Traveling from out of state to remote northern Minnesota can be pricey, but organizers of this week’s Line 3 pipeline protest are seeking to sweeten the deal by reimbursing would-be demonstrators for gas.
The online registration for attendees includes a form to request a gas stipend of up to $555 for those traveling by van from outside the Midwest to the Treat People Gathering, a June 5-8 protest aimed at stopping the Line 3 pipeline project in the name of climate change.
“Do you need all or some of your gas costs covered?” says the online form. “We will plan to give average gas stipends based on the distance you’re coming; if that doesn’t seem compatible with your needs or you’re able to cover some of your travel yourself, please select ‘other’ below and indicate how much you need.”
Supporters of Line 3 were quick to weigh in on the optics of fossil-fuel foes tanking up for a pipeline protest.
“So, there are people driving and flying to Minnesota to protest a pipeline and to tell us it’s wrong to use the same fuels they are using to get here?” said Minnesotans for Line 3 on Facebook.
The group cited posts showing that the activists are coming to the White Earth reservation region from far-flung locales such as the Bay Area, New England, the Pacific Northwest, and New York.
“Would love to be able to calculate the carbon footprint of protesters using gas to come to Minnesota to protest a pipeline that will actually reduce emissions because it will be more efficient than the current #Line3,” tweeted the pro-Line 3 group, started by the head of United Piping in Duluth.
The protest against the project to replace and update the 337-mile pipeline in Minnesota encouraged attendees to carpool, adding that priority for gas stipends would be for “Indigenous organizers, pipeline fighters in the Midwest, and cars bringing the greatest number of people.”
Added Minnesotans for Line 3 on Friday: “The irony. Hundreds of protesters traveling thousands of miles using gasoline to oppose the #Line3 pipeline. You just can’t make this stuff up.”
More than 50 environmental groups are partnering on the protest, including Swedish climate teen Greta Thunberg’s Fridays for the Future; the Sunrise Movement, and the Chicago branch of the Climate Reality Project, founded by former Vice President Al Gore.
Read rest at Washington Times
Nothing quite killed the value of the political left like a rent-a-crowd (usually on the taxpayer teat) and protesting as a first response rather than a last resort.
It is a last resort that I have never engaged in. Although, if I lived in the US, I would consider protesting against election fraud, fraud that disenfranchised many working class voters. Protesting against a pipeline that helps keep the working class in jobs seems rather like a regressive response.
Reminds me of when the Sierra Club bused in a bunch of people to take part in their Redwood Summer and big time protests against Logging the fact that they bused them all in was big thing since that year there was two big time enviromental Voter ballots both were rejected by the voters
They’re using gasoline to fuel their transport?!?! What hypocrites, they ought to be walking there from where ever they are currently living.
I just love a good hypocrite. It seems the new thing to be in the 2020’s, if your not a good hypocrite then what are you? A person that stands for principles and values, based on facts. Now why on earth would the world want people like that.
You just cannot make this stuff up, carbon-hypocrites with carbon-phobia.
These people are not useless, they are just very good examples of what not to be in life. I guess based on that, we do need them.
I luv this website. Climate Magician has just nailed it. Carbon hypocrisy.
Valerie, people who live in REMOTE AREAS don’t like that tag. It’s local for us, home. We wish that the citiots would stay away and simmer in their own excrement.
These idiots obviously do not know that Wind , Solar and electric cars have a short lifespan and they do not cover their carbon footprint of manufacture so it is all a wasted exercise of taxpayers trillions round the world and where are they going to dump all the materials as they are not recyclable. The shit is going to hit the fan in the next few years when they are all decommissioned as Germany is finding out at present and looking at low emissions high output coal plants . HAHAHEHE