When you drive across the UP, you’ll inevitably pass a Line 5 pumping station. Each of these largely unmonitored valve stations has a big sign where Enbridge touts that “Life Takes Energy.” It’s a catchy tagline from a Calgary-based company that has made its living on the extraction of other life. And, yet, it’s hard not to question the root premise. Does life “take energy? Or is life energy?
As I write this, another turbulent year has come to a close. The Palestinian genocide continues, ICE is openly killing, and “antifa” (i.e. anti-fascism) is now a “domestic terrorism organization.” Our supreme leader provides less bread and more circuses while dismantling environmental protections, rewriting His-story, and bullying the world. At the same time, Minneapolis is throwing down (yet again), scare tactics are failing (see the recent dismissive of the RICO charges against #STOPCOPCITY activists), and new tactics are emerging (see #TeslaTakeDown). While the outrage might not be as visible as back in 2017, it’s clear a tense pent-up energy is starting to surface. In this age of the “Extractocene” (thanks, Dr. Praba Pilar), it’s hard not to be overwhelmed by the current Blitzkrieg. Palestine. Venezuela. Greenland. Numerous uprisings and proxy wars at the edges of a contracting empire. ICE raids. Green Scares. Climate disasters. And on and on and on. Where do we put our energies when most of us who care enough to do something are struggling to survive in an imploding empire?
In my decade plus of anti-extractivism scholarly-activism-organizing, a few small-t truths rise to the surface.
First, our movements must be intersectional. Anti-extractivism is #ShutDownLine5, #ProtectThePorkies, and #MniWiconi. And it is also #BlackLivesMatter, #LandBack, #MMIW, #MeToo, #SayHerName,#FreePalestine, #MeltICE. There is no binary between the social and the ecological. There is only the socioecological. We humans are bodies on the earth body, and therefore our care for the earth body is care for our bodies and care for our individual and collective bodies is care for the earth body. Each of these movements is resisting a small piece of the Mega-Machine.
Second, no one can do it all, so pick a lane (or two or three) and commit to it. Listen to your body. Listen to the land. Follow your passion. Make use of your skillsets. Think globally, act locally. Take direct action in your communities. Ask yourself which local campaigns directly affect you, your kin, your home, your watershed, your bioregion. For many of us in the Old Northwest, this means the exploitation of being an “internal colony” (see UP Colony, Bellfy, 2021). This means #NoBack40, #SaveTheHuronMountains, and #StopTheRocket. And #ProtectThePorkies, #WaterOverNickel, and #ShutDownLine5. And the endless local organizing efforts towards climate resilience, food sovereignty, and social equity.
Third, we need to be honest. The truth is that we are currently getting our asses kicked. We are too few, too overwhelmed, too disorganized, too unskilled, too sick, too under-resourced. Our few “wins” are temporary, and our numerous losses are permanent on timescales that matter. Moments such as Occupy, Furguson, Standing Rock, George Floyd, Disrupt J20 need to be celebrated as important blips in the longer arc towards justice. And, also, the Dakota Access Pipeline is fully operational. As is Line 3. Black (and brown and native) Lives still don’t matter. The proto-fascist goons get bolder. All while more species go extinct, and the planet burns. Resistance isn’t enough. We need a Rebellion.
Fourth, #ShutDownLine5 is a central campaign, both strategically and symbolically. Strategically, there is currently no greater threat to the bioregion than a pipeline rupture. Symbolically, what we are attempting is unprecedented. Few campaigns have successfully stopped the construction of a new pipeline. None have successfully decommissioned an active pipeline. And, yet, here we are. With the State of Michigan, the Bad River Reservation, and numerous allies actively battling Enbridge and the Feds.
Fifth, we need to actively help push the #ShutDown and #NoTunnel narratives. While the energy generation and distribution are far removed from our bioregion, the transmission corridors run right through our backwoods. The pipeline route is long (645 miles across Michigan alone), often very remote, and largely unmonitored. The Bolt Weevils, Valve Turners, Unist’ot’en, and countless others have demonstrated the ROI of focusing our limited energies on taking direct action at these strategic bottlenecks.
As much as Enbridge, Trump, Fossil Fascism, the Extractocene forces the hegemonic narrative “Life Takes Energy,” the reality is that extractivism takes life’s energy. From the Latin extrahere, extraction is the process of “drawing out” the life force of another being, whether that be through disturbing the bones of our ancient ancestors, domesticating our more-than-human kin, enslaving countless “Othered” bodies, or non-consensually taking pleasure from women and children. Life is energy. This is what the Rebellion is fighting for. When we Shut Down Line 5, we are taking a stand for life, for energy, for a new (/old) way of being in relationship to life and energy. We are re- attuning to the mysteries of energy and re-embodying ourselves in the web of life. We are life and energy defending itself.
~ in wildness ~