As I type this, in the midst of a pandemic, the Wet’suwet’en First Nation in Canada is under attack by the same company behind the KeystoneXL pipeline.
We’ve seen this again and again over the last few days: Billionaire oil CEOs and industry lobbyists see the corona virus crisis as an opportunity to push through fossil fuel infrastructure and demand massive government bailouts while they think the world is looking the other way.
Today, it’s happening in Canada as TC Energy (formerly TransCanada) is pushing ahead with construction of the Coastal GasLink pipeline, putting communities and their workers at even more risk. The investment firm KKR is in the process of buying 65% of Coastal GasLink. If we can stop the sale, we can help stop the pipeline from being built.
That’s why today, March 23rd, we’re joining allies and friends across North America (turtle island) to flood the inbox, phone lines, and twitter feeds of this projects financiers with messages telling them to respect the rights of the Wet’suwet’en hereditary chiefs and drop the risky Coastal GasLink pipeline immediately!
Take a moment to sign our #ShutDownKKR petition and tell all your friends to do the same! If you’ve already signed (more than 140,000 of us have as I type this), click here to take the next steps by writing, calling, and/or tweeting at KKR.
Here’s the back story, if you’re just learning about the Wet’suwet’en today:
The same company that wanted to build the KeystoneXL pipeline, TC Energy, is about to start building a 417-mile, multibillion dollar fossil fuel pipeline in northern British Columbia, Canada. It’s set to cut right through Wet’suwet’en lands without the consent of the hereditary chiefs. To protect their sovereignty and defend their lands, different camps were built along the pipeline route where land defenders have been living for over 6 years.
In the last month, militarized police have raided the Wet’suwet’en camps with assault rifles, dogs, sound cannons, and helicopters while Indigenous elders and youth stood by in shock. Now, all eyes are on Wet’suwet’en — and their hereditary chiefs are urgently calling out for massive global support.
Here in the U.S., you can help by calling out the largest funders of the Coastal GasLink pipeline, JPMorgan Chase and Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co (KKR). Their plans to invest in the pipeline aren’t final and there’s still time to stop them.
photo credit Michael Toledano
Leave our poor indigenous peoples alone. We have taken just about everything of sustainable value away from them already, let’s not poison their lands with oil and fracking.
I stand with you on this matter. It been far to long that big business almost fine some way to profit off a now pandemic that is facing our world today. They would stop at nothing to get what they want. They do not care about the land and the people who are living on it . God has created this world and all it beauty. So, when I travel to different parts of the country, I love to see the beautiful landscapes. This is therapy for me . Please stop this pipeline, let start taking much more better care of this land, that our God has given us to protect. STOP BIG BUSINESS FROM TAKING ADVANTAGE OF THIS LAND.
Unfortunate that our prime minister has his priorities in favour of Oil instead of human rights.
It’s about time corporations take a back seat to citizens/human beings and start being responsible. If corporations aren’t stopped, they will destroy everything and everyone, even themselves whether they’re aware of that or not. Temporary profit over the health of humans and the earth is unconscionable an unsustainable.
I support the actions of the all of the 1st Nations people to protect the natural environment. Pipelines are disasters in waiting. Let the companies that govern them show 75 years of accident free maintenance before any discussion of new projects. Perhaps they could invest in alternative energy production and research in the meantime.
Pipelines are dangerous. They have the potential to rupture damaging the land, sea, and air, endangering all the life in the vicinity, including human, animal, insects, birds and plants. Pipelines are destroying our planet. Renewable energy is clean energy. Examples are wind, water, tidal and geothermal . They are not perfect but far less dangerous than potentially a destructive pipeline.
It’s their land – We have no business messing with it!
Please do the right thing and not something that will harm people, Mother Earth and our Wet’suwet’en friends: STOP the drilling!