How do you know when you’re going to win? When you put seven incredible speakers in front of 350 people (and other 3500 online via live streaming) — and raise thirty thousand dollars in one amazing afternoon.
With Saturday’s “Many Paddles, One Canoe” event, the Pull Together campaign crested our first big wave. We’re delighted to announce that we’ve now raised over $100,000 for Indigenous legal challenges to Kinder Morgan. We heard from Nations who fought hard against Enbridge, and how they won the day thanks to the same uncompromising commitments we are seeing you make today. Kinder Morgan doesn’t stand a chance if we all pull together.
“It is the many and the small against the few and the very large. The stakes are not just what happens to the Burrard Inlet: the stakes are the one planet that we’ve got. You are all part of an enormously important global battle. You have — for the next couple of years— the honour of playing an extremely outsized role in that battle, just by virtue of geography. They’ve got to go through you if they want to get the oil out of here. So that means you get to punch way above your weight. If you can stop Kinder Morgan, you will have done yourselves a good turn. You will have done the planet an enormous service. We’re counting on you.” — Bill McKibben
Bill McKibben, together with Eriel Deranger, Jess Housty, Jackie Thomas, Clayton Thomas-Muller, and Cedar George Parker knocked it out of the park with profoundly inspiring stories of struggle, and solidarity. We’ve got some of the most incredible climate leaders in the world standing with us. We’ve got a matching funds donor ready to double every dollar we raise. And we’ve got supporters like you looking for the next steps you can take to defend our climate and our communities from Big Oil.
So what’s next?
Grassroots organizers have come up with some great events across the country: come to an event or organize your own. Check out “Pints Not Pipelines” in Vancouver on April 9th, or catch a port-hopping musical town hall tour through the Gulf Islands, San Juan Islands and Seattle. Support businesses like JamJar, Earnest Ice Cream and LUSH, who are donating to the campaign or get in touch to find out how you can involve your own workplace, business or school!
We are very confident that you aren’t going to let Kinder Morgan lay waste to Indigenous rights and the land, air, and water that sustains us all. Saturday’s event, and what the campaign has achieved in just two months, gives us confidence that we can win. But it’s not going to be easy: we need to another $400k and equip Nations to meet oil giants in court. This is going to take everybody: let’s get pulling.
With gratitude,
The Pull Together Team
