Dear
Guardian,
I am so excited by this I had
to make sure you were among the first to know.
Just hours ago, we filed a landmark
lawsuit in federal court challenging oil and gas drilling and fracking across 380,000
acres of our public lands in Colorado, Utah, and Wyoming.
A
stellar team of our own staff attorneys filed the suit. Also helping us are attorneys at the Western
Environmental Law Center and joining as plaintiffs are the Physicians for
Social Responsibility.
This
is a big deal. We have to do whatever it takes to defend our climate, our
health, and our future from the oil and gas industry. That’s why we need your
help.
Will
you make a donation
today and help us save our climate and our public lands?
And
if you can, send a letter to President Obama. Let’s make sure he understands
that if we have any chance of protecting our climate, we have to start keeping
our oil and gas in the ground.
You won’t believe this, but
over the years, our federal government has auctioned off millions of acres of
oil and gas leases to industry, handing over the rights for companies like BP
and Exxon to frack National Forests, National Wildlife Refuges, and other
public lands owned by all Americans.
Adding insult to injury,
these leases are often sold for as little as $1.50 an acre.
It costs more to buy a cup of coffee at Starbucks than it does for the oil and gas industry
to acquire the rights to drill, frack, and destroy our public lands.
There’s an even uglier truth.
As industry destroys our public lands, they’re flooding our atmosphere with
carbon pollution, undermining world efforts to stabilize our climate.
Sadly, the Obama Administration
has never evaluated the climate implications of opening up our public lands to
the oil and gas industry. It’s a huge blind spot.
Since taking office,
President Obama has overseen the leasing of ten million acres for fracking. Now,
10% of all global warming pollution in the United States can be traced back to
oil and gas produced from our public lands.
Tell the President it’s time
to put the brakes on any more public lands fracking.
Our lawsuit today stands up
to defend our lands, and our health, and give our climate a chance. Thousands of acres in Colorado’s Pawnee National Grassland, Wyoming’s Red
Desert, and Utah’s stunning Red Rock country could be destroyed.
These
are our lands and it’s our future. It’s time to keep our fossil fuels in the
ground, join us as we defend our future.
Keep it in the Ground,
Jeremy Nichols
Climate & Energy Program Director
WildEarth Guardians
jnichols@wildearthguardians.org
P.S. Read our press release announcing our latest lawsuit to protect our climate and check out our maps showing where these oil and gas leases are located.
P.P.S. We can't win this lawsuit without help from our friends the Western Environmental Law Center and Physicians for Social Responsibility!