No Immunity for Planet Killers - Take Action Today!
By Wayne Tanaka | Reading time: 2.5min
Floods, fires, hurricanes, and droughts - the reality of our climate crisis has now made itself painfully, tragically known for far too many communities in our islands. And things are only going to get worse.
Because even if we stopped burning all fossil fuels today, the amount of carbon we’ve put into the atmosphere over the last century will continue destabilizing our climate for generations to come.
And if we don’t take drastic action, now, we will all but ensure that our children will inherit a world where billions will be displaced, due to unlivable heat and sea level rise; where the collapse of industrial food systems will result in unprecedented mass starvation; where a quarter of the world’s macroscopic species will be wiped off the face of the planet; where diseases run rampant through huddled enclaves of humanity entrenched in fascism and embroiled in constant war, fighting over what little resources remain.
Wisdom Circles Oceania unveils their “hand”-made “No Immunity for Big Oil” banner.
This is not hyperbole, this is not a Hollywood apocalyptic fantasy. This is our sober reality, grounded science.
This is what we are doing to our children.
But this also isn’t our fault, as much as the true perpetrators of this unfolding global catastrophe would like us to believe. The big fossil fuel corporations that intentionally deceived us for decades about what they were knowingly doing to our planet, as well as their political and military enablers, have pushed us to the brink of what could be the end of humanity as we know it.
And they are not stopping. Even here in Hawaiʻi, our “climate champion” Governor Josh Green has swallowed the fossil fuel industry’s greenwashing of liquified natural gas (LNG) hook, line, and sinker, repeating the talking points handed to him by global LNG supplier JERA and its local public relations consultant, iQ360, and pledging his allegiance to the federal administration’s “Energy Dominance” agenda.
In Washington, the American Petroleum Institute is also now lobbying, hard, for 2 federal bills that would grant legal immunity to Big Fossil Fuel corporations from lawsuits over the harms they’ve inflicted on our planet, like the ones filed by Honolulu and Maui County.
We can, we must, do our part to stop this. For our community. For our children. For our planet.
First, learn more about Governor Green’s ill-informed push to lock us into an indefinite dependency on a new and incredibly harmful fossil fuel on our new LNG resource page here, and in this month’s “Gaslit” column, here. For action alerts and updates on the campaign to keep us free from LNG, sign this 350 Hawaiʻi petition, and let us know at hawaii.chapter@sierraclub.org if you’d like a presentation on what is happening for your organization, or would otherwise like to help spread the word about this dangerous proposal.
Second, you can help us make sure our Congressional Delegation understands that holding fossil fuel corporations accountable, and defeating the Big Oil (and Big Gas) legal immunity bills, should be one of their top priorities:
Ask any organizations you may be affiliated with, to sign on to this joint letter to our congressional delegation, using this Google Form (you can select Hawaiʻi in the dropdown menu on the second page).
Reach out to hawaii.chapter@sierraclub.org if you’d like to organize a postcard-signing drive in your neighborhood, workplace, or community event.
Contact our congressional delegation directly, and urge them to publicly oppose giving legal immunity to Big Fossil Fuel companies:
Senator Brian Schatz’s Office: (808)-523-2061
Senator Mazie Hirono’s Office: (808)-522-8970
Rep. Ed Case’s Office: (808) 650-6688
Rep. Jill Tokuda’s Office: (808) 746-6220Write a letter to the editor about these unacceptable bills. Contact the Sierra Club of Hawaiʻi at hawaii.chapter@sierraclub.org if you would like Hawaiʻi-specific letter ideas!
Post about these issues on social media, and follow @sierraclubhi, @hiclimate, @centerforclimateintegrity for posts you can also amplify.
The reality is harsh, but our choice is clear: we must take collective action, to defend our children, our planet, and our future from the worst consequences of the fossil fuel industry’s lies and deception.
The future of humanity, and humankind, rests in our generations’ hands. Time to get to work.
Wisdom Circles Oceania time lapse of banner making!