Dear fellow activists,

We wholeheartedly invite your participation in these engaging, upcoming events…

Vote for Sustainable Leader Helen Yost of WIRT: by 2 pm PDT, Friday, March 29

Your vote could win WIRT $1000!  The Wild Idaho Rising Tide collective has entered one of WIRT’s co-founders and core activists in the 2013 Sustainable Leader Award contest offered by lur apparel.  When this company invited WIRT to participate, Sharon Cousins graciously nominated Helen Yost to win the $500 prize (to pay the WIRT Activist House rent), $500 in new, ecologically sustainable clothes for WIRT activists (to ‘cover’ our outdoors protests), and some national exposure of our widely shared climate justice initiatives.  We trust that you agree that Helen’s kick-ass community organizing to fight fossil fuel energy corporations with all WIRT has is worth your vote.  In the spirit of solidarity, please vote daily through facebook for Helen Yost of WIRT before 2 pm PDT on March 29.  Because we need hundreds of votes to win, please also post our entry link on your facebook page after you vote, encouraging your friends and family to vote for Helen and thus assist WIRT with our ongoing climate activism work.  WIRT would appreciate the widespread recognition and greater involvement in the movement that winning the lur contest would further garner for successful direct actions that halt dirty energy development and climate change.  On the evening of our March 29 second anniversary celebration, we expect to announce that our 1400 worldwide, constantly supportive facebook friends and 500 emailed members have provided through their votes $1000 for our collective cause of combating climate change.

Second Annual Celebration of Wild Idaho Rising Tide: Friday, March 29

(See the linked PDF files: Second Annual Celebration of WIRT Flyer 1 and Second Annual Celebration of WIRT Flyer 2)

Our second anniversary party and benefit concert commence at 6:30 pm this Friday, March 29, with a Moscow Volunteer Peace Band parade from Friendship Square through downtown to the 1912 Center (412 East Third Street in Moscow).  Starting at 7 pm in the Great Room, share a potluck dinner and desert, raffle drawing, and beer and wine, while serenaded by special musical guests Sharon Cousins and Joshua Yeidel, Kelly Emo with Fiddlin’ Big Al at 8 pm, Dan Maher at 9 pm, and Henry C. and the Willards at 10 pm, all for $5 or greater voluntary admission contributions.  Please visit the WIRT website for further event information and print and post the attached PDF flyers (missed with our last note).  Contact wild.idaho.rising.tide@gmail.com or 208-301-8039 to assist with preparations for the big night.

Yin Radio Show about Ecofeminism: Sunday, March 31

Between 2 and 4 pm PDT on Easter and the second anniversary of WIR​T, Maree McHugh, Caitlin Cole, and Helen Yost will address eco-feminism and the effects of our patriarchal, rogue imperialist societal mindset on nature and humanity.  Please listen to this Yin Radio program broadcast on KRFP Radio Free Moscow live at 92.5 FM and online.  Visit the station website soon to learn how you can generously adopt an inspiring KRFP DJ for only $10 per month and thereby support great progressive news and entertainment programs.

Write to Rick Brazell: before Saturday, April 6, & ongoing

Although federal Judge B. Lynn Winmill ruled in early February that the U.S. Forest Service have jurisdiction over megaloads traversing the Highway 12 state easement through national forest lands and the Middle Fork
Clearwater/Lochsa wild and scenic river corridor, industrial shipments continue to threaten the multiple public values and innate characteristics of this route.  Please write a brief letter to Clearwater National Forest Supervisor Rick Brazell, urging his agency to actively prohibit huge transports, their extensive, aggressive convoys, and their defacto establishment of a high-and-wide conduit to dirty energy extraction in the continent’s interior and subsequent climate change.  Even though they have asked WIRT not to protest and monitor megaloads on Highway 12 (maybe we should ask them to stay out of court, too…), please lend our allies your support, consider the talking points of Friends of the Clearwater and Idaho Rivers United, send your letter to the Forest Service, and request your associates to do the same.

2013 Oil/Tar Sands Speaker Series: Thursday, April 5, to Wednesday, April 17

(See the linked PDF files: Oil Sands Speaker Series Promotional Poster and The Energy of Slaves)

Of the many frontline communities across the continent, battling in the courts and the streets the myriad injustices of environmental and human health degradation and civil liberties violations wrought by dirty energy perpetrators, Moscow and our grassroots direct action collective are well-primed for a tar sands forum.  We learned this month from one of our core activists, a Washington State University chemistry professor and member of the American Chemical Society (ACS), Jeanne McHale, that University of Idaho (UI) assistant chemistry professor and local ACS section chair, Jakob Magolan (jmagolan@uidaho.edu), has organized an upcoming ACS-sponsored guest speaker series on three April evenings between 6 and 7:30 pm in the UI Agricultural Sciences Auditorium, Room 106.  Dedicated to promoting scientific literacy and knowledge in our community, the Washington-Idaho Border Section of the ACS is hosting a community outreach event to address in a “fair and balanced manner” the complex, controversial, and politically-charged subject of Alberta tar sands mining.  It has invited three Canadian experts, each Alberta residents with personal involvement and varying opinions, perspectives, and interests in this contentious issue, to visit the Palouse.  We hope that you will avail yourself and our community of this opportunity to expand the knowledge and activism of our growing dirty energy emancipation movement.  Participants in all three public and free discussions on the UI campus can park after 5 pm in the ‘yellow’ lots on Rayburn Street in Moscow.

Andrew Nikiforuk: Thursday, April 4 (UI) & Friday, April 5 (WSU & Highway 12)

A Calgary-based, award-winning journalist and nationally best-selling author, Andrew Nikiforuk has earned numerous honors for his work, most notably the Rachel Carson Environment Book Award for his 2008 tome Tar Sands: Dirty Oil and the Future of a Continent.  WIRT is deeply grateful for Andrew’s incisive investigative journalism and eagerly anticipates his insights on Canadian tar sands development and North American/Asian energy policy.

Besides his Thursday UI presentation, we also learned that Mr. Nikiforuk was considering and/or searching for other speaking engagements during his visit.  So several Palouse area conservation groups and Washington State University (WSU) students enthusiastically and gratefully invited Andrew to offer a talk about, promote, and probably sell plenty of his newest 2012 book The Energy of Slaves: Oil and the New Servitude.  To avoid deterring attendance of his much appreciated tar sands forum appearance on April 4, we are honored to co-sponsor Andrew at the WSU Smith Center for Undergraduate Education, CUE Room 512, in Pullman at 11 am on Friday, March 5.  This is a great opportunity for the Pullman area community to ponder different aspects of the same dirty energy dilemma from a Canadian (ground zero) perspective addressing fossil fuel conservation/resistance and the emerging radical climate/energy justice movement.

We are arranging the availability of Mr. Nikiforuk and his publications for promotional open houses in small, independent and campus bookstores in the region.  WIRT and our anti-megaload allies have also welcomed Andrew and his wife to a tour of the rural and wild and scenic river/wildlands corridors in Idaho threatened by tar sands equipment transports to Alberta.  Two to three regional experts in natural, cultural, and megaload history will likely accompany and guide the Calgary couple through the Port of Lewiston and Highway 12 route, on their way home on Friday afternoon, April 5, in anticipation of a Canadian article about Idaho megaload struggles.

Jennifer Grant: Saturday, April 6 (UI)

Ms. Grant has studied the environmental impacts of Canadian oil sands development, passionately advancing Canada’s transition to a renewable energy future.  Since 2006, she has served as the oil sands program director at the Alberta-based Pembina Institute, which advances clean energy solutions through research, education, consulting, and advocacy.

Don Thompson: Wednesday, April 17 (UI)

A 30-year veteran of the oil sands industry and past president of the Oil Sands Developers Group, Mr. Thompson is now an executive advisor for Canadian Oil Sands Ltd., a member organization of the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers.  Although Don is committed to a balanced conversation about what he considers ‘one of Canada’s greatest treasures – the oil sands,’ organizers of the speaker series anticipate difficult, oppositional, audience questions and a possible WIRT protest occurring around his presentation.

WSU Earth Day Tabling: Wednesday, April 17

The WSU Environmental Science Club and Associated Students of WSU Environmental Task Force (ESC/ETF) have encouraged many environmentally conscious, student and community organizations in the Palouse region to set up and staff information display tables on the WSU Terrell Mall outside the Compton Union Building (CUB), between 9 am and 3 pm on the Wednesday before Earth Day, April 17.  WSU students hope to bring together and interconnect groups and individuals working on similar issues and to demonstrate the extent of concern about the conditions of the Palouse and broader environments and the necessity for greater activism on environmental issues.  The Green Sanctuary of the Unitarian Universalist Church of the Palouse, Latah Trail Foundation, Palouse-Clearwater Environmental Institute, Palouse Environmental Sustainability Coalition, Palouse Prairie Foundation, Palouse Transition, and Wild Idaho Rising Tide have already confirmed their participation.  ESC/ETF outreach coordinator Brian Koepke (who hosted eco-performer Dana Lyons in Pullman during November 2012) and the student organizations also intend to sponsor environmental movies and speakers in the CUB Lair throughout that mid-April week.  Please recruit allied organizations for these events and contact Brian at brianckwsu@gmail.com, or the WSU ESC/ETF on facebook, to respond to this invitation before April 5, to relay your logistical questions and suggestions, and to involve your group in sharing this great student-initiated outreach and networking opportunity.  WIRT is seeking volunteers who are available to staff our WSU table and spread the climate justice word during any time between 9 am and 3 pm on April 17.

Bidder 70 Screening/Tim DeChristopher Discussion: Monday, April 22

On Earth Day, April 22, only one day after renowned Salt Lake City climate activist Tim DeChristopher’s release from federal prison, Peaceful Uprising and Gage and Gage Productions are organizing a screening of the film Bidder 70 in Salt Lake City.  The movie documents the former University of Utah student’s December 2008 act of civil disobedience, through which he outbid (with no intention of paying millions of dollars) and thus disrupted an illegal, widely protested Bush administration oil and gas lease auction, to ultimately spare 77 parcels comprising 150,000 pristine Bureau of Land Management acres from drilling around national parks in Utah.  Tim’s actions, compelled by his brave commitment to a livable world, rewarded this remarkably principled young man with two years in federal prison.

For Tim’s first viewing with his community of Bidder 70, which premiered last year, and his first public appearance since his incarceration on July 26, 2011, the Gages have partnered with distributor Gathr Films, to coordinate nationwide, simultaneous film screenings and live stream a question-and-answer session with Tim to all locations.  No matter where movie viewers are watching, they can participate by sending questions via Twitter.  Musician extraordinaire Bryan Cahall, whose song Arise plays in the movie, will also lead a Salt Lake City jam session.  Please join Wild Idaho Rising Tide and our anti-tar sands Utah allies in celebrating Tim’s release and welcoming him home with a big celebration.  WIRT will soon ask you to reserve your (and enough) $10 Kenworthy Theater tickets to bring the documentary and Skype discussion to Moscow at 6 pm PDT on Earth Day, Monday, April 22.  For more information, please see the Bidder 70 trailer, the Gathr website, our facebook event announcement Bidder 70 – Kenworthy Theater – Moscow, Idaho, and the following article.  Ask everyone to attend via email, facebook, and Twitter.

‘Bidder 70 Theatrical Release to Coincide with Earth Day and Tim DeChristopher’s Return (March 5 Huffington Post)

Missoula Direct Action Training Workshop: Sunday, April 28

Blue Skies Campaign, who admirably organized the Coal Export Action in Helena last August, Wild Idaho Rising Tide, and other regional allied groups are planning and co-sponsoring a non-violent direct action workshop in Missoula in late April.  Kim Marks of the Backbone Campaign, who co-led training sessions in Moscow at WIRT’s defacto inception on Martin Luther King Jr. Day (January 17) 2011 and in Spokane at the Northwest Extraction Resistance Workshop last June, will facilitate this spring one-day workshop.  Please consider volunteering to assist in coordinating this crucial training and/or suggest potential event partners with whom we can collaborate to raise funds, prepare and promote the event, maximize its publicity, attract regional participation, and cover Kim’s training and transportation costs.  We will share more information about the April 28 gathering, carpooling, and the concluding action as arrangements progress.  Together, we plan to effectively promote climate-related direct action in the interior Northwest, as we enthusiastically anticipate seeing our Missoula colleagues again and meeting more student and community activists.

For the wild air,

Wild Idaho Rising Tide

P.O. Box 9817, Moscow, Idaho 83843

WildIdahoRisingTide.org & on facebook

208-301-8039