eco-defense – Unsalted Counter Info

LDC Gas Forum in Chicago Disrupted

Posted on 2024/11/13 by unsalted

Two people hold a banner reading "Enbridge out of the great lakes! Shut down line 5 now!" in front of a hotel

Evil Enbridge out of the Great Lakes! Shut Down Line 5 NOW! A noisy disruption swept through the cocktail reception of the LDC gas forum in Chicago. The 3 day forum consisted of talks from directors and players in the oil and gas industry, hype-ing false solutions like carbon capture technologies, and how to keep expanding the oil and gas industry further while we descend into a world of deeply uncertain futures as climate change reshapes and ravages ecosystems on a global level and biodiversity rapidly declines.

A group of people entered the hotel hosting the conference and crashed the attendee’s welcome reception of the 2024 LDC Mid-Continent Gas Conference. A banner with the words, “Enbridge Out of the Great Lakes, Shut Down Line 5 Now!” on one side and, “Evil Enbridge, Fuck Off!” on the other side was unfurled at the cocktail hour reception. People sang, and chanted with a bullhorn, played instruments, and left messages for Enbridge and other gas companies inside the hotel. After causing a ruckus inside, the group walked outside to the bar’s patio overlooking the Chicago River, and less than one mile from Lake Michigan, to “greet” more LDC conference attendees with noise, banners, and rowdy jeers. One person was arrested by the pigs for allegedly trespassing and released onsite.

Notably present, Enbridge, the pipeline company responsible for moving tar sands from Alberta, Canada to its conglomeration of pipelines surrounding the Great Lakes region, known as the “Lakehead pipeline system” hosted talks and presentations as a major contributor at the LDC gas forum. Enbridge directors even gave a girl-boss presentation named: “Empowering Women in Energy: Tomorrow is Together”, in an attempt to say their industry of death and destruction is at least inclusive to women and anyone else who wishes a oil & gas fueled speedy demise to human existence on this planet
🛢️🤡🛢️

Continue reading “LDC Gas Forum in Chicago Disrupted” →

New Zine: Developing Action Capacity, A Path

Posted on 2024/03/06 - 2024/06/04 by unsalted

Cover of the zine titled "Developing Action Capacity", with an image of a path in the woods

[READ] [PRINT]

We are not special. Our skills are not overly technical or advanced, and our tools are simple to acquire. If you are reading this, you are capable of doing what we do.

– APD Patrol Car Torched in Lakewood

While I agree with this sentiment, the reader is left with many questions about how to develop such a capacity for action, even if they are motivated. What exactly does it take to not get caught carrying out heavy actions like arson? This is especially important in the long run; not getting caught for a single arson is one thing, but being able to continue carrying out attacks in the face of heightened repressive attention is quite another.

For anyone who wants to carry out actions like this, but isn’t doing so yet, I’ve sketched an outline of the steps I think are necessary to sustain hard-hitting attacks on domination (limited to the topic of “operational” considerations, i.e., acquiring skills). This brief outline is intended to orient you and provide a “learning path” — each step has recommended reading that actually goes into the appropriate amount of depth on the subject. Use the Tails operating system to visit these links, which runs from a USB drive and leaves no trace on your computer. What I’ve written here is by no means definitive, and I hope to spark a dialogue about any operational aspects I may have neglected, as well as anything outside this scope that is important for sustaining and intensifying the capacity for action. Continue reading “New Zine: Developing Action Capacity, A Path” →

Chicago action in solidarity with Appalachians Against Pipelines

Posted on 2024/02/02 - 2024/06/04 by unsalted

A bicycle u-lock is locked to the front doors of a Bank of America branch. It is covered in white tape with various slogans written on it: No MVP! Stop Cop city! Viva Tort! Doom 2 the Pipeline! Stop!

Bank of America branch locked in response to BOA funding: Mountain Valley Pipeline, Cop City linked to Tortuguita’s murder, and the genocide of Palestinians in Gaza.

Chicago, Illinois — A Bank of America branch was locked and windows wheatepasted with flyers containing links to the bank’s abhorrent acts of cruelty. People are calling on BOA to drop its funding of the Mountain Valley Pipeline, a 303-mile pipeline described as “a scar across Appalachia.” The MVP will supply fuel to the Radford Army Ammunition Plant. RAAP is operated by BAE systems, which supplies the Israeli government with weapons used to murder Palestinians. BOA also funds Cop City, the 85-acre militarized police training compound that the Atlanta Police Foundation is attempting to build in Atlanta, GA. Construction for Cop City desecrates and bulldozes the Weelaunee Forest, the largest urban forest in the United States, dubbed one of the lungs of Atlanta. Continue reading “Chicago action in solidarity with Appalachians Against Pipelines” →

JANUARY 18: DAY OF THE FOREST DEFENDER

Posted on 2024/01/09 - 2024/06/04 by unsalted

On January 18, 2023, Georgia State Patrol officers entered the Weelaunee Forest alongside police from other agencies in the region. They sought to clear the encampments re-established there in the weeks prior. A month earlier, on December 13, a similar operation cleared encampments after a year of struggle, and culminated in the arrest of 6 forest defenders on obscene and fraudulent charges of Domestic Terrorism.

When Patrolmen entered the forest in January, they entered into a long confrontation they had little or no experience with, a confrontation pitting free people, local residents, environmentalists, aspiring revolutionaries, and itinerant insurrectionalists against the Atlanta Police Foundation, the Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens and his submissive City Council, Michael Thurmond and the Dekalb County government, Ryan Millsap and Shadowbox Studios, and all of the contractors hoping to devastate the land, displace its life forms, and replace them with a police training facility and soundstage complex.

This struggle has been something of a burning torch for class confrontation and subversive cultural innovation in the United States for nearly 3 years. It would not be an exaggeration to say this has been the sharpest struggle in North America during the entirety of the Biden-Harris administration.

The nature of this confrontation was altered permanently by the hasty and poorly-made decisions of Jerry Parrish, Bryland Myers, Jonathan Salcedo, Ronaldo Kegel, Royce Zah, and Mark Jonathan Lamb. These officers ambushed and killed Tortuguita, the nom de guerre with which we knew a 26 year old anarchist living in the forest.

******************** Continue reading “JANUARY 18: DAY OF THE FOREST DEFENDER” →

Anarchism Must Not Be Criminalized – Statement from 12 of the 61 People Indicted on RICO Charges in Atlanta

Posted on 2023/11/09 - 2024/06/05 by unsalted

This RICO indictment is an attempt by the state to not only criminalize dissent, but a specific set of ideas which leads to dissent and offers an alternative framework to the state and capitalism. Anarchism, solidarity, mutual aid, and collectivism are specifically named in the indictment to make people afraid of these ideas, when the only people who are actually afraid of these collective ways of organizing are the politicians, cops, and corporations who seek to preserve their absolute power over humanity. If we had ways of living more collectively, satisfied our needs through mutual aid, and had solidarity with each other, people may realize they don’t need the state or capitalism, and they may realize that the greatest causes of human suffering and barriers to freedom and security are the state and capitalism. The state wants us to be atomized consumers who cannot survive without selling ourselves to someone wealthier than us, who rely on alienating, impersonal judicial systems and violence from a gang of armed outsiders to resolve our conflicts, who outsource the production of our food to invisibIlized, mostly non-white, non-citizen laborers, and who outsource our decisions to a corrupt, unaccountable politician class. The state wants us to be terrified and paralyzed into allowing the continuation of its sordid legacy through the land grab, the plantation, and the prison farm which haunts the Weelaunee forest and all the state’s territories to this day. This critical analysis of the state is an important part of anarchism, and it is what the state and corporate media want to scare us away from and criminalize.

Acting autonomously and directly to shape our world is a good thing. Solidarity means seeing our siblings in the human species as people with the same intrinsic value as ourselves. A society which depends on endlessly competing, undercutting, exploiting, dominating, and selling each other out is going to be scrutinized and resisted by anyone who believes in solidarity. Mutual aid means providing for each other and collectively gaining from the construction of mutually beneficial interpersonal/inter-community relationships. A society which depends on depriving us of the ability to meet our needs for food, water, shelter, and healthcare and then selling them back to us is going to be seen as unjust and worth changing/rejecting by anyone who believes in mutual aid. Fowler’s description of collectivism is a bogeyman meant to imply that anarchists intend to force everyone to give up their personal autonomy and sacrifice their needs for the collective, but in fact a core goal of anarchism is to empower people to have more autonomy, and a core goal of the state to force everyone to sacrifice some or all of their autonomy for the continuation of systems which enrich a shocking few and are making the Earth uninhabitable. Do you feel free when you go to work? When you pay taxes? When you pay rent? When you pay for health insurance? When you pay for groceries? If people had more solidarity maybe they wouldn’t allow the US to invade and exploit other countries with impunity. Maybe they wouldn’t allow the US to imprison millions of people, tear apart families at the border, or let people starve to death while throwing away half of all the food. If people learned about mutual aid maybe they would start to solve these problems themselves, start to mitigate the damage done by the state, and demonstrate that none of it is necessary. Continue reading “Anarchism Must Not Be Criminalized – Statement from 12 of the 61 People Indicted on RICO Charges in Atlanta” →

Two Valves Turned Closed on Enbridge’s Line 5

Posted on 2023/07/28 - 2023/07/28 by unsalted

Anonymous submission to Unsalted Counter Info.

Reportback from some valve turners:

It is with a heavy heart and hazy skies we announce that 2 different pipeline valves were turned off along the Line 5 route on Anishinaabae land in the great lakes region.This was done on the 13th anniversary of the Kalamazoo River oil spill.This was the 2nd largest inland oil spill in amerikkkan history, dumping 1,000,000 gallons of tar sands crude oil into the river and causing untold damage to the water, land and those who live on it.

Currently, Enbridge is preparing to construct a concrete tunnel beneath the waters of the so-called Great Lakes to house a dual pipeline system in order to increase flow rates and carry even more tar sands from the lands of the north to refineries in the south.The Straits tunnel project is meant to replace a 70 year old pipe that is hastily secured to the bottom of the lake bed, even free floating in some areas.

Enbridge claims that the tunnel is safe, but a tunnel project beneath the straits is a resource intensive project. The tar sands would continue to be extracted, desecrating the land in northern geographies. The refineries in the south still pumping out toxic fumes that pollute nearby Black neighborhoods. The camps of workers near both the straits and the Bad River reroute still disappearing Indigenous women and relatives.The companies that rely on Enbridge oil still operating in the towns and cities, underpaying workers and enacting anti-Black and anti-Indigenous violence in nearby communities.The tunnel itself, bored through the bedrock beneath the water, containing two high-volume pipelines transporting millions of barrels of oil monthly, operated by a company with a long history of environmental catastrophe.

It’s easy to turn a valve. Every 10 or so miles along the pipeline route there is a pump station. Some of these pump stations are larger than others, some containing more of Enbridge’s infrastructure like work trucks, electrical stations, dynamic machinery, communication systems, and field offices. For us, we found pump stations that simply contained a valve and a small brick structure that contains basic comms and electrical components. Many of these places are remote, with response times that vary from 20 minutes to over an hour. Pump stations often contain a high-definition camera with a motion sensor mounted looking directly at the valve. When the motion sensor is triggered,the structure becomes heavily illuminated by flood lights and begins recording. Nothing some spray paint cant fix! The structures are always surrounded by a fence and are positioned next to or on top of a service road. The pipeline route is easy to see from a satellite image, as it cuts a clear path through the forest. The valve itself sometimes has a nut that is fitted with a large wrench and turned clockwise until you hear a series of musical notes, indicating that the pressure in the pipe has changed. At some valves, there was actually a big red button that just said STOP, which stops flow immediately. For us, we found it incredibly inportant to call the emergency Enbridge number listed on the facility and tell them we were shutting off the valve. The engineer on the other side of the line sounded very panicked, and immediately shut off flow to the entirity of Line 5. We did this 5 minutes before actually turning the valve, to ensure that the shut down would happen safely, obviously oil spills aren’t something we want to happen as a result of our actions.

In order to protect the water, the land and all the relatives that live on it, companies like Enbridge must stop extractive projects like tar sands. They must stop the flow of oil, because all of our lives depend on it.

And if they don’t, we will

Regional Tree Distros Give Away Thousands of Trees

Posted on 2023/05/16 - 2023/05/28 by unsalted

Bins of very young Persimmon, Elderberry and Chokecherry trees sit on a tarp as people grab them from out of frame.

Anonymous submission to Unsalted Counter Info.

This spring saw a number of radical free tree distribution events across the great lakes region. Here are quick report-backs from just two of the many events that happened.

Chicago Tree Distro

This will be a brief reportback highlighting some of the methods, successes, and complications of Chicago’s tree distribution project, in hopes that we can share a bit of useful experience with others who want to do the same.

On distributing trees:

We distributed nearly 2000 trees with a combination of two “first-come, first-served” distribution events and a limited number of reserved tree orders for public or communal plantings.
The reservation system got us connected with schools, churches, guerrilla gardeners, urban farms, ecological restoration projects, community gardens, and at least one land project out in the distant suburbs.
The first-come, first-served format reduces some administrative overhead (no need to keep track of hundreds of specific tree orders), but does introduce a few complicating factors:
- You will either run out of trees, or you will have leftover trees. The latter is probably preferable; running out of trees can be discouraging to people who traveled to attend the distribution event. If at all possible, try to find somewhere that can accept your leftovers, whether that’s a farm or orchard or some large institution.
- There will probably be a huge rush at the beginning of your distribution event. However long you think it will take you to set up the event, give yourself double that time instead.
Consider combining your tree distribution with some other event. Our first distro was just before a fundraiser dance party for Atlanta forest defenders; our second distro was at an outdoor rave in a public park. The second distro especially wound up with a lot of participation from people who hadn’t heard about it beforehand.
Rather than labeling every tree with writing, consider a color-coding system. You can wrap a small strip of colored masking tape around each tree and have the color key listed on a handout and/or posted online.

On tabling:

People were very enthusiastic about picking up zines at both events; don’t waste the opportunity to have a curated literature table!

On costs:

We didn’t solicit donations; we had a donation jar and a Venmo account visible at the events and wound up making back roughly the amount we spent on the trees. Overall we spent more than we made, but I’d consider it worthwhile for the sake of trees planted and connections built.
If we want to cover costs more thoroughly in the future, we might consider suggested donations and/or a system where individuals can pay a small fee to reserve trees in advance.

We’re still pretty exhausted from the effort of putting these events together and would like to write a more structured and comprehensive reportback soon, but hopefully this summary offers some useful insight.

Free Tree Saplings Distributed in Ypsilanti

We distributed approximately 500 very young saplings in Ypsilanti, entirely for free. The species distributed either produced something edible such as American Chestnut, or were primarily pollinators such as Redbud. People enjoyed food, music from a bluetooth speaker, and a free table of zines and Earthbound Farmer’s Almanacs. The trees were free to anyone who wanted them, but in an effort to prioritize typically marginalized people a BIPOC-only reservation form was used to set some trees aside.

Free tree giveaways are popular. The local county and cities have learned this and have done their own giveaways, though typically with lower tree limits and no species that produce food. Our tree giveaway has a more ambitious vision than distributing glorified lawn furniture, or greenwashing business as usual.

Distributing trees that produce food is a long-term investment in food autonomy, and an excellent opportunity to build community and connect other people thinking about these issues. Most trees won’t produce fruit for 5 years at least, but planting hundreds of them each year helps create conditions for abundance in the future. The tree giveaway is a hopeful step towards a future where more of our food is produced where we live and freely shared. A future where people repair, heal and tend to the ecosystems they’re in, rather than destroy them for profit. A future with more resilient communities better able to survive and push back against a future of domination from all sides and ecological destruction.

We got to meet new people, give away trees, have good conversations and enjoy pizza together. Overall the distro went well, and we hope to do it again next spring even better!

Over 100 Trees Spiked in Opposition to Camp Grayling

Posted on 2022/12/18 by unsalted

Anonymous submission to Unsalted Counter Info.

Over the past 2 weeks more than 100 trees in and around the proposed camp grayling expansion area were spiked, namely forests managed by the grayling and gaylord department of natural resources. Spikes of various sizes were placed at various heights in red pine plantations (not necessarily marked for cut) and areas marked for cutting. To avoid worker injury we insist that all trees in Crawford, otsega, Roscommon, and kalkaska be thoroughly checked for spikes before cutting. We are very concerned about these worker’s safeties and wellbeings.

To ensure our claims are taken seriously, we have marked a stand of red pine in a dnr managed campground to demonstrate we are not bluffing. The bathroom is tagged and a few trees are tagged with a white s.

These trees were spiked as an opposition to camp grayling and the Michigan DNR. We will not sit idylly while the military industrial complex expands and the world and it’s people are destroyed by extraction.

We urge Michigan department of national resources to reject the proposal to expand camp grayling, to end cooperation with camp grayling, and to give landback.

Please, stop camp grayling and cop cities everywhere