Energy Industry Crackdown, Global Protest Frackdown
Yesterday, while Shell announced suing Greenpeace International in an attempt to have the organization banned from protest within 500 meters of any Shell property in the Netherlands, New York activist Susan Walker was sentenced to 15 days in jail after she refused to pay a fine for blocking the entrance to Inergy gas facility in New York earlier this month.
But judges and jails aren’t enough to stop a world-wide movement against the energy empire, and today marks the “Global Frackdown” with more than 100 protests against gas fracking scheduled to take place around the world. So get out there in the streets and raise some hell…
Shell sues Greenpeace to block environmental protests in the Arctic
The suit against Greenpeace Int’l argued at Amsterdam’s District Court Friday showed Shell aggressively taking the offensive to protect its $4.5 billion investment in drilling for oil in the icy Arctic waters off the coast of Alaska. A verdict is not expected for two weeks.
A protest at a Shell gas station in the Netherlands — with stuffed polar bear. (AFP/ANP, Marcel Antonisse)
Greenpeace has protested Arctic drilling with other stunts around the world, but the trigger for Friday’s lawsuit was a Dutch demonstration on Sept. 14, in which Greenpeace protesters blocked more than 70 Shell gas stations in the Netherlands for several hours, draping banners and clamping gas pump handles together with bike locks.
Fifteen people were arrested. Shell has not put forward any estimate of how much damage it suffered.
“Because Greenpeace International doesn’t operate alone, but is the spider in the web of national and local organizations, our request includes that Greenpeace inform its satellite organizations that it no longer supports protests that are solely directed at causing Shell economic damage or that bring human lives and the environment in danger,” Shell’s complaint said.
Protest backs jailed environmental activist in Inergy Blockade
Joseph Campbell, president of Gas Free Seneca, speaks Friday outside the Chemung County Jail. He said local residents turned to civil disobedience because their petitions, letters and attending hearings failed to get their voices heard on Inergy Midstream’s proposed storage facility.
Nearly 30 people slammed the energy industry outside the Chemung County Jail on Friday but praised the Dundee woman held inside for refusing to pay a fine for trespassing at a proposed gas storage facility.
They demonstrated in support of Susan Walker, 53, who pleaded guilty to trespassing Wednesday night before Reading Town Justice Raymond H. Berry and got 15 days in jail after she refused to pay the $275 fine.
“We’re in agreement with Susan’s words when she spoke in the courthouse, ‘If I were a corporation, I would not be going to jail,’” said one of four speakers, Sandra Steingraber, an Ithaca College scholar in residence who co-founded the coalition New Yorkers Against Fracking.
Fracking Protests Planned Around The World By GlobalFrackdown Campaign
More than 100 protests against the natural gas drilling process known as fracking are scheduled to take place around the world on Saturday, building on public concerns but also using an overly simplified message to spur outrage.
The GlobalFrackdown website and campaign was developed by Food & Water Watch, a Washington, D.C. nonprofit that was once part of Ralph Nader’s Public Citizen group. The campaign claims that fracking “has already damaged communities and ruined lives. It pollutes water and makes people sick.”