June 18th – A Call To Action Against Canada’s Tar Sands

“We’ll be drawing a line in the sand and showing companies around the world that supporting Canada’s Tar Sands is as toxic to their brands as the black sludge is toxic to the planet.” —ForestEthics

Whether it’s forest destruction of areas that ultimately could equal the size of Scotland, toxic lakes that can be seen from space or the poisoning of Canadian and US communities living near Tar Sands operations, turning Tar Sands into transportation fuel hurts our environment and communities every step of the way.  The Tar Sands have been called one of the most destructive projects on planet Earth. And the destruction is growing.  By the end of this decade the Tar Sands are projected to triple their production.

Read more about the Tar Sands devastating impact and find out how to join the resistance.

American companies are literally driving the expansion of the Tar Sands by shipping their products with fuels from refineries processing Canada’s Tar Sands. On June 18th we’ll be targeting prominent American companies that have refused to remove Canada’s Tar Sands from their transportation footprints.   We’ll be sending a message to these companies and decision makers around the world that no company should have Tar Sands in its transportation or products. Stay tuned for the list of targets…

    Some facts about Canada’s Tar Sands:

• Tar Sands destruction is fueled by America’s addiction to oil: 99% of Canadian oil exports go to the US, making Canada the biggest supplier of foreign oil to the US;
• The Tar Sands threaten community health: Downwind and downstream of the Tar Sands, communities are experiencing elevated levels of cancer;
• The Tar Sands are destroying biodiversity: Threatened woodland caribou have declined by nearly 50% over the past 10 years in the Tar Sands region;
• The Tar Sands are exhausting our fresh water: Every day three million barrels of drinking water are lost to the production of Tar Sands oil;
• The Tar Sands spew toxic waste: The Tar Sands’ toxic lakes grow by 1.8 billion litres each day, and are leaking dangerous chemicals into the nearby soil and water;
• The world’s dirtiest oil comes from the Tar Sands: Producing one barrel of Tar Sands oil generates three to five times the global warming emissions that producing the same amount of conventional oil would;
  

  Certain bird species have already declined by as much as 80% in areas heavily affected by Tar Sands development;

• Tar Sands impacts are getting worse: The Canadian government predicts that greenhouse gas emissions from the Tar Sands will more than triple in the next decade.
• Tar Sands destruction is growing: If expansion is not sharply curtailed, toxic Tar Sands operations will expand throughout an area the size of Florida.