Human Rights
The entire nuclear fuel chain involves the release of radioactivity, contamination of the environment and damage to human health. Most often, communities of color, indigenous peoples or those of low-income are targeted to bear the brunt of these impacts, particularly the damaging health and environmental effects of uranium mining. The nuclear power industry inevitably violates human rights. While some of our human rights news can be found here, we also focus specifically on this area on out new platform, Beyond Nuclear International.
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Sioux tribe's concerns were echoed in official reports by the EPA and two other agencies, but Army Corps of Engineers brushed them aside. As reported by Phil McKenna at Inside Climate News.
Longtime Native American allies of the anti-nuclear movement, Indigenous Environmental Network and Honor the Earth, have issued an urgent call for solidarity (including an appeal for human rights observers from the UN, NGOs, churches, etc.) in their struggle against yet another dirty, dangerous, and expensive energy industry -- the so-called Dakota Access Pipeline for pumping Bakken crude oil, targeted at the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe's land on the Missouri River in North Dakota. Environmental groups have long stood in solidarity with traditional indigenous peoples to successfully block high-level radioactive waste dumps targeted at the Skull Valley Goshutes Indian Reservation in Utah, Western Shoshone Indian land at Yucca Mountain, Nevada, and many other Native lands across the U.S., as well as to resist uranium mining on Native lands (including in the Dakotas) and beyond. We must again now stand with our environmental justice allies in their time of escalating crisis -- as local, state, and even federal governmental and law enforcement agencies are unnecessarily increasing the tension, and safety risks, in an attempt to disperse a peaceful, growing encampment of many hundreds of Native Americans (including women, children, and elders), who have gathered to protect sacred land and water against an illegal, polluting, and dangerous crude oil pipeline. See updates on this struggle, posted below in backwards chronological order.
As you read this, thousands of American Indians are camped along the banks of the Missouri River in North Dakota, fighting to protect their land and water from the construction of an oil and gas pipeline. The proposed Dakota Access Pipeline would carry fracked crude oil 1,168 miles through North Dakota, South Dakota, Iowa and Illinois. The pipeline would cut through communities, farms, sensitive natural areas, wildlife habitat, and the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe’s ancestral lands. The Standing Rock Sioux need your help to protect their ancestral lands and drinking water. Write President Obama today and demand that he repeal the Dakota Access Pipeline permits!
The Dakota Access Pipeline would damage sites and landscapes sacred to the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe. It would also cross the Missouri River just upstream of the Tribe’s drinking water supply. A pipeline spill would pollute the Tribe’s land and water, threatening their culture and way of life. Yet, the Obama administration approved construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline without adequate environmental reviews and without tribal consultation. This is unconscionable. That’s why the Standing Rock Sioux and thousands of supporters are protesting the construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline. It’s not too late to stop this dangerous pipeline, but President Obama needs to hear from you. Take action now: Tell President Obama to protect the Standing Rock Sioux’s lands and water!
Sadly, this is not the first time that the federal government has ignored tribal concerns. No community should be treated as an energy sacrifice zone just so Fossil Fuel Empires can make more profits. President Obama’s climate legacy is on the line. He should stand with the Standing Rock Sioux to protect their land and water, and all of the communities that would be negatively impacted along the pipeline’s route. Not only that, President Obama should be doing everything within his power to keep fossil fuels in the ground. The future of our planet and frontline communities like the Standing Rock Sioux depend on him making the right decision.
Standing with you,
Marissa Knodel,
Climate campaigner,
Friends of the Earth
Jack Healy has published an overview in the New York Times regarding the conflict between the Dakota Access Pipeline for shipping crude oil, and the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe and their allies, across whose Missouri River homeland the pipeline would cross.
BURLINGTON, V.T. (KSFY) - U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders released a statement Thursday supporting the efforts to stop the construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline.
“The major global crisis facing our planet today is climate change. The vast majority of scientists tell us that climate change is real, it is caused by humans and it is already causing devastating problems. They say that if we do not aggressively transition our energy system away from fossil fuels toward energy efficiency and sustainable energy, the planet we leave our children will be a much less habitable place.
“Like the Keystone XL pipeline, which I opposed since day one, the Dakota Access fracked oil pipeline, will transport some of the dirtiest fuel on the planet. Regardless of the court’s decision, the Dakota Access pipeline must be stopped. As a nation, our job is to break our addiction to fossil fuels, not increase our dependence on oil. I join with the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe and the many tribal nations fighting this dangerous pipeline.”
[See additional posts, below, about this critical Native American environmental justice issue.]
August 30, 2016