The Livable Blog

This discussion paper will be one of the topics of discussion during the Pipelines, Tankers and Climate Chaos...Or System Change? workshop on Saturday. Details below.

Energy System Change Not Climate Change

An Occupy Vancouver Environmental Justice Group Discussion Paper – An evolving vision to guide action – Version 2.1 Feb 22, 2012

The growing resistance to tar sands pipeline expansion, and to the very idea of continuing our dependence on fossil fuels—is a last stand—we cannot “progress” one more step down the road the 1% and Big Oil want to lead us down. The species of this earth—including the human species—cannot survive it. It is up to us, the 99%, to change our energy and economic system. We are inspired by and in solidarity with the Indigenous Nations who in the Save the Fraser Declaration state they “will not allow the proposed Enbridge Northern Gateway Pipelines, or similar Tar Sands projects” to proceed. We are also inspired by indigenous leadership on the climate crisis, including the recent Declaration of the Indigenous Peoples of the World to the UNFCCC COP 17 International Indigenous Peoples’ Forum on Climate Change:

“For decades, Indigenous Peoples have warned that climate change confirms that the harmonic relationship between humans and Mother Earth has been ruptured, endangering the future of humanity in its entirety. . . The alternative is to change the system, not the climate, based on a new paradigm for civilization, Living Well with harmony between the peoples and Mother Earth.”

To Live Well in harmony with Mother Earth, we must transform the unequal, unfair, and growing disparity in the distribution of power and wealth in our city and around the globe. To successfully deal with the climate crisis requires challenging corporate greed, corruption, and the collusion between corporate power and government. The protection of our environment requires economic security and genuine equality. As David Suzuki emphasized while speaking to Occupy Vancouver, we must learn to live within the “limits imposed by nature [and] put the eco back into economics”. We also acknowledge that unlimited growth on our finite planet is impossible, so we must find a path to prosper and Live Well without growing material and energy consumption.

Reports such as Prosperity Without Growth and The Spirit Level outline how our wellbeing could be enhanced with the move away from economic growth and consumerism to a focus on meeting human needs and improving quality of life through increased equality.

Our automobile-dominated transportation system was created to do more than move people and goods; it was created largely to spur on the consumption of materials and energy to keep our economy growing. Therefore, changing to a system much more reliant on electric trains, public transit, bicycles, and walking is an essential part of the system change needed to Live Well without tar sands oil.

Many Indigenous Peoples have made their position clear: new pipelines will not pass over their unceded territories, nor will they stand any longer for an unsustainable abuse of this planet. We must now stand with them.

We say NO to
• The proposed Enbridge Northern Gateway pipeline
• The expansion of the Trans Mountain pipeline and its terminus, Vancouver’s Kinder Morgan oil port on Burrard Inlet
• New or expanded Tar Sands extraction facilities, ‘natural’ gas pipelines, or coal mines in BC
• Public spending that worsens our dependence on tar sands oil, including airport and urban roadway expansion

We say YES to
• Protecting Burrard Inlet, and the coast of BC, from tar sands bitumen tankers and spills.
• Living Well in harmony with Mother Earth
• Investing in electric passenger rail, public transit, bicycles, and walking to reduce the use of tar sand oil and reduce vulnerability to volatile oil prices
• Phasing out fossil fuels through energy conservation and the careful development of renewable energy that respects the rights of indigenous peoples
• Non violent mass action by the 99% to protect Mother Earth from the 1%

As Jared Diamond writes in Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed, the “world’s environmental problems will get solved, in one way or another, within the lifetimes of the children and young adults alive today. The only question is whether they will become resolved in pleasant ways of our own choice, or in unpleasant ways not of our choice” (p 498).

The measures of prosperity can no longer be the destructive arithmetic of GDP, markets, barrels of oil, and bank accounts. The measures of prosperity need to be the measures of justice, community, ecological balance, and careful and measured consumption. We find true wealth when we build ways to Live Well together, as a community and an ecology.

Pipelines, Tankers and Climate Chaos...Or System Change? An Occupy Vancouver Environmental Justice Work Group Workshop

Saturday February 25, 4 – 6 pm (After the Occupy Vancouver General Assembly) W2 – Woodwards, 111 W Hastings Street, Vancouver, Unceded Coast Salish Territory

The global 1% and the big oil corporations they control want to expand Tar Sands extraction and the pipelines that serve it, including the tar sands export terminal on Burrard Inlet in Burnaby. The threat to our local environment from oil spills is huge, and we are at a strategic location to keep the 1% from cooking our planet. Join the uprising by the 99% to stop pipelines, tankers and climate chaos!

Learn about
• System Change Not Climate Change and the systemchange.ca project
• Pipeline and tanker proposals and resistance in BC
• Energy and Transportation System Change

Discuss the issues. Help shape Occupy Vancouver’s work on pipelines, tankers and system change. Get involved!

For more information contact: environmentaljustice@occupyvancouver.com