Protesting CERAWeek
Seeding Sovereignty and many others participated in a week of actions, art builds, and protests at the biggest oil and gas conference in the world, to make our voices heard to the people causing modern-day colonial destruction.
Written by Reb Spring, Community Climate Justice Coordinator
On the week of March 10-14, the CEOs and top executives of all the major oil and gas companies met in Houston, TX for a massive energy industry conference where they backtracked on climate commitments and made plans for a massive increase in the oil and gas production that is wrecking our climate and our communities. But we’re not letting them destroy our future without a fight. We showed up in full force in the streets of Houston to make our voices heard to the people who are making these catastrophic decisions.
We marched through downtown Houston with over 300 people. Cops on horseback tried to intimidate protesters and pushed them onto the sidewalk. Three protesters suffered injuries, one horse stepped on a protester’s foot, one protester suffered a head and neck injury from a horse, and one protester’s shoulder was injured. Eight people were arrested and held overnight in the Houston jail. The Houston police department is heavily funded by the fossil fuel industry.There are even horses in the Houston police department that are specifically sponsored by Shell, Valero, and Aramco. These are some of the same horses that were used to intimidate the people protesting these companies at CERAWeek.
The Gulf Coast has about half of the oil and gas refining and processing capacity in the country according to the US Energy Information Administration which means it’s also more heavily polluted by those industries than any other region of the US. The oil and gas companies in the Gulf Coast are getting billions of dollars worth of tax breaks, meanwhile local communities are paying the real price in terms of health and safety risks and environmental destruction.
“We deserve to have a seat at the table where decisions about our community are being made. And so we demonstrated that, but we also demonstrated our joy, our ability to have a radical imagination.”
Support, amplify, and show up for the organizations fighting for environmental justice in the Gulf Coast; they need support to put greater pressure on the government and corporations to make the serious changes we need for the well being of our communities. Wherever you live, it’s important to fight for climate justice locally and support and build the local community, while drawing connections to the fights in other communities. Once people draw the connections of injustice everywhere and unite across boundaries, we can make incredible change happen.
Read more about about CERAWeek:
