http://www.yesmagazine.org/planet/how-to-get-banks-not-to-fund-oil-pipelines-aim-big-and-keep-showing-up-20170822
[All the major Canadian chartered banks are on the list as funding the
pipelines. The five largest Canadian banks are funding all the pipelines.
links and images in the on-line article]
How to Get Banks Not to Fund Oil Pipelines? Aim Big and Keep Showing Up
A few months after temporarily shutting down 13 Chase branches, Seattle
climate activists were at it again with a tar sands petition.
Shannan Stoll posted Aug 22, 2017
On Friday, climate activists led by indigenous leaders and environmental
groups gathered outside branches of JP Morgan Chase and Wells Fargo in
downtown Seattle to protest their financing of tar sands pipelines. It’s
not the first time the banks have been besieged by activists—and
probably won’t be the last.
The action was part of a new nationwide campaign launched in May to put
pressure on banks to defund four proposed tar sands pipelines. It builds
on the movement that led cities, tribes, and individuals to divest
billions of dollars from banks funding the Dakota Access pipeline over
the past year.
Many of the banks that fund DAPL—including JP Morgan Chase and Wells
Fargo—also fund the four tar sands pipelines. The 17 banks that fund all
five pipelines are the primary targets of the campaign. And like the
divest movement launched during the Standing Rock resistance last year,
this new campaign is led by indigenous groups, including the 121 First
Nations and tribes that signed the Treaty Alliance Against Tar Sands
Expansion.
But there are some differences. While the Defund DAPL campaign goal was
to get banks to pull out of loan commitments on a project already begun,
this new campaign is trying to convince banks not to get involved in
financing tar sands pipelines at all.
“Part of our thinking with amping up a lot of these actions is, let’s
apply enough pressure now so that these banks will think that this is a
risky investment,” said Matt Remle, a member of the Standing Rock Sioux
tribe and co-founder of Mazaska Talks, one of the organizations
coordinating the campaign.
Remle added that the strategies used by divestment organizers have also
shifted since early divestment organizing, especially since February,
when Seattle passed an ordinance terminating the city’s over $3 billion
contract with Wells Fargo, and other cities followed suit. Then in
April, the Seattle City Council passed a resolution to avoid making
contracts with the banks financing the Keystone XL.
Now they’re hoping more cities will follow Seattle’s lead. That’s one
reason why Mazaska Talks was established, Remle said. The grassroots
organization hosts a website that serves as a clearinghouse for sample
ordinances and resolutions that cities, tribes, and other groups can use
as a model.
“Before, [we] focused primarily on getting individuals to close their
accounts,” he said. “But a lot of the organizing changed once we started
seeing that we have the power to go after extremely large amounts of
money and pass legislation at the local level.”
Remle said that the organizers of the current divestment movement
learned a lot from last year’s Standing Rock resistance about how to
appeal to banks. “If you look back at this time a year ago when
bulldozers were going over grave sites and sacred sites and dogs were
biting people [in North Dakota], that wasn’t even enough to get banks to
second-guess themselves. They don’t care,” he said. “We’re not going to
win an argument with the banks … with an environmental or moral
argument, or even with a treaty rights argument. We’re not going to win
that way because they’re capitalists, and they’re out for the bottom line.”
At Seattle’s direct action on Friday—coordinated by Mazaska Talks, 350
Seattle, and Greenpeace Seattle—activists attempted to deliver a
petition signed by more than 150,000 people and calling on
banks—particularly two JP Morgan Chase branches and one Wells Fargo
branch—to defund the tar sands pipelines. The three branches targeted on
Friday closed early and locked their doors before activists arrived.
Outside, climate activists read the names of petition signatories while
indigenous leaders—including Roxanne White of the Yakama Nation and Paul
Che oke` ten Wagner of the Lummi Nation—led songs and prayers.
“We have the responsibility to witness things that are not right, and
make them right, right now. And that’s what we’re doing,” Wagner said.
The campaign wants to stop funding for four tar sands pipelines: two new
ones—TransCanada’s Keystone XL and Energy East—and two expanded
ones—Enbridge’s Line 3 and Kinder Morgan’s Trans Mountain. The lines
will transport oil from Alberta’s tar sands region to oil refineries and
shipping terminals across the United States and Canada.
Tar sands oil is a particularly dirty fuel. A recent study shows that
extraction of oil from Alberta’s tar sands releases about 20 percent
more carbon dioxide than making fuels from conventional crude oil. And
oil spills from the tar sands are notoriously difficult to clean up. In
2012, climate scientist Jim Hansen called extraction of tar sands oil
“game over for the climate.”
Friday’s action targeted financing for Kinder Morgan’s Trans Mountain
pipeline in particular. That proposed expansion would nearly triple the
line’s capacity to transport tar sands crude oil to a terminal in
British Columbia, leading to an estimated 348 additional tankers
crossing the Salish Sea every year.
Increased tanker traffic would make an oil spill in the region much more
likely, said Alec Connon, a facilitator with 350 Seattle.
“Trans Mountain—and Kinder Morgan—want to bring oil from the tar sands
right to our shores. And these banks are funding it,” Wagner said.
“That’s unacceptable. We’re making sure we’re standing up for all
people, all life.”
Campaign actions have been building since May, when activists and
indigenous leaders held a day of protest that resulted in 13 Chase
branches being shut down throughout Seattle.
Then in June, a coalition of indigenous and environmental organizations
and activists sent an open letter urging the 28 major banks financing
the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion to stop doing so. Later that
month, Dutch bank ING—one of the banks named in this letter—said it will
not finance any tar sands projects. As reported by CNBC, ING stated that
this announcement was a response to being targeted by defund Trans
Mountain pipeline activists.
[see also https://mazaskatalks.org/#page]