September 19, 2016
WATER IS LIFE:
WILPF US Stands With Water Defenders Against The Pipeline
The United State Section of the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom
(WILPF US) and its Earth Democracy and Advancing Human Rights national issue committees stand in solidarity with the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, the many First Nations and other groups and supporters gathered to oppose construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) that would carry dangerous crude oil from the North Dakota Bakken oil fields under the Missouri River and across four states to Illinois.
Pipeline transport of the volatile Bakken crude oil is far from safe. To date, hundreds of oil and gas, spills from pipeline ruptures have contaminated local and regional environments, seriously impacted surrounding communities and harmed public health.
All pipeline projects overland, close to and under water sources pose an on-going threat to people and their communities from the point of extraction to transport to the refinery and beyond to points of distribution, consumption in the United State and to ports for export.
WILPF US and the Earth Democracy and Advancing Human Rights issues committees:
- Call for the Federal Government to permanently block this controversial project.
- Agree that fossil fuels must be left in the ground to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and curtail global warming. The United States is the second largest emitter of greenhouse gases behind China. Our government must develop the policy framework and financing to rapidly transition to clean, renewable solar and wind power.
- Recognize that continued development of Bakken crude or other sources of oil and gas in the United States will not contribute to national energy independence as claimed.
- Oppose the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) and a vote on the TPP in the Lame Duck Congress. Should the TPP be approved, export of fracked oil and gas to Pacific Rim countries will accelerate. Additionally, the TPP "docking" provision will allow countries within and beyond the Pacific Rim to join the TPP and expand the export market and increase fossil fuel development in the United States along with pipelines, oil trains and port facilities with the risk of accidents and increased environmental and health impacts.
- Understand that increased export will increased increase greenhouse, global warming and extreme weather events and that shipping emissions are set to quadruple by 2050.1
- Recognize that global warming threatens hundreds of millions of people who depend on glaciers that are rapidly shrinking, for their drinking water and crop irrigation and agree with the Standing Rock Sioux and with all tribal and Indigenous People worldwide that WATER IS LIFE and that ALL LIFE is dependent on water.
- Recognize that destruction and death from extreme weather events tragically impacts people of color, tribal and Indigenous, poor communities, island nations and impoverished coastal populations who have the fewest resources and least ability to rebuild their lives.
- Emphasize that conflict and migrations are expected to increase because of the range of impacts from extreme weather events that disproportionately affect women and children.
- Recognize that the Standing Rock Sioux uprising calls attention to the historic struggles over centuries of native tribes, Indigenous Peoples and marginalized communities world-wide for recognition of their human rights, land rights and sacred sites.
- Recognize that this uprising is an historic moment when a diverse national and global movement of movements is coalescing based on human rights and protection Mother Earth to achieve environmental, climate, economic and racial justice and gender equity for all people.
To begin to achieve the peace and freedom for which WILPF was founded
Join us
in standing with tribal members and supporters nationwide who continue to organize solidarity events and pass local resolutions in support of the opposition to the pipeline, the failure to properly consult with the Standing Rock Sioux, process by which it was approved, and the use of militarized force, pepper spray and dogs against peaceful non-violent protectors.
Send material and financial support to these water defenders who are preparing to stay encamped for the winter, should that prove necessary.
- Call the White House at (202) 456-1111 telling President Obama to rescind the Army Corps of Engineers' Permit for the Dakota Access Pipeline
- Spread the word on social media using #NoDAPL
- Learn which big international banks are funding the Pipelines and fracking operations and withdraw your dollars, cancel your credit cards issued through those banks and write them to let them know WHY you are ending your relationship with them.
- Consider serving a Mock Arrest Warrant to members of Congress, corporate media representatives, big bank executives who fund the pipelines and governors of North Dakota, Nebraska and Iowa for their role in putting profits ahead of their responsibilities for preserving and defending precious resources of their states and the private property of landowners whose land is being seized illegally through eminent domaine for the profit of a few.
Join us
to stop the TransAtlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP),
the and the TransPacific Partnership (TPP).
Contact your Senators and House Members to insist that they vote NO against the TPP and refuse to allow this destructive trade agreement to become law.
There will be significant pressure to pass this during President Obama's lame duck last days in office. Make your voices heard against the job-killing, climate-busting TPP.
Find more information here:
Join us
to educate about the unequal impact of climate change and environmental degradation on women, families and the human rights of the world's most vulnerable communities.
Order our
CLIMATE JUSTICE+WOMEN+PEACE
Infographic Cards
to distribute to elected representatives, women's rights groups, refugee groups, human rights groups and to the public, that they may better understand the connections between these issues, and WILPF's role in asserting the impact for and gender justice.
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