Beyond Extreme Energy is an activist network of organizations and individuals that came together in the summer of 2014 to organize a successful, week-long nonviolent direct action campaign in Washington DC from November 1-7. We focused our actions that week on FERC, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, but we also took action elsewhere, particularly in Lusby, Maryland, near the proposed Cove Point Liquified Natural Gas export terminal site. We took action to raise public awareness of the disastrous impacts of fracking, proposed gas exports and other extreme energy extraction practices.
We resolve to continue building upon this work in the years ahead. We believe that massive and coordinated grassroots-based campaigns are needed to confront extreme energy extraction and the climate crisis. Through those campaigns and other actions, we can build the people power that leads to a political tipping point that seriously sets back the fossil fuel industry’s efforts to keep the world dependent on fracking, nuclear reactors, mountaintop removal coal extraction, tar sands oil and other dirty and dangerous forms of energy.
The governments of the United States and other nations must adopt clear, immediate and binding limits on greenhouse gas emissions and on the extraction and combustion of oil, coal and gas. They must vastly expand their commitments to developing and implementing energy efficiency and renewable energy, particularly wind and solar. So must local and state governments. We also support earth-friendly practices and conservation by individuals, businesses, government agencies and other institutions.
Toward these ends, BXE has as its priorities:
- supporting important local frontline struggles against fracking, including drilling, pipelines, compressor stations, storage and export terminals, as well as other extreme energy expansion projects. We are particularly focused on efforts underway at Cove Point, Maryland, Seneca Lake, New York, and a large number of proposed new fracking pipelines from New England to North Carolina;
- reaching out to and developing healthy working relationships with: other groups working on extreme energy extraction, students and young people, the Black Lives Matter campaign, organizing efforts in communities of color, campaigns of low-paid workers, and environmentally-conscious labor unions;
- organizing major weeks of action in Washington, DC, focused on FERC but also including other opportunities for effective, nonviolent direct action.
The energy and resources to carry out this work will come from the network of scores of organizations and many individuals who have created and built Beyond Extreme Energy and those who will join us going forward. Through respectful discussion, democratic decision-making, hard work and creative, committed action, we know that we can win.
Beyond Extreme Energy 