from Wild Idaho Rising Tide
Wild Idaho Rising Tide (WIRT) and 350 Idaho activists enthusiastically invite regional community members eager to learn about Alberta tar sands mining operations, their facilities components (aka “megaloads”), and direct action tactics and strategies to participate in a slide show presentation, documentary film, and discussion or workshop in Hailey and Boise, Idaho. Join us between 12 noon and 2 pm on Saturday, January 4, at the Hailey Public Library, 7 West Croy Street in Hailey, and from 12 noon to 5 pm on Sunday, January 5, at the MK Nature Center auditorium meeting room, 600 South Walnut Street in Boise, close to Boise State University. Concerned climate activists and Idaho citizens will explore the issues and connections between tar sands exploitation and regional megaload transports, impacts on people, places, and the planet, and overarching climate change and moral issues.
Transportation of equipment across the Northwest to extract and produce carbon-dense, dirty energy fuels like tar sands increasingly threatens environmental and human wellbeing with its risky and toxic byproducts of polluted air, water, land, policies, and perspectives. Expanding Alberta tar sands megaloads, pipelines, rail cars, tankers, refineries, and terminals crisscross and transform the region into a resource colony serving Asia and the world. Governments consistently fail to defend their citizens from the ravages of some of the largest multinational corporations on Earth, as they plunder public resources, taxpayer coffers, civil liberties, indigenous rights, remote ecosystems, and global climate, in pursuit of their billions in profits.
Strip-mining and steam-blasting Alberta boreal forests and bogs for tar sands increasingly challenge the conscious and quality of life of Pacific and Inland Northwest residents and businesses. Distant energy development projects travel through our remote mountains and river valleys, near our ranches, farms, and cities, to and from ports on the Oregon and Washington coasts and rivers and ultimately Asia and Alberta, hastening climate chaos. Because conventional avenues for citizen recourse to corporate crooks and colluded public officials predictably succumb to industry influenced rules, laws, elections, and bribes, Northwesterners must challenge this corruption and confront the root causes of ecological and economic oppression and devastation in more creative and assertive ways.
Push back the boundaries of your resistance to industrial and fossil fuel invasions, with new knowledge, allies, and skills. Tar sands megaload opponents are converging for an urgent non-violent direct action training and planning workshop in Boise on Sunday. As workshop participants share their experiences protecting the public environment and health from corporate pillage, they will prepare to confront the next tar sands megaloads when they move through the region to Alberta. Workshop facilitators will adapt training to the needs and understanding of the group, offering the information necessary to stall and stop the forces that are destabilizing climate and destroying democracy. Event organizers expect participants to graciously contribute their insights throughout this information-sharing, brainstorming, and strategizing session, to provide potluck food for the workshop, and to apply their training to the process of planning and staging upcoming protests. Encourage your family, friends, and co-workers to engage these educational opportunities and contact WIRT at 208-301-8039 or [email protected], for further event information.
Presentation/Workshop Dates & Locations
* Saturday, January 4, 12 noon to 2 pm at the Hailey Public Library, 7 West Croy Street in Hailey, Idaho
* Sunday, January 5, 12 noon to 5 pm at the MK Nature Center auditorium meeting room, 600 South Walnut Street in Boise, Idaho
Presentation/Workshop Schedule
Hailey & Boise:
12 noon: Megaload Slide Show Presentation
12:30 pm: Alberta Tar Sands Documentary & Discussion
Boise (& TBA later in Hailey):
2 pm: Potluck Break & Networking
2:30 pm: Participant-Selected Training (drawn from the following topics)
Community Organizing & Outreach
Finding ways for activists to recruit volunteers, Creating consensus and group working relationships, Coordinating events and gatherings, Building a network of alliances and movements
Campaign Strategies & Creative Tactics
Planning and implementing cohesive, effective campaigns that create change, Setting objectives and goals, Identifying and choosing targets, Designing strategies and tactics, Crafting innovative messages and imagery, Engaging the media, Evaluating existing campaigns
Non-Violent Direct Action Training
Using direct action effectively and strategically, Forming affinity groups, Establishing roles, Preparing and staging direct actions, Creating props, chants, and street theater, Managing and de-escalating conflict, Considering legal implications
Action & Blockade Planning
Coherently coordinating upcoming actions, Deploying hard and soft blockades and flash mobs, Stopping people and vehicles, Blocking intersections, roads, and access points, Avoiding authorities’ reaches, Making and utilizing traditional equipment
