April 13-14: Bill McKibben at WSU

Climate movement leader, educator, and author Bill McKibben is speaking twice for Humanities Week at Washington State University (WSU) in Pullman [1]. In the wake of well-attended screenings and panel discussions of the global climate activism documentary This Changes Everything in Moscow and Sandpoint in late March, Wild Idaho Rising Tide (WIRT) and regional allies anticipate that McKibben can further mobilize inland Northwest residents to participate in the 350.org-initiated Break Free from Fossil Fuels mass action in Anacortes, Washington, in mid-May [2]. WIRT is calling on you and all volunteers to assist with distributing the attached quarter-sheet flyers outside both WSU events, to recruit more involvement in the already hundreds-strong Break Free Pacific Northwest demonstration of fossil fuel resistance: Please contact WIRT if you can help.

April 13: Humanities Week keynote address: ‘The Human Element in Nature: From Harm to Hope’ at 5:30 pm on Wednesday in the CUB senior ballroom

April 14: Foley Institute Coffee and Politics talk: ‘Report from the Front Lines of Climate Change’ at noon on Thursday in Bryan Hall 308

May 13-15: Anacortes Break Free Action

“We are in a kind of climate emergency now,” struggling to stay below 1.5°C of warming, to avoid radical climate destabilization [3]. No current policies keep us anywhere near this goal: We are barreling towards double that temperature, leaving us with a broken world. This has to change, and we have to lead: We have to Break Free from Fossil Fuels! [4] This global climate movement initiative aims to shut down the world’s most dangerous fossil fuel projects and support the most ambitious climate solutions.

In the Northwest, we are breaking free by taking on the region’s biggest carbon bomb: the Shell and Tesoro refineries at March Point in northern Washington. Combined, these facilities refine 47 percent of all the gasoline and diesel consumed in the region, and produce the largest, unaddressed point source of carbon pollution in the Northwest. They are an integral part of the system that we must change – within years, not decades.

Join us for regional mobilization and a mass action outside these refineries on May 13, 14, and 15, to demand that we Break Free from Big Oil and speed up a just transition to 100 percent renewable energy. By land and by sea, we will stage creative and inspirational sit-ins, blockades, and kayaktivism. For people who prefer to not engage in civil disobedience, support roles and general opportunities for participation are essential to this action. WIRT and allied carpoolers, caravaners, and protesters risking arrest or not are traveling from Missoula, Moscow/Pullman, Sandpoint, and Spokane to Anacortes for this Break Free Pacific Northwest mass action.

We hope that you can play a part in this powerful movement moment. Plans are coming together quickly: In just the last month, 600 people have signed the pledge, 200 are willing to engage in civil disobedience on the sea or land, and 30 groups have joined as coalition members. After you sign up, could you share Break Free PNW on facebook? [5] Copy this text or write your own: “We have to stay below 1.5°C of warming, to avoid radical climate destabilization. No current policies keep us anywhere near this goal.”

Break Free from Fossil Fuels is about more than one action. It is about accelerating our movement to take on and defeat the fossil fuel industry and the political powers behind it. It is time to shift the public narrative off fossil fuels to the possibilities, necessity, and urgency of a rapid and just energy transition. We encourage you to join us, as we together #breakfree!

[1] April 8-14 Humanities Week: Human Impact on Nature, March 28, 2016 Washington State University College of Arts and Sciences

[2] Bill McKibben: It’s Time to Break Free from Fossil Fuels, April 8, 2016 Ecowatch

[3] NASA Drops Major Bomb in ‘March Toward Ever-Warmer Planet’, March 14, 2016 Common Dreams

[4] Break Free: PNW, Break Free Pacific Northwest

[5] Break Free PNW #KeepItInTheGround #BreakFree, Break Free Pacific Northwest