I’ve been looking at maps of  bomb train routes. Maps of proposed pipelines and other infrastructure projects like LNG ports and gas-fired power plants. Maps of fracking wells and areas where fracking earthquakes are popping up like crazy.

Looking at all these maps, I see each community that has been put on the fossil fuel chopping block and think about the people I know who are now forced to live their lives in these danger zones. Looking at map after map, I can also see the bigger picture of fossil fuel domination as it expands across our country, a dangerous web of pipelines and train tracks that connect well pads to the rest of the world, threatening us all.

Seeing the bigger picture is a powerful thing, that’s why were starting a new series on our blog- Map of the Week.

All maps from: http://explosive-crude-by-rail.org/

Our first Map of the Week shows the danger zone created by crude-oil bomb trains running through my hometown of Pittsburgh, PA.

The red is 0.5 Mile US DOT Evacuation Zone for Oil Train Derailments and the yellow is 1.0 Mile US DOT Potential Impact Zone in Case of Oil Train Fire.

Pittsburgh may have been the first city in the world to ban fracking, but when it comes to crude oil bomb trains, it’s marked by a giant X of potential disaster, with trains running by all three major rivers and near sporting stadiums and hospitals.

And it’s not just Pittsburgh.

Once the crude oil is fracked in North Dakota, it's shipped out over a dangerous web of rails across our country through the backyards of America, into our major cities. In some places, these are the very same tracks that carry passengers through Amtrak and commuter rail.

The bomb trains in and around Chicago form a catcher's mitt of potential disaster.

Parts of LA are also in the crosshairs

Bomb trains run along the Hudson River and circle Albany like a dangerous ring of fire.

From Fort Collins, down through Boulder and Denver, to Colorado Springs, many Colorado towns are at risk.

* in this case indicates a potential bomb train disaster in Fort Worth

For more information on these dangerous bomb trains, watch our Video of the Week: “A Danger on Rails” by Jon Bowermaster.

And to see if your town is in the bomb train blast zone visit http://explosive-crude-by-rail.org/

Lee Ziesche, Grassroots Coordinator

P.S. If you have videos or maps you’d like us to share please email me at leeziesche@gmail.com
P.P.S Please consider chipping in so we can continue to share this vital information. Donate Here

Divest Harvard is calling on Harvard University to:

• immediately freeze any new investments in fossil fuel companies
• immediately divest direct holdings (currently $17.3 million) from the top 200 publicly traded fossil fuel companies
• divest indirect holdings in the top 200 fossil fuel companies within 5 years, and reinvest in socially responsible funds.

If colleges and universities truly care about their students they cannot invest in the dirty fossil fuels that put the future of our planet in jeopardy. Supporting a system that imperils their future is a hypocrisy we can’t stand for. We hope the brave actions by these Harvard students inspire more young folks across the country to act.

This week, I participated in my first act of civil disobedience. I blockaded the door to Massachusetts Hall (where Harvard President Drew Faust has her office) along with five other activists. We are members of Divest Harvard, and we were calling for an open meeting with President Faust and the Harvard Corporation. 

Planning and participating in the blockade was one of the most complex and rich experiences of my life. I have not yet had a chance to process everything that I learned, but one lesson does stand out in particular: show, don’t tell. Let me explain…

Divest Harvard, a student-run campaign calling on Harvard to divest its $32.7 billion endowment from the top 200 fossil fuel companies, launched in Fall 2012. We first called for an open meeting with President Drew Faust in September 2013. Unsurprisingly, she said no. Since then, our meetings with the administration have been private and off-the-record. Therefore our group has been unable to expose the administration’s  contradictory, hypocritical, and factually incorrect statements. 

We asked for an open meeting so that the Harvard (and wider) community can hear the administration’s reasoning for opposing divestment and engage in a constructive dialogue about how Harvard is, and could be,  addressing climate change. As a University, dialogue is our central mission and  core value. Whether or not President Faust agrees with us about divestment, we should all be able to agree on the value of a public discussion. 

With this goal, we began the blockade at 6 am on Wednesday, April 30. Six students stood in front the door, we erected a banner on the building, and around 20 students came to sit in front of us to show that there is support and passion for this issue on campus. 

Within a couple of hours, the Harvard University Police had arrived, and it looked like they were going to arrest us. But they didn’t. Administrators went through side doors—which we knew would happen—and we continued blockading the front door. Throughout the day, we held four rallies, talked with hundreds of passers-by, discussed our strategy, and danced to keep warm. We remained there overnight, sleeping in front of the door. 

In the morning—in 40 degree weather and a torrential downpour—we made a move to blockade the other doors into the building. Despite the fact that the police were out in force, we had determined that it was necessary to escalate the pressure. Drew Faust’s executive assistant arrived at 7 am to enter the building. He walked right by me and other blockaders, and he never even engaged with us or asked us why we were there. He was blocked from entering, and the student who blocked him was arrested. The University decided that it was preferable to arrest a student than to have an open discussion about climate change and divestment. It was a violation of what is held most sacred in academic life and in a free society. It was a day of shame for Harvard.

Now to one of the most important lessons that I learned: we made the invisible visible. The public can now see the kind of ideology that students have been confronting in private meetings with the administration. By arresting a student, Harvard showed just how unwilling it is to speak publicly about divestment. It is unwilling to produce evidence-based reasoning to back up its claims. It is unwilling to be confronted and engaged in the spirit of open debate. Now the world can see Harvard’s  intransigence, secrecy, and arrogance.  Show, don’t tell. And that is what we did. We believe in a better Harvard just as we believe in a better world.

- Chole Maxmin, co-coordinator of Divest Harvard

It was a great segment with a terrific section on how we need a national conversation about replacing fossil fuels with renewable energy.  Josh points out that with 6,000 spills in 2012 alone, amounting to more oil, gas, wastewater and fracking fluids spreading throughout the continental US than the total volume of oil spilled in the Exxon Valdez, we are in a permanent state of “spill” that can’t really be called accidental anymore.

But there’s one moment that’s been eating away at me so much this whole week that I can’t handle not talking about it for another minute.

Around 7:23, host Melissa Harris-Perry, brings up the “human cost” of creating the Panama Canal, creating a parallel between it and coal mining in West Virginia. As a self-proclaimed devil’s advocate, she asks Marcus Mabry do people have to die for corporate progress?

So I asked myself, do I want to use coal, natural gas or oil if I know their extraction is poisoning someone like John Fenton, the Ely family or any of the other families featured in Gasland and Gasland Part II?

As a country, have we to answer those questions.  Every time we turn on a light, turn on our cars or turn on our stoves, are we okay with someone else’s family being poisoned so we can power our lives?

I don’t think anyone’s ever really asked us those questions. There’s a huge disconnect between the energy that powers our lives and where it comes from. I think if they did ask, the answer would be no. As an American society we’re not okay with having one portion of our population sacrificed to meet the rest of the country’s energy needs, especially since there are safer, renewable alternatives.

But Melissa Harris-Perry didn’t ask if it is okay that one part of our country is expendable for the sake of the rest of us, she asked do people have to die for corporate progress?

And I think without really meaning to, she got to the root of the problem.

Corporate progress.

Because there are people answering Melissa’s question, they’re just not you and me.

The fossil fuel industry is saying yes it’s okay for people to die for our progress, a progress that has nothing to do with the powering of our country, and everything to do with them meeting their bottom lines, making billions of dollars.

They’re saying yes.  Yes, it’s okay to frack to get gas even though it can contaminate the water and air.

Yes it’s okay to move to other forms of extreme energy extraction even though we know we have to keep those fossil fuels in the ground to avoid catastrophic climate change. 

And they’re not saying yes because it’s a necessary evil. They’re saying yes because they’re making money.

Because if they truly cared about “progress” the fossil fuel industry wouldn’t be moving America back from the progress we’ve made.  We are a better America today than when the Panama Canal was built.

We’ve passed labor and human rights laws that say it’s not okay for hundreds of people to die the way the workers of the Panama Canal did.  Many of those labor laws were born in the coal mines of West Virginia.

We’ve passed a lot of important environmental laws since then too.

And in passing all those labor, human rights and environmental laws, we’ve already answered the question do we have to sacrifice peoples’ lives to progress as a society.

It’s not just a moral question either. Science is on our side. We know that there is another way when it comes to how we power our society.  And that means there is absolutely no reason for certain communities to be made expendable for the sake of corporate profits.

Right now there are still people facing illness, contamination and ruin so multinational corporations can make billion of dollars.  So the questions should really be, why are we letting that happen?

By Lee Ziesche, Gasland Grassroots Coordinator 

Last little note: As to what that other way is, stay tuned. You’ll be hearing from us very soon with more.