Guests on today's show:
Matt Krogh, ForestEthics West Coast Campaigner http://www.ForestEthics.org
Matt Landon, Vancouver Action Network http://vancouveractionnetwork.blogspot.com
Dan Sears, Columbia Riverkeeper http://columbiariverkeeper.org
Crude Awakening Tour: Music and Advocacy meet in the Oil
Train Show
Friday, June 13, at the 18 Ave Peace House, 2116 NE 18 Ave, Portland at
6pm for a potluck or come at 7pm for the program. $10-25 suggested donation; no one turned away for lack of funds.
Dana Lyons, Alternative Folk Singer-Songwriter, author of comedy hit “Cows with Guns,” coal train song “Sometimes,” and the recent “The Great Salish Sea," will join Matt Krogh, ForestEthics West Coast Campaigner, author of “Off the Rails: The Fossil Fuel Takeover of the Pacific Northwest” to present this evening of entertainment and education.
Oil train transport is growing rapidly, often with no public notice of the risks that come with this increase of traffic moving through communities. The Crude Awakening tour seeks to engage, entertain, and educate the public.
Two years ago in the Pacific Northwest, there were no terminals prepared to handle mile-long trains of crude-oil-filled tanker cars; today, four terminals are operating in Washington and Oregon, with six more in various stages of permitting and construction.
These terminals are designed to handle volatile Bakken crude, noted for exploding in the last year in North Dakota, Alabama and Quebec, where 47 people lost their lives, as well as bitumen from the Alberta tar sands, noted for sinking in aquatic environments and causing more pollution during extraction than any other form of oil. Add the push by the American Petroleum Institute to lift the ban on US crude exports and it’s clearly past time to address the question posed by the tour: Is this really for us?
Cosponsors: 350PDX, ForestEthics, Columbia Riverkeeper, Friends of the Columbia Gorge and Greenpeace USA-Western Division
Links and events mentioned on program:
Protests commemorating 1st anniversary of Quebec oil train disaster:
https://actionnetwork.org/event_campaigns/oil-by-rail-week-of-action (stopoiltrains.org)
See above link for info on Portland action July 6, or call 503-705-1943
Public Forum on oil train rail traffic in the Columbia Gorge:
June 16, 6:30-7:30 p.m., Riverside church, 4th and State, Hood River http://columbiariverkeeper.org/
Washington Oil Trains Summit, August 22-23, Evergreen State College, Olympia, WA http://washingtonoiltrainsummit.blogspot.com/
For more information on oil by rail increases and more, see the report Off The Rails:The Fossil Fuel Takeover of the Northwest http://www.forestethics.org/news/report-rails
More about Dana Lyons: www.CowsWithGuns.com
More about ForestEthics: www.ForestEthics.org
More about 350PDX: www.350PDX.org