Author Archives: WIRT

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About WIRT

The WIRT collective is part of an international, grassroots network of groups and individuals who take direct action to confront the root causes of climate change and to promote local, community-based solutions to the climate crisis.

Climate Justice Forum: Diane Messer 5-28-12

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The Monday, May 28, Climate Justice Forum program hosted by Wild Idaho Rising Tide will feature Diane Messer of Maine, who will discuss the Enbridge plan to reverse oil flows in the Trailbreaker pipeline across the Northeast, to bring tar sands fuels to the Maine coast for export.  She will also address proposed construction of an energy and utility corridor across the state to Nova Scotia as well as court cases resulting from occupation of the Maine governor’s grounds.  Please adopt WIRT as your DJ, as we also cover other climate activism news between 7:30 and 9 pm PDT, live at 92.5 FM and online at KRFP Radio Free Moscow.

Tar Sands Megaloads Road Show of Tipping Point: The Age of the Oil Sands

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Friday, June 1, 7 pm: Kennewick, Washington

Kennewick Mid-Columbia Library, 1620 South Union Street

Tipping Point Kennewick Poster

Sunday, June 3, 7 pm: Spokane, Washington

The Magic Lantern Theatre, 25 West Main Avenue

Tipping Point Spokane Poster

Monday, June 4, 7 pm: Kellogg, Idaho

Cameron Mall, 120 West Cameron Avenue

Tipping Point Kellogg Poster

Sunday, June 10, 3 pm: Coeur d’Alene, Idaho

Pilgrim’s Market, 1316 N. Fourth Street

Tipping Point Coeur d’Alene Poster

Co-Sponsors: Wild Idaho Rising Tide (Moscow, Idaho), Occupy Tri-Cities (Kennewick, Pasco, and Richland, Washington), Occupy Spokane and Surviving the Future Film Group (Spokane, Washington), Silver Valley Community Resource Center (Coeur d’Alene and Kellogg, Idaho)

On Friday, June 1, through Sunday, June 10, community organizations in Idaho and Washington are co-hosting benefit screenings of the tar sands expose Tipping Point: The Age of the Oil Sands in Kennewick and Spokane, Washington, and Coeur d’Alene and Kellogg, Idaho.  These regional premieres of the 90-minute documentary, produced for Canadian television audiences of The Nature of Things program, take viewers inside the David and Goliath struggle emerging within one of the most compelling environmental issues of our time: tar sands development near Fort McMurray, Alberta. Continue reading →

KYRS Spokane Radio Interview of Justin Ellenbecker & Helen Yost

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Most significant to our Spokane anti-megaload agitation, news director Gavin Dahl of KYRS Thin Air Community Radio in Spokane invited Justin Ellenbecker of Occupy Spokane and Helen Yost of WIRT to talk on the Friday morning drive-time May 25 Local News entitled Amazon Responds To Activist Pressure: “Helen Yost from Wild Idaho Rising Tide joins us by phone to explain the opposition to Alberta tar sands megaload shipments.  350,000-pound loads of processing equipment have been trucked through Spokane under the cover of darkness.  Climate activists are speaking out.”  Within the interview between 8:56 and 22:35, this broadcast also includes KRFP Radio Free Moscow coverage of the August 25-26 Moscow megaload passage and protest.

Mayor Chaney’s Response to Henry Johnston’s Complaint

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Eloquently and perspicaciously as always, Moscow Mayor Nancy Chaney defends her Earth Day award to the megaload protesters as Earth Protectors and elucidates their/her motivations and the tar sands megaloads’ impacts.  Thanks to Tom Hansen for extracting her City Council meeting response to Henry Johnston’s derogatory remarks at the May 7 session.

(Video provided by Tom Hansen)

Washington/Idaho Megaload Resistance

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[NOTE: This press release and accompanying photos garnered public exposure of our frontline tar sands activism through three media outlets.  On May 22, lead Rising Tide organizer Scott Parkin posted our description of Spokane protests against ExxonMobil/Imperial Oil’s tar sands construction/transportation invasion of the Northwest as Tar Sands Megaload Fight Moves West to Spokane on the Rising Tide North America website and in the online newsletter It’s Getting Hot in Here: Dispatches from the Youth Climate Movement.  On the same day, when over 1000 visitors viewed their internet site, the Earth First! Newswire also ran our story about Occupy Spokane/WIRT’s May 20 demonstration.]

At about 11:30 pm on Sunday night, May 20, a dozen activists from Occupy Spokane and Wild Idaho Rising Tide converged in Spokane, Washington, to protest megaloads of oversized equipment bound for Alberta tar sands operations from the Port of Pasco.  ExxonMobil/Imperial Oil has been using Highway 395, Interstate 90, and city streets in Spokane and Spokane Valley since mid-October to transport road damaging shipments weighing up to 400,000 pounds and stretching over 200 feet long.  Diverted in Idaho from their originally intended Highway 12 route by court challenges and from their alternative Highway 95 path by Moscow area protests, these pieces of a tar sands/bitumen processing plant will expand Canadian carbon fuel extraction, American dependence on oil, and continental greenhouse gas emissions, while reaping hefty profits for one of the wealthiest corporations on Earth. Continue reading →

Climate Justice Forum: Marty Cobenais 5-21-12

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On the Monday, May 21, Climate Justice Forum radio program hosted by Wild Idaho Rising Tide (WIRT), we welcome Marty Cobenais, an organizer with the Indigenous Environmental Network in Minnesota, who organized an anti-megaloads workshop in Lewiston in February 2011.  He will speak about indigenous opposition to tar sands extraction and transportation ventures.  Please adopt WIRT as your DJ, as we also cover other climate activism news between 7:30 and 9 pm PDT, live at 92.5 FM and online at KRFP Radio Free Moscow.  Listen to an edited recording of the May 21 Climate Justice Forum at Radio4All.

Megaloads of Radical Road Trip Birthday Fun!

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On Wednesday, May 16, the second to the last road-hogging convoy of Alberta tar sands equipment, state cops, pilot vehicles, and flaggers will likely rampage Spokane and Spokane Valley streets.  Although we cannot promise any dirty energy resister action against ExxonMobil/Imperial Oil until we hear from our Occupy Tri-Cities Port of Pasco scout around 7 or 8 pm, we do not want to miss this opportunity to kick some more Big Oil ass.  Our Occupy Spokane allies are enthusiastically taking to the streets, calling for our camaraderie, and even offering sleeping space in their clubhouse! Continue reading →

Wisdom, Not Hypocrisy

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Peter Adrian, Pullman

The Moscow-Pullman Daily News 5/16/12

Tucked in among the political endorsements on Thursday’s editorial page (May 10) was a tart bit of criticism from Frank Luzzo, accusing (it is presumed) the megaloads protesters and those who support them of hypocrisy.

I beg to differ.  It is not hypocrisy to realize that an energy extraction process which requires more energy input than it returns as output is unsustainable; that allowing one’s community to be used as a doormat for corporate profiteering is ultimately destructive to that community; that the growth-obsessed, consumption-driven economy in which we grew up has brought us to the brink of ecological catastrophe; that the extent of our benefit from the era of cheap oil should be the measure of our responsibility for leading the transition away from it; and that we, as a society, have been headed the wrong way, and it is time to change course.

That is not hypocrisy.  It is wisdom.

Climate Justice Forum: Selene Gonzalez & Jim Prall 5-14-12

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After an opening half-hour of current regional and national climate activism news, the Monday, May 14, Climate Justice Forum radio program hosted by Wild Idaho Rising Tide (WIRT) will feature Selene Gonzalez of Rising Tide Chicago discussing a national Rising Tide gathering, climate and environmental direct actions, and the NATO Summit protest march in the Windy City on May 18 to 21.  Moscow anti-megaload demonstrator and arrestee Jim Prall will also talk about his 1960s and recent protest experiences and his climate nurturing forest restoration endeavors.  Listen to KRFP Radio Free Moscow between 7:30 and 9:00 pm PDT online or at 92.5 FM and adopt WIRT as your DJ!

Oil is a Part of Our Life

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Frank Luzzo, Troy

The Moscow-Pullman Daily News 5/9/12

This letter is to the people who think Dan Carscallen was wrong when he opposed the Moscow mayor in the acknowledgement of the megaload protesters.

If you have one piece of plastic in your possession or have rubber tires on your bicycle, then you are a hypocrite.

And how much oil did it take from conception to finished product if you are reading this newspaper today?

Also, 98 percent of a pro football player’s outfit is a by-product of the petroleum industry.