Burnaby

No Pipelines, No Tankers, No Freeways, No Tar Sands!

2:00pm
Saturday August 27 2011

A mass civil disobedience action has been called for the end of August in Washington DC to pressure the US government to stop the Keystone XL Pipeline proposed to carry tar sands oil from northern Alberta to refineries feeding automobiles across the US. At the same time, here in the Lower Mainland, we will spotlight and protest the tar sands pipeline in our own backyard -- in North Burnaby.

Organized & Endorsed by the Council of Canadians, Tanker Free BC, Streams of Justice, StopThePave.org and the Wilderness Committee.

Turn off the taps on the tar sands - Stop Climate Crime

In solidarity with both the action in Washington and impacted communities around the continent, we are calling for an action at the Kinder Morgan's Trans Mountain Pipeline terminal in North Burnaby. The Trans Mountain Pipeline is being expanded to carry more tar sands crude to tankers leaving through Vancouver's Burrard Inlet. Already there are two tankers a week passing through the narrows of the Port of Vancouver carrying more than three times more crude oil than was spilled by the Exxon Valdez.

And while there is a great deal of awareness and opposition to the proposed Enbridge Northern Gateway Pipeline in northern BC, fewer people understand that the Trans Mountain expansion would add as much additional capacity to the tar sands network as Northern Gateway. The tar sands pipelines are like fuses leading to the biggest carbon bomb on the continent, a way to make it easier and faster to trigger the run-away overheating of our planet. As the climatologist James Hansen said, if we have any chance of getting back to a stable climate “unconventional fossil fuels, such as tar sands, must be left in the ground.”

Communities in North Burnaby are already dealing with extremely poor air quality due to the Chevron Refinery and have seen neighborhoods covered in spilled crude oil ( see video: http://bit.ly/qX9WrC ). The expansion would also allow the Chevron refinery to process more dirty tar sands oil into gasoline and diesel for cars and trucks driving on the expanding network of ‘Gateway’ freeways in the lower mainland.

Join us on August 27th for a rally of solidarity & visit the site of our own tar sands pipeline. The tar sands can be stopped if they have no where to go.