Pipelines and borderlines

by Rene Arceo

This image doesn’t specifically deal with the Keystone XL pipeline but rather with the general and overall pollution of all lands and the environment. The image I created includes a woman on the left representing mother earth in her quest to continue sustaining nature by growing plants. Mother earth faces a formidable amount of oil spills from the disjointed pipeline across the picture. Floating masks, like spirits, are witness to the contamination and poisoning of water and people below. A person lies breathless on a pool of oil symbolically representing, the impact on the environment and people.

by Fawn Atencio

Dancing Rabbit Eco-village Story informed by Dancing Rabbit website 2016

Dancing Rabbit Land Trust purchased 280 acres in northeastern Missouri. Since then, members built their homes using alternative building materials and techniques and power them solely with renewable forms of energy. They have also set aside “much of our acreage” as a wildlife habitat.

Since sustainability is the primary focus, they make sure to continuously track precise measurements of the number of resources they use so they know just how well their practices are working compared to average Americans.

Their results are impressive! “Scientists say that the US needs to reach a per capita carbon footprint of 9 metric tons of CO2 equivalent (mtCO2eq) per year by 2030, yet Americans are currently consuming an untenable 20 metric tons of CO2eq per year. Different categories are measured……. After all their calculations, the average Rabbit uses a carbon footprint of 8.3 to 9.4 tons of CO2 each year, which already meets the CO2 target reduction goals for 2030!!

“At Dancing Rabbit Eco-village (DR), we understand how difficult it can be to live sustainably and responsibly within modern US culture. We believe that we can work to build a healthy alternative: a social structure that is both non-exploitative and vibrant.”

by Carlos Barberena

Standing Rock Sioux standing their ground!

Over a decade ago in the Bakken formation, oil companies discovered oil “trapped” in non-porous rock: shale. These companies use “fracking”; an expensive mining scheme, and because of this, they need to ship fracked oil to market in the cheapest way to compete with less costly oil drilling: pipelines.

Energy Transfer Partners (ETP), and others decided to build a pipeline to ship fracked oil from North Dakota to Illinois, and the Gulf of Mexico. The pipeline route was submitted to the States and the Army Corps of Engineers for permit approval which was quickly secured – without consulting the Standing Rock Sioux tribe, as required by law, whose ancient burial and archeological sites lay in the path of the pipe.

The tribe learned that not only would the pipeline destroy these sites, it would also cross the Missouri River – the only source of drinking water for the tribe and millions of others. It would also endanger water used for huge tracts of farmland we all need.

The tribe sued the government and the pipeline company to stop construction until a better path could be found. A federal court judge ruled against the tribe, defying several established legal doctrines. Allowing the pipeline company to bulldoze archeological sites.

This prompted protests, during which ETP private security forces clashed with the protesters, injuring several, including a child.

Later, the Obama administration temporarily halted the project, calling for a thorough review of the permit process, and requesting that ETP cease construction near the reservation.

From The Atlantic: Robinson Meyer and Democracy Now.org

by Pippin Frisbie-Calder

Kivalina Alaska v Exxon et All

Info from Wikipedia

In 2008 the people of Kivalina, an Alaskan coastal village, filed suit against Exxon-Mobile and other large energy corporations for the destruction of their village.

Global Warming was the ultimate cause of the village’s destruction, as the sea ice which protected the land from erosion into the ocean began to melt sooner and form later than in previous years.

“The village is being wiped out y global warming and needs to move urgently before it is destroyed and the residents become climate refugees”, Kivalina’s attorney, Matt Pawa said. “….if residents don’t get some money to move, the village will cease to exist.”

Their suit was based on the common law theory of nuisance, claiming monetary damages from the energy industry for the destruction of Kivalina, Alaska y flooding caused by climate change.

The lawsuit was dismissed a year later and ruled that Exxon-Mobile and any other company could not be held specifically accountable for something as ubiquitous as global warming.

by Paula Campbell

Biography

I have always been interested in drawing and painting. After receiving a MA in anthropology from the University of Illinois at Chicago, I decided to devote more time to making art. I enrolled full time in the American Academy of Art, majoring in illustration. At about the same time I started to study etching and lithography under Audrey Niffenegger. It is through my curiosity and love of prints that I met my husband Scot; I walked into the print gallery where he worked. I have been a printmaker since 1987 and have been teaching printmaking at the North Shore Art League in Winnetka since 2009. www.paulacampbellart.com

Statement

I was horrified when the Supreme Court decided in 2005 that the government had the power to seize private property for “economic development”; they held that “economic development” constituted a “public use” that justified the taking of private property through eminent domain. I consider this a gross infringement on individual liberties and constitutional rights. I have seen friends and family members struggling to hold on to their properties, menaced by private developers. I firmly believe that people’s land should not go to another private owner without their consent.

Print

Title: Can’t Say No

Medium: Intaglio

Plate size: 7” x 11”

by Nicolas De Jesus

Oklahoma Earthquake.

One of the most ruthless forms of aggression against the man himself is attacking the vital liquid that allows its existence; as is the water and every resource that nature provides for us to have a harmonious coexistence on Earth.

Through gas extraction at all costs as destructive methods as fracking; It makes us see how far the human being is placed to the lowest level of existence.

Another living being has not been able to have suicidal and lethality to annihilate their survival and without regard to other species should also have the right to exist.

------------------- CV.

Nicolas De Jesus. Nahuatl artist

Born in Ameyaltepec, Gro. Mexico. 1960

Learned from parents the art of painting in Amate Paper.

1978 began to exhibit his work in Mexico

In 1989 it reaches Chicago Illinois where his work was widely disseminated around the world.

by Sam Farchione

Artist Statement:

Mountaintop removal, applied almost exclusively to the Appalachian Mountains in West Virginia, creates huge profits for companies mining coal and those that associate with them. Mountains, in the process, are eviscerated and the valleys are choked with the debris. The once healthy streams now flow with dirty water. Dirty water so toxic, it would surely sicken, with the potential to kill, any person or animal that drinks from it.

by Lilianna Gerardi

Liliana Gerardi was born in Argentina. She has a Bachelor's Degree in Fine Arts from the Universidad Nacional de Cuyo with a Major in Printmaking.

Since 1990 she participated in exhibitions in Argentina, United States, Mexico, Panama, Brazil, Spain, Belgium, France, Italy, The United Kingdom, Australia, China, Japan and Egypt.

Since 2000 she resides in the United States. With a strong commitment to spread engraving techniques in the South Florida area, she spends part of her time teaching printmaking techniques.

She currently has her studio at LMercado Studios in Hollywood Florida.

“Cloudy Water”

My linocut tries to express the vulnerability of our water after a study shows excessive saltwater from Florida Power and Light's nuclear plant is threatening Biscayne Bay and the aquifer that supplies much of Miami's water.

The clouds are metaphors, as rain and tears… salty rain, salty tears and salty water. Everybody will cry without drinking water.

by Ruthann Godollei

Artist Bio

Ruthann Godollei is the DeWitt Wallace Professor of Art at MacalesterCollege in St. Paul, Minnesota. Her prints incorporate political and social commentary. Recent exhibits include Nasty Women, KnockdownCenter, NYC, 2017; Democracy in America, Phoenix Gallery, NYC, 2016; Ruthann Godollei: Herd Mentality, SooVAC, Minneapolis MN, 2016; Politics, Persuasion, and Propaganda, MTSU, Murfreesboro, TN, 2016. Author of a DIY printing book, How to Create Your Own… (VoyageurPress), her work is in the collections of the Polish National Museum of Art, Poznañ, Poland, KUMU National Art Museum, Tallinn, Estonia; Penang State Museum, Malaysia; the Centre For Fine Print Research, Bristol, UK; the Minnesota Museum of American Art, St. Paul, MN; Denver Museum of Art; Rutgers University, Camden, NJ; etc.. She teaches Printmaking, Senior Seminar and a class on Dissent.

I chose the story titled Bakken Death and Injury of Workers because it reminded me of the human costs of oil production. Workers with little safety training, proper equipment, regulation, or legal protection are doing dangerous work at under-inspected and rarely enforced sites. As subcontractors, they are being injured or killed with no right to compensation for themselves or their families. The giant oil companies continue to write the rules and profit while workers risk everything, even their lives. Several workers, inspecting oil storage tanks with mere string or wire, have been overcome by fumes and either asphyxiated or frozen to death while unconscious. These wrongful deaths illustrate the Wild West mentality governing dangerous work in the oil fields. Which led me to quote the forlorn cowboy song, "BuryMe Not on the Lone Prairie.

by Corey Hagelberg

Artist Statement:

The southern shore of Lake Michigan, in Indiana, is one of the world's most industrialized regions. This center of infrastructure and transportation sits on one of the most precious sources for freshwater in the world. The BP refinery in Whiting is one of the world’s largest oil refineries and has just undergone an expansion to accommodate the extra Tar Sands oil. Tar Sands extraction emits as much as three times more global warming causing pollution than conventional crude oil.  Pet coke, a toxic by-product of the refining process, causes a major health hazard where it is stored in giant piles. The continued use and reliance on these toxic substances are proven to contribute to rising global temperatures and the destruction and collapse of ecosystems all around the planet. Evidence is mounting that we are on the precipice of mass extinction and need to change our course fast.

by Victor Juarez

Story: Alaska is melting; Climigration

Inhabitat.com: by Morgana Matus, May 2013: Native Alaskans were forced by the government to settle in permanent encampments after statehood, and now they are receiving little to no help from the system. Alaska has warmed twice as fast as the rest of the country in the past 6 decades,...

Barbara Hood writes in her July 2016 article for Alaska Dispatch News about Robin Bronen, a doctoral graduate from the University of Alaska Fairbanks’ Resilience and Adaptation Program and senior research scientist with UAF’s Institute of Arctic Biology. She focuses on the current impacts of climate change. "Without a relocation framework," Bronen says, "no state or federal agency has a mandate or authority to support a relocation decision."

Using international human rights law as a guide, Bronen developed a suggested legal protocol for countries facing climate-induced displacement. She coined the term "climigration" to describe the phenomenon, which is now part of the climate change lexicon.

by Antun Kojtom

STORY: Berta Ca’ceres Murder

ON WORLDVIEW, WBEZ, MARCH 8 2016:

Berta, along with the Council of Popular and Indigenous Organizations of Honduras, (COPINH) and residents of the region, according to Matt Ginsberg-Jaeckle, have a long history of being successful in opposing hydro-electric dams, which flood lands, take away rivers, cause displacement, and generate electricity for mining projects and sweatshops.

Jerome McDonnel: After the (2009) coup, how did the struggle change after the new government took hold?

After that, was a basic struggle for survival, everything off the table.

Jerome McDonnel: The goals of the new government in Honduras, post coup?

Matt Ginsberg-Jaeckle: PLUNDER. Goal of coup was to stop the rising tide of advance by social movements in Latin America. Honduras traditionally has strong ties to US government and it’s interests in the region.

Why would they want to kill a high profile person like Berta?

Matt Ginsberg-Jaeckle: I think that they thought it would really scare people.

10,000 people marched in her funeral.

Tim Russo/Goldman Environmental Prize via AP: Cáceres won the 2015 Goldman Environmental Prize - touted as “the world's largest award for grassroots environmental activists.”

by Joshua Kolbow

Image Statement:

Migrating from Wisconsin to North Dakota resulted in surprising culture shock. The shock wasn’t just the lack of topography, good beer, and quality cheese. Dakotans have a deep-seated and tense relationship with their Native American tribes. Wisconsin has an indifferent relationship with its Native American tribes in my experience. They’re just the folks who run the casinos. Dakota is far different. They seem to absolutely detest and abhor Native American people, while simultaneously using that culture to fund a good deal of North Dakota’s tourism. The same rhetoric used by the GOP for Mexicans and Blacks is used by Dakotans to describe the Native Americans.

Being Native American is outside my experience being a descendent of European immigrants. However, I recognize a bully, and Native Americans have been bullied since Europeans arrived on this continent. DAPL is just another example of a laundry list of incidents where Native Americans have been bullied by a gang of egotistical racists.

Artist Biography:

Joshua Kolbow was born in Florida but was mostly raised in southeast Wisconsin. In the rural Midwest, Joshua learned the art of sarcasm and the value of hard work. These values, coupled with a blue-collar upbringing and deep-seated religious guilt, led Joshua to pursue his Bachelor’s degree in Fine Art at the University of Wisconsin – Stevens Point. After graduation in 2011, he rejoined his blue-collar brothers and sisters in their dismal factory life of monotony and bitter frustration. In 2015, Joshua successfully migrated to North Dakota where he is currently pursuing his Masters in Fine Art with the hope of becoming a printmaking professor.

Joshua is best known for creating black &white linocuts of Lady Liberty dressed as a stripper. He has participated in several group exhibitions and print portfolios and is an active attendee of the Mid America Print Conference and the Southern Graphics Council. He has even won a few awards for his prints, most recently being 2nd Place in the New Impressions Print Competition.

by Eveline Kolijn

“We accept it as normal that people who have never been on the land, who have no history or connection to the country, may legally secure the right to come in and (…) leave in their wake a cultural and physical landscape utterly transformed and desecrated.”-1 This worldview is not self-evident to the indigenous peoples that inhabit the North American continent. They feel interconnected with their land and have a spiritual bond with it. Anthropologist Wade Davis calls that the Sacred Geography. With such a worldview, a human is less inclined to use land only towards profit for money.

Chief Joseph is famously known as the one who led a resistance from the Niimíipu tribe before a treaty was signed in 1877. The tribe, also called the Nez Perce, inhabit what is now in Idaho. In 2012 they fought yet another battle against mega oil transports going through their territory. They won their federal lawsuit and see their triumph as a reflection of their creation tale.

The tribe’s creation tale, called “The Heart of the Monster,” centers on a rock formation that sits in a meadow on the reservation, alongside Highway 12. Coyote comes to Earth and finds a monster killing all the world’s animals. “Devouring everything,” Silas Whitman, chair of the tribal executive committee, said. Coyote sneaks inside the beast and, using his flint knife, kills it from within. The blood that spills from its heart becomes the Nez Perce people, “the most noble and the most diligent to protect the land.” To Whitman, the lesson of the tribe’s conflict with R.C.C.I. is clear: “The heart of the new monster is a pocketbook,” he said. “We pierced that. We took that out. We got them to go somewhere else.”-2

____________________

1-Wade Davis, The Wayfinders. Why Ancient Wisdom Matters in the Modern World. 2009. House of Anansi Press, page 118

2-Michael Ames, THE NEW YORKER, March 2014

by Jill Kramer-Goldstein

Jill Kramer

Artist Statement

5 Color reduction and multi block lino cut.

We are living in a time where personal convictions are put to the test daily. Given a choice to stand firm or say nothing, which is the easiest? How does fear of reprisal inform your actions or inactions?

Inspired by the words of Vicci Hamlin at her 2014 sentencing hearing in Michigan, I looked deeper within myself at ways I could stand firm in my world views. After being sentenced to 34 days time served and fined over $47,000 in court costs, Vicci Hamiln stood before the court and stated, “I understand what it is like to be afraid, I have spent most of my life in fear. But I stand today resolved knowing that the consequences of inaction are far more terrifying than my fear of jail.”

As part of the Michigan Coalition Against Tar Sands (MICATS), Vicci and two other women, Barbara Carter and Lisa Leggio, were arrested during a peaceful protest and occupation of the Enbridge and Precision Pipeline site. They were charged with trespassing and felony resistance and obstruction. This felony charge is most often used for the assault of a police officer, which did not happen that day. All three of these women decided to stand up for what they believed. Standing up to Big Oil, and against a project that was the cause of a pipeline burst in 2010 was not easy. It is a matter of personal conviction over fear.

I don’t suggest everyone should occupy pipeline construction sites. I do suggest that if you see a problem, then help fix it rather than wait for someone else to.

Write a letter, make a phone call, make art, teach, protest, resist.

364 -298 -

by Javier Lara

Long term damage of BP spill in Gulf of Mexico

Five years ago, BP's out-of-control oil well deep in the Gulf of Mexico exploded. Eleven workers were killed on the…rig. But it was more than a deadly accident — the blast unleashed the nation's worst offshore environmental catastrophe. In the spring and summer of 2010, oil gushed from the Macondo well for nearly three months. More than 3 million barrels of Louisiana light crude fouled beaches and wetlands from Texas to Florida, affecting wildlife and livelihoods. 1

Louisiana was already losing land at an alarming rate, but scientists confirm that the oil spill accelerated the pace. Loosing land is not the only problem in the gulf. Some businesses are still struggling, nesting areas of many bird species have been destroyed, endangering their futures. Similarly, dolphins within the gulf waters continue to die at an increased rate and show signs of oil poisoning. 2

Brown pelicans (are) Louisiana's state bird… Many pelicans nested on barrier islands that were slathered by Deepwater Horizon oil. Two spits, together known as Cat Island have eroded to silhouettes below water, possibly because the oil killed the roots of island-stabilizing mangroves. The island was eroding already, "but the spill accelerated the land loss," 3

So where have Cat Island's pelicans gone? No one knows

__________________________________

1-NPR: Debbie Elliott on Morning Edition, WBEZ, April 2015

2-Craig Welch, National Geographic, APRIL 14, 2015

3-Gene Turner, a Louisiana State oceanography professor.

by Cesar Lopez

CLIMATE CHANGE CONTRIBUTES TO ALBERTA FORT MCMURRAY WILDFIRES

© The Associated Press, 2016 and THE CANADIAN PRESS

Ironic that Fort McMurray is a vital part of the Alberta tar sands.

On May 1, 2016, the wildfire began southwest of Fort McMurray, Alberta.

According to the Wired, May 21, 2016, by Nick Stockton; As of May 21, this wildfire has burned a swath through the Canadian landscape over one and a half times the size of Rhode Island.

It is the costliest disaster in Canadian history.

Associated Press, May 11 2016:

Twelve years before the McMurray Fire ignited, a study by Mike Flannigan, a professor of wildland fires at the University of Alberta, with climate scientist Andrew Weaver, found "human-induced climate change has had a detectable influence" on a dramatic increase in wildfires in Canada. Flannigan said the area burned in Canada has doubled since the 1970s "and we think that's due to climate change."

"The Alberta wildfires are an excellent example of what we're seeing more and more of: warming means snow melts earlier, soils and vegetation dries out earlier, and the fire season starts earlier…" Then add in lightning. A study found that lightning increases 12 per cent with every degree Celsius and that can trigger more fires. Flannigan said there's evidence of fire-triggered clouds in Alberta causing at least two more fires because of lightning.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_Fort_McMurray_wildfire

by Teresa Parker

by Gabriel Trinidad

GABRIEL TRINIDAD’S STATEMENT ENGLISH

I grew up surrounded by the fantastic atmosphere means that nature is why I raise my voice to those who do not listen, do not see and those who ignore our reality. We are depleting our natural resources, consuming until the last sacred corner, polluting the vital liquid for life.

La Parota hydroelectric project, has been very controversial, the chain of complicities is long, but all of them would (benefit.?)But serious citizenship abandoned to their fate as always. We must not allow any paradise for very small and insignificant it may seem, should disappear. We need to raise awareness, our peoples have forged in harmony with nature and all imbalance involves risk.

by Marianne Sadowski

Marianne Sadowski

Artist Statement:

This image was inspired by the North American recipient of the prestigious Goldman Environmental Prize, environmentalist Kimberly Wassermann. She spearheaded shutting down two coal-powered plants in Chicago after exposing the connection between child asthma and air pollution in the neighborhoods of Little Village and Pilsen in Chicago, Illinois.

by Janet Schill

Plbl3 Janet Schill statement

Screen Print titled: We pray for your water too!

The Dakota Access Pipeline project is a 3.8 billion dollar pipeline which will cut through North Dakota and will snake its way through sacred lands and under the water supply for the Standing Rock Sioux reservation.  As a result, the Sioux, along with many other supporters from around the world, “drew a line in the sand” to try and prevent the construction of this pipeline.  My image shows the extremes to which both sides will go to achieve their ends.  My “statue of WATER IS LIFE liberty” is under assault by ARMED guards.  Not only is she threatened by possible arrest for protecting the water, but rifles are raised by 3 armed men and confronts possibility of DEATH.  She stands there, a strong figure showing no fears, for she holds the line for not only the water of Standing Rock, but ALL of our waters.  The background drips with blue water, or maybe tears.

My name is Janet Schill, I’m a printmaker, art teacher and executive director of Expressions Graphics; a fine art printmaking studio in Oak Park, Illinois.  I work mainly with screenprinting but also use other printing techniques where I can incorporate my stencils.  I’ve been working with social-political issues in my artwork for many years and I truly enjoy the opportunity to print for protest portfolios.  I have a MFA from Northern Illinois University and I teach after school art to children and hold printmaking classes for adults.

by Randi Stella

Randi Stella 11 X 15 inches Screen print

“Broken Alliance” 2017

I made this print as a reaction to the recent rulings from our new president, Donald Trump, regarding both the Dakota Access and the Keystone XL pipeline. When I first selected this story, the Cowboy-Indian Alliance successfully protested the creation of the Keystone Access pipeline, stating that it would cut through many lands considered sacred by the people that lived there and would ultimately destroy their main source of drinking water. A similar pipe was set to be constructed in 2016: the Dakota Access pipeline, which would have devastating effect on the people’s water and the native lands. Within a few days of his presidency, Trump effectively wrote two executive orders to begin construction on both pipelines. Construction will begin and all the blood, sweat, and tears were for nothing. I made this two layer screen print to reflect those feelings: the first layer being the actual oil slick, the second being the people and the plants that will be effective by this.

by Brenda Tamariz

Fighting Fracking in Mexico:

To feed the growing hunger for energy by multinationals in Monterrey, Mexico, the state (Nueva Leon) and federal governments proposed a solution. Nueva Leon has ample reserves of natural gas in “tight” places, so the only way to get it to the surface is by “fracking”, taking huge amounts of water. Regrettably, Nueva Leon has lots less water than gas.

South of Monterrey, the Panuco River runs unhindered through lush jungles. The only people living between the mouth of the river and the gas fields are indigenous farmers. The Mexican Federal Electric Commission (CFE) and state governors hatched a plan to dam the river and build an aquaduct to carry water to the fracking fields.

And they would get Mexican and US taxpayers to pay for it.

But why should US taxpayers chip in? Well, the Border Environment Cooperation Commission (BECC) created by the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) - has hundreds of millions of dollars to spend on water projects. Originally intended to improve the environment along the US / Mexico border, BECC agreed to help fund a “water” project which actually degrades the environment in much the same way as the Alberta Tar Sands do.

211

by Fotios Zemenides

Artist Statement:

I chose to depict the fuel train derailment in 2014 that obliterated the Canadian town of Lac-Mégantic and took the lives of 47 people including children. These derailments and oil spills are worsening every year. From 1975-2012 a total of 800,000 gallons of crude oil had been spilled in US derailments. In 2013 alone over 1.15 million gallons had been spilled. Our blind dependence on fossil fuels is literally destroying people's lives and livelihoods. The title is taken by the town's coroner who was quoted as saying that the 47 people killed had died "A Violent Death."