After years of warning elected official about the inevitability of an oil train disaster in the Pacific NW, last Friday, June 3 we had one. Only the Fates get credit for averting human tragedy last Friday's explosive oil train derailment in Mosier, Oregon. What the Mosier explosive derailment is “blowing up” is the already robust extraction resistance and climate justice movement in the Pacific Northwest. Regular people who have been begging elected officials to say “NO” to Bakken oil trains and other transport infrastructure threatening our communities and beloved environment are outraged. Some of those people will preparing for action at Backbone Campaign's 8th annual Localize This! Action Camp. We welcome you to join us there as well.
But Backbone Campaign has ALWAYS asserted that our "No!" is yet more powerful when we have a compelling and strategic "YES!"
In 2013, Backbone drew together a national team of rail electrification, track and transmission experts, economists, public interest and rail labor advocates. Together, the Solutionary Rail Team developed a comprehensive proposal to address the dependence of railroad companies on shipping bulk coal and increasing bulk shale and tar sands oil shipments.
If implemented, the Solutionary Rail proposal will both eliminate railroads' dependence on consuming diesel (BNSF is only second to the US Department of Defense) - AND - it will wean them off their addiction to shipping dirty fossil fuels which has been a central part of its business model since the creation of the Interstate highway system. Solutionary Rail proposes to remake US rail an engine to build an economy based on clean, renewable energy. If implemented, it will provide new economic options for rail labor and other fossil fuel infrastructure dependent workers. The resulting proposal is called Solutionary Rail.
Solutionary Rail needs a Governor to champion this effort and we think Governor Jay Inslee should be that champion, recruiting other leaders to what we think is a nearly inevitable future that just needs a serious and timely nudge. IMMEDIATELY
We need your help. The Solutionary Rail team is preparing a book for publication. We need citizen champions who will help us move this online petition out across the region to compel our Governor to heed the call. We also need your to publish the book and drive this ambitious, alliance-building effort across the state and a across the corridor from the Salish Sea to the Great Lakes.
Today,on behalf of the Solutionary Rail team I request that you:
- Read our petition to Governor Jay Inslee, sign it and share it as broadly as possible.
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Make a tax-deductible pitch-in so we can:
- Commission the final for the color illustrations by the incredible railroad illustrator J. Craig Thorpe,
- Publish our FINAL manuscript!
- Promote Solutionary Rail on a Fall 2016 alliance building rail tour across the Northern Transcon corridor.
In gratitude for your collaboration... besides making you proud of being a Solutionary - we'll make sure that whoever pitches in now gets a copy of the Solutionary Rail book and the BEAUTIFUL Solutionary Rail poster. The sketches you see are just a preview to the beautiful montage of the vignettes we are commissioning from artist J. Craig Thorpe to inspire people with the beauty and boldness of this oh-so-doable and urgent vision.
NOW, PLEASE - read our petition to Governor Jay Inslee, sign it and share it as broadly as possible!
In collaboration,
Bill Moyer & the Solutionary Rail Team
