(Canada) By rejecting $1bn for a pipeline, a First Nation has put Trudeau's climate plan on trial

[unhappycamper]

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/true-north/2016/mar/20/by-rejecting-1-billion-for-a-pipeline-a-first-nation-has-put-justin-trudeaus-climate-plan-on-trial

Canada’s Lax Kw’alaams show us how we can be saved: by loving the natural world and local living economies more than mere money and profit

By rejecting $1bn for a pipeline, a First Nation has put Trudeau's climate plan on trial
Martin Lukacs
Sunday 20 March 2016 14.20 EDT

Everything has a price. Everyone can be bought. We assume this principle is endemic to modern life — and that accepting it is most obvious to the impoverished. Except all over the world, people are defying it for a greater cause. That courage may be even more contagious.

It has been in full supply in north-west Canada, where an oil giant is aiming to construct one of country’s biggest fossil fuel developments: a pipeline to ship liquified natural gas (LNG) out of British Colombia. To export it overseas via tankers, Malaysian-owned Petronas must first win approval for a multi-billion dollar terminal on the coast.

That happens to be at the mouth of Canada’s second-largest salmon river, on the traditional territory of the Lax Kw’alaams First Nation. One of the world’s longest un-dammed rivers, the Skeena abounds in the fish relied on by surrounding wildlife — and by First Nations and an entire regional economy.

Last year, following our modern principle, Petronas offered the First Nation an offer they imagined couldn’t be refused: in exchange for their support, a whopping $1.15 billion in cash. But put to a vote, the Lax Kw’alaams resoundingly said “no” — every single community member.

[raging moderate]

1. Thank you, Lax Kwa'alaams!

Impressive.

[tazkcmo]

2. See?

This is why The White Man must intervene in the daily lives of these natives. We try to Enlighten them with our modern conveniences and technology and they reject it, preferring to stay in their out dated, primitive and frankly backwards traditions. It is through the reaping of Nature's Bounty and God Given Resources that the benevolent White Man will Civilize our savage brown brethren. We know what's best for them and besides, God Wills It!

Take the damn money!










sarcasm

[Ghost Dog]

3. Yeah. But real Enlightenment be damned when that's

White (and, in USA) Black man's (and woman's) God's Will, natch.








also sarc.

[tazkcmo]

4. Amen!

Still sarcasm!

[Ghost Dog]

5. Way to go, people.

Thank you wise elders and people.