F or a while now, Canadians have been slowly waking up and seeing what's behind the anti-pipeline and anti-oil protests across the country. Vivian Krause has been a one-woman army in the battle to expose the money behind efforts to shut down Canada's oil industry. Her reporting has uncovered a network of foreign interests that have been coordinating a strategic take-down of Canada's competitive energy industry. Using their wealth and some interconnected environmental organizations, interests from the United States and the Middle East have been funneling resources into Canada to fund, organize and coordinate protests against our oil industry. The latest batch of leaked emails from John Podesta give us a glimpse into how easily astroturfing can be accomplished with the right amount of money and influence.







I'll start by showing you an email exchange between John Podesta and billionaire environmental activist, Tom Steyer – in which Bill McKibben is named as Steyer's pal. In a leaked email dated from March 2015, Podesta asked Steyer if he could contact McKibben to organize a protest at Harvard:





Can you get your pal McKibben to organize Harvard student protests against him. I'm all for academic freedom when it's not bought and paid for by Peabody coal. – John Podesta to Tom Steyer, March 20, 2015, Wikileaks





By “him”, Podesta meant Harvard professor, Laurence Tribe. In 2014, Tribe began involving himself with Peabody Energy and – in 2015 – Tribe made comments that Podesta and fellow Democrats didn't like, as revealed in other leaked emails. Although Tribe is a well-known Democrat, his involvement in helping Peabody Energy sue the EPA clearly rubbed Podesta and his peers the wrong way, leading to his eventual request for protests.





About three weeks later, an activist group known as Divest Harvard rallied and blockaded the entrance to Harvard's Massachusetts Hall. The 150 protesters were led by none other than Bill McKibben, who addressed the crowd and invited speakers like senator Tim Wirth of Colorado. The protests didn't single out Laurence Tribe, but they did target Harvard's connections to fossil fuels. Tribe is a respected professor who taught both Barack Obama and Ted Cruz, which likely made McKibben reluctant to target him directly. However, protesters clashed with police, blocked students from entering their dorms and called for Harvard to divest from fossil fuels. All of this conveniently happened three weeks following Podesta's email to Steyer.





We hear a lot about George Soros and his connections to the Tides Foundation and other environmental groups, but we hear less about Tom Steyer. It's a shame, because Tom Steyer is almost as rich and just as involved. His pal, Bill McKibben, also has connections that run deep.







Steyer made news in 2014 when he pledged $100 million to stop the Keystone XL pipeline. That was one of the only times Canadian media gave him any attention. Steyer is a regular supporter of the Tides Foundation, just like George Soros. If you're unfamiliar with the Tides Foundation, you're probably familiar with at least one of their environmental off-shoots or funding recipients. Records show that Tides USA has funneled money into Canada by contributing directly to the Pembina Foundation, The Sierra Club, ForestEthics, Greenpeace Canada, LeadNow, the Living Oceans Society and the Great Bear Initiative. That's just some of the Tides recipients in Canada that you might have heard about. Many of the Tides recipients have directly paid Canadian First Nations, like Fort Chipewyan, to oppose pipelines. Fort Chipewyan was even paid $35,000 through the Exchange Fund to cover legal costs and communications associated with anti-pipeline activism.





In 2014, I wrote about Steyer's connections to Tides and his speaking gigs at the Tides Momentum Conference. In the United States, Steyer ran an environmental super-PAC called NextGen Climate Action PAC, which dealt mainly with senate and local state races. He has been directly and indirectly involved with environmental advocacy groups for years, many of which have opposed fracking and the construction of pipelines. The biggest facade created by some American environmentalists is that they work to oppose all fossil fuel extraction and refining, without any bias against non-American energy. The deeper we dig, the more that facade crumbles.





D akota Access Pipeline





You may be aware of the recent protests in North Dakota against the Bakken Pipeline System being headed by the Texas-based Energy Transfer Partners. The pipeline is also referred to as the Dakota Access Pipeline and protesters have staged aggressive actions to stop it over the course of recent months. Just last week, over 140 protesters were arrested and pepper sprayed. It's also important to note that the pipeline doesn't actually cut through reserve land. It's being built beside reserve land, on what is supposedly part of a sacred burial site. Originally, concerns revolved around the pipeline being built underneath a river, which is a source of fresh water for some Dakota tribes. Following environmental assessments, the pipeline was deemed safe. It was then that some tribes began claiming that the land was sacred and that local native bands weren't properly consulted. Another important fact to note is that not all of the local native bands are opposed to the pipeline.



