Friday, December 16, 2011

Overbrook Grantees Working to Stop Tar Sands

Overbrook environment grantee ForestEthics is in the news today, hailed in Mother Jones (also an Overbrook Foundation grantee through the Human Rights Program) for its campaign work against tar sands. Canadian tar sands have been a contentious and ubiquitous subject of late, since they would have been the source of fuel funneled through the proposed Canada-to-Gulf of Mexico Keystone XL pipeline. Due in large part to fierce campaigning and activism by 350.0rg, another Overbrook environment grantee, plans for building that pipeline have been indefinitely postponed.

Tar sands can bring a carbon footprint up to 70 percent greater than other sources of crude oil, and increased development in Canada would lead to the clear-cutting of hundreds of thousands of acres of boreal forest. Click here to see Mother Jones' map of the 50 refineries in the U.S. that use tar sands oil, data compiled by ForestEthics. And thanks to ForestEthics for its anti-tar sands campaign, which so far has gotten 13 commitments from U.S. companies to stop using oil from refineries sourcing from tar sands!

Click here for a bleak but visually stunning view of tar sands from above in a National Geographic photo essay.

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