Throughout the week, Indigenous
leaders and climate activists are leading protests outside the White House to
demand that President Joe Biden stop fossil fuel projects and declare a climate
emergency. (Photo: Shadia Fayne Wood/Survival Media Agency)
155 More Arrested for 'People Vs. Fossil
Fuels' Protest at White House
"We're coming every day of this
week to tell Biden: Stop this madness."
October 12, 2021
At least 155 more protesters were arrested outside the White House Tuesday as part of a weeklong action pressuring President Joe Biden to declare a climate emergency and end all new fossil fuel projects.
"This is President
Biden's moment to keep his word."
Guided by the theme "fossil fuels are driving the
climate crisis," the latest demonstration followed over 100 arrests on
Monday, when protesters marked Indigenous
Peoples' Day and drew attention to polluting operations including
Enbridge's Line 3 tar sands
project and the proposed Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP).
Russell Chisholm, coordinator of Mountain Valley Watch and
co-chair of Protect Our Water Heritage Rights, was among those who spoke at the
rally Tuesday. Pointing to the years of opposition that the MVP has faced, he
vowed that "we will continue to resist that project until it is
defeated."
Chisholm said that opponents will keep up the fight
"not just to protect our water, not just to protect that tiny spring that
feeds my home, but to protect our brothers and sisters who live along the Gulf
Coast, who live with the climate-induced catastrophes all the way back to
Katrina."
The 303-mile fracked gas pipeline being built across West
Virginia and Virginia is set to begin service in the
summer of 2022 but still lacks some permits to cross water bodies and wetlands.
"With the power of a pen, President Biden could stop
these pipeline projects," Joye Braun of the Indigenous Environmental
Network, one of the groups leading the week of action, said in a statement.
"He promised he would listen to us. He's not
listening," Braun added. "We're coming every day of this week to tell
Biden: Stop this madness."
Kayley Shoup, a community organizer with Citizens Caring
for the Future, a grassroots group in New Mexico that's battling fossil
fuel drilling on public
lands, noted that "we are not seasoned activists, but we
are community members forced to take action by the impact of living with oil
and gas."
Highlighting the president's public commitments to slash
methane emissions and other planet-heating pollution in line with the Paris
climate agreement, Shoup called on Biden to "put a ban on federal oil and
gas leasing."
Over the past two days, demonstrators have repeatedly
drawn attention to Biden's climate pledges, going back to the
campaign trail.
"This is President Biden's moment to keep his
word," said Dana Johnson, senior director of the strategy and federal
policy office at WE ACT for Environmental Justice.
"This is a moment to fully, truly, wholly invest
environmental justice into the operations of our federal government,"
Johnson said, addressing Biden directly. "This is a moment to take the
advice of the 27 environmental justice leaders that you put on an advisory
panel. This is your moment, President Biden, to be the man of faith that you
declare you are."
A "large interfaith contingent" that included
Buddhists, Christians, Hindus, Jews, and Muslims joined Tuesday's action
against fossil fuels, according to organizers. Some of the leaders explained
their decisions to participate in the protest.
"I'm here at the White House to respond to the call
of Indigenous leaders with faith leaders from all over the country to put our
bodies on the line to tell President Biden that we must stop drilling for
fossil fuels," said Rabbi Jennie Rosenn, founder and CEO of the Jewish
group Dayenu.
"This is the moral call of our time [and] if we have
any chance of building a just and sustainable future for all people for all
generations to come, now is the time," she said. "The future of
humanity is at stake and if there was ever a time to stretch beyond our comfort
zone, now is the time."
Rev. Fletcher Harper, an Episcopal priest and the
executive director of GreenFaith, said that "I'm here because the Earth is
a sacred gift and fossil fuels are absolutely destroying it."
Imam Saffet Catovic, a Muslim community organizer and
environmental leader, said that "I'm here today for my grandchildren and
future generations" and "because it is a moral imperative in Islam's
teachings to care for Mother Earth."
"Mother Earth is being ravaged and destroyed by the
pipelines that are extracting the energies from hell," Catovic said.
"We're in a climate emergency and it is high time that this administration
honor its campaign and post-campaign promises to put an end to the fossil fuel
industry as we know it and allow for us to truly build back better."
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to Max Obuszewski, Baltimore Nonviolence Center, 431 Notre Dame Lane, Apt. 206,
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"The master class
has always declared the wars; the subject class has always fought the battles.
The master class has had all to gain and nothing to lose, while the subject
class has had nothing to gain and everything to lose--especially their
lives." Eugene Victor Debs
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