Tax dollars used by Corporations to re-elect their politicians???
Dear friends,
This has been a heavy week.
Amid the flow of images from Baltimore and from Nepal -- and as our friends in the Maldives are meeting with heavy police repression during a May Day protest march demanding the release of Mohamed Nasheed -- we've had some good news from our friends across the Atlantic: The Church of England has begun divesting from fossil fuels.
The Church of England's announcement is remarkable, because at first they refused all entreaties to do so, arguing instead for "engagement." But engagement with fossil fuel companies clearly doesn’t work -- so the church is selling its shares in coal and in the tar sands, as a powerful first step. This may be the biggest divestment news since the Rockefellers sold their stock last September.
And it won’t be the last: earlier in the week, the International Federation of Medical Students’ Associations, representing one million medical students, demanded that schools and medical charities divest as well. Fossil fuel, they said, is now more dangerous to human health even than tobacco; since we have alternatives, it’s time to start using them. The scientists of tomorrow are pushing hard!
Best of all, you can join them: Our partners at The Guardian, with one of the biggest online readerships in the English-speaking world, are pushing one of the world’s richest men, Bill Gates, to divest his foundation from fossil fuels. The Gates Foundation does a lot of powerful public health work -- which it then undercuts by investing in dirty energy. It would be a signal moment if Gates did the right thing.
Click here to watch The Guardian's moving video, and add your name.
Like the Church of England, it may take a while to bring the Gates Foundation around. But the momentum is clearly growing, and growing fast -- together we’re shifting how the world thinks about what is good for people's health and what constitutes an acceptable investment.
Thank you,
Bill McKibben for 350.org
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Dear Friends,
I just signed the petition: "Congress: Repeal the blank check for endless war"
It would mean the world to me if you could also add your name to this important issue. Every name that is added builds momentum around the petition and makes it more likely for us to get the progressive social change we want to see.
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http://www.credomobilize.com/petitions/congress-repeal-the-blank-check-for-endless-war
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Thank you!
Dale