10 Things You Can Do to Ensure Local Control of Pipeline Decisions and Protect Our Resources
- Stay connected with Bold Nebraska
They are coordinating efforts to inform and act on our state’s behalf. Their website has maps, sample letters, fact sheets, talking points, and a great deal of excellent information from state and national partner groups. Bold Nebraska also posts upcoming events.
- Write “Thank You” Letters
Write “thank you” letters to State Senators Fulton, Haar and Dubas as well as US Senators Mike Johanns and Nelson to thank them for their efforts to protect the interests of our state. All of these elected officials have taken extra steps on behalf of landowners and some are working on bills that will put state laws in place to protect our resources.
- Write “Do More” Letters
Write to Secretary Hillary Clinton at the State Department, President Obama and Governor Dave Heineman to tell them all they need to do more to protect Nebraska. Make sure they know that most Nebraskans do not support this pipeline and that we all want further study and more community input before any decisions are made by the US Department of State or our Nebraska government.
- Start a Community Petition Drive
Over 800 Nebraskans have already signed the petition. You can circulate a petition to your friends or go to local events and get other Nebraskans to join the efforts to protect our resources. Our combined voices will slow down the approval process and allow for further study and community discussion. Visit Bold Nebraska to download the paper-version petition or circulate the online-petition via email, Facebook and Twitter at http://tinyurl.com/protectnebraska.
- Host a fundraising event.
The event could be a church potluck, a concert, an auction or a party. Contact info@boldnebraska.org to get a speaker to come to your event from one of the groups working on the pipeline. Send all monies to Bold Nebraska at 1141 H Street, 3rd Floor, Lincoln, NE 68508.
- Organize education and discussion events in your community.
Bold Nebraska and other groups in our state will help you with materials. These could be at the Rotary, VFW, Kiwanis or Elks Clubs, the Firehouse, schools, churches, and local libraries or in private homes.
- Order t-shirts, bumper stickers, yard signs buttons and information sheets.
Bold Nebraska has materials that you can distribute to your friends, family and neighbors. Email info@boldnebraska.org for prices.
- Donate money.
Groups want to continue our grassroots work as well as do more ads in the media. Your donations will help us promote the efforts to protect Nebraska’s resources and pay for media to tell the facts about the dangers of the pipeline. TransCanada is spending millions to promote their pipeline.
- Discuss the pipeline issues.
Talk with your fellow concerned citizens and develop your own action plans. Start a conversation online. We are not alone, we are not without power, and the situation is not hopeless. If we Nebraskans all work together we can influence the decisions that affect our lives.
- Connect online and spread the word.
New media is powerful and a great tool you can use to help spread the word about the opposition to the pipeline. Help your friends know how they can take action. Use Facebook to share events and news from Bold Nebraska’s page. Follow @littlebirdne and @boldnebraska on Twitter for facts about the pipeline and news.
Read morePosted In: Environment
The temperature was an unseasonably warm eight degrees above normal for the tenth of October when 150 people gathered on the lawn of Memorial Park in Omaha this past Sunday to “Take a Stand against Global Warming.” As just one of the 7,347 events in 188 countries organized by the climate action group, 350.org, this “10/10/10” Memorial Park event was intended to focus public attention on the need to get the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere down to 350 parts per million—a level safe enough for civilization to survive. Holding the flags of the world’s nations (because global warming is a ‘global’ problem), the activists formed a giant ‘350’ and stood in formation for a photo at exactly 3:50 p.m. in the afternoon.
John Pollack, who for 30 years served as a climatologist with National Weather Service in Omaha (and will present—with Creighton University Professor Richard Miller—a workshop at this coming Saturday’s Annual Peace Conference) delivered the following remarks at last Sunday’s event. His comments provide an easy-to-understand explanation of the science behind global warming, and explain why we as humans need to act urgently if we are to avert drastic climate disruption.
Hello! I’m glad to see you all this afternoon. I’m here to tell you what the “350” is about, and to issue a climate disaster warning.
Read morePosted In: Environment
Linda Ruchala
UNL Associate Professor of Accountancy
Living simply, with purpose and harmony, has been an ethos for modern life in the peace community for some time. Social scientist and author Duane Elgin notes that the movement grew largely out of Gandhi’s teachings. Elgin quotes Richard Gregg, a Gandhi student, in defining voluntary simplicity as a “singleness of purpose, sincerity and honesty within, as well as avoidance of exterior clutter, of many possessions irrelevant to the chief purpose of life… It involves a deliberate organization of life for a purpose.”
Elgin distinguishes between voluntary simplicity and poverty. Simplicity is sought by choice; large numbers of very poor people globally have no choice but to live simply because they are poor. He notes that “poverty is involuntary and debilitating, whereas simplicity is voluntary and enabling. Poverty is mean and degrading to the human spirit, whereas a life of conscious simplicity can have a beauty and a functional integrity that elevates the human spirit.”
Read morePosted In: Environment
With the recent oil spills (BP’s disaster in the Gulf and Enbridge’s Kalamazoo pipeline rupture in Michigan), it is clear that current federal regulations are not strict enough to safeguard drinking and agricultural water from the Keystone XL pipeline. The pipeline would cross 71 rivers and streams as well as the Ogallala Aquifer, which provides life-giving water to eight states and supports one-fifth of the wheat, corn, cotton, and cattle produced in the United States. Unless stopped, the Keystone XL pipeline will travel 1700 miles from Canada to refineries near Houston putting water supplies and the environment at risk.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has extended the Keystone XL comment period until September 15, 2010. Because the Keystone XL pipeline crosses the US-Canadian border, a Presidential Permit is required from the U.S. Department of State.
The Environmental Protection Agency recently gave the State Department’s draft analysis of the proposed pipeline’s environmental impacts a failing grade, in part because it failed to address the dangers the pipeline would pose to communities along its path. Fifty members of Congress submitted a letter to Secretary of State Clinton to press her and the Obama administration not to rush to approve a new tar sands oil pipeline.
Read morePosted In: Environment
