Ben Powless

Ben Powless is a Mohawk from Six Nations in Ontario. He is currently studying Human Rights Indigenous and Environmental Studies at Carleton University in Ottawa, after spending a year in an international exchange program, studying sustainable rural development between Alberta and Mexico. He has been involved with the Canadian Youth Climate Coalition since its inception, working at both the national level and with the Ottawa Chapter. He is also heavily involved with the Indigenous Environmental Network, having represented them at various international events, most recently at the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization's High-Level Conference on World Food Security, Climate Change and Bioenergy. He also sits on the board of the National Council for the Canadian Environmental Network, is on the Youth Advisory Group to the Canadian Commission for UNESCO, and is very involved in the local Aboriginal community. Powless aspires to eventually work in national and international issues involving indigenous rights, human rights and their interplay with the environment

rabble news

Tar Sands tailings poisons muskeg and nearby First Nations community

Mike Orr looking out over the man-made tailings lake. Photo: Ben Powless

The trip out to the tar sands tailings pond reminded me of other recent trips to places where indigenous people were trying to survive.

It recalled for me a trip out to the Russian Arctic earlier this year to visit a group of Saami (Indigenous) reindeer herders struggling to maintain their way of life, and also the work I did last year with a group of Amazonian peoples who were trying to stop oil companies and oil spills in the Peruvian jungles.

But in the end this was far worse, even compared with those two dire situations, and it was being promoted by the Canadian and Alberta governments.

embedded_video

Tags:

water pollution Tar Sands tailings pond oil environmental disaster

An Indian Summer for the tar sands

The tar sands action during the visit of U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Parliament Hill, Ottawa, on Sept. 9. Photo: Ben Powless

Impacts and resistance to the tar sands megaproject in Alberta are broad and increasingly well known -- and are spreading like wildfire around the globe.

Related rabble.ca story:

An Indian Summer for the tar sands

Tags:

Tar Sands protest G8-G20 First Nations First Nation issues Aboriginal rights

in his own words

An Indian Summer for the tar sands

Wet'suwet'en Nation protest against Enbridge pipelines in May, 2010. Photo: Ben Powless

It has been an abnormally hot summer. Climate change has been breaking record temperatures, and even oil companies haven't been able to beat the heat.

From British Colombia to Quebec, the United States to the United Kingdom, a movement is ever expanding to hold oil companies and oily politicians' feet to the fire and stop the association of tar sands with runaway and rampant destruction.