Across the world there are great people, great organizations and great campaigns using citizen action to fight for solutions to the global climate crisis. Here we want to put a spotlight on who they are, what they are doing and how you can get involved. We are always open to suggestions of who should be included here – write us anytime at contact@democracyctr.org.
An introduction to the campaign to prevent Canadian tar sands oil extraction
Prior to the 2011 actions in Washington DC to stop the Keystone XL pipeline, there has been an ongoing broader campaign to prevent the extraction of oil from Canadian tar sands. This introduction comes from our resource for corporate campaigners, ‘Beating Goliath’, available to download here.
The development of the Canadian Tar Sands has been called ‘the most destructive project on earth.’ Under Alberta’s pristine boreal forests lie some of the world’s largest oil deposits in the form of ‘tar sands’ – a combination of sand, clay, water and bitumen. The process of converting this mixture into crude oil uses gas to heat the material with water, making it liquid and pumping it to the surface, where it can be refined. Some estimate that this process produces three times more carbon pollution than that the process of exploiting conventional oil fields.
Tar sands protest in Vancouver, 2010 - Anita Sarkeesian
Apart from the implications for the fight against global warming, local indigenous communities are forced to deal with a series of local environmental problems from the extraction process. Of the massive amounts of water being utilized, very little is clean enough to return to the watershed. The water and chemical mixture left behind creates toxic ‘tailing ponds’ that pollute water supplies. A recent study showed that downstream carcinogenic chemicals increased 41 percent between 1999 and 2010, as tar sands mining began to boom. Clearcutting forest in order to mine also means destroying various animal habitats.
The organizations working on the campaign range from international groups like Greenpeace and the Indigenous Environment Network to local communities. The campaign has targeted both the regional and national government in Canada. They have used tactics including petitions to the federal and Alberta governments and legal challenges by the First Nations indigenous communities demanding injunctions against new tar sands development. At the same time, campaigners have focused on the major players in the oil industry like Shell and BP, and the financial institutions that fund their operations (Royal Bank of Scotland, Royal Bank of Canada, CITI, Bank of America, JP Morgan Chase.) Campaigners have targeted these companies with direct action, including the recent BP AGM where activists tried to spell out ‘No Tar Sands’ with their t-shirts. The campaign has organized public speaking events, panel discussions, rallies and extensive media work. A major focus has been the Enbridge pipeline, which would expand capacity to export tar sands oil from the West coast of Canada.
The campaign has also gone international, with activists in Europe and the UK bringing First Nations representatives out for speaking tours, and groups like climate camp targeting UK banks financing tar sands development. North American allies have focused on the proposed Keystone XL pipeline to transport tar sands crude through the US, with efforts to stop it culminating in 1,253 people being arrested for civil disobedience at the White House (a solidarity action in Canada led to 117 arrests.) International days of action have seen supporters around the world call attention to the issue, drenching themselves in oil outside Canadian diplomatic buildings, and targeting the banana companies Dole and Chiquita (which use tar sands oil to fuel their shipping fleets.)
More on the campaign
tarsandswatch.org
oilsandstruth.org
dirtyoilsands.org
greenpeace.org/stop-the-tar-sands
no-tar-sands.org
Some climate activist groups and campaigns to check out
350.org
Global campaign to build a grassroots movement to fight climate change
Amazon Watch
Works to protect the rainforest and advance the rights of indigenous peoples in the Amazon Basin
Asian Pacific Environmental Network
APEN seeks to empower low-income Asian Pacific Islander (API) communities to achieve environmental and social justice.
Carbon Trade Watch
Collective working to produce in-depth, accessible and concrete research on environmental and climate change from a justice-based perspective.
Chevron Toxico
Campaign for justice over Chevron’s environmental crimes in Ecuador
GAIA
Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives, formed of over 650 organizations and individuals across the globe
Global Justice Ecology Project
Explores the intertwined root causes of social injustice, ecological destruction and economic domination with the aim of building bridges between groups working on those issues.
iLoveMountains
Site created by members of the Alliance for Appalachia fighting mountaintop removal
Movement Generation
Bay Area organization providing analysis and information about the global ecological crisis and working for economic and racial justice in communities of color.
REDES Uruguay
Part of the Friends of the Earth International network (website in Spanish)
