It’s Getting Hot In Here

From Clayton Thomas-Muller

We all know the Olympics are about more than fun and games but we need your action to help get the facts heard! The Olympics industry tries to promote that the 2010 Winter Games a re making a positive contribution for our ‘social, economic, and environmental benefit’, but in reality the Olympic Industry causes large-scale environmental destruction and negative social impacts – as do many of its corporate sponsors.

Right here in our backyard, we have the largest industrial project on the planet, the Tar Sands, and two of the top Tar Sands investors are lead sponsors with the Olympics – Royal Bank and Petro Canada/Suncor. The Royal Bank of Canada is the largest financier of Tar Sands expansions and Petro Canada/Suncor directly operates six Tar Sands projects, is a major supporter of the Mackenzie Valley Pipeline – a project set to devastate communities and land throughout Alberta, BC and the Northwest Territories – and is the main energy supplier to the Olympics.

This means the Olympics are being powered up by Tar Sands crude!

On Saturday February 13th, 2010 we are calling on all anti-capitalist, Indigenous, housing rights, labour, migrant justice, environmental, anti-war, community-loving, anti-poverty, civil libertarian, and anti colonial activists – who are not able to make it to the No 2010 convergence in Vancouver – to hold solidarity actions in their communities against Olympics and Tar Sands projects like the Royal Bank and Petro Canada/Suncor. Please send in photos and updates about your actions to noolympicsnotarsands@gmail.com

Want some action ideas?

Target a Royal Bank or Petro Canada/Suncor in your community and:

• Hold a die-in to represent the lives lost and threaten from both Olympics and Tar Sands operations.
• Wrap ‘climate criminal’ tape or ‘caution’ tape around a Royal Bank or Petro Canada.
• Print off the stencils attached to this e-mail and put them around a Royal Bank or  Petro Canada to signify the oily footprints of the corporation with the slogan ‘thetarsandsblow.org’ – Click here to download your very own Oily Tar Sands Footprint stencils.
• Paint a large banner and signs with slogans of concern around the tar sands and the Olympics and stage a rally outside a Royal Bank or Petro Canada

In the United States or Europe?

No problem! There are SO many banks and oil companies conspiring to commit the world’s greatest climate crime, here is a quick list of the dirtiest:

• USA Banks: Bank of America, Citibank
• European Banks: HSBC, Royal Bank of Scotland, Barclays
• Oil Companies: Shell, Exxon, BP, Total, Chevron, Esso, Conoco, Enbridge, Syncrude, Suncor, TCPL (Trans-Canada Pipeline)

So pick your favorite bad guy and take action on February 13, 2010!

Check out these links for useful background info and handouts.

• 2010 Corporate Campaign Materials
• Olympics Resistance Network Factsheets and Flyers
• RBC Tar Sands 2010 leaflet
• The Lie of the Green Olympics
• Canadian Indigenous Tar Sands Campaign

For action resources, including easy to use handouts and ‘climate criminal’ tape please contact: Eriel Deranger at ederanger@ran.org

This action supported by: Indigenous Environmental Network, Rainforest Action Network, Oilsandstruth, UK Tar Sands Network and many more…