The HRC Seattle Gala Dinner
Ally for Equality Award |
Saturday, September 13 5:30 p.m. – Registration & Silent Auction 6:45 p.m. – Dinner ProgramThe Sheraton Seattle Hotel 1400 Sixth Avenue Seattle, WA |
Special Guests Plaintiffs, Supreme Court Case Proposition 8 |
Fred Sainz |
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2014 Midyear Newsletter
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“As concerned global citizens, we stand in solidarity with these indigenous nations and urge you to immediately stop plans for new oil drilling in Ecuador’s rainforests!”Add your name: |
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Jaime Vargas, an Ecuadorian tribal leader, stood proudly in the howling wind and rain to send us this urgent plea: “Big Oil will stop at nothing to destroy our sacred rainforest home. But with your help we can save it!” [1]
Jaime and his Achuar people are guardians of a spectacular land teeming with one-of-a-kind plants and animals. But Ecuador’s president, Rafael Correa, is racing to sell off the Achuar’s rainforest home and the neighboring Yasuni National Park to greedy international oil companies.[2]
The president is determined to put profit ahead of his own people — even though they’re still suffering from Chevron’s decades-old oil disaster. [3]
More than 1 million people have stood up to save Ecuador’s threatened rainforests [4] — now it’s time for the SierraRise community to join the fight. Let’s stand with Jaime and all Ecuadorians and flood the president’s inbox with 50,000 messages!
Big Oil can’t be trusted to operate safely in the rainforest. For three decades, Texaco, now part of Chevron, dumped 18 billion gallons of toxic oil waste into the beautiful Ecuadorian Amazon. [5]Thousands of people are still suffering a plague of deadly cancers and devastating birth defects. [6]
This land is not only crucial for wildlife, but also to the seven vibrant indigenous communities that call it home. Jaime says it best: “For us, the indigenous people, the rainforest is life. There we are in touch with everything.” [7]The Amazon can’t afford another deadly oil disaster like Chevron’s.
Last November, hundreds of everyday Ecuadorians protested the proposed oil drilling. President Correa and his government, feeling the pressure, shut down Pachamama, a local nonprofit fighting the oil drilling, stifling his people’s free speech. [8] It’s clear — President Correa is feeling the heat.
In it together,
Ashley Allison
SierraRise Senior Campaigner
P.S. Five signatures are even more powerful than one — after you take action, be sure to forward this alert to your friends, family, and colleagues!
On May 20, thousands of us united in a Global Day of Action to tell PepsiCo to eliminate Conflict Palm Oil. PepsiCo responded by announcing a Forestry Stewardship Policy and Palm Oil Commitment, but neither of these new promises are strong enough to guarantee that Pepsi’s use of palm oil is not driving rainforest destruction, species extinction and human and labor rights abuses.
PepsiCo is the largest globally distributed snack food company in the world – the company uses enough palm oil every single year to fill Pepsi cans that would stretch around the Earth 4 times – but it has fallen out of step with its peers and still has no truly responsible palm oil purchasing policy.
This has to change — and with your help it will. Are you with us
Instead of cutting Conflict Palm Oil from its products, PepsiCo continues to push its darkly ironic #LiveForNow campaign. PepsiCo is telling people not to worry about climate change, the fate of the last wild orangutans and children that are forced to work in slave-like conditions on oil palm plantations and just #LiveForNow!
It’s our job to tell PepsiCo that #LiveForNow isn’t good enough. This summer we’re turning up the heat.
PepsiCo is pushing its #LiveForNow propaganda out through it’s “Real Big Summer” marketing campaign which includes Pepsi sponsored concerts and events across the US. We need YOU to crash Pepsi-sponsored events and deliver the message that #LiveForNow shouldn’t mean rainforest destruction, climate change and human rights abuses. As activists on the ground crash PepsiCo events around the country, online activists will amplify their voices across the world using social media to disrupt PepsiCo’s marketing efforts and drive home the point that thousands of us stand together in our call for an end to Conflict Palm Oil.
Here’s how: Sign up to let us know you’re in. We’ll give you a call and support you every step of the way. We’ll let you know where and when you can take action, provide you with placards to chose from, and invite you to one of our trainings so you can become an expert in using social media to campaign for change.
Because of you PepsiCo has made some progress. With your help we’ll convince the global snack food giant to go further to guarantee that its products – like Quaker Oats and Frito Lay Chips – will be free of Conflict Palm Oil for good.
Let’s turn up the heat!
Gemma Tillack,
Senior Agribusiness Campaigner
Rainforest Action Network
PS: Don’t want to wait? Download our toolkit here and start causing some ruckus immediately!
Be a Seed for Change 
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