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In the wake of a dire report on the planet’s future, two dozen activists held a demonstration Friday on the Green calling for local and global action on climate change.
The report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change said a small window of opportunity remains to address sea level rise and other catastrophic effects of man-made climate change
CT Climate Crisis Mobilization (C3M), Sunrise New Haven, and Unidad Latina en Acción (ULA) were among the groups represented at the protest.
One focus was on the threat of rising sea levels putting New Haven and the Connecticut shoreline under water.
Another focus was Chase Bank’s support of the fossil fuel industry. Demonstrators called on Chase to stop funding Enbridge’s construction of the Line 3 tar sands pipeline across Anishinaabe treaty territory in northern Minnesota. Indigenous organizer Tara Houska likened Chase giving a “sustainability loan” to Enbridge to giving a health award to tobacco companies.
Organizer Melinda Tuhus of (C3M) was one of 700 people – and counting – to be arrested along the pipeline route in Minnesota. “I visited the headwaters of the Mississippi, and saw Enbridge’s preliminary work to tunnel the pipeline under the river in two places nearby,” she said. “Since my visit in May, the company has built the pipeline across many rivers and lakes – where wild rice is grown, sacred to the Anishinaabe – and has spilled drilling mud into many of them, fouling the waters for the rice and all aquatic creatures.”
“Banks like Chase are using your money, without your permission, to invest in projects that threaten our friends in Minnesota and all of us sharing this planet, to fund more aggressive violence against indigenous women, to destroy their homes and livelihoods, to flatten and kill the habitats of our relations across this continent,” said Eluned Li of Sunrise New Haven, who also traveled to Minnesota. “I ask all of you today to apply whatever pressure you can to these banks and state officials, that they agree to act humanely, and preserve a version of the future our descendants can live and thrive within.” She urged people to call the Army Corps of Engineers and demand they revoke the 404 water quality permit for the project.
ULA members held a banner featuring Berta Cáceres, an indigenous land defender murdered in Honduras while opposing a dam project. ULA members have fled homes in Central America in the wake of stronger hurricanes and the devastating drought.
“Hey, JP Morgan Chase: bad investment, big disgrace!” participants chanted outside the downtown bank branch., “If you want it drier, hotter, fund Line 3: wipe out more water!” They passed out flyers asking New Haveners to contact CEO Jamie Dimon.
Click here for a background story about the national pressure on JP Morgan Chase over Enbridge, in which the bank declined comment while the pipeline company defended the project.