In this blog:
- Ecumenical “Gather at the River” event honoring water set for Tuesday, Feb. 12
- Star Tribune: Four arrested in Itasca County for pipeline tampering
- Netherlands-based Aegon, one of the top-10 largest insurance companies in the world, to stop investing in tar sands crude oil.
Ecumenical “Gather at the River” event Tuesday, Feb. 12
The “Gather at the River” event will be held on Tuesday, Feb. 12, 6:30-8 p.m. at Our Saviour’s Lutheran Church, 2315 Chicago Ave, Minneapolis, Minnesota 55404. Here’s the background from the Facebook Post.
The Ecumenical Water Initiative, a project of the United Methodist Conference of Minnesota, Fourth Episcopal District of the African Methodist-Episcopal Church, Episcopal Church of Minnesota, and Minneapolis Area Synod of the ELCA, invite you to join in the work in answering God’s call in our communities and watersheds.
We will “Gather at the River” of the font for an evening of worship and storytelling of our water systems, with a focus on drinking water.
Join us, as we wrestle with questions of stewardship and justice for water in our communities across Minnesota.
Four Arrested at Enbridge Pipeline Action
“Four protesters were in custody Monday afternoon in Itasca County after tampering with equipment along Enbridge’s oil pipeline corridor across northern Minnesota,” according to a story in the Star Tribune. “The Four Necessity Valve Turners described themselves on their Facebook page as a group in the tradition of the Catholic Worker movement that is taking a stand against the “climate crisis” brought on by oil use.”
According to a Facebook Post by the Four Necessity Valve Turners, the action included temporary shut downs of Enbridge Lines 3 and 4. The post includes a video of the action.
These pipelines and the tar sands crude oil industry they support threaten to increase climate damage, threaten spills in some of Minnesota’s cleanest waters, and threaten Anishinaabe treaty rights. If and when Enbridge moves forward with its Line 3 expansion project, expect more such incidents.
Insurance Giant Aegon Will Stop Investing in Tar Sands Oil
Netherlands-based insurance company Aegon announced Friday that “it has decided to stop investing in oil companies that produce 30% or more of their total production from oil sands, and in pipeline companies which are involved in oil sands transportation.
Aegon is one of the top-10 largest insurance companies in the world, according to its website.
According to its statement:
“As a signatory to the Paris Pledge for Action and considering our strategic focus on supporting the energy transition, it is not compatible to make new investments in oil production from oil sands”, Marc van Weede, Global Head of Strategy & Sustainability, said. Oil sands production has the highest greenhouse gas intensity of all fossil fuels after coal and in all transition scenarios, new oil sand developments are outside the allowable carbon budgets.”
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