Extraction Resistance: Solidarity with Tar Sands Blockade and Unis’tot’en Camp

In response to the Tar Sands Blockade call out for Solidarity on January 7th, radical groups and organizations from across the Colorado Front Range are joining forces on January 5th and 6th to raise donations and material support in the fight against the tar sands and industrial extraction. Deep Green Resistance, Denver Anarchist Black Cross, and other local groups are collaborating to organize Extraction Resistance: Solidarity with the Tar Sands Blockade & Unis’tot’en Camp.

In addition to collecting funds and supplies for both the Tar Sands Blockade and the Unis’tot’en Camp, the two-day event will include workshops and teach-ins at the 27 Social Center (2727 W 27th Ave Denver, CO) on radical resistance to extraction across Colorado & North America.

With the aim of providing a space for education and discussion around a wide range of topics, the organizers hope to foster further discussion and facilitate new relationships that will cultivate resistance against industrial extraction in Colorado and solidarity with those fighting it elsewhere.

Workshops–which will cover a variety of topics including radical environmentalism, social justice, anti-extraction and direct action–will be hosted by Deep Green Resistance, Denver Anarchist Black Cross, the Beehive Design Collective, indigenous organizer & NVDA trainer Robert Chanate, Glenn Morris of the American Indian Movement of Colorado, and more. An updated schedule is posted below.

Besides building local capacity and networks, the event also aims to directly support those who are on the front lines in the fight against the tar sands and industrial extraction. The event will serve as a fundraiser, with a requested donation at the door of $5-20, with all proceeds going to the Tar Sands Blockade and the Unis’tot’en Camp. However, no one will be turned away for lack of funds. Lunch will be provided for those attending, including vegan and gluten-free options.

We will also be collecting donations of materials for these groups, so please bring any camping gear (tents, sleeping bags, etc.), bicycles (working or not), warm winter clothes, climbing gear, rain gear, non-perishable food, rope, medical supplies, and tools (shovels, saws, drills, etc.). For a complete list, see the Tar Sands Blockade’s ‘Wish List’:http://tarsandsblockade.org/donate-3/wishlist/

The Facebook event can be found here.

Workshop Descriptions:

The Beehive Collective presents:
The True Cost of Fossil Fuels: Climate Justice and the Fight for our Future!(10:15am, Saturday, January 5th)

Join us for an interactive, graphics-based workshop about the growing
movement for climate justice on this continent.

This summer North America saw an inspiring amount of grass-roots
organizing against fossil fuel extraction.  From growing resistance to
hydro-fracking for natural gas, to the derailing of the Keystone XL
pipeline project,  to the continued disruption of mountaintop removal
sites in Appalachia, folks are waking up to the threat posed by dirty,
dangerous fossil fuel extraction and working to build alternatives.

At this crucial moment, we would like to invite your community to be part
of this dialogue. The Beehive will share the stories of different fossil
fuel struggles around the continent using the acclaimed “True Cost of
Coal” graphic. We will engage participants by mixing together antidotes
from the coalfields of Appalachia, statistics about different forms of
fossil fuel extraction, and a variety of activities to learn more about
the struggles against fossil fuels in this region and weave them into this
growing tapestry of resistance!

Hidden Impacts of Fracking In Colorado (1:15pm, Saturday, January 5th)

Presented by Shane Davis,  local fracking activist
The state of Colorado has failed to prevent adverse impacts to the environment and to human health.  Uncovering official State documents reveals the shocking truth of the harmful threats we face from mining that uses hydraulic fracturing. (Data mining workshop 101: Industry language, acronyms, departments, official docx, website architecture and acquisition methods to compile meaningful, useful data)

Time Is Short: The Case for Underground Resistance (3:30 pm, Saturday, January 5th)

Every living system on the planet is in decline, and industrial capitalism is killing Earth. While countless communities around the world are fighting back, we must be honest: overall, we are losing. Deep Green Resistance advocates for organized, strategic underground action to collapse the global industrial economy before it is too late. This presentation will explore the history of underground action and the it’s potential as a strategy to save a dying world.

Liberals and Radicals: Critical Theory for Effective Action (4:15 and 5:15 pm, Saturday, January 5th)

Members of Deep Green Resistance will present and facilitate a discussion about liberalism and radicalism, two political doctrines often talked about but not understood.The historic and contemporary dominance of liberalism has handed us a framework that misunderstands the nature of power and social change, and that truncates actions that would otherwise be effective. By re-examining liberalism and radicalism in the context of the environmental movement, we can make better decisions and take more effective action.

For more information, contact DGR Colorado at deepgreenresistancecolorado@riseup.net

Dinner and Movie Night at Woodbine Ecology Center

What: Everyone is invited to a dinner and movie night at Woodbine Ecology Center on Wednesday September 19th. The evening will be focused on a discussion about big oil and what folks can do about it. As we all know, Colorado is about to head on an insane path of fracking, and has done so already in many places devastating our sacred water supply. It is very important that we organize and work towards stopping this atrocity. The documentary film we have chosen is called Sweet Crude (http://www.sweetcrudemovie.com/home.php) and illustrates how the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta is dealing with big oil in their community. We would love to get everyone concerned together to discuss this important issue for a night of food, fun and discussion.

When: Wednesday, September 19th. At 5pm will be dinner, at 6:30 the screening of Sweet Crude will begin, and a fire circle discussion will follow. The evening is scheduled to wrap up around 9.

Where:Woodbine Ecology Center. 2584 Colorado 67, Sedalia, CO, 80135. Woodbine is a beautiful place nestled in the foothills of the Pike National forest.

Cost: Film screening and dinner is $20.00. All proceeds will go to Woodbine Ecology Center in support of their work towards indigenous values and sustainable communities.Please distribute the above information about the event if possible, send it off to any potentially interested parties, and let’s plan on having a great evening getting to know one another and strategizing together. Please RSVP by the 17th so we know how much food to prepare!  If you have any questions or to RSVP, email deanna.meyer@earthlink.net or deepgreenresistancecolorado@riseup.net. Facebook link is here.

New Zine Available: An Open Letter to Fellow Environmentalists

Now available for your reading and distributing pleasure, a new DGR zine-formatted version of An Open Letter to Fellow Environmentalists is ready for download. “An Open Letter to Fellow Environmentalists” is an essay about the fallacy of clean energy as a means of environmental preservation, written by a member of DGR Colorado early this year.

“I know what it’s like. I know exactly how it feels to look around and see a world not just dying but being suffocated, being tortured and maimed, sacrificed on the twin altars of profit and production. As a young person today, I know what it’s like to fear the future, to fear for my future. I—like many of you—have read all the studies and reports I need to see to know what’s coming, what disaster is now screaming, all but unchallenged, down the track upon us.”

Let us know what you think of the zine and the essay, and feel free to spread it around within your own circles.

END:CIV Screening & Discussion June 14th

Join Deep Green Resistance and Occupy Denver Environmental Defense on Thursday, June 14th for a screening and discussion of Frank Lopez’s groundbreaking film, END:CIV at the Gypsy Cafe (1279 Marion St) at 6:00pm. The film, which is based on Derrick Jensen’s two voume book Endgame, examines the destruction and violence that defines civilization, and poses serious questions about why, and how, we must resist.

END:CIV examines our culture’s addiction to systematic violence and environmental exploitation, and probes the resulting epidemic of poisoned landscapes and shell-shocked nations. END:CIV asks: “If your homeland was invaded by aliens who cut down the forests, poisoned the water and air, and contaminated the food supply, would you resist?”

The causes underlying the collapse of civilizations are usually traced to overuse of resources. As we write this, the world is reeling from economic chaos, peak oil, climate change, environmental degradation, and political turmoil. Every day, the headlines re-hash stories of scandal and betrayal of the public trust. We don’t have to make outraged demands for the end of the current global system — it seems to be coming apart already.

But acts of courage, compassion and altruism abound, even in the most damaged places. By documenting the resilience of the people hit hardest by war and repression, and the heroism of those coming forward to confront the crisis head-on, END:CIV illuminates a way out of this all-consuming madness and into a saner future.

For more information, contact deepgreenresistancecolorado@riseup.net, or call 720-425-4955.

2012 March for Justice Benefit June 3rd

On Sunday, June 3rd, Deep Green Resistance Colorado and JenLo Therapy Farm will host a benefit and fundraiser for the 2012 March for Justice in Pine Ridge, South Dakota. On June 9th, the Oglala Lakota people of the Pine Ridge Reservation will march for justice against the genocide of opportunist alcohol dealers in the border town of White Clay, Nebraska. A caravan will be leaving from Boulder/Denver June 8th, and allies willing to act and march in solidarity are needed, as well as material support.

Because of its damaging cultural, social and health effects, alcohol is prohibited on the Pine Ridge Reservation. The town of White Clay, Nebraska sits just 200 feet from the southern border of the reservation, and less than two miles from the town of Pine Ridge, the largest on the reservation. While the population of White Clay is only 14, there are 4 liquor stores in the town which make millions of dollars each year selling alcohol as a border town, feeding off of the continued destruction of the Oglala Lakota people.

We will be showing the documentary “Battle for White Clay”, which presents the problem of White Clay and the history of resistance to the alcohol town. The event will collect donations and material support–in the form of funds, canned foods, blankets, and fans/air conditioners–for the action, which will be taken up by a caravan of supporters from Colorado to participate and support the March for Justice. There will be a lunch served at 12, and the film will be shown at 2. There will also be a short tour & introduction to JenLo Therapy Farm, and the Earth Guardians may be performing. A $10 donation is requested, but no one will be turned away. JenLo Therapy Farms is located at 5125 Ute Highway in Lyons.

Please contact deepgreenresistancecolorado@riseup.net, or call 303-823-6336 with questions. For more information about the 2012 March for Justice, go here, or read this recent article in the Denver Post.

March for Justice – A Call for Solidarity and Support

March for Justice

In Memory of Wally Black Elk & Ron Hard Heart

June 9^th 10:00 am

On June 9^th, the Oglala Lakota people of the Pine Ridge Reservation will march for justice against the genocide of opportunist alcohol dealers in the border town of White Clay, Nebraska. A caravan will be leaving from Boulder/Denver June 8^th, and allies willing to act and march in solidarity are needed, as well as material support.

Because of its damaging cultural, social and health effects, alcohol is prohibited on the Pine Ridge Reservation. The town of White Clay, Nebraska sits just 200 feet from the southern border of the reservation, and less than two miles from the town of Pine Ridge, the largest on the reservation. While the population of White Clay is only 14, there are 4 liquor stores in the town which make millions of dollars each year selling alcohol as a border town.

The existence of White Clay, and the alcohol that is synonymous with its name, is responsible for violence, abuse and many deaths each year. These retailers routinely violate Nebraska liquor law by selling beer to minors and intoxicated persons, knowingly selling to bootleggers who resell the beer on the reservation, permitting on-premise consumption of beer in violation of restrictions placed on off-sale-only licenses, and exchanging beer for sexual favors .The vast majority of those who purchase beer in White Clay have in fact no legal place to consume it, since possession and consumption of alcoholic beverages on the Pine Ridge Reservation remain illegal under tribal law. Many people have died in the streets due to exposure, as the state of Nebraska fails to uphold state law or to police White Clay. As long as the liquor stores in White Clay remain in business, the genocide of the Oglala Lakota people will continue.

On June 9^th 1999 two Lakota men, Wally Black Elk and Ron Hard Heart, were brutally murdered in White Clay. It is in their memory that we will march for justice.

We will leave Colorado early on June 8^th, and rendezvous with other allies at the Wounded Knee Museum in Pine Ridge at 3 pm, and will camp out that night. The next morning, we will gather at Billy Mills Hall in the town of Pine Ridge at 11:00 am and begin the march to White Clay at noon.

Those interested in joining the caravan to Pine Ridge should contact Deep Green Resistance Colorado (deepgreenresistancecolorado@riseup.net). We are seeking material support, in the form of food and donations for the caravan. Additionally, we will be collecting donated fans and air conditioners to bring to elders on Pine Ridge.

Join us in demanding justice and an end to liquor in White Clay!

Sweet Crude Film Screening & Discussion – May 15

“Before the coming of oil, we had good fishing, rich estuaries, good costal land, good harvest, unpolluted…and then this thing called oil came.”

Deep Green Resistance Colorado will be hosting a screening and discussion of the film Sweet Crude, which documents the grassroots community resistance to oil extraction in the Niger Delta on Tuesday, May 15^th in the basement of the George Reynolds Library (3595 Table Mesa) at 6:00pm.

The Niger Delta is often considered the most polluted place on Earth. For half a century, oil extraction by transnational corporations has gone unregulated. Here, citizens of an oil-rich nation struggle to eat in a land that can no longer support them. The Delta’s water and soil have been fouled by the same oil production that accounts for more than 80 percent of the country’s revenue. Traditional fishing and farming livelihoods are all but gone. Potable drinking water is rare.. Families are broken up, as men die young or take off for the cities to find jobs.

Community Members, Activists Confront Suncor Energy at Oil Leak Site

  ***FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE***

March 10, 2012

Protestors demand an end to pollution in Colorado, Canada

Commerce City, Colo – Members of the Stop Suncor and Tar Sands Coalition, including the American Indian Movement of Colorado (AIM), Deep Green Resistance Colorado (DGR), United Community Action Network (UCAN), Occupy Denver, Front Range Rising Tide, 350.org, Boulder Food Rescue, and concerned citizens rallied and occupied the site of Suncor Energy’s oil leak on the shore of Sand Creek. Acting as Private Attorneys General, under the authority of the Clean Water Act, water samples were taken to be tested for contaminants. The demonstration sought to bring public attention to the fact that Suncor Energy’s continued negligence and environmental degradation is killing Colorado communities, water and wildlife, and to force the industrial polluter to confront the effects of its actions.

“Suncor has so poisoned this land, that oil is not spilling into these waters, it is bubbling up through the toxified soil from numerous burst sub-surface pipelines,” Deanna Meyer of Deep Green Resistance Colorado said. “ Benzene levels in this water—water that fish, ducks, geese, beavers, trees, grasses and many other beings depend on—are 100 times the safety standard, and what’s happening here is nothing compared to the destruction of the tar sands.”

Suncor’s role in the tar sands is contributing to a devastated climate and world, and is harming indigenous communities in Canada as well as people living in local communities in Colorado. The development of the tar sands—a form of oil deposit—in Athabasca has led to the deforestation of tens of thousands of square miles of the Boreal forest and the destruction of First Nations cultures. Suncor Energy declares itself to be the first corporation to begin the extraction of this abnormally dirty form of oil, and continues to do so today. Currently, Suncor produces more than 90,000 barrels of oil a day, much of this from tar sands oil, at its refinery in Commerce City, Colorado.

“All the oil that’s being spilled here came from Athabasca, which is a First Nation community. My people up there are suffering because of the oil we’re refining here,” said Tessa McLean of American Indian Movement of Colorado to the group of more than 150 that occupied the spill site. “We don’t want that oil here!”

While the spill was first reported on November 27th of last year, it is believed to have begun nine months earlier, when an underground pipe failed a pressure test, in February of 2011. However, Suncor’s history of negligence and degradation goes far beyond 2011 (when 3 different leaks were reported). Underground “plumes” of leaked oil dot the refinery grounds, the wounds and scars left by the refinery’s operation. In addition, the refinery has been cited with nearly 100 distinct air-quality violations.

“Suncor’s activities are beyond toxic, they are incompatible with a living world and they must be stopped. A safe a just world has no place for oil leaks, toxic air, poisoned water, or the tar sands,” said the coalition.

On December 31st, the Stop Suncor and Tar Sands Coalition organized a march and rally to protest Suncor Energy on the 16th Street Mall in downtown Denver. After having now come to the site of the leak and become more familiar with the severity of the damage being wrought by Suncor, the group reiterated the need to confront and stop ecocide, whether that of Colorado waters and wildlife, or the Boreal forest of Athabasca.

As Tessa McLean said, “only when the last tree has been cut, only when the last fish has been caught, only when the last river has dried up, will we realize we cannot eat money.”

A Call to Action: March 10th

On Saturday, March 10th, families from the local communities that are directly affected by the Commerce City Suncor Energy refinery and several organizations including Colorado American Indian Movement, Deep Green Resistance (DGR) Colorado, Front Range Rising Tide, United Community Action Network, 350.org, Occupy Denver and Boulder Food Rescue are coming together on March 10th for a demonstration against Suncor and the oil seep contaminating the Sand Creek and South Platte River. We are asking everyone concerned about our water, air, land and future to stand with us.

Over the last year, many people and various organizations have united to oppose the Alberta tar sands and the Keystone XL Pipeline, correctly recognizing these industrial projects as ecocidal insanity. Here in Colorado, oil from the tar sands is refined by Suncor Energy. By participating in the process of facilitating genocide against the aboriginal people of Alberta, Suncor Energy has toxified our air, land and water.

By bringing together active members of the Colorado community in coalition, we will align together to force Suncor to stop destroying and poisoning our world, both here in Colorado and in Canada.

On Saturday, March 10th, we will occupy the ‘hot zone’ on the shore of Sand Creek, where benzene from Suncor’s refinery has been seeping into the water. By occupying the hot zone, we hope to bring public attention to the fact that Suncor is killing Colorado communities, water and wildlife, and to force the industrial polluter to confront the effects of its actions. It is also our hope to form strong alliances with one another and begin to work in cohesion so we can effectively move forward against Suncor’s unethical and irresponsible practices.

We will meet at 2:00pm at 5001 National Western Drive (from downtown Denver, get on I-25 North & take exit 215 onto E. 58th, then turn right onto Franklin. 5001 is ~1 mile on the right, look for signs) on Saturday March 10th. From there, we will carpool to 64th Avenue and York, where we will park and walk to the site of the action at the confluence of Sand Creek and South Platte River. Food will be provided by Boulder Food Rescue, and representatives from various groups will be speaking. Be aware that fumes from the oil and the refinery can sometimes make the area uncomfortable for people with compromised respiratory systems.

It is our hope to see as many of you as possible at this demonstration. Suncor is actively destroying our Mother Earth, and must be stopped.  Suncor’s role in the Tar Sands is contributing to a devastated climate and is harming indigenous communities in Canada as well as people living in local communities in Colorado. Please join us on March 10th to stand against the injustices and degradation of our Earth.

AIM Colorado Speaks on KGNU & at Occupy Denver

This past Valentines Day, members of Colorado AIM (American Indian Movement) visited KGNU to talk about past & present campaigns they’re involved in, including the campaign against the Suncor Energy oil refinery, which is refining and spilling dirty tar sands oil right here in Colorado.

Listen to the entire interview here (skip ahead to minute 35 for the AIM interview)!!