Cliff Mass Isn’t a Climate Denier—But Deniers Sure Love Him

By Max Wilbert

In 2015, I wrote a story alleging that Cliff Mass, a Professor in the Atmospheric Sciences Department at the University of Washington and something of a regional weather celebrity, is “a dangerous new breed of climate skeptic.”

In the article, I wrote that:

“Cliff Mass is convinced that anthropogenic global warming is not a big problem, at least not now. He has made a theme of downplaying the role of global warming in extreme weather events, and in exposing what he calls “overzealousness” in the scientific, media, and activist community.”

I highly recommend reading the original article, which picked up a good deal of steam. It was widely read regionally, and referenced in later articles by The Stranger (which concluded: “Cliff Mass is not a climate denier, but he is their ally, which is as good as being a climate denier”) and other publications.

The sage continued on December 12th, when Judith Curry, a prominent climate contrarian, published an article titled “Cliff Mass: victim of academic political bullying.” In the post, she references our blog and a spate of other attacks on Mass for his opposition to I-1631, the Carbon Tax law in Washington State, which was voted down in November.

Curry’s blog has since been taken up and reposted on other right wing and climate contrarian websites, includes Watts Up With That?—the most prominent climate denier website on the internet. Watts Up With That has included bullshit from authors like Christopher Monckton and Fred Singer, among other well-paid idiots. (I won’t link to these sites, as we don’t provide platforms for counter-revolutionaries).

In his post, Watts Up With That creator Anthony Watts asks readers to send “calm, on point, and polite” letters in support of Cliff Mass to the University of Washington President, Dean of the College and Environment, and Secretary of the UW Faculty.

Ironically, Cliff Mass—who says he isn’t a climate denier (and who isn’t, technically speaking)—is now being supported by climate deniers across the internet. He may not support them, but they support him.

This fact is proving the point from our original article: that Cliff Mass is not a climate denier, but rather a dangerous new breed of climate skeptic who will constantly downplay the importance and severity of global warming. As acceptance of climate science and basic global warming literacy grows, this sort of skepticism is what climate deniers will look to as the next frontier.

A few additional side points. First, right wingers make a mistake by lumping us in with those who attack Mass for his vapid climate views. We don’t see Carbon Taxation as a solution, because we are a revolutionary organization. A carbon tax is simply a way to monetize the atmosphere; to create a new market for capitalism through taxing one form of industry and using it to pay another (largely “green” energy industries). Many of the world’s largest polluters support some sort of carbon trading system, which should tell you all you need to know. Frankly, we don’t really care about initiatives that simply rearrange deck chairs on the Titanic. We need to dismantle capitalism and industrial empire to have a chance of stopping global warming. Minor tax changes will not do a damn thing.

But we absolutely do agree that Mass’s use of the image of pigs at a trough to refer to what he called “special interest groups” like tribal nations was racist and stupid.

In the last few days, dozens of comments from right-wing climate deniers, doubtlessly led to our site by links from Watts Up With That and other sites, have left comments in support of Cliff Mass on our site, calling him an “excellent and very factual scientist.”

Here’s one of the funniest comments, for the sake of entertainment (grammar and spelling mistakes have been corrected): “If you truly seek to understand reality, we all know: particles moving “up” in a gravitational field slow down, i.e.: cool; those moving down speed up, i.e.: heat… [this] explains the temperature profiles of all planets whatever their atmosphere.”

Any scientist who studies climate is laughing at that one. (If you don’t know the basic science of how global warming works, you can learn here).

Cliff Mass is a meteorologist. When he speaks about weather, it’s sometimes worth listening; he knows what he is talking about. When he speaks about climate, politics, and other issues, there is no reason to pay any attention to him.

As we move further into late stage capitalism, neoliberals like Cliff Mass represent a major threat. Like most of the Seattle political elite (and the liberal political elite nationwide), Cliff Mass wants us to go dancing merrily to our doom via business as usual. He denies reality and invites us to join him. It’s a popular position to take in a world on the brink. But we need sober reality, not reassuring fantasies.

Rather than listening to hacks like this, revolutionaries should look for political leadership to individuals and groups with critical analysis of capitalism, the state, patriarchy, and other systems of power, and which have legitimate strategies to defeat these systems.

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Friday: Breach the Lower Snake River Dams

On Friday, November 16 at 2 pm Pacific Time, a group will be presenting the Governor at the State Capitol in Olympia with a demand to remove the lower Snake River dams immediately.

Event details:

The Southern Residents need you !!!! Now more then ever.

The Orca Task force’s preliminary recommendations do not include Breaching the LOWER 4 DAMS ON THE SNAKE RIVER. It is our position that these Dams need to be breached ASAP using the 2002 EIS, OPTION #4.

We hope beyond hope the breaching of the 4 LSRDs in first months of 2019 will be at the top of the list of recommendations (due that day, November 16th). If not, we will be poised to respond and remind Governor Inslee, as well as the world, exactly what 74 starving Orcas look like & that the breaching of the dams is the most impactful action to be taken for lasting salmon recovery. Please join us to hold an Orca representing one of the #74remaining Southern Resident Killer Whales. We will assemble on the steps of the Temple of Justice building at The Washington State Capital in Olympia. If you aren’t interested in holding an Orca please come with with your own signs & show your support for the Southern Resident Killer Whales. This will be a powerful Demonstration with speakers, Visuals & Native Voices. If you are interested in holding one of the Southern Residents, PLEASE POST IN THE EVENT BELOW and be prepared to arrive 1 hour early. THANK YOU!!!!!

https://www.facebook.com/events/254931905370101/

 

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Sign up for the DGR Newsletter

DGR now produces a monthly newsletter which includes resistance news from around the world, as well as updates from various chapters of the organization. To sign up for the newsletter and view the archives, click this link.

If you are interested in working with us on this project, we are interested in turning this into a print newsletter. If you have the skills to do such a thing, get in touch.

 

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What Happened to Bill McKibben?

     by Suzanna Jones / Counterpunch

WaldenVermont–In his 2008 book Deep Economy, Bill McKibben concludes that economic growth is the source of the ecological crises we face today.  He explains that when the economy grows larger than necessary to meet our basic needs – when it grows for the sake of growth, automatically striving for  “more” – its social and environmental costs greatly outweigh any benefits it may provide.

Unfortunately, McKibben seems to have forgotten what he so passionately argued just five years ago. Today he is an advocate of industrial wind turbines on our ridgelines:  he wants to industrialize our last wild spaces to feed the very economy he fingered as the source of our environmental problems.

His key assumption is that industrial wind power displaces the use of coal and oil, and therefore helps limit climate change. But since 2000, wind facilities with a total capacity equivalent to 350 coal-fired power plants have been installed worldwide, and today there are more – not fewer – coal-fired power plants operating.  (In Vermont, the sale of Renewable Energy Credits to out-of-state utilities enables them to avoid mandates to reduce their fossil fuel dependency, meaning that there is no net reduction in greenhouse gas emissions.)  At best, industrial wind simply adds more energy to the global supply. And what for?  More!  More energy than the grid can carry, more idiotic water parks, more snowmaking, more electronic gadgets, more money for corporations.

Why should we spend millions of dollars to destroy wildlife habitat, kill bats and eagles, pollute our headwaters, fill valuable wetlands, polarize our communities, make people sick, mine rare earth metals – just to ensure that we can consume as much or more next year than we did this year?

The costs of industrial wind far outweigh the benefits… unless you are a wind developer. Federal production tax credits and other subsidies have fostered a gold rush mentality among wind developers, who have been abetted by political and environmental leaders who want to appear “green” without challenging the underlying causes of our crises. Meanwhile, average Vermonters find themselves without any ability to protect their communities or the ecosystems of which they are part.  The goal of an industrial wind moratorium is to stop the gold rush so we can have an honest discussion on these issues. Why does this frighten proponents of big wind?  Because once carefully examined, industrial wind will be exposed for the scam that it is.

McKibben’s current attitude towards the environment has been adopted by politicians, corporations, and the big environmental organizations.  Environmentalism has been successfully mainstreamed, at the cost of its soul.  This co-opted version isn’t about protecting the landbase from the ever-expanding empire of humans.  It’s about sustaining the comfort levels we feel entitled to without exhausting the resources required.  It is entirely human-centered and hollow, and it serves corporate capitalism well.

In Deep Economy, McKibben points out that the additional “stuff” provided by an ever-growing economy doesn’t leave people happier; instead, the source of authentic happiness is a healthy connection to nature and community.  As Vermonters have already discovered, industrial wind destroys both.

What industrial wind represents should be obvious to everyone: this is business-as-usual disguised as concern for the Earth.  Far from genuine “environmentalism”, it is the same profit- and growth-driven destruction that is at the root of every ecological crisis we face.

Suzanna Jones is an off-the-grid farmer living in Walden.  She was among those arrested protesting the Lowell wind project in 2011.

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Water Grab Opponents Declare Victory: Nevada State Engineer Rejects SNWA’s Water Applications

Young Pronghorn Antelope near SNWA test wells

Major news from Nevada.

The SNWA water grab has been completely rejected — at least for now.

This project has been looming over eastern Nevada for decades. Now there is some space to relax, and to gather strength for the next fight. There are many other issues plaguing this region: pinyon juniper deforestation, mining, overgrazing, energy development, and so on. The land still needs defenders.

Press Release by Great Basin Water Network

Ely, Nevada: A broad coalition of Nevadans committed to protecting the state’s water resources are declaring victory in their opposition to the SNWA groundwater pipeline. They applaud a ruling by the Nevada State Engineer denying all water rights applications for the project.

Great Basin Water Network and White Pine County say the decision is essentially a death-knell for the roughly 300-mile pipeline proposal. These groups oppose SNWA’s proposed groundwater export and pipeline project because it would cause catastrophic long term environmental harm to some of Nevada’s most pristine and treasured areas, and because it would cause long-term economic devastation to rural communities throughout eastern Nevada. Following favorable decisions in Nevada’s District and Supreme Courts, it appears that the Nevada State Engineer agrees.

“With the denial of these applications by the State Engineer, this ill-conceived multibillion dollar boondoggle is now dead in the water,” said Abigail Johnson of the Great Basin Water Network. “After a string of court victories, we have a decision showing that the water is not available for this project without hurting the area’s existing water rights and environment.”

“We welcome the State Engineer’s denial of SNWA’s applications, which clearly was required by Nevada water law, as the State District Court and Supreme Court have explained,” said the coalition’s attorney, Simeon Herskovits of Advocates for Community and Environment. “We do, however, disagree with the State Engineer’s gratuitous finding that SNWA’s monitoring, management and mitigation (or 3M) plan is adequate. Their slightly elaborated 3M plan remains as much of a sham as it always has been,” Herskovits added.

“White Pine County residents and rural Nevadans are glad that the limits of available groundwater resources have been acknowledged,” declared White Pine County Commissioner Gary Perea. “The denial of SNWA’s applications finally recognizes that, if allowed, the project would take more water than the system could bear, hurting existing water rights and the economies that depend on them.”

“We will continue to stand up and ensure that the State Engineer and SNWA follow the law, and protect our water rights and resources from overpumping and irreversible harm,” agreed another White Pine County Commissioner, Carol McKenzie, from Lund.

Kena Gloeckner, whose family has been ranching in Lincoln County’s Dry Lake Valley – a target of the project – for many generations, said “Not only would this groundwater project have jeopardized our family’s 150-year-old legacy and livelihood, but it would have also ended a way of life valued by local residents. Ranchers and farmers on the ground have long known that the aquifers in these rural valleys are interconnected and are at or near their limits – there is simply nowhere near the amount of water that SNWA wanted to take.”

Read more about the SNWA pipeline at DGR Southwest Coalition

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A Manifesto for a World in Crisis

THE SITUATION
Our world is in crisis. Species extinction, topsoil loss, deforestation, rising seas, ocean acidification, global warming. It’s no exaggeration to say that the dominant culture is killing the planet. At the same time, societies around the world are staggeringly unjust. Neocolonialism builds up empires on the backs of indigenous peoples, sweatshop workers, unpaid and underpaid women, and the bodies of our nonhuman kin.

FALSE SOLUTIONS
We do not trust electoral politics, NGOs/non-profits, or foundations. Change must come from the grassroots, but the masses can be led astray. False solutions abound in the of vague reforms, half-measures, and technologies that only strengthen empire.

REVOLUTION
We aim for nothing less than total liberation from extractive economics (including capitalism and socialism), white supremacy, patriarchy, colonialism, industrialism, and the culture of empire that we call civilization. This is a war for survival, and we’re losing. We aim to turn the tide. We mean to win. Some will end up in prison. Some will die. This is the price of justice. Revolution will not be tranquil or easy.

STRATEGY
Our main strategy is to build a revolutionary culture that supports outright destruction of the dominant culture (empire/industrial civilization). Specifically, we promote a strategy informed by the history of guerilla warfare that entails coordinated underground cells using sabotage to destroy global energy, transportation, communications, trade, and finance systems. The goal is to stop the global economy, not to harm individuals or the people. We recognize the value in other strategies such as mass movements, building alternatives, and changing laws, but these methods have little chance of stopping or significantly altering the course of global empire.

THE FUTURE
There are countless thousands of examples of land-based, sustainable, just human cultures, the majority of them indigenous. When the global economy collapses, we will need to live this way once again. The people will need to help the land heal by dismantling the vestiges of this system and stewarding toxic waste such as nuclear plants into dormancy. Low-energy societies will thrive in the ruins of civilization. They will face their own challenges, as all people do, but they will be strong if we protect their ability to exist by removing threats to the planet.

IDENTITY POLITICS
The experiences of those who have suffered systematic oppression can never be fully understood by those who have not. We value and lift up those leaders who have true vision and skill, not figureheads or puppets. Being a member of an oppressed group does not automatically lead to wisdom. Anti-oppression politics form the bedrock of our human morality, but our goal is not political correctness; it is revolution.

RACISM AND PATRIARCHY
Racism and patriarchy both exist to further power and domination by turning large groups of people into exploitable others. These toxic ideologies deeply influence our culture and prop up empire by providing a steady stream of cheap and free labor, children to serve as the next generation of consumers and soldiers, and stereotypes to manipulate the population with. As the oppression of women and people of color is so wrapped up in the global industrial economy (via mass media, pornography, the prison-industrial system, housing, etc.), we see dismantling empire as critical to the dismantling of the concrete systems of power enforcing racism and patriarchy.

IMMIGRATION
The global economy creates millions of refugees each year via wars, trade, and propaganda. Most immigration happens because people’s land or livelihoods have been destroyed. Ideally, people should be allowed to live in their homes on land that is healthy and can support their community. Therefore, the best way to address the immigration “problem” is to bring down the global empire. We must stop the problem at the source.

HOW WE WORK
We must be tenacious, smart, strategic, careful, bold, and self-reflective. We must be unapologetic and non-compromising. We’ve got to sacrifice. Those who are ready have to get together and do the tedious work of organizing and building organizations and communities, engaging in political struggles, and carrying out realistic strategies for success. We don’t hope to be effective, we plan to make it happen.

LOYALTY
Throughout history, repressive and counterrevolutionary forces have worked to drive wedges into communities of resistance. Never forget COINTELPRO. Our protection lies in a fierce, forgiving loyalty to those who resist

Posted in Biodiversity & Habitat Destruction, Movement Building & Support, Strategy & Analysis | Tagged , | 3 Comments

Reminder: Sacred Water, Sacred Forests Action Camp – May 25th-28th

342You are invited to join us for the seventh annual Sacred Water, Sacred Forests Action Camp, May 25th – 28th, 2018 – A Gathering for Celebration, Community, Movement Building, Ecology, and Land Defense!

Based in Spring Valley, Nevada (between the towns of Ely and Baker), the Action Camp is a gathering of organizers, ecologists, indigenous people, water grab opponents, forest defenders, concerned individuals, and Great Basin residents.

Over Memorial Day Weekend, we will convene at Cleve Creek Campground, 12 miles north of Highway 6-50 on road 893, at the base of the Schell Creek Mountains.

We will spend the weekend exploring areas threatened by the Las Vegas Water Grab as well as forest slopes and basins being destroyed under the disproven ideology of “Pinyon-Juniper forest invasion.” We will workshop, create art, engage in direct action, share skills, tell stories, sit around the campfire, sing, and enjoy the deep dark night sky.

If you are in love with the desert, we invite you to attend!

The Great Basin is a beautiful and remote place, full of rugged limestone mountains, broad valleys, a startling array of wildlife, and some of the remotest locations in the west. It is sacred to many indigenous people like the Goshute, Shoshone, Paiute, and Washoe nations, who have lived and died here for countless generations.

The Water Tour will take place in Eastern Nevada, beginning near Great Basin National Park and continuing through Spring, Snake, Cave, Lake, and Delamar Valleys. Though we’ll be near the full-service towns of Ely and Baker, we will spend time on remote dirt roads.

To learn more about the trip or to RSVP, contact the organizers at swcoalition@deepgreenresistance.org or 206-395-6251.

Sponsor groups:

Deep Green Resistance Southwest Coalition – https://deepgreenresistancesouthwest.org/
Stop the SNWA Water Grab – https://www.facebook.com/StopSNWA/
Pinyon-Juniper Alliance – http://www.pinyonjuniperforests.org/

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Buffalo and Monsoons

by Max Wilbert / Deep Green Resistance

Two days ago, three of last wild bison were shot and killed illegally in a no-shooting zone in a campground barely 100 yards from the boundary of Yellowstone National Park.

The next morning, I skied out of the woods with a patrol from Buffalo Field Campaign and found the buffalos’ butchered carcasses; ribcages, stomachs, patches of hide, and a few leftover chunks of flesh parting the slowly flowing water of the Madison River.

I’m not opposed to hunting. In fact, I’m a hunter myself and am looking forward to elk season. The problem is that the Central Herd of the Yellowstone buffalo number less than 700. Their numbers have plummeted in recent years. Park biologists say that the population decline is “unexplained,” but it seems pretty well explained to me: hazing, harassment, human manipulation, and overhunting are driving wild buffalo in Yellowstone to the brink.

I just learned a few minutes ago that the other major threat (besides unsustainable overhunting) to wild buffalo in the greater Yellowstone area is nearly ready to begin operation. Yellowstone National Park is opening their buffalo trap on the north side of the park in the Gardiner Basin. At this facility, your tax dollars and your public lands are put to work to trap and ship to slaughter hundreds of wild buffalo each year in an effort to maintain populations at an artificially low “minimum sustainable number.” All this is being done on behalf of Montana’s infamous livestock industry.

The total buffalo population is less than 4700, and the U.S. government and legally permitted overhunting is killing hundreds per year.

#

Here at Buffalo Field Campaign, everything revolves around the buffalo. Patrols leave every morning and afternoon to keep tabs on herds and hunting activity. Another group monitors the trap and firing-line style hunting at Gardiner. We gather each evening to discuss the day’s activity and share information on where the buffalo are, how many are located in which areas, which direction they are moving, what patrols to do the next day, and so on.

On bad days, we share information on how many were killed.

We bear witness to these atrocities and organize to stop them under a buffalo skull mounted on the wall and a shrine of artwork, poems, quilts, and other items dedicated to or inspired by the buffalo. As I write this, I can look up and see artwork from kids. “I heart buffalo – Tatanka roam free!” “Don’t kill the buffalo!” “I love buffalos.”

The headquarters of Buffalo Field Campaign is located in a 100-year-old cabin that was originally built for railroad workers. The irony that a building originally constructed by one of the prime instruments of western colonization is now being used to house a resistance movement isn’t lost on us.

But the walls are thick and the old stonework throws heat from the big wood stove nicely. This is a good place now. A 20-year spirit of resistance emanates from the patina on the lodgepole pine walls and the hearts of the people moving through the space. It’s practical, too. We’re close to the areas where hunting and hazing pressure is highest, and having a place to warm up, eat a delicious meal (fresh 20-inch trout and wild rice last night), and sleep soundly is important after a day out skiing in 5-degree temperatures.

#

Sitting around camp this afternoon after returning from patrol with a few friends, we talked about how the dominant culture is killing everything. Prairie Dogs are being poisoned en masse in Colorado (and elsewhere). Pinyon-Juniper forests are being bulldozed into oblivion. The oceans, the watery womb of all life on this planet, are dying.

Places like Buffalo Field Campaign provide a starting point for building effective resistance. Long-term, grassroots projects based on non-compromising defense and material support are essential. And organizations allow for enough resources to be gathered in one place to be more effective.

In an article titled, “Once, the Monsoon,” my friend Suprabha Seshan writes about her work in plant conservation in the Western Ghat mountains in India. She writes of the breathtaking beauty of her home, “where a small team of dedicated ecosystem gardeners, skilled in various aspects of horticulture, plant conservation and Western Ghat ecology, grow native plants of this mountain ecosystem, or biome, through techniques honed over four decades of experimentation and practice.

“The trails are full of jackfruit (Artocarpus heterophyllus) and smashed, partly-eaten remains of its relative, the ainili (Artocarpus hirsutus), which sports smaller orange fruits with a spiny skin enclosing lobes of sweet flesh and large seeds. Wild jamuns and mangoes, rose apples, guavas and sweet limes, and dozens of forest tree species are also fruiting. Bonnet macaques, Nilgiri langurs, Malabar grey hornbills and giant squirrels are gorging in the canopy. Someone reported seeing a troop of lion-tailed macaques with babies. It is feasting time for everybody in this valley: wild boar, humans and cattle included. Elephants come by at night, attracted from afar by the smell of overripe jackfruit—to them, a delicacy.”

Her team cultivates more than 2,000 species of highly endangered plants, “mostly from areas that have already been deforested.” She describes their work as a search-and-rescue mission, writing that “we refer to these plants as refugees, similar to human refugees suffering the depredations of war, displacement, climate change and general toxification of the environment.”

The monsoon that brings life-giving rain to the Western Ghat mountains is failing because of global warming. Rains are coming late or not at all. All the beings that are dependent on the monsoon, including humans, are at risk of total collapse because industrial civilization is destroying the Earth’s climate. The heroic work being done at the Gurukula Botanical Sanctuary could be undone by the collapse of the biosphere as a whole. Suprabha concludes her article by saying that we need to be asking where our loyalty lies: with “the machines or the monsoon?”

Here with the buffalo, the same questions are occurring to me. The heroic work of defending the buffalo is absolutely essential, and unless the death march of this culture is stopped, the buffalo are headed for the same extinction that faces us, too.

I want a world in which wild buffalo roam 60 million strong and in which the monsoon brings rivers of rain to the Western Ghat mountains. This will require working with organizations like the Buffalo Field Campaign and the Gurukula Botanical Sanctuary, and it will also require dismantling the larger systems that are killing the planet.

Without both approaches—fighting for the local, and dismantling the global—we, and the buffalo, and the monsoon, are doomed.

 

Originally published at the DGR News Service:

Buffalo and Monsoons

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Deep Green Resistance Training at Yellowstone National Park in June 2018

Activists, save these dates:

Deep Green Resistance will conduct advanced training in direct action, revolutionary strategy, tactics, and organizing June 22 – 24. This workshop is aimed at providing practical skills and networking to activists, organizers, and revolutionaries interested in saving the planet.

Environmental and social justice activists realize we are losing. Our tactics are failing and things are getting worse. This training will focus on escalation and creative, advanced tactics to increase our effectiveness.

Topics include the use and deployment of soft and hard blockades; hit and run tactics; police interactions; legal repercussions of resistance work; operational security; terrain advantages; strategy; escalation, and more.

The training will be conducted by experienced Deep Green Resistance activists / organizers as well as noted guest speakers (to be announced).

Sessions will be held next to Yellowstone National Park, providing a perfect setting to immerse ourselves in the natural world and activism.

Space is Limited and priority will be given to front-line activists, marginalized communities, and women. And save money with Early Bird Tickets – available for a limited time.

Click this link to apply now: https://deepgreenresistance.org/en/resistance-training-2018

Fitness enthusiasts know that resistance training leads to greater strength. Enhance the effectiveness of your resistance with us this June.

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Protests Over LNG Terminal in Tacoma Escalate

PRESS RELEASE: In the pre-dawn hours of the fourth day of an indigenous-led occupation of the State Capitol grounds in Olympia, WA, one Native American woman was taken out of a “tarpee” (a contemporary teepee) and arrested by state patrol troopers, while 3 other occupants were allowed to leave.

Indigenous leaders erected four of the tarpees on the State Capitol lawn early on Monday morning in anticipation of the opening of the State Legislature that same day. Their intention was to occupy the grounds to demand that treaties signed between the US government and the local Coast Salish Tribes be respected, and that the health of the Salish Sea be restored and protected. They demanded that the State deny any remaining permits to the LNG facility being illegally built by Puget Sound Energy at the Port of Tacoma on Puyallup Treaty lands; that WA State ban Atlantic salmon net pens, which are endangering local salmon populations already at high risk; and that the State do all it can to oppose the expansion of the TransMountain pipeline across the US/Canadian border, which would profoundly endanger the Salish Sea as well as the health and subsistence of First Nations in the Salish Sea.

The tarpee occupiers had been given warnings by local law enforcement at the Capitol that they had to leave their unpermitted structures or face arrest by 5pm on Monday. A small group of treaty tribe members, including Nisqually tribal representative Hanford McCloud, met with representatives of the governor in the early afternoon where Hanford McCloud presented a copy of the Medicine Creek Treaty of 1854.

Right after 5 pm, the Governor’s chief of staff came down to talk with the occupiers and subsequently announced that they would be allowed to stay the night in the tarpee and that the issue would be revisited the following day.

As news spread of the tarpee occupation, more native and non-native allies gathered outside the tarpee to show support and to drum, sing, and pray.

Photo credit: Angie Spencer

On both Tuesday and Wednesday late afternoons, Capitol law enforcement representatives once again warned that they were in violation of Capitol grounds rules and had to leave. The mostly female occupiers decided to remain in prayer until they were woken up this morning by about 2 dozen State Patrol officers (some of whom were in SWAT team gear) and asked to leave. Janene Hampton, from the Colville Okanagan Tribe, decided to remain in the tarpee and was arrested. She was released from the Thurston County jail later this morning, charged with second degree criminal trespass. Janene said upon her release: “We are here for you and our future generations”.

Paul Cheoketen Wagner, a Saanich Nation member and founder of the Protectors of the Salish Sea, said: “Governor Inslee needs to take bold action for his own children and grandchildren today. Not in the future, but now. Use executive orders to stop PSE’s LNG, an illegal foreign corporation acting against the Puyallup people and everyone’s children in a collapsing climate. And pass laws now that halt all fossil fuel infrastructure expansion, current and future.”

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