Youth all over the world are rising in the millions to demand the world’s nations protect our Earth home and the web of life that sustains us all by taking bold and immediate action to avoid catastrophic climate collapse. Because the world’s scientists are clear: we have less than 11 years to cut our emissions in half while protecting our remaining cultural and biological diversity. Otherwise, we face catastrophic impacts and the climate crisis moving beyond our control.
Purchasing the proposed Trans Mountain pipeline is an example of Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau lacking moral clarity and blundering in the wrong direction. Instead of making urgent and meaningful investments in green jobs, energy efficiency, sustainable transportation, and renewable energy projects, Trudeau has led the Government of Canada in committing billions in taxpayer funds toward expanding pipelines for liquified natural gas (LNG) and tar sands extraction – the most carbon intensive energy on the planet. The Canadian government needs to wake up to the climate emergency and #ENDFOSSILFUELSUBSIDIES.
The Trans Mountain pipeline expansion breaks Canada’s commitments to Indigenous rights and reconciliation, while declaring a war on the climate and coastal ecosystems. The pipeline and tanker project proposes to release 100 million tonnes of carbon annually, negating climate commitments made by the Canadian government at the UN Climate Summit in Paris.
Considering the plastic industry uses 8% of the global oil supply, 600,000 more barrels of oil per day means more plastic marine debris. In Clayoquot Sound, the pipeline would also mean 400 tankers a year traveling past Long Beach putting communities and ecosystems at greater risk of catastrophic oil spills. With increased summer temperatures, western red cedars, salal bushes, and mountain rivers are drying, rainforests are burning, glaciers are melting, and the orcas and salmon are struggling.
Politically, legally, and on the ground the proposed Trans Mountain pipeline was doomed before Trudeau led the Government of Canada in approving it in 2016. The pipeline still has no consent from entire Indigenous Nations, major municipalities including Vancouver, Burnaby, and Victoria, and the Government of British Columbia. With no treaties and no purchase of the unceded territories from the Indigenous Nations within B.C., Canada has no legal jurisdiction under International Law to even permit the pipeline and will face continued court challenges.
In B.C. hundreds have already been arrested to stop the Trans Mountain pipeline, and thousands more are lined up. An entire generation is growing up with Extinction Rebellion mindsets. If politicians like Trudeau continue to disregard the climate emergency, movement based direct actions inspired by “war in the woods” and the Clayoquot Blockades over 25 years ago will only continue to grow.
