enjoyed. Once property, women are now a person under the law.
It’s tempting to describe this history as “inevitable progress” or as “the legal system correcting itself” or with some other congratulatory language. But, this glosses over the violent struggles it took for rights to be won. The truth is, and we see this clearly in Justice Taney’s words, the American legal system resisted justice until change was forced upon it. It took four centuries of genocide and the nation’s bloodiest civil war before our system of law recognized the rights of African Americans. While the courts resisted, African Americans were enslaved, exploited, and killed.
Right now, the natural world is struggling violently for its survival. We watch hurricanes, exacerbated by human-induced climate change, rock coastal communities. We choke through wildfires, also exacerbated by human-induced climate change, sweeping across the West. We feel the Colorado River’s thirst as overdraw and drought dries it up. It is the time that American law stop resisting. Our system of law must change to reflect ecological reality.
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Colorado River between Marble Canyon (Source: Alex Proimos/Flickr/CC-BY-NC-2.0)
This is ecological reality: all life depends on clean water, breathable air, healthy soil, a habitable climate, and complex relationships formed by living creatures in natural communities. Water is life and in the arid American Southwest, no natural community is more responsible for the facilitation of life than the Colorado River. Because so much life depends on her, the needs of the Colorado River are primary. Social morality must emerge from a humble understanding of this reality. Law is integral to any society’s morality, so law must emerge from this understanding, too.
Human language lacks the complexity to adequately describe the Colorado River and any attempt to account for the sheer amount of life she supports will necessarily be arbitrary. Nevertheless, many creatures of feather, fin, and fur rely on the Colorado River. Iconic, and endangered or threatened, birds like the bald eagle, greater sage grouse, Gunnison sage grouse, peregrine falcon, yellow-billed cuckoo, summer tanager, and southwestern willow flycatcher make their homes in the Colorado River watershed. Fourteen endemic fish species swim the river’s currents including four fish that are now endangered: the humpback chub, Colorado pikeminnow, razorback sucker, and bonytail.
Many of the West’s most recognizable mammals depend on the Colorado River for water and to sustain adequate food sources. Gray wolves, grizzly bear, black bear, mountain lions, coyotes, and lynx walk the river’s banks. Elk, mule deer, and bighorn sheep live in her forests. Beavers, river otters, and muskrats live directly in the river’s flow as well as in streams and creeks throughout the Colorado River basin.
The Colorado River provides water for close to 40 million people and irrigates nearly 4 million acres of American and Mexican cropland. Agriculture uses the vast majority of the river’s water. In 2012, 78% of the Colorado’s water was used for agriculture alone. 45% of the water is diverted from the Colorado River basin which spells disaster for basin ecosystems. Major cities that rely on these trans-basin diversions include Denver, Los Angeles, San Diego, and Salt Lake City.
Despite the Colorado River’s importance to life, she is being destroyed. Before the construction of dams and large-scale diversion, the Colorado flowed 1,450 miles into the Pacific Ocean near Sonora, Mexico. The river’s life story is an epic saga of strength, determination, and the will to deliver her waters to the communities who need them. Across those 1,450 miles, she softened mountainsides, carved through red rock, and braved the deserts who sought to exhaust her.
Now, however, the Colorado River suffers under a set of laws, court decrees, and multi-state compacts that are collectively known as the “Law of the River.” The Law of the River allows humans to take more water from the river than actually exists. Granting the river the rights we seek for her would help the courts revise problematic laws.
The regulations set forth in the 1922 Colorado River Compact are the most important and, perhaps, the most problematic. Seven states (Arizona, California, Colorado, New Mexico, Nevada, Utah, and Wyoming) are allotted water under the Compact. When the Compact was enacted, the parties assumed that the river’s flow would remain at a reliable 17 million acre-feet of water per year and divided the water using a 15-million acre feet per year standard. But, hydrologists now know 17 million acre-feet represented an unusually high flow and was a mistake. Records show that the Colorado River’s flow was only 9 million acre-feet in 1902, for example. From 2000-2016, the river’s flow only averaged 12.4 million acre-feet per year. So, for the last 16 years, the Compact states have been legally allowed to use water that isn’t there.
“Use it or lose it” laws are also common throughout the Colorado River basin. These laws threaten ranchers, farmers, and governments holding water rights who use less water than they are legally entitled to with seeing their allotments cut. So, those with water rights are encouraged to trap or use more water than they need.
Since the completion of the Glen Canyon Dam in 1963, the Colorado River has rarely connected with the sea. Stop and let that sink in. Many scientists believe the river is between 4 and 6.5 million years old. The Colorado River is so strong, so determined, she cut out the Grand Canyon. This magnificent being, millions of years old, who formed the Grand Canyon is being strangled to death by dams, climate change, overallocation, and a legal system that refuses to remedy its own insanity.
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When you contemplate all those who depend on the Colorado River when you know the sheer quantity of life the river sustains, is it possible to mistake her inherent value?
I hate to reduce a being so ancient and so powerful to an argument based in human self-interest. Know this: If you’re one of the 40 million Americans who depend on the Colorado River’s water and you’re hydrated right now, the river is literally part of you. If that water is poisoned, if that water dries up, if corporate rights to steal that water and sell it back to you continue to trump the river’s right to exist, you will be hurt. This is not law. This not rhetoric. This is reality.
This is also why the Colorado River needs rights. Life requires clean water, breathable air, healthy soil and a habitable climate to create healthy ecosystems. Without these ecosystems, life is impossible and the right to life is meaningless. American law fails to protect life’s requirements because it defines nature as property and does not recognize the rights of nature. In a rights-based system of law, to be without rights is to be defenseless. And, after witnessing centuries of the exploitation of the natural world, we know that to be defenseless is to ultimately be destroyed. It’s time we protect those, like the Colorado River, who give us life.
