ACTIVISM IN THE BADLANDS

EARTHBURNING.ORG: A BOLD, CREATIVE CLIMATE ACTION IN THE BADLANDS OF NORTH DAKOTA

North Dakota has discovered numerous small oil deposits and is voraciously drilling for oil! Unfortunately, sitting on top of all that oil is valuable natural gas which is being released into the atmosphere in massive quantities, enough in fact, to heat 500,000 homes. Although less harmful than filthy coal or dirty oil, natural gas still adds 20 percent to humanity’s egregious CO2 pollution which now stands at 396 parts per million---almost 50 parts more than where we need to be to protect life on Earth as we know it. Please check out Bill McKibben’s 350.org if you’re not aware of this important website.

We, six concerned citizen activists from Massachusetts, ask this important question: With so much fossil fuel energy waste in American and the dire need for more energy efficiency, is this not unnecessary, shameful behavior by the oil companies, media, governor, and the good, concerned citizens of North Dakota who are allowing it to continue? Is there not some kind of creative climate action that we can do that might wake-up and rally the good, caring people of North Dakota to call their governor and demand that these oil companies build a pipeline to capture this valuable natural gas, send it to a refinery, and then donate it back to the people of North Dakota where it belongs?

We, the “inspirational seven”, have planned out a strategic, non-violent civil disobedience action that stresses “great creativity” to call attention to America’s dire need to get off fossil fuels and implement a 100 percent Renewable Energy Revolution as soon as possible! This creative climate action has great potential for making an impact on sustainable change, but it needs caring, Earth supporters like yourself to help bring it to fruition. It will proceed as follows:

Led by team leader international activist Doug Wight and professional photographer Jonathan Doyle, who will fly into Fargo, ND, on March 21, as well as home-based activists Mark Hudya, John Bailey, Garrett Connally, and Maya Apfelbaum, who will coordinate web design, social media, creative strategy, life-size animals on the “endangered list”, and logistics, -- here’s what our team hopes to accomplish:

We will rent a 26’ long by 8’ high moving truck which will be adorned with the following statements and colorful graphics—all designed with the passionate intention of waking-up the media, oil companies, governor, and good people of North Dakota, to encourage them to try some new creative actions that may be effective and impactful. We will be conducting a series of press conferences and numerous interviews with the media, governor, oil managers, oil workers, environmental activists, and ordinary folk. Our six bold statements, stuck to the sides and front of the van, will read as follows:

[1] EARTH BURNING.org: CALL GOVERNOR AT 707-xxx-xxxx TO STOP WASTING ENOUGH VALUABLE GAS TO HEAT 500,000 HOMES;

[2] TODAY, EARTH IS CONTINUOUSLY HEATING-UP WITH HARMFUL CO2 AND LETHAL METHANE GAS;

[3] SHAME ON YOU OBAMA AND CONGRESS FOR SUBSIDIZING FILTHY FOSSIL FUELS;

[4] AMERICA, CALL CONGRESS AND DEMAND STRONG CLIMATE LEGISLATION WITH A CARBON USE FEE

[5] “ALL GOOD MEN NEED DO FOR EVIL TO SUCCEED—IS NOTHING!”

[6] AMERICAN ENDS IN “I CAN”! ‘WE,THE PEOPLE’CAN BUILD A 100% RENEWABLE ENERGY REVOLUTION

On the back of our rental van will be graphics from the cover of world famous oceanographer John Englander and his book: “High Tide On Main Street: Rising Sea Level And The Coming Coastal Crisis”. On top of the van will be 10-12 card board figures of animals currently on the “endangered list”. The entire top of the truck will be engulfed (remember the BP Gulf Water Horizon disaster) in make-believe flames to signify that our Earth is constantly heating-up 24/7 and is now burning every year in many regions. Giant swatches of Russia, Australia, Greece, Colorado, and California have been on fire since 2000, with many more huge conflagrations expected. Did you know that humans are dumping 2.5 billion tons of harmful carbon dioxide into the air our children and grandchildren breathe, every second of the day?

“Even as summer swelter has given way to frost, nearly two-thirds of the U.S. remains in a severe drought, with forest fires still burning, winter crops choking in parched soil and barges nearly scraping the murky bottoms of sunken rivers. More than 62% of the continental U.S. is experiencing moderate to exceptional drought, according to the weekly Drought Monitor report released on Thursday, compared with just over 29% this time last year,” says reporter John Eligon, writing in the 12/7/2012 issue of the New York Times!

If ‘We, the people’ fail to rise up soon with collective action to pressure our Congress to pass strong Climate Change legislation that includes a carbon use fee (tax), how long will it be before our forests, grasslands, and crops are all on fire? Did you know that two months ago Australia’s thermostat hit 122 degrees F? Wow, that’s really smoking!

“Are the last days of the North Pole numbered? [John Englander says they are]. Though Arctic sea ice, which melts and reforms each summer and winter, usually reaches its lowest extent in mid-September, 2012 actually broke the record even before the end of the melting season. ‘The strong, late-season decline is indicative of how thin the ice cover is,’ Arctic sea-ice expert Walt Meier said. ‘Ice has to be quite thin to continue melting away as the sun goes down and fall approaches.’

‘The question now is whether that trend will continue—and how soon the Arctic will become ice-free. It’s a loaded question in climate science, but some researchers worry that calamity could occur—during the summer, at least—as soon as the end of this decade! That was one projection made by Wieslaw Maslowski, an Arctic expert at the Naval Postgraduate School, who spoke at a Greenpeace panel on the Arctic and Climate Change in 2011. Regardless of whether Maslowski’s timing proves to be accurate, it’s clear that the Arctic—the last frontier—is becoming the first frontier of Climate Change. And as Dan Lashof of the Natural Resources Defense Council said in a statement: ‘What happens in the Arctic doesn’t stay in the Arctic!’” “Last Days of the North Pole?”, “Time: 100 New Scientific Discoveries”, 2012.

John and Doug will be dressed-up as “earth firemen” with red and green outfits, red firemen hats, yellow, fire-retardant jackets, and black boots. Our Earth is heating and burning-up, 24/7, and it’s time we all joined in this huge global struggle to help put these destructive fires out – permanently!

Here’s a potential polar cap melting scenario that you might not have considered and it is absolutely deadly! Earth’s two huge ice sheets, Greenland and West Antarctica, are both melting fast --- in leaps and bounds! So are our glaciers and sea ice. If we allow both of our polar caps to melt, two huge continents worth of snow and ice, that previously reflected the sun’s heat back out into outer space [albedo effect), will then be GONE! In their place will be open, dark blue ocean, -- absorbing huge amounts of the sun’s heat. As our atmosphere and ocean temperatures intensely soar, all the permafrost in Siberia, Greenland, Canada, and Alaska will melt, releasing massive amounts of harmful CO2 and methane gas, which is 25 times more potent. This, in turn, will spike atmospheric and ocean temperatures even higher, heating-up our oceans, melting all the frozen sediment on the ocean floor and releasing colossal amounts of methane hydrates ---killing off the plankton and 50 percent of our oxygen supply. Soon thereafter, all plants on land will burn-up, decimating the other half of our oxygen supply. This is the direction we are heading in today, good people of America, with “business-as-usual”, and without strong Climate Change legislation from Congress. Some scientists are comparing us to the Titanic. Is “Spaceship Earth” acting like the Titanic or have we actually become the arrogant Titanic?

If we have, then it will then be “game over for Earth” ---as NASA’s Jim Hansen has so often declared!

‘We, the people’ of America and the world will not let this happen! Our environmental battles must be fought collectively and singularly --- when and where they happen! This truth makes North Dakota very important and we are hoping they will look forward to our arrival. If ‘We, the people’ win enough battles, we will then win the Climate Change Crisis campaign! Our great strength lies in our collective, non-violent, civil disobedience action, and great creative ideas, but only if we step-up with courage to fully engage them. If you can’t give an hour a day to help save Mother Earth, how committed are you?

Consciousness, concern, and commitment, plus courage and creativity, together with determined action and undeniable persistence, will always prevail in the end! Haven’t they always? “Never doubt that a few committed citizens can’t make a big difference, indeed, they are the only thing that ever has,” sociologist Margaret Meade said! Thanks to everybody for donating what you can to make this bold, creative, environmental action a great success. Here we come! Many Earth Blessings to one and all!

Captain Dougars, Jonathan Doyle, and our Massachusetts’-Based Logistical Team