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Rainforest Action Network’s Understory blog has an excellent story explaining the rationale for this action:
Before dawn this morning, a small team of climate activists is rapelling from the US observation deck at Niagara Falls. Dangling hundreds of feet above the ground, they’re sending a special welcome message to Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper ahead of his first official visit to the White House.
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So here’s our welcome to you, Prime Minister Harper. Now, please, go home.
And take your dirty tar sands with you.
Here are a few photos from the action:
More photos at the RAN website. A video interview with one of the activists who organized this action is available at Current.com.
Josh Nelson is the publisher of EnviroKnow: The Politics of Sustainability.
4 Comments
My Lord. I grew up in Niagara Falls. Those calm-looking waters at the base of the falls are treacherous in the extreme. It takes guts I wouldn’t have to dangle over them. I hope that Stephen Harper gets the message and that RAN doesn’t feel the need to repeat!
I love these actions. Too bad Obama’s all screwed up on the tar sands as well.
From yesterday’s ‘DemocracyNow’ show:
Environmental Activists End Tar Sands Blockade
In Canada, activists with the environmental group Greenpeace have ended a blockade of a large oil sands mine after one-and-a-half days. The activists had locked themselves to a massive dump truck and mining shovel, forcing owners to suspend operations. Greenpeace Canada spokesperson Mike Hudema said tar sand extraction should be banned.
Mike Hudema: “The tar sands are the largest industrial project on the face of the planet. They emit more emissions than entire countries. By 2020, they’ll emit more emissions than the entire Czech Republic, twice as much as Peru, and over ten times that of Costa Rica. At a time when we’re in a global climate crisis, when over 300,000 people will die this year because of climate change, a million more will become climate refugees, a project like this simply can’t go on.”
Note where the most imports of oil into the U.S. comes from and you see why the tar sands are considered ‘a national security issue’:
http://www.eia.doe.gov/pub/oil…..mport.html
I love this story.
So:
Dear Rainforest Action Network,
I’m yours til Niagara Falls
<3 Elliott