Join the Fossil Fuel Resistance

In the wake of a spate of disastrous oil train derailments, the Bay Area is joining communities across North America next week to say NO to crude oil-by-rail in our cities.

On July 6, 2013, an oil train explosion wrecked the town of Lac Mégantic, Québec, killing 47 people and opening up the continent’s eyes to the destructive reality of extreme energy transport.

Recently, an NBC News Analysis found that in 2014, oil trains derailed more often than in any year since federal record-keeping began in 1975. The increased frequency of oil train disasters matches the oil industry’s insatiable greed for ever more inaccessible, flammable types of fossil fuel - namely the tar sands oil from Alberta, Canada, and the highly unstable crude oil from the Bakken Shale in the Midwest.

To call attention to the growing danger of these so-called “bomb trains,” communities across North America are mobilizing for the second annual Stop Oil Trains Week of Action. Here in the Bay, where crude oil trains transit daily, more than twelve organizations will hold a public rally at Atchison Village Park in Richmond. From there, we’ll march our people power to the gates of the BNSF/Kinder Morgan Rail Terminal, one of the key nodes of crude oil transport in California. Finally, we’ll conclude at Washington Park with a family-friendly festival.

So, why should you show up? Firstly, these trains have a 1-mile blast zone, which in the City of Benicia alone endangers more than 10,000 people. That’s to say nothing of Richmond, a city of over 100,000. Another reason to come out next weekend is that in the age of intensifying climate change, severe drought, and ecological peril, we need all hands on deck to forge a stronger, more resilient and healthy country - one whose economy doesn’t destroy the living systems that keep us alive, but regenerates them.

For more details, search for the Facebook event “Stop Oil Trains In Richmond.” Once there, follow the link in the pinned post to RSVP for the event and join the fight to #StopOilTrains!