Shell No!
On July 18, Sierra Club activists held 20 events in 15 states for a Shell No! Day of Action. In Chicago, Club volunteers and other concerned citizens came together to protest the Obama administration's recent approval of Shells plans to drill for oil in the Arctic's Chukchi Sea. Taking to the Chicago River and embracing their inner marine mammals, "kayaktivists" displayed "SHELL NO!" and "Save the Arctic/Save the Climate" banners in red and yellow colors, mimicking the oil giant's branding. (Shell is the world's second-largest publicly traded oil entity.) Arctic marine mammals such as endangered ringed seals, bowhead whales, and polar bears face catastrophe in the likely event of an oil spill.
Recognizing the threats to the Arctic ecosystem and thus to our interconnected global community, hundereds of activists from across the country rallied to protect the Arctic and throw Obama's environmental legacy a life preserver.
In Portland, Oregon, Senator Jeff Merkley and Congresswoman Lois Capps joined local activists and elected officials in sending President Obama a crystal-clear message: put the Arctic off-limits to drilling. On July 16, Senator Merkley announced legislation to protect the Arctic Ocean from offshore drilling; early last month Congresswoman Capps wrote the United States House Energy and Commerce Committee in response to the Plains Oil Spill.
Similar rallies were held in Detroit, Boston, Washington D.C., Santa Barbara, and more than a dozen other cities around the country.
Indigenous communities like Alaska's Iñupiat people, proving every bit as rugged as the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge where they are fighting against oil drilling, mirror the resolve of protestors frozen in solidarity with the Shell No! movement. According to the U.S. Department of the Interior, native peoples in the region and the marine life in the Chukchi Sea on which they depend are confronted with a 75% chance of an oil spill and consequent widespread devastation to the marine ecosystem.
Shell's Finnish-made Fennica, carrying a piece of equipment critical to the drilling proccess, is docking in Portland for repairs, after gashing its hull in shallow Alaskan waters earlier this month. According to a new study by James Hansen, former top climatologist at NASA, if current projections of sea level rise due to excessive fossil fuel emissions prove accurate, Shell's dry-dock site in Portland could be 10 feet underwater within 50 years.
Portland Rising Tide and 350 PDX will be on the ground and in the water in Portland on July 25. Sierra Club kayaktivists are sure to be there as well.
TAKE ACTION: Tell President Obama to give the Arctic the protection it deserves.
Follow this movement on social media by searching: #ShellNo, #PeopleVsShell, and #SaveTheArctic
ICEBREAKING NEWS:
Democracy Now! interview with Sierra Club Director of the Lands Protection Program