Divest Yourself and Your Community from Fossil Fuels via @DeFundDAPL

Just a few days ago, North Dakota’s governor forced the Water Protectors to leave their camp at Standing Rock. Forty-six Protectors remained peacefully and were arrested - peacefully - while more than 200 police officers showed up. Then, the camp was demolished.

While it’s heartbreaking to see the physical end of this inspiring strong-hold, the DAPL battle is also being fought beyond the camp, nationwide, in the form of a divestment movement. There are two components to this movement: 1) divest your personal finances from the institutions bank-rolling DAPL, and 2) divest your community from those banks.

The website DefundDAPL.org has 4-step action plans and the resources you need to do both under the “Defund” tab of their site.

To divest your personal finances, DefundDAPL.org offers a list of the banks funding DAPL, a sample strongly-worded letter to send to your bank when you leave them, as well as links to lists of alternative banks and credit unions to join, get credit cards from, and invest with, that are not funding DAPL and support environmental and other progressive values. They also provide suggested social media posts to announce your divestment, tag your bank and use the hashtag #DefundDAPL to encourage others to divest too. When you’ve divested your own finances, be sure to return to DefundDAPL.org and add your divestment amount to their divestment counter.

The next step, of course, is to divest your community.

You’ve probably heard about the success of the DAPL divestment movement in cities like Seattle, Washington and Davis, California. Those efforts were lead by small groups of Native American activists and local organizations. Your city or town could be next, but you need to get engaged or start the action. DefundDAPL.org provides information on how to find out if your communities are invested in the banks funding DAPL, suggested ways to connect with local groups to ally with and form a collective to take action, examples of ordinances and how to find sponsors, and tips and resources on organizing grassroots support.

It’s important to note that DAPL is one front in a larger movement against fossil fuels, especially now that the Keystone XL pipeline has been resurrected, Scott Pruitt is at the helm of the EPA and Trump is rolling back Obama’s climate rules - like the one stopping coal companies from dumping waste in our waterways. Divestment is the climate movement’s most effective tool in a crony-capitalist, Wall Street-owned society and we should wield it whenever possible, but we also need to get in the streets. So save the date for April 29th for the second People’s Climate March, this time in Washington, DC, with sister marches across the country. Go to PeoplesClimate.org to learn more.

Again, we want to ask that you help us in our work to amplify the most effective activism. If you have come across an action or a new organization that is doing great work getting people engaged to resist the Trump agenda, please share it with us by emailing [email protected]

So, if pulling the rug out from under an industry that is destroying our planet is important to you, be sure to hit the share buttons to spread the word about Divesting Yourself and Your Community from Fossil Fuels via social media so that others in your network can spread the word too.

As Desmond Tutu once said, “People of conscience need to break their ties with corporations financing the injustice of climate change.” So, be a person of conscience: divest.

#DefundDAPL goes prime time at Minn Vikings game. 40 million divested in 40 days. Join us https://t.co/QqYI4Ljg8X #nodapl #StandingRock pic.twitter.com/ganAU72WxB
— DeFundDAPL (@Defunddapl) January 2, 2017