Co-hosted with our partners: Indigenous Environmental Network, Rainforest Action Network, Greenpeace Canada, Forest Ethics, Council of Canadians, and Sierra Club Environmental Justice Program
Wednesday, June 23
1:00-5:30pm
Location: Cobo Hall W2-70
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Join community leaders from the local Detroit fight against the Marathon tar sands refinery and frontline impacted First Nations from Alberta and American Indian communities in Montana, Oklahoma, North Dakota and Minnesota impacted by tar sands pipe line and refinery infrastructure.
The tar sands represent the last gasps of a dying industry, the death cries of a global oil addiction that has taken us to the brink of rational thinking and pushed our planet to the edge. The cost of the tarsands to land, air, forests, downstream communities, workers and the climate is unparalleled. The right to a safe, healthy and sustainable environment is essential for all.
Front line Community Leaders with the support of the Indigenous Environmental Network, Rainforest Action Network, The Ruckus Society, Greenpeace Canada, Forest Ethics, Council of Canadians and Sierra Club Environmental Justice Program will provide a PMA session on a diversity of base building, Non violent direct action, financial campaign, lobby campaign, markets campaign and popular education tactics being utilized in one of the largest emerging social movements in North America rising to fight the largest development in the history of Mankind known as Canada’s TarSands.
The purpose of this session to share and learn about how to plug into this struggle, with intervention points in almost every corner of North America manifesting in the form of pipelines, refineries, rail, trucking and shipping lanes and extraction taking place in the beating heart of the tar sands in northern Alberta. We will discuss the dozens if not hundreds of grassroots communities of color, Indigenous communities disproportionately impacted by this project and what steps are being taken to foster solidarity amongst front line indigenous communities, fence line communities of color, rural and urban communities across North America and internationally in Europe, Australia, New Zealand and the UK to Shut down the tar sands.
Our organizations are calling for a stop to the tar sands and a transition to the clean energy economy of the 21st century. For the sake of people and the planet, we must stop this project and start building green jobs across this country.