Book Launch: A Line in the Tar Sands: Struggles for Environmental Justice

A Line in the Tar Sands: Struggles for Environmental Justice is an anthology of stories, analysis, and reflections from global movements fighting the tar sands and oil extraction using a wide variety of strategies and approaches. It features writing by Indigenous organizers from across the continent, analysts, and campaigners, as well as 350.org staff and board members, including a forward by Naomi Klein and Bill Mckibben.

What: The multimedia book launch will include a discussion on solidarity, extraction, and Indigenous sovereignty and climate change, with panel of frontline activists fighting tar sands in the Bay Area, as well as international perspectives. Presenters will include Winona La Duke of Honor the Earth (via Skype), Vivian Huang of the Asian Pacific Environmental Network, Pennie Opal Plant of Idle No More, an organizer from Pittsburg fighting Wespac oil-by-rail, and Clayton Thomas-Muller of the Indigenous Tar Sands Campaign (via video).

Click here to RSVP for the event on Facebook.

Event Co-sponsors include Idle No More SF Bay, Asian Pacific Environmental Network, Movement Generation, Center for Story Based Strategy, and the Ruckus Society. If you can’t make it on Sunday, we’ll also be holding a more intimate discussion in San Francisco on Thursday evening — more info here.

As the largest industrial project on earth, the Alberta tar sands essentially constitute a strip mine spanning an area the size of Florida. Tar sands development comes with an enormous environmental and human cost. But tar sands opponents — fighting a powerful international industry — are likened to terrorists, government environmental scientists are muzzled, and public hearings are concealed and rushed.

Yet, despite the formidable political and economic power behind the tar sands, many opponents are actively building international networks of resistance, challenging pipeline plans while resisting threats to Indigenous sovereignty and democratic participation.

This struggle is one of the most epic of our times. I hope this book can offer us both a bit of hope and some solid lessons on resistance.

You can read more about the book here.