photo cred: Jade Northrup
cross-posted from Oil and Gas Action Network
CONTACT: Piper • 408-202-9416 • pipermcn4climate@gmail.com
BREAKING: Climate Activists Crashed JP Morgan Corporate Challenge Race
Protesters challenged the largest funder of the fossil fuel industry.
SAN FRANCISCO —Activists at the JP Morgan Corporate Challenge foot race on September 20 in San Francisco aimed to raise public awareness and demanded that Chase stop lending billions annually to the oil and gas industry. Protesters entered the race course and raised a 30 foot banner reading “CHASE Stop Funding Fossil Fuels” in front of the finish line. Activists on kayaks with banners off the 3rd street bridge, a large “Chase Bank” facade set up along the course with a pipeline spilling black water “oil” out the front, banners along the race course, and street theater characters all sent the message to participants that Chase must end all investment in fossil fuels.
The action included an art gallery where photojournalist and Paradise resident Allen Myers, displayed his photos of friends and family standing in the ashes of their homes. Myers said, “I’ve watched the climate change in my lifetime. We know climate change played a role in the Camp fire. These photos show the face of the climate crisis and that it is here, right now in California, and the companies funding this crisis have got to be stopped.”
“Letters and other polite requests have not worked,” noted Alec Connon of Stop the Money Pipeline, a coalition of more than 230 organizations. “We feel it is vital to make life uncomfortable for JP Morgan Chase at public events in order to stop their funding of the climate chaos that is rapidly becoming a disaster for us all.”
JP Morgan Chase is the world’s largest fossil fuel banker. In the six years
photo cred: Peg Hunter
after the Paris Agreement was adopted in late 2015, Chase provided nearly $382 billion to fossil fuel corporations that are building coal mines, oil pipelines and fracked gas terminals ? that’s 36% more than any other bank in the world.
“We’re part of a global movement to keep fossil fuels in the ground. People power is fighting to keep money out of Big Oil,” said Leah Redwood, an organizer with Extinction Rebellion San Francisco Bay Area. “We are seeing the impact of the Climate Emergency – floods, heat waves, wildfires, sea level rise – every day. Cutting the supply of money to the fossil fuel industry will cut off the oxygen that is fueling this global disaster and will give us all a fighting chance.”
Participating activist organizations include:
- 1000 Grandmothers for Future Generations
- 350 Bay Area
- 350 Seattle
- Diablo Rising Tide
- Direct Action Everywhere
- Extinction Rebellion SF Bay Area
- Oil and Gas Action Network
- Regenerating Paradise
- Rich City Kayaks
- Silicon Valley Climate Action Now
- Stop the Money Pipeline
- Sunrise Bay Area
- Third Act Sacramento
#JPMCC #ChaseClimateChallenge
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