Pipeline Pressure Hots Up
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Dear Pipeline Picketers,
The last month has seen a burst of action against the proposed Keystone XL tar sands pipeline, with 1,252 people arrested during two weeks of sit-ins in front of the White House. Even Archbishop Desmond Tutu and the Dalai Lama have spoken out! But the battle is far from over – keep 7th October free for some UK solidarity action.
- Keystone XL action update – do you want to do a solidarity action?
- Moving Planet
- Join our team!
- Help Take on Tarmageddon
Get out there!
Emily, Jess and Sue
P.S. BP is London 2012 Olympic ‘Sustainability Partner’ – you’ve probably seen the billboards. Don’t get excited, BP haven’t changed tack without us noticing, they are just talking their usual nonsense, trying to gain cultural acceptance while continuing to destroy the planet. We’ve created a facebook page to begin to fight back, and it won’t be the last they hear from us!
1. Keystone XL action update – do you want to do a solidarity action?
The Keystone XL pipeline debate is coming to a head. If this 2,147 mile-long pipeline is built across the US, it will encourage further expansion of tar sands extraction and open up the tar sands export market to Europe and other countries. If stopped, it could force Alberta to rethink its plans for expansion. Despite some recent bad news from the State Department, which in its final environmental impact report stated that the pipeline “would not cause significant damage to the environment”, there is still a 90-day period for objection before Obama makes his final decision on whether to give the go-ahead. If there’s a time to shout about this, it’s now!
Following the incredible scenes of dignified direct action outside the White House these past two weeks, the action is now spreading. Our friends in Canada are organising a day of action on September 26th to call the Canadian government to account for its reckless pro-tar sands agenda. Then on October 7th activists will return to Washington to target the White House.
We’d love to do a solidarity action in the UK to coincide with this date – but we need to know if enough people are interested. So if you are, or even better, if you want to help us organise it, please drop us a line at [email protected]. In the meantime, join almost 750,000 people worldwide who have signed this petition asking Obama to stop the pipeline. For more info, see this nice testimony from NASA scientist James Hansen, one of the many prominent figures arrested in front of the White House.
2. Moving Planet
On August 31st we joined with 350.org and other groups around the world to hand letters to Canadian embassies criticising the government’s proactive promotion of tar sands. As we’ve seen, Canadian lobbying spans from pressuring the US to build the Keystone XL pipeline, to the consistent meddling in European policy-making which we’ve been working to expose for some time now.
350.org are now mobilising for Moving Planet on 24th September, a global day of action calling for the world to go beyond fossil fuels. There will be plenty of events going on in the UK and halting tar sands developments will be a major focus.
3. Join our team!
UK Tar Sands Network is looking for an intern to join our small Oxford-based team. You would help us with a range of activities, including organising protests and campaign events, keeping our website and social media up to date, public education, outreach and network-building, and some boring day-to-day administrative tasks that help keep the show on the road.
If you are committed to ending humanity’s dependence on dirty fossil fuels, believe in working in solidarity with frontline communities, have relevant skills and experience, and would enjoy working in an informal but hard-working atmosphere, sometimes dropping everything to rapidly respond to unfolding events on a shoe-string budget (though it’s often not as exciting as that), then find out more!
4. Help Take on Tarmageddon
Friendly filmmaker Pete Speller is currently co-directing a documentary called Taking on Tarmageddon along with Zoe Broughton. The film is being made on a shoe-string budget, and needs your help to fund it! The documentary is about an exchange project between students from the UK and young people from the Beaver Lake Cree Nation, exploring the impact of Canadian tar sands on the environment and the way of life for the First Nation communities.
What you can do to help:
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