SUBSCRIBE TO OUR FREE NEWSLETTER
Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
For Immediate Release
January, 11 2016, 02:00pm EDT
Monday January, 11 2016, 02:00pm EDT
Contact:
Sven Biggs, Sven@forestethicsadocacy.org 778-882-8354
Statement: Province of B.C. Formally Opposes Kinder Morgan Pipeline
Vancouver, BC
Vancouver, BC - Today the Province of British Columbia announced its opposition to the Kinder Morgan Trans Mountain pipeline in its submission to the National Energy Board.
Sven Biggs, ForestEthics Advocacy campaign organizer released the following statement:
"The BC government created a simple test that Kinder Morgan simply fails. The five conditions the Texas oil company must meet before BC will approve the Trans Mountain pipeline proposal are critical for protecting public safety, the health of Vancouver citizens, the rights of First Nations, and whale and other marine species. Despite the possible rubberstamp from the Harper NEB, the project can't meet any of the five.
"Kinder Morgan has a dismal record of crude oil pipeline spills. And the recent US National Academy of Sciences study proves that its impossible up to clean up tar sands in the environment.
"The Trans Mountain project isn't going to overcome the technical hurdle of keeping heavy toxic tar sands out of the environment. It's not going to overcome the opposition of First Nations and it's not going to overcome the opposition of the thousands of citizens who fought Kinder Morgan on Burnaby Mountain. The list of local governments opposing the project continues to grow and opposition to this dangerous, unnecessary pipeline will only grow stronger until this proposal is rejected once and for all."
Founded in 2000, ForestEthics is a nonprofit environmental organization with staff in Canada, the United States and Chile. Our mission is to protect Endangered Forests and wild places, wildlife, and human wellbeing--one of our focus areas is climate change, which compromises all of our efforts if left unchecked. We catalyze environmental leadership among industry, governments and communities by running hard-hitting and highly effective campaigns that leverage public dialogue and pressure to achieve our goals.
LATEST NEWS
Hundreds Arrested In London for Opposing Ban on Nonviolent Group Palestine Action
"Let us be under no illusion," said one organizer. "The government is criminalizing the people of Britain for standing up against the biggest genocide of the 21st century, as it's livestreamed from Gaza."
Aug 09, 2025
British campaigners reported Saturday that the sheer volume of people who showed up in London's Parliament Square to support the nonviolent advocacy group Palestine Action presented a major challenge for the Metropolitan Police, who had threatened to arrest anyone supporting the organization.
The campaign group Defend Our Juries reported that as of 4:00 pm local time, at least 200 people had been arrested for joining the protest, where more than 1,000 sat silently in the square with many displaying signs that read: "I oppose genocide. I support Palestine Action."
Others held signs reading, "Is this why you joined the police?" as officers arrested demonstrators including National Health Service workers; a blind man using a wheelchair; author Jonathon Porritt; and former Guantánamo Bay detainee Moazzam Begg, who now advocates for wrongly-imprisoned people swept up in the War on Terror.
"The fact that unprecedented numbers came out today risking arrest and possible imprisonment, shows how repulsed and ashamed people are about our government's ongoing complicity in a livestreamed genocide, and the lengths people are prepared to go to defend this country's ancient liberties," said a spokesperson for Defend Our Juries, which also organized a protest last month where more than two dozen people were arrested.
The protests have been held to demand that the government reverse its June decision to proscribe Palestine Action as a terrorist organization after it vandalized two military airplanes. The ban on the organization means that anyone who publicly supports Palestine Action risks up to 14 years in prison.
Palestine Action was formed in 2020 to demand an end to Israeli apartheid policies in the occupied Palestinian territories including Gaza and the West Bank. It has organized nonviolent actions since Israel began bombarding Gaza and blockading nearly all humanitarian aid in October 2023—killing more than 61,000 Palestinians, injuring more than 150,000, creating the largest per capita population of child amputees in the world, and starving at least 212 people so far.
"Palestine Action and people holding cardboard signs present no danger to the public at large, whereas the people who have lobbied for this ban—the arms companies and Israel lobbies—have the blood of 60,000 Palestinians on their hands," said Defend Our Juries.
The government's ban, announced by Home Secretary Yvette Cooper, faces a legal challenge scheduled to be heard by the U.K. High Court in November. The court granted a full judicial review to Palestine Action co-founder Huda Ammori.
United Nations human rights chief Volker Türk warned last month that the U.K.'s proscription of the group "is at odds with the U.K.'s obligations under international human rights law" and noted that "according to international standards, terrorist acts should be confined to criminal acts intended to cause death or serious injury or to the taking of hostages"—not property damage.
Defend Our Juries said the mass arrest of Palestinian rights advocates is taking place as Britain continues to provide support to the Israeli military, which is moving towards a full takeover of Gaza under the orders of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
"They're being arrested for holding signs in opposition to genocide and the ban of Palestine Action," said the group as hundreds of people were carried away from Parliament Square by Metropolitan Police. "Meanwhile, the ones enabling the mass murder of Palestinians face no consequences."
Support from civil society groups for Palestine Action and the organizations demanding a reversal of the ban grew this past week ahead of the protest. More than 300 Jewish Britons including film director Mike Leigh; children's author Michael Rosen; and Geoffrey Bindman, a former legal instructor to Prime Minister Keir Starmer, calling the ban "illegitimate" in a letter to Downing Street.
"The government should stop deflecting attention from genocide by linking nonviolent protest to terrorism," read the letter.
Begg noted Saturday that "historically, civil disobedience has been employed in this country, as well as by the American civil rights movement and the anti-apartheid struggle in South Africa, to challenge unjust and oppressive laws."
"This action is not about Palestine Action, but wider issues of how anti-terror legislation curtails basic freedoms and undermines the rule of law," he said. "There can be no doubt that such laws have been, and continue to be abused and exploited, to suppress free speech and put in place an oppressive infrastructure that represents a danger to our civil liberties."
"In such moments, all those who resist are acting in the public interest and are motivated by the desire to protect fundamental principles of fairness, equality, and justice," he added. "How can it be a crime to call for an end to apartheid and genocide? The planned action on August 9 is motivated by the highest moral principles that have underpinned our society and made it the envy of the world."
"Let us be under no illusion," said Begg. "The government is criminalizing the people of Britain for standing up against the biggest genocide of the 21st century, as it's livestreamed from Gaza. That is why it must be opposed."
Campaigners Confront Plastics Treaty Delegates, Demanding Deal That Stops Pollution 'At Its Source'
"With just days remaining, the dynamic must change," said Break Free From Plastic. "Countries must keep their commitment to end plastic pollution."
Aug 09, 2025
As the final negotiations for a Global Plastics Treaty reached the halfway point on Saturday, delegates entering the Palais des Nations in Geneva, Switzerland for the day's talks were met by more than 200 campaigners representing civil society groups who stood in silence along the path leading to the United Nations building—but nonetheless sent a clear message.
The civil society observers displayed signs in multiple languages, urging negotiators at the second plenary of the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee to "fix the process" and keep their promises to drastically reduce plastic waste and toxic chemicals in plastic products.
Achieving goals like banning single-use plastics, capping plastic production, and imposing regulations on harmful additives within the treaty will be impossible, campaigners have warned, if the biggest plastic-producing countries like the United States are permitted to lobby for a weaker treaty and if fossil fuel industry lobbyists continue to overpower anti-pollution advocates at the talks.
"People worldwide have made it clear: They support decisive action to cut plastic production, consumption, and pollution," said the Break Free From Plastic movement in a statement Friday. "A majority of governments have endorsed these demands, yet negotiations are stalling with a small group of petro- and plastic-producing states deploying delay tactics, with no sign that they intend to raise ambition."
"With just days remaining, the dynamic must change," said the group. "Countries must keep their commitment to end plastic pollution. They must use every tool available to deliver a strong treaty—one that includes legally binding rules on production and chemicals, uplifts real solutions, safeguards human rights, and protects frontline communities."
The talks began earlier this week, with negotiators tasked with forging a legally binding treaty to restrict plastic pollution, following a 2022 agreement that was reached as the result of a proposal from Rwandan and Peruvian officials. The first round of talks, which were supposed to end with a treaty, stalled last December after plastic-producing countries refused to cap production. More than 100 countries at the negotiations agreed to a plastic production limit.
As with fossil fuel emissions, many countries in the Global South are not major producers of plastic waste—but the U.S. exports more than 1 billion pounds of plastic waste to low-income countries each year.
The climate action group Greenpeace has warned that fossil fuel and chemical industry lobbyists outnumber experts on the impact of pollution 4-to-1 at the negotiations in Geneva, and are joining oil- and plastic-producing countries in continuing to push for a treaty that focuses on downstream measures they claim will address pollution, such as improving recycling systems.
As Common Dreams reported Thursday, the Trump administration has called on countries participating in the talks to reject "impractical" terms within the treaty, such as plastic production caps, bans, or restrictions on certain additives to plastic products.
Scientists believe that less than 10% of plastic products ever get recycled, despite the efforts of individuals to recycle their products.
Katie Drews, national director of the U.S.-based Alliance for Mission-Based Recycling (AMBR), said Friday that "recycling is essential, but it cannot solve the plastics crisis," which must be stopped "at its source."
"Without binding caps on plastic production, bans on toxic chemicals, and global mandates to design packaging for safety, reuse, and real recyclability, downstream solutions will continue to be overwhelmed and communities will continue to pay the price," said Drews. "AMBR stands with scientists, health professionals, youth, frontline and fenceline communities, Indigenous peoples, waste pickers, and mission-driven allies worldwide in urging governments to act. We need a treaty that truly protects human and environmental health, one that goes beyond words to bold, enforceable action."
Advocates' concerns are backed up by a study published in The Lancet this week, which said that without far-reaching efforts to stop more plastic from being produced, "production is on track to nearly triple by 2060."
As campaigners and scientists have worked towards a Global Plastics Treaty since 2022, companies like Dow, Shell, and ExxonMobil have only been ramping up their production of plastic, expanding their capacity by 1.4 million tons. Just seven petrochemical giants have sent a combined 70 lobbyists to the talks, which are scheduled to wrap up on August 14.
"The more we produce, the more we pollute," said Jules Vagner, president of the French group Objectif Zéro Plastique. "Opposing binding targets to reduce plastic production is, in practice, choosing to let pollution continue and worse, accelerate. We do not want another treaty that manages waste. We want one that ends pollution at the source."
"If some countries are unwilling to rise to this historic moment, they should step aside," said Vagner. "Not block global progress. We want a world free from plastic pollution, not one that adapts to it."
Texas AG Paxton Files 'Baseless' Lawsuit to Unseat 13 Democratic State Lawmakers
"This seat doesn't belong to him or me—it belongs to the people," one targeted legislator defiantly declared.
Aug 08, 2025
Republican Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton on Friday sued former Congressman Beto O'Rourke and his political action committee in what critics called a "baseless" bid to oust 13 Democratic lawmakers who left the state in an effort to thwart a GOP gerrymandering scheme.
Paxton's office claimed that O'Rourke, a Democrat, and his Powered by People PAC illegally solicited donations to cover personal expenses for Democratic state legislators who fled Texas in an effort to block a Republican plan to rig the state's congressional map at the behest of President Donald Trump.
Paxton is seeking a temporary restraining order and an injunction to stop O'Rourke and Powered by People from raising or distributing funds to support the more than 50 Democratic lawmakers who left Texas. The attorney general argued that 13 state legislative seats "have been vacated due to continued unlawful absences."
"Democrat runaways are likely accepting Beto Bribes to underwrite their jet-setting sideshow in far-flung places and misleadingly raising political funds to pay for personal expenses," Paxton alleged in a statement. "This out-of-state, cowardly cabal is abandoning their constitutional duties. I will not allow failed political has-beens to buy off Texas elected officials."
This, after Paxton and Texas House Speaker Dustin Burrows (R-83) asked an Illinois court to enforce civil arrest warrants issued Monday in a bid to compel Democratic state legislators to return to Austin to vote on the legislation. U.S. Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) also enlisted the FBI's assistance to track down and arrest the absconding Democrats.
O'Rourke said Friday that Powered by People filed a retaliatory lawsuit accusing Paxton of using "the power of the state of Texas to try and intimidate Mr. O'Rourke from challenging defendant in a free and fair election."
"The guy impeached for bribery is going after the folks trying to stop the theft of five congressional seats," O'Rourke told KVUE. "Let's stop these thugs before they steal our country."
Targeted Democratic lawmakers also waxed defiant, backed by officials in the states to which they fled including Illinois, where Gov. JB Pritzer asserted that "there literally is no federal law applicable to this situation."
Texas state Rep. James Talarico (D-50) said on social media that "Ken Paxton just filed a lawsuit to remove me from office. But this seat doesn't belong to him or me—it belongs to the people."
Advocacy groups also denounced Paxton's lawsuit, with Brett Edkins, managing director of policy and political affairs at Stand Up America, contending that the attorney general and Texas Republicans "are so desperate to pass their partisan redistricting scheme that they're launching a baseless legal assault to unseat democratically elected lawmakers."
"It's just the latest threat against lawmakers who refuse to carry out Trump's demands and rig congressional maps to bank five new Republican congressional districts," Edkins added. "The courts shouldn't entertain this undemocratic attack for even one second."
Most Popular
We cover the issues the corporate media never will.
Please support our journalism.