Rising Tide North America invites all residents, students and youth to join the Reclaim Power.
WHAT: Reclaim Power March & Creative Direct Actions
WHERE: Lafayette Square (H St NW & Jackson Pl NW); Washington D.C.
WHEN: April 18th at the end of the Powershift rally (scheduled from 10am-1pm)
CONTACT: extraction@risingtidenorthamerica.org
From April 15th through the 18th, thousands of students and youth will be attending Powershift 2011. This conference has been billed as another opportunity to do something about climate change. Throughout the conference, Democratic politicians from Al Gore to Lisa Jackson will tell us the solution is to lobby, vote and work within the corporate-owned political system to stop climate change. They will tell us that supporting the existing leadership’s policies and the creation of carbon markets will stem the rising tide of carbon emissions slowly destroying our planet.
Do we really believe the answers lie in supporting a broken democracy and a carbon trading market that only makes bankers and oil men richer?
Despite Obama’s promises on the climate and the environment, things are only getting worse. Here are just a few egregious examples:
- A year ago, British Petroleum spilled millions of gallons of oil and perpetrated the worst corporate disaster in U.S. history. They now have begun to re-grant permits for new offshore drilling to toxic polluters like Chevron and BP.
- Every day, mountaintop removal still poisons and destroys Appalachia’s landscape and communities.
- Oil companies like Exxon are building the Keystone XL pipeline to run tar sands oil from Alberta through the American mid-West to Texas refineries.
- Last month, the Obama administration announced the leasing of coal-rich public land in Wyoming’s Powder River Basin to Big Coal for extraction. Using terms like “energy security” the administration promised the coal industry billions of tons of coal.
- Coal companies like Arch Coal and Peabody Energy are now developing coal transport terminals in Washington to ship the aforementioned western U.S. coal for carbon pollution in Asia. Where’s Obama on this issue?
The facts speak for themselves, the same politicians and corporations that got us into the climate crisis WILL NOT be the ones to get us out of it.
It’s time to change the system, not the climate!
On April 18th, at the end of the Powershift rally in Lafayette Park, we, the North American movements for climate justice, will march to the offices of D.C.’s climate criminals and the politicians that love them to confront them with creative direct action.
Our Reclaim Power! march will take space and disrupt business as usual for the fossil fuel infrastructure.
Get involved – join our climate justice action!
– Join the Reclaim Power action in Washington D.C. – and spread the word!-
We want to generate a sense of excitement, we want our actions to resonate throughout the climate movements, and the way to do that is through countless individuals, groups and movements declaring their intention to take part.
It is time to say enough! No more business as usual, no more false solutions!
Reclaim Power in Washington D.C. is organized by Rising Tide North America, an international network for climate justice with over 50 local chapters and contacts in Canada, Mexico and the United States. For more information, regular updates on our organizing and actions, and for news about the global struggles for climate justice, stay on https://risingtidenorthamerica.org and follow @risingtidena on Twitter.