Rafi Schwartz at Splinter writes—Indigenous Activists Win a Major Victory as Two Canadian Pipeline Projects Are Canceled:
Transcanada, the company behind the controversial Keystone XL oil pipeline, announced on Thursday that it was canceling two upcoming construction projects—the Energy East pipeline and the Eastern Mainline gas pipeline—that had been set to snake across Canada, carrying oil and gas from Alberta to several eastern Canadian provinces.
The company cited a “careful review of changed circumstances” in a brief press release.
The pipelines’ demise was celebrated by environmental activists and native communities who had long opposed them.
“This as a tremendous battle victory in the greater fight to keep fossil fuels in the ground and for climate justice for Indigenous nations,” Indigenous Environmental Network activist and organizer Dallas Goldtooth said.
Today’s announcement supports the validity and strength of an Indigenous rights-based approach to win these battles. All along the Energy East pipeline route First Nations took a stand to defend their inherent rights, protect their water and Mother Earth and resist the colonial actions of Canada and its oil regime. This fight against TransCanada has always been about more than just a pipeline, it is also about deconstructing colonialism and building a better, more sustainable, and just society for the benefit of all living beings and future generations. As such, we fight on!
Speaking with reporters on Thursday, Montreal Mayor Denis Coderre also cheered the decision, calling it “an enormous victory.” [...]
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“There can be no great triumph over racism without addressing capitalism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, the environment that we live in and the food that we consume. We have to recognize all of these connections.”
~Angela Davis, speaking at “Angela Davis: A Lifetime of Revolution (2015)
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At Daily Kos on this date in 2009—Green Diary Rescue & Open Thread: 350:
A seven-member team at the Economics for Equity and Environment have concluded in The Economics of 350: The Benefits and Costs of Climate Stabilization that quickly reducing the amount of carbon dioxide in the earth’s atmosphere to 350 parts per million would have significant economic costs. But authors Frank Ackerman, Kristin Sheeran and Eban Goodstein say that these costs would, at worst, amount to foregoing less than one year’s normal growth of about 2.5%-3% of GDP. And they would be far below the costs – both economic and otherwise – of not making the reduction or of not making it rapidly.
In 1990, at the Rio Earth Summit, it was thought that stabilizing the atmosphere at around 450 ppm of CO2 would mean holding the average rise in temperature to 2°C. The effects of this would be unpleasant and problematic – highly problematic in some parts of the world, especially low-lying and high-latitude areas, – but livable with adjustments. If current levels of increase continue, we’d hit the 450 ppm mark around 2040. But in the past few years, scientific opinion has shifted.
On today’s Kagro in the Morning show, we had more gun business to deal with before the weekend. What’s new in the Facebook angle on Trump-Russia. Hey, does anyone really know what Facebook actually is? Part 5 in the series on Gop as domestic abusers, from our own Paula Apynys.
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