January 29 & Onward: Resumed Climate Justice Forum

After an eleven-week break, the Climate Justice Forum radio program, produced by regional, climate activist collective Wild Idaho Rising Tide (WIRT), resumed its eight years of broadcasts on progressive, volunteer, community station KRFP Radio Free Moscow, on January 29 [1].  Interspersed with protest songs, the show features conversations with activists and scientists and news and reflections on continent-wide, grassroots resistance to fossil fuel projects, the root causes of climate change, thanks to generous, anonymous listeners who have adopted program host Helen Yost as their KRFP DJ.  Listen every Wednesday between 1:30 and 3 pm Pacific time, on-air at 90.3 FM, online at KRFP, and podcast on Radio Free America [2, 3].

February 1: Fossil Fuels Train Pollution Protest Report

In Bonners Ferry and Sandpoint of the Idaho Panhandle, dozens more defenders of railroads and the January 1, Burlington Northern Santa Fe (BNSF) Railway locomotive derailment, 2,000-gallon diesel spill, disassembly, and removal in the Kootenai River showed up than north Idaho water protectors, at the Fossil Fuels Train Pollution Protest held by WIRT on February 1.  The majority are apparently willing to support railroad operations, wrecks, and infrastructure expansions that spill hazardous materials into rivers, and to counter-protest concerned activists at WIRT demonstrations on the fossil fuels frontlines of air, climate, and water quality sacrifice zones.  See the WIRT website and facebook pages for photos and descriptions of these event outcomes [4, 5].

February 16-29: UN COP25 Indigenous Debriefing

Backbone Campaign community supported organizer, friend, and fellow activist Jacob Johns, who participated in indigenous talks and demonstrations at the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP25) in Madrid, Spain, during December 2019, is hosting three public, inland Northwest talks about worldwide, indigenous efforts to protect approximately eighty percent of Earth’s biodiversity.  Only five percent of humanity identifies as indigenous, but as globalization spreads, governments and corporations continue to work together to exploit biodiversity for profit and attack indigenous communities, through genocide, colonization, and greenwashing.  Jacob’s presentation will show compiled photos and videos, and amplify often unheard, frontline voices and stories.  He will also offer an indigenous organizing model, aimed at helping people to act in solidarity and co-create a livable future, and a closing, question-and-answer discussion.  Please join Jacob and WIRT activists for these informative events:

Sunday, February 16, at 1 pm at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Spokane, 4340 West Fort George Wright Drive in Spokane, Washington [6]

Saturday, February 22, at 3 pm at the Coeur d’Alene Public Library, 702 East Front Avenue in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho [7]

Saturday, February 29, at 3 pm at the East Bonner County Library, 1407 Cedar Street in Sandpoint, Idaho [8]

February 20: WIRT Sandpoint Movie & Meeting

The WIRT climate activist collective welcomes opportunities to involve you and the regional, environmental and indigenous community in critical issues, as we together relentlessly confront the fossil fuel causes of climate chaos, through frontline actions and solutions.  WIRT organizers invite you to participate in potluck gatherings that include climate action films and conversations planning tactics, strategies, and activities, starting at 6 pm on the first and third Thursdays of every month, respectively in Moscow and Sandpoint [9].  Due to winter travel conditions, WIRT is not holding Moscow meetings during January and February 2020, at The Attic, up the back stairs of 314 East Second Street.  But at the next Sandpoint meeting on Thursday, February 20, at the Gardenia Center, 400 Church Street, we encourage you to offer your unique advice and assistance in arranging the Ninth Annual WIRT Celebrations in Moscow and Sandpoint at 7 pm on Friday, March 28, and Saturday, April 4, #No2ndBridge attorney search, litigation, and petition signature gathering and delivery at state and federal agency offices,  documentary and panel presentations, direct actions and training workshops, and public outreach.  For updates and articles on ongoing and emerging, Northwest and North American, fossil fuels issues, please check WIRT website and especially facebook pages, listen to WIRT’s weekly radio program, and sign the Petition to Deny and Revoke Permits for the BNSF Sandpoint Junction Connector Project [10].

February 21: Wet’suwet’en Solidarity Actions

(excerpted in another WIRT website post)

Contribute to WIRT Frontline Resistance

As stated in the WIRT, December 2019, Solstice newsletter, directly impacted, frontline communities are the truest defense against further ecological and climate devastation.  The passion of a few dedicated, volunteer organizers and small, effective, grassroots groups, haranguing and halting fossil fuel infrastructure, extraction, and transportation onslaughts, are the best antidote to corporate hegemony and hubris, government complicity and corruption, and citizen apathy and antagonism.  Truly committed climate activism requires organizing and empowering regional efforts to stop climate chaos perpetrators: the reckless, greedy, fossil fuel and railroad industries and rubberstamping local, state, and federal decision makers.  Such endeavors rely on the resources of activists’ energy, time, income, and assets — sacrifices that few others are willing to bear for the greater good — and the support of community members who understand the enduring, public benefits and precarious, personal costs of climate activism.

During nine years of WIRT’s peaceful protests, courageous blockades, public education, proactive litigation, and regionally protective resistance, we have overcome arrests, societal ridicule, ally exclusion, FBI harassment, police surveillance, legal expenses, and other harms we rarely reveal.  And we have consistently requested your participation, both physically as a volunteer and fiscally as a funding supporter of WIRT campaigns.  How will you respond?  As we together continue to build the inland Northwest, climate justice movement and confront the fossil fuel sources of human rights violations, environmental devastation, and climate chaos, WE NEED YOUR HELP!  Please join us at WIRT-hosted, community events and contribute generously online or via mail, toward the expenses of frontline defense of regional air and water and #No2ndBridge court challenges [11].  Thanks!

[1] Category Archives: Climate Justice Forum, Wild Idaho Rising Tide

[2] KRFP Radio Free Moscow

[3] Climate Justice Forum, Radio Free America

[4] Day 37 (2/6/20) Fossil Fuels Train Pollution Protest Report, February 8, 2020 Wild Idaho Rising Tide

[5] Fossil Fuels Train Pollution Protest Report, February 8, 2020 Wild Idaho Rising Tide

[6] Worldwide Indigenous Debrief: UN Climate Change Conference (Spokane), Jacob Johns

[7] Worldwide Indigenous Debrief: UN Climate Change Conference (Coeur d’Alene), Jacob Johns

[8] Worldwide Indigenous Debrief: UN Climate Change Conference (Sandpoint), Jacob Johns

[9] BNSF Locomotives in River, USCAN & WIRT Meetings, #No2ndBridge Petition, Frontline Support, January 13, 2020 Wild Idaho Rising Tide

[10] Petition to Deny and Revoke Permits for the BNSF Sandpoint Junction Connector Project, September 30, 2018 Wild Idaho Rising Tide

[11] Donate to WIRT, Wild Idaho Rising Tide Everbutton