Random Wondering?

When you reach tipping points, things charge ever so slowly until they happen quickly ...sucked into the black hole before you know it. Magi's past "Hot Air" series on Thursday's emphasized the pressures tipping the climate system. The change is ever faster and it is easy to see. Yet TPTB are still hiring mercenaries to arrest and harass first nations water protectors trying to stop construction of line 3 - destined to pipe (and leak) dirty tar sands oil across their watershed...you know the lands ceded them after taking the bulk of their true tribal lands.

A Minnesota appeals court has denied an appeal aimed at halting construction of the Enbridge Line 3 tar sands pipeline in northern Minnesota. In a 2-1 ruling, the court upheld the Minnesota Public Utilities Commission’s approval of the 340-mile pipeline. More than 700 people have been arrested since June in Indigenous-led protests against the pipeline. Indigenous lawyer Tara Houska of the Giniw Collective condemned Tuesday’s ruling.

Tara Houska: “Today’s ruling from the Minnesota Supreme Court is yet another example of Minnesota not responding to the climate crisis, not respecting Indigenous sovereignty and continuing to ignore what’s happening in real time all around us, with smoky skies, the world burning, the rivers in drought and water protectors being brutalized by police that are being paid by Enbridge.”

https://www.democracynow.org/2021/8/25/headlines/minnesota_court_denies_...

A 38-minute frontline documentary on the effort to stop fossil fuel expansion and encourage real energy security.

Predatory industry hijacked the US regulatory system in 2019, placing ancient food systems and a fifth of the world’s freshwater in imminent danger. LN3 features indigenous firebrands Winona Laduke, Tara Houska, and poet-hip hop artist ThomasX, as they lead an alliance to take on Big Oil and their enablers at the institutional level, and on the frontlines. This is the battle for Earth.

Directed by Suez Taylor (USA)

https://www.honorearth.org/

Slide show study guide https://indd.adobe.com/view/fb746046-86da-49b4-a99c-f4cf53c370da

Pipelines and Spill in Indian Country 2012-2020

Number of Spills: 3,398

Amount Released: 100,954

Estimated costs of emergency response, environmental damage, etc.: $2,674,377,908

Estimated Amount Paid by Operator: $101,297,748
https://www.stopline3.org/resources

• || Enbridge, which is proposing to expand its Line 3 pipeline through Minnesota, has a long track record of pipeline spills, both chronic small spills and large catastrophes .
• || From 2002 to present, Enbridge and its joint ventures and subsidiaries reported 307 hazardous liquids incidents to federal regulators – one incident every 20 days on average. These spills released a total of 66,059 barrels (2 .8 million gallons, or more than four Olympic-sized swimming pools) of hazardous liquids .
• || Thirty Enbridge incidents were reported to contaminate water resources, including 17 which contaminated groundwater .
• || This steady flow of oil spills puts Minnesota’s water, ecosystems, treaty rights, and communities at risk .
• || The disastrous 2010 spill of 20,000 barrels (840,000 gallons) of tar sands into the Kalamazoo River in Michigan is Enbridge’s largest during this time period, and 42 other incidents were larger than 2,100 gallons (50 barrels).
• || Line 3 was also the source of the largest inland oil spill in the U .S . on March 3, 1991 when 40,000 barrels (1,680,000 gallons) spilled in Grand Rapids, Minnesota .
• || Incidents have been reported from both old and new pipelines and equipment . Data on the age and cause of failure for these incidents show that new pipelines are not free from harmful incidents . Given the long proposed lifetimes of these projects, new pipelines eventually turn into old ones .
• || Alarmingly, 46 Enbridge spills were due to equipment or materials that were installed 10 years or less prior to the incident.
• || In the state of Minnesota alone since 2002, seven pipeline operators (including Enbridge, Magellan and Koch Pipelines) have reported 132 hazardous liquids incidents, 17 of which were larger than 2,100 gallons (50 barrels).
• || Citing environmental risks and other factors, the Minnesota Department of Commerce concluded that the Line 3 expansion is not in Minnesota’s interest, and that the existing pipeline should cease operations .
• || The Line 3 expansion is starkly inconsistent with the goals of the Paris Climate Agreement to phase out the use of existing fossil fuel infrastructure

https://static1.squarespace.com/static/58a3c10abebafb5c4b3293ac/t/5feb8b...

Even on ceded territory (off-reservation), Ojibwe tribal members retain certain property rights that allow them to “make a modest living from the land.” These use-rights are called usufructuary rights, and are guaranteed by the treaties between Ojibwe
bands and the US government, protected by the US Constitution, and affirmed by the US Supreme Court. They include the rights to hunt, fish, gather medicinal plants, harvest and cultivate wild rice, and preserve sacred or culturally significant sites.

The proposed new oil pipelines in northern MN violate the treaty rights of the Anishinaabeg by endangering critical natural resources in the 1854, 1855, and 1867 treaty areas. All pipelines leak, and catastrophes like Enbridge’s 1 million gallon spill in 2010 on the Kalamazoo River are not unlikely. The pipelines threaten the culture, way of life, and physical survival of the Ojibwe people. Where there is wild rice, there are Anishinaabeg, and where there are Anishinaabeg, there is wild rice. It is our sacred food. Without it we will die. It’s that simple

https://static1.squarespace.com/static/58a3c10abebafb5c4b3293ac/t/5b8ee9...

• Property Rights: If Minnesota approves Line 3, Enbridge will receive powers of eminent domain, on grounds that it is a public utility providing a public benefit. This would allow them to take property without landowner consent, just as governments do to build roads and other public infrastructure. This is a problem: Enbridge is a private Canadian corporation that will earn billions in profit by shipping privately owned oil for privately owned oil companies.

https://static1.squarespace.com/static/58a3c10abebafb5c4b3293ac/t/5b8ee9...

The Dying Tar Sands Industry and Its Pipe Dreams
March 14, 2017

Summary:
Because of high extraction costs and low oil prices, the mining of the Alberta Tar Sands is a rapidly dying industry. Many companies are withdrawing their investments. Those that remain are borrowing against our children’s future, taking on massive amounts of debt to pay false dividends to shareholders and prevent them from fleeing. Despite an industry forecast of increased production that justifies 1 new pipeline carrying tar sands out of Canada in the next 4-5 years, a total of 4 new pipelines are currently proposed. Every one of them must cross tribal lands, and every one of them faces bold resistance. At the same time, Enbridge’s proposal to simply abandon its old, crumbling Line 3 pipeline risks setting dangerous precedent, and raises serious questions about who will be left holding the bill for this industry’s slow painful death and stranded assets. Now is the time for tribal governments to come together and take bold action to protect our territories and the natural and cultural resources our future generations will depend on.

A Dying Industry:
Compared to conventional oil, tar sands crude is a lot more expensive to extract. New oil development in the tar sands costs over $80/barrel(bbl). But since the end of 2014, oil prices have only ranged between $30 and $60/bbl, with current prices around $50/bbl. So tar sands extraction is simply not economically viable in the long term. If gasoline prices don’t return to $3.00-$3.50/gal (equivalent to crude oil at $70-$85/bbl), the oil
industry will go bankrupt - it’s that simple. And tar sands producers will go first.

https://static1.squarespace.com/static/58a3c10abebafb5c4b3293ac/t/5b8eeb...

Anti-pipeline activists are accusing Canadian energy transportation giant Enbridge of setting a disturbing precedent by providing funds for policing its Line 3 pipeline in northern Minnesota. As police book more overtime, there is concern among opponents they are deliberately targeting the Indigenous women resisting the project.

Police have reportedly followed activists, pulled over their vehicles and disrupted prayer assemblies. Activists told National Observer that drones have been deployed for aerial surveillance, and that people have been detained in cages.

https://www.nationalobserver.com/2021/04/19/news/enbridge-accused-paying...

The Minnesota Fusion Center, a police intelligence-sharing partnership affiliated with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, is sidestepping the state’s freedom of information law by citing security concerns, though it had in the past released records related to its policing of pipeline opponents. The fusion center is refusing to release any public records pertaining to activities, including surveillance, against opponents of the energy firm Enbridge’s Line 3 tar sands pipeline until after it is constructed, according to one of the documents.

https://theintercept.com/2021/08/07/minnesota-pipeline-line-3-public-rec...

Documents Show Police Using Private Security Firms to Target Anti-Pipeline Organizers Fighting Line 3 Project
“It’s clear that Enbridge is doing everything they can to have a very highly skilled force of security and law enforcement at their fingertips to do what they can to stop any resistance to Line 3.”
—Tara Houska, Honor the Earth

“I don’t understand why I’m being looked at as a criminal when a corporation is proposing to destroy my water,” says Winona LaDuke. “I am not a criminal, I am a water protector.”

https://winewaterwatch.org/2019/01/documents-show-police-using-private-s...

I admire the courage of these people to stand against the evils of the "black snake". The use of private mercenaries by corporations for corporations represents another tipping point...other than the environment and climate.

Enbridge’s Line 3 could start shipping next month
https://www.jwnenergy.com/article/2021/8/16/enbridges-line-3-could-start...