Green Party Presidential Candidate Resupplies Texas Tree Village as 2nd Tree Blockade Comes Online

My friends at smartMeme often talk about “psychic breaks.” A “psychic break” is where what the power holders tell us doesn’t really add up with reality on the ground. In this election cycle, Mitt Romney and Barack Obama have hardly mentioned climate change and during the debates they actually argued over who was more pro-coal, pro-gas and pro-drilling. Now as super storm “Hurricane Sandy” has devastated the Atlantic seaboard from the Caribbean to New England, we see what they are saying just isn’t adding up.

In Texas, things quit adding up a while back and the Tar Sands Blockade sprung into action. This morning, as Presidential candidate Jill Stein was arrested resupplying their tree blockade (which she did successfully), while two young women also from New England started another tree sit further south, we see these “psychic breaks” coming faster and faster.

Climate is not just the issue of our time, it’s the issue of our existence as a species on this planet. We can either stand with Mother Earth, or with those that would devour her for short term profit.

In this debate, I think Mama Earth has my vote.

Here’s the press release:

Green Party Presidential Candidate Resupplies Tree Village as 2nd Tree Blockade Comes Online

Trio of New England women risk arrest to highlight Keystone XL’s link to extreme weather, Hurricane Sandy

WINNSBORO and SACUL, TEXAS – As Hurricane Sandy pushes further inland to devastate Appalachia and Canada, three women from New England, including Green Party Presidential Candidate Dr. Jill Stein, are risking arrest to highlight the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline’s connection to extreme weather events and climate change. Dr. Stein, a Massachusetts resident, is resupplying tree sitters in Winnsboro, Texas as two women from New England launch a new tree blockade a few hours to the south near Sacul, Texas. The Winnsboro tree blockade has sustained resistance to the Keystone XL pipeline for 38 days.

“The climate is taking this election by storm, breaking the silence of the Obama and Romney campaigns that have been bought and paid for by the oil, coal and gas companies,” said Dr. Stein. “Hurricane Sandy is just a taste of what’s to come under the climate destroying policies of Romney and Obama. We must stand up now and call for climate solutions and green prosperity. The blockaders are heroes. They are on the front line of stopping even worse climate storms in the future.”

Now blocking the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline from two new tree platforms in Sacul, Texas to the northwest of Nacogdoches are a 24 year old duo of lifelong New England residents, Pika from Vermont and Lauren from New Hampshire. Their platforms are suspended in trees on either side of a Keystone XL highway crossing and are tied to heavy equipment, effectively immobilizing the equipment to the north and south of the crossing. Both were driven to participate with Tar Sands Blockade after witnessing the extraordinary hardship of extreme weather on their communities and extended families.

“Just a year ago, Vermont was hit really hard by Hurricane Irene. I spent months helping friends and family clean out basements and rebuild houses that were completely destroyed by flooding,“ shared Pika. “I have extended family in Arizona and Colorado who have been just crushed by the drought and the forest fires that have been happening in the last few years. I came here because this is one of the foremost campaigns against the most destructive resource extraction industry at the root of the climate crisis we are living in today.

Lauren added, “I’ve always held the environment in the fore of my mind, but I haven’t always been as sensitive to the personal stories of people directly impacted by pollution as I am today. Knowing that the ruin in my home state from Sandy only stands to be amplified by the toxic, leaky Keystone XL and the extreme impact of carbon emissions from ongoing tar sands development; joining with folks from all across the political spectrum to stop it; it’s a powerfully humanizing process.”

Tar Sands Blockade is a coalition of Texas and Oklahoma landowners and climate justice organizers using peaceful and sustained civil disobedience to stop the construction of TransCanada’s Keystone XL tar sands pipeline.

“From the protesters defending the coast in British Columbia to the coastal residents of New England, Tar Sands Blockade stands in solidarity with communities across the continent threatened by climate change,” said Cindy Spoon, lifelong Texan and spokesperson for the Blockade. “Texas continues to suffer from the consequences of extreme drought and record setting wildfires. Defending our homes from destructive corporations like TransCanada is the best way to guard against a future of runaway climate change. The Keystone XL tar sands pipeline will only exacerbate the extraordinary climate challenges we face today.”

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