Opponents of shale gas development in Quebec have warned that they might engage in civil disobedience to keep the industry from taking off in the province.

One protest leader said people would tie themselves to gas companies’ machinery and block their trucks if exploration activities went ahead.

Several dozen opponents of shale gas are marching through Quebec to warn of its possible environmental impact.

Event spokesman Philippe Duhamel said Monday that the march was just the beginning. He said there would also be training sessions on how to organize sit-ins and occupy exploration sites.

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On May 23, 2011, Marcellus Protest picketed the Shale Play Tubulars Conference that took place at the William Penn Omni Hotel in Pittsburgh.

Protestors sought to draw attention to yet another harm that fracking causes: the massive proliferation of pipelines throughout the region. Drilling and pipeline companies would cut down forests, kill wildlife, ruin homes, and create more risk of gas explosions everywhere. Natural gas producers are already facing a gas surplus, and some are “turning off the taps” because they lack the ability to distribute their gas. So they are eager to build quickly.

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“Stephen Harper’s government, allied with big oil, is lobbying Europe not to regulate tar sands oil, but the pushback has begun”

A certain powerful North American country has been brazenly meddling in Europe’s affairs, bullying and twisting arms to advance a corporate agenda on the most pressing environmental issue of our time. A phalanx of its lobbyists has descended on European capitals to covertly scheme with oil companies and menace EU parliamentarians who would dare address climate change.

It’s not who you might think … but Canada. If any illusions remained about this country’s behaviour abroad, they should be put to rest. Newly released government memos have exposed a secret war that Canada is waging in Europe to kill clean energy policies and ensure no market closes to the dirtiest crude in the world – the tar sands of Alberta.

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Today, a Shell-chartered tanker is scheduled to dock in the Syrian port of Tartous. The Heidmar TBN will collect almost 600,000 barrels of crude oil purchased by Shell. The shipment, worth over $55 million, has been marketed to Shell by state company Sytrol, an integral part of Assad’s regime of power.

Repression of the democratic uprising in Syria has seen the regime kill over 1,000 and imprison 10,000. Yet Shell, one of the largest foreign investors in Syria, continues its close co-operation with the Ba’ath regime – extracting oil, meeting with regime leaders, delivering crude to state refineries and purchasing crude exports.

PLATFORM is revealing Shell’s support for Assad’s dictatorship and the company’s reliance on his military & police apparatus. Highlights include:

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“Only weeks after protesters packed up the South Fraser Protection Camp under threat of an injunction, the tables have been turned and freeway opponents have gone on the offensive and taken legal action to stop construction of the $1.2 billion South Fraser Perimeter Road (SFPR) freeway.

Bertha Williams of the Tsawwassen Band, Coast Salish Nation and William Burnstick, of the Cree Sioux First nations, are suing the B.C. Government to stop construction of the riverfront freeway through sacred burial sites and B.C.’s oldest and most important archaeological site find to date.

Filmed May 26, 2011.

Find out more at www.StopThePave.org”

Earlier this month in a blog post, Amy Larkin, the Solutions Director of Greenpeace USA asked a question of her organization that many of us have been wondering about.

“Why are we working so closely with these corporations?” wrote Larkin. “Because corporations now govern how we live, where we live, what we eat, wear, and desire… and also whether or not our natural world retains its bounty, its beauty and its beneficence,” she wrote.

Even though I’ve been critical of Greenpeace for some time now, it still irked me when I read the statement above. Basically, I take it to mean the following: corporations rule the world, and so we’re going to “fight” so that they will become greener, friendlier firms with better ads and even smilier faces. Greenpeace might as well be greening jails at this point. Absolute bollocks.

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Rising Tide documents it’s week of “Action against Extraction” marking the April 20th, 2011 anniversary of BP’s Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

Across North America and as far as Helsinki and Wellington the destruction wrought by BP, Halliburton, TransOcean, and a complacent government was not just remembered, but resisted.

Equally important, Rising Tiders and our allies demonstrated to communities, energy companies, and government agencies that it’s not just this oil spills, but the toxic coal pollution, gruesome tar sands pits, the poisons of natural gas fracking, and many other types of extraction that poison people and the planet that must come to an end. We are still getting in reports from actions — this is just a partial list of communities that marked the anniversary with action…

Some of us have started to campaign against shale gas fracking around Ontario.

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 companies purchasing gas supplies from U.S. shale (at least until Ontario shale gas is made available).

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“Court Hearing for Injunction Against Megaloads Wraps Up in Missoula, Exxon Continues to Lose Time and Money, Kearl Mine Still on Hold”

Ken johnson, the manager for Exxon’s insane Tar Sands transportation project, complained last week: “Right now, we’re adjusting our plans, but we’re getting to the point where we’re going to have to be doing out-of-sequence work. In addition, we’re going to have to assemble [the modules] in the wintertime.”

“When you’re working on a multibillion dollar project, you need to do this so you don’t impact other schedules in the project,” Johnson added.

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First Nations in Western Canada are joining aboriginal groups in northern British Columbia in support of their opposition of the $5.5-billion Northern Gateway pipeline.

First Nations from north-central B.C., represented as the Yinka Dene Alliance, and the Alexander, Blood and Lubicon Cree First Nations in Alberta, as well as the Roseau River First Nation from Manitoba, signed a solidarity statement Wednesday.

The Yinka Dene oppose the 1,170-kilometre pipeline that will carry crude from the Alberta oilsands to the B.C. northwest coast because of the risk of spills on the line and from an increase in oil tanker traffic.

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