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.

Are You Participating in Break Free in Anacortes & Spokane?

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Over the last few months, Wild Idaho Rising Tide (WIRT) activists and allies have been working diligently at online education through various channels and on interpersonal outreach at dozens of regional events*, to mobilize hundreds of inland Northwest residents to participate in the Break Free from Fossil Fuels mass action in Anacortes, Washington, on May 13 to 15. After contributing copious amounts of time, energy, and funds to reach out to you and request your participation, and to contact about 60 people from Idaho and eastern Washington signed up through the Break Free Pacific Northwest website, we hope to hear from you: Are you training and traveling to Anacortes?

WIRT is forming carpools and ride shares or possibly renting a van and caravanning with activists from Montana, Idaho, and eastern Washington who plan to put their bodies in the way of the government-assisted fossil fuel industry, by non-violently protesting and/or risking arrest. Please RSVP about your travel arrangements if you have not already responded, and catch these associated, upcoming events in Spokane:

May 7: Inland NW Break Free Planning & Training Workshop

After workshops in Moscow on Tuesday evening and in Sandpoint on Wednesday evening, WIRT is holding the third Inland Northwest Break Free logistics planning and direct action training session at 4 pm on Saturday, May 7, at the Liberty Park United Methodist Church, 1526 East Eleventh Avenue in Spokane, Washington. Encouraging local empowerment and resulting strong, urgent actions against volatile oil trains, dirty coal cars, and explosive natural gas facilities, these free workshops offer guidance on:

Personal grounding for direct actions

Transportation and lodging options

Knowing your rights

Possible legal consequences of protests

Action roles and tactics

Action planning and practice

We welcome your friends and families at these gatherings providing workshop materials, snacks, and beverages. Please forward this event announcement to your comrades and invite them to support this historic protest by attending this well-anticipated workshop and the thousands-strong Break Free action in mid-May.  For further information and to discuss these opportunities, please call, text, email, or facebook message WIRT through the enclosed contact channels.

May 12: Not Your Average Climate Rally

Activists of the Spokane community and Occupy movement are hosting a parody party of a climate rally at the intersection of North Division Street and East Martin Luther King Jr. Way in Spokane, Washington, next Thursday, May 12, from 12 noon to 1 pm. As Break Free Northwest participants converge from Montana, Idaho, and eastern Washington, to head to the Anacortes area fossil fuel resistance actions, Spokane friends are staging a fun and supportive send-off celebration with music, speakers, poetry, drumming, and dancing.  Please bring your voice, guitar or other instruments, drums, and props of solar panels, wind turbines, etc. and join us! Continue reading →

Climate Justice Forum: Bill McKibben WSU Speech, Fort McMurray Fire, Inland NW Break Free Workshops 5-4-16

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The Wednesday, May 4, 2016 Climate Justice Forum radio program hosted by Wild Idaho Rising Tide (WIRT) airs part of a keynote address entitled The Human Element in Nature: From Harm to Hope, presented by climate movement leader, educator, and author Bill McKibben at Washington State University on April 13.  Other discussions include the historically huge wildfires in the tar sands extraction world epicenter, Fort McMurray, Alberta, Northwest fossil fuel infrastructure projects abandoned due to public opposition, and inland Northwest Break Free planning and training workshops this week in Moscow, Sandpoint, and Spokane.  Broadcast on progressive, volunteer, community station KRFP Radio Free Moscow every Wednesday between 1:30 and 3 pm PDT, live at 90.3 FM and online, the show covers continent-wide climate activism and community opposition to extreme energy projects, thanks to the generous, anonymous listener who adopted program host Helen Yost as her KRFP DJ.

Inland NW Break Free Planning & Training Workshops

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Inland NW Break Free Workshops Flyer

Through the ongoing participation of Northwest fossil fuels resisters in public events, hearings, marches, and media stories, we have clearly registered our opposition to the expansion of coal, oil, and gas infrastructure projects across the region. Accelerating impacts of climate change call for ever stronger messages and unified, non-violent, civilly disobedient, direct actions.  For months, Pacific Northwest organizers have been planning a Break Free from Fossil Fuels action, a mass 350.org and allied protest of two crude oil refineries at March Point near Anacortes, Washington, on May 13 to 15, 2016 (http://breakfreepnw.org/).  Please join us in risking arrest or supporting others as part of ongoing Northwest resistance to fossil fuels.

In late March 2016, Wild Idaho Rising Tide (WIRT) and allies promised hundreds of participants in well-attended screenings and panel discussions of the global climate activism documentary This Changes Everything in Moscow and Sandpoint, Idaho, and at WIRT’s Fifth Annual Celebration in Moscow, that we intend to stage regional direct action and kayaktivist trainings before the Anacortes uprising.  Over the last month, we have incessantly requested that our western Oregon and Washington colleagues send trainers to the inland Northwest, to further recruit, mobilize, and prepare activists for the mid-May Break Free Pacific Northwest action.  After pouring years of energy into supporting opposition to Washington state fossil fuel infrastructure projects, we are understandably eager for some West Coast input toward receptive inland Northwest frontlines.

A small team of Oregon comrades generously proposed to travel to northern Idaho and eastern Washington and present several trainings on consecutive days, among a dozen similar workshops scheduled across the region. But considering the time and expense involved in providing guidance to predictably low Idaho turnouts, they decided to cancel their plans.

Unwilling to sacrifice our networks to the strong tendency to discount interior Northwest activism, due to low participation numbers, unnecessary competition and targeted suppression from larger groups, and the limited capacity of a few climate activism organizers dismissed by their communities as too radical or criminal, WIRT is now hosting three Break Free logistics planning and direct action training convergences. Although we would prefer to concentrate our efforts on local empowerment and resulting strong, relatively urgent actions like those against tar sands megaloads and Shell Arctic drilling armadas, not to mention volatile bomb trains and explosive gas facilities, please expand our work supporting this historic protest by attending these workshops:

* Tuesday, May 3, 7 pm at The Attic, up the back stairs of 314 East Second Street in Moscow, Idaho

* Wednesday, May 4, 7 pm at the WIRT office, 301 North First Avenue in Sandpoint, Idaho

* Saturday, May 7, 4 pm at the Liberty Park United Methodist Church, 1526 East Eleventh Avenue in Spokane, Washington Continue reading →

Moscow Renaissance Fair Queen Jeanne & King Fritz, KRFP Food Booth!

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Congratulations to core Wild Idaho Rising Tide (WIRT) activists, friends, and founding musicians of the Moscow Volunteer Peace Band, Jeanne McHale and Fritz Knorr, whom the Moscow Renaissance Fair has selected as the 2016 Queen and King of this 43rd annual celebration of spring [1-3]!  Moscow area residents since 1980 and married almost 40 years, the royal couple have worked at Washington State University as teachers and researchers, played the melodica, tuba, and other instruments in the Peace Band, and performed with other ensembles.  They have devoted their exuberant energies over the years toward developing solar energy and educating youth about it, organizing “Ren Fair” events like the main parade, and effectively contributing through important roles toward various environmental and social justice groups and causes.  The monarchs declare:

“We are so thrilled to preside over this year’s Moscow Renaissance Fair as King and Queen!  Let there be music and Spring and joy!”

“King Fritz and Queen Jeanne decree that the weather this weekend will be gorgeous, and there will be peace, love, and happiness as we celebrate Spring!”

Review the linked local articles, websites, and facebook pages for further information about the Ren Fair Queen and King, their long-overdue, well-deserved honor as one of the best royalty choices ever, and the free, public fair that runs from 10 am to 9 pm on Saturday, April 30, and from 10 am to 6 pm on Sunday, May 1, at East City Park, 900 East Third Street in Moscow, Idaho.  The unique, regional, self-sustaining festival features live music and dancing, a new beer and wine garden, activities for children, and many craft vendors and non-profit food booths.
Continue reading →

Royal Couple Readies for Ren Fair

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Jeanne McHale and Fritz Knorr of rural Moscow will serve as the queen and king of the Moscow Renaissance Fair on Saturday and Sunday (Geoff Crimmins/Moscow-Pullman Daily News photo).

Jeanne McHale and Fritz Knorr of rural Moscow will serve as the queen and king of the Moscow Renaissance Fair on Saturday and Sunday (Geoff Crimmins/Moscow-Pullman Daily News photo).

43rd annual event adds beer and wine garden, new children’s activities

Jeanne McHale and Fritz Knorr of rural Moscow will serve as the queen and king of the Moscow Renaissance Fair on Saturday and Sunday.

Fritz Knorr and Jeanne McHale will serve as king and queen of the 43rd annual Moscow Renaissance Fair on Saturday and Sunday at East City Park.

The Moscow couple married nearly 40 years ago and both felt honored by their selection.

“We were thrilled to be asked,” said McHale, who works with Knorr in the department of chemistry at Washington State University.

Both are founding members of the Moscow Volunteer Peace Band and they often perform with other area ensembles, with Knorr playing the sousaphone and McHale on the melodica. The couple has also devoted great effort to educating area youth about solar energy and are involved in a variety of social and political causes. Continue reading →

Climate Justice Forum: Stopping Coal & Oil Trains through Civil Disobedience 4-27-16

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The Wednesday, April 27, 2016 Climate Justice Forum radio program hosted by Wild Idaho Rising Tide offers a recording of the free, public panel discussion Stopping Coal and Oil Trains through Civil Disobedience: Stories of Courage on the Front Lines of Climate Change, hosted by Direct Action Spokane on April 23 at Spokane Community College.  Featured speakers describing the motivations and logistics of direct confrontations of the perpetrators of catastrophic climate change include Ken Ward, 2013 lobster boat blockader of a coal barge and co-founder of the Climate Disobedience Center, Mike LaPointe and Jackie Minchew, 2014 Delta 5 oil train blockaders, and Dylan Thompson, an Eugene, Oregon organizer of Deep Green Resistance.  Broadcast on progressive, volunteer, community station KRFP Radio Free Moscow every Wednesday between 1:30 and 3 pm PDT, live at 90.3 FM and online, the show covers continent-wide climate activism and community opposition to extreme energy projects, thanks to the generous, anonymous listener who adopted program host Helen Yost as her KRFP DJ.

Regional Earth Week Events: Help WIRT with Outreach!

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Wild Idaho Rising Tide (WIRT) activists are participating in several events this week, for which we are still seeking volunteers: Please join us!

Wednesday, April 20, 11 am – 3 pm:

Bike Fix & Sustainability Showcase

The University of Idaho (UI) Sustainability Center in Moscow, Idaho, is hosting Earth Fest 2016 events this week [1]. At the Spring 2016 Bike Fix and Sustainability Showcase, participants can receive free tune-ups and advice about their bicycles, while they learn about local cycling opportunities and campus and community organizations making a difference.  Meet us at the WIRT table on the UI Commons Plaza outside Einstein’s Coffee, to set-up early at 10:30 am, to distribute information and obtain pledges for the Break Free Northwest mass action in Anacortes in mid-May [2], to answer questions about WIRT campaigns, activities, and opportunities, and to interact with the university community.  WIRT will bring all of the necessary display and information supplies, to assist volunteers in successfully accommodating on-site visitors and closing by 4 pm.  Contact WIRT to pitch in!

[1] Love Your Earth: Earth Fest 2016, University of Idaho Sustainability Center

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

Wednesday, April 20, 1:30 pm:

Praxis Interview of Ken Ward on Climate Justice Forum

The Wednesday, April 20, 2016 Climate Justice Forum radio program hosted by Wild Idaho Rising Tide gratefully shares an April 18 on-air interview of Climate Disobedience Center co-founder and Greenpeace USA deputy director Ken Ward, by Praxis radio show host Taylor Weech on KYRS Spokane [2].  Their conversation explores the use of direct action and civil disobedience to address catastrophic climate change, to tackle the growth machine killing our only home, and to remain human among these morally strenuous tasks.  Ken and Taylor discuss his 2013 blockade of a coal barge with a lobster boat and Jay O’Hara, other direct actions, and his April 23 Spokane presentation with Jackie Minchew, of the 2014 Delta 5 oil train blockaders, and Matt Fuller of the 2015 sHellNo! Arctic drilling protests.  Broadcast on progressive, volunteer, community station KRFP Radio Free Moscow every Wednesday between 1:30 and 3 pm PDT, live at 90.3 FM and online, the show covers continent-wide climate activism and community opposition to extreme energy projects, thanks to the generous, anonymous listener who adopted program host Helen Yost as her KRFP DJ.

[3] Praxis 173: Ken Ward, Climate Disobedience and Direct Action, Praxis Radio

Friday, April 22:

Washington State University 2016 Earth Day Fair

WIRT volunteers still needed! The Associated Students of Washington State University (ASWSU) Environmental Sustainability Alliance are providing great opportunities on Earth Day to show the many ways that the people of the Palouse are working to address environmental issues [4].  They cordially invite interested student and community organizations to join them at the 2016 Washington State University (WSU) Earth Day Fair on the Glenn Terrell Mall of the WSU Pullman campus, to promote sustainability and environmental awareness and involvement.  Celebrating Earth Day outdoors on Friday, April 22, the annual event from 10 am to 2:30 pm offers free stickers, t-shirts, water bottles, and other handouts and approximately 30 reserved tables for groups leading special service projects, handing out food, and teaching ways to become more eco-friendly.  Table set-up occurs between 8:30 and 10 am, and break-down from 2:30 to 3:30 pm.  The noon hour until 1 pm features an open mic for participants on the Todd Hall steps.

[4] WSU 2016 Earth Day Fair, ASWSU Environmental Sustainability Alliance Continue reading →

Climate Justice Forum: Ken Ward 4-20-16

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The Wednesday, April 20, 2016 Climate Justice Forum radio program hosted by Wild Idaho Rising Tide gratefully shares an April 18 on-air interview of Climate Disobedience Center co-founder and Greenpeace USA deputy director Ken Ward, by Praxis radio show host Taylor Weech on KYRS Spokane.  Their conversation explores the use of direct action and civil disobedience to address catastrophic climate change, to tackle the growth machine killing our only home, and to remain human among these morally strenuous tasks.  Ken and Taylor discuss his 2013 blockade of a coal barge with a lobster boat and Jay O’Hara, other direct actions, and his April 23 Spokane presentation with Jackie Minchew, of the 2014 Delta 5 oil train blockaders, and Matt Fuller of the 2015 sHellNo! Arctic drilling protests.  Broadcast on progressive, volunteer, community station KRFP Radio Free Moscow every Wednesday between 1:30 and 3 pm PDT, live at 90.3 FM and online, the show covers continent-wide climate activism and community opposition to extreme energy projects, thanks to the generous, anonymous listener who adopted program host Helen Yost as her KRFP DJ.

Climate Justice Forum: Port of Vancouver Oil Terminal Lease, Youth Climate Change Lawsuit, & Earth Week Events 4-13-16

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The Wednesday, April 13, 2016 Climate Justice Forum radio program hosted by Wild Idaho Rising Tide (WIRT) discusses the Port of Vancouver Commission hearing on a Tesoro Savage oil terminal lease amendment, a federal court decision allowing a climate change lawsuit brought by 21 youths to proceed, and upcoming Earth Week events including a WIRT Sandpoint office-warming party, Earth Day Spokane 2016, and a panel discussion about civil disobedience against coal and oil trains.  Broadcast on progressive, volunteer, community station KRFP Radio Free Moscow every Wednesday between 1:30 and 3 pm PDT, live at 90.3 FM and online, the show covers continent-wide climate activism and community opposition to extreme energy projects, thanks to the generous, anonymous listener who adopted program host Helen Yost as her KRFP DJ.

April 13-14: Bill McKibben at WSU, May 13-15: Anacortes Break Free Action!

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Anacortes Mass Action BreakFreePNW

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. Continue reading →