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One Earth Action:

Stop Line 3

Protect Land, Air, and Water

Water Protectors in Northern Minnesota are leading the fight to protect our land, air, and water. They are taking direct action to stop the construction of the Line 3 tar sands pipeline: locking themselves inside sections of pipe, blockading entrances to construction sites, even using pianos to stop construction. Meanwhile, across North America, activists are banding together to put pressure on major banks that have loaned billions of dollars to Enbridge so it can build Line 3.

What is Line 3?

Line 3 is the largest of three pipelines that move oil from the Canadian Tar Sands to ports on either the east or west coasts of North America. It is an Enbridge Energy owned pipeline that starts in Alberta, Canada and ends in Superior, Wisconsin, crossing Northern Minnesota on the way. A new pipeline is being proposed that will replace the old one, and if it is successful, the old pipeline will be abandoned to corrode in the ground.

We have to appreciate that local problems have global ramifications from the moment they begin.

The Dalai Lama

The newly proposed pipeline that would pass through Minnesota…

… impacts the waterways that feed into the Mississippi River, touching nearly 68 million residents who rely on this as their source of clean water. It would endanger more than 800 wetlands and 200 waterways.

… would contribute as much pollution to our environment as 50 new coal-fired power plants.

… crosses 41 rice fields used by the Anishinaabe, where their ancestors have been harvesting rice for hundreds of years, ignoring long standing Native treaties that guarantee hunting and fishing rights.

From Organizers:

All pipelines spill. Line 3 isn’t about safe transportation of a necessary product, it’s about expansion of a dying tar sands industry. Line 3 would contribute more to climate change than Minnesota’s entire economy. Minnesota’s own Department of Commerce found our local market does not need Line 3 oil. We need to decommission the old Line 3 and justly transition to a renewable, sustainable economy. Line 3 would violate the treaty rights of Anishinaabe peoples and nations in its path — wild rice is a centerpiece of Anishinaabe culture, it grows in numerous watersheds Line 3 seeks to cross. It’s well-past time to end the legacy of theft from and destruction of indigenous peoples and territories.

Wild Rice River, Minnesota
Wild Rice River, Minnesota.
© William DeHoogh from Unsplash

The pipeline would carry tar sands oil through a 337-mile route, causing irreparable harm to the climate and the environment. Meanwhile, Enbridge intends to leave over 90 percent of the existing Line 3 buried in place underground, where it will continue to corrode.

Major banks ― such as JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo, Bank of America, CitiBank and TD Bank ― have loaned billions of dollars to Enbridge so it can build Line 3. Those banks are profiting from the Line 3 pipeline. They are enabling the pipeline. They are complicit in the pipeline. And they will be held accountable.

Through an EcoDharma Lens

The communities who call this region home know of its critical importance to those downstream. In his book Our Only Home, the Dalai Lama writes, “We are social animals with a sense of belonging to a community. We have to realize that just as our future depends on others, theirs depends on us. Our world is deeply interdependent, not only in terms of economies but also in facing the challenge of climate change. We have to appreciate that local problems have global ramifications from the moment they begin.” Our sense of the interdependence between all living systems provides a moral compass that reinforces the need to live compassionately and respectfully with all things. It invites us to expand our awareness beyond our sense of self to see and respond to the injustices perpetrated to cultures and living communities among us. There is no room for greed and avarice as our open hearts are needed to bear witness and respond with loving action in the face of the world’s suffering and misery.

Sixty-eight million people rely upon this water that comes from up here in Northern Minnesota, and it goes all the way down to the Gulf of Mexico, and along the way there are cities — people that drink straight from the river here.

Tania Aubid, Native legal council

Line 3’s brutal extraction from the land would put ecosystems and communities at risk, and how that risk of harm is allocated is not evenly distributed across all members of society. The Native resistance in Northern Minnesota is confronting environmental racism as the systemic, persistent form of harm that it is. Just as the risk is not evenly distributed, nor is the benefit. The resulting wealth that accrues from this would go to the ownership class, the capital class, and would be allocated in an existing pattern of accumulated privilege.

Get Involved

We have a critical opportunity to get involved in small or large ways. As soon as the Mississippi River thaws, there are plans to begin construction of the pipeline under the river.

Stop Line Three protestors marching
© StopLine3.org

Leaders on the frontlines are calling on activists around the country to organize #DefundLine3 actions at branches of the banks funding this toxic pipeline.

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