A Pile of Coal and a Shitload of Kayaks: From Oakland to Seattle, No More Foul Fossil Fuels!

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Categories: Front Page, Open Mic

Thursday morning, May 14th, environmental activists rallied at Oscar Grant Plaza in front of Oakland Army Base developer Phil Tagami ‘s office, sending a message to him that shipping coal through and out of Oakland was not something that would happen without massive resistance.

“Tagami recently announced plans to transport coal from Utah through Oakland by rail to a new bulk export facility at Oakland’s former army base. Tagami’s plan has drawn extensive criticism from local community and environmental groups…”


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And in Seattle on Friday and Saturday, off the coast, hundreds of kayaktivists surrounded a humongeous ‘death star’ Shell oil rig that had pulled into the Port of Seattle on Friday, ultimately bound for the Alaskan Artic. They are demanding that the Port of Seattle not be used as a base for the further plundering of the Artic for fossil fuels.

“We here in Seattle do not want Shell in our port. We want them to get out and change their business before they change our planet and destroy the life of future generations,” said Annette Klapstein, a 62-year-old retired attorney and member of activist group the Raging Grannies… Seattle residents are not just protesting about climate change and Arctic drilling. They are also protesting about the symbolism of hosting Shell’s drilling equipment – something they feel forcedly puts them in the middle of a dirty global system of fossil fuel extraction and commerce.

Here’s the coal getting dumped to a backdrop of dozens of Oakland police guarding Phil Tagami’s office.


 

And a few more tweetpics of the kayak flotilla.

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