Let’s keep this party going!
Well, party might be a stretch. But taking action with comrades to save our biosphere is truly a celebration of life, joy and festivity included!
Another cause for celebration: this is absolutely the last fundraising pitch from Beyond Extreme Energy (BXE) this year lol. We’re close to our $25,000 end-of-year fundraising goal. Can you chip in $5, $10, or $50?
I am sending you this from Wilmington Delaware, near President Joe Biden’s house with Occupy Biden demanding he take real action on climate by declaring a climate emergency and halting federal government approvals of new fossil fuel projects.
Expansion of the oil, coal and gas industries most responsible for the crisis only pushes us closer to irreversible tipping points as the world continues to heat up. Those of low wealth and people of color trapped in polluting sacrifice zones and, indeed, all life on earth, urgently need Biden to lead. He himself has said the climate crisis has reached “Code Red” intensity but has allowed vast expansion of fossil fuel infrastructure. This holiday season he must give a gift to the world by addressing global heating at the scale and speed that science requires.
Here in Wilmington today our party has started with a little advertising on Delaware Route 141. After sunset we will be walking to Biden’s house to acknowledge whose land he is on, give witness to the ongoing climate emergency, sing carols and read words of hope and determination, and read our demands and the names of groups all over the country making the same demands.
For some reason I can’t quite explain I feel compelled to share a BXE moment from 2022 with you. It was an action to “shut down” the congressional baseball game during the summer. The very mixed bag of climate action we got with the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) was announced the day before the action.
Some of the organizers decided to back out of the risk arrest portion of the action because of the IRA announcement, causing disharmony and eroding solidarity with the groups participating. I changed my planned role and risked arrest with several Third Act Virginia members, a Sunrise Movement elder, Line3 water protectors who had traveled from Wisconsin, and some DC-based activists, about 20 of us total.
BXE’s Ted Glick was asked at the very last minute to speak at the rally before the action, to fill in for one of the organizers who had stepped back.
Ted spoke beautifully and focused on the need to stop the side-deal which was announced but still largely an unknown at that point. The game was ultimately shut down by a summer thunderstorm, leaving empty the rain-soaked stadium and all the billboards touting carbon capture and biogas and other false solutions.
BXE is still figuring out specific courses of action for 2023, given FERC leadership changes and the continuing LNG build out. But I believe we will continue trying to step up, not back!
-Andy Hinz
You can join us at Occupy Biden until midnight tonight!
WHAT: Occupy Biden action at President Biden’s house
WHEN: Saturday, December 31, 2 PM to 12 am, January 1
WHERE: Beginning at 2 pm at 909 Centre Rd, Wilmington, DE, 5 pm march to Biden house on Barley Mill Road, for a candlelight vigil with music, performers and speakers.
WHO: Youth, parents and grandparents who insist on the right to life on a stable planet
WHY: Time is running out
Initiating Organizations: Occupy Biden, Beyond Extreme Energy, Third Act Virginia
