—

Henri Lefebvre called for revolution in everyday life, set in urban environments. His vision of a “right to the city” would be enacted in the collective participation of diverse inhabitants, as they gain open access to urban centres. This conception carries links to 1871 and 1968 uprisings in Paris. Since then, the term has been widely applied — but not consistently. Lefebvre’s account is one of radically inclusive citizenship, sought through contestation, and autonomous expression. In this presentation, I will note some of the ways in which his perspective on urban environments is integrated into his wide-ranging critiques and proposals, developed over the course of more than sixty books. The appropriation of cities that he describes would overturn a history of urbanization — as well as interlocking capitalism, nation-states, mass culture, technocracy, and other such totalizing systems. While offering an alternative to statist and economically reductionist forms of socialism, Lefebvre also turns away from abstract, liberal conceptions of rights, by stressing situated urban praxis. Streets would become places of festivities and embodied creativity, rather than conduits for traffic and consumption. In the process, urban design would be taken out of the hands of cybernetic planners, as residents utilise their capacities for collective self-management.

—

In the March version of the abstract, I also had noted how Lefebvre’s approach (a) challenges globalization (in a sense), and (b) is comparable to Murray Bookchin’s “communalist” perspective on urban movements. I now have cut those two points out to narrow the scope of the presentation. I still won’t be able to cover all of the points in the abstract well, but the presentation will be more manageable.

The breadth of Lefebvre’s work is great — but difficult to address in the span of 20 minutes.

—

To provide entry-points into the works of Henri Lefebvre and Erich Fromm, this presentation contextualizes their approaches to production, class, and wider economic issues.  Lefebvre was a neo-Marxist who had ties to Nietzsche, the Situationists, and various other Parisian currents of thought.  Fromm was, above all, a neo-Marxist and a neo-Freudian — with significant involvements in the initial formation of the Frankfurt School.  Their wide-ranging critical theories include accounts of how economic systems intersect with governments, mainstream culture, and technologies.  Fromm often highlights social psychology, and Lefebvre provides distinct insights into geographic and urban topics.  Relative to other such attempts to build on and revise Karl Marx’s analysis, Lefebvre and Fromm offer relatively comprehensive accounts.  These theorists responded to post-WW2 consumerism, and to various banal forms of conformity, which have extended well beyond the workplace.   These contributions included extensions of Marx’s approach to alienation and culture.  Their critical accounts of established systems are complemented by attention to social movements, and collective alternatives.  Yet, their works stray from a Marxist focus on working class movements.  Lefebvre and Fromm also look to locally-based opposition — more along the lines of Marx’s views to the Paris Commune.

—

The plan for the presentation has been adjusted since I prepared that, but the abstracts for this conference aren’t circulated, so I’m not going to revise this. Any of the points that aren’t covered in the presentation still will be part of my dissertation, so the entire abstract still covers aspects of my ongoing studies.

An earlier version of the title had the term “Western Marxist” in it, but I went with”Neo-Marxist” because I think it’s better for capturing how original the approaches of Lefebvre and Fromm are.

By using the term “revisionism” to describe theorists who I appreciate, I am mocking a history of Marxists and Stalinists who have claimed that revisions generally are bad.  While I appreciate how many of those critiques have been directed toward compromise, opportunism, and totalitarianism, the tactic of making “revisionism” into a dirty wood is a dogmatic way of defending orthodoxy.  Hence, Stalinists used the term in that same way — to defend their agenda.

—

—

Two other relevant books that I don’t mention in the abstract are Lorenzo C. Simpson’s book The Unfinished Project, and Kate Soper’s Humanism and Anti-Humanism.

This presentation basically will be about sections of my PhD dissertation, which mainly is about Murray Bookchin, Erich Fromm, and Henri Lefebvre.

There’s also a humanism tag on this blog, and on some of my Flickr posts.

—

To begin to compare the approaches of Erich Fromm and Murray Bookchin, this presentation traces three major themes in their works: gender, affect, and ecology.  Fromm was a neo-Marxist and neo-Freudian who had a significant role in the initial formation of the Frankfurt School. Bookchin’s Social Ecology was an offshoot of Marxism, with considerable ties to anarchism, and the Frankfurt School. The wide-ranging critical theories of Fromm and Bookchin includes accounts of bureaucracies, large-scale technologies, and governments — among other societal conditions.  Each of these intellectuals offers multiple vantage points on gendering, interpersonal bonds, and other emotions. Their theories intersect directly, in regards to feminized affectual ties between parents and children, across different historical periods. In their works, these themes are interrelated with ecological issues, given their perspectives on how interpersonal relations and societal conditions are associated with nature.  Although Fromm tended to neglect ecological topics, Bookchin foregrounded these questions, in works which have considerable ties with subsequent eco-feminism.

—

That abstract is an updated version of one that I prepared in for an Institute for Social Ecology colloquium in the summer of 2011.  I sent in a written version for the colloquium, but I didn’t make it out to Vermont to present and discuss it (due to an unforeseen personal situation). I simply used the title “Gender, affect, and ecology in the works of Bookchin and Fromm” for the abstract, in the summer. Then, in early 2012, I did some more work on the abstract, with the intention of sending it in for a Sociology conference.  Yet, I ended up proposing a different presentation, which is about Erich Fromm and Henri Lefebvre — and, primarily, about their approaches to class, production, and other economic topics.

Our “Teach-in on the occupy movement” event was held in the “University Community Centre” (UCC) atrium here in London, Ontario.  This teach-in was arranged by some campus students and employees who plan to continue to collaborate with one another.

The day after our teach-in, the headline “UCC atrium gets occupied: Unauthorized pamphlets distributed” was on the front page of a campus paper that covered the event.

We had had prepared this pamphlet for the teach-in.  Sections of it are about Canadian economy, universities, and local issues.  This pamphlet was collectively read out into the “Community Centre” atrium during an assembly, where we also discussed its contents.

A group of guys with ties tried to disrupt the assembly by singing over us, but we just raised the volume of our people’s mic.

Details about how “Students’ Council” administrators tried to stop the teach-in are outlined below.

First, here is the event call-out, which communicates why we arranged this event -

WHY OCCUPY?

These words were in our online event postings, and in notices sent to the campus press -

In solidarity with the ongoing struggles and peaceful occupations of parks, streets and campuses across the world and here in London, we would like to offer an invitation to all students, faculty, staff, and neighbours to join us
…
The Teach-In is an opportunity to gain a better understanding of the claims, passions and concerns constituting the movement as well as to acknowledge the risks taken and injustices battled against by the thousands of people engaged in and supportive of these occupations. It will be a chance to recognize what is at stake in this for all of us — autonomy over the conditions of our educations, our work, our futures.

In the face of growing economic, political and social uncertainties, and shrinking confidence in the powers that presume to govern our lives, these thousands have disowned the burdens piled on their shoulders by an unjust and inequitable system that increasingly constricts the shapes of our lives and imaginations. In an age of privatization and corporate interests, institutions that claim to serve our interests instead reinforce inequalities, demolish our access to essential services, and turn their backs as we are left utterly insecure. Profit-making dictates decisions concerning our education, our housing, our health, our lands; considerations of democracy and justice are left by the wayside.

How can we bring this occupation movement to Western? The university should be a public institution that holds a societal responsibility to resist corporatization and to promote equity, accessibility, and social and environmental justice. The university’s role should be to provide an environment for free and open critical inquiry, fostering members of society who are able to creatively and imaginatively contribute to a dynamic future.

Join us in building awareness of issues relevant to our lives on and beyond this campus, to our political organizing, to our sharing of knowledge and skills, to a rediscovery of what we hold in common. In a spirit of inclusivity and open-mindedness, bring your questions, your uncertainties, your personal stories, your hopes, and your misgivings- join us in a discussion of our present and of our possible paths. We will not always agree with one another, but we must respect one another, support and affirm one another. We must recognize that we all have an equal stake in this university as well as the wider community across the city, the nation, the globe.

We all have a stake in this.

ADMINISTRATIVE RESTRICTIONS

We decided to pre-book the atrium for this teach-in.  Since we aren’t an official campus group — and we don’t even have a name yet, for that matter — it was an accomplishment to get the booking.  We even were able to manuever out of paying for the space.

But many other corporate-bureaucratic hurdles got in our way -

The day before the event, a campus printing service (InPrint) wouldn’t accept money to make copies of our a pamphlet for us.  They insisted (incorrectly) that the pamphlet violates the university copyright over their brand logo, which has the same campus tower in it.  Yet, the tower on our pamphlet actually is a personal photograph of the tower, so it isn’t a copy of any of the university marketing graphics.

Staff also tried to stop us from distributing the main pamphlet for the teach-in.  One of many administrative policies demands that approval be requested and received for “pamphlets, handouts, posters, signs, surveys, or advertisements” that are distributed.  This document includes that policy, and many others that restrict activities at the campus.  None of our pamphlets were pre-authorized by the “University Students’ Council”.

Although we had gone through official channels to arrange to be in the atrium, we were told that we were going to have to leave, before we had even finished setting up for the event.  For hours, it seemed like we were going to be evicted.  The campus police stopped by, and administrative staff were lingering around during much of the teach-in.

The main sticking point with them was a section of the pamphlet which questions the student code of conduct.  (See below.)

Other criticisms from the “Students’ Council” staff were about:
- how we were stepping more than three feet away from the event tables
- not receiving approval for the event posters
- showing a video that has David Heap, a Freedom Waves to Gaza activist, in it — despite how he is a professor at the university
- setting up a tent in the atrium
- their expectations that there might be swearing in the videos

The “Students’ Council” administrators who have raised all of those objections also are in charge of the printing operation that refused to make copies of the pamphlet.

One of those campus bureaucrats ended up in a debate with several people who had come for the teach-in.

In many ways, their approach to the university is clashing with ours.

In regards to the controversial video clip with the pro-Palestinian activist in it: one of our teach-in organizers was told that the video is ‘not about occupy issues’ — so it supposedly doesn’t fit into our event booking.  The organizers of the Occupy London rally shown in the video wouldn’t agree though, since they had invited David Heap to speak.  We chose to show the video a couple of times.

As for the controversial section of the pamphlet: here it is -

What you should know about UWO’s Student Code of Conduct:
•  “The University does not condone behaviour that infringes upon the rights of the University’s neighbours or that brings the University’s good name into disrepute.” – This clause is so vague that most students overlook it. Disguised as something encouraging students to be well-behaved off-campus, it actually gives the administration the capacity to punish anything you do, anywhere. You could be punished for anything and everything that the University finds “disreputable” (from participating in the Victoria Park Occupation to complaining about Amit Chakma’s salary on Facebook).
•  “By action, threat, written material, or by any means whatsoever, disrupting or obstructing any University or Affiliated University College activities, including a University sponsored program, event or activity, or other authorized activities on premises of the University or its Affiliated University Colleges, or the right of another person to carry on his/her legitimate activities, or to speak or to associate with others. University or Affiliated University College activities
include, but are not limited to, teaching, research, studying, sports and recreation, administration and meetings.”- This clause is as vague as the rest of the Code of Conduct and it gives the administration the freedom to construe any action (from coughing too loud in class to speaking your mind about tuition fees on concrete beach) as a disruption, which can be punishable however they deem fit.
•  UWO’s Student Code of Conduct has the potential to be used as a political tool against students.

Administrators have singled out a couple of students who they expect to answer to them for a ‘debriefing’ session.  They’ll have to learn that we don’t have leaders or spokespeople who they can pin blame on.

[Note: this write-up is just a personal summary of these efforts and conflicts]

The call-out for this Occupy London (Ontario) protest simply said -
“We are taking aim at the banks with this action. Meeting at Covent Market west side entrance @ 4pm, then move on to downtown banks to express our opposition to the predatory financial institutions and the economic system that holds down the working class.”

We were joining Occupy Wall Street’s day of action.

Around the same time, there also was a meditation circle here in London today — which also was in solidarity with the occupation movement.

Here are some brief notes about our banks action -

Photos here were taken around the London towers for three banking corporations.  We had a brief rally inside the RBC office/branch building.  The first set of doors at the TD-Dominion tower (the “City Centre”) were locked when we arrived. Protestors laughed at the staff on the other side of the glass.  On another side of the building, a staff member locked the doors when a few of us walked over there. But three of us were able to get in through another entrance — which then was locked behind us as we left.  By that time, the march had arrived at the Scotiabank tower, which is called “One London Place”. It’s the tallest building in the city.

We also stopped at a BMO branch which wouldn’t let us in, and another TD-Dominion branch down the street locked an entrance as we arrived.

Several police officers were tagging along throughout the protest.  The guy with the video camera recorded us the entire time.  The police also recorded us during another recent Occupy London march.

Our march passed by a vacant retail space where some of the salvaged items from the evicted occupation site were being made available. A few Occupy London activists already were in there when we arrived, and others went in as the march passed by.

There are more notes on individual photos in the set on Flickr.

The rally call-out:

Our occupation has been evicted, but we continue to stand together.

Please join us this Saturday as we rally for democracy. We’ll begin to gather before 2pm, around the Victoria Park gates.

* Fontana must go! *

Occupy London is demanding that mayor Joe Fontana resign, and we are demanding an apology for evicting the occupation.

* Stop the cuts! *

We are standing against privatization, and cuts to government services. Mayor Fontana has been supporting that austerity agenda by cosying up to corporations (like EPCOR and Nestle).

We are workers, students, the poor, and immigrants. We are the many people who make up the 99%.

We stand for democratic participation, and peaceful assemblies in public spaces.

Fontana took the lead in stealing the community tents and supplies that we’ve used for the peaceful democratic assembly at the occupation site. Fontana is siding with the 1% — against the rest of us.

This Saturday, we ask everyone to join us in occupying our streets.

-

(Please note: this call-out is from members of Occupy London who are trying to capture discussion at the Wednesday afternoon general assembly. These words haven’t been ran by people at an Occupy London meeting — yet. The next assembly was moved to Friday night at 6pm, to give occupiers time to recover from the eviction.)

[Update: We didn't get around to approving a final version of that before the rally.]

===

One of these photos was posted by Kevin Jones.

See the photo set on Flickr for notes about specific photos.

Links to some other grassroots coverage video and photos are posted here -
http://www.mediacoop.ca/photo/occupy-london-rally-democracy-against-austerity-and-against-eviction/8960

Occupy London received eviction notices on Tuesday, November 8th.  An eviction notice even was taped to the sign that said “sorry for the inconvenience — we are trying to change the world”

These photos were taken that day.  There are notes about specific photos in the set on Flickr.

The eviction deadline was 6pm that night, and a few of these photos were taken during the rally that evening.  One photo shows some of the people who very large tarp covered tents and some supplies.  During the rally, people linked their arms together to surround the tarp with a human chain.

On Wednesday, November 9th around 12:30am, the police raided the park, to destroy belongings (in garbage trucks), to take tents and supplies, and to try to pressure everyone out.

I sent the following statement to the London, Ontario mayor, and to the city councillors. These words were e-mailed in to those officials about 9 hours before the occupation site was forcibly evicted.

====

London officials:

Please respect the Occupy London safe space statement:

“Everyone has a right to feel safe and valuable. Safe space is a communal responsibility. It means being safe from sexual harassment, physical assault, verbal threat and abuse, racism, sexism, colonialism, classism, ablism, ageism, homophobia, transphobia, and all forms of oppression. We encourage the whole assembly to develop their own sense of what a safe space society would look and feel like. We encourage everyone to be conscious and respectful to the safety of others.”

That statement is read at occupation meetings, and many copies are at the occupation site.

Please do not condone or tolerate violence towards the citizens involved in this peaceful occupation. Forcibly removing or detaining anyone would entail violence, of course.

We all know that the police will be carrying weapons. Will they have tasers? Will they have guns? What weapons do you believe that they should or should not bring to the park with them? If you have concerns about police weapons and police violence in general, please share those with us, publicly. The memory of the police tasering an unarmed young man on the street will be with many of us tonight. Some will view a police presence as a threat in itself.

Occupy London has rejected violence. What will you do? Will you stand for non-violence?

Like all others, any police, officials, or city staff are asked to respect those safe space principles when entering the occupation area.

To that end, please also recognize that fines would hit some much harder than others. There are individuals at the occupation who definitely cannot afford to pay the fines, even if they are well under $2000. Individuals who don’t have identification also are more vulnerable, in that police may detain them after attempting to write them tickets.

What makes all of this worse is how city officials are targeting people who are having a peaceful assembly in a public park which barely is used at this time of year.

The notion that people can trespass in a public park is absurd. Would any of you say otherwise, in public? City hall certainly has plastered notices around the park that mention the Trespass to Property Act.

And which of you will publicly justify the by-law that denies the public access to public parks after 10pm?

Which of you will publicly side with the Charter of Rights and Freedoms? — which obviously super-sede any by-laws. Since I am assuming that you are familiar with the Charter, I will not provide relevant quotations. But I will point out what we all know: there is no statement in there which declares that the Charter does not apply to an occupation.

I say all of this to support others who are being targeted with the eviction notices. Although I have not been staying at the occupation, I am one of many supporters, with some involvement in Occupy London.

====

That’s it.

About the eviction, 9 hours later -
Around 12:30am, the police surrounded the park, and they parked ambulances within view of the park. Garbage trucks also were driven out there to destroy people’s belongings. Supplies and tents were stolen by police, or those items were just fed into the garbage trucks. The next day, two occupiers were arrested in the park.

As for the contents of the statement -

There are many ways in which it doesn’t represent my ideals.

The current system of government is deeply messed up — municipally, federally, and otherwise. I’m not trying to legitimate any of it, as it stands. But this official-ocracy does exist, and we have got to face all of the conditions around us, as they stand right now.

Not mentioning the London police involvement in the G20 Summit last year was yet another compromise.

An earlier draft was more assertive. Toning it down seemed more strategic — partly because I expect to be involved in municipal campaigns, and I don’t want to turn councillors against other efforts that are linked to me in some way. This version is more subtle than what I had felt like writing.

Of course, sending them one message isn’t going to accomplish much of anything, but I still figured that it was worth doing.

In this audio interview, Zak Nicholls (of S.H.A.M.E.) mainly speaks about:
- Responding to pollution around the “Clean Harbors” hazardous waste facility
- Collaborating with residents of Marine City, Michigan — where there is a Wilms tumor cluster
- The latest problems with ESSO / Imperial Oil

This interview is posted here.

A “Wipe Out Wilms” t-shirt

He also mentions:
- The World Health Organization (WHO)’s findings that Sarnia has the worst particulate pollution in Canada
- TODA’s water pollution
- The now inactive, and possibly dead, Lambton Community Health Study
- Free toxic tours around Chemical Valley

This interview follows up another one in which Zak gives updates about how shale gas will be or might be used around Sarnia-Lambton’s Chemical Valley.

Many of these topics had come up in conversation; we then decided to to record some of what Zak has to say about the situations around where he lives.

The ESSO plant — photographed from Michigan

Shale gas from fracking in the United States (and perhaps Ontario) will be used in Sarnia-Lambton’s Chemical Valley.

Nova Chemicals in October, 2011. Photo by Dallas Sinopole.

In this interview, Zak speaks about:
- Nova Chemicals, and how this company plans to use shale gas — for decades
- A related BioAmber facility which will be processing a substance that is similar to the GHB rape drug
- Labour concessions which are connected with these projects
- The Lambton Generating Station, and the possibility that it will be burning ‘natural’ gas (shale gas?) in the future

This recording is posted here.

Zak brings up issues like these through S.H.A.M.E.: Sarnia Hometown Activist Movement Emerging

This recording is the first part of two interviews about major news around Chemical Valley. The second part of these interviews is posted here.

These October 2011 interviews follow up a previous recording, in which Zak gives more background about the impacts around Chemical Valley, and community efforts to improve their situation.

Zak at an anti-fracking rally in London, Ontario.

Audio interviews with…

• Stacy and Leah, the organizers of A Walk to Remember the Victims of Asbestos
• Zak, a Sarnia resident who has been actively raising local environmental issues through S.H.A.M.E.

They speak about Canadian asbestos exports, victims of asbestos exposure, a history of asbestos around Sarnia-Lambton’s Chemical Valley, and other related topics.

(Note: I would have spoken with other speakers from the rally if it wasn’t so windy afterwards.)

The company that likes to be known as “Clean Harbors” burns toxic wastes at this location. As they say on their web site, they incinerate “hazardous waste” that comes to them “in liquid form.”

This company also points out how “the Lambton Facility is the only licensed, integrated hazardous waste management facility within Ontario. In fact, due to the high capital investment and specialized operating requirements … , there are relatively few, comparable facilities in North America.” The other Chemical Valley industries around Sarnia-Lambton have plenty of hazardous waste to get rid of, so “Clean Harbors” also buries wastes underground.  They take in waste from other industries as well.

In their words:
“The Facility serves heavy and light industry, commercial businesses, households and governments meeting the needs of waste generators from across the economic spectrum, including: electronics, aerospace, automotive, building materials, appliances, transportation, recreation and leisure, fuels, rubber, construction, lubricants, chemicals, plastics, mining, home and garden products, cosmetics, clothing, medicines, agricultural implements, food processing, steel, products-packaging and paints.”

Before they get into these and other points on their web site, they note how:
“Hazardous waste is a fact of modern life. From medicines to cosmetics, from packaged foods and beverages, to paint, fertilizer, rubber and plastics — all the products that nurture our lifestyle generate hazardous waste as part of their production and consumption”

Chemical Valley industries are arranging to use shale gas supplies that very likely could be contaminated with radon, given how these gas feedstocks are extracted through fracking — a technique that is used to retrieve gas from shale rock located very deep underground. Two Texas companies have agreed to send this shale gas from the northeastern United States to the Nova Chemical plant in Sarnia, and there is wider industry support for these imports of gas from fracking.

For the sake of the health and safety of the residents of Sarnia-Lambton — and others around the region — it is important that we apply the precautionary principle to this issue. We should assume that shale gas could come with radon contamination, if we cannot prove otherwise.

This gas is from shale that often contains significant quantities of uranium, as well as the products of its radioactive decay, including radium and radon, a colourless, odourless, and intensely radioactive gas. Because it is common in many rock formations throughout North America and elsewhere, radon is responsible for most of our daily exposure to damaging radiation. Radon gas that seeps up from subterranean rock formations often accumulates in basements — sometimes resulting in dangerous levels. Lung cancer caused by breathing radon contaminated air already is estimated to cause 25,000 deaths per year in the United States alone and is the second most frequent cause of lung cancer, after cigarette smoking.

It is very possible that gas from fracking frequently is radioactive, since radon could be mixed with shale gas, due to their occurrence in the same rocks. Radon is chemically inert, which means that even when radon-containing gas is burned, the radon portion emerges intact. When this radon is released into the atmosphere along with the carbon dioxide from burning the methane in the gas, the air around us would become polluted with radioactive gas. When shale gas is burned in an enclosed space (e.g. inside a building) the air inside could become radioactive if there are any leaks in the exhaust ductwork. Similarly, when shale gas is converted into other gases by petrochemical industries, those product gases might also be radioactive due to radon contamination.

The difficulty of studying the impacts of substances that already are used and produced in Chemical Valley should be clear, now that years of delays have held back regional health study plans. There is no independent and officially recognized study of any impacts from the known carcinogens, as well as endocrine disruptors, and numerous other dangerous substances, in and around the Sarnia-Lambton petrochemical facilities. Bringing shale gas that may be contaminated with radon into Chemical Valley would complicate these matters further.

Would there ever be any independent testing for radon contamination? How thorough would such tests be? Would the full results be disclosed to employees, and the general public?

We ask these questions because possible radon contamination is not being discussed by companies and organizations which are pursuing shale gas imports for Sarnia-Lambton, without addressing any pollution threats (during the recent Sarnia-Lambton Shale Gas Conference, for example — which was held to discuss and promote shale gas imports into Sarnia-Lambton).

We are focusing on threats from radon, but there are many health and environmental dangers associated with shale gas. Water contamination is the worst of the impacts around the sites which are fracked to retrieve this gas. Yet, there are plans for fracking in Ontario — beginning in south Lambton. Importing shale gas for petrochemical industries would stimulate further fracking in Ontario, and elsewhere. In the meantime, the worldwide movement to ban fracking is gaining momentum with the recent bans by France and New Jersey.

In view of the potential negative impacts on the health and well-being of our citizens, we will suggest that there should be a ban on fracking across Ontario.

There also should be an immediate moratorium on imports of shale gas to Ontario until tests for radon in the gas have been completed and publicized. If radon is found in shale gas, it would be one more good reason to ban fracking altogether.

Toban Black, Ph.D. Candidate in Sociology with Environment & Sustainability;
Robert Cory, Ph.D., Emeritus Professor of Chemistry

During a Car Free Festival in London, Ontario

Climate Justice London had a zombie walk with fake oil, for Stop Tar Sands Day.

The ‘oily’ zombies walked to raise awareness about the many impacts from tar sands operations — from Alberta, to Ontario, and beyond. This tar sands sludge is being pumped into Sarnia-Lambton’s Chemical Valley industries.  And, if the Enbridge Trailbreaker project proceeds, very dirty tar sands bitumen would be pumped through a pipeline which already crosses the Thames River, just north of London. In Alberta, toxic tailings ponds have been leaking into the Athabasca river, each and every day. The residents of the area also are threatened by pipeline spills. In one incident this spring, millions of litres of tar sands crude and diluent spilled into the territory of the Lubicon Cree.

Being car free helps us to be free from tar sands impacts.  In the meantime, we are becoming more and more dependent on dirtier and more expensive fossil fuel sources — including Alberta’s tar sands. Relative to conventional oil, tar sands crude has far more intense climate impacts, and the extraction of tar sands drains and pollutes immense amounts of fresh water.  There are many terrible impacts.

At the zombie walk, we used a “Turtle Island” tailings pond to catch our oily run-off, before and after the walk.

Across the street we taped up a banner that calls for a better world, where banks don’t invest in tar sands operations. We had this banner up in front of a TD – Canada Trust building.

In addition to photos in the set shown below, more photos from the zombie walk are posted here.

The rally call-out said -

Fracking is a toxic, dangerous, and wasteful form of natural gas extraction that we may see around London, Ontario. The water pollution is the worst of the fracking impacts. Tap water has become flammable after fracking is done to break gas out of nearby shale rock. A stew of toxic chemicals is pumped into each gas well, and radium is one of many underground substances that can be unintentionally released during this extraction.

In spite of all of those dangers, there are plans for shale gas exploration around London -
http://stopfrackingontario.wordpress.com/fracking/in-ontario/london/
In addition to water contamination, we also should be concerned about explosion risks, air pollution, water depletion, methane greenhouse gas releases, earthquakes, increased truck traffic, and deforestation.

If you are worried about all of these threats from fracking, please come out to this rally to show your concern, and learn more about what we are up against.

Two sets of photos from the protest can be seen here (on Facebook) and here (on Flickr).

This video shows some of the rally.

This London rally was called to follow up a “Don’t frack with our water” demonstration outside of a North American shale gas conference in Point Edward, on May 19th.

The anti-fracking banners were made by members of a Sarnia-based activist network called S.H.A.M.E. A few of those activists were able to join us in London, and Zak gave a Sarnia-Lambton perspective when he spoke at the rally.

Our protest wasn’t about just one municipality. Part of the rally call-out said -

This London rally also is being arranged in solidarity with others who are fighting fracking elsewhere in this region of North America.

Even if there were no fracking in London or directly beside London, the water supplies for the city still are threatened by plans for this shale extraction around Lake Erie and Lake Huron.

In Ontario, tens of thousands of acres of land already have been purchased by a Calgary company that is looking to start fracking in Lambton and Chatham-Kent, directly beside Walpole Island. Shale extraction also might be done at Kettle Point, or elsewhere along the Great Lakes.

In the U.S., fracking is being challenged in Ohio, Michigan, and in other states that share the Great Lakes with us.

In London, we originally were going to gather along one side of city hall, but the people who came out wanted to relocate to the sidewalk around the front entrance. A security guard told us that we had to move back to another sidewalk before we’d be on public land. But we held our ground.

People bunched up around the driveway, in front of a TV camera, for a few minutes. I gave a brief interview, but it seems that the TV station didn’t air any of the rally footage. (Or a clip aired without us noticing it.) Yet, we’re making own own media, with some material that a few of us captured.

As the rally was winding down, we chalked out some anti-fracking messages on the sidewalk in front of city hall.

Since the protest, a “Don’t frack around London, Ontario” Facebook “group” has been set up. There also will be at least one London area e-mail list, and anyone can join by sending a message to the Stop Fracking Ontario e-mail account. Otherwise, specific follow-up plans haven’t come together, this soon after the rally.

What is clear is that some people around here are concerned about what shale fracking could do to our environment and our health. There has been some preliminary talk about municipal and provincial campaigning for a ban on fracking.

This isn’t a battle that any one group or organization could tackle on their own. Widespread collaboration would be necessary before we can stop the plans for shale fracking.

Stop Fracking Ontario web pages will be there to link together any such efforts.

On May 19th, we had a rally outside of a North American shale gas conference at Holiday Inn Sarnia — which actually is located in Point Edward. At our protest, we focused on threats to water supplies from the toxic stew of fluids injected into fracking wells, as well as methane, radium, and other substances that can be let loose from around the shale rock that the gas is extracted from.

The shale gas conference was about profits that corporations could gain by securing U.S. gas exports for the petro-chemical industries in Sarnia-Lambton. On the Ontario side of the border, those arrangements basically would come down to keeping the Chemical Valley status quo going, with possible savings for the companies purchasing gas supplies from U.S. shale (at least until Ontario shale gas is made available).

Industry representatives travelled out to their closed-door conference from more than one province, and from multiple U.S. states. They came in to support and extend the hype about fracking ‘benefits without trade-offs.’ This spin was about imports from states around West Virginia, but the same points will be made about Ontario fracking, arranged by the same industry players, who will try to profit from shale gas here. Yet, fracking could be done in Ontario to export gas to the United States, or to the Alberta tar sands.

Videos from our rally are posted on Facebook — here and here.

Some more photos from our protest can be seen here, here, and here.

Outside the North American shale conference, non-indigenous activists like myself protested alongside residents of Aamjiwnaang and Kettle Point. The shale gas exploration in this province could cut across six native territories. Yet, indigenous sovereignty has not even been acknowledged — let alone respected — as such plans have been publicly announced.  The Calgary company outlining these plans also clearly has not had any dialogue with these native groups, even as their territories are targetted for exploration.

Our rally was very close to the Michigan border, and two activists from Michigan were able to join us. The fracking industry already is active in Michigan, and a Don’t Frack Michigan campaign is being organized in response to the extraction impacts and threats there.

The North American shale gas conference protest was organized through S.H.A.M.E. — a Sarnia activist network that usually focuses on Chemical Valley impacts around that area (including one major incident with Imperial Oil, around the time of the conference.)

Kathy made the banners that we had at the rally. She also made the “No off-site impact?” sign, for a 2009 rally about the Chemical Valley releases.

Stop Fracking Ontario web campaigning pages were set up as we were preparing for the Point Edward protest.

Our efforts have stirred up some mainstream media attention.  Some of this coverage can be seen here and here.

Outside of the industry conference, we stood our ground for eight hours, despite the forecasts for downpour and lightning — which didn’t end up happening.  Throughout the day, we had at least one banner up, facing the entrance to the Holiday Inn.

Ontario Provincial Police (O.P.P.) officers had told us to stay off of the Inn’s property, before we had even started protesting.  Two plain-clothed officers were at the rally site around 7:30am to greet us, and to invite us to phone them if we wanted to talk, over the course of the day. It seemed as though these officers were planning to stay around to watch us from somewhere nearby.

These O.P.P officers first visited us the day before the shale gas conference. The officers had contacted us to ask about and negotiate the conditions of our protest. They presented themselves as friendly mediators who were there to prevent friction between us and other police.

We may not have planned out our rally any differently if these officers hadn’t contacted us, however.

The shale gas conference agenda may or may not have been adjusted in response to our efforts, but we probably will never know, either way. What is evident is that the head conference organizer responded to our rally plans by public claiming that environmental impacts from fracking would be discussed at the conference – which simply was not true. This industry spokesman also suggested that Ontario shale extraction would not be discussed at the conference; so we were asked to accept that they would be addressing environmental impacts from fracking in the United States, at a conference where they were concentrating on how to exploit U.S. shale gas in Sarnia-Lambton. The same industry supporters regularly deny Chemical Valley’s toxic impacts in the immediate area, so why would they address the more distant environmental impacts in Pennsylvania, and other U.S. states?

A conference representative eventually walked out to our protest to say that she was open to dialogue with us. But she actually just came out to promote fracking, and the industry partnerships that she helps to broker.  She seemed somewhat taken aback by a critical response to her remarks about climate ‘benefits’ of shale gas — even though she only was presented with basic points about how we should recognize the relative severity of methane greenhouse gas impacts, while looking at more than shale gas burning as we address its climate impacts.  It was obvious that she did not want to discuss any such meaningful questions.

Inside the Holiday Inn, the agenda left next to no time for dialogue. There was almost no one in there who had any critical questions to raise, anyway, and such questions — about environmental impacts, and so on — usually were avoided when they were posed.  At the protest outside, some of us received a second-hand account of those conference proceedings.

A follow-up rally against fracking now has been called in London, Ontario.  Sarnia activists plan to continue opposing fracking, and it seems that there is growing concern about plans for fracking around Ontario.  The effectiveness of any campaigning that people in Ontario may take up remains to be seen, but we at least are off to a good start.

Audio recordings from a Green Scams workshop, which was linked to local People’s Assembly for Climate Justice organizing -

Emissions intensity and GDP
Cortney spoke about climate change policies that officials in the most affluent nation-states have been supporting and promoting.

Organic agriculture
Sean discussed organic agriculture and consumer choices.

Cap and trade
Mike spoke about cap and trade policies.

‘Sustainable development’ and the Boreal Forest Agreement
Kota presented on compromised and anti-indigenous ‘sustainable development’ concepts. The Canadian Boreal Forest Agreement is discussed as an example.

After each of the presentations, we collectively discussed these topics.

The climate bill image with Al Gore is from a Trillionaires for Bad Math protest.  We used it on our poster for the event.

I arranged, recorded, and edited the presentations.

Here are a couple more Rainbow Park photos -