Big Oil might have a lot of things, most notably outrageous amounts of money, but there’s one thing – well, actually, two things – it will never have: grassroots support and the boundless human energy that comes from grassroots support.
In fact, the only way Big Oil is going to get something you might call grassroots support is by faking it, which, by the way, is exactly what Big Oil recently did.
According to the Sierra Club’s Compass Blog and the Rainforest Action Network, an energy front group funded by the America Petroleum Institute has created fake Twitter accounts to try and create the false impression that there is grassroots support for TransCanada’s controversial proposed Keystone XL tar sands pipeline.
Pipeline & the ‘American breadbasket’
The pipeline would cut 2,000 miles through the heart of the Canadian and American breadbaskets, pumping toxic oil from what many have called the world’s dirtiest and most polluting oil extraction area in Alberta, Canada to oil refineries on the Gulf Coast. According to the Sierra Club, fuel from Canada’s oil sands produces three times the global warming pollution of conventional oil.
Grassroots citizen action comes from folks who believe in a cause not because it will benefit them financially but because they know it’s the right thing to do ethically.
The proposed pipeline threatens the giant Ogallala Aquifer in the American Midwest with years of repeated spills – the record shows that similar pipelines already in existence have had dozens of spills.
No wonder there’s no real grassroots support for the pipeline, no real grassroots support for the oil sands, and finally, no real grassroots support for Big Oil, though it’s truly shameful Big Oil is trying to make it appear as if there is.
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“Average” Americans
And, no, sorry American Petroleum Institute, the smarmy ads you use in which you cherry pick and then spotlight an “average” American who works in the petroleum industry or who’s got stock in an oil company don’t show “grassroots” support for Big Oil. They just show people with vested interests in oil production support more oil production – big surprise there, eh?
Grassroots citizen action comes from folks who believe in a cause not because it will benefit them financially but because they know it’s the right thing to do ethically.
There simply aren’t average folks out there who see Canada’s oil sands, and the proposed Keystone XL pipeline in these terms.
To learn more what you can do to help the true grassroots movement against Canada’s oil sand production and the proposed Keystone XL pipeline, go to the Sierra Club’s “Dirty Fuels” web page.
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