New Blockade, Green Party Candidate Gets Popped

In Winnsboro, Texas, the Green Party candidate for President, Dr. Jill Stein, has been arrested, taken to Wood County Jail, and is awaiting processing. The freelance reporter has been released from detainment without arrest or charge.

A statement from Dr. Jill Stein:

“I’m here to connect the dots between super storm Sandy and the record heat, drought, and fire we’ve seen this year – and this Tar Sands pipeline, which will make all of these problems much worse. And I’m here to connect the dots between climate devastation and pipeline politicians – both Obama and Romney – who are competing, as we saw in the debates, for the role of Puppet In Chief for the fossil fuel industry. Both deserve that title. Obama’s record of “drill baby drill” has gone beyond the harm done by George Bush. Mitt Romney promises more of the same.”

New Blockade

In Sacul, Texas, Six Nacogdoches County Sheriffs are conferring with TransCanada, inspecting rigging of tree sits, taking pictures, and making phone calls. Otherwise, Pika and Lauren are sitting tall up in the trees.

Three machines, an excavator, feller buncher, and a timber forwarder, are still immobilized by the tree sits.

Grand Jury Fishing Expedition Widens in the Pacific Northwest

Cross Posted from AnarchistNews.org

“On October 25th, the day before my 23rd birthday, two FBI agents wearing ill-fitting khakis and too much gel in their hair, served me a subpoena for 9am on November 7th. I knew my fate right away: 18 months in SeaTac Federal Detention Center. Matt, Kteeo and Leah have all been imprisoned for their refusal and I will be the next. Despite the urgings of lawyers, agents and judges, I only have one option: non-cooperation. Any other option is unthinkable.

I am being asked to testify before a Grand Jury on November 7th and will likely be detained on that date for refusing to cooperate. The vultures of the state will try to imprison my comrades and I until we give in. We will never give in.

Chinese Environmental Protest a Sign of Things to Come?

Cross Posted from Gather

On Monday October 29, Bloomberg reported that hundreds of Chinese citizens marched through the coastal city of Ningbo to protest the local government’s plan to expand a petrochemical plant. The expansion was planned to have cost $8.9 billion, with all the operations conducted by a subsidiary of the state-run oil corporation Sinopec, before the people of Ningbo and various environmentalists pressured the local government to cancel the project.

Ningbo is a relatively prosperous port city, and many of the residents and demonstrators are part of a steadily growing group of middle-class people that came into existence after China implemented economic reforms. Despite the relatively good environmental conditions the citizens of Ningbo experience, there is concern for the future well-being of the city. It seems as though the government’s firm control of the Internet and media has not been enough to keep the people from learning of the disastrous consequences that can occur when these high-tech chemical projects fail.

No Dash for Gas Occupies Gas-Fired Power Plant in UK

Cross Posted from The Guardian

Climate change protesters perched 91m (300ft) up two power station towers have repeated promises to stay for as long as possible, in spite of derisive criticism from the local Labour MP and police estimates that local taxpayers could be hit for £200,000 costs.

The two occupying groups from No Dash for Gas are planning to fly kites in a stiff, chilly breeze from the water cooling towers at West Burton in north Nottinghamshire which has been targeted as one of the UK’s new generation of gas-fired power plants.

The owners and operators EDF have temporarily closed down the £600m generator, which has been undergoing tests before starting supplies to the national grid. Consumers have not been affected and vast plumes of steam continue to pour from the adjacent coal-fired power station built in the late 1960s by the Labour government of Harold Wilson.

The main group of 11 protesters whose base is a tarpaulin-wrapped tent on the central of the plant’s three towers tweeted that more police had come on to the site with loudspeakers to communicate with the group. Campaigners are taking turns to occupy a platform dangling inside the chimney flue, to prevent restarting of operations, while a further six protesters are on the second chimney, which is not yet fully constructed or operational.

Ewa Jasiewicz, one of the activists at the top of the tower, wrote in the Guardian on Monday: “We’re doing this because the gas plant, which is still being constructed by its operator, EDF, is one of the first in a new dash for gas that has to be stopped. The government and the big energy companies want to build as many as 20 new gas power stations, which would leave the UK dependent on this highly polluting and increasingly expensive fuel for decades to come.”

Tim DeChristopher Released to a Halfway House

Tim DeChristopher has safely arrived at a halfway house in Salt Lake City, UT where he will serve out the remainder of his two year sentence.  Contrary to recent media reports, DeChristopher has not been “released” and remains an inmate of the Bureau of Prisons (BOP) until April 21, 2013.

As a federal inmate, DeChristopher cannot speak to media, and is not allowed visitors or media on the property of the halfway house without permission from the BOP.  We ask that media and supporters of DeChristopher respect these guidelines and contact Dylan Rose Schneider to submit media or visitation requests.

For the Next Seven Generations Trailer

In 2004, thirteen Indigenous Grandmothers from all four corners, moved by their concern for our planet, came together at a historic gathering, where they decided to form an alliance: The International Council of Thirteen Indigenous Grandmothers. This is their story. Four years in-the-making and shot on location in the Amazon rainforest, the mountains of Mexico, North America, and at a private meeting with the Dalai Lama in India, For the Next 7 Generations follows what happens when these wise women unite. Facing a world in crisis, they share with us their visions of healing and a call for change now, before it’s too late. This film documents their unparalleled journey and timely perspectives on a timeless wisdom.

ExxonMobile Executive Assassinated in the Streets of Brussels

from NBC News

Police in Belgium are investigating the murder of a British oil executive who was shot and killed in front of his wife in Brussels in mid-October.

Nicholas Mockford, a 59-year-old executive for ExxonMobil, the world’s largest oil company, was shot dead on Oct. 14 as he left a restaurant in Neder-over-Heembeek in northern Brussels. He died on the way to the hospital, police said.

In the immediate aftermath of Mockford’s murder, a judge imposed an order on police preventing them from releasing any details on the case or their investigation. But on Thursday, authorities decided to enlist the public’s help and released a brief description of the crime.

Mockford and his wife left the restaurant at about 10 p.m., the report said. They crossed the street toward a car when an assailant approached and hit Mockford’s wife several times in the face and tried to yank her bag away, police said

A second assailant then fired three shots at Mockford who later died at the scene, police said.

In Hurricane Sandy’s Fury, The Fingerprint Of Climate Change

Cross Posted from Huffington Post

Federal disaster declarations are up, the pamphlet declared. Average winter storm losses have doubled since the 1980s. Thunderstorms last year caused over $25 billion in damages, more than double the previous record.

“That flier was astonishing,” said Tidwell. “I couldn’t remember ever getting anything like that before.”

The implication was simple: Given the bounty of scientific and statistical evidence now in hand, insurance companies can’t afford to dither over whether climate change is real — and really, neither can anyone else. Today, another multibillion-dollar weather disaster — the very sort that scientists have been predicting for years would increase in frequency and intensity as the planet heats up — is now bearing down on the American East Coast. Roads and subways and homes will flood and lives might well be lost (the death toll in the Caribbeanalready is as high as 65). Property damages from wind and storm surges could break records. And as many as 10 million people will likely lose power once Hurricane Sandy comes ashore somewhere along the New Jersey coast later tonight.

Dispatches from the Tar Sands Blockades

Cross Posted from Tar Sands Blockade

Here are two updates from blockaders in East Texas resisting the tar sands pipeline. We will keep you posted as events proceed.

Below is a diary excerpt from Cat Ripley, whojoined the tree blockade several days ago. Here is their story from the trees:

Sitting in a tree all day brings on tides of poignant thought; memory thickly-laden with emotion, siphoned from the weightiest of dream states and experiences.

Let me tell you how I got here…

Anti-Coal Protests Continue in New Zealand

Cross Posted from TVNZ

Campaigners are protesting outside the environment court in Christchurch as a legal bid to stop coal mining on the West Coast’s Denniston Plateau has got underway.

The coalmining debate has gotten louder today with the start of a four-week Environment Court hearing over a proposed opencast mine that would be New Zealand’s second largest.

An application has been lodged for resource consent for a 148-hectare opencast coalmine on the southern edge of Denniston Plateau, near Westport on the West Coast.

The Escarpment Mine project is almost entirely inside the Mount Rochfort Conservation Area, which is deemed ”stewardship” conservation land so is not protected from mining.