Climate Change Activists: Join the Vancouver Convergence

A coali­tion of envi­ron­men­tal activists led by GatewaySucks.org is call­ing on cli­mate change activists to join the con­ver­gence at the 2010 Olympic Games in Van­cou­ver.


A coali­tion of envi­ron­men­tal activists led by GatewaySucks.org is call­ing on cli­mate change activists to join the con­ver­gence at the 2010 Olympic Games in Van­cou­ver.

When the 2010 Win­ter Olympics start a cou­ple of weeks from now in Van­cou­ver, BC the ath­letes and spec­ta­tors will be joined by orga­ni­za­tions with some of the worst records on cli­mate change.

Gen­er­al Motors is a nation­al part­ner for the games, and one of the lead­ing cor­po­rate oppo­nents of effec­tive action on cli­mate change. Only two years ago, a vice-chair­man of GM called glob­al warm­ing a “total crock of shit.” GM is sup­ply­ing a large fleet of vehi­cles for the games, almost all of which are gas-guz­zling SUVs.

Petro-Cana­da, anoth­er Nation­al Olympic Part­ner, is the retail arm of the largest extrac­tor of Oil Sands bitu­men. The Oil Sands are Canada’s biggest ghg emis­sions point source.

RBC (the Roy­al Bank of Cana­da) in addi­tion to being a promi­nent Olympic spon­sor is the largest com­mer­cial bank fun­der of the Oil Sands,. Tran­sCana­da pipelines, whose pipelines con­nect to the Oil Sands, is also an offi­cial sup­pli­er.

The gov­ern­ment of British Colum­bia is the main fun­der and pro­mot­er of the games. They kicked off a mas­sive plan to add over 1,000 km of new high­way lanes (an increase of over 2,000,000 annu­al tonnes of CO2e emis­sions ) with the Sea-to-Sky High­way expan­sion for the Olympics. These plans include the con­tro­ver­sial Gate­way Pro­gram. It con­tin­ues to heav­i­ly sub­si­dize the oil and gas indus­try which result­ed in it being the only Cana­di­an province to see ghg emis­sions from indus­tri­al sources increase in 2008.

The Fed­er­al gov­ern­ment of Cana­da which con­sis­tent­ly earned “Fos­sil Awards” at the most recent inter­na­tion­al cli­mate talks also is a major fun­der for the Olympics.

These cor­po­ra­tions and gov­ern­ments want to fool the world with their claim that these are the “Green­est Games Ever” despite the links to cli­mate change deniers, high­way expan­sion and the Oil Sands.

If you would like to endorse this call-out or get involved direct­ly please con­tact info@gatewaysucks.org.

MORE INFORMATION:

Con­ver­gence Info: http://olympicresistance.net/

Wel­com­ing Com­mit­tee: http://2010welcoming.wordpress.com/

Green Olympic Watch: http://2010greenwatch.org/

GatewaySucks.org: http://www.gatewaysucks.org/

2010 Cli­mate Crime Scene: http://2010climatecrime.org