All posts by Shane Pekny

An Open Letter to the Senate on KXL

News,

From BOLD Nebraska:

As the Senate once again prepares to take a vote on the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline, Nebraska voices will remind Senators that states’ rights are at stake, and that a vote for Keystone XL is a vote to disregard Nebraska’s legal process.

Nebraska rancher Randy (“Stand With Randy”) Thompson penned an open letter to the U.S. Senate on Wednesday, April 30. Thompson has been a key rural voice against Keystone XL — he was arrested along with others in a civil disobedience action at the White House protesting Keystone XL in 2013, and is one of the three landowner plaintiffs in Thompson v. Heineman, the lawsuit that successfully challenged the constitutionality of the KXL routing process in Nebraska, leaving TransCanada with no legal route or eminent domain power.

Read the letter.

Rice & Beans Potluck Dinner for Nebraskans for Peace

Events,

Join fellow Greens for the annual Rice & Beans Potluck in support of Nebraskans for Peace:

Saturday, May 3, 2014 at 6:00 p.m
Countryside Community Church, 8787 Pacific Street
(Memorial Hall: Enter the western door facing Pacific Street and follow the signs inside to the downstairs dining room.)

(Rice & drinks provided. A free-will collection will be taken — but it is free to attend. Just bring a food dish to share.)

John Pollack will deliver his keynote address, “Global Warming: The Third Degree Burn.”

John Pollack obtained his M.S. in meteorology from University of Wisconsin in 1976 and came to Omaha in 1978 to be a forecaster for the National Weather Service. He retired from forecasting in 2009, but he continues his interest in weather and climate change. He also remains active in other peace and justice issues, and is currently involved in the fight against the Keystone XL Pipeline.

Special Recognition for Courageous Anti-War Work will go toJerry Ebner and Mark and Marie Kenney.

RSVPs are requested so we know how much rice to cook. Call 402-453-0776 or e-mail NFPOmaha@NebraskansforPeace.org with “RSVP Rice & Beans” in the subject line.

Bill McKibben, founder of 350.org, in Omaha

Events,

Join fellow Greens in a discussion with Bill McKibben, environmentalist and founder of 350.org:

Thursday, May 1, 2014 at 6:00 p.m.
Countryside Community Church, 8787 Pacific Street

Bill McKibben is an author and environmentalist. His 1989 book The End of Nature is regarded as the first book for a general audience about climate change. He is founder of 350.org, the first planet-wide, grassroots climate change movement. Foreign Policy named him to their inaugural list of the world’s 100 most important global thinkers, and the Boston Globe said he was “probably America’s most important environmentalist.”

A former staff writer for The New Yorker, he writes frequently a wide variety of publications around the world, including the New York Review of Books, National Geographic, and Rolling Stone. He lives in the mountains above Lake Champlain with his wife, the writer Sue Halpern.

Bill’s talk will describe the current state of global warming through an explanation of the basic math and science of climate change. He will give updates on the movement, working to end our reliance on fossil fuel energy and create a world powered by renewable sources. Bill will join us via Skype in an effort to practice what he preaches, leaving a smaller carbon footprint. Rev. Eric Elnes, Ph. D. will give a brief introduction and facilitate the discussion.

Cowboys, Indians unite in opposition to KXL

News,

From the Omaha World-Herald:

The cowboys sported western hats and the Indians wore traditional feather headdresses as the sound of drumbeats and the smell of wood smoke filled the air Tuesday on the National Mall.

The band of protesters erected a large tepee among seven smaller ones already in place and vowed to defend their “sacred land” and “sacred water” against the Keystone XL pipeline.

It was the start of a weeklong series of themed demonstrations by the Cowboy and Indian Alliance, a group that represents landowners and tribal representatives opposed to the controversial pipeline.

Read more from the World-Herald.

Follow the weeklong protest at rejectandprotect.org

Nebraskans join Cowboy Indian Alliance in DC

Uncategorized

From JournalStar.com:

Ten years ago, if you had asked retired school teacher and Antelope County farmer Art Tanderup if he wanted to fly to Washington, D.C., for a political rally on the National Mall, he might have said you’re a few ears of corn short of a bushel.

“I never thought I’d see myself doing things like this, but here we are,” he said during a recent interview.

Monday afternoon, he was on the road with Carol Smith of Plainview and Oakdale-area rancher Mike Blocher, headed to Eppley Airfield in Omaha.

They plan to spend the week taking part in a “Reject and Protect” demonstration against the Keystone XL pipeline organized by the Cowboy and Indian Alliance, a group of farmers, ranchers and tribal leaders.

Read more.

New delay on Keystone XL pipeline

News,

From the Nebraska Sierra Club:

The US State Department today stated that it will delay a decision on the proposed Keystone XL pipeline because of the continuing litigation over the route through Nebraska. The Lancaster County District Court declared LB 1161 unconstitutional in February 2014. Part of that decision voided Governor Heineman’s approval of the proposed pipeline route. The case is currently on appeal to the Nebraska Supreme Court. It appears unlikely the Supreme Court will decide the case before November 2014.

Ken Winston of the Nebraska Sierra Club stated today: “Today’s delay is another victory for all the people who have spoken out against KXL in the past four years, the thousands who have attended State Department and legislative hearings, attended rallies, written letters, made phone calls and signed petitions. Your sacrifices, your voices have made the difference throughout this process. Every delay means that more tar sands will stay in the ground. The longer this goes on, the more people find out about KXL and its threats to our water, land and climate, the more likely they are to oppose it. To paraphrase my daughter Helen, TransCanada may have the money, but when people come together, we have the power.”

Read more at JournalStar.com.

The American oligarchy study, explained

News,

From Vox:

Who really matters in our democracy — the general public, or wealthy elites? That’s the topic of a new study by political scientists Martin Gilens of Princeton and Benjamin Page of Northwestern. The study’s been getting lots of attention, because the authors conclude, basically, that the U.S. is a corrupt oligarchy where ordinary voters barely matter. Or as they put it, “economic elites and organized interest groups play a substantial part in affecting public policy, but the general public has little or no independent influence.”

Read an explainer of the study from Vox.

Read the full-text study from Princeton.

 

Celebrate Earth Day with Author Julene Bair

Events,

Celebrate Earth Day 2014 with Julene Bair as she reads from her new book, The Ogallala Road: A Memoir of Love and Reckoning:

Monday, April 21, 2014
7 p.m.
Unity Room
Jackie Gaughan Multicultural Center at UNL

Julene Bair has inherited part of a large farm and fallen in love with a rancher from Kansas’s beautiful Smoky Valley. A single mother, she means to provide her son with the father he longs for and preserve the Bair farm for the next generation, honoring her own father’s wish and commandment, “Hang on to your land!” But part of her legacy is a share of the ecological harm the Bair Farm has done: each growing season her family, like many other irrigators, pumps over two hundred million gallons out of the Ogallala aquifer. The rapidly disappearing aquifer is the sole source of water on the vast western plains, and her family’s role in its depletion haunts her.