2013 Activists and Friends,

Congratulations and thanks, visionary and vanguard Wild Idaho Rising Tide activists and allies, for successfully confronting dirty energy exploits and heartily advancing community spirit and solutions to America’s most significant climate change challenges throughout 2012.  We earnestly and eagerly anticipate ongoing and emerging frontline resistance and resolutions, passionately shared with each of you during 2013!  Our shared thoughts and actions are priceless: “The language of friendship is not words but meanings.” ~Henry David Thoreau

The amazing activists who contribute their knowledge and skills to Wild Idaho Rising Tide (WIRT) have shared a plethora of information about dirty energy developments and resistance since our inception.  The approximately 400 pages of WIRT email newsletters circulated to about 500 Northwestern comrades over the last two years have attempted to share such wealth of input with you, to foster your understanding of the energy issues that our nation and region deliberates.  But such compilations require vast investments of attention, energy, and time and often impede our primary goal: climate activism.

Through people power, our collective and alliances aim to invoke rapid changes that challenge the sources and foster community resolution of the current climate crisis and halt the fossil-fuel generated pollution that compromises our shared air, lives, and planet.  So with the new year of light and calendars dawning, we anticipate more WIRT activism making the news and less passive observation of distant news.  Learning and acting on issues is our shared responsibility, not the obligation of a few leaders.  Please derive and contribute news from within and beyond our collective efforts on the WIRT facebook page but otherwise, after the next few newsletters to clear backlog, expect only information about our regional campaigns within these pages.

JANUARY WIRT ACTIVITIES

January 4, 5, & 12: Four-State Coal Export Strategy Sessions & Protests

Please note the following Spokane gathering schedule change and see the WIRT website post Four-State Coal Export Protests and Hearings for more information.  Join us at 7 pm on Friday evening, January 4, at The Attic, up the back stairs of 314 East Second Street in Moscow, and/or at NOON on Saturday, June 5, in Room 1A of the Spokane Public Library, 906 West Main Street in Spokane.  Carpools to Spokane depart the WIRT Activist House at 10 am on Saturday.

January 7: David Hall on the Climate Justice Forum Radio Program (website excerpted)

Montana Tribes Drive the Road to Sovereignty (August 13, 2001, High Country News)

January 9: Palouse Transition Meeting

At 5:30 pm on Wednesday, the full assemblage of local participants in this movement to establish post-fossil-fuel, sustainable practices in food, transportation, and energy production and use throughout the Palouse region will converge in the lower level room of the Unitarian Universalist Church of the Palouse, 420 East Second Street in Moscow.  Plenty of great ideas have arisen from discussions and meetings of the various working groups.  Attendees may watch a relatively brief YouTube video about the twelve steps of Transition Towns and continue explorations of healthier ways of life.

January 10 & 12: Washington State University & Winter Market Outreach

At two public events next week, Wild Idaho Rising Tide is seeking volunteers to engage our community with educational materials and opportunities for climate activism.  On Thursday, January 10, from 11 am until 1 pm, we will rally and recruit new student members and volunteers, while promoting our organization at the first Cougs Connect: Campus and Community Involvement Fair.  As community partners with Washington State University’s (WSU) Student Involvement and Center for Civic Engagement, two WIRT representatives will showcase and celebrate the wide variety of ways in which WSU students can participate in WIRT activities, at a free table (with free lunch!) in the CUB Senior Ballroom.  At this action-packed event, registered groups can offer presentations and win prizes for display tables judged as most informative, creative, or best overall.  During Winter Market on Saturday, January 12, we will host an information table on the 1912 Center Great Room balcony (412 East Third Street in Moscow), where we will also participate in ongoing markets between 10 am and 2 pm on February 9 and March 2.

Please contact us if you can assist with distributing WIRT brochures and donation envelopes and with requesting physical and fiscal support for our many initiatives, direct actions, outreach work, and collective costs, as we raise awareness, activism, and funds at these venues.  We will offer information and involvement in citizen resistance to the root causes of climate chaos, such as tar sands, coal export, and fracking schemes.  Visit our website, booths, and the WIRT Activist House during this winter season to generously contribute to our shared endeavors or purchase one of the few remaining commemorative, collectors’ item WIRT T-shirts from among the 40 off-white, large-size originals reserved for megaload protesters. Continue reading →

Happy New Year!

Some exciting developments are emerging in our megaload, fracking, and community bill of rights campaigns, about which we will send more news as soon as it becomes available.  Instead of a year-end funding appeal letter from our non-non-profit collective, we are composing a photo montage of all of our 2012 actions and initiatives this year, which we will share upon completion for your enjoyment.  As it portrays, dozens of Wild Idaho Rising Tide (WIRT) members have made 2012 a year to remember, as we grew from our 2011 inception stage through our 2012 expansion phase.  Besides offering our heartfelt gratitude for your ongoing activism, we ask that you roll up your sleeves and rock out your fiscal and physical support, because 2013 is already dawning as a year bursting with effective direct actions and American transformations toward a healthier, happier, cleaner energy future.

Highway 95 Re-Routing Documents Released by ITD

Thanks to core WIRT activist David Hall, who alerted us of the Idaho Transportation Department’s (ITD) website posting, predictably/probably over the recent holiday week, of its draft environmental impact statement (DEIS) and technical reports for U.S. Highway 95 re-routing between Thorn Creek Road and south Moscow (to encourage an industrial/megaload corridor and devastate native Palouse Prairie remnants?).  Please see letters to the local newspaper editor about this issue from stalwart re-routing resisters Dave and Al, included in the Highway 95 Re-Route section of the WIRT website, as well as the attached map of DEIS re-routing alternatives. Continue reading →