|
They're letting polluters who've spilled over 4,000 times in the last five years ship 4,111 percent more volatile oil on Bomb Trains through our towns. RSVP here to host a 'stop the oil trains' week of action in your city next month.
Dear Friend,
Every day a bomb is rolling through America. It shudders past schools. It clatters by parks and wildlife. It's a bomb on rails, and we've seen what happens when it explodes: Two years ago a bomb train killed 47 people in a small town in Canada.1 Only luck has prevented the same thing from happening here in America - where bomb trains have derailed or exploded in Illinois, Maryland, Montana, Pennsylvania, Texas, Washington, Virginia and West Virginia, just to name the biggest accidents in some states.2 And that's just what we know about: News reports say Big Oil and the railroad barons are keeping tons of information about the Bomb Trains secret.3
Bomb trains have already killed dozens of people and burned several towns. If they weren't carrying oil for the richest companies in the world, we'd treat them like a national security threat. And yet the Obama team says "Laisez les Bomb Train Roullez!"
From July 6-12, thousands of people across the US and Canada will stand up to Big Oil’s explosive, toxic, climate polluting oil trains. But before we do, I need a few leaders to stand up and host a gathering to show the President and his team that we mean business. Dozens of activists have already volunteered to host events from Alabama to Washington state - Can you sign up to host a "stop the oil trains" action in your town?
This movement needs YOU because Bomb Trains are rolling through your town, or the town next door. And until we stand up and say "stop" they're going to keep shipping these deadly fireballs waiting to happen.
That's why we’re helping to organize 100 actions in the US and Canada for the Stop Oil Trains Week of Action. But we can’t get there without your help. You don’t have to plan a daring banner hang or a massive protest in the streets (though those are great too). If you have a few friends who are willing to get together and take a stop oil trains photo, you’ve got an action. The only limit to what you can do is your imagination.
Here are some ideas inspired by last year:
- Host a vigil on July 6, the anniversary of the Lac-Megantic disaster, where 47 people died after an oil train exploded in the small town;
- Host a town hall or educational forum about the threat of oil trains in your community;
- Organize a rally or protest near the railroad tracks or in the blast zone;
- Perform some guerrilla theater -- say, a mock trial of Koch Brothers or other Big oil financiers;
- Anything you can do to call attention to the growing threat of oil trains in your community will make a difference.
Big Oil will stop at nothing to extract, transport and burn every drop of oil in the ground -- even if it means putting our communities at risk. Oil trains are a disaster for our health, our safety and our climate.
Now is the time for us to stand up and say: No more.
Thanks,
Drew and the Bomb Train disposal crew at Environmental Action
1 - Giuseppe Valiante, Lac-Mégantic: Judge urged to approve $430-million fund for train disaster victims, The Canadian Press, June 17, 2015
2 - The Right to know Network, ERNS results 2010-2014 for railroad incidents involving oil
3 - By Ashley Ahearn, Growing oil train traffic is shrouded in secrec, KUOW/PRX, June 13, 2015 |
