Rising Tide North America is a grassroots network of groups and individuals in North America organizing action against the root causes of climate change.
Rising Tide North America's strategy is based on a no-compromise approach of stopping the extraction of more fossil fuels and preventing the construction of new fossil fuel infrastructure. [1]
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Rising Tide was formed by groups and individuals who came together to organize protests and events at the United Nations Climate Conference of Parties (COP6) in The Hague, Netherlands, in November 2000.
In 2000, Rising Tide UK was formed. In mid-2004, a Rising Tide group formed in Newcastle, Australia, the world's largest coal export port. A smaller group has also started in Sydney.
Rising Tide North America was formed mainly by Earth First!, Mountain Justice and other experienced activists in a desire to be less insular and focus more on coalition building and linking climate change issues to other causes.
Rising Tide describes itself as "a grassroots network of groups and individuals who take direct action to confront the roots[ sic ] causes of climate change and promote local, community-based solutions to the climate crisis. Employing popular education and direct action to address the root causes of climate change with a focus on climate justice, Rising Tide now spans three continents." [2]
Rising Tide North America is a network with over 50 chapters, allies and local contacts throughout Canada, Mexico and the United States.
Rising Tide North America has active local groups in Idaho, Utah, Portland, Southern Oregon, Chicago, Texas, the San Francisco Bay Area and Alaska. Rising Tide operates through decentralized network organizing consisting of autonomous local groups and that mostly use consensus decision-making.
On December 17, 2013, 16 protesters with Portland Rising Tide were arrested after locking themselves to disabled vehicles in front of a tar sands megaload shipment near John Day, Oregon, delaying the shipment’s passage. Police responded by using 'pain compliance' to remove the protest. On December 1, 2013, two men locked themselves to the tar sands megaload truck and had to be removed by police, which took so long the shipment canceled its nightly move. [3]
Rising Tide NYC organized three days of action on climate change in New York City on April 20–22, 2015. They rallied at the office of New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo to call for him to reject a proposed deepwater port which would be used to import natural gas. [4]
In 2015, Siskiyou Rising Tide (formerly Southern Oregon Rising Tide) formed in opposition to the Jordan Cove Energy Project, a $8 billion dollar liquefied natural gas pipeline and export terminal proposed in Southwestern Oregon. [5] It was revealed that Siskiyou Rising Tide and other environmental groups were being surveilled by the FBI, local sheriffs and private security firms funded by the pipeline company Pembina. [6] [7] After years of protest and opposition, the Jordan Cove Energy Project was ultimately cancelled by Pembina in 2021. [8] [9]
The Athabasca oil sands, also known as the Athabasca tar sands, are large deposits of bitumen or extremely heavy crude oil that constitute unconventional resources, located in northeastern Alberta, Canada – roughly centred on the boomtown of Fort McMurray. These oil sands, hosted primarily in the McMurray Formation, consist of a mixture of crude bitumen, silica sand, clay minerals, and water. The Athabasca deposit is the largest known reservoir of crude bitumen in the world and the largest of three major oil sands deposits in Alberta, along with the nearby Peace River and Cold Lake deposits.
Enbridge Inc. is a multinational pipeline and energy company headquartered in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. Enbridge owns and operates pipelines throughout Canada and the United States, transporting crude oil, natural gas, and natural gas liquids. Enbridge's pipeline system is the longest in North America and the largest oil export pipeline network in the world. Its crude oil system consists of 28,661 kilometres of pipelines. Its 38,300 kilometre natural gas pipeline system connects multiple Canadian provinces, several US states, and the Gulf of Mexico. The company was formed by Imperial Oil in 1949 as the Interprovincial Pipe Line Company Limited to transport Alberta oil to refineries. Over time, it has grown through acquisition of other existing pipeline companies and the expansion of their projects. Between 2012 and 2021, Enbridge transported over 32 billion barrels of crude oil.
Anti-environmentalism is a movement that favors loose environmental regulation in favor of economic benefits and opposes strict environmental regulation aimed at preserving nature and the planet. Anti-environmentalists seek to persuade the public that environmental policy impacts society negatively. The movement's goals include to counter the effects of environmental ideology and movements, to diminish public concern about the environment and to persuade politicians against increasing environmental regulations.
The Keystone Pipeline System is an oil pipeline system in Canada and the United States, commissioned in 2010 and owned by TC Energy and, as of March 2020, the Government of Alberta. It runs from the Western Canadian Sedimentary Basin in Alberta to refineries in Illinois and Texas, and also to oil tank farms and an oil pipeline distribution center in Cushing, Oklahoma.
350.org is an international environmental organization addressing the climate crisis. Its stated goal is to end the use of fossil fuels and transition to renewable energy by building a global, grassroots movement.
Greenpeace USA is the United States affiliate of Greenpeace International, an environmental nonprofit organization that spawned a social movement inspired by direct actions on the high seas to stop whaling and nuclear testing. Headquartered in Washington D.C., Greenpeace U.S.A. operates with an annual budget of approximately $40 million, employing over 500 people in 2020. The organization relies on donations from members, refuses corporate contributions and refrains from endorsing political candidates, though in 2020 Greenpeace USA issued climate scorecards for presidential candidates and ranked them from best to worst on climate
The Jordan Cove Energy Project was a proposal by Calgary-based energy company Pembina to build a liquefied natural gas export terminal within the International Port of Coos Bay, Oregon. The natural gas would have been transported to the terminal by the Pacific Connector Gas Pipeline. The proposal has been met with objections from landowners, Tribes, and commercial entities since 2010 and was cancelled in late 2021.
Pembina Pipeline is a Canadian corporation that operates transportation and storage infrastructure delivering oil and natural gas to and from parts of Western Canada ; there is also a natural gas processing business that takes place at the Cutbank Complex. Western Canada is the source of all the product transported by its systems. Some of the pipelines and facilities have short term contracts with oil producers while others are long term. For 37 years until 1997 when it went public and established itself as a trust, Pembina was a regular privately owned business. On October 1, 2010 it converted to a corporation from a trust, changing its official name from Pembina Pipeline Income Fund to Pembina Pipeline Corporation. As of 2016 the company had more than 1260 employees, up from 427 in 2010. The company's total assets nearly doubled in 2017.
Rising Tide UK is the United Kingdom part of the International Rising Tide Network, both of which were created in 2000 to carry out direct action against the root causes of climate change, and to work towards a fossil fuel free future. RTUK takes a no-compromise position and believes that only the complete dismantling of the fossil fuel industry and a shift to low consumption lifestyles will be sufficient to halt climate change.
Tar Sands Blockade is a grassroots coalition of affected Texas and Oklahoma people and climate justice organizers who use peaceful and sustained civil disobedience to stop the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline. Tar Sands Blockade used nonviolent direct action to stop construction of the pipeline throughout East Texas including banner drops, lockdowns, and tree sits. They are best known for a large scale tree sit outside Winnsboro, Texas.
The Indigenous Environmental Network (IEN) is a coalition of indigenous, grassroots environmental justice activists, primarily based in the United States. Group members have represented Native American concerns at international events such as the United Nations Climate Change conferences in Copenhagen (2009) and Paris (2016). IEN organizes an annual conference to discuss proposed goals and projects for the coming year; each year the conference is held in a different indigenous nation. The network emphasizes environmental protection as a form of spiritual activism. IEN received attention in the news as a major organizer of the fight against the Keystone Pipeline and the Dakota Access Pipeline in the Dakota Access Pipeline protests.
Stand.earth is a grassroots environmental organization founded in 2000. The organization protects endangered forests by transforming corporate policy and governmental laws in the United States and Canada. Stand.earth uses public education, advocacy, protest, negotiation and non-violent direct action tactics to achieve its goals.
The 2013 Mayflower oil spill occurred on March 29, 2013, when the Pegasus Pipeline, owned by ExxonMobil and carrying Canadian Wabasca heavy crude from the Athabasca oil sands, ruptured in Mayflower, Arkansas, about 25 miles (40 km) northwest of Little Rock releasing about 3,190 barrels of oil. Approximately 3,190 barrels of oil and water mix was recovered. Twenty-two homes were evacuated. The United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) classified the leak as a major spill.
The Tar Sands Healing Walk was a 14 km annual prayer walk in demonstration against crude oil extraction in the Athabasca tar sands. It began in 2010, starting just north of the city of Fort McMurray, Alberta at a location known as the Syncrude Loop, and traveling through the heart of the tar sands extraction zone. The walk was led by local Indigenous Elders, who prayed for the healing of the land and to bring attention to the destructive impacts of the tar sands.
Melina Laboucan-Massimo is a climate justice and Indigenous rights advocate from the Lubicon Cree community of Little Buffalo in northern Alberta, Canada. Growing up with firsthand experience of the effects of oil and gas drilling on local communities, she began advocating for an end to resource extraction in Indigenous territories but shifted focus to supporting a renewable energy transition after a ruptured pipeline spilled approximately 4.5 million litres of oil near Little Buffalo in 2011.
The Stop Line 3 protests are an ongoing series of demonstrations in the U.S. state of Minnesota against the expansion of Enbridge's Line 3 oil pipeline along a new route. Indigenous people have led the resistance to the construction of the pipeline, which began following the project's approval in November 2020. Opponents of the pipeline expansion, called water protectors, have established ceremonial lodges and resistance camps along the route of the pipeline. Enbridge has funded an escrow account that law enforcement agencies may draw on for pipeline-related police work. Organizers have arranged marches and occupations of Enbridge construction sites. Following the blockade of an Enbridge pump station on June 7, 2021, nearly 250 people were arrested. Invoking treaty rights, organizers established an encampment at the headwaters of the Mississippi River at a site where Enbridge intends to bury the pipeline.
Eriel Tchekwie Deranger is a Dënesųłiné indigenous rights activist and climate activist. She is executive director of Indigenous Climate Action.
ShutdownDC is an activist organization in the Washington metropolitan area. ShutdownDC formed originally in 2019 as a coalition of climate activists concerned with the climate crisis, aiming to snarl traffic in the city to demand action on the Green New Deal, and other climate-related issues. Since then, ShutdownDC has expanded their scope to advocacy via non-violent direct action on issues as diverse as abortion rights, the International Monetary Fund and World Bank's treatment of the Global South, and abolishing the filibuster.
Blockadia is a global anti-extractivism movement; and a roving, transnational conflict zone where everyday people obstruct development of extractive projects, especially in the fossil fuel industry. Blockadia resistance movements differ from mainstream environmentalism by use of confrontational tactics such as civil disobedience, mass arrests, lockdowns, and blockades to contest perceived threats arising from extractivist projects’ contributions to global climate change and local environmental injustice. Some researchers have concluded that Blockadia contributes to a transition toward a more just society.
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