“Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will. Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have found out the exact measure of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them, and these will continue till they are resisted with either words or blows, or both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress.”
– Frederick Douglass
Around 1 AM, on July 30, 2015, Elizabeth Mount, rappelled herself off the side of the St. Johns Bridge along with twelve other experienced climbers.She came to rest mid-air above the the Willamette River in Portland, Oregon, in order to block the passing of the Fennica, a ship that is supporting Royal Dutch Shell’s exploratory arctic drilling operation in the Chukchi Sea this summer. They would stay there, hanging above the water, for approximately 40 hours, until she was removed by police and Coast Guard officials.
ALL PROFITS donated to legal funds for protesters
Commit2Respond gives faith communities a platform for resource sharing and an opportunity to start doing inter-sectional climate justice organizing. If you have not signed up on the website, now’s a great time to sign up.
Here are two ways that you can support and stand with the #ShellNo activists in the wake of this monumental show of community opposition to arctic drilling:
1. You can collect or personally give a donation to Portland Rising Tide in support of the kayactivists and activist who locked himself to the suspension drawbridge, who were arrested or ticketed — or to Greenpeace to help them continue organizing climb trainings and campaigns to stop arctic drilling operations.
2. You can write letters or call the White House, as Elizabeth suggests, or simply sign this Greenpeace petition to President Obama
* Direct Action is the strategic use of immediately effective acts to achieve a political or social end and challenge an unjust power dynamic (as defined by The Ruckus Society)