Category Archives: Events

Climate Justice Forum: Al Smith & Chris Wahmhoff 2-10-14

Posted on by
2

Free the MI CATS

The Monday, February 10, Climate Justice Forum radio program hosted by WIRT features Al Smith of Michigan Coalition Against Tar Sands (MI CATS) and Chris Wahmhoff of Occupy Kalamazoo.  Al is the husband of Vicci Hamlin, who with Barb Carter and Lisa Leggio locked-down to construction equipment last summer, to protest expansion of the Enbridge pipeline that leaked the largest, non-marine, (tar sands) oil spill in U.S. history into the still unremediated Kalamazoo River.  Likewise, Chris skateboarded deep into the same pipeline in June, to stall its development.  All four are facing charges, some felonies with years in prison, and/or are being unjustly held in a Michigan jail.  Broadcast on progressive, volunteer, community station KRFP Radio Free Moscow every Monday between 7:30 and 9:30 pm PST, live at 90.3 FM and online, the show covers continent-wide dirty energy developments and climate activism news, thanks to the generous, anonymous listener who adopted program host Helen Yost as his KRFP DJ.

Highway 12 Megaload Update, Michigan & Oregon Solidarity

Posted on by
1

Weather and road conditions will likely stop the Everett transport and/or a crane from moving WEST on Highway 12 tonight.  Barely under the 16-foot-width limitations for Highway 12 megaloads established by the Forest Service, one or more singular shipments could regretfully move sometime this week or on Saturday, February 8, as originally projected.  Friends of the Clearwater, Idaho Rivers United, and Wild Idaho Rising Tide (WIRT) are communicating with the Idaho Transportation Department, to obtain more information.  WIRT is working with allies to convince federal agencies to not allow the proposed three Mammoet 1.6-million-pound loads to travel on Highway 95 and Coeur d’Alene Lake Drive.

Climate Justice Forum: Al Smith & Chris Wahmhoff 2-10-14 (website excerpted)

Share Solidarity with Jailed MI CATS

WIRT shares deep respect and sadness with our valiant anti-tar sands comrades.  On Friday, January 31, after a four-day trial of three brave and peaceful female activists, a jury found them guilty of misdemeanor trespassing and felony resisting/obstructing an officer.  Judge Collette’s disdain for the defendants and their supporters refused to allow expert witnesses and documentation and revoked their bond.  The increased police presence in the courtroom on Friday immediately took all three women into custody until their March 5 sentencing of possibly years in jail.  Their acts of love, protection, and courage do not deserve such harsh treatment and felony charges.  Vickie became a great grandmother last week, and Lisa expects a new grandchild this week.  Visit the MI CATS website and facebook pages to find ways to share strength and solidarity with them.  Please send to them handwritten, 4-by-6-inch postcards/index cards without images, mailed to the Ingham County Jail, 640 N. Cedar Street, Mason, MI 48854.  Continent-wide resistance to tar sands, fossil fuels, and unfair corporations and “justice systems” will continue to grow! Continue reading →

Climate Justice Forum: Carol Marsh 1-27-14

Posted on by
Reply

The Monday, January 27, Climate Justice Forum radio program hosted by Wild Idaho Rising Tide (WIRT) features Montana climate activist Carol Marsh, one of three grandmothers who twice sat down and blockaded an Omega Morgan tars sands megaload in Missoula’s Reserve Street on the nights of January 22 and 24.  71-year-old Carol talks about past and recent Missoula tar sands megaload and pipeline protests, her and our comrades’ associated arrests and citations, Alberta tar sands mining operations, impacts, and regional overlegal shipments, and global climate change.  Broadcast on progressive, volunteer, community station KRFP Radio Free Moscow every Monday between 7:30 and 9:30 pm PST live at 90.3 FM and online, the show covers continent-wide dirty energy developments and climate activism news, thanks to the generous, anonymous listener who adopted program host Helen Yost as his KRFP DJ.

Megaloads, Tar Sands, & Direct Action: A Slide Show, Documentary, & Discussion or Workshop

Posted on by
3

1511472_780573671969536_78061512_n

Wild Idaho Rising Tide (WIRT) and 350 Idaho activists enthusiastically invite regional community members eager to learn about Alberta tar sands mining operations, their facilities components (aka “megaloads”), and direct action tactics and strategies to participate in a slide show presentation, documentary film, and discussion or workshop in Hailey and Boise, Idaho.  Join us between 12 noon and 2 pm on Saturday, January 4, at the Hailey Public Library, 7 West Croy Street in Hailey, and from 12 noon to 5 pm on Sunday, January 5, at the MK Nature Center auditorium meeting room, 600 South Walnut Street in Boise, close to Boise State University.  Concerned climate activists and Idaho citizens will explore the issues and connections between tar sands exploitation and regional megaload transports, impacts on people, places, and the planet, and overarching climate change and moral issues.

Transportation of equipment across the Northwest to extract and produce carbon-dense, dirty energy fuels like tar sands increasingly threatens environmental and human wellbeing with its risky and toxic byproducts of polluted air, water, land, policies, and perspectives.  Expanding Alberta tar sands megaloads, pipelines, rail cars, tankers, refineries, and terminals crisscross and transform the region into a resource colony serving Asia and the world.  Governments consistently fail to defend their citizens from the ravages of some of the largest multinational corporations on Earth, as they plunder public resources, taxpayer coffers, civil liberties, indigenous rights, remote ecosystems, and global climate, in pursuit of their billions in profits. Continue reading →

Climate Justice Forum: Arrested Rising Tide Activist 12-23-13

Posted on by
Reply

The Monday, December 23, Climate Justice Forum radio program hosted by Wild Idaho Rising Tide (WIRT) features a recorded interview of a Rising Tide climate activist whom police illegally arrested as an innocent bystander at a vehicle lock-down blockade that temporarily halted an Omega Morgan-hauled tar sands megaload in John Day, eastern Oregon, on Monday, December 16.  Broadcast on progressive, volunteer, community station KRFP Radio Free Moscow every Monday between 7:30 and 9:30 pm PST live at 90.3 FM and online, the show covers continent-wide dirty energy developments and climate activism news, thanks to the generous, anonymous listener who adopted program host Helen Yost as his KRFP DJ.

Climate Justice Forum: Chief Carl Sampson 12-16-13

Posted on by
Reply

The Monday, December 16, Climate Justice Forum radio program hosted by Wild Idaho Rising Tide (WIRT) features Wall Walla Chief Carl Sampson of the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation, talking about tribal and climate activist resistance to tar sands megaloads on ceded Umatilla territories and ancestral homelands in eastern Oregon and Washington.  Broadcast on progressive, volunteer, community station KRFP Radio Free Moscow every Monday between 7:30 and 9:30 pm PST live at 90.3 FM and online, the show covers continent-wide dirty energy developments and climate activism news, thanks to the generous, anonymous listener who adopted program host Helen Yost as his KRFP DJ.

‘Healing Walk’ Looks at Tar Sands

Posted on by
2

Six people from Moscow spent a weekend this past summer getting an up-close look at the Alberta tar sands, the destination point for the controversial megaloads that have passed through the Northwest, including Moscow.

On Saturday, those people shared their story of that weekend during a presentation in Moscow’s 1912 Center sponsored by several environmental groups, including the Palouse Environmental Sustainability Coalition.

“It is out of sight, out of mind and people have to understand what’s going on up there,” Dan Rathmann said about the tar sands.

Rathmann and the rest of the group traveled to Canada in July to take part in a “healing walk,” a tour of the tar sands facilities alongside members of local First Nations groups.

The tour spanned about 8 miles near the town of Fort McMurray, where the facilities are located. There they got to see the oil facilities and learn about the extraction and mining of bitumen, the substance that is eventually processed into synthetic crude oil. They also heard from tribe members about how the operations are affecting their livelihood and the environment. Continue reading →

A Healing Walk through the Alberta Tar Sands

Posted on by
Reply

A Healing Walk through the Alberta Tar Sands 1

Tar Sands, Megaloads, Pipelines, Climate Change: What’s the Connection?

Tar sands, megaloads, pipelines, climate change: What’s the connection?  Explore these issues with six concerned local citizens from Idaho, who journeyed in 2012 and 2013 to the tar sands region of northern Alberta, to gather with First Nations and non-tribal activists and journalists from across the continent, for the annual Tar Sands Healing Walk.  Led and inspired by indigenous elders and leaders, participants experienced first-hand the scale of environmental devastation caused by tar sands mining and resulting crude oil production.

Through a slide show presentation and discussion, six local healing walkers – James Blakely, Pat Fuerst, Pat and Dan Rathmann, Anne Remaley, and Helen Yost – will share what they learned on their solidarity journey, connecting tar sands exploitation with regional megaload transports, huge pipeline projects, impacts on people and places, and overarching climate change and moral issues.  Join co-sponsors 350 Idaho, the Idaho Sierra Club, Palouse Environmental Sustainability Coalition (PESC), and Wild Idaho Rising Tide for this insightful talk from 3 to 5 pm on Saturday, December 7, in the 1912 Center Arts Workshop Room, 412 East Third Street in Moscow, Idaho.  For further information, contact Pat Fuerst of PESC at epfuerst@frontier.com.

Stand Up! Fight Back! Against Fossil Fuels in the Northwest!

Posted on by
2

Stand Up Fight Back Flyer

Direct Action Training and Planning to Confront Dirty Energy Invasions

Wild Idaho Rising Tide and Spokane Rising Tide activists enthusiastically invite regional community members eager to design and stage arrestable protests to the second Stand Up! Fight Back! Against Fossil Fuels in the Northwest! information sharing, brainstorming, and strategizing session.  Opponents of coal, fracked natural gas and oil, and tar sands extraction and transportation projects are converging from northern Idaho and eastern Washington for these urgent non-violent direct action training and planning workshops.  Duplicate gatherings will occur between 10 am and 4 pm on Saturday, November 9, at the Liberty Park United Methodist Church, 1526 East Eleventh Avenue in Spokane, Washington, and from 12 noon to 5 pm on Sunday, November 10, at The Attic, up the back stairs of 314 East Second Street in Moscow, Idaho.  Workshop participants will learn direct action methods as they share their experiences protecting the public environment and health from corporate pillage, while preparing to confront coal and shale oil trains before November 18 port scoping period deadlines as well as the next tar sands megaloads when they move through the region to Alberta. Continue reading →

Climate Justice Forum: Millennium Bulk Terminal Scoping Hearing Testimony in Pasco 10-28-13

Posted on by
Reply

The Monday, October 28, Climate Justice Forum radio program hosted by Wild Idaho Rising Tide (WIRT) features recorded and edited testimony from the three-hour Millennium Bulk Terminal scoping hearing in Pasco, Washington, on October 1.  Speakers voice concerns about the global, regional, and community impacts of the proposed Longview coal export facilities and accompanying Northwest coal trains, for agency consideration in a draft environmental impact statement.  Participants note employment opportunities, economic vitality, worker/public safety, and human, environmental, and climate health threats.  Broadcast on progressive, volunteer, community station KRFP Radio Free Moscow every Monday between 7:30 and 9:30 pm PDT live at 92.5 FM and online, the show covers continent-wide dirty energy developments and climate activism news, thanks to the generous, anonymous listener who adopted program host Helen Yost as his KRFP DJ.