Whether surrounding the extraction site, the pipelines, or the refining, tar sands directly affect communities across the continent. The exploitation of indigenous peoples, people in poverty, people of color, the environment by companies profiting from tar sands is big, way too large for any singular group to squash. We all must continue to work together within our each community. Locals are congregating, gathering over issues they find most important. In solidarity with these struggles, here are groups who are raising their voices, saying NO to tar sands.
TEXAS ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE ADVOCACY SERVICE (TEJAS)
“We are dedicated to providing community members with the tools necessary to create sustainable, environmentally healthy communities by educating and empowering individuals, and offering community building skills and resources for effective community action and greater public participation.”
GREAT PLAINS TAR SANDS RESISTANCE
“We at Great Plains Tar Sands Resistance are opposed to all forms and stages of tar sands exploitation. Extraction, transportation, and refining all create sacrifice zones of people economically less able, predominately people of color, to resist toxic industries.”
MICHIGAN CATS
“The Michigan Coalition Against Tar Sands (MI CATS) seeks to unite the people of Michigan towards a common goal of stopping all transportation and refining of tar sands oil in the state and advocating against the production/transportation of tar sands everywhere.”
OWE AKU
“In the Lakota Language Owe Aku means Bring Back the Way. In bringing back the way, we strive to offer alternatives, based on traditional knowledge, that respect the changing environmental conditions of Mother Earth, and which will ultimately benefit the peoples and ecosystems of the planet. The environment, upon which we are all dependent, is no longer just an issue for Indigenous peoples.
UNIS’TO’TEN CAMP
“The Grassroots Wet’suwet’en do not operate from a boardroom or from a societies act, they walk and breathe their laws with a powerful and unbreakable marriage to the land. The Grassroots peoples of the Wet’suwet’en are healers, warriors, elders, hunters, fisherpeople, knowledge keepers, and are culturally driven. The Grassroots peoples have a great potential to reverse impacts from colonization and eradicate the resultant social and spiritual poverty by continuing to show the next generations to walk with their laws.”
UTAH TAR SANDS RESISTANCE
“Utah Tar Sands Resistance is a grassroots organization of people determined to prevent the imminent threat of tar sands and tar shale mining in Utah, the Colorado Plateau region and, ultimately, the entire world.”
“Safe drinking water, air, and land are human rights. Beautiful wilderness is our heritage. We deserve better, and so do all other species.”
TAR SANDS OIL MOBILE
“Tar Sands Oil Mobile is a diverse coalition of concerned citizens who have joined together for a common cause. We are unified by our concerns over the building of a Plains Southcap, LLC pipeline through the Big Creek Lake, Hamilton Creek, Crooked Creek, and Juniper Creek watersheds and the JB Converse Reservoir. An oil spill in this region would compromise the sole source of drinking water for hundreds of thousands of people in the greater Mobile area.
350 MAINE
“350 Maine is a grassroots movement dedicated to solving the planetary climate crisis. We grow our power collectively to find real and lasting solutions, to end our dependence on fossil fuels, and to build a healthy, sustainable life for people and the planet.”
BRIDGE THE GULF
“Bridge the Gulf is a citizen journalism and new-media initiative designed to help Gulf Coast communities convey their stories and their vision for a just, healthy and sustainable future.”
